The man smiled. “Glad you remember, little Hale. Not so little now, I suppose; it’s been years.” He looked around the room and smiled. “Since Ynsarac has recognized me, I should introduce myself. I’m Stojan Tasi, City Lord of the Shining Caverns. You four have found a problem. You’ve also done a great deal to mitigate it, but it’s bigger than you know.”

Stojan Tasi pulled a chair around to where he could face the others and sat down. “A few days ago, someone killed my nephew Kenna - Stojan Kenna, he was a member of the main line. He was banished to the Necropolis for necromancy more than thirty years ago, yet he was in a warehouse in the Shining Caverns - not only in the Caverns, but in the main city itself.”

Stojan Kenna must have been the dead man they’d found, the one killed by Guildmaster Hollis. Serenity still wondered if he’d actually been a vampire or if there was another reason he’d smelled like Desinka.

“His death is the reason I’m here.” Stojan Tasi’s mouth quirked up on one side. “Perhaps not for the reason you’d guess. It would be better to say that his death is the reason I’m able to be here. I’m afraid I can’t explain more than that.”

Serenity’s gaze wandered around the room as the City Lord talked. It was richly appointed, but all it contained was a set of comfortable chairs, carpeting on the floor, and tapestries on the wall. He wondered how the City Lord had been able to hear through the closed door; it was thick and seemed to have been built to prevent sound from leaking out. Perhaps he had a way of overhearing what was being said inside other than listening through the door? Or maybe he’d just caught it opening a little late; Serenity had been talking about Earth when the door opened, after all.

Serenity realized he probably should have guessed they weren’t here to speak to the council when they were placed into such an obvious private discussion room, but he wasn’t used to thinking about that sort of thing.

“Some time in the last thirty years, Kenna became a vampire, or at least that’s what our analysis skills say. The problem is that the wound that killed him shouldn’t have killed a vampire. There are no outward signs of vampirism, but there aren’t always. When we exposed part of him to sunlight, the part that was in the sun burst into flames. The skills are right about that, but we don’t know why he was so weak as to die easily.”

Serenity knew that some vampires were simply weaker than others, even of the same Family, but that usually meant that they had another influence that interfered. Stojan Tasi was a dhampir. Maybe Stojan Kenna was as well, and that interfered? “Was Stojan Kenna a dhampir?”

The City Lord nodded. “Good guess. Yes, but that shouldn’t have interfered. Vampirism is generally either very compatible with a dhampir or completely incompatible - you either turn easily or not at all; sometimes it kills. Turning into a really weak vampire is unusual.”

“What about Bloody Reds?” Serenity didn’t know much about them, but after Desinka’s story, he was pretty sure Stojan Kenna was the man who’d commanded her, and she’d been a Bloody Red.

“They were exterminated decades ago. It couldn’t be a Bloody Red.” Stojan Tasi’s face lost its cheerful expression. “Unless you know something I don’t?”

Serenity needed to say it in a way that would protect Desinka. Being a vampire in an undead-hating city wasn’t a good thing, after all. “I saw a Bloody Red vampire a few days ago, inside the city. One of the cursed, so not a problem now, but if there’s one…”

Stojan Tasi closed his eyes. “If there’s one, there’s probably a nest. Maybe more than one nest, Bloody Reds spread far too easily. We’ll have to search. I’ll have Kenna’s remains checked for that variant. That could explain it; normally a dhampir would simply reject a weak incompatible strain but with a curse…” he sat there for a moment, then shook himself.

“The woman you four captured has refused to say anything so far, and we don’t know who she is. Right now, all we know is that she isn’t undead but she seems to be a very strange Death mage. We think she’s the one who actually created the curses, but she’s refused to say how.” Stojan Tasi’s gaze had been wandering between the four of them as he talked, but it fixed on Serenity. “Would you be willing to come talk to her? I don’t know if you’ll get anything more out of her; no one’s been able to so far, but it’s worth a try. ”

Serenity shrugged. “Sure.”

The City Lord nodded, then glanced around the group. “The Council is currently discussing attacking the Necropolis over this. We can’t afford a full-scale attack, but we also can’t afford to let this pass without reprisal. This was an attempt to destroy the Shining Caverns in a way we couldn’t easily blame on them, and it came far too close to success. They shouldn’t even have been able to enter the city; we have wards to keep out undead and detect Death mages of all sorts, especially necromancers. They have to have had outside support, and Kenna was probably how they got it.”

Hale’s voice was worried when he spoke. “What are you going to do?”

“I can’t do anything.” The City Lord’s reply was harsh. “I can’t even tell you why. All I can do is send people I can trust to do something. We can talk about that after we talk to the woman. If she says something, it may change what I can do.”

