A Bloodstained Shadow Over Brockton Bay

Three days after the disappearance of Skidmark.

“Are you sure?” I ask my informant over the phone. “Absolutely, completely sure?”

A few minutes later, I’m tossing my coat on and striding out the door. “Tammi, I’m going out. Try to get some sleep while I’m gone.”

Joseph has finally been spotted, in a nightclub not too far from here.

Unfortunately, Paul is still out on his campaign of psychological warfare against Lung, and Anna-Marie…

Anna-Marie isn’t an option. At all.

---​

Two days earlier…

I politely knock on the door to the warehouse where I was told Anna-Marie could be found.

There’s a shout of “Get the door!” from inside, and then the door opens, revealing a shaggy, rough-looking blonde man in a butler outfit. He stares at me with unfocused, empty eyes, and doesn’t say anything. For some reason, I feel like I should know who he is.

“Um… Hello?” I say after a few moments of silence. “I’m Taylor, I’m here to see Ms. Anna-Marie?”

“Okay,” he says.

“Could you… take me to her?” I ask after I realize that that’s all he’s going to say.

“Yes.” He doesn’t move or say anything else.

I sigh in frustration. “Then take me to her.”

“Okay.” He turns, and walks into the warehouse, and after a moment, I follow him, closing the door behind me.

He leads me through the stacks of wares, and into a sort of clearing at the center of the warehouse. In it, thirty men who I can only assume to be Empire thugs stand shirtless, tied to posts, as Anna-Marie, in all her bestial glory, stalks between them, her glowing red eyes glaring at them.

As I make my way towards her, I actually notice something besides her animalistic features. She’s tall, and broad at the shoulder, with raven-black hair drawn back in twin braids and plenty of muscle. Honestly, though, the shark teeth and glowing eyes are still the real attention-grabbers. The rest of her pales in comparison.

“Well, if it isn’t Wiglaf’s latest pet project,” she says, looking me over disdainfully. “What do you want? I’m setting up for the auction.”

“I was actually here to-“ I’m interrupted by the opening of some kind of portal.

“Fuck. All right. Stay quiet. I’ll do the talking, and make the sale. Try not to fuck this up for me, I put a lot of work into setting it up.”

A black woman dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, strides out of the portal, followed by some sort of living shadow.

I blink at it. Looking at it… it feels…

I stare into it, and through it, I stare into the Abyss. A solid projection of shadow. It…

I call upon my mastery of Obtenebration and push my blood into a shadow in the corner of the room. A shadowy tentacle pushes its way out, and I can feel it as if it’s my own limb.

So that’s how Wiglaf does it!

I realize, suddenly, that the woman is staring at me.

“Um… I’m…”

“Leaving.” Anna-Marie says with a glare. “I’ll see you in my office.”

She points the way, and I go in absently, even as, behind me, Anna-Marie resumes talking to the woman in a language that I think is Afrikaans.

Once I’m in the office, I sit down absent-mindedly, still lost in thought.

I had… I had just improved my command of my disciplines.

Why had I never considered that before?

I know the answer: Because I was thinking about vampirism like I was some sort of cape. And capes’ powers don’t improve or change.

Mine do.

I call up another shadowy tendril, wincing slightly because it’s actually somewhat expensive blood-wise, and then I begin to experiment with it, moving objects around the office and-

The door swings open, jolting me out of my haze of curiosity, and Anna-Marie enters the room.

“I hope you’re happy with yourself. You managed to piss off Moord Nag, and nearly cost me the sale. I salvaged it, of course.” She glares at me. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Why aren’t you thanking me?” she asks, irritated. “I just made us all about twenty thousand dollars richer.”

I stare at her, flabbergasted. “How?”

“How else?” she says with a smirk. “Slave trading.”

And just like that, my mood falls. “What?”

“Well, we had a surplus of Empire mooks on hand, ripe for the taking,” she says with a careless shrug. “I saw a profit to be made. I’ll admit, it’s a bit odd to be selling American white supremacists to an African, but, honestly, it’s a pleasant change of pace. And it is nice to be back in the flesh trade.”

I… don’t know what to say. I legitimately don’t know what to say. My jaw has locked up.

“Plus, thanks to all the parahumans running around, I don’t even have to cut their balls off to explain how docile I’ve made them! I can just straight up admit that I used my supernatural powers to condition them into being the perfect slaves!”

“C-Condition?” I ask hesitantly, as I feel my stomach drop. As bad as the Empire was, at least they didn’t enslave people. Are we… Are we worse than the literal, actual Nazis?

“Yeah!” she says cheerfully, seeming to warm up at the prospect of discussing her work. “I actually use a power from the Animalism Discipline to break them in. Basically, I project my own inner Beast into their souls repeatedly until it destroys their ability to want anything or stand up for themselves.”

“I… how does that work?” I ask, trying to seem more engaged, even as I’m desperately trying to think of some kind of escape route from this conversation.

“Well, in layman’s terms, I basically rape their souls until they can’t say ‘no’ anymore,” Anna says, almost seeming to relish my discomfort. “What’s the matter, new girl? Still enough of a weakling to feel sorry for the Kine?”

“No,” I say, and I doubt she believes me. I try to change the subject. “So, how’s Luke holding up?”

She frowns. “Who?”

“The kid from the farmhouse. The one who triggered. Wiglaf said that you were the one keeping him.”

“Oh, him?” she asks. “Killed him.”

“What? Why?”

“Kept saying he wasn’t a Parahuman, and it pissed me the hell off. Turned out, he was right. We did an autopsy, and he didn’t have a gemma.” She sighs. “Damn waste of my time, if you ask me.”

I…

I can’t take this anymore. I can’t take her anymore. I mumble out an excuse and leave, because even if she’d be willing to back me up when I find Joseph, there’s no way I’d accept her help.

---​

Present

I make my way towards the nightclub Joseph was spotted entering, clutching my trump card tightly.

Paul had enough arms dealer connections to get me the dragon’s breath rounds, and the shotgun. Even without other Kindred backing me up, I should be able to kill Joseph if I can hit him with this.

And there it is. One of the lesser-known clubs, a cheaper, lower-tier one, but good enough if you couldn’t afford Club Palanquin’s prices.

I can hear the music from inside, and a dearth of screaming, which means that my lead might have been false. But… at the same time…

I get my shotgun out, careful to keep it out of the rain, and make my way into the club. A quick Dominate gets me past the bouncers, and then…

I stop dead when I see what’s going on inside.

People are milling about the dance floor, completely oblivious to the hideously insectoid centaur-like abomination currently giving birth in the middle of the dance floor.

The creature resembles a traditional centaur, certainly, but its joints bend the wrong way, and its entire body is covered in chitinous plates. Its four, three-fingered arms wave enthusiastically as it attempts to dance along to the music, even as it devours a corpse and births an identical clone.

And then it spots me with the eyes on its back and waves at me enthusiastically. “Hi Lasombra!”

I have never been more glad that I can’t eat actual food anymore, because if I could, I would have vomited right now.

Joseph is here. That is now unquestionable.

“No one expects the Sanguine Inquisition!” someone shouts from behind me, and I spin about and blast him with my shotgun.

