Mob Sorcery 5 - Ch26

“My blood?” Vince asked, his eyebrows shooting up.

“It’s the easiest reagent you can provide,” Hamelin explained, utterly unfazed by the horror she’d inspired in the other women. “Semen is technically the most potent and effective, but I’d be stuck giving you a handy for days to get the amount I need. Assuming you’re not taking contraceptives and haven’t gotten the snip. Then it’d be salty-sweet garbage.”

Gaby and Fia slapped themselves in the face, while Nina stared at the mousegirl in disbelief.

“You really think you can jerk Vince off looking like that?” the lioness asked.

“I’d use an illusion. And drugs,” Hamelin said with a grin. “Semen’s five times denser than blood when used as a magical catalyst or reagent. Magic is life, and seventy percent of semen are the swimmers, which might as well be bismuth for spells that use living matter. Half of blood is water and empty garbage magically, and it’s not the stuff that creates new life, is it? Just sustains it. But like I said, blood’s easier. Comes back with a healing infusion.”

“I almost want to argue with you about this, but I think I’d regret it,” Fia said.

“I think there’s a more pertinent question,” Gaby said, her cheeks red. “Why do you want his blood and what will you do with it? Blood’s not as super dangerous as the myths say, but I don’t feel comfortable letting you get your hands on it. Not when nobody understands your necromancy properly.”

Hamelin sucked on her cheek, causing them to turn away from the creepy scene. “Explaining my necromancy research sounds like a bad idea. For one, you’ll probably get more creeped out. Two, this will be my raison d'être if it succeeds. But I can say I don’t plan to use it against Vince. In fact, if I’m right, I want him alive for as long as possible.”

“That could mean strapped to a chair while you use a machine to jerk me off for all time,” he said.

Gaby, Fia, and Nina turned to him with expressions of horror.

“Hey, she’s talking about doing this to me. I have to confront this realistically.” He formed a cross with his arms. “No blood unless I know what the fuck you’re doing with it. I’ll take my chances with Mei.”

“For fuck’s…” Hamelin held her nose. “None of you know a damn thing about how my magic works. It’ll be easier to show you. If you let me take a small amount of blood—a couple of liquid ounces or so—then I’ll use it to heal myself and you’ll understand.”

The group shifted uncomfortably and shot the necromancer wary looks. If anything, Vince became more suspicious.

“You want my blood to heal yourself?” he asked. “After two months, you want my blood? The ordinary human’s? Not Gaby’s?”

“Didn’t I just say you don’t understand my magic?” Hamelin’s lip curled. “My necromancy can’t handle the raw power of an immortal’s essence. No necromancy can. And everyone is happier that way.”

Her eyes flickered to the flaming lanterns in the corners, but Vince’s mind turned to a similar story he’d heard last month. From Ashley.

“Is blood magic necessarily necromancy?” he asked, causing Hamelin’s eyes to widen. “This is about the taboo of using other people’s essence, right? Immortals dislike that. A lot.”

“Huh. Didn’t expect you to know anything about blood magic. Pinned you as a thug with a thirty-foot dragon dick. Maybe you know how to use it.” She looked him up and down. “Yeah, messing with blood makes immortals nervous. That’s why you can’t buy Necromancy for Dummies in a bookstore.”

“I don’t think anyone buys those anymore, let alone from bookstores,” Fia said.

“Oh, fine. They buy some hustle culture grifter’s ghostwritten version he spam advertised everywhere whose content is stolen from actually useful magic tomes.” Hamelin rolled her eyes. “The wannabe demigods aren’t really worried about me fucking with some shitty elves or demihumans, or even creating thousands of zombies. But every new necromancer increases the risk of someone working out how to manipulate the essence of an immortal. I bet half those masters of undeath vanished because they flew too close to the sun.”

“You reanimated mystic foxes,” Vince said.

“Yeah, reanimated. They were freshly dead, too. Notice they didn’t use magic? All that spell does is burn up the magic in their body and use it to power an undead construct. The foxes weren’t even that stable. Hence why the elves worked better. Could manipulate their magic to strengthen their bodies and add magic consuming properties.”

He had wondered why the elves had been far more dangerous than the foxes, despite the races being the exact opposite in life.

