“Well, this is a pickle, and no mistake.”
          Gillian spun around, one hand on the ladder and the other clutching a wand. The section of the great ship that her party had descended into was dark, although the lantern that one of her compatriots held splashed it with dim light. But a score of torches lining the place wouldn’t have helped any better. 
          There was nothing to see, just weathered boards and darkness.
          Until a woman stepped out of thin air, dropping the cloaking spell she had been using and staring up at Gillian, a wand in her fist but a smile on her lips.
          She was young, perhaps mid-twenties, with the kind of face that promised to run to fat in middle age but was pretty enough now. Broad and meant to be round, it was currently thin and gaunt, as those of so many of their kind were these days. There were also faint lines etched into her skin of worry, pain, and anger, and the blue eyes were hard.
          But the lips still smiled, and she hadn’t tried to curse anyone yet. So, Gillian likewise refrained. The last thing she wanted was a battle in such close quarters. Or a battle at all, for her work depended on secrecy.
          “Sister,” Gillian said cautiously. “What brings thee hither, on such a night?”
          The wind echoed her question, howling around the huge ship like an entire army of banshees. It was pissing down rain besides, although it was hard to hear it this far below decks. But the gale was enough to rock the ship slightly, even in port.
          Gillian clung to the ladder, her people above her doing likewise. By now, they had weapons in their hands and were awaiting her signal. But if the witch had been cloaked, she likely had a group of her own, concealed by magic or the darkness in the passages that branched off from the little room.
          Passages that supposedly led to a storehouse of riches.
          The witch laughed, apparently reading Gillian’s face, despite the poor lighting. “Aye, my clan’s w’ me as I assume yours is w’ you?”
          “What’s left of it.” Gillian couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice, but it was a fortunate lapse, as the woman’s expression changed. From forced good humor and hard, cold eyes, to . . . perhaps not compassion, but understanding. They had all suffered. They had all known the same, bone deep pain.
          “Aye, what’s left of it,” she agreed. “And no need for there to be any more losses this night, if we can make a bargain?”
          “What kind of bargain?” Gillian asked, her eyes narrowing. This treasure ship, the greatest ever brought to English shores, meant the difference between life and death to her small band. If the compromise was them leaving empty handed, then they would fight, no matter how little she wanted that.
          “One where we all win,” the witch told her, taking off her cap and letting a mass of dark hair tumble free.
          It was less curly than Gillian bright red locks, but no less thick. She threw the piece of wool aside, along with the linen coif that lay underneath it. And shook out the waves, as if in relief.
          “After tonight, no more hiding. No more attempting to blend in. After tonight, we make our own rules, go where we will, and live how we choose!”
          Gillian felt her throat clench in hope, because that was all she wanted. Although it galled her to have to leave her own land, her country and that of her coven for time out of mind. But if it was that or watch even more of them die, she would do what she must.
          “We’re here for jewels,” she told the woman shortly. “We care for nothing else.”
          “Ah, we may have no quarrel, then,” the woman told her. “We’re here for silks.”
          Behind her, a small group stepped out of the darkness. They looked like Gillian’s own tattered band of once proud witches and wizards, in old clothes, scuffed and patched boots, and cloaks no self-respecting beggar would have had. But wands were in their hands, and despite everything, Gillian was glad to see them.
          She felt her eyes sting at the sign that more of her brothers and sisters had survived the cataclysm of their time, and were still fighting. And fighting hard by the look of them. One was missing half an arm, with the acid-etched stump evidence that a potion bomb had hit its mark. Another had a patch over one eye and a cascade of scars dribbling down his cheek. And a third was hunched over as if he’d suffered a spinal injury and could no longer stand upright.
          Yet they were here, they were alive, and they were fighting to stay that way. And the same pride that swelled her heart must have spread, because, suddenly, the mood shifted. Smiles broke out, just as they might have at a gathering of the covens, where these same people would once have met as friends under a full moon, and now came together on a storm-tossed night.
          The black-haired woman held up a hand, however, stopping her band from surging forward as they looked apt to do. “We have an understanding, then?” she demanded.
          “Take all the silks you want, sister, and anything else not covered in jewels,” Gillian said. “We are leaving these shores, and want small and portable items.”
