Fresh from the shower, Barbara moved through the sprawling place in her bathrobe with a leisureliness, which someone who didn't know her might have taken for enjoyment.

In the kitchen, she searched out something to eat that wouldn't require cooking. The entire room was glacial white with the only hint of color existing in the long slabs of counter top. Tiny blue veins crawled over the surface making it look like a cheese—or a corpse. Every appliance was hidden away behind lacquered cabinet doors and the massive side-by-side refrigerators turned up nothing, unless she wanted to munch on bok choy or leftover crab bisque. It must have been the maid's grocery day.

A button caused a panel to open, revealing a coffee station with a brass machine that would put most cafes in Italy to shame.

It seemed that every design decision for this condo followed the philosophy that it wasn't worth buying unless it was the most expensive.

It was like being on an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Terrible.

There was, however, a plate of fresh Danishes next to the coffee machine. Barbara brushed strands of her damp hair out of her face and took one that had a sunny dollop of lemon curd in the center.

Walt had left before she woke up. Barbara wasn't normally a late riser but she had a lot of sleep to catch up on. And it suited her to wake up in an empty bed.

She had flown back to Manhattan with Palmer the day before and landed at JFK just before lunch. He had to run off to SBI for his false briefing with his boss. Barbara kept away. Once he was done with Palmer, Walt would have other meetings that would keep him busy all day. And it might seem like too much of a coincidence if his head of security and Barbara showed up in town at the same time. Walt wasn't someone who believed in coincidences.

So instead of pressing him for information, Barbara used the time to research the medallion.

Unfortunately, there was no book in the library with a convenient picture of the bejeweled disk with a detailed article explaining where it had come from. The internet may have been quicker and more useful but once she started typing in search parameters on the Web, she might as well just tell Walt she had it and ask him what it was. No doubt, he had tech trolls keeping an eye out for anything that concerned his sacred mission.

The only concrete piece of info she was able to gather was on the gem. It was a moonstone.

Typical, Barbara thought. When she located it in a chart of gems it felt like the punchline to a bad joke. Werewolves and moonstones—how stupid and typical.

Otherwise, Barbara only left the New York Public Library knowing what the amulet wasn't. Despite being found in a Viking village and supposedly carried with the settlers from Scandinavia, it hadn't been crafted by Walt's ancestors. None of the faded marking matched anything in the glossaries of Viking runes she had dug up. They seemed simpler—older. More like cuneiform scratching than the bold figures used by the Norse, but it didn't match the Sumerian language either.

When she finally called Walt and told him she was in town, he sounded ecstatic and invited her over for dinner, but she doubted that his enthusiasm was anything more than a distracted attempt at charm.

They ate in the upstairs dining room that formed part of his private suite, along with a bedroom, office, and gym. It was more intimate than the grand dining room on the main floor. The small space would have felt stuffy with heavy, dark antique furnishings if it weren't for the seamless wall of windows. Only the reflection of the candle light broke the illusion that they were floating above the city.

Despite his usual lavishness, dinner was a simple grilled trout with endive salad.

"You really surprised me," he said as though admonishing a naughty but delightful child. "I would have had Krieger prepare something more luxuriant if I knew you were coming."

"This is fine. I don't care what I eat." This wasn't exactly true. Barbara had started to grow accustomed to the five-star restaurants he usually took her too and was a little disappointed they'd stayed in. But she wasn't going to let Walt know that.

"Uh, how awful. Appreciation of food is one of the five pillars to self-fulfillment. Or so I believe. A carefully prepared meal is one of the finest joys we mortals have access to. But..." He hesitate and it was easy to imagine in that gap between words that he uttered alas like a Shakespearean actor. "Constant extravagance is slothful, and I do find that simpler fair has the added benefit of keeping the mind sharp." He finished by pointing to his temple with his fork.

"I want to go after Amy," Barbara said. There was no point in beating around the bush.

Walt ate in silence, ravaging half his filet as though he hadn't heard her.

"I said, I want—"

"Yes. Yes. I heard you." He took a sip of the Chablis with a bit too much vigor to hide his irritation. "There is no need, my dear. I have agents on the case as we speak. The vargynja will be terminated before the sun sets tomorrow."

