“I know little about the Night Prowlers, and I don’t think they have a base nearby. I’ve no personal bias against them. I can’t help you with this,” Sama told him firmly.

He held up a hand. “I’m going to be a manipulative bastard. We’re good at that, you see.” She just smiled slightly, and lifted an eyebrow in interest at his shamelessness. “What’s your attitudes on the Elder Fangs, Senpai?” he asked carefully.

Her smile turned upside-down rather quickly. “Fucking puffed-up non-Accord wolfweres who think humanity has overstepped its bounds. They prey on humans wherever they can without being caught and bringing down shit on themselves. I’ve had to kill a few of them, and we don’t have a good relationship at all.” Like that pack had thought hunting a lone human female out in the wilds on her trip here would be easy and fun. They became rugs.

He nodded. “The Night Prowler base I’m going to be visiting so cordially has been giving shelter to Elder Fangs hunting in the area, apparently a trade of kiss-me-ass favors. It seems there’s a very aggressive faction of the Elder Fangs wanting to strike a better blow against the human herds while they can, and in return for wandering along with the Night Prowlers against the neo-undead, they are being allowed to quietly pick off whoever they like in the areas around them.”

Sama’s breath came out in a hiss. “It’s likely not that simple.”

“No, it’s probably not,” he agreed. “I have no idea what Lerch did to earn the ire of the Packs, either, they just clamored for us to do something, and I got sent out to get something approaching results and fair report back. If it came down to it, I could simply acquire evidence of what they were doing, get some help from the Churches, and come down on them.” He paused, then sighed with a forgiving smile. “But I’m pretty sure there’s a sect of Druids supporting them, too.”

Sama rolled her eyes. “At least they are goddamn not working with Hags,” she mused, keeping a close watch on his expression, and narrowed her eyes. “You’ve got something else?” she pressed.

He shrugged slightly. “There’s a lot of work being done by the Church of Imprus to stir up hatred against the weres in Iowa, particularly Des Moines, and they seem to have an almost preternatural knowledge of who and where people have died,” he mused to the ceiling.

Sama’s heavens-blue eyes were starting to roil. “That is very damn manipulative,” she acknowledged his efforts, and he grinned shamelessly and half-bowed to her. “Imprus doesn’t have much of a rural following at all. His racism would find human converts, but he so blatantly favors the Powered he turns the common folk right off, because they are just chaff to Him. He isn’t losing any people, and is probably fine to see any or all of them killed off...”

Just like that Asshat the Third’s criminal empire had thought...

“They might be feeding information to the weres, or they might have a greater purpose. Stirring up conflict among enemies is them thinking they are being sly and cunning.”

The Mick nodded. “The elders of the Blooded play the same game,” he agreed. “So, you think there’s a deeper game at play...”

“Yes. In addition, many people underestimate just how much knowledge and power the wealth of the Imprusar’s faithful can buy. Their power in corporate circles is not small, and the weres in general loathe a lot of modern development, especially the faceless corporations. They are seeing an opportunity here... two Were Packs, and a Druid Circle, and the excuse to wipe them both?”

“They’d need a really good excuse to mobilize enough manpower to do that...”

“So, what’s in the area that would provide a good excuse?” Sama asked him. He just shook his head... it wasn’t an area he knew. “I’m going to contact a Shaman of one of the native tribes, and see what he has to say about this. I will tell you what he says.”

“Appreciated. I dinnae want to go back empty-handed, but I’m not stupid enough to make a bad situation that much worse, either.”

“I’ve heard that Imprusar keep back door contacts with the Blooded, because you keep a human appearance, and you move in wealthy circles. Is that true?”

“To an extent. Civility on the face of it, a hearty knife in the back when they can’t be seen, cooperation if there is benefit involved. The Blooded are just another Powered human race of a sort now, after all,” he admitted, even if it nicked his pride a bit. Pride was cheap.

“While I admit them wooing your people would be a huge coup for them, especially with your control of the other neo-undead clans, I don’t think that’s going to happen, given how poorly your Ancestors get along with Clerics and religions in general.”

“That is so very true, and I must confess, their sanctimonious preaching and the deviltry they get up to behind closed doors does not make my empty platitudes to gods who can’t hear us more pious,” he acknowledged blithely.

“You’ve got Uskvar all over you,” she snorted, and he blinked in shock. “Please, I know a need for vengeance when I see one, and it fairly oozes out of you. It made you what you are. Uskvar doesn’t much care for the reasons why you want revenge, but he’s not the God of Spite, Ruilvei does that. True vengeance is best served cold, after all.”

“Aye, that is true.” Without thinking, his hand reached out to touch the white hilt of his new Sword, and his eyes were looking at other times, and other faces, both friends and enemies.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“What did you Name him?” she asked with a nod at his Weapon.

“Smior.” She shook her head, not knowing what it meant. “It means Marrow in the old tongue. Because it’s where the blood comes from.”

She thought about that, and nodded in understanding. Smior would indeed be putting out a lot of blood...

---------

“Strikes at Shadows, this is Sama. I have a question for you which is both going to cost me favors, and probably do you a big favor at the same time.”

There was a grunt from the other end, and she could picture the Manitou werewolf’s face twisting. They still owed her debts, even after she had vanished for so long, and if her voice was scratchy, there was still no mistaking who she was. “Ask,” he grunted out.

