"Shady, TV room. Now," I hissed, grabbing the Wendigo's sauce-covered face.

  "TV room circle!" she agreed, but didn't move.

  The doorbell rang again. "Ash? I know you're in there. Your Jeep's in the driveway." North yelled.

  "Shit." I grabbed Shady, hauling her toward the den by the antlers. "Important Princess business: watch TV and be quiet."

  "QUIET CIRCLE! BEEP—"

  I clamped my hand over her mouth. She licked my palm.

  "Silent circles. Very important silent circles." I whispered sternly.

  She nodded solemnly, silver eyes wide. I shoved her into the TV room, cranked the volume on some nature documentary about penguins, and quickly locked the door. Then the hallway door. Then the kitchen door for good measure.

  "PENGUIN CIRCLES!" I heard her shout through three sets of doors. "ACCEPTABLE BIRDS!"

  I grabbed my house keys and stepped outside, pulling the thick front door shut behind me with a click.

  North stood on my porch in a black peacoat, black tank top and dark jeans, gray eyes scanning my face. The porch light caught shiny purple streaks in her dark hair, making them shimmer like oil slicks.

  A car was parked in the driveway. It looked like a 1930s Packard, all swooping fenders and chrome details, deep black color and shaded windows. The kind of car Al Capone would have enjoyed.

  "You didn't text me," she said without preamble.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Kind of preoccupied with the whole alien invasion thing. Been watching TV all day. Sup?”

  "Sup?" North's eyebrows arched. "That's your response? You're alone in a mansion that's practically falling apart, in the middle of nowhere, during an invasion, and you're going with 'sup?'"

  "I mean..." I shrugged, trying to appear casual while listening for any Shady-related noises from within the house. "What else am I supposed to say? 'Hello, thanks for checking if the aliens murdered me yet?'"

  "That would be a start." She crossed her arms, the movement making her silver rings catch the dying light barely breaking through storm clouds overhead. "Do you have any idea what's happening in town? People are losing their minds."

  "About the aliens?"

  "About everything, yeah. The Morrison's hardware store got cleaned out of generators and camping gear. Gas station's limiting fuel to ten gallons per person. Walgreens is already out of batteries, bottled water, and..." she paused, "toilet paper, because apparently that's still the best panic-buy of choice even during an alien invasion. Yumland’s getting emptied out too and I didn’t happen to see you or your… dog stocking up there.”

  From deep inside the house came a muffled "COME BACK, BEST CIRCLE! I NEED THE EMPEROR PENGUIN!"

  North's eyes flicked toward the sound. "You have company?"

  "Just the TV. Documentary about penguins. Very educational."

  She studied me for a long moment with an uncomfortably perceptive look.

  "You worry about every random customer you give your number to?" I deflected.

  "I don't give my number to random customers," she said flatly. "I gave it to you. The new guy who just inherited a creepy-ass fire-hazard-central mansion.”

  “You think that I’m going to set my house on fire or something?”

  “I think that if anything happens the fire department or police won’t come,” she said. “I didn't just come here to check if you were alive. Though that was part of it."

  "Oh?"

  North shifted her weight. "Things are getting bad out there, Ash. Not here in Cascade, we're too small and isolated by mountain roads. But Portland? Seattle? The big cities are effed hard. People are panicking, breaking into stores, stealing supplies. The power grid's already struggling in some areas. Water treatment plants are running on skeleton crews because half the workers fled."

  "The aliens haven't actually attacked anyone who wasn't a government official," I pointed out.

  "Yet," North said. "But people don't care about 'yet.' They see warships in orbit, giant crystal centipedes and animal soldiers with guns, and they lose their minds. The government's barely functional since the Vice President signed the surrender declaration to the Frontenachii Dominion. Supply chains are breaking down. It's only been less than a day since they dropped the moon on us. Give it a week and the entire nation will catch on fire."

  “And?”

  “And I want you to come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “To my family's place.”

  "Love to, but can't. I'll manage."

  "Will you?" She stepped closer, and I caught a whiff of something metallic beneath her flowery perfume. "You've got no supplies, no backup power, no way to defend yourself if things go sideways. The nearest neighbor is miles away."

  "I said I'll manage."

  "Come on," she insisted, "My family has a farm in the mountains. We've got a generator, a well with clean water, enough food stockpiled to last months. Even an old bunker my paranoid grandpa built during the Cold War."

  "That's... generous," I said carefully, "but I can't leave."

  "Why not?"

  "I just moved in. I've got stuff to do."

  "What stuff?”

  “Work stuff. I gotta find work.”

  “Job hunting during an alien invasion?" Her gray eyes narrowed. "Or is it… something else?"

  "DOCUMENTARY PENGUIN EMPIRE! BEEP BEEP! Where did Emperor go? CIRCLE NEEDS MORE PASTA!" Shady yelled unhelpfully.

