She was here and not here. Laurel had entered this town, a large one situated about two hundred miles west of the capital, four nights ago and in that time she had been neither seen nor heard. The more she lived as one, the more content she felt to be a nightmare. Sometimes, she would just find a dark corner to hide in and stare at her prey for hours, watching every little rise and fall of their chest, as they slept, with her bright red eyes. Every fitful toss and turn sated her and, sometimes, she would even function as a dark guardian angel, keeping them safe from goblins and gremlins. She longer longer ate food, even the sweet treats she'd taken such a liking to, and the only thing she ever drank was blood. If her humanity was slipping away, she could not tell and did not care.

  On her fifth night, the moon was full and seemed close enough to touch. It entranced her as it never had before and she noticed that that had a similar effect on all of her rival nightmares stalking the streets. The guards were on high alert tonight and the nervousness of the younger ones buzzed her so well that it almost gave her hiccoughs. The townsfolk took extra care to check the locks on their doors and windows and even those children with wealthy parents - who typically had their own rooms - slept in their parents' beds. Laurel wondered what effect the full moon truly had. Did it really spawn fouler things and in greater frequency or did the superstition and stress do that all on its own? She supposed that it was likely a little of both, since the tradition had to have been started somehow.

  At the stroke of midnight, she heard a howl in the distance and knew instantly that it had come from no mere wolf. The chorus that followed was almost deafening and came from every direction. The guards began to bark orders to one another as they saw, with some delay, some of the same things that she did from her perch on a northern corner of the town's wall. Monstrous hybrids between wolves and men were running out from the woods in packs and scaling the walls. She spotted over a hundred and knew that she was likely seeing less than half of the total. The town guard could match two hundred one-for-one but, even with halberds and crossbows and swords and shields, she knew that one werewolf was worth twenty armed men, if not more. She felt no real compunction to help but the curiosity of tasting werewolf blood caused her to descend and pick off one of them. She dragged it into the night sky and bit down hard on its neck as it clawed at her.

  A few of its packmates scaled trees and tried to leap at her, and they got impressively close, but she was too high. Its blood was not as lovely as a human's but still much tastier than most nightmares and she drained it dry, before letting its lifeless corpse fall to the ground. As she returned to the town, the fear and the screams and the bloodshed began to excite her. Just as she'd expected, there were two hundred werewolves involved in the attack and the number was only growing, with trueborn werewolves emerging from dreams and the accursed being born from transformation, wherever a human was bitten but not eaten. She remembered herself, or a part of herself, in the end, and began to help the townsfolk in the few ways she could, bringing them to the town hall, where what remained of the guard were making their last stand. She prioritised children and managed to save seventy four by sunrise, whereafter she helped search for survivors.

  She did not look for thanks and, when a guard told her she was a wanted woman, she tore his throat out without hesitation. She watched the survivors from a distance as they abandoned their town and travelled to the nearest settlement. She imagined that what she'd witnessed resembled a scene from the Nightmare War. She'd wanted to be a dream hunter so recently, fighting back against the monsters and saving people, and wondered whether saving as many people as she did had wiped her slate clean. In the end, she decided that it hadn't. She was still a monster, more alike those werewolves than different. Once the townsfolk were securely behind a fresh set of walls, she left in search of one of the packs, curious what such nightmares were like when they weren't killing.

  She soon learned that they were easy to track down but hard to observe. Her powers did not help her because, though she didn't expose herself or make a sound, they could smell her blood from a mile away and they had skills of their own. One of them caught up with her and lunged for her ankles but, when she flew up to evade it, she was tackled by another as it leapt from a tree. She wrestled that one off, but another managed to claw her back. Laurel had the strength advantage but not by much and once there were consistently two on her at any one time, it evaporated. Soon enough, her dress was in tatters and her skin was not faring much better. She could outmanoeuvre and outpace them but they were expert hunters and she encountered an ambush wherever she went.

  Assuming it would even work, she couldn't lock eyes with any given one of them long enough to use her hypnosis and the pain eventually began to get to her, as much as she tried to blot it out and remind herself that it wasn't real. The fight lasted for hours and she even managed to kill a few of them but the only thing that saved her was outside intervention. The werewolves were attacked and chased away by giant spectral dogs with translucent skin the colour of moonlight. When they surrounded her, she could not help but gasp. 'Moon beasts!' She'd long believed, as most did, that they were a myth.

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  'Indeed,' a man's voice called out from the darkness. He was tall and hard, with a scarred face and well-worn brown jacket. He looked every bit a dream hunter. 'We're investigating the attack on Bradley,' that was the name of the town, 'we heard a dreamling got caught up in it. I assume that was you?' After he'd asked, she learned who he'd meant by 'we' as more people began to emerge, other dream hunters and those in training.

