Saturday. 2:44 PM

The counsellors eyed each other uncomfortably.

“That… was Ben,” Davis said, clearing his throat. “The person the vampire brought us to was Ben.”

“Weird,” I pointed out, “That when you talked to him, he said he hadn’t seen me yesterday. What did the vampire say, out of curiosity?”

“Just that she had the wrong trail,” Murray supplied. “Assuming you’re telling the truth here, we’ll need to have words with her about that.”

I shrugged. “I guess I’ll keep going.”

…

Friday. 10:08 PM

I had no intentions of running. Instead, I found a box to sit on, pulled out my laptop and a cable, and got to work.

There was no escape, not in the long term. My only option was to get the truth out. Maybe it would save me, maybe it wouldn’t, but either way, all this would be for nothing if I didn’t get the message delivered.

First, I took the sim card from the side pocket in my bag, pulled open the side panel on my phone, and popped it in. Plugging in my phone, I dumped the pictures to my computer, groaning as I watched the little loading bar. It only took a couple seconds, but it felt like an eternity, watching the bar move.

Copied, I opened my editing software. I dumped the images onto the front page, squashing a couple to fit them all in, leaving only room for the headline and the first two paragraphs of my article. The rest was continued on the next page.

It was sloppy as hell. There was no time to make anything look pretty. Most of the ad slots were just open paper, save for the one I’d managed to secure with Buck’s Books. None of the articles had a final edit for polish. Under any other circumstance, I’d be mortified to publish something in such an ugly, half-finished state.

“Desperate times,” I muttered, tapping the ‘export’ button so it would be converted to a file I could send to the printers.

A ‘rendering’ bar appeared. Estimated time: Two minutes. My laptop didn’t have an internet connection, so once that was done, I’d need to copy it to my phone so I could email it to my editor.

I groaned again, watching it move.

Outside, I heard a noise. Looking up sharply, I put down the phone, sticking it in my bag. There was still twenty seconds left on the render, but I closed the screen most of the way, so the light wouldn’t give me away.

I got to my feet, stepping away, biting my tongue so I wouldn’t call out on reflex.

Across the factory floor, I heard footsteps. Did they figure out the stunt with Ben already?

Hiding behind one of the cauldrons, I peered around the side, watching.

Agnita was dressed in her full counsellor uniform. Tactical vest, enchanted robes, wands, Glock. And she looked pissed.

Hovering above her unbroken hand was a glittering golden pin, which was pointed vaguely towards the window, towards… her bag. She walked up to the messenger bag, nudged it with her foot as the needle stayed hovering above her hand, pointed towards the bag. She’d used a tracking spell, and it had led her right to me.

Looking up, her eyes fell on me.

Crap.

I stepped out from the cauldron, hands raised, eyes darting to my laptop. “I surrender!”

“You’re damned right you do,” she growled. “Put your hands behind your head. You’re under arrest.”

Obeying her instructions, I said, “Can I ask you a question?”

Her stare was intense as she took a set of handcuffs off her belt, walking towards me. “Anything you say can be used against you, so go ahead.”

I watched her until I couldn’t anymore, as she stepped behind me to cuff my hands, grabbing a wrist with her good hand. “What happened to Andrea?”

For just a second, her grip faltered. She recovered, snapping the steel around one wrist and moving to the other, twisting my arms around so that my hands were near the small of my back. I could probably have given her trouble, since she did this all with one arm, but provoking her seemed like a bad idea. “What do you mean?”

“You went to confront her because she found out about all this,” I said, gesturing with a nod. “Something happened, and you shot her in the struggle. I just want to know how it went down.”

With a ‘click’, my other wrist was locked into the cuffs, and my arms were stuck uncomfortably behind my back.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t get into town until just before sunset.” She stepped back. “Sit down, while I call this in.”

I dropped down to my knees, and regretted it when my shins sent up an alarm of pain. “I know a counsellor did it, and it was an accident. It doesn’t matter, I just need to know, for myself.”

Stepping around so she was standing in front of me, her expression was genuinely baffled. “Andrea’s death was a tragic coincidence. It was a home invasion, we think.”

I wasn’t good at reading people. If she was lying, though, I would have given her an academy award for best actress. “You believe that.”

Glaring at me, she reached for the radio on her vest, but she stopped before thumbing the button on the side. Wind was whistling through the window that hadn’t been there before.

