Mob Sorcery 5 - Ch17

Note: Ch16 was posted before this, so be sure to read it.

Hamelin

A jacketed raven birdfolk landed silently inside an overgrown courtyard. He pulled his sleek black wings in close around his body and thin metal plates slid over them. The work of a magic necklace he wore. Seeing that harpy get her wing blown off in midair months ago had scared the shit out of him, and he’d invested in protection. He also packed a barrier ring, but didn’t want to activate it yet.

He'd landed in Elfland, the lawless northern reaches of urban Aulfair, and a bright white barrier would stand out like a sore thumb. Nothing screamed “mark” more than someone actively trying to protect themselves out here. Elves could practically smell magic.

Light flickered in his eyes as he crouched and scanned his surroundings. The courtyard was massive. The size of an entire city block, or more, maybe. Trees, vines, and shrubs the size of small houses cut off his view of the crumbling wall that surrounded the courtyard. Most were evergreen, maintaining their leaves even in the bitter cold of winter.

A decrepit concrete structure with a ruined marble façade towered over the birdfolk. Not a single light shined from within. He doubted anyone other than urban explorers had gone inside for decades. It had apparently been a government building once. Not even Google knew much, and Maps only referred to it by its address.

The birdfolk flicked his wrist and his smartwatch lit up. GPS indicated he was in the right place, and Wings blared a reminder to make his delivery. He quickly checked the bag strapped to the back of his waist. The fast food bag remained firmly in place. Stone cold, though. Although it had been cold as shit when he’d collected it.

He crept forward, eyes peeled for an ambush, and tried to recall the delivery instructions. Something about a ground-level stairwell and a skull door. Whatever the fuck that meant.

The pay for the order had been absurdly high. Thirty bucks. Given it was Elfland, he strongly suspected most of that was base pay. Nobody liked delivering here, and anyone who lived here hated tipping. He’d once dropped off three hundred bucks of food for a penthouse party and been offered the fries as a tip by the naked elves doing lines of coke and smoking bongs full of Zeus knew what magical bullshit.

The plus side was that the order didn’t carry the typical “Dangerous Location” warning almost every Elfland delivery did. Taking a high pay order in Elfland was gambling with your life. The birdfolk courier had gotten greedy years ago, nearly getting himself killed by a dark elf ambush. He’d learned to trust the Wings warning.

This order simply said “Delivery location may be difficult to find.” He’d seen that like once before. Last time, it had been for a basement in a confusingly numbered apartment complex.

Here, it turned out to be a fucking abandoned building someone was squatting in. For Wings to add the warning meant the customer ordered regularly, which was fucking amazing.

No elves leaped out of the bushes with spells ready to melt his skin or strip his wings clean of feathers. After several minutes, he spotted an out-of-place stairwell dug into the dirt. The opening in the side of the building appeared fresh. As if somebody had cut the concrete open with magic within the past year or two.

“Hello?” the birdfolk called out as he descended the stairwell.

Pitch blackness greeted him. He stretched his wings out, ready to fly backward and get the fuck out at the slightest movement. Nothing.

He snapped his fingers and a ball of flame shot forth to light the hallway. The freshly hewn concrete led into a much older and decrepit hallway. Rotting wooden doors lined one side. Insects skittered away from the fire, leaving trails in the thick dust that filled the hallway. If it weren’t for the visible footprints, he’d think he came to the wrong place.

A human skull sat in an opening at roughly chest-height. The birdfolk stared at it, unwilling to get close.

“Can’t you follow simple fucking instructions?” the skull spat out abruptly, its eye sockets lighting up with black fire that somehow stood out from the surrounding darkness. “I said to knock and leave the bag at the door. It’s been over an hour and I still have to tell you how to do your job. I guess gig work really is a job for those struggling in the gene pool.”

The voice sounded feminine. Maybe young, or that might be how aggressive and petulant it came across. He wouldn’t want a little sister who talked to him like this, that was for sure.

“I’m sorry, but what the fuck?” the birdfolk asked.

“My food. The bag you were supposed to bring.” The skull stopped speaking for a few moments. Terrifyingly long moments by the birdfolk’s standards, and he wondered if he should flee. “You are the Wings delivery flier, right?”

“Y-yeah?”

“… that wasn’t the most confident ‘yeah’ I’ve heard.” The voice sounded very suspicious.

