The very next day they took Felim to Lord Hargvan's residence.

The vampire lord lived in the former City Hall of Savarin. The building was in a better state than any other part of the city, but still it was in a dire need of maintenance. Still it was surprisingly clean, and the office rooms were actually used for their original purposes by dedicated human slaves. Petrim told him that the clerks were actually an upper caste among the golems. The vampires didn't like to use electronic devices, including computers, which made it difficult to effectively manage the day-to-day issues of the district without the clerks.

"District?" Asked Felim.

"Yes. Hargvan only controls a single district of Savarin. There are four other districts ruled by different vampire lords. The other parts of the city are in ruins and belong to the zombies."

"I see."

Their escort has consisted of two vampires. One of them cleared his throat and said: "You meant to say Lord Hargvan, right, healer? More importantly you know very well, that it is forbidden to tell the slaves information about the city or the Empire."

Petrim seemed annoyed, but when he answered his voice was polite, without a hint of any sarcasm: "You're right of course, sir. I meant no disrespect for our lord. As for the information I provided for the boy, I assumed that since he is an elemental like myself…"

"Oh no, not like yourself," said the vampire in an amused tone. "You are a healer. The Empire provides healers and warders for any lord, no questions asked. The boy is a levitator. Only the most powerful princes have access to levitators. Do you understand what I am saying, earthling?"

"Yes, sir."

"I don't think so. You see, you are allowed to have such knowledge which is useful for escape attempts, because you are relatively easy to replace, and your blood is worthless on the market anyway. Which means that you're worthless too. So, if I were you, I would be more careful about what I say to whom."

Petrim stopped suddenly and turned to the vampire.

"Well, in that case why don't you just kill me, Siriem?" He asked in a conversational tone. And then, he slowly raised his hand to touch the vampire. Both of the undead hurriedly took a step backward and they looked at Petrim's hand in horror.

"You… you wouldn't dare…" said the other vampire.

"What would I not dare, my friend?" Asked Petrim. "To touch you? Or to heal you?" When he said 'heal' both of the vampires reached for their guns. "Relax. You are right anyway. I wouldn't dare to waste my healing on the likes of you. Shall we continue? Your lord is waiting."

"You will…" Siriem started to say.

"... Pay for this? I don't think so. You know the law. I might be just a healer, but if Hargvan needs to ask for a replacement there will be an investigation. I am willing to bet that your lord wouldn't want the attention of the Inquisition, now that he is hiding an air elemental in his domain."

There was a long silence after that.

"I could still break your spine. You can heal that, so there's no need for replacement." Siriem said finally.

"Yes, more importantly I can heal the pain in an instant, so what would be the point? But seriously Siriem. This whole conflict is ridiculous, and Lord Hargvan would punish both of us, if we kept him waiting any longer."

Siriem was still angry, but he only nodded.

***

Lord Hargvan was a handsome young man in his early twenties. On the surface at least.

Petrim told Felim, that nearly every vampire was turned at around the age of twenty. Children and those above twenty-five nearly always became zombies if they catched the Taint. Of course, usually even the young people became zombies, vampires were very rare.

Hargvan's clothes were elegant and expensive looking, but the image of the successful young politician was ruined by the numerous tattoos on his hands, neck and even his face and the way he picked at his nails with a dagger. According to Petrim he was some kind of a minor celebrity before the Apocalypse.

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The vampire lord greeted them with a big smile, he even gave Petrim a hug and shook hands with the vampires using a very complicated handshake. He seemed very friendly. Again, on the surface.

"Alright, let's cut to the chase! You're the air kid, right?" Asked the lord.

"Yes," answered Felim.

To his surprise, Petrim slapped him on his neck. "Lord Hargvan, boy. Forgive me, my lord, the boy is a slow learner."

Siriem snickered at the irony, but the vampire lord only gave Petrim a sad smile. "Yes. But so were you, my friend, and we still managed to teach you. Tell me, how long does it take for you to regrow one of his fingers?"

"What?!" Asked Felim in horror.

Hargvan smiled at him again, hunger in his eyes. "You see, your blood gives me your power for a few minutes. Your flesh, on the other hand, for a few hours. But don't worry, Petrim can make the whole process painless for you."

