Judgement Day

Judgement Day is the second book in the Seekers series. It follows Jack Valentine and takes place a few months after the events of May Day.

Blurb
Vampires don't get happily ever afters.

Jack Valentine finally has her shit together. She has a great job, great friends (well, one at least) and a girlfriend whom she loves, even if she can't work up the courage to tell her that yet. Unfortunately, she also has an archnemesis who's about to punish her crimes in the worst possible way: by making her spend time with him.

Which she could cope with, maybe, if she didn't have problems at work as well. When the body of a human judge is found in a locked library, there's no denying that she was murdered by one of the Silver – by a vampire – and the evidence points worryingly close to home. If that wasn't bad enough, some of Jack's least favourite people are opening a new blood bar in Oxford with questionable motives. For Jack and her team, it's becoming increasingly hard to separate allies from enemies.

With conspiracies on every side, the simmering tensions in Silver society are about to come to a head. As usual, Jack intends to be right in the middle of it. She does like it when things get messy.

Content warnings
General warning for violence/murder.

General warning for blood/gore, including blood drinking, description of injuries, dead bodies, forensic investigation, detailed autopsy.

General warning for sexual content (consensual).

Pressure to take part in kink during otherwise consensual sex.

Blood drinking as sexual/pleasurable behaviour.

Some swearing (up to and including ‘fuck’).

Use of drugs and poisons, including drugged drinks.

Mention of child neglect.

Events (Spoilers)
This section will contain detailed spoilers. Many characters in this series also appear in other Silverse books, so clicking any links may lead to spoilers not only for this book but also for other series - use caution!

The story picks up four months after the end of May Day. Jack is in Killian Drake's office, on trial for setting fire to Matthew Felton and his house as punishment for his abhorrent behaviour towards human women. Jack has been avoiding Drake for those four months, leaving the other Seekers to do the parts of their job that involve him. Despite everyone at the trial knowing she's guilty, she denies all the charges; Felton has no concrete evidence, and in frustration questions Drake's impartiality as a judge due to his feelings for Jack. Drake dismisses the idea that he feels anything for Jack, saying "we all make mistakes", which Jack finds surprisingly hurtful given she claims to think the same. Drake sentences Jack to probation, with himself as the probation officer, so she will need to have weekly meetings with him to check she's behaving. Jack breaks the news to Tabitha that night, who is pleased Jack's punishment is mild, but upset that Drake seems to be inserting himself into Jack's life again. Jack wants to tell Tabitha she loves her, but struggles to say the words. They are about to discuss Jack's feelings for Drake again when Naia interrupts them to inform Jack they have a new case.

In the Radcliffe Camera (a library in the centre of Oxford), Jack finds the rest of her team collecting evidence from a murder scene. The victim is District Judge Nora Mitchell, a human in her late fifties, who Cam reveals was Captain Langford's "several-times-great-granddaughter", which is why the Seekers are investigating rather than the human police. Her face is covered in dried blood that has settled into every wrinkle on her face, and her body has the mark of Silver violence, which is what prompted Faizan to call in the Seekers. Jack notices that the judge's handbag isn't present, so checks the rest of the library for it. She doesn't find it, which implies that she didn't come to the Rad Cam herself. Jack begins to discuss the case with Boyd, and they meet the head librarian, Mildred Chen, who tells them that the system does not show that Mitchell had ever checked in at the Rad Cam, only at the law library or the main Bodleian; however, the Rad Cam is linked to the Bodleian by a set of underground stacks, the Gladstone Link. It seems unlikely that she came through the Link, though, as her library card hadn't been used in a month. Jack is amused to discover that Boyd has a crush on Mildred, even though she is human; the two of them flirt awkwardly while talking about architecture, and she gives Boyd her phone number before she leaves. Boyd points out to Jack that Mitchell was on family cases at the court the day before she was killed, ie, 'in camera'; the team suspect someone is trying to make a joke with the positioning of the body.

Jack, Naia and Faizan head to the Oxford Combined Court Centre, and examine Nora Mitchell's office, which is very impersonal. The contents of her handbag are strewn across her desk, including Mitchell's phone, which they take as evidence for Frank the Hacker to get access to, and a small blue gift box. Faizan opens it to find a small digital camera; the gallery contains pictures of crowded streets in Oxford, then close-ups of Mitchell in those crowds. It also contains a photo of a handwritten message, which says 'You know what I want. Meet me at 8, in camera.', and Jack notes another layer of the 'in camera' pun. The last photo in the gallery is a dick pic, and Naia, Jack and Faizan discuss whether this was meant to be threatening or consensual. Everything else in the office seems to be related to Mitchell's work. The court promises to provide a list of Mitchell's recent cases. Jack and Naia take the phone, the camera, and the library card from Mitchell's wallet back to Solomon College for analysis.

