He thought of Ash then, fleeting but fierce, a craving he couldn’t shake. The kid’s taste clung to him still, even under the nicotine.Focus, Slade. That desire’s gonna get you killed.The Sculptor was out there somewhere, and every trail kept collapsing into nothing. Maybe the dead would speak, or maybehe’d walk out empty-handed again. But he had a job to do, and no time to waste on pining for someone he had no business wanting in the first place.
That was when the stink hit: rot and churned soil, carrion heavy enough to coat his tongue. A shape detached itself from the mausoleum ahead, darker than the shadows it left behind. Schreck glided forward as if the ground daredn’t acknowledge him. His bald head caught the weak light; a pale, gleaming skull rising out of the fog, eyes glinting with vulturine famine. A long black coat hung loose around him, heavy with clinging dirt, as though he’d just clawed out of the grave he’d slept in.
“Slaaade,” the vampire rasped, voice like rust dragged over stone. “Do you know how many favors I was forced to call in, merely to have your request delivered? Consider my debts repaid.”
Rick’s jaw clenched. “Fine. We’re even. Now talk.”
Schreck’s lip twitched over those rodent teeth, revealing something between a smile and a snarl. When he spoke, his words slithered between the gravestones, an ill wind thick with malady and age.
“The symbol you seek doesn’t belong to a language as you know it. It’s a fragment of what scholars once called the Supreme Alphabet… a geometry that redefines the boundaries of our physical plane. Form given to thought. Thought given to matter.” A curl of fog drifted around them, thin as breath. The vampire’s eyes caught the glint of lamplight from the path, burning cold. “The Hierophant spoke of a book called theCodex Tenebris: a heretic’s guide to the impossible. It teaches that reality can be molded by design, bent by the right patterns, the right frequencies.”
Rick’s jaw clenched. “What does that have to do with the murders?”
“Everything, mutt.” The rasp of Schreck’s voice scraped the night, each word tasting of old iron. “Your symbol is a key that rewrites the space it touches. Each time, it opens a door—a small one, perhaps, but doors have a way of widening when fed.”
The mist seemed to thicken, muffling the city’s far-off hum. Rick’s pulse beat loud in his ears. “You’re saying the killings are some kind of ritual.”
“I’m saying,” Schreck hissed, “that whoever drew those marks either understands more than most—or nothing at all. He’s offering himself up, to be remade. But the power like that doesn’t grant favors. It only consumes.”
“Offering himself to what?” Rick muttered.
“Things that don’t answer to names.”
Rick exhaled, breath silvering in the cold air. “All right. How do I stop him?”
Schreck tilted his head, smile thin as a knife’s edge. “The sequence needs seven keys—seven sacrifices to set the pattern. That’s what the Hierophant said. Catch him before the last falls, and the circle collapses. The gate remains closed.”
Rick gave a curt nod, pulse steadying even as dread coiled in his gut. Six kills. One more left. He’d half-expected the creature to laugh in his face. This was worse. “And if it doesn’t?”
Schreck’s eyes gleamed in the fog, twin embers in the dark. “Then pray this city drowns quickly.”
Rick opened his mouth to speak, but the vampire’s head cocked suddenly, sharp as a snake scenting heat. A branch stirred in the bushes past the gravestones, too deliberate for wind. Schreck’s nostrils flared. His body coiled. Then he was gone in a blur, a black streak leaping across the tombs.
“Wait—God dammit!” Rick was already moving, muscles detonating under his skin, legs hurling him forward before the thought had even finished.
The impact hit like timber splitting. A grunt, a wet crack, and Rick caught Frank’s scent before his eyes even found him. His partner went flying, shoulder first against a headstone, then dropped hard, his skull hitting marble. The sound turned Rick’s gut cold. Frank’s body folded to the grass, twitching once before going still.
Schreck crouched over him, claws splayed across Frank’s chest, pinning him to the cold stone. The vampire’s face was inches from his throat, fangs glistening. Rot and grave-earth swamped the air.
Rick roared with a sound not human. “Don’t.” It was more growl than word, a warning dragged up from the beast’s gut. He dropped low on all fours, spine arched, shoulders bunching, every sinew coiled to strike. His lips peeled back from his teeth. Low snarls vibrated through him, a predator answering another.
Schreck’s gaze flicked up, fire glinting in his pupils. “Do not stand between a vampire and his prey, cur.”
Rick’s vision went red. He advanced fast and low, circling, cutting the distance with murder in every line of his body. He was a breath from springing, claws flexed, the beast in him aching to rake and tear until nothing but bone was left. “Touch him, and I end you,” he growled. “Right here.” His chest surged and fell like storm surf, the inner killer gnawing at the leash. “He wasn’t supposed to be here. You want debt? Fine. But he’s not yours.”
For a beat, Schreck lingered, savoring the sight of blood threading down Frank’s face. His tongue darted to catch the scent. Rick tensed to leap, every nerve braced for violence. Then, like fog thinning in the morning, the vampire recoiled. He peeled off Frank, retreating one slow step at a time, fangs flashing. “A new debt, then. One more thread knotted tight around your throat.” His hiss bled into the night as he melted backwardbetween the stones, vanishing with nothing left but the whisper of dead leaves.
Rick was on Frank instantly. He dropped to his knees, sliding his arms under his partner’s shoulders, lifting his head into his lap. Blood ran along Frank’s temple, darkening his hair, staining the grass. Rick pressed his palm hard to the wound, trying to staunch it, breath ragged. Alive, thank Christ, but his pulse was thready, shallow.
“Stay with me,” Rick muttered, rocking him gently. “Don’t you goddamn check out on me. Not here.”
With his free hand, he tore at his coat pocket, fingers clumsy, dragging out his phone. Red smeared across the screen as he jabbed the number, the dialing tone a scream piercing the graveyard’s silence.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Officer down,” Rick barked, voice cracking. “Hyde Cemetery, main entrance off Pikestone. He’s unconscious—head trauma, bleeding from the skull. He needs an ambulancenow.”
“Sir, is the victim breathing?”
