Namtur mounted, and we rode down the street.

“You smell of murder,” the old assassin said. “It’s in your eyes.”

“I’ll take you to my home now, Great Uncle. I have something I must do this morning. Please wait for me in my house.”

He bowed to me slightly. “Yes, Sharratum.”

15

The guard stared at my badge and chewed the toothpick in his mouth. Middle-aged, but hard and fit, he didn’t look like your typical private security. Higher priced private guards made efforts to appear clean-cut. This man looked like he just came out of a rough bar—long, greasy hair tied back into a ponytail, old jeans, black shirt stained with sweat, and a jaw that had a one-night stand with a razor a week ago and hadn’t liked it.

Mark Rudolph didn’t just live in Mt. Paran, he lived in the Enclave, an area to the west, where individual houses sat on ten acre lots, each with its own fence and gate. My badge got me into the Northside, and now I was stuck at Rudolph’s private gate trying to deal with his hired muscle.

Ponytail had sent a younger guard “up to the house” to find out if they should let me in. That was fifteen minutes ago. Rudolph was likely running a background check.

Ponytail was staring at Tulip a little too hard. She stared back at him. He thought he spotted a horse he’d like to have if I didn’t come out of Rudolph’s house, and Tulip thought his face was nasty, but if he got close enough, she would bite him anyway.

A short dark-haired man came trotting down the driveway. With a sallow tint to his skin and heavy bags under sunken brown eyes, he had the dashing looks of a man fresh off a drunken binge. “Let her in.”

Ponytail stepped back into the guardhouse. Metal clanged, and the heavy wrought-iron gate slid aside about four feet, just wide enough for me to pass through.

“Leave the horse here,” Ponytail said.

I dismounted. He held out his hand for the reins. I snapped my fingers. Tulip took off down the road.

Ponytail gave me an ugly look. “You shouldn’t have done that. Not a safe place for horses here.”

“Don’t look for her if you want to keep breathing.”

Ponytail waved his fingers at me. “Ooo. Spooky.”

“Your funeral.”

I walked up the driveway toward the house.

On second thought, house was the wrong word. It was a mansion, one of those pseudo-Colonials one finds sprinkled in affluent neighborhoods all over the South. Two stories tall, red brick, white grout, a row of columns up front, and two rows of rectangular windows, shielded by bars.

The dark-haired man and I walked up the circular driveway, up the white stairs, and to the front door. He opened the door for me and leered as I went in. Inside, a double staircase curved upward from a round foyer. A tall blond man in his thirties waited for me between the staircases. He was built like a bear, with a thick, short beard and hair shaved to almost nothing on the sides and back of the head. He’d braided the hair on top into a skinny plait, and it hung over his shoulder, secured with a leather cord. A ragged scar carved the left side of his face, reaching up into his hairline. Something had clawed him. A large predator or, more likely, a shapeshifter. A modern gladius hung in a scabbard on his belt.

Big, strong, intimidating. A good choice for a bodyguard. Rudolph didn’t rent his guards. Everyone I’d seen so far was likely a relic hunter. This one was no exception.

He gave me a slow, heavy look and pointed to the weapons rack against the wall. I pulled out Dakkan and slid it into the rack. My knife followed.

I held out my arms. He patted me down. He was heavy-handed, but quick and thorough. I wasn’t the first person he’d frisked.

“This way.”

I followed him to the left, through a sitting room, into an office. Walking into the room was like stepping through a portal into some British lord’s 19th century study. Heavy, ornate bookcases of dark walnut wood lined the walls. The light from the windows, draped with thick green and gold brocade, reflected in the shiny dark parquet and drew bright rectangles on a bear’s pelt stretched like a rug over the floor. A massive stone fireplace rose on the left. Above it a manticore head glared at the world with glass eyes, its fangs bared.

An oversized baroque desk sat directly opposite the door. Behind it, an older man lounged in a chair. In his sixties, he must have been beefy when he was younger, but now his skin sagged, giving him prominent jowls. His longish grey hair was pulled back into a ponytail, mirroring the guard at the gate. It must have been in fashion among relic hunters, and it clashed with his white and blue polo shirt. His skin had the ruddy tint of someone naturally pale, who’d spent a lifetime broiled by the sun. His thick features and the heavy jaw combined into a brutish face, not stupid, but mean and short-tempered.

Mark Rudolph. The man who hired violent thugs who tortured little boys.

He pointed at an elaborately carved chair in front of his desk. “Sit.”

I sat. The bodyguard shut the double doors and stood in front of them, facing us, his arms crossed.

“What do you want?” Rudolph asked.

“Someone hired Pastor Haywood to authenticate some Christian artifacts. Now the pastor is dead, and you’re looking for the guy that hired him. Why?”

Rudolph leaned back, took a decanter from the corner of the desk, and splashed some amber-colored liquor into his glass. The smell of alcohol floated across the desk.