Adarin removed the vampire’s gag and, mindful of the crowd of mages, soldiers, and settlers, tipped the carafe with a deceptively casual flick. The vampire screamed as the diluted sulfuric acid ate away her eyes.

  “Whoops,” Adarin said lightly. A mix of dark chuckles and hard swallowing could be heard from his audience. “Didn’t mean to do that.” He poured a stream of the fluid over her body, and her flesh sizzled and burned—magical regeneration fighting chemical decay.

  “Now, girlie—” he began.

  But she started spitting and cussing. “You—know who I am? My master—my master—he will—” She hissed like a cat, writhing like an impaled insect, but the long wooden stakes pinned her into the soil. She sat like a grotesque patient on a surgeon’s table.

  Cheers erupted from soldiers and settlers, and Adarin assessed the scene. He turned to Duchess Viola, standing to the side. ‘Good call on turning this into a public spectacle.’

  Then he looked to the other side, where, bound and gagged, Francesco was sitting in a chair. His black eye had worsened, and the state of his robes indicated the marines had not been gentle when arresting him. Liora was absent, meticulously redoing the scan for thralls—this time under the watch of a firing squad, at least for those who were not mages or high officials. Can’t be eroding my one backing even more. They had been scanned first, as soon as Adarin secured the prisoner. A third round of gunfire announced the next thrall found, and the crowd roared—fury, frustration, and impotence of the last day turning into vicious bloodlust. Adarin noted with satisfaction how musketeers goaded the hesitant into cheering. Let the crowd eat itself as long as it consumes no one important.

  He turned to the vampire and grabbed one of the stakes pinning her, stirring it around. She groaned and yowled; Adarin stabbed the stick a little deeper, rocking more cheering from the peasants. “Now,” he drawled, “we have material for about—”

  “Five hundred liters of sulfuric acid,” Devon supplied, clapping his hands and smiling viciously.

  Adarin nodded. “Hear that? You either start talking, or we’ll take you on an extended wellness program.”

  She howled between sharp breaths of pain. “You will—” Adarin struck like a snake, shattering her jaw and pulling open her mouth. He poured generously from the carafe; acrid smoke erupted from her throat. For good measure he struck a second time, shattering her long, snake-fang teeth. Gurgling and sizzling were all that could be heard for the next few seconds.

  “I’m sorry,” Adarin said. “I didn’t quite get that response. I was saying that you will tell us everything about your master, and then I’ll allow the crowd to tear you to pieces instead of torturing you until I grow tired of you.” He raised his voice and gestured to the circle of eager commoners. “Quite a lot more generous than you deserve, monster.”

  Francesco growled and writhed as he regained consciousness in his chair. The vampire began cussing again; her restored eyes blinked at Adarin.

  Adarin tsked. “Her vocal cords are regenerating a bit too fast.” He splashed her face again with acid. Her screams resumed, and the crowd howled; tools and weapons were brandished, and for once Adarin didn’t mind—the mob was on his side. My tool.

  “You—sh—my master will never—” The woman turned her head, the rest of her red, acid-burned hair sloughing off as if listening to something distant. Her eyes widened in true terror for the first time. “No. No. Master, I—”

  “Set up a shield! Defend her!” Adarin screamed.

  But darkness and shadows elongated all around them, just as vermin erupted from all sides, scuttling out from under the crowd’s feet. Defensive spells faltered in the dense press of bodies, and the mages didn’t dare use anything heavy.

  “Shoot! Burn them out of the air!” Adarin stepped forward, striking and pummeling. A seething swarm of bats, birds, and rats poured from every side, crawling into her orifices, digging their way into her abdomen. He saw glimpses of her body writhing with the movements of unnatural vermin under her ribs, in her throat. She gagged, screamed, bit—hundreds of creatures died, but more kept coming. The crowd dispersed in screams; finally the mages dared hurl stronger spells. Lightning and sprays of napalm fire split the air.

  But it took only a minute. Then the swarm was gone, and the shadows retreated.

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  Adarin looked down at the nearly clean skeleton in front of him, its bones oddly angular and sharp. Whispers erupted from all directions.

  “You forced me to kill her. Thirty-two of you will be dead by tomorrow noon.”

  The shadows withdrew beneath the colonnades, back into the buildings. A last cold remnant of his mind noted that there hadn’t been laughter this time. Adarin stood over a skeleton. A circle of shell-shocked yet unharmed mages and the soft, hiccupping sobs of Francesco—murmuring something, most likely the monster’s name—were the only sounds.

