I nod to the ashes.

“Good night, Phil.”

I get the bag of donuts from the pickup truck and head to the Chateau. A crowd is watching us through Donut Universe’s recently repaired front window.

From behind me the older woman says, “Nnnhhhnnn.”

“What did she say?”

“She said fuck you sideways, asshole,” yells Hendrix.

LATER, KASABIAN IS back tapping on the computer, watching Hell through his peeper like it’s an old rerun of I Love Lucy. Candy is curled up next to me on the sofa. Too many donuts and too much wine have put her in a food coma. I want to get drunk, so I don’t. I drink black coffee and light up another Malediction.

What am I doing agreeing to go for cigars and brandy with a hundred vampires on their turf? What the hell kind of life is this? Is this what I came back from Hell for? Is the marginal existence I’ve carved out for myself going to get Candy and the others killed the way it got Alice killed?

I keep thinking that if I try to act more like a person, I’ll be less of a monster, but at night most of my dreams are about the arena and being Lucifer. Instead of running around asking questions, I’d rather be cutting off heads. But I won’t. Not even Nasrudin Hodja’s. Pick and choose your fights, that’s what Wild Bill said, and I know in my heart of hearts he’s right. A war with the Cold Cases would take over my life, and what would I get from it? A pile of skulls and a bit of idiot glee. That’s not enough anymore. The moment I admitted that I was connected to the people around me and this world, that life was over. Still, I feel like I could go off at any minute. I’m not sure which is the real me anymore. The reasonable guy who can sit in a bar without hitting anyone or the guy giving idiots compound fractures because no one will cough up the 8 Ball.

Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong. Maybe reasonable guy makes monster guy stronger. People used to run when they saw me coming because they knew I was there to break things. Now no one’s sure what I’m going to do and that’s its own kind of power.

But how does any of that get me out of this situation? I still have to find the 8 Ball and deal with Aelita or she’s going to deal with me. The only good news is that with the 8 Ball out of her hands she can’t run around killing off the God brothers. They might be the only things in the universe that can stand up to the Angra Om Ya. I’m not looking forward to going at Aelita one-on-one. She’s beaten me more than I’ve beaten her. Hell, she already killed me once. It was only one of Vidocq’s potions that brought me back before my soul wandered off to Hell or Fresno.

And I’d sure like to know where Medea Bava is. She wants me dead every bit as much as Aelita. I should have gone after her when I was still Lucifer. Once I burned down Tartarus, she didn’t have anywhere to run. Now she’s with Deumos and I don’t know what that means. I don’t even know if the Sub Rosa has an Inquisition anymore. If they do, maybe a new Inquisitor has it in for me. I could ask Blackburn, but what are the chances he’d tell me the truth? Medea doesn’t need any official title to come after me, and if she kills me, everyone is going to say, “He deserved it,” and go have lunch.

No, I don’t need a war with the Cold Cases. I’ve got all I can handle right now.

As vile as they were, things were so much easier in the arena. It was all pain and anger and I knew exactly what I had to do and when. I’ll never stop dreaming about it and wanting things to be that simple again. The arena is my heroin. I’ve kicked the habit, but I’ll never get completely over it.

THE DARK ETERNAL is set up in Death Rides A Horse, a posh fetish bar in West Hollywood.

The Eternal made their bones by killing off or absorbing a lot of the scattered bloodsucker street gangs, then updating and expanding their business. The Eternal has even been known to do hits or provide protection for some of the big Sub Rosa families. All very much on the down low. They make most of their money off Lurkers and vampire wannabes dealing B+. Blood Plus. It’s blood infused with every kind of up, down, and Ring Around the Rosie you can think of. Addicts come to the Eternal because their product is the best. Score cheap bathtub gin from one of the outlaw gangs in Compton or San Berdoo and you’re likely to OD. Or end up with permanent palsy. Imagine living forever shaking so much you can’t piss straight much less sink your fangs into an unwilling throat.

