Chapter 60: Two Draculas and One Very Rude Alien
The blood sky had started to feel like it was keeping score.
Cyprus – Limassol Port District
Jordan Pitas stepped off the night ferry with a duffel bag and the kind of tired eyes that only cops who had seen too much developed. Thirty-two, Cypriot, recently transferred after a case that official reports still called "unexplained biological anomalies." He had read the classified briefings about the blood sky. He had not believed half of them.
Then he looked up.
The entire sky over the Mediterranean was the colour of open arteries.
Jordan lit a cigarette with steady hands and muttered in Greek, "Of course. Why not."
He was already walking toward the nearest Guardians contact point before the cigarette was half finished.
Hidden Cave System – Carpathian Threshold
Ri Kwon Jae had followed the wrong blood trail.
He expected the Amulet-wielder. Instead the cave opened into a cathedral of pale stone and older darkness, and the being waiting for him was not the one painting the sky red.
This Dracula was white.
Not pale. White. Skin like polished marble, hair the colour of fresh snow, eyes the deep crimson of something that had never needed the sun. He sat on a throne of fused bone and iron as if he had been carved there at the beginning of the world.
Ri Kwon Jae stopped. The Man Bat hung upside down in the far shadows, chained with silver that smoked against its skin.
"You're not him," Ri Kwon Jae said carefully.
The White Vampire's voice was soft and absolute. "No. I am Dracula. The first. The one whose name was stolen."
Ri Kwon Jae's eyes narrowed. "There are two of you. How?"
Dracula — the real one — steepled long fingers. "The creature using the Blood Amulet is an imposter who has worn my legend like a coat. His true name is Hemostro. A lesser blood-thing who found an old artefact and decided the world should fear him the way it once feared me. I imprisoned him here long ago, along with that." He glanced at the Man Bat. "He escaped. I did not notice until the sky turned the colour of his arrogance."
The White Vampire's smile was small and terrible. "I am still deciding whether to be amused or offended."
Forest Crash Site – Northern Borderlands
Nathan, Vera, Bane, and Thor stood in front of the half-buried UFO. Smoke still rose from the crater. The metal was warm and hummed in a frequency that made teeth ache.
Thor spun his hammer. "If little green men come out I'm asking for their socials."
Bane ignored him and ran a scanner along the hull. "Life signs. One. Strong."
Nathan layered a thin illusion over the hatch controls. The door irised open with a wet mechanical sigh.
Inside, strapped to a crash couch of living resin, was a tall green humanoid. Smooth skin the colour of new leaves. Giant black eyes that took up half its face. A cascade of surprisingly nice green hair that fell past its shoulders like it had just left a very expensive salon.
The alien's eyes snapped open.
It looked at Thor.
Thor looked at the alien.
"Sup," Thor said.
The alien screamed in a language made of harmonics and punched Thor so hard he flew backward out of the ship and cratered a pine tree.
Vera clapped once, delighted. "I like it already."
Nathan sighed. "Of course it attacks the loud one first."
Bane pinched the bridge of his nose as Thor staggered back into view, nose bleeding, grinning like Christmas had come early.
"That," Thor announced, "was foreplay."
The green alien unstrapped itself, floated out of the ship on a field of soft light, and tilted its head at the four of them as if deciding which one to murder next.
Abandoned Subway Platform – East Line
Kevin, Wyatt, Hercules, Neo, Zane, and Blessing stood in a loose half-circle across from Hemostro — the false Dracula, the Blood Amulet still glowing against his chest like a stolen heart.
The air between them was tight enough to cut.
Hemostro smiled with too many teeth. "The Rampager and his little collection of broken toys. How sweet. Did you come to die together or take turns?"
Kevin's white-blue Matrix flared. "We came to end the sky."
Wyatt rested the metal pipe on his shoulder. "And also to hit you with this. Repeatedly."
Hercules cracked his neck. Bronze light crawled up his arms. Neo and Zane spread out, already looking for angles. Blessing's Magitech circuits lit under his skin like living blueprints.
Hemostro raised one hand. The blood sky above the city pulsed in answer.
"Then come and try."
The platform exploded into violence.
Willowbrook High – East Wing
Ignis was alone in the corridor when the janitor stepped out of the shadows. The body still belonged to the middle-aged man who mopped floors, but the smile and the eyes were pure Jennifer the body jumper.
"Hello, little flame," the stolen voice crooned. "I've been looking for a warmer home."
Ignis's hands ignited. "Get out of him."
The janitor body lunged. Cold hands closed around Ignis's throat with impossible strength. The body jumper's voice dropped to a whisper.
"I wonder what burning from the inside feels like when it's my hands doing it."
Lancelot hit the janitor from the side like a spear of living water. The impact tore the body free and slammed it into the lockers hard enough to dent metal. The body jumper hissed through borrowed teeth, already looking for the next exit.
"Run," Lancelot told Ignis, water still coiling around his arms. "We report it. We don't give her the fight she wants."
Safehouse – Industrial District
Sally Dogder sat on the edge of a cot, hands shaking, eyes too wide. Bangu and Jackson stood in front of her while the medical monitors beeped soft warnings.
"Every night," Sally whispered. "I black out. When I wake up I'm covered in blood that isn't mine. There are bodies. I don't remember making them. I don't remember anything. Just the red and the screaming and then morning again." She looked up at them, terrified. "I think something's using me. And I think it's getting stronger."
Jackson's mist curled tighter around his fingers. Bangu's jaw flexed.
Outside the window the blood sky kept watching.
Convergence
On the subway platform, Hemostro and the Guardians tore into each other under the red light that leaked through the grates.
In the forest, a green alien with excellent hair prepared to throw Thor through another tree while Nathan tried to negotiate and Vera took bets.
In a pale cave, the real Dracula — the White Vampire — watched the Man Bat swing on its chains and decided the world had borrowed his name for long enough.
And somewhere under the same sky, a Cypriot cop named Jordan Pitas lit a second cigarette and walked toward a war that had already decided it wanted everyone.
End of Chapter 60