Almost a whole day had passed. A whole day of humiliating inaction and deafening silence. No information about the little thief had arrived. With every hour, Lykus Haskell's rage became colder, harder, and sharper. For him, having lived on this planet for over two hundred years, this annoying interference was not just a failure of an operation—it was a personal blow to his reputation, to his very essence.
Unlike most of his brethren, reveling in eternity and sliding into a pit of vices, Lykus valued time. He was a predator, and his main trait was concentration. If a problem arose in his life—a threat to his power, his ambitions, his impeccable order—he mobilized all resources for its immediate and irrevocable destruction. Usually it was fast. Almost always—bloody. And invariably—effective. It was this ruthless efficiency that allowed him, the seventh son of the clan patriarch, to take the post of manager of New York. This city was too valuable a prize to give away by "nepotism" rather than for real merits.
"Lord Lykus, the target is found!"
The office door opened without a knock. When Lykus was on the hunt, all ephemeral rituals were discarded in favor of speed.
"Moreover... the boy is at Bowling Green. Driving around the neighborhood in his 'Honda', absolutely not hiding."
Lykus froze. Even his surprised subordinate couldn't compare to the amazement that momentarily reflected on the vampire's face. What the hell? This little thief doesn't give a damn about them? Is he mocking them? Amazement was replaced by cold anger, and following it came a primal desire to tear this bastard apart with his own hands. Steal a sacred flower and now throw an open challenge at them?!
"Assemble," Lykus roared, rising from his chair. His eyes burned with an otherworldly fire. "I'm going with you. Personally."
Assembly didn't take long. Night was their time. Ten minutes later, several black sedans without license plates were already racing through the streets of the Financial District. Lykus sat in the back seat, receiving reports via radio. Every message only heightened his anticipation. And then, finally: the boy was driven into a dead end, the exits were blocked. He was trapped. A bloodthirsty grin touched Lykus's lips.
But somewhere at the back of his mind, an intuition sharpened by centuries of intrigue whispered that all this was... too simple.
"Wait for my signal. I will personally get to know this freak," he gave the command when his car stopped at the beginning of the alley.
Why did his intuition scream of danger? He brushed these thoughts aside. Excessive reflections. He got out of the car.
The alley was flooded with the light of his people's headlights. In the center, like a trapped animal, stood an old, cheap "Honda". Lykus walked slowly, savoring the moment of triumph. Two loyal bodyguards followed him. He peered into the freak's face through the windshield. The boy averted his gaze, not daring to look him in the eyes. But... there was no fear in him. No panic. And now... now he even... smiled.
It's a trap!
The thought scorched Lykus's mind a fraction of a second before the "Honda's" back door smoothly opened.
Not just a person stepped out of the car. The darkness inside the cabin itself seemed to thicken, take shape, and step outside. A figure used to scare newly turned vampires. A name that was synonymous with the word "genocide" in their community. A man in full combat gear: tight-fitting plated armor, a long leather coat fluttering in the night wind. And a katana on the left hip. That very katana that inspired more terror in vampires than any holy artifact. A sword that, according to rumors, destroyed any unholy creature with a single touch.
In that moment, Lykus understood everything. The boy's smile. His show of bravery. The ease with which they were lured here. They were not the hunters. They were the bait.
And the Daywalker came at their call.
The silence in the alley was thick and heavy. It was broken only by the quiet hum of the black sedans' engines surrounding the old "Honda".
"So, Haskell, then," Blade drawled lazily, breaking the silence. He leaned relaxed against the car's roof, as if he were at a picnic with friends rather than surrounded by deadly predators. "Hey, why did you turn so pale at the sight of me? Oh, wait... you're already pale!"
He laughed hoarsely. That laughter, devoid of humor, echoed off the walls, making the vampires shift nervously from foot to foot.
"Blade..." Lykus hissed, with difficulty restraining his rage. Fear fought with offended pride in him. He was instantly restructuring the plan. There could be no more talk of harming the boy. Now the task was to leave here alive and save face. "You know our clan. You know how we conduct business. We honor order."
"It's one thing to know, another to see how you hunt my buddy as an entire pack," Blade poked his thumb toward the car. "He's an ordinary lad, you know. Not as tough as me. And he can't fight back. Why do you bully the weak and infirm, huh? Not very aristocratic."
"He's a thief!" metal rang in Lykus's voice. "He stole what belongs to our clan by right of blood! Something an ordinary mortal can't even know about! So your words about him being an 'ordinary lad' are a fake!"
"To steal something, you need to know it belongs to someone!" the "ordinary lad" himself intervened in their conversation. He stepped out of the car and stood next to Blade, feeling surprisingly calm under his protection. "There was no 'Property of the Haskell Clan. Death for picking!' sign on your Ghost Orchid."
"Ignorance does not exempt from responsibility!" Lykus growled.
