Valen sat cross legged on the single bed of a cheap no-tell motel. He and his friend had been there for a while, mostly browsing their phones and watching all two channels of the telly while they waited for the tacky clock on the wall to read 8 PM.

Outside the window was a horde of tourists eager to partake in the delights of Reveller’s Row, oblivious or perhaps apathetic to the presence of those who’d prey on them.

Louise was in an armchair across from Valen holding his right glove while Enid sat beside him, casting a sceptical gaze her way. 

“Are you sure this is going to work?” asked Enid.

“Not to brag,” said Louise, “but I took a test online and it said I was in the top ten percentile for sniff sensitivity.”

“That’s a thing?” said Valen.

“Yeah, it’s kind of like dick measuring for werewolves.”

Louise brought his glove up to her face and took in a long, deep sniff.

“Aren’t you supposed to sniff the outside of the glove?” Enid asked, looking annoyed. “You know, the part that actually touched the bloke we’re trying to find?”

“I’m getting to that.” Louise pulled her nose away from the glove hole. “Just gotta remind myself what Valen smells like so I don’t get the scents mixed up. Love your cologne, by the way. Smells like cinnamon.”

“I don’t wear cologne,” said Valen. “I just cook with cinnamon a lot.”

Louise sniffed the outside of his glove and her face immediately scrunched up with a mix of shock and disgust. 

“Aw, gross!” She recoiled from the glove. “This smells like an old sock! What the hell have you been punching?!”

“Other than that werecoyote and that flesh scorpion thing I’ve only beaten Byron,” said Valen. “You must be smelling his spray tan.”

“I’ll try to smell past that then.” Louise continued to sniff at the glove, albeit more tentatively than before.

She closed her eyes and focused on the many different scents flowing into her nostrils like medicine injected into an open vein. They all shot straight into her brain, where she attempted to visualise them as wisps of coloured smoke drifting around inside her skull.

First, she singled out all the scents that she knew couldn’t belong to a person; the foods he’d touched and the leathery smell of the glove itself. She separated them from the swirling mist of scents in her mind and allowed them to fade away into her subconscious. 

She imagined Valen’s cinnamon-y scent as a dancing strand of red smoke, the orange chemical stench of Byron’s spray tan which covered up his true scent, and the Unborn’s God blood as an unnatural white mist that made her gut churn in dread. Louise forced herself to focus until she detected the unmistakable brown stink of coyote musk made identifiable by her wolven ancestor's hate boner for the scavenging animal.

“I’ve caught the scent.” Louise stood up with Valen’s right glove clasped tight in her left hand. “Let’s go.”

Valen followed behind her out of the motel with Enid beside him, holding his ungloved right hand.

The receptionist, a blonde succubus in a red dress with a plunging neckline that left little to imagination, gave them all a playful smirk when she saw them past. She didn’t say anything, but gave Valen a little wink that made his face turn red. He returned her smile with an awkward wave before Enid quickly jerked him out of the door and into the busy streets with surprising strength.

“Keep it in your trousers for a while, yeah?” said Enid, her one visible eye shooting a sharp glare straight into his soul.

“I know, I know,” said Valen, a little surprised at how annoyed she seemed.

The whole situation with the cult must’ve really gotten to her.

With the sun already set, locals and tourists alike filled Reveller’s Row to the brim. Valen had to will his hypersensitive hearing away to not be distracted by the loud music blasting from every nightclub on the block.

Louise paused to sniff the air for a moment then darted into the crowd of tourists and hustlers prowling the neon lit streets.

“This way!” she said before her tiny body disappeared into the sea of people.

“Wait!” cried Valen, causing her to stop in her tracks.

“What is it?” asked Louise.

“We should hold hands so we don’t get lost.” Valen walked up to her and wrapped his gloved left hand around her right. “It’s dangerous for us to be seperated right now.”

“Oh.” Louise averted her eyes from him as she gripped his hand. “Right. Good thinking.”

Valen felt Enid squeeze his right hand tighter around his without a word. Something was definitely wrong, and he made a mental note to ask her if something was wrong after they got this whole mess sorted out.

Louise guided them through the scent trail only she could sense, occasionally taking extra whiffs at Valen’s glove as she tugged him along by the hand like a bloodhound on a leash, ignoring the smell of booze and BO in the air as she beelined for her unsuspecting prey.