Outside the club there’s a line stretching all the way to the corner. I walk up to the doorman, a burly black dude with a cross tattooed on his bald scalp. It’s a common vampire joke. Crosses don’t work on them any more than flypaper.

He puts a hand in the middle of my chest and notices the bulge of the gun under my coat.

“We’re all full up tonight. Try again tomorrow,” he says with a slight Jamaican accent.

“I’m on the list.”

He smiles while looking over the crowd.

“I doubt that.”

“I’m on Tykho’s list.”

He glances at me, then back to the line.

“That’s not a joke you want to be telling, man.”

I take out my phone and hold it up so he can see the time.

“I have a midnight appointment. If I’m not in the club in two minutes, it’s your skull Tykho is going to be gnawing on tonight. Not mine.”

He thinks it over. In a second he thumbs on the radio headset he’s wearing. He puts his hand over the mouthpiece.

“What’s your name?”

“Stark.”

“Ah,” he says. “They said look for a scarred man, but damn, you’re a lot uglier than I expected.”

He speaks into the headset. “I got your man Stark here and I’m sending him in. What? Don’t worry yourself. You’ll recognize him.”

He gives me a big toothy smile, showing his fangs.

“Go right in, sir.”

I light a Malediction.

“What’s wrong with you, man? You can’t smoke inside.”

“Why? None of you breathe. It’s not like you’re going to get cancer.”

He touches his lapels.

“It makes our clothes smell bad. Bothers some of the minions.”

I don’t have to ask who the minions are. There’s a whole army of them lined up outside the club.

I drop the smoke and crush it out with my boot.

“Leave it to L.A. to turn vampires into twelve-steppers.”

I go inside the club. And am instantly rendered deaf by Totalitarian Chic doing a hard techno version of “A Fistful of Dollars” at a hundred decibels.

Years ago, Death Rides A Horse was an upscale Hollywood cowboy joint, meaning it was about as country as Lawrence Welk’s massage therapist. The DE kept the cowboy theme but added the leather-and-latex aesthetic. The dance floor alone must keep half the fetish shops in L.A. in business. A cowgirl vampire rides her bouncing-pony boy minion around the edge of the dance floor. I have no idea how either of them keeps their balance. It’s an impressive achievement. I have to give the DE credit. The self-conscious decadence is a lot easier to take than a bunch of middle-aged businessmen chewing Skoal dressed up like Hopalong Cassidy.

A blond kid good-looking enough to be a Michelangelo model crooks his finger at me. I push through the crowd over to him.

He doesn’t say a word, just loops his arm in mine and pulls me to the back of the club.

Even in the noise and chaos, it isn’t hard to spot Tykho.

Her table is in the far back, under dim lights and crowded with admirers, both dead and alive. Since she doesn’t have to show off, she’s in a simple black corset with a brocade dragon pattern. Her skin is full-moon white. Her spiky blue hair matches the color of her lips. The real giveaway is her eyes. The pupils are long and horizontal. A birth defect from when her mother tried to chemically abort the pregnancy after she’d been bit. Mom blew it and gave birth to a bouncing baby vampire with octopus eyes.

She waves me over and dismisses her entourage with a single elegant wave. I take her hand when she offers it. It’s cold enough to chill champagne.

“Stark. How nice of you to come.”

“Like I was going to turn you down?”

I sit down and a waiter bustles over to take the entourage’s drinks away.

“Some of my people thought you might be too afraid to come.”

“I just didn’t want to ugly up your joint.”

“Trust me. We get uglier faces in here every night. Fear. Greed. A civilian’s terrible hope that she or he can cheat us. These do worse things to a person’s face than a few scars.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

She gestures to a waiter. He comes over and sets something on the table in front of Tykho. A dried and preserved human heart.

“And for you, sir?” says the waiter.

“Whiskey.”

“Any brand?”

“Whatever costs the most.”

“Of course.”

Tykho stares at me like I’m the unlucky one in a “choose-your-own-lobster” tank.

