Memories fell like drops in a storm — moments in time, each telling the story.
…an old cellar, my father towering over me, his big hand guiding mine as we ground barbecue briquettes into fine powder, then added the niter crystals and yellow sulfur from two bags still stamped with the logo of the local garden store…
…a child's room, late at night — the patter of rain chasing away sleep, while I waited for my father to come home from the hunt…
…my father, marked by the scent of blood and ash, whispering a bedtime story about a king who feared death — and thus found something worse…
…one hand tugging at Father Risei's cassock, the other clutching the old musket — taller than me, the weapon generations of Tohsakas had used to hunt the damned — asking for a blessing. My father watched, half amused, half proud…
…my father's funeral. A bright, sunny day — mourners from all walks of life: a man in a well-kept suit, another with an unkempt beard, women in both strict and alluring dresses — all united by the Hunt. Father Risei's hand on my shoulder, a firm, grounding weight against the tremor in my bones…
…the incense almost made me sneeze, but I kept swinging the censer steady. The summer evening made my surplice cling to my skin with sweat. When the service ended, I would go practicing with my father — and now, with my musket. Some save souls with words; some with bullets. I was destined for the second…
…the boy's eyes wide with fear, his pretty face deathly pale. My age — perhaps a year younger. One might almost think him innocent, but for the red on his lips and the girl's corpse at his feet. I fired, and he fell. The body convulsed, but did not turn to ash. A young one…
…the old woman spoke of legends and the rites of the Sabbarati — those born on Saturdays, whom vampires fear the most. But I was distracted by another student — a boy like me, Saturday-born. He had bright hair, an earnest smile, and sad eyes. His name was Shirou. She taught us both to summon shadow pups — small, flickering things born of darkness and will — to hunt the damned who dared escape their fate…
…I stumbled upon Father Risei silently weeping over an old photograph. Embarrassed, I closed the door and pretended I had seen nothing…
…I hunted with Shirou. Father Risei was getting older, and solo hunters have short lives. I fired the musket while Shirou kept the monster at bay with his machete — too eager, too close. He jumped in front of me before I could aim again, and I was too distracted by how absurdly tight his biker leathers were to properly scold him…
…I was close to his face, watching his pupils for a concussion. Shirou had been reckless again, taking a hit meant for me — one I could have dodged easily. Then he leaned in and kissed me. My first kiss. The air smelled of blood and ash, but the taste of his tongue drove it all away…
…a fight with Father Risei…
…a campervan — a new mobile home and headquarters for the Hunt. Enough space for me and Shirou, even for his bike. Determined, I went in and bought it with the money I had inherited…
…we killed two vampires and christened the bed before even leaving town…
…another hunt. We saved the Mormon Elders who had tried to bring the Word to the wrong people — and nearly ended up as snacks. They were grateful. Maybe too grateful. I wasn't sure I liked the way one of them kept eyeing Shirou…
…called Father Risei on the phone. Ended in a shouting match…
…tracked a Satanist vampire who sought the way to Scholomance — the Door that Only Despair Opens. Gruesome, even for a vampire. We killed it, but just a moment too late. The Door had opened…
And like all storms, this storm of memories passed. I remained almost unchanged — as the sea after a storm — though, like that sea, I carried new content within me.
My senses returned one by one.
First, touch — the feel of a potato in my right hand and the weight of the musket across my back.
Then smell — the blood of the victims, the dusty scent of the abandoned warehouse, and the sweet rot of a vampire's corpse, to which time had finally caught up after the black magic that had protected its dead flesh from temporal ravage had dispersed. From my new memories, I deduced the vampire had been about three hundred years old.
Then hearing — the faint traffic outside and other sounds of the city.
And finally, sight.
I saw Archer — in the form of Shirou — now younger, in his early twenties, dressed in tight biker leathers that served as light armour. A gleaming machete in one hand; the other, empty, had once held the stake now buried in a desiccated corpse's heart.
