Or mistress, as it turned out.

The cavern in which the bloodsucker had made its den was smaller than my bedroom in the tower, smaller than my parents’ apartment in Mud Lane, but it was relatively dry compared with the previous tunnels. A number of makeshift cots had been haphazardly nailed together and shoved in the corner – only one showed any signs of recent use. A battered old chest stood in the other corner. There was nothing else by way of furniture. Random clothing had been scattered across a spare bed – robes or dresses or cloaks, it was hard to tell – and several stacks of books made for the only clutter. There was no stench of blood or death on the air, none of the decay I’d associated with the haunts of a vampire.

At first, upon perceiving the creature there ahead of us, I started to make assumptions. That the expeditions were a cover, a front to prevent the authorities noticing the disappearance of large numbers of people. That the vampire had a hidden agenda, involving an endlessly-rumbling tummy and an unquenchable thirst for the red stuff.

But within seconds I was doubting myself. The eldritch knew how to keep unnoticed. This was no fledgling. It was practised, conscious of its own vulnerabilities. It had hidden itself away, far beyond the reach of my sorcerous senses, using enthralled humans for its tools. It produced no waste, required no food or water or light. Its shape in my mind was deep, its every twist and snarl filled with the will of a sorcerer. It was bound, rather securely.

The vampire’s white face and hair shone in the lantern-light. She was standing in the centre of the cavern as her pet approached, and I could make out the purple eyes, their fierce hunger. She was nail-thin, yet her cheeks were full and round, her small mouth opened in a smile to reveal flashing teeth.

The old woman moaned as she virtually skipped forwards: “I’m back, Elrydea!” She spoke in Telese, but I could tell that ‘Elrydea’ was either a name, or a title, a term of respect of some kind.

“Welcome, Cerele.” The undead creature’s whisper contained the same hunger as her eyes; it sliced through the damp air like a knife through flesh. “Embrace me.”

“Yes, Elrydea!”

The vampire didn’t move towards her meal, but I could tell she wanted to. As soon as the victim came within arm’s reach, she swept her up and sank her fangs into the woman’s throat.

I physically braced myself for the inevitable, though I knew she wasn’t going to kill her. I clenched my insubstantial fists, but there was no spray or even scent of blood.

Slowly, slowly, Elrydea released Cerele and pulled away.

I stayed there by the ceiling, beyond their perceptions, watching as the vampire went to open the chest and treated her poor slave with a few drops of a healing potion.

“You were not followed?” the vampire asked casually in the same whispering slice, as she daubed an ointment on the bite-marks on Cerele’s neck.

“No, Elrydea. The new warlock was in the marketplace again today. I don’t think he paid me any attention.”

“Good. This is good.” The vampire sat down on her bed, the human standing smartly upright before her. “And the work?”

“Five karmaal up today. Three of them will be there.”

Five signed up? I guessed.

“So in total, nineteen are certain for the next expedition. Twenty-five, at most.”

So, there really is an expedition?

“Nineteen. Nineteen will be plenty.”

Elrydea looked at her prey hungrily once more, and Cerele merely tipped her head, exposing her neck –

The thing drank, and I sank down through the air, hearing the insubstantial blood pounding in my insubstantial ears.

“What was that?” The vampire immediately raised her head, stepping away from the old woman and glancing in my direction.

I gave it my best ghost impression.

“Wooh… wooooooh… woooooooooh!“

Cerele twisted in on herself, cringing.

“You said you weren’t followed!” Elrydea snapped.

“I didn’t know!” the slave moaned, tearing at her hair.

I spoke in Mundic. “Youuuuuu, vampire, have been a very naughty girl! No Yearsend presents for you!”

“It is him,” Elrydea muttered to herself in a tone of resignation, as though she’d expected this to happen sooner or later. She raised her voice, replied in my tongue: “Well met, but goodbye, sor-“

I knew what she was getting at. She was bound already, and for so long as she wished me no harm she would be able to escape right past me, run through my shields…

I dropped Mr. and Mrs. Cuddlesticks into the tunnel, layering them so that the entirety of the passageway was blocked by black iron spikes. Their fiery warhammers lit the space better than the old woman’s lantern, casting a warm orange glow over the place.

