* * *

Frederick Ambrose looked over the old building with an experienced eye. He had seen a lot of architecture in his time, and this was impressive. It was the sort of home the old rich had; not shiny and new, but stately and grand, with a style that could only be achieved by building something to last centuries, then letting it do so. It had a well developed garden, ivy covered walls, some tasteful statuary, possibly Marblarian in origin. All-in-all, very impressive. A suitable home for a king indeed. Mr. Parker had done very well for himself.

He was ushered inside by a butler of the traditional school. Mr. Ambrose liked that; it was nice to see some things that never changed, some standards kept up. The house was just as impressive on the inside, all decorative vaulting and fornication. Despite the fact that most of the rooms had probably never been used this decade, they were spotlessly clean. Mr. Parker had a thing for tidiness and impressions, and he certainly kept his staff on their toes. Of course, that was only to be expected.

"Ah! Mr. Ambrose. Do come in, I am glad you could make it."

"Yes, there has been a lot of trouble, as I'm sure you're aware."

"The massacre, yes, terrible business. That is, in fact, why I called you here."

"Yes?"

"I have identified the killers. Though I have dealt with one permanently, I shall require your assistance with the other."

"Killers? Just give me the word sir, and I assure you that-"

"Yes, I am well aware of your attitude towards the supernatural, it is why of course I trust you so much."

Frederick Ambrose scowled. It was true; he'd been vehemently against all sorts of hocus-pocus since the (-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)s had murdered his family. He'd set out the next day, and a week later was in Schism. He had a record number of terminations on his record and had several awards for bravery. He'd reached the high ranks with amazing speed, but they had never seen the light; they were almost as bad as the vermin they'd been hunting.

"What was it then? The vampire who's after you?"

"No, he is not worth bothering about, I have someone to... deal with him. More worrying is a small insurgent group who have been employing some very powerful zombies."

"You've got to be kidding me Mr. Parker."

Zombies? Hah! They were a joke! Certainly they could wipe out an entire town overnight, but if you just locked your doors you'd be safe, and of course first you needed a zombie to start with. Wizards could make them of course, and some vampires knew the trick, but they were easily taken care of, gunfire would shred them, and they fell apart by themselves after a week or so. The massacre had been a bloodbath, you couldn't get that kind of result from a few groaning stiffs.

"You realize I do trust you Fred, I've known you a long time and that is why I am going to let you in on a few secrets. I hope I can still trust you Fred."

"Mr... Gary, I assure you, you've done so much for us over the years, I mean, you understand our purpose sir. I swear you can trust me on this."

"Even if it's... unorthodox?"

"Gary, unless you have a dozen corpses in your basement, I don't give a stuff about what lengths you've gone to."

"Heh... Good, then you will be pleased to follow me."

With that Gary Parker left the room, Frederick Ambrose close behind. Of course everyone knew of Parker's... interest in the occult, anyone involved with the supernatural developed on eventually, you wanted to get to know the hows and whys of your job, some more impressionable people even started thinking that perhaps the forces of darkness could somehow be persuaded to join them, all in one big happy family like. Nonsense. So he had no problem with the library, and it would be a library, it always was. Even as he strode purposefully down the twisting hallways and passages he could picture it. The forbidden books, the papers, maybe, since he was a rich sod, a few ornaments. He was not disappointed.

"This Fred, is my collection, what do you think?"

"Not bad... not bad, almost as big as mine, mind, the statues are an impressive touch."

It was indeed everything Fred had hoped for. Several shelves of forbidden reading, the usual stuff, such as the Liber Fulcarum and the Vivat Fluegue; some rather tasteless relics of magical use, long worn into dusty pointlessness, all the trappings of someone who liked, now and then, to assuage their curiosity with a little armchair reading. Of course the books weren't necessarily bad, while many had the standard material, carefully stripped of anything that might inform the unwary student of how to do various untoward actions, sometimes, if you really wanted to understand what you were up against, you needed the original stuff, the naked, simple purpose of it all.

Mr. Parker however had done everything very stylishly. There were a number of comfortable chairs, some antique oak furniture, some lovely tapestries, and, taking center place, in the center of the room a rather interesting statue depicting members of the three undead races, vampires, werewolves and zombies. Each stood facing outwards, with an expression of malice, while above them; sitting on some sort of throne was another figure, looking down on the rest with contempt.

"The statue is over five hundred years old. it depicts the three hundred and seventh vampire, Kaijin, the one hundred on forty fifth werewolf, Ronahin, and the nine hundred and thirty third zombie, Vedt. The figure in the middle is Bruhn himself, the creator of all three races."

"Four hundred and what? Kajin, Ronahin, they were all firsts."