Alabaster grins, and then reforms. “Sorry, I’m not the righteous lunatic you’re looking for.”

Shit, shit, shit. I back away, desperately reloading my shotgun, as the immortal Nazi slowly advances on me.

“Ka-SHOVEL!” Someone shouts from behind me, and I feel a ringing pain across the back of my skull, and then nothing else as I slip into blissful unconsciousness.

 

I blink as I come to.

Joseph is sitting across from me. “Hey, Taylor.”

“J-Joseph.” I manage to get out, around the throbbing in my head. I’m a goddamn vampire. Why the hell does this hurt so much?

“I thought we should have a little talk,” he says, leafing through a diner menu.

As I look around, I realize that he’s leafing through a diner menu because we’re actually inside an abandoned diner. Alabaster and the horrific, now six-legged, centauroid abomination that I can only assume is Panacea are playing checkers in one of the booths. Joseph and I are in another booth, on the opposite side of the diner from his brainwashed flunkies.

“About what?” I ask.

“Well, did you hear the news, lately?” he asks. “Someone killed Shadow Stalker.”

“What?” I ask, completely taken off-guard.

“I’m not surprised you missed the story. The PRT is keeping it quiet right now. Apparently, that vile fiend Josephus of Cana has claimed responsibility for the killing,” Joseph says, flipping a page over in his menu. “Which is, quite frankly, news to me.”

“Are you telling me that Paul killed a Ward?” I ask, utterly flabbergasted.

“No, I’m telling you that Paul murdered a Ward, decapitated her, and then lugged her headless corpse into PRT headquarters, without being detected by anyone. And then he left her decapitated corpse crucified on Director Piggot’s wall,” Joseph pauses, and takes a sip from a thermos. “And then he framed me for it.”

“Why?” I ask, utterly baffled. “Killing a ward will bring the Triumvirate…”

“…Down on their killer’s head, I’m well aware,” Joseph finishes for me. “In this case, that’s exactly what they’re going for. They think that if you can’t kill me, then the Triumvirate might do the trick.”

“But…” something deep inside me curls up in fear. The Triumvirate is coming. They’re going to be in the same city as me. As us. What happens if they find out? What happens if they find our burgeoning vampiric infestation, and decide to stop it in its tracks? Alexandria, the immovable object. Legend, the irresistible force. And Eidolon, who’s both. Oh, good God Almighty, I might have to fight them.

“I’m skipping town, of course,” Joseph continues on. “So, don’t worry. They won’t be paying you a visit.”

I look at him suspiciously. “Really? Just doing this out of the goodness of your heart?”

“No.” he says with a smile. “Well, not exclusively. I like to double things up, you know? Help my friends and advance my schemes at the same time.”

“Well, since my plan to kill you has failed miserably, and you’ve announced your intent to leave town, I’m taking my leave,” I get up from the booth and make my way towards the door. I don’t know what his plan is, but I want no part of it.

“Your father’s fine, by the way,” he says, before taking another sip out of his thermos.

I freeze in my tracks, halfway to the door.

“He tried to kill himself after your funeral,” Joseph says, perfectly nonchalant. “But I stopped him. I’ve kept an eye on him ever since. He’s a very sullen fellow, as I’m sure you’re aware. But I’ve done my best to provide emotional support, make sure he’s still getting to work on time, and ensuring he’ll keep on taking care of himself.”

“If you so much as lay a hand on him-“

“But, well, I was actually a little worried about Danny when I realized that I would have to leave him behind. I thought about killing him at the peak of his virtue, of course, but you’re rather attached to him, and I really wouldn’t wish to do you harm,” he continues amiably, even as I’m doing my level best to discover if I can still hyperventilate. “Then, I stumbled upon an ingenious solution: Clones!”

“Clones?” I hear someone repeat, and after a second, I realize it’s me. I… I can’t…. My- The world is blurring, colors blending together behind my eyes. I can’t seem to move, even as I hang off of every single friendly word, paralyzed by the sheer terror in my heart. He’s talked to my dad. He knows where my dad is. The most unstable, murderous member of the entire Sabbat knows where my dad is.

“Yes, clones!” Joseph affirms cheerfully. “You see, dear Panacea and I have been on a bit of a kill-and-replace streak lately. I’ll kill a good person and send their precious little soul off to Heaven, and then she’ll devour the corpse and create an identical, soulless clone. Bam! No missing persons reports, and a soul dispatched to Heaven all the same!”

He stops when I slam my fist into the booth, directly next to his head, and then fix him with a murderous glare. “Did you kill my father?”

“Of course not,” he says, looking offended at the suggestion. “I would never disrespect you like that. In fact, I’ve been doing my level best to make sure he doesn’t kill himself, and that’s going to be a lot harder now that I’m leaving town. But that’s where the clones come in. We must’ve gotten, what? Every one in ten people in Brockton Bay? All of them subliminally programmed with a certain set of commands. That way, with Panacea directing them (and she’ll have a direct line to me) they can keep an eye on your father and take care of him while I’m out!”

I slump away from him, feeling exhausted. “Why are you doing this?”

He looks puzzled. “Because we’re friends, silly. And friends don’t let friends’ parents kill themselves.”

I sit down on the table, hard. “So, then, friend. What do you want me to do?”

“Be you, obviously,” he says. “There’s a reason I pointed Wiglaf your way in the first place, Taylor. You’ve got what it takes to change the world. Maybe even save it.”

“You really think so?”

“Taylor, I’m a Malkavian. I know so. God himself has told me.”

“Well at least somebody believes in me,” I say with a snort.

“Trust me, you haven’t even begun to truly tap into your true potential,” he says, getting.to his feet. “You’re going to face a lot of challenges, with the gang war, and with Leviathan attacking. But this? This is where you’ll hit your stride. I’ll be back in four months, once I’m done taking over the Nine. See you around, kid.”

I wave as he walks off, still feeling oddly warm inside. He believes in me. I… how long has it been since someone said that? I still can’t…

Wait.

Hold up.

Did he just say Leviathan?

 

I wake up and glare at the severed head on my nightstand.

I didn’t put it there. All the same, over the past week or so, I’ve come to expect one. The other thirty-eight are lined up neatly on the floor, and, written behind them on the wall in blood are the words “YOU ARE NOT SAFE.” Just like all the other times. I ignore it as per usual.

I pull open the drawer to my nightstand, and find, to my annoyance, that my nightly visitors, whoever they may be, stole my cigarettes again. Bastards.

I get up out of bed, stepping on one of the heads as I make my way to the door. I also note with distaste that they stole the woman I was enjoying last night. Again.

I sigh, and then make my way through the safe house until I find one of my guards, a boy, maybe fourteen. The others are all gone, apparently having joined the collection of crucifixion victims. Pity.

“U-U-Um… Hello, Mr. Lung, sir.” The kid stammers out. I frown at him.

“How old are you?”

“Th-Thirteen, sir.”

“Have you seen any of the other guards?” I ask.

“Um, no, Mr. Lung, sir,” he says, shivering. “My uncle brought me in for guard duty today, because he said that he didn’t know anyone else who could fill in. Sir.”

I pause, considering. “How many were on duty tonight?”

“About five,” he says after a moment’s thought.

I pause, and then make my way back to my room, and count the heads.