          “And the gold? We’ve heard tales of coins as well as bars—”
          “Heaps o’ them,” one of her boys said, his eyes shining. “May have to enchant summat to carry it all!”
          “We’ll have some of it,” Gillian said carefully. “Halves for each of us?”
          The woman scowled for a moment, looking mulish. But then she nodded, apparently valuing the lives of her people above that of mere gold. Gillian understood; coven members were becoming scarcer than ore these days, no matter how precious.
          “Aye,” the woman agreed, and came up to the foot of the ladder. “Halves.”
          “Or . . . or thirds?” someone said, as the two women clasped arms.
          They turned on the small man who had just decloaked near another entrance, so quickly that he squeaked and hopped back a step.
          “Who the devil are you?” the black-haired witch demanded, not least because he looked all of fourteen.
          He swallowed, and then drew himself up to his full height, which was perhaps five foot two. “Richard Masey, of the Charmouth coven.” His face fell, and he suddenly looked as if he was about to cry. “Or what remains of it.”
          The two women exchanged glances as a rag tag group of what could only be called children peered in the door behind the boy. He seemed to be the eldest, which was probably why he was leading, and trying hard to stand tall and assured. But his wand was trembling in a grip that threatened to snap it at any moment.
          Thunder boomed from above; the ship swayed; and its wooden planks squeaked. For a moment, nothing was said. It didn’t have to be.
          Neither witch could afford to take in the orphaned children of another coven. There was a time when such a thing would have been done without question, had some disaster killed the parents. But these days, such calculations were harder.
          There was little enough chance that Gillian's group would get out of England alive, even with a haul tonight to ease the way. They were being hunted, and they had children as well to think about. But that didn’t mean that they were completely devoid of compassion.
          “What are ye here for, then?” she asked the boy.
          Gillian expected him to say something to the effect of “anything we can steal”, which given the state of their ragged clothes and dirty faces, would make sense. But she underestimated him. “Spices,” he said staunchly. “We have a merchant ready to take all that we can bring him.”
          “Got sledges, too. Enchanted them meself,” a redheaded child of maybe twelve said proudly, peering around the side of the leader. “Ye can use some, if ye want. I think . . . I might have brought too many.”
          The black-haired witch sighed, and glanced at Gillian.
          “You didn’t bring too many,” Gillian said hoarsely. There was little enough they could do for these children, but there was one way to help. “Ben, Duncan, load as much spice on their sledges as will fit,” she told two of her men.
          “Aye.” The dark-haired witch said. “John, Liza, do the same.”
          “I thank ye kindly mistresses,” the boy said, with a little bow.
          “Sisters,” Gillian rasped, and he looked startled, as if he hadn’t heard that term in a while.
          “Sisters,” he repeated. And then he smiled, and looked like what he was, halfway between the boy he’d been and the man he would hopefully live long enough to become. There was impertinence in it, but charm, too, and Gillian knew what was coming before he opened his mouth. “And the gold?”
          “Away w’ ye!” the dark-haired witch said. “Ye’re getting a king’s ransom as t’is!”
          “And the gold,” Gillian agreed. “A third of it,” she qualified, as his eyes lit up.
          The dark-haired witch turned on her, wand out and ready, a snarl on her lips, but Gillian had her measure by now. “He only brought the elder ones,” she said softly. “There’s sure to be more left behind, perhaps even babes.”
          She saw when it landed, when the fire in the witch’s eyes was replaced by unimaginable sorrow. A coven of children, left to fend for themselves. And as like to die as their elders had done if their enemies had their way.    
          Gold wasn’t much of a hedge against the boiling caldron of hate that their world had turned into, but it was something.
          “Aye,” she finally said. “A third—and no more!”
          The boy nodded, and held out his arms. Gillian hopped off the ladder and she and the witch each took one. His grip was strong, and he grinned at them with childish glee. “Let’s go plunder these bastards!”
          And plunder they did.      
       
   
 


          He was just a shadow, seated in a corner of the tavern, as far away from the fire as he could get. Even my eyesight might have mistaken him for the darkness cast by an overhanging beam, except for the occasional glimpse of a liquid eye. And for the skin ruffling sensation creeping its way up my spine.
