"Thinking slower has advantages," I said, leaning closer to examine North's semi-transparent crystalline skin. "Concealment, for one. If you're operating at a different temporal frequency than everyone else, you might become invisible to detection."

  "That's ridiculous," North said.

  "Is it? Think about it. The Scruts smell thoughts, right? What if thoughts moving at tree-speed don’t register as thoughts at all. Just background noise. Static. Plus, if you're thinking out of sync with others..." I traced a finger along the latticework pattern on her arm. It felt like I was touching a crystal surface, not human skin. "You might slip through their mental nets entirely."

  "NO TOUCHING VAMPIRE VEGETABLE!" Shady growled, inserting herself between me and North. "NO TOUCH! EMPEROR MINE!"

  "I'm just examining her," I said.

  "EXAMINING IS SUSPICIOUS CIRCLE!" Shady's tail lashed. "Vampire trying to square my circle! BEEP!"

  I rolled my eyes at her. "North, how do you make your thralls?"

  "Why do you want to know?"

  "Curiosity. Also, I want to understand what you're capable of."

  North sighed. "I inject crystalline spores into recently deceased bodies acquired from the morgue. The spores create a basic network and animate the corpse, responding to basic orders. They're extensions of my will, but... dumb, since their brains have decayed. Limited. Can only follow simple commands. They don’t remember their past lives if you’re wondering."

  "Commands like 'grab the human'?"

  "Essentially."

  “I see,” I said. “Could you graft dead flesh to yourself and make the thralls think at a slower frequency too?”

  “What?” North sputtered. “Maybe... I mean, I'd have to modify the spores at the start... to operate on a different frequency. Why would I want slower thralls?”

  “It might help hide what you are from the Scruts,” I said. “Maybe you can hide inside a dead bear or alligator. Fleshpunk armor!”

  “There’s something seriously wrong with you,” North commented. “What the fuck, dude? You want me to live… in a dead bear moving like a sloth or something?”

  “If it works, I don’t see why not. I see that vampires aren’t very flexible in conceptual thoughts,” I fired back. “I guess that being immortal makes you a conservative critter? Is it hard to think outside the box when you’re made from crystalline boxes?”

  North opened and closed her mouth like a fish.

  “What exactly would your family do if they manage to escape through the dimensional gate? Where would they go?" I wondered.

  North's jaw tightened. "Away. Somewhere safer than a world being actively taken over by Omnids."

  "That's not an answer."

  "It's the only answer you're getting."

  Shady's head snapped toward North, teeth bared. "EXPIRED MILK CIRCLES! TRUTH OR NOM!"

  She opened her jaws wide, moving them toward North's head with glacial slowness, giving the vampire plenty of time to appreciate the approaching rows of large, white Wendigo teeth.

  "Okay! Okay!" North yelped. “I’ll talk!”

  “Start with the coordinates of your family’s bunker.” I growled. "I'd like to... check it out from afar, make sure you aren't lying to me."

  “47.779402, -123.732432,” North whispered. “South Fork Hoh River... At the foot of Mount Olympus.”

  “Thanks," I typed out the location into Goodle maps, saving it. "Think that Shady could take on your family?"

  "Mmmm... no. As fast and strong as she is, we have multiple layers of wards that can withstand a nuclear blast and hundreds of armed thralls. Plus grandfather's body is extra dense and he has arcane weapons."

  "I see. Now tell me, what would your family do after running away from my Earth.”

  "We'd... we'd find a new world and establish ourselves there. Happy?"

  "Elaborate," I demanded.

  "What's to elaborate? We'd survive."

  "How?"

  North squirmed in her chains. "We'd... multiply. Establish a new base. Build up our numbers. Make tools and thralls."

  "By infecting the local population?"

  "If we can’t find fresh corpses… Yes."

  "So you’d eat people?"

  "We have to feed and defend ourselves somehow! Most worlds are fucked sideways, don’t have expired donor blood or morgues to procure Thrall bodies with some gold," North snapped. "And we reproduce through conversion. It's our nature."

  "So you'd become conquerors yourselves. Just like the Frontenachii, but with extra steps."

  "It's not the same!"

  "Isn't it?" I crossed my arms. "You flee one group of colonizers only to become colonizers yourselves?”

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

  North sighed. “Everyone wants to survive, don’t judge us. We'd only colonize a town at most, not an entire planet!”

  "Could you colonize an entire planet?"

  "Urm... maybe? Generally there are things that want to eat us... or would be opposed to such."

  "In a theoretical scenario of no other predators could you infect an entire planet?"

  "Uuhhh... I guess?"

  “Are you an individual or part of a network?” I asked.

  “The low and thick Aetheric density of this world makes me more... individual. Less connected. On other worlds, places with less dense Astral, I'd be more like a branch of a tree. Part of the greater organism. Here, I can think for myself and make my own choices… like an idiot who got herself tied to a chair." She lamented.

  "So in another world you’d be more subservient to the elder vampires like your grandfather?"

  “Yes.” Her face twitched. "Grandfather is... dominating, knows more. Even with the weak connection here he's our leader. On a world with stronger Aetheric density, he'd subsume us all. We'd become his hands, extensions of his will."

  "Charming family dynamic,” I said. “Glad I asked before becoming a vamp branch.”

  "It's survival," North said bitterly. "Other worlds aren't like this Earth. They're dangerous. Filled with magic, monsters and many horrid, competing species. To survive, we'd have to fight our way to the top of whatever hierarchy exists there. Grandfather wouldn't hesitate. He'd convert, consume, conquer until we were safe. Acting together as one is essential for victory. We'd be free to do stuff on our own after the territory becomes secure."

  "Right, except you’d become the monsters others flee from."

  “Everyone is someone’s monster. Humans kill humans too, you know.”