Next, I looked back at the door to Irem. There was no mist, no concealment — I could clearly see the glade with the doors, and the corpse-puppets waiting, their Q-guns aimed through the portal.
"Cid, can they pass now?" I gave the simple command.
One corpse-puppet moved; with eerie silence it stepped from Irem into this world. It appeared that, after we initiated the gate by passing and merging with the locals, the passage was now open.
"Yes," Cid replied through the corpse-puppet.
"Obviously. Secure the area and assign a pair of personal androids to clear it," I commanded. It must be said that having minions made the aftermath of a vampire hunt much more efficient. "Have all remains properly secured for future analysis."
"Do you really think there's some value in examining those bodies?" GlaDOS asked from her position in the potato in my hand.
"There's a non-zero probability of correlation between what happened here and the Gate's opening," I explained. "Even without that, our local memories indicate the remains belong to both an old hemophage and a pair of ritual-murdered humans. It deserves at least preliminary inspection to determine whether it's worth pursuing further."
"Local memories?" she asked, sounding mildly perplexed.
"You didn't receive any new memories during the transfer?" I asked to confirm.
"No," she replied. "My memory banks remain unaltered."
I turned to Archer. "And you?"
"I was reminded what a fool I was," he said with a gentle melancholy that softened his younger features, making him even more alluring. "Even if it was a different Shirou."
"It's the privilege of youth to be foolish," I replied. "But I don't remember this Shirou being particularly impractical."
"That's because you didn't see things from his perspective — what he kept to himself," Archer murmured, his lips twisting into a sneer. "Do you think that young fool felt selfish for hunting with you? Because if you'd separated, you could have saved more people?"
"Or fewer," I replied, almost amused. "Since solo hunter careers tend to be very short."
"That was why he was a fool," he said.
"Well, you know better now," I assured him — then my lips twisted into an almost sad smile. In a way, that Shirou was no more; now he and Archer had merged. And I found myself missing him, even though he was right next to me.
"It makes me wonder, once again, whether they are reflections we cast as we enter a new world — shadows of ourselves that survive because of some kaleidoscopic autophagy, each self feeding on another through the myriad worlds," I mused.
"Does it matter?" he asked. "There's nothing we can do about it."
"Well, in this case it would mean the difference between tragedy and irony," I replied. "For you see, if I read the situation right, the Door that Despair opened was itself opened by the final dispersal of the vampire — as your, or rather the local Shirou's, stake found its heart. Such profound despair — the kind an immortal can feel only when obsession and existence collapse into dust. So, if they are reflections of us, it is irony: the vampire that summoned us was also slain by us, like in those tales where the unwitting summoner is consumed by his own demon. But if they exist independently, then they slew the villain, they accidentally completed the sacrifice, and they were consumed by the dark rite. A tragedy."
"Well, if we have two opposing hypotheses, an obvious solution would be to devise a test to determine which one is correct," GlaDOS interjected.
"I wouldn't even know where to start," I replied. "In truth, I doubt it's even possible to devise such a test."
Because how could one determine the existence of objects or persons in a world prior to interacting with that world? Observation without altering the observed? Impossible.
"Then it's a matter of philosophy, not science — and therefore as useful as masturbation," GlaDOS delivered, with the gravitas of a hanging judge.
"You know, to the ancient Greeks, separating philosophy from science would've seemed nonsensical," I countered — though, paradoxically, her words made me feel a little better.
"And it only took humans two thousand years to separate the useful from the useless," she commented sharply. "Less than I would have expected."
"We should move to the other Gates," I said, changing the subject. "I can feel them calling me. We can return to this world once we've catalogued all others accessible to us."
"No," Archer said quietly.
I turned my head and saw he had moved toward the window, staring intently through it.
"We have work to do first. The Gates can wait — no matter how impatiently."
I quickly stepped beside him and followed his gaze. What I saw surprised me: a small, modern building with the Aperture logo glowing in yellow neon. I recognized it instantly from a postgraduate paper I'd read. "Aperture Scientifically Expedited Nutritional Dispensary?"
