By the time I reached The Anvil, I felt clear-headed enough for the compulsion to nearly vanish from my mind. I could finally think straight. Logic told me that no compulsion could last forever, but the power of a master vampire was not to be underestimated. Better to drive the remaining hundred metres than to try turning back and risk collapsing from the pain. Only now did it dawn on me: I’d become so attached to these ruins that I truly considered them home. And good thing, too! The last thing I needed was to haul myself all the way to Avoc—across four counties—in torn and bloodied clothes.

  Knuckles, what a clever lad! Knows how to think when it matters. He’d even had the sense to warn Harry. The wizard was waiting for me at the gates with a fresh shirt and jacket. Hovering above his right shoulder, three multi-element spell constructs burned brightly in the air. The main color was green—blood! Oh, what a fool I am! Drawing blood from the reservoirs… No it wouldn’t have helped anyway. The cufflinks were drained. Ether and earth were still holding on, but all the blood was gone. Maybe it was thanks to that last bit of blood that I’d been able to give Knuckles the order to drive me here.

  I stopped the car and felt a wave of irritation rise inside me. The command Kate had planted was still pulling me forward, urging me into the building, but I had just enough strength to resist. I opened the door and stepped out.

  Harry flicked his fingers, and one of the glowing multi-ray stars—woven from ether and blood—compressed into a blinding spark as bright as the sun and shot straight into my third eye. The world wobbled and exploded with light. I grabbed onto the Cooper’s door just in time to stop myself from collapsing onto my arse.

  The dazzling light vanished in an instant, as though it had never been there, and a perfect stillness settled in my mind.

  “Thanks,” I said to Harry. “And what about the others?” I gestured at the two remaining spells.

  “We’re heading back. They’re for healing and temporary protection.”

  The diamond-shaped spell, a construct of earth, water, and blood, slammed into my chest, forcing a growl of pain from my throat. The wound on my chest began to close before my eyes, but the sensation was as if my skin were being torn apart all over again.

  The second spell, a series of rings covered in glowing runes, hovered above me before plunging downwards, wrapping my body in a thin film of invisible protection. Or invisible to most, anyway. My magical vision distorted the colour into shades of blue.

  “Get in the back seat and change,” Harry ordered, handing me the clothes.

  “You’re driving? Maybe I’ll change after we get there?” Harry was a terrible driver, though he’d never admit it. In his eyes, with his years of experience, Knuckles and I—just a couple of snot-nosed kids—couldn’t possibly be better than him. And while his coordination wasn’t an issue, he simply didn’t have enough practice behind the wheel, always claiming he didn’t have the time.

  “Get in the back!” Harry barked.

  Thankfully, he didn’t plan on driving the whole way. As soon as we picked up Knuckles, he moved to the passenger seat. In the meantime, I managed to wipe the blood and scabs off my chest with my torn shirt and replaced it with the fresh one. I reattached the cufflinks and charged them with blood from a reservoir in my satchel. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to recharge the stone skin ring—we’d arrived.

  The scene outside the baronet’s house was bustling. Half a dozen constables stood in a perimeter, a police truck with the royal insignia parked nearby, along with four unmarked cars. No coroner’s van or ambulance in sight. Excellent.

  Harry was the first to jump out of the car. I followed, tugging my jacket into place. The sight of my pistol in its shoulder holster caused a bit of tension among the constables.

  “Gentlemen,” said the sergeant, stepping forward, “you’re not allowed past this point.”

  The number five on his lapel marked him as part of the local station, which meant negotiating would be difficult. But before I could reply, a petite woman in civilian clothes standing by the porch called out:

  “Sarge, let them through.”

  The sergeant grumbled something unpleasant and stepped aside. I recognised the woman—she was part of the special unit. Last time I’d seen her, she’d been wearing a protective vest and dosing victims with potions.

  “Madam,” I greeted her politely.

  “Sir Harry. Lord Duncan,” she replied. “Wait here. I’ll notify the detective.”

  She turned to go inside, but the roar of engines cut through the air, and two black roadsters screeched to a halt at the perimeter, tyres squealing. The woman clicked her tongue in annoyance and opened the front door.