He is serious!- Felim thought. He felt a nearly unbearable amount of fear, as the two other vampires moved closer to him. Then, suddenly, the fear was gone, and instead he felt the same moist warmness he had felt the day before, when he made the stone levitate. The Air, Petrim called it, and he made sure that Felim spent most of the morning practicing his ability, so he could impress Hargvan. Perhaps it was time to just do that…

"I won't do it, Hargvan," Petrim said suddenly.

All three vampires looked at him incredulously.

"What did you say?" Asked the lord.

"If you eat any part of the boy, I won't regrow it."

Hargvan wanted to say something, probably some nonsense about how Petrim dared to defy him, but Felim had enough of him already. He wasn't powerful enough to use his Motion on the vampire lord, but the dagger he left on his desk was an entirely different matter. He took a deep breath and grabbed it with the Air. The weapon started to levitate almost immediately, but no one else noticed, all of the undead was focused on Petrim. Then he throwed the dagger at Hargvan's head, point first. The blade pierced the vampire's skull, and Hargvan was dead, before he could even get out the first word of what he was going to say.

For a while no one moved, everyone stared at the vampire lord's corpse, and to the dagger in his head. Petrim was the first to react, and he grabbed one of the vampires' throat. The undead started to scream as tendrils of smoke drifted away from where Petrim grabbed his throat, and his flesh simply melted under the healer's touch.

Both Felim and the other vampire, Siriem, watched in horror what happened. But this time Siriem was the first to act, and he took out his pistol, and shot Petrim in the back. The earth elemental seemed merely annoyed at the shot, and let go of the ruined remains of the other vampire's throat, and turned in his assailant's direction. Siriem wasn't a fool, and knew that killing a healer at Petrim's level of power was at least as difficult as killing an undead. So he took the time to target his next shot at Petrim's head. But before he could shoot, Felim grabbed a chair with the Air, and threw it at him. The chair hit Sierem, who missed Petrim and even fell to the ground, losing his pistol. Before he could regain it, Felim took it using Motion. He turned the gun at the last remaining vampire.

"You don't even know how to use it!"

He was right, when Felim pulled the trigger nothing happened.

"But I do," said Petrim, with the other vampire's pistol in his hand. When he pulled the trigger, the gun did fire, though his shot missed the vampire's head, just as his second shot. The third, on the other hand, hit it's mark and killed Siriem. Then Petrim finished the other vampire, whose throat he melted before.

Then, there was silence. They heard noises from downstairs, from the offices, but the human clerks were too afraid of their lord and too used to the various strange and terrifying noises which came from upstairs, to go to check if anything was amiss.

"We need to leave, and quickly," said Petrim.

"Where do we go?"

"To the nearest slave pen. We let free as many slaves as we can."

Felim smiled. He felt like a real superhero. He just killed a vampire lord, and now, he is going to save a lot of innocent lives!

"What are you smiling at?" Asked Petrim. "We just sentenced a lot of good people to an early death."

"What do you mean? We are going to save them!"

"They are going to save us. We need the distraction, else we wouldn't have any chance to escape."

Felim was confused.

"I don't understand," he said.

"Yes, I can see that. Look, kid, there's no time to explain it. Suffice it to say that the vampires are big fans of collective punishments, and for a lord's death they would kill a lot of slaves. If two fugitives try to escape through a zombie infested city, they would catch them in no time. Now, if there are dozens of slaves escaping, in a dozen directions, some might have a chance of survival. With our elemental abilities, we have a better chance than the others. Got it? The other fugitives act as distractions."

That was unacceptable for Felim.

"But if we would stick together with them…"

"... Then we would all die. Even if we could give a gun to everyone whom we let free, we would have no chance against the dozens of vampires of this district. They are better trained, see better in the dark, don't have to worry about the zombies and have better equipment than we."

"But we have our powers!"

"And they have access to warder's blood. And a warder, too. Using the Ward aspect is nearly as unpleasant to them as using the Life aspect, but they can still use it, and with it they can negate our abilities. And there's only two of us, and dozens of them.

"What about the sunlight? We could wait until morning."

"That's hours away. Next time you kill a vampire lord, try to do it in the morning. And anyway, the vampires have hooded robes to protect them from sunlight. They are weakened during the day, true, but that's not going to stop them from chasing us. We need the distraction. Now let's go, time is wasting."