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“Two days ago a coven of amateur witches disappeared from their meeting place at the bottom of the Honeycomb Gap. I visited the place on unrelated business and discovered a bottomless pit and lots of residual necromantic magic. Lots of blood. No bodies.”
“Go on.”
“I picked up the daughter of one of the witches.”
“The child that ran into your office a few minutes ago,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle her.”
“Yes.” I didn’t particularly feel like explaining that Julie had a vampire phobia and since magic was down, she couldn’t detect the vampiric power signature. “She asked me for help. I’ve extended the Order’s protection to her.” So don’t start getting any ideas. “I took the child to my apartment. During the night we were attacked.”
“How many of them were there?”
“Three, not including the navigator.”
The vampire went rigid. “There was a navigator?”
“Yes.”
“Human?”
“Not exactly.”
I described Bolgor the Shepherd, focusing on his tentacles, and the reeves, going into detail on the hair, claws, and toxic goo on said claws. I explained the sea-demon angle, although I didn’t tell him how I got the information. I could’ve led him on regarding their peculiar dying habits, but a bargain was a bargain so I came clean and expanded on the whole melting into sludge thing. I did gloss over my near demise, shortening it to “I was stabbed in the back, after which I dispatched the reeve and called to my associate, who picked me up and transported me to the medmage.” Which was almost true. To the best of my awareness, nobody knew I could pilot vampires, and it was essential for my safety that things remained that way.
The vampire went into statue mode while Ghastek processed the information. The People consider themselves to have a monopoly on all things necromantic. The idea of a third-party navigator running around the city, even if he was a demon, had to grate on Ghastek. “The moniker Shepherd interests me.
It could refer to his ability to navigate.”
I tapped my nails against the desk. “I strongly suggest you abandon pursuit of the reeves. They turn into goo once critically injured.”
“That’s truly unfortunate, but I wish to ascertain that fact for myself. Do you have reason to believe this Shepherd would return for the girl?” Ghastek asked. He was wondering if the reeves were the Sisters of the Crow, brought into the undeath by some strange power they had released. I had wondered it, too.
“The girl is in the vault. If he does, he’s out of luck.”