  “All right, boys, let’s get to work!”

  From inside came the sound of shouting, with at least one voice belonging to the younger Kilworth brother. He was also the first to step out.

  “Who the hell else has shown up?” barked Roger, the elder Kilworth, as he threw the door open. This time, the badger shifter was wearing a PSS vest, bristling with enchantments and carrying two combat rods. He spotted me instantly. “Duncan, are you causing trouble?”

  “Hello, Roger,” I said, gesturing towards the roadsters, from which three men in expensive suits and a woman in a wide-brimmed hat were climbing out.

  “I was starting to think they wouldn’t show up!” Roger said gleefully. “What do you think, Yan? A good day after all!”

  Yan Kilworth didn’t share his brother’s enthusiasm. And I understood why. Four ragged claw marks ran across his face, stitched up with fresh sutures.

  Roger stepped out of the doorway, letting his brother pass, followed by two unfamiliar fighters. One was a sharp-featured man armed with sabres, while the other was a stocky figure hefting a Browning machine gun. Judging by the molten glow in its magazine, he was ready to turn this meeting into a fiery one.

  The old sergeant stepped in the path of the woman in the hat. He didn’t flinch, but she, her eyes blazing red, charged forward like a bull seeing a red cloth, growling, “Out of my way!” before flinging him aside with ease.

  A thin thread of fire shot out from Roger’s rod. Had it not been for her enhanced reflexes, the vampire woman would’ve been left with a hole in her head. Instead, her hat flew off, catching fire as it hit the ground.

  “Assaulting a police officer in the line of duty!” Roger commented with smug satisfaction. “You never learn, do you? We can arrest all of you, or just you. Your choice.”

  “What about Simon? If that bitch laid so much as a finger on him—”

  Roger’s grin turned nasty as he interrupted her.

  “Oh, she had a fine bit of fun with him!”

  Bloody hell, why did he have to say that?

  I raised my left hand, the one with the shield ring. Harry, too, started tracing patterns in the air. Even though I couldn’t see anything in the subtle layers of magic, I was certain he was preparing a spell.

  “Now be a good little girl,” Roger continued, “and put your hands out for the cuffs.”

  “Forgot who you’re talking to, mutt?” Nina snapped.

  “Remember how I knocked you flat in the club?”

  The vampire couldn’t hold back any longer. She shrieked, and waves of death and air magic, tinged with sickly hues, erupted from her lips. A crushing fatigue hit me, as though I’d spent a full day unloading freight cars without a break, but it passed the moment Harry placed his hand on my shoulder.

  I drew my pistol, but a voice as clear as day rang out in my head: “Don’t you dare!” It was Harry’s voice, and I could swear no one else heard it.

  The man with the machine gun opened fire. The BAR spat out five dark red fireballs, aimed directly at the vampires. Yan fired a shot from his sawed-off, Roger unleashed a beam from his rod, and even the sharp-featured man swung his sabres, releasing arcs of sand-charged crescents.

  But the combined assault slammed against an invisible steel-tinged barrier set up by two male vampires, shielding their group. One of them casually pulled a grenade from his pocket, leapt up, and hurled it over the shield. The throw was so powerful and precise it might as well have been fired from a cannon.

  Roger tried to intercept it mid-air with a beam from his staff. He missed the grenade but sliced the vampire’s hand clean off. The grenade barely missed us, exploding half a metre short in a plume of dense fog, so thick even subtle magic couldn’t penetrate it.

  “Fog!” I said to Harry.

  The wizard muttered something under his breath, and the veil became semi-transparent. Magical energies were now far easier to see than mortal bodies.

  From a window in the house opposite, a burst of light—ether and steel—flashed. The head of one of the shield-holding vampires burst apart in a spray of black sludge. Their protection failed.

  Nina, surrounded by a dense vortex of death magic, caught two enchanted bullets in the chest and was thrown backwards into a roadster.

  The man with the sabres closed the distance to a vampire so quickly I could have believed it was teleportation—if not for the faint trail of sand magic left on the ground.