The paper had outlined an attempt to use available Aperture Science technology to mass-produce fast food that was quick, cheap, and relatively healthy. "I thought that project was never implemented," I murmured. "Not an utterly bad idea, but we had better ones."
"Not that," Archer continued. "Look who's entering."
I followed his gaze and spotted an older teen at the door of A.S.E.N.D. I knew immediately he was trouble. Maybe it was the way he dressed — outdated, as if his grandmother had chosen the clothes. Maybe it was the uneven, streaked tan over corpse-pale skin, like a goth who had decided to reinvent himself as a surfer but only managed it with a bottle of cheap self-tanner. But mostly it was the almost unheard whisper — the psychic residue of every victim he had ever killed, crying for help and vengeance. Definitely a vampire.
Like with Archer, the transition had transformed both my body and my apparel to the local version. That left me dressed in slacks, a polo, and a vest. The vest, conveniently, had a small pocket near the chest area.
I raised the potato to which GLaDOS was attached and briefly eyed its size.
Just the right size to fit her — leaving her camera eye uncovered and pointing forward.
Briefly, a thought occurred as I looked at her. Why did she differ? Why hadn't she received new memories? From my recollection, only living beings that had opened the Gate from this side were Shirou and I.
But did that mean that the absence of locals to translate into prevented her from gaining new memories or form? Or that, because she cast no shadow, there was simply no local version of her at the site?
That was the problem with anomalous data points: sometimes they led to new discoveries, but sometimes they were just noise. Finding which was which was always tricky. And now was not the time — I needed more data points.
Fortunately, five more Gates awaited.
"I'll need my hands free," I explained as I placed her carefully in my pocket.
But the vampire came first. That was something that couldn't be delayed.
Being a vampire hunter was a bit like working in the ER. The work was often bloody, emergencies happened at inappropriate moments, and if you didn't deal with them properly, people died.
Archer was already moving toward the first floor, where the exit from this abandoned warehouse was situated. I rushed to catch up.
"There should still be people there," he said as I reached him at the metal stairs, "workers and maybe customers. It is a bit late, but then again, people eat at sort of times."
"We'll need bait to distract the target," I added, my mind now focused on the task at hand, half a dozen scenarios rushing through my head. A combination of my greater tactical acumen and local Rin specialised experience. "Since it's indoors. I will do it."
"You are always the bait," he complained, but without any bite.
"I am simply better at it," I said airily, "So sweet and delicious."
"Like cyanide," he added with a smirk, as we reached the door leading to the street outside.
To the left, I saw the campervan that had been home for the last few years. I noted that the memories were beginning to settle and integrate. Soon there would be no difference between me and this local Rin. His experiences, his life, would be just another coloured piece in the kaleidostone that was me.
I didn't rightly know how to feel about this — but then, my emotions were merging too, making somewhat of a mess. I did feel a touch more possessive of Archer, and a touch more aroused. But that could just be the younger body and more active hormones.
There were tools for vampire hunting in the van, including those suitable for indoor hunts with possible human bystanders — super-soaked rounds loaded with holy water. But a quick calculation showed that delay to fetch them would not be worth it. Each additional second was another chance for the vampire to claim a victim.
The local Rin and Shirou had dealt with vampires before, and this one would be relatively easy. For them. For me and Archer, it should be a breeze.
"We'll use the bike-accident excuse," I said as we crossed the street. "Head wounds bleed a lot, and vampires do love blood."
"You're not planning to cut yourself," he chided.
"Of course not. I'll use a bloodstone," I replied aloud and commanded the Threshold Slime to fetch me one from Irem.
"Did you say vampires?" GLaDOS interjected from my pocket. "Vampires don't exist!"
Well, she didn't have the local memories. And in the world she came from, she was correct — there had been no vampires there. But worlds differ. This was only the first world besides her own she had ever visited. She would learn in time.