After a whole ten minutes of pushing through a sea of partygoers living it up in the hedonistic hivemind that was Reveller’s Row, she stopped in front of a large nightclub in the shape of a giant black box with purple neon letters that read ‘The Casket’ hung above the door.

“Our op’s in there,” said Louise, handing Valen back his glove.

Valen slid his glove back on and looked at the entrance que where at least two dozen people stood waiting to be allowed inside. 

“It’s going to take a while for us to get in,” he said with a frown.

Enid took the lead, dragging Valen and Louise behind her.

“I got this,” she said, already reaching into her trench coat for her wallet.

She went straight to the bouncer, a werebear lady the size of a fridge standing with her furry black arms crossed beside the door.

“Back of the line, missy.” She hooked back the red velvet rope barring the entrance after letting the blond elf at the front of the line through. “We’re having a busy night-”

Enid pulled out four draco notes from her wallet and extended them to the bouncer, the edge of each note reading a fat 100.

The bouncer looked at the notes, then at Enid’s chest, then at Valen and Louise behind her before finally making eye contact with Enid. Her giant bear mits pocketed Enid’s money and she unhooked the velvet rope barring the entrance.

“Right this way, Miss Moneybags.” 

Enid entered the club with Valen and Louise in tow.

“How much bloody cash do you have on you?” asked Louise.

“A lot,” said Enid without further elaboration.

A sea of sweaty bodies dancing to a chaotic beat amongst a flashing grid of shifting green and purple laser lights greeted them inside the nightclub. 

Valen and Enid blinked a few times as their eyesight adjusted to the epilepsy-inducing lightshow. Louise simply took two loud sniffs in the air and looked straight at the corner of the nightclub.

“This way,” she said, pulling Valen along, who in turn dragged Enid with them.

She brought them to the corner of the corner of the club where a group of young women in pink sashes were having a bachelorette party. They laughed at each other’s drunk jokes in between downing shots of vodka.

A familiar but out-of-place werecoyote sat directly across from the bride to be with a sleazy smile on his face. He’d healed up well since their last encounter. His jaw was back in place enough for him to speak but remained slightly askew from when Valen last dislocated it, most likely due to healing over at the wrong angle.

Good. They needed him coherent enough to answer his questions.

The bride to be, marked by the lettering of her pink sash, laughed at something the werecoyote said and laid her arm out on the table beside the ice bucket and wine glasses.

“You sure this shit’ll fuck me up?” she asked, clearly too drunk to give consent to anything.

“Positive,” replied the werecoyote with a shit-eating grin.

He pulled out a plastic ziplock bag of bloodglass and set it on the table alongside a spoon and lighter.

“That’s our guy.” Louise pulled out the bowen knife from her belt.

Valen felt the magical static emanating from Enid prickle his back like a thousand pinpricks.

“Maybe let me handle this first.” Valen put a finger on the back of Louise’s raised knife and slowly pushed it down. “Put away the knives and magic for a bit.”

Enid rolled her eyes and the magical static disappeared. “Fine.”

Louise sheathed her knife with a disappointed pout on her face. “If you say so.”

Valen smiled. “Thank you.”

He tucked in his black ponytail and walked up to the werecoyote’s back, his stride as casual as if he were having a pleasant stroll through a park. Unaware of what was about to happen, the werecoyote proceeded to put a single bloodglass shard on the spoon in preparation to melt it. He was struggling to work his lighter under the spoon when he felt Valen’s hand tap him on the left shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir.” Valen waited for the werecoyote to turn around to smile, showing off his fangs already extended in an open threat. “Do you have a moment?”

The werecoyote stared blankly at him for a moment, no doubt struggling to make out his face amongst the flashing light. When he did recognise Valen, his face went white and he dropped the spoon and lighter.

“Motherfucker!”

The werecoyote stood up from his seat, his hand already reaching into the pocket of his jacket.

Valen was acutely aware of the butterfly sword strapped to his belt but decided against drawing it. One shouldn’t need a hammer to squash a cockroach.

The moment Valen saw the glint of a giant folding knife that was clearly compensating for something, he grabbed the werecoyote by the wrist and yanked his arm straight before he could unfold the knife. In one violent motion, Valen slammed the palm of his other hand into the werecoyote’s overextended elbow and kept pushing until he heard the pop and crack of his dislocating joints.

