We needed to get this place locked down fast. But looking over my shoulder, something needed to be done first.

Gregory was pale. All color drained from him as he stared at the body of Calab. I shut the door, cutting it off from sight, and he shuddered.

“I know it’s horrific, but we need to move,” I said. “And unless we want to start everyone questioning whats going on, I need you to look calmer. Gregory?”

He mutely nodded, which was a start as I moved him out of the room.

Damnations. This was not the time for him to freeze up.

“How many people would be going up and down this hallway?” I asked as we moved out of the room.

“No one,” he replied tonelessly. “This entire area is supposed to be off-limits to guests and servants, and the guards aren’t supposed to leave. Do you think she was alive when-?”

“Best not to think on it,” I said. “So they’d probably keep the group size to a minimum not to be heard. Unless….let’s check the adjacent room. Quickly.”

Gregory moved almost as if sleepwalking. The next door opened to reveal a pair of guards at the table, looking up from their game of cards. I sniffed the air, trying to tell if there was any scent of blood in there as well.

“Lord Gregory?” One asked, reaching for a pistol while looking at me suspiciously.

“No need for weapons,” Gregory replied shakily. “Just checking on the perimeter. There might be intruders in the house.”

“Did you hear anything from the next room?” I asked, taking another sniff. No blood. I still continued opening up furniture, keeping an eye on both of them the entire time.

The guard looked quizically over to Gregory, who nodded.

“I heard a bit of noise a while back, so I went over to check it out. Calab had knocked over a chair. We talked briefly. She and her group had nothing to report. They seemed alright.”

“Calab is dead,” I said bluntly. “We found her corpse shoved into a cabinet, the others in there as well. You talked to a shapechanger.”

The guard’s expression blanked. “I…what.”

“Go, check the next room: you and your friend,” I said.

By now, I’d opened all the furniture, so these two were unlikely to be Changers. Merely unlikely.

We’d made it to two more rooms in our quick examination by the time the first guards had returned, and it looked like the word was traveling quickly.

“We need to get this organized,” I told Gregory. “They’ll listen to you, right?”

“They should,” he said back. “Unless Father gave them orders not to.”

Well, that was a possibility we’d have to risk.

“I’d suggest barricading all entrances and exits besides the main hall,” I said. “We should pull what guards you have back at chokepoints along the halls. Concentrate around the ballroom and any entrances to the second and third floors.”

“There’s only the one,” Gregory said. “Do what she says. If any other member of the family tells you no, ignore them. Ignore me if I tell you no and I’m not with Miss Waters here.”

That did the trick, and by the time Gregory and I started heading back to the ballroom, the word was being spread.

“I hope this is the right call,” Gregory told me.

“It’s the least bad call,” I said. “At this point, we’ve been infiltrated. The best way to handle this is to limit how far people can travel inside the manor and start setting up security protocols. That should have been done from the start, but now is fine.”

Two guards stuck with us, and they would guard the bottom of the stairs. Returning to the ballroom, the party was still in the dancing phase of the evening, the band playing a waltz.

Luckily, Lord Montague was not on the dance floor, standing away from the dancers and talking with an elderly gentleman in an army uniform, whom Gregory had mentioned as a family friend. Colonel Cuthbert.

“We’ll go fetch my father. Mr. Voltar and Mr. Dawes as well if you can do it circumspectly,” Gregory told one of the guards.

“Nothing about that is circumspect,” I said. “Before we go down to your father’s crowded ballroom, guards in tow to drag your father and the others upstairs, let me suggest something else. You and I quietly let them know what’s going on.”

Although going down with Gregory might cause a fuss all its own. His color was back some, and his expression was no longer horrified.

Instead, he looked angry, as if he might have tried to bite into anything that disturbed him. He’d been so composed in other situations, but the corpse had probably unbalanced him more than anything else could.

I took the lead on heading down the stairs, leaning into him as we began the journey,

“The latest book you read, what was it? Plot summary, your opinions, anything about it you can recall.”

The question startled him a little, his head turning to look at me.

“I…what?”

“Trust me. Book, summary, opinions. Latest one.”

“Uh,” his gait slowed as he thought about it. “Envy and Inevitability by Matilda Vanell.”

“You’ve read the latest Vanell?” I asked. “It’s not out for another month!”

“You read Vanell?” he asked, the corner of his mouth twitching before sprouting into a grin.

