Bodies breathe softly in the sooty black.

Unlike Sig, Squad's enhanced spectre senses enable him to see well in the dark. "Be careful, there are fishing hooks in here," he whispers.

Sig scoffs. "How can a fish be so dumb that it gets stuck on a hoo—ah!"

"...You got stuck on a hook, didn't you?" There's the sound of heavy steps. "Sig, will you stop moving? You're so flat-footed!"

"I'm not flat-footed!"

"You sound like you're slapping the ground with two raw turkeys!"

Sig giggles. "I am!"

"You better not be! Anyway, I think we're done in here." There's the sound of two heavy, suspiciously turkey-like objects being thrown away, before Squad lights up the room with a handheld globe. He turns to Sig. "Thanks for agreeing to come with me."

Sig sardonically indicates the gimp suit he's wearing. "Yes, because clearly none of my other plans fell through at the last minute."

Squad laughs and shakes his head. "Well, I still appreciate it. And what's the best way to show your gratitude to someone?"

Sig thinks about this for a moment, his eyes lighting up. "Blowjobs!" he excitedly yells.

"...Okay. What's the second-best way to—actually, I don't even want to know, I'll just show you your gift."

With a flick of his wrist, Squad summons up a medium-sized black box and smiles at Sig. "Can you guess what's in here?"

Jumping up and down eagerly, Sig throws out his best guess. "Is it a decapitated head that's still alive and gives blowjobs?"

"...And that's the first place your mind goes to?"

Sig nods. "Yeah, but I'm not the best at buying gifts. Remember when my ex-girlfriend's dog died?"

The memory seems to pain Squad. "I remember."

"I got her an identical dog."

"Yes, but two dead dogs – what was the point in that?"

Sig throws his hands in the air. "You told me to get her a dog that was exactly like the one before.

"Yes, but the second one should have been alive!"

"I'm not a mind reader!"

A flick of Squad's hand dissipates the box. "I'll give you the gift later."

"Why are we even searching for these vampires?" Sig asks.

"Because Thomas Dukat helped save us and I want to pay him back. I don't like being in people's debt for too long."

"Oh, come on!" Sig complains. "Just because he helped you out, doesn't mean you have to do the first favour he asks for. Do you always fuck on a first date?"

"Before the first date, if possible," Squad smiles. "Anyway, this is exactly the sort of stuff we should be doing, until we get more information on Scipio. We save people; vampires eat people."

"Hey!" Their ally, the vampire Thomas Dukat, enters the abandoned warehouse. "Not everybody who eats people is evil, you know. That's just another form of racism."

Anya, who's been patrolling with Dukat, enters. "First Sig and now this guy: I always get the worst teammates!"

"I told you," Dukat calmly explains. "It's difficult for me to work with other men, because of my unbelievable sexual attraction. There's a...history there. Women can at least control themselves in my presence."

Anya sardonically points her thumb at Dukat, smiling. "See what I mean? From now on, Sig and Dukat can work together."

"I'm not working with him!" Dukat declares.

"Fine, fine," says Sig, holding his hands up like a martyr. "This isn't the first time I've faced unjustified rejection. I've been for job interviews where I know the only reason I didn't get it was because I was drunk."

Dukat laughs, the perfect scissor-line of jaw muscles displayed.

"See! They get each other's sense of humour," Anya points out.

"I know you love me, really," Sig tells her.

"In small doses," Anya winks.

"I only come in small doses," Sig purrs.

Dukat sniggers.

"I didn't mean it like that!" Sig complains.

Sensing an opportunity to tease Sig, Squad smiles. "He's got a point. Didn't your doctor say you have one ball smaller than the other?"

"No, he said I have one ball bigger than the other!"

The other three laugh.

"You're one tit short of an udder," Dukat tells Sig, shaking his head.

"You're one cock short of a wankfest," Sig counters.

Spying the window through which Sig and Squad entered, Dukat raises an eyebrow at Sig and teases. "Break in often?"

"Only when your mum forgets to leave the door unlocked," Sig cheerily beams.

Dukat laughs and claps Sig on the back. "You're crazy – and not in a charming way." He puts on a funny voice, pretending to be a character. "Where's Sig?" Answering as a different character. "He's in the corner, combing his beard with a shoe."

The Dwarf's eyes shoot to Squad. "I told you not to tell anyone about the shoe-combing thing!"

"I didn't! You just come across as that type of guy."

"Let's head out," Anya says, and they leave the empty warehouse.

Coldcastle is one of the largest cities in northern Samaria, the group emerging into the docks, its water reflecting the cold blink of the stars. A figure looms out of the shadows, an old man's face framed in a foam of white hair

"Can you spare some change for an old blind man? I'm frail and I have no head."

Squad does a double-take. "You do have a head!"

"So what? I'm blind and I can't see it!" The old man shouts back, storming off.

"I'd have given him something," Sig tells the others. "But I need to save my money. I'm setting up a charity to benefit the victims of my own violence. Luckily, most of them are dead. I'm also running a campaign to save a pair of conjoined twins—well, I'm only going to save one of them, the other one's an arsehole."

Anya laughs. "Sig, you're a real tonic. By which I mean you're cheap and you make people sick."

Sig doffs an invisible cap.

"We're supposed to be vampire-hunting, you two," Squad smiles.

"...How do you kill a vampire?" Anya asks.

"I know, I know! Sig squeals excitedly, jumping on his tip toes like a bearded schoolgirl shining with fresh knowledge. "Kick its fucking face off!"

