"I understand. She was a vampire, she had her appetites. So did I.

Meanwhile, they delivered another supply of provisions to the kitchen, and reinforcements arrived — a cook and a waiter. Thanks to that, no one asked me anything and without much talk I got a double portion of tartare. Maybe they considered me a member of the tour group.

A car with pizza from a restaurant from the other end of the village arrived within a quarter of an hour. I added three beers, another goulash and took it all to a room on a large tray. I wasn't sure if women would appreciate the beer, but I did, and I wanted more.

Agnieszka immediately took the raw meat and ate it without any flavors. She didn't eat, she devoured it. Only then did she drink and moved to goulash and started eating it much more slowly. The shower in the bathroom was still running.

"And how did you find Evelyn?" I asked.

She looked up from the food. Her eyes were brown, a shade darker than her hair.

"I followed the trail you indicated. I went around nightclubs and looked for an attractive woman who could be a werewolf. "

"Is it that easy to identify one of ours?" I wondered.

"Sometimes," she replied, smiling.

A gentle smile revealing inner amusement.

"I met her when she was explaining to a pimp that she wouldn't really work for him."

Evelyn could be irritable, I remember that well.

I raised an eyebrow to indicate that I was interested.

"She broke his arm, twice. And if he finds a very good surgeon and orthopedist, maybe they can fix his knee so that he can walk without crutches."

Yes, that is her.

The shower stopped and was replaced by the click of glass against the glass as she picked up and put her things back on the table and shelves. Originally there were only two plastic cups, I put a toothbrush into one and a shaving razor into the other. There must have been many, many more things now.

"Have the two of you checked in yet?" I was making sure rather than really asking.

Agnieszka shook her head.

"We didn't want to draw attention to ourselves until we were convinced it was really you. And now it will be too late, the owner went to arrange something. "

In addition to the double bed, there was a small sofa in the room. Old-looking and squeaky, not even the optimistically colored blanket could hide that fact. But definitely better than the floor.

"Hm...," I said vaguely.

The bathroom door opened, showing Evelyn wrapped in a towel that was too short for her at the bottom and top. She also had one wrapped around her hair.

"I forgot my bag with things," she said, and she moved around us elegantly like a cat, and went back.

It was a sight I hadn't seen in a long time and one I had forgotten. There are many beautiful women, but she moved in a way that aroused tension in me. And I didn't like it at all, not anymore.

Agnieszka looked at me.

"You're really a Cold...," she paused. "You really know how to control yourself," she changed the sentence at the last moment. "In the club, she was like," she searched for the right term, "an aphrodisiac for the men. A very strong, and dangerous aphrodisiac. If she wanted to. "

I agreed with her on that.

"Some of us have certain, specific skills, each different. But I'm afraid there's no towel left for us now."

"There is for me, but none for you, I think," she shook her head amusedly.

The uneconomical gesture somehow didn't suit her otherwise very rational way of moving.

After another twenty minutes, Evelyn emerged from the bathroom, this time in acid wash jeans that wrapped her hips and thighs, and in a practical-looking elastic turtleneck that accentuated rather than hid the curves. She wore slippers with a slightly raised heel. She probably wouldn't go anywhere in ordinary slippers, they weren't sexy enough.

"It's your turn," I said to Agnieszka.

She just shook her head.

"Later. I think we need to talk about a few things, and I want to be present."

She was right, I was going to talk to Evelyn. And if Agnieszka stayed to help me, in fact to help us, she had a right to hear it.

"Why did you ask me for help and then didn't call back?" I asked the simplest thing.

"Because I was scared," she replied without hesitation, drank a beer, and then pushed it away, because it was warm already. "I felt like they were breathing down on my neck, that if I didn't get lost right away, they would get me too."

She paused. I waited patiently for her to continue.

"One day little Erik got lost. That can happen. We started looking for him. His mother disappeared two days after. That was weird, however. "

"What about the police?"

"At first, they investigated it as an escape from home or a kidnapping, but after his mother Andrea disappeared, they changed their minds and looked for some family revenge. But we knew there was none. We know each other - remember? "

"I remember," I nodded.