“Well, some of my patients have mentioned it,” I started. “Maybe I’ve read a few chapters….a few books…her entire catalog since she started six years ago. That is beside the point. How do you have an advance copy?”

“Miss Vanell is a very close friend,” he told me. “She likes getting feedback, so she lent me a copy of the manuscript the last time I visited her.”

Very close friend? I….my brain would fry if I thought about that too much.

“Do you still have the advance copy?” I asked.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Yes, and maybe I’ll even let you borrow it without spoiling any of it,” he teased me.

By the time we reached the bottom of the stairs…well, he still looked haunted, but maybe we could sell that as a very brutal rejection from me?

As we walked towards where Lord Montague was talking, we passed by the band, and I paused for a moment.

It was worth a shot despite what I’d said to Gregory earlier. I blinked, opening my vision to the astral.

Alright, there was something more than mere warding going on. This many swirling emotions in one place should be a lure to spirits large enough that some would worm through too small for most wards to stop. Small things, barely capable of thought moving about, created by and being fed off the emotions in the room. Instead, things were merely blurry instead of the cavalcade of different spirits that should be whirling through here.

It did make it easier to spot the band.

I had no idea why the band leader looked like a caricatured version of Lord Montague outside of maybe a recent argument with the man. The joined-together nature of the two violinists might be far too much information on their personal lives, and the cello player’s horns were at least more realistic looking than those lackwit nobles from before.

Getting to Lord Montague was not a problem, at least.

“Lord Montague!” I said loudly and cheerfully enough to get a scornful glare from him immediately. “Sorry to bother you, but….”

“Lord Thallier is upstairs,” Gregory said in a mock whisper. “Passed out drunk at one of the liquor cabinets.”

“Thomas is here, Bart?” Colonel Cuthbert said. “You should have told me! I’d have helped keep him away from the booze, at least.”

“I didn’t know myself, Charles,” Lord Montague said with a forced smile. “I’ll go make sure he’s alright. Be back in a few seconds.”

“Take your time. I’m in no hurry to get back to the wife.”

I was going to wait till we reached the second floor to start the conversation, but Gregory started when we were barely halfway up the stairs.

“Calab is dead, Father,” Gregory said. “We found her body shoved inside a cabinet. The two in the room we were keeping Edward in as well. They are here.”

Lord Montague’s expression turned sour. “You’re certain?”

“We can show you the bodies, but it seems morbid,” I said. “We checked the surrounding rooms, and the number of dead seemed to be only those three. They pretended to be her group till they reached the ballroom. The one who replaced Calab was wearing a servant’s uniform, so they’d managed to change clothes by now. Hopefully not by killing someone for them, but we may find more bodies before this is over.”

“Can you find them?” Lord Montague asked.

“Maybe. One was still wearing Calab’s face while in a serving uniform, so there might be some limitation on the changing.”

I had no idea what it might be. Every Changer we’d encountered so far hadn’t seemed too restricted on what they could change into.

“We could always call the ball off, Father,” Gregory suggested.

“No,” both I and Lord Montague objected simultaneously.

We glanced at each other in surprise, and after a second, I let him get out his explanation first.

“Immediately noticeable. If these creatures have infiltrated the ball, and their ability to fight is anything like what Voltar has claimed, letting them know they’ve been discovered could lead to a massacre.”

“Pretty much where I was going,” I added. “We already have a good idea who the target is and where they need to go to get there. For right now, closing off entrances seems the best bet. Gregory, we should check the kitchen. If they’re disguised as servers, we can at least try to get a headcount.”

***

The hustle and bustle of the kitchen was a racket I didn’t need as I stood on the outsides, observing a veritable army of servants running around.

“I think asking them to stand still might give the game away,” Gregory observed.

“You aren’t wrong,” I said, observing that despite the heat from the kitchen, I could feel a light chill on my skin. “But we have more important issues.”

Rounding a corner from the kitchen entrance revealed an open door, a pair of guards standing outside.

“I thought all other entrances were closed?”

“They’re supposed to be,” he said, gesturing to one of the servers. “Tala, why is the servant’s entrance still open?”

“Someone has to bring in supplies for the kitchen somehow, Lord Gregory,” she replied. “Your father said to keep it open and assigned Garret and Miles to keep it guarded. Why?”

“We’re just dealing with some potential thieving problems,” Gregory replied too casually.

Far too casually, given the skeptical expression on Tala’s face.

We headed outside, Gregory waving to either Garret or Miles while I considered the night sky.

