Lots of nightmares had begun to flee the cull. It distracted them from her as she stalked and hunted the tastiest ones. Her current mark was a vampire. He was practically feral but he had an intuitive grasp of his shadow powers. Every so often, he would vanish from her sight, only to reappear a moment later when a tiny ray of sunlight pierced the canopy and seared his flesh. Vampires were fearless so there was no use in dragging things out. As soon as she got a good opportunity, she descended on him, wrestling him to the ground and biting his neck. He scratched and clawed her but her blood burned his fingers.

  'Impressive,' a woman's voice called out from behind her. She finished her meal and whipped her head around to see who it belonged to. Stepping out of the shadow, a woman emerged and Laurel instantly knew that it was a nightmare despite its disguise.

  'Who are you?'

  'I'm a friend of your master,' the woman grinned but her smile vanished when Laurel closed the distance and grabbed her throat, squeezing hard. 'Stop,' she whimpered.

  'Where is he?!'

  'He's not here,' the woman answered, her voice strained, 'he sent me to collect you. He doesn't blame you for running away.'

  Laurel relaxed her grip and threw the woman to the floor. 'Blame me?! He tried to kill me!'

  The woman awkwardly picked herself up, maintaining the strange pretence that she was human. 'He's contrite,' she pleaded.

  'Shut up! Drop the act. Show me what you really are or I'll kill you.'

  The woman shrugged her shoulders and, in an instant, her clothes vanished to reveal the purple-skinned body of a devil. She arched one of her eyebrows, which had gone from light brown to darkest black along with her hair, as if to ask what Laurel thought. It all made her a little warier, knowing that devils supposedly possessed potent magic.

  She stayed close enough to quickly bite her if the encounter turned into a fight. 'My grand-sire has devils working for him?'

  'Your master has all sorts of nightmares at his command.' Her tone had changed significantly, taking on a sultry edge.

  'He's no longer my master.'

  'Sweet girl, that's not something you get to choose. Vampires follow very strict rules of kinship.'

  'I'm not a vampire.'

  The devil seemed to contemplate saying one thing but shook her head and said another, 'fair enough.'

  'Now, leave me be.'

  'I can't do that,' she said, her voice taking on an even sharper edge, 'my lord commands and I obey. He sent me to collect you and that's what I'll do. Besides, these hunters are very skilled and they're coming this way.'

  'You can try to take me, if you'd like, but I'm not going.'

  'I could give you anything you want.'

  Laurel grimaced in disgust. 'There's nothing you could offer me.'

  The devil looked vaguely offended. 'Really?' A second later, she'd taken the form of Tamsin and began to speak in her voice. 'Oh, Laurel, I'm so glad I caught up with you.'

  'Stop!'

  Tamsin's form disappeared but was replaced with one even less welcome, Sarah's. 'My lady, it's so good to see you again. You were right, we should've run away together.'

  That gave her pause, until she remembered herself. 'Enough!'

  The devil chuckled at that, before returning to her true form. 'How about your inheritance? Your master's still holding onto it for you.'

  'I don't need money.'

  'Your master has some things he took from your mother, as well. Portraits, letters. Things you've never seen, insights into her life before she was transformed.'

  That stirred something in her but she retained her composure. 'Absurd. He insisted that she wasn't my mother until she was transformed.'

  'Yes, and he knows how wrong he was to say that, now. The truth is so much more complex. Give him a chance to make it all up to you.' The devil's tone was earnest and sincere but Laurel knew that it was just down to her innate skill for trickery and deceit.

  'This is absurd,' Laurel said, dismissively. At that, the sounds of footfalls could be heard in the far distance and the faint sound of voices. The hunters were approaching and she had to leave, as much for their sake as hers. The devil followed closed behind, keeping pace with her large leathern wings. They were fifty miles away by the time she stopped to sate her thirst, draining a particularly fattened gremlin. Its blood was vile enough to make her groan.

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  'It's been subsisting on nothing but goblins and gnomes,' the devil said. 'That's why culling's as necessary for us as it is for humans. Out beyond the wall, for example, good food is very rare.'

  She wanted to correct her and insist that they were not the same but she no longer believed that was true. 'You know you'll have to sleep eventually, right? I could feed on you or even just leave.'

  The devil smiled at that, 'you won't feed on me because of that strange conscience of yours. I've not harmed you and you think I'm more of a person than your usual prey,' that much was true, 'and you won't leave because, deep down, you're intrigued by what I've offered you.'

  That was heart-wrenchingly true and as they stood, in the moonlight, Laurel leaned in against all her better judgement. 'Sarah,' she said, softly, before meeting the lips of her old friend. Her heart ached too much to take things further but the trick worked and she lingered by the devil's side when she settled herself down to sleep. The day after, they said very little to one another and travelled, mostly in flight, in the same direction. Laurel made no explicit agreement to meet with her grand-sire but she could tell that that was where she was going to end up. Eventually, they crossed over into territory where the number of nightmares was substantially thinner and signs of human life were all around them. The devil gave a few lonely travellers a good fright, here and there, but Laurel insisted that there should be no killing involved.

