---
"I can give you and your men the same power as him."
That stopped everything.
Even Bat Bat shut up from making fun of Raka's face.
Raka's men, spread through the front lower hall and outer entrance in lines of rough loyalty and practiced violence, all shifted their attention inward at once.
Mira stayed very still at the desk. Raka's one good eye sharpened like a knife.
Sekhmet went on.
"But it will change you."
No one interrupted.
"It will make you different."
Still nothing.
He let the silence hold long enough to deepen the weight of the offer.
Then said, "Are you all willing?"
It was remarkable how quickly ambition moved through a room full of underground black market men.
They had seen the lesser vampire fight.
They had seen Raka's face.
They had seen the speed, the control, the red eyes, the difference between a man who was rank three by ordinary road and a man who was rank three after Sekhmet's had rewritten him with his blood.
