Kayra sighed very softly and was a little disappointed. Impulsive and probably blinded by his supposed strength, Ryan came out of Richie’s bar and a good snowdrift hit him from the side as she carefully followed every little flex of his muscles from above.


    His nose detected the fresh odour of a good half-dozen people, and yet he continued undaunted towards the bar gate in a side alley covered with holey tarpaulins. Only the extremely fresh smell of blood seemed to make him hesitate for a moment, but he was taken aback and tore open the gate, so that ashes trickled towards him and he found the purest slaughter!


    Various firearms and melee weapons lined the ground and eight dead people lay strewn across the entire alley. Either their throats or bellies had been slit, their bodies beaten to a pulp or they had died from hitting the walls of houses and the tarmac. In the midst of this carnage, two piles of ash could also be seen, constantly being reduced in size by the wind.


    “What the hell has happened here?” Ryan growled angrily and he was furious. “Mitchell?! Have you been fucking with me?”


    “Quiet, child!” Kayra’s voice echoed in the alley. It was like the wind and yet like a whisper, using her blood magic to disguise her voice. It was similar to the acoustics of a Juda’Aerith. “We don’t need witnesses.”


    “Who’s there?!” asked Ryan, not really any quieter. There was no one in sight and suddenly he couldn’t move and his body was lifted into the air. “Stop it!”


    “I said quietly!” warned Kayra calmly. She used telekinesis against him and flung the man from one wall of the house to the other before fixing him back in the centre hover. “Do we understand each other now?”


    “Did you do this?” Ryan lowered his voice as the telepathic force held him in a vice-like grip, forcing him to calm down. “It’s all right, it’s all right! I’ve got it!”


    “I doubt it,” Kayra sighed, but she let him go almost completely. It was something of a lesson in power as he dangled by his foot, upside down above the ground. “Poor, lost child. Look at you.”


    “No, I rather see you,” Ryan said, pointing in her direction on one of the rooftops. However, as she was cloaked and protected by the darkness, it was doubtful that this sighting did the man any good before he was suddenly dropped. “Nhpf ... okay, one more time - what happened here?”


    “Apostles,” the voice replied, moving away from the man’s gaze so quickly that he no longer knew where it was “When one of the two vampires went into the bar to lure you out, I took my chance and eliminated the other vampire in the group first. The eight humans, before they even knew what hit them, it was all over. The vampire who came back was too careless and an easy target for me”


    Ryan slowly picked himself up from the ground and apart from a bit of dirt, he had nothing on his suit. “That was my job!” he growled with restraint, thumping his own chest, “Did Gordon send you?”


    “No.”


    “Then who did?! Mato?! The Tenebrae?! I could have done this on my own.”


    “Not remotely,” Kayra doubted with certainty. “Not even if one of the vampires had been alone could you have put a scratch on him. This time, the Apostles put up a little more of a fight, although that was nothing to me, surprise or no surprise.”


    “I’ve already won one fight against vampires,” Ryan announced with conviction, tightening his suit before he felt the power of telekinesis again and couldn’t move.


    “I know, I saw it happen,” Kayra murmured into his neck. Her voice was still distorted and with her tall figure, she was pretty much on par with Ryan. “The investigator saved you, but you? Lost like a fawn in the woods and now blinded by the bubbling of your blood.”


    No matter how hard Ryan tried, with all his raw, vampiric strength, he couldn’t turn even an inch backwards. “Thanks for the reminder. I’m just trying to get by somehow, and the way I see it, you’re one of those pairs of eyes that’s on my tail. Who are you doing this for?”


    “A question with no answer.”


    “Yeah, my list of them is pretty long,” Ryan said strained. “Is there a deeper meaning to this action here or can I go back to being useless?”


    “You’re still a child, without a mother, without a father, without someone to guide you,” Kayra listed the obvious, but her tone was also tinged with regret. “That’s why your bumbling ways are excusable, still.”


    Ryan defied the statement immaturely. “Generous. Do you want to be my mum and tell me what exactly I’m doing wrong?”


    “Yes, it’s about time,” Kayra returned sternly. At the end of the day, Ryan was part of her clan, her family, and she meant what she said. The child was alone in the night, without care and help, and yet he had already come a long way, even if he had made mistakes, and what better protection could there be than to finally familiarise Ryan with his nature? So Kayra grabbed his right shoulder in a gesture of familiarity but also admonishment and instead of using her telekinesis, she now held him in place with sheer force. “You need to control yourself better, starting with your ecstasy.”


    “My ecstasy?”


