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Chapter 12. The Kennel
“This place smells like a library that burned down and got pissed on by rats,” Oliver commented flatly. He tried to suppress the nausea, not because of the smell, his senses were dulled, but because the place looked like pure chaos. They were underground. More precisely, in a hidden bunker beneath The Rusty Spine, a used bookstore that had gone bankrupt three years ago on the outskirts of Vegas. The concrete walls were damp, plastered with demon-repelling talismans whose ink had bled into illegible smears. Exposed cables hung from the ceiling like spilled entrails, feeding a noisy generator that powered various pieces of illegal magical equipment. “Stop whining. You’re lucky I didn’t leave you in a gutter,” Claire shot back without looking at him. She was busy stirring something inside a stained laboratory beaker. The liquid was moss-green, bubbling, releasing sharp fumes that smelled like sulfur mixed with cheap gasoline. “Drink,” Claire ordered, shoving the beake
Chapter 11. Interrogation at the Muzzle
Chapter 11: Interrogation at the Muzzle Oliver Warner knelt in a pooling slurry of rain and grit, his breath hitching like an old engine on the verge of detonation. Fresh blood trekked down his temple, mingling with the downpour that plastered his expensive shirt to his skin. It wasn't the biting chill of the rain that made Oliver’s teeth chatter. It was the muzzle of the silver Desert Eagle pressed firmly against the center of his forehead. The metal was cold, steady, and utterly merciless. The woman before him, Claire, stood as rigid as a monument to the grim reaper. Her black trench coat was sodden, her short hair slicked against her cheeks, but her gaze remained razor sharp. She had just saved his life from a feral vampire at the train station, but the way she brandished her weapon now suggested anything but a friendly greeting. "Three seconds." Claire’s voice was flat, nearly devoid of emotion, yet it pierced his ears more sharply than the distant thunder. "Gi
Chapter 10. The Kennel
The journey to Claire’s hideout passed in an awkward silence, filled only by the hum of the Jeep’s tires against the asphalt and the classic rock filtering through the radio. Oliver leaned his head against the cold window, watching the Nevada desert landscape on the outskirts of the city. They had left the glitter of the Strip far behind. Out here, Vegas was nothing but an expanse of dust, cacti, and ancient, slumbering gas stations. "Where are we going?" Oliver finally asked, breaking the quiet. "Are you going to dump my body in the desert?" "If I wanted to dump you, I would have done it in the alley," Claire replied without looking at him. Her eyes remained fixed on the dusty road. "We’re going to a safe house. I call it The Kennel." "The Kennel? Charming name," Oliver remarked dryly. "What are the facilities like? Is there a jacuzzi? A minibar?" "There’s a musty folding cot and a supply of expired canned food," Claire answered flatly. "And walls lined with p
Chapter 09. The Price of Memory
The tip of the silver bolt shimmered coldly in the fading moonlight, hovering less than two inches from Oliver’s left eye. He could see his own reflection in the polished metal, a face scorched, bloodied, and utterly exhausted. "I’m going to ask you one more time," the woman’s voice said. She sounded flat and emotionless, like a schoolteacher reprimanding a naughty student who had brought a grenade to class. "You are human, yet your aura reeks of Purgatory. And you just tried to immolate a Feral Vampire using a gas pipe. That is either the tactic of a madman or someone very desperate." Oliver tried to swallow, but his throat was raw and parched from the scalding smoke. "I... cough... I prefer the term visionary," Oliver rasped. He attempted to shift his body away from the bolt, but the agony radiating through his frame pinned him to the pavement. "And please, Miss Robin Hood. If you're going to shoot, just shoot. Don't just point it. It’s making me cross-eyed." Cla
Chapter 08. Zero Percent
CRASH! It wasn't the sound of an ordinary collision. It was the sound of total annihilation. Half a million dollars' worth of high-end machinery was crushed into a sardine can in a fraction of a second. Oliver’s prized Rolls Royce Phantom crumpled at the roof. The windshield disintegrated into thousands of lethal shards. The suspension shrieked as it snapped, and the tires blew out in unison, forcing the chassis to kiss the asphalt with a bone-jarring thud. Amidst the swirling dust and the steam escaping the shattered radiator, a figure stood atop the wreckage. The vampire was nearly eight feet tall. He bore no resemblance to the chiseled, brooding vampires of teen cinema. His skin was the ashen gray of a headstone, and his muscles coiled around his frame like tensed steel cables. His face was a bat-like nightmare, featuring an upturned, flat snout and a maw filled with fangs that dripped thick, viscous saliva. His membranous wings folded against his back, lett
Chapter 07. A World of Numbers
"AARGHHH!" Oliver’s scream died in his throat, surfacing only as a long, agonizing groan. He clawed at the left side of his face, his nails digging into his skin until it bled. It didn't feel like laser surgery. It felt as if someone had poured molten lead directly into his eye socket, letting it boil before it froze instantly. The world around him spun. The cold marble floor of The Purgatory felt as though it were undulating like the deck of a ship in a storm. "Breathe, Mr. Warner. Don't die just yet. If you die in the lobby, I’ll have to pay for extra cleaning fees." The voice of Vork, the goblin concierge, sounded distant and echoing. Oliver panted, tears reflexively streaming from his right eye. His left eye remained clamped shut, throbbing wildly in sync with a heart pumping pure adrenaline. "Bastard..." Oliver hissed, spittle dripping onto the floor. "You said... it would hurt... but you didn't say it would feel like a drill in my brain!" "Knowledge i
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