++Humans are better suited for the mundanities of policing than elves. Simpler creatures content for the lower stakes that come from such grunt work. When the situation calls for it, however, a Circumscriber is always ready to step in. ++

  Chapter 41

  Vampires were separated into several ‘Lineages’, which as far as Reggie could tell were a bit arbitrary. Vampires of the same Lineage could differ in sires, even in ancestry, and they didn’t always have to be that similar in powers. Apparently all it took was a single big name somewhere back in their vampiric bloodline—in the trail of progeny to sires that eventually led to the progenitor of their kind—and you counted.

  That, and the big thing. The weakness.

  Every Lineage had its banes, its curses, its limitations. Some couldn’t cross running water, others couldn’t enter a home uninvited, others still couldn’t feed from a human without consent—that one didn’t sound so bad to Reggie. On top of these behavioural or mobility issues, each Lineage had something that just absolutely fucked them.

  The Lady of Lorwick was of the Velithean Lineage, apparently. They were the ones who tended to flock to cities. They were also the ones who tended to produce Blood Courtiers, Reggie’s own Subspecies. Not combatively powerful compared to some of their fellows, they had powers aimed more in the direction of manipulation and subtle control. That pretty much lined up with what Reggie had seen, the Lady was mostly dangerous because of her money.

  He also knew the weakness of the Velitheans. Or rather, Sycily did. Pine. Pine. Fucking pine.

  Now, Reggie was obviously pleased to find out that hurting these potential enemies was as simple as stabbing them with a pointy stick, but he had to admit feeling a bit of disappointment over it. It was really kind of a shitty weakness for something as notorious as vampires to have. Sycily cleared that up for him, too.

  You are not thinking about the specifics of this. Namely, there are many places in the world where trees struggle to grow. Transporting wood in large volumes is also difficult due to its tendency to rot and decay compared to other materials. Pine is also only one variety of tree, making up a hundred or so species out of many thousands.

  Reggie tried thinking about that, and found himself unconvinced.

  “Okay, but that’s still pretty common for some supernatural weakness. It’s not like pine is hard to get, shit people make furniture out of it.” He thought about the implications. “I could kill a vampire by hitting them with a chair leg!”

  There are other factors. The base properties of a material are important, too. For instance, though the supernatural properties of Velithean vampires cause their bodies to be treated as less durable—lower in Toughness—when struck with pine, that does not make pine a durable material.

  “I don’t follow.”

  Some vampires are vulnerable to metals, either naturally-occuring ones or particular blends. A vampire who is weak to aluminium need only fear a metal that takes exhaustive skill and mana-infused methods to extract, but should someone be equipped with that metal they could use it to make musketballs.

  “Oh.” Reggie croaked. “Oh. Shit.”

  Indeed. Or, for another example, magnesium. The Varkuun vampires who tend towards the Feral Predator Class are vulnerable to that material. Magnesium is an uncommon and soft metal which seems ill-suited to make weaponry, however it is highly combustible and burns hot enough to melt steel.

  “...The flames it makes, do they count as a Varkuun’s weakness?”

  Yes.

  “Point taken then, fuck.” Pine wasn’t looking like such a big advantage anymore. Easy to get, but now that he was comparing it to vampire-vaporizing metal or musketballs the notion of a sharp stick seemed a good deal more limited.

  On the other hand, Reggie definitely wouldn’t have been affording anything exotic as he was now. With the information gathered and a plan forming in his mind, he set out to find a piece of pine that he could sharpen.

  Plan was a bit of a generous word for what Reggie was thinking up. He was pretty much just pre-emptively getting something he could kill his fellow vampires with in case they turned on him. This was one concern being juggled among many others, because all of a sudden there was lots for him to do.

  The Lady didn’t expect him to report back until that night, following a brief update the evening before. It was the day after Reggie had been taken to the asylum now and things were lulling. In a few hours he’d meet with Norman and his people for the rally, and probably get beaten up by the police.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  So nothing particularly eventful, really just business as usual. Still, the pointy stick would be nice. As would a useful report to offer the Lady when he was brought before her. She’d been friendly enough so far, but Reggie figured that was all a complete act and that she was a heartless, emotionless monster who’d manipulate him to death for even a point one percent increase in profits. This was a good deal to infer from one meeting, he had to admit, but he felt confident enough to prepare in case of it anyway.

  Fortunately, pine really was easy to get. The hardest part was having people not just lazily give Reggie some normal piece of wood. Once he tracked down what he knew was the right stuff, he…had no money for it. A chair in a shop, not worth much, a shilling. Reggie didn’t have the shilling to spare. He put a pin in that and, since it was already that time, headed off to the rally.

  For the upteenth time, Lorwick’s population stunned Reggie. The union was a popular movement but still inherently one limited in numbers, a rather niche group of people were all that made up its regular attendances between their difficult work in other parts of life.

