---
The whole den shifted from criminal sleep into traveling formation with the speed of long practice. More kept coming from the side halls too.
Not only the ones in the room.
By the time they were done gathering, the number was well over a hundred.
Raka noticed the lesser vampire registering that and said in a dry voice, "If Big Boss wants me in the morning, he gets me properly."
The lesser vampire did not comment.
Good.
Raka preferred that.
Then, with the black market still only half awake and the rest of Slik City just beginning to drag morning across its roofs, Raka and more than a hundred of his men left the underground ways to go meet Sekhmet.
.
.
.
.
Morning came to Dawn House in layers. Just like it happened everyday.
First came the pale gray before sunrise, when the house still belonged more to habit than to waking thought. The lamps in the corridors burned low and warm, making the carved wood walls glow like something half remembered from a dream.
