Chapter Text
Kassandra glances down at her Rolex. The golden hands read quarter past four, but it’s half an hour slow. She really ought to get it looked at while she’s home, but she never remembers to do it. It’s mainly there for appearances.
Her line of work has been dragged through the mud, always tarnished by fraud. Originally by fraudsters with smoke and mirrors, and in modern times, by YouTubers with amateur equipment and bad perms. Genuine paranormal investigators are difficult to find and expensive to hire, and though her portfolio speaks for itself, she must distinguish herself. It eases the minds of her clients to see someone who looks the part of a detective.
She bid her last client goodbye this morning, a wealthy English family with a troubled manor house, and she still wears her tan wool overcoat, with a tailored white blouse and tapered charcoal trousers. It did her no favours in comfort on her flight home, and it looks terribly out of place in this yellow Skoda Octavia, but most Athenian taxis look the same. They’re an equaliser of sorts.
The driver is a quiet one. He assumes she’s a businesswoman, and so he only gives her the bare minimum of a greeting and a few questions about their destination. With a cigarette in one hand and the steering wheel in the other, he turns down the busy streets, often interrupted by pedestrians, until he reaches her office on a quiet road just outside the city centre.
“Here is fine,” she says as they begin to slow down.
With nowhere to park on the narrow street, he drives the front end into half a space, and leaves the rear bumper in the middle of the road. Though Kassandra is tall and clearly powerfully built, visible even through her clothes, the driver still insists on lifting her suitcase out of the boot. He strains with the weight of it, laden with heavy specialist equipment, but Kassandra lifts it onto the curb without issue. She hands him a pair of notes.
“Keep the change,” she says, partially out of kindness, but mainly aware that he’s blocking the road.
Not many people smile when they see their office, but it sets in now that she’s home. It’s an older building. It used to be a tailor’s shop in its heyday, and it has retained the glass display front, now with the letters ‘Adrestia Investigations’ printed in gold text.
Through the lettering, she can see Barnabas at the desk. His chin is tucked over his hand, his face illuminated by the glow of his laptop screen. By the gripped look, she can tell that he’s engrossed in his telenovelas again.
A bell dings overhead as she opens the door, and his eyes light up.
“Kassandra!” He shouts. He can’t be surprised to see her - she called him shortly after her flight landed. But he is genuinely overjoyed to have her back.
“Hey, Barnabas.” She slips off her coat and throws it over a rack. She’s fond of this place and its charming interior. Dark wood furnishings with green leather, chosen to evoke the image of a classic detective's office. Framed articles line the wall, showcasing the mysteries she’s solved. There's a typewriter and a rotary phone on the table for decoration, though she’s caught Barnabas poking at them once or twice.
People rarely come in anymore, a trend exacerbated by the series of lockdowns. These days it's all phone calls and contact forms, and though she appreciates the efficiency, it's a shame this place doesn’t get used.
She slouches into one of the visitor chairs, rolls her sleeves up to her elbows, and unclips her watch to leave it on the side.
“So, go on! How was it?” Barnabas asks.
“Long story short, if you’re going to spend several million on a house and you don’t want ghosts, best to check it’s not near a Roman burial site,” she says. “Gave me a chance to brush up on my Latin, though.”
Barnabas winces. “Oh, no! The old ones are always the worst. So, did you have to ward the place?”
“I thought it best to eliminate the issue at its source. It was an entire cohort. They were causing all sorts of trouble. There was a busy motorway nearby, the M6. At night, drivers were seeing them marching across the lanes, and it even caused a few accidents over the years,” she says. “I had to put on a replica centurion’s helmet and lift a standard in the air, then walk them towards the light.”
In the grand scheme of things, the dead far outnumber the living, but only a minority of them are still around to cause issues. Ghosts are lost souls who are unable to pass on, or in the worst cases, refuse to.
They’re shells of their former selves, and when they manifest in the living world, they tend to leave most of their cognitive abilities behind. Some of them are smarter than others, needing extensive research and negotiations, although others aren't as bad as they look. Fortunately, these Romans were military men with a predisposition to follow, which made them easy to lead and dispatch.
Barnabas laughs wistfully. “Oh, never a dull moment. It reminds me of a case I took in Bulgaria. An ancient mercenary was refusing to pass on and wreaking havoc on a small village. I didn’t speak a word of Thracian, of course, so I couldn’t reason with him. I had to blast heavy metal music at him until he got very angry with me, and I had him chase me up into the mountains.”
