She took his hand and held on to it just a bit longer than necessary. "Hello,

Royce. I'm Terri Clancy."

"Black roses," said Chief Inspector Blood. "Black roses and a dungeon? That's

all you have?"

"I know it isn't much," Wyrdrune said.

"No, it damn well isn't," Blood said. "And you say the black roses are

associated with a town house in London, yet town houses do not ordinarily

have

dungeons, do they?"

"I know it doesn't seem to make any sense—" said Kira.

"None of this makes any sense," said Blood, shaking his head. "For one thing,

why wouldn't these necromancers, these Dark Ones as you call them, all get

together and concentrate their efforts on disposing of you if you're such a

threat to them? Why split up and go off in all different directions?"

"Because magic has its price," said Wyrdrune. "The Dark Ones would have been

severely weakened after their escape. The Council of the White defeated them

before, and they're not likely to forget that. Together, especially in their

weakened state, they'd be an easy target. Well, no, on second thought it

would

hardly be easy, but it would be a hell of a lot easier than if they split up

the

way they've done. We can't be everywhere at once. This way they can send the

strongest ones among them up against us, while the others establish

strongholds

for themselves and start building up their strength. Before long, individuals

among them will be stronger than all of them together would have been right

after their escape. And they can recover their powers much more quickly than

we

can, because we won't take our strength from killing, .and necromancers don't

have any reservations on that count."

"So what you're telling me is that eventually you're bound to lose," said

Blood.

"Maybe not," said Kira. "See, a few things have changed since the days of the

Old Ones. For one thing, thanks to Merlin, humans can use magic now. Maybe

not

as well as the Old Ones can, but put enough human wizards and sorcerers

together

and the Dark Ones would have a hell of a fight on their hands."

"Only then you'd have a full-scale mage war," Wyrdrune said, "and the world

almost did not survive the last one."

"So where does that leave us?" Blood said.

"Exactly where we are," said Kira. "We have to try to track them down one at

a

time and take them out. If we can."

"And to do that," added Wyrdrune, "we have to conserve our strength as much

as

possible, because we can't recover anywhere near as quickly as a necromancer,