When Jack gets back to her rooms, she and Tabitha continue their discussion about Jack's probation. Tabitha is concerned about Jack being alone with Drake, and Jack reassures her that she is only interested in her. They make love and mark each other; afterwards, Tabitha tells Jack that she wants to research haematopsychosis, the madness that comes from drinking another Silver's blood which they suspect is what made Drake attack Jack back in May. Jack agrees, reluctantly, but leaves to get drunk so she can quiet her mind. She drinks several Valentine's Massacres alone before Cam finds her and Jack breaks down, telling him she loves Tabitha and resents Drake; he comforts her and she falls asleep in his lap.

The next morning is Jack's first probation meeting, and she arrives three hours late. Drake irritates her by ignoring her until she confronts him, and he mildly rebukes her for her behaviour; she is surprised and strangely upset that he is so cold and professional towards her. She asks him why he insisted on being her probation officer, and he tells her he doesn't trust anyone else, especially not Captain Langford, who would have been the other obvious choice, and reminds her about the photos he shared with her that show the Captain's involvement with the Solis Invicti. He needles her about wearing Tabitha's mark, and tries to remind Jack that Tabitha is also tied to the Invicti, but she refuses to acknowledge it. Drake tries to get Jack to discuss the conflict between the two of them, and she refuses to acknowledge that either, until she gets angry and repeats his earlier words ("we all make mistakes") back to him, accidentally showing him how insulted she feels. The subject of Drake's attack comes up and he quietly states that that was his biggest mistake, which leaves Jack the victor in the argument, but she still feels unsatisfied. She makes an excuse and leaves.

At the end of the day the captain calls Jack's team into her office. They offer her condolences on Nora Mitchell's death, but she brushes them off, saying that she never met her and her death means no more than any other humans. She tells them that the murder might still be targeted at her, by someone who assumed she would be upset. However, she didn't call them in about the case; instead, she tells them that they've been asked by the Invicti to provide security that night at the opening of Crimson, a new blood bar in Oxford that will be open to humans and Silver alike. They're told to bring plus ones so they can blend in.

At Crimson, the team is met by Benedict, who stations them around the bar. Jack is shocked to find that Boyd's plus one is Mildred Chen, the human librarian from the Rad Cam, whom he seems completely smitten by; Jack has to tell him that he has to get her out of Crimson before something dangerous happens. The charismatic, beautiful hostess of the club, Yolande, officially announces the opening, and the night begins. Jack keeps an eye on people who might cause issues, including a Silver she can't get a proper look at, whose scent is like old paper. Percival Windsor, who is a silent partner in Crimson, arrives, and is oddly pleasant to Jack given his previous antagonism towards her and the other Seekers. While Jack is talking to him, the glass wall behind the bar explodes and shatters some candle holders, setting fire to the alcohol-filled bar. Jack sends Boyd to get Mildred to safety, and then puts out the fire with Cam and Naia's help (Windsor having fled along with most of the patrons). By the time Boyd comes back, the bar has been set back to rights, and Benedict insists they reopen; a few humans have been scared off, but the hostess charms several into thinking it was a much smaller incident.

Around midnight, more of the Silver elite arrive, including Lydia Gainsborough, Captain Langford, a returning Windsor, and Carlotta Arden, a French actress and supermodel. Jack is very starstruck when Carlotta knows her name and wants to talk to her, but is surprised to find out she's dating Drake when he arrives. Carlotta flirts with Jack, but Drake points out she's dating Tabitha; Carlotta points out Jack is no longer marked, and begins to suggest something involving both of them, but Tabitha becomes offended by Jack's obvious attraction to Carlotta and leaves to dance with Yolande. When Jack tries to follow her to reassure her, she's sent back to her post by Benedict, and by the time the night is over, Tabitha is nowhere to be found. Carlotta propositions Jack again, and Jack reluctantly turns her down. Jack asks if Carlotta loves Drake, and she says she doesn't know. Jack says goodbye to Yolande, and realises from her old paper scent that she was the Silver in the crowd that Jack had been watching earlier. Jack's team stay for a drink in the closed bar, with Windsor warning them not to make Massacres, but let the bartender handle the blood drinks.

Jack wakes up hungover and with very bloodshot eyes, the latter of which is unusual for her. Tabitha didn't come back to Jack's room after leaving, or answer any of her messages, but when they see each other at the autopsy of Nora Mitchell, they are both friendly. The rest of Jack's team are also badly hungover and red-eyed. Tabitha tells them that Mitchell died from cardiac arrest which was likely caused by drinking a solution of several poisons, including cyanide; the spider-webbed blood on her face could have been a side effect of this too. However, the blood on her face was gone by the time Tabitha received the body; she thinks it may have dissipated on its own, or may have been removed. Mitchell's stomach contained porridge, fruit and coffee, and time of death was Tuesday morning. No one at the court saw her leave on Monday night; Boyd says that they know she was in the office early on Tuesday morning. Jack wonders if the note on the camera meant 8am rather than 8pm. After the meeting, Boyd says that Mildred hasn't been returning his calls, and Tabitha apologises to Jack, but cautions her against Drake again, which Jack is fed up of hearing. Tabitha admits she was trying to make Jack jealous by dancing with Yolande; Jack asks if they will ever be able to put Drake behind them, and Tabitha says she doesn't know.