It isn’t always a glamorous job, and Barnabas is an old-timer. Kassandra joined his company when she was eighteen, although it was only made up of him. He helped her refine her skills, and though she eventually went on to surpass him, he has never once shown a hint of jealousy. He looks after the admin work while she pursues the big cases, and he cheers her on like a proud father, something she’s not entirely used to at home.
“Did I miss anything?” she asks.
“A few good enquiries to look at once you’ve unpacked,” he says, tapping the pile of papers on the counter. It never used to be this high, but word-of-mouth is a powerful tool.
“I’m going to stay in Athens for a while. I’ll spend some time with my family while the revenues are good. You should do the same, go and spend some time with Leda and Junior.”
“I see them every night and morning, though your offer is very kind. I have a feeling things won’t be quiet for long. Brasidas called after you yesterday, asked for you to call him when you get a chance. He’s got a unique job for you, he said.”
Brasidas is two things. At night time, he’s her friend. They play shooters together and occasionally meet up for drinks. During the day, he’s an agent of the DSP, the Division of Supernatural Phenomena, a classified arm of the government. Not unlike the Men in Black, but not as funny.
She normally deals with individual cases, malicious spirits and strange creatures, but they deal with larger instances of public safety. Reanimated corpses, vampire covens, werewolves, things that need real manpower to get rid of. Their remits rarely cross paths. A couple of times, she’s worked with him on a freelance basis, but the cases have only ever been ugly.
“Did he say what it was about?”
“I did ask,” says Barnabas, shaking his head. “But he said if he told me, you wouldn’t believe it. He said it can only be shown.”
She snorts. She has seen people’s eyes roll entirely into the backs of their heads, leaving only the whites behind. She’s seen limbs twist in unimaginable ways. Events that happened long in the past. Spoken with people who have been dead for centuries. Peered into ethereal realms no living person should have access to. The unbelievable isn’t a concept that she accepts anymore, and Brasidas knows this.
She says her polite goodbyes to Barnabas and heads home, which happens only to be through the back room and up the stairs. It’s a small flat with no choice but to be open plan, with neat white walls and light brown laminate. Bare-bones perhaps, but it doesn’t need to be anything more. It has everything she needs. A comfortable bed, a large range of weights and an exercise bike, a bookshelf stuffed with occult texts, and all of the appropriate utilities.
She smiles when she notices the kitchen. Barnabas has a key to this place, purely so he can go and take a lie down when the phone isn’t ringing and the work is quiet, but that’s not what he uses it for. He’s taken care to get her a fresh loaf of bread and a carton of eggs. She opens the fridge, and there’s a new bottle of milk and butter, too. A four-pack of beer lies flat on the bottom shelf. He’s too proud to accept reimbursement, so she takes note to slip a few euros into his jacket tomorrow.
For now, her priority is the shower. She kicks off her shoes and throws her clothes into the laundry basket en-route to the bathroom. She takes a long hot shower, scrubbing the last of Manchester and Athens Airport off her. Afterwards, she pours a handful of Bio-Oil and rubs them into the scars on her upper arms. It’s not that she minds them being there. In fact, she thinks they give her a roguish charm, though she can never give a straight answer when women ask where they came from. Sometimes it’s a series of fencing accidents. Other times it’s a bear attack during an ill-fated camping trip. Very few would believe her if she told them the truth of it, and even so, she doesn’t like to advertise how dangerous her job can be. She hates to worry people.
She drops her professional appearance, changing into the comfort of a pair of track pants and a large hoodie. The couch calls to her, and she unceremoniously drops herself onto its cushions, diving straight into her phone. She ought to drop a message to Myrrine and let her know that she’s home, and to request a time and a place for a catch-up, but Brasidas’ mysterious offering is weighing on her. He’s normally very frank and upfront, so for him to mystify and oversell something is an odd approach. Impulsively, she thumbs over her phonebook and taps his name.
The phone rings twice before he answers.
“Kassandra.” His voice is warm. She can hear the mechanical whirring of a treadmill in the background and a series of heavy footsteps. He must be at the gym again. “I wasn’t expecting a call back so soon. How was your trip to…Cheshire, was it?”
“Cold and rainy, but the British jobs are always profitable. Is now a good time to talk?”
“Of course it is. I’m guessing you’ve spoken to Barnabas, then.”
“Trouble at work then?” she asks, fidgeting with the TV remote. “Go on, what’s the damage? How dangerous is it?”