Magic swelled in the hallway. The birdfolk’s feathers fluffed out and his blood ran cold.

Holy shit, he’d only felt magic like this the few times he’d been close to demons downtown. The scary ass ones with the halo of horns with the fancy badges.

“I am! I am!” He swung his bag around and pulled out the bag of fast food. “Here. I’ll put it at the door. And knock.” He struck the steel door next to the skull hard enough to hurt his hand. “Instructions followed.”

Backing up, he looked around to make sure the darkness wasn’t about to swallow him. At some point, his little fireball had gone out. When the hell had that happened?

“Alright. You can fuck off now,” the skull said.

He frowned. That was abrupt. He began to back away, but tapped his watch to mark the delivery as complete.

Instantly, it told him the pay breakdown.

No tip. At all. The entire thing had been Wings’ base pay. For some crazy reason, the company had paid him more to deliver the order than she probably paid for it.

“Uh, did you forget to tip?” he asked, turning to look back at the skull.

“Nah. I don’t do that,” the skull said.

“… Tipping? You don’t tip, on an app that pays us fucking nothing?” the birdfolk asked, flabbergasted.

“Yeah.”

He stared at the skull.

“I said fuck off. I meant that in the definition of ‘leave,’ not in the ‘stand around with your hands on your dick’ sense,” the skull said. “I’d rather not make you leave. Wings stops delivering for a week every time I turn a flier into fuel.”

“Wow. You’re a bitch,” the birdfolk said.

“And if you want to be paid properly, get a real job. Or try striking for better pay. I understand gig workers have tons of public support. I’m sure you’ll totally get a big win when the public stops getting their food conveniently delivered or has to pay more. Good luck with that. Don’t get your organs harvested by elves or converted into magic by a demon. Ciao. Sayonara. Goodbye. Adieu.”

The birdfolk left, while the skull kept saying goodbye in various languages.

Inside the hallway, silence reigned following his departure. After a few minutes, the steel door slid open with a grinding sound. An ethereal hand wrapped around bone reached out and picked up the bag of fast food, then retreated within the dark room.

The partially corporeal phantom emanated enough light to illuminate the room. Like the hallway, a thick layer of dust coated almost every surface. A steel conference table stretched from end to end. Crystals, metals, powders, liquids, and numerous other materials filled small bowls and jars on one end, while a dirty cloth covered the other. Rust-like brown stains covered the cloth.

Two doors led out, but only one was bathed in an eerie blue light. Clinking sounds echoed from it. The phantom drifted through the lit open doorway.

A much larger room awaited it. Three wide lanterns—almost fire-pit sized—blazed with ethereal blue flames in each cardinal direction save one, where a fourth lantern oscillated between blue and a vibrant, fiery orange. Metal bars held up the lantern’s “hat”, and an odd translucent material ran between the bars. Not quite glass, as it appeared to bubble and shrink with the flames.

A casual observer might see faces appear in the bubbles. The phantom paid no attention to the lanterns as it glided toward a figure seated in a massive contraption in the center of the room.

The contraption took the form of a chair and multi-tiered table, plus storage cabinets attached with swinging arms. An entire tool rack hung from its side, containing chisels, hammers, a blowtorch, saws, and numerous other instruments for craftwork. Containers and bowls of magical catalysts taken from the previous room sat atop the many levels of the table and inside the cabinets.

Inside the chair sat a tiny figure, who appeared almost childlike in it. A mousegirl barely over four feet tall chiseled away at a hexagonal band of black metal. Behind her stood an IV drip connected to her wrist, feeding both clear and purple liquids into her.

She wore little more than underwear, revealing the horrific state of her body. Matted white hair clung to her mottled scalp. Red and white patches of skin intermingled, and veins threatened to pop out of her body at any moment. Her body was little more than skin and bones, and even the skin part of that statement appeared questionable. Every breath she took showed the exact shape of her lungs against her chest.

The phantom glided around to the front of the chair and deposited the bag of food on top of the table. It waited there for a few seconds.

The mousegirl paused, then sighed. “I see it. I did just shit on that dumb delivery boy, you know.”

No response from the phantom. Clicking her tongue, the mousegirl dropped the chisel and hammer into their tool rack, dumped the hexagonal band in a bowl, and grabbed the bag.

“Happy?” she asked the phantom.

It turned and glided through a doorway of darkness to the side.

