The ride over in Livia’s hired car was mercifully short. Safiya, Amy and Anthony had wisely decided to stay at the hotel. Being as Ansa was involved, the mousy-haired woman didn’t think there was much of an option for her. The darkness of early morning didn’t stop the imposing iron gates of the Cavendish plantation looming into the car’s headlights. Beyond them, the tribes had advanced from their camps in the bayou and their RVs. They now stood as a throng before the house, baying for the European vampires to come out and face them. They were stopped by a semicircle of Fulcrum vehicles. Their windows had all been opened a crack. Lucy’s eyes weren’t good enough to see what was poking out but hazarded a guess. Livia cursed as she unbuckled her belt, heaving open the gates with a determined glare at the mob.

She was stalled by voices from the dark behind the gate’s pillars, demanding to know her business. An argument ensued where the prickly Roman began making all manner of unheeded demands toward what was probably a rear guard. Just in case Edward fancied coming home.

“Stay in the car I’ll handle this” Livia directed as the Brit emerged from the back seat. Naturally, Lucy refused and poked her head around the pillar to see three or four Native vampires arrayed for an ambush. They levelled a shotgun or two at her, commanding them to go back to the city. “I already told you that’s not happening. I’m Livia Juliana and I won’t be denied by some flunkies of my brother-in-law!” the blonde seethed. She hadn’t brought a gun so quite what the practitioner was going to do Lucy wasn’t quite sure.

Sighing, she barged directly past her quarrelling elders and began walking toward the manor on foot. Naturally they told her to stop and only received a contemptuous look over the shoulder in response.

“Go on then. Shoot me in the back,” she instructed in a cold voice. “See how Sam reacts to you hurting me.” It was a gamble, calling their bluff. But she continued to do so with a firm forward stare.

She felt her chest constrict as panic began to rise, anxiety hammering her heart against her ribs. Her breathing was a constant struggle between measured and hyperventilation. She slowly got a grip on herself as Livia was carried past with a hand on each bicep. Sam’s tribe members took hold of her for at least the appearance of having the situation under control. Lucy wasn’t quite sure whether it had been the best plan as armed vampires stared her down while they were escorted past. Far too many to be sustained by New Orleans without the humans noticing. Flaring her nostrils, she caught the distinct scent of humans. Lots of humans. She was no tactician, but the odds were definitely on the side of the besieged if half the enemy were prey. And that was exactly how the Fulcrum would see them. Food, jumping into their open jaws.

Sam was stood before the busses, pacing with a vindictive expression. He held his hands knotted behind him, breathing rapidly as he tried in vain to keep his temper in check. As their captors cleared their throats, he looked up before the anger boiled over visibly and an accusatory finger was levelled at the pair of them.

“You two!” he thundered as he stomped his way over. “I have been insulted for the last time! It’s taken years but we’ve finally found my line,” he laughed incredulously. It was almost as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Binding a familiar of the sireless. What the hell is she doing?!”

“You’re going to start a war over that?” Lucy asked without thinking, attracting the black pools of her elder’s eyes. She’d never seen him so menacing. So vampiric.

“I was going to teach her a pointed lesson,” he explained with his claws held out to emphasize his point. “But the tribes have a few scores to settle with the bastards in that house. And I’m not in the mood to hold them back anymore,” Sam concluded with a glance toward the leaders of his community. Lucy briefly looked to the venerable and respected vampires, dressed for a fight and resting weapons on their laps. It took some bravery to stare directly into the frontlines of the enemy, she’d give them that. One side had numbers, the other had years of training and superior weaponry. Experts in fighting other vampires. Whichever way the battle went, it would be a bloodbath.

“This is how you behave without my wife? Settling old scores the second her back’s turned?” Livia accused with a level of condemnation the Brit felt wasn’t entirely genuine. Did she think pointing out hypocrisy would snap him out of it? “You’re lucky Safiya isn’t here to see this, or she’d slap you into the bay.”

“So you’re the only ones who get to pick up a sword?” Sam snarled in kind, to the burbling agreement of his sirelings. “We tried to be nice for centuries and look where it got us.”

