In the middle of the day, Flint knocked on my door. He still held part of the same narrow eyes he had in the car earlier.

“Can I have a word?” He leaned against the edge of the doorframe.

“So long as you're not here to call me an idiot, sure.” I had spent the last few hours with Sand trying to stare a hole through my head whenever I walked past her, hence why I had decided to stick to somewhere private for a while.

“Not exactly.” Flint cleared his throat and shrugged his shoulders, leaning slightly against the door frame. “Look, sitting around and doing nothing is boring. I get it, that's why I live in the city.” Flint wasn't exactly making it clear on where this was going. He was barely looking me in the face. “But you're making enemies. Functionally immortal enemies. That's probably the most dangerous thing you can do around here.”

“You know I'm immortal too, right?” I'll admit that felt pretty good to say out loud.

“Yeah, that just means you're going to live with them on your back forever.”

“Alright smart-arse. What do you suggest?”

“Just think about what you're doing. Copper's willing to give you a second chance but there's a lot of people out there who won't give you a first chance.” Flint pulled at his collar to show a portion of his chest, a whole series of ten scarred lines covered the area just above his heart. “This here almost killed me. And I've known exactly what I did to deserve it. I have to live with this.”

The palm of my hand burned softly with the memory of what happened only a few days ago. It was a permanent mark on me, it was never going away. I flexed my scarred hand, making the muscles underneath twinge faintly. I had to admit that Flint had a point. He wasn't any older than me but I couldn't argue with scars and experience.

“Fine, I get it.” I nodded after a while, fidgeting uncomfortably. Flint nodded back and stood up straight, unfolding his arms. He took a breath like he was about to say something when Clay stepped in, tapping Flint on the shoulder to get his attention.

“Hey gents. Sun's about to start dipping, time to get ready.” Clay seemed pretty excited to finally get to the action. I couldn't blame him. Flint perked up right away.

“Ooh, montage time.” Flint singsonged, bouncing from foot to foot. Clay just laughed and the two of them headed off downstairs together.

One of the doors on the ground floor was a steel rolling shutter that covered another plate-steel door that was utterly lousy with locks. This mighty thing looked like it could soak up anything you could throw at it. It was appropriate, considering this was the door to the armoury.

The armoury was like any other I had seen in so many action movies. A cramped cement box with no windows and only one door lit only with fluorescent strip lighting that buzzed dramatically. The room was split into two sections. The first was a staging area with benches laid out in parallel lines to each other. The second was a series of weapon and equipment lockers secured by yet another layer of metal mesh fence. Sand was already here, fitting herself into an armour vest that had “POLICE” sewn across the back. She didn't respond to any of the three of us entering the room behind her, instead, she just turned her attention to her weapon. That massive revolver of hers that she had threatened me with a few weeks ago. Now that I was in decent light I could get a good look at the monster thing. It had a barrel as long as my forearm with a slotted muzzle, the cylinder was whole inches across and only had space for five enormous bullets. You hear the term 'hand cannon' thrown around about stuff like this. And that fit the bill perfectly here. This thing looked like it could blow a bear off its feet.

On the other hand, Flint was tying a holster to his chest, threading the straps over under his arms so the thing would fit under his coat. The holster held a boxy paramilitary machine pistol, complete with sliding stock and folding foregrip. A quick scour through my brain identified it as an MP7. And who says video games don't teach you anything?

That left Clay, who was the only one not preparing a gun. He just was inspecting the sides of a police baton. One of those collapsible ones that can fit in your pocket. Only this was covered in scratched markings. Swirling, almost floral patterns that glowed with eager energy.

“What are you thinking is gonna be in there?” I had to ask. It was absurd, the amount of firepower we were bringing for one guy who wasn't even all that in a fight.

“Our insider said Absher has a retinue of House Dutch guards.” Copper finished the crew in the armoury, thrusting a navy blue jacket at me, just like Sand's vest it had police marking sewn into the back and chest. But contrasting with the others, the weapon Copper pulled out of the locker looked almost antique. Black stamped steel and a wooden grip. And the way he held it, the way he pulled the slide to check the chamber, all implied history.

“House Dutch?” Sand finally spoke, snapping the cylinder of her revolver shut and setting the hammer down. “Should have figured the Americans would be involved.”

I didn't have time for questions. All three of the others finished their preparation at the same time and marched out, locking up each layer of the armoury in turn, complete with rolling shutter at the end.