“I don’t fuck with immortal essence,” Hamelin said. “I have cred with certain immortals, and that means I get left alone. They get so much as a hint that I’m working with an immortal’s fun stuff and I’m stuffed in a furnace that won’t even leave bones behind. They’ll probably let off nuclear devices wherever they think my phylactery is kept, too.”

“Straight up admitting it, huh?” Nina said.

“Please. If we’re going to work together, it helps if you understand I don’t die when killed.” She giggled for some reason. “That’s why your blood is best, Vince. Can’t touch the unicorn. And you’re ten times the mage these titty monsters are.”

“Wow.” Fia compared her chest size to Nina. “First time for everything, I guess.”

“Don’t let it get to your head.” Hamelin glowered at the two of them, then smiled at Vince. “So, care to let me demonstrate so we can ink this deal?”

“No.” He shook his head while Daji made an approving noise in his head. “Even if I’m a better sorcerer, they’re demihumans. And you’re surrounded by elves, who are also magical in nature. Why my blood, specifically?”

She stared at him. He swore he saw the gears in her rotting head churning.

“Alright, fair.” She shrugged. “You’re flinging around an insane amount of magic. Humans can’t use meister-tier spells as regularly or easily as you, and it means you have damn impressive blood. With necromancy, that makes your blood as good as bismuth. Juliet even mentioned you shrugged off her meister-tier spells. Regenerated a hole in your stomach, shrugged off her abyss, and her immortal slayer tickled your balls at best. So you tick all the boxes I want in a donor.”

Alarm bells went off in his head. Hamelin knew everything about his feats.

What was it she had said when spotting him through the skull? “A hot piece of magic?” Plus her excitement and strange behavior toward him. Almost as if she’d been interested in him from the start.

Hell, had her story about why she wanted to change sides been fake from the start? Had she chosen to work with Juliet to get at him, and then given up when he and the others had blown apart their best hit yet?

Nina and Fia crossed their arms and glared at the diminutive necromancer.

“That’s not how I’ve heard essence working,” Fia said. “Human sorcerers get extremely efficient at using it, but they don’t turn their blood into liquid mana.”

“You’re up to something, and I don’t think I want to find out what you can do with just a small amount of my blood,” Vince said. He took a step back.

“Wait!” Hamelin held her hand out, as if trying to claw at him across the room. Her eyes grew wide and panicked. “Fuck, I didn’t… That story…” She froze and took a shuddering breath. Her eyes ran across the group. “You know, don’t you? That something’s up with him. Fuck me. I thought I was hiding some cool secret, but you already know he’s strange as shit. No wonder the same story didn’t work on you.”

“Same story?” he asked.

Those words almost made him bolt for the door.

“I met someone far less interesting than you in France, before I even had a phylactery,” Hamelin explained. “A gifted wizard who sucked at theory but threw around magic as strong as the virtuosos in his tower. Lacked the shit I have now.” She nodded at the cordoned-off lantern. “For… reasons, I got access to some of his blood. Made me look halfway competent at a time I really needed to, but I never found out what made him tick.”

Individuals with powerful cores of magic weren’t that uncommon, based on what Mei and Quintus said. Even if Vince grew to believe whatever was inside him might be more interesting than most.

“Right. But you’re actually competent now. So why the fascination?” Gaby asked.

Hamelin bit her lip. “Because I already tested what I could find of Vince. Hair, skin cells, and whatever else you leave lying around.”

“Wow. If you didn’t look like you, I’d be repulsed,” Fia said.

Nina made a face, then growled. “Wait, where the fuck did you get that?”

Ignoring the lioness, Hamelin wandered over to the strange lantern. It flickered orange, as if by command.

“These lanterns process magic essence,” she said. “Those orange flares indicate they’ve struck something they ordinarily can’t process. Something immortal. But it’s buried inside you, Vince, and I can crack open a human’s essence and use it for magic. That’s why I want your blood. To sail around a taboo and create necromancy I’ve only dreamed of.”

The mousegirl’s dark eyes blazed with an unearthly hunger as she looked at him. She wiggled her fingertips, likely unconsciously.

“That sounds like a terrible fucking deal,” Nina growled.

Fia nodded, while Gaby appeared uncertain.

While the girls bickered with Hamelin, Vince’s mind churned.

Something immortal? Putting aside the taboo, that told him the origin of his magic core was a spirit or something similar.