Jack and Cam visit Nora Mitchell's house, which is dirty, messy and run-down despite its expensive location. Her bedroom smells of sex and the floor is covered in used condoms, which they bag up to DNA test. They pick through the mess but don't find anything that ties Mitchell to the Silver; they do however find a stash of photographs of penises, which they show to Naia when they get back to the college. Naia points out that they're all of the same person, noticing an identifying mole; they check the photograph from the camera and find it also matches. They drop off the condoms with Ed for testing. The next day, Cam and Jack look through Mitchell's court paperwork while Boyd and Naia visit the Rad Cam (Boyd and Mildred having made up). Boyd and Naia find a witness: one of the assistant librarians had lost his keys a few weeks before to a pickpocket, who they suspect was the murderer. The pickpocket is described as lightly built, with soft features, a punky hairstyle, and a retro coat, which sounds like one of the other Seekers, Quentin; Jack remembers that Quentin was previously taken off a case that Jack suspects was linked to Windsor's Casting scam, for mishandling blood samples among the evidence. They arrange for the assistant librarian to come in and give a statement and bump into Quentin to verify if it was him. Until then, Boyd plans to head back to the court and talk to Mitchell's colleagues, trying to find information about any friends or relatives; her phone has been wiped and has no contacts or call or message logs. Jack and Cam go to the lab, where Ed tells them that the blood on Mitchell's face was her own blood, with nothing unusual about it. It wasn't painted on, but was probably due to haematidrosis, or sweating blood due to high stress. He also tells them that the semen in the condoms found at Mitchell's house belongs to a Silver and came from the same session, due to the mix of different DNA profiles present, which change every time a Silver drinks blood from a different donor. The assistant librarian comes in and does not recognise Quentin, but this does not reassure Jack that Quentin isn't involved in the Invicti's conspiracy.

The team have hit a dead end in the case. A case file arrives from the court, but isn't about one of Nora Mitchell's cases; instead, it details Captain Langford's attempts to gain contact with Mitchell's nieces, the Captain's descendants. The team confront the captain, who tells them that she had lied when she claimed not to know Nora, because she thought it irrelevant; in fact, she kept an eye on all of her descendants. She admits she was concerned about the girls living with Nora given the state of her house, but since the social worker did not think there was an issue, she just monitored the situation, until the dirtiness became worse. She couldn't reveal her true relationship with them to anyone, so she pretended to be the girls' father's sister (faking the DNA evidence needed) and introduced herself to Nora, who rejected her. The captain took her to court for access to the girls, but Nora delayed the cases until the girls were too old for it to matter; Langford has never met the girls, who are now in their twenties. She says she lied about her connection with Nora so that no one would discover the truth about the girls. Jack is unmoved by this, and considers the captain selfish for trying to gain access to the girls when they were not in danger. Boyd points out that this connection is not irrelevant, as it would be easy for someone to find out about it and attempt to use the relationship to attack her; she promises to cooperate with the team as they investigate this link.

Ed phones from the lab with a discovery: a fingerprint on one of the condoms that belongs to Percival Windsor. Jack and Boyd visit his house to investigate. On the way, Boyd tells Jack that the shell accounts they'd discovered during the events of May Day, which David Grant was likely hiding embezzled money in, have all been consolidated into one, Silver Services Ltd. He also tells Jack that Benedict is expected in their office that day to discuss the events at Crimson with the captain. At the house, Windsor is even more friendly and polite to them than at Crimson, though they can tell it is a deliberate act rather than natural. They tell him of Nora's death and he seems genuinely shocked and upset. He says they had been seeing each other for three months, but no one knew; they were not planning to meet again until the next weekend. He tells them that the camera they found belonged to Nora, but denies sending her the message to 'meet me at 8', though he confirms that is it his penis in the photos and lewd photos were part of their relationship; he also says that although they sometimes played a game where he stalked her with a camera, they did not play it in public and he did not take the long distance pictures of her in the crowds. He speculates that someone may have meant her to think the message was from him. They used to hide in the Bodleian Library while it closed and then use the Gladstone Link to access the Rad Cam after hours to have sex, sneaking back out via the Bodleian with the last staff member, who was a friend. When Jack asks about Nora's phone being wiped, Windsor says she did it on his behest to keep their relationship secret. Eventually he becomes too upset to continue answering questions and asks Jack and Boyd to return another day.

As they drive away, Windsor's butler comes running out and gives them a large brown envelope which he says had arrived earlier that day, but which Windsor has only just opened. He also gives them a slip of paper with Windsor's phone number on for further contact; Jack is surprised he is being so accommodating. Inside the envelope is an A4-sized piece of paper with a photograph of Nora's body, with the message 'this was your fault' written underneath in blood. Jack and Boyd discuss the dangers of Silver-human relationships, and he becomes annoyed at the implication that he should not get into a relationship with Mildred Chen. Back at the college, Cam tells Jack that he has discovered that the captain failed to mention she had picked up Nora's nieces from school without permission more than once, which had been reported as abductions, and Nora had applied for a restraining order against her. Jack shows Cam the photograph of Nora's body and he points out that her handbag, and the contents including her camera, are in the picture behind her; someone must have taken the bag and camera back to her office after her death. They wonder if the bag had a key in it that unlocked something in the office. There were no fingerprints on the bag or any of its contents, not even Nora's, meaning someone deliberately wiped them all down and arranged them on the desk, including making the camera seem like a new gift.Back at the college, Jack shows Cam the photos Drake gave her, which show the captain handing Benedict the poison dart after Drake was shot. Cam questions whether Drake is a reliable source, given their tense relationship, and points out that Tabitha has been gone for almost a week.