The mousegirl grumbled to herself and glanced at the bag. It read “Hamelin.” The time scrawled on the side was nearly two hours old. While a heating sticker had been slapped over the top of the bag, they only lasted an hour. The food was stone cold.

“And he asked for a tip,” Hamelin muttered.

The burger and fries were cold and miserably tasteless. Sloppy, too. She’d ordered during the lunch rush on a weekday, so some college student had slapped the burger together with as much care as he put into his assignment he scrambled to complete the night it was due.

Actually, that was being mean to the fast food worker. At least the wagie made the burger himself. The college student probably just cheated. Then again, if they were the same person, was Hamelin really being unfair?

She devoured the food quickly. If the Wings flier had done anything to sabotage it, she didn’t notice. Sometimes they got ideas.

Funny thing about being undead, especially one still regenerating: she couldn’t taste food, so it didn’t matter what stupid shit they did. That one place in Vegas that put a cockroach in her pasta had been creeped out when she ate it with a smile.

Although she wouldn’t lie and pretend she didn’t get them shut down with a plague of undead rats and insects. If rich assholes could be celebrated for being petty, spiteful assholes, she figured the same applied to her.

Bored, she grabbed a remote from the tool rack and flicked on a TV hanging from the wall in front of her. The porn she’d been watching last night came on.

“Wow. This is tame,” she said to herself, watching as a mousegirl roughly her own size, but noticeably not undead, got railed in all holes by wolffolk twice as big. “I must have hit the tequila.”

She couldn’t remember when she went to sleep. Was it last night she got drunk?

Hamelin shook her head. The past few months had been a blur. Typical when she came back from the dead, but usually not this bad.

She’d fucked up during the raid on Lionetti Tower. Got cocky and assumed the washed up mafia lacked anything to seriously threaten her. Then their trump card showed up out of nowhere with a meister-tier spell that would have had her old European meisters drooling and fucked her. And not in the fun way.

Getting hit by over a dozen wizard-tier spells from trained enforcers nearly turned her to ash. Her contingency tool teleported her body away too late. She’d smelled like a rotting corpse until after Christmas.

Hamelin changed the TV input to get rid of the porn, instead switching to the news.

A whistle escaped her when she saw her new fascination blown up in 4K, dueling with an attractive five-tail fox. Then the news cut to him being escorted out of a hotel with a full police escort, and then again to a tower Hamelin knew housed the Lionetti sisters.

“Another assassination attempt,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the police officer talking with Vincent Keys outside the penthouse building. “I feel I’ve seen him before.” She shook her head. “Not my problem. Especially not now.”

She glanced back at the lantern that flickered between orange and blue. A rope cordon surrounded it and several wide brass trays. Faint magic emanated from the cordon. The trays held something small, but they weren’t readily apparent from this far away.

A loud knocking pulled her from her thoughts, and she scowled. Her eyes turned pitch black and smoke wafted from her nostrils.

In an instant, she lost sight of the room she was in and instead saw through the eyes of the skull at the entrance. Her senses of taste, hearing, smell, and touch followed, but were vastly muted.

Or should have been. The noxious perfume that filled her nostrils told Hamelin who her visitor was even before she looked up through the skull’s eyes.

A short woman with lavender-tinted skin and even less chest than Hamelin glared haughtily at the door, one hand on a bare hip. Her shoulder-length black hair ended in a rainbow of highlights and a dagger tattoo glowed on her cheek. Despite the bitter cold of winter, she wore only a black cape, and a skimpy skirt and shirt combo that would be attractive on a woman with vastly more curves. Or the ethereal beauty vampires were famous for.

“Juliet, what the fuck do you want?” Hamelin growled. “I asked you over for drinks last night and you stood me up. I’m busy.”

“Didn’t you get my messages? This is work-related, Chrissy,” Juliet said with an arrogant smile. “That means big money. You’ll love what I have to say.”

“Don’t call me that in public.”

“This isn’t—”

Hamelin pulled her consciousness out of the skull, then unlocked the door with magic. She didn’t want to deal with Juliet’s inability to accept fault.

On the other hand, an actual job would be welcome. Hatoyama never coughed up a single dime. She’d been drawing on emergency funds since coming back.

By the time Juliet strode into the room, Hamelin had risen from her workshop throne and grabbed an energy drink from the minifridge. The Cyrillic on the can marked it as an import. An illegal one at that, given it contained ingredients not allowed in drinks sold in the US. Hamelin grabbed these off the cartel in bulk. The extra catalysts helped a lot, especially while regenerating.

