A creature stalked the roofs of nightly Mirelue. Its cat-like claws clicked on the grey shingles with every step and they scraped them with every jump. It skulked around up there to find prey on the streets below, where it could easily ambush them. It spoke with two independent voices that each sounded different from each other.

  ‘The thirst…’ one said in an almost whisper-like tone, ‘we must quench it.’

  ‘Not here,’ said the other in a more authoritative tone as the creature peered at the folk walking the streets below, ‘these are our kind, we cannot do this.’

  ‘Feast…’ said the whispering voice in response. The two voices fought for control of the body.

  ‘Let us hunt mortals,’ said the authoritative voice, ‘Their blood is more fresh, more sweet.’

  ‘It is too dangerous,’ the whispering voice took control of their shared body before it jumped down from the rooftops and onto a victim. The street, normally only bathed in red light now also bathed in blood. The victim screamed as the creature tore out her throat with its long bladed teeth. The people around ran off immediately, except for one man in a long black coat and a top hat. He stared intensely at what happened before him with almost a look of intrigue on his face, then the man shooed the creature. One of its four eyes looked at the man and almost as if controlled by him the creature backed off and clambered back onto the rooftops before running off.

  The man checked to see what had become of the victim. The creature had drained her nearly completely of blood and left her a lifeless husk lying on the pavement. He hurried to pick her up and carried her away from the scene of the crime.

  Laras woke up early when the sun’s rays came through their room's small window and hit his face.. He looked at Yara, who rested her head on one of her arms while the other was draped over his chest. He laid perfectly still and looked at how peacefully she was sleeping until her expression changed. It went from the neutral one she usually had to a smirk

  ‘How long were you looking at me for?’ she asked in a groggy voice as she opened her eyes.

  ‘A little while.’

  ‘I can’t be that interesting when I’m asleep,’ Yara sat up a little, leaning on one of her arms.

  ‘I was thinking about how you usually pull this one face while you’re asleep.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Yara, blowing her hair out of her face as she sat up more, ‘what’s it look like.’

  ‘Like… well like you just stepped in something,’ said Laras, ‘like you were having a bad dream.’

  ‘Fortunately I haven’t had any bad dreams lately,’ she got out of the bed and began to bind her hair in a low-hanging ponytail. She walked over to the window and looked outside, where she could see that a market established itself on the square outside the inn.

  ‘We should get supplies from there,’ said Yara in an attempt to change the subject, ‘there’s bound to be something good.’

  ‘Good idea, bread and dried meat aren’t what I’d call a balanced breakfast.’

  Yara looked at Laras, who began to sit up in the bed.

  ‘I agree,’ she said ‘though you might want to put on a shirt first.’

  Mirelue’s markets were some of the largest and most renowned on Angalir, to the point where “Market Day” became almost a sort of biweekly holiday for the people that lived in the city. Some market days one could spend the entire day wandering the maze of stalls that’d span nearly every street of the city. Yara stayed close to Laras as they calmly walked past the stalls and looked at all they had in store. Some sold exotic clothes from the mainland, while others dealt in oddities gathered from around the world. Laras lagged behind at one of them while he looked at their stock.

  ‘You’ve got some coin of your own, right?’ he asked.

  ‘Uh, I do, why?’ Yara asked in return.

  ‘I’m going to look around here a bit more, you go on ahead.’

  ‘Oh, sure, I’ll see you at the bridge then?’ she asked, Laras nodded in reply. Now split up Yara could roam around and not worry about losing Laras in the crowd. The only thing she worried about now was the noise and crowds, two things that’d always bothered her immensely, especially at the same time. She looked at some of the more interesting stalls, like those selling potion ingredients or exotic pets.

  ‘Missed me?’ said a woman's voice with a Yilgran accent, Yara turned around and saw Julie. She greeted her and they continued to roam the markets together.

  ‘What’ve you been doing?’ she asked, ‘I hope hanging around Laras and I wasn’t too boring.’

  ‘It’s been entertaining enough,’ said Julie, ‘I had no idea you could call a dragon to you,’ she got up close to Yara.

  ‘You mean Ashfallow?’

  Julie nodded.