Lucy zoned out of the conversation briefly, wracking her brain for any useful memories Sulis might have had. All the letters she’d written warning him not to trust the colonists, to aid her in retaking the New World for vampires were not helpful. He was probably in the mood to do it. Though as she looked over her shoulder, she was reminded of the brutality of the clans. Before Sulis wrapped them in a nice, neat mythology, they’d been at each other’s throats just as much as humanity. Then it hit her.

“They want you to attack,” Lucy breathed with wide eyes. She was no tactician but the mentality, the thought process was what clinched it. They needed this. They needed the excuse. Sam began making a pithy comment about not being incompetent, only to be shushed by his junior. “This isn’t about a sodding fight!” she snarled as the older vampires refused to be quieted. “Fulcrum up until this point has been all about looking reasonable. Looking respectable. Look at them now; aggressive, challenging, seizing on this provocation. Ansa isn’t in ch-argh!” the mousy vampire observed before her shoulder exploded into a blinding hail of blood.

She sank to her knee, gripping her shoulder with gritted fangs. Sam demanded a shotgun to fire back, only for Lucy to counter him. Sigrun was calling the shots and under her guidance there’d be no survivors. A younger member of the tribes, a woman with kind eyes, ran forward with a hip flask in her hand. The ground exploded to her left, causing her to stagger in surprise.

“Who gives a damn who’s in charge?! Or the moral high ground?” Sam challenged, pumping the shotgun. “They shot you for talking out of turn, do you really want to defend them?!”

“Tell Ansa to call them off. To invite you inside. Call it a favour to me” Lucy grunted through a slick of sweat on her brow. Nobody had ever told her getting shot would hurt so much. It burned like liquid metal racing into her skin, the air acting like a catalyst to the reaction. She took the kind woman’s hand as she got close, allowing herself to be dragged behind the line of RVs that had become an impromptu barricade. “They either obey her, or she’ll start killing them until they do,” she grunted with a weak smile toward Sam, hoping the prospect would at least tempt him to try. She had to have faith that his Peacemaker title wasn’t just PR.

Lucy allowed her shoulder to be bandaged, anxiety twisting away in her gut as she expected the hail of gunfire any second. Livia was with her in the van, fussing over the technique and rummaging through the cupboards for a quicker remedy. The Brit felt her bones slither back into place, righting themselves like ghoulish bricks. With it came the thirst and the steady eroding of her good will. The sole thing that had spared Fulcrum was Lucretia and the two remaining wives. Hana and Mary didn’t deserve that carnage either, if they were still in the manor. She briefly considered borrowing Livia’s phone. One word to Cavendish and she could have her own personal gang of malcontents. A gang that she wouldn’t mind throwing at the thugs for a second.

Sam entered the RV a half hour later, a snake wrapped around his arm. Lucy imagined it was one of his familiars. An assumption vindicated as it slithered into his clothes and out of existence. He was flanked by two heavily armed guards, their grim expressions something that was probably meant to scare her. Even if she weren’t immortal, she didn’t exactly want to be there.

“They agreed to let me try,” Sam spoke mildly. “I contacted Ansa like you asked, namedropped you to get her on side like you thought,” he continued with a cavalier lean against the counter. “Apparently, she’s not trying to become sireless. She wants to know why you are. Isn’t that something? The great philanthropist Ansa is also trying to compel Tallas to open the entrance to the Castle of Doors.” He then stood, eyes flicking toward the manor with a hungry, baleful expression. “She’ll let just me, you and the wives into the basement. Everyone else has to wait on her. I can see why my sister loved her. They’re very similar” Sam informed her pithily with his arms folded.

“You’ve got a slim chance to avoid deaths tonight,” Lucy whimpered as she sat upright. Her hand clenched her bindings, her sireless face brought out by the night’s events. “I don’t give a shit about your ancient grudges. You owe it to Lucretia, me and every baby-faced newfang in your tribes to try.” She then rolled from the bed, bracing herself against Livia with a breath to stem the tide of agony that washed over her senses. She could feel the buckshot being squeezed out of her wounds.

