Winter's POV:

I walked through the sweet-smelling mist, humming a song as I approached the vampire huddled on the ground, screaming in pain from the burning of the mist. Blackthorn could weaken any vampire, and I never went anywhere without it.

I circled around the room, ignoring the sound of his screams accompanied by sizzling skin. I paused in front of the shelf full of liquor and made a face. "Vodka?" I asked, throwing the whimpering vampire a dirty look. "That's all you have? Vodka is glorified rubbing alcohol, you know."

The vampire growled and lunged at me. Even with the blackthorn, he was fast and managed to sink his teeth into my shoulder- probably because the blackthorn was affecting his eyesight and he was disoriented. I inhaled sharply at the stab of pain that didn't last long. He choked on my blood and stumbled to the ground, gasping.

"Oh, you didn't know I eat blackthorn at every meal," I said, crouching down and lifting my stake, bringing down through his shoulder until he was pinned to the floor. "That couldn't have tasted good. Now really, do you have anything other than vodka?"

"Who are you?" He said, spitting out my blood and wincing.

"Oh, just a friend of an old friend of yours," I said, pulling out a syringe of black thorn and stabbing it just to the side of his heart. He gasped, his red eyes going wide. "I'm disappointed. You vampires usually have some old, expensive and delicious liquors but I'm not a vodka person," I said, glancing back at the shelf and wrinkling my nose. "Oh well," I sighed, refocusing my gaze on the vampire and smiling. "It's not completely useless. It's flammable."

"Flammable?" He repeated, blinking his eyes several times as if that would help clear the blackthorn mist. "Fucking hell, you're the Firestarter, aren't you? Look, whatever my clan did to upset you, I'm sure we can work something out."

"Unless you have more money than the Brixtons...." He stilled at the statement. My smile grew. No one had more money than the Brixtons. They were oldest still living vampires in the world. "Didn't think so. Now that you know who I'm here for, I'm sure you can guess what I'm going to ask."

"I don't know anything," he said quickly. "Whatever Kristoff told you-"

"You're really not in a great condition to be lying," I said, pulling out my stake and lowering it to his chest. His eyes widened and he tried to scramble away, but the extra blackthorn I infused him with left him practically immobile. "Do you know how many vampires I've killed with this stake?" I asked, drumming my fingers against the wood. "Go ahead. Guess. It's my lucky stake."

"I don't know anything," he whimpered.

"Come on, I'll make a deal with you," I said, sinking to the floor, crossing one leg over the other. "You have two ways to get out of this. One," I said, applying more pressure to the stake and making him stiffen. "You talk. Two, you correctly guess how many vampires I've killed with this stake. Three guesses. Get it right, I won't stake you. Between you and I, there are a lot of numbers. I think your odds are better if you just talk. Especially considering you're the only one in the clan left alive. No one's coming to help you."

He stared at me silently, then his eyes darted around the room like he was trying to decide. Eventually he sighed, his gaze returning to me. "I hear the Firestarter is true to her word."

"Always," I nodded.

"And if you let me go, Kristoff will as well," he continued. I nodded. "And his siblings? I know Thaddeus. He doesn't let things go. He'll hunt me down."

Thaddeus. I knew the name from Kristoff. Thaddeus was Kristoff's younger brother. I'd never met him, but almost every supernatural I'd ever spoken to knew him in some way. If not personally, they at least knew stories about him. He sounded like an egotistical ass to me, but I needed his brother. Kristoff had lots of connections, information to help me with my own plans. Keeping Kristoff happy meant good pay and an endless stream of information I couldn't reliably get anywhere else.

"The arrangement I have with Kristoff extends to his siblings," I said. "They don't decide how it's handled, I do. They only want their information, and they don't care how I get it."

He hesitated, swallowed, then winced in pain as he tried to move. He settled back against the wooden floor, staring up at the ceiling. "During the summer, some of our clan visited Europe. They toured several places, including Wales."

Years of practice and experience taught me to take the information neutrally. Vampires could hear your heartrate accelerate and they used that against you, so they'd know when something scared you, excited you, made you nervous, or in this case, gave away my poker face that this was exactly why Kristoff asked me to do this job.