  The sabres struck at the vampire, but he blocked them effortlessly with his hands. He wasn’t fast enough to stop the second bullet from the same window, though. It struck the back of his head, shattering it as easily as it had his companion’s.

  Wait—what was that?

  The entire street was littered with small but dense patches of sand and steel. Beyond that, full magical schematics were visible on the ground.

  “Harry?” I asked, pointing to the nearest marker. By that point, I no longer cared about how they finished off the last vampire or how they restrained Nina.

  “It’s a trap,” the wizard explained.

  The woman beside us, who hadn’t participated in the fight, let out a surprised hum of acknowledgment.

  “I’d ask you not to spread this around.”

  “Think Nina won’t figure it out?”

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  “I couldn’t care less. She just lost her best fighters.”

  “But why?” I asked.

  “For balance. The Lindemanns and the Gratches used to counter the Valentines, but with Noah and Lucas dead, the whole system went to hell, and Nina got carried away.”

  “Then why not just get rid of her?”

  “Vampires are more like wolves than birds, even though they call their groups nests. They need a strong leader, or things fall apart. And it’s too early to take her out. After all, she still has a few questions to answer, doesn’t she?”

  “Liza!” Roger called out.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen, time to work.”

  The girl quickly ran over to the Kilworth brothers, who were in the process of tying up Nina. She easily leapt over the body of a dead vampire and stopped near the roadster. Yan grabbed the vampire by the hair, pulling her head back, while Roger pressed on her cheekbones and forced her jaw open. Liza pulled a vial out of her pocket and poured its contents into Nina’s mouth. Roger immediately clamped her jaw shut with his hand to make sure she couldn’t spit it out.

  For a couple of minutes, Nina thrashed around like a stubborn mare, but soon her strength began to wane. Her movements slowed, and eventually, she went limp. Yan threw her over his shoulder and carried her into the house.

  “Can we come in?” Harry asked Roger, who was walking ahead.

  “I’ll ask,” the shifter replied. He held the door open for his brother, waited until Yan had carried Nina inside, and then, before stepping in himself, turned to Liza and said, “Liza, don’t linger.”

  The girl was busy tending to the injured sergeant, giving him some kind of potion. She soon ran past us as well.

  “Are we being polite?” I asked Harry.

  “Polite as can be,” the wizard confirmed.

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because something bloody strange is going on.”

  “But usually, when something bloody strange happens, you…” I mimed Harry casting a spell with a dramatic gesture.

  "And whom would you suggest targeting here?" Harry gestured at the constables.

  “Agreed—leave them alone,” I nodded, just as the door opened.

  “Come on,” Roger said.

  We passed through the house, and on the back patio, we ran into the butler, who was pressing a towel with ice against his jaw, accompanied by a couple of angry-looking men in civilian clothes.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” said a rather unremarkable brunette whose only notable feature was his large, protruding ears. “Who are they?”

  “Freelancers,” the shifter replied coolly, holding the door open to the barn-turned-gym.

  “That’s Lord Loxlin!” the butler objected as we walked in. “He hit me!”

  “I’d have killed you,” Roger replied, shutting the door behind us.

  “Smith. Kinkaid,” Bertram nodded at us. I wasn’t sure what rank he held within the special unit, but judging by his demeanour, he was in charge here. His casual disregard for our titles spoke volumes about his authority and position. Harry, however, didn’t seem to care and greeted him just as curtly, by surname.

  “Vixley. Hello, John,” Harry nodded at Sunset before turning to look at Kate, who was tied to one of the gym’s columns.

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” the detective said, stopping him. “We’ve got an understanding here, more or less.”

  Kate nodded reluctantly. Her face was a mess. Vampires don’t bruise easily, but her swelling was impressive. Her eyes were puffed up, and her lips were swollen like minced meat. Still, she looked better than after her fight with Flower. At least this time, her hair was intact, and her clothes, while riddled with holes, weren’t burned off completely.

  Her red jacket bore punctures from blades, bullets, and even claws and fangs. Kate’s three sisters were sprawled unconscious on the floor, displaying a similar collection of injuries, though to a lesser extent.

  “Questions can wait,” Bertram cut in curtly. “Liza, start.”