*

The Undercity's many shops and stalls flash excitingly in the dark, as Lu runs from stall to stall looking at everything. "There's so much weird stuff here," she says, turning to Mazer.

The Scrovengi nods good-naturedly. It must be strange for her, never having left Jiang before and now being all the way on the other side of The Continent. She runs up to him.

"Here, try this!" He tastes some kind of bizarre, western food and she looks up at him in anticipation. "Well, what do you think?"

"If you got served it during a war, you'd understand," he smiles sardonically.

She laughs. "You're no fun!"

"I'm notoriously cheerful," Mazer deadpans. "Sometimes I'm laconic, but I don't like to talk about it much." He waits for the joke to land. He continues waiting for the joke to land. He gives up on waiting for the joke to land. "I said—"

"I heard you!" Lu replies, rushing up to a stall full of strange-looking animals.

Mazer knows they're here to hide out because the Samarians don't yet know what to do with Lu, or how to use her. Hating the thought of leaving her alone, he volunteered to act as her guardian – and the Samarians readily agreed, because it would further limit the circle of people who know where she is.

On one street corner, a group of children are queuing to see a man who, when they reach him, hands each child a small package before they move off. Mazer gets a bad feeling but Lu heads towards the scene as if she's been tugged by the hand. The man is a drug dealer, selling to the children, and Lu gravitates towards one of his departing customers; the little boy is perhaps eight or nine-years old and is hungrily eyes the package in his hand like a rat.

The boy is a Jiangese refugee, uncertainty trembling in his eyes as he looks up and sees Lu approach. Mazer hangs back, watching her, curious about what will happen. She places her hand on the boy's shoulder and he's rooted to her stare, his face soaked with emotion. No orphan is truly an orphan; each has a host of ghosts who would love and take care of them, if the world had allowed it, a chain of relatives and kind strangers stretching back generations.

To Mazer's surprise, the non-Jiangese street children crowd around Lu as if they're expecting, and actually receiving, some positive reinforcement from her. They leave the queue and the drug dealer looks up, dark water flashing in his eyes. He removes a knife from his jacket and, pushing children out of the way, heads straight for Lu.

Mazer is on him before he can get there, spinning the man around like a rag doll and gripping him by the throat. The dealer shrinks under the pitiless weight of that gaze and Mazer speaks in a stinging whisper, the children too enraptured by Lu to notice the adults.

"Do you know why people sell drugs to children?" Mazer spits out. "To gain control over others, because they have no control over themselves."

The man chokes in Mazer's grip, a luminous panic in his eyes as he stares out, face bulging horribly. Mazer walks to the mouth of an alley, still carrying the man, and puts a little more force into his grip, crunching his neck. Regretting it instantly, he throws the corpse into the alley and turns to find Lu.

She spots him and nods, walking away followed by a mob of children, their eyes bright with faith.

*

Tancred steps through the museum's reinforced door without breaking stride, tearing up four armed guards in the entranceway like confetti. Rushed by another guard, he swiftly draws a massive broadsword and cleaves the armoured guard in two, the upper body clattering through a glass display. Observing the carnage, Tancred smiles sweetly, his tough, scarred face and bald head, so different from a typical vampire, illuminated by the heat of his joy.

He stalks forward until he hears soft inhalations – indetectable to a human, but like a beating drum to his vampire ears. The guard is hiding around a corner, and Tancred appears behind him, rips his neck back and drinks deeply, biting into the skin with relish. Finished, he throws the corpse away and, blood still around his lips, walks up to a display case holding a golden claw with an emerald set into the back.

In a blur of motion, he smashes the case and snatches the claw, cradling it like a child.

*

Onboard Gaia, Anya and Squad discuss Thomas Dukat while Sig plays a large, ornate harp in the background. "How much do you know about Dukat's family?" Squad asks.

"They're one of the most famous families in Taburnian history and their name is associated with great promise, romantic failure, tragedy and glorious struggle against impossible odds," Anya answers. "Thomas was one of four brothers who lifted their family name above contemporaries six hundred years ago, when he was mortal. Each brother possessed unique talents that put them at the head of their field and, at a time when Samaria was rising and Taburnia stagnating by comparison, this era is largely accepted as the last time when the two old rivals could look each other in the eye evenly. It didn't end well," she finishes.

A smile and a nod indicate Squad is impressed, and he throws out a tester. "And each brother's talent?"

Anya looks at him as if you say, really? "Alexian was a military leader, Philip a mage, Louis a diplomat and Thomas was a swordfighter."

"Is a swordfighter," Squad adds. "And a spectre...working for Samaria now, which is strange, for a Taburnian."

"He was a Taburnian," Anya corrects. "I guess, now he's dead, he has no loyalties."

Squad nods. "When Thomas disappeared six hundred years ago, he was the first of the brothers to meet with tragedy, but not the last. Ever since then there's been conspiracy theories that the Samarian intelligence services were involved, or old gods with a grudge, or aliens, or—"

Anya smiles. "So why is an immortal Taburnian noble, who everyone thinks died half a millennium ago, working for Samaria now?"

Anya casts a meaningful look at Squad and they both leave the room.

Frustrated, Sig stops playing the harp and stares after them. "Seriously? Is no one going to ask about the significance of the harp? I've put so much effort into this bit!"

Indigo walks in. "What's the significance of the ha—"

"Out!"

***

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