Such things are not forgotten.

"The search was undertaken by Volk," she continued. "Tolik Volk."

I didn't know the name, I only remembered Boris Vlk.

Something on my face gave it away.

"Son of Boris Vlk, he recently became the leader of the pack," she explained.

"You moved to inheritance law?" I asked with open mockery.

"No. You'd like it if the pack fell like that, wouldn't you?” She returned it.

I had to admit she was right. I finished the rest of my beer. I deserved something sharper today, the scars and bruises I suffered were starting to hurt, and it would be even worse tomorrow morning.

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"I'm sorry," I said, getting up, pulling a bottle of Jameson from the refrigerator and bringing two plastic cups from the bathroom. I looked at Agnieszka and Evelyn questioningly. They both nodded.

I poured them and thought for a moment what I would use to drink from. Then I poured them an inch below the rim and appropriated what was left in the bottle.

Evelyn raised her eyebrows in amusement.

"I've changed," I said. "What happened then?"

"What do you think," she shrugged. "The search was led by Tolik, I went to Lviv to make a living."

I wondered for a moment if hunting men in bars was what she meant by making a living, but I didn't want to ask. It was her business.

"Then I could not reach anyone by phone. So I came home, and there was no one to be found, they all disappeared. I went through the houses. Based on how it smelled there, they disappeared recently. And also I smelled someone else. In all of the houses. That scared me the most. I returned to my apartment and decided to write to you. You were the last of us I could contact. In the middle of writing, I heard someone outside the door. There were several of them and they had the same smell."

Evelyn wrapped her fingers around the cup until she squeezed it, almost spilling the beer, and then she indulged in three mouthfuls of it.

"I jumped out the window and went back to Lviv. However, since they found me so quickly in Dragovo, it was not a problem for them to find me in Ostrava either. I was the last, alone. I didn't dare write to you anymore. I didn't even believe it could help."

I drank from the bottle, stared at her, and waited. In my peripheral vision I registered that Agnieszka was watching us both, I continued to focus entirely on Evelyn.

"I ran away and covered the tracks behind me as best I could. Then I didn't do anything to connect me to the pack or to you. "

Evelyn didn't always think about the consequences, especially when she was upset, but she wasn't stupid at all. Rather the opposite. Her worries, fears and cautions were understandable.

If they removed several families in a short time, they had to have considerable resources at their disposal and the last individual could not possibly be a problem for them.

"I even left my business unattended and hid completely elsewhere."

"You have a business?" She surprised me.

"I run a salon focused on a special clientele," she looked satisfied, and the tension briefly disappeared from her face.

This part of the conversation distracted her from what she was afraid of.

"Special clientele?" I didn't understand.

"A very discreet salon for customers whose requirements for satisfaction differ from, say, the social standard. I employ some interesting ladies and men," she explained with satisfaction.

My embarrassment obviously amused her.

"Why didn't you keep a low profile? If you didn't work in that company, I would never have found you," Agnieszka joined our conversation for the first time.

Evelyn looked up at her calmly.

"Because I needed money. I was afraid to withdraw them from my account."

That was wise.

I drank. Whiskey ran smoothly down the stomach and warmed pleasantly.

"I think that if you weren't so careful, they'd get you," I said.

"Not everyone is a warrior like you, damn it!" Evelyn exploded unexpectedly. "I was simply scared, so I ran away!"

I didn't understand what got into her all of a sudden.

"It was ironic, he really meant it," Agnieszka said softly, stopping Evelyn's anger much more reliably than I could have done in any way.

"He really thinks you did the best you could."

"They almost got me," I admitted. "They are vampires. Probably a very strong pack," I revealed.

"Clan," Agnieszka corrected me. "We usually live in rigidly hierarchically arranged clans."

"Sorry," I said.

"No problem, we don't really know much about ourselves yet," Agnieszka replied.

Evelyn looked at her inquisitively and said nothing.

"And they launched the search in style. On the other side of the ridge, I met two guys who were looking for me," I indicated the direction. "Glyhens."

