. . .
Discord: discord/ydnYFQynZ2
Consider joining us there, we're a crowd of morally ambiguous fellas that talk about anything from the current price of your organs to how cute owls can be sometimes.
It's also the only place where you can literally make my phone ring, and demand a new chapter.
. . .
Vampire Rule N°32: When it's not a double release, then the chapter is probably twice as long as usual…maybe because the author is trying to make 3000 words chaps his baseline. I dunno, I'm just the voice in your head telling you stuff that would land you in jail.
. . .
Crime Alley didn't change. Not really. The buildings got older, more cracked. The light posts flickered less now, the city finally giving up on them. But the darkness? The rot? That stayed.
From the days long before Martha Wayne's pearls were scattered around by one of the world's most influential muggers, to grand eras of criminal prosperity and opulence, to those angry nights from the Batman's early years when he was eager to break the bones and shatter the ligaments of any crook, yo, thug or wiseguy foolish enough to leave their homes.
No, the filth only grew more and more depraved every single year, and now at the end of the millennium, it was more shameless than ever.
Some bemoan and complain over that fact, others learned to make it their fortune.
A group of them had gathered there that night, more than usual, but a dozen wasn't nearly enough to make waves.
They were scattered around a half-collapsed warehouse foundation with bricks still bearing the black scars of old fires started by industrialists during the great depression; they figured out that insurance payments would bring more than their activities would in decades, and they were right, though their workers weren't feeling all that happy about it.
And just like the tycoons of old, these men weren't just junkies or corner thugs. They were here for business the likes of which only Gotham could provide so readily to upstanding gentlemen like them.
A weapons shipment. Cheap Eastern European surplus. Mostly Serbian. Mostly garbage, but garbage that still fired bullets….most of the time.
AK-pattern rifles with duct-taped stocks, black-market handguns, even a few light anti-armor devices nobody in their right mind would try using in Michigan, let alone Gotham.
Rumor was, the crates came straight from some warlord's bunker via a shipping crate that never got checked.
The man who arranged it, Tony "Ribs" Manera, leaned against a stack of rusted barrels, laughing as one of his guys playfully waved around an old M72 rocket launcher like it was a prop in a music video.
"Hey, Zeke," Tony called out, voice rough like sandpaper soaked in cheap whiskey. "You think this bitch still works?"
Zeke, a lanky man with rotted teeth and eyes too wide for his skull, grinned and pulled the trigger, eager to bring about freedom.
Alas, nothing happened.
The group roared with laughter.
"Nah man, don't point that shit at me!" someone shouted, ducking and nearly spilling a bottle of bottom shelf rum.
"Pisicile dansează pe acoperișuri când plouă cu stele," A tall man with a buzzcut and an abibas branded tracksuit added, nodding sagely.
"Preach, Andrei, preach," Tony said to the man who facilitated the deal, talking to war criminals wasn't that easy for someone who only left Gotham to be jailed in New Jersey when Blackgate burned up.
"What did he say?" One of them asked.
"No idea," Tony shrugged.
They passed guns back and forth, checked clips, bragged about the price they paid for it all, almost nothing. The Serbs needed cash fast, and these Gotham bottom-feeders were more than happy to take the firepower off their hands.
"Sell half to the kids out east, flip the rest by Thursday," Tony said, holding up a semi-auto pistol and squinting down the sights. "We'll have enough to buy into that thing Penguin's throwing next month."
It might sound presumptuous to assume it would go that fast, but this was Gotham, there was always a buyer for guns.
The group wasn't just focused on deals. They were high. Not on drugs…for the most part, but on the high of the moment.
The idea that they were playing in a space that used to be forbidden to criminals of their class, too reasonable to be one of those nutcases in Arkham, too fucking dumb to be real crime syndicate.
They were like modern day Conquistadors rediscovering the rich lands on the East Side, spreading syphilis and smallpox to the natives, screwing over everything from Park Row to Brideshead by the might of their not so fancy boomsticks.
Until one of them disappeared.
It was Frankie. Mid-laugh, mid-pull on a cigarette, mid-sentence. He just vanished.
One blink he was leaning against the wall, trying to touch a suspicious stain on the wall, and the next, a blur of movement knocked him into the side of a rusted-out shipping container with a loud, metallic clang.
His body hit and slumped. Groaning. Maybe unconscious. Maybe not. Gotham thugs were made of tough stuff.
The group froze. All twelve of them…now eleven. Eyes scanning the shadows.
Zeke was the first to speak.
"What the fuck—did you see that?" Stating the obvious was an art form.
Someone else was already backing up, his hand on the grip of his pistol. Another one pulled an Uzi from under his coat and scanned the alleyway.
"Shit, is that the Bat?" one whispered, saying the one thing no criminally inclined street guy wanted to hear…except the Joker, but he didn't count.
"It's the goddamn Bat—ain't nobody else move like that!"
Suddenly everyone was shouting, proper grammar be damned. Weapons came up. Fingers hovered over triggers, some shaking.
