By the time we reached the clinic, the fortress had resettled; iron walls rebuilt, emotions locked away. The past was the past. Georgia couldn’t hurt me anymore.

  I led Flint to the paddock behind the clinic and unsaddled him, then descended to Foss’s cellar. She was at her workbench, lamplight catching the edge of her spectacles as she turned.

  “How did it go?” she asked, setting down her pencil.

  “Well, all things considered,” I said, glancing down at the wreck of my wounds.

  She looked at me, inspecting my wounds, noting my quiet calm. “Your demeanor is different,” she observed, her tone clinical but not unkind. “More settled, despite your wounds.”

  “That might be Flint. Or because I went back,” I said simply. No need to elaborate. She was clever enough to understand. “To the place where I learned to survive impossible things.”

  She nodded once, accepting without prying. Another thing I appreciated about Adelaide Foss was that she understood some doors stayed closed for good reasons. She didn’t need to see inside mine to recognize what they held.

  I stood still, letting Dr. Foss inspect the remnants of my wound. The rush of the encounter at the homestead was wearing off, and the cold clarity I always felt after a fight, and the elation of reuniting with Flint, mixed with the melancholy of going back to Savannah.

  “Well then, remove your coat so I can document this trauma.” Dr. Foss said, changing the subject, her pencil scratching across the page. “The regeneration is progressing at an accelerated rate. This is notable due to its grievous nature, your lack of additional sustenance, and the addition of the Blood Bond. This went all the way through your torso?” She noted the web of tiny white scars across my midsection, her fingertips cool as she traced the pattern.

  “All the way through. Two twelve-gauge rounds at point-blank.” I removed my new duster, feeling the stiffness in my shoulders. “It was a seven or eight out of ten, with sunlight being a ten.” During her tests, she often asked how bad something hurt, so I saved her the time.

  She nodded appreciatively. “Unexpected. A more grievous wound healed notably faster, with less to fuel the regeneration. We can preliminarily conclude that your steed’s inherent vitality was shared with you via the bond.” She wrote even more furiously, the sound of her pen a steady rhythm. “Tell me again about your perception of the link, and how it changed when you consumed the elixir and enacted the ritual.”

  I liked the Doctor like this. Authentic. I got to see some of the youthful enthusiasm shine through in these moments, her mask slipping just enough to reveal the scholar beneath. I was getting to know Adelaide, rather than Dr. Foss.

  I recounted the story again, while she added to her notes from the first time. When I got to the part about Flint, the warm, silent connection in my mind was steady as a heartbeat.

  “He’s in the stable.” I anticipated her question. “I put him in the paddock you share with Mr. Abernathy.”

  Foss didn’t look up from her notes. “The other horses?”

  “They spooked at first, like Flint did the first time. The curse, I suppose. But Flint, he’s different now. He stepped forward and stared them down, not a sound, just presence. They deferred almost immediately. He runs that stable now.”

  “As expected.” Foss scribbled, satisfaction in her voice. “The Blood Bond established him as an apex presence. The Anima you imparted to him manifested as dominance among his own species. Continue.”

  “After I got him settled, I came back here.” I motioned to the pile of items on my cot. “And I found some potentially useful intelligence after the fight. Are you ready for that, or do you need to take my temperature and a blood sample?” I grinned.

  “That won’t be necessary. Show me.”

  I gathered the items and walked to the table next to her alchemy equipment. “I emptied the Thrall’s pockets and found a few things that might come in handy.” I set the wallet, shotgun, and extra shells down. She didn’t seem impressed. Then I pulled the flask out of my back pocket and set it in front of her. “A new ‘specimen’ for your collection.”

  Foss’s eye, which had been mildly curious before, lit up with a gleam of intense focus. She briskly retrieved a pair of gloves and put them on, the leather creaking slightly.

