“I’m on my way,” he said.

And then he stepped off the edge.

The buildings reminded Sloan of jagged teeth, a broken mouth biting into wounded sky. It was dusk, that time when day collapsed into something darker, when even human minds gave way to primal things.

He stood before the tower windows looking out, just the way Callum Harker had done so many times. He could appreciate the elegance, the poetry of made replacing maker, shadow outlasting source.

The office occupied a corner of the building once called Harker Hall, and two of its walls were comprised of solid glass. Against the darkening backdrop, the floor-to-ceiling windows caught shards of his reflection and swallowed others. His black suit blended with the twilight, while the sharp planes of his face shone white as bone, and his eyes burned twin red holes in the skyline.

As night swept through, his reflection grew solid in the glass.

But as the sun set, artificial light seeped in from the south, streaking the picture, fogging the image like a haze, a pollution, the lit spine of the Seam, and the Flynn Compound beyond, rising up against the dark.

He rapped a pointed nail thoughtfully against the glass, tapping out a steady rhythm, the pace of a ticking clock.

It had been six months since he’d risen to his rightful place. Six months since he’d brought half the city to heel. Six months, and the Compound was still standing, the FTF was still resisting, as if they couldn’t see that it was a doomed endeavor, that predators were made to conquer prey. He would show them, of course, that they would not win, could not win, that the end was inevitable—the only question was whether they would submit, whether they would die fast or slow.

Sloan’s attention drifted to his own half of the city, cast more in darkness than in light. What light there was served a purpose—it kept their food alive. The Corsai had never been creatures of temperance—they would feed on anything in reach; if it fell into the shadows, it was theirs. But the Corsai were bound to those shadows, and so the Malchai caged their meals in well-lit buildings and cut high-wattage paths through the dark.

Yet there were other lights dotting the city.

The lights of the hiding.

Thin ribbons that escaped beneath doors and boarded windows, bulbs of safety turned to beacons, as steady and luring as a heartbeat.

Here I am, they said. Here I am, here I am, come and get me.

And he would.

Voices sounded through the open office door, the broken mutterings of a struggle, a body being dragged kicking, screaming against a gag.

Sloan smiled and turned from the glass. He rounded the broad oak desk, his eyes drawn as always to the stain on the hardwood floor, the place where blood had cast a permanent shadow. The last remains of Callum Harker.

Unless, of course, you counted him.

He opened the door wide, and a second later a pair of Malchai came crashing in, dragging the girl between them. She had everything he wanted: blond hair, blue eyes, a fighter’s spirit.

Katherine, he thought.

The girl, of course, was not Katherine Harker, but there was a moment—there was always a moment—before his senses caught up and he registered the dozen differences between Callum’s daughter and this imposter.

But in the end, those differences didn’t matter. The most important feature wasn’t in the face or the shape or the scent. It was in the way they fought.

And she was fighting. Even with her mouth taped shut and her hands roped together. Tears had drawn tracks down her face, but her eyes blazed and she kicked out at one of the Malchai but missed as he forced her to her knees.

Sloan’s eyes narrowed at the sight of the Malchai’s grip on the girl’s bare arm, the places where his pointed nails had drawn blood.

“I told you not to hurt her,” he said flatly.

“I tried,” said the first Malchai. Sloan didn’t learn their names. He didn’t see the point. “She wasn’t an easy catch.”

“We did our best,” said the second, adjusting his grip.

“You’re lucky we didn’t eat her ourselves,” added the first.

Sloan cocked his head at that.

And then he ripped out the creature’s throat.

There was a misconception about Malchai. Most humans seemed to think the only way to kill them was to destroy their hearts. It was certainly the fastest way, but severing the muscles in the neck worked, too, if your nails were sharp enough.

The monster clawed uselessly at his ruined throat as black blood spilled down his front, his jaw flapping open and closed. He wouldn’t die from the wound, but he’d be too weak to hunt, and Malchai were not a generous lot when it came to blood.

Sloan watched the Malchai thrash. Useless. They were all useless.

He kept waiting for a challenger, someone to rise up and attempt a coup, but no one ever did. They knew, as well as he, that all monsters were not created equal. They knew they were lesser, down to the black hearts beating in their core. Knew it the way any predator knew its betters.

Sloan had always been . . . unique.

All Malchai rose from murder, it was true, but he had risen from a massacre. The first night of the territory wars, when Callum Harker claimed North City as his own, he did so by eliminating the competition. An image flickered in Sloan’s mind, more dream than memory, of a long table, a dozen bodies in a dozen chairs, blood pooling on the floor beneath them.

What was it Callum said?