Monday.

One final week.

Seven days.

I’m an emotional wreck. A ball of anticipation. Of wrecked feelings. Of racing thoughts and moments of numb despair.

“Get out of the damn way!” I scream at the car in front of me on the way to work. I lay on the horn, but it doesn’t make the driver any smarter. They continue blocking the lane they shouldn’t have pulled into with all this traffic.

Finally, ten minutes late, I pull into the parking lot of Sykes Funeral Home.

My hands quake violently as I walk to Emmanuel’s office. My voice shakes as I tell him I need to talk to him. I’m pretty sure I’m going to puke as I tell him about my fake apprenticeship in Austria.

He sits there silently for a minute when I finish telling him these are my final five days at work. He stares at me with hard eyes.

“Austria?” he questions. “Not the catacombs in Rome? Not the mummifiers in Egypt? Austria.”

My heart drops into my stomach with an acidic splash.

“Yes,” I say, forcing myself to sound confident. “At St. Margaret de Tod.”

Emmanuel keeps staring at me. But slowly, so slowly I’m pretty sure I’m going to die from dread that he’s going to see the holes in my story, his face relaxes.

“Well,” he finally says. “I can’t say I’m happy you’re only giving me a week’s notice.” He stands. “But I suppose you didn’t get much choice. And,” he stops in front of me, “it sounds like it will be an incredible opportunity for you.”

A smile breaks out onto my face, and I let out a breath of relief when he wraps his arms around me in a hug.

The next step in saying goodbye to my human life: check.

I text Amelia after work that day and ask if I can come over for a few minutes. Once more feeling sick, I head to her new apartment.

She cries. When I tell her, Amelia isn’t exactly happy for me and doesn’t understand why I’d want to learn how to completely desiccate a body to preserve it for centuries, because that’s just disgusting. She buries her face in my chest and just cries.

“It’ll only be for a year,” I comfort her. “I swear, when I’m done, we’ll go on an epic road trip. To California or Florida or somewhere warm with an ocean.”

“We better,” she sobbed.

Feeling hollow and tired, I head back to the house that night.

The moment I walk in the door, it’s obvious everything is wrong.

“Were there not security cameras installed before we purchased the home?” I hear Cyrus bellow.

I step into the living room, and my blood goes cold.

The house has been tossed. The furniture is all out of sorts. All the bookcases have been toppled. Everything from the kitchen has been drug out and the cupboards look like they exploded.

“What…” my voice shakes. “What the hell happened?”

Sharp eyes turn to me. Cyrus, glowing red. Mina, with fear and shame. Fredrick with just terror.

“Apparently the security here was not as up to par as we were led to believe,” Cyrus hisses. “It was what it looks like.”

Like someone broke in and went searching the house for…something. And dug through every square inch of the house to find it.

“What were they looking for?” I ask, looking around.

A low rumble echoes from Cyrus’ chest. I look over, to see him glaring with red eyes at Mina.

“Confirmation,” he says.

“Of what?” I question.

“That I am here!” he bellows. “That the King has indeed arrived once more in America and has been operating for weeks under little to no security.”

“Who?” I demand. “Who would do this? Why would they be looking for you?”

Cyrus swings, smacking a glass from the counter. It smashes against the fridge, denting the appliance, and sending shards of glass spraying throughout the kitchen.

“One does not rule this long without making hundreds of enemies,” he growls. Abruptly he turns and stalks toward me. “I am sorry, Logan, but I’m afraid I can no longer hold up my end of the deal. We must do this now and leave.”

I back up, but he’s too fast. He darts forward, grabbing my wrist. His eyes glow bright.

“No!” I scream. “You said you were a man of your word. Do you really want to destroy that now over someone I know you can hold your own against?”

Black veins slowly creep out over Cyrus’ face and his eyes flare brighter for just a moment.

Hot rage bubbles in my chest.

“Are you afraid?” I taunt.

He hisses, low and rumbling.

“The King may have many enemies, but he has not remained King by running with his tail between his legs over a tossed house.” I stand straight, yanking my wrist out of his grip.

Bravado. I gather it all up inside me to fight back the rising panic.

My death is seconds away at any moment. Cyrus is certainly capable.

If I’m going to fight for my last moments, I have to do it with certainty.

“Seven days,” Cyrus hisses. “You will die in seven days. But be prepared for some ugly, tumultuous ones.”

He turns, and yells at Fredrick and Mina in German. They go scurrying.

I turn, and head for my bedroom, which has been just as thoroughly ransacked as the rest of the house.