  “The smell was in his blood when he lay there dying.” The memory of his gurgling last laugh was still fresh, the sound echoing in my mind. “It’s not the ‘medicinal tonic’ that Micah had, but it’s similar. It smells caustic, and… wrong. It might be the Red-Eye that he mentioned in his journal.”

  She picked up the flask, not with revulsion or disgust, but with deep reverence. She carefully unscrewed the cap and wafted the fumes toward her nose, her nostrils flaring. Her expression sharpened.

  “Strychnine.” Her voice quickened with excitement. “Opium, and… yes… this must be Vane’s blood.” She looked at me for confirmation.

  “That’s what I thought. It smelled like him.”

  She dipped a glass rod into the flask and smeared it on a small glass slide, the motion practiced and deft. “It’s not a tonic at all, Captain. It’s an emulsion. An alchemical draught, likely used for combat. ‘Red-Eye,’ as it was called in the journal, is actually a complex binding draught similar to Laudanum Vitae. It heightens their strength, deadens pain, and reinforces their addiction. Clever, but depraved.”

  She set the flask down, but her fingers lingered on the glass. “The methodology is familiar. The systematic approach to binding the emulsion, the stabilization ratios, the precision in measuring potency.” She looked up at me. “This wasn’t trial and error, Captain. Someone with institutional training created this formula.”

  “The Ordo.”

  She nodded. “Vane doesn’t have the knowledge or patience for this level of refinement. Someone taught him, or more likely, created it for him as part of their research.” Her voice hardened. “Taking notes while he destroyed lives.”

  She lifted the flask again, bringing it close to her face. Her nostrils flared slightly as she drew in the scent. Then she paused, her brow furrowing.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s something else here. Underneath the strychnine and opium base.” She inhaled again, more deeply. Her eyes narrowed. “Aconite. Trace amounts, but it’s present. Wolfsbane.”

  I leaned forward. “I don’t smell it.”

  “It’s extremely faint.” Perhaps too quickly. “Most people wouldn’t detect it at all. My training in Vienna included extensive work with toxins; you learn to identify compounds by scent when working in poorly ventilated laboratories.” She set the flask down with deliberate care. “The question is why it’s in the formula at all. Aconite has no stimulant properties.”

  “Could it be a contaminant?”

  “No. Not at these concentrations. This was added deliberately.” She pulled her journal closer, flipping through pages of notes, the paper whispering. “If I’m right, it serves as a binding agent for the Anima component. The Ordo texts mention wolfsbane as a catalyst in certain blood-based compounds, though I’ve never seen it applied this way.”

  She was writing now, her hand moving quickly across the page. But the moment nagged at me; the way she'd caught that scent so immediately, when even my enhanced senses detected nothing.

  “Your training must have been thorough.”

  “The Ordo is nothing if not exacting in their methods.” She didn’t look up from her notes. “Now, let me document this properly before the sample degrades.”

  She moved to her microscope, hands moving with practiced efficiency, but a quick nervous energy that I hadn’t seen before.

  “It’s stable?” Incredulously, more to herself than me. “He managed to emulsify his Anima in a chemical solution, store it in a whisky flask, and it retains its potency…”

  Her head snapped up, her eyes ablaze with understanding and astonishment. She looked back down, examined the sample, then switched slides to one I knew was my blood. Her head bobbed, as if confirming something to herself, and she switched back to the Red-Eye slide.

  “Remarkable.” She grabbed her journal and furiously recorded her observations, going back and forth from the slide and her notes.

  I’d seen this behavior before in the war. The sappers got that look when they figured out how to take out a fortification. I’d even seen one with that mania before making a suicidal run with a TNT charge. I wasn’t sure what she’d figured out, but she looked driven by a force stronger than herself. It reminded me of the Instinct on the occasions when we agreed on a course of action.

  Those moments felt transcendent, but they were a marked departure from the methodical reason I had come to expect from her.

  “Doc, what is it? You look like you’ve found something big.” I tried to stay neutral.

