Chapter 12: The Rooftop Encounter
Lucius
The Gothic cathedral's roof offered the best vantage point in District V.
I'd tracked Selene's patrol route over three nights, noting her patterns, her preferences, her predictable unpredictability. She varied her path enough to avoid ambush but returned to certain perches often enough to suggest habit. The cathedral rooftop was one of them—high enough to see the Danube's sweep, isolated enough for privacy.
Tonight, she was there.
Her silhouette cut against the city lights, sniper scope pressed to her eye, sweeping the streets below for Lycan activity. The leather combat suit molded to her form like a second skin. Twin Berettas waited at her thighs. She looked exactly like what she was: a weapon honed by six centuries of war.
[ SELENE - 178 BP ]
[ STATUS: ALERT. FOCUSED. ISOLATED. ]
I approached along the cathedral's spine, using Enhanced Reflexes to place each step silently. At ten meters, I deliberately scuffed my boot.
She spun. Beretta locked on my skull before I finished registering her movement.
"Easy." I raised empty hands, projecting calm through Charisma Lv.1. "Just a fellow Death Dealer enjoying the architecture."
Her eyes—dark, ancient, missing nothing—evaluated me for three seconds. The pistol lowered by degrees.
"You're the Butcher."
"Lucius. The Butcher is a nickname I didn't ask for."
"Nicknames are earned, not requested." She turned back to her scope, dismissing me. "You killed Raze. Kraven's been telling everyone who'll listen."
"Rigel helped."
"Rigel always helps. That's his weakness." She adjusted the scope's focus, sweeping across the Pest side bridges. "What are you doing here, fledgling? This isn't your patrol zone."
"No, but it's yours. And I've been watching you for three nights."
"Couldn't sleep. Decided to walk." I approached the roof's edge, maintaining respectful distance. "Your advice saved my life in District Seven. Wanted to thank you properly."
The words caught her attention. She glanced sidelong, evaluating.
"What advice?"
"Hunt alone. Move fast. Trust your reflexes." I settled onto a gargoyle's shoulder, letting my legs dangle over the two-hundred-foot drop. "I took it literally. Worked out."
Selene was silent for a long moment. The sniper scope continued its sweep, but her focus had shifted—part attention on the streets below, part on the unexpected conversationalist beside her.
"Most fledglings ignore advice from senior Death Dealers. Pride or stupidity, usually both."
"I'm not most fledglings."
"No." She lowered the scope, looking at me directly. "You're not. Your accuracy with firearms is beyond anything natural for a fledgling. Your tactics in District Seven were surgical. You set traps like someone with decades of experience." A pause. "How long have you actually been turned?"
The question was a test. She suspected something unusual about me—had suspected since the firing range.
"Five weeks." True. "My sire was... thorough. Before the Lycans killed him." Partially true. "He taught me to survive."
"Your sire taught you military tactics?"
"He taught me to think before acting. The tactics came from necessity."
Charisma Lv.1 let me read her response: skepticism tempered by curiosity. She didn't fully believe me, but she couldn't identify the lie. The mystery intrigued rather than alarmed her.
"You learn fast," she said finally. "Faster than anyone I've seen in six centuries."
"High praise from a legend."
"Observation, not praise. Praise implies approval." She resumed scanning the city. "I haven't decided if I approve of you yet."
Silence stretched between us—comfortable, or at least not hostile. The Danube glittered below, reflecting city lights across its dark surface. Somewhere distant, sirens wailed.
I took a calculated risk.
"Can I ask you something? About the war?"
"You can ask."
"Do you ever wonder if we're winning? Or just... sustaining losses until one side collapses?"
The question hit something. Her scope lowered. Her posture shifted—not defensive, but caught off-guard. I'd asked something she'd thought but never voiced.
"The war is necessary," she said. The words sounded rehearsed. "Lycans are savage. They killed my family. They'll kill everyone if we don't stop them."
"I'm not questioning the necessity. I'm questioning the strategy." I gestured at the city below. "We've been fighting for centuries. They're still here. We're still dying. When does it end?"
"When they're extinct."
"And if that never happens?"
Selene stared at me with an expression I couldn't read. Six hundred years of certainty meeting unexpected doubt.
"Viktor declared this war for a reason," she said slowly. "He leads us for a reason. The purpose he gave us is enough."
"Purpose given by someone else." I kept my voice gentle, curious rather than challenging. "Or purpose you chose?"
Her jaw tightened. The question cut deeper than I'd intended—or exactly as deep as I'd intended, depending on perspective. Viktor's control over her started with ideology. The belief that Lycans were inherently evil, that the war was just, that obedience was virtue.
If that belief cracked, everything cracked.
"You ask dangerous questions, fledgling."
"I'm curious about dangerous answers."
She stood abruptly, holstering the scope with practiced efficiency. The conversation was over—but not because I'd failed. Because I'd succeeded too well. The questions I'd planted would grow in the silence, taking root in soil she'd never examined.
"Your probation ends in four days," she said. "Assuming you survive, you'll be permanently assigned to District Seven. Kraven wants you where he can watch you."
"And where you can watch me?"
The question surprised her. For one moment—less than a second—something shifted in her expression. Not warmth, exactly. Acknowledgment.
"Stay alive, Lucius. The coven needs killers who can think."
