The Spire of Silk smelled of ozone and antiseptic.
Elara lay face down on a slab of cold stone, her back exposed. Her ribs were a canvas of purple and black, shifting under the skin as they were forced back into alignment.
Krixis worked with the tenderness of a mother and the precision of a surgeon. His multiple limbs moved in a blur. One claw held a magnifying glass, another held a suture needle, and a third poured a glowing, amber liquid onto her skin.
"The Royal Nectar," Krixis clicked, his mandibles twitching with agitation. "Harvested from the Queen of the Hive. It is worth more than your life, little one. And I am wasting it on bruises you earned through stupidity."
The liquid sizzled as it touched Elara's skin. It burned like fire, but she didn't flinch. She felt the heat seep into her muscles, accelerating the cellular regeneration. It was a secret Krixis kept from the High Council—a way to keep his favorite pet operational.
"I wasn't stupid," Elara mumbled into the stone slab. "I was testing his perimeter."
"You were playing with a god," Krixis scolded. "Valerius does not have 'perimeters.' He has kill zones. Did you get the location of the Armory Key? Did you secure the target?"
Elara closed her eyes. She could still feel the phantom pressure of Valerius's hand on her chin. I will make you a Queen.
"No," Elara lied. Her voice was steady. "He is... difficult to pin down. I need more time."
She didn't tell Krixis about the offer. Krixis thought in terms of territory and food. He wouldn't understand the concept of a death wish. He would think it was a trap, or he would try to intervene and get himself killed. This was her hunt.
"The bounty stands," Krixis hissed, applying a final bandage. "Thirty thousand credits. But if you return broken again, I will let you heal the human way. Slowly. Painfully."
Elara sat up. She flexed her arm. The shoulder pop was gone. The ribs were sore but stable. The Nectar was a miracle.
"I won't be broken next time," Elara said, hopping off the slab. Her eyes were hard. "Next time, I'm bringing the heavy machinery."
Valerius was a creature of habit, but he was also a creature of arrogance. He didn't change his routine because he didn't fear ambush.
The next night, he walked near the Industrial Sector, specifically past the old Water Treatment Plant. It was a massive facility of rusted pipes and churning turbines that still processed the city's toxic sludge.
Elara wasn't hiding in the shadows this time. She was waiting by the main intake valve.
She had spent the morning rigging the facility. She had bypassed the safety protocols, overclocked the motors, and greased the gears.
Valerius walked onto the catwalk above the primary intake—a massive, spinning turbine the size of a house, designed to grind solid waste into slurry. The noise was deafening, a mechanical roar that vibrated in the teeth.
He stopped. He looked at Elara, who was standing on the far side of the catwalk, her hand on a large, red lever.
"Elara," he shouted over the roar. He looked amused. "No dress tonight? I am disappointed."
"Work clothes," Elara shouted back. She was wearing a rubberized tactical suit, slick and tight. "I noticed something last night, Valerius."
"And what is that?"
"You heal fast. But you heal from pieces. You reassemble."
Valerius took a step forward. "Correct."
"So," Elara grinned, a manic, terrifying expression. "What happens if the pieces are constantly moving? What happens if you can't stop being separated?"
Valerius paused. He looked down at the turbine below. The blades were spinning so fast they were invisible, a vortex of death.
"An industrial slurry grinder," Valerius mused. "Crude."
"Effective," Elara countered.
She didn't wait for him to attack. She didn't shoot him.
She pulled the lever.
The catwalk Valerius was standing on didn't just tilt; the bolts Elara had loosened earlier gave way completely. The metal groaned, snapped, and the entire section of the bridge collapsed.
Valerius fell.
He didn't scream. He didn't try to grab the edge. He just looked at Elara, his eyebrows raised in mild surprise, as he plummeted into the machine.
CRUNCH.
The sound was wet and metallic. It sounded like a semi-truck driving through a swimming pool of gelatin.
Elara ran to the edge, peering through the reinforced glass observation window.
It was horrific.
Valerius hit the blades. Instantly, his body was pulled apart. An arm flew to the left, shredded into ribbons. His legs were caught in the gears, pulverized into a red mist. The machine groaned under the strain of his dense bone structure, sparks flying as the blades chewed through his immortal ribcage.
Blood—so much blood—coated the inside of the turbine chamber. It painted the glass black.
Elara watched, fascinated. The machine didn't stop. It kept churning, cycling the gore, grinding the chunks into smaller and smaller pieces.
He can't heal from this, she thought. He's liquid. He's paste.
Minutes passed. The machine roared. The red slurry spun.
Then, over the deafening noise... she heard it.
Laughter.
It wasn't a gargled, dying sound. It was booming, resonant, joyous laughter.
The slurry began to move against the centrifugal force. The red mist slowed down. The chunks of meat caught in the gears began to liquefy and stream together.
Right in the center of the spinning blades, a form began to take shape. A skeleton knitted itself together from white dust. Muscles wove around it like fast-growing vines. Skin snapped into place.
Valerius stood in the center of the turbine, his feet clamped onto the spinning hub. He was naked, his clothes destroyed, covered in blood and grease.
