Tinny music and raucous chatter drifted out the front of Paddy’s tavern, joined by the cawing of gulls overhead. A few people milled about, here and there; the sky was darkening, but most day workers had yet to finish their shifts. The salty smell of the sea overpowered the meaty aromas of just-opening takeaways.

Leaving Choo-chooin on the kerb, Jack stepped into the foyer. It was unoccupied.

Pullman, still retching, gave one last glance to the turtle, around whom traffic was curving with an inordinate amount of honking and swearing. Sighing, he said nothing, following Jack into the pub.

They entered the barroom proper, and a wall of heat hit them—he was suddenly uncomfortably warm. Unzipping his jacket, he scanned the room: it was reasonably full, most tables having occupants and all the pool tables surrounded. The smells from outside faded, turning to a boozy, animalistic musk that made his nose twitch.

Shifty Pete nodded to him from his corner, peering over the bar at the pool room. The room felt like it should be smoky.

Jack caught his quarry behind the bar, about half a second before Russ noticed him in turn. The giant barman sprinted around the counter, orders forgotten.

His mouth was halfway open when a vice trapped his arms behind his back.

“Ness,” said Jack with a nervous chuckle. He’d been in this grip enough times to recognise it. “What am I supposed to have done this time?”

“Same thing you always do,” she said, breath tickling his cheek. “Excessive fucking around.”

Russ halted in front of him, eyes thunderous. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?” he said, grinding his teeth. “Who leaves someone behind then doesn’t check on them for twenty chapters?”

Pullman scratched beneath his nose. “Really? That’s your issue?”

The Shifter glanced at him, but his attention was pulled back by Jack scoffing.

His chest was alight with indignation. “You shouldn’t have run away, should you?”

“I was on fire!”

“Nah, you weren’t that great.”

Russ simmered, bunching a fist. “You’d better have my money.” His gaze caught on Razor; he grasped the scabbard, ripping her from Jack’s belt. “On second thoughts, this should cover it.”

Jack’s face dropped, his stomach twisting. He couldn’t take Razor. Struggling against Ness’ grip, he snarled, considering whether the Shifter would look better sliced or julienned.

Russ smirked, studying the ornate carvings as he drew the blade. “Where did you even get—” He screamed.

A burnt odour penetrated the room, and every head turned to watch Russ twitch and convulse, electricity dancing across his skin. He dropped her, falling to his knees with a whimper.

“What…the fuck?”

Good question, he thought. Why d’you never tell me you could do that?

“You never asked. I can also return to you from great distance, cut through various forms of energy, and send a massive wall of fire at your enemies.

He suppressed a gasp. That last one sounds really overpowered.

“Yes, well, it only travels three feet.”

That’s not even a metre! Wouldn’t that turn me into charcoal?

“An improvement, one could argue.”

Like how you could be improved by being whittled down to a garden trowel?

She laughed dangerously. “Try it if you want to end up like your bear-y good friend over there.”

Trying not to groan at her pun, Jack flicked his gaze to Russ, who climbed to his feet with wisps of smoke curling from his skin.

“I won’t ask about that…thing,” said Russ, cracking his knuckles, “but if you’re not here to pay me, then you must have a death wish.”

Breathlessly, Jack looked over at Pullman, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.

“Before you brutally murder me,” said Jack, “this guy’s got some business with you.”

With a gesture, Russ had Ness release him, and he rubbed his arms and dived to recover Razor. Ness grinned before walking off to the bar.

Eying Pullman, Russ crossed his own arms and frowned. “And who are you?”

He showed his ID and introduced himself. “I’m looking for a killer.”

“And you brought him with you?” Russ nodded to Jack with a sneer.

“Could be useful,” said Pullman, shrugging. “So could you, Mr…?”

“Russ. Just Russ.”

Pullman nodded, pulling a notebook from within his blazer. “You have a pair of members formerly of the New Bloods, correct?”

“Lance and Aaron, yeah. I think I might know what you’re talking about, you know. Let’s go upstairs.”

***

Russ’ office was around the same size as Jack’s, but without the extra doors. Within lay a thick brown rug, thrown over polished hardwood as shiny as the mahogany desk that was the centrepiece. A blinded window was set behind the desk, with a filing cabinet in the corner. The whirring of the desktop computer was the only noise aside from their breathing—the smell up here was soft, like lavender.

“With all due respect, detective,” said Russ, sniffing, “we can protect our own from some wannabe hunter. Your help isn’t needed.”

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He sat behind the desk, in a leather chair that creaked and strained beneath his weight. Jack and Pullman were across from him, in two hard plastic seats that made his backside ache.

“Perhaps you can,” said Pullman, glaring at Russ, “but even if you drive him off, can that be called justice? Where is the vindication for his previous victims, or the ones yet to come? If you kill him in defense, what does that achieve?”

“I don’t give a shit,” said Russ. “I care about my people, that’s it. That’s why I fought the New Bloods in the first place.”

“I do.” Pullman drummed a finger on his leg. “I became a detective because I wanted to help people, and I believe in justice. Even if someone acts unfairly, even if someone hurts you, they’ll be punished for it. There’s always a shield against the cruel and evil and misguided. It won’t be allowed.

“What the hell kind of detective would I be if I allowed this?” He whipped the papers from his pocket, slamming Meltzer’s picture on the desk. Russ gulped.

Silence engulfed them, bloating like a balloon.

“Edwin van Hellsong, right?” Russ finally said, rubbing his forehead. “He’s after the New Blood remnants?”

Russ’ knowledge didn’t surprise him: having an organisation with animal hearing meant having ears everywhere. Sometimes literally.

“How did they not end up in prison?” asked Jack.