  'I'm not a dreamling,' she said, before coughing up blood, 'ugh, I'm a dhampir.'

  'Truly?!' a girl called out of turn, Laurel's age or a little younger. It earned the girl a withering look from a man she assumed was an older brother.

  'Yes, I'm the King's daughter, Laurel Blackheart.'

  'Aye, she is,' said another man, old and gruff and someone whose face she recalled from childhood. He'd been some sort of war hero, occasionally feted by her step-mother.

  She continued to admire the moon beasts, and their glimmering skin, as the group chatted amongst itself. They knew she was an outlaw, though none of them cared, but they disagreed on whether she was really a dhampir or just a dreamling. It suited her not to intervene as she didn't much care what they thought of her. Nevertheless, she felt obliged to say, 'thank you,' once they were done, 'for saving me.'

  'That's what we do,' the leader, the one with the scarred face, boasted. 'My name's John,' he said, before introducing her to Gordon, whose name she already knew; Taylor and his younger sister Tamsin; Matthias, a thin man with pale features and long black hair; Maria, a quiet young woman who seemed to be attached to John in some unclear way; Phillip, a short and squat man who looked unfit and out-of-place and his son, Corey, a boy of fourteen who was lanky and already taller than his father. 'So, we're culling these werewolves. You're free to join us and if you earn your keep, and I think you will, we'll share the bounty with you.'

  Staring her in the face was the offer of being what, in her childhood, she'd always dreamed of. 'I'll join you,' she said, noticing a decidedly mixed reaction from the group. They made camp and Tamsin lent her some clothes, in addition to generally cosying up to her, apparently unperturbed by whatever aura she gave off.

  'So, like,' she started, speaking in a whisper, 'have you ever drunk blood?'

  'I've drained blood from some of the nightmares I've killed,' she said, a lie by omission.

  'Ew!' Tamsin squealed, feigning a recoil of disgust, 'isn't nightmare blood all, like, black and congealed?'

  'Sometimes,' thinking about blood was making her thirsty.

  'What about, like, people? Have you ever fed on a human?'

  'No,' she lied. Laurel wondered if the girl had been set to the task of sussing her out of if she was merely curious.

  Tamsin seemed to take her at her word and changed the subject, 'I heard that you can fly. Can you?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Wow! I wish I could fly.'

  That one was too much to resist and Laurel immediately replied, 'I could take you, if you'd like?'

  'Take me?'

  'Flying. I could hold you around the waist or under the arms or something.' As soon as she'd said it, she thought of Sarah and how much she'd have loved to take her flying.

  'I'd love that,' the girl beamed and they arranged to do so that night, after everyone else had gone to sleep.

  When nightfall arrived, she observed their routine and learned that they slept close to the fire, with their moon beasts all around them. Gremlins and goblins and most other small nightmares wouldn't even dare approach the dogs and fairies that flew over would be confused or entranced by the fire - which her nose told her one of them had spiced with fairy dust - and dance right into it, only compounding its effect. She watched Tamsin pretend to sleep for a while because it reminded her of herself, all those nights locked up in her bedroom, before gently tapping on her face.

  The girl's eyes fluttered open and she smirked before carefully climbing out of her bed roll. Picking her up was easy but it still gave her pause when she realised how long it had been since she'd been so close to some who wasn't either terrified of her or trying to kill her. Tamsin gasped once they'd kicked off and turned to face her. It flustered Laurel a little to have the girl's face so close to hers but she didn't let it show. 'Wow,' the girl repeated, before a shaky exhale, 'this is so cool!' She took the girl through the air, making sure not to go too high or too fast, and drank in her excited nerves. Her intrusive thoughts told her to drop the girl and catch her, because the panic would be so satisfying, but she suppressed them. Afterwards, she brought the girl down as silently as she could, managing not to disturb any of the others.

  She spent the rest of the night watching them sleep, though they were a tough lot and gave her very little fear to drink. They rose at dawn and kitted themselves up for a long day of hunting. Before they left the campfire, John handed her a silver dagger. It was not as good as the expensive one her master had forced her to part with but it still felt good to have. She felt as much like a real dream hunter as she imagined she could when she sheathed it and tightened her belt. To complete her look, Tamsin helped her tie up her hair. It felt strange to walk after so long spent gliding but she wanted the full experience and enjoyed the sound of leaves crunching under her boots.

  After seeing her quick reflexes, Matthias tossed her a few bottles for fairy dust, which she filled up in short order, earning her a curt nod of thanks. That too made her feel like a real dream hunter. She dared to think that she might even have a place with the group after they completed their mission.