The morning was anything but good. To start with, it didn’t begin with breakfast and a cup of tea, as mornings should, but with a visit from Kate Lindemann. It was Cap who woke me up, and Harry just went ahead and invited the bloodsucker into the house. To top it off, I’d had a sleepless night, and my calf and shin were swollen to the size of decent-sized logs – a side effect of applying a wound-healing potion directly to the muscle during cleansing. The muscles were regenerating at a frantic pace: old, damaged fibers were dying off, and new ones were growing, producing an enormous amount of waste that needed water to flush out. The water drained from the rest of my body, leaving my mouth feeling like a desert, with a nasty sandy aftertaste. This didn’t just ruin my mood – It wrecked my manners, too.

  Harry had seated the bloodsucker in the kitchen, at the very same spot she occupied after the fight with Flower, while he sat across from her. Limping into the room, I didn’t even bother with greetings – I rasped out a demand for water instead. Only after quenching my thirst did I notice another, equally pressing natural urge. I excused myself to get rid of three times the water I’d just drunk. It did wonders for the size of my leg. On my way back from the toilet, my leg felt lighter with every step, and it wasn’t as tightly wrapped by the fabric of my trousers anymore. The urge came back, of course, but I couldn’t spend my entire morning in the bathroom, so I decided to endure it.

  “Apologies for my manners,” I said upon returning. “It’s been a rough night.”

  It’s always like this with vampires. And you’re never sure which is worse: when they climb through your window at night with obvious intent, or when they politely knock on your door with a smile. This morning, by all appearances, wasn’t going to be any less troublesome.

  “I heard,” Kate said, setting her teacup into its saucer. I wondered if Harry had deliberately seated her there to remind her what she’d looked like after the fight. Today’s lady in red bore little resemblance to the charred scarecrow with a tuft of hair on a bald head she’d been then.

  No, I don’t think so. Harry’s not one for playing psychological games.

  “So, what are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I want to offer my help.”

  “I’m having déjà vu,” I said, shaking my head. “The last time you offered, Lucas was here, too. "Why didn’t you bring your sister along this time?"

  "I’ve brought two of them, actually," Kate replied. “They’re waiting outside. Want to meet them?”

  “No thanks. I’ll pass.”

  “They’re here to protect you.”

  “I’ll pass!” I snapped decisively.

  “Then tell me what you’ve found so far. I’d rather you not get yourself killed before cracking this case. Or have you gotten yourself into something else besides investigating?”

  I felt a strange relief wash over me. Finally, clear and cynical motives I could understand. Hopefully, with no hidden layers.

  “Nothing much, really,” I said, brushing her off.

  “No one tries to kill you over ‘nothing.’ Is Kettle involved in this?”

  “After a personal conversation with him, I’m inclined to agree with you: he’s just an idiot.”

  “Then why did someone try to kill you?”

  The key in this conversation was not to mention Nina. If Kate found out about Kettle’s connection to her, there’d be a mountain of corpses. But she’d find out anyway. After the assassination attempt, she’d definitely focus her attention on the baronet, and Gratch, as everyone knows, never kept her favorites a secret. Damn it, I couldn’t make this kind of decision. I didn’t care about the bloodsuckers, but I could ruin Sunset’s game.

  “Harry,” I said, turning to him, “give me a moment of silence. I need to make a call.”

  The wizard nodded, pulled out a book, and activated a ‘silence dome’ from it.

  It took three calls to get through. For some reason, I called John’s home first, then his precinct, but finally caught him at headquarters, wasting more than half an hour in the process. After outlining the situation in a couple of sentences, I also proposed a solution. John was pleased that I hadn’t gone rogue and accepted my plan with almost no objections.

  Returning to the kitchen, I informed Kate that the detective and I had a theory: someone was trying to pit the nests against each other. With the current power balance, the Lindemanns didn’t stand a chance. But no one would let Nina become the sole leader of the city’s bloodsucking community. She’d be eliminated – along with the remnants of her nest – long before that could happen.

  Offering this theory, I only intended to keep Kate from doing something rash. It was a way to buy Sunset the time he needed to convince the higher-ups to let him talk to Nina. But the theory turned out to be a little too convincing. It wouldn’t be funny at all if this turned out to be a de Camp's operation or something cooked up by the Secret Service.

