Two nights ago…

  Theona’s townhouse smelled like petrichor and perfume, rain-soaked stone and something floral that had no modern equivalent. Every step Eury took across the polished floor felt too loud, like the house itself was listening.

  Eury stood at her aunt’s vanity, comb in hand, staring at the living nest that passed for Theona’s hair.

  The snakes were restless tonight.

  They weren’t striking—just irritated. Coils overlapped in lazy, territorial loops, scales rasping softly against one another. Tongues flicked in uneven rhythms, tasting the air, tasting Eury. One thick-bodied serpent with emerald scales and a pale scar behind its eye hissed low as the comb passed too close.

  “Slowly, darling,” Theona purred from her chaise. “You’ll pull them.”

  “I’m not a stylist,” Eury muttered. “I’m here for your help.”

  “This is help,” Theona replied, eyes half-lidded. “A gorgon’s mind doesn’t settle when her hair is at war. Grooming is meditation. And,” she added mildly, “an excellent test of patience. Something you’ve always struggled with.”

  Eury grumbled, muttering under her breath in ancient Greek.

  “Theona sighed. “You can’t fight chaos while vibrating like a tuning fork, my dear.”

  Eury tugged a little harder than necessary. “I don’t have time for—”

  The emerald snake snapped.

  Fast. Sharp.

  Eury slapped it on the head without even looking.

  “Don’t,” she said flatly.

  The snake recoiled, deeply offended, hissing indignantly as it tried to re-coil around two others. Its neighbors hissed back, irritated at being jostled. One copper-scaled snake rasped against the vanity, a dry sound like fingernails on stone.

  Eury adjusted her grip, deft now, fingers working through the living mass. She separated coils where they’d twisted too tightly, easing pressure, shifting weight. The snakes resisted for a moment—then relaxed.

  The emerald one let out a low, contented hiss, tongue flicking lazily as its body loosened and settled into a more comfortable coil.

  “There,” Eury muttered. “Was that so hard?”

  Theona watched with quiet approval. “Do you see?” she said. “Still your hand, and the world stills with it.”

  Eury exhaled slowly. The snakes quieted, scales sliding into place, their collective tension easing. For a brief moment, the air itself felt balanced.

  Theona rose and crossed the room, movements fluid and ancient. She placed a cool hand over Eury’s. “Better.”

  She turned back to the vanity and produced a charm—obsidian veined with gold, warm despite the cool air.

  “It’s reflexive,” Theona said. “Reflective. It remembers intent.”

  “What does it do?” Eury asked.

  Theona smiled, sharp and knowing. “Whatever’s sent your way, it sends back. Louder.”

  Eury pocketed it. “You could just say good luck.”

  Theona winked. “I just did.”

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  The vampires didn’t fight like predators hunting prey.

  They fought like surgeons dismantling a machine.

  They hit the field in a blur of black coats and red eyes, cloud cover and lightning giving them just enough protection to move freely. Fangs flashed—but not often. There wasn’t enough blood in the Collectors to make it worth the risk.

  Instead, they used claws.

  Hands reinforced by centuries of unnatural strength slipped between brass seams and articulated joints. Fingers found soft points where paper-etched armor met internal mechanisms. A vampire hooked their claws into a Collector’s knee joint and wrenched sideways.

  The leg came off with a sound like tearing cardboard and snapping rivets.

  Another vampire vaulted over a shield wall, landed behind a Collector, and drove both hands into its back. Not stabbing… prying. Plates peeled away. Drawers inside rattled violently before spilling open, contents scattering across the dirt like loose files.

  They worked fast. Efficient. Brutal.

  Collectors fell apart piece by piece, limbs removed, torsos disassembled, heads torn free and hurled aside. It was less a battle than a rapid deconstruction—like watching someone angrily dismantle furniture without instructions.

  Speed was their greatest weapon. Strength was the second.