    “You had been drinking before you left tonight. Everything about you screamed that,” Kayra lectured calmly. “Every move you made was predictable, even though I respect the protective instinct you projected onto this ... female.”


    “Her name is Melissa.”


    “Yes, vinegar.”


    “Vinegar,” Ryan murmured when it came to the smell of Melissa. “What’s that all about? Sweet, vinegar, chilli.”


    “You unknowingly casted blood magic,” Kayra explained in her lesson, surrounded by death. “We vampires, for the most part, have a natural attraction, even those not plagued by the curse of beauty. You have unwittingly fuelled the barmaid’s blood, her natural urges extremely heightened.” As she went into more detail, she chose her words more cautiously. “The sweet smell was evidence of that and when your Melissa realised it, she reacted like any female animal that senses competition. That’s why her body got hotter and as for the vinegar ... that’s none of my business or yours.”


    This reticence made Ryan sceptical. “I get it, and André was probably the male version?”


    “Half, he was aroused and upset because of you.”


    “Noted, so I need to find my inner centre,” said Ryan, but he didn’t quite take this lesson to heart. “It’s easier said than done! Those Apostle pigs, I want-!”


    “Everyone was like you once,” Kayra whispered soothingly in his ear and he relaxed. She, in the role of a mother - nothing she had ever wanted and still didn’t want. At least that’s what she believed. “Even the mightiest of the mighty had to tame his ecstasy, his emotions.”


    The fact that he was being spoken to so normally seemed to calm Ryan’s nerves. “And how ... do I do that?”


    “Try your hand at telekinesis. Channelling your energies into exercises weakens your emotions.”


    “Is that an extra lesson now? Because I have no idea how it works.”


    “It sounds simple, but learning and refining it isn’t,” Kayra instructed him. “You just have to want to do it. Fix an object and think however you want to use it. Finger work is essential. Only true masters can do it with eye contact alone.”


    “Seriously? That’s it? I want to move it?”


    “That’s all.”


    Ryan had no way of knowing what exactly the woman wanted him to do: Teach him? Protect him? Listen to him? In any case, he couldn’t quite come to terms with the situation, but he followed the advice and tried to focus this emotion, the frustration, on his telekinesis by staring at an empty tin can and pushing it. The power of his mind became palpable for a moment and the veins on his hands popped out and he shook all over as if he was lifting a heavy weight and absolutely nothing happened! “Great tip,” he breathed out exhausted.


    “Impatience is not a good quality. Your time will come.”


    “And what about you?” Ryan now nailed down the motives of the stranger “You robbed Gordon.”


    Of course, Kayra wasn’t surprised that the detective had told her about this incident and she didn’t feel caught out, but she waited a while before confessing without hesitation. “Yes.”


    “You stole our data.”


    “Yes.”


    “Why doesn’t he remember?”


    “He didn’t explain it to you?” Kayra asked in astonishment. “When we vampires drink, our prey’s senses blur. Everything that happened before is forgotten. The more we drink, the more they forget, but we’re talking about five to ten minutes.”


    “Thanks for the info,” Ryan said honestly. “... apart from Mato, no one has ever bothered to give me a single tip. Why you?”


    “Because it’s my job and we...” Kayra stopped herself. Her sympathy, her attachment, became a little too strong and she almost gave herself away.


    “We?”


    “All you need to know is that I’m your ally, just like Mr Mitchell’s,” Kayra claimed. After all, she could have easily killed Gordon. “I did what I had to do and will continue to follow your shadow, but heed my words when I tell you this now: don’t tell anyone, and I mean anyone, about our meeting. I will remove the remains here and you ... claim this victory for yourself.”


    “Why would I lie?” Ryan questioned reluctantly as he pulled his mobile phone out of his jacket pocket. “Hey, what’s this?”


    “I’ll take your number and you’ll get mine ... but only call me if there’s no other way,” Kayra said, and she wasn’t worried that he might pass the number on. Her mobile phone wasn’t cheap and was set so that only numbers stored in her phone book could call her.


    “And your way is the lie now? I’m not a show-off who steals other people’s work.”


    “I honour your words and it’s not normally my way, but it’s for your protection,” Kayra emphasised meaningfully and saved his number, while she gave him hers before sliding the phone back into his pocket. “It will enhance your reputation and earn you more respect.”


    “Yes ... and make me a bigger target.”


    “No doubt, but all the better for me.”


    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    “Not entirely altruistic, eh?”


    “No.”


    Ryan was a pawn, he realised, but he knew his options. “What if I do tell?”