  Kate seemed startled and, apparently, believed me. She promised not to touch the baronet, but she was unyielding about one thing: I was getting a security detail in the form of her sisters, whether I liked it or not. She was a master herself and had barely survived her fight with Flower. Her girls were just tutors; they wouldn’t stand a chance against someone of his caliber. How could they possibly protect me?

  We couldn’t reach an agreement and were ready to keep arguing when Kate resorted to extreme measures.

  “Fine,” the vampire said irritably, her anger barely concealed as her fangs slipped out. “Cards on the table. I want to live!”

  “And I’m stopping you, am I?”

  “You are!” she snapped, slamming her small, feminine fist onto the table with decidedly unfeminine force. “Your kind cousin tried to slit my throat right after Lucas died!”

  I instinctively reached for my gun, while Harry raised a hand toward the vampire’s neck, making her recoil unnaturally.

  “Sir Harry,” she said in a strangled voice, “please. I don’t intend to do anything foolish.”

  Harry flexed his fingers, and Kate exhaled, rubbing her throat. After sipping her tea, she continued.

  “When Lucas died, the Seal of Loyalty dissolved, and I begged for mercy. Lord Avoc agreed – on the condition that I take the Seal of Oath.”

  The Viscount of Avoc – that was the title of Earl Bremor’s heir. Kate knew exactly who she’d made her promise to. But damn you, Evan, what did you drag me into?

  “Details,” I demanded.

  “I swore to protect you within this city’s limits.”

  I squinted at her, and Kate flared up.

  “Don’t like it?! I was absolutely thrilled! Especially after he removed the dagger from my throat! Go ahead, call him. I don’t expect you to take my word for it.”

  Luckily, Evan was home, sparing me from having to call a dozen other places.

  “Duncan, good to hear from you!” my cousin greeted me.

  “Evan, what’s this business with the vampire?” I asked bluntly.

  “You’re quick,” he replied without hesitation. “Look, the gist of it is, she had to be kept alive one way or another. We couldn’t risk weakening the nest too much.”

  “And since when do you care about bloodsuckers?”

  “Care? Duncan, don’t be ridiculous. The clan has plenty of experience with these sorts of decisions. If one nest gains an obvious advantage, its vampires could start running wild, and their rivals might resort to drastic measures. It’s either this or clearing out the entire city of bloodsuckers altogether. And that would cause a massive headache for both the Duke and the Mayor.”

  “So why drag me into it?”

  "Why not? I feel like it was the right decision."

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I allowed the bloodsucker to explain herself only as a last resort. Duncan, should the family be worried?”

  “Uhhh…”

  “Do I need to come over there and knock some sense into you myself, or should I ask Father to send someone?” Evan cut to the chase. And he knew how to knock sense into someone – his grandfather had drilled that into him.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “There’s just some minor trouble... Harry and I are helping the police…”

  “Spill it, Duncan! And don’t leave out the details.”

  I ended up telling him everything, even things I wasn’t entirely sure about myself. It was a stupid idea to try and lecture him. Sure, he’s my cousin, but he’s also a seasoned warlock and politician who’s more than twenty years my senior. It’s easy to forget that in our family – until he backs you into a corner, and then it all comes rushing back.

  Now, I could’ve dug my heels in, stayed silent, or tried to assert myself, but that would’ve just delayed the inevitable. The ‘corrective measures’ would follow soon enough. And if it had only been Evan, that’d be one thing – he’d knock me around and forget about it. But if Aunt Mary got involved... She wouldn’t just wring it out of me; she’d pull my brain out through my... well, you know. And the way she knows how to guilt-trip you – one look, and you feel like the most ungrateful bastard on the planet.

  Yeah, I’d definitely gotten too comfortable without the family’s oversight. Way too comfortable.

  Evan refused to recall the vampire, but honestly, I got off easy. At least he wasn’t about to send a cavalry charge to ‘assist’ me immediately.

  Back in the kitchen, I said to Kate, “If Sunset finds out about your girls, he’ll kick me off the investigation. And you won’t come out unscathed, either. Let’s make a deal. During the day, you don’t follow me. At night, I’ll stay here. If I’m not here, then you can start looking for me.”

  “Acceptable,” she agreed, “if you let me know in advance about any risky visits. For instance, to Nina. Are you going to talk to her, or is John handling it himself?”

  “That’s still up in the air.”

  “Nina has a knack for turning heads,” Kate warned. “Men far stronger-willed than you have agreed to things they’d never agree to with me.”

  “By the way,” Harry interrupted, “you owe me a favor. Let’s go. You too,” he added, nodding at me and motioning for Cap to join us.

