Then again, if they were wise, they wouldn’t have killed Trick in the same area they used as a home. It had only taken Mencheres an hour to track them down. Such stupidity wasn’t only blatant disregard for vampire and ghoul law; it also endangered the secrecy of both their races. In another mood, Mencheres would have killed the shark-toothed ghoul without further conversation, then rounded up the remaining five for public punishment later. After all, Mencheres didn’t require their confession to know they’d killed Trick. Not with the scent of vampire blood on them.

The ghouls were lucky, because today, he wasn’t looking for retribution over Trick’s murder. Perhaps it was a good thing he’d lost his visions of the future, Mencheres reflected. Otherwise, if he’d foreseen that this was how he’d end his eons-old feud with the corrupt Law Guardian, Radjedef, he’d question his own sanity.

But if he hadn’t lost his visions, none of this would be necessary. Anger flashed in him. After four thousand years of seeing glimpses of the future, to suddenly have his visions gone was as crippling as it was unexpected. He’d long lamented the frustration of having visions that some people paid no heed to; but now that they were gone, for all his other powers, he couldn’t protect those he cared for. A friend’s recent, accusing words rang in Mencheres’s mind. Why now, when I need you the most, are you of no use to me?

Radjedef might have hated Mencheres for millennia, but he was too clever to come after a foe who could counter most hostile moves before they were even made. Now that Mencheres’s visions were gone, this was Radjedef’s best chance. As both men knew, Radjedef wouldn’t hesitate to use his considerable power as a Law Guardian to manufacture charges against Mencheres for crimes that had never taken place. Radjedef was no stranger to bending the law to suit his own purposes. It was something he’d done even before he had become a member of the powerful vampire ruling council.