The first thing she did was accelerate her thoughts.

Bullets flew at subsonic speeds, but thoughts travelled faster. As soon as she saw the muzzle flash, her brain was working; she had grasped the electrical signals as the bullet edged clear of the barrel.

She had to be careful—altering the functions of her own mind would quickly wear it down. But she had no choice. In less than half a second, she’d be dead.

Dodging was impossible. Even if she enhanced her movements, it wouldn’t be enough. Could she block?

The bullet edged closer. It had started a foot from her face, and was now less than half that. She couldn’t gather enough energy in time.

Her shooter—a tall, shadowy man with a wide-brimmed hat and a duster—was already making to flee, tucking his silvery weapon inside his coat. He moved so slowly it was like he wasn’t moving at all. The bullet, though; that moved.

Within touching distance, the pointed metal pellet snuck toward her head. She had to look up to watch it.

Wait.

Everything crashed back to normal, and she wobbled, the whizzing bullet disturbing her hair as it sailed over her. She glowered at the attacker as he passed her. Ignoring the sudden fuzziness in her head, she reached out to grab his wrist, and closed her fingers around it.

He spun and cracked a fist into her temple.

Her vision exploded in white.

As she slumped and faded, he ran down the stairs, coattails flapping behind him. She moaned, drained as the tension evacuated her muscles. That couldn’t have been a Sidhe; they were too proud to use human guns. Nor had it been the figure she’d followed, as he was too tall and wore a hat.

Were there vampires here? Had Edwin van Hellsong come to hunt his quarry, and caught her on the way out? The thought churned her stomach. Perhaps once she’d have considered such things beneath her notice, or even a cause for public good, but that was before she’d met real vampires rather than believing in stories.

She wasn’t sure why they needed so many missionaries, though.

Realising—far too slowly for her taste—that the man matched the description Jack had given, she tried to stand.

She fell on her face.

This wasn’t fair. Even her arms didn’t work—surely he hadn’t hit her that hard. Then again, she hadn’t been prepared. She’d expected him to reach for his weapon.

There were connections in this knowledge, but she hadn’t the strength to reach for them. Oh, great. It was raining.

It tapped on the back of her head, an insistent rhythm of cold pinpricks. She didn’t see them fall. She only saw black.

Her consciousness slipped away, and she heard something tapping against the concrete walkway. Had he returned to finish her off?

Well, she was beaten. Left to the mercy of random chance, or perhaps God if he was paying any attention. Which was unlikely.

The tapping grew quieter, and everything faded away.

***

As it turned out, the first address Russ had given them was a brothel.

After a furious phone call in which Pullman ranted to what Jack assumed was the Shifter’s uproarious laughter, he called in some of his friends—the kind with flashing lights and handcuffs. This about doubled the number at the scene, in his reckoning.

The brothel—seemingly a normal terraced town-house with red brick painted white, and curtained windows—was now a hub of activity. Neighbours peered out of windows, and a few nosier individuals loitered around the edges of the crowd of Police. Low chatter hummed through the street.

Jack lay atop Choo-chooin, hands propping up his head, and tried to tune out the residual sirens. The rest of the night was cold, but not aboard the disc—even if he couldn’t use magic itself, he could use runes. As well as keeping him warm, it kept the street smell out. All his nose had to bear was the cinnamon he’d chosen in the settings. It was unpleasant, but it kept him awake.

Rain pattered around him, but stayed off his head.

Streetlights flickered above him, though half were just dead. Nothing worked like it was supposed to around here. Like the Police, for example.

Striding back over, Pullman pocketed his notepad, eying the turtle sideways before hopping on his back.

“Just to confirm,” said Jack, cracking an eyelid, “we’re chasing a killer, right?”

Pullman stared at him. “I don’t see which part of this has suggested otherwise.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “How about the part where you spent two hours shutting down a brothel?”

“Any breach of the law is worthy of my attention,” said Pullman.

“What if we get to the next guy and he’s already dead?” Jack crawled over to the controls at the front of the disc, inputting the next address from memory.

“Then there will be nothing we could have done. The law was followed, justice is done, and the lead investigated.”

“To find nothing.”

“Not quite. Our man, Aaron Alucard was apparently in residence here… until fifteen minutes before we arrived.”

Razor scoffed. “Aaron Alucard? That’s the most obviously vampiric name I’ve heard in my life.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Hush. Furrowing his brow, Jack sat back down, and Choo-chooin raced away.

“So Russ told him we were coming—”

“And he took flight,” said Pullman, eyes flickering and narrow as he regarded the blurring scenery. “Makes you wonder if someone might be hiding something.”

“Hmm,” he said as Choo-chooin skidded to a stop. Someone was hiding something, all right. Why had Pullman come to him for help? Sure, maybe rumours had spread of his flashier jobs, and he’d gained a reputation. But that didn’t make him an investigator; he barely felt human, some days. He found himself increasingly confused.

If they were chasing a vampire-killer, why had the vampire run from the Police? Was he in even more trouble? He’d noticed a few rough-looking blokes filtering away when they’d arrived. What did that mean?

“Don’t think too hard,” said Razor. “Find the hunter.”

What do you think all the thinking’s for? Must be nice to only have to worry about slicing shit up.

“I’ll have you know I have very profound thoughts.” She paused. “I just haven’t the first clue where they come from. Or what they mean.”

Shaking his head, he vaulted off the disc, taking in the building before him. Five storeys of dull grey stone with railings in front of tall windows. An archway stood in its centre, almost like a tunnel, a path leading into it through a short lawn. They went through, flashing into darkness before coming to a small paved courtyard with staircases running up along each wall.

