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Lucas bowed his head. “You honor us with your hospitality.” He walked inside ahead of the other two, who were an odd pair, to say the least. “These are Danielle and Matheo.”

Among the three of them, Matheo looked like the bear, towering a head above Lucas and even a good two inches over Auris. Danielle had dark blonde hair in a tight braid. I could see her Adam’s apple bobbing when she looked around, then wondered why the smaller woman was standing in front of the much taller and broader Matheo. Then she looked at me, and her dark eyes seemed to size me up in a clinical way. Maybe there was a reason they were keeping the woman in the front.

“I’m Auris, and this is Ethan.” He closed the front door and led the way for our guests, though he took the opportunity to take me by the arm and pull me along.

“Why is it all black?” I heard Matheo mumble behind us, some accent I couldn’t place slightly coloring his consonants.

“I told you it looks like a lair,” I said to Auris, and Lucas was the first to laugh.

It seemed to put the other two at ease when we settled on the couch in the sunken living room. The fire was still going, and the blanket we’d huddled under for the documentary was still out.

“So, I just want to make sure I heard you right.” I pointed at the three of them. “You’re a were-bear, a berserker, and you two are werewolves. Real, actual werewolves. Who turn into wolves. Do you need a full moon for that?”

Lucas inclined his head. “Yes, we are that, but we prefer bear or wolf, the animal we can turn into. Were-anything sounds silly, and when normals overhear it, they think we’re strange. By normals, I mean humans, no offense.”

I shrugged. “None taken.”

“We can shift at any point, some faster than others,” Danielle added. My ears wanted her accent to sound French, but it wasn’t really that, just close. Lucas was maybe Canadian, but I didn’t have the ear to be sure.

“Obviously we don’t intend to shift in your home.” Lucas bobbed his head in our direction.

I could tell the exact moment when Lucas spotted the museum socks on Auris’s feet. His green eyes went wide, a grin almost catching his mouth and pulling it bow tight.

I chuckled, which earned me Auris’s arm around my shoulders.

“How did you do it?” Danielle asked without preamble, her eyes narrowed on Auris. “We watched the six of them go after you, into the museum. Six armed men with experience in how to kill things. How did you walk out alive and make them walk out alive?”

Lucas cleared his throat. “We had wondered. I’m sorry. We’ve been following you since the bone church. We know they use it to lure people in.”

My brows went up. “You followed us?”

Lucas pointed up. “Via drone. We don’t like getting too close on account of the fucking Gladius people. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t have a ton of agents, but they always have their henchmen, especially around Kutná Hora. It looked like the one you caught saw you’d compelled the janitor or whatever he is, and that got the agent very interested. We can show you the footage.” He nodded at Danielle, who pulled out a phone, activated the screen, and handed it over to Auris.

I watched over his shoulder. It was an aerial view of just outside the cemetery and the ossuary at its center. The groundskeeper stood outside, so this was after he’d given us his keys. I saw Christian tapping the man on the shoulder, then waving his hand in front of his face before strolling past him into the cemetery. This prompted the groundskeeper to walk ahead, likely to alert us. The whole scene had the greenish tinge of night vision.

“We lost you in the city,” Lucas went on. “Prague is pretty big, but we figured the agent had tricked you into taking him in, so we did do our best with airports and the train station.”

Danielle crossed her legs. “Thank Brexit and Covid for making tracking people easier.”

Lucas waved at her vaguely. “She does all the tech thingies that no one really understands, and she assures us that the pandemic is the best thing ever. Personally, I disagree.”

Danielle shrugged. “I always qualify. Death is bad, so it’s bad, but there are good things.” She wrinkled her nose. “It makes more billionaires though. That is a very, very bad thing.”

Auris handed the phone back. “This seems quite involved. I wasn’t aware that shapechangers were so many or so clearly involved in security issues as you are.”

“You’re old, aren’t you?” Lucas folded his hands in his lap. “That was the agent’s mistake. He thought he could corner you at night in a closed building.”

Auris crossed his legs, making sure to keep his museum-socked feet where they all could see. “I am, and he was foolish to come for me during the night.”

Lucas regarded the socks, then looked at Auris again. “We don’t see many vampires that are very old anymore. There’re two branches that we’re in contact with, but the oldest vampire there is…I don’t know, maybe three hundred years?

“One branch calls itself the Baltic Tribe, and the other is something more like a family. The woman who’s the primogenitor of most of them is called Ana, and she offered her blood to those who were otherwise destined for death, first during the Spanish flu, then later during World War II. Other than that, all we have are stories of very powerful, very old blood drinkers. No one has seen one in generations.”

“You’re supposed to have died out.” Matheo crossed his arms. He was almost taking up as much space as the other two combined.

Auris shrugged. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Lucas raised his hands palms out again. “He means to say he is very happy, as am I, that we get to make your acquaintance.”