The dawn came.

I still kept the unfinished whiskey on my chest, and there was a quiet exhaling sound and a soft crunchy snoring coming from the double bed. I couldn't tell which one belonged to whom. Dawn was slow, as always here at this time of year. I tried to tell if I heard tiny raindrops, or if it was just the noisy sitting of rich dew.

I was hungry and according to the light, someone could already be in the kitchen. I realized I didn't take a shower tonight. I got out of bed, picked up a few of my uppers from the closet, took S&W in my hand, and slipped quietly down the hall. I walked past three more doors in the attic, the smell of which had two rooms. Opening a simple lock didn't bother me. I slipped inside and closed behind me. I wasn't mistaken, the room was really empty. Unfortunately, at the same time not ready for other guests. I took a shower and then stood at the open window until I felt dry in the moist, cold air flowing in from the outside.

The fog rose in the morning. I got dressed, clicked the revolver into the holster, and tried to get it out. No problems, smoothly like oiled gears. The advantage of carbon fiber. I hid it under the turtleneck and was ready to go out into the company.

There was a guy in the kitchen who arrived yesterday as a reinforcement.

"We are still waiting for a group of cyclists for lunch, I had to start early. Miss Bolozhkova has had enough after yesterday, she will arrive later," he told me without asking.

He was obviously glad he could talk to someone, and I had more trouble stopping him than suspecting him. In the end, I managed to order breakfast.

* * *

Evelyn and Agnieszka arrived at the second portion of eggs and the third coffee.

"You're very quiet," Agnieszka commented as she sat down.

"Yeah, he hasn’t lost his touch," Evelyn said matter-of-factly.

I used to leave a similar room just as carefully, and she didn't forget. We lay in the same bed together, and she didn't wake up. But it has been many years, more than half the average human life.

The chef - waiter, despite being busy, appeared at our table and was all ears. Or should I say eyes? I was not sure, but either way, he couldn't take his eyes off Evelyn.

"My sister," I pointed at Evelyn, "and my girlfriend," pointing atAgnieszka.

Neither of them were satisfied with the assigned roles. Maybe I should have tried the other way around.

"Uhm, yeah," he stammered. "Mykhail, but they call me Misha, nice to meet you, very nice."

I believed he was pleased I called Evelyn my sister. It seemed much more credible than if I had said it about Agnieszka. Evelyn and I had in common that we weren't small. We both belonged to very large specimens within our sex. But sexual dimorphism is even greater when it comes to us than humans. And I also saw that he liked her. Who wouldn't.

In the end, they both took an order and Mykhail, I mean Misha, left the table, although reluctantly.

"What's the plan?" Evelyn asked, as if certain that a plan already exists.

But maybe she was just teasing me, I wasn't sure.

"We will stir the hornet's nest, but we have to be careful because they are very strong, ruthless and cunning. In other words, fucking dangerous," I began.

They both poured themselves coffee and a glass of juice, Evelyn drank carefully to leave only a minimal imprint of lipstick on the porcelain surface, Agnieszka casually drank hers.

"They were able to track your email, and as soon as I responded to it, they sent killers after me," I looked at Evelyn.

"I escaped them and got lost. But they were waiting for me here, at home. And they wanted to be damn sure they would kill the real one. They arranged the event in such a way that if nothing worked out, it would still not be possible to track them down."

Agnieszka nodded. She could have specified the role she played in the whole affair, but she did not. I left it to her.

I wondered how much I could trust her. What if it was a big shack, a trick - but that didn't make sense. She had plenty of opportunities to kill me or deliver me to her employers. Without her help, I would have been dead. But her motive still remained a mystery to me. Why did she stay with us? Her previous reasoning seemed weak to me. On the other hand, I was glad she was here.

"He must have allies in the city leadership and probably the police, because otherwise he wouldn't be able to cover up the disappearance of the five families so easily," Evelyn added.

"It doesn't have to be an ally, we are very experienced in blackmail," Agnieszka said. "And also in manipulation. A lot of people serve us, and they don't even know whom. "

I thought about it for a while.

"Where can they be, what are they? Did they move here from any city? From Kyiv?"

Evelyn and I both looked at Agnieszka. She knew more about vampires than we did, she was one of them.

"Certainly not from Kyiv, Ukraine and Slovakia are hunting grounds of one sole vampire," she replied convincingly.