“So here's the setup.” Copper announced, taking his place at the head of the table just like when I had first met him. The centre of the table was taken up with a printed-out photocopy of an annotated architectural floor plan. It was a pretty big place, built up over a few decades with multiple expansions, refurbishments and more, which gave the place a nearly maze-like layout. The kind you could easily get lost in unless you had lived there for years. “Turns out House Dutch have a fairly secure safe-house up-town. Complete with a panic room.” Copper pointed to a particular room in the centre of the second floor, the walls were four-times thicker than any other, marked with cross-hatching and an annotation reading 'steel braces'.

“We're going to be working with Manchester police to run a surprise raid on the house. Under the pretence of a drug sting.”

“Okay, jobs time.” Sand circled the table, moving to Copper's right. “Clay is on siege duty. Co-ordinate the cops and make sure nobody gets in or out of the building if we don't want them to.” Clay nodded in acknowledgement. “Flint, Mac, and I will storm each floor in sequence. Mac, your job is to get to that panic room as quick as possible and lock it down. If Absher gets in there then there'll be no getting him out. Understand?”

This felt pretty good, a proper planning meeting for a proper operation. Better yet, I actually had something productive I could do.

Sand took the lead away from the table, with all of us following along behind to the van. I was sitting in roughly the same spot as the first time I had been in the van, though thankfully without anybody pointing a gun at my head.

The journey took us to one of the nicer ends of town, meeting up with a convoy of police vans on the way. Half of them filtered off one junction before we arrived at the house, heading around to the other side of the gardens to set up a barricade, that way nobody could escape out the back.

The sun had caught the edges of a few massing rainclouds on the horizon, giving the sky a painted look with vibrant yellow blending seamlessly through neon orange and into bruise purple.

The cops piled out first, taking up pre-planned positions on the roads and blocking everything off while we went to the door. Copper stayed at the roadside, linking up with the police captain and Clay went to his job, pointing certain officers to stand in certain places, stopping just short of drawing circles and lines around all of them.

The house was huge, not as massive as the Knight's stately home, but still easily big enough that you could easily describe it as having a “hall” and “wings”. It had rich red brick walls trimmed with pale limestone and dark stained wood around the panoramic, gabled windows. Windows with blackout blinds, of course.

I felt like something out of an action movie, moving at a half-crouched run up the driveway to the front door, stacking up at Flint's back, with Sand getting ready at the door beside the handle. Clay moved up to the end of the driveway with that little metal ball ready in his hand. Once we were all in place, the two at the front both readied their weapons, Sand readying the hammer of her revolver and Flint snapping off the action of his machine pistol.

Sand stood up and turned in one motion, bringing her left hand up and across herself like she was going to elbow-strike the door. She very nearly did, after taking a sharp breath inwards she swung her arm, stopping just short of smacking the latch. There was a low, rumbling power that rocked the air around us all, blowing the door messily off its hinges, shards of black mahogany covered the floor on both sides of the threshold. Clay followed up with a perfectly-executed cricket bowl, a swirling, clear heat haze gathered around his hand, separating at the point in the throw where you would normally let go of the ball and sailed perfectly through the now-opened doorway.

The haze touched the floor of the house, not even bouncing or rolling but just stopping cold where it landed, after about half a second it expanded to massive size, completely filling the hallway and turning a thick steel grey colour.

It seemed like a whole lot of work to go through for a single smoke grenade.

Either way, that was our cue. The three of us piled in through the door, Sand leading the charge. The entry to the house was a long hallway with rooms on either side and a staircase at the far side, on the other side of the smoke. Sand slowed as we passed through the smoke, stopping when we came out the other side and turning to face the way we had come in. Flint surged up the stairs four at a time, spinning in a half-circle to his right at the top step to check his back. Once he was confident the way was clear, he signalled for me. I did the same, taking the stairs in long, almost jumping strides. But where he had stopped at the top step, I kept going, turning left and taking the next flight of steps up.

I didn't stop to admire the luxury decorations, priceless artwork or anything like that. I had to make sure Absher didn't get to the panic room and lock himself in.

The top floor of the house was dedicated almost entirely to the master-bedroom-turned-panic-room. It was a single circular hallway that fully wrapped around the reinforced en-suite, with only one door. The door was pretty much the same as the one to the armoury back at the safe-house. A plain, flat steel face with no seams that could buckle or plates you could get a tool behind. At least here the Vampires had made an effort to pretty the door up a bit with some polish.

The door was already hanging open when I got there, giving me a clear view to the huge king-sized bed in the middle of the room, and Absher's dead body halfway between the two.

The wizard was an absolute wreck, he was sprawled out on his back, throat ripped apart and gutted from collarbone to waist. Blood was everywhere, sprayed in all directions, soaking the carpet a rusty brown. Whatever had killed him had caught him by surprise, he had died before he even hit the ground, but that didn't stop his killer from body-slamming him with explosive force.