“A few did,” replied Russ, “but there wasn’t much evidence on anyone but Crispley. Most of them did nothing wrong anyway, besides following the wrong idealogue—we took in a couple, but most went to Nightcorp.”

The feeling he’d had in his office was returned, his gut twinging. Something was off. “Then why would van Hellsong be focusing on yours?”

Licking his teeth, Russ glanced up, before regarding Pullman. “He’s got a point, you know.”

“So do I, and I wish you’d stick it in something already.”

Did you go into heat during the scene break, or something? No-one’s sticking anything in anyone!

“You’re no fun.”

He imagined her dropping to a cross-legged position, pouting with folded arms. Maybe it wasn’t his imagination.

Shifting in his chair, Pullman said, “I have it on good authority.”

“Whose?” said Jack and Russ in tandem.

He cleared his throat. “So, do you have addresses for those two? I’d like to speak to them.”

Russ glowered at him.

Pursing his lips, Jack scrutinised the detective. He was definitely holding something back. But he’d seemed sincere in his talk of justice, at least. Something Jack felt his life was sorely lacking, in its insistence on squeezing him for every drop of optimism he had left.

A nightmare masquerading as a miracle.

“That has nothing to do with this,” said Razor, sending a shiver of sympathy through him.

It has everything to do with this.

If he trusted the wrong person, he’d lose everything. Again. All the things he’d failed to protect flashed through his mind: his family, the friends he’d made when homeless.

Lea.

He wouldn’t fail this time.

Russ gave Pullman the addresses—as well as his personal number—with an assertion no-one had to let him in without a warrant.

Jack trailed silently as he left, pondering. What was Pullman hiding that was so important? Was it critical, something he had to keep secret?

And what did he need with Jack?

He couldn’t voice his questions as they descended the stairs, a groan escaping as he spotted a head of chestnut red hair leaning against the foyer wall.

Why, every time he turned around, did she have to appear to torment him?

He could have sworn he heard Razor sigh.

“Took you long enough,” said Lydia, not turning to face him. “Have you any idea how hard it is to follow that turtle of yours?”

He blinked. “No.”

She harrumphed. “Regardless, I have news from my cousins.”

He perked up. After the Lea incident, Lydia had kept her cousins investigating Unsee Incorporated. “What are they saying?”

Glancing at Pullman, she gave him a questioning gaze.

“Ignore the Keystone Copper,” he said, “latest client.” He gave her a quick run-down of the case, her eyes narrowing when he mentioned the vampire hunter. It seemed she understood his position.

The detective wrinkled his nose. “Can we get on with it, please?”

Lydia glared ice through him, making him shrink back up the stairs. “So dull and humourless. Was it you who gave us that nought-point-five rating on Royal Road?”

“That’s not too bad,” said Jack, fingering his nose. “At least it has a five in it. Better than the one star we got on Scribble Hub.”

“Your maths seems a little suspect, my dear idiot.” She leaned in, adding under her breath, “there’s no sign of them working with the Leanandsidhe, but there has been Gate activity.”

An eyebrow raised. “Where to?”

“Fleetwood docks.”

“Think you can check it out?” He gestured at Pullman. “Kinda busy.”

Sniffing, she moved to leave. “Very well. But make yourself easier to get hold of, you moron.”

***

She viewed the Police as rather like an old man trying to spice up his marriage with Viagra—they take forever to come, if it happens at all, and when it eventually does it ends in disappointment for everybody.

In most cities, the Police stayed in their lane and let the Circle handle anything magical.

Unfortunately, Blackpool rejected the Circle. Her mother had pressured the government to restrict council funding, but that only made them resist further.

Even with no resources, they tried anyway. That was a point in their favour.

She had a better method: painting herself as a hero in the eyes of its people. The mask she had to become.

The sun had set as she flew down the coastline—cutting inland as she reached the lighthouse—and hovering over the estuary. She didn’t bother making herself invisible—it was dark, only street-lights and a shy half-moon lighting the night. That made her invisible enough. Plus, the mental strain of flying and obscuring would leave her unable to focus on anything else.

Where she hovered couldn’t be called a true docks, rather a few mooring bays pushing into the water. The banks were railed, a few warehouses and shipping containers spreading out beneath her. A housing estate surrounded it on both sides, uniform roofs melding into the darkness; the sea smell was still strong.

Her mask was a lie; what she did was calculated, not heroic. She had to make people love her so they’d follow her. She had to make them follow her so she could control them. She had to control them for the city to be hers.

And she would take it. She’d take it, and she’d protect it, her sister, and her friends from monsters like the Unseelie—creatures who usually hunted in packs or alone, but never formed big groups.

Except for their war, of course, but that was light-years away.

There were a couple of boats docked, likely for private shipments. Some came through, but not much—docks were mainly for people important enough to afford a boat, but not important enough to have the magi for Gates.

Which meant any Gate was likely the Faeries.

None sprung up, and after hours began chilling her bones, she decided to leave.

Something shifted in the dark.

Beneath her, a figure in black stalked across the docks, emerging from one of the warehouses by the bank.

She followed him. A man in dark clothes hurrying across a dockyard struck her as relatively normal for this city, but it didn’t hurt to check.

At first he walked through streets, innocuous as anybody, but then he turned into an alley. He started running. She sped up, perplexed by his acceleration—he couldn’t be human. They were back to the city centre within half an hour, which no running human could manage.

That man was fast.

He disappeared up Central Drive, and she lost him as he entered a block of flats: five storeys and wide, made of dull grey stone. The windows were railed, the darkness of each tickling her spine.

A well-trodden lawn lay out front, eerie in its bareness as silence encroached.

There was an archway in the middle of the building, stairs leading up on both sides just inside. She picked the left staircase, striding up and cocking an eyebrow at a door standing slightly ajar.

She shoved it open.

Somebody shot her in the face.