“The Church of Imprus is meddling in things down in Iowa. The Night Prowlers and Elder Fangs are being too active, stirring up trouble, and there is a Druid Circle helping them out.” She gave him a moment to digest all that happening, turn over who in his mind he would need to contact. “My guess is that the Imprusar want to use this as an opportunity to rile up opposition to the Werefolk and Druids, and they are planning on making a big move.

“The Imprusar have neutral relationships with Devils, and as there are still Hellbound around, there are devils around. Devils naturally talk to daemons occasionally, who speak with demons, who deal with the Fey like the Worm and the Spider.

“Knowing that... is there anything in Iowa being secured, sealed, trapped, hidden, concealed, or imprisoned, that could be unleashed to very bad effect by the Imprusar; could any one of those five dark forces know about it; and would it be difficult for a specialized force to let it loose?”

There was silence from the other end, and as it drew out, Sama just waited patiently, not saying anything, fully able to hear SAS breathing, doubtless debating how much to say.

“The demesne of the Owl Woman is in that area,” he finally spoke slowly. “The Packs and the Druids know enough not to disturb Her without great formality and ceremony. If someone came in impolitely, and violently, She would not hesitate to unleash Her wrath upon them in return.”

Sama stroked the bridge of her nose. “Can you tell me the location of the town nearest Her demesne? Because I have the feeling She’s going to be unleashed upon it one way or another.”

THE Owl Woman. A Titled Spirit... and one who, if Native American myths were any guide, was not all that friendly to humans, or at least Caucasian humans, to begin with. What about when some pissed Her off?

A normal person would have found a headache developing. Sama felt the siren call of Karma...

“It is a small place called Oto... and kept that way deliberately. Her realm is west of the place, in the park, in the old places where no human goes... if they want to come out alive.”

And for heavily agricultural Iowa, that was definitely saying something.

---

Sama hung up on the call after getting some minor details from the Manitou werewolf.

She had nothing against the Night Prowlers, but if they were helping the Elder Fangs, they deserved any collateral damage that came to them. The Mick could handle his side’s vengeance.

Likewise, if a bunch of druids were advocating predatorial balance work on the human population, they needed to be reminded that humans were omnivores and existed at the top of the food chain, intelligent tool-using apex predators fully capable of hunting down and killing their enemies, not passively tolerating attacks upon their people.

And some of those hunters liked the Karma, too.

But what really got her excited was the potential to mess up the Imprusar.

It was time to let Klitza and her kitted-out van know that they were going on a bit of a road trip!

=============

The Mick could be sneaky, but he preferred not to be. His personality was of the sort that allowed his enemies to know he was coming, and they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. He would hit them, run away, abuse his ability to fast heal, and go back in on them. If they chased him, he’d string them out with multiple ambushes and do for them in numerous entertaining ways, most of them quite bloody.

If someone was protecting his target, they’d bleed and bleed and bleed until they gave up his target, or he cut his way through them all. He didn’t care about the bad blood that was going to be generated doing this; that was for the higher-ups to handle, and doubtless they’d do so with gleaming-fang diplomacy in the most formal and traditional manner.

However, he wasn’t really geared for taking on werewolves with his new Blade, which was definitely not silver. Happily, silvershine for weapons was a readily available alchemical thing, and wasn’t even that expensive. If it came to fighting, he could Prestidigitate a flow on Smior with literally a snap of his fingers, and then things would definitely get crunk. Full strength Blooded didn’t lose to werewolves on damage reduction, after all, and how likely were werewolves or Druids to be using holy silver?

That said, he didn’t want to be dodging lightning bolts coming down from the sky. If he could do this without setting off some Druids, he’d be happy not to do so. They had too many weapons they could use, and he didn’t want to be spooked by random crows for the rest of his life, either.

Of course, if they tried shapechanging on him, they’d learn how sensitive Blooded could be to such things...

Jackson’s Watering Hole was the only bar in Oto, which was a sleepy little town serving the farms in the area. Also called the M&M Bar and Grill, it was basically the only place to eat in the town, which had the normal collection of a small mom and pop grocery store, a post office, a bar, and a farm equipment distributor, along with more grain silos than you could shake a stick at. It had been quietly falling in size for decades, probably in no small part from pressure by the werewolves nearby guarding one of their secret sites, who didn’t like there being a town and road nearby.

Because of that, there was definitely no way in the world he wouldn’t be spotted as soon as he came into town. That was all completely by design, and ensured he wouldn’t have to stay in this fly-on-the-wall speck on a map for very long.

Seriously, it didn’t even have a proper stoplight. Could you even call it a town without a stoplight? More like a random place to deposit tobacco spit by the corn-fed locals...

There was a place to eat, and all this uninteresting country of flat lands and farms after farms just annoyed him. He wasn’t a vegetarian, and he wasn’t a rancher. Like it or not, he was most comfortable among cities and people, for all that he had to leave them to kill a lot of his targets.

So, he put up with it. He’d see how good a rare-cooked burger they could deal, and he knew he was about as exotic to these rubes as passers-by got. Chatting up the waitress would buy time, until she or the bartender’s call in on him got results, and the local weres came in to threaten him off, at which point he could start getting violent.

He had just gotten out of his lovely white Caddy with the blood-red plush velvet interior, and Sama and her leashed werewolf tagalong had pulled up in her van, when he saw the great flaming explosions to the west...