“You look like shit,” Juliet said as she strode in. Then she saw the news playing and hissed. “Why’s he on the TV?”

“Because he’s on the news?” Hamelin said. She took a sip of her drink. It burned her throat. “You need to get over him, you know.”

“Don’t give me that shit.” Juliet turned her back to the TV and made a face at the weird lantern. “Plus, you told me you broke into his apartment on Monday. Aren’t you holding a grudge, too?”

“No. I’m a girl of science. Sweet, sweet magical science.” Hamelin frowned as the vampire got closer to the lantern. “Don’t touch that.”

Ignoring her, Juliet wandered up to the cordon. “He’s got a massive bounty on his head, you know? An easy million if you kill him. Plus another million if you get a contract from the Golden Path. And that’s only the beginning.”

“Riiiiight. Because getting Houou to pay us has been easy street. The Lionetti Tower raid was guaranteed cash, even if we failed, because it was so high risk,” Hamelin said. “Not to mention the hit I took in Kaziern’s HQ. You’re out over a million. I got stiffed for nearly half that, and I’m in the red on costs for the tower job. Houou’s dead to me unless they front up with a truckload of cash first.”

Truthfully, she didn’t know how much Juliet got offered for the Lionetti Tower hit. The vampire played her cards close to her chest when it came to money, but Hamelin knew Juliet didn’t get out of bed for less than a cool million. She’d failed two hits between Vincent Keys and the Lionetti Sisters.

Guaranteed payouts were rare. On the other hand, so were assassinations where the payment was promised by handshake. The entire job relied on Houou holding up their end of the bargain and they’d fucked up massively by letting Vincent fly over and murder everyone.

Juliet ignored her and ran a hand along the rope cordon. A barrier shimmered around the lantern and dishes.

“I said don’t touch it,” Hamelin snapped.

She let out a whistle and black smoke pooled beneath her, beginning to form the shape of her phantom warriors.

Juliet pulled her hand back and shrieked. “You have fucking hair in here! And is that skin? I don’t even want to know what that other muck is. The fuck, Chrissy!”

With a click of her tongue, Hamelin stopped whistling. The phantoms vanished.

“That’s why I said not to touch it. I’m conducting an experiment,” Hamelin said.

She strode over to the cordon and checked it remained intact. Juliet contained enough magic she might have screwed things up.

Fortunately, it appeared none of her magic had penetrated the barrier. Hamelin sighed.

“You work on some weird shit with your necromancy, but random strands of hair and pieces of skin?” Juliet asked, making a face. “Don’t you have a bathtub full of limbs to melt down into goo or something.”

“That’s just raw material.” Hamelin waved her friend off. “This is something completely different. You didn’t think I broke into Vincent’s apartment so I could wear his used shirt to sleep or something?”

Although she would have loved to find a used shirt. The amount of dead skin cells on it would have been amazing for her experiment.

Unfortunately, by the time she broke in, somebody had cleaned the place out, clothes and all.

“I figured you were booby-trapping it,” Juliet said. “Place a curse under his pillow so he’d die when he sleeps or something.”

“If I could kill people that easily, I’d be making your money as an assassin.” Hamelin shook her head. “I scraped his apartment for hair, skin, fluids—anything from his body left behind. The fresher the better.”

Juliet stared at Hamelin in horror, speechless.

Ignorant or uncaring of the vampire’s disgust, Hamelin continued, “The hard part was separating his hair and skin from the rest. Way too many demihuman hairs, including fox ones. I even tapped what little dirt and mold I found in the bathroom and other corners. Bastard is a clean freak. Who cleans their shower and bath that regularly?”

“… everyone?” Juliet suggested uncertainly. She made a face. “Remind me to never use your bathroom.”

“Boiling water and soap kills everything anyway. A little mold is fine.” Hamelin waved off her friend’s concern. “Even with this little, my experiment proved successful. See this?”

She pointed at the lantern right as it flared orange for an instant. It turned blue again and remained that way for a few seconds, then blazed orange. The effect was reminiscent of flicking salt into fire.

“… his hair is especially salty? Are you going to buy him some good shampoo and body wash?” Juliet made an odd face. “Um, if you want to fuck him, we can try tying him up—”

“Holy shit, Juliet, did your last meal fuck you in your pussy or your brain?” Hamelin glared at the vampire. “Don’t answer that. Please. Do you even remember what these lanterns do?”