"Really? Bruhn just thought one day 'Wow, I'll make vampires' and that was it? It's all in this tome Fred, they took years of development. 'first' really means 'first proper'; I do hope you don't tell anyone of this little book of mine."

Fred stared. It was an old leather bound grimorie, the cover bearing a simple symbol, a circle inscribed with a crude 'x'; one of the older runes of warning. He took the book from his old friend as if it might explode, and, if you believed some of the tales, it might. There was no doubt in his mind, even as he flipped it open and looked at the yellowing pages. This was a copy of the Chronicles of Bruhn, a book reputed to have originally been written by the monster himself, and long since passed out of history. He was completely speechless; if anyone ever even suspected Gary had this...

"Yes, it took quite some finding, I assure you, copies are very rare, and I don't intend to make any. In fact, one of our killers had a stolen copy on her when we tracked her down; I hope you know what that means."

"You recovered it surely?"

"Unfortunately no, however, I assure you that it is destroyed."

"I see. This is serious old friend, very, very serious."

"Yes, it involves Arcania zombies."



* * *

Tier ran quietly down the corridor, past the two slumped bodies he'd taken care of, and the one rather messy one Burnt had. And so it went, another guy dead, another Parker associate taken care of. It wasn't exactly a great job, or what he had planned, but it filled in the time, and helped him get vital information. If he-

A yell. A thump. The familiar feeling of having your brain vaporized.

When he 'came to' Tier was lying several feet away, the center of a small splatter of vaporized him, while Burnt stood over his assailant, who had been knocked unconscious. Tier knew the turtle rather well now, and they weren't going to wake up soon. Burnt deftly pointed a gun and-

"Whoa, hey, you can't just kill her!"

"Why not? She shot you! Point blank, in the head!"

"She's a civilian!"

"She's a nutcase! Do you know what this is? It's an LFG 1000 Mark 24!"

"It's a pretty black gun. Besides, we did kill a few people, she probably panicked."

"She's army or something!"

"All the more reason not to kill her then! C'mon, let’s just go!"

Burnt snorted, but holstered his weapon and stalked off. Tier looked down at the rabbit who had attacked him, then stomped heavily on her firearm. It smashed with a despairing creak, leaving fragments of casing in his foot. They should move quickly, the police were beginning to catch on to what was happening, though currently the only talk was of gang rivalries. They had been showing up with remarkable speed, no doubt interested, at least in some way, of protecting Mr. Parker's 'business'.



* * *

Ambrose left the building at quite a pace. When he wanted to, his walk could outpace most people's run. This was going to be... interesting. He was under no illusions as to what he was dealing with; a zombie that wouldn’t just fall apart, something that could feed and duplicate just like a vampire, but oh so much harder to kill. He had a saying for things like that 'Kill it with fire.'

He'd need more than his usual arsenal this time, zombies weren't something you had o deal with on a day-to-day basis. He'd been given a lovely device by Gary, but a cookie cutter would only slow the thing down. He'd need a flamethrower too, and some phosphorus rounds, something that would stick and burn as long as it took to take down the enemy.

He practically leapt into his car, the air of manic determination spoiled only slightly by its refusal to start until it had been pushed a few times. He had contacts, and he had information. He could track this thing, and destroy it, and Gary had promised that this time he'd get some recognition for his service.


* * *

And this was Neverburg, a few lights shinning out into the encroaching night, the castle stood as a black marker against the sky. Most of it would be empty; a locale so grand and secretive wouldn't be holding too many prisoners. This was a building with style; Tier had seen such before, Carrotus Castle was one, and the Abbey at Pinecross, all impressive arches, carvings, stained glass windows and othersuch miscellany that made up the traditional extravagant buildings of Carrotus' history.

Tier admired it as the sun sank low and the landscape darkened; it would be far easier to do things in night; he’d have no disadvantage, since his eyes didn't adjust to light anymore. It hadn't been too hard to find, everyone knew it existed, and while the exact location was a bit ambiguous, the site itself was never considered important enough to be of any public interest. Such was how the best atrocities were committed, in full public view and the validation of apathy.

There had recently been a breakout; or escape in any case, they wouldn't be expecting an attack so soon, there was nothing to be gained from such and no real good reason for any harm to come to the building or those in it aside from petty revenge, which surely nobody would seek since doing so would expose them to unnecessary risk. Tier however didn't think like that; he had nothing to lose, no chance of getting killed, little chance of being captured and several hundred pounds of C4 explosive in his backpack. He was, for the first time in centuries, upset, and was more than slightly eager to carry out the task ahead.

On the horizon the last rays of daylight flickered out into the darkening sky, and a shadowy shape moved ever closer to the castle walls.