"I still haven't decided on the details," Julian says. "But I'll be in touch. Figure out where you're going first, and I'll try to help."
He hands you a card with information about how to reach him—the motel where he's staying, and the location of a drop box. There's a little glyph like a knife doodled on the card.
"A karambit," he says. "I'm not exactly a regular member of Clan Banu Haqim, so that's what I'm using instead of the old 2100 logo to mark my holdings. No name yet, just the mark. Look for it, Krarr."
Then he opens the door to your little office-room, scans the shadows, and disappears down the garage, in no evident hurry despite the proximity of sunrise. The metal door swings shut.
Next
You let the shock of Julian Sim's return fade, then check your knockoff Panerai as you take it off. It's 6:20 a.m. You secure the door, drop the dead bolt, and strip out of your leather jacket. You don't even have time for a shower, so you just unroll the sleeping bag and make sure your phone is charging.
You dream of flying high over the Alps at night, the roar of a single-seater engine in your ears, a silk scarf wrapped around your throat to keep off the cold, though you are already colder than anything else in these skies. Your dream shifts to a huge moon over a city you know so well that no name comes to mind, all turquoise domes and tall towers, black against the midnight sky. And then the same city, except it is only a village: low mud huts, donkeys, children laughing. It's morning, and the sun feels hot against your back and your bare limbs.
Not dreams. Memories. And one last memory, one that you know isn't yours: you remember forcing your eyes open after years of darkness and looking up at two eager fledglings—one from your own clan, one Clan Ventrue. You remember watching, frozen, as the Ventrue's fangs slide out.
You open your eyes for real and check your phone. It is 5:49 p.m. Sunset. Aila is asleep again. Your fangs are protruding; you shake your head until they go away, though you keep remembering the coating of dust on the elder's throat as you sank your teeth into her.
You shower, scraping the last of the filth out from under your fingernails. Then you decide where you're going. You don't want to keep Prince Lettow waiting as you make a decision.
Your first stop will be—
Chapter Four: St. Basil's Hospital
Tucson, Arizona.
Night of November 6.
Sunrise: 6:45 a.m.
You drive the Mitsubishi around your parking lot a few times, getting a feel for it as the lights come on all over Tucson.
Your cherry-red '90s bromobile is kind of fun to drive, you're forced to admit as you accelerate through a sea of Chevy Silverados and Ford Raptors to head uptown. At least, it's fun in straightaways—any time you corner, the human centipede of hair dryers that someone crammed into the engine instead of an actual turbo roars and screams and threatens to fling you right into a pylon unless you hold on with both hands.
You spot the Viper nightclub, accelerate hard, and scream to a halt outside the glass-lined VIP entrance. It's still early, and the party won't start for hours, but Lettow is already awake; you see his eagle, Riga, perched nearby.
You sort through your maps and guides, checking nearby hotels and making sure you have a place to stay in Phoenix if you can't make it there and back in one night. A mortal flunkie in an Ed Hardy shirt runs up to your Mitsubishi with a portable push-button lockbox like the ones outside Airbnbs. He also gives you a pass so you can get inside St. Basil's as a janitor, and says, "He's in the morgue."
You toss the box into your duffel bag, clip the pass to a lanyard, and peel out.
Next