The street was in a lockdown, police cars with the blue lights on at both ends. It was one of those "not-London-like" neighbourhoods Jenna and Robert talked about when they were travelling to the ghoul cemetery. Nothing but two or three stories houses as long as the eye could see. Most of them were dark and silent in the early hour but a few had lights on already: it was almost four o'clock and some people had to get up to start their shift at six somewhere in the city.

Jenna and Robert left the car at the corner and walked up to the house. They couldn't miss it: it was lit up and basically wrapped in tape saying "Do not cross".

Jenna felt like the heroine in one of those old cop-movies when the uniformed police officer lifted the white and blue strap so they can duck under it. Now that she thought about it, Robert actually looked like one of those movie-detectives. He wore a suit jacket with a pair of jeans and a trench coat. All that missing was a badge on his belt, a gun in a holster ruining the lines of his clothes and some mild alcoholism.  

The Commissioner was waiting for them at the entrance door. Jenna had a whole angry speech about how he didn't give a damn when they needed his help with Magda but expected them to come running when he was in trouble, but once she saw the man, she decided to keep it for herself. 

Ironically, he looked nothing like a copper. What he did look like tonight was an old, very, very old man. His shoulders were kind of crooked and his back wasn't straight anymore. 

The cold air was heavy with the smell of blood and other things Jenna didn't want to name or even think about it. Her stomach moved lazily. 

'How bad?' asked Robert.

The vampire shook his head. 

'Ten people lived here, nine of them are dead. A girl survived but only because she wasn't even here when it started. She was just getting home from a party. She called us then ran for it. Fifteen SRU officers responded first, and caught the suspected murderers in the house, eating their victims. They are all dead, too, all fifteen of them.'

That sounded really bad.

'What were they, zombies? Ghouls?' she asked.

The Commissioner scoffed.

'The officers of the Special Response Unit are highly trained and very experienced. No, a couple of ghouls cannot massacre them. They said they felt paralysed by some unknown force before the connection was lost. We will have the records of their body cameras in a few minutes.'

Jenna wasn't sure if she wanted to see those records. The Commissioner was right: the members of the SRU were tough bastards. She could have taken two, three, maybe four of them down, on a good day, but fifteen? No way. Especially not killing them: finishing off a vampire required either some serious skills or a very big rifle. Whatever attacked them, must have been much more dangerous than ghouls.

Robert's phone beeped. He got it out and checked.

'Rose is on her way,' he said.

'And the others?' asked Jenna.

As it turned out, there weren't "others". Marcus was still in Egypt, and probably unaware of what happened. Ayana must have been arriving in Edinburgh in these very minutes; she went up to check out a source that was supposed to help her make a new trap. Teodore was working: they were so understaffed in the hospital that the boy had to do a 24 hours shift, which only started at midnight. Benjamin and Martin were out, drinking: as they said, they were having a pre-Halloween party before the real one tomorrow. Today, Jenna corrected herself. Martin did answer his phone, but he couldn't tell where he was and after a minute he started to snore. The two of them won't be helping out anyone for a while. Jenna managed to wake up Remy, and he said he will bring a friend, but that was it. Five against The Priest, all his creatures and the Goddess. Not exactly great chances.

'What about the girl who called the police?' asked Robert. 'Did she see The Priest?' 

'I think she is in shock. She keeps repeating that they were only kids, but there were no children in the house. It was a shared household rented by migrants from Romania and Poland,' the Commissioner found his professional voice finally, but he still seemed shaken for Jenna. 

Robert frowned.

'Only kids…' he said quietly, then he looked at the vampire. 'You don't think that…?'

'We will see when the records are ready. I don't want to guess,' replied the other man. Jenna had no idea what they were talking about. 

While they were waiting, Rose arrived. She looked tired and as far as Jenna could tell, thinner by the day. Once she was beautiful, curvy at the right places with flowing golden hair. Now she was skinny, she looked sick and her hair lost its shine. The only thing that remained mostly the same was her smile. Jenna understood that the big, life-changing loss she suffered was hard to accept and handle. She didn't know how to help and that made her angry. She was mostly angry these days: that was her thing, her go-to reaction. She was good at kicking asses but failed when it came to being empathetic. At least that was how she felt. 

Robert brought Rose up to speed and he finished right in time to watch the records. They were standing next to the house in the cold autumn dawn, around the Commissioner who had the tablet with the first video.

The frame was unstable because the camera was on a moving person. The house was dark and silent.

'Whatever is it, it has a serious effect on all of us,' the vampire said on the record. 'I feel very weak and somehow nauseated. Some of the others on the squad feel even worse. I'm going to check out the first floor now, looking for survivors.'

He pushed in the door that was already open and stepped into the lobby. A small silhouette was crouching on the floor, next to an unmoving body. 

'It's okay,' said the SRU officer in a calming voice. 'Don't be afraid. We are going to…'

The child got up and turned to the officer.

'What the…?

He tried to use the whip that every SRU officer had, but he was too slow. The little thing jumped on him, they could see its tiny, pointy teeth and the next moment blood covered the camera, making it impossible to see what happened next. Jenna didn't mind, she wouldn't mind if she never had to see anything like it ever again. 

