Chapter 17: The Surgeon's Shadow
Lucius
Michael Corvin lived like a ghost.
I'd been watching his apartment for six hours, positioned on a rooftop across Andrássy Avenue with clear sightlines to his third-floor windows. Blood Appraisal painted his signature through the walls—a soft glow that pulsed with each heartbeat, tagged with information the System had compiled.
[ MICHAEL CORVIN - HUMAN - 8 BP ]
[ CORVINUS SIGNATURE: DETECTED (DORMANT) ]
[ OCCUPATION: TRAUMA SURGEON, SAINT MARGIT HOSPITAL ]
[ STATUS: UNAWARE OF SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS ]
[ NOTE: TARGET IS KEY TO HYBRID TRANSFORMATION. CORVINUS BLOODLINE ENABLES STABLE FUSION OF VAMPIRE AND LYCAN GENETICS. ]
He emerged at 6:52 PM, right on schedule. Three nights of surveillance had established his pattern: wake at 5 PM, shower, dress, grab coffee from the corner shop, take the subway to Saint Margit for his night shift. Eighteen hours of trauma surgery, then repeat.
Watching him now—tired eyes, hospital scrubs visible under a worn jacket, movements heavy with exhaustion—triggered something unexpected. Recognition. Not of him specifically, but of the life he represented.
I'd been him once. Different city, different hospital, but the same bone-deep fatigue. The same desperate coffee. The same sense that sleep was a luxury other people could afford.
"You have no idea what's coming."
Michael bought his coffee. Checked his phone. Walked toward the subway entrance with the shuffling gait of someone running on fumes. Just another overworked surgeon heading to another brutal shift.
Except two Lycans were following him.
Blood Appraisal tagged them immediately: [ 62 BP ] and [ 58 BP ]. Human-form, dressed as civilians, maintaining professional distance. They photographed Michael's route, noted his habits, reported via cell phone to someone I couldn't see.
I followed them following him.
Enhanced Senses caught fragments of their conversation—one-sided, speaking to a superior.
"...confirmed address... yes, he matches the genetic profile... understood, we'll maintain surveillance only... Lucian wants him alive, not damaged..."
Lucian. The name confirmed everything. The Alpha who'd freed the Lycans centuries ago, who'd supposedly died but survived in the shadows, who was now hunting the key to hybrid creation.
The timeline was accelerating. One to three days until the Lycans moved from surveillance to capture.
Michael descended into the subway. The Lycans broke off, mission complete for now. They'd report back, finalize plans, strike when conditions favored them.
I returned to Andrássy Avenue and began mapping the terrain.
Three hours of rooftop navigation established optimal positions. Sniper perch on the insurance building: clear sightlines to Michael's apartment entrance, good escape routes. Ambush alley behind the corner shop: narrow, shadowed, perfect for close-quarters interception. Subway maintenance access: hidden approach to the platform where Michael commuted.
The plan crystallized as I worked.
When the Lycans attacked Michael—probably in the subway, where witnesses would be fewer and cover more abundant—I'd be positioned nearby. Let them bite him. Let the transformation begin. Then intervene before they could extract him.
Claim Michael in the chaos. Bring him to a prepared safehouse. Complete the transformation with my own bite, creating a true hybrid. Then drain him for BP and hybrid essence.
[ STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT: PLAN VIABILITY 68% ]
[ PRIMARY RISK: MULTIPLE HOSTILE FACTIONS (LYCANS, DEATH DEALERS, POTENTIALLY SELENE) ]
[ ESTIMATED REWARD: HYBRID FUSION MATERIALS + 200-400 BP ]
The numbers were favorable. Not guaranteed, but favorable.
I found a safehouse on the third night of surveillance—abandoned apartment in District VIII, no supernatural signatures within three blocks, multiple exit routes. I stocked it with medical supplies (surgeon's habits dying hard), blood bags (stolen from a hospital delivery truck), and weapons (backup Beretta, silver ammunition, restraints strong enough to hold a transforming hybrid).
Everything was in place. Now I just had to wait.
The waiting was harder than the preparation.
I spent twelve-hour shifts on rooftops, watching Michael's window, tracking his movements, studying his patterns. Enhanced Senses let me hear his alarm clock, his shower running, his muttered curses when the coffee maker malfunctioned. Intimate details of a life he didn't know was ending.
On the second night of surveillance, guilt surfaced unexpectedly.
Michael Corvin was innocent. He'd done nothing to deserve what was coming—the bite, the transformation, the violent introduction to a war that had raged for centuries. He was just a surgeon who'd inherited the wrong bloodline, caught in the crossfire of immortal grudges.
And I was going to use him. Drain him. Possibly kill him, if the hybrid extraction didn't require keeping him alive.
"He's a resource. That's all. Calculate the value, extract the benefit, move on."
The thought felt hollow. The surgeon's detachment that had served me so well was cracking at the edges, showing something vulnerable underneath.
I thought about the blood doll I'd buried. The sister-echo in her face. The meaningless grave that cleaners had probably already discovered.
[ HUMANITY SCORE: 43/100 ]
[ NOTE: PHILOSOPHICAL DOUBT DETECTED. RECOMMEND FOCUS ON OBJECTIVES. ]
The System's advice was correct, as always. Sentiment was weakness. Michael's innocence didn't change the calculation. In a war between vampires and Lycans, where Elders plotted and Regents conspired and ancient monsters woke from stone sleep, one human's suffering was statistically irrelevant.
I believed that. I had to believe that.
But watching Michael's window light up on the third night, knowing what was coming for him, the belief felt increasingly like a lie I was telling myself.
[ QUEST UPDATED: ACQUIRE MICHAEL CORVIN ]
[ TIME WINDOW: 24-72 HOURS ]
[ LYCAN ATTACK IMMINENT ]
The notification pulsed in my peripheral vision. I checked my weapons, loaded the hollow-points, and settled in for the final watch.
Somewhere in the city, Lucian was mobilizing. Somewhere else, Selene was investigating the subway tunnels Kraven had forbidden her from entering. And somewhere in Viktor's stone tomb, the Elder dreamed of blood and betrayal, seventeen days from awakening.
The pieces were moving. The game was accelerating.
I waited, surgeon's patience, for the moment to cut.
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