At Jack's probation meeting, Drake queries the absence of Tabitha's mark on Jack, but she decides to act as sweetly and compliantly as possible towards him to mess with him. Jack denies anything is wrong between her and Tabitha and tries to shift the focus onto Drake having problems with Carlotta, which he also denies. Drake is called away for a moment, leaving Jack alone in his office, and she searches his desk, finding a bottle of fine whisky and a locked drawer, which she isn't able to open before she hears him coming back. At the last moment before he returns, she steals his fountain pen. Drake tells Jack he's had some good news, but won't tell her what it is.

Back at the college, Jack asks Naia how to go about getting a tattoo of a tabby cat to show her loyalty to Tabitha, but Naia tells her to talk to Cam about her feelings before doing anything permanent. Before she can, Cam tells her Faiz wants them back at the court. They search the room, looking for anything that might open with one of Nora Mitchell's keys, which were attached to her handbag, possibly explaining why her bag was brought to the court after her death. They find a lockbox hidden in one of the books, but when they open it, it is empty. The next morning, Cam wakes Jack after she spent the night drinking heavily alone. He tells her that the blood on the letter to Windsor was a match for Nora, but that more importantly, they've had a call to clear up after a Silver incident. They go to the scene, which turns out to be the house of Jack's friend Raul, whom she knows as a gentle, friendly person. They find the body of a woman with her throat torn out and scent marks of both violence and possession, and a devastated, but not violent, Raul. He tells Jack he remembers killing the woman, but felt like it wasn't him doing it; her name was Rachael and they had been drinking friends. Although they liked each other, Raul never intended to do anything about it because she was human and he was Silver. The previous night their group went out to Crimson, where Raul was accidentally served a blood drink by the bartender. They carried on bar-hopping and ended up back at his house, where he continued drinking Valentine's Massacres. Jack reluctantly takes Raul to Ed to have samples taken, and puts him in one of the college rooms for the night, delaying his sentencing to the next day.

Tabitha finally returns from her case and happily reunites Jack. She tells her she needs blood samples from marked Silver, so she intends to mark Jack and then have her donate a sample in the morning. They go for a drink and spend the night together. The next morning, Jack takes an upset, red-eyed Raul to Drake's office for sentencing. He confesses to the murder, but Drake offers Jack the chance to keep investigating to discover why it happened before Raul is punished, which she takes, thinking it might tie into Tabitha's theories on haematopsychosis. Drake speculates about how everything - this case, the false Castings, the dart, the Captain's involvement with the Solis Invicti - might tie together, and suggests that he could help Raul in order to get Jack to trust him that they're on the same side. He refuses to say anything aloud, but writes her a note which says 'There's bad blood at Crimson', while also making it clear he is aware Jack stole his fountain pen.

Later, Boyd calls the team into a meeting to discuss Nora Mitchell's case. Cam wonders whether to tell Boyd about the captain's link to Benedict, as it ties her to Windsor, but Jack decides not to, unsure of Boyd's loyalty. Boyd tells them that the handwriting on the bloody note to Windsor does not match that of the note in the camera, but both may be too messy to identify. Naia hasn't found anyone likely on Windsor's list of potential enemies - either they lack means or opportunity. Jack fills the team in on the empty lockbox they found, which provides a possible motive but not hard evidence; they discuss whether the camera was staged to throw them off the real reason Nora's bag was in her office. The new information means they don't know what happened to Nora after she left work on Monday night; she may never even have seen the camera. They haven't yet found out what happened to the missing library key. They come to the conclusion that the case is stalled unless they can uncover something new.

Jack attends Rachael's post mortem which is performed by Tabitha, and then they visit Ed's lab to drop off their findings and for Jack to donate her blood sample for the haematopsychosis study. Ed confirms that there was nothing in Raul's blood other than alcohol, and speculates that perhaps he just lost control. He gives Tabitha some completed blood samples from her study, which she stores in the fridge in Jack's room to her disgust. Tabitha stays over, but they end up discussing Drake again, and Jack begs her to stop having the same argument. The next morning, Jack goes to see Raul in the holding cell at Drake's mansion and tells him she hasn't found any evidence to exonerate him; he seems resigned, blaming himself. He describes again what he remembers and Jack is struck by how much it resembles Drake's behaviour when he attacked her, which leads her to believe it is haematopsychosis.

