After handing me my amulet, Irina launched into an explanation of their plans. “The five of us have infiltrated the Inquisitor contingent placed here. It allows us to get you out like this, with only one guard we had to subdue.” She gestured towards the dead Inquisitor.

A tiny pool of blood had formed under the corpse, little droplets of red coloring the stones, seeping into the cracks, going to waste. I should—

Focus!

Chewing my lip bloody and suckling my own blood just to have something to drink, I tried to pay attention. Healing the extensive damage to my vessel had been far too taxing. I needed to feed. Again. But not now. I was more than just my hunger.

I kept staring at the corpse, though. I needed to project the illusion of feral distraction. I had to make Irina think I lacked the mental capacity to see through the gaps in her plan, even when that made it all the harder to resist my ravenous desire. Already I knew there was one very important omission in all she was telling me. If that was on purpose, if she might be misleading me, then I needed her to assume I was hungry and distracted, get her to draw the wrong conclusions from my absent-minded display and underestimate me.

“—besides your cell. It’s not that they expected people trying to break you out either, so from here we should be able to sneak you up to the wall without much trouble. Wall patrols will probably notice us when we try to sneak over it, but by then it should be too late for them to mount a response. The treeline’s a solid 140 paces from the wall, and they won’t follow a vampire into the forest at night. We’ve got horses...” She snapped her fingers in front of my unfocussed eyes, once, twice, thrice, trying to get me to concentrate. “Are you even still listening?”

It was the middle of the night then. That was good to know. It was impossible to tell in this dungeon. Pretending to be only barely aware, I nodded faintly, swallowed the blood that had pooled in my mouth, and let my eyes drift back to the dead Inquisitor.

“Gods, I’m regretting this already.” Irina sighed and glanced at her companion.

“Horses,” I repeated her last word in a confused tone. She had taken the bait, now convinced that I was so preoccupied by my hunger that I wasn’t paying attention.

“You’re regretting this? Only now?” Piers gesticulated wildly. “I’ve been regretting this since before we started. She tried to eat me!”

“Relax Honeybee, she didn’t,” the female drawled.

Right. One unguarded moment from me and they were back to arguing again. What was with these two? At least I had managed to fool them into thinking I was still half-feral. Because I had heard all of their escape plan now, and there really was a deliberate omission in it.

Him, being dangled over my pit. My dad. Begging. Pleading. Me begging in return. Both our pleas ignored as they dragged him off and left me to consider the consequences.

When my interrogators had first threatened to find my dad, I’d hoped that it was mere bluff. Of course it hadn't been. I had sent him letters, through the Inquisition's very own courier service even. They already knew where to find him through those.

Now I could only hope that he wasn’t dead, that the questions I had refused to answer in my famished delirium hadn’t resulted in his torture. That he was still being held here, in this same dungeon. But despite him having been right there, dangled above my pit, Irina hadn’t mentioned my dad at all.

If he was still here, I was getting him out, regardless of what Irina and Piers had planned for me. I stretched, testing the limits of my regrown limbs, slicked my hair back over my head, and threw another hungry glance at the dead Inquisitor.

“Are you going to stare at his body all night long, Sweets?” The female misinterpreted my stare and waved at the corpse. “We’re going to need a pinch more focus from you, so if you could just get it over with…”

Playing into her assumptions of me truly resulted in Irina displaying a shocking amount of sass and acceptance. Abusing it was fun. I crouched down next to the dead guard and used the first leather strap I could find on the corpse to tie back my hair. I could braid it later or something. Next, my hands roved over the armor, towards my true goal, his blade. I unlatched the weapon and took it for myself.

Irina and Piers shared an accusing look, as if blaming each other for not disarming the dead man, but they did not protest.

Since I had the opportunity I proceeded to quickly lap up some of the blood that had pooled around the corpse as well. Then, as I was still scrawny and famished and already had Irina staring at me with morbid curiosity and Piers cradling his crossbow, I heaved the corpse over on its belly and stood on its back to anchor it.

