Thud!

for all his gear, his shiny black shoes, his carefully cut widow’s peak and, not least, his ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner depending on whom he was talking to, did not look like a threat. He looked funny, a joke, a music-hall vampire. It had never previously occurred to Vimes that, just possibly, the joke was on other people. Make them laugh, and they’re not afraid.
    He nodded to Otto and went inside, where Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom was standing—on a box—at the too-high duty officer’s desk, her chevrons all shiny and new on her sleeve. Vimes made a mental note to do something about the box. Some of the dwarf officers were getting sensitive about having to use it.
    “I think we could do with a couple of lads standing outside, Cheery,” he said. “Nothing provocative, just a little reminder to people that we keep the peace.”
    “I don’t think we’ll need that, Mister Vimes,” said the dwarf.
    “I’m not interested in seeing a picture in the Times showing the Watch’s first vampire recruit being mobbed by protesters, Corp—Sergeant,” said Vimes severely.
    “I thought you wouldn’t be, sir,” said Cheery. “So I asked Sergeant Angua to fetch her. They came in the back way half an hour ago. She’s showing her the building. I think they’re down in the locker room.”
    “You asked Angua to do it?” said Vimes, his heart sinking.
    “Yessir?” said Cheery, suddenly looking worried. “Er…is there a problem?”
    Vimes stared at her. She’s a good, orderly officer, he thought, I wish I had two more like her. And she deserved the promotion, heavens knew, but , he reminded himself, she’s from Woerworld, isn’t she? She should have remebered about the…thing between them and werewolves. Maybe it’s my fault. I tell ’em that all coppers are just coppers.
    “What? Oh, no,” he said. “Probably not.”
    A vampire and a werewolf in one room, he thought, as he headed on up the stairs to his office. Well, they’ll just have to deal with it. And that’ll be just the first of our problems.
    “And I took Mr. Pessimal up to the interview room,” Cheery called after him.
    Vimes stopped in mid-stair.
    “Pessimal?” he said.
    “The government inspector, sir?” said Cheery. “The one you told me about?”
    Oh yes, thought Vimes. The second of our problems.

I t was politics. Vimes could never get a handle on politics, which was full of traps for honest men. This one had been sprung last week, in Lord Vetinari’s office, at the normal daily briefing…
    “Ah, Vimes,” said his lordship, as Vimes entered. “So kind of you to come. Isn’t it a beautiful day?”
    Up until now, Vimes thought when he spotted the two other people in the room.
    “You wanted me, sir?” he said, turning to Vetinari again. “There’s a Silicon Anti-Defamation League march in Water Street, and I’ve got traffic backed up all the way to Least Gate—”
    “I’m sure it can wait, Commander.”
    “Yes, sir. That’s the trouble, sir. That’s what it’s doing.”
    Vetinari waved a languid hand. “Full carts congesting the street, Vimes, is a sign of progress,” he declared.
    “Only in the figurative sense, sir,” said Vimes.
    “Well, at any rate I’m sure your men can deal with it,” said Vetinari, nodding to an empty chair. “You have so many of them now. Such an expense. Do sit down, Commander. Do you know Mr. John Smith?”
    The other man at the table took the pipe out of his mouth and gave Vimes a smile of manic friendliness.
    “I don’t believe wwwe have had the pleasure,” he said, extending a hand. It should not be possible to roll your double-yous, but John Smith managed it.
    Shake hands with a vampire? Not bloody likely, Vimes thought, not even one wearing a badly hand-knitted pullover. He saluted instead.
    “Pleased to meet you, sir,” he said crisply, standing to attention. It really was an awful garment, that pullover. It had a queasy zigzag pattern, in many strange, unhappy colors. It looked like something knitted as a present by a colorblind aunt, the sort of thing you wouldn’t dare throw away in case the garbage collectors laughed at you and kicked your trash cans over.
    “Vimes, Mr. Smith is—” Vetinari began.
    “President of the Ankh-Morpork Mission of the Uberwald League of Temperance,” said Vimes. “And I believe the lady next to him to be Mrs. Doreen Winkings, treasurer of same. This is about having a vampire in the Watch, isn’t it, sir?