Going down the stairs sucked. Especially because there was no light, no guard rails, and the steps were made of rotting wooden boards or, worse, just a metal pipe. No, no, not a stack of metal pipes bundled together. Just one metal pipe fixed on either end with whatever the construction workers could grab in a hurry. No wonder this place was abandoned. OSHA must have had a field day with this one.

  But it did give me plenty of time to think about the overarching problem of how all the puzzle pieces fit into this mess of a situation.

  I tried not to focus on the small details here; instead, I approached it from a different angle. I needed to see the whole forest. That meant identifying all the players and which team they were playing for.

  Of course, the first ones to come to mind were Wol, Hwari, and me. We were in this together. Wol and Hwari had bailed me out of two life-or-death situations already, which freaked me out on a level that I tried not to think too much about.

  The fact that I almost died? Yeah, I wasn’t just ignoring it. Like I told Wol, I was running on adrenaline and managed to suppress too much introspection on that aspect, or I’d curl up into a ball and start crying in a hole somewhere.

  Wol and Hwari, I could trust them. They were on my side. The connection forged by the familiar contract wasn’t just based on feelings. It was an agreement. The moment they accepted, they’d wholeheartedly do what was best for me, and I for them.

  Apart from them… I wasn’t sure who else I could trust.

  The Valentines and the Baeks were simple. They were against me and each other. It also didn’t look like they were all buddy-buddy with each other, either.

  I was tempted to think that Emyrith was on my team. But it just felt off. The way he went radio silent after that discussion, how he hadn’t bothered reaching out to me once after the bounty appeared on my head. Sure, I could chalk it up to him doing damage control behind the scenes. If Mina was to be believed, Councilor Valentine and Elder Baek were going around talking smack about me behind my back. It would be right up a lawyer’s alley to try to mitigate that.

  But what Rosefinch said about trust kept coming back to haunt me. She knew something I didn’t.

  Or she was playing me.

  Note to self: study up on Vampyrs. Heck, study up on the Valstein family and the other vampyr family while I’m at it.

  Which brought me to the Table.

  The evil Home Owner’s Association I’ve been hearing so much about.

  So far, I’d met four of the members. The Assad, the ancient Persian vampire with a toe fetish; the Intellect Transit, classical tragedy of a beautiful mind stuck in a hideous eldritch-cursed body; Rosefinch Valstein, though it seemed she was just a member of the Valstein family; and the Wickerman.

  “Wol, question,” I grabbed onto the ledge of the half-finished ceiling, lowering myself step by step. If I still had the norigae and the night-vision it granted me, this wouldn’t have been half as hard.

  Wol fared much better than I did, slinking down the stairs with feline smoothness while still matching my pace. “Yes?”

  “The Wickerman, he was some sort of fire-spirit. What was the deal with him? It didn’t look like a typical practitioner-familiar relationship.”

  “From what I can gather, the familiar is the Wickerman. Though it’s hard to use the word familiar when the practitioner is left in such a state,” He said. “I think you are right. The familiar has taken over.”

  “I think I remember reading about that. How some familiars are passed on down a family for so long that they start to influence things.”

  “Those familiars act as elders, or family advisors. Since they’ve been in the family for so long, they have intimate knowledge of the inner family politics and workings. I think the case here is a little different.”

  “How so?” I said and cursed right after, nearly falling down the stairs. Forget the trial and forget the nameless; my epithet would be ‘Death by Stairs’.

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  “In this case, the Wickerman has completely taken over. The practitioner, I don’t think he had much of a mind left,” Wol said. He leapt onto a nearby ledge and watched me carefully.

  ‘Empty, Void. Screaming but no mouth to scream with.’ Hwari said from above me.

  “So in that relationship, the familiar calls the shots? I thought familiar contracts were equal.”

  “Depends on the familiar. Depends on the contract. It could also be because he’s an Egregore,” Wol said, “Watch your step to your left. There are rusty nails.”

  I slid my foot to the left and kicked them away. “What’s an Egregore?”

