++The division of vampires has always been their greatest weakness. And yet new breeds emerge with far less infrequency than most would expect. What, then, prevents some oddity among their kind from properly cooperating? What is there to keep from a truly coordinated Lineage emerging one day?

  Nothing.++

  Book 2: Chapter 29

  Anne thought about killing the damned vampire in his sleep, of course. But she decided against it for many good reasons. Even ignoring that she didn’t know if he was asleep rather than just holding still under that bed, even ignoring that she wasn’t sure how she even could kill him, and even ignoring that he’d surely tear her apart or enthrall her if she failed…she needed him. Norvhan needed him.

  For now, at least. It made Anne feel better to think that it was for now. Maybe they’d find an alternative one day, sure. And maybe they’d find out how to make pigs fly while they were at it, since they were already going to be achieving the impossible. In the moment, though, she had to help Reginald.

  For now.

  Ilgran wasn’t Norvhan and Anne didn’t like that fact. She realised only now how little she knew of the world, or rather how unaccustomed she was to venturing anywhere her name and face weren’t known. Back in Norvhan a woman travelling alone might be accosted, but a woman known to the community could always rest assured in knowing where and who to reach for aid.

  That wasn’t true here, not for her. Anne wasn’t Anne in Ilgran, she was just an outsider. Things could happen to outsiders without anyone in town caring much.

  So she walked cautiously, kept out in the open, and tried to stay far from anyone she didn’t like the look of. It would be just typical if she left Reginald under a shaded bed only for some other lunatic to kill her in his stead.

  It didn’t look like there was any shortage of lunatics here, at least. Most of the people were shuffling by with their eyes low, but Anne saw more than a few mumbling to themselves or each other. A chill went down her spine. Back in Norvhan, back in any civilized place she knew of, people like that were dealt with. Kept out of the public eye where they might do harm. Here it seemed they were just free to run rampant.

  Perhaps that could turn itself to Anne’s advantage, because it surely made any oddities in her behaviour more difficult to spot. She tried to be subtle in finding out what she could about the town, but when subtlety got her only jagged stares and hasty retreats from those she aimed to converse with, her tactics changed accordingly.

  Anne followed someone, then cornered him in an alley and started demanding answers instead. She put on airs of importance and confidence, almost started to feel them herself, even.

  Technically, a female Worker had just as high a physical ceiling as a male. In practice they tended to be substantially weaker, as unless anyone trained specifically in a given Attribute, there was rarely more than a scant few increases to them from their starting levels. The average man began his Classed life with an unmodified Strength, Speed and Celerity of 10. Women sat at Celerity 10, but their Speed was more like 7 and their Strength only 6.

  Which didn’t mean that no woman could be a threat. Anne herself had been too busy running a business to train much beside Charisma, but if other people didn’t know that then the potential danger of crossing her was no lower than if she were a man. Provided she spoke to only one person at a time, she could bluff her way to some answers.

  That was the plan, at least. The man she’d cornered now didn’t look too big or brave, but looks could be deceiving. Fortunately he didn’t appear any more confident about confronting Anne than she was at confronting him. She tried to turn that into an advantage by feigning strength and storming up to him.

  “Nobody here will give me the time of day,” she snapped. “Why is that?” The man recoiled and trembled the way only the truly downtrodden did, which was just fine by Anne. The more scared he was, the less anything he noticed about her would be questioned and the lower the chances of things going wrong.

  “I…I don’t know ma’am.”

  Ma’am. The word was odd, though Anne knew it to be more deferential than the common ‘miss’, it certainly sounded that way with how the stranger said it. He wouldn’t meet her eye and seemed more preoccupied with looking around them than he was with her. What the hell was going on here?

  “If you want me gone, the fastest way to make that happen is to tell me what I want to know,” she suggested. The man stared at her suspiciously, like he was worried she was manipulating him. Which wasn’t wrong, except Anne’s manipulation in this case was limited to pointing out how his best interests were served.

  Stolen story; please report.

  It worked. She heard what she was there to hear.

  Problem was that scaring people into telling you things didn’t always get the truth out of them. Anne had de-escalated enough violent patrons to know that much, and felt like kicking herself for forgetting it. What the hell had she been thinking in agreeing to come along for this?

  ***

  Ludvich wasn’t much of a leader, and never had been. He’d told Reggie as much, and Reggie, in true Reggie fashion, had replied by saying that he wasn’t much of a leader, either. Ludvich had wanted to punch him for that, but then Reggie did so many things that earned him a punch, and breaking his own hand was something Ludvich could only tolerate so much. He had to ration his violence out carefully for his own sanity.

