The Grid of the Vince Duchy
The specialized investigation unit didn't belong to the standard state hierarchy. Behind the polished badges and the impeccably tailored trench coats lay the ironclad architecture of a deep-state safety net. Detective Quive Stephenson wasn't just an officer in charge; he was the commander of a highly classified network of supernatural agents surgically inserted by the government to monitor, catalog, and eliminate anything that strayed from the normal parameters of human society.
The organization had been christened Vince Duchy, a black-budget operation born years ago under the direct influence and funding of the late Governor Vince. Following the governor's passing, Quive had assumed complete control as both the tactical leader of the Duchy and the head police officer of the regional task force. Standing directly at his right hand was Detective Alice Jarvis, the vice leader of the organization and the undisputed head detective of the Ohio police unit. Every single detective currently dusting the bark or holding back the student crowd belonged to her specific department—meaning the entire local precinct was, in reality, a unified cell of highly trained hunters operating under the guise of municipal law enforcement.
Quive straightened up, his trench coat snapping in the sharp morning wind as he looked away from the pinned corpse. "Jarvis, lock down the campus camera feeds for the last twelve hours," he commanded softly, his eyes tracking a group of students watching from the dormitory paths. "If the late governor's legacy taught us anything, it's that monsters don't stop at the tree line. The Vince Duchy is on active alert. I want every anomalous heartbeat on this campus flagged by noon."
Alice Jarvis nodded, her pen clicking with a cold, professional finality. "The department is already moving, Commander. If it bleeds, we'll find the trail."
The Stagnant Mirror*
Inside the suffocating quiet of his dorm room, Damon stood motionless before the faded, yellowing mirror above his sink. The morning light filtering through the cheap plastic blinds was unforgiving.
He leaned closer to the glass, his fingers gripping the porcelain edges so tightly that the basin groaned under the pressure. His reflection was a disaster. The usual aristocratic, pale perfection of his skin had curdled into a sickly, translucent marble, almost gray in the corners of his eyes. Worse still, his hand drifted down to his midsection, pulling back the blood-stiffened fabric of his shirt.
The deep, jagged furrows left by the werewolf's claws were wide open. There was no clotting, no closure, and absolutely no sign of the rapid, supernatural healing that usually knit his flesh back together within minutes. The silver-laced toxicity of a feral lycanthrope's strike, compounded by his profound state of starvation, had completely blown his system's fuses. He was running on empty, his body rejecting its own regenerative commands.
A soft, rhythmic knock rattled his door before it swung open. **Ryan** stepped inside, his face stripped of the easygoing, sideline-cheering persona he had worn the night before. His blue eyes were hard, taking in Damon's deathly pallor and the dark stains on his shirt with a single, calculating glance.
"It's worse than you thought," Ryan said, his voice flat as he closed the door behind him and locked it. "I just crossed the quad. I had to relay everything you told me about the woods to Rein, Claire, and Lira. We've got a massive problem."
Damon didn't look away from the mirror. "Did you secure the nourishment?" he hissed, his teeth aching, his voice a dry, rattling whisper. "Tell Lira she needs to retrieve a synthetic blood bag from the campus medical clinic immediately. If I do not feed by nightfall, the glamour will drop completely. I won't be able to walk into the sun."
Ryan let out a heavy, grim breath, shaking his head as he leaned against the doorframe. "It's a no-go, Damon. Lira rejected the request flat out, and she's right to do it. The entire clinic is locked down. The campus is absolutely crawling with detectives and uniformed officers from the city unit. They aren't just directing traffic—they're running a fine-tooth comb through every department."
He stepped closer, his jaw tight. "They're already setting up checkpoints outside the dorms, asking everyone exactly where they were between midnight and three AM. If Lira tries to skim a plasma bag from the medical inventory right now, she'll trip an alarm before she even clears the supply closet. We are in a bit of a bind as at now, Damon, any thing we do would tip off the officers."