Back at the college Cam tells Jack they were correct about the theory that the camera was planted as a red herring; the pictures, apart from the dick pic, were taken on another device and uploaded to the camera around 3am on the morning Mitchell was killed. Jack takes a look at Windsor's list of enemies, and is surprised to see Drake at the top of the list, but Cam tells her not to bring her grudge into this as Drake is comprehensively in the clear, having provided a solid alibi. That night, Tabitha tells Jack that her experiments have proven that haematopsychosis does not exist, which means that Drake's attack on Jack was solely his own fault, but also means there is no exoneration for Raul. Tabitha tells Jack that Raul may have been influenced by some unknown drug they couldn't detect, which, in combination with Drake's note, sparks an idea for Jack. She and Cam visit Crimson to find Matthew Felton bartending; Felton makes Cam a cocktail from a 'special bottle' labelled with his name and kept in a locked fridge, which they take to the lab.

The next morning, Jack and Cam visit Raul, who looks terrible and tells them he can't keep anything down. They tell him they think Felton is spiking the drinks at Crimson, but he tells them to drop the investigation as he feels he deserves punishment. Raul asks to speak to Cam alone, so Jack waits outside, where Drake finds her. Seeing she's upset, he is uncharacteristically kind, but she shuts him down. He asks her to tread carefully on this case, as the Primus is keeping a close eye on things. When Cam comes out, he refuses to tell Jack what Raul said. Later that day, Jack tries to convince her team that Raul's case and Nora Mitchell's murder are linked through Windsor and Felton's involvement in Crimson, and speculates that the Silver are fighting over whatever was missing from Mitchell's lockbox. Cam reluctantly tells the team what Raul told him: that he was a user of Starblood, an illegal Silver party drug that makes them very dangerous to humans, which he purchased from Felton. While looking for Felton during one of his breaks at Crimson, Raul overheard him talking to an unknown person about 'missing files' which were a 'game-changer'. Jack thinks this was Benedict, and Felton poisoned Raul when he realised he'd overheard. Boyd checks the ownership of the building Crimson is in, which is Silver Services Ltd, the company that Grant's shell accounts had been consolidated into; the money must have been used to set up the first blood bar outside of London, and outside the control of the Primus. Jack lays out the evidence: there's an ongoing gang war between the Secundus and the Tertius, and the Primus is letting them sort it out themselves, which has happened before. Jack shows Naia and Boyd the photos of the captain and Benedict, and it becomes clear that the captain has been actively hiding this from them. They agree to continue as if they don't know anything until they find proof.

The team decide to go out for pizza and Jack goes back to her room to collect her jacket, but when she gets there, her jacket is missing and Drake's scent is all over her rooms. She decides to skip dinner to go and confront Drake. At Drake's mansion, she bumps into Carlotta Arden, who is leaving after sex; Carlotta hits on Jack again. Jack yells at Drake, who teasingly denies stealing the jacket; when Jack doesn't rise to the bait, he asks what's wrong, and she tells him about Tabitha's findings on haematopsychosis, but he says she may be lying or have made a mistake. He shows her photographs of Tabitha meeting with Benedict, which Jack tries hard to rationalise as part of Tabitha's regular job. On her way out, she steals the bottle of scotch Drake keeps in his desk. She returns to Tabitha, who is pale and sick; Tabitha dismisses it as having been working too hard. She asks Jack if they could bite each other now they know it's safe, as she is still jealous over the intense biting Jack and Drake shared. Jack is reluctant, but agrees for Tabitha's sake; they begin to have sex and Jack bites Tabitha, but immediately starts feels aggressive and possessive, which she finds very uncomfortable. Tabitha enjoys the rougher side of Jack and forgets to hide her silver, which makes Jack aware once more that Tabitha hasn't silvered for her, and Jack hasn't said 'I love you'.

The next morning a naked Jack is woken by Drake hammering on her door. He has come to get his whisky back as it is an extremely rare and expensive bottle, but he also wants to tell Jack about Yolande, who visited him the night before after Jack left. She told him something's about to happen at Crimson, and she wants his assurance of amnesty before she'll go into detail. Drake asks for Jack's help investigating what's going on, as she's the only person he can trust. She reluctantly agrees to see what she can discover from Windsor for him. On his way out, Drake smells Tabitha's blood and warns Jack that he thinks she's wrong about haematopsychosis.

