frozen Seine. "Doctor Tesla," Sebastien said, keeping his back turned to hide the knife, "the lamps must not go on."
Advancing slowly upon the servant, hands outstretched as one might advance upon a large dog of questionable character, Sebastien counted three before Doctor Tesla answered. Which was not, to be sure, such a great time for a mortal man—but for one of the blood, on the hunt, it was a painful eternity.
"Monsieur," Doctor Tesla said, in his good eastern-accented French, "the lamps are on timers. Who exactly the hell are you?"
Sebastien heard the words as if they echoed.
Unlike the theurgist, he did not hesitate. He took one running step
and lunged.
And as his rear foot left the ground, as he committed to the leap, the lights across all Paris flickered and came on. Sebastien heard Jack shout, he saw from the corner of his eye the flutter of blue and black that was Abby Irene drawing her wand.
The servant, hands raised, froze in her stasis field a moment before Sebastien struck him and took him from his feet. He heard the snap of the servant's ankle bone as they went over, and felt nothing of pity. Impact drove the blade deeper into Seabstien's breast, his shoulders and hips striking hard on cobbles when they rolled.
And then he stood, and dragged their quarry to his feet. Doctor Tesla sidestepped Phoebe, careful not to let his coat brush her dress, and hopped down to the yard. "What, precisely, are you doing with my assistant? Identify yourself, sir—my God."
Sebastien glanced down, following Doctor Tesla's gaze, and with the hand that was not occupied with bearing up the servant—or assistant, if that was what he was—touched the hilt of the dagger protruding from his coat. "Fear not," he said, and tugged it loose. The blade came into his hand clean and dry, and Doctor Tesla took a step back, his towering height suddenly making him seem willowy and unstable rather than imposing.
"I'm a wampyr," Sebastien said, and handed the dagger hilt-first to Jack, who had appeared at his elbow. He maintained his grip on the assistant, however. "I'll be all right. Doctor Tesla, do you have the facilities here to shut down the streetlights?"
"Why would I care to do such a thing?"
Doctor Tesla's tone surprised Sebastien. It gave every evidence that the question he asked was an honest one.
"Show us where," Sebastien said, giving the assistant a little shake by the coat-collar, "and I'll explain."
"I must protest. You have burst into my house, incapacitated Monsieur Kostov, and now you demand that I direct you in shutting Paris' power off?"
"Right," Sebastien said. He lowered the assistant—Monsieur Kostov, and wasn't that a Russian name?—to the cold pavement and knelt beside him. Doctor Tesla closed the distance, but Abby Irene stepped forward, one hand upraised and her wand concealed in the other. The theurgist drew back rather than confront her.
Sebastien went through Kostov's clothes. In the inside breast pocket, his fingers brushed crackling paper, and her drew out an envelope with the flap roughly broken. He extended it to Doctor Tesla, who took it gingerly, at arm's length, from his hand. "The letter I sent this morning," Sebastien explained, as Doctor Tesla extracted it and began to skim. "We believed then that your broadcast power was being used by parties unknown as a sort of. . .carrier wave for the sorcery that summons a cannibalistic beast on full moon nights."
"And now you believe the unknown party to be my assistant."
"He was at the scene of last attack, Doctor Tesla," Jack said. And Sebastien, having nothing to add, pointed at the damning, opened letter.
"Come with me," Doctor Tesla said, crumpling envelope and paper as he shoved the letter back into Sebastien's hand. "All of you. Bring Kostov." As he turned away, he seemed to remember himself, and turned back. "Please."
His eye fell on Phoebe, and he hesitated. "And Madam, if you would please remove your earrings, I would be most grateful. I find them. . .distracting."
Wordlessly, Phoebe reached up, unclipped the pearl drops pendant
from her lobes, and dropped them into her reticule. "Right," she said. "Anything else I must remove for your pleasure, Doctor Tesla? Or are you quite satisfied?"
He flushed furiously and turned away, his suitcoat flapping as only a tall, discomfitted man's can. And so, Sebastien dragging Kostov and Jack escorting Phoebe and Abby Irene, they went. Doctor Tesla did not lead them back into the house, although he did turn and, after checking his pocket for the