"What do you mean?" Mrs. Fisher asked me a half an hour later when I told her the same thing.

I was sitting with her and her husband - who looked to be a few years older than she was and whose short black hair was just starting to turn what I felt was going to be a distinguished iron color - in their living room. Athena sat beside me, half turned towards the stairs in the hallway just outside the room.

"I think we got started on shaky footing," I said. "I arrived and started searching for clues as if the problem were definitely a Nosferatu. As I'm sure you're aware, even a single Nosferatu represents a critical public health danger, so we tend to react in specific ways to it. But what I've seen so far doesn't suggest the presence of one."

"How so?" Mr. Fisher asked. His voice was deep and calm, the voice of a reassuring patriarch.

"There were no tracks in the back yard, for starters." I pursed my lips thoughtfully. "While it's possible that a Nosferatu could reach your house without crossing the yard - from the rooftops of neighboring houses - it doesn't seem very likely. We would have seen displaced shingles from the roof lying in the side yards...you don't make a jump like that without putting a lot of pressure on the surface you're taking off from. And you certainly don't land without a pretty significant impact. Barring those approaches, it would have left tracks somewhere in your front or back yard as it approached and left, but Artemis and I couldn't find any."

I paused for a moment, then continued. "Artemis did get the scent of decay all over your back yard, but that could be any number of things; it could even be a side effect of the compost heap you have by your shed. It wouldn't be noticeable to us, but Artemis's sense of smell is quite a bit more sensitive than ours.

"By the time we came inside," I went on, "I was beginning to think we weren't dealing with a Nosferatu. What I found when I cast the diagnostic spell over Billy confirmed it. I had expected to find indication of injuries on his neck, around his thighs or down by his ankles - vampires will sometimes drink blood from the arteries in those places rather than the neck, as it's considerably less obvious and people rarely think to look there."

I gathered Anima to cast a particularly useful - if fairly simple - spell, then spread my hands, displaying an image of the results of the diagnostic spell between them. "Instead, I found this. The red marks indicate points of injury. In this case, they line up with his Chakra points."

"What does that mean?" Mrs. Fisher asked in confusion.

"The short version is this: Chakra points are where energy flows in and out of the body," I replied. "In a healthy body, those points would have been a deep blue or green, or even a radiant gold in certain cases. What this means is that whatever visited him drained energy, not blood - it was a psychic attack, not a physical one. So it can't be a Nosferatu."

"Which means it wasn't our daughter?" Mr. Fisher asked, some hope in his voice.

"Correct," I nodded. "It was something else entirely."

Mr. Fisher ran his hands through his hair. He and his wife both looked relieved, in a sickened sort of way. It must be a hard thing to feel glad that a beloved family member is genuinely dead rather than undead. Finally, he said, "We still have a problem, though. How do you plan to proceed?"

"Exactly the way I originally intended," I said. "Athena, Artemis and I will spend the night in Billy's room and around the house - either Athena or I will be with him at all times tonight. If something comes to feed on him, we'll be there to stop it."

"Thank you, Mage Kinnear," Mr. Fisher said earnestly. "You have no idea how much your help means to us."

I smiled. "I'm glad we can help."

Athena and I ate dinner with Billy in his room - he was too exhausted to go downstairs to eat, so we opted to keep him company. Having company that was closer to his own age than his parents - sort of - seemed to cheer him up. Without having to discuss it, my familiars and I decided that we would try to raise his spirits before it was time for bed.

After dinner, Billy and I taught Athena how to play poker, a game at which the thirteen year-old boy was entirely too good. If we'd been playing for something other than plastic chips, he would have cleaned us both out. Artemis behaved entirely too much like a normal kitten rather than a full-grown snow leopard, peeking over the edge of Billy's bed until he laughed and dangled a bit of string for her to bat at.

While he was trying to teach Athena to make a cat's cradle using another piece of string - an exercise which I felt was very good for her still-developing manual dexterity - I saw his parents standing in the doorway watching and rose to speak with them.

"It's good to hear him laugh again," Mr. Fisher said quietly. "Thank you for that."

"He's barely said two words to anyone since Jane died," Mrs. Fisher added, "And the last two days he's been so pale and quiet it was like he was fading away."

"What about Rose and Phillip?" I asked curiously. "I haven't seen them yet."

"They've gone to spend the night with friends," Mr. Fisher replied. "We thought it might be better if they weren't underfoot tonight."

I nodded. "That's wise."

Billy laughed again and all three of us looked over to see him clutching his stomach with one hand and pointing at Athena with the other. Athena, for her part, was putting on a very good show of having managed to get her fingers tangled in the string. Artemis had her paws on Athena's leg and was peering at the tangled mess with apparent fascination.

"Your familiars are darlings," Mrs. Fisher said with a smile. "You're very lucky."

"I know," I said with absolute sincerity. "I've only had them for several weeks and I'd already be lost without them."