  Adarin roared, “Fuck!” He brought a manipulator down hard, but it bounced off the skull. He smashed the diamondoid dagger down, splitting the skull to pieces, then hurled the fragments across the camp. He spun and kicked Francesco. The chair toppled backward, clattering into the colonnade.

  Mages and musketeers alike readied spells and guns, uncertain what had happened to their leader.

  Adarin raged, “I’ve had it. No more fucking magic. We’re doing this old-school. No one sleeps in private rooms—everyone sleeps in the encampment. We put up a cordon and trenches and let the fuckers come.”

  With those words he stalked off. That was poorly done. The thought came unbidden as he disappeared under the colonnade. He dug his nails into his avatar’s palms until blood spilled, gouging deeper until his world shrank to a white sphere of pain. They are playing with me. They are just playing with me. He started running, uncaring and unaware of where he went. Walls blurred into a meaningless series of memories.

  He stalked down another corridor—and there she was, wearing a white robe, determination on her face.

  “Adarin. Stop this,” she hissed—and something in her voice wasn’t the healer girl he knew. It took him a few seconds to realize it: she had spoken Imperial Standard.

  A cold dread settled. “Yara?”

  “Yes,” she hissed—then suddenly her sharp, correct posture softened, collapsed, and Liora stood there blinking. She looked around, staring down the furious Adarin. “What… what is going on? I heard you screaming. I heard—Francesco—is—”

  He fell. “Give me. Give me a minute. Why the fuck are the emotional regulators gone?” he muttered to himself, then began a quick combat meditation, compartmentalizing the anger, the frustration, the—he swallowed as he admitted it—fear. Long minutes passed in the heavy silence of the corridor.

  “Okay,” he said, turning to Liora. “I’m fine. It’s just—every time we win a bit, they tear it down. They’re like adults bullying children.” He let his wooden body go slack, slumping to the floor.

  Liora hesitated, then approached. “Please don’t do that. You are scary when you are like that.”

  He looked up. “I… I know. I’m sorry. It’s just—” He shook himself, let the shivers transmit to his body.

  Liora reached out, hesitantly putting a hand on his wooden skin. Adarin let out a sigh of relief, simply enjoying the presence of the closest thing to a comrade he had in this world.

  “I’m sorry. This entire thing—shouldn’t have trusted people—”

  Liora’s eyes widened. “No. That— that is so wrong. You have to trust people. It’s just that the enemy—the vampires—they are monstrous masters of manipulation—”

  “—and escalation,” Adarin finished, his voice surprisingly soft despite the cold creeping into it. He looked up at her. “I don’t know how much numbers you know, but the escalation of victims—the doubling—the threat of thirty-two—if they keep this up we only have a few days until everyone is dead.”

  Liora gulped hard. “You are saying they will kill us all?”

  Adarin shook his head. “I don’t think they will kill me. She told me her master prohibited it.” And maybe they’ll leave you alive, he added silently. But everyone else… He looked around. “I’ve never been outmatched so thoroughly.”

  He shook himself, and the two of them sat in silence for a long time—Liora wrapping her arm around his wooden manipulators—while he furiously considered strategies and reordered his mind. Then he came to a decision and summoned his officers.

  The night passed in terrible tension. Cannons and shaped charges had been placed in concentric rings around the pagoda. All entrances, all ways in and out of the temple, were mined. Three shifts of soldiers and settlers—each verified free of enthrallment, as evidenced by the pile of two dozen executed thralls in one corner of the colonnades—bore witness to the iron vigilance Adarin enforced.

  He paced the circles of fortification. Ashfield, like him, was in a cold rage. They talked for a long time, and Adarin found some solace—but he is only second in command. No: the burden of command rests on my shoulders.

  Liora and the other healers worked on Francesco together with the druids, trying to purge the enthrallment. Something had broken in the man as he watched his lover eaten alive; he hadn’t stopped crying since. Duchess Viola walked the camp with a grim expression; whenever they met, she kept glancing toward the pile of enthralled corpses Adarin had ordered executed.

  The dim blue of morning turned orange, then yellow—and nothing happened. The mood in the encampment was oppressive yet bloodthirsty. The crowd had finally seen the enemy, seen fear in the creature’s eyes, seen their master turn against one of their own. This time they wouldn’t let bloodshed go unreturned: whomever the vampires took, they would extract a heavy blood price.

  The day’s light stretched its hours past in agonizing slowness. When the howling screeches erupted from the depths of the temple, it was almost a relief.