Gaspard nods, like he expected that news. “I personally went through Jean-Baptiste’s property lists after the Final Battle and made sure the apartments he had ceded to the numa were rented out to people wholly unrelated to their activities. It is good you checked things out in person.”

“Things got weird, though, when we passed by Judas,” Charlotte says. She turns to Ambrose. “One of those bouncers we fought the other night was there, and he didn’t even remember me.”

He freezes. “The big one with the beard?”

“They were all big with beards,” she replies.

Gaspard wrinkles his nose. “It’s so unkempt the way they grow them now, uncombed and untrimmed. Completely unsanitary. And they call it hip.” He pronounces this last word like it is almost beneath him.

“Anyway,” Charlotte says, “it wasn’t the guy Ambrose and I had in our car. It was one of the others. Louis got a photo of his tattoo, and it’s the same as his friend’s.”

I pull the photo up on my phone and pass it around. Gaspard looks at it for an extra-long moment. “Identical to the other. A three-armed swastika,” he muses. “It’s not balanced like a triskelion. It’s like one arm has been broken off. What could the three mean? Three days that revenants are dead. Our Third Age, which dated from around 1800 C.E. until Kate ushered in the Fourth Age with the Final Battle. Three types of magical beings. Bayati, revenants and Flame-fingers.”

“Well, whatever it means, now we know that at least two of the guys have the tattoo, and they were all fighting us for no reason,” Ambrose says.

“No reason besides a furious World War II hero getting all up in their faces,” Charlotte points out.

“I didn’t like the way they were looking at you,” Ambrose insists.

“I could have handled them myself.”

“And you did!” Ambrose agrees quickly. “You totally didn’t even need me there.”

They stare each other down for a couple of seconds before Charlotte cracks a smile. She gives his chin a squeeze. “You are getting so good at this, cupcake.”

Ambrose looks relieved and, leaning over, whispers to me, “You’re not supposed to ‘protect’ your wife, but when you step back and let them fight, they yell at you for not having their back.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it figured out,” I reply with a grin.

“If we dismiss the theory that they attacked because of Ambrose getting ‘in their face,’” Gaspard says, pulling us back onto the subject, “one must wonder if it was because they recognized you. If the numa have humans working for them, they could easily be passing around photographs of the bardia. Telling their human henchmen to attack on sight.”

Charlotte shakes her head. “Not today, at least. Arthur was volant and told me the guy didn’t recognize me.”

“Where is Arthur?” Kate asks, glancing around the kitchen.