hektor nodded. "it allows the dead to walk."

the simple words made duncan shudder with horror. christ. even having seen leah walking around . . . wait. he took a step forward, leaning down to place his palms flat on the table in front of hektor.

"what game are you playing? the necromancer was raising the dead before he got his hands on the coin."

the stranger shook his head. "they were bokors."

"meaning?"

"they're merely animated corpses that are able to be controlled for a short period of time by a necromancer."

duncan grimaced. when did his life become filled with words like "animated corpses" and "pathways to the underworld"?

"so what do you mean when you say that the coin allows them to raise the dead?" he demanded. "will they actually be alive?"

the narrow face hardened. "not the coin. it was created to close the mouth of the underworld. it's the chalice that poses the true danger."

duncan made a sound of impatience. "will they be alive or not?"

"in a manner of speaking. the chalice allows the necromancer to fill the corpses with an evil that will give them the ability to walk among us as if they live." he leaned forward, clenching his hands on the table as his eyes filled with a hectic light. "they could infiltrate our society for days or weeks without us knowing. or more likely-"

"what?"

"the necromancer will raise an army to destroy us all."

duncan muttered a savage curse. holy hell. this just got better and better.

"how do we find this . . . chalice before the necromancer can get his hands on it?"

"no one can enter the inner temple without the coin," he grudgingly confessed.

duncan abruptly straightened. of course the bastard would be filled with dire predictions with no genuine plan to avoid the looming disaster.

pacing across the narrow room, he struggled to think clearly.

he was a cop.

and this was a case.

okay, it was filled with creepy necromancers and a weirdo brotherhood, but preventing a potential crime was what he did.

and for that, he needed to be able to locate the coin or the necromancer before he could unleash hell.

literally.

"was calso a part of your brotherhood?" he abruptly demanded.

"certainly not."

he turned to study hektor's outraged expression. "then why did he have the coin?"

"for centuries we kept the coin protected, then we began to realize it was being hunted."

"by who?"

the man shrugged. "the name is easily changed, but there was no doubt it was a necromancer. one who was dangerously powerful."

it would be easy to leap to the conclusion that it was lord zakhar. but he preferred to have real proof before he dismissed any other possibility.

"how could you be so certain it was a necromancer and not some crazy person who thought the coin was worth money?"

"our brothers and sisters-"

"you allow females into your brotherhood?" duncan asked in surprise. usually fanatics liked to keep their bizarre cults exclusive.

"if they're worthy," hektor explained in a lofty voice. "many are called, but few are chosen."

duncan rolled his eyes. yeesh. he'd walked right into that one.

"yeah, whatever," he muttered. "go on."

hektor stiffened, as if insulted by duncan's lack of respect at his grand achievement in being chosen for the brotherhood.

arrogant ass.

"our brothers and sisters were being slaughtered and then returned from the grave," he at last explained.

"they had the coin?"

hektor shook his head. "no, but they each knew the location of the coin. they were killed and their corpses used to try and slip past our defenses."

"just like leah," duncan growled, shuddering at the memory of the young female being jerked around kansas city as if she was a gruesome marionette.

"who?"

duncan ignored the question. he wasn't about to discuss poor leah or how she'd been abused.

"how did you manage to recognize that they were . . . what's the word . . . bokors?"

the man shrugged, trying too hard to look casual. "we are trained to spot the walking dead."

yeah, right.

"you want to know what i'm trained to do?" duncan leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. "smell bullshit a mile away."

hektor muttered something beneath his breath, but he wasn't stupid enough to insult an armed cop to his face.

"all right. we received word from an anonymous source that the coin holder had been identified so we were able to move the coin before it could be stolen."

duncan snorted. he'd worked with anonymous sources for years. ninety-nine percent of the info he got from them was worth jack-squat, the other one percent was usually little better than a random guess that accidentally turned out to be right.

he wouldn't depend on an anonymous source to tell him the time of day, let alone to entrust the protection of the very reason for his existence.

"how did you know you could trust this source?" he demanded.

"they'd always been right before. unfortunately-"

hektor bit off his words, a flush of embarrassment crawling beneath his skin.

"unfortunately?" duncan prompted.

"when we were warned that calso's name had been discovered it was decided it was too risky to move the coin until we'd found some place that couldn't be traced." the man's lips thinned with anger. "we put out word that the coin had been transferred to a new host, hoping the necromancer would be fooled long enough for us to find a more permanent solution."

a risky decision.

one that might destroy them all.

"how did calso get the coin in the first place?"

"it was decided that the necromancer hunting the coin had found a way to recognize members of the brotherhood." hektor absently lifted his hand to trace a small tattoo that looked like a stylized arrow on the side of his neck. "it was imperative we find someone who had no formal connection to our group to hide the coin"

it made sense, but duncan couldn't imagine how a group of self-righteous nut-bars had chosen a financial whiz who had a weakness for pretty strippers to harbor their most precious treasure.

"why him?"

hektor thinned his lips, as if he hadn't been entirely pleased with the choice.

"calso was a trusted friend of our leader and since he was already a collector of art, it wouldn't be suspicious for him to invest in high-tech security measures."

duncan resumed his pacing, making mental notes to check the various ways someone could have discovered calso had the coin.

it could be done.

he didn't doubt that for a minute.

but tracking down leads took time.

sometimes days, sometimes weeks.

time he didn't have.

there had to be a faster way to find lord zakhar, or whoever the hell was using a dead woman as their personal puppet.

"can you-" he gave a vague wave of his hand.

"can i what?"

"sense the coin?" he asked.

the man scowled. "i'm a human, not a high-blood. i have no unholy magics running through my veins."

duncan narrowed his eyes. "and yet you seemed to know that callie was a high-blood from the minute she entered the room."

"the ability to sniff out the enemy is a gift from my god," hektor said with a sneer.

duncan curled his lips. hypocrite. any powers he and his so-called brotherhood had came from the same place as high-bloods, not from some mysterious god.

now, however, wasn't the time for a philosophical debate.

actually, as far as he was concerned, there was never a good time for a philosophical debate.

instead he concentrated on the only thing that mattered.

"fine. can you use that god-given gift to track down the necromancer?"

the dark eyes flashed at the edge of mockery that duncan didn't try to hide.

"if we had that power then we would have eliminated him years ago."

"really?" duncan asked dryly. he would bet good money the brotherhood was very good at hiding in the shadows and very bad at actually getting off their asses and taking care of business. "do you often eliminate people?"

the man hastily glanced toward the camera in the ceiling. "certainly not."

duncan was abruptly done.

he'd hoped the man could offer a way to capture the necromancer.

instead he'd gotten fairy tales and vague threats.

"so you don't know where the coin is or how we can find the necro who stole it," he snapped. "why the hell are you here?"

"to warn you of the danger if the coin isn't immediately returned to our protection."

"worthless," he muttered, heading toward the door. "feel free to show yourself out."

anxious to track down callie and make sure she wasn't being hassled by his supposed friends, he hissed in frustration when hektor was demanding his attention.

"sergeant?"

he glared over his shoulder. "what?"

the man rose to his feet, his expression hard with warning.

"high-bloods once tried to make themselves into gods," he said in fierce tones. "don't for a minute doubt that they won't try again."

chapter twenty-two

zak opened his eyes, briefly confused by the realization he was lying face first on a stone floor with blood dripping down his neck.

since being burned at the stake by his rabid serfs, he'd learned to take excessive precautions not to put himself in a position where he might wake up in strange places with oozing wounds.

it wasn't just paranoia.

not when he knew he was surrounded by enemies.