Cornelius stood next to the Adjudicator, his aura tensed and ready.

Dalton stood a few feet behind him, his own aura trembling slightly.

“Wh-“ the young man coughed. “What are we doing, exactly?”

Cornelius continued to scan the Dome as he answered.

“Blunder is making a spirit shift. With enough power behind it, she should be able to annihilate any undead under a certain power threshold unless someone is actively protecting them.”

“How?”

“She’s going to attack the magic animating them.”

“And she’s meditating since the spirit shift is advanced?”

Cornelius nodded. “Not advanced, exactly. We’ve delved a little into how the shifts are affected by perception, so someone can find a spirit shift easy. But in most cases, it’s extremely difficult.”

“Why?” Dalton tried and failed to hide the fear in his voice. Cornelius couldn’t blame him. No one his age should have to deal with something like this.

“The spirit shift requires commitment. More so than almost any other known shift. On top of that commitment, the required emotion is highly flexible and personal. Two people could reach the shift from drastically different angles.”

“It has a long history, actually. Back in-“

He cut off as a flash of magic burst in front of them.

The air twisted with orange and black light, and a man stood before them.

He must’ve used a realmstone. Which meant they were powerful. The Clans collectively had less than five hundred realmstones. The Barrow King wouldn’t waste such a valuable artifact on a nobody.

The man wore an expensive suit that had obviously been tailored to his lean frame, and his dark eyes took them in at a glance.

He had broad features, short cropped black hair, dark skin, and walked forward with a dancer's grace.

“Switch-Shot,” he said with a slight bow. His voice was deep and rich, with a slight accent he couldn’t place.

Cornelius returned the gesture without taking his eyes off the man.

“I’m afraid I don’t know your name, sir.”

He flashed a white smile. The smile had fangs.

“You can call me Benjamin.”

That wasn’t ringing a bell, which was a problem. An unknown vampire of unknown age and skill was unpredictable. And while Cornelius had no idea what to expect from the man, Benjamin clearly knew of him.

The vampire waved toward Dalton. “I will not stop your apprentice from leaving. I’m here to stop the Adjudicator from interfering, not kill children.”

The man seemed sincere, and Cornelius nodded in respect. “I appreciate the offer, but he is safer at my side than out there.”

The man carefully adjusted his collar, his gaze cool.

“I don’t suppose I could convince you to step aside?”

Cornelius shook out his hands and readied his aura. “No, I don’t suspect you can.”

Benjamin shrugged. “Ah, well. Worth a shot.” Then he vanished.

~<>~<>~

I cursed as the rifle clicked empty.

The short hag cackled as she closed in. The woman was wearing dark rags that dripped with dirty water, and she reeked of the bog. Her sickly pale face stretched into a rictus grin that exposed a mouth full of sharp teeth.

She had caught me with a slash of her nails earlier, and while the cut was shallow, I had no doubt it would get infected.

The hag's laughter cut off as I pulled out my pistol.

It took the entire mag, but she dropped.

Bog hags were more durable than humans but not durable enough to take a pistol magazine at point blank range.

I was out of shotgun shells, I just had what was left in the guns, and I only had two rifle mags left.

I had a few more pistol mags, but the stronger undead had begun to arrive. A handgun was about to be hopelessly outclassed.

I hadn’t taken too many hits yet, but I was exhausted, and the few undead that had managed to close in had left me bruised and bleeding.

I looked around the clearing and chuckled. There were at least three dozen corpses scattered about, and some of them belonged to some real monsters.

If I hadn’t unveiled my aura, I never would have survived the second corpse hound. However, while they were just about undetectable to human hearing, the creepy bastards stood out like a bonfire in my aura.

I rolled my shoulder and winced. A sprinter had knocked me on my ass. I’d killed or re-killed it, I guess, before it reached me, but its monument had carried them through.

A large gang of zombies burst into the clearing, and I sighted. But before I could fire, three shapes rushed through the mob. Heads flew, bones crunched, and before I knew what was happening, the mob was dead.

I would have felt relieved, but the three figures weren’t my saviors. I could feel them in my aura, like bloody grease stains on the world itself.

The trio looked similar. Deathly pale skin, old worn formal wear, gaunt, exaggerated features, and long yellowed fangs. Their yellow eyes were just a little too sunken, their cheeks too gaunt. It combined to push them right into the uncanny valley, and as they stared at me, it wasn’t just hunger dancing in their eyes but a sick amusement.

Fallen vampires.

“Well, Shit.”

~<>~<>~

Before the vampire moved, Cornelius slowed the world down.