“Make your demesne look all moody and necromancer-like?” Juliet suggested with a simpering smile.

Hamelin slapped her, and Juliet pouted.

“Well, I like the effect,” the vampire muttered.

“They process errant magic essence into crystals.”

Hamelin walked over to one of the normal lanterns. She unscrewed the top of the hat, revealing a small compartment full of tiny black crystals. Pulling a few out, she showed them to Juliet.

“These are essence crystals,” Hamelin said. “These lanterns take slivers of magical essence from everyone nearby, strip out everything I don’t need, and create a crystal tailored to whatever I want. These are for necromancy. Good for enchanting, complicated rituals, and even munching on if I need the pick-me-up.”

For effect, she tossed a couple in her mouth and crunched them up with her teeth. They broke apart like rock candy. Though they lacked the taste of candy.

“Great. You made flavorless magic candy. Your point?” Juliet asked, clearly bored. Then she frowned. “Wait, do you want to turn him into candy? I can get on board with that, so long as I can drain him dry first.”

“Uh, that would kill him and completely fuck everything up.” Hamelin shook her head. “I don’t need all of him, anyway. My experiment is to find out what’s in him. You said he fought like an immortal who wasn’t an immortal, right? Well, that’s because that’s accurate.”

The vampire stared at her. Her eyes widened. “You know what he is?”

“Uh, no. Not that specific.” Hamelin scowled and looked away. “The lanterns can’t process the magical essence of immortals. Too dense. If anyone ever invented a lantern capable of it, they got”—she ran a hand over her throat—“before spreading the knowledge. So I use filters to separate immortal and mortal essence. Vincent’s essence is mortal, because it goes through the filter, but occasionally burns like an immortal essence.” Her eyes lit up and she stared at the experimental lantern. “Something inside him has the power of an immortal. I’ve read myths and stories about it, but never gotten my hands on something like it. If I could get some of his blood…”

She gulped.

All her life, she’d pushed her necromancy as far as it could go. Working from ancient tomes, scribbled writings on old parchment, and “masters” that died ignominious deaths centuries before she was even born.

Necromancy wasn’t forbidden, but was looked down on. She couldn’t look up a thousand other meister-tier spells on Youtube or in the vast libraries of Europe’s mage towers and colleges.

The blood of an immortal mortal might grant her a breakthrough the likes of which she’d only dreamed of.

“So, you do want to go after him,” Juliet said, a wicked smile on her face. “I don’t actually drink blood, so if you want to drain him dry before I consume his soul, we can work together. Because that’s why I’m here.”

Hamelin froze. “Uh, you got your ass kicked twice going after him. Isn’t it—”

“This time will be different,” Juliet hissed. Her eyes pulsed with rainbow light. “I have backers who can guarantee our success. Trust me, Hamelin.”

Despite Juliet’s usage of her codename, Hamelin did not find herself automatically trusting the vampire. Not when it came to the rising star of Aulfair.

Yet she couldn’t deny being fascinated. A chance to get her hands on him for experimentation was almost too good to pass up.

“Maybe I’m interested,” Hamelin said cautiously.

“Good.” Juliet clapped her hands. “I have a meeting in…” She pulled her phone out and hissed. “Too soon. Way too soon. They’re way too important to keep waiting. You need to get dressed, throw on an illusion, some perfume to cover up the rotting corpse smell, and we might just make it. I’d shower you, but we don’t have the time.”

The vampire dragged Hamelin out of the workshop and into a dark room. Flaming sconces haphazardly drilled into the concrete walls flicked on to light the way.

It took Juliet less than ten minutes to raid Hamelin’s closet and find what she wanted. The mousegirl waited patiently while the vampire puttered about. No point in fighting the tide.

Once finished, Hamelin wore a frilly gothic-lolita getup. It wasn’t her current style. She’d stopped wearing this almost a decade ago, but Juliet loved it for some reason. Immortals tended to stick to dying fashion.

When she threw on a black cape, Hamelin’s mottled complexion and skin-and-bones look were replaced by those of an attractive mousegirl with long white hair. Her big, round mouse ears poked through the hood of the cap when she flipped it up. Juliet sprayed her with perfume while she did so.