  ‘I’m not the only one who can do that,’ said Yara as she got in line at a baker’s stall, ‘other knights have the obsidian for it as well.’

  Julie wanted to respond, but Yara shushed her when she overheard a group of women in the next line over talk about something.

  ‘You seen what happened in the West End last night?’

  ‘Those rooftop vagabonds at it again?’

  ‘Seems like it, a woman butchered in the middle of a busy street.’

  ‘Saints I am so incredibly tired of these… these things taking the piss out of our great city!’

  ‘A surprise his lordship hasn’t kicked them out yet!’

  ‘Coward’s too scared to even set foot in the west end, day or night too.’

  Yara lost her focus when Julie got in front of her.

  ‘You know, you really shouldn’t eavesdrop.’

  ‘I’d like to avoid talking with them,’ said Yara. She waited her turn until she could purchase some of the baker’s stock, making off with enough supplies to last her and Laras a week out in the wild. She then set out for the bridge she’d agreed to meet Laras at. He was already sitting on the stone bannisters and peered down into the river while he waited.

  ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ asked Yara as she leaned on the bannister as well.

  ‘No, unfortunately not, you?’

  ‘I got the bread, nothing else though,’ she showed him the bag she’d brought with her, ‘I also overheard some people talk about something we might want to look into.’

  ‘Oh? What might that be?’

  ‘Someone was murdered in the western end of the city.’

  ‘Well that sounds interesting, but it’s not really up to us to go solving crimes, is it?’

  ‘They mentioned some sort of “rooftop vagabonds” being the culprits.’

  ‘Again, interesting, but not our job.’

  ‘You don’t think we should at least go take a look at what happened there?’

  ‘No, I think we should leave it to the guards.’

  ‘But-.’

  ‘I’m not going to look into it.’

  ‘Gah! You’re impossible sometimes!’ said Yara as she turned to walk back to the inn.

  ‘Likewise!’ shouted Laras after her, his mood soured.

  ‘I’m going to get my sword and I’ll look into this myself!’

  ‘Feel free to, I’m not going to try and stop you.’

  Following her little fight with Laras she retrieved her sword and headed towards the western end of town. On Helena’s back she waded through the masses. Being above everyone else made it significantly more manageable for her to deal with the crowds, less sound reached her and she could actually see what went on around her. Julie appeared behind her in the saddle.

  ‘I remember coming here with my father as a little girl,’ she said, trying to distract Yara, ‘I was fortunate that my parents were rich, it meant I could try everything on.’

  ‘It sounds nice,’

  ‘Doesn’t it just?’

  Yara had at first thought about who she’d have to ask for directions, but now that Julie had mentioned she’d been here before an idea popped into her head.

  ‘Hey, do you think you can remember where I need to go?’

  ‘I should!’ said Julie, ‘plan on keeping me around as a navigator?’

  Yara nodded her head.

  ‘Good, I think I’d like that.’

  ‘So, where do I go for the West End?’

  ‘Across that bridge then left, a big street leads there.’

  Yara followed her instructions and tried to look around her surroundings to get a feel for them

  ‘Hey, you’re doing fine, right?’ asked Julie out of genuine concern.

  ‘I am, why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘I saw the tiff you had with Laras.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ said Yara with a sigh, ‘I don’t want to think about him right now.’

  ‘You’re right, my bad,’ Julie dropped the topic and began to look around as well. The street lighting on this side of the river hadn’t just been the regular lanterns. Their glass panes had been replaced by red-stained glass-in-lead.

  ‘Those are new,’ said Julie.

  ‘What, the lanterns?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Those weren’t there last time I was here.’

  ‘Maybe they’re redecorating?’

  That ended the conversation until Yara got to a narrow street she couldn’t enter on horseback.

  ‘I’ll have to get off here,’ she climbed down and took Helena’s reins in one hand before gently guiding the animal through the narrow street. Julie already moved to the other side.

  ‘Welcome to the West End,’ she said as she looked at a sign. This part of the city was remarkably deserted. Not a single person wandered the streets despite the fact that it was broad daylight.

  ‘It… it used to be a lot busier here.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ said Yara as she continued to lead her horse further.