Speeding his mind was an exhausting skill, draining not only his magic but his mental energy.

This technique was a mages equalizer. It was what allowed them to become a supernatural power unto themselves instead of mere vassals to some ancient being.

Humans could never match the raw psychical strength of the other factions. The gap was too large.

In the lower ranks, it wasn’t so bad. A farmer with silver bullets could kill a young Were in the right conditions. But as a spooks power grew, the gap widened. And it kept widening until it was a chasm they had no hope of ever crossing.

A normal human couldn’t even process an elder vampire or werewolf moving at full speed, much less fight them.

And if it weren’t for slowed time, all the power in the world wouldn’t help mages. They would still die before they even realized the fight had started.

But with this, they were standing on the same ground.

When he’d first used the ability, Cornelius could only keep it up for a heartbeat. That had been a long time ago.

As the world slowed to a crawl, he caught sight of the vampire.

The man had dashed forward, covering over a dozen yards in an instant. He was moving at a crawl now, but Cornelius couldn’t keep up this level of slowed time for long. He had pushed it as hard as he could to gauge the vampire's speed. He’d certainly gotten a gauge.

Fast.

The man was probably over three hundred, at least.

With an effort of will, Cornelius split his mind, one half becoming as stubborn and unmovable as the bones of the earth while the other stayed in control.

Then he reached out with his mind, focusing on the four points of power in his chest. He hadn’t used them in months. He'd had no need.

But this wasn’t a tussle with some punk werewolves. This was a fight. A real fight.

They didn’t need Cornelius the inexperienced diplomat. They needed the Switch Shot.

He attacked.

The world rushed by as he pulled back the slowed time, not releasing it entirely but dropping it to a manageable level.

At the same time, the earth tore apart.

Benjamin darted to the side as a nest of spikes exploded up from the ground.

Cornelius guided the spikes with his aura, chasing the vampire.

The man bobbed and weaved between the flashing stones and shattered those he couldn’t.

Cornelius needed to keep this fight at a distance. If Benjamin closed, he could end this in one hit.

He split his mind again. He felt the strain this time. Two was approaching his limit. Splits had never been his specialty.

He pushed his fury at this situation into the new split, his anger at the Barrow King, at the factions for their endless plotting, at his own helplessness to stop it. The shift turned red.

He gathered the fire split and began to condense the magic. The red power brightened, then burst. Fireballs roughly the size of his head sparked into being, and he hurled them at the vampire.

He could move them as if they were in his hands until they reached the edge of his shroud. Then he had to trust in his aim.

Blazing red streaked through the air as spikes continued to chase Benjamin.

The vampire's eyes narrowed as the fireballs closed in. They detonated against the spikes with a wash of light and heat, and the vampire vanished.

Cornelius didn’t wait for the flames to fade. Vampires had a rather specific playbook in times like this.

He reached out to one of the points of power in his chest and pulled.

A wave of curiosity and erratic wistfulnesses flooded him along with a burst of magic.

He controlled it, guiding the power to his fire spilt. He allowed the emotions to overwhelm the shift, and the red light bled to yellow.

Without any grace or subtly, he slammed his magic over where the vampire had been.

Wind tore the air and buffeted the flames as Cornelius did his best impersonation of a tornado.

The flames guttered out, revealing a swilling cloud of mist. Cornelius couldn’t kill Benjamin by tearing his mist form apart, the vampire would simply snap back together when the effect ended.

But now, the vampire couldn’t use any of his overwhelming strength. Moving his mist form was a matter of magic and will, and that was a fight Cornelius was very, very good at.

He kept pouring wind on the vampire, burning through the magic in his wind split at a monstrous pace.

At the same time, he pushed with his aura directly.

Shoved by the wind and Cornelius’s will, the mist blew backward.

Benjamin reformed in a snap, and before all of his body had even solidified, he hurled a rock at Cornelius.

It tore through the air like a bullet, and he barely moved his earth split in time. He deflected the rock towards the ceiling instead of trying to stop it outright—no need to waste magic.

He moved his aura, angling his splits so that the earth was covering the ground while his wind split was just above it.

Benjamin dashed in and whipped a handgun from his suit.

Cornelius pulled, and the ground tore. A rock wall blasted through the fake turf as the vampire opened fire. He kept track of the vampire with his aura as the bullets cracked against the stone.

The vampire was rapidly closing, he’d be on Cornelius in seconds!

The man wanted to throw rocks? Cornelius could throw rocks.

He seized the broken chunks of spikes with his earth split and launched them. At the same time, he started spinning up the wind, pushing the stones even faster.