"You're about to be empirically proven otherwise," I commented, running my fingers over the bloodstone that had materialised in my hand. This was also good confirmation that the Threshold Slime could operate correctly after the transfer. Two objectives with one action. Efficient.
Technically, two different gemstones were known by the common name bloodstone.
Hematite, simple iron oxide, was described by ancient naturalists such as Pliny the Elder in his Natural History.
And heliotrope, a variety of chalcedony — a cryptocrystalline form of quartz — was recorded by medieval and early modern lapidaries.
For the purpose of creating artificial blood, hematite would serve better. As it was written in De Mineralibus in the thirteenth century by Pseudo-Albertus Magnus: "Haematites draweth unto itself the power of blood."
And that was what I was about to use.
I briefly calculated the positions of Mars and the Sun — for in Hermetic medicine, blood was ruled by the latter, while iron by the former — and began adjusting the spell accordingly.
Setting my own body as the foundation, I linked the heart and the gallbladder. Then I made subtle adjustments to improve the bait — not just the smell of blood, but its evaporation rate, reinforcing its deliciousness, and weaving in a few invocations of hunger.
Finally, because vampires loved virgin blood, I made one last alteration in my body's time alignment, setting it to the astrological positions of Mars and the Sun as they had been when I was twelve — and thus, quite innocent.
All in all, for someone with my experience, all that took less than a second.
I placed the bloodstone on my forehead and chanted the aria: "Iron remembers the blood."
The stone crumbled in my hand — and then I felt it liquefy beneath my fingers. Sticky fluid poured down from my forehead. I closed my eyes for a moment so I wouldn't get any of the fake blood in them. The strong, almost pungent smell of iron hit me next. It nearly made me gag. Good — it meant it was working.
Suddenly, I felt warm hands on me, gripping gently but tightly.
"Lean on me," he whispered in my ear. "If we're faking an accident, it's best you look injured."
Obediently, I shifted my weight toward him, appearing barely able to stand. Even though it was for show, pressing myself against him — the warmth, the muscles outlined beneath black leather — was more than just pleasant.
Pity that duty came first.
As the stone-born blood stopped flowing so freely, I risked a squint. It wasn't the best view, but I could see the door in front of me.
Archer moved right through, pulling me with him.
Well-placed lights and white Aperture panels made the place so bright that there were almost no shadows.
The layout followed a familiar fast-food logic: kitchen behind the polished chrome counter, a single service door connecting the two, and two restroom doors at the far end — one for men, one for women. Booths lined the side wall, but the seating was deliberately sparse, arranged to leave wide aisles and uninterrupted sight lines.
I couldn't see it, but I knew from experience that Archer's eyes moved the same way mine did — tracing routes, exits, possible choke points.
It was the kind of space designed for efficiency of movement, not comfort. Convenient for service. Or for killing.
There was far less greenery here than in my version of Aperture — no bioengineered moss on the walls, no integrated hydroponics in the panels.
Aperture Science in this world was clearly different from mine.
I could find no mention of it in my memories of this world, but it was not as if vampire hunters had a great interest in the corporate landscape.
What interested vampire hunters were vampires — like the one we had followed here.
He wasn't hard to spot — mostly because he'd abandoned any pretense of concealment or subtlety.
The spray-tanned vampire was rushing toward us, mouth split wide, fangs bared, irises widened until almost all his eyes were black, his face a rictus of hunger. His fingers had sharpened into claws, black and curved, catching the sterile light as he moved.
And he wasn't alone. There were dozens more vampires, surging from all parts of the restaurant.
They were eclectic in both body and dress: a woman in pearls and a blood-stained blouse, another in torn latex and heels; a thin man still clinging to his opera cape; a broad-shouldered brute in a flannel shirt who looked more lumberjack than predator.
Different eras, different masks — yet every one of them was beautiful in the same way: beauty under fangs and hunger, the kind that survives death because it feeds on being seen.