  “They’re called murderers and we try to keep them out of civil society.”

  “Your world doesn't have the System. It is safe, but this also makes you weak.” The vampire girl huffed.

  "How many human souls would you need to sacrifice to escape?"

  "Uhhhh... About two hundred, I think."

  "So, every time you escape a planet you sacrifice human souls?"

  "Yes."

  "How many humans have your family murdered in the endless escape carousel?"

  "I... Don't know."

  "Estimate. How many Earths can you remember leaving behind?"

  "Hundreds." North let out. "...I think."

  I mentally tabulated a grinder of at least twenty thousand human souls.

  "Let's do some more fun math. The Frontenachii have as many guns as they have prad troops on the ground and thousands of gigantic crystal tanks. How many vampires would be needed to create this many weapons?"

  "I..." North stared. "Probably... millions."

  "Millions of raised corpses or millions of converted humans?"

  "Millions of both. Thralls don't make very good processors on their own."

  "So you're like the Borg. You move from Earth to Earth and infect great numbers of people, convert them to your hive mind?"

  North stared at me, not arguing. It became obvious from her expression that she hadn't even considered such numerical assesment of the situation at large.

  "Your kind turned millions of people into crystal fungus colonies only for the such to be turned into Frontenachii guns."

  "ETERNARLL GRINDER SQUARE!" Shady declared. "MILLIONS CONSUMPTION!"

  Silence from North. Damning silence of a monstrous killer, an infinite devourer of humanity confirming her utterly horrific nature. I could not let the vampires get away, could not allow them to keep at it.

  The question was... How could I possibly stop them from leaving my Earth?

  I studied the crystal colony for a few seconds. "North, I need you to do something for me."

  "What?"

  "Slow down. Stop thinking. Suspend yourself until I tell you otherwise."

  "What? No! I..."

  "It's that or Shady eats you right now."

  "EAT!" Shady snapped her jaw, raising a large furry fist. "VAMPIRE SMOOTHIE! CRUNCH CRUNCH!"

  North's eyes darted between us. "You—"

  "Slow yourself down. Become dormant. I'll wake you when I need you with a poke." I pulled a safety pin from the bathroom drawer. "You’d feel being poked with a needle, right? When I stab you with this needle, resume normal thought. Until then, stop thinking, be a statue."

  "I don't want to—"

  Shady let out a threatening growl.

  "Fine!" North gasped. "Fine. But if something happens while I'm suspended—"

  "Nothing bad will happen. You'll be perfectly safe. Probably safer than you've ever been, honestly."

  North closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed, then stopped entirely. The subtle movements of her body emulating a human girl ceased. She became utterly still, like a photograph, a statue of herself.

  "Is she suspended?" I asked Shady.

  Shady leaned in close, then suddenly licked North's crystalline cheek with her absurdly long tongue. "TASTE LIKE ROCK CIRCLE! Vampire vegetable is frozen square! BEEP! Safe!"

  "Good." I grabbed the Tommy gun. "Let's go."

  We left North in the bathroom, looking like the world's most elaborate crystal statue of a girl chained to a chair, covered in soap bubbles.

  Back in the bedroom, I collapsed onto my bed, feeling utterly drained. Every muscle ached from being slammed into the porch. My tablet showed dozens of messages from the growing resistance cells. I catalogued them into "want to kill" and "want to kiss the aliens" folder categories. It was good to have variety of minions to do a variety of jobs in the future.

  "EMPEROR NAP CIRCLE!" Shady observed, immediately wrapping herself around me like a fuzzy, antlered body pillow. "Shady-circle towel fort!"

  “Thanks Shades,” I yawned.

  I checked in with each lieutenant while Shady made happy purring noises against my shoulder. She radiated heat like a living furnace, fur only slightly damp either due to being hydrophobic or due to some other Wendigo anatomy factor.

  The reports were encouraging but highlighted a bothersome gap: nobody else managed to get a Voicecast ring from the Prads yet. The Warsaw team's success with Alpha Linari seemed to be a lucky fluke, a combination of Polish alcohol, furry costumes and perhaps StormoLyx's natural charm or his genuine appreciation for that particular Pradavarian Alpha Scrut.

  Either way, I had a single pawn on hand that could become a Queen. The only question was… how exactly could I guide him without exposing myself or the Warsaw resistance cell?

  I considered the problem, spinning it in my head.

  The Scruts could smell lies. If StormoLyx knew he was talking to the Emperor, Linari could sniff such knowledge out of his head. But if he believed something else entirely…

  My mind clicked. I sent a pm to Napoleon.

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Need StormoLyx's coordinator’s telegram ID. Want to plan out some things directly with them.

  [Napoleon (? ?° ? ?° )?]: How should I introduce you to her, my Emperor?

  I quickly typed the response with my instructions.

  [Napoleon (? ?° ? ?° )?]: Aight. Here's her ID. They're all passed out rn and I'm about to crash too. Been up for like 26+ hours

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Get some rest. You've done excellent work so far.

  [Napoleon (? ?° ? ?° )?]: thx Emperor. ttyl

  "Emperor thinking... beep! Big circles," Shady mumbled against my neck, her breath warm. "Sleep circle. No inner voice plot squares. Just BEEP! dreams."

  "You'll protect me, notice it if the vampire wakes up earlier, yes?"

  "Circle protek."

  Her purring intensified, the vibration hypnotic, relaxing to a ridiculous degree. Even though she was a massive alien invader from another dimension, she was a link to my no longer suppressed, carefree past. I had to admit that Shady had always been my most trusted, sweetest childhood friend.

  Even now, with her mind scrambled by brain spiders she fiercely defended me from North’s Thralls, saved me from becoming a vampire.

  Tomorrow, I would deal with the local vampire infestation problem… permanently and level up my pawn at the same time.