Following the trail of Benjamin’s magic wasn't easy. Robert knew that there was so much distraction from other sorcerers: Camden Town was traditionally the home of magic wielders. At least for the kind who preferred to look like a magician from a child book or a music video from the early 2000s: they wore long colourful coats or capes, or a lot of black with heavy make-up, all sorts of silly hats and they usually had a staff or cheap plastic cane to cast all five spells they remembered from high school.

Not like I can do even one of them now, Robert had to remind himself. He was still trying to make his peace with this thought, and he already knew that it was going to be a long journey.

Not unlike the one they had now, as they frequently had to turn back and pick up the lead again. Jenna did her best, obviously, but this kind of tracking wasn't her field of expertise. In fact, it was nobody's: tracking and searching spells were one thing, but this was a whole new level even Robert didn't know existed.

Jenna seemed paler and more tired every time she had to start over and Robert wanted to say something. On the other hand, he didn't want Jenna to think he was over protecting, because apparently in these modern times you can worry too much for the people you cared about.

After almost two hours, Jenna spotted a building and said that must be it.

'Are you sure?' asked Marcus.

'No, I'm not, but we should check it out anyway,' she replied in a half-annoyed, half-nervous voice.

The place was an old Underground train station, long out of order. It was small, probably only featuring two platforms. The ground around was framed by a tall metal fence. Half-rotten empty pallets were stocked up in two-metre-high towers and some kind of stubborn weed grew in the cracks of the concrete.

'The lock is new,' said Marcus. 'And there are some fresh-looking marks, too. Someone opened the gate recently, that much is for sure.'

'Let's go then,' said Robert. He saw Marcus' face and knew his friend wanted to suggest that he should stay in the car. He probably would have added some transparent excuse, such as "somebody has to stay and run the engine in case we need to leave in a hurry", but before he could do any of that, Robert got out of the car.

'I doubt there is a back door here,' noted Marcus once they all were out. 'So I guess we need to go in front. Unless we want to find out what line is running underneath and wanna walk in from there, but only to get the permission would take at least a day…'

'No, this ends now,' said Robert. 'Can some of you see how many people are in there?'

Marcus raised his wand and the Runes of Body and Vision lit up. The answer turned out to be five. One of them must have been Benjamin, obviously.

'I'm not sure but I think there is a vampire too. Maybe two, I am bad at detecting spells.'

'Dude, that's your job,' pointed out Jenna.

'Part of it. Never said I'm good at it, by the way.'

Jenna shook her head and looked at Robert with concerned eyes.

'Shall we call someone? Teodore is working, but Remy could be here in twenty minutes, the office is not that far…'

'No, it's going to be alright. We have you, that's enough.'

She smiled abashed and kissed him quickly when Marcus looked the other way. The big padlock was magical, but it didn't cause any more trouble for Jenna than the one at the ghoul-cemetery. Marcus made a vacuum around the gate so it won't make any noise when they open it. Once they were behind it, they left it open.

There were two doors, a big metal one covering the entrance the commuters once used to get in, and a smaller wooden one for the workers. Jenna opened that latter one and they saw a small office with walls mostly made out of glass and some older looking, dust-covered screens built into the table. The place was empty both in the office and outside the hall, Benjamin and his keepers must have been downstairs, at one of the platforms

'Is there any chance we can make the CCTV work?' asked Jenna looking at the monitors.

'There is no CCTV,' answered Robert, pointing up in the corner of the hall with his cane. From a hole in the wall a few wires coiled into nothing. 'They must have taken everything remotely useful when they closed down this place.'

'So let's go down I guess,' said Marcus, raising his silver magic wand.

There was a clear path on the dusty floor leading to one of the escalators. It was out of order. They walked quietly.

'If we just walk down here, they will curse us into oblivion before we reach the bottom of the stairs,' whispered Marcus. 'Any idea?'

'Do you remember the game when Claire Penn beat O'Brien?' asked Robert from Jenna. She grinned.

'I can do that, yeah.'

The girl magicked all of them to be invisible. Robert was amazed again about the ease she did it: for him, it would have taken minutes to figure out the exact way. They walked down very slowly on the metal steps.

The platform was small, not even long enough for a full train. It was furnished with plastic chairs, a table and an old sofa. Benjamin sat in one of the chairs, his arms tied up behind his back, his face covered by a bloodied canvas bag. A tall, athletic blond woman stood beside him, talking to a black man with long dreadlocks. The woman was Magda, Robert recognised her from the selfies Jenna showed them. The man must have been a sorcerer, because he had a lot of rings on his fingers, all of them with different Runes.

'Listen, babe, I get it, the guy did a horrible thing and you want revenge,' he said. 'I am angry too. But he is a fucking Montgomery. His brother will come for him and he will kill all of us. I say beat him up one more time if you want, or I don't know, cut off the fucking rapist's dick, he deserves it, really. But then let's move on, okay? Don't let him ruin our lives.'