Vampires only turned those they found beautiful enough to feed on twice. The rest were just meat that happened to move.
As with all such things, there were exceptions — a few who were chosen for skill or circumstance rather than looks — but there were none of those here.
There were no humans I could see, except for the cute guy working the counter — frozen in shock, like an extra in a horror movie.
He wore a cheap mock-up of an Aperture test subject jumpsuit — thin fabric that would not survive a trip to the incinerator, let alone an acid pit.
His pale green eyes were wide with disbelief, his skin white and indoor-pale rather than bloodless. Delicate, almost feminine features — the kind that probably got him bullied in school.
One earring, fake gem, name tag reading ARNIE.
I was sure Arnie was human, and not a clever vampire lying in wait pretending to be, because I could see his reflection on the chrome counter — unlike the ones rushing toward me.
It could be that I had, possibly, overdone it with the bait. My magecrafted blood might have been a touch too attractive.
An overpowering burst of magical energy flared beside me, and Archer vanished — as if he'd teleported, except he left a gust of wind in his passing.
One moment he was beside me, steadying my weight; the next, I almost stumbled, suddenly bereft of that support.
By the fraction of a second it took me to right my balance, he was already across the room — on the other side of the vampire mob.
And all vampires fell apart.
Silence descended on the room, broken only by the sound of cicadas.
Out-of-season cicadas.
Probably a soundtrack — some ambient loop meant to make the place feel "natural." Something a focus group decided helped with appetite.
The corpses had all crumbled to dust after Archer so artfully dismembered them. Which was something of a problem.
For vampire remains to completely decompose like this, the vampire itself had to be old enough that, had it been interred instead of turned, its body would by now be nothing but a handful of dust.
That meant that, since all of them had crumbled to dust rather than leaving desiccated, efflorescent, or merely dead corpses, every one had been an elder
Which was... anomalous.
Being asexually reproducing, territorial predators, vampires usually tolerated no more than one — at most, a few — elders per group when traveling together.
Vampire elders did occasionally meet, but not in fast-food joints. Those old enough were more pretentious than that.
Well, to be honest, calling elder vampires' avoidance of places like this pretentious was doing them a disservice.
After all, this establishment had a reflective counter that made detection easy; served food seasoned with garlic — which, once eaten by humans, rendered their blood poisonous to vampires; had working plumbing that could flood the place with running water; and was owned by the living. Meaning that if Arnie, as the owner's proxy, simply told them to leave, they would have to obey.
All in all, the place offered so many ways to kill or repel a vampire that only fledglings should have been foolish enough to get caught in one.
Vampires might be immortal creatures of the night — strong enough to tear a man in two with their bare hands, durable enough to shrug off ordinary bullets, with hypnotic gazes and bites that could drain an adult male in seconds and induce both euphoria and complicity. Some even possessed additional powers.
But for all their strengths, they had so many weaknesses that there were hunters who called them "the easy mode of monster hunting."
Elder vampires were dangerous not because their powers had grown with age — though some evidence suggested that as well. They were dangerous because they'd survived despite all those well-known weaknesses, and thus had probably found ways to compensate for them.
The most common one being, avoiding death traps. But there was a more urgent matter than this mystery. Arnie. The witness.
There were two schools of thought among hunters when it came to dealing with witnesses — often victims — of vampire attacks.
One was to read them in. The other was to gaslight them into believing that nothing supernatural had ever happened.
Although I said "schools of thought," the separation wasn't strict. Depending on circumstances, a single hunter might apply one approach in one situation and the opposite in another. But generally, hunters had strong preferences — often aligning with whether the hunter in question hunted for the sake of killing vampires, or for the sake of saving people.
In theory, it could be said that greater information might have kept people safer.
In practice, those who learned the truth either became hunters — or paranoid shut-ins. Or patients in mental wards.
There was something in the human psyche that didn't take well to noticing human-shaped predators masquerading as other humans.
