The road to the slums from the police station in Pubset led through a small railway district. It was ‘small’ only because much of the railway infrastructure cut directly into the Port, which fed most of the city. At the edge of the station, the jurisdiction of the Fourth Precinct ended, and the next major residential district, Heavy Bay, began. It was home to labourers from the port, the docks, and the station itself, and fell under Precinct Two. So did Smuggler’s Bay, with its slums.

  When I first arrived in Farnell, the slums were a thoroughly miserable place, swarming with runaways, street thugs, drunks, and junkies. Not that things had changed all that much since Harry performed his cleansing rituals here to neutralise the combat alchemy used by enemy forces during the Big War, but land prices had already doubled.

  That said, there were only three owners left in the slums. One was myself, or rather, the clan. Another was His Worship de Camp, the Mayor, who governed the city on behalf of its citizens and the Crown. The third was the Duke of Farnell, and he didn’t share his property rights with anyone.

  The Bremor clan had moved in with impressive speed, demolishing and rebuilding our portion of the zone, while the other two owners showed no such urgency, though neither were in a rush to sell. In people’s minds, this place would remain poisoned for a long time to come.

  The clan had acquired a strip of land between the Duke’s holdings, bordering Heavy Bay, and the city-owned lands at the centre of Smuggler’s Bay. The city’s plot was the worst in terms of position, though the size made up for it. The Duke, despite having the best location, had decided to hold off on construction.

  As we passed through his territory, the streets remained filthy. Windows and doors were boarded up, rooftops already sagging and gaping despite the buildings’ relative youth. Smashed lanterns, pools of rubbish, drunks sprawled in doorways, and, here and there, bodies twitching from something stronger than whisky. You could always tell the heroin addicts: sickly thin, slick with sweat, and far too quiet. These were the utterly lost.

  Every time I saw them, I had to fight the instinct to help. But those who could still be helped never reached the slums. They walked out of the dens on their own two feet, and never returned. If someone couldn’t break free in time, it didn’t matter if they were a lord or gifted — the ending was the same.

  Well, I lie. Some have so much money, their slow decay drags on for decades. They smoke, shoot up, sniff whatever they can, then drink potions to clean their system. Then they do it all again. Until one day they drown in their own vomit or stop breathing mid-overdose. The ones who ended up in the slums were those who couldn’t afford even one more dose in the cheapest pits of Smuggler’s Bay or the Callus End. The dealers themselves dragged them here and dumped them like bin bags on a kerb.

  Hmm. Come to think of it, junkies were perfect for the werewolves. If someone went missing in the slums while off their head, the coppers might give a token effort, but no one would really look.

  The slums started to lose their bleakness at the far edge of our strip, where it bordered the docks. There still wasn’t much here, or rather, quite a lot had already gone. The nearby buildings had been flattened completely, leaving only deep pits, piles of rubble, and stacks of relatively intact bricks, which Peter Logg, ever the frugal one, planned to reuse.

  In the middle of all this mess stood a building that looked like a town hall from Avoc, scaled up threefold. In front of it lay a future plaza, already taking shape, with a central fountain underway. Further down, where two more buildings were coming down, a park was planned.

  Next to the hall stood a nearly finished five-storey block. The top floor was still under construction, but the ground floors were already undergoing interior works. Workers bustled everywhere: no drunks, no loafers. Only the exhausted builders taking a smoke break were sitting down, and they didn’t count.

  Knuckles, who’d been here several times since the changes began, parked the Cooper in our usual spot near the hall. He slipped the Thompson under the seat and got out with me.

  “Maybe I’ll spot one of mine,” he said.

  “Go on, then,” I nodded.

  When the construction started, Clint had moved fast, handing over former gang members to Peter as errand boys, messengers, and even general labourers. Judging by the setup, it was Harry’s idea — part of his grand project to reform juvenile criminals. And now Clint was stuck wrestling with all the same bad habits and thought patterns Harry had once tried to beat out of him.