"And?" I asked, raising an eyebrow, spinning the stake round and round in my hand.

"And they noticed Thaddeus and Juliette visiting often," he said, struggling to move but managing to get himself propped up against the wall. It left him out of breath and I waited quietly until he talked again. Juliette was also a name I knew from stories but not personally. She was Kristoff's younger sister. "It was always the same place in the Cambrian Mountains, over and over again. They'd often pass by with bags, but come back with nothing. That got them curious, so they started looking around."

"Did they find anything?" I asked, wondering what time it was. Billy's birthday party was tonight and I promised everyone I wouldn't be late this time. It was a surprise party. Showing up late to a surprise party just didn't work.

"Yes and no," the vampire whispered, a haunting look crossing his face. "They didn't see it, they felt it. And heard it. The Brixtons are hiding something. Something powerful, something..." he trailed off, a far-off, scared look in his eyes. "Something thought long dead."

"And what is that?"

"I won't speak of such things. A power like that knows when its name is spoken."

"A superstitious vampire," I mused. "Here I thought you were all skeptics, annoyed with the common misconceptions of superstitions."

"I was before, but I won't mess around with an ancient supernatural," he said, shaking his head. "The Brixtons have a secret weapon, but they're too arrogant. Whatever it is they have, they can't control it."

And there was Kristoff's concern. What exactly they were hiding in Wales, I didn't know. Kristoff was hesitant to even tell me that much information when he brought the job up.

"There are things best left unsaid, Winter. Bloody hell," he said quietly. "But I fear they know of someone we care for deeply. Someone they would bring harm, a person we have spent more than a century keeping safe. This person is an extension of our family and it's important that their identity is never revealed or spoken of. They will have no part in our war," Kristoff said, shaking his head. "They've seen enough war. They are not dangerous as long as they have us to take care of them. But if someone even has even the vaguest idea of their existence, it needs to be wiped out. Our secret has to stay secret, you understand?"

I did understand. My secrets had to stay secrets, too. I couldn't expect him to give me the details of what he was doing when I wouldn't give him mine.

"If any of them even mention Wales, they must die," Kristoff said. "I don't care who they are, they and anyone else they've spoken to have to die so that the secret dies with them. I would handle it myself, but I don't want my family name attached to it and they live inside a house owned by a human. I can't get in without making it obvious, but I need it taken care of."

Well, the vampire's fate was sealed. I was going to kill him anyway, but now I really had to.

"I see," I said, tossing the stake and catching it. "And who else did you talk to about this?"

"We haven't."

I narrowed my eyes and brought the stake to his chest, piercing the skin and making him shriek. He was dramatic. It was only a surface wound.

"Okay, okay, we brought it up to the bartender, Priscilla," he said. I knew that. Priscilla was the one who then told Kristoff someone was talking about a secret his family was keeping. "But that's it. We have a meeting with The Elders to bring it up tomorrow, but we gave them no details." I pressed the stake in harder. "We gave them no details!" He squeaked. "We couldn't over the phone. We tried, but they insisted any sensitive issue be brought up face to face and not over the phone. That's all, I swear that's all."

"You had to have told them something," I pointed out. "Otherwise, why would they give you their time?"

"We told them we knew a secret about the Brixton's but that's all we said. The second we said the Brixton name, they were interested."

That I believed. There was an awkward pretend friendship between the Brixton family and The Elders- the supernatural government. It was like both knew the other was planning to betray them but neither had evidence so they played nice. At least, they played nice outwardly. I'd never heard of more backstabbing in my life. It was a lot of supernatural political bullshit I had no interest in. I just wanted to get paid by Kristoff.

"All right, last chance to tell me anything else I might need to know," I said, rising from the ground and walking over to the shelf of vodka.

"Last chance?" He repeated, frowning. "You said I'd live if I talked."

"Actually," I said, sliding my stake back into its holster and pulling down two bottles of vodka. I opened one, then the other, and carried them back over to the vampire. "I said I wouldn't stake you if you talked. I never said I wouldn't kill you, and I'm not convinced you told me every detail I wanted."