  ‘Now that I think about it,’ said Julie as she looked at another one of the lanterns, ‘it makes sense that they’re red if there’s going to be spilled blood everywhere.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Yara, realising too late that she’d asked a stupid question, ‘it’s because of the colour, isn’t it.’

  ‘Yeah, the red light will drown out the red of the blood and make it harder to see.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad we came here during the day,’ said Yara as she got back in the saddle, ‘let’s get to looking then.’

  Together they searched the streets for any blood that might’ve been spilled the night before, and they found what they were looking for not long after they started. A large bloodstain had caked on the cobbles and part of a nearby wall.

  ‘Well, there’s not much else this can be from,’ said Julie, she looked at Yara, ‘can you see anything else from there?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Not a trail of blood or anything?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Yara as she got down from her horse again, ‘maybe we should ask around these stores?’ she walked towards the shop windows and looked through them. It was pitch-black behind every window she peered into, another thing that stood out about the street.

  ‘Maybe we should ask the garrison?’ suggested Julie.

  ‘Is there one nearby?’

  ‘There should be, I remember seeing it when I was here,’ she said, ‘follow me.’

  The garrison proved to not be too far away, its large wooden gates stood out amidst the blueish grey bricks the surrounding houses were made of. A smaller wooden door was embedded in one of the larger ones, and Yara had to push hard to get it open. A guard on the inside had dozed off while guarding the door and was woken up by its loud creaking. He said something in Yilgra, which Julie responded to in kind.

  ‘Go on ahead,’ she said to Yara. A man looked down at what was happening from the platform above. His face was round and his entire upper lip went hidden behind a large but well-groomed moustache.

  ‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’ he asked with a thick Yilgran accent, his voice commanded by a pompous tone.

  ‘I have questions about the recent murder.’

  The man murmured something before he responded to her.

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  ‘I do not know who did it, and I do not believe I can provide you that information,’ he said.

  ‘Is there anyone here who might’ve seen it?’ asked Yara, ‘someone that might’ve been on duty.’

  The guard, likely the captain judging by the look of his armour, felt like he had better things to do and sighed.

  ‘Fine, Damien!’ he shouted. Another guard that’d been nodding off stood to attention. The captain shouted something at him in Yilgran and immediately the guard who was presumably named Damien stepped forward towards Yara.

  ‘You ‘ad question?’ he asked, his grasp on Anglan was subpar.

  ‘About last night, what did you see when the victim was attacked?’

  ‘I ‘eard uh… screaming from around a corner and I saw zhis woman had been murdered, zhen a man picked ‘er up and ran away.’

  ‘And that’s all you remember?’

  ‘I saw ‘im turn in on zhe Greater Sideway,’ he said, ‘zhat is all.’

  Yara thanked him and his commanding officer before leaving the garrison behind so she could return to the scene of the crime.

  ‘So we know who to look for,’ said Julie as she followed Yara, ‘what’ll you do when you find him?’

  ‘I… hadn’t thought of that,’ she replied, ‘I can’t even be sure he did it, can I?’

  ‘It looks pretty suspicious, a man rushing into an alley carrying a fresh corpse in his arms.’

  ‘You’re right, but I can't just assume he killed her,’ Yara focused on reading the signs above the doors when she made a turn into the Greater Sideway. Though most were written in Yilgran they had their names written in Anglan underneath. All of them were some sort of eerie or weird, like something out of a novel she’d read as a kid, the names were things like “Rusted Nail Carpenters” or “The Sanguine Coffin”. The street’s blueish grey bricks made it feel cold, more so than it already was in early Autumn.

  ‘Was this district always so… strange?’

  ‘Not that I can recall,’ replied Julie, she watched as Yara peered through the shop windows. It was dark inside all of them just like the tavern they’d passed before. One of the shop windows was slightly opaque, which meant Yara had to press her face up against it to see through the glass. Inside was a waiting room, with a narrow, old wooden desk at the centre, and a large opening that led into the next room. Like the others it was dark inside, not a single candle lit to light the room.

  ‘There’s a sign on the door,’ said Julie, ‘Open from eight PM to five AM.’