Really, the lengths I go to to make them think I’m ruled by out-of-control hunger, instead of preparing in case they betray me.

Before I could reconsider, I lifted one of the corpse’s arms, unsheathed my freshly pilfered Inquisition blade, and activated its runes. Sharpness, destruction, localized Tonaltus field, I knew most of them well, as I had owned a very similar blade myself. I twisted the arm and simultaneously hacked at the shoulder joint. The blade dug deep. My strength did the rest. With an inhumanly disgusting squelch, the shoulder joint ripped apart, and then I held a conveniently—but not neatly—cut-off arm.

I quickly disabled the blade’s painful Tonaltus enchantments again. Even this mild exposure had my Metzus flesh rot and boil straight off of my bones. That is why they had placed a Tonaltus field over my oubliette. That is why the Inquisition blades all had Tonaltus enchantments as well. Even wielding one of their blades was problematic for me. If anyone managed to run me through with one, the result would have my insides serving as rather gruesome wall decorations.

Nodding at the two humans as I stood up, I continued my feral act. I licked some blood off of my fingers, wiped my mouth, and hid my still-bloody hands and my on-the-go snack behind my back. “Sorry, still... hungry. Working on it. Ready when you are.”

For the first time, Piers looked at me so utterly aghast that he neither cowered nor tried to raise a weapon at me. Irina, meanwhile, remained her nonplussed self. “Been waiting for you all along, Sweets. Let’s go!”

The male opened the door to my cell, and I finally got a taste of fresh air that did not reek of blood and massacre and my own filth. Savoring it, I boldly stepped forward.

Instantly, a heady melange of fear and reverence and worry assaulted me. Stepping out gave the three Inquisitor friends Irina had left guarding the door an undisguised look at me. I faced them, naked, sickly pale, corpse-thin, covered in grime and gore and blood. My talons scraped the stone floor as I stepped through the door, still holding that torn-off arm. They didn’t see me, but an inhuman monster cataloging them with vicious, hungry eyes.

And even though I’d deliberately chosen to project this kind of feral image of myself, that sudden, instinctive, unrestrained fear left me feeling slightly queasy. Before this, I had always lived with my monstrous features hidden. I’d mostly managed to pass for an adorable, innocent, ten-year-old girl. I could just walk into places and be treated as nothing more than a harmless little thing. Their reaction now, it was a perfect summary of what the rest of my life would look like now that hiding had become impossible.

One of the three swore. “Rot and ruin, this was a bad idea.”

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“You have no idea just how bad,” Piers said. “Don’t be fooled by her frailty. She tried to eat both of us.”

“Sarding hell, Piers. I’m sorry, alright!” I threw my hands up as I repeated my earlier apology, and tugged at the strands of hair that were already threatening to escape my makeshift hair tie.

Piers ridiculed me by exaggeratedly repeating my gestures. “I’m sorry, alright?” he mimed my words with a heaping dose of sarcasm and vehement disdain. “Don’t turn your back on her. She’ll—”

“Both of you, shut up.” Irina slapped Piers on the ass, then she turned to me. “We go straight, then left. Stairs past the corner.”

My five rescuers led the way with ruthless efficiency. Going straight turned out to mean we passed through a warren of corridors full of confusing twists and turns, the layout of the entire dungeon floor clearly designed to confuse and delay any would-be invaders. Every passage looked the same. High, vaulted ceilings. Bare stone walls, only sparsely interrupted by sturdy but plain, undecorated doors. Even the warm glow of the torches that had lit my cell was absent. Instead, the sterile blue glare of runelight strips ran along the walls.

