The vampire patiently waited for me to finish vomiting - I had never eaten a hot dog (my father had forbidden it), and certainly never at the university, but still, the implications. Once I was done looking nominally more presentable he slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Don't worry. I was later able to confirm that, far from being a unique aberration, the corpse thief I encountered was considered remarkably reserved in his choice of hot dog ingredients - most other makers cut costs further by adding roadkill and mine tailings.”

  And then I vomited again.

  The vampire sighed and gave me a moment, taking the opportunity to down a swig of a mysterious liquid from out of a flask. I didn’t ask what it was - not blood, for he had told me he quit being a vampire, but an undead was unlikely to be drinking tea - and waited till he was done, at which point he continued his story.

  ***

  Galton was as depressing the second time I saw it as it was upon my initial encounter. A series of Bleak Houses and Hard Times, with no Great Expectations or Twists for poor Oliver to liven it up. Even an Old Curiosity Shop would have sufficed, or the Chimes ringing up above. But alas, there was no more than the occasional Cricket on the Hearth, chirping sadly as the people scurried about.

  I still did not know who I was looking for, but I knew where I would find him. No, not the university - he was a researcher, yes, but he preferred an environment more conducive to intellectual endeavour than an educational institution.

  So I went to the stock market.

  As you told me you’ve been to the capital many a time I suspect you’ve already seen the stock market, so I’ll confine my remarks to general impressions. Even then the outcome may contain overmuch in the way of description, for which you’ll have to forgive me - for all I may make a bitter smile at the notion of humans, I can never help but be impressed at the sight of the structures which grow about you, and which the naive attribute to your agency.

  That the stock market was capable of moving is one such example. A beautiful colossus done in the old style of architecture, its silver body a masterwork of art deco with ornate windows and gilded moulding, the vaguely insectoid heap of piled luxuries scuttled back and forth across the streets of Galton on great mechanical legs, glibly stepping over cars and tenement housing. It followed a set route on its journeys, starting at the city hall and proceeding from there to the university, with stops at various newspapers and major corporations as needed.

  I had heard it was a new creation - designed but three months ago, and built only a month after, a truly impressive feat given the perennially late nature of the human builder. It certainly looked new, its limbs pristine, its surface shiny, without any dents or damages.

  I had good reason for wanting to gain access to the building. Abductive reasoning - that is, inference to the best explanation - had indicated that the nameless employer of the hot dog salesman and the mysterious thief of the Man in the Moon were one and the same person, and said reasoning would have favoured this individual being likewise responsible for the automatons even if I had not uncovered sundry articles speaking of the stock market’s designer as a benefactor of the university.

  Said articles had not, alas, given me his name - the reporters had been as unsuccessful as anyone else in getting it, which was hardly surprising given how easily they could be bought - but they had indicated that he did his work in a private wing of the stock market rented to major financial firm Smithers, Inc.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  ***

  And here the vampire cut off his exposition and gazed at me in some surprise. “Your facial expression tells me you know of it, and have less than rosy impressions of the company. May I take it that they took your money?”

  I grimaced. “You could say that. I used to work there; when they exploded shortly after the stock market crash, I lost my income, taking all of my money to-be.”

  “Ah.” The vampire brightened. “You’ll like this, then.”

  ***

  Of course I could not simply walk into the stock market. It was closed to all except the wealthiest of individuals, its sole door - a retractable wall of iron bars - locked strictly to any lacking express invitation. That I was a vampire, and thus by nature illegal, did not help my case.

  Nor did I know where my target was in that grand building. The stock market was huge - an immense beetle, walking across the city streets - and my preliminary investigations had revealed it was full of shifting hallways and locked rooms, offices galore and meeting rooms whose doors were subjects of legend.

  There was only one thing to do, then: break in illegally (my entire presence being illegal ab initio), and stalk the halls in quiet, seeking out my target with my deadly hairbrush.

  I made my ascent at night, using the cover of night to mask my ascent; I scaled the leg of the beetle, up to its shell above, and then used a rooftop vent to penetrate into the belly of the beast.

  Inside it was all darkness and noise, the lights having been turned off for the night, and the only sound was the chug, chug, rumble, rumble of the engines and the shaking of the legs. Still, I needed no light, my superior senses more than sufficient to see in the pitch dark.

  I descended into its halls, looking for the man with no name.

  I had no inkling of where in the beetle he might be, but I figured it was as a good a guess as any that he was deep in bowels, at the beast’s very heart. Six hours of groping about in the darkness was more than enough to dispel this idea.

  I had reached the deepest depths of the stock market - the huge engines, half the length of a football field, that powered its legs, and which controlled the screens on the ground floor up above, screens that would entertain the crowd of wealthy business owners and speculators who met daily to gamble.

  Stalking about the depths revealed merely more infrastructure, and ascending to the ground floor was no help either - it was an immense marble hall, the length of the insect, containing more than enough space for the stock brokers to break stocks and restaurants at which they might break bread.

  Above that was the twisting halls of offices and meeting rooms, twisting halls which I thought about exploring with a bitter expression, for it would take me many days of careful searching to find anything, days that might easily prove fruitless.

  It was as I was debating what to do that I heard grumbling from one of the vents, grumbling that was very familiar. I ripped the vent off its hinges, scattering nails across the floor, and crawled inside.

  Following the sound took me up and across the beetle, through boardrooms and meeting rooms and dart rooms and relaxation rooms and a room featuring an unaccountable number of gelatinous objects and strange chairs. At last I popped the cover off and crawled out, into a corporate boardroom up in the proverbial oesophagus of the beast, near its roof.

  The corporate boardroom was in a poor state. The spinning chairs required in all offices were in disarray, piled in the corner or tossed against the wall, and the round table had been shattered and used for kindling, to build a great bonfire right smack in the middle of the room, atop the plush carpet.

  Several surprising individuals stood at key points about the pile of kindling, surprising because I recognised them - they were the academics I had met earlier, when I visited the university so long ago.

  Even more surprising was that I recognised the individual tied to a pole in the midst of the pile of kindling, an individual who was looking remarkably chill given the high likelihood of her being burnt at the stake not three minutes later.

  “Yo,” said the princess. “How’s it going?”