The return to Crimson City was a funeral procession without a body. The silence inside the armored transport was thicker than the shadows, broken only by Kael's occasional hiss of pain from the holy water burns on his arm. The artificial twilight of the vampire districts felt claustrophobic after the vast, open sky of the Bullpen, a gilded cage snapping shut once more.
Captain Vorlag did not speak during the journey. His frozen-blood eyes remained fixed on Jerry, a silent, accusatory stare that dissected every breath, every twitch. The unspoken question hung in the air, more potent than the scent of antiseptic and anger: Why didn't you kill the Hunter?
They were taken directly to the Citadel's debriefing chamber. The room was circular, windowless, and lined with sound-absorbing black stone. It felt less like an office and more like an interrogation cell. Vorlag dismissed Kael and Silas for medical treatment, but he ordered Jerry and Laura to stay.
"Report," Vorlag commanded, his voice echoing in the sterile space. "From the beginning."
Laura spoke first, her voice steady though her hands were clenched. She described the distribution point, the tension, the sudden attack. She credited Jerry with saving her life, emphasizing his speed and decisiveness. "If Jerry hadn't reacted, I'd be dead," she stated, a protective edge to her tone.
Vorlag's gaze shifted to Jerry. "And you? Describe the engagement with the Hunter."
Jerry kept his story simple, sticking to the lie he had crafted. "He was fast. Faster than any human should be. I saw him target Laura. I didn't think. I moved to intercept. I managed to grab his wrist and shove him back. It was instinct, not skill."
"Instinct?" Vorlag repeated, a dangerous quiet in his voice. He leaned forward, his palms flat on the table. "My Deathstalkers are trained for a decade. Their instincts are honed to kill. Your 'instinct' was to... shove? To whisper something in the enemy's ear?"
Jerry's blood ran cold. He hadn't realized Vorlag was close enough to see that. He maintained his calm, his mind racing. "I told him to back off. It was a bluff. I was buying time."
"A bluff," Vorlag said, the word dripping with skepticism. He stood and began to pace slowly behind them, a predator circling its prey. "Let us examine the facts. You show no discomfort in direct sunlight, a trait unheard of outside the ancient, pure-blooded lords. You move with a speed that defies your training records. You show no hunger around humans, not even a flicker of desire. And now, in the face of a sworn enemy, you choose negotiation over execution."
He stopped directly behind Jerry. Jerry could feel the cold aura emanating from him.
"Your father is a respected noble, Jerry. Your bloodline is impeccable. But what you are displaying are not the traits of a noble. They are... anomalies."
Laura stood up, her chair scraping against the stone floor. "Captain, with all due respect, you are questioning the actions of a student who just saved a fellow noble's life. If Jerry's instincts are so unusual, perhaps the Academy's training is at fault, not him."
Vorlag's cold eyes flicked to Laura, a hint of surprise and then irritation crossing his features. Her status as a daughter of a high-ranking family gave her a shield that Jerry lacked.
"Your loyalty is noted, Miss Laura," Vorlag said, his tone slightly mollified but no less dangerous. "And it is the only reason this conversation is not happening in the Inquisitor's chambers."
He walked back to the front of the table and handed them two small, obsidian badges. "You are both reassigned. Effective immediately, you are junior analysts attached to the Breach Investigation Task Force. You will review all evidence from the gate attack and the Hunter incident. You will look for patterns, for weaknesses, for anything the guards missed."
It was a brilliant, vicious move. He was putting them, especially Jerry, in a box. Forced to analyze the very events that were causing suspicion to fall on him. It was a test. If Jerry found too much, he might reveal knowledge he shouldn't have. If he found too little, he would be deemed incompetent or, worse, obstructive.
"Dismissed," Vorlag said, his final word a clear threat.
As they left the Citadel, the weight of the assignment settled on Jerry. He was now a suspect, forced to investigate himself.
Later, in the secure data-sanctum of the Task Force, surrounded by glowing crystal slates displaying the forensic reports, Jerry saw the full picture Vorlag was building. The report on the dissolved gate highlighted an "unknown, powerful corrosive agent, non-magical in nature." The wounds on the two dead students were noted for their "surgical precision, inconsistent with a feral attack."
Laura worked beside him, her brow furrowed in concentration. "He's right about one thing," she murmured, zooming in on a scan of the gate's remnants. "This wasn't a monster. This was science. Advanced alchemy."
Jerry nodded, his eyes on a different file—the personnel report from the day of the breach. He saw Ronan's name, the executed gatekeeper. And he saw a footnote, a tiny detail everyone had overlooked: Ronan's younger sister worked in the Bullpen's water purification plant. A plant that had reported a small theft of catalytic converters just a week before the attack.
The pieces clicked into place. The Hunters hadn't just attacked. They had recruited. They had leverage over Ronan, forcing him to lower the defenses just long enough for them to slip in and stage their "Revenant" killing. Ronan wasn't just a coward; he was a victim, forced to choose between his sister's life and his duty.
Jerry couldn't reveal this. To do so would be to admit he had looked deeper than any junior analyst should, that his mind worked on a level that would only fuel Vorlag's suspicions.
Suddenly, his personal crystal slate, hidden from official view, chimed with a secure, encrypted alert. It was a frequency his father used for emergencies. The message was brief, devoid of any parental warmth.
"The Hounds are sniffing. Your performance in the Bullpen has drawn the wrong kind of attention. The Council is divided. Some see a prodigy. Others see a heretic. Do nothing more to stand out. Your mother is worried."
The message was a confirmation. The web was tightening. He was caught between Vorlag's investigation, the Council's political factions, and the hidden Human Resistance.
As he sat there, trapped by the evidence on the screens, a new alert flashed on one of the official Task Force terminals. It was a priority message from the Western Bullpen surveillance unit.
"Unusual activity detected. A single human male, unidentified, was seen leaving a package at the site of the previous engagement. Package was retrieved by our agents. Contents: a single, unmarked data crystal."
The report stated the crystal contained no viruses, no weapons. Just one file: a short, encrypted audio recording. The cryptographers had just broken the code.
Laura, reading the same report from her terminal, gasped softly. "Jerry... they've uploaded the decrypted file."
She looked at him, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and anticipation. "It's... it's the Hunter. The one you fought."
With a trembling hand, she clicked play.
The voice that came through the speakers was filtered, mechanized to avoid identification, but the words were clear, cold, and directed with unnerving precision.
"To the one who stands in the sun and does not burn. To the one who holds the wolf at bay. The serpent seeks its kin. The broken chain can still be mended. If you want answers, come to the source of the purge. Come alone."
The message ended. The silence in the data-sanctum was absolute.
The Hunters weren't just a faceless enemy. They were watching. They had seen his secrets—his immunity to the sun, his control over his hunger. And they hadn't labeled him a monster. They had called him "kin."
Vorlag's suspicions were a shadow compared to this. The Hunters had just thrown a lifeline into the abyss, a lifeline that could either save him or lead him into the most perfect trap ever laid.
Jerry was no longer just a suspect in his own society; he was now the specific, personal target of a revolution. And the only ones who seemed to understand what he was were the people he was supposed to be hunting.