"How can you be sure? Who do you have on her trail? The Agency? Can they be trusted?"

"Of course they can't be trusted. Who can be?" He took up a leaf of the endive as pale as his skin, and munched it in his cheek like he was imitating a rabbit. "And yes, of course, I have the DTAA after her. Just like I have the FBI and a dozen other agencies. But they are proving particularly useless, even for the government of the United States of America."

"Then let me go." Barbara tried to catch his eyes but they refused to get locked down into a stare, as though if he kept them moving and free, he could keep this conversation from getting too serious.

Barbara had seen him like this before. He was wanting a paramour tonight not a discussion and certainly not a debate.

"Just because they are useless doesn't mean they are all I have. I always keep many brands in the fire, as you know. And one very unlikely brand is burning white hot at the moment."

"Are you going to tell me? I'm tired of these constant riddles. This is the end of the world we're talking about."

"It is always the end of the world, my dear woman." Now it was his turn to fix her with his eyes and Barbara wished he hadn't. There was a ferocity in their cold blueness—a gleam that revealed a little too much of the insanity that lurked deep within. "I have stopped it more times than I can count. And I will stop it again. I once told you that there were those that welcomed the end: doomsday cults."

Walt had told her all about them one night. Barbara had asked him how these lycanthropes had survived all this time. There were so few of them. Why hadn't they been hunted to extinction?

It turned out there were always people willing to aid the lycanthropes. Walt called them a trinity of evil. The first type of the trinity were those who wanted to use the creatures to manufacture the apocalypse. Some of these cults even worshiped the beasts as a god. Some just saw them as a means to the end. They sought them out and protect them.

The second type were the lost souls: people with damaged psyches and little to live for, who were mysteriously drawn to the creatures and felt obligated to help them. Lastly, there were those who did the wolves' bidding because they were compelled to. They were temporarily held in thrall by some power the werewolf exerted over them and carried out simple commands with complete disregard to their own well-being.

"I give a few of these cults my support," Walt said. "Don't look so shocked. We are after the same thing...almost. We are both dedicated to seeking out these retched creatures. It is only what we do with them once we find them that differ. I aide these groups and let them think I am on their side and they keep me informed of their progress. One of these loathsome cults has eyes on the girl. Tomorrow when the sun is up and the beast isn't such a danger, they will take it into custody. Then I will take it away from them." 

"How do you help them?"

"Money. Sometimes information. I put them on Amy Westgate's track years ago. They did a marvelous job of monitoring The Music Box for me, until they got ambitious and abducted the girl's psychiatrist?"

"Benning?"

"Yes, I believe that was his name. As I recall, this particular group of lunatics thought he was responsible for their leader's death. Messy situation."

After that, Walt considered the matter closed and wouldn't discuss it further.

Barbara watched the city outside the gleaming white kitchen. She finished off the pastry letting crumbs fall to the pristine floor. Her fingertip traced the engravings of the amulet in the pocket of the white bathrobe.

Barbara had the odd sense that the city was condensing before her eyes. Her vision stretched out beyond the buildings and the sea of concrete to the brown fields and forests on the cusp of spring, far, far westward. But not as far as Amy.

The girl was out of her reach. Walt held all the cards and wouldn't deal her a hand this time. She didn't know where to go. She didn't even have the slightest clue of how to warn Amy and Blass. Unless some miracle happened, Walt would win and save the world yet again.

Each and every building before her stood like a monument. They weren't just structures; they were symbols of people's hopes, dreams, and loves. They were the collective representation of all of humanity.

Barbara needed to find some way to keep Amy alive. If she didn't, she would never get to watch it all crumble and turn to ash.

***   

Author's Note: So good news and bad news this week. The good news is this Barbara scene with what I hope people will feel are meaty revelations. Bad news is I hoped to post two more scenes today but that won't be happening. Sorry, but I just ran out of time. In my original conception of this chapter it was to be all Amy, but then I realized that with everyone in motion I had to show what they were up to while Amy was doing her thing, so I added scenes of other characters in. Which is why this is a colossal 11 part chapter. It feels wrong to start it without any Amy, but it will have to wait until next week.