The whistling wasn't a melody; it was a vibration. It was the sound of air being pushed through a throat that was no longer shaped for human speech.
"Get to the center of the room," Alucard commanded, his voice dropping into that terrifying, low register. "Away from the vents. Now!"
Anne didn't argue. The sheer authority in his voice made her move. She stood back-to-back with him, her Glock raised toward the ceiling. "Alucard, if this is some corporate hit squad, I can handle it. But you need to tell me what the hell we’re actually fighting."
"A mistake," Carmela answered from behind her obsidian desk. She looked bored, but her fingers were white where they gripped her glass. "A man who tried to play God and ended up a parasite."
Clack.
The metal vent cover in the corner of the ceiling didn't just fall; it was pushed outward by something gray and translucent. A shape slithered out—Victor Hesse was no longer a man. He was a nightmare of pale, stretched skin and elongated limbs, his bones clicking as they repositioned themselves to fit into the room.
He moved like a snake, his belly dragging against the expensive carpet, his eyes milky and lidless.
"Victor," Alucard said, stepping forward. "Stop. You’re sick."
The creature hissed, a spray of black bile hitting the floor. It lunged.
It didn't go for Alucard. It knew better than to attack a son of Dracula. It went for the "pure" scent in the room. It went for Anne.
"Anne, move!"
Alucard intercepted the creature in mid-air. The two slammed into a glass trophy case, shattering it into a thousand diamond-like shards. Alucard shifted his weight, trying to pin the creature down, but Victor was like trying to hold onto wet silk. The creature’s elongated fingers, tipped with needle-like claws, raked across Alucard’s forearm.
Alucard hissed in pain. His blood—thick and dark—hit the floor.
"Alucard!" Anne screamed. She fired two rounds. The bullets hit the creature's back, but Victor didn't even flinch. He didn't have vital organs anymore; he was just a bag of hunger and venom.
The creature whipped its tail-like lower body, catching Alucard in the chest and throwing him across the room. Alucard hit the wall with a sickening thud and slumped to the ground, momentarily dazed.
Victor turned toward Anne, his jaw unhinging like a python's.
"My turn," Anne whispered.
She didn't run. She remembered her training—not from the police academy, but from the streets. She grabbed a heavy glass decanter from Carmela’s side table and smashed it, leaving a jagged edge. As the creature lunged, she didn't fire her gun—she knew bullets were failing. She grabbed a nearby decorative silver letter opener from the desk and jammed it into the creature's throat.
The creature let out a high-pitched shriek that shattered the windows of the office. Silver. It was the one thing Carmela’s "pets" couldn't handle.
The creature thrashed, knocking Anne backward. She hit the desk, her head snapping back.
Alucard was on his feet in an instant. The sight of Anne slumped against the desk, a small trail of blood running down her forehead, sent him into a cold, murderous rage.
He didn't use his fangs. He didn't use his hands. He grabbed the creature by its elongated neck, his eyes glowing like twin embers. "You touched her," he breathed. "Now you burn."
He slammed the creature against the floor and held it there, his grip crushing the windpipe. He looked at Carmela. "End it. Now."
Carmela sighed, standing up. She pulled a small remote from her pocket and pressed a button. Suddenly, the overhead UV lights—the "disinfectant" system she had installed for 'safety'—flared to a blinding intensity.
To Alucard, it felt like standing too close to a furnace. To Victor, it was a death sentence. The creature began to smoke, its pale skin bubbling and turning to ash. Within seconds, there was nothing left on the carpet but a pile of gray dust and a silver letter opener.
The Aftermath
The office was silent. The smell of burnt ozone and cloves hung heavy in the air.
Alucard ignored his own bleeding arm. He knelt beside Anne, his heart—that slow, heavy organ—racing for the first time in a century.
"Anne? Anne, look at me."
She opened her eyes, her vision blurry. She saw Alucard. She saw the blood on his arm. And she saw his eyes—they weren't blue. They were red. Bright, vivid, undeniable red.
"You... you’re bleeding," she whispered, reaching up to touch his face. Her fingers came away stained with his dark, cool blood. "And your eyes... Al, what's happening?"
Alucard looked at Carmela, who was watching them with an arched eyebrow.
"She saw too much, brother," Carmela said, her voice devoid of its usual teasing. "You know the rules. Either she joins the family, or she forgets. And I don't think she’s ready for the Sunday roast at the Dracula mansion."
Alucard looked back at Anne. She was looking at him with trust—even in her confusion. He could feel her pulse under his hand. It was beautiful. It was life.
"I can't keep doing this to you," he whispered.
"Doing... what?" Anne asked.
Alucard leaned in, his face inches from hers. His scent—rain and old books—swirled around her. "You’re going to remember a gas leak," he began, his voice taking on that heavy, hypnotic weight. "You’re going to remember that the researcher attacked us with a chemical agent. You’re going to remember that I saved you, and then we went back to the precinct."
"Alucard... no..." Anne’s eyes began to glaze over, but this time, her hand gripped his sleeve tightly. "Stop... don't make me... forget..."
A single tear tracked through the dust on her cheek.
Alucard hesitated. His power flickered. For a second, he almost let the hypnosis go. He almost told her everything.
But then he looked at the pile of ash on the floor. He looked at Carmela, the Queen of Monsters. If Anne knew the truth, she would be a target. She would be part of a war she wasn't armed to fight.
"Sleep, Anne," he whispered, his voice breaking. "Forget the monster. Remember the partner."
Her grip on his sleeve loosened. Her eyes closed.
The Precinct - One Hour Later
Anne woke up at her desk. Her head throbbed.
"Ugh. What happened?" she groaned, looking around.
Alucard was sitting across from her, calmly drinking from his "World's Best Detective" mug. He looked perfectly fine, though his left sleeve was rolled down and buttoned tight.
"Gas leak at the Sanguine Tower," Alucard said, not looking up from his paperwork. "A faulty vent system. You inhaled a bit of the fumes and passed out. I brought you back here."
Anne rubbed her temples. "Right. The gas. I remember... the whistling sound. And then... darkness."
She looked down at her hand. There was a faint, dark smudge on her fingertip. She rubbed it, but it didn't come off. It looked like a dried drop of... something.
"Are we done for the night?" she asked, her voice sounding hollow to her own ears.
"Almost," Alucard said. He stood up, his eyes shielded by his tinted glasses. "Go home, Jones. Get some rest. We have a new lead on the 'Rache' killer tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow, Al," she said, grabbing her bag.
As she walked away, Alucard watched her. He waited until she was gone before he reached into his pocket and pulled out the small polaroid from the theater. He looked at the scratch he had made, then at the photo one last time before dropping it into a shredder.
In the corner of the room, his phone buzzed. A text from Carmela:
The hypnosis is getting weaker, Alucard. She’s starting to fight back. What are you going to do when she finally sees the fangs?
Alucard didn't reply. He just took another sip of his tomato juice. It tasted like ashes.
107Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpP426o6i0L
107Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjIllYk9xUS
and then Add to home screen.