The werecoyote let out a high-pitched scream and fell to his knees cradling his broken elbow. His giant knife fell to the ground useless, where Valen kicked it under the bachelorette party table.

“Seriously man?!” squeaked the werecoyote through the pain as he looked up at Valen. “Again with the arm?!”

“You’ll heal.” Valen pinched werecoyote hard by the ear before turning to the bride-to-be and her maids of honour, all of whom were far too drunk to be all that shocked. “Apologies, but I’m afraid I have some urgent business with this gentleman.”

The bride-to-be, a human lady in a tiny white dress and her blonde hair tied up in a do that must’ve taken hours to get right, stared at Valen through a drunken haze.

“You speak good for a vampire,” she said with a stupid grin on her face. “Cute too.”

Valen hid his annoyance behind a close-mouthed smile that concealed his grinding teeth. He would’ve appreciated the compliment if not for the comment about how he ‘speak good for a vampire’. His less fortunate kinsmen shouldn’t be blamed for not being able to afford enough Blood Plus to keep themselves from lisping.

“We’ll be heading out now.” Valen turned to Enid and Louise behind him. “Grab the bloodglass. These ladies won’t be needing it.”

The entire bachelorette party let out a collective groan.

“Come ooon,” whined the bride. “Don’t be such a party pooper!”

“Suck it up.” Enid grabbed the bag of bloodglass, holding it through the hem of her trench coat to keep her fingerprints off it.

Valen tightened his pinch around the werecoyote’s ear and proceeded to drag him towards the back door of the nightclub. It was there so people could make discreet getaways for one-night stands in nearby motels, and he hoped that no one would notice or care if they saw him dragging the werecoyote out with his friends behind him. 

Though, knowing how drunk peoples’ eyes tend to wander, they would probably be too busy checking Enid out to even notice the assault in progress.

Valen tossed open the heavy back doors with one hand and flung the werecoyote by the ear into the secluded alleyway on the other side.

He fell face-first into a tattered box of half-eaten pizza, scattering the rats that had been feasting upon it.

Enid’s face scrunched up in disgust and she tossed the bag of bloodglass into a nearby dumpster. Louise just snickered. 

“Uuuugh.” The werecoyote rolled onto his back, his left hand gripping his elbow while his right arm was bent at an unnatural angle. “Come on, man, couldn’t you just let it go?”

“This isn’t about you mugging me.” Valen gently hoisted the werecoyote up by his jacket and leaned him onto the wall of the alleyway. “Now hold still.”

Valen placed one hand on the werecoyote’s dislocated elbow and held his unresponsive wrist with the other.

The injured werecoyote squinted at Valen, his lips curled back in a puzzled snarl. “What are you-”

Valen yanked the werecoyote’s wrist while pushing his elbow back into place, effectively resetting his dislocated bones. An ear splitting shriek burst from the werecoyote’s lopsided mouth as pain flooded his nerves. It eventually faded into a hoarse croak, then a soft whimper accompanied by tears running down his cheeks.

The process for setting bones was usually slower, safer, and a lot less painful, but Valen didn’t like this guy very much and was fairly confident that his healing factor could pick up the slack for the rushed procedure anyways.

“There,” said Valen, his cheery voice contrasting the quiet crying of the broken drug dealer before him. “I set your bones back for you. You’re welcome.”

“Guess that’s my cue.” Louise pat Enid on the shoulder and approached the simpering werecoyote. She grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, lifting him up as high as she could at her height and slamming him hard against the lumpy brick wall behind him. “What’s your name, punk?”

“C-Clarence,” said the drug dealer with the most un-gangster name Valen had ever heard in his entire life. 

Even Louise seemed surprised at the reveal. She furrowed her brows. The look in her golden eyes could almost be described as pitiful.

“Bloody hell,” she muttered, almost sounding sorry for Clarence, “your parents must’ve really hated you.”

Clarence forced a large gulp down his throat as he stared straight into the face of his impending asswhooping, manifested in the form of a tiny white werewolf with an even shorter fuse.

“Please don’t hurt me,” he pleaded.