It was a delicate balance, as he couldn’t touch the stones with both parts of his aura simultaneously, but he wove the magic so quickly that it almost didn’t matter.

The stones tore the air apart as they raced towards Benjamin.

The vampire sped up, his dark eyes flashing red as his movements began to blur. He dodged the volley without stopping his advance.

Cornelius pulled the ground up around the vampire while launching another volley from behind.

Benjamin blasted through the stone as it tried to flip him, barely slowing.

Cornelius couldn’t use the wind to help launch the stones since that would be propelling them straight at him and his charges, and the technique traded aim for power.

But without that technique, he couldn’t propel the stones fast enough to catch the vampire.

He dropped the volley and sent more spikes racing up from the ground. He wasn’t going to clip the vampire, but it would slow him down, even if only by a hair.

At the same time, he began swirling the air as he crushed stray rocks into dust.

The wind caught the dust, and he guided it. As Benjamin closed in, Cornelius quickly gathered a cloud of rock dust at least fifty feet around and so thick he couldn’t see through it.

It enveloped the vampire. He kept track of him with his aura and added even more spikes to the attack.

He knew that wouldn’t be enough, though. He’d taken the man's sight and dampened his nose, but vampires had better hearing than even werewolves.

Even blinded, he could track Cornelius by his heartbeat.

His hearing had to go.

Cornelius angled the spikes to crash into each other and then focused more of his magic on the ground.

His mind ached from focusing on so many things at once, but he didn’t slow as his aura trembled. The earth cracked.

The splits in the ground weren’t large enough to threaten the vampire, but it was loud.

The air filled with the sound of cracking stone, and for the first time in the fight, Benjamin stumbled.

Cornelius hit him with half a dozen spikes in an instant.

His earth split was running low on magic, and his wind spilt wasn’t much better, but now was not the time to hold back.

He slammed a column of wind down as he aimed the spikes toward his chest.

The vampire twisted, and blackness flashed out.

Cornelius briefly felt a power he recognized—null magic, then his senses, from his sight to the vampire's presence in his aura, were covered in darkness.

There was no time for panic. He just reacted.

He launched the stone wall he was hiding behind in front of Blunder, then used the rest of the magic in his wind split to send a furious gust swirling up around her.

His senses returned with a snap, the oppressive darkness vanishing as quickly as it had come.

He had read Benjamin right. The man had gone straight for Blunder.

The vampire had a fist shoved against the gusting wind. His other hand dug into the remains of the wall Cornelius had thrown at him. His feet were up in the air, his grip on the wall the only thing keeping him on the ground.

He stared at Cornelius, his arms straining. “You didn’t even try to guard yourself.”

Cornelius didn’t slow his perceptions, so his smile felt like it took forever to form.

Benjamin narrowed his eyes and pushed harder.

Cornelius was almost out of magic in his wind split, and even with no leverage, the vampire’s massive strength was almost too much for him to stop.

Any second now, he would have to drop the split and reform it with more magic. But he didn’t need it to hold out long, just…

He reached out with his earth split and tore the stone wall up from the ground.

Without that anchor, the winds ripped Benjamin into the air.

He rocketed up, and Cornelius immediately dropped his wind split.

Before the winds could cut off, he slammed the chunk of wall the vampire was holding back into his chest. Benjamin resisted, and his strength was more than enough to keep it from striking him. But with no leverage, the rock sent him further into the air.

Cornelius remade his wind split so fast that pain lanced through his temples, but he fought through it. He could not let Benjamin touch the ground again.

He threw more power into the winds, launching the vampire towards the center of the room.

His earth split ran out of power, so he remade it. He could move a little slower this time, but it still sent a fresh round of pain through his head.

One more push and he could end this.

He spread his aura out, weaving strands of dark brown power around broken spikes and lose rocks.

He spilt the strands further and further, gathering more and more stones until he had hundreds floating below the vampire.

Benjamin saw the massive volley and blanched. He instantly puffed into mist, but Cornelius kept him boxed in with wind.

It was draining him dry. His entire aura was half empty already. But staying in mist form took magic, and Cornelius was betting that he had a lot more of that to burn through than Benjamin.

The stones trembled as Cornelius poured more and more power into the spell. When Benjamin reformed, he would take an attack that could tear through buildings.

The vampire stayed in mist form for ten more seconds before snapping back together, holding a black key.

He met Cornelius’s eyes, his own shining a vibrant red. Cornelius unleashed his attack.

“Well played.” Benjamin crushed the key, and orange light swallowed him.

The rocks flashed through the air with a crack as they tore the sound barrier.

