Chapter 55: Fight for your life
Kaine stood on the water tower, watching the Shadow Guard finish their preparations below. The old textile factory squatted in the wasteland like a diseased tooth, its broken windows staring back at him with malevolent emptiness. But his Death Sight painted a different picture entirely.
Twelve signatures moved through the building’s interior. Four of them were weak—sixth and seventh generation bloodsuckers barely stronger than angry teenagers with sharp teeth. The kind that got turned last week and still thought being a vampire made them special.
Five more burned slightly brighter. Fourth generation, maybe some fifths mixed in. Old enough to know how to fight, strong enough to rip a human apart, but not experienced enough to avoid making stupid mistakes under pressure.
Then there were the three that made his jaw clench. Second and third gens, their signatures blazing like dark stars against the building’s mundane backdrop. These weren’t street thugs who’d gotten lucky with a bite. These were predators with decades of experience and the power to back up their arrogance.
And at the center of it all, in what looked like the factory’s main floor, something that made every instinct he’d developed over twelve years of hunting scream warnings.
A first generation vampire. An Original.
The signature was so bright it hurt to look at directly, even through his supernatural vision. Power that old didn’t just radiate—it commanded. Every other bloodsucker in the building orbited around it like planets around a malevolent sun.
"Shit," Kaine muttered, watching the Shadow Guard agents check their weapons one final time. "You have no idea what you’re walking into."
Marcus tilted his head, pale eyes reflecting the distant streetlights. The ghoul had been unnaturally still for the past ten minutes, like a hunting dog catching the scent of something dangerous.
Below them, Gwen was arguing with someone near the command vehicle. Even at this distance, Kaine recognized the aggressive body language of Colonel Steele. The man stood with his arms crossed, his massive frame casting a shadow that seemed to swallow the agents around him.
Steele hadn’t changed much in the year since Kaine’s supposed death. Still built like a linebacker who’d discovered protein powder and anger management issues. Still wore those custom gauntlets that had earned him his reputation as the Shadow Guard’s most effective close-combat specialist in this division.
Kaine had seen those gauntlets in action. They were powered by the same energy source that made their weapons effective against supernatural targets, but Steele had insisted on modifications that turned them into something closer to medieval siege equipment. Each punch could cave in a vampire’s skull, and the energy discharge could fry nervous systems that had been dead for decades.