Jack and Boyd head out to Windsor's house during a storm, and on the way Boyd says that Mildred Chen mentioned she saw a man the weekend before the murder who matched the description of the person who stole the assistant librarian's keys, so they may be able to get a likeness. When they arrive, Windsor is one again strangely courteous. When they ask about the lockbox from Nora's office, Windsor denies knowledge of it, but Jack sees a flicker of recognition on his face. They ask about Matthew Felton, whom Windsor claims he hired to keep out of trouble, and is a poor employee apart from his skill at mixing drinks. Jack asks about Starblood, and Windsor shuts the conversation down hastily. The conversation is interrupted by Carlotta Arden, who bursts in through the patio doors soaking wet and saying she 'did as [Windsor] asked and spoke to the-"'; Windsor cuts her off and tries to hurry her away, saying 'not now', but Carlotta acts normal. She says she was searching for a lost earring, and when Jack queries what she was doing at Windsor's in the first place, she tells Jack she's naive if she doesn't know that older Silver are all friends. She leaves to change clothes, and Windsor confirms they're just friends, and says what he had asked her to do was to leave him alone for a bit to grieve. The conversation moves to Yolande, whom he says was recommended to him as an employee by a 'mutual acquaintance', but he can't remember who. He becomes indignant that they are questioning him on irrelevant subjects, but Boyd reminds him this is all part of investigating Nora's death. Windsor suddenly realises there are people who may have known about him and Nora after a night at Crimson: the Silver who work at Crimson, some of his friends, and Benedict, Thomas Meyer, and a Solis Invicti called Alistair. On the way back, Boyd and Jack discuss the case, and Boyd says he thinks Raul might just have overdosed on his own, which upsets Jack.

That evening, Tabitha confronts Jack about Drake's scent being in her room, and when Jack explains about the stolen whisky, Tabitha accuses her of flirting, which Jack refutes. They make up, but Tabitha is still ill and vomits. Jack is very worried as normally the Silver don't get sick or vomit, but Tabitha refuses to let her call the sick bay. The next morning she seems fully recovered, and Jack goes to get her tattoo to prove her feelings for Tabitha. Cam and Jack go to the lab to get the blood test results, and find Ed in trouble, having accidentally dissolved his trousers and underwear. Once he's sorted out, he tells them that the blood sample they took from Crimson was just blood, some human and some Silver, which means there's no way to exonerate Raul. Jack goes to break the news, and finds Raul completely unresponsive; Drake says they've done nothing to him, he's just given up. Drake is as shocked as Jack that the blood wasn't tampered with, and says that the future of the Silver depends on what's going on at Crimson. They box Raul, who barely seems conscious, and Drake is kind to him and Jack, which breaks her; he comforts her while she cries. Jack tells him about Carlotta's appearance at Windsor's, which surprises him, and he says that the two of them don't really communicate well. Jack tells him the rest of what they found out from Windsor, and about the lockbox; he takes her into a surveillance room to talk privately. He tells her that the war among the Silver is about whether to maintain their secrecy or reveal themselves, and the Seekers are being kept out of it as their job is to maintain secrecy. The captain however is pro-reveal. Drake himself is not on either side, saying it's not as simple as that; Jack assumes that he is trying to make a profit, but he says he's trying to prevent a full-scale war, whether there's a transition or not. He asks Jack to talk to Yolande, as she may have more information.

Jack fills the team in on the captain's allegiances and she and Cam go to Crimson to talk to Yolande. They find the bar closed for the week due to redecoration, and the bartender tells them it's because the Primus is coming. Yolande says she and Jack have a mutual friend, but not Tabitha or Windsor; she is unfriendly, and tells them they can't talk at Crimson, but to meet her on top of the Oxford Castle mound in ten minutes. She arrives there without them noticing, but Jack recognises her scent again, musty paper and sweet chocolate. Yolande tells them that the Primus is coming on Thursday for a summit disguised as a party, and there will be a vote on whether to remain secret, as the Primus wishes, or reveal themselves. She claims she is on neither side, but has a private interest she wants to protect, so she will choose the winning side at the last minute; she's trying to get Drake onside to influence the outcome, in return for amnesty for her and her 'private interest' person. The conversation is interrupted by a dart, the same as the one that was shot at Jack and Drake in May; Jack catches it, and they decide to leave, not knowing which of them it was aimed at. Jack wonders if the 'mutual friend' and 'private interest' is Carlotta Arden.

Cam and Jack head to London to interview Alistair, the Solis Invicti Windsor named, who doesn't have an alibi for the night of Nora's murder; Cam is very excited as he idolises the Solis Invicti. At the Solis Invicti HQ, an imposing skyscraper, they meet Benedict and Andrew, the Secundus. Andrew takes them to meet Alistair and Adewale in the gym; the two are new recruits, technically still on probation. Alistair is responsible for inventing the blood pills the Seekers use to top up on blood in the field, and a pair of handcuffs with blades coated with a Silver-incapacitating poison, which he is still refining. Jack asks who makes the poison, but the Secundus redirects the conversation immediately. Jack asks Alistair about Nora, but he doesn't remember seeing her or knowing of her, nor does he know Windsor personally. On the night of the murder he was off-duty and out drinking with some of the Solis Invicti, including Adewale, but since they were all very drunk his alibi isn't solid. As Jack leaves, she accidentally drops the dart from Oxford out of her pocket, and she is forced to admit where it came from. The Secundus denies knowledge, but Alistair says they were testing them, with the Primus's approval, but one of the cases of darts went missing in May. Three have been used so far, so there are two still missing. Alistair seems concerned, saying that the formula isn't right yet: it's meant to be a tranquiliser, but can be life-threatening instead. The Secundus takes the dart and tells Jack he'll have a team locate the missing case.