Pullman turned left, so Jack followed him. Mercifully, it was all sheltered. When they stepped onto a balcony, he reached out a hand, stopping Pullman as he reached for his sword.

“You smell that?” said Jack, wrinkling his nose. It was a coppery aroma, one he’d never be able to forget.

“The blood?” Pullman gave him an inscrutable look. “Surprised you know the smell.”

“My assistant’s a vampire,” said Jack, swallowing. Sharing his past wasn’t part of the job description.

He crept forward, hand rigid on Razor’s hilt, and surveyed the balcony: a waist-high railing barred the edge on their right, and white plastic doors lined the wall at even intervals to the left.

The second door along was ajar.

They regarded each other, nodding as they advanced. Pullman gave a perfunctory knock, but there was no answer, so Jack pushed it open and went inside. He came into a hallway, narrow and bare with off-white wallpaper and blue carpet—two doors were closed along the right wall, but one at the end hung open, spilling out a dim light. The smell was stronger here.

As they advanced, low muttering became distinct from the open door, probably a living room. Indeed, when they entered, they found a cosy room with enough space for a two-seater sofa, a coffee table, and a modest flat-screen on a cabinet by the wall. The curtains were drawn, the TV set to a rerun of Who Wants to be a Vampire?.

The occupant lay on the floor between the sofa and table, dead. Blood had gushed from a jagged hole in his chest and stained the carpet, pooling under the table and crusting brown as it dried. He looked young, red eyes faded and lifeless.

His nose was missing. It had been sheared off, leaving a bloody hole with bone peeking out.

Jack gagged, bile climbing up his throat. He’d seen death before, and mutilated corpses, but something about this was so clinical. So precise. This wasn’t about violence, or some grand ideal—it was a message.

“Who would do such a thing?” said Razor, gasping. “What a shame that nobody nose.”

He groaned inwardly, but otherwise ignored her. Razor’s morality was that of a sword. Asking her to respect the dead with appropriate seriousness was like asking a journalist to tell the truth—it might happen a few times by accident, but that doesn’t mean they’re trying.

“This doesn’t strike me as something van Hellsong would do,” he said. “Little bit too on the nose.”

“Agreed,” said Pullman, reaching for his phone. “There’s only one group I know who’d kill like this. The Firm.”

“As in the gangsters?” Jack reached for the table, which was cluttered with ashtrays and takeaway menus. Maybe there was a clue in there.

Pullman slapped his hand away. “Yes, and don’t contaminate my crime scene!”

Raising his hands in acquiescence, he backed off. “What have the Firm got to do with a vampire hunter?”

“Probably nothing,” said Pullman, pulling a clear glove onto his hand, “but maybe not.”

He suppressed a twitch—one minute, the detective was happy to share sensitive information, then turned obfuscating the next. Did he just not know?

“You’re hiding something,” said Jack.

“Yes I am,” said Pullman, rooting through the stuff on the table with his gloved hand.

“Wanna tell me what it is?”

“Not particularly.”

Sighing, he stood with his hands in his pockets, watching the man shuffle through the clutter. Shouldn’t he just go home at this point?

“Aha!” Pullman snapped round, a grim smile on his face as he held aloft a tiny plastic bag full of white powder. “I think we found the connection.”

***

Edwin van Hellsong had failed.

The vampire may have been dead, but it was not by his hand. He’d arrived full of optimism, his investigations having borne strong fruit, but he’d been disappointed. Then he’d shot at a human in his panic, and had to clobber her in his escape. He felt bad for that: she’d barely been five feet tall. A blessing, really, since he’d aimed high in his haste.

All the monster had survived to tell him was the name of his slayer: Derren.

Van Hellsong knew that name.

He strolled through an alley, stewing. The light of the street barely reached in here, shadows playing across every surface, from the metal of dumpsters to the brick of the walls. A cat—startled by his presence—yelped and ran off. Around him, the smell of wet refuse pervaded. He wrinkled his nose. There was no noise aside from his heavy footsteps and the tinkling of rain, streams falling from his hat.

Still, this was his world. In the back shadows of the night, where no-one else dared look. Where he could protect them all.

The vampire’s death was an overall win for humanity, but a defeat for van Hellsong. He needed to know more—his order had changed their titles for a reason. Monsters were plotting, and he needed to stop them.

It began with a simple bag of white powder.

One of his fellows near the city had heard of a new drug spreading like wildfire. ‘Speed on Cocaine on Crack’, he had said. A chemical compound designed to explode the mind.

And for some reason, it was being distributed by former New Bloods.

He didn’t know why they’d thought to flood the streets with poison. Perhaps it was the final plan of Lawrence Crispley, a fail-safe to eradicate humanity once and for all.

Delivered by his old assistant.

Derren Chan was behind this, and van Hellsong needed to find him. He needed answers. He needed to save the world from them.

A moan drew out from beside him, and he whipped round to see a shabby, thin man hugging his knees beside a dumpster. Emaciated and pale, his eyes looked too big for their sockets, and wispy brown hair flew in every direction. Ragged and torn chinos adorned his legs, a too-thin jacket on his torso. His breath was misting.

Limp in his hand was a small plastic bag with a circular mark on the front.

The same as he’d seen in Lance’s flat. This man was beyond saving already; van Hellsong had searched for the drug, so he knew how quickly it ruined a man.

Whimpering, the beggar locked his gaze with the hunter.

“This is the only mercy I can give you,” he said, levelling his gun on the man’s head.

A piercing crack rang into the uncaring night, before once more fading to silence.