++The Vampire Lords and Ladies are, as far as we can tell, their equivalent to the elven patricians, albeit ruling less territory and as solely individual beings rather than chairs upon a council. They are invariably old, powerful and, above all else, cunning. ++

  Chapter 38

  The Lady’s office was their next stop, which annoyed Reggie because he’d been hoping to get some more exploration, and ideally hunting, done tonight. If nothing else he was memorising some routes between a few of the city’s more important places. As before, the Lady’s building loomed high as a silent threat while he approached. As before, its security stuck out in the background like rifles aimed his way.

  But this time they had a quicker trip up, less fanfare, less inconvenience. Apparently, when the Lady of Lorwick expected you, there weren’t any delays in her getting the meeting she wanted. This time she was dressed in clothes Reggie couldn’t name, made from fabrics he couldn’t identify, coloured in a way he couldn’t claim to have seen before. She might have been slightly more overt in her display of excess, if she’d chosen a garb made entirely of welded-together ryven.

  “News?” she asked as they entered, not bothering to mince words or give her subordinates a moment to uncoil. Walyn replied with similar speed.

  “It’s done,” he answered, then moved into a slightly more detailed explanation. Reggie noted that though it was comprehensive, he wasn’t really conveying just how fucked off the guard overseer had ended up being by the end of it all.

  Reggie kept quiet of course. He didn’t think his input here would make much difference, and didn’t want to undo all his hard work in un-annoying Walyn by interjecting while he addressed their superior. Walyn’s type was particularly sensitive to that sort of thing.

  Then the Lady ruined it all anyway by turning to Reggie directly.

  “And you?” she asked him. “Anything to add?”

  Well fuck. Reggie certainly wasn’t going to lie to her, not directly and not by omission. She would know, somehow. He just knew it. Maybe that was paranoid and superstitious, but he also didn’t care and was going to stick to his superstitious paranoia no matter what. It’d kept him alive this long at least.

  “Everything Walyn said was right,” Reggie said at last, “I guess the only thing I’d add is the elf seemed pretty pissed off. Or, really pissed off. Sort of a murderous look in his eyes. The one people get when they’ve taken a slight to heart. The kind of slights they remember well after the fact. I’d watch him, personally. If only because I was in the room when he was pissed off , and it won’t take him long to figure out that getting revenge on me is easier than Walyn.”

  He resisted the urge to glance at his fellow fledgeling. If Walyn had taken offence, Reggie would know soon enough anyway. If he hadn’t then Reggie might somehow piss him off anyway if the man got the idea that he was being handled.

  The Lady wasn’t as volatile as that. She leaned back with a look of heavy thought on her face. The silence stretched out between them until it almost snapped. Then it did.

  “What do you know about the unions?” she asked after a moment.

  Reggie had been about as surprised by that question as he ever had by any.

  “The…unions?”

  “You know, those human rabble waving sticks around and screaming about pay. What do you know of them?”

  “Not much,” Reggie admitted. She hummed at that.

  “The elves dislike them, they’re bad for business. I happen to dislike them too for the same reason. If we were to move in a way that impeded those unions, it might curry some favour from the elves, the overseer included.”

  “Not him,” Reggie said before he could stop himself, “surely he’d just feel like you’d shown him up at his own job and get even more angry.”

  The Lady stared at that, blinking, thinking, then smiled. “Good point. Very well then Fledgling, what would you suggest?”

  Oh shit he’d given himself work. Reggie tried to think as fast as his tortured little brain could manage.

  “What if you make the union stronger without anyone but them knowing it?” Reggie asked.

  He felt a pricking at the back of his neck, hairs standing up. The ones that always warned him when he was stepping into danger.

  [You’re stepping into danger, Reggie!]

  The second warning was somewhat less subtle, but then Dvo was a demonic voice who lived in Reggie’s head so that was probably to be expected.

  The Lady just eyed him.

  “I just told you how the unions inconvenience my business, and you want me to empower them?” There was a dangerous note in her voice that told Reggie he’d better speak fast.

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  “On your own terms,” he clarified, “if they get a bit of what they want from you, then they’ll learn their best interests lie with you. Things you want to do will have their support, things you don’t want to happen will have their opposition. You’ll earn yourself a lot of allies very fast.”

  He felt dirty just saying it, but then it was dirty work. He should have. Reggie didn’t like manipulating people. He tried to remind himself that these same workers would probably have been calling to have him hanged back in Norvhan.

  It helped, a little.

  The Lady’s look of thought, weirdly enough, helped more.

  “And how would you suggest I go about helping them?” she asked him.

  Reggie was surprised by the question, both because it showed she was actually considering his suggestion and because he had no clue why the fuck she was assuming he’d have the foggiest idea of how to implement it.

  “I…don’t know…ma’am? I’ve not been in this city for even three days.”

  She didn’t look disappointed exactly, more amused.

  “You’re right there. In fact, I think that makes you perfect for what I have planned next.”

  Reggie got the distinct impression that he wasn’t going to like this very much, but he kept quiet and listened. Nothing he could do now except obey either way.