“Don’t be too hasty,” Daji said. “She might be wrong. If her magic can’t distinguish between sufficiently dense magic and that of an immortal, it’s possible the shard’s origin is a very powerful sorcerer or magical experiment. I certainly can’t tell from the outside.”

If Hamelin planned to crack his essence open, wouldn’t she eventually find out?

A hiss left Daji, then she fell silent for a moment. “Perhaps. It’s dangerous, but less so than tampering with your core yourself.”

For the first time since learning of this strange aspect of himself, Vince saw someone who might help him unravel it. Neither Quintus nor Mei appeared willing to help. If anything, Immanuel wanted to keep him in the dark.

“I have a counter-proposal,” he said, cutting through the argument.

Hamelin gulped and faced him. “If it involves your blood—”

“It does.”

“Then I’m all ears.” Her oversized mouse ears twitched and bounced.

“You want my blood for your experiments. I want to know more about whatever this is.” He poked his chest. “I’ve gotten various hints, but they’ve never gotten more complicated than ‘something powerful did it.’ If you think your experiments can determine more about what strange magic is inside me, I can make a deal.”

“That’s kind of the entire point,” Hamelin said, her eyes practically glowing. “I don’t know how long it will take. Using it as a catalyst is easy. But for a virtuoso-tier ritual, I’ll need to extract the most powerful part of your essence and use it, and only it. That means understanding what it is. Alchemy doesn’t work if all you know about gold is that it’s shiny. The same goes for all magic.”

“Vince…” Nina warned.

“Then I think we have two deals here. The job to deal with Mei is one thing, but this is long-term,” he said. Daji whispered advice on how to bind Hamelin as he spoke. “You’ll get my blood and my help, within reasonable limits. In exchange, you’ll share everything you learn. Everything. No ‘you don’t understand necromancy’ nonsense.”

“Okay, then—” Hamelin bounded forward, her mouse tail flailing behind her like a helicopter blade.

He stopped her with an outstretched palm. “You also can’t harm me. No jobs against me, my pride, or the Lionettis.” He nearly expanded that to anyone he worked for, but knew that could get too complicated thanks to Quintus and the Miuras. “No tying me up in the basement, either. We’ll iron out a contract without being too specific. But if you break it, the terms will allow us to act against you without impunity, regardless of conventions, laws, or morals.”

Hamelin’s eyes narrowed, then she grinned. “Ooh. No morals, huh? Going to enslave me and make me do your bidding if I piss you off?”

Vince said nothing. That last part had been Daji’s idea, to make it clear they’d utterly crush Hamelin if necessary.

“Remember how I said earlier I didn’t want to get chased out of Aulfair without a good reason?” the necromancer said, her earlier energy absent.

Damn. Had he gone too far?

She grinned and nearly exploded across the room in a tackle, stopped only by Nina’s outstretched arm.

“Well, this is the best fucking reason to get thrown in a crematorium I’ve found in decades,” Hamelin squealed. “Fuck yeah, you’ve got a deal. Give me your blood, or your semen, or I’ll even sit in your bathroom and let you—”

Nina clamped her gauntlet over the necromancer’s mouth before she said something utterly insane.

“You sure about this?” she asked him. “The fact she’s nuts is the least of the risks involved in working with a necromancer long-term. Quintus might have an opinion.”

“Quintus has an opinion on everything, but I want knowledge, and he’s not sharing.” Vince sighed. “I get it. But I’m sick of everyone speculating about a god sleeping inside me and want to know the truth.”

Hamelin pulled herself away from Nina. “I really doubt it’s a god. But it sounds like you know more than me.”

“Quintus compared what I had to Merlin, Abe no Seimei, and King Solomon.”

“Uhhh…” Hamelin blinked repeatedly, as if her brain was undergoing a system restart. “Okay. I guess I’ll need to read up on what they all have in common beyond being absurdly fucking powerful.”

“Relations with immortals,” Gaby said. “Merlin had King Arthur’s dragon cabal. Abe no Seimei was supposedly half-mystic fox, although that sounds like bullshit. King Solomon bound demons with the Lemegeton.”

“Damn. You have a brain.” Hamelin furrowed her brow while staring up at the towering unicorn. “Guess you’re worthy of the gene pool for more reasons than being a unicorn.”

“Thanks.”