  ‘Damn’ said Yara, ‘we’ll have to co-,’ she was interrupted when she turned around and bumped into a tall man wearing a long dark coat. She looked up at his face, at its centre was a large aquiline nose, and his eyes were small but they stared right through her. In a moment of instinct she wanted to step back and reach for her sword, only to walk backwards into the door.

  ‘Could you get out of the way?’ he asked in an authoritative and demeaning tone, ‘You’re blocking the door to my business.’

  ‘Sorry, who are you?’ asked Yara, her hand resting on Skycleave’s pommel.

  ‘I’m the owner of this establishment,’ he replied, ‘Now shoo, I have bodies to attend to and you’re in my way.’

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked again, her hand now gripping the hilt of her sword.

  ‘I’m the undertaker,’ he said, ‘are you quite finished? Some of us have work to do.’

  ‘Tell me your name,’ Yara put her hand around the hilt of her sword. Her eyes narrowed.

  ‘The name is Grant, that is all you need to know, now shoo.’

  ‘Forgive my friend,’ said Julie, getting between the two of them, ‘she’s a little on edge right now.’

  The undertaker sighed.

  ‘That’s all fine and dandy,’ he said, ‘but she’s still in my way.’

  ‘Yara, we should keep going.’

  ‘Yes, quite right,’ said Grant, ‘and please, take your hand off the bloodforged weapon, you’re bound to make someone nervous.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Yara looked at Julie as she got out the way, ‘Sorry, Mr. Grant.’

  He entered his morgue as he muttered to himself. Yara was about to leave when only one shop further she stopped.

  ‘Oh no what are you thinking?’ asked Julie.

  ‘How did he know Skycleave is a bloodforged sword?’

  ‘Yara I don’t think it really matt-,’ Julie got cut off when Yara turned around and dashed in through the morgue’s front door.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘What now?’ asked Grant as he focused his attention on a stack of papers that had previously been a disorganised mess.

  ‘You know exactly what I mean.’

  ‘No, Miss, I am afraid I do not,’ he glanced up but then immediately got back to his paperwork.

  Yara unsheathed Skycleave and held it up to show him.

  ‘How did you know it was bloodforged?’

  He sighed, took off his top hat, and looked at Yara.

  ‘That is none of your concern.’

  ‘I think it is,’ said Yara, ‘tell me.’

  He sighed again.

  ‘Fine,’ he gave in, ‘I have the ability to smell it, No matter how old it is the alluring aroma of dragon’s blood is forever potent, even when hidden within black steel.’

  ‘Are you a-.’

  ‘Bloodsucker?’ Grant interrupted her as he put his hat and his coat on their respective racks, ‘yes, I’m a vampiric human, was that not obvious?’

  ‘I wouldn’t exactly call it obvious.’

  ‘Were you entirely unaware of their presence here?’

  Yara looked at Julie, who shrugged.

  ‘In my defence, I didn’t know either.’

  ‘The West End of Mirelue is entirely under vampiric control, and we have our coward of a Duke to thank for that,’ he said as he opened a filing cabinet and looked through them.

  ‘Am I in any kind of danger?’ asked Yara just so she could be certain.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, infecting humans has long since become a social taboo,’ said Grant, ‘I already work with the dead, I can’t have my reputation tarnished any further,’ he looked up from his file and at Yara, ‘besides, I am entirely sure you are more than capable of defending yourself.’

  A little more at ease Yara settled down and remembered what she was there for in the first place.

  ‘Did any fresh bodies come through recently?’ she asked as she looked around the waiting room with Julie close by.

  ‘I am an undertaker,’ he replied, ‘why of course I received some of the recently deceased.’

  ‘Did any of them show any signs of a creature attack?’

  He looked up.

  ‘Yes…?’ asked Grant, ‘any particular reason?’

  ‘Recently a woman was murdered in the middle of the street, and I’ve been looking into it.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you leave that to the guard?’

  ‘I asked them about it, but they didn’t seem that interested.’

  ‘One of them mentioned a man carrying the body away,’ Julie interjected, ‘Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘No, but I do recall someone entering my morgue in the late hours of the night to deliver a body.’

