He adjusted the focus, and everything narrowed to a small rectangular view through the lenses.
He froze.
The study was luxurious, somber. High ceilings with stucco molding of intertwined leaves and serpents, walls paneled in dark wood polished to a gleam.
Paintings in heavy gold frames depicted scenes from the past,hunts, balls,but the shadows in them seemed too alive.
Two men stood by the desk.
Corvin was at the window, back to Ethan, hands in his pockets. Opposite him, in a high-backed chair, sat an elderly-looking man.
Hair almost silver, long, swept back to reveal a deeply wrinkled forehead; his face motionless like a mask.
Eyes, two pale blues reflecting the lamplight. This was Gérard de Milieu, mayor of the city, an ancient vampire whose power stretched back decades like the roots of an old oak.
Even through the glass, Ethan felt the cold.
"Evidence destroyed," Corvin said.
A pause.
De Milieu nodded slowly, expression unchanged.
"The Maria matter is closed."
Ethan's hands tightened on the binoculars until the plastic creaked under the pressure.
The vampire in the chair remained still for several seconds, as though weighing the words. Then he rose slowly, movements fluid like a snake uncoiling from its loop.
He stepped closer to Corvin and said something short, calm.
Corvin nodded, lowering his head,not as an equal, but as a subordinate.
"They think it's over," Ethan thought, rage rising inside him.
The mayor turned toward the window, and Ethan jerked back into shadow, pressing himself against the wall.
His heart slammed into his throat; breathing stopped. One second, two, three, he waited for a shout or footsteps.
Nothing. Only silence.
He cautiously returned to the binoculars, heart still hammering. The mayor was already facing away again, gazing at the city below, lights twinkling like distant stars.
Corvin approached the desk and placed a black folder on it, secured with metal clasps. When the folder opened briefly, Ethan caught a glimpse inside: a small gray container with locks that caught the lamplight.
"There you are…" Ethan thought, eyes widening.
When he looked again, the mayor was already opening the container, fingers moving deftly, without haste.
Light reflected off metal inside,something dark, thick, shifting as though alive.
The container opened with a soft, almost intimate click, a sound that, in the silence of the study, rang like a sigh of relief or, perhaps, an omen of disaster.
Gérard de Milieu was in no rush.
His long, pale fingers,adorned with rings set with dull black stones,glided over the inner latch with ease, as though he were opening not a laboratory artifact but an old jewelry box inherited from ancestors.
The lid rose slowly, almost ceremonially, casting faint, shimmering reflections across the study walls.
Inside was not what Ethan had expected.
No vials of blood, no test tubes of cloudy liquid.
Six narrow capsules of transparent black glass, each nestled in a soft bed of dark polymer, like relics resting on velvet cushions.
And inside… something moved.
Not liquid, not quite gas, clots of darkness, dense as tar, with a faint silvery glow, as though microscopic sparks drifted within their depths, flaring and fading in an invisible rhythm.
They stirred slowly, lazily, like living things in hibernation.
Yet watching through the binoculars from the shadows of the neighboring building, Ethan felt ice crawl down his spine.
This was not merely a substance.
It was something else.
Ethan involuntarily held his breath.
Down in the study, the air seemed thicker, heavy with the scent of old wood, candle wax, and a faint metallic note, like fresh blood.
Gérard leaned closer; his pupils dilated into black pools. His face, usually as still as ivory, came alive for the first time, not with a flash of emotion but with something deeper, almost predatory interest.
His lips twitched in the hint of a smile.
"Beautiful," he said quietly, voice rustling like dry leaves over stone.
"It looks like the darkest play."
Corvin stood slightly behind, hands clasped behind his back in perfect, almost military posture.
But his shoulders were taut like violin strings on the verge of snapping.
Firelight from the hearth fell across his face, highlighting fresh dark veins beneath the skin—apparently someone had already served as lunch in the car.
"This is not the final form," he replied evenly, though a thread of caution ran through his tone.
"But it is already stable."
Gérard slowly extended a finger toward one of the capsules. He didn't touch it—stopped a millimeter from the glass. Inside, the clot of darkness seemed to reach toward him, twisting like a snake in a cage.
Like a predator scenting blood in the air.
Ethan clenched his teeth until his jaw ached.
"This… isn't blood…" flashed through his mind.
Not the kind he had seen in photographs, not the kind that flowed in vampires' veins. This was something else, ancient, pure evil sealed in glass.
"Are you certain they can be contained?" Gérard asked, eyes never leaving the capsule.
"Yes," Corvin answered.
"As long as they remain isolated in the carrier."
"And outside the carrier?"
The pause hung heavy as smoke from the fireplace. The flames crackled softly, throwing shadows across the walls where old portraits hung, ancestors of de Milieu, all with the same cold gaze.
"We haven't tested that," Corvin said at last.