Brasidas laughs. “Well, danger is subjective. I’m in a public place, you see, and if I talk about it here, I’ll sound like a lunatic. Normally we could do this over the phone, but I have some evidence I need to show you. I’d have to come over, but I understand you’ve only just gotten back. When’s a good time to come around?”
She takes a quick look at the clock, sensing his eagerness through his polite words. She forecasts enough time to dry her hair off and finish a few snacks. “Don’t worry. How’s seven?”
“Wouldn't you like some time to rest?”
“There's no rest for people like us.”
Another laugh. “Very true. I will see you soon.”
***
Brasidas arrives twenty minutes early, as he often does. It seems he’s come straight from the gym, still in his running pants and compression shirt, stopping home only to pick up his work bag.
“Can I get you a drink?” she asks. She opens the fridge and pulls out a pack of beers.
“Hmm, kind of you to offer,” he says, then his smile twists with mischief. “But I thought you only dealt with spirits.”
“Very funny,” she says sarcastically, although it is, a bit. She cracks one open and drops back onto her couch. “How can I help you, Brasidas?”
“I was hoping we could help each other. I have a proposition that would benefit us both in the long term, and a case that we can work together. Off the record. No involvement from the Division.” He eases himself into the spot next to her and slips a tablet out of his bag.
“Off the record? That’s unlike you.”
“They’re refusing to pursue this case any further,” he says bitterly. “I’ve done my best to plead with them, but they won’t commit the resources. Failed in their cost to benefit analysis, apparently, but lives are still on the line. I can’t ignore it in good conscience.”
The DSP is funded by taxes. This has allowed them to build considerable resources, but the drawback is that if something is too expensive compared to the perceived risk, they simply won't touch it. Training new agents, paying researchers and sourcing specialist equipment costs a pretty penny. Their missions often involve thousands worth of property damage to cover.
“Malaka. It’s vampires, isn’t it?”
Reanimated corpses are relatively easy to put back, but they leave patches of disturbed earth by their graves, and the ground has to be restored before the families notice. Werewolves are loud and destructive, but they only surface once a month and a silver bullet can put them down. Then it’s just a case of hauling them onto a wagon and taking the bodies somewhere they won’t be found. Vampires are a financial nightmare. Extremely difficult to kill and expensive to manage. Bullets deflect off them. Knives break. Only direct sunlight can kill them, and they’re clever enough to hide, which often means that entire buildings have to be torn down around them.
He smiles at her quick deduction. “Right you are. Formerly plural, now singular.”
This isn’t her area of expertise at all. They’re so troublesome that only a military force can bring them down. If she ever catches a lead about vampiric activity, she’ll defer it to him for this reason exactly. Brasidas knows this, and he wouldn’t waste her time. There has to be a reason that he’s brought this to her.
“Just the one?” she asks. This vampire must be particularly clever, or heinous, or both.
“I think it’s best I just show you.”
He sets his tablet up against its kickstand and begins to prod through the menus, talking as he goes. “We were tracing a coven calling themselves the Cult of Kosmos. Not an actual cult, just a vampiric crime ring with a pretentious name,” he explains as he clicks through to his camera roll. “Nasty business. Kidnappers, murderers, scumbags. They were snatching hapless tourists from the islands, luring drunkards out of nightclubs, stealing blood banks from hospitals. We managed to shut down their overseas operations and chased them into Athens.”
“Charming.” No wonder the DSP were involved at that point. Tourists disappearing has international implications, and any damage to the country’s leading industry could be severe.
“We were then contacted by an informant claiming to be their leader. She told us the group was no longer fit for purpose. Apparently their killings were getting too public and they weren’t doing as they were told anymore. She said she summoned them to a single-story warehouse in Piraeus, gave us the location, and told us to come at daybreak.”
“Some leader. Couldn't she just rein them in?”
“Well, management is known to chip away a person's patience, and who knows how long she's been at it?” He asks dejectedly. He finds the footage in his camera roll and hits play. “Take a look at this and tell me what you think.”
The video opens with Brasidas’ bodycam on a corrugated rooftop, and he’s planting a block of C4 in a surface crack in the metal, patting it down with a thick pair of gloves. He creeps across the tin roof to his colleague, who is fixing his own set of charges.
“All done.” She recognises the voice as Lysander. “Don’t you think this is overkill? City records didn’t show any interior walls here. It would be a lot cheaper just to winch the door down.”
“They might’ve modified the place since. We have to be careful,” Brasidas says. “Remember who tipped us off. This could still be a trap.”
“Stupid trap, if you ask me.”