A couple of guys started backing toward the warehouse loading ramp, electing to get the fuck out without suffering severe brain trauma.
A voice from the dark, cold and steady, broke the tension in half.
"You're not supposed to be here." It sounded more like a growl than anything human.
The good news was that it wasn't the bat, he only talked after breaking their bones.
The bad news was that it wasn't the bat, and he might not stop after breaking said bones.
They turned, but they couldn't see anything. Not really. Just the dark.
Then the red eyes came. Slitted, glowing, not bright like headlights but burning. Watching. And moving, way too fast for their taste.
They fired.
The alley lit up like it was Fourth of July. Muzzle flashes cracked against brick, echoed off concrete. Bullets sparked against metal. Shell casings danced on the ground.
But they weren't hitting anything.
Zeke screamed as he saw something flicker between the shadows, impossibly fast. It was like fighting smoke, every time he thought he had it in his sights, it was gone. Another man's gun jammed. Someone panicked and opened fire straight up, the shots punching holes in the warehouse roof.
And then the screams started.
Not from their mouths, but down the alley. One of the runners, he'd made it halfway before vanishing behind a dumpster yelling the whole time.
Then silence.
Another tried to climb a rusted up fire escape. A blur caught his ankle mid-lift and yanked him down. His body hit the pavement with a bone-splitting thud.
The rest froze. The urge to run was there, screaming in their spines. But their legs? Locked. Hands shook. Sweat poured, and though none would care to mention, some urine too.
Then he stepped out.
A figure. Human-shaped, but only in the most vague sense. A man, tall and lean, with skin pale like sculpted marble. His face looked almost too perfect, too smooth, except for the long, angry red scar cutting from neck to chest, crossing his collarbones like a signature.
His hair was long and black, pulled into a low ponytail with a single streak of grey that almost glowed under the alley lights. His coat flared slightly at the edges—long, old-fashioned, torn at the base. Beneath it, some might recognize the fine victorian inspired three piece suit, but the subtlety was lost on this crowd.
To them, he just looked like a corpse.
And those eyes.
Red.
Slitted.
Hunting.
Three of the men dropped their guns.
"I—I can't—" one stammered, hands trembling like leaves.
"Strigoi" Andrei whispered, voice cracking, but his wisdom was once more lost on them.
The figure moved. Slowly, like it was taking a stroll. As if giving them time to run, daring them to do so, to prolong to inevitable.
No one did.
He reached the first one, disarmed him with a flick of his hand, and drove an elbow into his stomach. The man folded like paper. Another braver soul tried to stab him, blade flashing in panic.
He caught the wrist, twisted it with ease, and the knife clattered to the ground.
Bones snapped. Screams echoed.
He didn't kill them. But he didn't leave them whole.
The thing moved through them like a storm, inflicting violence without so much a flinch, efficient to the extreme and utterly terrifying.
He broke legs, crushed hands, disarmed weapons. Then he tied them all together with restraints from his coat, dragging the unconscious ones to a neat pile under the fire escape.
Tony, the last conscious man,looked up through bloody eyes.
"W-who the fuck are you?"
The figure crouched, his red eyes meeting the man's as he spoke.
"Alucard."
And then he was gone.
For the first time in his life, Tony Manera felt relief when he heard the sound of police sirens approaching.
'Mom was right, I should get a nine to five.' He thought before blacking out.
. . .
The laughter came first.
Soft, cascading like champagne over crystal flutes. It spilled from the ballroom, a low tide of indulgence, muffled only slightly by the soundproofed walls and the faint, deliberate string quartet in the corner.
Silk gowns and italian suits, heirloom jewelry and expensive watches, clothing tailored to perfection to mask the years of decadence and excess, show the status of tonight's patrons.
The social engine of Gotham's elite kept roaring, oblivious to the chaos unfolding several districts away in Crime Alley.
Then a bathroom door opened in the eastern wing of Palmer Mansion.
John Harker stepped out with the calm grace of someone returning from a garden stroll instead of wiping blood from under his nails just ten minutes earlier. He adjusted the cuff of his shirt with an idle, practiced motion.
A second later, a server passed by, and John offered a smile that wasn't just polite, it was warm, curious, as if the man's entire existence had just become the most interesting thing in the room.
The server smiled back, genuinely, a little caught off guard, and moved on a little lighter on his feet.
No words were exchanged, but someone's night was made a bit more tolerable.
John walked in slow, casual strides, as if he had all the time in the world. He didn't rush. He didn't slouch. He didn't strut.
He simply moved, from corridors to stairwaves till he was back to the heart of the party, a kind of liquid confidence in motion, like his body obeyed rules the rest of them hadn't quite figured out yet.
Not the kind of swagger that came from generational money or inherited status, or the tryhard practised gait of new money entrepreneurs eager to prove that they were here to stay.
It was older than that, more instinctive.
A predator in a room of peacocks.
A few heads turned. The older ones glanced, half-curious, half-confused, already trying to remember who invited him. The younger ones stared longer. One woman paused mid-sentence. Another dropped her eyes quickly but not before he caught the flash of interest.