“Don’t worry,” Valen assured him. “I’m not a real doctor but I’ll be sure to reset any bone she breaks.”

“No!” Clarence cried. “Anything but that, please!”

“Well then I hope you don’t mind answering some of our questions.” Valen slapped the brick wall a few inching away from Clarence’s face and leaned in close. “Where do you get your bloodglass?”

The plain horror on Clarence’s face turned to mortal terror.

“I-I can’t tell you that! Look man, if you want the stuff then I’ll sell it to you-fuck, just wait a few days and I’ll get you new batch free of-”

Valen’s hand closed around the bricks in the walls. Having recently fed on real blood for the first time in gods know how long, he was a lot stronger than he’d been in a while. His fingers dug into the cement holding the lumpy red bricks together and sent cracks through the old wall that Clarence felt form against the back of his head.

Valen leaned in close to the petrified werecoyote, inches away from his ear, and whispered a single sentence made deep and low by the extended fangs inside his mouth.

“Do I look like an addict to you, mate?”

If Clarence had a full bladder, it would’ve been emptied at that moment.

A quiet, squeaky “No” was the only thing he managed to say through his trembling lips.

“Then answer my bloody question,” said Valen. “Who or what are you getting the bloodglass from? And don’t even think about lying. I’m listening to your heartbeat so I’ll know if you do.”

Of course, that last bit was complete bullshit. All lie detector tests were. Anyone who says otherwise was either a cop or watched way too much trash TV. All lie detector machines did was read pulse and heartbeat, both of which were liable to rise in a completely honest person under the stress of, say, being locked in a room with armed police officers or, in this case, cornered in a dirty alleyway by a pissed off werewolf and vampire plus one apathetic mage.

But Clarence didn’t need to know that. It was only important that Clarence thought Valen could tell if he was lying and knew that Valen could break every bone in his body if he did.

“I-I pick it up once a week,” Clarence stammered. “It’s always in a different place but with the same guy.”

“And who might that be?” asked Louise.

“You know him,” said Clarence, causing Louise to grimace. “He used to be part of your old gang. We only started buying this bloodglass shit from him because of his street cred.”

Louise slammed Clarence against the wall again, her growing impatience clear on her face.

“Give us a name, fuckboy.”

“I-I don’t remember what his real name is!” Clarence insisted. “But he calls himself Byron now.”

Valen and Louise looked at each other. At least now they knew why the Primordial Church bothered to recruit a wanker like Byron into their ranks.

“He’s a werewolf, right?” asked Valen, just to be sure. “White fur, orange tan skin?”

“Yes, that’s the bitch!” said Clarence. “You…you know him?”

“Yeah, and I also know he’s part of the Primordial Church.” At the mention of the church, Valen saw Clarence’s face turn pale. “I don’t suppose you know anything about that, do you?’

“N-no!” Clarence lied. “Not at all! I-I just sell the shit I get from him, okay?!”

Valen turned around to face Enid.

“Hey, Enid, how many volts of electricity can a person take before their eyeballs start melting?”

“No idea,” said Enid. Sparks of bright blue electricity ignited from her hand. “I’m willing to find out though.”

“Fuck!” Clarence squirmed in Louise’s grip in a desperate bid to escape.

“Hold still!” Louise shouted before slamming a furry fist into his stomach, ceasing his struggle.

He went limp in Louise’s hold, but the tears running down his scared face betrayed his consciousness. 

“I can’t,” Clarence whimpered through the pain. “I can’t, just…I can’t.”

Physical threats clearly weren't going to work. Whatever his relationship with Primordial Church was, it scared him much more than Valen or Louise ever could. Time for a different approach.

Valen turned to Louise. “Put him down, Lou.”

She looked at him perplexed. “What?”

“Put him down,” Valen repeated. “Trust me.”

“...Hmph.” Louise let go of Clarence’s collar. “If you say so.”

Clarence crumpled onto the ground and curled up with his face buried in his thighs. Valen crouched down to be eye level with him.

“Hey, Clarence, look at me.”

Clarence looked up at him, his scared yellow eyes peeking through the gaps of his matted brown bangs.

Valen continued in a much more softened voice.

“I know you must not have had the best life to be dealing drugs at clubs like this,” he said. “Do you have any family in the Nocturnal District?”

