7:00 P.M. EET, Tuesday, April 13

The hills outside of Sighi oara

Mures County, Romania

Lucien Antonescu was furious, and when he was furious, he sometimes lost control.

He’d frightened that young girl in his office nearly to death, and he hadn’t wanted to do that. He’d felt her fear…it had been sharp and as tightly wound as a garrote. She was a good person, longing, like most girls her age, only for love.

And he’d terrified her.

But he didn’t have time to worry about that now. Now he had a very serious situation that was going to require all of his attention for the immediate future.

And so he was doing what he could in an attempt to calm himself. His favorite classical piece-by Tchaikovsky-played over the hall’s speakers (which he’d purchased and had shipped from the U.S. at enormous expense; quality sound was important).

And he’d opened one of the truly exquisite bottles of Bordeaux in his collection and was letting it breathe on the sideboard. He could smell the tannins even from halfway across the room. The scent was soothing…

Still, he couldn’t help pacing the length of the great hall, an enormous fire roaring in the stone hearth at one end of the room and the stuffed heads of various animals his ancestors had killed leering down at him from the walls above.

“Three,” he growled at the laptop sitting on the long, elaborately carved wooden table in the center of the room. “Three dead girls? All within the past few weeks? Why wasn’t I told this before now?”

“I didn’t realize that there was a connection between them, my lord,” the slightly anxious voice from the computer’s speakers said in English.

“Three exsanguinated corpses, all left nude in various city parks?” Lucien didn’t attempt to keep the sarcasm from his tone. “Covered in bite marks? And you didn’t realize there was a connection. I see.”