"Anyway, both of you shut up and listen to me!" Blade barked, and his voice instantly cut off the argument. The relaxedness disappeared, giving way to an icy threat. "The layout is simple. Either I carve all of you out now, pale-faces, and send you to your forefathers. Or you swear that you leave my buddy alone. Forever. Forget he exists."
"What about compensation for the damage?" Lykus couldn't fall face down in the dirt. Even before Blade, the dignity of the clan had to be maintained.
"Your life is the best compensation," Blade snapped.
Silence reigned on the street again. Blade, as if from nowhere, produced a silver kunai and began to toss it relaxed in his hand. The whistle of the air being cut by the blade acted on the vampires' nerves better than any torture.
"If you kill us... the Patriarch won't leave it just like that!" Lykus made a final attempt.
"Pff, I've already danced with old Alexander. I've grown a lot in skills since then," Blade smiled predatorily, demonstrating his dhampir fangs. "So I'm ready for a new meeting."
"Other clans won't tolerate this!"
"And why do you think I flew to America? To rest? For me, the best option would be if all you bastards come to my light yourselves. It'll save me time searching," he smirked again.
Lykus was in no mood for laughter. He was trapped. Blade was right. Either humiliation and life, or death and dishonor. Being young by pureblood standards, he was too weak to resist this death machine.
"Alright," he squeezed out through his teeth. "I agree. We'll leave the boy alone. I swear by the name of the Haskell Clan..."
"Hey, hey, stop!" Blade interrupted him, stopping his play with the kunai. "No empty words. On blood."
Fuck! Lykus cursed mentally. A Blood Oath. An ancient, unbreakable ritual. It won't just bind his will; it will drain him, make him vulnerable for weeks. And breaking the oath would lead to the degradation of his blood, to the loss of purity and a fall in the clan hierarchy. It was worse than death. But there was no choice.
He stretched his hand forward and, concentrating, spoke the words that echoed with pain in every cell of his body:
"I, Lykus Haskell, second-generation pureblood vampire, swear by my blood that I will leave the human known as John Thompson and his circle alone. I swear by my blood that I will not plot evil against him personally or through third parties. I swear by my blood that if I become aware of a direct threat to his life, I will warn him of it."
On the last word, he doubled over, and a clot of dark, almost black blood escaped his mouth. It fell onto the asphalt, which hissed as if from acid, leaving a smoldering symbol for a moment. Lykus turned even paler and seemed to age several years.
"Now that's another conversation!" Blade chuckled. "Always knew you could talk to the Haskell. Well, see ya."
"Wait. My people..." Lykus asked in a weakened voice. "The ones who were tailing him yesterday. Did you kill them?"
"First, not 'people'. Second, none of your damn business," Blade tossed and, going around the car, sat in the front passenger seat.
Before getting behind the wheel, the youth turned to the vampire.
"I wouldn't be against establishing cooperation with you in the future, Lord Lykus."
"Go to Hell!" the other hissed, looking at him with hatred, and turned toward his car.
The youth shrugged, sat in the "Honda", and, unhindered by anyone, drove out of the alley.
In his automobile, Lykus leaned back in the seat, trying to restore his breathing. He analyzed what had happened and came to the conclusion that they got off easy. They lost one inflorescence, a couple of years of his life energy, and three ordinary resurrected. In return, they got... a sort of immunity. As long as the boy is alive and under Blade's protection, their clan, bound by the oath, will be out of the Daywalker's sight.
"Lord, will we really... leave him?" the assistant asked, pulling onto the night street.
"It's the best we can do," Lykus replied, looking out the window. "Blade isn't here for no reason. Purges are coming. And in the coming months, if not years... it's better for us to go to ground."
***
We drove in silence for a few minutes. I was driving, still feeling the aftertaste of adrenaline and victory. Blade silently watched the night New York lights passing by, and I could only guess what he was thinking. Likely, he was analyzing the past meeting, me, my words. Despite his show of carelessness, he was clearly a professional to the bone.
"'Just hid from the tail', you say?" he suddenly broke the silence without turning his head.
Well, yes... Inventory, System, meta-knowledge. Secrets that are worth more than life in this world. I remained silent, and Blade, thinking for another couple of seconds, suddenly sharply but lightly slapped himself on the forehead.
"Fuck. And how did you even find out about the existence of vampires? And about me? That's the first thing I should have asked. Your damn watch threw me off."
"Those are... the secrets I'd prefer to keep to myself," I replied cautiously.
To my relief, that answer satisfied him. He snorted, turning to me.
"To yourself it is then. Everyone has their skeletons in the closet. Don't sweat it, I'm a cool nigga. If you occasionally supply me with your brews, we'll become best friends. Besides, I plan to stay here for a bit. Time to thin out the local population of creatures."