  “The unions know my people by now, because we’re all established enough that everyone knows everyone. Except you. You’ve been here three days, as you said. You’ve done one mission, an underhanded one where there were few witnesses. I’ve made no public association with you in my human persona. You, Reginald Smith, are perfect to meet with the unions and uncover more information I can use to control them.”

  His mouth would’ve been drying up, if it still produced saliva. Reginald. She’d said his name. She’d found it out. She knew who he was, which meant she knew about Norvhan. She was letting him know she know.

  She was letting him know as a threat.

  Reggie waited for more, didn’t hear it, and realised he’d just been told what he’d be spending his time on for the foreseeable future.

  Saying no obviously wasn’t an option, even attempting to would just piss the woman off and, at best, achieve nothing. Better to feign enthusiasm—or at least a lack of reluctance—and get saddled with the same amount of work but less animosity. Path of least resistance and all that.

  Reggie left that building with a lot more to worry about than he’d entered it with.

  And a few more hours of night left, which meant no excuse not to get working right away.

  Are you feeling okay? Sycily asked him. The warmth of her concern actually cheered him up a bit.

  Probably didn’t say good things about him that he was taking solace in kindness from a System interface.

  “Fine,” Reggie mumbled, “just…frustrated.”

  [You know what would stop you from being frustrated, Reggie?]

  “Are you about to tell me to kill myself Dvo?”

  [...No.]

  “What would stop me from being frustrated?”

  [Nevermind.]

  Reggie kept walking.

  It occurred to him that the Lady hadn’t actually said where he could find this union. That was hitch number one in the plan. It also concerned him. Did she just not know? If so, Reggie was going into this with no guarantees at all. Not having information that basic to give meant she’d not have been able to warn him of, say, the union being prone to lynching out-of-towners for no reason. He couldn’t be certain of anything about them.

  Well that was just people.

  People. One minute they were talking about how kind you’d been, mourning your death and giving you drinks. Then they were yelling for you to be burned along with the rest of the fucking crowd. Ah. Reggie was still upset about Anne.

  He quickened his pace to try and find something else to think about, like a life or death struggle against union people.

  Reggie didn’t find that, not for an hour, but what he did find was a building that had weird activity to it. There was a guy outside, but he didn’t have the usual look of some hired doorman, and the lights seemed slightly faded as they shone out through windows. Not a ‘gentleman’s club’ or anything like that, then. Not a business that thrived by night given it was no more decorated than any of the other warehouses around it. Not advertising anything, except that nobody had any reason to look at it.

  It must have been the union.

  After stumbling in and out, then finding two more drug dens after continuing his search, Reggie finally found an actual union outpost and was able to get to business. After another delay of course.

  Apparently, the union was a bit paranoid. As someone who had also gotten used to the police trying to kill him for no reason, Reggie could understand this trait entirely. It did still make things a bit inconvenient for him though. Getting through the door was harder than he’d hoped.

  “What do you want?” demanded the big, mean man guarding it. He was taller than Reggie and had the most obviously ‘concealed’ gun he’d ever seen in his life. Reggie was actually pretty sure he could estimate its calibre, let alone work out that it was hidden away under that jacket. But he didn’t volunteer the fact. If this went nasty, let the man be surprised that his gun was a known factor.

  “I’ve heard this is where the union’s set up,” Reggie said, half-honestly, “I’d like to take a look around, speak to some of its members.” An idea struck him. “I was told to head here by someone called Norman Bates.”

  Technically, he’d been told to head down by the docks. Reggie had done that and found nothing there, not at night at least. Maybe the place was just more secured, or maybe the day he’d waited had been too long and they’d already moved themselves elsewhere. Either way, he was stuck sifting around this area now and hoping that the name alone would help him.

  It did, and it didn’t. The man definitely recognised the name and understood it.

  “You’re telling me Norman sent you here?” There was a dangerous note to his question which convinced Reggie to backpeddle, fast.

  “Not here exactly,” he clarified, “here as in, to the union. I took a while to find this place because—”

  The man threw a punch that Reggie ducked, then backed away from. “What are you doing?” he asked, finding it hard to muster up any fear. The blow had been a sluggish thing, enough so that Reggie figured he was probably stronger than this guy even despite the size gap.

  That was what happened when you hung out with Witchfinders, he supposed. Your standards of strength became somewhat inflated.

  More punches came his way without landing. Reggie didn’t want to kill the guy, and letting slip what he was clearly wasn’t an option, so transformation was right out. In this case, it didn’t matter. He threw one blow that connected well and sent the man flying right off his feet, two hundred pounds tossed back like a loose cobble kicked aside.

  Reggie watched the man land and smack his head hard enough against the stone that he might’ve died were it not for the mana in him. He was groaning, trying to get back up. Reggie could stomp on him now and end the fight instantly.

  “I’m going in,” he said instead, “sorry, don’t try to stop me or I’ll hit you again.”

  Of course he didn’t stomp the poor guy. Reggie didn’t want to kill a man just for trying to keep his friends safe.

  Besides, he wasn’t even wrong, Reggie actually was an infiltrator anyway.