Any plans I’d had to experiment with new spells were off the table. I didn’t even get a proper rest.

  I heard Cap shouting,

  "Duncan! Phone call for you — urgent!"

  "Who is it?" I asked, leaning out from behind the trees to see the little guy in the second-floor window.

  "Lady Blair."

  I glanced sideways at Burke and picked up the pace.

  Kate might be calling just to mess with me, or not. And if it was the latter, this wasn’t the time to dawdle.

  I grabbed the phone on the ground floor.

  "Speaking."

  Kate opened with her usual over-the-top mockery.

  "Hello, Duncan, how’s your mood? Finished your training yet?"

  "Get to the point, Kate."

  "I’d hate to interrupt. Honestly, it’s only dire necessity driving me! Just a trivial matter, like the future of a certain little nest no one in mighty Bremor gives a toss about, and we have helped you, remember? I personally saved your life, what, three…"

  I hung up.

  "What did the bloodsucker want?" Burke asked.

  "To be a pain. We’ll give it a minute, and if she doesn’t…"

  The phone rang again. I didn’t waste time.

  "Speaking."

  "Some connection issues," Kate said sweetly.

  "No. I hung up. To the point, Kate, if you’ve got something worth saying."

  "Remember when I told you your clan would be safe for a few days?"

  "Go on."

  "Well, today I received a visit from the King’s emissary."

  "The Rat King?" I asked.

  I doubted she meant the ruler of Duthigh himself. Kate was far too small-time for that. But in this world? Stranger things had happened.

  "Of course the Rat King. He wanted to know what decision I’d made. And I’d like to know what decision Bremor has made. Are we cooperating?"

  I could’ve fobbed her off with something vague, I hadn’t technically promised anything. But as much as I disliked vampires, I had given Kate hope. And backing out now, when she was cornered, wasn’t a good look. Not to mention, vampires were notoriously vindictive.

  Uncle might not pat me on the head for this, but he’d said himself last night: Kate had been useful.

  "We’re cooperating."

  "Wonderful. I’ll expect you here in half an hour."

  "First of all — why? And second, I’m covered in clay dust. I won’t have time to clean up."

  "Hmm. I think he’ll last another hour."

  "Who?"

  "The emissary."

  "He’ll last? What did you do to him?!"

  "Tore his legs off. Don’t worry, he’s a werewolf. And I’m no amateur."

  "I’m on my way. I might not come alone."

  I hung up. To hell with the clay, I needed to get to the vampire, warn Donald, warn my uncle... What else?

  "Knuckles!" I shouted through the house. "Grab your gun and start the engine! Burke, call home — Kate’s got the Rat King’s emissary!"

  My cousin sprinted to the phone, and I dashed into the kitchen, quickly rinsing the dirt off my hands and face. On the way back to my room to gear up, I passed Burke leafing through his notebook in a panic.

  "What’s the number?" he called out. "I haven’t memorised it yet!"

  I rattled off the digits like a machine gun and flew up the stairs, straight into Harry, who stuck his head out of the corridor looking grim.

  "What’s all the noise?"

  I repeated the news to him, to Knuckles who’d only half-heard, and waved off a very confused Cap. Holster with the pistol, no, change the shirt first, then the holster, jacket, satchel... what else? A handful of earth-and-ether reservoirs wouldn’t hurt.

  I shot down the stairs and out the side door toward the garages. Burke had done his bit and now followed me.

  "And where do you think you’re going?" I asked as Knuckles opened the garage doors.

  "With you," Burke said. "I don’t trust your vampire."

  "And you’re right not to. But right now, Kate’s going to guard me like a miser hoarding his last coin. She needs me to show up. You, on the other hand, you’d just be in the way."

  "Duncan, no offence, but you’re good. You’re just not quite my level yet."

  “This isn’t about power, Burke, it’s about bloody politics. Your bloody politics!”

  “Mine?”

  “Your grandfather.”

  Uncle Bryce had gotten his way. I used to think his ramblings about the future of the clan and the difficult, thankless decisions of leadership went in one ear and out the other. But clearly, some of it stuck. A year ago, I’d have been glad for company. Now… now I had other things on my mind.

