It was like every supernatural reptile had woken up and decided to confirm every nasty rumour and stereotype about them.

Lowering the volume on the TV, I took out my phone and called Lucian. He took longer to answer than usual. The way he answered was unusual, too.

'Why?'

I blinked. 'Why what?'

I heard him grinding his fangs before he spoke again. 'Why did you call?'

'Did you see the news?' There was no need or time to beat around the bush.

'The one about almost every country getting fucked up? Good riddance.'

It took me several moments to find my words. Any that weren't curses, I mean. 'What did you say?'

'I said, good riddance to whoever did that.' He sighed. 'Why did you call, David?'

'Bucharest was or is being attacked by zmei. The only reason I haven't gone to help yet is that I wanted to make sure my friend isn't involved with that.'

A growl. 'You think I'd be stupid enough to admit that? No, what am I saying? Of course you do. Stupid Lucian, with his drinking and his whores and his jokes...but I'm not the moron who wondered about his parents for years while his real father was right under his nose.'

I blinked again at that, too shocked to even be angry. 'Where did that shit come from?'

'I...' He had the confused tone of someone who had said something they didn't mean to.

'Where did that shit come from?' I repeated. 'Since when do you go for the past like that? You've never been so vicious.'

No answer.

'Where are you now?' I asked eventually. I needed to know if he was playing bouncer or bodyguard at the moment, or participating in a fight.

When he answered, his voice had a kind of sarcastic amusement, nothing like his characteristic boisterous cheer. 'On the phone. With you.'

Despite myself, when he said "with you", I glanced around the living room, almost expecting to see Lucian in a corner, grinning madly, golden mace raised to smash me to a pulp.

Not that it would have done anything permanent, with my healing. Still, I found myself laughing at the absurd thought. The zmeu was two and a half metres tall, wider than my fridge. No way he was hiding under the table or something. Bullshit like that only happened in bad horror movies, the kind that were getting made less and less often as the years went by. No one wanted another Springwood Slaughter.

'What's so funny?' The zmeu asked, drawing my attention back to the phone.

'Your joke. But seriously, where are you?'

A sigh. 'At Lucas' place. The wimp doesn't know his arse from his elbow, so I thought to come and have a look.'

There was a sound like heavy glass breaking, then Lucian grumbling. 'Luci, what did you just do?'

'That was me,' said a new, haughty voice. 'My hand slipped, along with the vase in it. So clumsy.'

'Hey, Luc,' I said. 'You alright there? Felt anything unusual recently?'

'Oh, I couldn't say. I don't know my arse from my elbow, as you just heard,' Lucian's older brother sniffed. 'A zmeu came here earlier, before Lucian. Someone I didn't know, bleating about how we had to join forces, overthrow the world order and take our rightful place at the top of the food chain.'

I heard Lucas roll his eyes, all six. They sounded like marbles on stone.

'Wait,' I said. 'Let me just-'

After a few adjustments, I was looking at the inside of Lucas' tattoo parlour. The zmeu in question was front and centre. Lucian was in the background, trying to clean up bloody, scaled clumps of...something.

'Damn, man. What did you do?'

Lucas, like his younger brother, wore his whiskers long. The silver moustache on each face was carefully-trimmed and waxed, arranged into curls towards the ends. He was smoking, a sure sign he was stressed. The left and right heads each had a cigar thicker than my thumb in their mouth. The middle head had two. Lucas made his own smokes, and I knew the stuff he was inhaling now would have killed a blue whale.

'Aggressive negotiation,' the zmeu replied gruffly. 'I convinced him to die.'

Hah. Good for him...although, looking closer, he didn't appear to have blood anywhere. Not on the deep blue scales covering most of his body, or the silver ones on his torso. His wings and the spiked crests on his heads were clean, too.

'I used the morningstar,' he said, seeing the question in my eyes. With a nod of one head, he indicated the wall behind him, where a silver morningstar, with three chains and spiked heads, laid on a rack. 'No need to get my claws dirty. Damn bastard...hadn't used that thing in decades. It will start asking for blood again.'

'So, is everything alright there now?' I asked, trying to ignore the implications. 'Are both of you feeling normal?'

'All the gods together couldn't make the brat normal,' Lucas said, jabbing a thumb at Lucian, who flipped him off with one hand while using the other one to mop. 'But, yes. We'll keep an eye on each other. I've sealed off the joint. No one coming or going until whatever the hell is going on ends.'

I nodded approvingly. 'Any sign of Aaron?'

At the mention of his older brother, Lucas grimaced. "He took a dump over the Palace of Parliament, if that's what you're asking. It was stopped by the forcefield, of course,' he said.

Lucian snickered. 'Funniest shit I've ever seen.'

'Less jokes, more work!' Lucas barked. 'Disappeared after, though. Probably came to his senses, dug under a mountain and is waiting for this mess to pass.'

'That's good,' I said. 'A shame that you've already sealed yourselves off, though. Maybe you could have helped me with something...'

After I described my idea, Lucas pursed his lipless mouths. 'I wouldn't try that, Silva. Even if I deactivated the wards and locks, I wouldn't trust myself around a female right now.' He smiled mirthlessly. 'The only reason I trust myself around my brother is because I only want to kill him. But I've wanted to do that several times over the years. I'm used to controlling myself, in that sense.'

'Alright,' I said with a frown. 'Thanks, anyway. Take care.'

After the call ended, I made another one. It yielded as many results as the first.