  The girl pulled a piece of chalk from her pocket and quickly sketched a ritual circle on the floor, filling it with runes and figures. The purpose of the ritual eluded me, but Harry showed immediate interest and stepped closer. Within seconds, he had pulled out a book and extracted a different spell from its pages.

  “I suggest we use this,” he said.

  “I…” The girl squinted at the symbols. “I won’t work it out that quickly. It’s far more sophisticated.”

  “And far more stable.” Harry reassured everyone.

  “It doesn’t have any containment factors.”

  “It’s a meditative circle. And we already have plenty of containment factors,” Harry replied, gesturing at himself, Bertram, and the Kilworth brothers.

  Still, she hesitated to make the decision herself and looked to her commander.

  “We do have enough containment,” Vixley nodded. “The rest is up to you.”

  “Then, if you would, sir,” Liza said, gesturing to the floor.

  Harry waved his hand, and the chalk marks vanished, replaced by the completed spell. Yan immediately laid Nina on top of it, and Liza poured another potion down the vampire’s throat, then nodded to Harry. The wizard adjusted Nina’s limp body with telekinesis, positioning her so that none of her limbs extended beyond the inner, rune-free section of the circle, and activated the seal.

  The steel and earth runes darkened, embedding themselves into the floor as though eating through it. The ether, blood, and water runes released columns of light, each matching their respective element. Harry moved his fingers, and the columns swayed, bending until the energy from the runes flowed into Nina’s head, directly into the blackened spot on her forehead—where a human’s third eye would be.

  Harry glanced at Liza, who reached into her pocket and pulled out another vial. Did she just carry these, or was that a dimensional pocket?

  “Who’s going to ask the questions?” she asked, looking at the commander.

  “We agreed already!” Sunset snapped, snatching the vial from her hand.

  “It’s disgusting, but there’s no backup!” she reminded him firmly.

  John poured the contents into his mouth, visibly struggling to swallow it as he fought back a grimace.

  “Foul stuff. When does it ki—” His eyes lit up with ether. “Ah… I see. Ready to start asking?”

  “Yes. Just make sure to keep your eyes on her. Preferably, make eye contact,” Liza instructed.

  Harry tilted Nina’s head with telekinesis so that John could follow her advice exactly.

  “Did you kill Valerie Lindemann?” Sunset asked.

  “No,” Nina replied flatly.

  “Do you know who did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bitch!” Kate hissed.

  “Do I tie her mouth shut?” Bertram asked rhetorically.

  “Who?” Sunset continued.

  “An Archmaker,” Nina replied with the same detached tone. That made sense; the whole city had been buzzing about it already. Vampires valued rumours and were adept at distinguishing truth from fiction. It was one of the pillars of their survival.

  “Damn it!” Sunset cursed. “I’d hoped…”

  “Stay calm! You’ll break the connection,” Liza warned.

  Sunset took a loud breath in, exhaled, and steadied himself.

  “Do you know the Archmaker?”

  “No.”

  “Bloody hell!” Sunset snapped. Nina flinched noticeably.

  “Detective!” Liza chided.

  “Where were you on the night of the murder?” Sunset pressed on.

  “At the Golden Tear first, then at my nest.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “With Simon.”

  “He was with you all night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn it!”

  Nina twitched again, the light in her eyes went out, and her body arched violently, spilling almost-black, undigested blood into the ritual circle. The blood runes immediately boiled away in green vapour, the pillars of light dispersed, and the structure of the seal collapsed into smoke. Harry let go of the vampire, and she slumped into her own vomit.

  “I warned you!” Liza said sharply. “Be careful with your emotions!”

  “How am I supposed to keep calm?” Sunset shot back heatedly. “We’re screwed, and we’ve got no leads!”

  “She had to be lying!” Kate exclaimed.

  “I wouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Bertram said, turning to Liza and pointing at Sunset. “If I’m not mistaken, we’ve still got a few minutes.”

  “You can’t subjugate the same vampire twice,” Liza replied.

  “But you do have another submission potion, don’t you? What about her?” Vixley asked, nodding toward Kate.

