hornton hadn’t been the first person oh to hit gold rank, or even the first to do it without cores. The US had non-core training programs long before Farrah Hurin arrived, so that title went to some unnamed yank. Nigel’s cim to fame was being the first outside of the US to hit the milestone core-free.

  The rest of his team were core users, and still only silver rank. There were only so many pces oh that spawned gold rank monsters, and the cores taken from them were arguably the most precious odity oh. They certainly didn’t find their way into the hands of a squad of meraries.

  Nigel’s team was the same nine-person unit it had been almost two decades earlier. Back then, magic was still a secret and they were part of the work’s secret paramilitary wing. His team had stayed together whework fractured, surviving through years of upheavals. From the reveal of magic to the vampire war, they had weathered tless storms.

  Whework schismed into different fas, Nigel and his team had gotten out. Sied by the infighting and the as of the Australian gover, they had decided to go it alohe world had no she of work for people with a specific set of skills, and a gold ranker for hire was a rare odity.

  Although they had done jobs for a variety of employers, they were most frequently tracted by United Nations official Anna Tilden. They had worked for her in their work days and now they were her first call for bck bag operations. That included their current assig. They were embedded in France, deep inside vampire territory. It was a region they knew well, having been hired to extract people from vampire blood farms many times. They had been there for almost two months, watg the former Asano d for ges.

  The first priority when embedded in hostile territory was to avoid being discovered. Fortunately for the team, vampires were proo murdering one another. If the occasional oumbled onto the team a missing, its absence didn’t alert the rest. The vampires weren’t wary towards humans in the area as the only value it held was symbolic. Without the prote of the domain aura, the former Asaory held nic or tactical value. That ck was not lost oain members of the team.

  “I don’t know what we’re still doing here,” e pined. “Sitting in a building every day, watg the edge of a city? We ’t see a damn thing from the outside, and if we tried going in, we’d be lunside of an hour.”

  “We’re here because we’re being paid to be here,” Darcy told him.

  They were in an underground room that Woolzy had made with magic, sealing the hard-packed earthen walls until they felt like smooth por. One cealed entrance above them led to a se of woodnd not too far from Saint étiehe room was loaded up with camping gear, but there was ing around that they were nine people living in a hole in the ground. Even if three were always off on observation duty, it was starting to feel — and smell — like living in an old fried chi box.

  “You’re bht,” Higgy said. “Yes, this is the job, and we’re being paid well. But he’s n to wonder what all this is in aid of, or how much longer we’ll be out here.”

  “It’s obvious we’re waiting for something,” Digit said. “Something big enough that we don’t o get close to see it.”

  “Thehem wat bloody satellites,” e said. “Why does the UN need us out here on the quiet? I thought the UN’s job was to ask people to stop vioting human rights, and the sad when they say no.”

  “Anna knows something,” Digit said. “She knows something is going to happen, and she wants an eyes-o the moment it does.”

  The others all turo look at Nigel, sitting silently.

  “Yep,” he said, a it at that.

  “Holy, the why of all this isn’t even the problem,” e said. “My question is, why are we spending our lives living in holes in the ground? We’ve been doing this long enough that I’m richer than mud cake. Between the nine of us, we have family es in every work fa. This work has brought us tacts across the whole dam. Why are we crating ourselves in a dirt box instead of sitting on a beach?”

  “I find that hard tue with,” Higgy said. “If we’ve got enough moo live like kings…”

  He Darcy.

  “…and one Queen, then why are we living in caves and digging bunkers out in the woods?”

  Of the six in the bunker, five again turo look at their leader.

  “You want to retire?” Nigel asked them.

  “Don’t you?” Higgy asked.

  “As a matter of fact,” Nigel said, “I do. Maybe not pletely, though. Semi-retire. Live the high life, but if the right job es along—”

  “Or the right payday,” Darcy cut in.

  “Or the right payday,” Nigel ceded. “Then, maybe we saddle up again. If that’s what we want to do, then that’s what we’ll do. Together, like always. You’re right, e; we have accumuted a lot of wealth. And the es we’ve built up are probably worth more than the money. But how much is enough? Where is safe? The Uates and a are fairly safe for most people, but we aren’t most people. What happens when someone in charge wants something from us that we don’t want to give?”

  “Thorny,” Higgy said to Nigel, “let’s not pretend like you ’t write your own ticket. You hit gold rank outside of any of the big groups and they all want to recruit you.”

  “Or kill you before someone else does,” e added.