Serenity didn’t think anyone else heard the City Lord’s muttered “I hope.”

The City Lord stood and headed towards the door he came in from, gesturing for everyone else to follow him. Hale still stood in front of his seat, looking puzzled. “Why us? Don’t you have people to get information?”

“She’s protected from basic telepathy. Trying to pull information out of her will delete it, if it doesn’t kill her,” Stojan Tasi stated. “I need something different from the usual. I know you’ve done that, Hale, and your new friend here has quite the set of rumors swirling around him.” He paused and chuckled. “I think only someone who’s met Guildmaster Irene would know why being able to meet her eyes is impressive enough to be worth spreading as a rumor. I wasn’t sure I believed it, but it seems more likely now. Follow me.”

The City Lord led the group through the Council area, across the hall, and into an enclosed courtyard that led to the next building. “Don’t address me by name or title in front of the woman. I’d like to have the option to return her alive after this is over, if it’s helpful.”

Raz sounded shocked. “Knowing who you are means she can’t go back?”

Serenity could answer that one. “Raz, if we slip up and say who he is, she dies. The only reason he wants the option of keeping her alive is in case it helps the political situation. With what she’s done, he has no reason to keep her alive. She’s only alive for information and the chance to trade her for an advantage.”

Raz slowed down and seemed shocked. Serenity figured he’d better continue. “I expect he’d really rather kill her. She deserves it. Making thousands of people undead unwillingly? Even without the fact that it’s an attack on his city, she deserves destruction for that. I expect she’ll die if there isn’t a good reason not to kill her.”

The City Lord chuckled. “I’d put my priorities in a different order, but it’s not your city. I didn’t believe the rumors, but perhaps I should have. Either way, we’re here.”

It was simply a closed door. Serenity expected that there was magic on the door or the room or something to keep sound from getting out, but he didn’t have a way to confirm his suspicion.

Raz stopped. “I’ll stay outside.”

Serenity led the way into the room after the City Lord opened the door for him. Hale, Katya, and the City Lord followed.

The door Serenity entered by was the only door into the room, which was bare, unpadded stone. There were no furnishings, and the only person present was a short-haired woman sprawled on the floor. Her wrists and ankles were manacled, and a chain stretched from the manacles on her wrists to the manacles on her ankles. It was short; if she was able to walk at all, she’d have to be bent over. It would be a shuffle in any case, as the bands around her ankles had only a couple of inches of chain between them.

The woman’s face was swollen in places Serenity didn’t remember. It was possible he’d simply missed it; she hadn’t been his focus, after all, but he expected that someone had tried to beat information out of her. It obviously didn’t work, or the City Lord wouldn’t have brought them here to try.

“What’s your name?” It was a place to start. Any information he could get out of her would set a pattern and make it easier to get more. It was also easier to talk to someone if you had something to call them.

She slowly levered herself into a seated position before she responded defiantly, “I’m not telling anything to a dog of the Shining Caverns!”

Serenity smiled. At least she was talking. “You could at least say bird if you wanted to be insulting. Dog is simply inaccurate.” He spread his wings a bit, making sure his feathers showed despite his cloak. “I’m also not from the Shining Caverns. I do want to know what you were doing here.”

Serenity wasn’t sure what the best approach was, but if she’d been beaten already, she was likely to be defiant if he tried to intimidate her.

“Hah. There are four of you. At least one is from the city or will report to them. How else did you get in here?”

She was correct, but she was also talking too much. All he needed to do was convince her - somehow - that he was here to help her and she’d be willing to talk. The only people who would be here to help her would be people from the Necropolis, likely the people who sent her or other allies. It wasn’t likely that anyone else would come, unless someone hired mercenaries. But even in that case, someone from the Necropolis would probably-

That was it. Hale and Katya were mercenaries. All he needed to do was convince her that he or Stojan Tasi was from the Necropolis - probably Serenity, since he’d been talking - and that the other wasn’t a threat.

The only way he had to convince her that he was from the Necropolis was Death magic. That was what made the two cities so different, after all. The easiest obvious Death magic was necromancy, of course, which wasn’t a good option here; there wasn’t anything to raise and he didn’t need to get in that kind of trouble.

No, he’d have to do something he’d avoided thinking about ever since he unlocked his death Concept and received the notification.

Serenity smiled and started the bluff. “Me, someone who is like me, and two mercenaries? I don’t think so. None of us need to tell anyone in the Shining Caverns anything.” It wasn’t his fault that she was going to assume that “someone who is like me” was something other than “another dhampir,” and it also wasn’t his fault that they didn’t need to tell anyone because one of them was the City Lord.

Well, perhaps it was his fault.