          I almost turned to go, but I needed the money. And this one was paying well—better than well. Besides, I’d worked for vampires before. They were, after all, the ones most concerned with revenants, the monsters created when a vampiric change went wrong.
          That’s what a lot of them viewed me as: a mistake. To them, a dhampir, the physical result of the union between a vampire and a human, was just another misbegotten monster. So why not send a monster after a monster? It made an ironic sort of sense, and vampires loved irony. I loved money, and they paid well and then left me alone, despite vampire law requiring them to kill me. Because who knew when they might need me again?
          And vampires did not love laws.
          Especially ones as powerful as this one.
          The skin ruffling sensation became worse as I threaded my way through the tables, although it was hard to concentrate on my possible employer. The crowd this evening was large and boisterous, but not for the usual reasons. Instead of drunken laughter, off-key singing and outrageous flirting with the barmaids, they were angry.
          No, make that furious, I thought, as a fight broke out, causing me to have to sidestep.
          A couple of English sailors were thrown at the fireplace, scattering sparks across the scarred, wooden floor when they landed. Another barely escaped a knife to his eye, only to immediately turn around and plunge a dagger into his attacker’s thigh. Then they and the group of Spaniards they’d been quarreling with tumbled out of the door, taking their fight into the muddy street beyond.
          The bar was frequented by Spanish sailors, possibly because the taverna was owned by one of their countrymen, and news had just come in of a “cowardly, sneak attack” by the English pirate Drake on the blessed Armada as it took refuge in the port of Cadiz, where thirty-five Spanish ships had been sunk or captured.
          Or so the Spanish viewed it. The English felt that the great privateer, Sir Francis Drake, was helping to protect their island from invasion by the filthy papist who ruled Spain, and the huge fleet he’d put together to depose their blessed Queen Elizabeth. So, it depended on your point of view.
          My point of view was that I wished they’d bleed on something besides my new boots, and pushed an unconscious combatant aside before sliding onto a stool across from the shadow.
          “Nice place you picked,” I said, noticing the heavy gold ring he wore, with some kind of family crest.  
          Expensive.
          Good; I mentally upped my fee.
          “Convenient,” he murmured, and slid me a glass of wine.
          I slid it back. “Not thirsty.”
          A lip, the only thing I could see under the hood that he hadn’t bothered to pull back, quirked. “It isn’t drugged.”
          “Wouldn’t work if it was. Dhampir,” I reminded him.
          “Then why not drink with me?”
          “Had the wine here before.” Or what passed for it. But sailors weren’t picky. I was, and I didn’t drink bad wine if I had a choice.
          “It is . . . somewhat pungent,” the vampire agreed, why I didn’t know. Some of them liked to chat before getting down to business. Too bad he’d picked a bar in the midst of a brawl.
          “You have a job?” I said abruptly.
          An eyebrow quirked over a golden eye. His power was up; I didn’t know why, but I didn’t like it. He was either calling it because he expected to have to use it, or because he was emotional, and neither spelled anything good for me.
          And then I knew it didn’t, when a sailor staggered over from the fight and would have hit our table, but instead splayed against nothing at all. I had a split second to see the blood smear on thin air from his split lip, to see his slack, heavily bristled face smash against nothing, to see his bleary brown eye widen in surprise as he stared at us as if through a glass window. But there was no window, just a shield that I hadn’t even felt the vampire raise.
          Which trapped me inside as much as it kept the sailor out!
          I surged to my feet, but didn’t go anywhere, although that was due less to the shield than to the elegant, long fingered hand suddenly gripping my wrist. I hadn’t seen the vamp move, which was impossible! I was able to kill his kind because I saw everything.
          But not tonight.
          I just want to talk—
          “Get out of my head!” I snapped, because that sentence had been silent. Yet I had heard it as easily as if he had spoken aloud. I didn’t like this one. He was too sneaky; too powerful. I jerked back—
          And went nowhere. It was as if I’d been imprisoned by a statue made out of iron. Only I could bend iron in a pinch, but the creature’s deceptively slender hand held me easily.
          Or it did until I pulled out a knife.
          “I’m surprised you didn’t draw a stake,” he said, apparently unconcerned. I showed him the other end of the knife, which had a pointed wooden tip that was as wickedly sharp as the blade. “Ah, yes. That would do it.”