'What do you mean you're in Banat?'

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'All combat-ready priests have been called to crisis areas,' pops said, sounding as frustrated as I felt. 'Hell sees the world besieged and seizes its chance. Several demon have appeared on Earth, taking the form of lizards and snakes so as to avoid drawing attention, but I know their tricks. I'm sorry, my son. I can't watch over her for you. But you have access to my house...'

'No, no need,' I said running a hand through my hair. 'Mine is just as protected. Thanks. Watch yourself, pops.'

'God does, always. Goodbye, David.'

I looked down at the phone, annoyed. I had one more idea, but before that...

*****

'Teach, I'm real flattered that you're so worried about me, but it's fine, really. I can defend myself,' Mia said, looking down at me as we walked from her home in the forest-far away from the iele, thank God- to my house. Well, I walked. She flew.

'I'm less worried about you and more worried about your surroundings. You're the strongest student at school, and there's no way of knowing what you could do if you lost control.'

Mia snorted a puff of flame, but didn't let the praise distract her. 'There's loads of other strong people at school. Some of 'em were affected, the same as me.'

'But unlike you, they can't slap mountains in half. They can be contained, if need be, but I need to keep an eye on you for a bit, until I find something sturdier than my house.'

I whispered the activation words as soon as we arrived, the wards Mihai crafted snapping into existence in and around the house. It was closer to the town's centre than pops', but that didn't meant I was in less danger in case of a disaster.

'Pretty bare place,' Mia muttered, looking around my living room. Besides the couch, table, TV and bookshelves, the room was empty. No china, no decorations, no posters.

'It's so guests can have space for their stuff,' I told her, dialing a number I'd honestly never expected to.

The zmeu girl shrugged. 'I've only got what I'm wearing. You kinda rushed me, teach.' Her baggy trousers and vest had holes for her tail and wings, but no pockets.

Someone finally answered. It wasn't what I expected.

'Hi, you are calling Faith Ranch! What service can we perform for you today?'

I blinked at the peppy voice. 'Uh...excuse me. I think I might have the wrong number.' Or... "Are you the Fourfold's...secretary? I need to talk to her.'

'You  are talking to us.' The peppiness disappeared, replaced by a clipped, bland tone. 'How did you expect us to answer the phone?'

'Definitely not like that,' I admitted. 'Good cover though, the farmgirl impression. Bet it throws lots of people off.'

I wasn't sure how to compliment an agent.

'It is not a cover,' the Fourfold replied. "Or a façade. Why did you call, Silva?'

'I need your help. I've got someone with me who might lose control, and I'm not sure I'd be able to stop her.' Without killing her, I thought. 'Where is the nearest ARC facility?'

'ARC has operators for answering questions like that. The number is public.'

'ARC also has its plate full, and is running around the world, putting out fires. I thought things might work faster if I called you.'

'Using acquaintances, are you? You remind us of ourselves.'

I got the feeling that wasn't a compliment.

She gave me the coordinates for a meeting point, and told me to be ready in half an hour. 'The Fixer will come to escort you.'

And she hanged up. I'd never heard of this Fixer, but considering the way she'd said the nickname, she probably expected me to know them. Most ARC agents with nicknames were infamous.

So, half an hour. We had nothing to pack, and could reach the meeting point in a skip and a hop, by our standards. I chose to use the time we had to check the news once more, see if anything had changed.

Mostly, it hadn't. Some attacks had been stopped, or at least contained. Siegfried had manifested in Germany, wielding Balmung and battling his old nemesis once more. Talking heads presented blurry pictures as evidence that Jormungandr had appeared around Norway, and that Apophis was rising in Egypt.

Nonsense, of course. The various pantheons almost never allowed each other to manifest on Earth, and that extended to their enemies. If the old monsters really appeared, Thor and Ra would follow soon. It was debatable if that would be better, of course.

I switched channels, Mia watching the TV with one eye and the window with the other, as if expecting the Fixer to appear and knock on it any moment.

A Japanese news channel drew my attention. They usually broadcast nothing but trash-tabloids in visual form, basically-but what they were showing now was different.

On the wall behind the host was a screen, showing Kenji Yamada, CEO of the corporation that bore his name. Over a hundred years old, Kenji looked in his late sixties, and was calm and composed as he fended off a crowd of angry reporters.

The screen changed to show the Martian landscape, where Yamada security forces-the corp was one of the main sponsors of the mission, after all-were battling reptilians over the remains of terraforming vehicles and their crews.

'Yamada-san, this reporter has never thought you would be so shameless!'

The old man sighed, the scar tissue where his right eye had been crinkling. 'I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about, Takada-san.'

'Do not try to deflect.' This was another reporter. 'The whole country knows you staged the reptilian "attack" on Mars so that you security thugs could swoop in and show off their abilities.'

'That sounds farfetched, Umeda-san. Why would I do that, if I could?'

'To show the world how safe everyone is under your "protection". We know you hire out your bullyboys as mercenaries all the time. We have proof! What better ways to gain new employers?'

Things deteriorated from there.

'Murderer!'

'Jumped-up Yakuza!'

'Usurper! Bring the Emperor back!'

The last didn't even make sense, but such things rarely did.

'Huh,' Mia said, glancing at the TV. 'Aren't people from Japan supposed to be polite as hell or something?'

'Things rarely are as they're supposed to be, these days,' I said, weary in mind, if not in body.