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6.1: BLOOD AND BARGAINS (part 1)

In which various search parties are convened.

#

Fang was the first to return to the castle. As an expert hunter with a first-class diploma in Dance Technique with Advanced Seduction, his nocturnal visits to the Middling were always brief, efficient, and—unfortunately for his selected victims—deadly. There was no room for error with Fang. He made sure of that, now.

There was no noise from either the vaults or Rupert's tower when Fang stepped into the entrance hall. Fang snorted. Day-blasted youngsters and their idle ways. Rupert would not be lazing abed for long, however. Fang was determined to take this opportunity to give his nephew a piece of his mind without Elizabeth interrupting. Rupert would never learn if his mother was always flapping about.

Normally, Fang would have flown up to the tower (why climb that many stairs if you don't have to?) but tonight he wanted to make sure Rupert heard his approach. Fang knew just the right places to step on the finely-tuned staircase to make his displeasure ring out loud and clear. He'd give his nephew something to wake up to.

Fang started to ascend the stairs.

CREAAK! CREEAARG! CRUURRGH!

Fang stopped. He stepped back down.

CRUURRGH! CREEAARG! CREAAK!

That wasn't right. That wasn't threatening at all. Where was the carefully composed discordance? Where was the ominous anti-harmony Fang had practised so many times? What, by the shades of Night, had happened to the stairs?

Fang's disquiet grew as he continued upwards. The steps groaned out a random series of creaks, not in the least akin to the requirements Fang had given the stair-tuner. But they'd been using the same tuner for centuries, a dour old hydra called Kitaria, and it wasn't like her to make such a blunder. Indeed, it was the hydras' custom to put out one of their own eyes for each mistake they made, and the last he'd seen Kitaria still had all eighteen of hers.

Fang began to form a suspicion. His dratted nephew. It wasn't as though stair-tuning came cheap. If Rupert was responsible for this, he'd be paying through the nose for the next century.

Abandoning the sorry staircase with one last CREUUURK, Fang rose into the air and swooped up the rest of the way. His entrance to Rupert's bedroom was both intimidating and impressive—or would have been, had anyone been present to witness it. As it was, the bang of the door rebounding off the wall and Fang's hiss of "What do you think you are playing at?" fell only upon the deaf ear—severed from a troublesome gnome sometime in the last century—that ornamented Rupert's mantelpiece. Apart from that, the room was completely devoid of ears. That is to say, it was empty.

"Ah." Fang hovered for a moment, before becoming convinced that the bed truly was vacant and Rupert truly was gone. He was about to turn, ready to scour the rest of the castle for his nephew, when he caught a whiff of something.

Fang halted. That couldn't be...

Drifting to the floor, he walked to Rupert's four-poster bed. With growing apprehension, he leant over the crumpled covers and sniffed.

There it was, clinging to the velvet of Rupert's pillows. That odour, simultaneously sharp and sweet, seductive and perilous. Unforgettable.

Fang straightened, his face impassive, but inside his rage threatened to overflow.

"Winkton," he rasped.

#

With a tremendous effort of will, Fang managed to ignore the scent of ginger as he swept through the open windows and into Harriet's bedroom. Landing on the flowery rug, he took in the bureau drawers in disarray and, for the second time that night, an empty bed. He spotted something lying on the sheets, shiny and sharp amongst the downy pillows. He picked it up. It was a letter opener, the handle decorated with dancing fairies. They were pink. Fang snorted and dropped it to the floor. It landed point down in the carpet with a thunk, quivering slightly.