"What? Happy?!” North sputtered. “I'm chained to a chair!"

  "Because you tried to kidnap me," I reminded her. "Not so nice, is it? Tell me about your gateway fragments. How do they work?"

  North sighed. "Each fragment is a section of a crown that amplifies bending the boundary of Space. Combine them into one, feed them enough power, and you can punch a small hole between dimensions. My grandfather knows the full process."

  "Power from what?"

  "Life force... from the sacrifice of blood and soul—" She stopped. "Fuck. Why am I telling you this?"

  "Because Shady's hungry for vampire noms," I said simply. “Also, we’re definitely not sacrificing any human souls to open your gateway."

  "HUNGRY CIRCLE!" Shady confirmed, snapping her teeth. "Slurp slurp!"

  "You can't seriously be considering staying here. Even with… her protection, even with whatever local influence you have, the Frontenachii landfall legions will figure things out, sniff your location out sooner or later. And when they do… they’ll take this old-ass mansion apart, turn me into one of their Eva guns and put whatever remains of you into a suitcase for ten thousand years!”

  “You seem to know a lot about the Frontenachii.”

  “We’ve an Astral radio,” North let out with a shudder, eyes blinking sparkly, silver tears. “It… lets us hear broadcasts from other colonies. The Frontenachii fleet follows the same pattern. First, they drop a moon piece. Always. It's their calling card… fuckers demonstrating orbital superiority, showing the locals that resistance means annihilation. Most nations surrender immediately after that."

  "Moon square boom!" Shady contributed, making explosion sounds while splashing.

  "Then," North went on, "they deploy their damned pradavarian Scrutimancers. They're the intelligence gatherers… Sniffing out power structures, identifying threats, locating anyone with magical abilities, unusual traits, or artifacts. The Scruts are harvested from conquered worlds themselves, humanoids uplifted by Systemfall and bound by blood contracts into eternal service."

  "The ones in the pubs right now."

  "Drinking themselves stupid to forget that they're essentially eternal slaves to the Frontenachii Colonial Dominion," North confirmed. "They're lonely, traumatized soldiers who've been separated from their males for decades, sometimes centuries. The Frontenachii learned long ago that mixed-gender military units are less... controllable. So they separate them."

  "Separate how?"

  "Males get shipped to pleasure worlds or serve as nurses, consorts and butlers aboard the warships. Soft work. Safe work. The females?" She laughed bitterly. "Eternal frontline service. Die, get resurrected, die again. Each death makes them a little less themselves, a little more fucked in the head. Perfect foot soldiers.”

  "BROKEN CIRCLES!" Shady announced sadly, then cheered up immediately, pawing at the bubble bath. "Wet bubble-circles fix sad!"

  "After the Scruts identify targets," North continued, "the real harvesting begins. Anyone with magical potential gets a blood contract shoved in their face, forced into signing it with Charmchain voice-order magic. Anyone who fights back..." She winced. "Get chopped up into living organ banks. Consciousness trapped in pieces. Flesh art designed to suffer. The Wendigo bastards are the worst kind of demons that feed on suffering and fear."

  "What else?" I asked.

  "Unique specimens become experiments. The Frontenachii are collectors, hoarders of powerful artifacts and knowledge. They find something interesting… A new type of magic, an unusual biological trait, a different form of consciousness… And they take it apart to see how it works. If it's adaptive, they look for more of it, weaponize it. They don't manufacture things from inert materials like you humans, they harvest, adapt and breed tools from captured species.”

  "Like crystalline fungi turned into weapons?"

  "Yes,” North ground her teeth. “We're particularly useful because our distributed consciousness can be reprogrammed, combined and split without problems, given new instructions. A mature colony like my grandfather could be turned into a Corpse Seeker processing hardware or several combat symbiotes." North's eyes met mine. "That's why we ran. Why we've been hiding on this odd, human-filled planet for a century. These fuckers hunt our kind down to increase the number of their weapons." She glared at Shady.