She faced the hole in the window, tensing. The wind grew stronger, louder, until a shape vaulted through, landing with grace and poise.

Flashing her teeth, the vampire said, “Clever, cattle. Trading your scent with the other cows. But now your time has come.”

“He’s in my custody,” Agnita said, quickly. “He’s off the menu. He’s an asshole, but he’s not done anything that deserves the death penalty.”

The vampire’s laugh was rich velvet and amber, and it echoed through the warehouse. “You think I’m falling for that again?”

“It’s true.”

The vampire’s eyes narrowed. “My handler says you’re not even in town. You don’t have jurisdiction here. I think that gives me plausible deniability. Are you going to make me work for it?” She balled her hands into fists, making her knuckles crack. “Because I’d deeply enjoy that.”

“More counsellors are just behind her!” I snapped. “Just hold her off!”

Agnita twitched in acknowledgment, but my shout had ended the standoff. The vampire wasn’t going to wait any longer, not now that Agnita knew about the time pressure. She lunged.

The counsellor still wasn’t ready to let me die, but she didn’t have the same readiness for battle she’d had that evening. She was tired and hurt, while the vampire seemed as fresh as ever, and the disparity became clear the moment they clashed.

Agnita whipped out a wand, spinning it between her fingers to raise a shield. The vampire’s claws hit raw power and glanced off. The counsellor started to strike out with her other hand, an act of instinct, and she had to convert the attack into an elbow strike that lacked the reach and power to do real damage.

The vampire responded with a flick of her wrist, lashing out her nails and drawing blood along Agnita’s arm. A glancing blow, but still an ominous sign that she’d drawn first blood.

I stopped watching the fight and concentrated on my own predicament.

Standing was awkward, and wouldn’t help me much. I needed my hands to be free, or at least to be in front of my body. Rolling onto my back, I pulled my legs up to my chest, trying to shimmy my wrists down so that I could get them free.

I need to stretch more.

Agnita had whipped out a wand, and bolts of static power were cascading towards the vampire, but it seemingly had no more effect than to irritate her. There just wasn’t enough power for her to draw on.

That, or the vampire was just that strong.

That’s when I noticed that Agnita didn’t have her runestone. There wasn’t a holy symbol in play, not from her, and certainly not from me. Nothing to hold back the vampire’s preternatural strength.

Groaning, I pulled my legs even tighter, wiggling my feet to make room for the cuffs to slip by. It was a narrow thing, but I got them around, and I had my hands free.

Now, what to do with them. I could go for a holy symbol, but there was nothing in that bag that I believed in. I couldn’t help in the fight. I could run, throw myself to the counsellors’ mercy, but I still had something I needed to do before I was arrested.

I dashed over to my laptop, opened the screen, and checked the render. It was done. Taking the file, I dragged it over, copying it to my phone, still connected by a cable to the laptop. That’d only take a few seconds, and then—

“Look out!”

I flinched, ducking my head down below my shoulders. It was barely in time. A hand slashed at where my head had been, seizing my hair and pulling back sharply.

Gasping, I flailed my arms, a task that was particularly difficult to do with them cuffed.

With a hard jerk, the vampire pulled my head to the side, exposing my neck, bending down to sink her teeth into me. She was far stronger and though I had a little leverage to push back, the difference in our might was just too much. I was helpless.

Behind us both, maybe twenty feet away, I heard Agnita shout, “Långsam!”

The vampire’s balance wobbled, and I reacted with panicked instinct. Kicking back, I pushed my weight into her unsteady body and we both toppled, falling onto the ground in a heap.

Tucking my arms close, I rolled away, getting onto my back and kicking back with my feet. The vampire lashed out at me, growling as she came up on all fours, ready to lunge.

“Hey! Corpse!”

A bag hit the vampire. It didn’t have much weight to it, it was just a floppy piece of canvas that slumped to the floor, but it got her attention. She turned, facing Agnita, just in time to get a face full of raw faith.

Agnita had her runestone back, the strap dangling around her bad wrist. With that in tow, she stepped forward in a shooter’s stance, squeezing the trigger on her Glock with smooth, practiced rhythm.

Slowed by the binding spell, weakened by the power of faith, the vampire didn’t have a chance to dodge. The lead shots ripped holes in her body, splattering dark blood and black ichor onto the pavement behind her. Agnita got off four or five rounds, hitting with all of them, punching out chunks of flesh on the vampire’s arms, body, and even boring a hole right through one of the vampire’s dead eyes.