    “It weakens you and makes my future intervention much more complicated or even impossible,” Kayra stated before her hand left his and no matter how quickly he turned, she was gone and her last words faded away. “Please, do us both a favour and keep this to yourself.”


    Ryan looked around provisionally to take in the extent of the carnage before sighing and stroking his suit. It was half dirty and wet “I wonder if Melissa will buy that an iced tea was too much. Nah, better I just say I stepped in too deep a puddle. Better to be a klutz than a lightweight.”


    If that night and the next two were already suspiciously quiet, which Kayra welcomed as a welcome break, a call from Patriarch Stein was about to change that and bring her to Tenebrae headquarters. Before that, however, she had returned home briefly and received a blood eye from her father, as he didn’t want to risk anything while Kayra was so close to the Tenebrae. She had initially feared that Ryan had disregarded her advice, after all, she couldn’t keep a close eye on him everywhere and all the time. Her presence at the Tenebrae at night, though Ryan’s fault, was simply the result of his discovery of Clemént Chevalier, which Kayra blamed herself for. After all, she had already met the apostle at the warehouse and she could have sped things up considerably, but she hadn’t known who it was and hadn’t had time for a picture because of his surprise attack. “Kayra, of House Stein,” she introduced herself, with a polite bow.


    “The presence of House Stein was expected last night,” Saunders replied as a note. She knew him only by name, but she had not met the Tenebrae lawyer of Great Kingston before and had only heard that he was primarily pragmatic in nature. “What stopped you?”


    “Prudence,” said Kayra. Although that was true, she had also hoped to get a note from Billy, but the Juda’Aerith, and his mobile phone, had remained silent. “After the attack on Matriarch Austin, which House Stein had even uncovered earlier, it was too risky for our father to let someone march off immediately. I think you understand that?”


    “Of course, my question and your answer were merely for the record,” Saunders nodded. He was sitting at the table at the entrance to a staff lounge, typing silently on the keys of his laptop. “And despite our defeat in relation to Matriarch Austin, Lady Gardner sends the gratitude of the Tenebrae to House Stein.”


    “This thanks should have been addressed directly to Patriarch Stein.”


    “Lady Gardner felt it impolite not to be able to express such an important thanks face to face,” Saunders explained calmly, rising to his feet while placing his left hand behind his back and holding out his right. “So now it’s the two of us, representatives of our superiors, exchanging gratitude and appreciation face to face.”


    Superior, Kayra thought. Those were the words of a real lawyer and she didn’t think he was trying to insult her, even though she felt the word was totally inappropriate for her relationship with Oskar. “Extremely prudent, as Patriarch Stein himself preaches,” Kayra said with a forced smile and shook the offered hand.


    “Indeed,” Saunders agreed and returned to his work. “But I think you’ll want to enjoy some refreshments now. Please, come in.”


    “That sounds good. Goodbye.”


    “Goodbye.”


    In the large lounge, which was on the 50th floor, there was a complete glass wall on one side, which gave an impressive view of Great Kingston at night, as this office tower was on the edge of this business district and the view was therefore not blocked by other tall buildings.


    Kayra recognised 24 faces, 22 of which she didn’t know. She had seen some of them in passing at some point, but only Mato and Dalia were halfway familiar and considering what lay ahead, it was no wonder that such calibre, including herself, was present. The Tenebrae had called -to arms- for a decisive battle.


    “Well, well,” Dalia said with a disdainful undertone. As so often, even at this formal gathering, the imposing warrior was at least wearing her bracers and greaves, armoured gauntlets as well as single shoulder armour and a long broadsword on her back. “So Patriarch Stein is sending us at least one of his clan members. The absolute minimum, in the service of the Tenebrae.”


    Kayra didn’t let the gruff tongue shake her composure. “An experienced warrior like you certainly knows that numbers don’t always matter. Especially since House Stein recently lost three members when we helped defend Matriarch Austin.”


    “And now she is ashes, what a disappointment.”


    “For all of us, indeed,” Kayra replied. She knew about this failure, in which the Matriarch had been deliberately used as bait, at the behest and therefore complicity of the Tenebrae. “But that’s war: we stand together, we win together, but we also lose together. Don’t we?”


    “I’m in this fight,” Dalia patted her chest, “So losing is out of the question.”


    “I truly pity your opponents,” Kayra said thoughtfully. She knew that Dalia was not only a harsh contemporary who verbally lashed out at many, but also possessed the necessary strength of a feared warrior. On the other hand, she firmly, if calmly, put her in her place with a fact she knew. “It took more than a few lives to get you on our side back then, right?”