She leaped from the rooftop's edge, landing on a lower building with predatory grace. Two more jumps and she'd vanished into the city's shadows.
[ SELENE RELATIONSHIP: INTRIGUED (28/100) ]
I remained on the gargoyle's shoulder, watching her heat signature fade through Enhanced Senses. The conversation had been brief—five minutes at most—but significant. She'd called me by name. She'd admitted the coven needed me. She'd questioned, however briefly, whether Viktor's purpose was truly her own.
"Twenty-eight points. Not enough for trust. But enough for the foundation."
The system tracked relationships like it tracked everything else—clinical metrics for emotional connections. But the numbers reflected real progress. Selene wasn't an ally yet, wouldn't be for weeks or months. But she was thinking about me now. Wondering about the strange fledgling who asked uncomfortable questions and shot like a veteran.
I descended from the cathedral, using fire escapes and drainage pipes rather than the dramatic rooftop leaps Selene favored. My enhanced abilities were growing, but modesty had tactical value. Let others underestimate me.
The streets were quiet at this hour—late enough that even Budapest's nightlife had faded, early enough that the dawn workers hadn't emerged. I walked through empty plazas, past closed shops, past homeless figures huddled in doorways.
One of them smelled of something sharp. Chemical. Underneath, the copper scent of illness.
[ BLOOD APPRAISAL: HUMAN MALE - 2 BP ]
[ STATUS: TERMINAL ILLNESS. WEEKS REMAINING. ]
I stopped. The man looked up, eyes sunken, face hollow with the slow consumption of disease. He wasn't afraid—too far gone for fear.
"Spare change?"
The voice was a whisper. He expected nothing.
I knelt beside him, surgeon's instinct cataloging symptoms. Advanced lymphoma, probably. Or leukemia. Something blood-borne, something incurable by human medicine.
"What's your name?"
He blinked, surprised by the question. "Tibor."
"How long do you have, Tibor?"
"Doctors said weeks. Months ago." A rattling laugh. "Still here. Don't know why."
I didn't either. But I knew something he didn't—his blood was thin, nearly worthless for BP. Draining him would be mercy more than hunting. Ending suffering I couldn't fix.
"When did I start thinking of murder as mercy?"
I left ten euros in his cup and walked away. The humanity score notification flashed: [ 63/100 ]. One point lower than yesterday.
But I hadn't killed him. That counted for something.
Didn't it?
Ördögház rose against the pre-dawn sky as I approached. The mansion's lights blazed—vampires didn't sleep like humans, especially not this close to hibernation cycle changes. Somewhere inside, Kraven was plotting. Erika was scheming. Rigel was training.
And in the basement, three Elders dreamed of blood and power.
I entered through the servants' passage, avoiding the Grand Salon's political theater. My chamber waited—cold stone, narrow bed, the accumulated trophies of three weeks of hunting. Twenty-seven sets of Lycan ears. Raze's claws. János's photograph, still hidden beneath my pillow.
[ QUEST UPDATED: RECRUIT SELENE ]
[ PROGRESS: 28/100 ]
[ ESTIMATED TIME TO COMPLETION: 18-25 DAYS ]
The timeline matched my projections. Selene would encounter Michael Corvin soon—weeks at most—and everything would change. Viktor would awaken. Lucian's plan would accelerate. The carefully balanced war would collapse into chaos.
I needed to be positioned perfectly when it happened.
Close enough to Selene to influence her choices. Strong enough to survive Viktor's wrath. Knowledgeable enough to guide events toward outcomes the original timeline never achieved.
The system displayed my current status:
[ LUCIUS VANE - DEATH DEALER RANK 1 ]
[ BP: 673/1000 ]
[ ABILITIES: ]
[ - BLOOD APPRAISAL LV.1 ]
[ - MEMORY SIPHON LV.2 ]
[ - ENHANCED STRENGTH LV.1 ]
[ - ENHANCED REFLEXES LV.2 ]
[ - NIGHT VISION LV.1 ]
[ - REGENERATION LV.1 ]
[ - CHARISMA LV.1 ]
[ GENE TREES: VAMPIRE (TIER 1), LYCAN (DETECTED - LOCKED) ]
[ RELATIONSHIPS: ]
[ - SELENE: INTRIGUED (28/100) ]
[ - RIGEL: TRUSTED ALLY (52/100) ]
[ - KRAVEN: SUSPICIOUS (22/100) ]
[ - ERIKA: INTERESTED/WARY (12/100) ]
[ - KAHN: NEUTRAL RESPECT (35/100) ]
The numbers told a story. Allies forming. Enemies watching. A foundation being built, piece by careful piece.
I closed the interface and stared at the ceiling.
Eighteen to twenty-five days until Selene's loyalty could shift. Less time than that until Michael Corvin appeared and the canon timeline demanded attention.
The clock was ticking.
I retrieved János's photograph from beneath my pillow, studying the three daughters in graduation robes. The first man I'd killed. The first guilt I'd felt.
The photograph was creased now, worn from handling. But I kept it anyway. A reminder of what I'd been. A measure of what I was becoming.
Somewhere in the mansion, someone screamed—pleasure or pain, impossible to tell in Ördögház. The sound faded. Silence returned.
I slept without dreaming.
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