Some stars were visible, but not many between the smog and the lights down here. Even the single moon out tonight looked a little waxy as I breathed in the chill air, enjoying the solitude.

That swiftly ended.

Inside the ballroom, the noise of the party made it hard to pick out specific sounds. I hadn’t had enough time to adjust to enhancing my hearing, but out here in the square, I could hear much more clearly.

Breathing. A lot of it. Small motions, the sounds of people shuffling about, all of it from the wagons lined up outside this entrance. Far too much to just be the drivers. Worse, the sound of metal.

“Gregory, maybe we should go back inside,” I said calmly. “Discuss this with these folks outside of the cold? I’m going to start freezing my fingers off.”

That got a quizzical look from Gregory but he nodded, and soon us and the guards were on the other side of the entrance.

I shut the door, working the locks to secure it as best I could.

“We need some furniture to slow them down,” I said hurriedly. “How many windows are there on the ground floor?”

“What?” Gregory asked.

Behind him, one of the guards made one of the universal signs of a crazy person and mouthed a word I wished I could make him regret.

“I adjusted my hearing before coming here,” I told Gregory flatly. “And it’s a good thing I did. There are people in those wagons and far more than just the drivers. When did those wagons get here?”

Once again, I was stuck waiting for a guard to seek non-verbal confirmation from Gregory to even bother answering one of my questions.

“About half an hour after the prep work started for the party. Dalian came out to meet them.”

Well, it sounded like we had our leak in the staff.

“Dalian?” I asked.

“One of the assistant cooks, should we question him?”

“No time. We need to get to the ballroom now,” I said, already on the move, Gregory behind me. Hopefully, those guards would start barricading the door.

“If they had this many changers, they would never have needed to use Pure Bloods for muscle,” I said. “Which makes me think it’s Pure Bloods out there. Why? I’m not sure. A distraction, a contingency? Not sure. But whatever it is, it needs to kick off soon. If they wait too long, Malstein will get things sorted, and the Watch will be ready to jump on their heads.”

Which seemed off. As a distraction, it was far too much overkill for what was needed. Oh, we knew they’d be coming and they knew it was a trap, but it wasn’t a trap you handled by hitting it with a hammer.

“We underestimated them,” I told Gregory. “A distraction is one thing, but this doesn’t feel like an infiltration. They know the trap exists, but instead of going quiet, they’re going loud. Which doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?” Gregory asked. “It sounds like they’ve fooled every last one of you.”

I forced down the pang of irritation at that statement. “Because the person leading them has until now been extremely risk-averse. Catspaws, keep themselves in the shadows, setting any blame for what might happen to land on third parties instead of themselves. They underestimated the people they wanted to use as pawns, but the overall plan was one to put as little risk on themselves as possible. Be as quiet as possible. Arranging for a supremacist gang to attack a ball hosted by a human noble? That is not quiet.”

Maybe if they’d given up entirely on replacing Edward Montague, but the infiltration of the three shape-changers made me think there was still something in here they wanted. We entered the ballroom again, the waltz coming to an end. Pairs were leaving the dance floor and I felt a minor pang of irritation. Had this not happened, if I had asked, would he have said-?

Best not to let ideas like that distract me. More important things at hand to handle first.

“We find your father, and Volt-”

I was cut off by screams.

One of the guards yelled out a warning, raising a revolver. A trio of bullets punched through her throat and chest, blood spewing across a grey uniform as she went down. The other managed to fire his, adding another gunshot to the rising cacophony of screams from guests. He went for his saber only for a pair of assailants to charge him, taking him down and stabbing him with knives, eyes and throat first.

I froze as the assailants forced their way past the gates, easily a dozen in a second with more behind them. Most were carrying sabers and old flintlocks, a single revolver. Those behind them had fewer sabers, more daggers and clubs and other improvised weapons, less in common with street gang and more with the dregs you’d pick up from the street.

Because it wasn’t Pure-Bloods swarming through the gates into the ballroom, fleeing guests and servants ahead of them while Lord Montague yelled behind me for guards.

It was Infernals.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll lay down any weapons right fucking now!” The one in front yelled, wearing an aged and tattered army uniform with a ragged patch of a black flame and goat’s head on their shoulder. “We’re the Black bloody Flame!”

A half-dozen possibilities went through my mind, but part of me stayed on task. I grabbed my revolver out of my purse and in a single practiced motion, put a bullet through his knee.