She looks at the screen. At the frozen frame of a corridor she walked through. A door she opened. A woman’s face she can’t unsee.
“Fine,” she says. “One night. Frame it. Make it count.”
She leaves for the medical wing. I begin drafting.
A message for Okonkwo, framed around moral obligation. A message for Dmitri, framed around strategic advantage. The same footage attached to both.
Julian enters without knocking. Tablet in hand. Jaw set.
“Dr. Theodore Carson,” he says. “Peachwood University. Sullivan found him through his blood bank contacts. One of his hospital sources mentioned a researcher publishing on contaminant removal from stored blood. Sullivan pulled Carson’s papers, ran the methodology against our contamination profiles, and called an hour ago.”
Julian pauses. The pause is deliberate.
“Carson’s built a filtration system. Works like a dialysis machine, but for stored blood. No body attached. You run the blood from the bag through a multi-stage membrane filter. First stage catches the particulates. Microplastics, cellular debris. Second stage passes it through adsorption columns packed with resins that bind pharmaceutical compounds at the molecular level. Opioids, synthetic hormones, antibiotics. The columns pull the contaminants out without destroying the blood cells or the clotting factors.”
Julian taps the tablet.
“Sullivan says the prototype processes a unit of blood in under twenty minutes. If Carson can scale the columns, any territory with a clean room and a pump could purify their own supply. Independently. Without Konstantin.”
The words settle into the room.
Konstantin’s leverage over every lord in the Southeast is the contamination crisis. He capitalized on the crisis and sells the only reliable solution. If Carson’s method works at scale, lords don’t need Konstantin’s blood. They don’t need his farms. His entire position collapses.
If.
Julian isn’t finished.
“Sullivan published a query through one of his hospital contacts last week. Asking about Carson’s research, requesting access to his methodology. This morning, Sullivan’s contact called him back. Nervous. Said someone else had been asking about Carson. Same questions, different people. People who didn’t leave names.”
Julian sets his tablet on my desk.
“Sullivan drove to Peachwood tonight to warn Carson himself. He called from the parking lot a few minutes ago. Three vampires outside the research building. He recognized what they were.”
“Where is Sullivan now?”
“Inside. He walked into the building after he called. Three operatives just watched an unknown vampire enter the same building as their target. They’ll need to reassess. Check with their handler. Figure out if Carson has protection they didn’t expect.”
“How long does that buy us?”
“Minutes. Maybe less.”
I look at the tablet. Julian’s already pulled up the campus layout. Carson’s lab is in a research building on the eastern side. Third floor.
“Celeste is in the medical wing,” Julian says. “There’s no time to pull her out and brief her before that window closes.”
Three vampires outside a building where a human is working alone with his lights on. If I go now, I might get there before they go in. If I brief Celeste, assemble a team, and deploy, I don’t.
I know what I’m about to do to Celeste. I sat in a chair for four hours watching her walk through rooms full of cots and IV lines. The camera feed was the only thread holding me tothat chair. The bond carrying her heartbeat was the only thing keeping me in it. And I promised her I would let her lead.
I’m about to walk out of this compound without giving her any of that. No feed. No warning. No promise kept.
The body cameras are in the equipment room. Two floors down. Four minutes to retrieve, mount, and sync. Four minutes I don’t have.
I make the decision and I feel the cost of it land before I stand.
“Brief Marcellus,” I say. “Tell him I’ve left the compound and the reason.”
“And Celeste?”