  “Found you!” Shady agreed. "Vampire vegetable broccoli!"

  "The pattern is always the same," North said. "Threat, compliance, identification, harvesting. They'll catalog every species, determine who's useful for what. The smart ones become administrators. The strong become laborers. The beautiful males..." She exhaled. "Become entertainment. For the officers. The Frontenachii Matriarchy has... vast appetites."

  My stomach turned. "And our Earth?"

  "Earth is perfect for them. Don't you get it? Billions of humans, no organized magical resistance, no understanding of blood contracts. Like finding an untouched orchard." North wiggled on the chair. "They'll be methodical. Systematic. They've done this thousands of times across thousands of worlds."

  "They're confused by our fiction," I said.

  "A temporary delay. The Scruts aren't stupid, just... culturally unprepared for this world. Give them a month and they'll have adapted. Hell, we’ve adapted and fitted in just fine. Nobody even noticed our existence in Cascade. Except for you. You noticed me."

  "EMPEROR NOTICES THINGS! ADAPT MUSHROOM!" Shady suddenly stood up in the tub, water cascading off her. "Emperor! Vampire education complete? Time for vegetable chomping?"

  "Not yet," I said.

  "Awwww. When chomping?"

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  "Maybe never, if she remains useful."

  "NEVER IS TOO LONG!" She sat back down with a splash that soaked both North and me.

  North sputtered, spitting out soapy water. "How long is she going to be like this?"

  I squinted at her, not answering.

  "My family will come looking for me or... abandon me, leave me behind. The Frontenachii will narrow their search grid. They will find us! Please, come with me. I'm begging you. I'll inject myself daily into your blood, make you immortal… and my family will welcome you as one of us! You clearly have talent!”

  I pursed my lips.

  “You’ll turn slowly, like the Ship of Theseus, one by one crystalline bloom will replace your nerves, neural connections, organs, bones, skin, hair. You'll look perfect, be the optimal version of you. We can be supportive friends, family for millennia! You will never get sick, never…”

  “Tempting,” I said. “Except for the problem of being hunted down by the Frontenachii for being a parasitic infestation and gun microchips. Say, how far can the prad Scruts smell you?”

  “Uhm,” North twitched. “Depends on the level of a Scrut. Some can smell us from miles away, others can only smell what I am close up.”

  “Exactly. Not sure if I want to be smelled from afar as a walking crystal mushroom.”

  “You think that being human is somehow fucking better?!” She snarled. “They see you as cattle now!”

  “Harmless cattle, one amidst eight billion other cattle,” I agreed, pointing at myself. “Dangerous, smelly mushroom.” I pointed at North.

  “Clever Ding-dong! Emperor!” Shady bobbed. “Smelly BEEP! mushroom!”

  "You're insane. You're both clearly insane and we’re going to die."

  "Sanity’s overrated and everyone dies eventually," I shrugged. "The question is what we do before that."

  I picked up the tablet and slowly went over more reports.

  "The Scruts are all female," I said to North. "All separated from males. All lonely. All gradually losing themselves to repeated deaths."

  "So what?" North asked.

  "So they're vulnerable. Not to weapons, but to love, to friendship. To human connection."

  “Friendship?!” North's eyes widened. "You're not seriously suggesting—"

  "I'm suggesting we give them what the Frontenachii took from them. Love."

  “LOVE CIRCLES!" Shady stood up again, completely covered in bubbles like some sort of soap monster. "EVERYONE GETS A CIRCLE! You get a circle! You get a circle! BEEP!"

  She started flinging bubbles at us with enthusiasm, turning the bathroom into a war zone of soap suds.

  "This is my life now," North muttered, thoroughly covered in bubbles. "Chained up in a bathroom while an alien princess has a bubble fight with reality."

  "Could be worse," I said, wiping soap from my eyes.

  "How?!"

  "SHARK CIRCLE!" Shady announced, then began humming the Jaws theme while circling the bathtub. "Dun dun... dun dun... BUBBLE SHARK ATTACK!"

