Chapter 23: The War Council
Lucius
Sunrise painted the clinic's shuttered windows in filtered gold.
Michael sat on the operating table, chains removed now that he'd demonstrated enough control to avoid immediate violence. His hybrid eyes—still unsettling, one blue and one gold—tracked my movements as I spread stolen intel across the surgical tray.
"Explain it again," he said. "All of it. From the beginning."
Selene leaned against the wall, arms crossed, expression unreadable. She'd been quiet since I'd shared my transformation—processing, probably, what it meant that I'd achieved something neither Viktor nor Marcus had managed in centuries of trying.
"The beginning is a thousand years ago," I said, arranging documents. "Alexander Corvinus survived a plague that killed everyone else. His blood mutated, granted immortality. He had three sons—one became the first vampire, one became the first werewolf, one stayed human but carried the dormant strain."
"The dormant strain." Michael's voice was flat. "That's what I have."
"Had. Now you have active vampire and Lycan genetics, held together by the Corvinus strain that makes you compatible with both." I tapped a photo of Kraven. "This man is the current Regent of the vampire coven. He's been conspiring with Lucian—the Lycan leader—for two hundred years. Faking the war's progress, keeping both species weak and distracted while they plot to kill the Elders."
"And I'm—what? A weapon in their conspiracy?"
"You're a proof of concept. The Lycans want to create hybrids, soldiers that combine vampire and Lycan strengths without the weaknesses. Your blood makes that possible." I met his mismatched eyes directly. "Every faction wants to control you. The only way you survive is if we destroy them first."
Michael stood, moving to the window. The shutters blocked direct sunlight, but he pressed his hand against them anyway—feeling the warmth, testing the boundary of his new existence.
"I was a surgeon. Three days ago, my biggest problem was a double shift and a broken coffee maker." His voice cracked slightly. "Now I'm a monster in a war I didn't know existed."
"You're not a monster." Selene's words surprised me—she'd been silent throughout my explanation. "You're a weapon. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Monsters have no control. Weapons choose their targets." She pushed off from the wall, approached him with the careful grace of a predator respecting another predator's territory. "I was turned six hundred years ago. Against my will, by a vampire who murdered my family and lied about it for centuries. I thought I was a monster for a long time. Now I understand—I was a weapon pointed at the wrong enemies."
Michael turned to face her. Something passed between them—recognition, maybe, or shared trauma finding common ground.
"And now?"
"Now I choose my own targets." Her eyes flickered to me, then back to Michael. "Viktor dies. Kraven dies. Everyone who built their power on lies and manipulation dies. You can help us—or you can hide until they find you and dissect you for research."
The silence stretched. Michael's hands clenched and unclenched, hybrid claws flickering at his fingertips.
"What do I need to do?"
"First? Learn to control your transformation." I moved to the clinic's cleared space, gestured for him to join me. "You can't help anyone if you lose yourself to Lycan instincts in the middle of a fight."
The next hour was brutal.
Michael's hybrid form was powerful but unstable—emotions triggered transformation whether he wanted it or not. Anger brought claws. Fear brought fangs. Even frustration was enough to shift his eyes from human to hybrid gold.
"Control is not suppression," Selene instructed, circling him like a drill sergeant. "You don't fight the transformation—you guide it. Channel the power without letting it channel you."
"Easy for you to say. You've had six hundred years of practice."
"I had six hundred years of practice being a vampire. Hybrid is new territory for everyone."
The radio crackled in my coat pocket—stolen Death Dealer frequency, still broadcasting Kraven's manhunt updates.
"District IX sweep in progress. Check all abandoned buildings. Lucius can't have gone far with two fugitives."
I checked the transmission timestamp. The message was two hours old, but the search pattern was clear. They were methodically covering every district, closing in on our location.
"We have to move tonight," I said. "They'll reach this area within hours."
"Move where?" Michael's voice carried the frustration of someone whose entire world had collapsed and kept collapsing. "You said every faction is hunting us. Where exactly is safe?"
"Nowhere is safe. But I have a backup location in District VI—apartment I rented under a false name weeks ago. UV shutters, multiple exits, defensible position."
"You planned for this?"
"I plan for everything." I began gathering supplies, loading medical equipment into bags. "Seven days until Viktor wakes. We use that time to train you, gather evidence on Kraven's conspiracy, and position ourselves for the confrontation."
"Then what?"
"Then we kill an Elder and everything changes."
Selene moved to help me pack, her movements efficient and purposeful. Whatever emotional crisis she'd been processing, she'd pushed it aside for tactical necessity.
"I want Sonja's pendant," she said. "It's in Kraven's office—I've seen the safe. The pendant is the key to William's prison. Controlling it gives us leverage over both Viktor and Marcus."
"Agreed. We steal it before the awakening ceremony."
"We're going to rob a coven mansion while forty-seven Death Dealers are hunting us?" Michael's laugh was borderline hysterical. "This is insane."
"This is war." I finished loading the last bag, checked my weapons. "Insanity is a tactical advantage when your enemies expect rational behavior."
Dusk fell at 8:47 PM. The moment darkness was complete, we moved.
The motorcycle was a tight fit for three people, but vampire and hybrid physiology didn't require comfort. Selene drove—she knew the city's streets better than anyone. I rode behind her, Michael pressed against my back, all of us armed and alert.
We left the clinic moments before Death Dealer patrol rounded the corner at the street's opposite end. Close. Too close. The margin for error was shrinking.
District VI welcomed us with upscale architecture and empty streets. The safehouse was a top-floor apartment in a pre-war building—expensive, anonymous, prepared weeks ago for exactly this contingency.
"You really did plan for this," Michael said, examining the UV shutters, the weapon caches, the blood bags stored in a refrigerated cabinet.
"Surgeons don't improvise." I locked the door, engaged the security system. "We prepare, we execute, we adapt. The procedure is the same whether you're removing a tumor or infiltrating a vampire coven."
Selene was already checking sightlines, mapping escape routes, evaluating defensive positions. Six centuries of warfare made tactical assessment instinctive.
"This works," she said finally. "For now."
"For now is all we need."
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