“I’ve got my flute,” Hamelin said, fingering the black steel instrument strapped to her outer thigh, accessible through a slit in her skirt. “How are we getting there?”

“We’ll teleport,” Juliet said. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Normally, Hamelin would. But in her current state, the vampire’s shadow teleportation wouldn’t affect her.

“Let’s go,” she said. She called out to the phantom hiding somewhere in the darkness. “Don’t worry about cleaning up and don’t let anyone else in.”

Juliet shot her an odd look as they left the basement. The mid-afternoon sun shined down on them outside, but neither woman cared much. Undead or vampire, the myths about sunlight meant little.

“Ready?” Juliet asked.

After Hamelin nodded, the vampire wrapped her arms around the necromancer. Darkness erupted from Juliet and consumed Hamelin. A deep sensation of coldness spread through Hamelin’s body and she saw nothing. What felt like a small eternity passed where she felt nothing. She struggled to think, but that had been normal lately.

Then they reappeared in reality and Hamelin shook feeling back into her body. If she’d been more alive, she’d have refused. Shadow magic was the antithesis of life.

It made her wonder how Vincent had survived being inside Juliet’s little dimension for so long. Sure, his barrier should have helped, but being pulled into the realm of undeath wasn’t something mortals survived.

Hamelin and Juliet had reappeared in front of a business skyscraper of some sort. Other buildings towered over them, and the necromancer suspected they’d teleported downtown. But far too much of Aulfair contained multiple blocks of skyscrapers.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, what’s she doing here?” Juliet bit her thumb, drawing blood as she glared at the building’s entrance.

Blinking, Hamelin immediately realized her reason for concern.

A small army of suited security enforcers surrounded the entrance, foci at the ready. They bore the logo of a major firm. A half-dozen of them wore heavy armor, suggesting the building had called in a special team to support them.

Yet for all the expense on show, none of the thugs acted. The reason was obvious.

The two vampires standing just inside the building’s lobby could individually wipe out the entire security force without even trying. Hamelin’s expression darkened.

“Juliet, why is Ceresviel here?” she asked.

“She shouldn’t be,” Juliet muttered.

The vampire shot forward, her cape fluttering behind her and her shadow swelling with her anger. Hamelin followed slowly.

“Miss, you can’t come in here. We have a situation and—” one of the guards tried to say, before gasping at the sight of both Juliet and Hamelin.

Okay, probably just Juliet. Almost nobody recognized Hamelin. She preferred it that way. Totally. Especially now everyone thought she was dead.

The automatic sliding doors opened for Juliet, who glided past them. She’d activated her flight magic at some point and flew directly at the beautiful woman standing like a statue just inside the lobby.

A woman who had walked right out of a classical painting stared at Juliet, unmoving. Her face could launch a fleet of ships, her ruby-red eyes would bewitch monarchs, the golden hair that nearly pooled on the floor behind her appeared like glittering strands of gold. Every part of the woman was perfection.

Except her oversized tits. Hamelin was totally unbiased when she thought that Ceresviel had gone overboard with her massive chest, especially with the way her crimson and violet gown was cut to reveal extensive cleavage and side boob.

“Juliet, you finally arrived,” Ceresviel said, her voice tinkling in Hamelin’s ear like the croon every ASMR Youtuber wished they had. Half the security guards probably popped a tent in their pants that very instant. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d finally wised up and thought better. It seems I was too optimistic.”

“Perhaps you were perfectly optimistic, as always,” a male vampire leaning against a wall some fifteen feet away said. He stared into a palm mirror while adjusting his immaculate black hair. “She came here, did she not? And we were waiting.”

“Indeed, Henry. Indeed.” Ceresviel nodded.

Hamelin stopped behind Juliet, who simmered with rage at the other vampires.

Unlike her vampiric friend, Hamelin eyed the other vampires warily. She knew Ceresviel well enough, even if that was far too little to begin to guess what the immortal might do.

The other, Henry, was an enigma. He wore a collared shirt undone to his waist, revealing his perfect abs and hairy chest like some 80s movie star. Probably because he’d been one. He’d made a rash of movies in Hollywood and even came back for a reboot of a romantic vampire pirate trilogy in the 2010s.

The two swords strapped to his waist reminded Hamelin that although he might be a vain movie star, he remained immensely dangerous. Both foci were probably older than Juliet.

“This has nothing to do with you,” Juliet spat. “What I do for work is none of your business!”