  In the dusty entrance hall, Knuckles and I went our separate ways. He headed upstairs to the architects, the small ones were helping out there, while I made for one of the offices on the ground floor. That’s where the local head of security had set up: Albert McLal, father of Donald, who was the right hand of Nicholas Boily, the clan’s chief of security.

  Albert wasn’t gifted himself, but had developed his spiritual heart to a level that let him handle amulets with no trouble, and he wore almost as many as his son. He was also a capable hunter, builder, and teacher, which made him the ideal candidate for the job.

  Just outside the door stood one of Knuckles’ former street boys — about thirteen, by the look of him. Luke, I think. I remembered him from our first encounter: armed with a chair leg, wearing boots two sizes too big and trousers barely clinging to his hips. Today, he looked much more presentable, and was standing squarely in front of the office door, chest out, clearly guarding the peace of its occupant.

  “Good evening, my lord,” he said, with a surprising amount of politeness. “I'm afraid Sir Albert cannot receive you right now.”

  “Well now,” I said. “Seriously?” I liked the way he phrased it. Knuckles still couldn’t manage anything that elegant, he kept slipping into slum slang.

  “He’s with very important guests.”

  “Someone from the city council? Aristocracy?”

  “Sir Albert didn’t share the details with me.”

  Well, that was a proper brush-off. Knuckles would’ve just grunted something like ‘none of your business.’

  “Shame. I need to speak to him on a very important matter. Can you at least tell me who’s in there with him?”

  The lad hesitated, clearly unsure whether he was allowed to say. I didn’t know how Knuckles trained them, but most of the former street rats turned assistants were surprisingly disciplined. After half a minute’s internal struggle, he made a decision and shook his head.

  “My apologies, my lord. I have strict orders, and you’re not a member of the Bremor Construction Company.”

  “I’m a titled clan member and a member of the Small Council!” I said indignantly, before realising, “Ah, right. That means nothing to you.” I tried again. “How about this: I’m the nephew of the Earl of Bremor, who owns this company. That help?”

  His face flickered with doubt, but he pushed it aside quickly.

  “I was given separate instructions on that point,” he said, clearly quoting someone. “Any family, friends, or acquaintances — show them the door.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “You do realise you got this job thanks to me?”

  “My apologies, my lord, I got it thanks to Kna… Mr. Sparrow. And he told me I was to listen only to my superior and no one else.”

  Right. So Harry’s re-education program wasn’t always a net gain, apparently.

  “Listen here, you little…” I snapped. “Things are about to go one of two ways: either I go in, and you won’t be able to stop me, however much you might want to, or you tell me who’s in there, and I might change my mind. Maybe it’s better not to interrupt Albert after all.”

  I could see the thought of resisting flash across his face.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I warned, raising my left hand, and four large blue topazes slid from my sleeve, each one shaped like a faceted blade, each one the size of my thumb. The stones hovered in the air, gleaming and deadly, their diamond-edged tips aimed right at him.

  The battle amulet was based on terrakinesis — Harry’s latest creation and also his apology for breaking the enchanted dagger I’d been given by my uncle. He was fascinated by the control spell. Not pure telekinesis, something else. In any case, I came out ahead: I’d lost one blade, and gained four, powered by both Aether and Earth. I could recharge them straight from my Elemental Source, and they consumed much less energy than traditional artefacts. Bonus: the amulet was helping me slowly master some aspects of terrakinesis. I couldn’t cast the full spell myself yet, but I’d inscribed it into my new spellbook, which had replaced my old notebook, and it was already filling up with plenty of other fascinating things.

  Luke watched the blades spinning slowly in the air before his face, sighed, and gave in.

  “A young man, and two older blokes. One looked about forty, the other about the same age as Sir Albert. He was very happy to see the last one, even called him an old goat. Then they hugged.”