"I thought you lived in clans," Evelyn said, watching Misha bring the food. I didn't know how she did it, but suddenly she looked different, a little cheaper and more challenging if I might say. But he couldn't take his eyes off her and almost dropped everything.

"You are playing with him?" Agnieszka asked as he bowed literally and figuratively. New guests saved us from his further attention.

"Yeah, I am now whatever he wants me to be," Evelyn nodded without embarrassment, looking more normal again.

That meant that if I did not keep my thoughts in check focusing on our problems, it was very easy to imagine how easily I could pull off those fitted jeans. And whether it would be like then.

I noticed that Agnieszka was watching me.

Maybe Evelyn was playing with me, and no one knew her true appearance. And maybe this was really her, a chameleon to the bone.

"You said you lived in clans," I recalled Evelyn's remark.

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"Yes, most of us live in clans. This makes it easier for us to adapt to the rapidly changing world. But there are also loners. Mostly very old, dangerous and self-reliant. Mathias Mayer is one of them. "

"You even know his name?" Evelyn asked.

She started eating scrambled eggs with a suppressed eagerness. She was hungry. We are like that, we need more food than people. And in general, we are more passionate about most things related to the body's experiences. Of course, there are exceptions.

"Yes, it's his public name. It is well known among us because one of the strongest clans recently tried to occupy his territory. "

It sounded interesting, but I didn't ask. Because Mathias Mayer still considered Slovakia and Ukraine his hunting grounds, so it was clear how it ended up.

"If it's such a chad, we could let him know about the vampire dudes," Evelyn suggested.

I shook my head. I didn't want to rely on a third person I knew virtually nothing about, a man, even worse, a vampire who didn't owe me anything. The pack was at stake.

"We have to hurry, we need to find out what happened to our people as soon as possible and help them. I think they are still alive," I said emphatically.

"Why do you think so?"

Agnieszka's simple question made me have to fight a tide of rage against her. How the hell can she ask that?! They couldn't have all died! I was able to suppress my anger. Loyalty to the pack was to blame. I haven't felt it so much in decades. If ever.

"Killing them, then getting rid of the bodies and avoiding the investigation would certainly be much easier than removing them without any fuss. Without the police and the neighborhood being interested. They could use a killer, a scapegoat to massacre them, and then simply turn him over to the police. Best dead."

"Yes, it would certainly be much easier," Agnieszka agreed immediately, as if vampires commonly used such methods.

"And you can't find out who they are? Your bosses must know.”

"At the very least the highest one does," she agreed. "But I'm not going to talk to him. I'm like the scapegoat we talked about a while ago. If they killed you," she looked at me, "and the police became interested in me, I'd be first. And maybe they would finish me off preemptively, just in case.”

I didn’t refute her.

"Do you remember the night it happened, when you found out that everyone else was gone?"

Evelyn's curvy lips tightened into a narrow, ugly line.

"It was the end of March, but it was snowing again. The snow remained on the asphalt, so the cars left black wheel tracks as they drove by. I came to the Volk family, there were tracks of a car, a slightly bigger one I think. But not a truck. And no one inside, just that weird smell floating in there."

She was back in the past again and she didn't notice us.

"And it was the same with every house. Traces of a car covered in fresh snow, no one inside, the tea on the hottop still warm. ”

She shook her head.

"Nothing, I didn't find anything, I just fucking ran away."

"We'll stir the hornet's nest and watch who responds," I returned to my earlier idea.

"How? Will you stand in the square and start making a fuss?” She said angrily.

"I'll come to the town hall, to the registry office, and start asking where the Volks, the Medveds, and the others have gone. Like a relative who wants to find them. "

I still owned the documents on my original name, it was no problem to prove that I was really their relative.

"Then I'll wait at the hotel and be ready."

For anything. But I didn't say that out loud.

"Too much risk," Anneliese shook her head. "They tried to kill you once. They could choose a method that you will not be able to respond to this time. Drone, bomb in the hotel, long-range missile, poison "

If it represented the ways vampires used, their repertoire was wider than I expected. But she was right.

I had more experience with vampires than any of our people, and that's why I ordered weapons of somewhat heavier calibers from a family armorer a few years ago.

