Debbie's eyelids were heavy and she was so very sleepy, her body like lead. There was a sweet pleasurable sensation on the side of her neck, just above her collarbone, like the tickling of a butterflies wings. She would have smiled but the muscles in her face wouldn't work, not that she wanted to. The urge to sleep was overpowering. The whisper on her neck became like warm honey or oil being poured onto her skin, pooling and spreading across her jaw and shoulders. Her mind rose through layers of what felt like treacle, and she recognised what was causing the sensation. Lips were being pressed gently against her neck. She couldn't hear anything, nor really feel anything except the spreading warmth, and her eyelids were still too heavy to open, but her brain, still sluggish and wading through something akin to a dream state, imagined it was Larten and she smiled on the inside. She felt her face numb, her head heavy, but she managed to turn it, stretching her neck out and the corners of her lips twitching.

The soft heat increased, becoming something sharper, fuzzy and vaguely unpleasant, as if her head was full of static and someone was rubbing sandpaper gently over her skin. It had travelled down her arm now and was sinking into her chest. Her finger twitched reflexively and cascades of pins and needles shot up her arm, causing the rest of her body to flinch. The lips withdrew from her skin and her mind had risen up through clouds of unconsciousness to something close to being awake. Breath, feeling stale and dusty, moved past her dry tongue, past her lips which felt chapped and raw. She sucked it back in and felt the strong urge to cough as she something in her throat caught. Her skin felt hot and dry and uncomfortable and she wanted to ask for water, but hadn't found the strength to speak yet. She was starting to hear again, murmured sounds like voices, but her eyes itches and she kept them tight shut.

It was then that her heart contracted painfully. She hadn't realised that it hadn't been beating until it started up again, chugging fitfully like a clogged machine and it made her chest ache. It beat again, thudding against her ribcage and she gasped again, thick time, her body convulsing with coughing, and she felt something hot, and wet, somewhat like a clump of cottage cheese or perhaps clotted blood, being pushed into her mouth and she rolled over to split, her legs erupting with more pins and needles as feeling returned. She was entirely conscious now, but she still hadn't opened her eyes. Her head was swimming, and she felt as if the room around her was spinning, taking several long deep breaths as she tried to ground herself. Finally, she spoke.

"Larten?"

Something had happened, something important that she had to remember, but it was slow in coming back to her. He had kissed her, ale on his breath, his hands in her hair. They had watched the sun set... Her head began to pound and jam, the static returning. The vampanese, the treaty, Gannen Harst. She groaned, pressing the heel of her hand into eye, trying to supress the searing headache. Larten would make it better, he would explain what had happened to her. She reached out, waving her hand like a blind person. He must be close, he had been kissing her just a moment again.

"Larten?" she repeated, rasping.

"Debbie…" The sound of his voice was soothing. At least she wasn't alone. Maybe he was sick also, because something in his voice sounded a little off. It was a few notes higher, less smooth. But it was his accent, his familiar inflection.

"I feel weird…" she whimpered. She tried to open her eyes but even the torchlight was white hot to her pupils and she felt her eyes water. "Larten, what happened?"

"Debbie, you are confused. Try not to move," and then, as if to someone else in the room, "but this is remarkable. That it even worked defies medical science."

What he was saying made no sense to her, but the headache was receding. Her vision blurry, her eyes flickered open at last and she saw a familiar figure in red in front of her, but… as her sight cleared, she noticed flaws in her perception. The eyes, while kind and intelligent were crystal blue, not green, and they were lined with age that she didn't remember. His hair, which should be vibrant orange, was peppery grey. She shook her head, blinking, frustrated and anxious. "Seba, where is Larten? I feel like death."

"Debbie," he said again, placing a hand on her cheek in a comforting gesture, and those eyes creased with sorrow. She was aware now that Vancha was standing a little behind him, watching concernedly. "Do you not remember what has happened?"

She tried to, shutting her eyes tight with the effort it was taking to bring the imagines up. They had been in the hall of princes, waiting for the vampanese to arrive, to sign the treaty. The headache resurfaced with a vengeance and she winced. Even though the room was dim, lit by only the flickering light of the torches, it felt as though she were under blinding white artificial lights.