  That gave me pause. I couldn’t immediately think of anyone Albert would be that pleased to see. I didn’t know the old man that well. So I asked again:

  “You’re sure you didn’t catch any names?”

  Luke shook his head, and I weighed my options. Hopefully, it really was just a friendly visit, and Albert wasn’t playing some clever game behind the clan’s back.

  I stepped past the boy and knocked firmly on the door.

  “Come in,” came Albert’s voice.

  I opened the door, and froze in surprise.

  Sitting in one of the guest chairs was Burke — one of my many cousins. A tall, broad-shouldered warlock of twenty-three, the spitting image of his grandfather, Bryce, the current head of the clan.

  “You were in Africa,” I said in surprise.

  “America,” Burke corrected with a grin, standing up.

  We embraced warmly, clapping each other on the back. He joked, “You've grown! Shame the surprise was ruined.”

  “Not ruined at all,” I said, shaking hands with Albert’s other guests: Hugh Kinkaid, a very distant relation of mine but a close friend of Cousin Evan, and Fraser O’Donnell, who wasn’t in the clan, but related to Burke through his great-grandmother, the first wife of Grandpa Gregor.

  He was the one Albert had called an ‘old goat,’ which was fair — he was a goat. A goat-shifter, to be precise. Hugh, too, was a shifter.

  The clan had long-standing traditions of sending young warlocks abroad to gain experience and collect trophies for Ferrish from exotic creatures. It was standard practice. Their escorts were typically shifters, kept things simpler when it came to arguments about trophies.

  Burke had been roaming foreign lands for years now. I wondered how much stronger he’d become.

  “Dad mentioned you changed your path,” he said.

  “Apprentice wizard,” I confirmed. “Your father said you wouldn’t be back for ages. What changed?”

  “I don’t really know. A month ago we’d just arrived in Caracas, were about to go after a Blood Jaguar, when a telegram came from him, telling us to wrap it up and come home.”

  “A month? You didn’t exactly rush.”

  “Well, we did track the jaguar down first.”

  “Duncan,” Albert asked, “how’d you get past Luke? Last week he had Peter stewing outside for half an hour.”

  “He tried it with me too. I had to threaten him. And thanks for the reminder, I wasn’t just here to scare the kid. I’ve got a lead on some kidnappers. They’re operating right here in the slums.”

  “Kidnappers?” Burke asked.

  “We’ve tangled with a werewolf clan,” Albert explained.

  All three men reacted with varying degrees of disbelief. Six months ago, I’d have done the same. Back then, I was convinced that kind of nonsense only happened in barbaric backwaters. Here, in civilised territory, no flea-bitten mutt would be allowed to run loose, they’d be caught and treated immediately.

  “They’re real,” I said. “Trust me. Though personally, I think there might be vampires behind it all. I’ve already spoken to Liza…”

  “Why not Nicholas?” Albert cut in, referring to his boss.

  “It was a crossover issue, more in her domain. But she’ll pass it on.”

  I briefly filled them in on the crooks, what they’d found out, and mentioned the new theory involving junkies.

  “What do you want from me?” Albert asked.

  “Just keeping you in the loop. It’s fresh info. What you do with it is up to you. At least when Nicholas calls, you won’t be caught off guard.”

  “Thanks,” Albert said, and at that exact moment, the phone on his desk rang. We all had the same thought.

  Old McLal picked it up, spoke for a moment or two, then gave me a sly smile.

  “Him again?” I groaned, already guessing. Not Nicholas Boily — Peter Logg.

  “Part of the job,” Albert said.

  “He’s doing my head in. Let him hire a proper elementalist. I’ll never match his bloody standards.”

  “He doesn’t have to pay you,” Albert said, chuckling, and explained to the others: “Duncan recently unlocked his elemental source. Earth. So now every time Peter sees him, he ropes him into some job — reinforcing a foundation, checking a wall, stabilising brickwork… Always something new.”

  “So don’t do it,” Burke suggested casually.