In Afghanistan, we came across a military unit who bought raw opium from the surrounding farmers and at the same time did not allow them to grow anything but poppies. We followed them to a remote valley in the mountains, where we discovered their base - an old fortified village. We tried to capture them, but they didn't let us. Before we destroyed them, they caused us heavy losses. We, a special team with the best equipment and weapons, were almost decimated by a dozen barefoot guys with half a century old Kalashnikovs. They were fast, quieter than the shadow, and could cover well. It also seemed to us that the bullets bounced off them without hurting them too much. It wasn't until later that we found out that many of them had been hit many times. Ammunition of all possible calibers, shrapnel grenades. Yet they continued to fight. We killed them anyway, the training, technique and perfect teamwork of the unit eventually triumphed.

But their commander, the village chief, was a completely different class. He killed three of us with his bare hands, and even the concentrated fire of our H&K did not stop him.

I was supposed to be fourth. He was much stronger and faster than me, and he would have killed me if my kukri knife hadn't helped. It was like cutting through an oak board, but I've done that a few times. Eventually, I ripped his stomach open and used his brief hesitation to knock him down the cliff. Even after falling down from three hundred meters he lived, a bullet hit him in the head. To be sure, I shot him through the eye. Twice.

According to locals, he had ruled the village since the time of the Great Moguls, which meant he could be four hundred years old, maybe more. The soldiers we killed were like his children - younger vampires. They were not more than a hundred years old. It is said that he did not tolerate anyone older around him, he was afraid that it might endanger his position.

I, Sergeant McMughly, and the wounded Person survived. We never told anyone the truth, because they would call us crazy. McMughly and Person then dismissed memories of the event and never talked about it. McMughly died later in Botswana, and what happened to Person - I didn't remember. I just felt like he lived a happy veteran's life somewhere.

I looked around, both women watching me questioningly, apparently I had fallen into my memories for too long.

"The older we get, the faster, stronger and more resilient we are," Agnieszka said, as if reliving my memories.

That agreed with what I knew.

"Could you guess how old the man who tried to kill me was? And almost accomplished it? ”I said.

Agnieszka shook her head.

"Aging and subsequent physiological changes are extremely individual and I have no idea what they depend on. I know that our elders used to try to explore this process, but it didn't work out. All I can say about the vampire who almost killed you is that he is much older and more resilient than I am. "

"And what can you do?" Evelyn asked with a scornful smile.

Evelyn was a bit of fluff, a real bit of fluff, perhaps too tall and robust for a lot of guys, but with everything in the right place and shaped into perfect sensual curves. Besides, she was damn strong, too. Stronger than humans. Maybe some very good heavy athlete could be stronger than her, but certainly not as fast and persistent. But I still doubted that he could really be stronger. We were just predators. Agnieszka looked almost petty against her, even though it was a matter of relative comparison, not absolute measures. Slim sports girl. But a vampire. She carried me on her back for many miles…

"Try it," she said, offering Evelyn a hand to squeeze.

She accepted it carefully.

The force of the grip could only be estimated from the way their fingers turned white.

"Enough?" Evelyn suggested after a long minute.

Her nostrils were enlarged from the exertion and her whole attitude indicated just how much effort she had to make. Agnieszka, on the other hand, turned into a statue, something inhuman, unnatural, was creeping into her posture, as if she was drawing strength from something completely different than muscles. Vampire, I remembered.

"Yes," she agreed. "That’s enough."

They both released their grip at the same time, and I saw them both relieved.

"I see, strong girls have always been your thing," Evelyn looked at me.

"We are not dating," Agnieszka protested.

I left it without comment and thought instead.

I knew what a four-hundred-year-old vampire, an experienced warrior, could do. At the same time, I could still feel the wounds from the vampire killer in Dragovo. I only survived by chance - no, such an approach leads to hell - I only survived because I fought to the end, and it was close. Agnieszka might be able to beat Evelyn, but she was no match for me.

"How old are you?" I asked her.

"You don't ask women questions like that," Evelyn told me.

"I'm hungry," she said, almost in the deep velvet voice she used when her animal self was taking over, which excited me so much.

"Me too," Agnieszka added.

The minute long duel exhausted them both. I saw Evelyn's bruise on the palm and back of her hand from the excessive pressure that caused the subcutaneous bleeding. It will soon be absorbed again. Agnieszka's hand remained pale, as always.

"How old are you?" I repeated the question.