He pulled on the stones, slowing them some. He wasn’t about to waste the energy to stop them altogether, but he couldn’t have them punching through the roof. The stones might hit a random person half a mile away if he didn’t weaken them.

They smashed into the ceiling with a deafening boom, but he had slowed them enough that they didn’t punch straight through.

He angled the falling chunks of stone away from them as he dropped slowed time.

His head pounded, and his aura felt like a partially wrung rag.

He hadn’t managed to kill the vampire, but making him use a second Realmstone was good enough. Dalton was safe. Blunder was safe. And the Barrow King was down two Realmstones.

He must value Benjamin highly to spend those kinds of resources on the man.

And all it had cost Cornelius was having to fight again.

A diplomat… he wasn’t feeling very diplomatic right now. Just tired.

He turned to Dalton and forced a smile. “So. Did you learn something?” His apprentice was staring at him, his mouth agape.

Cornelius smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

He managed to slip his hands into his pockets before they started shaking.

~<>~<>~

Vampires weren’t undead. Not by default, at least. They were alive by the standard definition. They ate, slept, and could have kids.

But if a vampire's thirst grew too strong, something changed. It overcame them like a disease, slowly killing them until what was left is a cruel, hungry husk of what had been.

They were corruption, and greed, and hunger boiled down to one fang-filled package.

And three of them were currently staring at me.

“So…fellas, how about the weather? It’s pretty crazy. Real gloomy atmosphere, and the wailing monsters don’t help, let me tell you…”

The vampires did not twitch. And I mean that literally. Their weight didn’t shift. They didn’t breathe or blink or give any indexation that they were anything more than creepy wax dolls.

I licked my lips. “Tough crowd.”

Still nothing.

“So which of you is going to kill me? And is that the one who gets to drain me? Do they get the whole juice box, or do they have to share?”

That got a twitch from them. Yellow eyes flicked to one another.

Huh. I guess stirring discord might actually work. The benefit of facing sadistic monsters, I suppose.

Well, this was only ending one way. Might as well try to hurt one of them on my way out.

In the instant their attention was off me and on each other, I opened fire.

The rightmost most vampire staggered as several rifle rounds tore into its head.

That wouldn’t kill something like a vampire, but at least I drew some blood.

The two remaining vampires turned towards me and slowly started walking.

“You aren’t even going to charge me? Man, that kind of hurts.”

The lead vamp smiled. Its fangs looked…greasy.

“Best to savor a meal.” He chuckled, and his voice was like the audio equivalent of sticking your hand in oil. “Especially one with no chance to run.”

“Well…that sucks.”

Its smile widened. “I will.”

A suck pun? Jesus Christ, I was going to die to a vampire making bad puns.

Mist started to seep through the trees, the curling white tendrils a sharp contrast to the dark and green night.

“You know, I have some straws back at my house. We could grab those and make this a party. Might make the sucking easier too.”

“Humor.” The vampires all let out dry, rasping chuckles. “It’s always nice to catch the ones with a good sense of humor.”

I aimed my gun at the approaching vampire--for all the good it would do me.

“Because you like breaking the humor out of them?”

It shook its head. “No. I just like jokes with my meal.”

I shot the vampire in the head. It stumbled, but I could see the hole begin to close. I’d need to stake and behead the fallen vampires to kill them, which wasn’t happening.

“Well, I am feeling like a joke right now.”

One of the vampires cried out as something dragged it into the mist.

There was a crunch, a gurgle, and them the other vampires were rushing towards the sounds.

I didn’t let a spark of hope worm its way in. Chances were, this was an even bigger monster coming to eat me.

I aimed at the closest vampire's knees. Maybe I could ensure these chuckleheads would lose. I would still die to whatever big scary monster killed them, but at least I’d been dying with a last breath made up of spite and petty revenge.

I couldn’t think of a more noble way to go.

I cracked off a few shots at its knees, and the vampire turned and started towards me again, anger twisting its face.

Blair erupted from the mist, dragging a vampire with her.

Streamers of white trailed off her as she landed in the clearing with a thump.

The vampire dangled from her grip, its arm missing and neck visibly broken. Blair’s eyes positively glowed, twin orbs of red glaring at the night. At me, actually.

In the dark, she even seemed bigger than usual, almost inhuman. The air shook with her growl.

For a fraction of a second, there was a tense silence. Then everyone exploded into violence.

The vampire next to her swiped, its claw-like nails blurring through the air. At the same time, the vampire in her grip twitched and gurgled, and the vamp who had been advancing on me hissed.

I saw Blair dodge the swipe and strike back before my vision was filled with a charging vampire.

