Chapter 121 | Neon and Blood | Leah
The city air smelled like burning plastic.
I stood on the street corner, wings tucked under a long coat Adrian had given me. The coat was dark gray, the rough fabric scraping against the wound on my back. The gun was stuck in my waistband, the cold metal barrel pressing against my skin.
Kael walked on my left, his steps unsteady. Every ten steps or so he'd stop, grab onto a streetlight pole, and lower his head to catch his breath. The white streetlight made his face look sickly pale.
"How much further?" I asked.
"Three kilometers," he said, gripping the pole tighter until his knuckles turned white. "That building. The one with the red light."
I looked where he was pointing. In the distance, a glass building cut into the night sky, its top flashing red every three seconds. In Side A, that would be the Court's warning signal. Here, it was probably just advertising.
But Night Walkers were definitely heading that way.
I could see how they moved—not flying, not jumping, but crawling along the shadows of buildings. Their golden slit pupils flashed in the darkness like animals. Evolution had given them the ability to walk upright, but instinct still made them stick to walls and pipes.
A Night Walker poked its head out of a sewer grate. Its scales caught the neon light—gray with gold streaks. It sniffed the air, locked its pupils on us, then pulled back and kept moving forward.
They were showing us the way.
"Why don't they just attack the building?" I asked.
"Because something in there scares them," Kael said, letting go of the pole and walking on. "The fragment. Their evolved instincts tell them that thing is more dangerous than UV light."
The street got narrower. The gap between buildings shrank from twenty meters to five. The walls were covered in posters, the paper soaked and rotting from rain, with writing I couldn't read—human writing. But I understood the pictures: selling blood, selling drugs, selling organs.
A drunk guy leaned against the wall holding a glass bottle. He saw Kael's wings sticking out from under his coat and rubbed his eyes.
"Cool..." he mumbled. "Nice cosplay..."
Kael ignored him. I gripped the gun, finger on the trigger.
The drunk didn't come closer. He just lifted his phone, and the flash went off.
"Don't let him take pictures," Kael said.
Too late.
But I knew what he meant. Photos would spread. Human hunting groups—the ones Xiao Qi had mentioned, who specialized in hunting Night Walkers—might notice two winged "cosplayers."
We walked faster.
Going through an alley, Kael suddenly stopped.
"Someone's following us," he said quietly.
I didn't turn around. Through the Bloodbond, I could feel his alertness—his back muscles tensing, his heartbeat jumping from forty to sixty beats per minute.
"How many?"
"Two. Human. Been following since the castle."
Footsteps came from behind. Leather shoes stepping in puddles, making sharp sounds. Not the scraping of Night Walker claws.
I turned around.
Two men. Both wearing black windbreakers and hats, no guns in their hands, but bulges at their waists—hidden weapons. The tall one had stubble, the short one wore glasses.
The tall one spoke: "Mr. de Noct, Miss Vane. Come with us."
"No," Kael said.
"This isn't a request." The short one stepped forward, hand moving to his waist. "We're Side B Scavengers. We handle trash that falls from Side A. You two—"
His eyes swept over my wings.
"—count as high-risk items."
Kael moved.
He didn't use any special powers or speed, but he had height and weight. He just rammed straight into the short guy, shoulder hitting his chest. The short guy flew back and slammed into the wall, his glasses shattering.
The tall one pulled his gun. Not a UV light, but a real gun—black barrel pointed at Kael's head.
I fired.
The UV bullet hit the tall guy's wrist. He screamed and dropped the gun. His skin bubbled and burned right before our eyes.
"Run!" I grabbed Kael's hand.
We ran.
The buildings on both sides of the alley flew past. Kael was breathing hard, wet rattling sounds in his lungs. I dragged him into an even narrower gap, squeezed between trash cans and a rusty iron gate.
Shouting came from behind. More footsteps. More than two people.
"How many Scavengers are there?" I asked.
"Don't know," Kael said, leaning against an iron door. The door swung open from his weight, showing an abandoned warehouse inside. "But they're easier to deal with than Night Walkers."
We rushed into the warehouse.
Inside were stacks of wooden crates with writing I couldn't read. The air smelled like mold and machine oil. I found a corner and pushed Kael behind some sacks, then peeked out to watch the entrance.
Three shadows came in from the alley. All had guns.
"How many bullets do you have left?" Kael asked.
I checked the magazine. Adrian had given me two rows of bullets, eight in each row. I'd fired one at the warehouse entrance. Fifteen left.
