headline read, "Demon Killer Claims Four Lives!" Wulfgar smiled as he read the story. All the stories in

the newspaper and on television were now referring to him as either the "Demon Killer" or the

"Necromancer," the latter chosen, no doubt, to resonate with the popular series of films that had started

out as lurid, low-budget features and whose box-office success had led to multimillion-dollar sequels, all

with the word "Necromancer" in the title and featuring lavish and spectacularly gory thaumaturgic special

effects. In many respects, thought Wulfgar, the humans hadn't evolved very much at all.

headline read, "Demon Killer Claims Four Lives!" Wulfgar smiled as he read the story. All the stories in

the newspaper and on television were now referring to him as either the "Demon Killer" or the

"Necromancer," the latter chosen, no doubt, to resonate with the popular series of films that had started

out as lurid, low-budget features and whose box-office success had led to multimillion-dollar sequels, all

with the word "Necromancer" in the title and featuring lavish and spectacularly gory thaumaturgic special

effects. In many respects, thought Wulfgar, the humans hadn't evolved very much at all.

He had known who they were at once. He had recognized them in that brief glimpse he had of them as

they came galloping toward him down the alley. The girl he had seen before. She was one of those who

had been at the pit and had formed the Living Triangle. One of the avatars the cursed runestones had

chosen. He had felt the power of the runestone flowing from her. The boy he had never seen before, but

he sensed the life force of Ambrosius strong within him. So, he thought, the spirit of the half-breed mage

had found another host. And, as he had suspected, he had joined with the avatars. If they were here,

together, then the other two stones had to be nearby, as well.

They had come, as he had known they would. Now it was time to escalate the game. And it would be a

deadly game, a real challenge. Wulfgar felt excited. It had been a long time since he had tried himself

against worthy adversaries. In the runestones, he would be meeting his ancient enemies once more, the

spirits of the Council of the White. And in the boy, he would once more be facing the spirit of Merlin

Ambrosius. He had a score to settle with that miserable half-breed.

The story in the paper told him that the police were being aided in their investigation by a sorcerer

named Professor Paul Ramirez, Dean of the College of Sorcerers and head of the Santa Fe office of the

Bureau of Thaumaturgy. Ramirez, said the paper, was a former student of the late Merlin Ambrosius, and

had graduated with honors to become his teaching assistant and later a full professor at the College of

Sorcerers in Cambridge. He had founded the program of thaumaturgical studies at the university in Santa

Fe and had trained a great many of the local adepts. His involvement in the investigation was considered

"invaluable" by the police and the mayor expressed "full confidence" that with Professor Ramirez directing

the investigation, the killer would soon be brought to justice.

Ramirez was clearly an important man in Santa Fe, one in whom the authorities had a great deal of

confidence. And he was a former pupil of that half-breed, Ambrosius, to boot. If something were to

happen to him, the effect on the people of the city would be devastating. Their leading sorcerer, their

most powerful adept, struck down by the very killer he had set out to bring to justice. Wulfgar smiled.

Justice would be served, he thought. Justice for those who had died before they could escape the pit, for

those who had seen the light of freedom before their eyes after centuries of dark confinement, only to

perish before they could reach it. And justice for those who had been relentlessly pursued and hunted

down while trying to reclaim their birthright.

In truth, Wulfgar did not grieve for them. In the days prior to the war, he had sought desperately to unite

them. He had told them that their combined strength, united under one general, himself, would produce

an army of necromancers that the Council, with their proportionately weaker power derived from their