They make their way to the edge of the roof, casting a view over the dockyards. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. An armoured vehicle waits by a wall of shipping containers, and she sees a dozen or so agents preparing themselves, dressed from head to toe in tactical gear. They have machine guns tucked under their arms and grenades strapped to their waists. But on this occasion, their best tool is their curved riot shields, with the bulletproof coating replaced by mirrors.
Brasidas lifts a thumb to them as Lysander slides down a pipe, and then he follows him to the floor. They walk over to their colleagues, who take cover behind one of the containers, and then he lifts his radio to his chin.
“Squad is in position. Charges are set,” says Brasidas. “Permission to proceed?”
“Granted. Fire at will,” says the crackling speaker.
The camera turns to the building, and then Kassandra can get a good look at it. The exterior is coated in rusting metal, and any windows are tightly boarded up from the inside.
What comes next is a flurry of explosions and chaos. The building breaks apart like an Easter egg. The roof caves in. Gaping holes appear in the walls, and the footage shakes as Brasidas’ men rush in. The people inside, if they can be called that, are in a state of panic. They wear white theatre masks and black cloaks, clinging to the shadows of the collapsed walls where they can. Several are already caught in the sun, burning up and screaming.
“What the fuck are those costumes?” Kassandra breaks her attention to ask him. “I thought vampires were supposed to be all stylish and debonair.”
“Not these ones. It’s like the world’s worst theatre group, isn’t it?”
She turns back to the video. Some of the vampires pull guns of their own, but the men are well prepared. They shoot at the walls, the boarded up windows, and streaks of sunlight burn holes through them. They couldn’t shoot straight for their fear. It appears as though their world is falling apart around them. The agents hide behind their mirror shields, swinging light into the room, the rays burning across them.
There are only two of them left. One hiding under a loose roof panel, and another standing in the corner. Brasidas leans across and hits pause on the frame.
“Now, pay attention to this one,” he tells her, although she already is.
The video starts again. While most of them met their fiery deaths cowering, this one walks across the scene with an almost clinical calmness. A woman, judging by her mask and the slim build of her limbs. Every bullet bounces off her. She approaches the last cloaked men, curled under a pile of rubble and rebar, and it looks as though she means to help him, but instead she grabs him by the arm, yanks him out and tosses him into the light. He goes up in a pillar of flames and falls into a pile of ashes.
Kassandra is shocked by her outward betrayal, but nothing could prepare her for what comes next. The mirror beams shine on her like a row of spotlights, but she stays intact, and the men begin to shoot at her in their confusion. The bullets ping off her relaxed shoulders. They bounce slightly. She's laughing.
It gives them pause. Brasidas steps back when she walks directly into the sun, staring them down through her placid mask.
“Stop!” Brasidas shouts. “Identify yourself!”
She ignores him and walks towards a large gap in the wall. Another round of fire deflects off her back. She steps through to the makeshift car park without a second thought. They give chase, but she keeps walking, past a row of Range Rovers, and stops before a motorcycle.
She stops and turns to them, drawing two pistols from under her cloak. She points one at them, switches between targets, and shoots the other in the air as a warning.
Once the agents shrink backwards, she kicks the stand from the motorcycle and mounts it, revving the engine. The wheels overspin and kick up a cloud of dust before the bike shoots off. Her hood blows down in the wind, and dark locks of hair come free to whip behind her as she speeds away.
“What the fuck?” Lysander’s voice shakes off-frame, and this is where Brasidas chooses to end the footage.
Without realising, Kassandra has shifted to the edge of her seat, hands tightly clasped under her nose. There has to be an explanation for this, and she has to rationalise, but she’s coming up short.
“Okay. Let’s not jump to conclusions,” she says. “Let’s act on the assumption that she’s human. Are you certain she wasn’t wearing a vest?”
A dull hope. No vest is that good.
“Many of our shots caught her arms and shoulders,” Brasidas says. “But I understand your line of thinking, and I wondered the same thing. The camera I wore has a mirrorless lens. Didn’t come cheap, but that’s why you were able to see them all. Everyone knows vampires don’t appear on film, right?” He scrolls to the next video in his gallery. “But if we cross-reference Lysander’s footage, look.”
He drags the bar along to the timestamp, and they’re shooting at an empty, burning room, then they’re shooting at an empty gap in the wall. There’s no trace of her, only sparks where the shots deflect.
And there dies the hope that she isn't a vampire, but something else. If she were a spirit, she would struggle to appear on even a mirrorless camera and the bullets would pass right through. She has to accept the grim conclusion.
“Fucking hell.” She rubs her forehead with unease. “It’s a daywalker.”
