++Some believe that the taint of vampiric ichor is in some way mutable, that a man can recover after succumbing to it. Maybe. But it is a danger to all around him just to wait and try.++

  Chapter 36

  Walyn wasn’t happy. This did not surprise Reggie at all, and in fact might have left him disturbed were it not the case. Walyn was evidently not happy because he was being forced to work with Reggie on whatever their new job was. Reggie was able to cunningly deduce this fact from when Walyn whined about it to him.

  “They’re pairing us up because I’m the second-youngest among our kind in Lorwick,” he spat.

  “Wait what does that have to do with anything?” Reggie frowned.

  Walyn’s face got all twisted and he looked away. “Nevermind, it’ll take too long to explain.”

  “Oh. I was just assuming there was some structured hierarchy among our kind based on a combination of age and power, with younger vampires being expected to automatically serve and respect older ones, who in turn treat older still vampires that way, so on and so forth all the way back up to whichever ancestor we’re all descended from.”

  The vampire glared at him. “Lucky guess,” he growled.

  Reggie resolved not to guess too luckily again, apparently that was a trigger for Walyn’s temper too. The vampire remained even grumpier than usual as they made their way through Lorwick.

  “What are we doing then?” Reggie asked him.

  “That’s not for you to know,” he shot back. Reggie suspected that it was, that Walyn was just withholding the information as some petty exertion of authority. It wouldn’t bother him normally to see something like that done, except if Reggie was on his way for a fight he’d have much rather known what the fuck he’d be fighting.

  He licked his lips. A pointless gesture; a vampire’s lips were always dry and their mouths didn’t produce the spit needed to wet them. It was something to do at least.

  They crossed Lorwick fast, cutting through alleys and setting a quicker pace than before. Reggie counted about fifteen minutes before they arrived at their destination, miles from his apartment.

  “Let me do the talking,” Walyn told him, “you just keep where you are and look threatening.”

  Reggie wasn’t sure how one looked threatening exactly, for most of his life he’d had all the heavy lifting in that department done by the fact that everyone assumed the devil lived inside his head. Apparently Walyn was satisfied with just a glance at him, though, so he simply kept doing what he’d been doing and followed.

  They headed down one last alley, which Reggie figured was their destination by how Walyn stiffened up as soon as they set foot inside it. A cramped place that he thought was a bit too perfect for an ambush.

  Maybe Walyn, or the Lady, thought that too. Maybe that was just what Reggie was here for, a guy who’d fought Walyn and given him trouble. Backup. That was fine by him if so, Reggie could fight and he got the feeling that knowing more about what the vampires of Lorwick were doing would only get him stuck in it deeper.

  A man waited for them at the alley’s end. Short, sort of twitchy. He was scruffy looking with baggy clothes that could’ve hidden a lot. Reggie found himself running an eye over his attire, trying to see a gun under all those folds, a knife, a damned hammer. Any weapon was a deadly one if you didn’t know it was there.

  But the man didn’t seem so deadly. Scared, which might’ve made him dangerous, but at the moment he was keeping calm through the trembling and meeting Walyn’s eye. Reggie only recognised his uniform then. The neat fabrics of a guard’s waistcoat tucked away under the outer layers.

  His eyes were bloodshot, and his tongue swollen. It slapped around inside his mouth as he spoke.

  “We did it,” he growled, “we did as you asked.” The man was twitching, twitching a lot. Reggie would’ve thought him drunk except he seemed too well balanced and too intensely focused for that. More like he was craving something he didn’t have and clear-headed enough to know it.

  “All of them?” Walyn asked.

  “Fuckin’ all of them,” the guard snapped, “every one, even took out their wives and kids. It’s a damned massacre, nobody’s saying shit.”

  Reggie felt his hands turn into fists. They were talking about killing people, people who’d seen something they shouldn’t have. Kids who’d seen something they shouldn’t have.

  Hide our existence from the elves.

  Right, and how had he expected the vampires of Lorwick to manage that? Stupid Reggie. Naive.

  “Good, then you’ll get your payment once we’ve verified. I’m waiting for word on that.” Walyn spoke with all the confidence of a man who didn’t quite realise how desperate the person before him was. Reggie tensed, slowly shifting to look behind him.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  It wasn’t much of a surprise to see people stepping into the alley’s mouth from the street beyond.

  “No, we get our payment now. Now. That’s what we agreed.” The first guard was snarling, stepping forwards, almost lunging really. Walyn finally seemed to realise how volatile things were.

  More people were entering the alley from the other side, six in all. Things had degenerated fast.

  “Walyn, what’s their payment?” Reggie asked, suspecting he already knew the answer. Suspecting more with every moment he spent staring at those addiction-twisted features.

  “Our ichor,” the vampire croaked, “they’re thralls.”

  Thralls. Humans on vampire blood, slaves.

  Slaves with their physical abilities pushed beyond the limits of just their Worker Class alone.

  And seven of them.

  Reggie had fought the occasional addict before, but fighting one whose addiction was sitting in Reggie’s own veins, who literally wanted to suck the damned blood out of him…that was new. He didn’t like the idea. The guards started closing in.

  “We won’t kill you,” the leader said, “we just need our fill, that’s all. What we were promised.”

