"Boss!"
"Boss?!"
"Boss!"
Static crackled in Locke's earpiece as Debbie's voice rose in panic. "Get the emergency team on standby. Now. Move!"
He could hear hurried footsteps through the channel, the scrape of chairs, frantic commands overlapping. Then the line went dead.
Locke removed the earpiece calmly and slipped it into his pocket.
Around him, Brown lay unconscious on the asphalt. The Sentinel SWAT officers were scattered across the ground like fallen statues, rifles still clutched in limp hands. Not one of them stirred.
Locke exhaled slowly.
"So this," he murmured, glancing toward the hangar, "is the strength of an extraordinary vampire."
The scream still echoed faintly in his skull.
"It's impressive."
The emergency team would take roughly twenty minutes to arrive.
"That's enough."
He lifted his gaze.
Inside the hangar, Dickon Frost stood amid violet glare and drifting dust. His once handsome face was ruined beyond recognition, holy water having eaten into his flesh. Pits and blisters covered his skin, and thin strands of white smoke still curled upward.
His eyes, however, burned bright crimson.
He stared at Locke and licked his lips slowly, tongue dark red, expression completely unhinged. When he spoke, his voice sounded shredded, like vocal cords scraped raw.
"You are a vampire too… Locke Underwood."
Locke met his gaze without flinching. He didn't respond immediately. Instead, he glanced past Frost to where Blade lay inside the hangar, unmoving. It was unclear whether Blade was conscious.
After a moment, a faint smile touched Locke's lips.
He sighed lightly and shrugged.
"Alright," he said casually. "You figured it out. No point pretending anymore. Surprised?"
Frost's laugh was jagged and hollow. "Surprised? Of course. The senior agent of the Sentinel Secret Service… a vampire."
Locke smiled modestly, as if accepting a compliment.
He hadn't intended it to unfold this way. If a certain metal-clad hero hadn't vanished when he did, Locke wouldn't have copied vampire genetics first. Becoming a vampire had been efficient—but not optimal.
The original template he'd copied had been the lowest tier, an E-class. Upgrading from that to the current A-level range had cost him a painful amount of extraordinary points.
Very painful.
Still.
Copy early. Benefit early.
"I am curious," Frost continued, his voice steadying slightly. "Who gave you your first embrace? The thirteen elders are all under my surveillance."
The thirteen pure-blood vampire elders believed themselves untouchable. They had no idea Frost had been monitoring them for years. He knew their movements, their habits, even the smallest details of their private lives.
When they fed.
Where they slept.
What they did behind closed doors.
There was no way they had turned Locke without him knowing.
Unless…
Frost's eyes flickered with suspicion.
Unless they had somehow discovered his ambitions and acted first.
Impossible.
Those elders had rotted in decadence for centuries. Their strength was laughable. None of them possessed the will or capacity to orchestrate something like this.
So who?
Locke smiled faintly.
"You really want to know?"
"Yes."
"If I said I wasn't a vampire at all," Locke asked lightly, "would you believe me?"
Frost spat in contempt. "Don't insult me."
"Then we're at an impasse."
Locke's expression remained calm.
When someone is about to die, they often speak truthfully.
He had not been embraced by any vampire.
He had not been turned.
He possessed the advantages—immortality, regeneration, physical enhancement—but none of the traditional weaknesses unless he chose to retain them.
He truly wasn't a vampire.
But that distinction no longer mattered.
"If you don't believe me," Locke said evenly, "there's nothing I can do. I don't lie to the dead."
Dead?
Frost's ruined lips curled.
"Just you?" he sneered. "A newborn vampire?"
Locke shrugged again, relaxed.
"Let's find out."
Frost's smile twisted into something feral.
"Good."
Boom.
He vanished.
When he reappeared, he was already in front of Locke.
"Die!"
"Oh?"
Locke's smile disappeared.
He moved to meet him head-on.
Perfect timing.
He had copied vampire genetics and invested heavily in upgrades. Now he needed verification. Real combat data.
Extraordinary points weren't meant to gather dust.
Before tonight, he'd been operating alongside Brown and the others. Restraint had been necessary. Now?
Frost had neutralized every witness.
Even the Sentinel satellite feed had cut out during the scream.
He had isolated the battlefield himself.
If fate grants survival, one may live.
If you dig your own grave, no one can save you.
If you want death, I'll deliver it.
Bang.
The impact was explosive.
Locke's body flew backward like a cannonball and smashed into the hangar wall, carving a human-shaped crater into the steel and concrete.
Dust erupted.
Frost stood where he had struck, licking blood from his fingers with unrestrained hunger.
"Mr. Underwood," he said mockingly, "extraordinary combat is not the same as ordinary fighting. If you want to kill me, you are a century too early."
He had been a vampire for nearly a hundred years.
And Locke?
Not even one.
The comparison was absurd—like an infant challenging an ancestor.
Concrete cracked.
Locke pulled himself free from the wall and dropped lightly to the ground.
He glanced down at his chest.
Five deep gouges tore across it, so deep bone was visible beneath shredded flesh.
But even as he watched, muscle knit back together.
The regeneration was visible to the naked eye.
At this rate, full recovery would take ten minutes.
He flexed slightly, testing the movement.
No structural compromise.
He considered briefly whether scars would remain.
Better not.
But if they did…
Scars weren't shameful.
They were proof.
A man's medal of honor.
...
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