Brasidas nods gravely. “I’m afraid so.”
The holy grail of vampiric lore. The science is wild and varied. Each country has their own take on it, and different regions have slightly different mutations, but there are a few key consistencies. Stakes don’t actually work. Silver will weaken them, but it won't finish the job. If you’re facing a vampire problem and decide to cover yourself in garlic, all you’ve achieved is a layer of seasoning. They always, always burn up in the sun, and one that can walk amongst it is all but invincible.
Until now, there had been no solid proof that daywalkers ever existed. Literature mentions them in passing, but no reputable source has written on the topic because nobody can claim to have studied one in earnest. Now, Kassandra wonders if their pursuers simply didn't survive. She hopes this is a one-off.
“Brasidas, this is above my pay grade,” she says. “I specialise in spirits and the occasional cryptid. I'm not scared of vampires, but if this has your team scratching their heads, I don’t know what more I can do. You need experienced hunters and scientists, not a clairvoyant.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t agree. Clairvoyance is merely the ability to see otherworldly things. Seeing spirits is one thing, but to pass them on demands a separate skill set. You delve into records and find out who these people were and what makes them tick, and in the end, what’s keeping them here. You’re a researcher, a problem-solver. If anyone can find the answer to a stubborn question, it’s you.”
It’s a stretch at best and a fatal mismatch at worst, but she can see that he’s desperate. If she didn’t know him better, she would assume that this was an act of pride, that he feels defeated by this woman and wants to see her gone. It’s more likely to be his sense of justice. He’s seen first-hand what these monsters have done, and he’ll want their leader to answer for it whether she’s gone rogue or not. One thing is for certain though, that she doesn’t want her friend to take this case on his own.
She sighs and rests a foot on the table. “Alright, let’s say I took on this very dangerous case. What’s in it for me?”
“The Cult of Kosmos had deep pockets. We had hoped to seize their assets to recoup some of our losses, but four hours after this video, a large withdrawal was made at a nearby bank on their card. Eight hundred thousand euros, give or take. I’d bet my life that she took it, and if you can stop her, then you can keep whatever’s left. The DSP have deemed it unrecoverable. Think about it. In your line of work, the cash would be easy to launder,” he says.
“Wow. Okay.” He does have a point. All it would take is a few made-up cases with inflated rewards. She could always pocket some herself too, or give some to Barnabas. It would be more than enough to fund his retirement, though she doubts he would take it.
“And your reputation, of course. Even if you didn’t take the ill-gotten money, your cash flow would never end. Everybody would want to hire the one who took down a daywalker.” So, she gets to take the credit for it as well. Brasidas is risking his job by chasing down a closed case, and yet he hasn't mentioned a cut of the money. This means something to him.
“And what about you?” she asks. “What do you gain from this?”
“That is a conversation for another day,” he says with a short wave. “Are you in?”
She has never taken a job like this before. She’s defeated dangerous entities, the jewel in her crown being the resurfaced spirit of the infamous Spring-heeled Jack, but this might just top it. If she could bring down a daywalker and publish her findings, the phones would never stop ringing.
“Our first port of call is the bank,” she says, standing up with newfound energy. “We’ll make some enquiries there and see if we can speak to whoever processed that withdrawal. Get a description of the suspect and take it from there.”
A wide grin bursts across his face, and he pulls her in for a hug. “Thank you, Kassandra. I’m so glad to have you on board.” She pats his back, then withdraws to hold him at arm’s length.
“Don’t get too excited. We need to make sure she’s still in Athens. If she’s taken the money and made a run for it, we’ll be chasing the pavements.”
“I’m very confident that she is,” he says with a look of assurance. “My concerns were exactly the same as yours. I’ve followed this meticulously, however, and there have been a number of disappearances in the last fortnight, all linked to the same nightclub. It matches the cult’s MO. She’s here.”
“Sounds like we’ve got our work cut out for us,” she says. It’s intended to sound light-hearted, but the truth churns beneath it like a whirlpool.
“Easy doesn’t exist.” He taps her shoulder. “Come to my house for lunch tomorrow. I’ve snatched some copies of the Kosmos case files, and we can go over things in detail then. We’ll try our luck at the bank in the afternoon.”
“Alright then, partner.”
They share an equally staged look of bravado, knowing deep down they’re both in over their heads, but choosing not to acknowledge it now. She bids him goodbye with a promise to message tomorrow, and then she is left to her thoughts. She wanders away from the door with both excitement and trepidation, wondering what on earth she's gotten herself into now.