“I guess I should add that you can’t share what we learn, or what I’ve told you,” Vince said abruptly.

“Sure.” Hamelin shrugged. “I want that to go both ways, though. If I’m sharing my necromantic secrets, I don’t want that going in a Lionetti archive. Some random wolfgirl will steal them, publish them online, and I’ll be the one with a nuke shoved up my ass.”

He nodded. Hamelin’s secrets weren’t what he cared about.

With everything said and done, he figured they could leave. Getting a contract drawn up would take time and the help of a lawyer. His lawyer, Viktor Krein, would hopefully understand the discretion required and the need for non-incriminating language. And Alessia hopefully wouldn’t bite his head off for making the deal.

The phantom glided out of the darkness with parchment. Hamelin waved a hand at her throne-cross-workbench, and the phantom retrieved an honest-to-God quill and ink set.

“I’m sorry, what?” Vince said, speaking his thoughts aloud.

“I implanted the experience of a lawyer into her a while ago,” Hamelin said. “Reliable lawyers are a bitch to find as a necromancer and it’s not like I need somebody registered for the fucking bar. She’ll draw up the contract, you tell me what to change, have your lawyer do whatever real lawyers do, and we finalize it however you like. I guess a signature unless you’re into something kinkier.”

“Not with you looking like that, by La Lupa.” Fia covered her face with one hand. “You need to regrow all your skin before I even want to think about Vince fucking you.”

“Well, about that—”

“Contract first,” he interrupted.

The mousegirl rolled her eyes as she strode over to her chair. “It’ll take time. So will drawing blood and casting the ritual. Most of my magic takes time to cast, as I avoid direct combat like the plague. I want a taste of what I’m selling my body and soul for.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Really?” She snickered. “You’re, what, early twenties? With power like yours, I bet you’ve stopped aging. Magic runs thicker through your veins than cum in a sorority girl’s pussy on her first night in a college dorm. This contract could run for fucking centuries. If there’s one thing I learned when dealing with immortals—”

“Never make a deal you’re unwilling to honor several civilizations down the track,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to be that specific, but I think the immortals I hang with are younger than yours. Quintus Hierum’s, what, two millennia old? And that ebony cat slut is literally prehistoric. I think even the German dragon I met hadn’t even met Charlemagne. And that’s like the first thing every immortal asks another to determine if they’re worth their time.”

“If they’ve met Charlemagne?” Nina asked dubiously.

“Checks out,” Gaby and Fia said together while nodding.

“Half the kings of Europe modelled themselves in his image and furiously claimed to be Roman through him,” Gaby explained. “Charlemagne was like Europe’s George Washington. If you’re old as shit and didn’t know him, what were you even doing?”

That explained why Alessia had once mentioned her family was descended from Charlemagne.

Hamelin nodded along while rummaging through her cabinets. “Ah, found it.” She held up a butterfly needle, tube, and several large vials. “Let me get a taste of your blood. If it goes well, you’ll stop bitching that my skin is melting. If you really don’t like what I’m doing, then you have three enforcers who can pummel me.”

Despite his concerns, Vince strode over to her side. He looked around for a chair and found none.

“Sorry,” she said, guessing what he was looking for. “I don’t get much living company. Or at least, they don’t live for long. You don’t want to go out back, either.”

He stared at the dark doorway and imagined what horrible things might lay beyond it, given how Hamelin had acted so far.

“You’re right, I really don’t,” he said.

Faced with little other choice, he sat cross-legged and held out his wrist. Hamelin barely needed to lean down to wrap a strap around his bicep. She moved with practiced ease, and he suspected she’d done this to the living before.

“You weren’t a nurse before… stuff happened?” he asked.

She snorted. “I was home-schooled. Of course not. Adoptive assholes barely let me out of the house. I worked in an infirmary in France, after I fled the US. Even sorcerers need medical care, and taking blood for tests, magical or otherwise, is basic procedure. Pump your fist repeatedly until I say stop.”

Her fingers ran along the veins of his inner arm while he repeatedly made and unmade a fist.

“France doesn’t sound like the paradise I’ve heard it is,” he said cautiously.