Clarence looked hesitant for a moment. It was only after he realised he had nothing to lose and the situation couldn’t get any worse anyways that he spoke.

“A little sister,” he said at last. “Well, she’s not really my sister but I still think of her as one.”

“Step sister?” Valen asked.

Clarence just nodded.

“You don’t have to be related by blood to be family,” said Valen with a smile. “Grafted branches on a family tree aren’t any less valid.”

“You have a sister too?” Clarence asked.

Valen thought about his sisters. Vivian, his older sister who gave up so much just to raise him, and Valerie, his twin, who gave up everything so that he could be where he was today.

“Yeah. I was the youngest of the lot, though.” He looked Clarence in the eye. “And let me tell you, from a younger brother to an older one, I wouldn’t want any big sibling of mine to be doing what you do.”

“It’s not like I had a choice,” Clarence muttered. “Not everyone’s as lucky as you.”

“I get that,” said Valen. “But right now you have another choice too. Earlier today I met a good man whose life was ruined by the drug you peddled and I’m sure he’s just one of many. Somewhere out there, someone’s son, or daughter, or little brother or sister is slowly killing themselves with bloodglass. Does your sister know what you’re doing?”

“No.” Clarence averted his eyes in an attempt to hide his shame. “She thinks I’m a mechanic.”

“Clarence.” Valen put a hand on his shoulder, causing him to return his gaze. “There are thousands upon thousands of little sisters here in the Nocturnal District. A lot of them are going to be hurt by this cult that you’re helping whether you know it or not. You can help us stop that, but I’m going to need you to tell me everything you know.”

“I…” Clarence shook his head. More tears ran down his face but they were not those of fear, but regret. “I’m sorry. I really don’t know much about them. But…”

“But…?”

“They’re bigger than you can possibly imagine.” The fear returned to Clarence’s face, though they were no longer directed at Valen or Louise. “I don’t know how they do it, but the real big junkies always join the Primordial Church after a few big sales.”

“How big are we talking about here?” Valen asked.

“About three or four bags,” said Clarence. “I swear, it’s like fucking clockwork. After the last sale they just disappear off the face of the bloody planet. No social media, cell phone, email, nothing. Even their families don’t know where they went.”

“How do you know they joined the cult then?”

“I sometimes run into them around town, but by then they’ve all changed.”

“Changed how?”

“They never travel alone. It’s always either in a pair or groups. The ones I recognised always keep their eyes covered for some reason.”

Now we were getting somewhere. Valen was willing to bet that they covered their eyes to hide the white irises and pupils that marked them as servants of the Unborn God.

“Have you ever tried to talk to any of them?” Valen asked.

“No, but I followed one guy who still owed me money. Just so I could spook him, you know? Led me straight to a fucking compound.”

Valen nodded and prepared to take a mental note. 

“Where’s this compound?”

“It’s outside the Nocturnal District,” said Clarence. “It’s a block of flats in the Dragon’s Tail called Dawn Square.”

“Wait.” Enid walked up to Clarence and stared him down. “Are you sure that’s the name?”

“Positive,” Clarence insisted. “Security dragged me out before I could do anything but I spotted a bunch of my old clients before they tossed me out the door. Their eyes…they were-”

“Red and white?” Valen asked. “Red where it should be white and white everywhere else?”

“Yes!” Clarence looked horrified. “You’ve met them already?”

“You could say that.” Valen turned to Enid. “Do you recognise that place?”

“Yeah.” Enid’s frown deepened. “It belongs to New Day Inc., a megacorp from Eagle’s Nest. They’ve been trying to get a foothold in Dragon’s Rest for years now.”

“Could they be related to the Primordial Church?” asked Louise.

“I’m…not sure.”

The nightclub’s heavy back door burst open at that moment. Valen, Louise, Enid, and even Clarence turned to look at the door. A short man in a plain brown hoodie drawn over half his face stood under the doorway with both hands in his pockets. Oddly enough, he didn’t look the least perturbed by what should’ve been quite an odd scene.

Louise was the first to speak.

“Fuck off,” she said the instant she saw the man. “We’re busy-”

The man removed his right hand from his pocket. By the time any of them recognised what he was holding, it was too late.

A loud thwip echoed against the alleyway walls as a crossbow bolt cut through the still air.