  "My visit to the nest is one thing. Sure, I’m the clan head’s nephew, but people mostly see me as Harry’s apprentice. You’re different. You’re the direct heir. The future of the clan. You are Bryce’s line and will. Your visit to the nest would be an open declaration that Clan Bremor supports the Blairs. Is that what we want? I don’t know. But Kate certainly does. So if only out of spite, and sheer mistrust, don’t give her the satisfaction."

  Burke stepped back and gave me a new kind of look. "You never cease to surprise me, cousin."

  It sounded like a joke, but his eyes were serious.

  More importantly, he didn’t try to follow me again.

  Knuckles flung open the garage doors and jumped into the driver’s seat. His Tommy gun was already laid out beside him. I dropped into the back and started recharging the spells in my spellbook and bracelet.

  I wasn’t expecting trouble from Blair herself, but there was still the drive over, and the observers who’d tracked me all the way to the nest. This time, Kate’s girls hadn’t thrown nails under their tyres, wouldn't want to accidentally shake them off. Clearly, the vampire wanted people to see we were working together.

  This time, though, I did get a good look at the watchers, or rather, their battered Austin. I even got the licence plate and jotted it down in my notebook. Let Donald have his fun with that.

  The men in the Austin hadn’t noticed my interest. I never looked back, and I told Knuckles to stay calm and not tip them off.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The three vampire mansions stood side-by-side on a ringed plot of land in Sungarden. They formed a triangle, separated only by a high wall shaped like a three-pointed star. The roadside fence was mostly for show, but the barriers between neighbours were fortress walls.

  A few metres inside the gate stood a scattering of ornate statues. I’d bet anything they were disguised traps.

  Back when the nests were still somewhat equal in power, the lawn had been completely bare, just a wide, open stretch of grass, easy to monitor from every angle.

  Not that I’d ever seen a time when the nests were truly equal.

  Two years ago, even without the statues, the Valentynes had been the strongest. Then Lucas Lindemann brilliantly wiped out half their fighters using someone else’s hands, and Uncle Bryce took out Valentine himself. Evan took out Lindemann and the Gratchs rose to the top. Now, it was the Blairs. But their power was far from overwhelming.

  Kate and her girls were just strong enough to hold onto their nest’s ‘business’ and pick up scraps from their neighbours, who could barely defend their turf from even low-level thugs these days.

  That’s what passed for good neighbourly relations in vampire circles. Hell, there’d been more blood spilled between the nests than between the vampires and the rest of the city.

  The fancy wrought-iron "L" on the front gate had been swapped for a "B", but the gravel path between perfectly trimmed hedges, the big fountain, and the front porch columns were exactly as I remembered.

  The human butler practically flew to the car door the moment Knuckles hit the brake. He opened it immediately, greeting me with a deep bow.

  That was a change. He hadn’t fawned like that before.

  "Lord Loxlin," he said, "if you’ll follow me."

  I remembered the layout well enough, it resembled the old Anvil, only with more black, red, and brown, more polish, and better upkeep.

  Another change: some of the rarer furniture was gone from the hall, along with a couple of paintings and a good chunk of the parquet floor. With the windows drawn and the place lit only by a crude bundle of bulbs, there wasn’t even a chandelier, two unfamiliar young men were laying new parquet while some of the vampire girls scrubbed blood from the walls.

  Looked like the emissary had tried to leave.

  "Apologies," the butler said, and I caught a flash of his old tone, that faint irritation he used to reserve for me. "The Lady asked not to keep you waiting. She’s expecting you in the basement."

  "Of course. Lead the way."

  No need to turn around, I could feel the two boys clearly in the subtle realms. Young vampires, both of them.

  Apparently, aside from Shiring, Kate had picked out a couple more candidates, and these ones had turned out better. Or maybe she’d initiated them deliberately, fully aware that some would be duds or die in the process.