For good measure, I brought through my mekkustremin at the same time. I knew how fast vampires could be, and the speedy doll-demon was still my best counter.

It was interesting. It took more out of me to summon them than usual.

Something the blood-sucker’s done? Or am I just… weaker?

“Don’t let the vampire past,” I growled in Infernal.

“My pleasure,” Mr. Cuddlesticks replied in a rare show of enthusiasm. I couldn’t even recall the last time one of his kind had replied to me. It was eerie, to think that they were awake and alive in there. People, not automatons.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I floated down, releasing the gremlin invisibility and making myself one-tenth solid.

“You were saying goodbye, Elrydea? You aren’t leaving that way.”

The vampiress smiled toothily, but I could see how she’d been shaken by my response to her words.

“Perhaps not, then, human. Perhaps I’m destined to die at your hands.” She clapped hers together then folded them firmly. “We shall see.”

“What are you doing with the dragon-bones?”

She tilted her head slightly, looking at me as if my question amused her.

“What, is that why you’re here? Of all things!” She laughed, hollow, nethernal laughter. “That’s just how I fund my continued existence, I’m afraid… You aren’t here about the murders? Whenever I killed some-“

“You aren’t fooling me with this act.” I wagged my finger at her. “Shame. Shame, Elrydea. Like you’re in need of cash…” I looked pointedly around her crude home. “Or corpses.” I finished by nodding at Cerele. “Look, I’ll give you one more chance, before things start to get nasty. The dragon-bones. Spill.”

She decided to fight, perhaps hoping that in the commotion she’d be killed outright. The soul of most eldritches couldn’t just be plucked from the cadavers they left behind. Vampires couldn’t become ghosts. They weren’t liches. Her soul would take time to reform on its plane of origin, its final location in the red river uncertain. All the answers I might’ve extracted from her would be put beyond my reach.

But in deciding to leap at me, howling, a sudden flurry of clawed white fingers and teeth – she only sealed her fate. She rebounded from the barrier not six feet from her face, crashing back onto the stone with a very unvampiric lack of grace.

“I’m going to have to rebind you, then,” I said without much enthusiasm, watching as she twisted back up to her feet. “I hope your previous master won’t miss you too much.”

“I can feel you trying,” she said casually as she sat on the bed, not much defiance in her tone. “Don’t strain anything, Mundian. You overestimate yourself.”

“That’s what they’re always telling me,” I grated.

She was confident in her master’s strength, the ability of the bond to hold fast. And her words contained cause for both reassurance and concern. The fact she could feel it – all I’d done was come to the decision, and my glare was now painful to her. That was good to hear. But the fact that she endured the pain, seemingly unfazed? Troubling. Very troubling.

I focussed my will – be mine, be mine! – yet there was nothing. Just a sweet, fanged smile.

Cerele was looking between us with an increasingly-wild shine in her eyes. I had no idea just how much of this conversation she’d been able to follow.

“Fine.” My voice was brittle even to my own ears. “Fine, we’ll have it your way.”

An expanded shape brought both Cerele and Elrydea crashing back into the far wall, pinning them there like shop mannequins on display.

“Release your slave,” I growled. It angered me, seeing the innocent woman suffering under my power, through no fault of her own.

The vampire chuckled, while her pet struggled for breath.

“Why?” Elrydea rasped. “Why would I do this? With what can you threaten me?”

“Death!”

“Death holds no mystery to me. You merely return me to my master’s arms.”

I scowled. “I’ll let you live, then. Let her go, and I’ll let you go.”

The amethyst eyes narrowed. “You would truly do this?”

For a creature so unafraid of death, she hadn’t half come around quickly.

“You’d have to leave Telior. Leave, and never come back.”

“You swear it?”

“On my life.”

“Swear by Kultemeren.”

“I swear by Kultemeren…”

That much wasn’t a lie. I did, sometimes, swear by Kultemeren. The compulsion to finish my intended sentence faded upon this realisation.

But I did lie, didn’t I? How?

“It suffices.” She nodded, butting her head against the force-barrier. In spite of her change of heart, it still prevented her movements.

I folded the shields away, and Elrydea went immediately to the cringing Cerele, pulling the old woman up to her feet gently.