"The vampanese, did they sign the treaty?"

Seba tilted his head, looking anxious. "Yes, dear, for all the good it will do us."

"For all the good…" she repeated. It was like her mind was still swimming through custard. "Did it not go well…? Was there – there was a fight!" She exclaimed, as if she had gotten the right answer to a test. "I think I remember now. The vampets, the explosion. They had guns… they… they…"

They had guns.

They had shot Larten. She could see him again, jerked back into his knees, his head snapping back with the force of the automatic bullet fire, his blood soaking through the knees of her trousers. The blind rage that had followed, the vampet dying in her arms, the sensation of his throat collapsing in her fist like fresh fruit and the hot juicy blood filling her palm, tricking down her arm, dripping. The snick of the blade on her throat and finally the deafening, earth-shattering explosion in her ear and then, just darkness, like the deepest sleep. She opened her eyes.

"Where's Larten?" she asked more firmly, her eyes hard, her voice cracking somewhat.

"Debbie, I-"

"You're going to revive him, aren't you, like you did me?" she challenged him aggressively. Somewhere, deep down, she understood that none of this was anyone's fault, let alone Seba's, but right now that didn't seem to matter. The fact that Larten might be laid out somewhere on a slab, cold and heavy and lifeless made her heart hurt and her head jam in a way that she hadn't ever experienced before and these new feelings and sensations were scary, unwanted, unwelcome. She rounded on Vancha. "Well then? Go! Go do it now!"

Vancha flinched as if she had risen to strike him and he turned away, oddly ashamed. She looked from Vancha to Seba incredulously, her eyes wide, wondering why they were still even here.

"Debbie," Seba send again, gently, carefully. "There was only enough elixir in Tiny's vial for one person."

Something inside her snapped. She had known of course. She had been the one to carry the vial all the way to Vampire Mountain, had often taken it out to watch the colours dance on the walls and floor, imagined the event which might force her to use it. She had known the instant she had remembered how it had all happened, but to hear him say it aloud was an anathema to her in that moment. Rising, her eyes flaring, her muscles tense and her hands closed into fists, she shouted; "No, there's not! You could have divided it! Are you telling me that you used it all on me? Are you fools!?" She was panting, tears falling freely over her red cheeks, her chest heaving and tight. It was as if every gasp of air was doing nothing, causing her chest to expand but not giving her any oxygen and she was all but suffocating. "I asked one thing of you! One! And because you're all just a bunch of backwards idiots, Larten is-"

"You are not the only one who hurts for Larten!" Vancha roared, stepping up to her and straightening up to his full considerable height. "How dare you? How dare you take out your pain on us!? He was my friend – he was as good as Seba's son, and what? You think you have a monopoly on pain!?" He screamed the last word so viciously, his own face tear streaked and outraged, that she sank back down onto the table she had been laid on, her face dissolving with her anger into empty shock.

"Sire." Seba did not need to shout. His voice was as soft as if they were having a good natured heart-to-heart over a jug of mead. Vancha was shaking, but he stilled as Seba put a hand on his massive sun-burnt arm. Debbie was quiet now, trying to choke down her heaving sobs. The old vampire regarded her before putting her head on her knee, and just like before, she understood the weight of his hand, but didn't really feel it, as if he were touching her through a thick cloud. "What Vancha is trying to say, is that all of us are mourning over Larten. We need to stand together, support each other, not turn on each other. We are here for you, Debbie. You are not alone."

She was unnaturally cold, shivering and hugging herself. Her eyes were wide open but sightless, and despite his words, despite even the hand on her knee, she sank deep into herself. No longer aware of the people around her, she descended into her own special torment, unreachable and very much alone.

Did you think there wouldn't be consequences?