“Sulis and me are going to have a chat when she gets back,” Sam growled reluctantly as he towered above her. “And I warn you now if this is a trap you’ll suffer before I….”

Lucy’s fist cracked across his jaw, sending the older sireless into the wall with a surprised expression mirrored by his guards who immediately pulled up their guns. Livia grabbed one, using the butt to knock its owner to the ground before levelling it at the head of his fellow. Her heel came to rest directly under the chin of the floored guard. The kind woman who’d fed Lucy blood looked aghast, betrayed yet somehow vindicated. An expression that became confused once Lucy voiced her scorn.

“Don’t threaten me, fucking shitheel!” the mousy woman bellowed with a claw digging into Sam’s chest. “I’m done being treated like a kid. Like a thing. All I wanted was to find somewhere that wasn’t absurd! Somewhere safe!” she spoke haltingly through laboured breaths, trying to get a handle on her temper. “The only time I’ve felt safe is when I was staring into the eyes of a decapitated head. Do you know how fucked up that is?” Lucy said desperately, trying to reach her elder. She didn’t know why now, why there but she had to tell someone. Anyone. “I drank Ansa’s blood because I wanted the power. I wanted to make my own decisions. To stop being the victim.”

Sam looked up from his staggered position his own claws receding as he realised, he was in no danger. The realisation was entirely darker than that. He nodded reluctantly, indicating to his guard. With a wary stare, the young vampire lowered his weapon. Livia snorted before shoving the shotgun into the arms of the recovering man on the ground.

“You didn’t punch me just then, did you?” Sam asked, his fingers rubbing his chin where she’d definitely hit him. Though Lucy did catch his point, nodding glumly. He cast about for a moment, anger and reason battling against each other. The same conflict that had raged in her not so long ago. One that had been eroding his psyche for centuries, she imagined. “Even if she’s telling the truth, there will be restitution. But if there’s any chance I can help my people, I have to try.”

“Tallas isn’t just your spirit, Sam” Livia snarled with a resentful look toward the armed vampires. “I notice Safiya isn’t throwing a fit over this. Are you sure this isn’t just the occasion rather than the reason?” the blonde woman needled with a contemptuous air. While it wasn’t helping, Lucy couldn’t blame her.

“We’ll see soon enough, won’t we?” Sam sniped with suspicious sweetness as he descended the steps. Even as he walked, he seemed to doubt himself with furtive glances toward the chiefs. There was probably going to be a little diplomacy of his own even if everything came up roses. He gave orders to them in his mother tongue, forgetting that it was a language Sulis spoke. Lucy stared daggers at his back as they crossed No Man’s Land toward the busses that held the Fulcrum. Livia helped her along, insisting she take a look at the shoulder when they had a moment.

“Hey Sam, why did you order them to burn down the house if you weren’t back in two hours?” the Brit piped up with an acidic tongue. He whipped around to look her over, eyes searching as he did the work. Realising his mistake, he sighed. Livia’s enraged questioning would likely alert the enemy if he didn’t respond.

“The fastest the ritual can be performed is two hours,” he answered meaningfully. “Even if she started before now, I could easily disrupt it. Then she has to start again after killing Livia and disposing of us two.” He spoke far too casually about their impending defeat. Then again, this was the woman that had effortlessly bound a room full of vampires. Though the element of surprise had been key to that, apparently. That was probably a lie too. Just another grain in the shifting sands beneath her feet wherever she walked.

The busses parted with visible reluctance, almost as if trying to entice Sam into a tantrum. None of the three visitors were impressed as they revealed Sigrun with her arms crossed, leaning casually against a car belonging to Gunnar. The man himself was pale, standing in the bombed-out entrance to the once grand old house. The shieldmaiden looked the three of them over with a cocky smile, righting herself to lead them into the manor. Lucy watched Sam’s fingers twitch as she chided him for his poor formations and lacklustre rearguard. If she were not merciful, to hear her tell it, the sneakthieves he’d sent to break in would be making their way out eleven pounds lighter. More likely, Gunnar had been holding her back. He certainly looked worried enough.

