to be to find the Dark Ones and stop them, which means they have to be destroyed. That's something I'd

never be able to explain to Loomis. I know his sort. He'll insist on trying to arrest the killer or killers, if

there's more than one, and have them brought to trial. And that will only get him killed. We're stuck with

Loomis, so we're going to have to work around him."

to be to find the Dark Ones and stop them, which means they have to be destroyed. That's something I'd

never be able to explain to Loomis. I know his sort. He'll insist on trying to arrest the killer or killers, if

there's more than one, and have them brought to trial. And that will only get him killed. We're stuck with

Loomis, so we're going to have to work around him."

"Don't worry, wecan avoid it," Modred said. "You won't have to use your sensitivity. If we get

anywhere near a Dark One or one of their acolytes, the runestones will let us know. You won't have to

read anybody's mind. Just pretend to. If the runestones don't react, you'll tell Loomis that adept is not a

suspect."

"And if they do react?" asked Paul.

"Then we'll have found our necromancer."

They discussed recent developments over dinner after the police car had dropped Modred and Paul off.

Modred shapechanged back to Wyrdrune as soon as they got inside the house and they sat studying the

street map of Santa Fe, trying to familiarize themselves with the city, while Broom got dinner ready.

Gomez was still out, recruiting cats for night patrol.

"You don't think you told Loomis too much?" asked Kira.

"Modred told Loomis as much of the truth as possible without telling him all of it," said Wyrdrune.

"Loomis is a good man. He's not about to be intimidated by this thing. We have to drive back to meet

him after dinner, so we can start helping him question some of the local adepts. My biggest worry right

now is that Bureau field agent. We still don't know when he's due in, but he could throw a monkey

wrench into the whole works."

"She," said Kira. "We heard from Makepeace while you were gone. Mona tapped the Bureau

operations files and called Archimedes. They've assigned a sorceress named Megan Leary to the case.

Archimedes got the Bureau file on her from Mona, but we need a computer and modem to get it and

Paul hasn't got one here."

"Wait a minute," Paul said. "You can access Bureau files? How? And whois this Mona?"

"It's a bit complicated, Paul," said Merlin. "You remember Archimedes, don't you?"

"No," said Paul, frowning. "Who is he?"

"Oh, yes, that's right," said Merlin, "that was after your time. When I was named Dean Emeritus, the

faculty presented me with a small personal thaumaturgic computer, which I named Archimedes, in honor

of my familiar from the old days."

"Ah, yes, the owl," said Paul.

"Well, we've had some work done to Archimedes, to upgrade him somewhat," Merlin continued, "and,