He was laughing so hard he was doubled over.
He looked up at Elara through the gore-streaked glass. His eyes were glowing brighter than she had ever seen.
"Magnificent!" he roared. "I felt every second of that! The friction! The tearing! It tickled!"
Elara stared, her mouth slightly open. "You... it tickled?"
Valerius punched the glass. SMASH.
He leaped from the machine, landing on the platform next to her. He was dripping with blood, completely unashamed, radiating a terrifying heat.
"I haven't been ground into paste since the Goblin Wars of the Second Era!" Valerius declared, wiping slime from his face. "But that was a rock crusher. This... this was superior! The torque! The RPMs!"
Elara stepped back, gripping her knife. She was furious. She had turned him into soup, and he was treating it like a roller coaster ride.
"Why won't you die?" she screamed, lunging at him.
She stabbed him in the throat. The knife went in to the hilt.
Valerius didn't even blink. He grabbed her hand, stopping her from twisting the blade.
"Do better!" he commanded, grinning. "That was a seven out of ten. The concept was solid, but you forgot the containment. I am not just flesh, Elara. I am Highborn blood."
He pulled the knife out of his own throat and tossed it aside. The wound closed instantly.
"Ask me," he said suddenly, his tone shifting from manic to serious.
Elara blinked. "What?"
"You are confused. You are angry. You are looking at me like I am a puzzle you cannot solve. Ask the question that is burning a hole in your tongue."
Elara looked at him. He stood there, bloodied and naked, looking far more human than the insectoid monsters or the shapeless beasts that roamed the streets.
"What are you?" she whispered. "You're Highborn. You came from the portal. But you don't look like Krixis. You don't look like the others. You look... like us."
Valerius sat down on a clean patch of the railing, ignoring his lack of clothing. He looked at the moon.
"I am a Vampire," Valerius said simply. "We are the aristocracy of the Other World. The Apex. While the insect-kind built hives, and the beast-kind hunted in packs, my kind built empires."
He pointed to his chest.
"We look human because we are the ultimate hunters. To catch the prey, one must resemble the prey. But do not mistake the resemblance for kinship."
"But the other vampires..." Elara frowned. "I've killed your kind before. Lower-level vampires. They die when I take their heads. They burn in the sun. Why are you different?"
"Because I am old, Elara," Valerius said, his voice carrying the weight of centuries. "I am eight hundred years old. In my world, I was a King before the portal ever opened to this one."
"Eight hundred years," Elara repeated, lowering her guard slightly.
"Yes. I have lived through eras you cannot imagine. I have conquered realms in the Other World, and I have watched them crumble into dust. I came to Earth when the portals opened, hoping for something new. Something... vibrant."
He looked around the rusting factory.
"But it is the same," he sighed. "Conquest. Slavery. Death. I have seen it all a thousand times. I am bored, Elara. My immortality has become a cage."
Elara pulled a pistol from her thigh holster. She aimed at his heart.
"Does silver hurt you?"
"It itches."
BANG.
She shot him in the chest. Valerius rocked back slightly but didn't stop talking.
"Garlic?"
"I appreciate the seasoning. It makes the blood taste less metallic."
BANG. Another shot. This time to the stomach.
"Sunlight?" Elara asked, reloading.
"Unpleasant. Like a mild rash. But I have had eight centuries to build up a tolerance. I am not some fledgling neonate who bursts into flames at noon."
Elara scoffed, holstering the gun. "So you're invincible. You're a god among monsters."
"I am tired," Valerius corrected softly. "That is all I am. A tired old man in a young man's body."
He looked at her. The laughter was gone. The ancient sadness was back.
"That is why I need you. You possess a human creativity that my kind lost long ago. You don't just hunt; you invent."
Elara stepped closer. She reached out and touched the fresh skin on his chest where she had just shot him. It was smooth. Perfect.
"I'm going to figure it out," she promised. "I'm going to find the thing that keeps you here, and I'm going to break it."
"I hope so," Valerius said.
Elara moved lightning fast. She drew a hidden garrote wire and wrapped it around his neck, pulling tight with all her strength. She put her knee in his back, leverage applied perfectly to sever the head.
Valerius didn't fight back. He let her pull. The wire dug into his skin, blood welling up.
"The windpipe is cartilage," Valerius rasped, sounding like a teacher correcting a student. "You need to saw, not pull. And shift your weight to the left."
Elara gritted her teeth, sawing frantically. "Shut up! I'm killing you!"
"You're annoying me," he wheezed. "But the angle is better."
The wire snapped.
Elara stumbled back, panting, holding the broken wire.
Valerius rubbed his neck, the red line fading.
"Better," he nodded approvingly. "But you need a diamond-edged wire for this density of muscle. I have some in my vault. I'll lend it to you for tomorrow."
Elara screamed in frustration and threw the broken wire at his face.
"I hate you!"
Valerius smiled, a genuine, soft smile that reached his garnet eyes.
"I know," he said tenderly. "See you tomorrow, Little Hunter. Try fire next time. Real fire. Not that matchstick nonsense."