  Her grand-sire's lair was much more impressive than she'd expected. Almost as soon as the cave entrance gave way to the inner complex, the natural rock wall became smooth and straight. Deeper inside, fine construction works and carvings were on display. Some rooms even had doors. Having her guard up didn't help her avoid the trap, however. When the floor gave way, she didn't fall, of course, but tonnes of rubble fell from the ceiling and crushed her. When she eventually regained consciousness and fought her way free, bloodying her hands as she punched her way through rocks and boulders, she found herself imprisoned deep below the earth. She couldn't see far enough to see the ceiling and the only point of exit was a barred opening covered in razor wire.

  She flew over to it and immediately began pulling the wire off, cutting her hands to ribbons in the process and pretending to wince as she did so. Her grand-sire couldn't resist the sounds of her pain and showed himself. Her blood hadn't left any permanent scars on his face or neck but he seemed somewhat wary of her.

  'Sweet girl,' he said with a smile, 'don't hurt yourself. The bars are silver besides and stronger than you'd think.'

  She didn't understand why he thought silver would make a difference to her. Perhaps Mister Blackwood's book had been much rarer than she'd assumed. Perhaps her grand-sire rarely ventured beyond the wall. It troubled her but she played dumb. 'Let me out,' she demanded, adding the tiniest hint of petulance to her tone.

  'Not until you've learned your lesson. Well, one of them at least. Show me some personal growth,' he said, laughing.

  'When I break out of here, I'll kill you.'

  'I don't think you will,' he said, slipping a piece of parchment to her from through the bars. She thought of splashing some of her blood on his arm but the item intrigued her too much. After snatching it up and scanning its contents, she realised that the devil hadn't been lying. It was a letter from her mother, though it wasn't addressed to anyone. As she developed a clearer notion, however, tears began to slide down her cheeks.

  'I know it's hard to understand,' she read it aloud only once he was out of sight, making the words feel more real, 'but everything I've done has been for you and you alone. As I am robbed of my life, I grant eternity and immortality to you. A lot of people wanted this to happen for their own ends but I only ever had you in my heart.' The words chewed at her heart. 'No matter how you feel, no matter what anyone tells you, you're not a monster and you're not a weapon. You are a person.' She stopped reading aloud after that, as it became too much to bear but the rest of the letter was logged into her memory from the instant she'd seen it.

  Her rational mind told her that it might be fake but she chose to believe that it was real. 'There's more where that came from,' he said, after reappearing, 'lots of little trinkets and tokens from that poor fool woman who thought she was your mother.'

  She desperately wanted to reach out with all of her powers and hurt him for that but she knew that she had to be more careful. 'She was,' she said.

  He responded to her thoughts rather than her words, 'and what tricks do you think you've learned in my absence?'

  'You have no idea,' she said, thinking only of her mother.

  'I've learned some things from my spies. I know you helped slay many of my werewolves.'

  'Your werewolves?' Laurel didn't have to try hard to feign genuine curiosity.

  He laughed, 'any group of nightmares on this damn island with even the slightest degree of organisation are under my command, whether direct or indirect.'

  'Absurd,' she spat, pretending to care and pretending to pretend not to.

  'It's the truth, sweet girl. I am the lord of darkness.' He laughed again, this time to himself. 'Anyway, I'll leave you now to decide what exactly you want to do with yourself. I have a hell of a lot to offer you but I'm patient enough to call this whole thing off and start again, if you're too much of a pain in the arse. As it happens, I've been following a promising young bride. Sarah, I think her name was.'

  Her blood chilled and she flashed him a real look of concern but otherwise said nothing. He smiled and winked before leaving. She waited only an hour before beginning her escape. 'I am the blood,' she said to herself before pressing through the bars and razor wire. Her body split apart and sewed itself back together shortly after. Then she made her silent ascent through widening cavern tunnels, making as if to finding the cave entrance and simply escape. She thought briefly of finding the devil and sating her thirst but dismissed the idea as an unwelcome distraction. Nothing really mattered besides the fight she had to have, and win, against her grand-sire.

  He'd snuffed out all the torches by the time she emerged and, more impressive still, covered the cave entrance in darkness. The moonlight was gone, the water could not glisten and the only light that could be seen came from his eyes that blazed bright red. 'Make your choice,' he called out to her, throwing his voice in an effort to disorient her, 'live or die!'

  Laurel gave no reply. Instead, she steeled herself, cleared her mind and waited for him to make the first move. She followed his eyes as he seemed to move but did not entirely trust them. It could be an illusion or a feint or even a simple trick of the light. The only thing she trusted was the power of her blood.