The ranch was four to five hundred yards away. The terrain in between was too open for us to sneak up on the complex. Was this where Jamilla had been murdered?
Kyle whispered/She might still be alive.’It was as if he was reading my thoughts. What else did he know? What was he hiding from me?  ‘I’ve been thinking about the brothers. They never had to be careful before, so they weren’t. The magicians were the careful ones.  They committed murders for almost a dozen years. Never got caught.  There’s no record that they were even suspected of any of the murders.’
‘You think the new Sire set up Daniel and Charles?’ ‘That’s part of it, I’ll bet. The brothers committed murders in towns where the magicians toured. The Sire wanted us to catch up with Daniel and Charles. It was a trap.’
‘Why kill them in New Orleans?’
‘Maybe because the brothers are psychopaths. Maybe they had orders to do what they did. We’ll have to ask the Sire.’ ‘They don’t think anyone can stop them. Well, they’re wrong about that,’ Kyle said. “They’re going to be stopped.’ Which was when we got a surprise. The front door of the ranch house opened. Several men in dark clothes hurried outside. The two brothers weren’t among them. The men hurried to a grassy area where pickup trucks and vans were parked in a ragged line. They started the vehicles, then drove them toward the front of the house.
Kyle was on his Handie-Talkie. He alerted the snipers waiting in the trees and rocks behind us. ‘Stand ready.’
‘Kyle, don’t forget Jamilla.’
He didn’t answer me.
The front door opened again. Shadowy figures began to move out of the house. They were clothed in hooded black gowns and they came in pairs.
One person in each pair held a handgun to the head of the other.
‘Oh shit/I whispered............