“I mean, for the local sorcerers it sure is. They make the old French nobility look like paupers, and if you know how the French Revolution happened, that says a lot. When the commoners bitched, they handed them democracy, but carved away all control of funding to the mage towers. Said it would be a lesson in why democracy always fails. Which it is, because when half your budget goes to a bunch of mages competing with Louis XIV in the god-complex sphere, all you can do is make things worse.” Her fingers glowed with black light. “You shouldn’t feel anything. Tell me if you do.”

The needle slid into his arm, producing neither sound nor feeling in his arm. Vince knew ordinary needles hurt more than this. There was usually a prick. But blood began to flow through the tube and into the vials.

“Alright, this will take a bit. I can use magic to make it smoother, but your blood flow is your problem.” Hamelin leaned back.

“You were a sorcerer, right? Why were you treated like shit?” Gaby asked. “Necromancy?”

“Eh, kinda.” Hamelin shrugged. “Turns out, everyone fears foreigners coming to take their shit from them. Even a fucking tiny number of sorcerers pillaging a country for their own gain. France offered me asylum to fuck with the US, and even had a unicorn knight escort me out of the country so the US Marshals couldn’t touch me at the airport. But once in France, they didn’t give a shit. I eventually got some help, but I’ve fought for everything in life.”

Vince looked around at the makeshift workshop. The tools in here would have cost a fortune, to say nothing of the fact everything appeared to be enchanted. He left aside the fact she was squatting in an abandoned building.

“It worked out,” he said.

“Oh yeah, would you say that about yourself?” Hamelin poked him in the chest.

“I may not have been orphaned, but I felt like it,” he said, voice turning gruff. “I know Quintus because I’ve worked for him for half my life.”

The necromancer looked him up and down, then nodded. “Fair. Shit’s shit. That mean your dragon is your own creation?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’m looking forward to test out your blood. That arrogant French dipshit had all the help in the world and he still sucked. If you’d gotten a proper education…” Hamelin trailed off. “Guess Aulfair isn’t that different after all. Figured with all the tests and shit they do as you grow up, they’d pick out the prodigies like you.”

“I think they exclude the poor for a reason,” he said, unable to hide his bitterness.

“The opposite. Poor assholes like us are easy to control. It’s how the unicorn academies work and they supply a king with endless bitches.” She changed vials and held up the full one to the light, where it glistened from the blue flames. “Seems strange, but I didn’t grow up here. Just felt the walls of isolation between the mage colleges and everyone else. A rat like me hangs out here for a reason, but you should be slinging virtuoso spells from ivory towers.”

For once, Vince didn’t have anything to say. He rarely met somebody with a grimmer outlook on society and education than himself, even if Hamelin seemed convinced his situation was an outlier.

“Are you always going to call us bitches?” Fia asked.

“Does it help that I’m a bitch, too?” Hamelin grinned.

“No,” Fia, Gaby, and Nina said together.

Once Hamelin drew two vials of blood, she decided that was enough. The needle left a small hole but she tossed him a healing infusion.

“It won’t regrow a limb, but it’s easily strong enough to seal a pinprick and replace the blood lost,” she said. “Now give me a few minutes. I’ll need to focus.”

Vince drank the infusion, which appeared to be untainted. Nina helpfully checked it for him and he realized he needed to learn some diagnostic spells.

Meanwhile, Hamelin drew a complicated magic circle on the floor using chalk. Once finished, she began grinding various metallic catalysts along the lines.

Only afterward did she pop open a blood vial. She used a dropper to splotch large droplets of blood on every corner  and connecting point the chalk made inside the magic circle. Then she smeared blood on her fingers and traced a line around the very outer edge of it.

Things took a horrific turn when she pulled off her t-shirt, revealing her underwear and more of her undead body. She smeared the blood all over her skin, which sometimes peeled off layers of it. Vince had to stop looking for a bit.

“I’d ask somebody to tell me when to look, but I don’t know if anyone else is looking,” he said.

“Wait until you see or feel my spell,” Hamelin said. “Unless you don’t trust me.”

“I don’t, but I also don’t like seeing your skin slough off,” Nina said. “Fucking Christ, this is the opposite of something that would make me want to sign that contract.”

Vince sort of agreed, but his desire to learn more about himself overrode his disgust.

Eventually, black light shined from the corner of his eyes. He overcame his fear of seeing Hamelin’s body literally falling apart to look at her.

Her nearly naked body burned within black flames. She stood within the circle, arms raised to the sky while mouthing words to an incantation.