Half blind, shrieking in pain, the vampire left me alone and turned to charge the counsellor.

The wounds wouldn’t be fatal, but the beast reacted to the bullets. Her body continued to function, but it was clear that things weren’t working at peak performance. She tried to throw herself forward with the broken arm and it folded like a broken chair leg, the bone failing to take weight properly, leaving her with a floppy bit of flesh dangling from the joint.

Agnita got off two more shots, though I wasn’t sure if either hit, and then it was too close for gunplay. She swiped, but came short with no depth perception to gauge the attack.

Agnita drove a heavy kick into the shrieking beast’s face and the vampire dropped, but she was back up in an instant, lunging forward with too much speed for the counsellor to dodge.

They both went down, grappling for control, letting out shouts and screams that I couldn’t distinguish.

I looked at my phone, dangling from the cable that connected it to my laptop. The transfer had to be done by now. I just needed to email the printers, and the truth would be out. The truth had to get out.

My gaze drifted back to the scrap, but there was nothing I could do to help.

So, I ran to my phone, pulling up my email. I punched in the printer’s email address, typed, ‘FINAL - FOR SUNDAY’ and added the body of the message, ‘I’m aware that there are formatting errors. Print it as submitted. This is the’

Agnita cried out and I spun to see her flying across the room, limbs flailing for control. She struck the far wall, fell to the ground, and stayed there. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing, but she definitely wasn’t moving.

The vampire faced me. Its face was a mass of black ichor and pus, flesh bubbling and shearing away to uncover more distorted tissue beneath. Its jaw was broken and it hung open, razor teeth visible, tongue mottled and grey. On all fours, one arm bent backwards and twisted around the wrong way, it started shuffling towards me like a grotesque insect.

I had nothing. No holy symbol, no weapon, not even the athleticism to try and run. The phone slipped from my fingers, and I fumbled for my pockets, looking for something to defend myself. Maybe a warding crystal, or a pocket knife, a submachine gun, a Sherman tank, anything.

All I found was my notepad, and the pen slipped through the spiral ring at the top.

What do I believe in?

The vampire was ten feet away, approaching fast, and I had no time for any better plan. Taking out the notepad with both hands, I held it between me and her, willing the vampire back.

It stopped.

That was wrong. It didn’t just stop, it glanced away, like it’d hit something solid and immoveable. I spun, keeping the notepad between myself and it.

“How?” It wailed through its broken mouth, voice disturbing and inhuman. It was circling me, unable to get any closer. “What is that?”

I wasn’t entirely sure myself, but the answer came to my lips without first filtering through my brain, and it felt right when I spoke it. “It’s how I find the truth. And I believe in truth.”

Saying it, I knew it was real, and that solid, perfect rightness filled me with confidence down to my core. The vampire couldn’t touch me, not while I was acting in service of the truth.

Power thrummed out, invisible to me but tangible to the vampire, and its bubbling wounds began to roil. It roared, spittle flying, and lunged towards me in a desperate attempt to force its way past my belief.

“Get the hell away from me!” I shouted, and my voice carried forward, willing it away.

The power struck the vampire like a pro baller on a slow pitch. The vampire was tossed away, body glancing off one of the cauldrons and leaving a dent, careening with only a modicum of control. The far windows shattered as her monstrous body was carried through, howling in helpless rage.

I panted, watching to see if it would return, but the beast had learned its lesson. Ten seconds passed. I dropped the notepad, hands starting to shake, and walked back to my phone.

The screen had cracked when I dropped it, but it was still functional. I finished the email. ‘Print as submitted. I’m aware of the mistakes. This is the final version. Thank you.’

Attach the file.

Send.

I’d done everything I could do. Getting to my feet, I staggered over to where Agnita had fallen.

She was gone.

I didn’t have the time, nor the brainpower, to puzzle out why Agnita was gone. I had to get out of there, before the other counsellors showed up.

Exhausted, I nonetheless picked up my laptop, limping towards the window I’d come in through. I couldn’t vault over it like Ben had, not with my hands cuffed, but maybe I could scoot a box over, use that…

The door flew open behind me. I turned, raising my hands, as two figures in white robes hurried in. I put up my hands, saying, “I surren—”

The taller one flicked out a wand, and something black and roiling flew towards my chest, fast and-

Everything went black.