  She turned to me, set down her pencil, and smoothed her skirts. “Yes, quite. This ‘specimen’ was quite the find. I am glad you brought it to me directly. This ‘Red-Eye’... Vane’s Anima is still notably potent, even in this crude form. It may be exactly what I need for my research… my family’s cure.” She wore her clinical mask, but the cracks showed. Perspiration beaded at her hairline. Her pupils were dilated.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  I waited for her to continue, not fully understanding the implications, but starting to see where she was going with it.

  “In every attempt I’ve made to rectify aberrations, mutations, or corruption of a subject’s Anima, I’ve been unable to create lasting change. The catalyst has never been strong enough to overwrite the existing abnormality with any lasting significance.”

  “Too little powder for your cannon to do any damage.”

  “You have a way with words, Captain.” A faint hint of a smile. “I’ve always lacked a ‘power-component,’ but this… Vane’s Anima is strong enough to create a substance that the Ordo texts refer to as the Elder Salt, the ashes of his heart. Refined properly, it would be the key; the vector I need. I could find a cure, not just study it.”

  The look on her face was one of total resolve and dedication. A feeling I knew well.

  “We’ll get it for you. I give you my word.”

  “Thank you… Silas.” She turned back to her notes, uncomfortable with the intensity the conversation had taken on.

  I gave her a moment and changed the subject. “Doc, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” I went over, pulled my haversack out from under my cot, and pulled out the melted mass of silverware that used to be my Mother’s pride and joy. “Silver. Why did the Instinct pull back when it touched my bare skin?” I knew it was dangerous, but there had to be more.

  Foss turned on her stool and donned her professorial demeanor. “Things are moving so quickly, I forget you have no grounding in this ‘world’.” She stood up and went to the worn track where she liked to pace. “Just as you entrusted me with your brother’s journal, because I needed to know the entire picture, you, too, need more complete information.”

  “That seems prudent.”

  “Your discipline and drive will be tremendously useful to you, but you need to know the rules. You need to forget campfire stories and learn the truth.” She settled in for a lecture. “Silver is one of the few things your flesh will react to differently than other materials. Wounds caused by silver have a lesser, but similar, effect to wounds caused by sunlight. It will cause significant trauma and take an extended period to regenerate.”

  “Then we should make use of that forge, I suppose.”

  “Yes, but there is another layer to consider. The silver is an alchemical catalyst that reacts to the corrupted Anima of the Affliction. It isn’t a ‘magical’ substance, but a scientific counter. It doesn’t merely wound, it unmakes.” She paused. “However, there is a way to make it more effective. Silver imbued with a positive psychic resonance is particularly dangerous because it simultaneously unmakes the physical form and disrupts Anima. This is referred to as a Bane.”

  “Psychic resonance? How is that done?”

  “It takes years normally. Inheritance is normally sufficient, imprinting the psychic resonance of the deceased’s Anima and attaching significance by the living.” She motioned at the silver slag.

  “You unknowingly, or perhaps instinctually, have the raw materials for a significant advantage in this conflict. We will indeed be making use of the forge. I have already purchased the molds to create .44 caliber jacketing.”

  “You are something else.” I was legitimately impressed. Being on the topic of weapons got me thinking. “What about stakes?” I lit the forge, the coals beginning to glow.

  “A stake through the heart?” She scoffed. “It will effectively end most Vampires, but so would a cannonball. Massive trauma to the central processing organ is sufficient to disrupt the Anima of the Affliction that animates them, or you. The same is true for the brain, but to a lesser degree. Aim for the heart if you can.”

  “I will.” I turned the blower to fan the coals, then motioned at the silver lump. “We only have a limited supply of inherited silver to make Bane bullets. I should probably save those for Vane himself. I don’t suppose you’ve already secured some bullion silver?”