I say, “Your boy Jimi Hendrix last night seemed to think you had something for me. I don’t suppose it’s another suitcase full of money.”

She starts to reach for the heart and stops.

“You spent it all?”

“Remember when there was that other me running around the city?”

“Yes. The Mouseketeer.”

“He gave most of it away.”

She leans back in her seat, knuckling her upper lip, trying to cover a laugh.

“How awful for you. Betrayed by your own doppelgänger. Does that make him the evil twin or you?”

“Ask me when I have to rob a gas station to buy a cup of coffee. I’m living off bribes from gangs and ne’er-do-wells. Did you know that people will pay you cash money not to kill them?”

“We usually get the opposite. ‘I’ll give you my fortune if only you’ll make me immortal.’ ”

“You ever take them up on it?”

“Rarely. Most people who come around begging for it, they’re not the type you want hanging around for the next thousand years.”

“I don’t know if I want to hang around with anyone for a thousand years. Present company excepted, of course.”

She nods at my weak compliment and pours a shot of blood from the heart flask. The stopper in the aorta has a man’s face. I wonder if all the stoppers have the same face or it’s a likeness of the poor slob that donated the organ.

The waiter comes back with my whiskey. Before I sip it, I say, “I assume there’s no blood in this.”

Tykho shakes her head.

“It’s as clean as a virgin’s pussy.”

I raise the glass in a toast and take a sip. Whatever brand it is, it’s smooth and burns just right. I know instinctively it’s nothing I can afford, but I bet the Chateau has some in stock. I’ll have to find out the name.

“Sorry about Phil. Your little ones play hard. I didn’t know we were just roughhousing until it was too late.”

“Yes. They’re all in a time-out. Seeing how Phil is the first Aeternus you’ve killed since poor little Eleanor Vance, I think we can just chalk it up to bad luck and not a break in our truce.”

Eleanor Vance. I try not to think about her. She’s one of the few kills, and definitely the only shroud-eater kill, I regret. She was a teenybopper turned bloodsucker, young and still dumb enough to be reckless. I killed her for the Golden Vigil. I’ll never forgive Marshal Wells and Aelita for sending me after her.

“I wish I could take back Eleanor.”

Tykho runs a dyed-blue fingertip around the rim of her glass.

“It’s the curse of being a predator with a brain. Creatures like you and me, we’re supposed to kill and move on. We’re not supposed to reflect on it. I’d say it’s proof there’s no God, but I know you’d disagree.”

“He’s around. He just has a really fucked-up sense of humor.”

Or it’s another of his screwups. She’s right about predators. Wolves don’t weep when they take down a deer. And don’t tell me regret is all about having a soul. Everybody has regrets, but most people use their souls about as often as they floss, which is usually two days before they go to the dentist.

“Let’s get down to it, shall we?” says Tykho. “I didn’t invite you here to give you money, but despite last night’s unpleasantness, I do have something for you.”

“All right.”

“It’s about the thing you’re looking for. The Qom something?”

“Magic 8 Ball is okay.”

“I know you were getting nowhere finding it, so you started your blitzkrieg through the city. It unsettled everyone and made our hunting harder, so we made our own inquiries using our own methods.”

I don’t want to think about what their methods means.

“And?”

“We think we’ve found something.” She takes a sip of her blood cocktail and goes on. “Your mistake was thinking all the answers lie in threatening the living. We have connections with a lot of L.A.’s nonliving residents.”

“It’s hard to punch a ghost.”

“Lucky ghosts.”

“So, a dead person told you where to find the 8 Ball.”

“A friend of yours, I think. Cherry Moon?”

Cherry is one of the people I came back from Hell to kill, only I didn’t have to. Another old friend, Parker, got to her first. Then I killed Parker. I tried to help out Cherry after she died. Tried to convince her ghost to cross over. No way she’s going to Heaven, but an eternity in limbo has got to be worse than Hell.