“This is a bit strange for me,” Meghan noted as they traversed the brick roads of the Scatter’s version of Scoly Square. “I remember a portion of this from before Danvers. You’re telling me this is all gone now?”

  “Completely demolished,” Isabel confirmed, leading them down one of the side roads to the rear entrance of a corner establishment at the bottom of a set of stone stairs. The door, heavy and ancient-looking, appeared to be made of oak with iron banding.

  As Isabel traced a symbol in the center with her finger and then knocked in an oddly spaced pattern, Meghan took a few steps back, a wave of nausea threatening to overtake her. “I don’t think this is a good idea for me.”

  “It’ll be alright,” Isabel assured her. “You’re not full Fae.”

  As a st in the door opened, revealing a pair of corpse-like eyes, Meghan shook her head. That was hardly the point. One of the main reasons anyone in the supernatural community put iron fittings in their doorways was to restrict the amount of power Fae could wield on the grounds. Most of the full-blooded highborns couldn’t even enter, but Changelings and the lowborn still forfeited a great deal of their magical prowess and superhuman abilities when entering, rendering them almost helpless against any hostile actions of other members of the Hidden.

  Only a couple of words were exchanged between Isabel and the dead eyes on the other side of the st before a series of locks from the other side could be heard opening. By the time the door came open, Meghan was ready to flee back to the street and find something else to occupy her time while Isabel went about her business. Instead, the Gnasci grabbed her by the arm and pulled her inside.

  As Meghan crossed the threshold, she felt a part of her wrenched away, held just outside to await her return. “Hggnnk..”

  A glowing red neon sign hanging above the archway of the mudroom indicated they were in a pce called the Hemogarden. Beyond it, in the main room, the decor was intricate and the furniture quite high-end for an era around the 30s or 40s, with a few modern embellishments here and there to accommodate the clientele when needed. There were numerous paintings, portraits, and old pictures framed on the walls along with mirrors that didn’t show the reflections of a good portion of the establishment’s occupants. The air had a coppery tang to it, along with a hint of something magical.

  “It’s okay, I won’t let anything happen to you, we’ll be in and out before you---.”

  “Isabel!” A raspy voice called from one of the nearby booths, the accent vaguely Russian. Meghan turned to see that it belonged to an older vampire with skin nearly as white as her own and a shaved head. His fangs appeared overgrown, and his eyes were sunken and beady. “As I live and breathe, it is you. It’s been a long time. You working?”

  “Uh, yes, but not in the way you mean, Alexi,” Isabel responded bashfully. “I’m here on business for Josephine.”

  “Ah, no gigs then,” Alexi ughed, cpping a hand on her shoulder before looking at Meghan. “How bout you little Changeling, eh? Lookin’ for work, perhaps?”

  Meghan furrowed her brow and gnced between Alexi and Isabel. “What does he mean?”

  “Alexi is a fixer for the Hidden---former soviet, actually,” Isabel expined. “Alexi this Meghan Walsh she’s---.”

  “Walsh!” Alexi excimed, nearly gasping in disbelief. “By the blood, you’re Mererid’s spawn, aren’t ya?”

  Meghan’s brows furrowed as she jerked her arm from Isabel’s grip. “You don’t say her name.”

  “Here we can say anyone’s name,” the Vampire argued. “We are safe. She cannot hear.”

  The Gnasci’s eyes darted between the two of them uncertainly, noting Meghan’s temper beginning to fre despite her retive inability to back it up with anything at that time. “Alexi, I’m just here to pick some things up. Is Byron in?”

  “Yes, yes,” Alexi muttered, motioning toward the bar at the other end of the room. “If you must. Please, come back another time, little Changeling. I should like to speak to you of older times and of your mother.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Meghan said abruptly, only earning her a round of raucous ughter from the Vampire. He returned to his booth after bidding them farewell, rejoining a trio of women with a series of bites and bruises on their necks---his meal for the evening.

  “Are they---?” Meghan muttered, gesturing subtly with her head toward the women.

  “Here willingly?” Isabel finished. “On paper, yes. In actuality? I have no idea, and it’s not my pce to question it. Nor is it yours.”

  “Right,” Meghan muttered as she followed the Gnasci to the bar. The establishment served as a stark reminder of the moral ambiguity of various factions of the Hidden and how some ventured right past the realms of mortal concepts of right and wrong. It was one of the things she liked to avoid about the Hidden in general, but it was impossible to do when in a Scatter realm. In such pces, the ws of the Hidden superseded those of mortals who were utterly incapable of enforcing anything outside their home pne.

  “Isabel Crowley,” a dignified-looking barkeep, greeted them as they approached. His immacute mustache concealed the movements of his mouth almost completely. “Haven’t seen you around here in a while. What’ll it be?”

  “Evening, Byron. I need an order for Josephine. To go,” Isabel answered, flopping down onto one of the red leather stools at the bar.