Magda shook her pretty head, blond locks were flying everywhere. Marcus silently put a spell on the girl who was sleeping on the sofa to make sure she won't wake up for a while.

'You don't understand. Nobody understands,' Magda said in a weepy voice. 'I cannot move on until he is dead. He saw our faces anyway. There is no other way.'

'Petra can mess up his memory, she is good at that kinda spells. We can walk away, babe,' the man took Magda's hand, but she ripped it away and a teardrop rolled down on her pale face.

'You don't love me, Aren, you never did. This is not a game, do you understand? We can't half-assing it. And the older Montgomery is in hospital, don't you read the news? We can kill this piece of crap here and then take care of him as well, he is in a coma. And then we can go away! Yes, together, and nobody will follow us!'

Aren took a step back.

'Babe, you are scaring me. You are talking about murdering people. I love you but that's not what we were talking about when we started this.'

Magda made an impatient move, her face was almost angry now.

'They are just Montgomerys, the city will be grateful that we got rid of them.'

'As true as it might be, I'm afraid you missed your chance,' said Robert. 'Now step away and lower all of your weapons before I raise mine.'

Aren's face went straight up terrified as he saw Robert stepping out the cover of the invisibility spell. He would have obeyed without a second thought, but Magda was made out of different material. She tried to grab Benjamin's throat, but Jenna's spell pushed her away.

Seeing his lady collapsing at the bottom of the wall made Aren braver, and he shot a sparkling ball of something at Robert, who avoided it by stepping aside. Magda got up and jumped at Marcus, who wasn't invisible anymore. She never reached the man, because Robert swung his cane like it was a baseball bat and got her in the stomach. He pushed the button for the taser too, just to be on the safe side. It was made against vampires, after all.

'Where is the last one?' asked Jenna, dodging a chair Aren threw at her. 'There was one more when…' she couldn't finish because a spell came out of nowhere and hit her in the middle of her back. The leather jacket protected her but she stumbled forward anyway and would have fallen onto the rails if Robert didn't manage to grab on her jacket at the last moment.

The next curse came from behind again and blew a hole into the ground next to Robert's feet. He pushed aside Jenna and turned to face the attacker. He trusted in the defensive magic sewn into his coat and sure enough, the next attack died ineffectively.

The sorcerer was a kid, or almost one, Robert thought him even younger than Remy Durant. But he had a metre-long stick with Runes and he knew how to use them. Robert didn't stand a chance, he couldn't even get close enough to use his cane before the boy knocked him down. It would have ended very badly if it wasn't for Jenna. Once she found her balance again, she was pissed because someone shot her in the back and then she saw Robert on the ground which didn't make her any more peaceful. The boy was no match for her, the duel was over in five seconds.

From the floor, laying on the edge of the platform Robert could see everything that was happening. Marcus got Benjamin, threw him over his shoulder like a bag and was going for the escalator. Magda left her friends behind, she was already in the tunnel, escaping. The other girl, presumably Petra, was still sleeping on the couch. Aren was working on something big, Runes were glowing on his fingers and he aimed for Jenna, who just started to turn around. She might have seen the curse coming, but there was no time for her to react. Robert raised his cane, imagined the unbreakable magical wall that could save Jenna, he gave everything he had, every last one drop of his will and the Runes lit up on the silver top… Then nothing happened. He couldn't cast the spell. Aren's curse struck Jenna in the face and she fell on the floor.

Robert used his cane to lean on it while he got up. He didn't care about magic anymore, he knew that he could tear the man apart with his bare hands, but before he was properly on his feet, Marcus took Aren out with a casual spell he just made with the flick of his wand.

'Come on, mate, help Jenna and let's go. I wanna get out of here before that crazy bitch brings some back-up.'

Jenna wasn't unconscious but perplexed. She could walk which was a good thing because Robert didn't think he could carry her in his condition. It was hard enough to put her arm around his neck and support her up on the stairs and out of the building.

'What happened?' she asked in a blurry voice. 'Where is Robert?'

That was a bad sign.

'I think we need to go straight back to the hospital, Marcus,' he said. 'Jenna got hit with something nasty.'

'Yeah, Benjamin doesn't look better either,' Marcus answered with an angry voice. He was a couple of steps ahead, limped under the weight of Benjamin. 'Motherfuckers cut all over his forearms so he couldn't use his tattoos. He lost a lot of blood, that bitch probably fed on him too… Let's hope she didn't infect him.'

That was a new, even more terrifying thought. In Robert's opinion, one Montgomery losing his magic was more than enough for the week.

They reached the little office then the exit.

'I will drive, you stay with them and see if you can help,' he said as he put Jenna carefully onto the back seat. She wanted to climb out so he fastened her seatbelt. In her state she couldn't figure out how to open it.

'On a second thought…' said Marcus to Jenna who was looking at him with her huge brown eyes, as he sat down next to her 'You should probably stay with the old man, Jenna. I really didn't like your ex…'

And off they went, back to the hospital Robert just left that morning.