Shirou had firmly been in the saving-people camp, and merging with Archer would not have changed that. So that left me with only one option. Not that I truly minded.
"And cut!" I said aloud, with a blinding smile, talking very fast. "I think this scene went great. Especially you... Arnie, was it? I mean, your expression — one could almost believe you thought those were real vampires. Ever considered a career in acting?"
I kept my body language open and inviting, with feet moving and shoulders showing just enough energy and stimulus. The tone had to be just right — like I wasn't trying to convince him of anything. Eye contact was almost as important; it showed sincerity. Even when lying.
And if it came to that, it was easy enough to add a dash of hypnosis. But I didn't think it would come to that. The local Rin had managed this kind of deception before — even without such abilities.
"Are you trying to tell me all this…?" Arnie said.
His crossed arms and sharp tone clearly showed his disbelief. But there was a trace of hesitation in the twist of his facial muscles — just enough doubt for me to move in.
"It's a movie scene, of course," I continued, with the eager tone of a student filmmaker shooting an amateur film. "But you knew that — there was notice and everything. You did get the letter, didn't you? Shirou, you did mail it?"
"I thought you were supposed to," Archer cut in, sounding just the right amount of sulky.
"You're trying to tell me all that just happened was… what? Special effects?" Arnie said — tone mostly sceptical, but with a crack in the armour. Just enough.
"Of course. What else could it be? Real?" I chuckled, as if utterly amused by the notion. Archer joined in.
"I know most people prefer CGI nowadays — it's supposed to be better and certainly cheaper. But for my baby, I went old school. I won't reveal my secret magic, but just a hint won't spoil anything: mirrors. It's all done with mirrors. I'd introduce you to the rest of the cast, but they charge by the hour, so they've already left. I even offered them a free meal to celebrate, but they refused — said this place was a death trap."
I gave a deliberate shrug, as if to say, who would think that?
"So, I'm Rin — writer, producer, director, and main lead of this masterpiece," I continued.
"Co-lead," Archer interjected.
"Of course, babe. I couldn't have done it without you," I replied.
Presenting a scene straight out of a cheesy romance movie — save for my face being covered in very realistic fake blood — I gazed lovingly into Archer's eyes, while at the same time watching Arnie from the corner of my own eye.
He blushed beautifully. I was right. The earring was a statement, not just an affectation.
But it wasn't a true risk. Disgust would have worked just as well as arousal.
The trick was to overwhelm him with both information and a show of emotion so that his mind had neither the time nor energy to ask inconvenient questions.
Like, for example:
Where were the cameras?
How did a student film have special effects better than most blockbusters?
Aren't effects added during postproduction, rather than filmed directly?
And how did all the other actors disappear so fast?
Then, just about the moment I'd made enough of an impression, I switched tracks for another verbal assault.
"Could you lend us some wipes? I know we haven't ordered anything yet, but I promise we will — just as soon as I wipe this fake blood off. It's drying up, which makes it look a bit sketchy. I used an old recipe with ground bloodstone for the authentic smell. Also, I'm sorry about all the mess on the floor. You know what? We'll help with that. Won't we, Shirou? If you just let us borrow a broom, or a mop, or something, we'll clean it up, Arnie. No need for you to be inconvenienced by our mess."
This wasn't just being overly helpful.
The "dust on the floor" was vampire remains — and even though I wanted to collect samples for experiments I planned to run later, it was safer to dispose of them properly.
While killing vampires was made easier by their many vulnerabilities, keeping them dead could be tricky. Some exhaled butterflies as they died — and if not caught immediately, they could be reconstituted from those.
More relevantly, some could return to unlife if human blood was spilt onto their remains before proper disposal. Even if those remains were only a handful of dust or ash.
"We only have a Roomba," Arnie said, his eyes a bit unfocused, the line delivered almost by rote.
Obviously, the tactic had worked. Then he recovered slightly.
"Besides, I couldn't make a customer clean. Especially a Portal fan."
