Someone was following him, and they weren't very good at it.

Alexandros, who had once thrown back the Saxons from British shores, who had lost his soulmate to the careless machinations of the Furies, who was, in short, pretty miffed about the whole affair, wasn't feeling merciful.

 He often walked late at night, when the wolf dreams would not come. A scruffy insomniac, he wandered out into the back streets until the tiredness overwhelmed even the incessant yammering of his mind. Tonight, however, his steps held purpose.

 He was spinning a trap for this foolish intruder, who thought their spells and wards could hide them from the eyes of one who had drunk of the Mnemosyne, the river of revelation. If this was the calibre of Nightfire's initiates, the Furies had fallen far indeed.

 He moved between the pools of light thrown by the streetlamps, which grew fewer and further as he moved into the warren of back streets. His eyes were lowered, scanning the pavement so no one saw the hard green sheen of the wolf peering out.

 He had come to recognise his fellow vagrants: the drunk who liked to ferret through the trash cans, just in case. The skinheads who clustered in an alley, swapping knives and offering casual threats to anyone who came near. And the pretty red-head who sat in MacArthur's café every night, drinking coffee and reading the same dog-eared book over and over.

 She was there as usual, ankles primly crossed, her breasts a soft gold V in the low top. The wedding ring on her finger had been flashed at several regulars who dared to get too close. Alex couldn't help but wonder if it was real.

 The café was a small airy haven, bustling through word of mouths that had sampled Mac's coffee, which was not so much a drink as a hedonistic philosophy.

 "In for a brew?" the owner said lazily, putting down his newspaper. "Looks cold out."

 Alex slid onto a barstool. "The usual, Mac. How's business?"

 "Same old, same old. Nothing but clods in the day, thinking I'm running Starbucks." Glynn MacArthur snorted. "I tell 'em, fifty years I've been serving the java, don't you tell me how to make it. You don't like it, don't come here."

 Alex sat back, listening to Mac's familiar patter. Whoever was following him was drawing nearer, taking a meandering route through the streets. In no hurry, no impatience in the electric knot of power that had been his companion for the last few weeks. He approved of the child's coolness, if nothing else.

 "You know, there's a reason I don't use those crummy machines," went on Mac, the first hint of fangs gleaming between his lips. His righteous anger was familiar to all his regular customers, and no one showed the least concern. "I make real coffee, not processed crap. You want to come here, you read the rules."

 The vampire jerked a calloused thumb at the plaque behind his head. It had been a gift from the customers when his shop passed its fiftieth anniversary, given by people who looked little different than they had the day it opened. Alex had read it often enough to know it by heart:

Rules of the Road:

1. No sugar, no soul. If you want sweetener, I'll talk pretty before I spit in your drink.
2. Cream only. Milk is for pussies.
3. We don't serve instant. This is a $5 brew, not a $5 bang.
4. No refunds. Want your money back? Give me my damn coffee back.
5. There's only room for one loudmouth: me.

For all his quirks, Mac's café was one of the favourite haunts of the local Nightpeople. He didn't take nonsense from anyone, which was why Alex had chosen to confront his little friend here.

 "...and I told that hussy I use real vanilla pods, none of that bottled syrup," finished Mac as he plonked down a mug. "Special kick?"

 Alex raised his fingers in assent, and Mac tipped a fine flow of blood into the mug, his eyes silvering as the smell wafted up.

 "By the way," Alex murmured in the Cajun accent he'd adopted for the past few decades, "I'm not just here because of your excellent merchandise."

 The vampire glanced up, his mouth tight. "You know I don't put up with trouble."

 Tough luck. Alex reached over the bar to lay his fingers on the vampire's wrist, linking them mind to mind. It was a massive breach of propriety, but a necessary one. He let the wolf leap from his eyes, feral and shining.

 And then for the first time, he dropped all the shields that concealed his power, flinging away civility as haphazardly as if it were an old rag. He had been a Fury once, dealing death with a cavalier hand, he had made the descent to Hades and lived, and all that unearthly power poured from him for Mac to see, bright, toxic, vicious.

 Mac recoiled, as Alex had expected.

 "What in hell..." the vampire hissed, but there was little venom behind it. " I...I ain't never seen a werewolf like you. Just how old are you?"