  “Indeed. On the shelf to your left, in the wooden box.” She motioned. “The inherited silver is precious, as you said. In case of emergency, you’ll want some bullets, but I concur that mundane silver will suffice for Wights and other minions.”

  “What about the other common bits of folklore? Garlic, running water, holy ground, etc.”

  “Garlic and running water are merely folklore. The Curse of Holy Ground is real enough, and it works off the same principle as the Bane silver. The faith of the collective population can imprint a place with the positive resonance of their Anima, making it dangerous. It isn’t predictable, but it’s a good idea to avoid such places.”

  “Is that the same concept that required you to invite me in, or why Julien asked for an invitation to enter?”

  “It’s quite similar. The concept of hearth and home goes back millennia. Humanity has been imbuing significance into its domiciles for just as long. If a person lives somewhere and considers it their home, it creates a psychic sympathetic threshold that your Affliction cannot abide. The invitation lowers the barrier.”

  “Will I be able to enter Vane’s home?”

  “Yes, something about the aberrant variants of Anima is incompatible with the process. A Vampire’s home is different.” A light in her eye. “A Vampire is inherently tethered to the place where they were created. The principal is called the Native Earth Tether in the texts. It acts as a tether to their power, holding it in their physical form. In order to slumber, a Vampire must have their native soil in their vicinity.”

  I looked at her, confused. “How specific is it? I wasn’t created here, but I’ve slumbered.”

  “Very astute. The range varies depending on the Vampire’s age. A new blood, as they say, like you, must be within a ‘several leagues’ according to the texts. A league being roughly three miles, you are safe here, but we should test it at some point. On the other hand, an elder would likely need it to be within a few feet. This is often why truly ancient Vampires remain static.”

  “We can use that against Vane. If we can steal or destroy his Native Earth, he won’t be able to slumber, which I assume will weaken him over time.”

  “Just so. I had a similar idea when it became clear how old he is.” She paused. “On the subject of weakness, have you considered your own physical state?”

  “I have. The Thirst never lets me forget, and that wound was nothing to sneeze at.”

  “You’re starving.” Her gaze, critical. “I am amazed that you’ve been able to hold your urges back this long. The cold blood that I gave you has barely kept you alive. You should use these last few hours of darkness to hunt. Find something strong and vital; a deer, coyote, etc. You need something with vibrant Anima.”

  The Instinct rose in me, wanting nothing more than to do exactly that. Now. I nodded at Foss, trying to keep the feral gleam from my eyes. “I’ll be back soon.”

  On my way up the stairs, the sound of scooping coal and pumping bellows told me the Doctor was getting to work.

  I thought of Flint and felt his presence. He wanted to go with me. I knew it as surely as he knew I was planning an outing. It didn’t take long to put his saddle back on and ride out of town.

  As if drawn to the place, I went back toward the homestead. The tether that Foss mentioned seemed to have truth to it. When we got there, the dead man had been dragged into the woods by some coyotes, judging by the prints. I slid down to the ground and picked up the two large brass casings from the shotgun. They gave me an idea; two ideas, really. I went over to the house and knelt down by the door. I scooped up some soil with one of the empty brass shells, then pinched the top closed. I didn’t plan on leaving the area any time soon, but I wanted to be prepared. The remaining empty shell could be used as an example for Foss.

  The empty and dirt-filled brass casings secured in my pocket, I mounted up and headed away from town. I breathed deep, cataloging each smell. My senses were alive. I smelled the mossy loam, the pine scent in the air, and the scent of a dozen creatures. The coyotes had been feeding on tainted blood, so they were ruled out. Rabbits, mice, and birds were all too small to bother with. The air grew heavy with the odor of farm cattle up the lane and the fainter trace of a deer herd.

  I urged Flint in that direction, and we glided across the countryside. His hooves barely made a sound, as though he could intuit the need for stealth. The Instinct sang in me, thrilled by the hunt. I heard them before I saw them; a few hundred feet away through the trees. “Go,” I whispered, and Flint took off.