  Harry led us to a large, half-empty room above the main hall. The air here hummed faintly with ether, though its pressure wasn’t as intense as it was downstairs, in the actual Place of Power. The wizard pulled out a spellbook and began scattering seals – on the floor, the walls, even in midair.

  To the seals, he added other figures – lonely runes and crude amulets, some resembling my own pyrite "brick." Harry meticulously examined the constructed system, its depth and purpose completely beyond my understanding, no matter how hard I tried to grasp it. Then he began manually adjusting some of the symbols.

  After forty minutes of painstaking work, he ordered the vampire and me to stand at the centers of two seals, facing each other. I was told to remove all my amulets, which I did immediately, guessing what Harry was after. Kate, on the other hand, had to push past her paranoia, but eventually, we all took our places, staring at each other through the murky pane of etheric glass formed by the seal hanging between us.

  “Now,” Harry said to the vampire, armed with a wooden clipboard, a dozen sheets of paper, and a pencil, “make him bark like a dog.”

  “Should I resist?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  A bit warily, Kate gave the command. Her lips darkened abruptly, and out of her mouth came not just words but a dark cloud of energy. It passed through the seal’s screen in an instant, leaving shadows of symbols suspended in the ether. I didn’t even have time to flinch before the foreign energy hit me square in the head.

  “Woof! Woof-woof.”

  Damn it, does the seal amplify the compulsion? I didn’t even have time to think about resisting.

  “Don’t go easy on him,” Harry scolded her. “Overpower his will.”

  “Isn’t this a bit much?” I asked.

  “It’s fine,” the wizard waved me off. “Keep going.”

  “Bark!” Kate snapped, her voice erupting with a stream of dark fire. Runes, symbols, lines, and marks flared to life in the ether.

  “Woof-woof-woof!” I shouted without even attempting to resist. Harry’s pencil scratched furiously across the paper.

  “There we go. One more time!”

  By the tenth time, Harry ordered a change of command. First, I mooed, then I bleated, and then I hopped on one foot. The humiliation burned my soul like molten iron. My pride was trampled and shoved into the mud, but I endured. It would be far worse if this happened in public – or during a fight, where others might depend on me. Shame I could survive. My grandfather had made me do worse.

  "That's enough," Harry finally said. "Nathan, escort our guest out and come back. You – stay where you are."

  When Cap returned, Harry had assembled yet another contraption out of glass, metal, and a few water stones. This miraculous artifact was handed to Cap, and he took the vampire’s place. The torment continued, only now the fog of compulsion took the form of water, which I saw as a soft blue-green glow. I’m sure the color has a proper name, and the girls probably know it, but to me, water is just blue-green.

  Cap activated the device and issued commands, and I obeyed. Harry’s invention had one key feature: the strength of the command could be adjusted. We found the threshold where I could start to resist and set the power just a notch higher. What resulted was a kind of training session.

  By the way, Harry tested the thing on himself, too. Even at maximum power, it didn’t work on him.

  “Training is all well and good,” I said, “but what do I do if, tomorrow, some stranger on the street orders me to shoot myself?”

  “Hope your amulet works,” Harry replied. “The new version will be ready by evening. Listen, my head’s about to explode. I can’t deal with this problem and work on the arch formulas at the same time. And thanks to you, I’ll also need to visit the library to clean up your mess. I told you – don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Learn to use what already works.”

  “Any progress with the arch?” I asked, quickly changing the subject. Though, honestly, he was being unfair. I’ve cobbled together more than one amulet. Sure, raw spellwork is different from enchanting amulets – anchors are placed differently, and energy centers can be more unstable – but I’ve got experience!

  “Absolutely none,” Harry said flatly. “It’s a mix of domestic and combat formulas from different regions. I can’t even guess what’s supposed to go in the missing section to make it all work.”

  I remembered the fang Sunset was supposed to bring Harry yesterday, but even that had led to nothing. This wasn’t a Ritual of Severing the Flesh; the vampire had safeguarded himself in some other way. A proper compass using the fang couldn’t be made. Harry tried three times, changing his approach each time, and three times the results were the same: the compass needle spun wildly, the crystal pointers projected hundreds of dots on the map, and the etheric trackers disintegrated into fragments.

