«Then there is Rastov, with Quicklime,» Graymalk offered. «Five.»

«I know of them,» he responded.

«The old man who lives up the road from me seems of druidical persuasion,» I said. «I saw him harvesting mistletoe the old way, and he has a friend, a squirrel called Cheeter.»

«Oh?» Nightwind remarked. «I was unaware of this.»

«The man's name is Owen,» Graymalk stated. «I've been watching them. And that's six.»

Nightwind said, «For three nights now a small, hunched man has been raiding graveyards. I saw him on my patrols. Two nights back I followed him by the full of the moon. He bore his gleanings to a large farmhouse to the south of here, a place with many lightning rods, above which a perpetual storm rages. Then he delivered them to a tall, straight man he addressed as the 'Good Doctor.' It may be they are seven, or perhaps eight.»

«Would you show us this place?» I asked.

«Follow me.»

We did, and after a long trek we came to the farmhouse. There were lights in its basement but the windows were curtained and we could not see what the Good Doctor was about. There were many odors of death in the air, however.

«Thank you, Nightwind,» I said. «Have you any others?»

«No. Have you?»

«No.»

«Then I would say that we are even.»

He took wing and hurried off through the night.

As I crouched sniffing near a window I traced trails from Morris and MacCab's place to this one, from this one to Crazy Jill's, to my own, to Owen's, from Owen's to the others'… . It was hard keeping all of the trails in mind at once.

I leaped at the bright flash and the crackling sound from behind the window. The smell of ozone reached me moments later, and the sound of wild laughter.