Thirty-one. Whoever the killer is, they’ve never deviated from the pattern. Thirty-nine victims per night, no exceptions. If they’re down to thirty-one…

Fuck. That means there were only thirty-one left.

I turn to the boy, who followed me, and is now staring in gape-mouthed horror at the severed heads. “What is your name?”

“K-Kenan, sir,” he stammers out, as he tries not to cry, staring at one head in particular.

“Congratulations. You are now my second in command, at least until we find Bakuda.” My newest parahuman asset has also proven to be my most long-lived. Oni Lee died the second night, and afterwards, she stopped sleeping altogether, and rigged herself a tinkertech suicide vest linked to a dead man’s switch. “Why were you spared?”

“I… I don’t know,” he says, beginning to cry. I was never one for tears. All the same, it occurs to me that one of these heads must be his uncle’s.

“We will ensure that the heads are received by the authorities, to ensure a proper burial,” I allow. “After we have placed the call, you will drive me to Bakuda’s current lab. We’ll have to put out the word and call for a Somer’s Rock meeting.”

He timidly raises a hand. “Um. Mr. Lung, sir? I’m thirteen. I can’t drive, and I don’t know where most of the places you just said are.”

“Very well, then,” I amend, feeling a sting of irritation over the constant bubbling cauldron of silent FURY that is my soul after a week of waking up to my subordinates’ severed heads on my nightstand. “I will drive us to Bakuda’s current lab.”

“Also, um…” he hesitates.

“Spit it out,” I say with a sigh.

“I’m… kind of late for school right now,” he cringes as he says it.

“What.” THE LITTLE IMPUDENT MIDGET WOULD DEFY ME, LUNG? I draw back a hand, and-

I look at him, cowering before me. Was I that small when I was his age?

I feel old, all of a sudden.

Lee used to call me a teacher’s pet, because I never missed a day. Back before he was Lee, and I was Lung. Before Leviathan. I miss those days.

My gang is gone. My home is gone. Again. And there is nothing I can do to avenge them, because nobody has seen who did it.

I should be angry. I should be furious.

But all I feel is empty. And I have ever since Lee died.

“Very well.” I say with a sigh. “I will drive you to school.”

“Oh,” he brightens up. “Can we stop by my house to tell my mom that I’m okay?”

“Don’t push it, kid.”

---​

After we’re done stopping by Kenan’s house, I stop at a red light, a few blocks from his middle school. We’re making good time, and, according to him, he’s only missed a little bit of First Period so far.

Of course, that’s when everything goes wrong.

“Stop, villain!”

I turn and look, and there are Assault and Battery, along with a PRT Response Team.

“Is something the matter, Officer?” I ask, in as close to an innocent tone as one can get when he occasionally turns into a giant fire-breathing dragon man. Thank God I took off my mask.

Battery blinks. “Yes. You are obviously Lung, a known supervillain. That child has been reported as missing. And that minivan was reported stolen.”

“This is a convertible,” I say banally, trying to…

Wait. Why the Hell am I trying to avoid a fight?

“What?” Assault asks.

“Its top is down. It is clearly a convertible.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“It doesn’t have a top!” Battery snaps. “I mean- You clearly ripped the top off.”

“It is a convertible,” I say, pointedly not looking at the missing driver’s side door, lost when I ripped the top of the minivan off to give myself head room. “I have converted it.”

“Pretty sure that’s not how it works, buddy,” Assault says.

“I am the dragon, and this is a convertible,” I snap. “Now will you let me drive my nephew to school in peace?”

Kenan looks around for a moment, before realizing that’s supposed to be him. “Oh, um, yeah! I’m his nephew.”

“You sure, kid?” Assault asks.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“So, Lung!” he says, turning towards me. “Didn’t know you had a sister. She hot?”

Battery elbows him in the ribs, sparing me the effort. Instead, I fix them both with a glare.

“I believe that you have misunderstood something,” I say in a level tone.

“And what’s that?” Battery asks coldly.

“I am not Lung.”

“Oh, obviously. You’re just the other seven-foot-tall Asian man with muscles like an Olympic bodybuilder, with a penchant for riding around in stolen cars,” Assault says. “It’s obvious, really. My bad.”

“May I drive my nephew to school, now?” I ask, trying to restrain my irritation.

Battery looks like she’s about to respond negatively, but Assault puts a hand on her shoulder. “Sure thing, buddy. Hey, why don’t we make up for the inconvenience by escorting you there?”

If I were actually dragging Kenan away for nefarious purposes, that would probably have been a good way to call me out and bait me into a fight so as to save the child. But since my only real goal here is getting the boy to school and out of the firing line, this as good a way to get him out of my hair as any.

“Actually, could you give him a lift to school for me?” I ask. “I have business to attend to and cutting out this detour would brighten the miserable day I’ve been having.”

Kenan brightens at the prospect of getting a lift to school from two Protectorate heroes. “Can I go with you? Please?”

“Um,” Assault looks taken aback. “Sure, I guess.”

“Thank you,” I say after Kenan has gotten out of the car. “Please do hurry, though. He’s already late for First Period.”

“Second Period by now, actually,” Kenan says with a downcast expression. “They’re going to nail me with an unexcused absence, I just know it.”

“Just have these upstanding members of the Protectorate tell the school that this… Lung fellow kidnapped you,” I say with a shrug, ignoring Assault’s incredulous expression. “It sounds like the sort of thing he’d do.”

I drive off, leaving the confused heroes in my dust.

---​

“Bakuda,” I say as I enter her lab. “Report.”

She falls over out of her chair, spilling coffee all over her face. “Intruders!”

“No, Lung.”

“Oh.” She looks up at me with bloodshot eyes. “Hi, boss.”

I wrinkle my nose. “You smell like shit.”

“Haven’t bathed in a week,” she says distractedly. “I think the suicide vest might be glued to my skin by my sweat, now.”

“That is disgusting,” I say, looking down at her. “You will take it off and bathe, so as to make yourself presentable.”

“No! What if he finds me in the shower?” she asks, looking around desperately.

“You will also need to sleep. I will need you looking respectable for the Somer’s Rock meeting,” I tell her. “And do not fear. I will stand guard over you.”

I know what I must do, now.

I could not stop Leviathan from destroying Kyushu. I could not avenge my native land’s demise.

In like manner, I could not stop the silent killer from slaughtering my entire gang. But this time, I will have my vengeance.

So swears Lung.

 

“She’s still out there, dammit! I’m not abandoning her!” Bitch snaps, practically snarling at me. Behind her, her dogs growl.

I sigh.

When Tattletale went missing, I was surprised that Bitch was the one who absolutely refused to stop looking for her. But it’s been more than a week, and it’s time to admit that she’s probably dead.

“I know she is,” I say, not because I believe it, but because it’s what Rachel wants to hear. “But we have to attend the Somer’s Rock meeting in force. Show our strength, you know?”

She stalks off, slamming the door to her room behind her. The dogs follow.

“Well, that could’ve gone better!” Regent calls from the couch.

“Save it, Alec,” I snap, sitting down on the couch beside him, and trying not to sag under the weight on my shoulders.