  “She run out over there?” the Byron asked with a chuckle, drying a few shot gsses with a white towel as they talked.

  “I need something special that she doesn’t keep in stock, something with a little more zing,” Isabel responded, gncing at Meghan a little nervously before continuing. “Something Fae.”

  “Looks to me like you brought your own,” Byron said nodding to Meghan. “What am I missing here?”

  “I need Sidhe or Alfar, not Changeling,” Isabel countered curtly. Byron didn’t seem to take offense, but his demeanor shifted upon realizing Isabel wasn’t in the mood for a little verbal sparring or joking around.

  “Alright, alright,” Byron nodded, setting the gsses aside. “I should have something. How much you looking for?”

  “Full bottle,” the Gnasci responded, averting her gaze from Meghan whose horror and indignity continued to grow with each passing second. “Throw in a few Cruorfruit while you’re at it.”

  Byron’s bushy brow arched. “I’m surprised she likes those if she’s going for Fae blood. They’re a little bitter for her tastes, aren’t they?”

  “She dusts them with sugar,” Isabel answered, shrugging slightly. “Like little candies, I guess. She swears by them.”

  “Mm, I’ll have to try that,” Byron murmured thoughtfully before stepping out from behind the bar to have a look in a storeroom through a door to their left.

  As soon as the man vanished through the door, Meghan jabbed Isabel in the arm with one hand. “What the Hell!?”

  The Gnasci looked back at her a little embarassed before gesturing to the stool beside her. “Sit down before you make a scene, hm?”

  Meghan mounted the stool but not for the reason Isabel suggested. It gave her just the right angle to get in the woman’s face and fix her gaze with her own. “You’re ordering Fae blood for her? Is that supposed to be some kind of appetizer before she chomps down on me or something? Get her in the mood?”

  “No!” Isabel hissed, motioning for Meghan to keep her voice down with one hand. “It’s to deter her from getting any ideas. Any other stupid questions or can we get this over with and get the fuck out?”

  Stunned by the response, Meghan backed down, easing back onto her stool in silence.

  “Sorry,” Isabel murmured without looking at her. “I just...”

  “It’s alright,” the Changeling replied gently. “My fault completely.”

  From one of the other booths, a group of four individuals approached them, each of them wearing leather jackets with piercings and tattoos in various pces. Meghan raised a curious brow as they formed a semi-circle around the pair, as though to prevent their escape.

  “Did I hear the old-timer right?” the leader leather guy asked, running his hand crudely over his mouth to not-so-discreetly show his fangs in passing. “You’re one of Mererid’s?”

  Isabel turned to face them alongside the Changeling. “We’re not doing this. Fuck off.”

  “Shut it, Gnasci,” the leader spat disgustedly. The others shifted their posture uncomfortably the moment his aggression rose. “If I wanted to hear yapping, I’d buy a fucking dog. Mind your own business.”

  Isabel’s brows shot up, stunned by the sudden show of aggression from the Vampire. Meghan frowned, noticing the slight quiver in her lip. Gnasci were bred and conditioned to heed the commands of vampires, even if not directly in service to them. Many who worked at it could resist, but it wasn’t as though it ever became a simple thing to them. It was a struggle.

  “Don’t talk to her like that,” Meghan objected, making sure to curb any malice bubbling up inside her lest it sneak its way into her tone. “There’s not need for it. Whatever your business with me is, we can be polite about it, yes?”

  A few of the group exchanged gnces before deferring to the leader. Meghan started to get the impression that they weren’t all vampires, just him. Weakened as she was, all she had to go on was a hunch.

  “I don’t take lip from Gnasci,” the leader snarled.

  “What do you want?” Meghan pressed, trying to steer the man’s attention away from Isabel and back onto her.

  The man adjusted his leather jacket and lifted his stubbled chin. “I know a few people who’d pay real well to have a word or two with one of Mererid’s.”

  “I’m not interested,” Meghan answered as politely as she could manage. “My mother and I don’t precisely see eye-to-eye and we haven’t spoken in decades. I wouldn’t know anything about what she’s up to or where she is.”

  “That’s not my concern,” the leader ughed. “My only concern is that you’re delivered in one piece.”

  “Now you boys know better than that,” Byron said, emerging from the storage room with a double-barreled shotgun under one arm and the bottle Isabel had requested under the other. “We’re not having any of that in here. You want to continue this discussion, you can take it outside.”

  Before Meghan realized what was happening, the individual closest to Byron, a young man with piercings in his eyebrow, snatched the shotgun away from the barkeep in the blink of an eye. The leader made a move for Meghan, but her reaction was surprisingly fast despite the seeming loss of power at the door. With a swift kick, she knocked one leg out from under the leader, causing him to fall forward. The Changeling leaned to the side, grabbed the man by the back of the head, and assisted his fall onto the countertop.