  We were on them in seconds. I didn’t think about it, didn’t plan, I just embraced the thrill of pursuit. There were three of them: two does and a buck. They saw us and bolted. Flint covered the distance effortlessly. I leapt from the saddle, grabbing the buck’s antlers and driving him downward. His fear had a scent, raw and exhilarating. I twisted hard, jerking the buck’s chin toward the sky. Its thickly muscled neck strained, then popped, the deer collapsing.

  I was on him before he hit the ground. I sank my fangs into his neck, driving deeply. The warm blood rushed into my mouth, tasting of life and the wild. It was ambrosia to me. The Thirst roared in me, demanding more, so I pulled harder. I savored the fresh blood, unlike any sensation I had ever experienced.

  The hollow feeling inside me diminished eventually, as the beating of the buck’s heart faded. By the time it stopped, the Thirst was silent; the Instinct satisfied. I had never felt so invigorated and strong. Flint’s hoof stamped the earth, sharing in the elation.

  I stood up, wiping my mouth, and breathed in the night air. Everything was more vibrant. My senses were more acute and the remnant of the shotgun blast fully knitted. My body felt… right.

  Flint carried me back to the clinic, and I settled him in for the night. I warned him to stay in the stable during the light of day, not because he would be burned, but because I didn’t want the townies to notice him.

  I entered the cellar an hour after leaving, my body thrumming with wild new energy. Foss looked at me, noticing the change. She nodded approvingly. “Good. Now we can get to work.”

  For an hour, we worked at the forge, the scrape of tools the only sound. The abundance of silver around me and the heat of the fire were always on my mind. The Cold Iron turned the inherent wariness of those foils into a disciplined focus. I settled into a methodical motion, cleaning molds and filing flashing from the newly jacketed rounds.

  When we processed some of my Mother’s silver to create Bane ammunition, she added a pinch of dark powder. “A nitrate solution. It will ensure that the silver catalyzes on impact.”

  Before long, I had thirty-six silver rounds for the Colt 1860 Army revolver. We had created six more with the resonant silver, in case of emergency, or for Vane, down the road. I loaded the revolver, feeling the cylinder click solidly while I turned it; the mechanical sound comforting me.

  I pulled the remaining empty brass shotgun casing from my pocket and set it on the workbench in front of Foss. “What about this?”

  “A scattergun? Do you think that’s a wise use of resources? They are known to be inaccurate and crude.”

  “It would have killed me.” I rubbed my stomach, thinking of the pain. “Trauma, like you said. This thing can do massive damage at close range. What if we did buckshot?”

  Her eyes widened, her analytical mind immediately seizing the idea. "Nine .30 caliber pellets in each chamber, each a silver catalyst, striking simultaneously…" She did the math in her head. "The cumulative damage would be massive, widespread trauma. Captain, that is absolutely savage."

  "Can we do it?"

  "We can make you two from your inherited silver without depleting it, and several more from the stock bullion, but we'll need to replenish it soon."

  "Excellent."

  We got back to work. Another hour passed in focused silence, the rhythm of labor steadying my thoughts. When we finished, my Colt was loaded and my new duster hung heavy with ten silver buckshot shells.

  I was healed, fed, and Flint was back. Fully armed; ready to bring the fight to the enemy.

  Foss watched me square away my gear, her expression unreadable.

  "Thank you, Doctor."

  "Success is the only thanks I need, Captain. We're in this together." She glanced at the shuttered windows, then back to me. "Who will be your first target?"

  The multitude of blackmailed and corrupt people she had briefed me on cycled through my mind. The compromised sheriff was a serious problem, but removing him now would create chaos without crippling Vane's operation. The terrified banker was a symptom, not a cause. The Gilded Lily sat at the center of it all, pumping poison through the town's veins.

  But which thread to pull first?

  "I have ideas," I said. "Let me sleep on it."