I knew something about vampires, but from the outside, not the inside.

Agnieszka became serious.

"So they are really powerful. Not every clan has glyhens capable of operating independently in a civilized country. Obedient semi-intelligent monsters capable of carrying out orders in a house, enclosed garden, or wilderness is something almost every clan has, but intelligent glyhens — not all of us can create that.”

“How many vampire clans with intelligent glyhens are there?” I tried. Maybe it'll get us on track.

"I know about dozens myself."

Or not.

"How many of you are left? How many of you are there?” Agnieszka corrected quickly.

But it was too late, and a heavy silence descended in the room.

I looked at Evelyn. She is the one who knows that, not me. But I didn't expect there to be many more of us than when I left. Again, even after all the decades, I thought in the plural. Strange. Why? Because they needed help?

"Six families and me, twenty-eight in total," Evelyn said after thinking for a moment.

Twenty-seven people were gone, and no one was looking for them, not a single article in the newspaper.

"Did you go to the police when you returned to Dragovo and found that the others were gone?" I asked.

velyn just shook her head.

"I didn't even think about it, I disappeared," she admitted, looking upset again.

Alone, I understand.

I just waved my hand and drank again. The level of whiskey approached the bottom of the bottle. The less whiskey in the bottle, the better it tastes. Sad truth.

"What about the two glyhens?" Agnieszka returned to my information.

"What," Evelyn told her, "he killed them."

"Glyhens are hard to kill," Agnieszka protested. "They are very resilient and persistent, which is why they are called glyhens."

"I killed them," I confirmed. "I have their weapons, documents and car. I parked their Range Rover a short distance from here so it wouldn't be so easy to track me down."

"A good and expensive car," Evelyn said immediately.

"Unfortunately too conspicuous, we will need something more common," I said, holding back her enthusiasm.

"I can arrange that," she said.

"Without being found? Without the use of documents?”

"I don't use documents in my business," she snapped.

I slided the car documents and keys in front of her. Two. Cow and Crocodile each had one. Such good partners.

"I'm going to wash," Agnieszka told us, rising from her seat.

I wondered if she stood up like an extremely optimized machine, or if there was elegance in her movements. Feminine elegance. I couldn't decide, but I liked it.

Evelyn and I sat opposite each other, she finished her cup and then just took Agnieszka’s.

I still had some whiskey.

"Your girlfriend?" She asked.

"No," I replied. "And she may hear you, she's a vampire," I warned.

"Then why is she helping you?"

"Ask her," I shrugged.

It was a question I would like to know the answer to myself. I didn't quite believe in Agnieszka’s reasoning.

"You look different than I remember you. Bigger, stronger, gloomier. You instill more fear."

"I have adapted to the circumstances," I replied.

I was thinking about my situation. I still had some whiskey. That was positive. Unlike twenty-four hours ago, I was not here alone. That was negative. I feel better on my own.

"You've changed, too," I said. "Guys get their blood boiling just from looking at you."

Regardless of how it may have sounded, I actually meant it. She had something in her that aroused almost uncontrolled lust in men; their dark, dangerous side, and encouraged them to fight - for her. And even years ago, she evoked thoughts that no man would share with anyone. But now it was much stronger.

"I have adapted to the circumstances," she returned.

Why not.

"What are we going to do?"

The shower was still rustling.

"We will discuss it later, all three of us. We are in this together."

With that, I monopolized the uncomfortable sofa, covered myself with a bedspread, placed the six hundred on the chair next to me and S&W under the pillow, and caressed the rest of Jameson on my chest.

Evelyn looked dissatisfied, but said nothing.

Agnieszka, too, looked dissatisfied after leaving the bathroom, but she also said nothing.

She was wearing a long men's T-shirt, which she apparently bought at a local store. The T-shirt was made of a thin fabric, making it flow from her shoulders down like a nightgown. She looked extremely boyish compared to Evelyn, but only to Evelyn. Her legs…

"We will continue the talk at breakfast," I said, closing my eyes.

"The big macho has spoken," Evelyn said teasingly.