  I’d been in this house’s basement before. It was where Lucas Lindemann had once given me a graphic demonstration of the difference between a vampire master and an overconfident Bremor hunter. In other words, he’d beaten me under the thinnest pretext. Probably enjoyed every second of it. I wasn’t that punching bag of a boy anymore, but I was realistic about my strength. If that fight happened again today, I’d still lose.

  But there was no fight expected this time.

  We passed the second sublevel — a massive training hall packed with exercise gear and runic wards etched into the walls, and descended to sublevel three, which suspiciously resembled the same floor in the neighbouring manor, where I’d once made the mistake of ‘visiting’.

  The stench hit instantly: burnt hair and charred flesh.

  Torture chamber in the same place? Apparently not, judging by the open door.

  A raspy laugh mixed with a string of curses confirmed my guess. The torture room had been moved closer to the exit. Smaller set of tools, too. No Iron Maiden for intimidation, just a spiked chair, a brazier, a table, and an open cabinet lined with simple but very efficient instruments.

  Like those tongs heating in the coals, the wooden block, and the rough knife in Kate’s hand.

  The vampire sat perched on the table, shaving splinters off a chunk of firewood, sharpening them into tiny stakes and lining them up neatly beside her.

  The naked werewolf chained to the chair was swearing non-stop.

  Kate paid him no mind.

  Alice, the tiny vampire girl who looked like a teenager, was diligently scratching notes onto paper with a quill. She’d already filled several pages.

  The wolf’s face was half-shifted, bestial and snarling, and missing several fangs. They were on the table. So was part of his right leg and the foot of his left.

  He didn’t seem to care. Hell, he didn’t even seem bothered by the scorched sausage stub between his legs. The burns all over his body were healing rapidly, scabbing over and flaking off under the green glow of familiar runic tattoos.

  The regeneration was literally consuming him from the inside out. With half his fur gone, he already looked like skin stretched tight over bone.

  "Hello, Duncan. Tea?" Kate asked, cool as ever.

  "No, thank you."

  How was I supposed to drink anything in this stink?

  Then again, she’d probably offered just to cover her irritation. It wasn’t the werewolf himself that was annoying her, but his resistance to pain.

  Vampires were notorious for being inventive torturers. Noah Valentine had known exactly how to make pain efficient, and Nina Gratch hadn’t even hidden the fact that she enjoyed it.

  "Bremor scum!" the werewolf snarled, and spat in my face.

  Too fast to dodge. Blood-tinged saliva hit my cheek. I blinked in surprise, pulled out a handkerchief, and wiped it off.

  I didn’t shout or hit him. That was probably what he wanted, to provoke a reaction, get me to lose control, and let his berserk regeneration knock him into a coma.

  Kate noticed the shift in his behaviour and handed me the knife.

  "I was thinking of flaying him, disable the tattoo effects. But if you’d like to…"

  "Thanks," I said, politely declining the ‘generous’ offer. "I’ve only ever skinned dead beasts. And you don’t need to take all the hide off."

  "You’ve dealt with this type before?"

  I nodded.

  The werewolf froze.

  "Come on then, brat, show us what you’ve got!" he barked.

  "Don’t try it. I’m not letting you die. Not just yet… Kate, we’ll need about half a kilo of minced meat and liver, two to three hundred grams of butter. Melt it, blend the liver, mix it all. Force-feed him through a funnel. If it’s too thick, add alcohol."

  "In my experience, weakened prisoners resist less," Kate offered mildly.

  “His regeneration is burning through fat. Keep this up, and the only fat left in his body will be in his brain. Do you understand what happens then?” He’d lose consciousness and possibly even memories.

  The werewolf burst out laughing, a hacking, choking sound, and started thrashing so hard the chair lifted off the ground.

  "Take him off!" I shouted.

  The cursed thing was trying to tear himself apart on the spikes, his own regeneration eating him alive.

  I lunged for the chair, but Kate shoved me aside. She grabbed the werewolf by the muzzle and pressed her darkening lips to his canine mouth.

  "Calm," she murmured, her voice suddenly soft, seductive — enough to make me relax. The werewolf twitched a few more times, then started moving sluggishly.

  "Alice. Fourth room."

