Later, at my house I found my attention wandering. There were a lot of events happening in the city, and even though I was only involved in the periphery at the moment it made me think back. The city I had hatched in had been an oasis of peace and civilization amid a generally deadly wilderness full of wandering demons and hostile other-dimensional creatures. Only the fact that the city was full of experts in the field of magic and had its own share of not-so-human powerhouses kept it safe.

For years I had lived there, made a home complete with the obligatory objects to guard and dwell with. It was these little things that comfort my kind. I even had human and not-so-human friends. I know I seemed detached from such things, but it is through such friends that events that don't really directly impact us gain importance. A bomb may go off on the other side of the city, killing thousands, and I would regret the loss but wouldn't shed a tear. If one of my friends were endangered, my emotions would be very different and very personal. I honestly don't think I am so different from the average human.

It was these emotional entanglements that had urged me to join my friends on an ill-fated patrol to track down the unknown source, the danger, that had resulted in burned outlying farms and missing people. I felt some sadness for the missing, probably dead, farmers, but it was the fact that my companions had taken upon themselves to track down the cause that moved me. It was a dangerous world; however, I had been confident that my presence was all they needed to overcome any danger.

I came to myself with a start. One hand was absently tracing the runes that lay on my chest through my shirt. I fiercely regretted being trapped in human form, but at times that wasn't what hurt me the most. I have no idea how humans feel friendship. My empathic powers only give me weak glimpses into the kaleidoscope of human emotions, but I felt more than mere possessiveness with them. Knowing I had lost them to death still filled me with anger and sorrow over a year after the event. I am not sure how long these things stay with you.

I snorted. I really hated being maudlin. Bad things happen. You have to work with what you have and move on. It was time to concentrate on business. It's good to focus on events outside yourself since it helps distract from unpleasant thoughts. Brooding just makes you feel lousy and solves nothing. I had just started following my own advice and was focusing on understanding an obscure ritual that an extinct tribe in Africa had once known to use when a knock came from the door.

Since I had many doubts about the entirety of the subject matter, I was rather pleased to be distracted. Hopefully, Mei Ling was done playing the hero, and we could focus on the wizard fellow. So when I opened the door and saw not a small Asian woman but a tall, well-muscled European man in a rather old-style conservative suit, I was a bit taken aback. I was surprised enough that I opened up my senses. A moment later, I realized I had a vampire on my doorstep.

We stared at each other for a few seconds. Finally, I offered, “Is there something that you want, or are you looking for a donation?”

“You are not what I expected, Professor,” the man drawled in a cultured voice.

I frowned before I realized that I hadn't changed from earlier. My clothes were still torn from claws and bullet holes. I guess my mind was more distracted than I thought. At least I had washed my hands for dinner. “I have a thing for the retro grunge look.”

“May I come in?” he asked politely.

I deepened my frown. These undead weren't evil, but they shared many traits of the vampires that had roamed my home dimension, and it was hard to separate the whole savage bloodthirsty killer from my mindset. Not that vampires were incredibly strong as supernatural menaces go, but they were worse than roaches when it came to killing them. You could literally rip out their spine, and if you didn't take any further steps, they would be fine the next day. It was creepy.

“Um, sure.” I backed up and held the door for him as he came in. I admit I may have taken a sniff as he walked by. I had to see if he smelled of rotting meat. He didn't; he smelled of expensive cologne.

I checked the time on the wall. It was after midnight. Mei Ling should have been done with her police thing, assuming I had guessed right about the reanimation process. It occurred to me to wonder if there were any hostilities between vampires and shifters. She already seemed upset with me; there was no need to make her angrier.

Gesturing to the couch, I took my usual chair and propped my feet up. “So, what brings you to my home?”

The vampire rubbed his forehead. “We need your help.”

This surprised me. It seems a lot of people needed my help lately. Before today, I would have sworn no one except the booksellers and antiquity dealers of the city even knew my name. “Can you be more specific? Do you need a rare book?” Of course, he was using the dreaded 'we' term. Either he was a nut who heard voices, or he was sent by someone else. He was a bit too well-dressed for the loon option.

“My name is Eric and I am a vampire,” he started and paused. I am not sure if he expected me to gape like a landed fish. Meanwhile, I was starting to get impatient. I was expecting a guest any time now and he didn't seem to be in a hurry to get to any point.

I started to drum my fingers as the pause continued. It occurred to me he wasn't going to continue without a prompt. “Oh my god. How startling. Can you get to the point? I am expecting company.”

“You seem unsurprised.” The undead left the statement hanging as if it were a question.