A less experienced liar would have stumbled, shown confusion, or betrayed disbelief at that statement. I didn't.
"You noticed," I added brightly, making it sound like a non-sequitur. "How?"
After all, as Arda had already proved, what was fiction in one world might be quite real in another — and fiction again in a third.
Arnie snorted. It was a cute little snort.
"Well, you chose to make your masterpiece here." You could almost hear the quotation marks around the word masterpiece.
I made a face — half mock hurt, half subtly inviting — and at the renewed blush, I knew it had worked.
"In a very themed restaurant," he continued. "And there's that toy in your breast pocket. I mean, the likeness is obvious."
He pointed at the wall.
There, framed for everyone to see, was an Employee of the Month plaque — featuring a very realistic photo of GLaDOS in her potato form, with the name GLADOS displayed underneath.
"That toy's so realistic. Where did you buy it?" he asked.
Neither blink nor frown betrayed my confusion. My face displayed just an open, friendly smile — a touch flirtatious, but not too much.
"I made it myself," I said simply. "I have some talent for making props."
Arnie relaxed — just slightly. And I knew I'd succeeded.
There was still the small matter of the remains, but I had a solution for that too.
"And speaking of props... wouldn't it be fun to have GLaDOS ride the Roomba while cleaning up the vampire dust?" I asked brightly. "It'd be the perfect closing scene for my movie! Can we do that? Please? Pretty please? It would mean so much to me."
Slow, deliberate clapping soured any sense of triumph.
I knew it wasn't Archer; the chrome surfaces showed me most of the room. No additional reflections. It had to be the vampire we'd missed.
One more — disciplined, able to ignore bloodlust.
For a moment, I wondered how I'd missed the whispers — then the reason came to me. I hadn't missed them; they'd been lost in the chorus of all the others. With so many vampires in one place, the cries of their victims had become background noise — something I'd tuned out.
I turned. There, by the door, stood a tall vampire. Physically, he looked in his mid to late twenties, with a handsome face of distinctly Slavic cast. He wore conservative clothes — something between a banker and a Fed. But his face was familiar — just at the edge of recognition.
"What a show! What a show! — and to think I nearly decided to skip this." He spread his hands in mock delight. "I mean, who would've thought that spoiled little brat would actually manage to reach Scholomance? Honestly, I didn't even believe the place was real."
I met Archer's eyes briefly, then dropped my gaze to my hand — drawing his attention there. A small signal to wait. Usually, mid-monologue was the best time for an ambush — but this one was giving information, and that made it worth listening.
Of course, I had no way of knowing how much of that information was real and how much was deliberate misdirection.
At the same time, I watched for any flicker that might betray the vampire's awareness of our silent exchange. There was none. Either it hadn't noticed — or it was pretending not to.
"Of course, instead of claiming the power of Scholomance, it ended up in the hands of a pair of hunters. I suppose you've already gotten rid of the brat? Well — you've done us all a service," the Slavic vampire continued his monologue.
His accent was almost pure Midwest, but underneath it lingered a faint, vaguely Russian trace. And the way he moved — restrained, deliberate — carried a sense of familiarity.
"And what power it is. Two young hunters destroying so many centuries-old vampires as if they were mere fledglings. I'm sorry I missed it," he went on, without pausing for a reply.
He was talking at us, not to us — even better.
I risked a momentary glance at Arnie. He was watching with wide, confused eyes, as if he couldn't decide whether this was real or just another scene we were filming. Good. As long as he stayed passive, the vampire should ignore him. Unless, of course, I'd misread him entirely — which I considered unlikely.
"But such power does not belong to humans," the vampire said. "I would ask you to hand it over — but I simply don't trust you." He paused, a small, arrogant smile curving his lips, just enough to show a hint of fang. There was something about that expression… "Not as long as you remain human. So I will give you an opportunity to take the easy way. Surrender the power, and immortality will be yours. Becoming my scion is quite an honour."