The rest of the day had passed in a tense flash, leaving Cassandra alone in the 'lab' of Pseudopolis Yard with candles burning around her. It wasn't what she thought of as a lab. It was too...makeshift, too much of an afterthought. Equipment was left lying around on the benches. The Guild would have had a fit. Which, she suspected, might have been the point.

'Dust to blood...' What did that mean? The obvious answer was that any vampire could be revived if their ashes were exposed to blood. But Pan's ashes had been dispersed by the wind. She sighed. Sometimes her species' habit of rising from the grave more times than was really fair was incredibly irritating. Especially when it was Pan doing the rising.

'Working late?'

That was...infuriating. She stays late to try and figure out what he was up too, and of course he starts talking to her again. And right now she was alone. So a conversation with a disembodied voice was not likely to draw attention from colleagues who would then try and get her sectioned.

'Something like that.'

She thought she heard him laugh. The candles went out, conforming to narrative causality, and, nerves twanging, she jumped. This was probably not a wise thing to do in a lab, but sometimes instincts get things wrong. Her hand came down on a piece of fragile glassware, which broke and cut her palm. As the blood welled up a wind seemed to sweep through the room.

'Thank you.'

And suddenly Pan was standing in front of her. His red hair stood out in the gloom. She made a spirited attempt at not gasping with shock, instead hissing slightly between her gritted teeth as she exhaled.

'Not pleased to see me?'

'How on Disc did you do that?'

He smiled. 'With ease, once the theory came to me, the process was simple.'

A tendency that goes along with alchemy is an inability to accept ignorance. Despite herself Cassandra was intrigued. Pan had apparently done the improbable in resurrecting, and the information might prove useful. Especially considering her semi-responsibility in his death.

'You died. Permanently.' She was still hissing.

'Oh vampires never do that.' He put his head to one side as though weighing her up in order to make a decision. 'I suppose, as you are the one responsible for my return I should tell you. It's no fun gloating over the ignorant, is it?' He leaned forward and whispered, 'I may have been scattered ash, but in being scattered some of that ash found you. Remember what I did to your face?' He traced invisible lines on her cheeks, where months before he had drawn blood...

'Oh gods,' she murmured, then looked up sharply. 'But all the ash has to come into contact with blood before you can be revived.'

'True.' Pan was looking immensely pleased with himself. 'But enough ash had been exposed to your blood to allow my consciousness to return. And then I could find you, and whisper to you, and, perhaps, take the light away, so that you were left alone in the dark with me. I'm so glad your hand happened to land on that glass. I only needed a little more blood. Once you have consciousness you have willpower. Enough to use random breezes and fortunate winds to gather your immortal remains, and wait for that little drop of blood.'

'That's unbelievable.'

'That's vampirism.'

Right now Cassandra was wishing the candles were still alight. She could have done any number of interesting and inventively cruel things to Pan if she had a flame, mainly due to the various chemicals that were beguilingly close to hand. She reached for the matches, only to have Pan bat them out across the workbench and onto the floor.

'Haven't you learnt not to play with fire yet?'

Her eyes narrowed. Pseudopolis Yard was never completely empty. There would be people somewhere close by. There had to be. If she screamed people would come running, cautiously perhaps, since word of her alchemical mishaps had spread, but they would still come. And then Pan would probably kill them. And her. Because he thought it was fun. And because the Watch had killed him once before, but that was hardly the point.

She saw green eyes glint dangerously and thought better of drawing attention to herself. He was a vampire who embraced stereotypes, why not exploit that?

'What are you going to do?'

'Enjoy myself. What else?'

'Your definition of 'enjoy'-does it involve anyone else doing something that I would define as 'dying'?'

Pan was still grinning. 'Why don't you wait and see?'

'Why don't you just stay dead?' She snarled the words without meaning to, but that didn't matter. What mattered was finding something with which to force death upon the smug, stupid, arrogant vampire before her. And there was nothing. Not even a splinter with which to stab him, although having tried that in the past Cassandra was not keen to repeat the experience.

'Because it is so terribly boring. Would you like me to show you how exasperating it is?' His eyes slid pointedly towards her neck.

She tried edging away, but there was nowhere to edge to. 'I think I'll give it a miss.'

Pan shrugged. 'I'll see you when the masked dance, then.' And then there was only grey smoke that filtered away through the open window and into the night. She slammed the window shut behind it. She'd always loathed the vampiric trick of turning to smoke at will. Due to her profession she found it disturbing. Chemicals smoked. Vampires flew. It seemed an important distinction to her. Even bats had a little dignity.

What the hells do I do now? Exactly what I didn't do last time, I suppose.

Which was how Cassandra found herself explaining Pan's resurrection to Vimes in the morning light.

'It's too early in the morning for this, constable.'

'Never too early for crime sir.'

Vimes sighed. 'Look, it's not as though we can arrest him. He hasn't done anything yet, and much as I'd like to pre-emptively arrest people we'd have the entire population of the city in here.'

'We can arrest him. The warrant for the murderer of those seamstresses is still outstanding. He never was arrested as such. He died first.'

Vimes gave her a look that was only a few degrees away from pride. 'I suppose you realise that you think like a copper?'

'Oh yes.'

Vimes grunted. 'Fine. If you can find him, you can arrest him. But unless he starts killing again I can't spare the men to attempt tracking him down.'

'I don't think you'll have to. When he left he told me he'd see me later. 'When the masked dance', he said. So we just have to figure out what he meant.'

Vimes and Carrot just looked blank. Angua rolled her eyes. 'Isn't it obvious? A masked ball. Wouldn't that be his kind of style?'

Cassandra groaned. 'Everyone assuming a new, mysterious identity? Evening dress? Women with bare necks? Sounds like his style.'

Angua raised an eyebrow. 'Well then, all we need do is wait. It sounds like he intends you to attend it, at any rate. You'll just have to take handcuffs with you.'

Nobby, who had walked in at the wrong moment, snorted loudly and abruptly left the room.

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