“If you expected me to be shocked, perhaps you shouldn't have done that whole 'I am a citizen, please don't stake me' campaign on the vid.”

The man looked slightly ill at this. “It wasn't quite that bad,” he muttered weakly.

“Well, I suppose I am paraphrasing,” I said with a small smile. “While it was brilliant to reduce the image of the evil undead lurking in the night, I think you may have lost a bit of your intimidation factor.”

“It wasn't our decision,” he objected faintly. “The elders decided that immediate and drastic action was required to prevent riots.”

“Fine. You're not a fluffy vampire. Who are 'we' and 'us' and what do they want from me.”

“I represent the master of the city. He requires your occult expertise.” He seemed slightly off balance by my lack of fear. Well, they really couldn't expect more from the average citizen after those rather pathetic ads several months ago. I barely have a working holovid most days, and I had laughed until I cried watching it. He rubbed his forehead again, and I noticed that his rather pale complexion was developing a rash.

“Does each city have a master? Do they answer to these elders you mentioned? Is there a council or a single vampire acting as the leader of all the vampires?” I asked. As long as he was here, I may as well find out more about this new kind of vampire.

“Each city has a master,” he paused after this, apparently not expecting the direction the conversation was going. “I... can't discuss the private workings of our political system.”

Well, darn. Vampires didn't have inherent spell magic unless they were a wizard in their previous existence, so they hadn't been on my radar except for the initial surprise factor in finding this dimension was infested with them. That's not to say I didn't want to know more about them; they had just been low on my research priorities. Curiosity is one of my weaknesses, but I have only so much time in a day.

“Fine,” I grunted, slightly grumpy that my chance at easy research had been thwarted. What can I say; the occult has always been my hobby, even if I only recently was driven to learn its more practical aspects. “Then what does the city master want?”

“Lately, there's been a rash of minor entities invading the city,” Eric stated. He looked really uncomfortable and fine beads of pinkish sweat peppered his skin.

“Like the zombies,” I prompted. He jerked as if he had been stabbed with a cattle prod.

“How did you find out about them?” he growled out, leaning forward in his chair, his attitude going from servile to dangerous in a moment.

“The police asked for my expertise on a crime scene,” I offered mildly. His teeth were extended slightly more and the undead definitely did not look well. “I had gotten the impression that zombies had been around for a long time posing as a gang in the Blight.”

This appeared to calm him down a bit and he leaned back in the chair once more. “The dead operated more during the day than at night. We only recently realized they were there.” So not a rogue vampire gang. That begged the question of why bother with the Blight?

“Did the police ask for your help for the raid tonight? I suggested they ask the locals to deal with the zombie master, but they never really said what their plans were.”

His eyes widened in startlement, exposing some very red and veiny eyes. “No. No request came. We would have been happy to cooperate.”

I gave this statement some thought. Apparently, the police hadn't heeded my advice. Perhaps Conrad had decided only to use shifter volunteers. That was the best interpretation I could come up with. If he had completely ignored my advice, I would be reading about a lot of dead officers in tomorrow's paper. It was obvious that the vampires were aware that the animator had escaped their wrath and were anxious to fix their error.

“Well, we can hope for the best. Maybe they will contact your city master later regarding it. Is your master public knowledge or is he hidden?”

“He has a very public identity. Our operations are modeled after corporations. His number is in the yellow pages.”

Now I was a bit surprised. “Under what? 'Fangs 'R Us'?”

“No,” his eyes narrowed. Obviously lacking in humor. “His number is under Clan Fiero. Anyone can call him and arrange a business meeting through his secretary.”

I stared at him in bemusement. “He has a secretary...”

“It's a modern world. You have to change with it.” He seems more at ease after having put me off my stride, though evidence of growing distress was clear. “Nevertheless, zombies were not the only reason we came to you. There have been traces of spiritual entities and even minor demons cropping up through the city. They are becoming more common.”

My mind went into overdrive at this. Assuming they weren't just paranoid, there are two obvious reasons for random creatures to pop up and create disturbances. One was that major fluctuations in the ley lines could cause energy overloads at the nodes, resulting in minute and temporary opening into other dimensions. Both innocent and malicious creatures could then waltz through.

My original home had veritable storms of energy along our bloated ley lines, and ruptures in the space-time continuum spewed forth hazards constantly. I am sensitive to the ley line energies due to my nature and experience, and I could almost definitely write this off. Not only would I sense it, but many of the nodes were in public places and newspapers would be full of strange creatures coming out of huge gaping holes in the fabric of reality.