I stopped to tear a piece out of the arm every handful of paces. Soon, my dallying placed me at the back of the group instead of surrounded by Irina’s people. That allowed me to properly taste the air down here in the dungeons. I exhaled, then inhaled, straining my nose and ears. With my superior senses, I could determine the movements of patrols long before they did, around corners, past doors. I found remnants of the many Inquisitors that had walked these dungeons in the air: my Creeping-brown-vines interrogator, his Spring-chicken assistant.

When I didn’t find Dad’s scent at the first intersection, the one where we were going straight, I began to fear. He might be held somewhere else. He could already be dead. I could have imagined his capture in my feral delusions.

But when we were about to turn left towards the stairs, I finally picked up the taste I was looking for. “Wait,” I hissed, making everyone halt and stare at me warily. “Irina, when were you going to tell me that my dad is being held here as well?”

Perhaps I should have thought things through before speaking up. Looking at things rationally, choosing to care for a human was a repeat of the same mistakes that had gotten me captured in the first place. It was a sentimental choice, an oh-so-human weakness that anyone who wanted to harm me could ruthlessly exploit. But I was doing it anyway. This was my dad. Mine. Saving him should come before all else.

“We don’t have time—”

I cut off Irina’s deflection by grabbing her wrist and pulling her towards me. “Please answer the question, Irina, then we won’t be wasting time.”

The Inquisitors behind her activated the enchantments on their weapons and armor in perfectly synchronized fear, almost as if they had been waiting for an excuse to dispose of me.

I bared my teeth in response. Killing so many of them without raising an alarm would be tricky, but they would lose regardless. There was no sun, no Tonaltus field. Even malnourished, that made me faster, stronger, and far deadlier than them. Finally, I wouldn’t have to pretend to care anymore. I could simply—

“Alright.” Irina flashed me a demure smile while gesturing at her men to stand down with her free arm. “I’ll tell you.”

Gods, I wanted to kill this stupid Honey-blood and her entire gaggle of snacks. It was so hard to care for these pathetic humans, and this was the perfect excuse to drop the pretense. Why did she have to choose now to act meek and sensible? She was lucky I still hoped to question them on their motives, and I needed at least one of them alive for that.

Warily, I let go of Irina’s wrist and looked her in the eyes. “You want me to trust you, but you are making that incredibly difficult right now.”

“Alright. I get that. We should have told you in advance.” She nodded and gestured once more to lower the weapons. “This is going to sound cold and stupid, but we simply couldn’t make it work. Getting the guard rotation to line up in a way that allowed us to get you out was hard enough as is. In the time we had to prepare for this operation, we found no reliable way of getting your father out that doesn’t bring the entire fort down on us. Increasing the scope to include him now, that would risk everything.”

“I don’t care about the additional risk. We are going back for him.” I stated my demand with a cold finality I did not feel. She was right. Freeing Dad wasn’t the least bit rational. It would not increase my survival chances, yet I was doing it anyway.

Irina clenched and unclenched her fists as her taste slowly shifted to relief. “We have no plan for this. You’d really risk all our lives for this foolishness, Sweets?”

“You’re not seriously considering this, are you Iri?” Piers stepped forward, pushing himself into our argument. “She’ll get us killed, use us as bait for her own mad plans.”

I smirked, revealing my fangs to them. “Oh, she is considering it. Don’t deny it. None of you are comfortable with saving the vampire and leaving the human to rot.”

Irina ignored my remark, looked at Piers, and shook her head. “Piers Honeybee, she’s a vampire. She’ll do whatever she wants. All we can do is follow along, rein her in, and hopefully prevent her from doing something she’ll later regret. Besides, she clearly cares for her father. You know how much I like sappy family reunions.”

I snorted. “Enough of your stalling. Follow me. Or don’t.” Turning my back on them I walked back the way we had come.

Piers sighed behind me. “Divines help me. Never thought I’d have a vampire try to convince me to do the right thing.”

Irina chuckled. “Oh Honeybee, you don’t know the half of it.”

