Nothing like it had been when he’d lived here twenty years ago.

As he went along, he imagined the streets busy in the daylight with men and women in business clothes, all of them hurrying to and from meetings after they dumped their cars in parking garages that were two or three times the size he remembered.

What was the same? Not many humans out and about now on a cold night like this. Sure, from time to time, a random SUV would go by. A sedan. A Caldwell municipal truck. But other than that, there was no one around as he walked in the cold.

Still, even though he was alone, he had a sense of a great many lives being lived in these tall, thin constructions, boxes of day-dwelling humans layered upward, stacked one upon the other. It was an incalculable crowd, especially when he considered how there were city centers like this all over the nation. Over the world.

He thought of John standing in that barren field alone.

He had walked that particular stretch of loneliness himself these past two decades.

But in the last twenty-four hours, he’d gotten a glimpse of another way. Shit, Sarah had to be able to stay in their world. For godsakes, there were humans all over the place now—or at least inside the Brotherhood’s facility.

Surely she could stay. If she wanted to.

On that note … surely he could talk her into staying? She’d said she had no one who was waiting to hear from her. If that was the case, what did she have to go back to …?

Crap. The instant he thought that, he felt like an arrogant ass. As if he were offering her some great existence down in South Carolina? At a B&B? She was a scientist. The last kind of forever after she needed was staring at him over that table in the third-floor attic of the Rathboone House—

Murhder stopped dead. Turned his head to the left. And breathed so hard in through his nose that his nostrils hurt.

Instinctually, his body turned of its own volition, and he scented the cold air again. Just in case he’d gotten it wrong.

As a set of headlights swung around and spotlit him, he was dimly aware that he’d once against halted in the middle of a street. This time, he moved away before there was any horn, any impact.

But not because he was avoiding the nuisance of another hit-andrun. Nope, as his feet found a jogging pace, and his body lithely carried itself down an alleyway, he was going after prey. And the sickly sweet stench he tracked was more than a guide. It was a thickening agent for his blood, a source of heat for his aggression, a jolt of awareness that made his brain come alive.

The enemy was not far. A member of the Lessening Society … was not far at all.

In the back of his mind, he was aware that he hadn’t fought in a very long time. That he was unarmed. That no one knew he was out here by himself and he had no phone to call somebody for backup.

Hell, he had no idea what number he could call, even if he had something to dial.

None of that mattered.

As with all members of the Brotherhood, he had been part of the Scribe Virgin’s breeding plan, designed even before the womb to hunt and kill, manufactured like a product to render death to those who threatened the species.

And however rusty and out of practice he was, the siren call of the purpose for which he had been bred was not going to be denied.

Even if it killed him.

Far from downtown’s alleys, in the enclave of Caldwell’s private mansions, Throe unlocked his bedroom door and leaned out into the hall. After looking both ways, he slipped out and relocked things with an old-fashioned brass key.

As he started for the first floor, he had the Book pressed to his chest like a bulletproof shield—and he told himself he had become paranoid.

Then stopped to look over his shoulder.

Nothing was in the corridor behind him … except for the console tables with their silk floral displays. The brocade drapes pulled closed over windows. The portraits that hung in the centers of the molding pattern between the entrances to the bedroom suites.

Resuming his stride, he found it ironic that after he had ordered the deaths of all the doggen who had worked upon the estate, he now wished he were not alone beneath the great house’s roof.

He stopped again. Checked the hallway behind once more.

Nothing.

The grand staircase in the front of the mansion had a gracious turn to it, the better to show off the females of the bloodline as they came down in gowns to formal dinners. No gowns tonight. No formal dinner, either. And unlike the shellans and daughters who sought attention, he flattened himself to the wall and debated the merits of sneaking this way as opposed to using the staff stairs in the back. But he’d decided the latter were more troublesome because they were a narrow space for conflict.

He had a gun hidden in the folds of the smoking jacket he’d put on over his fine dress shirt and slacks.

When his monogrammed house slippers finally hit the black-and-white marble tile at the bottom, he looked around. Listened. Listened … even harder. There was nothing that seemed threatening: The heating vents at floor level offered whistles as warm air was forced up through the cellar’s ducts. A creaking sound that was deep inside the walls suggested January’s cold had gotten into the bones of the old house.

Water was running.

In the kitchen.

Throe palmed the gun inside the pocket and proceeded through the formal dining room. In the far corner, there was a flap door for staff to bring out food and drink during service, and he kept out of sight of its small, eye-level glass window, putting his back to the panels.

When he was ready, he quick-shifted over so he could see through it into the kitchen.

One of his shadows was at the sink washing dishes, its balloon-like form split on the top half so it could do its work.

That was when he smelled the turkey.

The shadow had prepared the dinner he had ordered the night before. Just as instructed.

This was good, Throe told himself. This was … as it should be.

No more independent thinking.

Pushing his way into the kitchen, he was prepared to shoot—even though he had seen that bullets had little effect on his ghostly soldiers. Still, what other weapon did he have if they turned against him?

“Stop,” he ordered.

The shadow didn’t hesitate. It froze where it was, bent over a deep-bellied sink full of soapy water.

“Resume.”

The shadow went back to work, cleaning the roasting pan with its pair of arm-like extensions. The food that it had cooked was laid out upon the butcher block counter that ran the length of the industrial kitchen, the fine porcelain serving dishes covered with their lids, the turkey under a large cloche. The tray that was to be taken up to his bedroom when he called for it was set with his favorite Herend dishes, a sterling silver fork, knife, and spoon, and a linen napkin that had been folded and pressed.

The bottle of wine he had requested was chilling.

There was a wineglass and a water goblet yet to be filled.

The shadow brought the roasting pan up out of the suds and rinsed it with the sink’s hose. Then it set the pan aside on a drying rack, water dripping from its translucent form, falling unimpeded through the lower half of its body onto the floor.

His soldier, born of his own blood from that incantation, turned to face him and waited for an order. Nothing but a vessel for his will. Utterly obedient.

Mayhap he had been mistaken, he thought as he lowered the Book. These entities of his, deadly or docile upon his command, surely had no independent thought.