The next day is Wednesday, and at her probation meeting Jack fills Drake in on everything that's happened. Drake tells Jack that Adewale is Winta's brother, which shocks her; however, Adewale doesn't know where she is either. Drake thinks Jack was the target of the dart yesterday, and that Yolande chose the location of their meeting for maximum visibility. He points out that Jack can't ignore Tabitha's involvement any longer, and points out a detail Jack missed in the photos he showed her: Tabitha holding a bundle of darts. He says that Tabitha, not Felton, is the professional behind the poison in the darts. He tells her he's been surveilling Tabitha and has photos of her searching Jack's things, and going through all her messages and calls; she's also been recorning their conversations and sending them to the Invicti, specifically Benedict. Furious, Jack rounds on Drake and accuses him of enjoying this, and he tells her he didn't listen to a single second of it. She can't handle him being kind, and leaves.

Before Jack can confront Tabitha, the captain calls the team in to tell them off for their unorthodox investigations; Boyd insinuates that they know about her pro-reveal stance, and she retaliates by pointing out he's in a human-Silver relationship, and likely to endanger the secrecy pact himself. She orders them to stop talking to the Invicti and Windsor and stay away from Crimson. Jack confronts her openly, and demands to know the truth, and the captain tells them that she was blackmailed into changing her stance to pro-reveal by an unknown caller threatening to harm Nora's nieces. They called after Nora's murder, and had information from the team's investigation, so the captain believes there is a leak. Jack realises Tabitha's recordings are the cause of this too. The captain admits to having covered up Benedict's Casting scam on his orders, saying that the deaths were acceptable collateral damage to protect the rest of the humans. She thinks Nora would never have died, and she would have been able to see Nora's nieces, if the Silver existed openly. Boyd points out her conflict of interest and she agrees that the team can attend the meeting at Crimson in her place. Boyd is made Acting Captain.

That evening Jack confronts Tabitha, and gets very aggressive with her; Tabitha pleads with her to let her drink some of her blood. Jack pulls away and attacks her, biting her, and Tabitha is able to cut Jack's wrist and drink some blood, which instantly snaps Jack out of her rage. Tabitha explains that haematopsychosis is real after all, and one-sided blood drinking causes possessive rage in the drinker; she lied to make Drake look bad. When Jack drank from her before, Tabitha thought it was safe as she had drunk the vial of blood Jack has donated for testing; however, there was a mix up at the lab and Tabitha actually drank the sample Jack had brought from Crimson, which was why she had been so sick. Jack demands that Tabitha come clean to Drake about the effects of the blood from Crimson to get Raul unboxed. They are interrupted by a very distressed Boyd, who has blood on his mouth; he has attacked Mildred.

Mildred is taken to sick bay and stabilised. Boyd tells the rest of the team that he and Mildred had been to Crimson to celebrate his promotion; he had a contaminated blood cocktail. Jack fills them in on everything she knows about haematopsychosis and the blood at Crimson. Boyd spends the early hours vomiting, then leaves to talk to Mildred, who has woken up. Tabitha arrives to talk to Jack, making it clear she's pro-reveal, and brings up Jack's relationship with Drake again. She tries to win Jack around, and tells her she loves her, but Jack demands to see if she's silvered; she hasn't, and although that isn't a certainty with love, Jack cannot trust her any more. Jack shows her the tattoo she got (a tabby cat), breaks up with her and leaves.

The moment Crimson opens Jack marches in, smashes the locked fridge, and takes Felton's special concoction for testing. Ed confirms it's some kind of catalyst that makes Silver both sick and volatile, so they might be more likely both to mark someone and to bite them; he says that any human around a Silver in the first couple of hours after drinking it is likely to get bitten. He says that there's a reason the Invicti kept the formula under lock and key, and Jack realises this formula must have been in the lockbox, being fought over as it could force a reveal. Jack isn't allowed to question Felton under the terms of her probation, so Boys and Cam bring him in instead. Before they can ask about the drug, he confesses to killing Nora: breaking into her place the night before, stealing her camera, poisoning her breakfast, and taking her to the library to die. He planted the photos overnight and stole the library key from the assistant librarian. Felton assumes that the Seekers will be pleased that he has killed someone from the other "side", assuming that they are "loyalists", meaning loyal to the Primus. When questioned, he backtracks and makes it out to be a personal vendetta against Windsor for his condescension. He crows about the poison taking a long time to kill Nora, as he needed her to tell him the location of the lockbox; he clarifies that there were vials, not files, in it, which contained a drug Felton has been trying to replicate on Windsor's request. His first attempt was used on the opening night of Crimson, which is why the Seekers woke up red-eyed - he says a success would have had them "fucked" and it's a good thing for everyone that he didn't have the original vials to copy. It's not the same drug as is in the poison darts, nor in his special concoction at Crimson, which he invented himself after reading some Invicti notes. He gave it Boyd and Raul to get revenge on Jack; Jack is about to barge in, but Benedict and Thomas Meyer arrive and drag Felton away. Before they can, he whispers to Jack that "you have no idea what they're planning - tonight", but he is knocked out by Benedict before he can finish. Meyer gives Boyd a case containing a single dart, which he says they found at Crimson in Yolande's things; now there is only one missing.

