Rainwater dripped through the parking garage's fractured ceiling, creating oily rainbows in the beam of Leo's flashlight. He crouched behind a gutted Cadillac, fingertips brushing the spines of PlayStation 2 games stacked in banana boxes. The discs smelled of burnt plastic and desperation—perfect camouflage against the Russian mob's sniffers.
"Five crates. Forty percent cut." Crazy Eddie's voice echoed off concrete pillars, his gold incisor catching the flicker of emergency exit signs. The tattooed Virgin Mary on his neck wept blood-red tears. "Or I tell Dragon what you're really moving."
Leo's bracelet pulsed. He'd noticed the pattern last night—its heartbeat synchronized with the security cameras' rotation cycles. Sixteen seconds per sweep. Just enough time between blind spots to shift inventory.
"Fifty-fifty," Leo countered, eyes tracking the waterbug skittering near Eddie's boot. "Or I mention your girlfriend's ketamine habit to her husband in Cell Block D."
The garage lights died.
Red laser dots bloomed on their chests.
"Wrong answer, college boy."
Dragon stepped from the shadows, his snakeskin loafers crunching discarded CD cases. The Triad lieutenant's suit reeked of sandalwood and formaldehyde. Behind him, four associates fanned out—their necklaces glinting silver. Not crosses. Wolf teeth.
The bracelet spasmed. Leo's vision sharpened—suddenly every scratch on Dragon's Rolex gleamed in microscopic detail. The timepiece's serial number matched the one stolen from Dad's lab intern last month.
"Let's play." Dragon snapped his fingers. A steel cage descended from the ceiling, trapping Leo and Eddie with three crates. "One round of Tekken 3. Winner takes all."
The arcade cabinet flickered to life, its CRT screen casting sickly light. But the joysticks weren't plastic—they ended in IV needles.
Eddie screamed first. The needle plunged into his carotid, pumping neon-green fluid. His pupils dilated as Heihachi Mishima's polygon model glitched into a werewolf sprite. Leo's controller chilled his palm, the bracelet's runes glowing through his skin.
Round 1.
Eddie's character moved with twitchy, meth-fueled speed. Leo's hands acted before his brain—parries flowing into combos he'd never practiced. The screen blurred. His nostrils flared at the cabinet's undertones: burnt copper and wet fur.
"Finish him!" Dragon's men chanted as Eddie's health bar dwindled.
Leo's thumb hovered over the kill move. Eddie's real face mirrored his digital avatar—foaming at the mouth, eyes hemorrhaging. The bracelet hummed approval.
He'd steal food from homeless vets. Left your mom's shop to burn last summer. Deserves to—
Leo yanked the joystick left. His character leaped off the cliff.
Eddie's scream turned to wet gurgles as the cabinet ejected him. Green fluid oozed from his pores, forming runic patterns on the concrete. Dragon sighed. "Sentimentality bores me."
The remaining goons advanced. Leo's healing factor already tingled where their silver necklaces brushed his arm.
"Wait." Dragon held up a smartphone playing surveillance footage—Leo's mother browsing Chinatemarket herbs last Thursday. "Let's raise the stakes."
The bracelet flared white-hot. Leo's vision bleed amber at the edges. He smelled it then—the same synthetic testosterone from Brad's bloodstream wafting off Dragon's men. Not Triad. Nightwatch operatives.
"Best two out of three?" Leo cracked his knuckles, the bones popping like gunshots.
Round 2.
Metal clanged as the cage lifted. Dragon's men drew silver-plated switchblades. Leo's nostrils caught the bitter almond scent of cyanide coating the blades—Dad's old lab security measure.
The first attacker lunged. Leo sidestepped, fingers brushing the man's carotid. His healing factor flared—knitting the papercut-thin wound before blood could spill. The goon collapsed anyway, clawing at his neck.
Silver allergy?
The second blade grazed Leo's cheek. He tasted battery acid and burnt hair—nanobots? The wound closed instantly, pushing out a sliver of chrome alloy.
Dragon smiled. "Fascinating."
By the third attacker, Leo stopped holding back.
When the man's ribs cracked like kindling, time slowed. Leo saw individual droplets of sweat freeze mid-air, smelled the sour tang of his own adrenaline. The bracelet's pulse merged with his heartbeat until they became a war drum.
"Enough." Dragon tossed a velvet pouch at Leo's feet. Bitcoin paper wallets glinted among gold teeth. "A down payment."
The security feed reappeared—Leo's mother now sat in a café with the vagrant, sharing mooncakes.
"Your real inheritance awaits," Dragon purred, vanishing into the service elevator. "Ask Daddy about the Y2K protocol."
Underfoot, Eddie's ooze had dried into a perfect Algiz rune—the Norse symbol for protection. From the elevator shaft came the click-clack of claws ascending concrete.
Leo fled with the bitcoin, but not before pocketing a silver wolf tooth. Engraved on its root: Property of Nightwatch Genetics.