          “Let me go or we’ll find out!”
          The creature did not let me go. He did, however, throw a large bag onto the table. One that spilled open to reveal—
          The sailor cursed and started scrabbling at the shield—uselessly, of course, but he was too drunk to know that. I felt much the same, staring at more money than I’d seen in . . . well, ever. A king’s ransom in gold had cascaded over the table, making a glittering river that dazzled me with the possibilities.
          Feeding a dhampir metabolism alone was a full-time occupation; trying to find shelter and clothing—the latter of which frequently didn’t survive a hunt—even more so. And that didn’t even take into account the magical tools needed for my trade, which I couldn’t make and which witches and wizards charged a pretty penny for. But this . . . this could keep me for years.    
          Years in which I could travel, see more of the world, try to find other dhampirs and learn about my kind. Years in which I could pick the jobs I wanted, instead of having to work for low-life scum I didn’t trust because the alternative was destitution. Years in which I could breathe.
          I slowly sat back down.
          “What do you want?”

*   *   *

          A short time later, I stumbled out of nothingness half a continent away, in sunny southern England.   
          At least, I assumed that was where we were, as the vampire had said it was our destination. And I supposed that it was sunny, since I could feel the heat on my face. But I wasn’t sure of either since I was half blind, still seeing vivid, otherworldly colors streaming past my vision.
          They weren’t there anymore, as we were now back in the normal world, although my sense of balance didn’t seem to know that. I wasn’t sure that my stomach did, either. It was threatening revolt even as I tried to act like I did this every day.
          It didn’t work, because nobody did this every day.
          We’d just taken a portal through the ley lines, raging rivers of metaphysical energy that flow around the Earth and which the magically powerful used to flit about like the ancient gods. Assuming you had the money for one of the fantastically expensive devices that that sort of thing required, it could shave weeks or even months off a journey. Yet I wasn’t sure that I didn’t prefer taking the long route.
          That wasn’t merely because my insides felt like they had been rearranged. The trip had been harrowing, but even more so was urgency with which the vamp was acting. It made me suspect that we were dealing with more than the mere revenant attack he had claimed.    
          And that was before my vision cleared, and left me blinking in shock at dozens of vampires.
          I knew they were masters, the highest rank for vamps, because they were walking around in broad daylight without so much as a flinch. And looking seriously out of place in their elegant clothes, the kind that could easily have graced a royal court instead of a humble village. Where they were piling up the corpses of what looked like every person in it.
          It must have been market day, with stalls selling eggs, butter, cheese and meat lining the one street that the town seemed to boast. It wasn’t a large fair, just the usual local thing where farmers from the surrounding area came in to buy their necessities and down an ale or two with their friends. Only someone had downed them instead. 
          A group of dead coneys spilled out of a basket beside a nearby stall, their heads lolling like those of the people around them. A dog keened over the body of his master, licking the man’s face in a vain attempt to wake him up. Chickens clucked nervously at each other in cages, unsure what was going on.
          I could sympathize.
          Whatever had happened here, it had been fast. I was looking at a village of the dead, many of whom still had baskets over their arms filled with the day’s purchases. A man had bought himself a new belt that was coiled like a snake in the dirt beside him. A woman had a skein of yarn that had come loose and become tangled around a vamp’s leg, making him curse when he tried to move her.
          A child had a pie that someone had bought him, now trodden in the dirt.
          I stared at the chubby hand lying limp beside a spill of blond hair. And then at the vamp who was handling him with more care than the others. He laid the boy gently on a pile after checking him over, I wasn’t sure for what.
          Then I understood: the bodies with bite marks were going into one heap, and those without into another. And they weren’t the bites of vampires, clean and neat and studied. Even if the vamp hadn’t told me we were on a revenant hunt, I’d have known as soon as I saw them.    
          They’d been savaged.
          Others had simply had their necks snapped, like an overly excited fox in a henhouse, that doesn’t know when to stop. Yet all of them were being checked, all were being sorted. Revenants shouldn’t have been able to make new vampires, or even more misbegotten copies of themselves, as that was an ability reserved for masters alone.