  ‘Is that body still here?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You may see it, if you feel so inclined,’ he said, ‘do wear a pair of gloves though, I will not stand for poor hygiene.’

  ‘Do you have anything I can sketch with?’

  The body was that of a woman, the front of her torso appeared relatively in-tact, while her neck was shredded and one leg had deep claw marks carved into it. Her long hair had been done up in a bun to keep it out of the way.

  ‘What does her back look like?’

  ‘It is a right mess, to say the very least.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  ‘Whenever you are done with this side of the carcass,’ said Grant. He pointed out the victim’s neck wounds.

  ‘These look like they were made by teeth, incredibly long fangs too if I’m seeing this correctly,’ said Yara, she sketched an idea of what she thought they might’ve looked like onto the paper the Undertaker had given her. She took another, closer look.

  ‘There’s eight entry wounds.’

  ‘Eight?’

  ‘Deep punctures into the victim’s neck before the creature tore through it,’ she pointed them out, ‘four on each side of the mouth, going from longest to shortest,’ Yara then drew what she believed to be the shape of the creature’s jaws.

  ‘How about these injuries?’ asked Grant, directing his guest’s attention to the deep carvings on the woman’s legs.

  ‘Four claws, deep cuts,’ she muttered as she drew the shape of the creature’s paw, it looked almost like that of a big cat, ‘They’re talon shaped, and their underside is hollow.’

  ‘Hollow? How did you come to that conclusion?’

  ‘Shape of the cut,’ Yara pointed at the deepest wound, which started at around the knee and ended near the hip, ‘the shape starts out pointed, but the end is almost flat.’

  Yara looked at other areas of the body that had minor injuries, ones she couldn’t tell whether they were related to the attack or not, small bruises or cuts and the like that could've been caused by anything.

  ‘Do you have anything more you can tell me about her?’ asked Yara.

  ‘Yes, actually,’ he said as he stepped towards the woman’s head, ‘when she arrived here, her eyes were wide open, I closed them when I began to prepare her for the grave.’

  ‘Was there anything special about her eyes?’

  ‘There was, she had red eyes with slit pupils.’

  Yara cocked her head.

  ‘Sorry what?’

  ‘She is- was a vampire,’ Grant explained ‘she carried another strain of the disease, her kind are called Duskwalkers.’

  ‘You think that could be related to why the beast killed her?’

  ‘No, I am positive it is not,’ he said, ‘these attacks happen rarely, in fact this is the first time I myself hear about one.’

  Yara narrowed her eyes.

  ‘Alright, could you turn her onto her stomach?’

  The Undertaker obliged, revealing the woman’s completely torn open back. It was a mess of skin and coagulated blood, together with fragments of organs and bone that’d been caught during the attack.

  ‘Saints what the fuck,’ said Yara with disgust.

  ‘Anything recognisable here?’ Grant asked, ‘I myself don’t see anything.’

  ‘No, neither do I,’ said Yara, ‘please, turn her back around.’

  ‘I trust this will suffice for your investigation?’

  ‘It will,’ she said, ‘thank you for your assistance.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ he said, ‘now please leave, I open in an hour.’

  With this new information Yara left and returned to the inn where Laras and her were staying. Laras sat on a chair in their room, calmly reading a book he’d gotten from the market. Yara didn’t say a word as she walked past him, she just dropped her things on the ground and laid down on their shared bed.

  ‘How’d it go?’ asked Laras. No response. Yara had buried her face in her pillow. Laras stood up, walked to the bed, sat down on its edge, and in response Yara rolled over onto her other side to avoid him.

  ‘I realise I messed up a little,’ he admitted, ‘I thought I could temper you a bit by telling you to let the guard handle it, and I was wrong.’

  Yara still didn’t say a word.

  ‘I realise you’re angry with me,’ he said, ‘and I wanted to apologise.’

  She continued to give him the silent treatment, and Laras sighed.

  ‘Well, I can move my bed apart from yours and you can have some space, if you’d like that.’

  Still she said nothing.

  ‘I’ll just do it then, good night, I hope you sleep well Yara.’

  ‘Leave it,’ she said quietly into her pillow, ‘good night Laras.’