  After lunch, Harry secluded himself with his formulas, Cap dove into his studies, and Knuckles and I decided to have a little hand-to-hand combat practice in the backyard. My ankle and the toes on his foot were back to normal – Harry had used a restoration spell. We stripped down to the waist, put on boxing gloves, and started pummeling each other.

  For the most part, I was winning on points, but occasionally, Knuckles managed to surprise me with blatantly dirty and unconventional moves. Painful, effective, and very educational for both of us. At the very least, I asked him to stop hitting me in the groin.

  It was during this session that we were interrupted by a phone call. Cap informed me that Harold Moody was on the line.

  Baronet’s attorney wanted a meeting, offering three options: a restaurant, his office, or “The Anvil.” The last option would’ve been ideal if the manor weren’t in such a state of disrepair. The guys kept the place tidy, but the peeling walls didn’t exactly exude the cozy atmosphere of Kettle’s house, so I agreed to meet at his office.

  Moody’s office was located in the City, nestled among hundreds of other firms. It consisted of two modest rooms connected by a shared lobby, making it a prime example of a family-run business. Harold occupied one of the offices with his son-in-law, while his daughter played the role of secretary. After five o’clock, the office was usually empty, except for the head of the family himself. The door to his office was wide open.

  He heard the click of the front door as I entered, poked his head out, and invited me in.

  Instead of offering me a chair across from his desk, Harold motioned toward the sofa in front of a coffee table. He took the armchair beside it, but not before offering tea and biscuits like a proper host. I didn’t refuse.

  We sipped our tea and crunched on biscuits. Harold didn’t rush to get to the point, instead making small talk about the weather.

  “Mr. Moody,” I interrupted, putting on a serious face.

  “Well, let’s consider the formalities observed,” he said, setting down his cup.

  “More than observed,” I agreed, though I kept hold of mine. I’d use it as a shield. “Let’s get to the point.”

  “Lord Loxlin, your clan specializes in professional hunting. I’d like to place an order on behalf of my client.”

  “Then you’ll need to call Avoc. Employment matters are handled by the head or members of the small council.”

  “I did call. They told me there’s already someone from Bremor in Farnell and suggested I contact you.”

  “I think I know where this is going,” I said. “You want to hire me to hunt down the Archmaker. And your client is Baronet Kettle.”

  “Precisely,” the attorney confirmed.

  That much was clear. But what was this bug up to? Trying to drag me into the investigation through the back door? Undermine the police? Create the image of a client who was confident in his innocence?

  In Bremor, they’d politely told him to take a hike. Thanks for that, of course, but a heads-up would’ve been nice.

  “I won’t take this job.”

  “One thousand pounds.”

  “Make it ten for all I care!” I snapped angrily. What a shame – money like that, slipping through my fingers! In any other situation, I’d have grabbed it with both hands, feet, and teeth. But this wasn’t a job; it was a bribe. “I don’t take bribes!”

  “Stop, young man, before you say something you’ll regret. Read the contract.”

  “I’m not…”

  “Just read it. I’m not asking you to sign it.”

  I read it. Damn it, calling this piece of paper a contract was generous! It didn’t obligate me to anything at all, yet I’d get paid regardless – at least half of the upfront payment. Technically, I was agreeing to track down the killer, but there were no penalties for failure. And there were no sneaky clauses about protecting the client, withholding information, or anything of the sort.

  “What’s the catch?” I asked. “This is what I’m already doing, what the police are doing.”

  “The police are interested in closing the case, not solving it. I’ve seen it time and again in my practice. Sometimes, a simple desire to uncover the truth is enough to save someone from the noose.”

  “And if he’s guilty?”

  “Lord Loxlin, I wouldn’t be defending a maniac.”

  “Straight answer, Mr. Moody,” I said. “Forgive my bluntness, but your faith in the baronet doesn’t interest me. What if Sunset finds indisputable evidence?”

  There was something off about this baronet guy. His behavior shifted in strange ways, especially in the presence of his attorney.

  Harold pressed his lips together but replied.

  “Then I’ll try to negotiate a reduced sentence. That will conclude my obligations to the Kettle family. But I want to be certain that the evidence is genuine. It must be checked – thrice! That’s what the money is for.”

  “Bullshit!” I realized. “The money is for the signature. I don’t know how, but in the worst-case scenario, you’ll use it against me. If I find evidence against the person who hired me, it’ll look absurd and suspicious. So absurd, it might actually be brilliant.”

  I remembered Lucas Lindemann’s words.

  “You’re perceptive, I’ll give you that,” the lawyer admitted.