It is really not subtle, any more than a natural tsunami is. The second option was of course circle makers and wizards. Minor entities can be summoned on nodes for negligible energy. If you can choose your node location, you could find one with few or no witnesses. Mei Ling's wizard apparently had grander things planned and would need more time and energy to get a creature of significant power. After all, being what he was, his idea of a creature of power would be higher than a mortal’s.

“We are willing to pay for your time as a consultant.” I looked at him blankly, still partially lost in my thoughts. He mistook this for reluctance and continued hurriedly. “We are willing to pay ten thousand credits a day for your services.” Hmm, was that a lot of money? I shrugged; money never really meant much to me unless it was counted in gems and precious metals.

“Sure.”

“We can also provide... what?” He interrupted himself as if he didn't quite hear me correctly.

“I said sure. I accept. Chances are that some minor practitioners are stirring up the waters and summoning nuisances in.” The timing was interesting. I think Mei Ling's wizard had probably sent his apprentices to the city to confuse things. I could take advantage of this.

“Are you sure?” the vampire asked dubiously. I couldn't really blame him. As far as he knew, I was just talking out of my ass. It was unlikely he even knew about the wizard who was behind this. Of course, there was always the chance that I was fooling myself and linking two different problems to the same source. However, considering how rare and difficult it has been to find actual magic in use in the city, I think it was fair to link the events in my head. Besides even if they were completely unrelated, the solution was the same.

“Yes, I accept your commission.” I paused to examine him more closely. He was actually shivering. I nodded in approval. The wards I had under the house were very minor, but it appeared that constant contact or proximity would be a decent deterrent. Still, Eric wasn't paralyzed or convulsing, so perhaps I should try something more serious. Of course, I didn't know anything more substantial in my caster or circle repertoire, which was a part of my problem. Perhaps I could enhance the effectiveness by using materials more conducive to magical energies. My ancestral alchemy knowledge would help with such modifications.

“I will need some help, though.” The vampire looked suspicious. Obviously, he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I suppose I should have held off on accepting the first offer. Perhaps I looked desperate. “These practitioners are most likely operating on top of the minor nodes scattered through the city...”

“What's a node?” Eric interrupted. I looked at him blankly. I expected Conrad to be magically clueless, but I have to admit that I thought the vampires would know more. Most of them are at least minor psychics, with many of them having significant skills.

“They are areas in the city where ley lines...” I held up a hand to forestall his question on what ley lines were. “Lines of magic energy cross and power collects. Mages can tap into this energy and the barriers between dimensions are thinner. Some call them dragon lines though the terms aren’t precisely equivalent.”

“So we find these points and we find these people controlling these creatures.” He nodded in satisfaction. I shrugged; his explanation was close enough to make him happy. I doubted the summoners lived there; chances are they just went to the locations, cast their spell, and left. Not when they had to know that people would be eventually looking for them.

“I will need some of your more psychically talented people to help me locate and identify these areas.” He looked at me blankly. Oh, good grief. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five, why?” he asked, puzzled. I had kind of meant the length of time he had been undead, but this obliquely answered my question.

Vampires couldn't be that different from the ones I knew. Opening up my senses, I examined his aura and then bounced a wave of psionic energy off him that was intended to detect those having psychic potential. He shuddered and swooned. My scan is equivalent of me screaming at the top of my lungs, ‘Hey, are you psychic?’ I suppose when combined with the effect of the wards, it may have been a little overwhelming for him.

I waited for him to recover himself and once again idly tapped my finger on the armrest. He was a minor talent. With a bit of training, he would most likely be able to do a few parlor tricks. He was also completely dormant, which meant that was useless to me.

“Ugh, what happened?” Eric asked as he looked at me blearily.

“You don't look well. Perhaps you should go back to your master and tell him that I accept his job. However, I need to use some of his older vampires to detect the areas the magic users are using.” He looked at me as if he was going to argue, but I held up my hand again. He was feeling sick, but frankly, I just don't think he was that powerful of an undead. He shut up and let me finish. “He'll know what I mean.”

I ushered the disoriented vampire out of the house and was slightly gratified to see him gag and stagger a little bit as he walked over to his hovercar. My wards weren't much, but at least it was a sign I was getting somewhere.

I was about to go inside when I felt the adrenaline rush and tension that told me something dangerous was about to happen. I sighed; my tiny talent in clairvoyance was telling me the night was getting more interesting. I concentrated a bit and telekinetically swung the door closed behind me and drew the bars shut. Then I waited on the street outside my house.

I saw a beam of light spear towards me about a minute later. My senses told me it wasn't dangerous; however, I did recognize it—a laser targeting system. Supposedly a human wouldn't see it, but whatever allows me to see the invisible and in complete darkness works on that too.