  “What?” Kate asked, looking startled.

  “This way we can also test whether it’s possible to lie under the potion’s influence.”

  “Hmm… Fine. Just keep the questions to this case,” the vampire agreed.

  “Get on with it!” Bertram ordered.

  Liza hurried to administer the potion to Kate while Bertram told the Kilworths to untie her.

  “There’s no need,” Harry interjected. “Duncan, I need blood and water reservoirs.”

  “I’m out of water,” I said, pulling a box from my satchel.

  Vixley slipped a ring from his finger and tossed it to the wizard.

  “Will this do?”

  Harry nodded, holding the ring’s gem to the page of his spellbook, repeating the process with a bloodstone, and pouring in ether. The spell was restored even before the potion began to take effect on Kate. Harry lifted the spell from the page and flung it onto the floor, positioning the column with Kate at the centre.

  The process repeated itself, though the glow in Kate’s and John’s eyes took longer to ignite this time. Sunset asked the same questions and, to everyone’s frustration, got the same answers. Except, instead of spending the night indulging herself, Kate had spent it working on paperwork and survival plans for her nest.

  Annoying. It really was a dead end. But this time, John kept his emotions in check and managed to ask a few more relevant questions. For example, why had she attacked Simon? That’s when the answers started getting uncomfortable for me.

  The special unit suddenly learned that Kate was deeply concerned for my safety and had assigned round-the-clock surveillance to me. More than that, she herself had been performing most of the protective duties since most of her sisters weren’t qualified for the job. The only time she left me unsupervised was when I was at The Anvil or under the protection of stronger fighters, like the Kilworths or Harry.

  And here I thought all of that was in the past. I hadn’t noticed any surveillance for a while, but there hadn’t been any until Kate reinstated it after the Archmaker’s attack.

  John also asked about the girls—how they ended up at the Golden Tear—and confirmed his suspicions about James’s reputation. Kate was terrified of Nina—not of Gratch herself, but of the possibility that her nest would destroy what remained of the Lindemanns. She lacked her father’s diplomatic talent and was desperately searching for allies.

  Overall, the interrogation clarified the broader picture of recent events, but none of it shed any light on the Archmaker or Valerie Lindemann’s murder. John kept questioning Kate until the spell’s effects wore off. By then, Nina had regained consciousness, but no one paid her any attention. She was left to observe the proceedings.

  “Where did you get the heart?” she croaked suddenly.

  I shot Harry a questioning look, and he mouthed the word ‘ancient,’ then mimed drinking a potion. He meant an ancient vampire—a grandmaster, perhaps even a prince—and there was no chance he’d given it willingly.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Vixley said dismissively. “How much did you hear?”

  “From the part about surveillance,” Nina replied.

  The shifter nodded and sat down across from her.

  “She believed you were involved,” he said, “but now she knows you’re not. I suggest you girls arrange a temporary truce—especially now that you’ve lost your trump cards.”

  The vampire bared her fangs and hissed, but Bertram growled in return, baring his teeth as his eyes gleamed.

  “Don’t lose your head,” he growled. “Or that will stop being a metaphor.”

  Nina composed herself.

  “Simon?” she asked.

  “He’s inside,” the shifter replied with a grin. “You know, usually it’s the boys who die because of you. I like this one. What a mess he got you into…”

  “What?” Nina snapped.

  “Not literally,” Bertram clarified. “But if he hadn’t started that fight with Duncan, Kate wouldn’t have stepped in, and you wouldn’t have shown up here.”

  “He has nothing to do with this,” Nina said dismissively. “This is you. You’ve been holding a grudge against us for years. Mostly against Valentine, but he was out of your league. If it weren’t for Lucas… Don’t tell me you planted this stupid idea in his head?”

  Bertram tapped his forehead with a finger.

  “Lucas,” he said simply.

  “Lucas,” Nina agreed. “He was always scheming anyway.”

  Kate had fully regained consciousness by then, and Vixley put the question bluntly:

  “So, ladies, will there be peace in the city, or are we about to have three new parents instead of one?”

  “I haven’t been officially named,” Kate reminded him.

  “You know what I mean.”