  “They won’t try,” Nigel said. “No one has mao kill a gold ranker yet, even with old rankers. As far as I’m aware, the only oo die followed Jason Asano into the sealed transformation zone in Slovakia. One didn’t e out again and another one did, then turned into a monster.”

  “Whie was that?” e asked.

  “Vietnamese guy,” Darcy said. “Worked for the ese. Followed Asano into a transformation zone and turned into a tentacle monster when he came out. Every majical fa had people there and they still barely mao kill it.”

  “There was Jack Gerling, too,” Higgy said.

  “I thought he went to work for the vampires,” Darcy said.

  “No, he’s right,” Nigel said. “I fot about him because he’s still around. He died iransformation zone here in Frahe vampire queen brought him back as some kind of blood e sve.”

  “I guess the moral is to avoid following Jason Asano into big magies,” e said. “Makes me think about those astral proto-spaces we went into with him. We might have been lucky to get out without turning into wombat snakes or something.”

  “Wombat snakes?” Nigel asked.

  “We have officially veered too far off topic,” Higgy said. “Thorny, I tell you’ve got some kind of retirement pn in mind. But for some reason, you haven’t told us yet.”

  “Yeah,” Nigel admitted. “I have a pn. And no, I haven’t told any of you yet.”

  “Why not?” Darcy asked.

  “It’s too unreliable. Too many unknown factors. On a basic level, the pn is simple: we find a safe pce to nd. Somewhere the people in charge will value us without trying to bend us over.”

  “And where do you expect to find that?” e asked. “Some little isnd in the Pacific with white beaches and blue water? That’s big enough to import beer, but too small for the work to set up shop? We all get bungalows and up any mohat turn up?”

  “That actually sounds pretty good,” Higgy said.

  “It does,” Nigel said. “Maybe that’s what we’ll do.”

  “But you have something else in mind, don’t you?” Digit asked. “Something more ambitious, meaning a huge pain in the arse for us.”

  “I do,” Nigel said.

  “Out with it then,” e said.

  “It’s going to sound like a terrible idea if I say it now,” Nigel said.

  “Say it anyway,” Darcy told him. “We’re all stu a hole, ’s not like you run off.”

  Nigel sighed.

  “Fine,” he said. “I want to join the Asano .”

  “Are you out of your frigging gourd?” e asked. “The whole reason we’re here is that the Asano vanished. Everything they had now belongs to the biggest, nastiest pack of ravening vampires on the face of the Earth. Jason Asano hasn’t been seen in a squillion bloody years. His magic town probably lost its power because he cacked it and his family’s most likely dead too. And we’re here for what? To check if all these dead pricks are going to magically reappear?”

  “In fairness,” Woolzy said. “If they’re going to reappear, then magically is how it’s going to happen.”

  “You weren’t wrong about it being an unreliable pn,” Darcy told Nigel. “Why is that where you’re putting your hopes? What do you know that we don’t? Is that why An us here, watg this pce after years without ge? She thinks the Asanos are ing back?”

  Nigel rubbed his thoughtfully for a moment.

  “Yes,” he said. “She thinks they’re ing back.”

  “Why?” e asked. “The vampires have been sitting on the holes the Asano vanished into for years. We don’t know if those astral spaces are even still there. Or if the vampires figured out how to crack them open and ate everyone inside. Or if the all starved to death in there.”

  “They didn’t starve to death,” Higgy said. “Thorny and I went into one once, pying bodyguard for Anna. They had full-blown farms in there, growing magic food like you’ve never seen.”

  “What very few people know,” Nigel said, “is that right before we were sent out here, the Asano reached out.”

  “How?” Higgy asked.

  “Rufus Remore. He left the pce the Asano are hiding and made his way though vampire territory, pletely unnoticed.”

  “Well, damn,” Digit said. “We don’t get any closer than the edge of the old territory, and that magic door the Asanos keep locked is right in the middle of it.”

  “But he’s alive,” Darcy said. “And the rest of them too?”

  “Yes,” Nigel said. “And they’re getting ready to make a move. Remore reached out to certain people. Anna Tilden and Boris Ketnd, for sure. I don’t know who else, if anyone. For all I know, telling you just doubled the number of people who know about it.”

  “So, the Asano is ing back?” Higgy asked. “Properly back? Magiain, the whole lot?”

  “Remore certainly thinks so.”

  “Let’s assume he’s right,” Higgy said. “The Asano es back out and recims their territory. Who is to say they keep it? They lost it once before.”

  “Acc to Remore, it was some kind of ruse by Jason Asano,” Nigel said. “A ‘fool your friends to fool your enemies’ sario.”