XXX

As Tiny had told them what now felt like years, if not decades ago, she had been revived to full health. It only took a couple of days for the headaches and stiffness to fade away entirely but even so, she was barely alive. She stayed in her cell mostly, barely moving, eating almost nothing. Food, when she could force it down, tasted like ash and made her gag. Others came to visit her but she didn't speak, didn't even look at them, just sat there with her knees pulling up close to her chin, letting their words wash over her like useless, formless smoke as she floated in alternating unnatural numbness and biting, savage despair. During those time she would coil up in a tense ball, dragging her nails over her arms and howling with such misery that other vampires were frightened away from the corridors leading to her room, until she was bloody and weak, silently and fitfully crying until exhaustion forced her mind into unconsciousness.

Three days after the battle, she was hunched over in one of her feeling-less phases, an empty bowl of food untouched and cold in front of her, deaf to Seba's voice as he talked to her patiently. Her mind was not idle, however. Something had occurred to her. All of this seemed so… false, just a little too convenient. They had been given the vial, always just enough to save one person and just when as the War of the Scars is ended, a fight breaks out, a fight that just happened to be fatal to the both of them. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was on a film set. The world around her just kept going on like a theatre production, the same actors saying predictable, bland lines as if they had been written for them. It couldn't be real. Larten had told her all about how Mr. Tiny had taken the reins of his life for just over two decades, and she had seen with her own eyes how he had simply let Larten go after he had defied him, rewarded them even for their daring. However, something deep inside her rejected this. Mr. Tiny didn't seem like the kind of man who would let something like this just go, as if it were a trifle. He would have to set an example. There would have to be consequences.

What if the creepy little narrative he had been cooking refocused on her, making her the protagonist? It made sense. That was how Larten could have died, how, given the choice, his friends who had known him longer than they had known her, chose to save her. Aside from sentimental value, Larten was a political asset, a vampire who had proven himself well beyond her long before she was born, and yet here she was sitting, the one they had chosen to revive. It made too little sense logically, and too much sense narratively for her to ignore this niggling feeling that the audience was still there, had always been there, watching.

So what? That made her the lead actress? At first this had unsettled her, paralysed her with anxiety, unable to trust any action or thought in case it had been cosmically scripted. After a few minutes, however, she thought of Larten again, how he had refused to recite his lines in the end. She didn't have to obey the director. She could be a diva, demanding changes here and there, asserting her dominance and control. If he could do it, if he could mess up Tiny's plans… She didn't care what might happen to her, what fresh hell lay in store for those who deliberately provoked Mr. Tiny. All she understood was that before he could pin her down and openly force compliance, she would relish making his life as inconvenient as she possibly could.

"Seba?"

Seba stopped talking and leaned forward. It had been the first words she had said to him since he had revived her. "Yes, dear?"

"Has Larten's funeral been arranged yet?"

"It is tomorrow," he said gently, worried her might scare her back into silence.

"Will he be burned?"

"It is our custom," he said, his brow furrowing.

"Don't."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't burn him," she said, this time her voice hard. "That elixir, it needs to be put into the veins of the dead. If you burn his body, there'll be nothing left. I need him to be buried, or better yet, mummified, so that his body is preserved for as long as possible. I don't know how long it's going to take me after all."

"What do you mean?" Seba sounded alarmed now. "What are you going to do"?

"I'm going to go to Mr. Tiny, can demand that he give me more of that potion, Lazurli or whatever it's called, so I can being Larten back. It's not right that he was killed – " Seba looked like he wanted to interject but Debbie raised her hand, "-Tiny had it out for him from day one. I bet that attack was staged. I need to go and demand he rewrite the script."

"The script? I do not know what-"

"I'm leaving. Tonight, I'm going in search of him, Mr. Tiny. I need you to understand the importance of having Larten preserved. Will you see that it's done for me?"

Seba stared at her, his face etched with concern and confusion. "I… I… I guess it can be done. The guardians of the blood may protest, but… I can try to see to it that he is buried."

"Don't try. Do." Debbie stood up suddenly and left without a word, leaving Seba stunned in her chamber. She suddenly realised how hungry she was and grinned a horrible mirthless grin. She would need to grab something to eat before she went in search of supplies. It wouldn't do to meet that meddling man in anything less than her peak physical state.