"What about the Haskell? Will you leave them alone?"
"What about them? I only kill arrogant bastards and complete scum. These, you saw yourself, are reasonable. They're part of the ecosystem, and far from the worst. Hold businesses, provide protection, pay taxes... Well, their own, vampire, taxes. As long as they sit quietly, I don't give a damn about them."
"I see. The main thing is that I can breathe easy now. And I really can supply you with useful things. But not for free, naturally."
"Ha! You offend me," Blade chuckled. "Uncle Blade always pays his bills."
"It's a deal then," I nodded. The tension faded, and I allowed myself to change the subject to what really interested me. "By the way, when Lykus swore... what does 'second-generation pureblood vampire' mean?"
Blade looked at me with genuine surprise.
"You know how to find me, but you don't know their internal kitchen? Funny. Alright, listen to a mini-lecture on vampirology. Maybe one day it'll save your ass. Anyway. It all started with Varnae. The first vampire. Created by god-knows-who, god-knows-when. Among the bloodsuckers, he's called the Progenitor. Definitely a crazy strong bastard who would twist me into a ram's horn with one pinky. Luckily, haven't met personally."
"Maybe he died long ago?"
"Nope," Blade shook his head. "Scum like that doesn't die. Just doesn't stand out. So. Five centuries ago, the Progenitor went into the shadows and handed over power to his direct Offspring. There were six of them in total. One, by the way, I killed personally. Of the remaining five, the most famous is Dracula. He currently rules the whole vampire coven and is considered the strongest of them."
"And does he live in a castle in Romania somewhere?"
"Ha, almost guessed it. In Chernobyl," Blade's answer made me lose my speech for a second. "He likes the atmosphere. Very post-apocalyptic. From the Offspring came first-generation purebloods, from them—second, like our acquaintance Lykus, from them—third. After that, the blood gets very diluted, and the output is ordinary vampires. Therefore, fourth-generation purebloods don't exist in nature."
"And how do they... reproduce? By bites?"
"Varnae and his Offspring can in the classic way. Well, you know," Blade chuckled vulgarly. "First and second-generation purebloods—too. But the third rarely gives birth to anything. Therefore, yes, most new vampires appear through a bite."
"So some of them... are in some way alive?" that question concerned me particularly.
"In some way—yes. Especially those who are born, not turned. For those turned by a bite, it's like a genetic disease, a virus. But there are exceptions. Just our case. Clans like the Haskell prefer not to turn the living, but to resurrect dead bodies and put them into their service. Such dummies are definitely not alive. They have no soul, no thoughts of their own. Only fragments of personality they had in life. Will-less puppets."
A cold wave passed down my back. That's it. The explanation. Resurrected corpses. The System unceremoniously marked them as "non-living objects," allowing me to put them in the inventory. But Lykus... a pureblood, born vampire... I suddenly realized with absolute certainty that my touch wouldn't have worked on him. My main trump card, my seemingly ultimate ability, had a blind spot. And I almost bet everything on it without even knowing the rules of the game.
And after all, in this world, there are or will soon appear other forms of life that might not seem so at first glance. The boundaries of the definition of "living" are blurred beyond recognition here. My brain began to feverishly go through the options, and with each new example, a chill ran down my spine.
Take Vision, for example. A synthetic body made of Vibranium, a computer mind based on artificial intelligence... and a soul or its semblance granted by an Infinity Stone. Is he alive? From the standpoint of human ethics—unquestionably. Но for the soul-less System? He wasn't born; he has no DNA. And his "soul" is in some way artificial. Would I be able to place him in the inventory? The very thought of it was monstrous.
Or even simpler—Sandman. Flint Marko. His consciousness, his personality, his soul—without a doubt, human and alive. But his body is just silicon dioxide, living sand. What is the criterion for the System? A biological shell or the presence of a sentient soul? Would I be able to "collect" him into the inventory like a pile of sand, or would his will make him a "living" object?
And what about Ben Grimm, the Thing from the Fantastic Four? His body is living rock, an organic silicate rock. He breathes, eats, thinks. He is definitely "alive," even if he's not made of the usual protein. That means it's not about the chemical composition. What about exotic races from space? Beings made of pure energy, collective minds, crystalloid forms of life...
My inventory, from an ultimate "press and defeat any undead" weapon, turned before my eyes into a high-precision surgical tool with an incomprehensible manual. Using it at random is equivalent to trying to perform brain surgery with a jackhammer. From this moment on, every new opponent will be considered "living" by default. Every threat requires deep analysis. Relying on the inventory as a panacea is a deadly mistake that I fortunately realized before it killed me.
"We're here," I said, killing the engine at my house. The realization of my own luck and simultaneously my vulnerability with stupidity left a bitter aftertaste.
Blade scanned my modest one-story house.
"Well, come on, show me your Resident Evil."