          But nobody was taking chances. 
          The bitten were being loaded into carts, to be taken off somewhere to wait out the three days it took to see if they would turn. Meanwhile, a series of long trenches were being dug, I assumed for the rest. But there was a third group set apart from the others, under the spreading limbs of a great oak that nobody was approaching.
          Maybe it was their ragged clothes and dirty limbs that were the cause, which were enough to make any self-respecting beggar wrinkle his nose in disdain. They were also smoking slightly despite the shade, smoldering in areas where the dappled sunlight filtered through the leaves. Yet, despite that, it took me a moment to realize what I was seeing.
          Then all the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
          “That’s . . . not possible,” I said, looking at more revenants than I’d ever seen at one time. 
          “There were over a dozen,” the vamp said, as if that was in any way normal. “We managed to take two alive.”
          He pushed open the door to a small dwelling and motioned me inside.
          It had two rooms with a packed earth floor, an open ceiling all the way to the roof, and a hearth in the center. It was a medieval sort of house, left over from another time, in which chimneys and multiple stories had yet to be thought of. The sort of place where you bedded down with your animals on cold nights and didn’t mind the fleas.
          Or other fanged things, I thought, as the vampire threw back a tattered blanket covering a couple of huddled figures near a wall, and revealed two more corpses.
          Only these were somewhat livelier.
          “We kept them in case they might tell you something,” he added, while the nearest creature snarled and snapped, trying to get his one remaining fang into me.
          Since he was being guarded by two huge vampires, both of whom looked utterly revolted at the job they’d been assigned, I didn’t give much for his chances. I also didn’t know whether the vamps’ disgust was for the revenants or for me. It would be a toss-up as to which the vampire community hated more, but their master was here, so they were behaving themselves.
          More or less.
          “Get on with it, scum,” one of them said, reaching for me to prove how fearless he was.
          That tended to happen whenever a vamp figured out what I was, which was seldom. Being petite, slender, and dimpled had helped me more through the years than my fighting skills, although I didn’t need the latter today. Because the master who’d hired me carelessly backhanded the vamp through the wall before he touched me, into what I assumed was a pigsty based on the smell.
          And on the loud squealing and thrashing that immediately took place upon his arrival.
          “She is to be respected,” the master said mildly, watching the man fight off several large, enraged sows. They had piglets; unfortunately for him. “She is here on Senate business.”
          “I never agreed to work for the Senate,” I protested. The august body that ruled the vampire world were also the ones who wanted my kind to be killed on sight.
          “You don’t. You work for me.”
          “But you just said—”
          “The Senate has delegated me to deal with this. But I choose my own operatives.”
          “And you chose a dhampir.”
          He shrugged. “Who better? And you have something of a reputation.”
          That could be taken several ways, I thought, as the now muddy and mauled vamp came back through the wall like a streak of lightning. And, of course, he wasn’t going after the master. A second later he was on the floor, an expression of mingled surprise and outrage on his features, after the wooden end of my knife cleaved his heart in two.
          One of the revenants laughed, a mindless cackle that got louder and higher pitched as the injured vamp gasped and writhed. He wasn’t dead; well, any more than he had been when I came in. I hadn’t taken his head, so he’d likely be fine, although he’d be gentled for a while.
          The other big vamp looked from his friend to the master and then to me, appearing nonplussed. “But Master Mircea,” he finally said, before stopping, as if he didn’t know what was appropriate.
          “Some have to learn the hard way,” his master said mildly. “Take him out.”
          “But that would leave you alone—”
          “I think I can handle a couple of trussed up revenants.”
          “But the girl . . .” the guard looked at me unhappily. “She is dhampir . . .”
          “Yes, and if she kills me, I shall be quite annoyed. I also won’t be paying her.”
          “In that case, you’re perfectly safe,” I said, and saw him give that same, almost smile I’d seen in the tavern.
          And then I saw more, when the hood he’d been wearing was finally thrown back, revealing a devastatingly handsome face with more color than a vamp should have, honey-colored skin, dark brown eyes and shoulder-length mahogany hair. His lashes were long, his cheekbones were high, and his lips were red enough that they might have been rouged. Yet his profile denied any comparisons to the feminine.
          He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t think who.