 "Well, my mother named me after a certain Macedonian who had a thing for conquering countries. And as you could probably tell, I can handle any trouble that come in here."

 Mac's eyes bulged. "Why on earth ain't you hiring out to the highest bidder?"

 "I did once." It had been the best and worst decision of his life. Without the Furies, he would never have met his honourable, stubborn soulmate. Nor would he have lost her, she who had seen beneath the masks he wore. "I got bored."

 "So now you sit here and drink coffee and make out you're a failed journalist?" the vampire muttered.

 Alex took a sip of his drink, the bitterness of the coffee and the copper of the blood mingling pleasantly. "Tonight, I'm going to sit and drink coffee and be a scary son-of-a-bitch. Question is, are you going to interfere?"

 Mac gave him a level look, already recovering from the shock. After all, his clientele could hardly be described as orthodox. "Over my dead body."

 "Exactly," he murmured, and didn't miss Mac's shudder.

~*~

 His pursuer, when he arrived, was unexpected. Alex had expected someone with a little maturity on their face, not this tall boy who moved with a boneless poise that should have belonged to a shark, swimming murky seas.

 He appreciated the clean lines of the boy's face: handsome, Alex thought, and to my tastes if I'd met him before Lisanor. Handsome, and with a careful knowledge of how to use it; he'd made that stare weapon and promise, brash and quick, and as one used to such trickeries himself, Alex admired the artifice. This close, the boy's mind was more intense: his power radiated from him like the vapour from ice, but it was a raw, unrefined energy. Not bad for one so young, but far from the Furies of old.

 And far from me.

 When he saw the boy, Mac went a curious custard colour. The youngster had made a name for himself if his presence flustered  Mac.

 "Put his drink on my tab, Mac," he requested, grabbing the boy's attention.

 Head-on, that stare was level, cold, and a little brutal.

 Not bad, not bad, Alex decided. Eight out of ten, but lacking that professional edge. Too much bloodlust in you, boy. Consummate killer, you may be, but does your mind match?

 "I'm quite capable of paying for my own drinks."

 Ungracious. "I'm sure you are," he said patiently. "Look on it as a friendly gesture. It'll be the only one you'll get from me, so make the most of it."

 "Very well." The boy rattled off an order before turning his viperous eyes back to Alex. "Bane Malefici. I run Nightfire."

 Alex sputtered into his coffee. So this was the Malefici boy? Rumour had a lot to answer for. "You run Nightfire? You're barely trained!"

 Those eyes hardened. "You're mistaken."

 "I'm not. Let's see, how far have you got?" Alex leaned back, unfurling his psychic senses like sails to catch the breezes of this boy's power. "Hmm. The Styx would be my guess. There's no way you've tasted the Lethe, and if you've drunk of the Cocytus, it didn't do much for you."

 The boy's eyes narrowed. "How interesting. You're correct about the river, but I assure you, I finished my training several years ago. It's changed since your time."

 "So I see. Are the Furies too afraid of Hades to send you into its deepest realms?" If the needling bothered the boy, he didn't show it.

 "From what I understand, Hades was abandoned not long after you left. It was a further five hundred years before it was used again - and tentatively at that." Those cool eyes seemed to be trying to see right through him. Alex beamed back, filling his mind with a fug of nonsense rhymes and made-up words. "It's true then? The other rivers exist?"

 What were they teaching this fanged children? "Of course they exist," he said scornfully. "In the very bleakest parts of Hades, where you can hear the monster moving in its sleep if you listen well. If it lives still. Do you go no further than the Styx? What a waste."

 The boy sat opposite him, a scholarly interest threaded among that sharp hunger for death. "All our initiates have been to the Acheron. Only a handful have gone on to endure the fires of the Phlegethon. And there are only three of us who have drunk of the Styx."

 That, then, explained the rumours he had heard of those who ran the Furies. Each draught was further above the last, and by the time you walked the banks of the Lethe, you had sacrificed enough to make the last and greatest loss seem paltry, your hunger for knowledge greater than your hunger for life. If most of the Furies had gone no further than the Acheron's icy waters, no wonder those three seemed alien to them, creatures from a world full of dread.

 He laughed. He couldn't help himself. "And you think to threaten me? I've been all the way to the Lethe, cher, and I felt the breath of Hades himself. You've got nerve, I'll grant you that."