  So his shock was pretty intense when he saw what had to be more than the whole population of Norvhan gathered into a single place, despite that fact. Ten thousand, maybe twenty, maybe more. A great beast of human bodies with an uncountable assortment of limbs, calling out and writhing around. Reggie had no idea how Norman managed to find him from among it all, being on the fringes of its rear probably helped, but the man did and was quick in dragging him up to its front.

  Not a pleasant feeling, being so close to all that human life and activity. Reggie felt suddenly reminded of the last time he’d been surrounded by a crowd like this. The people of Norvhan were still alive, still trying to get him killed—albeit indirectly, by sending word about him—and still seated right in his memories like a festering wound. Reggie tried to put them out of mind, and promptly failed.

  Up where the action was happening, things were louder and, oddly, less chaotic. Reggie saw why soon. Union organisers were mixed in with the crowds, blended nice and smoothly, keeping anyone from doing anything stupid. Anything that’d give the guards an excuse. And the importance of that duty was made clear as Reggie actually saw those guards.

  Had to be hundreds of them, which felt like a small number but really wasn’t. If shit hit the fan there was every chance most of the people in Norman’s crowd would break and run, those guards were at least trained to fight and follow instructions. They’d be more likely to stay still, if only because they’d been told to. It made a big difference. Hundreds was a lot.

  “Stay with me,” Norman advised him.

  Reggie nodded, what else was he going to do? He didn’t want to end up lost in this mess.

  The event proceeded with a sort of tense monotony, like sitting down with a blade against your neck. The danger never went away, it just became hard to keep caring about it after a while.

  Reggie’s biggest concern, before long, was the sun. An hour crept by with it shining on him, making his skin itch. The itching started to become pain, and he knew that shortly after that his flesh would redden. Nothing weird about a sunburn. Usually. Getting one in two hours with clouds in the sky, though, was hard to explain. Reggie had prepared as best he could by wrapping up, letting everyone think it was just to conceal his identity, but he wasn’t sure how long he’d last or how well his sore flesh would be obscured.

  Fortunately, he didn’t need to worry about that for too long. The event started to hit its crescendo. Someone other than Norman stood up high and began giving out a speech, one that Reggie listened to but heard little new from. It was very similar to the pitch Norman had given him the other day.

  It was similar, but it felt different now. Maybe it was just the other people hearing it. Reggie hadn’t gotten much experience with being part of something big. Any experience, really. People hadn’t usually wanted him to. It struck him now how weird Norman was for not caring. Not many men would bring a madman into their fold. Reggie had been so preoccupied with his own infiltration efforts that he’d barely registered that.

  And here he was, a part of it. Listening to the same rally everyone else was, one man among thousands of others.

  Reggie didn’t generally feel community, and he didn’t now. Other people had denied him the ability to let that dangerous sensation overtake him. Men were stupid and women were evil, and both wanted to kill him for basically no reason at all.

  Still, for just a moment, standing there in the crowd, he was able to pretend.

  Then everything kicked off. Reggie didn’t see what the inciting incident was exactly, but he sure as shit felt the incitement. First a big ripple ran through the crowd as people yelled and turned mean, then he saw guards forcing their way through it, marching for the speaker. They were planning an arrest.

  Idiots.

  Reggie could’ve told them what was about to happen in advance. Not that he would have, of course, given that they were guards and, thus, massive dicks. He actually quite enjoyed watching it. The crowd took about ten seconds to go from confused, to outraged, to violent. Things swiftly degenerated from there, and Reggie got a move on for the eye of the storm.

  He did, after all, have a job to do.

  Right now, fortunately, that job consisted of walking over to one of the guards and sucker-punching him right in the face. This probably came as a bit of a surprise to the man. Most Workers didn’t train Toughness, they just didn’t have the time to lounge around healing as much as that training required, and few trained Strength in conjunction with the Speed and technical skill needed to catch a combat-specialist off guard. Punches just didn’t land well if their target was half again as fast as you and saw them coming a mile off.

  Well, this one landed just fine. Landed fine enough that it threw its recipient right back and tripped a few of his friends up where he landed. He’d not even settled on the ground before Reggie threw another one.

  Guards had a variable set of stats, but tended to be most commonly in the high teens for Strength, Toughness, Speed and Celerity. It was a common configuration among Workers who did a lot of fighting, pushing into the 20s usually took tens of thousands of hours of effort. More than most people could afford to dedicate.

  Reggie was also not able to dedicate that much time to improving his Attributes. Fortunately, he’d cheated and just eaten a bunch of insects alive. He started lashing out at every guard within lashing range, and watched them quickly realise how much of a physical advantage he enjoyed over them.

  Then the clubs came out, the guards started galvanizing, and things became difficult. Reggie readied himself for a very annoying fight.

  And made sure all his sun-protecting layers were wrapped tight.