“What would Sulis say of this?” he piped up as the three guests filed past. The other two wives had been brought to the bar with shotguns positioned between their shoulder blades. “We cannot expect to hold her wives at gunpoint and get away with it Sigrun!”

“She’s made it perfectly clear where she stands,” she responded with a snarl before instructing him to be quiet. He looked to each wife apologetically before making some excuse about checking on the troops.

Sam smirked to himself as he stood before the basement door, leaning against its frame with a casual peruse through his phone. Lucy shared his sentiment as she checked on Francheska and Auset. Both seemed fine, if incredibly annoyed. Fulcrum didn’t view them as the royal family after all. Polyamory was far too old as a concept for their average age. Somewhere in the two hundreds, last she checked. But her mirth died as she placed a hand on the basement door, and it became incredibly real. Then it dawned on her.

“Where’s Mary and Hana?” Lucy asked with a dangerous tone. One that even Sam seemed to respect, given the quirking of his eyebrow. Sigrun’s tall frame wheeled around at the mention of the counsellor and her fiancé.

“We were going to order them a car back to the city, but they refused,” she answered with a polite expression. The taunting tone dampened that slightly. “I suggested Canvedish’s cells. But Ansa wanted them to bear witness. Whatever that means,” she concluded, shrugging as she returned to her duties overseeing the siege. She did order her guards to hurry them along first, resulting in all five of them being shoved through the door and almost careening down the stairs. Sam and Livia supported the rest of them as they found their feet before Ansa’s antics were revealed to them.

The room’s furniture had been effectively demolished, useable wood repurposed for charms and wards. The rest had been piled in the corners, leaving a ring of stones marked with runes Lucy didn’t recognize in the centre. The runes had been written in blood, though whose none of them could tell. Mary and Hana stood with uncomfortable gazes cast to the creature held in a circle of yew branches. Ansa stood before it, sweat coursing over her forehead as she resisted the sheer might of Tallas. The five of them entered the basement with cautious steps as the ghoulish spirit directed her red pinpricks to them. Her smile widened ever further, splitting her cheeks with its absurdity.

“Livia, what the fuck is that?” Mary asked with stilted breaths, holding her fiancé within a tight embrace. “Looks like Sulis when she was starvin’ turned up to eleven.”

“Her name is Tallas,” Sam explained in a bright, clear voice that attracted Ansa’s attention. She smiled at him briefly before some unseen struggle forced her back into concentration. “Once, a woman dared to look into the realm of the dead. And it looked back into her. She gained prodigious power over the spirits, raising them to serve her tribe. Eventually, she taught others these skills,” he continued as he circled the grinning spectre. “Her tribe were never as good as her though. She couldn’t save them when a confederacy of tribes tried to end their unnatural ways,” he spoke as if recounting a trip to the shops. Lucy was becoming just as uncomfortable as the doctor and her love. “They gouged out her eyes, ripped out her tongue, smashed her teeth, cut off her fingers and then just to make sure the job was done set her on fire.” Sam sighed and looked up at the woman with something approaching sympathy. It quickly vanished as the spirit said something in a language only three of them spoke. Lucy shuddered. “No wonder you hate them so much. No wonder you made us” he smiled sadly before holding a hand up for the two women. “This, Mary, is your progenitor. The ultimate creator of vampirism.”

“Yeah, well she fuckin’ looks it too,” the former hunter spat back with her voice in her throat.

“Gratifying though this contest has been, fair Ansa, I am loathe to entertain thou further,” Tallas cackled. She shattered the bindings with a wave of her hand, splinters flying across the room. They dove to the ground, Lucy howling with pain as her shoulder hit the deck. She barely translated what the spirit said next. “In intoxicating arrogance, thou have sought my wisdom without ken to its cost. Oh what glorious, depraved cruelty thou hath invited upon this star,” she laughed derisively. It sounded like a death rattle or a smoker’s cough. Ansa turned white with realisation, demanding to know what had been released. “No spirit has let slip its fetters. Rather thou hath granted it the means to. The black goat comes for thy souls.”

