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  "Where are the other three?" I asked him.

  Vollman counted them off slowly on his fingers as he spoke. "One is in London," he said, "in a secure vault at the British Museum. Another is in Cologne, Germany. The third is held in Johannesburg, South Africa. And the fourth is – was – here."

  "Are the other three copies still where they're supposed to be?" I was wondering whether Scranton was the thief's first stop, or his last.

  "I have made inquiries within the last few days," Vollman said. "Yes, all three are still in place." He held up a hand, palm toward me, for a moment. "And if I may anticipate your next question, no attempts have been made to steal the other copies."

  "So, whoever it was wanted the book, he picked Scranton as the best place to rip it off," Karl said. "Maybe because he heard the Opus Mago was guarded by just one guy and a dinky little floor safe."

  Vollman stirred in his chair a little, as if the accusation in Karl's voice had made him uncomfortable.

  "He came here for the book, then stuck around," Karl went on. "Why would he do that?"

  "Perhaps he is in a hurry," Vollman said. "He wants to waste no time in putting one of the spells into practice."

  "It would be good if we knew what ll was," I said to Karl. "Might give us a better idea of what we're dealing with."

  I turned to Vollman. "We know about the silver knife, and about the name of–" I stopped, and tapped the pad on my desk, where he had written the ancient god's name. "–this guy here. Is that enough to go on, for somebody to look in one of the other copies and work backwards?"

  Vollman sat there for a while, frowning. Then he said, "I can ask. You understand, I have no authority over those people. But if I explain what is at stake here, it may be that one of the other caretakers can be persuaded to search through his copy of the Opus Mago. Perhaps, given what we know, he can determine the exact nature of the spell that is being undertaken by this lunatic, whoever he may be."

  "Or 'she,'" Karl said.

  Vollman dipped his head in acknowledgment. "Or she."

  "If you can do that right away, it would be a very good thing," I said. "And in the meantime, Detective Renfer and I will talk to some of our contacts in the supernatural community."

  Vollman looked at me. "To what end?"

  "To see if there's a new wizard in town."

In Scranton, there's no shortage of what my mom used to call beer gardens. There are straight bars and supe bars. That doesn't mean a supe can't walk into any joint in town for a beer (or a Bloody Mary – with or without real blood), assuming he's of age and has the money to pay for it. Discrimination's against the law. Anyway, no bartender's going to refuse to serve somebody who might come back during the next full moon and tear his throat out.

  But most supes prefer the company of their own, and the biggest supe bar in town is Renfield's on Wyoming Avenue. I'd been there plenty of times before.

  The place was busy when Karl and I walked in a little after 3am. Supe bars usually stay open all night and close at dawn, for obvious reasons.

  You'd think we might get a hostile reception in a place like that, but you'd be wrong. Cops on the Supe Squad spend as much time investigating crimes committed against supes as we do on crimes with a supe perpetrator, and the supe community knows that. If a cop is fair in his dealings with them, the supes remember.

  And if he's not fair, they remember that, too.

  I try to be fair, even when dealing with vamps. You can't let your personal views get in the way of your work – it's not professional. And I'm always professional. Well, almost always.

We got nods of welcome from a couple of ogres sitting in a corner, and a quiet wave from a werewolf we knew. The rest of the customers ignored us, or pretended to.

  Elvira was tending bar, like she usually does on weeknights. That's not her real name, of course. But she's tricked out like that vamp wannabe who got famous hosting bad horror movies on TV. Why an attractive human would want to look like a vamp is beyond me, but I guess a girl's gotta make a living. Like the original, our Elvira's got boobs big enough to look good in the low-slung dress that's part of the get-up, and I bet that cleavage of hers is good for a lot of tips.

  When she slinked over, I ordered a ginger ale for myself and a seltzer for Karl. That thing about no booze on the job may be a cliché, but it's also a rule.

  Besides, if I was going to drink, I wouldn't do it in a supe bar, despite my good relations with most of the locals. There's always the chance that I'd get careless and have one too many.

  A circus animal trainer may get along pretty well with the lions, tigers, and leopards in his act, but he'd be a fool to turn hs back on them.

  Elvira was back within a minute. She placed our drinks in front of us, and I dropped a twenty on the bar. As she reached for it, I placed my hand on top of hers. Nothing painful – I just wanted to get her attention.

  She looked at me through all the mascara and eyeliner that surrounded her baby blues. "What?"

  "Seen any new faces, the last week or so?"

  She wrinkled her forehead in thought. "Gosh, no, I don't think so. You guys lookin' for somebody in particular?"

  I nodded. "A practitioner, gender unknown. New in town, and a real heavy hitter."

  "I haven't heard about anybody like that, Stan," Elvira said. "Honest."

  "Put the word out, will you?" I said. "Quiet, no drama. But make it clear that if anybody can give me a line on this new spellcaster, I'd owe them a heck of a big favor."

  Yeah, I really said "heck". I'm no Boy Scout, but it's not smart to say words like "hell" in a supe bar. You never know what might be listening.

  Elvira promised to let her customers know that I was in the market for information, and I told her to keep the change from my twenty.

  I turned around and leaned my back against the bar. It was the signal that I was open for business, if anybody had any. I've found it's better to let supes approach me, rather than the other way around. Some of them spook easy, you might say.