  “OHHH!” The others in the group excimed, their hands going up to their mouths in shock. The leader went to stand, only slightly dazed despite the heavy impact, and Meghan brought her elbow down into the back of his skull, forcing his fangs to break off on the bar.

  “OH, SHIT!” Isabel yelped, jumping out of her seat to avoid the sudden gush of blood that came from the Vampire’s face. Meghan spun him around, holding him by his hair and neck between herself and the man with the pierced brow before he could get any ideas about using the weapon on her.

  “What’s that loaded with, Byron?” Meghan murmured against the Vampire’s neck, keeping her head from protruding out too much and offering an easier target.

  Byron, brows raised, took in the scene for a moment before answering. “Little bit of everything, really. I wouldn’t pull it on a Vampire unless I thought it would do the job.”

  “There you go,” Meghan said through gritted teeth. “So do you want to keep pushing and see how far this can go, or do you just want to walk out of here now?”

  The man holding the shotgun gnced between the leader and Byron, weighing his options before tossing it back to the barkeep. The man set the bottle down on the countertop and lifted the weapon in both hands, training it on a couple of the other men in the group standing a little too close together.

  “Get out,” he said in a suddenly commanding tone that caught Meghan and Isabel off guard. “I see you darken my doorway again and I’ll pin your fucking hearts to the mantelpiece. Got it?”

  Meghan patted the leader’s face once before releasing him back to the rest of his little gang. The group moved back, considering trying to rush them, but Meghan’s suspicion that only one of them was a Vampire looked to be more true with each passing second. The others were likely Varlets or some kind of other mook vying for a taste of power from a Vampire who made some big promises.

  As they took their leave and the rest of the patrons went back to their own business after the little spectacle, Meghan took a moment to steady herself. Despite her confident demeanor, she’d been terrified. Even with a clever application of force at the right time, Meghan shouldn’t have been able to catch the Vampire by surprise or manhandle him the way she had. How she’d managed it was beyond her.

  “Where’d you learn to fight?” Byron asked, pcing the shotgun on the counter.

  “Here and there,” Meghan answered a tad evasively. “But my father got me started.”

  Byron stared back at her impassively for a moment, absently sucking his teeth. “Your father, huh?”

  The Changeling nodded, realizing that perhaps Byron knew who that was. “Yep.”

  Without further comment on the subject, Byron slid the bottle across the counter, dropping a small bag of fruit next to it as he turned his attention back to Isabel. “Three Scoria.”

  “Three?” the Gnasci objected indignantly. “Last time it was two!”

  “It should be four, but I discounted it in appreciation of your companion’s quick hands,” Byron expined with a little shrug. “I can always put it back if you don’t have the scratch.”

  “Alright, alright,” Isabel grumbled, reaching into her jacket pocket. A moment ter, she spped three brass colored coins onto the counter. It had been a while since Meghan had seen the coins, the currency of the Hidden when dealing exclusively with other Hidden for non-mundane goods and services. They were said to be made from pieces of the Scatter itself, but the truth of the currency’s composition was known only to the Dragons in charge of it all. “Ridiculous.”

  Byron motioned to the bottle. “All yours. Maybe give those boys a few minutes to clear off before stepping outside, hm?”

  “Yeah,” Isabel murmured, grabbing the bottle and sack from the counter. “Thanks, Byron.”

  “Anytime,” he replied respectfully before turning his attention to another patron approaching the counter. Despite his warning, Isabel motioned for Meghan to follow her as she made her way back to the front door.

  “You’re not worried about those guys?” the Changeling asked uncertainly as they passed the corpse-like doorman sitting on a stool in an alcove just off the door. She wondered if he would lend a hand if an altercation took pce outside the door. He didn’t look like he’d moved from his spot since they’d entered the pce.

  Isabel smirked as she gnced at Meghan. “I’m carrying a bottle of magical blood. I’ll be alright.”

  Meghan wondered what sort of additional power the magic in the blood lent to Blood Magic. Fortunately, as they stepped back out into the open, they didn’t have to find out. There was no sign of the gang of leather-cd individuals. Either they’d had enough for the night or were off getting reinforcements to return with. either way, Meghan preferred to be long gone as quickly as possible.

  Even with her power returned, setting her mind and heart at ease once more, Meghan didn’t want to test herself against too many Vampires in one night. She was fairly confident in her ability to throw a punch, but Vampires weren’t typically put down in fist fights and could keep coming when they didn’t have someone pointing a weapon at them with potentially fatal consequences.

  “This way,” Isabel said, taking a different route back toward Adams Square. “Best to avoid the Brat in case they have more friends hanging around.”

  “The Brat?” Meghan echoed inquisitively. “What’s that?”

  “Brattle Street,” Isabel crified. “Most of the younger Hidden hang out in that area, so they call it the Brat.”