  "Never mind," North said flatly. "It just got worse.”

  I wondered if Shady saw a commercial for Jaws or was remembering us watching the movie together.

  “North, why is your family residing in Cascade?” I asked, considering the unlikely probability of me meeting not just one but two alien species in town.

  “Darkfall valley is a fault line, a natural fissure in the dimensional curtain. The Astral radio barely works outside of the valley. It's easier to open a gate to this place or to escape from here than anywhere else.”

  “Could there be other fissures?”

  “Maybe,” North shrugged. “Grandfather doesn't allow me to move the radio around. He wants to stay updated on colonies in other worlds. It's easier to raise the dead here. I thought that you were a natural… necromancer.”

  I chortled.

  “Sometimes… When the mist rises from the valley, it can bring up otherness from elsewhere, an echo of the Abyss. I don't like those days. They remind me of home.” She sniffed.

  “Home? You remember stuff before 1922? How old are you then?”

  “I don't know,” North thumped her head against the bathroom tiles. “I remember and dream of being other people. My father, my grandfather. His mother. This me was born in 1984, was slowly turned at eighteen.”

  “You remember being other vamps? Not very Thesis Ship is it?”

  “It's not terrible. It's less lonely this way. It doesn't dilute what I am.”

  “What are you?”

  “A nice girl.”

  “Real nice. Sic’d undead gangsters at me with Tommy guns.” I fired back. "Say, can vampires reproduce naturally? Have kids?"

  "No."

  "I see. So you propagate by infecting humans."

  "Yes. Also, I... didn't send my thralls after you,” North attempted to portray herself as 'not a baddie'. “I sent them to put down your undead dog. I… I just wanted to help you off planet!”

  “Uh-huh,” I rolled my eyes. “If Shades was fully coherent now she'd probably call you a vampire hussy.”

  “Vampire BEEP! hussy,” Shade agreed, emerging from the bath. “Square wet cold.”

  “No, I…” North choked. “If you can see past glamours and have some psychic power you’re a valuable resource for those bastards! Don't you get it? They'll harvest you first!”

  I offered Shady a towel. The Wendigo stared blankly at the towel, tilting her head at me, either not comprehending what to do next or being difficult on purpose. I sighed and began drying her off. Her eyes turned into half moons and she began to purr like an oversized cat, feathers fluttering, tail wrapping around my leg.

  “What the fuck is happening,” North commented.

  “Affection?” I shrugged. “Trust? Friendship?”

  “Not possible.” North shook her head. “She's an Omnid. You are a human. Farmers do not fall in love with cattle. You are somehow controlling her! I just don't understand how because I don't see any Astral threads.”

  “Says the mushroom with a distributed…” I began. “Wait. Are you in contact with your family now via your network consciousness bullshit? Because if you are and you’re sharing things about me to them then we’re going to have a problem.”

  “No, I am not,” North stated with a shudder. “I haven’t been since the damned Omnids made landfall.”

  “Why?”

  “Their weapons are made from us!” She snarled. “Don’t you get it? They share the same Astral network wave as we do. If I reach out to my grandfather, I would hear the bound weapons too and they would hear me in turn. I would hear their pain, drown in the ocean of their suffering, become mired in the intelligence network that serves the Frontenachii fleet. They’d notice me and tell their ‘owners’ exactly where I am. A Corpse Seeker would be dispatched from one of the warships in orbit to find and consume me!”

  “And the Thralls?”

  “I disconnected them from the network too, had to order them to come out of the car with my words.”

  I came closer to her, examining her lattice-like skin. The more time I spent with her, the less human she looked, whatever glamour she had on, now completely gone. “You are crystals all the way down?”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “Interesting. Can you stop moving, stop breathing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you think faster than a person?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you think and move… slower? Like a tree?” I wondered.

  “Huh? Why would I want to do that? If I think and move slowly, someone could take advantage of me.”