The darkness was calling to her, as it had when she was a child. Whispers and beckoning calls accompanied those red eyes all around her. 'What does it mean?' she asked Matthias, as he tossed fairy dust onto the campfire.

  'When you were younger, the things in the woods had likely come to believe you were a dreamling. There are lots of nightmares that like to eat dreamlings, though I'm not sure why. This lot, however, are likely hoping to separate you from us. It's a crude tactic, which suggests that a lot of them are new born. That's a good thing in some senses and a bad thing in others.'

  She inclined her head to hear his reasoning.

  'Well, younger nightmares are much easier to kill. However, think about what it implies. Most of the time when nightmares amass in numbers like these it's either because they've been called together or because the types of nightmares involved can propagate themselves, by infecting mortals or breeding true or both. So, what's the most likely cause of an ever growing number of freshly made trueborn nightmares?'

  Laurel scanned through her memories for a clue but came up short. 'I don't know.'

  'An active dreamer,' he said in a hushed, almost reverent tone, 'they've got their hands on a child with an overactive imagination. That's frightening not only because it means their ranks are swelling but because it implies a level of restraint and intelligence from whoever is leading them. No matter how much of a boon it is for a nightmare army to have access to an active dreamer, most wouldn't be able to keep themselves from killing one.'

  Her mind immediately went to her master. 'My grand-sire, he had to take special care to infect my mother without harming me,' she said, a bitterness creeping into her tone.

  'Very few vampires possess either the skill or the self-control to facilitate the creation of a dhampir,' he replied. She knew that, of course, and it led her to worry that she was marching into a scheme that he'd conjured. 'If he's involved, we're going to be very pleased we have you on our side, and that we got ourselves a fifth moon beast.'

  She could not help but ask, 'what's it like, in the nightmare world?'

  'Well, it's not like anything. It's just a dream, so there's no limit to its form or feeling. Some people think that we go hunting in some ethereal plane for our moon beasts when, really, we dream them up. Hallucinogens help, of course, but it's an act of creation rather than discovery. You have to realise you're dreaming, which is quite hard, then you have to conjure the exact right kind of dream up.'

  'I used to try sleeping and dreaming when I was very little.'

  'That's your curse, I think. Even vampires dream whilst in torpor.'

  'But shades don't.'

  'Yeah, that's one of the mysteries of the dhampir. You're very human in many ways, but often have more in common with the least human nightmares. I assume you've done all the usual things, watching people in their sleep, hiding in dark corners or under the bed.'

  'Yes,' she admitted, disguising her sheepishness.

  'It's only natural,' he said, with a smile, 'some of the others are wary of you because they know that the nightmare in your blood would happily slay them in their sleep. Personally, I see no reason to get so worked up. Every night we spend outside big stone walls, endless rows of torches and well-armed guards, is a considerable risk. Take that alpha werewolf. He was trueborn, meaning that one night, one of us could dream a thing like that up in our sleep, or something even worse, and we'd have been eviscerated before we even knew what was happening. So many hunters start believing they're immune to such things and that they'll be fine so long as they simply keep their wits about them. It's folly.'

  'That makes me the perfect hunter, then,' she said, trying not to sound boastful.

  'Correct,' he said, simply, before retiring.

  Laurel spent the rest of the night in silent contemplation. She tried to feel empathy for the child potentially locked up and terrified but such feelings no longer came easily to her. Tuning out the beckoning calls, she focused on herself. She held her breath for the entire night, and felt no pain. 'I am the blood,' she repeated to herself. A thought struck her and she cut her hand open, painlessly. After she commanded her blood to do so, she was able to make tendrils dance just above her palm before they knitted her wound. It was something she would have to practice but her mind was immediately flooded with possibilities.

  Over the next few days, she had to spend most of her time scouting, as the woods had become too thick with shades and shadows. Every few hours saw a battle between the hunters and lesser ranks of nightmares. The goblins, in particular, were crazed and seemed half-starved. This troubled them, since it implied that hundreds of square miles around the town they were heading to - Thornton - were devoid of human life. Still, they fought their way through the darkness and, on the fourth day, the ruined town came into view. Even under the blaze of the sun, it was teeming with nightmares. Mad and ever weakening shades swirled around its broken towers and vampires fought bitterly over what bits of roof and long wall remained. In the woods just outside, you could only see a few feet in, as a thick layer of darkness filled almost every gap in the canopy.

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  Laurel sniffed the air and said, 'they're holding someone below ground.' The scent of pure terror was undeniable and the nightmare in her blood began to growl in anticipation of an encounter with an active dreamer. 'What's the plan?'