 "You seem very sure of yourself." Malefici's voice took on a business-like inflection: one assassin to another. "When did you notice me?"

 Time to see how easily that knife-edge of authority could be jarred. "About six weeks ago. When I stepped in the shower on Sunday morning, to be exact. It gave me a tingle - there's nothing like a little voyeurism to spice up the day." Alex granted him a wicked smile. "Now I think of you every time I'm in the shower, cher."

 "Have you ever heard the phrase 'too much information'?" But the boy had disliked knowing how quickly Alex had spotted him; surprise darted over those angular features like a hummingbird.

 He leaned forward, smile firmly in place. "I understand you can never have too much of a good thing. And I am very, very good."

 The boy tilted his head on his side, as if a different angle might make the conversation change direction. "I don't doubt it. Your handiwork was certainly impressive, if a little emotional."

  Alex debated playing games a little longer, but decided to yield. This boy didn't mince words, which meant he probably lacked either the wit or the patience for the discursive conversation Alex preferred.

 "You mean Galahad."

 "Indeed. Quite creative. But I did think some of your - decorations were a little unnecessary."

 Alex had intended Galahad to be a warning, not a piece of artwork to be critiqued. "Well, he did always say that after he was dead, he hoped that people remembered him for his guts. I just made sure they did."

 Mac dumped the drinks on the table with the air of a man who was seriously thinking about a long holiday in a foreign country. Alex murmured his thanks.

 "Pleasure." The old vampire glanced over to the redhead. "Time for you to go, Suzanne. Things are going to get a little frisky."

 "Maybe a lot frisky," hinted Alex.

 "I know trouble when I see it," the girl said dryly. "I'll be back tomorrow, Mac. You'll still be alive, right?"

 "Until the caffeine stops my heart, darlin'," he said with an attempt at cheer.

 The boy ignored the distraction as if it had never happened. "Speaking of stopping hearts, how many more employees of Nightfire do you intend to slaughter?"

 Nightfire. The mere mention of the name made his teeth grind. "As many as it takes for me to feel they have repaid the debt they owe me."

 "And if I want to cancel the debt?"

 Alex took a sip of his coffee. The blood tingled on his tongue, thick and rich. "What could you possibly offer me?"

 "Lisanor."

 That one word seized the earth in its motion. Alex felt a rush of hot fervour, a clash of memories and lusts, moving down from his head and flicking every switch he had on the way.

 He heard the harshness in his own voice. "And how would you know where Lisanor is?"

 The boy's expression was closed off. If Alex had wanted, he could have delved through the boy's mind but something told him this stripling predator took slights very seriously, and while he was unlikely to threaten Alex's well-being, his information was just too valuable to risk offending him. "I applied my mind to the situation."

 Alex was tempted to offer to apply his fist to the boy's face. No, he counselled himself. That would be folly. He was letting his need for her run away with him. "What do you want?"

 "I want you to stop killing anyone from Nightfire. Anyone else is fair game." The boy's mouth curled in a sardonic smile that erased some of his harsh looks. "Your timing is...inconvenient. However, should I ever need to prune a few lackadaisical employees, your eye for the theatrical might mean we could come to an arrangement."

 He leaned back, trying to recollect his self-possession. "Under less fraught circumstances, I'd gladly make an 'arrangement' of sorts, but I don't think our definition would be the same." Alex wasted another smile on the boy; what was a smile but a disposable mask, and he had enough to throw them about like confetti.  "Very well. Lisanor's location for the lives of your half-baked trainees." A thought struck him. "And if you could deliver a small something for me, I could spare you some gratitude."

 Gratitude was good currency in the Furies: it had high rarity value, kept well, and its worth only increased with time.

 For a moment, the boy's eyes were uncommonly shrewd, and Alex thought he could see some darker machination behind the offer. But it was gone: imagination, he decided. Just me not wanting to believe the Furies have fallen so far so fast.

 "I could manage that," the boy purred. "Gratitude will do nicely."

 Gratitude, and vengeance: they keep forever, and there's always more to go around. You should have remembered that, Lisanor, before you were careless enough to let a Fury find you.

 And through them, to let me find you. I have waited long enough.

 I will wait no more.