Over the coming minutes, the black flame gave way to a black sheen on her skin. Wisps of prismatic light rose from her, but were captured by the magic circle and sucked into it.

By the time the ritual faded completely, the sheen still lingered. Hamelin’s skin held an odd black luster to it, as if she’d risen from a tar pit. Her underwear appeared untarnished.

Yet even through the strange coloring, Vince immediately knew she’d healed a huge portion of her body. Or perhaps he should say she regenerated a lot of her living corpse. She was clearly undead.

Her ribs no longer stuck out from her chest as if she’d lost all body fat. Full layers of skin hid her veins, forcing Vince to concentrate to see them. A short bob of silken white hair hung from her head. Her face had turned from grotesque to almost beautiful, showing no signs of it almost rotting away from the inside.

Then Hamelin clicked her tongue and rubbed her arm. The black sheen faded and revealed red skin.

“A little fresher than I expected, but I’ve never regrown this much at once,” she said. “I’ll probably only need to do this a couple more times to regain my muscle and body fat.”

Her hands landed on her stomach, which sank in too far. Did she even have internal organs?

“Okay, that was pretty nuts,” Fia admitted. “Which is also terrifying. Vince’s blood can do that?”

“I supercharged my regeneration ritual with it,” Hamelin said. “Can’t do that too often, but whatever’s inside you, Vince, it has strong regeneration. Or has magic related to regeneration.” She scowled. “Or maybe it’s a phylactery. Fuck.”

“Wait, a phylactery?” he asked. “I know whatever’s in me can’t awaken on its own.”

“Really?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll take your word for it. But phylacteries are basically huge batteries of life. I hate that this could be a phoenix as easily as it’s another lich’s forgotten backup.” Hamelin chewed on her lip, which now had substance and was a beautiful ruby red. “But why place a phylactery inside a random human in the slums? The only living phylacteries I’ve met were in the care of vampires as part of some ancient pact. You don’t place a backup of your entire being somewhere it will get shattered by a random junkie.”

Light shined from the far side of the workbench, interrupting Hamelin’s musings. The phantom hovered there, glowing brighter than usual and holding up the parchment. It was now covered in ink and, presumably, writing.

“Oh, right. The contract.” She shook her head and wandered over. “We should work through it. Also exchange contact details.”

“Ones you actually use,” Gaby growled.

Hamelin threw her t-shirt back on while the phantom produced a phone from somewhere. At some point, Vince realized the porn had been switched off.

His phone buzzed and he opened it to see a notification from his messenger app. Someone called Leif had contacted him.

He stared at the profile of this “Leif.” It comprised an obese man with blond hair tipping a fedora.

“… I’m assuming this isn’t you. Your name isn’t Leif, you’re not five thousand pounds, and I think you’d tear your head off before wearing a fedora,” Vince said.

Nina leaned over his shoulder. An easy feat for her height. “I don’t think he’s five thousand… Oh, it’s in his profile. This is a troll account, right?”

“What, you don’t like it?” Hamelin clicked her tongue. “I have a bunch more. Like this funny mustache account… Oh, this is who you messaged, Gabriela.”

“Why do you have fifty alt accounts if you don’t check them?” Fia asked.

“You need to set up a pattern of activity before you start trolling on social media. Any idiot can see you made the account after some big event and use the block button. So you make lots of accounts years before you need to use them, and hibernate them between trolling. These are my cold take testing accounts. Written off as bots, so they’re good for private messages.”

“Cold take testing?” Vince sighed. “Do I want to know?”

Hamelin lit up like a child who’d been asked about their current obsession. “When I troll people for real, I want to use hot takes that piss them off. Food stuff is usually pretty good, as people get really pissy over it. Like, ‘American cheese is the baked beans of the USA’ is practically evergreen.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Nina’s tone suggested she might splatter Hamelin against the wall.

“Got a bite even using it as an example. See what I mean?” The necromancer grinned and scanned her phone. “Let’s see. You don’t need to shower if you have body spray. Or you don’t deserve a tip for doing your job. Fluffy tails are overrated. Defending a billion-dollar company is like standing up for your wife’s boyfriend—I mean, that’s more fact than hot take, but it works.” She scrolled down her phone. “Voters are accountable for what happens in a democracy—”

“You literally just talked about how France was set up to fail,” Fia said flatly.