  Of course Reggie was a damned leader, it was just that he had the misfortune of exclusively having a pick of absolute cunts to do his leading with. In a fair world, populated by people who didn’t think he was devilspawn, the boy would already have been running Norvhan before he’d died.

  Maybe Ludvich was just sentimental. That wasn’t exactly uncommon, among dead Witchfinders.

  What was uncommon was finding himself in a position to command anything bigger than an angry mob. Ludvich had never governed, nor thought much about governing, and was quite sure there were a good hundred, maybe five hundred, people even in this especially stupid town who could’ve done the job better than him. He couldn’t exactly hand it over to any of Norvhan’s locals, though. That would undermine Reggie’s direct command that he led, for one thing, and it would give them more autonomy than Ludvich was comfortable with for another.

  If someone ended up with real power here, they might get it into their head that they could turn that power against the vampires. With Reggie gone, especially, the temptation would be strong. Everyone was scared of Reggie now, and for actually good reason. Even Ludvich was fucking scared of him. He’d seen the way he leapt over the walls and landed like a cannonball, seen him spin and smash through the air and break stone against him. Seeing that force of nature suddenly absent would be the greatest temptation of all for any would-be rebels.

  Ludvich doubted that any coups would succeed, between him, the undead and the two score or so thralls, but they’d have casualties. Each healthy man killed was another notch taken out of Norvhan’s productivity, slowing its growth, weakening it over time. Each soldier thrall killed was one less body the elves would have to get through to take the town back.

  So Ludvich was stuck in charge. It wasn’t so bad, for one big reason above all else.

  “Sycily, tell Reggie that the grimwood shack has been working and the meat is still preserved.” A pause.

  Reggie says that you’re to have it expanded, or bolstered by extra shacks, and start storing grain and any other produce you can as well.

  “Tell him I’ll do multiple shacks,” he replied. Multiple shacks meant multiple walls, meant that a creature able to breach one wouldn’t have access to all the food at once. It was generally wise to have a failsafe for when things inevitably went tits-up.

  Name: Ludvich

  Age: 56

  Race: Vampire [Deity Race, Tier 1]

  Class: None

  Attributes:

  Strength 23

  Speed 25

  Celerity 25

  Toughness 24

  Charisma 9

  Abilities:

  Blood Magic I

  Form of the Beast I

  Traits:

  Enhanced Senses I

  Regeneration I

  He was almost as strong now, in his humanoid form, as he’d been in his transformed state before. Reggie had advised Ludvich to wait until all his Abilities had hit their limits for Tier 1, then let himself raise up to Tier 2 only after they had. It was irritating to put off the Evolution he could see flashing every morning, but he saw the wisdom there.

  Besides, he was almost done now anyway. His limit for every Attribute was 25, though for some reason Charisma wasn’t really increasing yet. Ludvich didn’t much care about that since he didn’t think he’d be getting any use out of it for a while. Until they were out of trouble with the Warden, physical abilities would suit him just fine.

  Which meant…yes. 2 more improvements for Strength, 1 more for Toughness, then he’d be Tier 2 and all the more powerful for it. As a human, Ludvich had worked himself to exhaustion for years to push his Attributes up into the mid-20s. Now he was right at that same threshold of power, minus a few points here and there, after only a month of effort.

  Vampirism. It really wasn’t fair, was it?

  Another unfair thing was that Reggie had gotten everyone in town pushed to the habit of actually making demands, or stern requests, of him. That was all well and good for Reggie, but Ludvich was now the one to inherit those same prodding questions.

  Not easy, running a town, or else everyone would do it.

  People were getting nervous about the idea of elves swarming the place suddenly, and wanted more guards on the walls. Would Ludvich do so?

  No.

  With their luxury goods axed, the town’s merchants and other men of property and wealth were feeling antsy and aiming to leave. Would Ludvich let them?

  Yes. And then he quietly killed the ones who set out in the grimwoods, not out of spite or malice though. He just couldn’t afford to have word reach any other Wardens besides Erindor about Norvhan’s newfound independence from their kind.

  Other problems arose, were dealt with, and either improved or worsened. Ludvich fancied he was making at least as many good calls as bad ones, but each decision he came to just reminded him more that he was far from suited for this. It didn’t help that consulting Reggie did little to help him. Without the ability to survey things himself, to physically see their assets or the distribution of any given problem, Reggie was just operating with less information than Ludvich was.

  Leadership wasn’t something Witchfinders were trained to do, and Ludvich was realising now just how little ability he had in anything not kept within the narrow curriculum of his career. He could only hope Reggie hurried up in returning.

  Because things would start falling apart fast without him.