Machiavelli nodded. “We’ve met on occasion,” he said quietly. “She is the Crow Goddess, one of the Next Generation.”

The woman’s head swiveled around like an owl’s to regard the two men. Her eyes were hidden behind mirrored wraparound sunglasses. “And my hearing is excellent.”

Billy grinned. He took two quick steps forward and fell in alongside the woman in black leather. He stuck out his hand. “William Bonney, ma’am. Most people just call me Billy.”

The Crow Goddess looked at the hand and then she smiled, overlong incisors pressing against her black lips. “Don’t touch me. I bite.”

Billy was unfazed. “I haven’t been immortal for long, a mite over a hundred twenty-six years, in fact, and I’ve not met that many Elders or Next Generation. Certainly no one like you…”

“William,” Machiavelli said quietly, “I think you should stop bothering the Crow Goddess.”

“I’m not bothering her, I’m just asking…”

“You’re immortal, William, not invulnerable.” Machiavelli smiled. “The Morrigan is worshipped in the Celtic lands as a goddess of death. That should be a clue to her nature.” He suddenly stopped walking. “What was that?”

Billy the Kid’s hand dipped under his coat and came out with a fifteen-inch-long bowie knife. His face changed, instantly becoming hard. “What?”

Machiavelli held up his hand, silencing the American. Head tilted to one side, he concentrated. “It sounds like-”

“-an outboard engine!” Billy took off at a run. Machiavelli cast a quick suspicious glance at the Crow Goddess and turned to race back down the corridor.

Moments later the sphinx padded around the corner. She spotted the Crow Goddess and stopped, and the two women bowed politely. They were distantly related through a complex web of Elder relationships. “I thought I heard something,” the sphinx said.

“So did they.” The Crow Goddess’s smile was savage.

Nicholas had never learned to drive, but Perenelle had finally taken lessons ten years ago and, after six weeks of driving school, passed her test on the first attempt. They had never bought a car, but Perenelle had forgotten none of her lessons. It took her a few moments to work out how to control the small bright yellow motorboat. She turned the key in the ignition and pushed the throttle, and the outboard motor foamed white water. Spinning the wheel, she pushed the throttle farther and the boat roared away from Alcatraz Island, leaving a V of white water in its wake.

De Ayala’s face coalesced out of the spray spitting in over the bow. “I thought you were going to fight.”

“Fighting is a last resort,” she shouted above the wind and the roar of the engine. “If Scathach and Joan had joined me, perhaps then I would have gone up against the sphinx and the two immortals. But not on my own.”

“What about the Spider God?”