"...What sort of madhouse is this?"

The mouth of the tunnel had finally opened up into a wide, subsurface canal. Whether originally designed to direct storm runoff or for sewage, Henry had no idea, and wasn't too curious about the answer, anyways. If it was once used for the latter, it certainly didn't look that way now.

From their vantage on the far bank, they could see the entirety of the Reformationists' base camp. Balanced atop a multitude of thin, wooden poles, squat shanty houses cluttered the entire width of the underground channel, distributed flat over a wide area. Wooden slats and beams were the primary material used in its construction, aging timbers from a mishmash of sources that miraculously managed to carry the weight of the entire settlement on their backs, while the denizens of Little Henwood milled about unworried. Overhead, flocks of minute flames illuminated the town below like an army of will-o-wisps.

It really was a town, Henry thought. So many other places where life gathered in Hallow London felt more like an emergency shelter or hideout, his own group's current base included. There just wasn't a great way to set down roots around here when a pack of werewolves three times the size of you could roll through at any moment. But this…

This felt like a proper, lived-in home. And to many, Robb included, that concept had become rather alien in nature.

"It's so… normal." The radio host watched the crowd from the lip of the tunnel, too shocked to do anything other than gaze out over the water with wide eyes. "Has it always been like this?"

"Far as I can remember," Henry confirmed. "The benefits of absolute secrecy, I guess."

"There's got to be at least a hundred people here, and- oh my god…"

It appeared that Robb had finally noticed. Dotted in between the houses, if one looked carefully enough, vampires of various stages of transformation could be seen going about their business plain as day. Not many details could be made out from this distance, but the body language of everyone around was clearly very relaxed. Cordial, even.

That sort of behavior would have been impossible to find in a normal thrall-camp. In those, the power dynamics were laid bare for everyone to witness. There were the feeders, and the feed. Didn't take a genius to figure out which species landed on which side of that fence.

Here, though…

Here seemed to be a much more harmonious relationship. Pale-skinned vamps in human form waved to passersby they recognized. Skeletal pure-form vampires kept watch over the perimeter alongside human guards in mismatched armor. Anywhere you looked, try as you might to find signs of feral creatures of the night or frightened, defeated survivors…

There was simply none of that to be found.

Henry gave him a moment to take it all in. He'd certainly needed more than that when he'd come to terms with the fact that Grace had been a vampire since the very start of the second Witching Hour. And, he thought, what she'd accomplished here was nothing short of impressive.

Which made it all the more of a shame that this peace was much more fragile than the current display of harmony suggested. All it would take was one slip-up at the exact wrong moment, and this whole thing would dissolve faster than spun sugar if the other camps made a move on this place.

"You starting to see what I mean?", Henry spoke softly. "Normally, I'd agree with your initial assessment on vampires, ten times out of ten. Lord only knows the sort of bad scrapes they've caused me over the months. If I didn't know some of these people personally for a time, I probably would have cloned my way out of here and brought the hammer of the Nobles down long ago. But, after giving them all a chance…"

He let his words trail off. The meaning behind them got across, he believed.

"...Why did you?", Robb finally asked. "What caused you to decide to defend them? Anyone operating under common sense would have shot first and asked questions later if they found this place. I certainly was about to. Pretty sure everyone else would do that. And from what I can tell, there's no reason you should have reacted any other way. So… what happened?"

Henry smiled. "As I've probably told you already, there are a few Greenwich survivors still out there. Not many left, and fewer and fewer with each passing month, but we share an ideal that brings us together no matter what."

"Greenwich looks after their own," Robb finished.

"Precisely. And the person we're about to meet… held onto that creed even after she turned into a what everyone thought was monster. If it weren't for her, I'm not sure I'd even be here in front of you now, honestly."

Robb gave his words a contemplative look.

"Must be quite the character, if she made this happen."

"Anyone worth anything these days usually is," he agreed.

Satisfied with the view, the two of them followed along behind their guide, into the settlement proper.

< -|- -|- >

Enrico's smile flashed pearly white as they cut through the bustling throng of residents, revealing two sharpened canines as they stepped off the lone pier crossing that led straight into the village's market square. Gone was the zeal and unsettling aura of his former persona, and in its place shone a cheery, friendly attitude one might offer to close family. The switch took... more than a little bit of getting used to, Henry felt. Robb likely was in the same boat, considering the expression he was giving in response.

"Welcome to Little Henwood, friends," Enrico loudly proclaimed with a dash of flair. "Perhaps the finest surviving human settlement this side of the river. Well... mostly human settlement. Now that the stuffy protocol and distrust issues have been swept away properly, I hope you enjoy your visit."