As we backtracked, I tuned out their bickering. But deep inside, I shivered. Convincing them to free my dad had been far too easy, and something was wrong with this Irina woman. I could taste her fear, could feel it just as clear as that of all the others. Yet she never acted on it, she never showed it on her face. Instead, she defied me, did and said things no sane person should do in front of a vampire. And far too often, she came uncomfortably close to seeing through me. By nature, Irina was prey, and yet despite knowing what I was, she still acted as a predator in front of me.

Her behavior reminded me far too much of Aunt Reya back in Birnstead, the village healer who hadn’t cared if I was a vampire. To her, I had simply been a lost child who had stumbled onto her territory and who needed some sense slapped into her. And then everyone else there had grown to care for me as well. And then…

Damn. I hope those people didn’t get the same treatment as my dad.

Musings on Birnstead, or Irina would have to wait. When only two more corners separated us from Dad’s cell, I made everyone halt, tasted the air, and then held up two fingers. Two guards at the door.

Irina put some hands on shoulders, and the Inquisitors exchanged a bunch of hand signs. Eventually, Irina gestured back the way we had come.

I frowned at her.

“Need to plan this out,” she mouthed at me, silent enough so that only I would be able to hear.

Exasperated, I just held up a hand, palm out. My dad was right there. This was a waste of time. Being sneaky was pointless anyway. With all their armor, Irina and her fellow Inquisitors could never move silently. And even a whole day with soap wouldn’t get rid of the rancid reek that emanated from the coating of piss, shit, and festering flesh that still caked parts of me.

No, there was a better way. They were thinking like humans, forgetting I was a vampire and there was no sunlight to weaken me. Two Inquisitors, caught unaware, presented an insignificant obstacle. Keeping my hand outstretched I edged past them and towards the corner. When one of Irina’s men moved after me, I pushed my hand out towards the person. Finally, they had all figured out I wanted them to wait.

Please keep waiting.

I took a final bite from the heavily chewed-up arm, a plan forming as I rounded one corner, and then the last. The runelight lines running along these corridors truly were an amazing way to light up a dark place, yet the need for trained Atlus mages to charge or manipulate them relegated them to a novelty reserved for the nobility and the Inquisition.

That my cell had been lit with torches instead of magic was probably deliberate, a strengthening of security, less magic to tamper with. Unfortunately for them, they hadn’t extended that same security measure to every other part of the fort. A fatal mistake. While I wasn’t formally trained, my Dad was a former Inquisitor and had taught me at least some of their tricks.

I activated the runes on my stolen Inquisition blade, strode straight into the line of sight of the two guards, and reached for the wall and the runelight circuit. The Inquisitors only barely registered the first vague hint of my presence when I pulled on the weave.

The entire corridor plunged into a darkness that only I could see in.

I tasted shock, surprise, fear, but not enough. Already their training was taking over, their footing shifting for stability, their hands reaching for weapons and enchantments. I surged forward, whipped the torn-off arm at their faces to buy me another heartbeat of time, leaped up the wall, twisted, and kicked off again from the ceiling to drop down over their heads. They were still activating the runelight enchantments on their armor — another human mistake, wasting time trying to see — when my rune-sharpened blade plunged straight through a thin chainmail neck guard.

The second Inquisitor drew his blade and took a step back to block an incoming strike. The way he aimed to defend against a blow was his final, fatal mistake. He could have raised an alarm. Instead, he had wasted his last breath assuming I needed to complete my fall before I could strike out again.

My feet hit the chest of the man I’d impaled. Sailing his body to the ground, talons digging into his armor, I pulled my sword free and twisted my torso, slashing at the second Inquisitor from an angle he hadn’t anticipated.

A delightful arc of blood sprayed the wall.

Two corpses dropped to the ground, me on top of them.

I stared at the outcome in quiet amazement, for the first time truly understanding — instead of simply knowing — why my kind was so feared. And I wondered why I’d ever been so set on hiding.