"Not enough," I said.
"Then hide," he said. "Wait for the Night Walkers."
"Night Walkers?"
"They've been following us the whole way," Kael said, closing his eyes and leaning against the sacks. "Scavengers are chasing us, they're chasing the Scavengers. Just wait."
Ten seconds later, something crashed through the warehouse roof.
Not a sound humans could make. The sound of claws ripping through metal sheets.
A Night Walker dropped down from the hole in the roof, hanging upside down, its golden slit pupils glowing in the dark. It glanced toward the Scavengers, then let out a screech—like nails on a chalkboard.
More Night Walkers poured in through the roof.
The Scavengers opened fire. Real bullets hit the Night Walkers' scales, sending up sparks, but didn't break through. The Night Walkers lunged, claws digging into the Scavengers' shoulders, teeth sinking into throats.
Screaming. Bones cracking. Blood splattered across the wooden crates.
I covered Kael's ears. He opened his eyes and looked at me but said nothing.
The Night Walkers' killing spree lasted thirty seconds. All three Scavengers were down. The Night Walkers didn't eat them—evolved Night Walkers no longer relied purely on blood to survive. They just killed the intruders, then raised their heads and looked toward our hiding spot.
No hostility in those golden slit pupils.
They turned and left through the roof. One paused at the opening and looked back, pupils blinking.
Then it left too.
The warehouse went quiet. Blood spread across the concrete floor, flowing toward our feet.
Kael stood up, stepped over the bodies, and walked toward the back door of the warehouse.
"They're not our allies," he said. "They're just clearing obstacles. At the base of that tower, if they decide we're useless, they'll kill us too."
I stepped over the Scavenger's body. The tall one's eyes were still open, his wrist still smoking from the UV burn.
The back door opened into another alley. Narrower, darker. At the end was an iron door with a symbol spray-painted in red—a bat.
The de Noct family crest.
Kael put his hand on the door. It wasn't locked. He pushed it open to reveal stairs going down.
"Underground passage from the castle," he said. "It runs under the city. Adrian mentioned it."
We went down.
The stairs went on forever. The walls changed from concrete to brick, then to bare rock. The air got colder and damper. The steps were covered in slippery moss. I held onto the wall and came away with a handful of water.
After about five minutes, we reached a stone door at the bottom. There were words carved into it—ancient vampire language.
Kael read them: "The Gatekeeper's Rest."
He pushed the door open.
Inside was a round stone room. In the center was a stone bed, and on the bed lay a person.
No, not a person. A mummy. Wearing de Noct family formal clothes, hands crossed over its chest. The skin was dried out, clinging to the bones, but it still had hair—silver-black.
"Another Gatekeeper," I said.
Kael walked up to the stone bed. His fingers touched the mummy's hand.
"Not a Gatekeeper," he said, his voice flat. "It's me."
I froze.
"What?"
"Me from three thousand years ago," he said. "The body left behind when I was split. The weak part was cut away, but the body stayed. My father... brought it to Side B. Hid it underground."
I moved closer. Looked carefully at the mummy's face.
It was true. The features were identical to Kael's, but younger, without the marks of time. If it opened its eyes, it would be Kael from before he turned three hundred.
"Why is it here?" I asked.
"As an anchor," Kael said. "To fix the Door's position. Gatekeepers need anchors, or the passage drifts."
His hand moved away from the mummy's hand.
Then the mummy opened its eyes.
A sigh echoed through the stone room. Not breathing, but air being squeezed from an empty chest cavity.
"...Finally..." Its voice was like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. "...Waited... so long... for you..."
Kael stepped back. My hand went to the gun.
The mummy's head turned toward us. There were no eyeballs in the sockets, just two dried blood scabs. But it was definitely "looking."
"...The fragment... is in the tower..." the mummy said. "...But it's not the only one... there's another... somewhere closer..."
"Where?" Kael asked.
The mummy raised its hand. The bones scraped together, making a sound that set your teeth on edge. It pointed to a corner of the stone room.
In the corner was a mirror.
Not an ordinary mirror. Polished blood crystal, the frame carved with runes. The mirror's surface didn't show our reflection, but another scene—
The castle. Adrian's castle.
A dark shadow stood at the castle's main entrance. Not a Night Walker. Something bigger than a Night Walker. Made of black threads and dark red light woven together, shaped like a human but with three swirling vortices on its head, like three overlapping faces.
It was knocking.
Adrian's voice came from the mirror, faint but clear:
"...Dad?"