  Reggie would’ve loved to take him at his word, but he couldn’t afford that chance.

  Besides, they were guards.

  Reggie went one way then lurched the other, taking the man closest to him completely unawares with a combination of speed and economy of movement. His haymaker had already landed by the time the man was reacting, a heavy fist smashing clean across the jaw and pretty much just turning his brain off for a bit. That left five on that side, while Walyn was hopefully tying up the one at Reggie’s back.

  One good thing about the alley was, though Reggie was boxed in, it meant his enemies were limited in how many could attack him at once. Two, in this case, came together and drew out big, ugly clubs. They were thick blocks of wood that looked mangled enough that Reggie knew they’d seen hard use. If he hadn’t figured that out from their condition, the way they were being wielded would’ve betrayed the experience there.

  As would the way they were wielded right into his head, hard enough that Reggie heard a crack and thought it might’ve been his skull. Seeing the few pieces of wood chipped out of place made him relax a shade, but he was still sent staggering away dizzy and dazed. His brain was one of the few organs that still did something for him.

  Concussions still didn’t quite hurt Reggie like they did other people though. Whatever it was that healed him so fast, it also let his thoughts gather back together faster after a braining. He slapped off the wall and spun faster than the guards expected, then surprised one again with a low kick for his leg. Reggie had aimed for the knee but hit the thigh, ending up shutting all the muscles down anyway and sending the man onto his ass as the limb gave up beneath him.

  That left another already lunging again, swinging again. Reggie caught the blow on his forearm and felt the impact sink deep. Had it cracked bone? He surged his ichor to to speed its healing just in case, even as he smashed an elbow hard against the attacker. Neither of the men had been quite a match for his strength after all, even without his transformation. Easy to forget in the grimwoods how advanced Reggie’s physicality was compared to most humans.

  But there were four humans still left, and they were charging.

  Reggie charged too, which seemed to surprise them, and he opened up by headbutting one of them right in the chest, which seemed to surprise them even more. People just didn’t expect certain blows in certain places. Head below the neck? Took them unawares every time.

  This time, it also broke a rib or two. Reggie felt the shifting of bone under skin as he impacted it. Another club found his own bones, two more. He weathered the beating like only a dead man could, came up and started throwing punches. He didn’t even see where his fists went, it was happening so fast, just had a brief feeling of contact and wetness, punctuated with cries caressing his ears.

  Reggie ended up lifting one man fully off the ground, throwing him into another. He took a club to the face, shrugged it off and lashed the one responsible with his knuckles. More bones broke, more blood spilled, then someone kicked his knee out from behind and he went down with an assailant atop him. Once upon a time, this had been an irreversible position. Mass and gravity had been a force to be reckoned with.

  Back then, Reggie hadn’t been able to lift five times his own weight. He forced himself up and toppled the man despite his struggling. Another quick tangle in the muck and Reggie had disabled each of his opponents. He looked up and saw that Walyn had enjoyed similar success with the initial guard, apparently having enjoyed that success a while ago and opted to just watch Reggie exhaust himself rather than lend a helping hand during the remainder of his own struggle.

  Prick.

  “I’m sorry,” the lead guard moaned, not meeting Walyn’s eye, twitching and shivering in some palsied terror, “I’m sorry…”

  Walyn didn’t seem to care how sorry he was at all. The man was angrier than Reggie had ever seen him, foaming at the mouth almost and staring at the guard with such intensity that Reggie thought the look alone might blow him to pieces.

  “You owe us for this one,” he snarled, “understand that? You owe us.”

  The guard just nodded, weeping softly as Walyn headed out of the alley. “Fucking thralls,” he spat, “like pigs. They just consume. You can never give them enough, they’ve never had their fill. They’ll suck us all dry if they have half a chance.” He didn’t seem to remember Reggie was there until another few moments had passed, and then his frenzied muttering slowly faded. “You handled yourself well enough.”

  “Thanks,” Reggie replied, deciding not to point out that he’d handled himself against fucking six men while Walyn had just bullied one.

  “If anyone asks, we took them four and three. I had four, you had three.” Reggie shot the vampire a look, tried to see if he was serious. He was.

  “Alright,” Reggie said. Walyn stared at him, tried to see if he was honest. He was. The vampire looked on, apparently satisfied, and Reggie looked on too, thoroughly dissatisfied. But that was life, wasn’t it? No surprise it was death too.

  “Where are we heading now?” Reggie asked, hoping that his concession had earned him enough good will for some straight answers. Apparently it had. Walyn hesitated still, clearly thought about lying or deflecting, but he gave Reggie something this time.

  With prodding.

  “For now, nowhere,” he told him. “We can go our separate ways for a few hours.”

  “And after that?” Reggie asked.

  “We’ll meet back up at your temporary quarters, and go to see the boss of those men we just beat up.”

  “Ah.” Reggie thought about that. “Is he likely to be annoyed that we did that?”

  “Probably not,” Walyn assured him. “Though he isn’t a thrall. Always knew better than to accept the blood. Which means he’ll be more troublesome. Believe me, if you thought those thralls were bad, wait until you see the rest of the cattle.”Reggie didn’t like the sound of that at all. But he liked the sound of a few free hours to try and solve his Attribute problem. He liked that very much.