Even with his guard up, Ben Shaw's demeanor never changed. He acted as if he didn't notice the woman's subtle prompts, and let himself "naturally" reveal most of the basics about him.
They chatted pleasantly. After breakfast, she didn't linger or exchange contacts—just a normal chance meeting between strangers.
Ben left the restaurant and walked back toward his apartment, alert to his surroundings. He sensed no tail.
"Alone?" he wondered.
Over the next stretch of days, things unfolded as he expected. He kept his morning runs, studied at home, and used his self-taught IT skills to earn some cash online.
Every so often, he'd "coincidentally" run into the woman at breakfast.
They grew familiar, and their topics widened—often landing on the now-famous serial killer. Ben openly expressed admiration for the vigilante.
Few young people didn't idolize a righteous judge.
"Jenny," as she called herself, shared details about her life, too: a 26-year-old psychological counselor who'd recently moved to Queens, living about a hundred meters from Ben's building, planning to open a therapy practice. She liked fitness and tennis.
It all sounded normal—but Ben didn't buy it. He also noticed her physical condition surpassed most adult men.
Which meant some organization had likely tagged him—maybe just as a person of interest—and sent someone to observe.
Police? FBI? An agent?
Ben leaned toward the last. Her poise and language work screamed expert. She could lower defenses—especially in men—without being obvious. A spy, more than a therapist.
S.H.I.E.L.D.?
The thought brought a wry smile. Hydra's shadows, too—Snake Shield, anyone?
The more you do, the more you expose. And this Queens massacre was easy to bracket down.
It was a clean air-drop of suspicion—but Ben had no intention of going fully dark. Patience had been an early-stage tactic, not a permanent stance.
Now that his one-on-one combat ability far exceeded normal, he needed to push further. So he set his sights on a new class of targets.
Vampires.
Not of my kind, not of my mind. Ben's stance toward extraordinary lifeforms was simple: they were nourishment.
Vampires and werewolves, especially—prime sources of experience while he grew.
A hunter doesn't need a reason for prey. Vampires don't need a reason to target young, beautiful women. Likewise, he didn't need a reason to target vampires and werewolves.
The next day, instead of staying home, he visited gold-and-silver shops to buy silver. Unlike gold, silver ran about four dollars a gram. He needed it to craft anti-vampire weapons.
A longsword over a meter long would weigh roughly one to two kilograms.
By that math, a pure silver blade would cost $4,000 to $8,000.
Impractical anyway—silver's too soft and brittle for a sword core.
Experienced vampire hunters use steel cores with silver coatings.
Silver's antimicrobial properties and occult "bane" effect make it ideal for killing vampires—but you don't need much.
Even so, Ben bought about two kilograms of silver—enough to plate four or five swords and several daggers.
The U.S. had chain stores selling swords as "collectibles," and prices weren't low, especially for custom work.
He found a reputable forge.
A basic cruciform sword might run four hundred—custom, closer to a thousand.
He commissioned four cross swords and two Gurkha-style kukri machetes—short, brutal blades.
Total: four thousand dollars.
The order size tracked with his current mindset toward vampires. He wasn't afraid of numbers—he was concerned about damaging weapons during extended hunts.
While the smith worked, Ben prepped.
For two days and nights, he moved through different parts of New York—nightclubs, bars, upscale restaurants, hotels—watching quietly. His heightened senses gave him something like intuition.
A bit like Spider-Man's tingle.
And closer to a scaled-down Superman blend.
His hearing picked up blood flow and heartbeats.
His sight wasn't at molecular resolution, but he could read beneath the skin—surface structures, fine detail.
Combined with hearing, it was like an X-scan.
Add his sharpened sense of smell, and he could tell at a glance whether he was facing a human—or not.
As he suspected, New York had plenty of vampires. He tailed several and found multiple nests. Rough estimate: in the thousands, with bars and nightclubs harboring the most. Manhattan's business districts had a fair share, too.
Queens had some—but with recent heat, they'd burrowed. Ben didn't bother hunting them there.
He'd start in Brooklyn and work his way toward Manhattan.
As for "Jenny," if she wanted to keep up the act, he wouldn't call it out. The longer this played, the less pressure he'd feel from human authorities.
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