"Relax, Paulie, I've got the whole thing figured," Gomez said, sitting back on his haunches and winking

his turquoise eye.

"Relax, Paulie, I've got the whole thing figured," Gomez said, sitting back on his haunches and winking

his turquoise eye.

"We've been going about this thing all wrong," the cat said. "It hit me last night, after what happened. It's

pointless trying to follow a necromancer who can teleport or send out a demon to do his dirty work. It

simply can't be done. So the thing is not to try to follow him. The thing is to try to catch him before he

leaves."

"How the hell can you do that?" asked Kira.

"Easy," Gomez said. "You figure the necromancer's got to be passing as some local or visiting adept. He

can draw energy from his victims, so maybe he doesn't eat, but unless he's hiding in a hole somewhere,

he needs a place to stay. He needs clothes. Toilet articles, thaumaturgic supplies like candles and chalk to

draw his pentagrams and whatever, the various little necessities of life that even an immortal can't quite do

without. In this modern world, even a necromancer needs to have some cash, right? So what's he going

to do, work? One of the great immortals doing menial human labor? No way. So he'll either enslave one

or more adepts or work as one himself."

"Well, that's pretty much what we figured, Gomez," Paul said. "That's why we've been trying to check on

all the registered adepts in town. Only we're running out of time. There are just too many of them,

especially with the convention this weekend."

"That's just my point," said Gomez. "There are too many of them for you to cover, but not forus . You

give me that list you've been using and I'll assign a thaumagene to cover each one. There are more

thaumagenes in town than there are adepts. And just to play it safe, I'll make sure that none of the

thaumagenes wind up covering their masters. I could scratch my other eye out for not thinking of this

sooner. We could get the job done for you."

"You know, he's got something there," said Wyrdrune.

"Perhaps," said Paul, "only what if the Dark One isn't masquerading as a registered adept?"

"There's always a chance of that," said Wyrdrune, "but at least it will allow us to eliminate all the others

from our list of possible suspects. I think it's a great idea!"

"I don't know," said Paul. "I'd hate to see any of the animals get hurt."

"We'll just keep the adepts under surveillance," Gomez said. "If any of them start up with any magic

monkey business, we get the word right back to you."

"It's worth a try," said Kira. "The fiesta starts the day after tomorrow. We've only got two more nights."

"We've got less than that," said Paul. "The town is already starting to fill up with people coming in for the

fiesta. The news reports about the murders will keep some of them away, but not all of them. A lot of

them will think that they'll be safe with so many people on the streets. Others will be attracted by a

perverse sense of fascination. They won't understand that all of them will be in the gravest danger."

"There's no chance of getting the fiesta canceled?" Wyrdrune asked.