He led the way through the crowd with a confident stride in his step. Down to the way he beckoned them inside, it was a near one to one, perfect recreation of Henry's own first visit here.

Granted, back then this place had been even less developed, merely a few shacks clinging along the far side of the canal, but aside from the new structures around him the place was almost exactly as he remembered. Which also meant, like he had, Robb was also getting what he liked to call the 'full Enrico experience'.

"And that one over there is Clive, he's been with us since almost the very beginning and handles guard duty whenever he can. Over there, in the back with the long hair, that's Nudge. Odd fellow, but one of the kindest souls you'll ever meet once you get to know him. Also, surprisingly, hemophobic! He tries to put on a brave face with the rest of us, but we do what we can to make him feel comfortable. Just, ah… cover that hand of yours as we walk past him, will you?"

One by one, he was pointing out the vampires in the crowd by name, giving a few details about each of them as they went but not lingering on any specific one for too long. The mark of a true extrovert, he never seemed to tire out his conversational abilities, despite there seeming to always be one more person to talk about.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

For Henry, it had been a torrent of too much information all at once. Robb, on the other hand, was probably the only other person who'd made an entire career out of listening to things even more than Henry himself had. He absorbed all the details Enrico threw at him like a sponge, and even found ways to add in a few questions of his own.

"Are the red eyes normal? I've only ever seen vampires with those horrid looking shark eyes before, and I think that might be just part of the transformation. But then, wouldn't it be strange to have two entirely different sets of eye colors?"

"Actually, we technically have three," Enrico replied. "The red eyes are more a side effect of low blood intake than anything. Normally, a vampire who's drank enough blood to properly shape themselves like a human just reverts to what they looked like before the second Witching Hour. But, since we distance ourselves from that as much as we possibly can, we all have a few obvious abnormalities. Nothing wrong with a little exotic charm, though, I say!"

Enrico laughed, and Robb joined in after a moment of hesitation. He clearly wasn't completely at ease being this close to bloodsuckers, no matter how friendly they claimed to be. As for Henry, he mostly found it strange that they'd gone from nearly killing each other in a random drainage pipe under Walworth to being more or less on good terms.

Guess it just goes to show that first impressions don't always seal the deal…

"Actually, while we're on the subject, I'd like to talk a little more about the blood thing."

"Oh?" Enrico raised an eyebrow as they cut across a side street onto another thoroughfare. "And what might that be?"

"Well… you mentioned that everyone here is basically starving for blood. Now, I'm not really a reporter, but during my time as a… ahem… volunteer for the Gentleman's Club I was basically the closest thing they had to one. So I've heard my fair share of tales about vampire attacks. And, uh…"

"You are wondering why we don't drain people dry like every other vampire you've heard of?"

"Ah, sorry… If it's a sore subject, I can just drop it and-"

"Oh, no! It's no problem, really! As a matter of fact, this is a great chance for me to explain some lesser known parts of what life for us is like!"

"Oh, that's… good, then?"

"It is if you're ready to have your ear talked off," Henry added with a knowing smirk. "What did you call it when I first came here? The 'short and sweet' version?"

"That I did! Ah, but we are on a tight schedule, so I will have to give your friend here the super short, super sweet version instead, I'm afraid. So, to answer your question, Mister…"

"Huxley. Robb Huxley."

"You don't say?! What a crazy small world we live in! Your broadcasts were a welcome addition to our little home for the longest time!"

"...Happy to be of service," Robb said politely. In the sort of way that screamed 'I'd rather not talk about that subject'. "Now, you were saying about blood…?"

"Ah! Yes, of course! The truth is, outside of the larger, more powerful form you see guarding the perimeter -" He gestured back in the direction of Clive – "We actually only need a very small amount to survive from day to day. It acts more as a force multiplier than an actual fuel source, I suppose would be the best comparison. Unless you placed one of us in a box away from anyone else for months on end, we'd actually do fine on just bread and water like anyone else."

"...Like the one you had me kill?"

"Precisely like that. Which also leads me to another important detail about blood consumption. It's all too easy to let it go to your head and... well, turn you into the kind of monsters you see roaming the streets at night."

"But you do still need at least some? How do you not end up going crazy if there's no way around it?"

"Lots and lots and lots of discipline. It's why most of the small amount we collect goes to the guards or the guerrillas. Those off duty keep strictly to the essentials."

"Does that mean you, uh… skim a bit off the top from the recovering thralls?"