Hamelin sighed. “I just said this is for trolling. Of course it’s bullshit. I mean, kind of. Sometimes hot takes are just an uncomfortable truth for people who can’t stand reality. But the difference between that and an asshole screeching because their mother made them take a shower for the first time in a month is hard to determine.”

“This doesn’t explain what cold take testing is,” Vince said, and almost immediately regretted asking.

“I’d joke that it’s the opposite of a hot take, but it’s more nuanced. If you say something intended to annoy people, and you get applause, that take is cold and you’re not trolling. Half the internet is kids nailing themselves to a cross while saying coffee and beer taste like shit and acting as if they’re being crucified alongside Jesus himself.”

“So you have fake accounts to test for that, instead of doing the normal thing and looking at reactions to other people saying it?” Fia asked.

“Yeah.” Hamelin nodded enthusiastically. “It also helps me prove my theory that the internet is a self-sorting method of eugenics.”

Oh, God fucking dammit. How had they gotten here of all places?

“I don’t think I need to hear about eugenics,” Vince said.

“Please.” Hamelin palmed off the air. “The internet reveals the true character of people. I’m doing this for science, but every cold take I uncover reveals a deep vein of people going ‘I’ve said the one thing I can’t and criticized some popular celebrity’ or whatever bullshit. Nothing reveals a person’s lack of principles like the internet. I mean, would you want children from someone obsessed enough to make tons of alt accounts to manipulate a community?”

The entire group stared at her.

“Have you invented a theory of eugenics that puts yourself in the ‘do not reproduce’ category?” Gaby asked, voice higher pitched than usual.

“I’m undead. I can’t have kids,” Hamelin said automatically.

She’d absolutely had this argument a hundred times already.

“I think we understand and will never discuss this again,” Vince said. “Let’s go over the contract while you avoid the subject completely, or so help me God I will add a clause that bars you from speaking about it.”

Hamelin pouted, but played ball. Daji cackled.

“Is she so wrong?” the fox whispered in his ear. “In a world like this, the strong and powerful should claim all women. Her system would simply disallow the unworthy. I mean, isn’t that how capitalism works?”

Vince suspected she was intentionally misinterpreting capitalism. Her laughter proved as much.

Returning to the main subject, he said, “Hamelin, give me your main contact. Or something you check regularly enough and isn’t a troll account.”

“Fiiiiine.” The necromancer rolled her eyes before messaging him with an account called Piper Hamelin. Either she used to be far prettier, even if he accounted for a little more regeneration, or she’d used some heavy Photoshop on her profile pic.

Eventually, the group escaped Hamelin’s underground lair. Something or someone had removed the remains of the undead elves. A bloodstain near Gaby’s bike implied her security system had been activated, but she said nothing.

True to predictions, Alessia chewed him out something fierce over his deal with Hamelin. But she did offer to have her lawyer, Enrico, check the contract as well. Especially as it involved the Lionettis now.

Vince wanted to smooth things over with Alessia, but had made plans with Pola tonight. He at least gave the mafia don some cuddles and tail pets until her whines became more plaintive than annoyed. Which did force him to explain why he smelled like Alessia when Pola sniffed him later that night.

Early the next morning, his phone buzzed and awoke him. A contact he’d heard nothing from messaged him. It wasn’t Hamelin or any of her strange troll accounts, but a woman he’d anticipated hearing from for nearly two weeks

Come visit us soon, Anzu asked under the contact Agent. It’s earlier than I planned, but we all know of the plans of foxes and men.

As if to tempt him, she’d attached an image of her upper half in a frilly bra. Her seven amazing golden tails hovered tantalizingly behind her, while she smiled at the camera. Perfect skin and a pair of gorgeous orbs drew his eye. He immediately saved the image when he noticed the cute pink nipple poking out the edge of her improperly adjusted bra.

I hope you add this to the other nipslip you have in your collection. ;) Anzu messaged immediately afterward.

Vince’s blood nearly froze. How the fuck did she know he possessed copies of hers and Momo’s nipslips from that one photoshoot?

Then he looked at the image he’d saved and decided he didn’t care.

The downside being he needed to tango with the twins again. But was that truly a downside?

- - - - -

Commentary: Hamelin shows off her true degeneracy now. There's still tons of book left, though.