He was good-looking, yes, his features too symmetrical to be average. That sharp jawline, the short dark hair neatly brushed back, the kind of blue eyes that seemed too pale to be real, too intense not to notice.
But it wasn't just the face. It was the feeling.
The young simply had too much presence.
The heiresses; the ones too used to being tolerated instead of understood, who cared for nothing but their fathers impending doom and the ten thousand ways they could splurge their money, leaned in and found themselves seeking validation.
The wives of crumbling titans, draped in silk and sadness, lifted their eyes from their wine glasses. Even the caterers, those who'd worked enough rich galas to see every kind of fake smile, looked twice.
He returned to the room like nothing at all had happened. Like he hadn't just spent the last thirty minutes showing Gotham that a new beast was on the prowl.
A few of the wealthier guests nodded at him, unsure of whether to pretend to know him or just accept that someone like him probably belonged, even if they couldn't remember how.
"Darling," cooed the hostess, a lean, predatory woman with a neck like a swan and a glass of pinot like a sixth finger. "Where did you go?"
'Elizabeth Palmer,' John's mind supplied after a microsecond, 'Would be novelist and chronic socialite, daughter of Helmut Palmer, their family made a fortune in steel extraction and processing.'
She also happened to be his benefactor for the day, his alibi and ticket to the world of true parasites. Though he still couldn't bring himself to bite her, way too much perfume.
"Got lost," John replied smoothly, his voice soft and textured like aged wood, "in your mirror collection. I could've sworn one of them winked at me."
It was a strange thing to say, but the Palmers had an entire room filled with ornate mirrors old and new, each one worth a brand new car at the least.
This kind of obsession demanded attention, and from the way her eyes shone with something that was almost alive, he was right.
In an instant, it was gone, and the fake airs were back in force.
She laughed. Too loud. A little breathy. Touched his arm without thinking, all the while thinking very hard about it.
"I must say, I'm glad I insisted you come tonight. We don't get nearly enough exciting men anymore." She said, keeping her hand there a second more than necessary.
"Oh, I think you have plenty," John said, gaze drifting just over her shoulder, looking at an eighty years old shipping magnate trying to woo a woman sixty years younger.
She laughed again, touched him yet again, and the nearby cluster of socialites, all teeth and champagne and golf course anecdotes, eyed him with a blend of interest and territorial tension.
John felt better breaking the legs of some arms dealers, but this had to be done.
A few feet away, standing half in shadow near the bar, two older men watched the interaction unfold.
They were old money types, the kind that wore their suits a little too tight and their smiles a little too tired. Friends, in the way men like them could be. Same club. Same tax brackets. Same mistresses, more often than not.
"That him?" one of them muttered into his drink, a glass of neat scotch, half-emptied already.
"Mm-hmm," the other grunted, lighting a cigar with the deliberate slowness of someone savoring old rituals, or at least trying to look like it, "Harker. Something in construction, I think. Or real estate. Low-end. East End stuff. Brideshead. You know."
"Heavens, that place?" The first man laughed, took a sip. "What's he doing here then?"
"The hostess," the second replied, shrugging. "She likes him. Young. Pretty. Not broke, technically."
"He's barely worth what I pay my lawyers annually," the first said. "But look at him."
They both did. And despite themselves, they frowned. The bastard looked comfortable.
"Walks like he owns the place."
"Talks like he's doing everyone a favor just by listening."
"You think he rehearses that?"
"Not a chance. Bastard's too good."
The first one glanced at his watch, then toward the far end of the room, where a woman in a shimmering black gown was sipping white wine and absolutely not looking at John Harker. Which meant she was very much looking at John Harker.
"…That your wife?" he asked casually.
The other man paused. Turned. Narrowed his eyes.
"…No."
"Sure?"
"She wouldn't. She knows better."
"Ah."
Beat.
"…Maybe I should go check on her."
"Yeah. Probably for the best."
They both laughed, but only one of them meant it.
. . .
Back in the center of the room, the vampire sipped a glass of bourbon which was really cherry juice, courtesy of his new friend among the waiting staff who was happy to accommodate his non-flammable beverages lifestyle, and let the conversations swirl around him.
He didn't need to chase them. They came to him. He said little, just enough. A few compliments. A story about a school he'd helped rebuild. Something funny about zoning permits and lobbyists…funny for those in the know.
Nothing too heavy. Nothing too polished.
He wasn't from this world. Not really. Everyone here knew it, he was more of an attraction, like the musicians. But he wore it like a borrowed suit that fit better than the original owner's.
And while the others traded family names and hedge fund gossip, Harker listened.
He took in names. Faces. Slips in language. Desperation hiding behind rhinestones. He didn't need their money, at least not for the moment. He needed their secrets. Their leverage. Their belief that he might be one of them, that John Harker, while exceptional, was still ordinary.
He raised his glass in a half-toast, smiling to no one in particular.
Across town, red eyes faded from the rooftops, vanishing into the night.
And inside the chandeliered warmth of the elite, John Harker laughed like a man who had never set foot in Crime Alley.