Lisa went missing a week ago, and ever since, the city’s gone straight to hell. The Empire vanished in one night, ABB members, up to and including Oni Lee had started showing up as crucified corpses, and Lung had started going on rampages to find the culprit. As far as I know, he still hasn’t found them. It’s that serial killer, Josephus, though. Everyone knows it’s Josephus.

What the hell are we supposed to do? We’re the Undersiders, the little guys, the thieves who stay under the radar. Our Thinker’s gone, probably dead, and the city’s gone nuts.

I stare at the television, and whatever computer game Alex is playing, for a moment, reflecting on the hopelessness of it all.

And then I steel my spine, pull my balls out of my purse, and make up my mind.

Lisa’s dead. So what? We’re still here. And I’m responsible for keeping the Undersiders safe, healthy, and wealthy. So, that means there’s no time to mourn, or mope. We push forwards, even if things seem hopeless. And right now, that means going to Somer’s Rock.

“Get into your costume. We’re going, even if Bitch isn’t coming with.”

“Righty-o, fearless leader,” Alec says, pausing the game.

---

And so, the two of us walk into Somer’s Rock and find the ABB, Coil, and Faultline’s Crew all waiting for us.

“The Undersiders?” Coil asks, greeting us with a nod. “You’re two short.”

“Been a rough week,” I say noncommittally. “I doubt we’re the only ones down a few members.”

I move for a booth, before Lung shakes his head. “No. Take your place at the table.”

I blink. Really wasn’t expecting that. “We’re not really operating on your level, Lung. Hate to be in someone else’s seat.”

“There’s no one else to fill it,” Lung says dismissively. “Congratulations on your bronze medal.”

Alec actually laughs at that, the traitor, but I nod respectfully, and take a seat. If the giant fire-breathing dragon man wants me at the table, then I’m at the fucking table.

“Is there anyone else left?” Lung asks Coil after a moment.

“One more team that I’m aware of,” the man in the snake suit says.

As if on cue, a group dressed in red and black file on in, and the man in the Baron Samedi costume at their head takes a seat.

Going by Coil, they’re called “the Travelers.”

With the last introductions out of the way, Lung looks us all over. “I have called this meeting for one, simple reason: We are being hunted.”

“The Empire Eighty-Eight has vanished,” Coil supplies. “So have the Merchants, during the same week that members of the ABB have been showing up crucified and decapitated. Uber and Leet have vanished, and the same goes for a number of other independents.”

“Josephus of Cana,” Faultline says with a wave of her hand. “I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Literal Bible-quoting serial killer shows up, murders an entire maternity ward, and then people start going missing and turning up crucified. Case closed. And quite frankly, it’s none of my business if some among our little community can’t protect themselves.”

“Not quite,” Coil interjects. “Whoever the killer is, they are clearly targeting Brockton Bay’s villain community. If we do not stand together, then-“

“-we shall certainly die separately,” Josephus of Cana finishes for him, appearing in the chair next to mine. I most definitely don’t scream like a little girl. “Good quote. I always did like Ben Franklin. Now before you all start…”

“Get him!” Trickster shrieks from one of the booths. His teammate, the one with the sun on her chest, is backing away very slowly from the chair on the other side of Josephus.

“Before you start,” Josephus says again. “I’ve come to clear my name!”

“Really?” Lung asks, from his now-smoking chair. “Speak swiftly, then, madman. My patience is somewhat frayed, as of late.”

“I’m not the one who’s behind the crucifixions, or the disappearances,” Josephus says. “But I do know who is.”

“And who might these mysterious culprits be?” Coil asks, as everyone in the room prepares to kill the lunatic the second he steps out of line.

“They call themselves the Sabbat,” Josephus says with an easy smile, even as I back away from him. “Now, I might not look it, but I’m a man of morals. I always pay reverence to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I oppose slavery wherever it’s found, and I try not to leave a child an orphan for more than ten minutes. But the Sabbat? They have no principles. Only a ruthless lust for power. It’s why we parted ways, as a matter of fact.”

“So, what?” Faultline asks, as she gets behind her more durable subordinates. “It’s not you, just this mysterious organization that nobody’s ever heard about, which, conveniently, only you are in a position to know about?”

“Now, let’s be fair, here,” Josephus says, getting to his feet. “I’m not the only one in this room who knows about the Sabbat.”

He whips around like lightning, and shoots at an empty corner of the room, and everything almost spirals into pandemonium.

But then, we see what he shot at.

In that corner of the room is a shirtless, grey-skinned thing. Its face is rat-like, its teeth sharp and yellowed, and its skin is coated in warts and boils. It clutches its knee, and the bullet in its kneecap.

“The Sabbat are everywhere,” Josephus continues, as he strolls towards the terrified, previously invisible Case-53. “And they aim to rule this city, with all its Parahumans as their slaves, and the humans as their cattle. They rule the night, with a thousand unseen murderers on every street corner.” He turns to look at us, all of us. “They aim to rule you too. I hope you’ll choose wisely.” And with that, he walks out of the room, with not a soul standing in his way.

The creature on the floor speaks up. “Heh. Um, sorry, guys. Wrong room.”

“So,” Lung says, as he rises from his now burning chair, and makes his way towards the monster on the ground. “It was you. All the nights spent futilely, watching the shadows as my men vanished behind me, the mornings waking up to see the severed heads of those who called on me to protect them, and it was YOU!”

I very prudently get the fuck out of his way.

“No, no, listen, it wasn’t me, but… I mean, I moved the bodies, but I was just a grunt, Paul was the one who was in char-“

Lung rips his head off with a bestial roar, and then, once the babbling creature on the floor has been silenced, turns to us, already having grown an inch or two. “I will fight this Sabbat. Who stands with me?”

In the end, it’s unanimous. We will work together to end the threat of the Sabbat.

Woe to whoever stands against us.

 

We file into the darkened chamber, and take our seats around the dark oak table, a white handprint at its center.

Personally, I think that putting a white hand on a black background doesn’t really fit a group called the Black Hand, but I suppose that the reverse, with a bunch of vampires sitting around a white table, would be just as ridiculous, so I let the logo failure slide.

Wiglaf rises, clad in his dark robes. “My brothers and sisters of the Black Hand. We stand assembled once more.”

We bow our heads, and say in chorus, “May Cain’s will guide us to wisdom.”

I still have no idea why we’re apparently worshipping the first murderer, and at this point, I’m in too deep to ask without looking like an idiot.

“We are four, where ought be five,” Wiglaf intones solemnly. “Sadly, we have yet to find a suitable replacement for our… absent brother, and so we must go on as four.”

Anna-Marie rolls her eyes and shoots me a glare at the “suitable replacement” line. I’m uncomfortably reminded that every vampire here besides me is decades, if not centuries, my senior.

“Brother Paul, who has done good service and produced many worthy childer in the past two weeks, has called this meeting. Brother Paul? Your announcement?”

“Um, yes. Verily, I…” Paul begins, looking uncomfortable, before sighing. “Oh, fuck this, I was always terrible with Shakespeare, so I’m just going to talk like a normal person, now.”

“Ugh,” Wiglaf groans. “Youngsters these days. We already translated the rite from Middle English, what more do you want?”

Paul rolls his eyes. “Look. My fellow vampires, we have a fucking problem. The Kine are onto us.”