"Several weeks?" Mr. Fisher asked in surprise and with curiosity. "I would have guessed they'd been with you since you were little. You seem very close with them."

"Some of that is the magic that makes them my familiars. But also…I saved their lives," I replied quietly.

He nodded his understanding. "That does change things, doesn't it."

I looked at him curiously.

"I was a soldier in the Britannian Royal Marines," he answered my unasked question. "Saving someone's life creates a powerful bond. As my wife said, you're very lucky."

We all fell silent, watching Billy help Athena disentangle her fingers from the string. Finally, Mr. Fisher spoke again. "Are you expecting trouble tonight?"

I considered the question seriously, thinking about everything I'd learned since arriving at their house. I was fairly certain we weren't dealing with a Nosferatu, which was a tremendous relief. But that left me without much to go on for figuring out what we were dealing with, except that it appeared to be a psychic vampire rather than a physical one.

Which didn't really narrow things down at all.

"I'm honestly not certain," I replied finally. "It's best to be cautious in this sort of situation, especially when all I have are theories and thin evidence."

"Is there anything we can do?" He asked softly, his voice almost pleading with me to say yes.

It's never easy to feel helpless, especially for a soldier, even an ex-soldier. As part of my training, Master Tremane had made a point of at least once a year putting me in a situation where I was seemingly powerless to affect the outcome. Partly it was to teach me to think on my feet and make use of every available resource, but mostly it was to show me that helpless feeling and to remind me that even magic can't solve every problem. So I thought hard. Even the smallest thing I could give them to do might make them feel a bit better about the situation.

Plans change. Instead of patrolling, it might be better if Athena, Artemis and I all spent the night in Billy’s room. In which case…

"You can seal the house," I said. "Make sure all of the doors and windows are closed and locked. If you have sea salt, outline the bottom of every window and door with a thin, unbroken line of it."

"What will that do?" Mrs. Fisher asked.

"Even if I'm mistaken, it'll make it harder for certain types of entity to enter the house," I replied. "To the point that it'll restrict where that type of entity can enter the house. They'll certainly make a ruckus trying, which will give us a little extra warning."

"And if you're not mistaken?" Mr. Fisher asked.

I shrugged. "Then Athena and I will will be here to keep things relatively in hand and drive off whatever comes. But it's a good precaution to take anyway. I was going to do it myself, so if you could do it instead it'll save me time that I can use to prepare here." I gestured to Billy's room. "And make sure he's going to be safe."

They both nodded and left to do as I asked, and I turned back to the room in time to see Athena produce a perfect cat's cradle. I applauded gently, making her turn in surprise and smile sheepishly.

"I never doubted you could do it," I said, returning to Billy's bedside. "Come on, let's get set up."

"What're you doing now?" Billy asked as Athena carefully disentangled her fingers.

"Well, we're going to set up some things to protect you tonight," I replied, moving to where I'd put my bag down and rummaging in it for materials. "For starters, we're going to raise a magical barrier around your bed, that should keep anything nasty from getting to you." I paused to smile at him. "And because you look like you need a good night's sleep, we're going to make it dampen sounds one-way. That way, we won't disturb you if anything happens, but we'll still be able to hear you if you wake up and need something."

"That's so cool. I want to be a Wizard when I get older," he said with such frank, awed earnestness that I had to smile again.

"Tell you what," I said, returning my attention to my bag. "If you really want to become a wizard, when you're feeling better you get in touch with me and I'll help you find someone to test you to see if you can become one."

"Thanks!"

"You're welcome, Billy. Now, let us work for a bit."

He nodded and fell silent, so we got to work. We started, as I had told him, by setting up defenses for him. Many Mages like to use chalk or markers to draw circles and runes, but I have a fairly tidy mind and that didn't appeal to me. Everything in its place, and no mess left behind. I had discussed the matter at great length with Master Tremane, and we had come up with the idea of using cast iron runestones. They were blocks of iron cast in the shape of perfect cubes, and on each side they had engraved the runes that could made up a fairly complex spell of protection (amongst other things). They were a derivation of the runestones used by Norden spellcasters, and I honestly didn’t understand why Hermetic Wizards eschewed the practice.

One cube went at each corner of Billy's bed, another at his head and one at his foot. Anima was gathered and applied, and in less than a minute he was surrounded by protective energies that would keep out anything that wasn't a human being. Much faster and more efficient than always drawing a new defensive perimeter, and quite a bit less messy.

Not as traditional, though. When I was taking my Mage exams, I discussed them with one of the proctors and he was enraged by the idea of not drawing protective circles everywhere I went. Too bad, Old Boys Network. It works, and it's a heck of a lot faster and cleaner.

Once those were set up, I used the same rune blocks as anchors for the spell of silence I wrapped around Billy's bed. Once that was done, I smiled at him. "Can you hear me?"

He looked at me blankly. "What did you say?"

I smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. It took him a moment to follow, but then he grinned and nodded. As he put his head down on the pillow, he mumbled, "So cool..." again.

Within moments, he was asleep and breathing softly. As I'd suspected, he was exhausted.

Athena closed the bedroom door, then took up a position beside the window and looked out at the back yard. Artemis sprawled across the doorway. Since the door opened outwards, anyone trying to come in would get a nasty surprise. As I've said before, she might only weigh about eighty pounds, but eighty pounds of furious claws and fangs could be deadly.

I sat down beside Billy's bed again and looked around the room.

"What now, Mistress?" Athena asked softly.

"Now we wait," I replied just as quietly. "This is the hardest part of any investigation, even if you know exactly what you're dealing with."

"What do you think we're dealing with?" She asked.

I was silent for a few moments and she turned to look at me. Her eyes, so like my own, begged an answer to the question. This was a new experience for her. We had spent so much time training to fight, and now the second time we were out on our own all we had done so far was look around, talk, and wait.

I smiled a little. "Master Tremane once told me that a wizard's life was largely long periods of studious quiet broken up by brief moments of terrifying panic. The trick, he said, was learning to get by between adrenaline fixes."

Athena blinked, then giggled. "I see. Adrenaline fixes."

"He wasn't entirely wrong," I admitted wryly. "After a while you come to enjoy the rush of doing something potentially dangerous. It's stupid, really."

"It's not stupid," she replied firmly. "It means you enjoy your work."

I raised an eyebrow.

She blushed and shrugged. "That's how it seems to me, anyway."

I laughed softly. "You're probably not far from the truth, love. Well, never mind. Just know that we'll probably be dealing with something nasty before too much longer."

"Back on topic though," she said, making me silently admit that I was dodging her question. "What do you think we're dealing with?"

"I'm honestly not sure," I admitted. "About the only thing I'm confident of is that this isn't a Nosferatu attack. Aside from that, what we've found hasn't told us much. The field is still pretty wide open, so to speak. Unfortunately. I'd be a lot happier if I had a clear picture of the situation, but I feel like something's missing."

"Could it just be that we came into it with a preconceived notion of what we were going to find?"

"That could be it," I said with a nod. "That could very well be it. But I don't think so. I really think some piece of information is missing."

"Well then," she turned to look at me directly, leaning against the windowsill. "How do we go about finding the missing piece of information?"

"That's an excellent question," I smiled wryly, then gave it some serious thought. "If we're dealing with a spiritual entity of some sort, it might have left traces of itself behind. I know a few spells that could reveal such things, but if it's still nearby they'd all give me away."

"What do you mean?"

"That sort of magic makes a mark on the environment. Or rather, it causes the marks made by the creature to become more tangible. It reinforces them and makes them stand out, you might say." I considered for a moment. "It's like firing off a flare gun to follow tracks instead of using a flashlight."

"What would the flashlight be, then?" She asked, smiling.

I tapped the side of my head. "Our brains."

Athena considered that for a moment, then nodded. "You said a couple of weeks ago that we're like detectives. We gather the information like pieces of a puzzle and put it all together."

"Precisely." I moved to stand beside her at the window and gently bumped her shoulder with mine. "Unfortunately, in a situation like this we don't have the luxury of a full investigation. The attack is ongoing and needs to be dealt with quickly. Which usually means it's going to be a bit messy."

"What was it Mr. Ellister said?" She asked with a smile, bumping my shoulder in return. "You can't plan for the unexpected, only prepare for it?"

"Something like that," I smiled and nodded.

Her right hand dropped to rest on the butt of her revolver as she glanced over to where my bottomless bag sat, filled with an incredible array of bits and bobs. "I guess we're as prepared as we can be."

"Now we wait," I sighed and looked out the window. "That's always the hardest part."

It was, too. We turned off the lights to make it easier for Billy to sleep, and to let our eyes acclimate to the darkness outside.

Well...my eyes, anyway. Athena and Artemis had little trouble seeing in the dark. Their superb night vision made me feel a bit hampered, really.

By midnight, Artemis was stretched out on the floor beside Billy's bed, more than half asleep. Athena and I were taking turns standing by the door and window, moving back and forth to keep ourselves alert.

The house was silent, except for the usual soft creaks and pops a house usually makes late at night. We could hear the occasional automobile go by outside, and once the sub-sonic hum of an airship going overhead towards the London docks. The sheer monotony of it made it hard to keep from becoming drowsy.

At one o'clock, I switched places with Athena so that I was at the window. > I said to her through our bond. >

I could feel the palpable relief from her. >

I smiled. As lazy as felines of all breeds can be, once they're keyed up they have a hard time staying still. She silently opened the door and slipped out into the hall, closing it behind her with an almost inaudible click.

> I sent after her.

>

>

>

I sighed and turned my attention fully back to the window.

"I hope it stays this quiet," I whispered to myself. It was going to be a long night.