Chapter 21: The Revelation
Marcus Webb was dying faster than the doctors predicted.
I knew it before I entered his room—could smell the change in his blood, the particular sweetness of organs beginning to fail. The cancer had accelerated in the two weeks since my last visit, eating through whatever defenses his military conditioning had provided.
He was awake when I arrived. Always awake now, he'd told me. Sleep brought nightmares worse than the dying.
"You came back."
"I told you I would."
"Everyone tells me things." He gestured at the empty visitor's chair, the silent monitors, the window overlooking a world he might never walk in again. "The difference is you actually do them."
I took the chair, the familiar position I'd occupied during all our conversations. The hospital's night shift moved quietly beyond the closed door—nurses and orderlies who'd been glamoured to ignore my irregular visits.
"I have answers," I said. "And I have an offer."
"The offer first. I've been thinking about nothing else for two weeks."
I extended my fangs.
The reaction was immediate—Marcus's body tensing, his hands gripping the bed rails, his eyes widening with the primal recognition of predator by prey. But he didn't scream. Didn't press the call button. Didn't do anything except stare at my transformed face with the calculating attention of a soldier assessing threat level.
"Vampire." His voice was steady, despite the fear I could smell beneath his control. "You're an actual vampire."
"Yes."
"And you're offering to make me one."
"Yes."
Marcus was quiet for a long moment. His heart rate had elevated—the monitors showed the spike—but it was stabilizing as he processed information that should have been impossible.
"Show me more."
I moved across the room faster than human eyes could track, appearing beside his bed in the space between one heartbeat and the next. He flinched, but he didn't look away.
"I can hear your heartbeat from across the building," I said. "I can smell the cancer in your blood—it tastes wrong, bitter, like something rotting from inside. I haven't needed to breathe in 150 years, but I still do sometimes, from habit." I returned to my chair at normal speed. "This is what I am. This is what I'm offering you."
"What's the catch?"
"Sunlight kills. Blood is necessary—you'll need to feed on humans, though it doesn't have to be lethal. Silver burns like acid. Religious symbols have no effect, but some places feel... uncomfortable. You'll be functionally immortal, but stakes through the heart and decapitation are still fatal."
"And the hunger?"
The question surprised me with its insight. Marcus had been thinking about this more seriously than I'd realized.
"The hunger is real. Constant, at first. It becomes manageable with time, but it never disappears completely. You'll always be aware of the blood around you—every heartbeat, every pulse. Learning to control the instinct to feed is the first lesson every vampire masters."
"And if I can't master it?"
"Then you become a problem. Problems get eliminated—either by other vampires or by authorities we have for exactly that purpose." I met his eyes directly. "I wouldn't offer this if I didn't think you could handle it. Your military training, your discipline, your ability to follow orders without losing independent judgment—that's why you're here and not someone else."
Marcus absorbed this with the methodical attention of someone cataloging ammunition before a mission. His questions came steadily, each one building on the last.
"Politics?"
"Complicated. There's a hierarchy—Sheriffs, Magisters, the Authority. Louisiana has a Queen, though her position is less stable than she'd like. As my progeny, you'd be protected but also obligated. What I owe, you owe. What I build, you help build."
"And what are you building?"
"A kingdom. Not tomorrow, not next year. But eventually. Something that lasts."
"You're ambitious."
"I'm strategic. Ambition without strategy is just fantasy."
Marcus's laugh was weak but genuine—the first real humor I'd heard from him in weeks.
"You sound like my drill sergeant. He used to say the same thing about soldiers who wanted to be heroes."
"What happened to those soldiers?"
"Most of them died. The ones who listened, survived." He looked at his hands—human hands, weakening hands, hands that had once held weapons and now couldn't grip a bedpan. "And you're saying I could survive. Not just more weeks of this"—he gestured at the hospital around him—"but actual survival. Years. Centuries."
"If you want it. If you're willing to pay the price."
"What price?"
"Everything you are now. Your humanity, whatever that means. Your place in the daylight world. Your family—you'll outlive anyone you care about, and most of them won't understand what you've become." I leaned forward, ensuring he understood the weight of what I was saying. "This isn't a cure, Marcus. It's a transformation. You die as a human and rise as something else. Something more and something less, depending on how you look at it."