  Kate and her daughter unchained the beast and dragged him to another chamber, where another chair waited — this one without spikes.

  "Sure you don’t want that tea?" Kate asked again, now in a businesslike tone. "Maybe something to eat? I wouldn’t mind a glass of blood."

  "No, thanks. Just get him fed quickly. Forget the meat, give him fat. Butter or lard, as much as possible."

  We didn’t lose the werewolf.

  Alice returned from the kitchen carrying a piping bag full of sweet cream — that’s what we poured down the beast’s throat first. He tried to spit it out, of course, but the three of us managed to force about a third of it down him.

  Once that was done, my original recipe arrived from the kitchen, followed by a large metal funnel from the garage. We shoved it into the werewolf’s throat and poured the thick mixture in as if fuelling a car. Naturally, he thrashed and sputtered, leaving us all thoroughly splattered.

  “There. He won’t die now,” I said, wiping my hands. “And I need a break.”

  “Tea?” Kate offered again.

  “And sandwiches,” I agreed at first, I was starving, but then glanced down at my hands. Greasy brown stains covered my jacket and shirt cuffs. Kate, no doubt, would be joining me for tea as well. My stomach twisted in protest.

  “Actually, skip the sandwiches. Just tea. With a splash of brandy.”

  Kate caught the flicker in my expression.

  “A change of clothes?” she asked, lightly.

  What was worse — staying dressed like this, or wearing hand-me-downs from a vampire?

  Wait. Why was she even offering?

  “I’ll just wash up. I’ve a spare outfit in the car.”

  “Then wash your face too — there’s still some on your cheek.”

  While I cleaned up and changed, more guests arrived at the Blair estate: Donald and his assistant — none other than Lesley Bailey. Clearly, Farnell was grooming its best.

  As I expected, Burke hadn’t been let anywhere near the vampires.

  Kate received the men in her office, serving tea while sipping reheated blood from the same fine porcelain cups as her guests. There was one for me too, and the promised brandy, though at the last moment I changed my mind and asked for milk instead.

  Apparently, my clanmates were a positive influence on my mental state.

  After the incident in Avok, we’d collected a few of those enchanted werewolf hides, plus piles of notes, and sent it all off to Harry for study. The wizard had done excellent work.

  Now our clan’s fighters knew how to shut down that cursed regeneration. It required death magic: wands, rings, I even had a few bullets enchanted with the stuff. You had to hit specific points — the nodal runes. The death would burn away the blood aspect and disrupt the spell entirely.

  But I hadn’t dared use that method on our current guest. Killing him wasn’t the goal. He was meant for something else: those runes would need to be carved out — skin and all.

  I hated admitting it, but I was nervous. Afraid of the work ahead. Theory was one thing, practice, another entirely.

  I’d never tortured a living being.

  I’d skinned rabbits and deer. Once, even a thunder wolf. But they didn’t move. This one, no matter how cursed, no matter how far from human, no matter how much of a threat he posed to the clan, this one did.

  Could I do it? Probably. Or maybe not.

  As Grandpa used to say in moments like this: “You won’t know till you try.”

  But if I did try, I’d ask Kate for help. She could handle this sort of thing just fine.

  Donald thanked me for stepping in so quickly and keeping the mutt intact. Then he made an offer I couldn’t refuse:

  “Lady Blair,” he said politely, turning to our host, “Duncan, would either of you object if I took it from here?”

  “Of course not,” I replied calmly, though inside, I was nearly jumping for joy.

  Only thing that soured the mood was knowing I’d still be expected to watch the rest of it.

  “Oh, I’d be honoured to receive a few lessons, Mr McLal,” Kate purred.

  “Then perhaps,” Donald said smoothly, “you wouldn’t mind if we borrowed Duncan for a bit?”

  Kate raised an eyebrow.

  Donald clarified: “The Earl of Bremor is meeting the Mayor in a few hours. Baron Loxlin has been invited.”

  So that’s why de Camp hadn’t rung me. He and my uncle had sorted it all behind the scenes. Bloody brilliant.

  Would’ve been nice to have had some warning.