Ceresviel’s expression turned mildly disapproving. “I am the only reason you haven’t been made an example of by the elementals, dear. Or another conglomerate, given your unwillingness to associate with us as your lineage demands. Your actions remain my business, because they reflect on all vampires. And I grow weary of your flights of foolishness.”

“They’re not flights.” As if misunderstanding Ceresviel’s point, Juliet dismissed her flight spell and dropped to the ground. “I am an enforcer under the Special Corporations Act, and allowed to take whatever work I desire.”

Ceresviel’s eyes narrowed. “Do not pretend your contracts are protected by the Act, Juliet. Especially this one. The city stands on the brink.”

“I—” Juliet began to say.

With a flick of a finger, the elder vampire shut the younger one up. Juliet flailed about before petulantly creating a crater in the lobby with her boot.

“I won’t stop you from taking this contract,” Ceresviel said.

Juliet stopped her tantrum instantly. Her eyes widened and she brightened up.

“However, should you take it, my protection will end,” the elder vampire continued. “Too much is at stake for me to risk the city’s future, simply for the life of a wayward child. You are old enough to take responsibility for your own actions, Juliet. Should you foolishly take a side in this dispute, then your destruction by the other may as well be by your own hand. That is what it means to be an immortal. Our long lives do not come to fruition through rash action.”

Ceresviel flicked her finger back, and Juliet gasped for air. Given the vampire didn’t need to breathe, it had to be a reflex.

“Make your choice,” Ceresviel said.

Juliet balled her fists. After a few seconds, she stormed past the elder vampire toward the elevators.

With a sigh, Ceresviel tucked an errant lock of her golden hair over one ear. Her eyes locked onto Hamelin’s.

“I assume you were unaware of the import of this contract, Christine,” Ceresviel said.

Hamelin gulped. She hated when others used her birthname. Very few people knew it. Juliet only knew because Ceresviel knew, and that dated back to Hamelin’s time in France after she’d fled the US over fifty years ago.

“I don’t like politics,” Hamelin said cautiously. “I thought this was about the Lionettis.”

“It is, but they’re aligned on one side, and your erstwhile employer on the other.” Ceresviel’s gaze never wavered, and those piercing red eyes seemed to penetrate Hamelin’s withered soul. “I trust you to follow your heart, Christine.”

“It’s not doing too well, lately,” Hamelin joked.

The vampire reached out and stroked a lock of Hamelin’s hair with a long, delicate finger. Not one of the illusioned strands of hair, but the dirty, matted pieces. Hamelin grimaced.

“You’re doing worse than usual this time,” Ceresviel noted. “But as always, you’re spiritually intact. So, again, I still trust you. If you need help, I have a contact who can assure your safe passage to Europe.”

Hamelin nodded, then hesitated. “Do you, uh, know anything about Vincent Keys?”

“He never registered as important to us. The police have a sealed file on him, but when we acquired it, it had been almost entirely erased. No doubt Quintus Hierum’s work, given he’s kept the curious mortal hidden all this time. I recommend treading carefully. No mortal capable of surviving an encounter with a potential kyuubi should be taken lightly. Perhaps he is nothing. Perhaps he is a future legend.”

A kyuubi. Hamelin stared at Ceresviel with growing horror.

She’d heard so many stories about what happened on that fateful night last week, right before everything went to shit. But Ceresviel just revealed that a fucking nine-tail fox might have revealed itself.

Or, perhaps, someone tried to turn themselves into a nine-tail fox and Vincent had been there.

Juliet better have one hell of a trump card.

“Henry, let us leave.” Ceresviel snapped her fingers and strode out the front doors.

The security guards parted like the Red Sea. As Hamelin had suspected, a lot of them looked very uncomfortable in their lower regions.

Juliet glared at both Hamelin and the departing vampires, so the necromancer hurried over.

“You should have joined me immediately,” Juliet said.

“I knew Ceresviel before I knew you, Juliet,” Hamelin said. “I’m a selfish bitch, but I try to repay people who help me, and I owe her a lot. Europe would have sucked without her help.”

Hamelin still didn’t know what motivated the strange vampire to help a young, troubled necromancer in France after she got turfed out of a mage college for turning a bully into a zombie. Elder vampires rarely revealed their motivations or emotions. When they did, it was smart to distrust them, for fear of manipulation.