"And if I say no?"
"Then I leave, and you die here. No hard feelings, no consequences. I'm not threatening you with refusal—I'm offering you choice. Whatever you decide, I'll respect it."
The hospital hummed around us. Monitors beeped. Somewhere down the hall, a patient coughed. Normal sounds, normal night, normal ending for most people who found themselves in rooms like this.
Marcus looked at the window. The stars were visible—Louisiana's clear night sky, unobstructed by city lights. He'd told me once that he wanted to see the Grand Canyon before he died. To finish his father's car. To find someone who didn't look at him like he was already dead.
"When I was deployed," he said slowly, "we had this saying. 'Die on your feet or live on your knees.' The guys who chose pride over survival usually didn't make it home. The smart ones understood that living meant compromising sometimes."
"Is that how you see this? A compromise?"
"I see it as a different kind of deployment. Same principles, different rules." He met my eyes—the fear still there, but controlled now, channeled into decision. "You're offering me a chance to keep fighting. Different enemies, different stakes, but still fighting. That's more than anyone else has offered me."
"Is that a yes?"
Marcus was quiet for a long moment. His hands had stopped trembling—the acceptance bringing calm rather than terror.
"My father was a mechanic. Worked on cars his whole life, died before finishing his own project—a '67 Mustang he'd been restoring for twenty years. I always told myself I'd finish it for him someday. Then I got deployed, then I got sick, and now..." He shrugged. "Now I'm looking at a vampire offering me eternity, and all I can think about is that goddamn car sitting in a garage in Arkansas."
"There's time. After the turning, after you've learned control, there's time for everything you deferred."
"Everything except daylight."
"Everything except daylight."
Marcus closed his eyes. When he opened them, something had settled in his expression—the particular resolve of someone who'd made peace with an impossible choice.
"Do it. Before I change my mind. Before the cancer makes the decision for me."
"Not tonight." I stood, moving toward the door. "There's preparation required—a safe location, supplies, time for the transition. I'll come for you in three days. Get your affairs in order."
"What affairs? I've got a storage unit full of junk and medical bills I'll never pay."
"Then say goodbye to anyone who matters. Once you turn, visiting this hospital becomes... complicated."
Marcus snorted—the dark humor of someone who'd spent too long contemplating his own mortality.
"Nobody left to say goodbye to. That's why I'm perfect for this, right? No connections, no complications."
"Partly. But also because you're worth saving, Marcus. Not everyone is. I've met a lot of dying people in the past month. You're the only one I offered this to."
I left him with that—a validation I hoped would sustain him through the three days of waiting. At the door, I paused.
"Three days. I'll come for you at sunset."
"I'll be ready."
I drove back to Monroe with the weight of the evening pressing against my thoughts. George had died two weeks ago. Marcus would die in three days—but rise again as something else. The cycle continued, loss and gain intertwined in ways I was still learning to understand.
My first progeny. My first legacy.
The system pulsed its confirmation: Lineage requirements met, progeny creation authorized. The mechanics were clinical, quantified. The reality was something else entirely.
I was about to become a maker. To take responsibility for another consciousness, another existence, another immortal life that would continue long after my plans either succeeded or failed.
George would have had something to say about this. Probably something wise, probably something annoying.
I missed him. The recognition came without warning—genuine grief for a human I'd known for barely three months. He'd trusted me with his legacy. Now I was about to create a legacy of my own.
The Silver Dollar's lights were visible from the highway, welcoming me home. Elena would be waiting with questions. The staff would be managing the late-night crowd. Business would continue, metrics would improve, the kingdom would keep building.
And somewhere in a hospital bed, Marcus Webb was saying goodbye to his humanity.
Author's Note / Support the Story
Your Reviews and Power Stones help the story grow! They are the best way to support the series and help new readers find us.
Want to read ahead? Get instant access to more chapters by supporting me on Patreon. Choose your tier to skip the wait:
⚔️ Noble ($7): Read 10 chapters ahead of the public.
👑 Royal ($11): Read 17 chapters ahead of the public.
🏛️ Emperor ($17): Read 24 chapters ahead of the public.
Weekly Updates: New chapters are added every week. See the pinned "Schedule" post on Patreon for the full update calendar.
👉 Join here: patreon.com/Kingdom1Building