“How many?” Wiglaf asks, suddenly sitting ramrod-straight and wide-eyed. “Are they on track to find our lairs?”

“The local supervillains,” everyone groans, and Paul glares at us indignantly. “What?”

“We prefer to just call them villains, or villain Capes,” I say. “It…”

“…indulges their delusions of grandeur, otherwise,” Wiglaf finishes for me. “They are not larger-than life comic book characters, no matter how they style themselves.”

“Look, they are fucking supervillains,” Paul insists. “I have been reading superhero comics since 1938. I know a supervillain when I see one. And these guys are fucking supervillains. They wear tights, use codenames, do dastardly deeds, and one of them even has an elaborate underground base. And I get to fight them. Please don’t ruin this for me.”

Anna-Marie laughs at him, but Wiglaf just shrugs. “Fine. Supervillains it is, I suppose.” I give Paul an encouraging smile.

“Anyways, as I was saying before you grammar Nazis jumped me, the local supervillains, or at least the ones we haven’t wiped out, have become aware of our existence,” Paul says. “They’re calling themselves the Alliance for Brockton Bay, and they definitely know we exist. One of my childer, the one I assigned to spy on the meeting at Somer’s Rock, hasn’t reported back in yet. They’re setting up tripwires, locked doors, and passwords to keep my people out. And beyond that, I’ve heard multiple members of the Alliance talk about the Sabbat.”

“Damnation,” Wiglaf growls. “The Ritual isn’t anywhere close to ready, yet.”

“What ritual?” I ask.

“The Ritual that’s need-to-know only, brat,” Anna-Marie interrupts. “So. Wiglaf. What are we going to do?”

He sighs. “We’ll have to retaliate, of course. Paul, get your little pack of childer ready to hunt them. Capture if you can, and kill if you can’t, but above all else, no witnesses. There’s one exception, though: I want the one named Grue delivered to me alive and unharmed.”

Paul looks like he’s going to ask why but seems to think better of it. “You’re the boss, Boss.”

“And what should I do?” I ask my sire. “How do I contribute?”

“Stealth is king, in this upcoming war,” he says, brow furrowed. “Thus, Paul and the assorted Nosferatu childer he has Embraced will be the only ones engaging the enemy. However, we must prepare for the day of The Ritual, and on that day, we will need shock troops. Both you and Anna-Marie must build up a pack of your childer and bring them under your control through the blood bond.”

I raise my hand uncomfortably. “And… how do we do that?”

They look at me, and Paul grins. “Can I tell her?”

“By all means,” Wiglaf says, looking up at the ceiling as if begging God to save him from his ignorant childe’s stupidity.

Paul gets up, and heads to the utility closet, before returning with a shovel in hand. He presents it to me solemnly.

“This is your shovel.”

“Okay…?”

“I will now instruct you in its use, in the most sacred and ancient rite of the Sabbat,” Paul intones with deadly seriousness. “One first devised by our most venerable founders, during an Inquisition raid back in 1503, when they found themselves in dire need of some cannon fodder. It proceeds like SO!” He pulls out a shovel of his own and begins to act out the steps of this supposedly ancient ritual. “Step One: identify the target of your Embrace. Guide them into an isolated location or neutralize all witnesses. Step Two: Administer the Rite of Morpheus with your shovel!”

“Rite of Morpheus?” I ask.

“It’s a fancy way of saying ‘brain them with a shovel,’” Paul says with a shrug. “I think whichever Elder wrote the whole thing down wanted it to sound more self- important, though, so, ‘Rite of Morpheus’ it is. Anywho, Step Three: Drain all of the target of your Embrace’s blood, and then inject a portion of your own blood into any available orifice, be it mouth, nose, eyes, or open wound. Any port in a storm will do. Please note, that if you don’t do this fast enough, or if you’re unlucky, the Embrace won’t take, and you will have just straight up murdered a guy, so… good luck. That leads us to Step Four: Bury the body. If the Embrace takes, then your new childe will dig their way out of their grave, and everything’s hunky-dory. You have a new minion, and your newest minion isn’t dead. Win-win! If the Embrace doesn’t take, for some reason, then, well, you were gonna have to bury the corpse in an unmarked grave anyways. Now you’ve just saved yourself the trip!”

I stare at him in horrified fascination.

“Now, repeat steps one-through-four as necessary, until you have sufficient numbers. I prefer to stick to something manageable, like ten or twelve. You don’t want there to be enough of them to potentially overpower and diablerize you, after all. Then, Step Five: Instruction. Traditionally, this is simply a matter of pointing at whoever you want dead, shouting “Kill,” and whacking the newbies with the shovel until they get the memo, and then welcoming whoever makes it back alive into the Sabbat with open arms, but since you’re going to actually be using these guys for a while, I’d recommend blood-bonding them and then showing them the ropes, like I’ve been doing with mine.” Suddenly, a look of abject horror creeps across Paul’s face.

“What?” I ask, suddenly feeling anxious myself.

“Are we…” he turns towards Wiglaf. “Are we turning into the fucking Camarilla?”

“What?” Wiglaf asks indignantly. “How can you say that?”

“It’s just… we’re blood-bonding our childer, and trying to rule humanity from the shadows,” Paul says, looking almost nauseous. “We are acting very Camarilla right now.”

“I…” Wiglaf, for his part, looks a bit disquieted. “I… no. We’re not… turning into the Camarilla…” He pauses, looking abjectly horrified. “I mean… No. These actions we have taken are rational, measured, controlled. If we wish to survive and rise to our rightful position of dominance, we need to control ourselves before we can control others.”

“Like the Camarilla?” Anna-Marie asks with a devilish grin.

“I mean,” Paul interjects desperately. “We’re not turning into the Camarilla. We’re just being smart about things.”

“Like the Camarilla?” Anna Marie repeats.

“Oh, Cain preserve us, we’re turning into the goddamn Camarilla,” Wiglaf says, looking like he’s about to throw up. “And I can’t even take back my orders, because it really is the only way we’re pulling off world domination. Look, you know what to do, meeting adjourned. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go rip a baby in half with my bare hands and lick up the blood just to feel clean again.”

He storms out, and we file out after him, some of us looking more shell-shocked than others.

I take my new shovel with me.

---​

“Alright, Taylor,” I say to myself, “You can do this.”

I grip the shovel tightly as I wait for the E88 member, one of the only ones I could find, to round the corner. When he does, I look him dead in the eyes. “Follow me.”

He does, as I lead him into the empty warehouse Paul loaned me.

And then he blinks. “Wait, what the Hell?”

We’re in the middle of the warehouse. I turn back to face him, and smile. “Social experiment. You’re free to go.”

No sooner has he turned his back, than I administer the Rite of Morpheus, and God damn if Paul isn’t right. That sounds way classier than “I brain him with the shovel.”

Right. I drain his blood, shoot some of my blood into him with a syringe (because screw bleeding into his mouth, I’m being scientific about this thing) and start digging.

Turns out, digging a shallow grave is a lot more time-consuming than it looks. In hindsight, I probably should’ve dug the grave first, secured my Embracee second.

Then, just I’ve finally dug four feet down, I feel something in my brain expand, almost as if I’m flexing a muscle I never knew that I had.

CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.

ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL.

And then, I stagger. Because, suddenly, I don’t just feel one body.

I feel two.

I climb out of the hole I’ve dug, even as my second body climbs to its feet.

I stare at the man I embraced, even as I stare back at myself with his eyes.

I doubt the others can do this, which means…

Memories dance before my eyes.

---​

“Joseph,” my master says. “In which house would we be most likely to cause a Trigger Event?”

Joseph looks up from where he was doodling on the window in crayon. “’neath bloodred shingles, the hook will land, and the whale will make a merry catch.”

“Thank you, Joseph,” my Master says.

“Trigger Event?” Anna-Marie repeats, curious.

“The mechanism by which the ‘parahumans’ of this world gain their powers,” he explains. “When the humans of this world are placed under sufficient psychological stress, they manifest superhuman abilities. I rather thought that we should try to get a look at the process. Who knows? We might get a proper ghoul out of this, and what better ghoul than one with powers all his own?”

“So, you’re telling me that, in this world, we can get ghouls with unique powers if we traumatize them enough?” Anna-Marie asks.

---​

At the farmhouse…

---​

“So, how’s Luke holding up?”

Anna-Marie frowns. “Who?”

“The kid from the farmhouse. The one who triggered. Wiglaf said that you were the one keeping him.”

“Oh, him?” she asks. “Killed him.”

“What? Why?”

“Kept saying he wasn’t a Parahuman, and it pissed me the hell off. Turned out, he was right. We did an autopsy, and he didn’t have a gemma.” She sighs. “Damn waste of my time, if you ask me.”

---​

Luke didn’t trigger and get powers. I did. And I got the power to control my own childer.

I wave my newest puppet’s hand experimentally, and then use his blood, and his body, and my command of Obtenebration to darken the room.

I can control my spawn. And I can use my Disciplines with their blood.

I take a moment to reflect on the fact that I just leveled the playing field, and then I laugh maniacally with two mouths.

It’d take an army to save this city and kill my sire.

And within the month, I’ll be one.

 

April 25^th, 2011

Timeline A

I peer out the window of our latest safehouse.

Faultline sidles up next to me. “Think they’re out there?”

Timeline B

I shoot Faultline in the face to check if she’s another infiltrator. When she dies without turning into a pile of ash, I sigh. Well, she was the genuine article. And I just shot her in the face, so this timeline’s getting dropped.

Best to make the most of it.

Timeline A

“Hm. Probably.”

Timeline B

In my soon-to-be-dropped timeline, I vault over the barricade, gun in hand, and run out into the street, screaming, “COME AND GET ME, SABBAT SCUM!”

They don’t break cover, but their rats do, swarming over me and stripping the flesh from my bones.

Timeline A

I sigh. “They found us, again. I can’t find the controllers, but there’s a rat swarm out there.”

Faultine winces, a justifiable reaction. The past month has given us all a healthy fear for the Sabbat’s favored attack vermin. “Regular rats, or…”

“The size of chihuahuas,” I confirm, still keeping an eye on the situation at hand. “Definitely enhanced.”

“Shit,” she says with a grimace. “So, time to relocate again? Someone will have to contact the away team.”

“Yes. They’ve found our base, which means an assault isn’t far off.” The war against the Sabbat is really more a game of hide and seek at this point. They’re inactive in the day, but, during the night, they can easily wipe us out by throwing a seemingly endless stream of cold bodies at us. Thus, we’re left searching for their hideout, even as they look for us. And tonight, they’ve found us.

Timeline C

I back away from the window, and then call Trickster to check in on the search team’s progress.

Timeline A

“Damn. I’ll get the others ready to face whatever attack the Sabbat are planning,” Faultline says with a sigh. “And, hopefully, we’ll have enough time to get away before they come at us.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” I say, backing away from the window. “We’ll just have to endure what they throw at us, same as always. We fortify our position, and hold out until morning.”

Timeline C

“Trickster. How is the mission proceeding?” I ask.

“Well, um, funny story…” Trickster says, sounding sheepish. “We… may have lost Lung.”

The past month since I threw my hat in the ring and joined the Alliance for Brockton Bay has been hectic. I haven’t been able to return to my civilian identity, because after Grue went to check on his sister and never came back, we all knew that taking off the mask wouldn’t keep us safe. Not anymore. My base was destroyed by a Morlock infiltrator who somehow managed to trip the self-destruct on the third day of our war against the Sabbat. My attempts to use my powers in my usual fashion, by remaining safely behind and splitting the timeline to allow me to ensure that an operation was either successful, or had never happened, had failed, because the Sabbat’s Black Knight, the Morlocks’ apparent leader, had a habit of assassinating me whenever I tried, forcing me to collapse one of the timelines so I could use my power to survive. And, to top it all off, the PRT, in spite of my best efforts, continued to deny the Sabbat’s existence, blaming us for the trail of bodies they left behind. The Sabbat were, if nothing else, masters of covering their tracks. Thus, every member of the new ABB was wanted by the police, all for the crime of trying to stop what might be the next Ellisburg.

With all that said, it’s quite understandable that my reaction to hearing that Trickster had somehow managed to lose our heaviest hitter, the only man the Sabbat feared, is to jump out the window screaming bloody murder, because I need to kill something right now, and rats are as good as any other creature.

This time, I actually manage to take a few of the little bastards with me.

Timeline A

I sigh on the stairs, heading up to warn the others about the Sabbat’s impending attack. And then I split the timeline.

Timeline D

I slowly and calmly call Trickster again.

“How the hell did you manage to lose Lung?” I snap at him.

“Look, it isn’t my fault!” Trickster protests. “The mission was going pretty well, actually. We were just wrapping up scouting out the block you’d pointed us at in the Docks. Sundancer and Lung were holding so they could respond faster if the Sabbat attacked us, while Ballistic, Genesis, and I handled the actual search. That’s when Armsmaster showed up. He had some kind of tranquilizer that let him shut Lung down, and… well, we were going to try and drive Armsmaster off, but that’s when the Sabbat attacked.”

“How bad?” I ask.

“They broke Sundancer’s leg, and Ballistic’s back,” Trickster says. “Armsmaster didn’t see anything, though. They were careful about that.”

“Of course,” I say, my voice little more than a frustrated growl. “It would behoove the Protectorate to notice the second Ellisburg scenario happening directly in front of them, after all.”

Whatever the Sabbat are, they can make more of themselves, from just about anybody. I’ve seen where that goes. Crawled through the bloody streets as hideous goblins howled from behind me.

“Yeah. Sundancer got tranqed, too. We’re heading back. The mission is a failure.”

I hang up, and quietly swear. And then I jump out the window again, because at this point, getting eaten alive by rats seems tame compared to having to face the Sabbat without Lung.

---​

Timeline A

We’ve just finished up alerting everyone to the impending Sabbat attack when everything goes horribly, horribly wrong.

I’m making my way down to the escape tunnel I included in the safehouse when the lights go out. All of them.

Timeline E

I’m conducting the evacuation with Faultline, when the lights go out. All of them.

“They’re making their push!” I shout as a warning, even as I flick open a lighter. Electricity and flashlights don’t work in this darkness. Only fire. I learned that from bitter experience.