  “He’s alive too, then?” Darcy asked. “Is he ing back as well?”

  “Yes. And supposedly with a dozen gold rankers as strong as Remore himself. And you’ve seen that guy fight.”

  “I haven’t,” e said. “There’s just a fsh of light and every prick’s dead. I wouldn’t cross that bloke for quids.”

  “Okay,” Higgy said. “Let’s say all that’s true. Asano and his e back, strohan ever and rock solid. What makes you think that the is a good pce for us to nd, and that they’ll even take us?”

  “They’ll take us because they know us,” Nigel said. “They knoe are, what we’ve done, and what we haven’t.”

  “Sure,” e said. “That’s why they take us. Why should we take them?”

  “Because they’re loyal,” Nigel said. “The ohing they’ve sistently done is take care of their own. Not just themselves, but everyone who has helped them otten caught up in their mess. They took them in and shielded them. The only ones who they cut ties with was the work, who screwed Asano time and again. And I’ll remind you that we cut ties with them too. I’m not saying the Asano is perfect, or that I like every choice they’ve made. But their leadership has demonstrated some actual iy. That’s a hard thing to find.”

  “You say this based on what?” e asked. “Rumours and sed-hand stories? A few visits to territory when we were operating out of the military bases they hosted? That’s without even thinking about Jason Asano himself? What ges when he shows up? That guy was a lit fuse when he sodded off.”

  “I did tell you this was unreliable” Nigel said. “That’s why I didn’t say anything until you all pushed. I want more information before we do a single bloody thing. That’s why we’re here. I want to see what the Asano does when they’re uhe gun and not ready to put on a show for visitors. I don’t want to make any promises to you all that I ’t keep.”

  He checked his watch. “It’s time to relieve the others. e, Darce; you e with me.”

  ***

  The most dangerous time fel and his team was when they were sing out observers. This happehree times per day; twice during daylight and o night, when the vampires were more active. Fortunately, Farrah Hurin had given them proper aura training, which they had been practising for well over a decade. They weren’t sloppy at all with their aura trol, and vampires were better at maniputing auras thaing them.

  The major threat was a gold-rank vampire in the wrong pce wheeam made a move. The city had several, so even if Nigel could take on one, more would be on them before the fight was done. Accly, the team were always diligent. Each time they sed out people at their observation post, they moved slowly and carefully.

  The observation post itself was oskirts of Saint étieill in ruins from the inal vampire occupation. Just outside of the area cimed by Jason Asano, it was a se of city not repced with a replica made from Asano’s weird magic clouds. Best of all, the vampires ig in favour of the luxurious cloud buildings of the city proper.

  The post itself was ohird floor of a mostly colpsed building. With the area around it surrounded by rown rubble, it was easy to approach from their bunker in the woods without needing to move into the open. As most of the other buildings had been toppled entirely, the sightlines from the upper floor were good.

  The area had been rgely recimed by nature in the years since Jason turned a transformation zoo a domain under his trol. Grass grew up through shattered streets while bushes, vines and moss grew over the rubble. Only a handful of buildings were even partially standing, and they too were covered in the encroag green.

  Nigel, e and Darcy picked their way carefully through the rown ruins. The sky was clear, giving them enough moonlight to see. That also made them more visible to the vampires, or anything else roaming about. The magic level had been reduced sihe ai away, but even a silent kill on a bronze-rank monster could be a problem. The senses of a vampire were sharp already, but especially so when it came to smelling blood.

  They reached the right building without i and slipped inside, joining Cobbo, Jonno and Green. What remained of the third floor was set up as their observation post. The handful of intas offered views in multiple dires, including the Asaory. They couldn’t see deep into the city, but it was enough that any major events wouldn’t be missed. The biggest problem was that the roof was not intad none of the windows had any gss, making rainy days bad and windy, rainy days pletely miserable.

  The inside of the room was etched with sigils that would mask their presence, from their auras to their body heat. Woolzy had learhem from Farrah ba their work days and was now an old hand at them. Even a gold ranker would have to pay direct attention to the building to sehem. Despite requests from the team, Nigel had not allowed any rain-shielding magic.

  Nigel didn’t ask if anything had ged. They had been in ponths, and if anything happehe others would have mentio immediately. The trio being repced got up to leave and their repts prepared to settle in. It was a bright night, with a clear sky and a gibbous moon, so they noticed immediately when the ge came. The silver moonlight spilling through the window was suddenly repced with blue and e.