For some reason the words re-spelled themselves in Vimes's hindbrain as 'prey, enter'.
'King of Arms,' said the voice of Dragon, as Vimes passed into the shadows of the inner sanctum. 'You will not need your sword, Commander. I have been Dragon King of Arms for more than five hundred years but I do not breathe fire, I assure you. Ah-ha. Ah-ha.'
'Ah-ha,' said Vimes. He couldn't see the figure clearly. The light came from a few high and grubby windows, and several dozen candles that burned with black-edged flames. There was a suggestion of hunched shoulders in the shape before him.
'Pray be seated,' said Dragon King of Arms. 'And I would be most indebted if you would look to your left and raise your chin.'
'And expose my neck, you mean?' said Vimes.
'Ah-ha. Ah-ha.'
The figure picked up a candelabrum and moved closer. A hand so skinny as to be skeletal gripped Vimes's chin and moved it gently this way and that.
'Ah, yes. You have the Vimes profile, certainly. But not the Vimes ears. Of course, your maternal grandmother was a Clamp. Ah-ha...'
The Vimes hand gripped the Vimes sword again. There was only one type of person that had that much strength in a body so apparently frail.
'I thought so! You are a vampire!' he said. 'You're a bloody vampire.'
'Ah-ha.' It might have been a laugh. It might have been a cough. 'Yes. Vampire, indeed. Yes, I've heard about your views on vampires. Not really alive but not dead enough, I believe you have said. I think that is rather clever. Ah-ha. Vampire, yes. Bloody, no. Black puddings, yes. The acme of the butcher's art, yes. And if all else fails there are plenty of kosher butchers down in Long Hogmeat. Ah-ha, yes. We all live in the best way we can. Ah-ha. Virgins are safe from me. Ah-ha. For several hundred years, more's the pity. Ah-ha.'
The shape, and the pool of candlelight, moved away.
'I'm afraid your time has been needlessly wasted, Commander Vimes.' ;All right,' said Vimes. 'I'll see him in my office.' He reached into his coat and took out the assassin's money pouch. 'Put it in the Widows and Orphans Fund, will you, Fred?'
'Right. Oh, well done, sir. Any more windfalls like this and we'll soon be able to afford some more widows.'
Sergeant Colon went back to his desk, surreptitiously opened his drawer and pulled out the book he was reading. It was called Animal Husbandry. He'd been a bit worried about the title - you heard stories about strange folk in the country - but it turned out to be nothing more than a book about how cattle and pigs and sheep should breed.
Now he was wondering where to get a book that taught them how to read.
Upstairs, Vimes pushed open his office door carefully. The Assassins' Guild played to rules. You could say that about the bastards. It was terribly bad form to kill a bystander. Apart from anything else, you wouldn't get paid. So traps in his office were out of the question, because too many people were in and out of it every day. Even so, it paid to be careful. Vimes was good at making the kind of rich enemies who could afford to employ assassins. The assassins had to be lucky only once, but Vimes had to be lucky all the time.
He slipped into the room and glanced out of the window. He liked to work with it open, even in cold weather. He liked to hear the sounds of the city. But anyone trying to climb up or down to it would run into everything in the way of loose tiles, shifting handholds and treacherous drainpipes that Vimes's ingenuity could contrive. And Vimes had installed spiked railings down below. They were nice and ornamental but they were, above all, spiky.
So far, Vimes was winning.
There was a tentative knock at the door.
It had issued from the knuckles of the dwarf applicant. Vimes ushered him into the office, shut the door, and sat down at his desk.
'So,' he said. 'You're an alchemist. Acid stains on your hands and no eyebrows.'
'That's right, sir.'
'Not usual to find a dwarf in that line of work. You people always seem to toil in your uncle's foundry or something.'
You people, the dwarf noted. 'Can't get the hang of metal,' he said.
'A dwarf who can't get the hang of metal? That must be unique.'
'Pretty rare, sir. But I was quite good at alchemy.'
'Guild member?'
'Not any more, sir.'
'Oh? How did you leave the guild?' 'Through the roof, sir. But I'm pretty certain I know what I did wrong.'