Cam and Jack call Drake and have Raul unboxed, and go to look for Yolande, who is nowhere to be found. Jack is torn up with guilt thinking that the poisonings are all her fault, and despairing that her job means nothing if the Invicti control everything regardless of the truth. Cam speculates that Felton lied about his replications of the drugs - he thinks that the vials were used to poison the drinks and that's all. The team arrive at Crimson and meet Carlotta and Benedict; Jack realises Benedict is who Carlotta was about to tell Windsor she'd spoken to. Inside Crimson, all the important Silver in the UK are gathered. There's a strange atmosphere, and a white sheet hung up behind the stage, with a crowd in front of it; Laila, the Secundus and Tertius perform a blood ritual, sacrificing a human, which Jack finds disgusting. Drake explains to Jack that this is the true nature of the Silver, and the Seekers only exist to hide it. Jack is horrified by the breakdown of her worldview. The Primus arrives and gathers the leaders in the VIP area for a parley; when they emerge, they are split into factions, and they declare their positions. Carlotta, the Secundus, and Benedict are pro-reveal, against the Primus, who wants to remain in secrecy. A vote is called, and Jack's team monitor it; tokens are placed into an ornate urn, red ones for the Primus, and blue for the rebels. Jack notes that there are a lot more blue tokens in the vase. Windsor, Felton, and Yolande do not show up. Drake votes for secrecy; Tabitha votes for a reveal, apologising for lying to Jack but saying she's acting for the best. She also reiterates that she loves Jack, but Jack doesn't respond. When everyone has voted, the tokens are counted, and it's clear that the Primus has won by a large margin.

The rebels seem to take their defeat graciously, and the evening turns into a party. Jack discusses the evening with Drake, and they realise that Yolande is gone, probably never to be seen again. The Primus confesses to organising this event, and apologises for not inviting or consulting Drake; he claims Benedict was supposed to. Drake tells the Primus about the issues between Benedict and the Seekers, and introduces Jack, implying they have a relationship. A waiter brings a tray of whisky he says is specifically for the Primus, but by the time it reaches them there are only two glasses, which Drake and the Primus take. Jack notices a commotion and sees that the others who took whisky from the tray have involuntarily revealed their silver, and she knocks the drinks from the Primus's hand. The drinks were spiked; the vials contained a formula that unmasks the Silver. The Invicti remove the affected people and the Primus finds the empty vials, which the Secundus says he will take back to HQ to see if they match some vials they are missing. Jack points out they obviously have a security leak to have two different sets of drugs missing. The Primus and Secundus leave, as do everyone else. Jack sees Tabitha leaving with the bag of empty vials, and realises that she was behind the formula. Jack runs out into the alley behind the bar to avoid her, and sees the Primus supervising the voting urn being loaded into a van; she then sees another Silver carrying a second, identical urn out of the bar. The Primus winks at her, and she realises he must have switched the urns to rig the vote, explaining how he won when she saw overwhelmingly pro-reveal votes.

The next morning, Jack wakes to find her leather jacket hung on her door handle with a note from Drake asking for a truce. She goes to the office and meets Cam, who shows her the data proving haematopsychosis exists, which Tabitha brought by, and an artist's impression of the man who stole the assistant librarian's keys, which looks like Felton in a wig, confirming that he killed Nora Mitchell. He also tells her that Mildred is up and about, and Boyd has told her the truth about the Silver. Jack gets a call from a drunk Percival Windsor, who tells her he's remembered that it was Felton who recommended Yolande to him; the team set off to Felton's house in case she is hiding there. They find her, but she has booby trapped the house and Cam and Jack are caught in an explosion, and they end up brawling with her. Naia knocks her out with the last poison dart, which she stole from the evidence locker. Jack and Cam take her to Drake's mansion to be boxed and collect Raul, who has been unboxed; he is weak, but seems more alert than before. Cam takes him back to the college, and Jack to interrogate Yolande once she is awake. Yolande will not answer any of her questions; Drake's instructions are to box her for ten years. As Yolande is boxed, she says: "She's coming back for you, Jack. It won't be long." Jack realises what has been bothering her about Yolande's scent: she wears the possessive scent mark of cocoa butter, which is Winta's scent.

Jack returns Drake's whisky and fountain pen, desperate for a fight as an outlet for her emotions. Drake snaps the pen in half and tells Jack Carlotta and he broke up and were never going to work; Jack tells him she and Tabitha were working until he got involved. She asks him if he'll ever stop messing with her, and he tells her he is deadly serious about her. He admits he put pressure on them to see if they would break up, and never claimed to be a good man. They argue, and end up kissing. They bite each other, and although it's amazing, Jack tries to walk away, but Drake convinces her to stay for one night, with no consequences. They have sex, and the next morning Jack wakes up feeling calm and happy, telling herself she's got it out of her system; they have sex again, and Drake is unable to hide the fact that he has silvered. Jack runs home, shocked, before either of them can say anything.