Trying to get an idea of where the source was, I nodded. Concentrating once more and dipping deeply into my mental energy reserves, I moved myself as close to the source as possible. The world wavered around me for an instant, and then came into focus with a snap. An excruciating burning sensation engulfed my chest. It took all my trained concentration to fend off the external force that was energetically trying to bend my path like a piece of iron to a lodestone.

Sad to say, but with all this going on I was a little off and fell over ten feet to the roof of the building across from me. There was once a time that teleportation was child’s play. The rune burning on my chest, pulling towards its counterpart deeper in the city, made magical teleportation deadly and short-range psionic teleportation arduous and painful. Recovering as quickly as I could, I saw, kneeling on the roof's lip, carrying an absurdly long rifle with a laser targeting system mounted on it almost as large as my forearm, a largish man dressed in a dapper black suit with matching bow tie.

I would love to say I landed with catlike stealth and surprised him, but the truth is I landed pretty much flat-footed after a three-meter fall, and I think the building shook just a bit when I touched the roof. There was no catlike grace involved either, but at least I didn't fall over. However, the other fellow used the time it took for me to keep myself on my feet to swing the ridiculously long gun around and point it in my face.

I give myself credit enough to believe that if I had been better balanced and not distracted by the slowly subsiding pain from my torso, I would have moved out of the way or tackled him or any number of other dazzling combat maneuvers. However, my combat brilliance was not demonstrated that night because all I did was reach out to that absurdly huge gun and stick my index finger in it. At the same time, he pulled the trigger, and two things happened. First, I felt an incredible amount of pain in my hand, and second, the rear of the gun near my assassin's head exploded, taking a good half of the man's face and shoulder with it.

Dancing around, holding my hurt hand with the other, I may have missed the body of the assassin falling over the side as I cussed and cursed enough to make a sailor blush. Finally gritting my teeth, I looked down at my hand to see the first knuckle of my forefinger completely missing. Already the blood had stopped, and it was skinning over. Damn, I'd never do that again without a force field on. It would take me a day to regenerate that part of my finger back. A huge lump of iron and silver was melted partially over my hand, all that was left of the superheated slug. Someone thought I was either a vampire, fairy, or shifter. Magical residue from the metal tingled as it cooled on my hand.

It finally occurred to me that I should check the body of my personal hitman for clues, so I peered over the side. I probably should have been paying more attention to my danger sense since it hadn't actually shut down, but I hadn't really been in real combat for over a year. I have excellent physical skills for even my kind, but I am more of a scholar than a warrior. Perhaps I should just watch more horror movies and become more paranoid. I think this works for Jeremy.

Anyway, I peeked over the side and found a large glowing knife heading towards my face. Another time I may have tried to decipher the runes on it, but even I am not obsessed enough to ignore such imminent danger. I tried moving away but frankly was completely unprepared. The knife stuck and actually sliced into my skin and deflected off my cheekbone. Damn, that was some serious enchantment. This time the eminent sense of danger dulled the pain enough for me to fall backward onto the roof. As I watched the hitman leap over the roof lip, I used the time to activate my protective force field. With a barely audible, snap the psionic energy coalesced and surrounded me in a skin-tight layer of protection.

The assassin hadn't fared well. As I saw briefly from before, he was missing half of his face, exposing fractured cheekbones and his lower jaw was simply non-existent. The flesh of his shoulder was completely gone. How he was moving as fluidly as he was is still a mystery. I mean really, how can you move without any muscles or ligaments? I swear, after seeing him, I will never animate skeletons; it is far too spooky. Nevertheless, he was doing it, and he was doing it well. I could see the flesh on exposed bones almost writhe, and it almost visibly knitted together. Although I pretty much knew it, I still activated my senses to check. Yep, he was a vampire. A rather old one too. And he knew Kung Fu.

I could tell he knew Kung Fu because when I went to slug him in the face with a psionic enhanced right hook, he bent around my blow and stabbed me in the back. I heard my field spark and could tell that just that one blow had almost taken it down. I contemplated this as I fell over the side of the building where I had been thrown after being knifed. On the positive side, the fifty-foot drop hadn't hurt me, and it gave me time to push more energy into the field around me. That dagger was freaking nasty. Looking up, I saw the silhouette of the undead assassin as he too leaped off the building straight at me, now a dagger in each hand. Thank God only one was glowing with magic. I tried to stab at his brain telekinetically while he descended, but this vampire was old and was completely in control of his psionic defenses. My attack slid off his shield like water off a duck.