  “A creature born from group thought. They are born after any event where enough people think or pay attention to the same thing. Usually a tragedy. It’s hard to find one that’s old.”

  “Because of the average attention span?” I quipped.

  “Yes. Most cease to exist after a year or so, because public awareness simply moves on. For them to continue existing, they need constant attention on the idea which holds them together,” Wol explained. “Most of the older ones survive by following tragedies, or groups that specialize in their core idea.”

  I tasted something bitter and grimaced. “I think I’m starting to get the idea. The Wickerman needs people to think about him to survive. So he creates the Wickermen, gathering people with minor talent and giving them power. The guy was made of fire, right? The Wickermen who came after us also came after fire. I’d bet three-fiddy on the chance that this guy exclusively recruits people who have a talent for pyromancy.”

  “A reasonable assumption. Cults are another way for Egregores to continue feeding themselves.”

  “But that doesn’t explain how he took over the guy,” I said.

  “Well, Egregores are psychic entities. More powerful ones can affect one’s thoughts, especially if you are already receptive to their ethos.”

  “Jesus,” I swore, leaping off the last step and feeling the boards shake. “He’s not just feeding himself through them. They get more power, use more fire, think more fire, and one of them ends up contracting to him. He’s farming them.”

  “It would make sense how an Egregore lived long enough to sit on the Table,” Wol agreed.

  I wondered if the Table had any say in how much funding the FDNY got, and if they did, how much sway the Wickerman had over that decision.

  I shivered, and it had nothing to do with the winter air or the abandoned building.

  But pyromaniacs and evil HOA or not, the Table was a factor. Even beyond the interruptions that they were providing. Otherwise, Elder Baek and Councilor Valentine wouldn’t bother talking to them. That meant I had to do the same –barring the possibility that Emyrith already wasn’t. I needed people in my corner, and running this errand for the Intellect Transit was one way to do that.

  The Intellect wasn’t opposed to the idea of backing me, and by association, neither was Wickerman or Rosefinch Valstein.

  But at the end of the day, none of them were on my side.

  In total, three different camps. Me, the Baeks, and the Valentines. Emyrith and the members of the Table were playing the game and trying to see what they could get out of it. And they were all making deals on the side without me knowing.

  The numbers weren’t adding up and unless I could fudge them, I was going to lose everything.

  Wol reached the bottom of the stairs a split second before I did. My feet landed on solid ground, and I could finally breathe again. No more shaky scaffoldings, no more howling gales threatening to knock me off balance. I reveled in the relief of having my own feet on the ground again.

  ‘There’s someone here,’ Hwari alerted me. ‘Behind you, Practitioner.’

  “Who’s there?” I panted, my hair standing up on end. The words came out too scared, too panicked to be confident.

  Abigail stepped out from behind a pillar. “We meet again, Jain.”

  “Abigail?” I realized my hand had been inching towards my knife. Dammit, it was a habit now. “Wait, you’re my ride?”

  She nodded. “An exchange of favors between Assad and Rosefinch Valstein.”

  I was pretty tired and had to do some mental gymnastics for her words to make sense. “Oh, ok then.”

  “This way,” She said. As we passed by her, she greeted my familiars. “Old ones, glad to see you are well.”

  “That might change before the moon is out,” Wol grumbled.

  ‘Or before the sun rises once more,’ Hwari said faithfully.

  It was Assad’s limo again, without the snow plow this time. I entered and noted the time, finding both relief and growing unease. It wasn’t as late as I thought. The sun sets early in winter and it messes with people’s sense of time. But it was dinner time and that meant I had less than twenty-four hours until my first showdown with the Baeks and Valentines.

  Wol, Hwari, and Abigail all filed in after me, each of us carving out two or three seats of our own. Abigail sat directly across from me, her hands folded in her lap. I noted that she’d changed her dress, less maid and more goth. Little crucifixes had been cut into her sleeves, all the way from shoulder to wrist.

  There was no visible signal, but as soon as the door shut, the limo revved to life and began the drive.