          It didn’t matter, as most vamps put on a show, especially when trying to overawe some sweet young thing. Fortunately, I was neither sweet nor young, and while most people did treat me like a thing, I begged to differ. And I was experienced enough to know a glamour when I saw one.  
          I wondered what he looked like without it.
          And then I wondered why I cared.      
          The guard vamp proceeded to carry out his wounded companion, and I turned my attention back to the revenants.
          Technically, they were vamps, too, although they were too crazy to know it. But the level of crazy differed somewhat. Like with human birth defects, there were degrees, and the laughing one seemed to have some mind left, although how much was debatable. But the other was drooling on himself and had had his throat slashed in the melee, making getting anything out of him unlikely.
          I opted for his companion, and grabbed his hair to turn his face up to me.
          The hair was mostly white, which already told me something. Most of the corpses outside were younger than forty, with the vast majority being in their twenties or below. And those who did make it to his possibly three score years didn’t do so with soft hands and fat bellies.
          This man was important, or had been at one time. His clothes were currently tattered, filthy rags, because revenants often went from kill to kill, like mad, starving beasts, and slept in burrows during the day that they dug out in the ground. They were where the human concept of vampires digging themselves out of their own graves had come from; properly made vamps were cared for by their masters and rarely ended up in such a predicament.
          But revenants had no masters. Made wrong, they answered to no one, which was why they were so deadly. Well, that and being completely mad.
          Yes, this one had been wealthy at one point, with a single, fine silver button clinging by a few threads to his coat. He also had half rotten teeth, a problem for the privileged classes who were fond of sugared desserts and sweetened wine. He should be easy enough to trace.
          The vamp’s sharp dark eyes had taken in the signs as well, and narrowed thoughtfully. “Odd. To turn a well-heeled servant, but leave him to run with the animals.”
          “Revenant,” I reminded him. “Someone messed up.”
          “Yes, but a revenant, especially one as lucid as this one, can still sign over his estates and then be quietly removed. Letting him roam the countryside in direct violation of the Senate’s orders seems . . . unwise.”
          “Assuming it was a vamp who did this.”
          A dark eyebrow quirked. “You think otherwise?”
          “I don’t know what to think,” I said honestly. “Revenants are solitary creatures. They live alone; they hunt alone. Yet a dozen of them attacked this place?”
          “Thirteen, to be exact. The Senate’s men killed the others before I arrived. I managed to save these two.”
          And then traveled hundreds of miles looking for me, which was beyond strange. If he worked with the powerful Vampire Senate, surely they had operatives here? Or in Paris, where they were based? Or anywhere closer than a run-down tavern in a distant Italian port?
          The revenant in question grinned at me. His lips were mostly shredded where he’d been chewing on them, and stretched into a horrible rictus. But he seemed genuinely amused by something.
          “Clever, clever,” he crooned. “This one is clever, unlike the rest. Look at her thinking.”
          “Who did this to you?” I asked, hoping for a momentary glimpse of lucidity, even though it wasn’t likely. But he surprised me.
          “She was clever, too. Pretty lady, all in blue . . .”
          “A woman turned you?”
          “Pretty lady,” he sang, to the tune of some country ditty I didn’t know, because I didn’t know this place. “Young and fair. Young and fair . . .”
          “Fair of hair?” I asked. “Blue of eye?”
          “Aye, blue like the cornflowers that nod by the road. But hair . . . hair like yours—”
          “A woman with dark hair and blue eyes?”
          But he wasn’t listening. He was singing, in a surprisingly strong tenor.


          “Very nice,” I said. And for a second, the rheumy hazel eyes focused on me and then blew wide.
          “No!” he said, suddenly panicking. “No! Don’t hurt my family! Don’t hurt—”
          “Who is trying to hurt you?” I asked, bending down, but his eyes were wild and he jerked away.
          “No, no! Away with you, Satan’s spawn! Your hexes and spells have no power here; this is a god-fearing house . . .”
          The creature descended into incoherent babbling, lost in madness, but that was all right. He’d already told us what we needed to know. The vamp, Master Mircea I assumed, met my eyes and his were sober.
          “Hexes and spells,” he repeated.
          I scowled. “We’re looking for a witch.”