If something happened to those two idiots, Elara would screech at him for days.

Hugh walked inside the gates. Three large log houses waited inside, two to the left and one to the right. In the back, an animal pen stood empty. The wind brought a hint of carrion.

“The road smells odd,” Sharif said quietly.

“Human, animal?”

“Odd. Nothing I’ve smelled before.” He held out his arm. The hairs on it stood straight up. “I don’t like it.”

Shapeshifters had a freakishly strong scent memory, and among all of the shapeshifters, werewolves were the best. They had no problem taking a whiff of blood and sorting through a couple of thousand scent signatures to identify a guy they’d shared a drink with once two years ago. Sharif had been with him for five years. If he hadn’t smelled it before, it had to be one hell of a rare creature or something new.

New. Hugh smiled. “Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it?”

Sharif rolled his eyes for half a second before schooling his features into a perfectly neutral expression.

Hugh turned to the nearest house, walked up the wooden stairs onto the porch and touched the door. It swung open under the pressure of his fingertips. A simple open floor plan with the kitchen and dining area to the far left and the living room space to his right. Dinner was laid out on the table. He moved across the floor on silent feet to the table. The reek of rotten food made him grimace. Fuzzy blue mold blossomed on the abandoned food. Looked like pulled meat of some sort with mashed potatoes on the side and a serving of formerly green vegetables. A fork lay by the nearest plate, its tines covered with mold.

He crouched and looked under the table. A broken plate.

Sam was hovering nearby. Hugh pointed at the plate. “Thoughts?”

“It happened in the middle of dinner?”

Hugh nodded. “There is a walkway built along the palisade and a tower. What was under it?”

Sam blinked.

“Go look.”

The kid took off.

Sharif crossed his arms. “I don’t like it.”

“I heard you the first time.”

Sam came back. “A broken plate.”

“What does that tell you?”

“There was a guard on duty. They brought him dinner.”

“And?”

“Something killed him so fast, he couldn’t raise the alarm.” Sam paused. “Was he shot?”

“No blood spatter,” Sharif said. “But there is this.” He slid his finger down the wooden frame. Four long bloody scratches gouged the wood.

“And this.” He crouched and pointed to the floor.

A bloody human nail.

Sam’s face turned pale. “Something dragged them out of here.”

Hugh pivoted to his right. A row of guns and swords on the wall, just by the door. It would take him less than a second to cover the distance from the table to the wall. “Something smart and fast.”

“Vampires?” Sam asked.

“It’s possible.”

“I don’t smell the undead,” Sharif said.

“But you do smell something. If Nez has resorted to snatching people from isolated communities, he wouldn’t use the regular bloodsuckers to do it.” Hugh straightened.

“But why?” Sharif asked.

“That’s a good question.”

Vampirism came about as the result of infection by the Vampirus Immortuus Pathogen. The pathogen killed its human host and reanimated it after death. Because every loose vampire would slaughter anything it could get its claws on, to an average human, the idea of vampires was terrifying. But to Roland, the undead were an effective tool. He’d made his first one accidentally, thousands of years ago, and he found them exceedingly useful. He wanted to seed his Masters of the Dead into every major city. They were his spies and his secret arsenal.

To accomplish this goal, Roland had to position the People as an operation with a flawless record, beneficial to the community. They presented themselves as a research institution with a focus in undeath, financed by casinos and other similar venues, and they offered a valuable service. They removed and neutralized any undead reported to them free of charge, and they offered the dying a chance to guarantee a payout to their families. If you were terminally ill and chose to donate your body for voluntary infection by the Vampirus Immortuus pathogen, the People would deposit a substantial sum into the account of your choice. The People acted like academics, dressed like high-priced lawyers, and treated the general public with utmost courtesy, and it worked. The general public happily forgot that each Master of the Dead, armed with just one vampire, could wipe out ten city blocks in less than an hour.

It was one of Roland’s greatest cons. He would go to any lengths to preserve it. If said general public suspected that the Masters of the Dead had begun grabbing warm bodies to turn into vampires, people would panic, and the entire carefully constructed network of the People’s offices would collapse. Roland would be livid, and the guilty would be dead before they had a chance to repent their sins.

But the pattern did fit the navigators. A fast, stealthy surgical strike.

What are you planning, Nez? Is this you? Is this someone else?

Hugh needed more data. He headed for the door.

“Are there irregular bloodsuckers?” Sam asked behind him.

“You have no idea,” Sharif told him.

The other two houses showed the same pattern. In the animal pen bones and chunks of rotting hide and fur told the story of a goat massacre.

“A cougar,” Sharif said. “Came back more than once. Scaled the wall here and here.”

The invaders hadn’t been interested in livestock. Only in people.

Hugh walked out of the palisade. His convoy had arrived and waited on the road.

“Williams and Cordova, go through the houses. Do not touch the guns or any valuables. IDs only. Copy them and put them back.”

The two Dogs who were his best artists peeled off and ran into the palisade.

“We get our salvage and we haul ass out of here. The less time we spend here, the better.”

The Dogs moved. Hugh turned to Conrad. “From now on, nobody goes out alone, and nobody goes more than a mile into the woods without an escort. Pass it on.”

Conrad swallowed and nodded.

Hugh glanced at the palisade one last time and followed the convoy into the Old Market. This was, indeed, proving interesting.

Sometimes killing a man wasn’t an act of anger or punishment. It was a public service. One she would be glad to perform, Elara reflected as State Senator Victor Skolnik marched through the gates of Baile. Lean, about an inch or two above six feet, Victor Skolnik endeavored to personify his job: dark hair in that neither-too-long-nor-too-short, I’m-running-for-office cut, clean jaw, slightly droopy gray eyes, and a forced too-wide smile.

She knew entirely too much about the man. He was forty-eight years old, married, with two children. He made his money in real estate, prided himself on running marathons, and wore his piety on his sleeve. He’d also made a deal with Landon Nez. She didn’t know the particulars of the deal, but it involved running them off their land, so Nez could have it.

Skolnik had spent the last six months whipping up the congregations of Sanderville’s and Aberdine’s largest churches and lathering up spit, trying to turn the tide of public opinion against them and sever their trade agreements. He didn’t make much headway. Both Sanderville and Aberdine came to rely on their milk, cheese and beer, and especially on their medicines. Oh, they didn’t like her or her people, but they weren’t quite ready to storm the castle with pitchforks.

Thwarted, Skolnik went after the sale of Baile itself, trying to challenge its legality. The previous owner of the castle had left the state a long time ago and refused to come back from California to participate in Skolnik’s scheme.

Now the senator resorted to open harassment and had been getting more and more bold, trying to provoke her. The moment Elara used her magic, he would run back to the churches with horror stories, and then public opinion would turn against them.

She’d just come out of the side tower when he showed up. Normally she would’ve come down the ten stone steps to greet a visitor, but right now she was a good eight feet higher than he was and that was how she liked it.