Miguel’s mouth twitched. Then something came out of him that was entirely different from anything he’d produced before in this conversation, a laugh, genuine and uncontrollable, the kind that bends a person forward. He laughed until he had to wipe his eyes.

Raphael watched the man who had maintained composed ecclesiastical composure through everything tonight proceed to completely lose it, and said nothing.

When it finally subsided, Miguel straightened up and didn’t say anything either. There was nothing that needed to be said.

---

Raphael left the room. He had no interest in watching the dragon blood blade oil being prepared, so he went looking for booth 01 instead.

Not far, two security guards on the door, a placard indicating current occupancy. Someone was inside.

The count had apparently kept himself to booth 04. Booths 03 through 01 were reserved for the regular important visitors.

Raphael glanced at Alp.

"Disguise. You managed to make a vampire thrall pass for Blitz, you can do the same for me."

Alp answered by acting. The robe expanded, the hood extending and widening until it covered Raphael completely, and a thin membrane settled over the whole surface. Raphael spoke a few words. They emerged in Blitz’s voice.

He nodded.

"Does that vampire actually walk around in something this unusual normally?"

"Yes. Useful for having his people impersonate him when he doesn’t want to be present. Honestly, if I didn’t know he was a vampire, I’d wonder whether his cardinal sin was Acedia rather than Superbia. He’s arrogant and lazy in equal measure, most routine matters he delegated to that capable lieutenant of his. The one you killed."

Raphael walked to the door without further hesitation.

The guards’ instinct was to block. Then the voice reached them, and their posture shifted, deference, but with visible unease underneath it.

"Ah, Blitz, sir. Mr. G is currently... occupied. He recently requested a companion. He’s likely indisposed at the moment. If you’d be willing to return later—"

Raphael made a short sound.

"Out of the way. This is urgent. The kind of urgent that means right now, this instant, I need to speak with Mr. G, are we clear?"

The two guards looked at each other. Mr. G’s standing instruction had been explicit:no admittance for anyone. There hadn’t been exceptions noted. Including the owner.

Two important people, two contradictory instructions. They stood in the gap between them.

When they looked like they were about to offer another objection, Raphael clicked his tongue.

"One more word out of either of you and I’ll be serving your skulls as wine vessels at my next gathering. Blood wine. Made with your blood. Nowmove."

The specific phrasing apparently touched something stored in the back of both their minds. Their heads went down and they found something very interesting on the floor to look at.

Raphael made a sound of disdainful satisfaction in Blitz’s register.

"Be grateful you’re keeping your heads."

He pulled the emergency key from the nearest guard’s neck lanyard, unlocked the door, and walked in.

A balding man with glasses was still hastily adjusting his clothing. He came over with unconcealed irritation.

"Whatever this is, it had better be an actual emergency, or that five million Colin investment I promised you can stay in my pocket."

Raphael glanced past him at the room. Two women on the bed under white sheets, bodies marked with bruising, the vacant, nearly-absent look of people who have had too much taken from them over too long a period.

His expression went cold.

He reached out, seized the man by the throat, and lifted him.

"What are you, Blitz, are youinsane—"

"Whatever rank you hold wherever else you go, here you’re nothing."

He drove the man down onto the table. A crack, and the decorative wood split down the center, the broken ends catching on either side of his torso.

"AAAAAHHH—"

A sound that had no dignity in it. Eyes streaming. The expression of someone who had lived inside a certain kind of invulnerability and just discovered its limits.

"Feel that? Violence. Against people like you, it’s the only thing that qualifies as fair."

Raphael raised his hand and drove it into the side of the man’s face. Blood and a broken tooth came out together, staining the collar.

"What the hell are you, what do you want from me—"

Raphael looked at the toolbox in the corner. He walked over, opened it, and removed a large metal plier with a heavy, blunt head.

"I ask. You answer. Don’t try to confuse me or lie your way through it. Otherwise."

He raised it and brought it down between the man’s legs, hard, the heavy end burying itself in the expensive hardwood floor, close enough.

"I leave you unable to walk."

A smell arrived in the room. Raphael glanced down with a short contemptuous sound. The man had lost control of himself.

"Your name. And who else comes here regularly? And which of the important people is providing this place with cover?"

The man finally registered the gap between the situation and his assumptions.

He pointed, trembling.

"You, you’re not Blitz! Who are you?"

Raphael hit him across the face with an open palm, the crack of it sharp in the enclosed space. Tears came to the man’s eyes involuntarily. The side of his face went red and would swell.

"I’ll talk! I’ll talk, Tommy Lopez, deputy director of Zexi City News! I have money, significant money, release me and we can discuss anything you want—"

He was doing the arithmetic out loud, assessing whether this unknown person understood the weight of the name. Raphael made a dismissive sound.

"City News. I know it. Absorbed the Afternoon Tea Report, the Morning Brief, the 14pm Daily, several others, media monopoly in this city. So you’re the one handling the press side."

His expression went flat. He raised the pliers and brought them down between Tommy’s legs again, this time without the warning gap.

The scream that followed was unlike the previous sounds, something high and thin and continuous.