Ten o'clock at night.
Even in New York City, the so-called city that never sleeps, the streets at this hour were less "quiet" and more abandoned. During the day, Manhattan glittered and Brooklyn hummed with traffic, horns, and people pretending the world made sense. But after dark, it turned into something else entirely.
New York had two faces, and the second one belonged to the underworld.
Once night settled in, doors locked early. Curtains closed. Anyone with a working survival instinct went home and stayed there. Because everyone understood one simple truth: walking the streets at night came with risks most people couldn't afford.
Brooklyn.
On the bank of the Hudson River, across from what officially registered as a frozen pork warehouse, a black sedan idled with its lights off. The air outside carried the scent of river water and industrial refrigeration.
Inside the car, Locke leaned back in the passenger seat, sunglasses still on despite the darkness, eyes closed as if he were napping.
But he wasn't asleep.
As the sun disappeared fully beyond the skyline, he felt it—the return. The strength that had been suppressed during daylight hours surged back into his body, smooth and deliberate, like a machine recalibrating itself. The combat power that had been compressed by nearly half now flowed freely through his limbs again.
It was a strange sensation, almost addictive.
This was only the B-level vampire gene. Just a mid-tier enhancement. Locke couldn't help wondering what it would feel like once it reached S-level. The thought lingered in his mind like a promise.
Beside him in the driver's seat, Brown held a pair of binoculars steady, eyes locked on the warehouse across the street. The building's steel doors were shut tight, lights off, giving no sign of life.
But they both knew better.
The frozen pork warehouse was almost certainly the so-called Satan Bar, a late-night gathering place for vampires. Brown had barely clocked out before dragging Locke here for overtime surveillance.
Now Brown lowered the binoculars and glanced at the cracked glass face of the lady's watch strapped around his wrist. The thin fracture across the dial caught faint light from the dashboard.
"Could we have the wrong place?" he muttered. "It's almost eleven."
The watch had belonged to his wife. When the self-detonating mutant lost control in that shopping mall, she had been there, buying clothes for their unborn daughter. After the explosion, after the blood and smoke cleared, that damaged watch was the only identifiable thing left of her.
Locke heard the unease in Brown's voice and opened his eyes. He turned his head slightly and smiled.
"Why rush?" he said calmly. "It's not even three yet."
They weren't far from the apartment of the vampire killed the night before. Transaction records pulled from his credit cards showed consistent spending between three and four in the morning. Either the vampire had bad time management, or this bar didn't actually open at nightfall.
Locke favored the second explanation.
Brown considered that, then nodded and lifted the binoculars again, resuming his watch over the warehouse roughly two hundred meters away.
Locke folded his arms and closed his eyes once more. He let his awareness drift inward, examining the changes the B-level vampire gene had made.
Before this, "extraordinary" had been an abstract word to him. Something written in files, spoken in briefings, categorized and stamped.
Now it was real. Tangible.
Before merging with the vampire gene, if he and Brown had fought, the outcome would've been obvious. Brown was built like a black bear and trained by the Marine Corps. Locke wouldn't have lasted long.
Now?
Now he could beat Brown. Not metaphorically. Not strategically. Literally beat him.
Extraordinary wasn't an adjective. It was a state of existence. A fundamental elevation beyond ordinary biology. It was the difference between competing and overwhelming.
Vampires might sit near the bottom of the supernatural food chain, but they were still supernatural. That distinction alone changed everything.
Brown remained motionless, binoculars steady, eyes sharp.
Time passed.
The distant sound of sporadic car horns faded until even that background noise disappeared. Midnight settled like a lid over the neighborhood. The river flowed in silence.
Then, finally, the warehouse moved.
The steel door cracked open just enough for a man to step out. He was white, wearing a black T-shirt, a tuft of dyed yellow hair sticking up like a cheap crown. He stretched, yawned, slipped a cigarette between his lips, and lit it.
Signal received.
Locke's eyes opened instantly. He sat up straight and looked into the darkness beyond the windshield.
"They're here," he said quietly.
He had already caught the scent. Faint, metallic, and familiar. The smell of his own kind.
As the yellow-haired man exhaled his first puff of smoke, figures began appearing from the shadows. Men and women who hadn't been there seconds before now drifted into view under Brown's magnified gaze. One by one, they slipped into the warehouse.
So many.
Locke's pupils sharpened slightly behind the tinted lenses. In his internal interface, unseen and silent, extraordinary energy signatures accumulated in his awareness like glowing points.
Brown stiffened. "Someone's coming." He passed the binoculars over.
"It's vampires," Locke corrected mildly.
With the Night Walker state active, he didn't need optics. The darkness posed no obstacle. He could see details at this distance—and hear fragments of conversation.
Still, he raised the binoculars for appearance's sake and aimed toward the warehouse entrance.
The yellow-haired greeter was suddenly deferential, bowing slightly to a man in a tailored suit whose face was sharp in all the wrong ways. Pale skin stretched over angular features that carried an unnatural ugliness.
"Lord Quinn," the greeter said.
"Yes," Quinn replied coolly. "Lord Frost needs new people."
"Understood."
The yellow-haired man's eyes brightened immediately. He grabbed a handheld radio and spoke into it in low, hurried tones.
Moments later, the warehouse doors opened wider.
A dozen blonde women stepped out in formation. Their outfits barely qualified as clothing—fabric designed more to reveal than conceal. They moved in mechanical unison, like products rolling off an assembly line.
Black-suited bodyguards stood beside a stretched Lincoln limousine parked discreetly along the curb. Each woman was inspected before being ushered into the vehicle.
Then something changed.
As the final woman reached the open car door, Quinn stepped forward and grabbed her arm. She stumbled slightly before he pulled her against his chest.
His smile was thin and unsettling. "I'm not leaving yet," he said softly. "You'll stay and keep me company."
The yellow-haired man froze for half a second before his expression shifted into a sycophantic grin. He bent slightly at the waist as Quinn wrapped an arm around the woman, whose body had already gone slack in his hold.
Together, they disappeared back inside the warehouse.
Once Quinn was gone, the greeter straightened fully. The obsequious smile vanished. His face hardened as he resumed watching incoming guests with a cold, professional stare.
For nearly an hour, patrons continued to drift inside.
Eventually, traffic thinned. The last few guests entered, and the yellow-haired man flicked away his cigarette, turned, and walked back into the warehouse. The steel door closed behind him.
Inside the car, Locke lowered the binoculars and leaned back slightly. He rubbed his chin, thoughtful.
"Why are the male vampires so ugly?" he murmured. "It's almost impressive."
There was something else, too. A smell. Not just the metallic undertone of vampirism, but something sour beneath it.
It wasn't the same scent he'd detected on Blade. That one had been sharp, lethal, controlled.
This was different.
Locke frowned faintly and raised his arm, bringing his sleeve to his nose. He inhaled slowly, comparing the scent clinging to his own skin.
...
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