Even if they couldn't see anything, there was audio, still. They heard the officers begging and the little creature saying one thing over and over again in a cheery children voice:

'Trick or treat? Trick or treat? Trick or treat?'

The Commissioner switched the tablet off. 

'What the hell was that?' asked Rose in a trembling voice. 'Some kind of demon? Jenna?'

'It was a demon, indeed,' answered Robert instead of the girl. 'They are called a flesh-golem. Only necromancers can make them. What we saw was a body the necromancer sewed together from scratches. Then he took a demon and imprisoned it in said body. Kovach had one of those in his basement, as a part of his collection, but it was huge. Now it looks like The Priest went the other way.'

'I think I'm gonna throw up,' said Rose with one hand on her belly.

'Get out of my crime scene then,' barked the Commissioner. 'I asked for professionals, Mr Montgomery, not little girls that faint. Where is your brother? Where is Teodore Carano?'

Rose looked angrily at the old man but before she could have said anything, Robert answered.

'I believe you misunderstood the situation, sir. Looks almost as if you'd think that you are in charge here. Well, let me clear that up for you quickly: you are not. That ship had sailed a long time ago, around the moment when people died because of your incompetence. Now if you want our help, you will let us do everything in our own way, or we could just go home and see in the news what happened. Is that clear?' his voice was ice-cold and Jenna shivered. 

There was a long pause, then the old man nodded.

'Very well. Let's see how it works out.'

Jenna looked at Rose. The other girl shook her head, and her expression said it all: "Men…".

They watched the remaining videos. Turned out there were seven flesh-golems in total, all small as a child. They were very clearly inhuman, but who would bat an eye about it now? It was October 31st, the day of Halloween. The whole week was all about people dressed up in costumes. The streets were full of greenish zombies, ghosts, pirates and superheroes and God knew what else. 

'The Priest himself didn't show on any of these,' noted Jenna, nodding towards the tablet once they were done. 'Could he make his creatures… I don't know, being a kind of allergen for undead people? 

'I have seen it before,' answered the Commissioner. ‘Back in the '60s. There was a necromancer in Japan who was able to make a kind of a spellstone that had a similar effect on vampires nearby.'

'I assume you destroyed the stone and its maker before you gathered any information about how to replicate or avoid it,' said Robert.

The Commissioner just gave him a long look and didn't answer the question. Instead, he asked:

'What's your plan?' 

'You send out your officers, everyone you can wake up. They find the golems and we will take them down. Did you experience any complication when you were dealing with Frederick?'

The Commissioner hesitated a moment longer than he should have.

'You didn't kill him, did you?' asked Robert in disbelief.

'That's official police business and as of now I cannot comment on it,' the Commissioner said.

'You want to use him as the big gun of the SRU,' Robert accused him. ‘Or just experimenting on him.’

'I'm not going to explain what I did and why to a civilian!' answered the vampire. 'You need to focus on the issue you are here to fix.'

'I'm starting to think that you are the issue!' said Robert.

'Guys, guys, let's calm down,' stepped Jenna between them. 'We are on the same team, right? We want those things off the streets.'

The men nodded, but Jenna saw Robert send a couple of nasty looks. The Commissioner didn't seem to care about that. 

The forensic people gave them their first, rough impressions, but there was no surprise: all the occupants and the arriving police officers were torn apart by teeth and claws and brutal force. No direct magic was involved. 

Robert's plan was a long shot, but there was nothing else they could do. Rose suggested that maybe they should get in Robert's car and patrol the neighbourhood, but Jenna suspected that she only wanted to get in from the cold and away from the smell of blood. None of them had a better idea so they decided to do that anyway. At least they could leave the Commissioner behind: the tension between him and Robert started to become unbearable.

They ran into Remy at the police cordon.

'Is that…?' asked Jenna.

'No way,' said Robert.

On Remy's side walked a young Indian girl. She wore ripped jeans and a big hoodie with a video game character on it. She had a full figure but looked athletic at the same time, maybe just because Jenna knew what she did for a living. Around her round face danced a couple of purple locks that escaped from her bun on the top of her head. Even though she wore square glasses now there was no question who she was. 

'Erm… Hi, everyone,' she said awkwardly and gave them a little wave and a shy smile. 'I'm Claire.'

Jenna looked at her with huge eyes full of admiration. 'I'm… It's such a…'

'Be cool, Jenna,' warned her Remy, so she shook her head and tried again: 

'Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm Jenna Carano, this is Rose and the old man will say he is a professor but don't listen to him, he is only here for eye candy purposes.'   

'I'm quite sure that this is not considered as "cool",' said Robert, shaking his head. 'It's an honour to meet you, Miss Penn,' he shook Claire's hand.

'How could you not tell me?' asked Jenna from Remy whispering. 'You know I'm a huge fan of her.'

'That's exactly why I never told you I know Claire,' nodded Remy. 'Seeing your reaction I have to say it was a good call. So what are we dealing here?' 

Before they could answer him, the Commissioner came running.

'I've got an address, a patrol car spotted them not a whole fifteen minutes from here. Is your team ready, Mr Montgomery?'