“It’s very old. My guess is, at least a couple of centuries. Undeath brings certain anatomical changes. Some are immediate and some are slow. The older the undead, the more apparent those changes become. A vamp’s never finished. It’s an abomination in progress.” The fact that vampires weren’t suppose to have existed two hundred years ago when the tech was in full swing bothered me a great deal. My experience and education offered no explanation for this monster’s existence, and so I put it aside, filing it for future reference.

I brought out a shallow glass pan, the kind used for baking lasagna, put it in front of the platter and slightly under, and dumped two quarts of glycerin into it. The clear viscous liquid filled the pan and settled.

I took one of my throwing daggers from my sheath. Crest grinned at the black blade.

“Fancy.”

“Yeah.”

This wasn’t going to be pleasant and it wasn’t the kind of magic I did often. Something in me rebelled at it, something born of my father’s instruction and my own view of the world and where I stood in it.

The head rested on the herbs. In half an hour it would be useless.

I pricked my finger with the point of the dagger. A drop of bright blood swelled on the skin. Power pulsed in it and I touched the blood to the herbs. The bloodmagic inundated them, acting like a catalyst, fusing, shaping, molding the natural force of the dried plants. It surged upward, through the stump of the neck, spreading through the capillaries in the face, engulfing the brain, saturating the dead flesh. I guided it, helped it along, until the entire head sat suffused with magic. My finger touched the thick skin of the vamp’s forehead, leaving a bloody smudge and sending a shock of power through the undead flesh.

“Wake!”

The dead eyes snapped open. The horrid mouth opened and closed soundlessly, contorting with impossible elasticity.

Crest fell off his chair.

The vamp’s eyes stared wide at me, unblinking.

“Where is your master? Show me your master.”

Dark magic boiled from the head, drowning the room. It swelled, vicious and furious, like an enraged animal ready to strike. In the corner Crest drew a sharp, loud breath.

A tremor rippled through the head. The eyeballs bulged from their sockets. The black tongue, long and flat, hung from between the reptilian lips and the sickle teeth bit into it, drawing no blood. Impaled on the teeth, the tongue jerked obscenely. I pushed harder, bringing the weight of my power upon the resilient necromagic.

“Show me your master!”