    Dalia’s expression immediately revealed that she realised what was at stake. “A lot,” she admitted openly. “In the greatest of all wars, why should I fight for the weak first?”


    “And yet, in the end, you were on the side of the weak.”


    “If that had been the case, I would have been on the losing side. In the end, the Germans were simply no longer worthy of my strength.”


    Cheeky but clever, Kayra could also tease. “Yes, that included your loyalty, although I do understand you on that point - loyalty is always easy when there’s nothing at stake.”


    “How good that there will soon be a test for that, for our loyalty,” Dalia smirked icily. She was brusque, but not stupid. “How about a good drop to cement our unity?”


    “What better reason would there be?” asked Kayra rhetorically, as a human member of the lounge staff approached her. This tray, with two wine glasses filled with very light-coloured blood, had clearly already been prepared and Kayra picked up a glass, but the smell made her suspicious. “I don’t mean to be rude, but is that the blood of a young child?”


    The employee ducked her head and left after Dalia took her glass and spoke sternly. “No, Patriarch Stein has explicitly made us aware of your dislike regarding this.”


    “Too kind,” Kayra smiled gratefully. The smell was an indicator, but it was no guarantee of the origin of blood and so she raised her glass with the warrior and let the first drop wet her lips. She immediately stopped the flow, but that drop ran down her throat.


    Dalia, on the other hand, was clearly enjoying her drink. “Is something wrong?” she grinned maliciously. “Surely there’s nothing wrong with this fine drop?”


    It was only thanks to her enormous self-control that Kayra didn’t break her glass, but her hand was trembling slightly. She did not, however, give her counterpart the satisfaction of seeing her disgust and anger flaring up inside her. “You said it wasn’t children’s blood...” Kayra murmured wanly. She set the glass down before wiping the drops of blood from her lips and flicking them away in disgust.


    “It’s not,” Dalia affirmed without batting an eyelid and she swirled her drink teasingly. “Only my glass is full to the brim with it.”


    A long, long time ago, much to her ignorance, Kayra had been handed the blood of a child and only told after drinking it. “Unfortunately, I’ve been handed children’s blood before and you have-”


    “I have what?” Dalia cut him off mockingly and drank her glass demonstratively and happily. “Are you insinuating that I would deliberately offend a guest and ally?”


    “I apologise profusely!” the previous employee rushed over, her breathing tinged with fear. “I took the wrong tray! That wasn’t for you!”


    Kayra tried to maintain her composure despite the situation and without looking at the employee, she placed the opened blood glass on the tray presented. Nevertheless, she gave the bent young woman a disapproving look. “Nobody’s perfect,” she said in self-reflection, barely moving her lips as she spoke. However, her anger at the stranger quickly faded, for Kayra had already heard it in her tone and she saw that the employee’s fear was not for her, but for the gruff warrior.


    “Unfortunate,” Dalia shook her head exaggeratedly and demanded subliminally harshly. “Bring our guest whatever she wants immediately, and only the best.”


    “N-naturally!” the employee nodded hastily. There was no doubt that she had been forced into this confusion.


    “... I’ve lost my thirst for the time being, but thank you for your efforts,” Kayra said forgivingly, her gaze fixed solely on Dalia.


    “That, too kind,” the employee inclined her head and took both glasses before turning away.


    Dalia, meanwhile, wiped the blood from her lips. “A pure delight,” she said with satisfaction. “How anyone can fail to appreciate such a delicacy is beyond me.”


    Kayra couldn’t quite keep her right hand steady, which kept contorting back and forth between her fingers and claws.


    “Her yellow eyes shine so brightly,” Dalia lifted the corners of her mouth. It was common knowledge that the more a vampire’s eyes shone in their natural colour, the more emotional they were. “You’re not going to blame me for this unfortunate mix-up and attack me, are you?” Dalia didn’t seem to believe those words, but that didn’t stop her from verbally following up and approaching her guest with her imposing stature. “Or ... could it be that you enjoyed this exquisite drop so much more than you’d like to admit? Innocent, pure blood, almost as if it had been stolen from a cradle.”


    “I feel insulted,” Kayra gritted very softly, and for a moment she was truly ready to tear her claws through the snake’s guts. “How dare you...”


    “I’ll tell you what,” Dalia offered lowly, matching her guest’s level. “We’ll find out what you really want: An apology or the truth. This waitress has deeply offended your senses, so she must be severely punished for it.”


    “Unacceptable,” Kayra said firmly against this offer. This woman had been innocent and should not be used for the warrior’s games.