Behind me, I can hear one of them breaking through the wall.

“It’s the Shadowbenders!” I call out in warning, even as five men, all dressed in black hazmat suits (and I didn’t even know they came in that color) enter through the hole they made in the wall, guns ablazing.

Timeline A

I flick open my emergency lighter, and, in the dim glow of the firelight, I find myself face to face with the Black Knight, in all his Tinkertech-armored-glory.

“Leaving so soon?” he asks, his voice synthesized by the armor he wears. “Trust me, the party’s just getting started.”

I collapse the timeline.

Timeline E

“The Black Knight is waiting downstairs!” I shout, even as I pull out my laser rifle and return fire at the Shadowbenders. “We need to…”

Faultline screams as shadowy tentacles seize her limbs and drag her out of cover and into the enemy’s line of fire. The Shadowbenders, in perfect coordination, pump her full of lead.

“Shit. Fall back! Fall back!” Of course, shouting orders only makes me a target, and the tentacles drag me out next.

Timeline F

In this one, I don’t even try to rally the panicking capes. I just shout, “EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!” and book it.

Bakuda is upstairs, well away from all of this, but most of Faultline’s crew are here, and they’re dead set on avenging their boss. I thank the poor, stupid bastards for their commendable, if pointless, sacrifice as I run away, take a rolling leap out the first window I see, and run like Hell.

I don’t stop running until I’m three blocks away. Then, I call Trickster, and start setting up our next safehouse, and our plan for breaking Lung out, as well as coordinating efforts to find whoever else survived the massacre at our last safehouse.

Keep moving. Never stop moving. Always have another trick, always have another plan. And even if Brockton Bay becomes a second Ellisburg, I will survive.

 

It’s a Saturday night, and I’m sprawled out on the couch, calculating my finances, and checking the map to make sure I have sufficient informant coverage. Not the most glamorous work, but work that needs to be done all the same. As I do my paperwork, three of my bodies, Andrew, Tony, and Frank, make their way through the docks in their civvies, checking in with my informants and trying to locate the ABB’s newest base.

Paul was also working on intel gathering, of course, but, over the weeks our two packs spent hunting the ABB together we’d made the whole thing into a challenge, of sorts, to see who could find the ABB’s latest hiding spot first.

My original, grandiose plans of becoming an army of vampires had fizzled out a bit once I made it to twenty childer. It turned out that, like any other army, an army of vampires marches on its stomach. Considering that vampires fucking eat people, that quickly becomes a problem when you’re trying to fly under the radar. So, I decided to stop it there, at least until Wiglaf launches into his inevitable master plan and tosses stealth straight out the window.

My childer are split up into groups of five, and dwell in four separate locations spread out through Brockton Bay. I only use one cell at a time, only waking one group from topor every night, and making sure to stick to only one squad, to keep the ABB from hitting more than one location. All in all, it’s a solid blood conservation and information isolation measure. My real body has never even been on the same block as a member of the ABB, and I’d like to keep it that way. They proved themselves far too dangerous for me to allow them any clues as to my true lair.

Over the past month since they first lost Lung, our shadow war has settled into a holding pattern again, with the Alliance for Brockton Bay always giving us the slip at the last second. They broke Lung and Sundancer out within a week, of course. God forbid the PRT actually be good for something. But still, we’re wearing them down. Denying them access to their civilian identities and forcing them to deal with both us and the Protectorate at the same time means that they can’t replenish their financial resources. Sooner or later, they’ll run out of safehouses.

Tammi shifts in her sleep, snuggling her head a little closer into my lap, and I pause to stroke her hair. She always sleeps like this when I’m working from home, and it’s frankly adorable.

She’s been quite useful, over the months, as a test subject for Dominate, if nothing else. Having someone I’ve conditioned to unconditionally love me has been… nice. The way she bares her neck for me without a second thought, the way she dotes upon me, and hangs upon my every word? It makes me feel powerful, more than even the various forms I stumbled across with my improved Obtenebration.

Hm. It’s been quite a while since her last drink, hasn’t it? Perhaps I should reward her with another taste, as a surprise “thank you” present for her good work watching over me in my sleep.

Of course, that’s when my phone rings.

“Paul,” I say in greeting, because I recognize the number. “Good to hear from you again. What’s the occasion?”

If he beat me to the punch and found the ABB hideout again, I’m going to be pissed.

“It’s… well…” he sounds uncomfortable. “How good are you with the Dominate Discipline?”

“I mean, Tammi isn’t a Nazi anymore, and doesn’t remember ever being one,” I say off-handedly, remembering with fondness how I practiced the ins and outs of the Discipline by finding the formative memories that led to Tammi’s racism, and then rewriting them, all with the end goal of making her a more tolerant person that’s utterly devoted to me. It was a smashing success, too! Occasional crying fits that she doesn’t remember the reason for aside, of course. “She doesn’t even remember a single racial slur. Does that answer your question?”

Tammi is starting to wake up, by this point, so I look her in the eye and edit what she’s overheard out of her memories, replacing it with me gushing about how well-behaved she’s been. Wouldn’t do to make her question her memories, after all.

“I suppose it does,” Paul says, sounding relieved. “Look, could you come over? We’ve got a leak, and it’s the sort that needs a specialized plumber, if you know what I’m saying.”

“I’ll be right over,” I say.

The situation in the city has been getting precarious, especially thanks to Anna-Marie and her new pack of Gangrel lunatics. They’ve been causing numerous incidents around the city, and haven’t been nearly as subtle as Paul and I. The Protectorate might dismiss a body that pops up in the wake of the latest ABB incident with a slit throat as the work of the local villains but eating the Mayor’s cat in front of him and then drunkenly ranting about how you want to skull-fuck the Pope and you know Christner’s hiding him so where is he, is all well out of the bounds of plausible deniability. If Paul hadn’t found out and called in one of my bodies to handle the mind-wipe, then we would have been utterly fucked. And Mayor Christner would’ve been too, considering Anna was still drunk, belligerent, and had the strap-on on hand and ready to go when we managed to talk her down.

So, understandably, I don’t bother with walking, or public transportation. Instead, I step outside, walk purposefully into an alleyway, and then turn into a living shadow, seeping through a manhole cover and then drifting through the sewers with supernatural speed, until I come to the only Nosferatu hideout that Paul lets me know about: his own.

“Taylor,” he says, nodding respectfully as I ooze through the door. “You mastered shadow form?”

“Yes,” I say as I pull myself together. “It took a bit of practice, though.”

“That’s amazing!” Paul says cheerfully, practically grinning ear to ear. “Most of the other Lasombra I’ve known took decades to figure that one out.”

I blink at that, nonplussed. Was it really that hard?

I guess it makes sense. After all, I have a bit of an advantage. I have twenty-one bodies in total, counting my real one. Nowadays, I just use my proxy bodies to handle my actual work and the effort of keeping up my informant network, while the real me stays home and experiment with Tammi. Considering I can devote myself to exploring my powers full time, it’s no wonder I’ve mastered them faster.

“Hm. Probably just talent,” I say noncommittally, because friend or no, there’s no way I’m telling Paul about my training regimen.

“Probably,” he agrees easily as he leads me deeper into the warren.