  John called the shots, 'find a way in, if you can, stay hidden, then report back what you've found. We have no idea what we're up against but whatever it is is sure to be exceptionally powerful.'

  She was inclined to believe that she could handle whatever it was, unless it really was her master, but she obliged him and began her infiltration. She started by clearing out the nightmares lingering too close to the dungeon entrance. Most of them were mere minutes old and easy to crush but one of them was a vampire, hiding beneath a collapsed hallway. She knew that pulling him out into the sun would attract attention, so she slipped into the darkness alongside him and grabbed his mouth to prevent him from crying out before sinking her teeth into his neck. Vampire blood, as it happened, was delicious. It tasted almost human and coursed with power. Within minutes, he was a desiccated husk and she could begin her descent. The town's underground was not so ruined, which gave her fewer places to hide but made navigation much easier.

  She stayed close to the walls and followed the scent of fear, deeper and deeper, until she found an opening at the bottom of the complex. Down below, were chambers freshly carved from watery earth. Before long, she saw the dreamer, a young boy shivering and crying atop a bed that had been brought down for him and the creatures that were holding him there. With skin tones of red and purple, leathery wings, barbed tails, cloven hooves and horns on their heads, she realised that they were devils.

  Physically weak but very clever, she did not know if she could take them down, especially not without them harming the child, so she retreated and brought her report back to John, as he'd asked. 'There's a boy being held by four devils.'

  A look passed between the hunters which she could not quite parse. 'We'll need to figure out a way to sap their magical strength,' John announced, 'there are plenty of potions that would work but the problem will be delivering them all at once, or one at a time without them noticing.' He put his finger under his chin for dramatic effect. 'Alright, you can pretend to be a vampire. Say that you saw us coming, lure as many of them away as you can. Gordon will be your mark and Matthias will wait in ambush with some poison gas. Hopefully three of them will leave, and we'll only have one to deal with. If it's two, that should still be doable. If only one of them comes out, we'll have to think of something else.'

  Laurel nodded her approval and waited for them to lay their trap. When the ambush was ready, she went back down, this time showing herself. She hoped she'd be believed as she said, 'there are hunters in the woods, they have moon beasts with them.' They stared at her in disbelief but an unmistakable hint of concern crossed their faces when she mentioned moon beasts.

  The reddest one, presumably the leader, spoke up, 'how many?'

  'Five hunters, each with a moon beast.'

  At that, he ordered the other three to investigate and she hid her joy. She led them into the woods and they took the bait, as Gordon gave his position away and began to flee. The first two devils were caught by the explosion of one of Matthias's potions but the third had straggled a little. Before it could so much as turn to its attacker, Laurel lunged for its neck and got her first taste of devilish blood. It was sour but not disgusting and the power in it was like nothing she'd ever drunk. Devils really did have exceptional magical strength. The rest of the hunters beheaded the two that had fallen unconscious and then they waited for John and his team to emerge.

  The man looked grim when she finally saw him and Tamsin appeared traumatised. 'What's happened?' she asked, before it dawned on her. 'Where's the boy?'

  'Dead,' he said, giving her a hard look. The rest of the group watched to see her response.

  'What's going on?'

  'You understand that we had to do it, right?'

  'You killed him?!' It had been hard to empathise for the child but it was still shocking to hear. 'You're dream hunters. You're supposed to save people.'

  'This will save people. We've cut this off at the source and now we can begin the cull. Don't get this twisted. You're no stranger to killing.'

  That struck her hard but she didn't let it show. 'Not children.' Whether it was a meaningful line to draw was something she could barely even tell. 'I won't accept this.'

  As soon as the words had left her lips, half a dozen bolts struck her in the side. She knew immediately that they were poisoned as she recoiled and flew off. The moon beasts jumped for her heels but she was just fast enough to escape them. A second round of crossbow fire came at her but she dodged most of it. The poison was annihilated by her blood but she kept moving, nevertheless. Later, she tried to piece the incident together. They'd clearly anticipated a confrontation but she didn't understand why they were so quick to turn on her. The revelation that hunters killed active dreamers was something she also struggled to process. She wondered if it were true of all hunters or just this group.

  Laurel was not immediately concerned with where she should go and what she should do, so she allowed herself to simply enjoy the darkness for a while. She thought of returning, stealthily and stalking the group, to see where it went and what else it did. That small part of her also clung to the hope that she might be able to peel Tamsin away from the rest of the group. The thought of killing the rest of them occurred to her but she stifled it. She hated how much murder had already blackened her soul.