“Here, Cerele, hush. Look at me now. Look at me! Good. Here. Forget. You are free from my service. You no longer desire me. You no longer live to be my blood. Forget all I told you. Be mine no longer.”

The response took its time, came in stages. At first Cerele merely shook her head, like a dazed animal. Then she shuffled back from the vampire, shaking her hands free of the cold undead clutch. Finally, her face reacted, contorting into a smear of terror and disgust – the mouth opened, emitting a shriek –

She staggered back, and I caught her. Elrydea made to move forwards to help her – was that concern on the eldritch’s features? – but I manoeuvred to put myself between them and the vampire halted.

Cerele stayed with me this time. Elrydea had done it. She’d freed her victim.

“It’s okay!” I yelled, almost straight into Cerele’s ear as she continued shrieking, leaning back into me and staring at her former mistress. “It’s okay, it’s over!”

“No!” the old woman gasped in Telese. “These things are never over! Baalika her!” She whirled about at me, eyes wide and wet in fear and hate, and her next words were broken Mundic. “You must! Must kill, Hool Raz!”

“He swore on Kultemeren,” the vampire sneered. “That means something to him, foul creature. How swiftly you turn to despise me, me, whose patronage bought you all you –”

“Shut up!” I snapped, infusing my voice with gremlin-power. “Shut up, killer! I swore on Kultemeren, but if you grew up in Mund you’d have made me finish the phrase. My life? My life was always forfeit.”

Now it was the vampire’s eyes that widened, Cerele’s fear and hate reflected there in the burning purple eyes.

“I swear by Kultemeren… you die before sunrise.” I smiled, and the old woman beside me smiled too. “The only thing that’s going to matter to you will be the method of that death.”

Cerele didn’t leave my side until morning came, and I took her for breakfast, not wanting to leave her alone until I was certain she had somewhere to go, people to look after her. She opted for kippers (disgusting) while I had a hard-boiled egg. We didn’t talk much, the vampire’s final screams still probably resounding inside her head just as loudly as they were inside mine.

Oh, she’d screamed in the end, once I let the demons have their way with her. The problem with regeneration was that torture could be endless, and the incredible strength within her was worthless when I had minions that could snap her unbreakable limbs like twigs. Cerele hadn’t soured on it, and, quite frankly, I hadn’t either. I’d had my fill of vampires to last a lifetime.

So I’d done as much as I could without betraying my principles, without breaking my promise to the God of Truth. I could’ve had her skinned over and over, down the course of weeks, months, until I had my answers, but I didn’t. I relented. I was a kindly destroyer.

She gave me nothing, really, just screams and spite, but I got one half-answer. One response. Where it fit into the overall pattern, I had no notion. Elrydea hadn’t even realised what she was saying until it was too late.

The lipless face had still been able to smile.

“For a hundred years! A hundred years, not one of them! No one found me! No one saw! I am victorious, sorcerer! I win! In dying here, now, I win! My master wins, and he will skin you! He will make you beg for death such as this!”

And I’d sneered that she wasn’t dying, not for a long time yet.

It was only now, looking back, that I saw it.

Had she been gathering dragon-bones for a hundred years?

Has her master? Where else are his eldritches? What could he want these relics for?

I didn’t even want to think about it. It was Mund. It was the Crucible, invading my peaceful sanctuary, my home away from home. It was the shadow, stretching out across the sea for me with its long-fingered hand.

And if I’d not heard the chatter in Irontooth Gates – if I hadn’t stayed at the Lucky Fox, would I have even questioned the something-bones, the raberak translation –

Rathal.

Rathal – he knew. He had to have known.

“I have to go,” I said, standing abruptly.

She tried to grab my hand, thank me – I tried my best to smile but it must have looked a mortifying grimace – and the moment I was out of sight of her I hurled myself into insubstantiality, invisibility, sinking through the boards and down to the water, where no one could see me throw up.

I spent half an hour there in the waves, letting their coldness pass through me, hiding in the shadows beneath Telior.

I am free… am I free? Did I do that to the vampire? Did I do it, or did Rathal do it?

Did Irimar know what I am?

Did Tanra?

Do I?

* * *