There's a sudden fraught stillness – and then the last assassin standing slowly lifts his hands and lets the knives tumble out of them. One lands point down and sticks in the floor, quivering; the other goes skittering across the tiles until it comes to a stop at the feet of the taller of the two vampires.

Nobody else moves.

The assassin folds his hands before his chest and bows to the host over them, a graceful elaborate gesture that changes in midmotion; when he straightens, each hand holds a tiny three-cornered throwing blade, drawn back to hurl at the host --