“So, why did you call me here?” I ask as he opens a door and ushers me into some sort of prison room. I blink. “And why is there a shirtless teenaged boy chained to the wall?”

The room is, like most of the others in the warren, dark, damp, and cramped. It’s lit only by a few of those glow-in-the-dark bracelet type of things, and the dim red glow of Paul’s empty suit of Tinkertech armor, propped up against the wall.

But the primary feature in this little oubliette of a room is the slightly muscular blue-haired boy chained to the wall, unconscious. He looks like he belongs in middle school, and like that middle school was the Winslow of middle schools, because he looks like he just got treated to a curb party.

“Well, that’s an awkward story,” Paul says uncomfortably. “To start out, well, good news! We finally finished the job and killed Ballistic! Drove a piece of rebar through his heart and plucked out his eye for a trophy.”

When Paul had snapped Ballistic’s spine a month ago, we had thought that was the end of it. He would need life support just to breathe, so fighting us again was out of the question.

Unfortunately, it turned out that he could use his power on anything he was touching. Even more unfortunately, he tricked out his life support machine with spikes and battleship grade armored plating in order to essentially turn himself into something halfway between a human tank and a human battering ram.

“That’s great!” I say, thoroughly relieved. Seriously, fuck Ballistic. I had to replace a full five-drone cell after he doused his life support machine in gasoline, lit himself on fire, and then went full kamikaze on my guys. We’d thought he’d died then, too, but no. “Are you sure, though?”

“As sure as I can be. This is still Ballistic we’re talking about, here,” Paul says with a shrug. “But the real problem is that this kid saw me. And he’s a hero. I recognized him as part of New Wave.”

“Really?” Huh, New Wave… New Wave… I remember one of them had blue hair, who was- Oh, shit. “That’s Shielder. He’s in middle school. If he’s reported missing, or turns up dead, every hero in Brockton Bay, maybe even the entirety of New England, is going to come for our asses.”

“Good, because I didn’t want to kill a hero anyways,” Paul says, looking relieved. “So, do your thing. Make him forget.”

I sigh. “Alright.”

I get in closer, and slap him across the cheek to wake him up, because I’m going to need eye contact for this one.

“Hey, kid. Wake up.”

He screams, and then creates a force field between us.

“Well, that’s annoying,” I say with a sigh. “Look, Eric, isn’t it? What did you see?”

He stares at me, terrified. No. Not at me, behind me. At Paul’s armor.

“I… Mom always taught me-“

“Relax, kid,” I say, giving him a friendly smile. Well, as friendly a smile as I can manage, that is. My smile was creepy to start with, and it got worse when I got fangs. “My friend won’t be getting involved. This is just between you and me, for the moment.”

“I… okay,” he says, lowering his field. It’s all that I can do not to jump up and Embrace him the moment he does.

I excused not Embracing Rune because I needed someone to experiment on. But, ever since I’ve unlocked this power of mine, I’ve felt a burning desire to Embrace a Cape, just to see what would happen.

Surely, they wouldn’t miss him. Surely, a little heat would be worth the power, the magnificent data I could discover with a cape completely subordinated to my will?

No. I can’t. For all the reasons I gave Paul. But even so…

I want him.

Something in my stare must have hinted at my thoughts, because Eric is beginning to look distinctly uncomfortable. It’s actually quite interesting to watch someone struggle to feel fear even as he’s being mastered into relaxing. Enough to take the edge off of my twofold hunger for blood and knowledge, at least.

“So. What did you see?”

“I saw… I saw that guy in the armor stab that supervillain, the one from the ABB…” he freezes for a second. “Oh, God. Oh God, they were telling the truth! The ABB is telling the truth! The Sabbat is real!” He freezes, staring over my shoulder at the suit of armor still leaning against the wall. “Oh God, you’re the Sabbat.”

I sigh. “Now, Eric, sweetie, that’s just ridiculous.”

“And the fangs! And that one guy looks like Count Orlock! And the striking at night, and the shadows, and cramped room, and the paleness, OH MY GOD YOU’RE VAMPIRES! YOU’RE THE ILLUMINATI! YOU’RE THE VAMPIRE ILLUMINATI!” Shielder continues, about one octave away from singing soprano. “Oh my god, I got beaten up and kidnapped by the VAMPIRE ILLUMINATI!”

At that, I loose my temper. “SILENCE, you BABBLING IMBECILE!”

He shuts up.

“Now, let me tell you exactly why your assumptions are ridiculous. Can you wait for me to finish doing that, sweetie?” I ask, trying to pull my smile back into place. Kids liked it when you smiled, right? I’m not that good with people younger than me.

He nods silently, his face pale.

“Now,” I begin, leaning in so close our noses are perhaps an inch apart and staring him in the eye, as he desperately tries to push himself back into the wall to get away from me. “Let’s start. You’re being ridiculous, Eric. There is no Sabbat. But, in theory, if there were a Sabbat, and I was a member, we would be in a real bind. You see, you’re a hero. People will care if you die. Especially your family. Now, in this scenario, the Sabbat would just have to get rid of you, and your family. Fortunately, they have a Master parahuman on staff. She’d waltz right in here, like I did a few minutes ago, mind you, and she’d make you forget everything. But her memory wiping powers aren’t permanent. Why, she’d have to make you and all of New Wave disappear, of course!”

“Wh-Why?” he asks, pushing through my silence command.

“Because without a good cover story, you would remember the truth, in time, and she wouldn’t know you well enough to know what sort of cover story you’d believe,” I continue. He’s crying, now, and I have to resist the urge to lick up his tears. “But she’d have an easy way to do the deed: A gas leak! She’d just send out one of the thousands of anonymous Mastered civilians she had seeded throughout Brockton Bay to your house at night, and he’d sabotage your gas pipe. She’d just have to trick her catspaw into accidentally killing himself, and bam! Cold trail. Meanwhile, you and your family would be peacefully asleep, as the gas crept up through your house, and into your lungs, silently suffocating you with no one around to save you.”

He trembles as I lean in forwards, our cheeks brushing as I lean in to whisper into his ear, “So, aren’t you just so. Very. Glad.” With every word, I tighten my grip on his arms, until it’s physically painful. “That there is no Sabbat?”

“Yes!” he screams, bawling like a baby, and I smell urine in the direction of his trousers. “So glad! So very glad!”

“That’s very nice, sweetie,” I say, letting go of his arms and smiling again (he doesn’t seem too reassured by my smile.) “Now, then. Let’s talk about what you believe really happened, and how we can work to fix this… Sabbat delusion of yours, shall we?”

In the end, we find a cover story that’ll stick, and then send him on his way. I do leave an implanted command in his head, though: One week from now, he’ll run away from home, and head to a specific, isolated pier, where I can take him for my own to my heart’s content.

After all, I want him, and when I want data, I get it.

Once I’ve knocked him out, and Paul is preparing to take him to the previously arranged drop-off point, Paul turns to me. “Um, hey. You want to maybe hang out for an hour or two? Catch up? I feel like we haven’t gotten to talk all that much lately.”

“Sounds great!” I say. It would be nice to chat for a bit.

“Awesome. Want me to pick up food while I’m out?” he asks.

“That sounds nice.”

“Cool, you up for Chinese?”