Still unhappy, Juliet pushed Hamelin into the elevator, rubbed a small fob against a sensor, and typed in an upper floor number. It would be a long ride.

After a few seconds, Hamelin decided to let rip. Verbally. “So, why the fuck are you dragging me into this? You know I don’t do politics.”

Juliet stared at her. “Chrissy, you are the most political person I know. When you get drunk, you lecture me on the differences between corporatocracy and anarcho-capitalism. And that’s without getting into the eugenics.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault the internet is the perfect way to decide the future of the gene pool,” Hamelin said. “All those assholes in the past just saw eugenics as a way to justify their existing views, but the internet is a treasure trove of data. Companies and governments suck up everything. Hell, we could start simple and just use streamer audiences to start with. If we can make an algorithm that perfectly recommends ragebait, we can weed out low value genes.”

“My point.” Juliet rammed the point of her palm into Hamelin’s forehead. “You need to get laid. A lot.”

“Uh huh.” Hamelin knocked Juliet’s arm aside. “My politics is different from political work, Juliet. Political work is what gets you persecuted and chased out of Aulfair. When Ceresviel is suggesting I’ll need to flee to Europe again because of this job, that’s a nine-alarm fire. To get chased out last time, I turned my hometown into a zombie shithole during the biggest anti-magic witch-hunt the US saw before Davis. What car-sized turd are we stepping in with this job?”

“One that gets our hands on Vincent Keys,” Juliet hissed.

Okay, yeah, the vampire’s brain had been melted by thoughts of revenge ages ago. Hamelin wondered if she’d get in trouble if she suggested Juliet needed to get laid. By Vincent.

Probably best not to say anything, given Juliet had flipped out when she saw him on the TV.

The elevator doors opened and Hamelin snatched up her flute instantly. Even Juliet froze for a moment.

A pair of foxes stood beside an armored REAT officer. Hamelin couldn’t tell who the officer was, as they’d removed their badge and number, plus kept their visor down. The bushy cat tail strapped to their back suggested they were a cat demihuman. One of the types with a bigger tail than most. Taller, too, as she towered over the foxes and both Juliet and Hamelin.

The foxes wore white painted kabuki masks. They both possessed five tails, and wore black suits. One wore a Yakuza pin.

Instantly, Hamelin’s heart sunk. She understood Ceresviel’s warning all too well in just an instant.

“Oh, it’s not a trap,” Juliet said, when the police officer didn’t attack them. “Warn me next time.”

“Sorry,” the REAT officer said through a voice filter. “We’re under serious opsec here. Hence…” She pointed at her visor and the masks of the foxes.

Hamelin was certain the cop was a woman, as the voice still sounded feminine. Plus the armor over her chest bulged in a way that suggested serious assets. Damn titty-monsters.

But even so, REAT working with the Yakuza? What insane corrupt shit had they walked into? Was the police deployment down south a fraud?

And who did the other fox work for?

They got their answer soon enough when the foxes and police officer led them to a conference room. An octagonal table sat inside a dimly lit room, where three people sat on the far side.

Two more foxes, both with six-tails, sat with their hands steepled. No Yakuza pin this time, but they both wore Japanese robes. One with a phoenix pattern and the other with a single repeating symbol. Hamelin strongly suspected that symbol matched a fox clan still active in Japan, and this six-tail belonged to Knightsgate. Both foxes wore kabuki masks as well, although the phoenix-garbed fox was obviously a woman.

But the towering elemental in the center drew the most attention. Police Commander Kreesa, who had just been on the news.

“My apologies for nearly missing the meeting,” Kreesa said with a broad and obviously insincere smile. “I am exceedingly glad you could make it, Miss Forest, and that you brought a powerful and accomplished enforcer with you. It makes me confident that you can help us eliminate Vincent Keys and the disruption the Lionetti Family continue to pose to Aulfair’s natural order.”

Fucking politics.

Hamelin really wished she’d responded to Gabriela’s messages about that dangerous job. Sure, it lacked details, but anything would be better than this absolute fucking shitshow.

- - - - -

Commentary: We're back. I have a hefty backlog and there'll be at least a chapter a day. Book 5 will be long, so it'll be done and published when it's ready.

Hope you enjoy Hamelin. She's the craziest character I've introduced in Mob by far, and the modern setting means she edges closer to dangerous territory than I usually do. I kind of want to say that if she bothers you, it's a you problem.