  Something shifted in North’s posture. "That doesn't sound like a documentary."

  "GoTube documentaries have weird joke narration sometimes."

  "Ash," Her voice dropped to a low growl. "I'm trying to save you, damn it. My family... We're prepared for this kind of thing. We have resources. Connections. You don't have to weather this alone."

  "Thanks, but I'm good here."

  "You're not listening." She grabbed my wrist where Shady had bruised it. I winced, and she noticed, her fingers tracing the purple marks. "Someone did this to you. Someone strong."

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I pulled my hand back. "I'm clumsy. A rope caught me."

  "These look like thumb prints." She stepped even closer, close enough that I could see flecks of crystallized silver dancing in her gray eyes. "What are you hiding, Ash?"

  "Nothing. I just prefer to stay here."

  "Even if the power goes out? Even if the water stops? Even if those fucks," she gestured vaguely skyward where we both knew alien ships orbited, "decide to start harvesting people?"

  "Even then."

  Her jaw tightened. "You're being stupid."

  "Maybe. Still staying."

  "I'm trying to save your life!"

  "I didn't ask you to."

  She stared at me for a long moment. "Fine. I tried being nice to you, mageling. Emerge e sarcophago. Pacifica canem nigram."

  I blinked as she inexplicably switched to Latin, her voice resonating unnaturally across the clearing like a gunshot.

  The doors of the black car opened. Four men stepped out, and immediately, every instinct I had screamed wrong.

  They wore suits, all black with thin pinstripes, complete with fedoras tilted at identical angles. But it was their faces that made my skin crawl. They looked human the way a mannequin looks human. All the right features in all the right places, but something fundamental was missing. Their skin was too wrinkly, like plastic stretched over a frame. Their expressions were fixed in identical eerie smiles, eyes hidden by reflective, round glasses.

  Each carried a Thompson submachine gun, the old Chicago Typewriter style.

  North moved faster than I could say ‘what the fuck’, kicking my feet out from under me. As my face and chest slammed into the wooden porch, her knee dug into my back, my hands pulled back. Handcuffs snapped over my wrists.

  A dark shadow erupted from the side of the house like a freight train made of fury and antlers, the side door flying out into the woods. Shady moved faster than I'd ever seen her move, even faster than when she'd grabbed my tablet in the shower. One moment the four suited men were raising their Tommy guns, the next they were... pieces.

  Black fluid, blood that was too dark, too thick to be human, splattered across the driveway. An arm still clutching a Tommy gun went cartwheeling into the hedges. A fedora rolled across the driveway, its owner's head nowhere in sight. Wet tearing sounds mixed with unnatural bubbling and hissing noises, like someone feeding a variety of furniture and fluids into a wood chipper.

  North yelped above me as seven feet of enraged cryptid princess reached us. She flew off me kicked by a dark furry foot, her body obliterating the wooden balustrade. She hit the gravel hard, rolling twice before Shady pounced off the porch landing atop the vampire girl.

  "UNACCEPTABLE CIRCLE!" Shady roared, her massive jaws closing around North's throat. A low, rumbling growl vibrated through the air, making the remaining intact windows rattle.

  "Shady, stop!" I wheezed, struggling to my knees, handcuffs rattling on my wrists. My body throbbed and protested where it was slammed into the wooden porch. "Don't kill her!"

  "BAD CIRCLE MESS EMPEROR!" Shady snarled around North's neck, not loosening her dark clawed grip. "VERY BAD! BEEP! BEEP! REQUIRED!"

  I limped off the porch, nearly tripping over a torn leg. The "men" weren't bleeding like humans. Their black ichor steamed in the evening air, smelling of rot, copper and something chemical, like antifreeze.

  "Damn it. Should have brought more thralls," North hissed through clenched teeth, gray eyes flashing in the gloom. Actually flashing, like a cat's, but the wrong color entirely. Pure silver.

  Thunder rumbled overhead. Fat raindrops began to fall, mixing with the black blood on the gravel, creating oil-slick rainbows in the dying light.

  "Thralls?" I asked, though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. "You're actually a vampire? Fucking Count Chocula over here, trying to do what? Thrall me up too?”

  "VAMPIRE CIRCLE!" Shady announced, tail swishing aggressively.

  North stared at Shady, taking in the full seven feet of muscle, antlers, and barely contained violence pinning her down. "What the fuck?"

  "Meet my lovely roommate," I said. "She's very protective."

  "That's not an undead construct.”

  "Never said she was."

  “I don’t…” North panted, her face sullen. “...Understand. Why… is a Wendigo Omnid protecting a human? That… doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You don’t get to ask questions, Miss Chocula,” I said. “I’m the one who asks questions and you better answer truthfully or my Wendigo will chew your pretty face right off. She can smell lies with her thought-catching hooks. Each lie adds an inch of teeth digging in. Right Shades?”