  I sighed. “He and Harry, that’s my teacher, made a deal. I have to carry out any task he sets me, up to three times max per type. Peter hasn’t repeated himself yet. He’s seeing how much he can squeeze out of me.

  “And what does our tormentor want today?” I asked Albert.

  “He’ll be in to tell you himself. He rang to make sure I didn’t let you slip away.”

  We chatted about this and that for a few minutes. Burke expressed interest in seeing exactly what sort of torture Peter had lined up for me. The Old Goat, Fraser, hinted that Albert should mark the occasion with a drink. Albert declined with regret, saying the higher-ups might call with urgent instructions at any moment. And he had his own steps to take, apparently, though what those were, I didn’t get to find out, because Peter suddenly burst into the room.

  “Hello, all! Duncan, with me!” he announced, then disappeared again.

  “Let’s hope this doesn’t take long,” I muttered as I followed him to the door. “I’ve got a date in an hour.”

  “Oho!” Burke brightened and walked alongside me. “You’re over Betty then? Who’s the lucky girl?”

  “Ellie Sheridan. Just a sweet local girl.”

  “Aaah…” Burke traced an hourglass shape in the air, then held his hands in front of his chest, palms up. “Really sweet?”

  “Not quite as sweet as Betty’s,” I admitted. “But keep your crude jokes to yourself, I actually like her.”

  “Who’re we talking about?” Peter cut in.

  “Duncan’s new flame,” Burke said.

  “Ellie? Lovely girl, unless you make her angry.”

  “And if you do?” Burke asked, curious.

  “If you do, she’s got a cleaver under her skirt. My nephews tried to flirt with her on Matriarch’s orders while she was visiting the clan, she told them she’d use it to slice their sausages clean off.”

  “When was this?” I asked, surprised. “Doesn’t sound like Ellie at all. That sort of bluntness is more Finella’s style.”

  “Well, I’m paraphrasing. But the meaning was pretty clear. Happened just before Logan’s wedding, back when Sean got expelled.”

  “Sean?” Burke blinked. “Feron?”

  “Yeah,” Peter nodded. “A lot’s happened since the old Head died, but they’ll fill you in at home. Where are you off to, by the way?” he asked, stopping at the central staircase in the hall.

  “Following you. I want to see how you’re going to put Duncan to work.”

  “Turn around. Duncan’s got a task today that’s not for outside eyes.”

  “I'm not an outsider, you know?”

  Peter waved him off. “Shoo.”

  “I’ll be in town a few days,” Burke said. “Shall we meet tomorrow morning?”

  “Better after lunch. I don’t want to mess up my training schedule.”

  “Give me a ring in the morning, then. Peter’s got the number. I don’t know where he’s putting us yet… Wait, what the hell is that?!”

  Burke’s gaze hardened, sharp as a drawn blade. With a gesture just like Grandfather Gregor’s, he pulled a dagger out of thin air. The air around his body shimmered with heat and static, and a spark of magma lit in his clenched left fist. A very specific and telling response.

  Peter instantly spun toward whatever had set Burke off. I didn’t bother turning, didn’t need to for a glance.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” I muttered.

  A woman had just entered the building, dressed in a trouser suit the colour of arterial blood. Her wide-brimmed hat and scarf matched the suit exactly, while her gloves, boots, and oversized sunglasses were the shade of the darkest night.

  Kate Lindemann, or rather, Kate Blair, master vampire and head of the Blair nest. She removed her glasses, smiled, and headed straight toward us. Burke looked like he was ready to strike.

  “Don’t be stupid,” I muttered, then turned fully and said aloud, “What the hell, Kate? What are you doing here?”

  “My, how rude, Lord Loxlin,” the vampire purred. “Is that how you greet an old friend? One who’s saved your life more than once?”

  She flashed a dazzling white smile, one that might pass for sincere to the average citizen. But this hall was filled with Bremor folk. And we’ve never been foolish enough to trust vampires.