When he landed on me, I tried to grapple with him. I knew I was physically stronger than him. If I could get my hands on him I could dismember him like a boy picks the wings off a fly. However, did I mention he knew Kung Fu? He fell past me, the dagger scraping and sparking off my shield as he wriggled and twisted to avoid my arms. We traded blows like this several times, each time with myself coming up on the short side of the exchange. Maybe that hand-to-hand stuff was actually good for something.

Apparently, he thought it was good too, as his fourth hit actually took down my psionic shield. I backed up as I reactivated my protection. My reserves dipped as the energy was sucked from my mind. The assassin muttered a soft curse under his breath as he sensed the field form around me again. His smashed cheekbones had knit, and a layer of muscle was forming over the bones of his face and shoulder.

It occurred to me I was losing. I couldn't reform my shield forever and I couldn't touch this guy in hand-to-hand. Unless... there is an old cheap trick most know, but never use. If you are willing to take a hit, you can time your blow to coincide with your enemies. He hits you, but you hit him. I had a shield and he was hitting me anyway; however, I just needed to grab him once.

Putting thought into motion, I waited and leaped at him the instant he attacked. His knife issued a stream of sparks as it slid across my protection and my hand almost closed on his wrist... before he brought his other knife up to nudge my wrist away in a trajectory that bled off my superior strength and positioned him for a follow-up double-strike from his daggers.

This guy completely outclassed me hand-to-hand. Grimacing, I reformed my failing shields again. I had enough energy for one more significant trick. It could be another shield, or I could summon my weapons. I internally shrugged. I was slowly losing with only my defenses. I may as well try to go out with a bang.

Backing up on the park area where I had fallen, behind the houses, I focused my energy and forced it to take physical form in my hands. I reached my fingers out to the air as if to grasp hold of the very air and forced the energy into the form of two flamberges, one in each hand.

Now in my own defense, I have to say I was very young when I first trained myself to summon these psionic manifestations. Nothing seemed more attractive than wielding two of the most enormous swords ever created by humankind. Flamberges are huge swords, over six feet long and having a wavy, almost serrated edge. The only reason I can hold one in each hand is that I am far stronger than anything in human form has a right to be. The fact that I can actually fight with them is a quirky story all by itself. Suffice to say, it was very embarrassing and probably the first serious blow to my pride.

Nevertheless, I was now armed with two weapons, as was my assassin. To be honest, I still think he was better but now I had a huge reach advantage. Twirling my swords around me in a maneuver that would make Conan proud, I stalked towards him. From the slight widening of his eyes, I am pretty sure I surprised him, but he still charged me. I had to slowly retreat to keep him from getting inside my defenses. Armed, I am pretty darn good and started getting strikes in. Of course, he healed them almost immediately, but I think I was finally reaching a real stalemate instead of simply losing in slow motion.

That was when a glowing blade appeared to spout out of the middle of his chest. I have to admit, I stood there and stared at it, trying to figure out what kind of a bizarre attack this was. The only reason I was still alive is that my vampire assassin was looking down at the sword sticking out of his chest in surprise too. When I finally recognized the blade, I moved closer and swung both swords in a cross-cut. Without my blades being skillfully diverted, they cleaved through the undead creature like a hot knife through butter, dividing the body into three non-equal parts.

Over the smoking corpse of the vampire, I saw Mei Ling standing behind where the vampire had stood, sword outstretched. I have no idea how I didn't see her there before.

“Fancy meeting you here,” I quipped. I was pretty drained of psychic energy, but I was almost healed physically except for my finger.

“You seemed busy, but I couldn't wait all night for you to finish,” she stated solemnly. That made me wonder how long she had been there watching me fight for my life.

“Yeah, well, thanks, that could have gone on for a while,” I said, nodding to the smoking body. Wait a minute. Vampires don't turn into smoke when they die. I took a closer look at the corpse and found that it was twitching and slowly changing into a mist-like form. I know this trick because I used to be able to do it too, before my unfortunate encounter.

I kicked the still-glowing dagger away from the assassin's hand and brought my sword down to separate the head from the trisected body. The smoking stopped, but I still frowned. He wasn't dead yet. Vampires aren't that high on the supernatural scale, but they were incredibly hard to kill. I think burying the body away from the head may do it or bathing the corpse in holy water. Damn, I would have to stop by a church and buy a few barrels. Is that like asking your neighbor for a cup of sugar?

Mei Ling brought my attention back to her as she gestured and the huge swords in my hands. “Overcompensating a little?”

I blushed a bit. Those swords had seemed like an awesome idea when I was just hatched but had since become an embarrassment. It is why I don't really use swords, even though by all accounts I am pretty good with them. I opened my hand and let the energies flow away. The swords faded into nothingness.