I had expected a rush, had been expecting it from the second I saw the vampires. I still only missed getting my head punched off by less than an inch.

I shot the vampire in the chin as I back peddled.

It staggered, but then it was on me again.

I ducked a swipe at my head, twisted away from a stiff-fingered stab, and just barely avoided a bite at my throat.

I had spent my entire life fighting people who could come at me from any angle, at any moment, and move faster than me. I had the vampire enveloped in my aura, and I had been ready for its attacks.

And despite all of that, I was barely hanging on.

Every attack I dodged felt like it would be the one to end me, and I couldn’t spare a second of attention to see how Blair’s fight was going.

“Stop dodging!” The vampire snarled.

“No!” It lunged, and I sidestepped.

I shot its knees as it recovered.

I snatched my shotgun in the brief moment that bought me.

The vampire wheeled around, and I opened fire.

Three pumps into its right leg almost cut it off, and I added a few more to its head for good measure.

I could already see its flesh writhing back together, but that had at least bought me some time.

I turned to Blair only to see one vampire on the ground, its body broken and bloody. The other vampire…the other vampire was still in her grip, and she was currently slamming it into its brother like a squirming club.

She smashed them together over and over. Bones crunched, flesh tore, and the vampires screeched.

The sheer savageness was shocking, but we didn’t have time to hesitate.

I rushed to the edge of the clearing. It didn’t take me long to find broken sticks with sufficiently jagged ends.

“Blair!” She paused her smashing for a moment and stared at me. The look in her eyes was off—almost inhuman.

I threw the makeshift stakes at her, and she dropped the vampire to snatch them.

She slammed one down into each vampire's mangled chest.

The pile of vampires froze, and their healing stopped dead.

I glanced at the vampire I had shot and back peddled. “Blair! Help!”

The vampire had pulled itself back together and was climbing to its feet, its yellow eyes glowing with hate.

Blair hit them like a truck. The vampire was blasted off its feet, and Blair chased it.

The monster barely hit the ground before Blair was on it, driving a stake toward its chest. It smacked her hand away and tried to bite her.

Blair bit back.

Her jaw enlarged with a crack as she clamped down on the vampire's neck. The vampire screamed and seized her with its arms and legs, not letting her get the space to stake it.

Growling, Blair lifted off the ground with one hand. With the other, she slammed the makeshift stake into the dirt.

What was- Blair fell on the stake.

With the vampire beneath her, Blair’s weight slammed the stake straight through the vampire's chest and into her own.

“Blair!” I started to rush over, but Blair pulled herself free with a sucking noise. She turned to me, and I watched as the hole in her chest stitched itself closed.

“Holy shit.”

My attention snapped to the vampires. The stakes paralyzed them, but we needed to behead them to finish the job.

“I can find my ax. I think it’s in my-“ I trailed off as Blair crouched over the vampire. Her hands lengthened into claws, and she grabbed the vampire by its neck and the top of the head.

She flexed, her arms and back straining. With a grunt, she ripped its head off.

“Or that. That works too.”

She said nothing, stalking over to the other two vampires.

Two more heads joined the pile.

Blair turned to me, her hands and face covered in black blood.

I opened my mouth, but all the conflicting emotions caused a pile up in my throat.

I didn’t think I’d ever see her again, so on the one hand, I was overjoyed. On the other, I hadn’t expected to see her again for a very good reason. She was in danger. I was just going to keep pulling in undead.

“You need to run before something-“ apparently, that wasn’t the right thing to say. She grabbed me by the front of my coat and hauled me up to her eye level.

She tried to speak, and something shifted in her throat. The animal-like cast to her eyes faded slightly, though she still spoke with a growl.

“No. I am not leaving you here.” She stopped, her hands shaking slightly.

“You have to. I- the Clans-“

“Can’t afford to try and take you from us. Not right now. They will barter and demand and threaten, but if they tried to take you by force during a war, every member of the Pact would turn on them. We don’t take kindly to poachers.”

She pulled me closer.

“We can protect you. I can protect you.”

“It would…I-“ The Clans were a looming, inescapable shadow in my mind. I knew, had known, for years that my discovery meant death. It was unavoidable. But I had never thought of belonging to a different faction. In the chaos after the Dome, I was focused entirely on making sure the Clans couldn’t have me. I…

I felt the fight go out of me and rested my forehead against Blair’s hands. They were sticky with blood and smelled awful, but I didn’t care.

My words caught in my throat, but I forced them out. “…Help me. I- I don’t want to die.”

She set me down only to wrap me in a crushing hug. “I won’t let you.”