  The Collectors tried to adapt. Formations shifted. New copies unfolded. But vampires were already gone by the time countermeasures came online, reappearing elsewhere in streaks of motion too fast for human eyes to track.

  Steel met claws. Brass met bone. And the vampires won.

  Even the Curator’s calm wavered as he realized what was happening—not bloodshed, not chaos, but targeted disassembly. His army wasn’t being killed. It was being taken apart.

  Lily was everywhere at once, shouting orders in a tone that made even monsters obey. Tin Can’s radio screamed in static bursts of prophecy. Axemaster swung his hammers like a gamer-god who finally found a loot drop worth dying for.

  The Curator, however, was not done. His calm expression returned, the expression of a man filing an overdue form. His cane tapped once against the home plate. The field shifted.

  Collectors rose again. Dozens. Hundreds. Copies of copies, rows on rows, unfolding like origami nightmares. The first wave had just been inventory.

  Eury moved beside me, bandage still across her eyes, blood soaking through it, either from beneath or in her scalp, I couldn’t tell. “He’s going to tag again,” she said, voice low, too steady. “I can feel it, your spit wearing off. The front line will lose their protection soon!”

  “Then let’s not let him do that,” I said, gripping my warhammer.

  The Curator raised his hand and an inked sigil bloomed in the air like black flame. It struck faster than thought—an arc of paper-light lashing for Eury’s chest.

  Eury didn’t flinch. Her fingers found the charm in her pocket and flung it forward to intercept the attack.

  The obsidian flashed gold.

  The ledger spell hit it—and bounced.

  The shockwave rippled outward, soundless but seismic. The tag rebounded, slamming into the nearest Collectors. And then another. And another. The chain reaction spread like a plague.

  One by one, the Collectors froze mid-step, heads tilting at impossible angles as their own labels appeared across their torsos.

  “Designation confirmed,” one rasped. “Target: Collector.”

  The next second, chaos bloomed.

  They began collecting each other.

  Tags flared, drawers opened in their chests, pulling one another in recursive loops. The sound was like metal shrieking in on itself—a bureaucratic implosion of logic.

  Lily whooped, throwing her arms around me. “Eury, you beautiful, snake-eyed legend!”

  Even Eury smiled faintly. “That was my aunt’s charm,” she said. “Remind me to actually thank that old snake sometime this century.”

  The Curator’s composure cracked. His cane trembled. “Enough!”

  He slammed it into the ground. The baselines split open, white chalk lines stretching into blinding corridors of paper and ink. The whole diamond warped, folding into itself.

  I staggered, trying to keep balance as the world bent.

  Reality peeled back like a page. Beyond it waited darkness, rows of cabinets and storage units stretching to infinity—an endless archive of the forgotten.

  The Curator stepped backward toward it, his eyes burning with that terrible, tidy hunger. “You’ve learned to un-file my servants,” he said softly. “How novel.”

  I shrugged and waved my war hammer at him. “We’re persistent.”

  “Just understand that some things aren’t meant to be returned.” He tipped his bowler. “Let’s see if you can follow procedure.”

  And with that, he vanished into the breach, dragging the collapsing shadows with him.

  The field screamed as the pocket dimension yawned open, cabinets stretching into infinity, the suction dragging at everything not nailed down—or alive enough to fight back.

  I locked hands with Lily, feet digging into the dirt. “Hold!” I shouted. “Nobody else gets filed tonight!”

  We all linked together, resisting the initial vacuum of the pocket dimension. Some of our allies were not so lucky. I saw at least one gargoyle fighting against the pull like a swimmer trapped in a rip current. It vanished into that other place with a gravelly screech.

  Like a balloon popping, the vacuum ended, but the tear in the sky remained. We all knew the fight wasn’t over.

  The Curator was gone.

  Not defeated. But retreating.

  I stared up at the open drawer he’d left behind, lightning flickering through the clouds, monsters and allies alike catching their breath around me.

  I tightened my grip on the warhammer and sighed.

  “Great,” I muttered. “Looks like we have to take a field trip.”