    “Then the truth,” Dalia said, lifting her chin. “Admit how fantastic this drink really was. If you don’t, we’ll punish this useless waitress - your choice.”


    Harm an innocent woman or speak a repulsive lie as truth? It seemed Kayra would lose no matter what she chose. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at the employee huddled next to the counter, knowing full well what could be, but not with Kayra! “Come to think of it, I’m too thirsty after all...” she said, suddenly pulling the waitress into her hand with telekinesis.


    This surprised the startled employee and Dalia. “What are you doing?!” the warrior grumbled as the action drew everyone’s attention.


    “You said punishment, but not from whom,” Kayra replied. She stood behind the waitress and put her lips to her ear in a whisper. “You know, I detest drinking children’s blood, just as much as I hate it when someone is taken against their will, in any way.”


    The employee was relatively small and only stood out because of her wide pelvis. “P-please, I just-” she gulped in agony.


    “I know,” Kayra soothed, gently stroking her victim’s neck. “Nevertheless, you must confess your guilt and suffer my consequences. The alternative would be for this ruffian to have his way with you, which would probably be the end of you and that would not be fair in the least and would be a loss to this world. Do you confess?”


    The waitress’s eyes were in pure panic, darting from Kayra to Dalia, unsure of what the right answer was now, before she quietly surrendered as quiet as a mouse. “I ... made a mistake. I ... am ready for my punishment.”


    “So be it,” Kayra said, rubbing her cheek gently against the woman’s. For her, it was a spectacle more than anything else, for all the eyes that had long watched tempted, hoping to see how Kayra would feast, for despite their higher evolution, vampires were bound by their instincts and so was Kayra’s spectacle. “From now on, you are at my service.” With that she had claimed the woman, which was normally a foundation stone for her own power base, but this served to protect the waitress, from whom she now began to drink gently.


    Everyone in the room was a silent, spellbound witness to the act and Dalia looked anything but happy. “This is not a punishment,” she clenched her fist.


    Kayra took her time. Although the blood was riddled with stress, it was still pleasantly warm and delicate on the finish. “This woman is bound to me forever,” she sighed. She let go of the paralysed waitress and gently lowered her to the floor in front of her. “You’d think some people would see that as a punishment.”


    Dalia immediately lifted her foot and tried to step on the employee’s neck, but her attack was frozen by telekinesis.


    “You’re not disobeying the rules of our society, are you?” Kayra now turned the tables. In the end, Dalia was probably stronger than her, but she had fresh blood in her veins and telekinesis was better at stopping raw power than the other way round. “An attack on my servant is an attack on me.”


    Dalia kept trying without her foot moving an inch and her attention turned from the employee to Kayra. “This woman works for the Tenebrae and therefore for Lady Gardner.”


    “We are all the Tenebrae,” Kayra stated logically, her telekinetic hold not wavering; such were the laws of the night. “You want this woman for Lady Gardner? Then you must be questioning my claim, if that is of such immense importance to you.”


    There really wasn’t much more to it and a fight would have broken out between the two of them when Saunders’ monotone voice cut in. “Ladies, please,” he said unimpressed and rightly so. He was even above Dalia in the hierarchy. “A little more dignity and civilisation.”


    The tension between the two rivals subsided, along with the foot and the telekinesis, but Kayra added her finishing touch. “I’m all for it, Mr Saunders. The laws of the night.”


    “That’s right. So let’s get to the point of our presence,” Saunders announced. With his briefcase in hand, he gained access to the screens in the lounge without making any great effort to make a better or higher point for those present. At the same time, he lowered the sun blinds on the row of windows, which in the middle of the night was probably more of a defence against possible spies. “Thanks to a series of honest endeavours, we were able to avert a catastrophe for the vampires of Great Kingston at perhaps the last moment, because the Apostles have created a new, powerful bioweapon.” Although otherwise dry and unassuming, Saunders now had the air of a British officer, composed and yet more than aware of the danger. “They call it Slow Sun and have been secretly developing it for months and even with our excellent contacts, we’ve found it hard to get information. All we know is that it is a virus that kills vampires in agonising fashion within five to seven days,” explained the lawyer and an uncertain murmur went through the ranks of the vampires. For him, however, this was no cause for concern, but rather an opportunity to demonstrate his power. “What exactly the apostles intend to do with it is unclear and it is meaningless. Presumably the virus is being taken to the Apostles’ base in Great Kingston and we will take advantage of that. We’ll track the transport and find our enemies before we take them out and secure the virus to cement the Tenebrae’s sole rule over this city.”