  “CIRCLE EMPEROR PROTECT. CHOCULA TASTY. NOM.” Shady growled, skull-head with pure white teeth closing like a vice, claws digging deeper, piercing skin.

  North gulped, silver, sparkly blood welling up where pure Wendigo canines and claws dug in.

  “A-ask y-your question t-then,” she let out. “I… I won’t lie! P-p-promise! I know that these fuckers can pull thoughts from anyone’s head.”

  “Why did you just try to abduct me?”

  "The… my glamour..." North let out, trembling. "You can clearly see through… glamours. You said I was a vampire. Mundane humans don’t notice these things.”

  "BAD CIRCLE!" Shady stated, drooling on North's face. "EMPEROR MINE! NO VAMPIRE CIRCLES ALLOWED!"

  Rain was coming down harder now, soaking through my shirt, washing the black blood into dark rivers that ran toward the storm drains. One of the thralls twitched, trying to crawl towards its master, the body missing everything below the ribcage.

  Shady's long tail whipped out like a gunshot, reducing it to scattered parts with a wet crunch.

  "Your thralls," I said, "What are they?”

  "Undead constructs," North admitted. "Recently deceased corpses, preserved with formaldehyde and animated with my blood."

  "SMOOSHED CIRCLES!" Shady confirmed. "PASTA SAUCE EVERYWHERE!"

  "You were actually going to kidnap me?" I asked.

  "Recruit," North corrected. "My family needs people with unique abilities. Humans who can see through glamours and command constructs are incredibly rare. Valuable. Especially now with the Frontenachii fleet parked in orbit."

  "So the whole 'come to our mountain bunker' thing..."

  "We do have a bunker." She tried to move, but Shady's claws tightened incrementally. "I really was trying to do this the nice way first. The invasion complicated things. Made my family… concerned… scared even."

  “What are vampires doing in Cascade?” I asked. “What’s with the Latin? You from Transylvania or something?”

  “No. We… we’re refugees from a dying world.”

  “How’d you get here?”

  “We used a gateway artifact to go through a randomly generated gate s-sequence.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Since 1922.”

  “I see. Why does the Frontenachii invasion concern you?”

  “The fuck do you mean why?!” North choked, silver eyes flashing at Shady. “This is why. Look at her!”

  “Be more specific please.” I stated. “Don’t answer a question with a question. What are you and why do the Omnids frighten you?”

  “Ugh. We’re… crystalline-organic life. Entropic magic users. Omnids are little gods… with Syntropic Fractal Engine hearts. They can’t be stopped, can’t be reasoned with. The Frontenachii see everything as a resource like the pradavarian mercs whom they bind with blood contracts, snacks like humans, or an… an infestation that must be c-collected from their… crops.”

  “You’re an infestation, then? What kind? Be specific.”

  “Ye-yes. C-crystalline fungi. We… we grow inside humans.”

  “So if you infect a human what happens?”

  “A crystalline organic network will very slowly bloom and grow in the bitten human, make them… tougher, faster, smarter… makes the infected human live forever... halt all aging and stop decay.”

  “Sounds swank. Any downsides?”

  “Sunlight disrupts our thoughts. We come from a world of twilight with a red star. The yellow sun of this planet is too bright. Makes it hard to think, like it’s screaming all the time, unless it’s cloudy and dark like it is now.”

  "Hard SQUARES!" Shady announced in North’s voice. "EMPEROR, I NOM CHOCULA? VAMPIRES ARE FOOD CIRCLE! VERY NUTRITIOUS!"

  "No, Shades, I’d like to interrogate her. No chewing on the vampire.”

  “EMPEROR INTERROGATE! BEEP! CHOCULA ANSWERS! Princess nom!”

  North choked, eyes widened further. "Princess... Oh fuck. Oh fuck me sideways. She's the… the Frontenachii—"

  I didn’t say anything, but North had already made the dire conclusion, potentially recognizing the distinctive stars sprinkled on Shady’s cheeks and antlers as shown in the broadcast.

  "Slayer," North breathed. "You're harboring their missing Princess. That's why you didn’t want to leave. You… You’re… The Emperor of Earth... that was you on TV?!"

  "EMPEROR BEST CIRCLE!" Shady confirmed.

  "Fuck my life. This is so much worse than I thought." North sobbed out.

  “What did you think, exactly?”

  “That you, like your grandparents, had some minor power,” North confessed. “Value. Maybe a little domain. Astral sight.”

  “And this is worse, how?”

  “You… you’ve somehow enthralled the Frontenachii Princess to serve you.”

  “Somehow?”

  “Somehow. Perhaps, a unique artifact or incredibly high level Charisma magic? I don’t know! You don’t smell or look like an Archmage from beyond the stars. Abyss, what sort of an abomination are you?”

  “I’m the Emperor of Earth,” I replied simply. “And I am not content with xenomorphs like you infesting my planet without asking.”