"No, we only ask for volunteers when we have an opportunity to score a big hit against one of the other camps. Nobody really has a problem with it then because we're actively working to break their friends loose."

"So then how do you manage every other time?"

"Well…" Enrico suddenly looked very bashful, even more so when they nearly bumped into a vampire and a human headed the other way. Looking back, the two of them were very obviously holding hands.

"Some we rescue stay for reasons that are completely their own," was all he would say on the matter.

They chatted back and forth in such a fashion all the way to their destination, and Henry was more than happy to let them. Their journey led them to the very far side of the canal, into a building leaning against the concrete wall that looked positively ancient compared to the rest of the already aging wooden huts here. The wood was almost pure gray, where most of the rest held onto at least some of the original beiges and browns. The three of them hurried inside, through a curtain of wooden beads that stood in place of a door and rattled at even the slightest shift in the still air that permeated the cavern. Enrico took them straight to the rear of the building, where the smooth concrete of the far wall supported the rest of the structure.

Back there was a second door, this one made of metal and with a push bar at roughly torso height. The lights of the village dimmed once again as they passed through, and the lantern came out once more after they'd gone a sufficient distance down the seemingly never-ending flights of stairs on the other side.

The whole area was noticeably absent of mist, and somewhere in the distance Henry could make out the sound of machinery humming away with a deep, industrial rumble. In a way, it reminded him of the strange temple hidden underneath Stratford, where the seemingly neverending halls of human history still probably held at least one magically-infused vampire.

…Now that he thought about it, that entire pillar that sealed the entrance to that place was made of a material similar to those odd crystals Guillaume and Evelyn had. Add in the fact that artifacts supposedly hid these crystals inside them somewhere, and an unsettling picture began to paint itself in Henry's mind.

If that entire pillar was made of that artifact crystal… Just how big is the artifact?

Worries for another time. As for right now, they had reached the bottom of the stairs.

It tapered off into a single ominous hallway. No furnishing, no details, just a rectangular box that stretched on through the ground towards a single doorway just a few meters away. Light poured out from underneath the gap below the door, and Enrico approached it with steps that suddenly became a lot less confident.

The vampire knocked softly a few times. "Mistress," he murmured softly. "Your visitors have arrived."

He went unanswered for just long enough to get uncomfortable. Henry was about to knock himself when the answer finally came back.

"Go away," an all-too familiar young voice muttered back. "I'm busy."

"M-mistress, I must insist this time…"

He spoke like he was walking on eggshells. That was a new development, if Henry had ever seen one. Grace had built this entire place from essentially nothing, and the vampires that had flocked to her haven had grown to be thick as thieves with her, from what he remembered. Not a strict hierarchy, where she had lorded over them, but he'd be lying if there wasn't an undercurrent of serious respect that he'd noticed.

Had something changed, all of a sudden?

"I told you, I'm busy," she snapped, louder this time. "Tell them to come back later. I'll talk with them once I'm finished with what I'm working on."

"…Please, this is about more than just-"

"Yeah, cut the sass already, Grace," Henry cut in. "You already know who's here."

He'd gone into this knowing making contact would take some time, but he was nowhere near patient enough to suffer what could be an extremely long, entirely avoidable delay. Normally, he wasn't too big a fan of being a bit rude, but… knowing Grace's tendency to sulk at times, this was the best way he knew how to get through to her.

That the normally unflappable and frustratingly handsome vampire that brought them here looked about ready to crawl back into his cloak after the harsh response was just icing on the cake. Nice enough bloke, really, but a chance like this was just too good for him to pass up.

Something that sounded suspiciously like an angsty sigh came from the far side of the door, making Enrico sweat even more nervously as the lock on the door unlatched. With a menacing creak the hinges swung wide, finally allowing for a proper sight of the room past it.

On the far wall, rows upon rows of monitors arced in a parabolic dish to face a single, free-standing chair in the center of the room. Each monitor held a grainy, black-and-white image of what appeared to be sidewalks and streets, complete with ruined infrastructure surrounding most locations from every angle. Occasionally, a shadowy figure was visible in the background of one of the images, before cycling to another spot while the computers lining every spare surface churned away in support of the massive observation post.

And, at the center of it all, coming up barely to his chest, the one responsible for the whole setup glowered at him sullenly from the swivel chair. Grace looked up at him blandly, loafing around in baggy pajamas while sipping what appeared to be a tall glass of blood through a crazy straw.

"Oh, good, you made it," was all she bothered to say. "Come inside and make yourself at home, I guess. If you're here, then I guess there's something worth talking about."

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