"Maximus," Marcellus presses. "Why is she here?"
I take a drink before answering, letting the silence stretch. Thinking about the last three days. About how I found her in the first place.
"Three nights ago," I begin, "I heard whispers at the Wax and Wane Bar. A young vampire asking about me. Using my name carelessly. Demanding introductions."
"And you tracked her."
"Of course I did."
It hadn't been difficult. Celeste Moreau left a trail wide enough for a fledgling to follow. She'd been to the Wax and Wane three nights running, asking questions of anyone who would listen. Vampires, shifters, even a witch or two. She'd offered money sheclearly didn't have, approached strangers with the kind of desperation that makes supernaturals nervous. The wolf shifters who run the bar had flagged her to me as a potential problem. Reckless. Desperate. Exactly the kind of behavior that gets vampires killed.
I'd followed her from the bar back to her apartment in East Atlanta Village that first night. Watched from the shadows as she climbed the external stairs to a second-floor unit in a building that had seen better decades. The kind of place where humans live paycheck to paycheck, where no one asks too many questions.
"I observed her for three nights," I continue. "Learned her patterns. Her habits."
"And what did you learn?" Marcellus asks, settling into the chair across from my desk.
I swirl the whiskey in my glass, remembering.
The first night, I'd simply established her location and confirmed she lived alone. Watched the lights go out in her apartment around 3 a.m. Noted the fire escape that provided easy access, and the lack of security beyond a basic door lock. Vulnerable. An easy kill, if that's what I decided.
The second night, I'd watched more carefully.
She'd emerged from her apartment around 10 p.m., dressed for training. I'd followed her to a twenty-four-hour gym three blocks away, one of those budget chains that caters to night shift workers and insomniacs. She'd worked out for two hours with the focused intensity of someone who'd spent years honing their body into a weapon.
I'd observed from the parking lot, standing in shadows where security cameras couldn't catch me. Watched through the windows as she ran through martial arts forms on the mats in a corner. Precise movements. Controlled power. The kind of discipline that comes from thousands of hours of practice.
She'd trained like she was preparing for war.
When she'd finished, she sat on the mat for ten minutes. Just sat there, staring at nothing. The look on her face had been… lost. Like she was trying to remember who she was supposed to be.
I understood that feeling.
"She's a fighter," I tell Marcellus. "Underground circuit, based on her skill level. Trained in multiple disciplines, I observed elements of Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and possibly Krav Maga. She moves like someone who's been in real fights, not just sparring."
"That makes her dangerous."
"That makes her useful."
Tonight had been the most revealing.
I'd positioned myself on the roof of the building across from her apartment, my enhanced vision allowing me to observe through her window with perfect clarity. An invasion of privacy, certainly, but I've long since stopped concerning myself with such niceties. Privacy is a luxury afforded to those who aren't security risks.
She'd been pacing her apartment like a caged animal. I'd watched her pick up her phone a dozen times and then set it down again without calling anyone. The conflict on her face had been evident even from a distance.
She had someone she missed. Someone she couldn't talk to anymore.
The frustration. The anger. The sheerrageat her situation.
I'd seen it all written on her face, and something in my chest had tightened.
She hadn't asked for this existence. That much was clear. She wasn't one of those humans who romanticized vampirism, who sought it out thinking immortality would solve their problems.She'd been turned against her will and abandoned to figure it out alone.
Like I was.
The parallel had struck me then, though I'd tried to dismiss it.
"Her maker abandoned her," I say to Marcellus now. "Turned her and disappeared. No guidance. No instruction. She's been a vampire for eight months, and she's surviving on instinct and whatever she can piece together from observation."