  Meghan smirked, liking the py on words, even if it was meant to be a little on the derogatory side. As they returned through Scoly and then Adams, Meghan noted how the foot traffic had increased significantly. The ter it got, the more active it was likely to get, as had been the way of things even back in her day. The Changeling sighed inwardly, thinking about the phrase “back in her day” as it now reted to her.

  “How much Scoria do you have?” Meghan asked, detecting the scent of hot dogs in the air.

  “Not enough to be wasting on food,” Isabel teased. “We’ll get something at the Orchid when we get there. You just have to hold out for a little while longer. You’ve got a real nose for junk food, you know that?”

  Meghan pursed her lips in mock indignation as they descended into Adams Square Under. There, they exited the Scatter the same way they came, waving to the strange old man in the booth as they passed. Soon, they were back in the Government Station station, boarding an outbound train.

  “What’s that?” the doorman at the Orchid asked when they walked up to the front door. Meghan noted how most of the people waiting outside to get in weren’t Hidden, but young mortals looking for a pce to drink and party. She could feel the thumping beat of the music from inside like a giant, excited heartbeat.

  “Gift for Josephine,” Isabel said, leaning close and opening the sack. She’d shoved the bottle in with the fruit, just in case someone didn’t mistake the bottle for an especially dark bottle of red wine.

  The doorman nodded and motioned for her to go on ahead of those waiting in line. Isabel jabbed her thumb in Meghan’s direction. “She’s with me.”

  “Alright, go on,” the doorman answered before holding a hand out to the next person in line, who mistook their access as an open invitation for the rest of them. The line exploded into protests of people demanding why the two women had been granted entry, but no one else had. The noise of the line was swiftly drowned out as they entered the nightclub, the powerful sound nearly knocking Meghan over.

  “Eghh,” she grunted, pcing her hands on her ears for a moment while she acclimated to the music thumping around her. The dancefloor was filled with people dancing and grinding up against each other, all of whom appeared to be having a good time. The bar was packed with people waiting to be served by one of the bartenders behind the counter.

  Isabel weaved her way expertly through the crowd, past the bar, and up a discreet entryway to a staircase that went up a floor. When they reached the next floor, the overall atmosphere had changed. The club goers were nowhere to be seen, and only a few individuals in suits could be seen lingering around in the hall. As Isabel approached, one of them moved to meet her halfway.

  “Hold on,” the man said, his dark hair slicked back, his wide jaw looking as if it had been chiseled from stone. He had a slight underbite that made him resemble a pcid bulldog in human form. Of course, he wasn’t human at all. Meghan could practically feel the weight of his undead aura upon her as he drew near.

  “Just a gift for Josephine, Sys,” Isabel objected with an exasperated sigh, though despite her protest, she physically complied with surrendering the sack to the man for inspection.

  “Vicar,” the man corrected, reaching into the sack to sift around. “Ugh. Cruorfruit.”

  “She likes them,” the Gnasci chuckled with a little shrug as the Vampire returned the sack to her. He motioned for her to go on ahead to the door he’d evidently been guarding alongside the others.

  “Behave yourself,” he remarked as he returned to his post.

  Meghan watched him for a moment longer, much more wary of him than she already had been, now that she knew he was a Vicar. As rusty as she was with her Vampire lore, she recognized the position as essentially the chief of security for a Vampire Bishop. It wasn’t a position they gave to the faint of heart or to someone without the proper combat experience. If, for whatever reason, they got into another scrap that night, the Vicar would be able to put her through a wall without breaking a sweat.

  As soon as they stepped into the office, the sound of the club was diminished considerably, allowing the tension in her shoulders to gradually ease.

  “Isabel,” a woman behind a desk acknowledged unhappily. “That was not what I had in mind when I sent you over to the hospital.”

  “I know,” Isabel said, stepping further into the Vampire’s office. A second Vampire woman, whom Meghan hadn’t noticed right away, stood from where she’d been sitting in the corner of the room. It was strange that Meghan hadn’t sensed her, considering the metaphysical weight that the Vicar and the Bishop both had about them against her sense for the unseen. It was like the woman was completely invisible to it. “But we didn’t have all the facts.”

  “What’s this?” the other woman asked, poking the bag briefly before taking it off Isabel’s hands. “Blood?”

  “Fae blood,” Isabel crified with a little smile. Despite the Bishop’s displeasure with the Gnasci, Meghan could see her interest visibly peaked. Isabel had taken the time to really get to know the Vampire she served, and it was already beginning to pay off as her demeanor shifted.

  “Get the good gsses,” the Bishop remarked to the other Vampire before motioning for the pair to take their seats across from her. “Alright. You’ve bought yourself a little leeway, so this had better be good.”

  Isabel chewed her lip as she exchanged gnces with Meghan. “Good isn’t precisely how I would describe it.”