Alec ran upstairs, wiping his bloody mouth on his sleeve. The Pink Floyd show outside the windows worried him.

The plan was that Simone would soften the big Zed up so he could finish the job. A vampire with a god’s blood in his veins? None of that Anne Rice male-bodice ripping for him, Alec was already trying out titles like God Of Blood. He’d even picked out a nice spot for sacrifices in L.A. the last time he’d gone west.

But the plan depended on Simone being weak. And it abruptly occurred to Alec, bounding through the air over the seventh through ninth stairs in the back of the building that all his unsuccessful plans always failed when he underestimated someone.

Simone had asked why Vlad and his demon legions hadn’t overthrown the world after they overthrew the Turk. The short answer was that they’d gotten cocky. Just like he’d been cocky when Professor Mihailov and that damn bug-eyed monk closed Alec’s attempted hellbridge in 1908 with the help of those Shanyagir tribesmen.