The room grew cold as Sam finished translating for the benefit of the wives and their guests. Lucy felt her stomach drop from her, pain melting away as that cursed name was uttered again. The creature Kariwase had betrothed her to. Her hand ached for Sulis’ axe, her eyes searching for his neck as she struggled against fate or whatever it was.

“Did the black goat do this to me?!” Lucy demanded in the language Sulis spoke to her with. It was approximate, clunky with poor pronunciation. But Tallas got the gist of it if her predatory stare was any indication. If her sadism granted answers, then so much the better.

“This did not originate from the beyond” Tallas purred chidingly, allowing time for the translation. “The bullet of Edward Cavendish shattered the designs of the one thou knowest as Sam. In her doldrums upon the ocean of reincarnation, the soul of Sulis was misshapen by the spell he and she contrived. Her anxious claws dug furrows into thy very being. And when circumstance did tear her away, those fatal flaws remained.” Lucy turned her furious eyes on Sam, remembering well how he’d chosen to look the other way. He looked to the ground, refusing to finish until Livia barked at him to do so. “Oh but lest we heap scorn upon the undeserving and allow the guilty clemency, I turn now to thee, sweet Ansa” Tallas continued, tapping her clawed finger against her chest with relish. “For thy callous choice of guardians, trusting Lucy did fall under the fangs of Francois, sireling of Guy. In her resultant desperation, she fled into my embrace. And into those fecund furrows, the blood of a vampire flowed.”

With her conclusion hanging in the air, the ancient spirit soaked in the hammer blow of what she’d revealed. Not a single soul in the room knew who to point the finger at. A few of them were none the wiser as to why Lucy had become sireless. But she knew. In her heart she’d always known. Almost thirty years spent in the embrace of an ancient vampire’s soul had damaged her beyond repair. Vampirism had simply tried to fix what remained. Defeated was an understatement. She’d been cowed, shrugging helplessly. Her shoulder seethed, reminding her of the wriggling muscle tissue regrowing beneath the gauze.

“If anyone can fix ‘er it’s you. So fix it!” Mary demanded of Tallas, who gave her a condescending stare in response once Sam relayed it to her.

“The condition of the sireless is not imparted without. It is imposed from within” the shade relented to explain before turning the full force of her supernatural gaze on the huddled form of Lucy. “In the soundness of thy judgement, thou drank deep of Ansa’s veins. Thou did so with a heart diseased by vengeance. A cruelty wished upon another” Tallas surmised approvingly. Of course she would. Her very existence had been fuelled by the same burning hatred longer than most of them could comprehend. She cocked her head to the side as if listening to something, attracting Lucy’s glare. “I leave you in the frigid knowledge thou sought. My mistress calls” she grinned wide then, sharp teeth revealed to be growing even on her mandibles. With one final cruel cackle, she vanished into the ether.

Livia’s phone began to ring, the blonde staring in disbelief before answering. It was Sulis. But Lucy was beyond paying attention. She could only look at Sam with abject disdain. But she wasn’t interested in hurting him. What would be the point? There were only two names on her list as she heard that the blood-soaked Draugr Queen would soon be returning to them, entourage in tow. Kariwase was obviously there and had no shortage of newfangs ready to take his head. But the other would need the max axewoman of New Orleans. As she rose to her feet, she began to plot his downfall, noting that Fulcrum probably needed dealing with.

“Forgive me my lies. How have you been?” Ansa pleaded, suddenly upon her as the Brit had turned to leave. She looked back with a mild expression. “I was hoping to avoid this very thing” the ancient witch confessed with some sheepishness.

“My wife wants to speak to you when she arrives in a few hours,” Livia informed Ansa stiffly. She wore an expression of a condemned woman, gripping Lucy’s good shoulder supportively. She smiled before looking at Sam.

“Well if you’re both looking for ways to make it up to me,” she began with a soft voice. “Bring me the head of Edward Cavendish.”