Location: Authority Data Vault – Geneva Sector, 4th Tier Clearance
Nora stood alone in the steel chamber as the projection bled red text across her field of vision. The file was flagged "DEAD ACCESS," a designation reserved for legacy threats that had gone off-grid decades, sometimes centuries, ago.
The code name was simple:
SEVERANCE.
The dossier read like myth filtered through trauma, scattered reports from war zones, destroyed safehouses, agents who went silent mid-communication. The earliest references were in Aramaic. The most recent came from Shreveport.
But it wasn't the reports that stopped her. It was the signature at the bottom.
Lucan.
Nora didn't move for nearly a full minute. She just stared at the name like it might vanish if she blinked.
"Lucan… he lives."
Not a question. A realization. One her maker never confirmed, even as he'd spoken of his brother with a kind of quiet grief she hadn't understood at the time.
Godric had spoken of Lucan in fragments.
As a warrior. As a shadow. As a brother who had vanished not out of weakness, but conviction.
Nora thought he had died long ago. Her fingers danced across the controls, bringing up what little the Authority had:
No photographs.
No known progenies.
No confirmed appearances since 1850.
One signature trait: All known kills were surgically clean, dispassionate, final, and often reversed-glamoured into madness or memory loss.
And yet the file was active again. Because something, or someone in Shreveport had triggered old surveillance failsafes.
Lucan was alive and awake.
Nora's mouth was dry. Not from fear, but from the sharp, thrilling edge of clarity.
Lilith had promised divinity.
But Lucan?
Lucan was evolution. Quiet. Unbending. Alive while gods burned.
She wasn't afraid of him. She wanted to see what he chose to keep living for.
-----
The warehouse was empty. No electricity. No insulation. Just concrete, steel, and cold that cut through skin like smoke. Lucan stood near the center, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a long tarp stretched out behind him.
Amanda stood a few meters away, arms crossed, jaw clenched. She hadn't asked what they were doing and he hadn't explained. He simply nodded to the tarp.
She stepped forward. Underneath was a fresh body , maybe a day or two old. No visible wound, but the skin had the faint gray cast of someone who died suddenly, probably in pain.
Amanda flinched the moment she saw the face. It was one of Maryann's people. Someone she'd seen dancing in her backyard. He used to be a dishwasher at Merlotte's. He hadn't been evil. Just lost and now he was dead.
Lucan had brought him here like a training dummy.
"You said you'd teach me," she said.
Lucan nodded. "I am."
Amanda swallowed. "What do you want me to do?"
Lucan stepped closer.
"Sit. Touch his hand. Keep contact."
"For how long?"
"As long as it takes to stop shaking."
She stared at him.
"You're serious."
Lucan's face didn't move. "You can't just sense death anymore. You have to hold it. If you want to survive what's coming."
Amanda knelt beside the body, her hands trembling before they even reached his. Her fingertips brushed his palm and the tether snapped open.
She gasped and sank backward, but Lucan didn't move. She forced herself forward again, pressed her palm against the corpse's hand.
The world blurred. His final moments slammed into her like waves:
The music.
The laughter.
The knife, unseen.
The betrayal from someone he trusted.
Her spine locked and her breath stopped. The emotion, the fear, the sorrow, the regret, all clawed inside her like it was trying to drag her in.
Lucan crouched across from her now.
Watching.
Not reaching out.
Just waiting.
Amanda's nose bled. Her lips cracked open in a silent cry. But she didn't let go. After what felt like an hour, but was only a few minutes, Lucan finally spoke.
"Breathe through it."
"I can't."
"Yes, you can."
Her fingers were blue. Her heartbeat slowed.
Lucan reached out, touched her forehead lightly and the weight eased.
Not vanished. Just... thinned, enough to let her breathe again. She collapsed sideways, head hitting the concrete. Sweat soaked through her shirt.
Lucan looked down at her.
"You lasted longer than I expected."
Amanda turned her face toward him. "Did I pass?"
Lucan stood.
"There's no passing. Only surviving."
He walked to the door and didn't look back.
"You come back tomorrow," he said.
Amanda wiped her face with the back of her hand.
"You'll have another body waiting?"
Lucan paused.
"No," he said. "You'll bring it."
-----
The vampire's body was found at dusk. Propped against the wall of a half-burned church outside Monroe, Louisiana.
No fire damage or blood, just bones turned to fine dust inside the skin. Whoever had done it knew how to make the death clean and the message loud.
Eric arrived before sunrise.
Pam flanked him, sharp heels and sharper eyes scanning the perimeter while human authorities were still "delaying investigation due to a gas leak."
The body was still upright. Head tilted and mouth open like it died mid-scream.
Eric crouched beside it.
Then he saw the mark. Branded just above the heart, cut deep, seared in, cauterized with silver.
Three curved lines, intersected at the center.
Lucan's sigil.
But not exact, it was slightly warped. Like someone had copied it from memory... or intended it to be wrong.
Pam stepped beside him. "That's not subtle."
Eric stood slowly.
"No," he said. "It's a provocation."
Pam tilted her head. "You think it's Lucan?"
Eric shook his head.
"No. He wouldn't leave proof. Not like this."
Pam crossed her arms.
"So someone wants the world to think he's killing again."
Eric looked back at the body. "He never stopped."
He stepped away, pulled out his phone. The screen lit up with a private line.
Encrypted. Authority-grade.
But he didn't call. Not yet. Because there was one person who needed to see this first. And he wouldn't appreciate being summoned.
Miles away, in a storm-lit corner of Mississippi, Caelis stood on a rooftop, wind tugging at his coat, eyes closed.
He whispered to no one.
"He'll come now."
Behind him, something stirred.
Not vampire.
Not human.
Just wrong.
And it laughed like a child tapping on a coffin.