"I don't have anymore!"

I ignored him as I circled the room, pouring out the vodka. I went back to the shelf for more, continuing to pour it around the rest of the house until the floors, walls, curtains and shelves were nicely doused. By the time I returned to the room the vampire was in, he managed to crawl over to a window but fell to the ground every time he tried to pull himself.

"I'm impressed," I said honestly, sticking another syringe of blackthorn in his neck. He groaned and sunk to his hands and knees. "You must have a little blackthorn resistance, huh?"

"Whatever the Brixtons are mixed up in, it'll eventually come to you too," he warned. "You're not safe."

I poured the last bottle of vodka over him, soaking his clothes and hair. "Only an idiot believes true safety is attainable."

Ignoring his pleading, I skipped out of the room, humming that same song again. As soon as I was done here, I would have to listen to it or it would be stuck in my head until I died.

I stepped around the many vampire bodies and the few human bodies I killed on my way in. They were there to be fed on, but if they knew anything, Kristoff's order was clear. They all needed to die so the secret would die with them. Safety might've been a thing no one actually had the luxury of, but not following through with an agreement from anyone in the Brixton family pretty much guaranteed you'd be dead in a few days. Besides, Kristoff was invaluable to me. My hunt for the vampires responsible for my family going missing grew a lot more hopeful when Kristoff entered the picture.

I walked outside, finally breathing in air that wasn't death. I walked to the edge of the porch I'd already doused in lighter fluid and lit one of my special matches. They were my favorite matches. Stormproof matches.

The desperate pleas of the only vampire alive inside turned to screams shortly after I dropped the match and backed away as the flames took over the house. I admired it for a second, but then turned on my heels and made my way to my car.

Lighting a cigarette, I held it between my lips while I sent Kristoff a text to let him know it was done, then sent a text to Dana to let her know I was on my way for Billy's party.

When I got to my car and had no response from Kristoff, I glared at the screen. He usually responded quickly and he knew what I was doing today. A lack of response meant he was busy, and that sometimes meant he would end up calling me.

I couldn't operate on what if's, so I started my car, rolled down the window and sped away from the growing fire behind me. Trees and fields went by in a blur as I drove well over the speed limit until I arrived at the bar. I finished my cigarette, then took off my blood-spattered jacket and put one from my backseat on instead. I always had a change of clothes with me.

As I walked in the bar and saw Dana's face relieved that I managed to show up on time, and took a couple shots with her, I'm not sure why, maybe because he still hadn't answered me, but I just knew that fucker Kristoff was going to text me. He was going to ask me to come do something, and he'd probably do it after I had enough to drink it would be a pain in my ass. He always called at the most inconvenient times.

The anxiety of that possibility faded as we hid behind the bar then jumped out when Billy showed up. Cheers and smiles filled the room, then loud music and dancing mixed with occasional almost bar-fights broken up by the bartender, Bear. He gave me a look as I had yet another drink but did nothing about it. He knew I was two years too young to drink, but just like everyone else in the bar, he overlooked it.

It was only when I started to relax my suspicions were confirmed. I got a text and as soon as I saw Titas's name, I sighed. Titas was always with Kristoff. The odds of him texting me unrelated to Kristoff were low, but in my slight tipsy state, I still foolishly hoped.

Then I read the text. The words "code red" right before an address.

"Shit," I sighed, patting the bar top to get Bear's attention. I was going to show up intoxicated anyway, and I didn't half-ass things. "Can you get me a double?"

If I was going to help Titas and Kristoff out of another one of Titas's terrible ideas, I was going to need that shot.

A/N:

eeeee! I'm so excited for this one! I hope you enjoyed this chapter 💜

Oop, we have our connection to the Brixtons 👀 are you excited to learn more about Kristoff and Juliette?

Ooooh, what do you think the Brixtons are hiding in Wales? 

Lmao nothing like getting drunk before handling weapons in a code red situation 😅

Take care, loves! 💜