Lucius
The stolen van smelled of cigarettes and human desperation.
Previous owner had been a delivery driver, judging by the faded logo on the door. The vehicle itself was forgettable—gray, dented, anonymous in a city full of similar transportation. Perfect for three supernatural beings traveling to interrogate a paranoid exile.
Selene drove, navigating Budapest's late-night streets with the casual familiarity of someone who'd hunted across them for centuries. Michael sat in the back, hybrid senses alert but expression distant—still processing everything that had happened, everything he'd become.
I rode shotgun, reviewing Marcus's memories like a surgeon studying diagnostic images before an operation.
Tanis. Coven historian, banished by Viktor in 1599 for documenting inconvenient truths. His crimes: recording that Marcus was the first vampire (not Viktor, as official history claimed), detailing William's imprisonment (which Viktor had spun as heroic necessity rather than power grab), and most dangerously, maintaining records of the Corvinus bloodline that could have exposed the Elders' origins.
Viktor had wanted him dead. But even Viktor hesitated to eliminate someone who might possess dangerous knowledge that dying lips could reveal. Exile instead—Tanis confined to an abandoned monastery sixty kilometers outside Budapest, forbidden from contacting the coven under penalty of death.
Four hundred years of isolation had made him either mad or enlightened. Probably both.
"Marcus visited him once," I said, breaking the van's silence. "Two hundred years ago, seeking information about William's prison. Found Tanis obsessive, paranoid, but knowledgeable."
"And you trust memories extracted from a corpse?" Michael asked from the back.
"I trust that Marcus had no reason to lie about Tanis while dying. The information is accurate."
"How do you know? You can't verify memories against—"
"Because Memory Siphon doesn't extract narratives. It extracts experiences." I turned to face him, using the explanation as teaching moment. "When I drained Marcus, I didn't get his interpretation of meeting Tanis. I got his actual perceptions—what he saw, heard, felt. Raw data, not edited story."
Michael considered this. "So you're certain Tanis is alive and still at this monastery?"
"Certain he was there two hundred years ago. Reasonable probability he's still there now—vampires don't relocate often, and exile terms were permanent." I shrugged. "If he's dead or moved, we adjust. But the intelligence is worth the detour."
Selene spoke without taking her eyes from the road. "If Alexander created all immortals, why hasn't he stopped the war? Fifteen centuries of his children slaughtering each other, and he just... watches?"
"Guilt," I answered. "Marcus's memories include fragments of Alexander's psychology—the progenitor believes immortality was mistake. His mutation should have died with him, but his sons carried the corruption forward. Created species that exist only to kill."
"That doesn't explain watching without intervening."
"It does if you understand his worldview." I'd pieced this together from Marcus's memories and meta-knowledge from films I'd consumed in previous existence. "Alexander believes Earth belongs to humans. Not vampires, not Lycans—humans. We're accidents, aberrations, science experiments that escaped the lab. He watches us kill each other as penance for creating monsters."
"Then why not just die?" Michael asked. "End the bloodline at its source?"
"Guilt and cowardice aren't mutually exclusive." The words came out harsher than intended. "He wants absolution for creating us, but suicide would mean abandoning responsibility. So he maintains this middle ground—watching, cleaning up evidence, never intervening directly."
"That's pathetic."
"That's exploitable." I watched the city give way to countryside, suburban developments transitioning to farmland and forest. "Alexander wants purpose. Wants his existence to mean something beyond watching his children murder each other. If we offer him meaningful purpose—or meaningful death—he might cooperate."
The road narrowed as we left Budapest's sphere of influence. Marcus's memories provided navigation—landmarks that had existed for centuries, geographical features that hadn't changed despite human development surrounding them.
The monastery appeared as we crested a hill.
Gothic architecture in ruins—stone walls crumbling, gardens overgrown with generations of unchecked growth, a single tower still standing amidst the decay. Candlelight flickered from the tower's upper windows, the only sign of habitation in a structure that looked abandoned.
[ BLOOD APPRAISAL: SCANNING AREA... ]
[ TANIS - VAMPIRE HISTORIAN - 167 BP ]
[ STATUS: ALERT. AWARE OF APPROACH. ]
[ THREAT LEVEL: MINIMAL ]
"He knows we're coming," I said. "Stop here."
Selene killed the engine. The silence that followed was absolute—no insects, no animals, no ambient noise that would have surrounded a normal building. Tanis had arranged his isolation thoroughly.
"Defenses?" she asked.
"Unknown. Marcus's memories show a paranoid vampire surrounded by books and surveillance equipment, but four hundred years provides plenty of time to add improvements." I opened my door, stepped into the night air. "Stay alert. If he attacks, contain rather than kill—his knowledge is too valuable to waste."
We approached on foot, three supernatural beings moving through darkness toward a single candle's light. The monastery's ruins offered countless hiding spots, ambush positions, traps waiting to be triggered.
Nothing attacked us. Either Tanis had decided we weren't threats, or his defenses were more subtle than I'd anticipated.
The main door was massive oak, reinforced with iron bands that had rusted over centuries. I knocked—three deliberate impacts that echoed through the empty structure.
"Tanis. I killed Marcus and Viktor. I need information about Alexander Corvinus." I let the statement hang in the night air. "Let us in, or I break down this door."
Silence stretched for ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.
Then locks began clicking. Mechanisms that sounded far too modern for a building this old, integrated with ancient hardware in ways that suggested careful engineering.
The door swung open.
Tanis stood in the gap—skeletal thin, wild-eyed, wearing robes that had been elegant four centuries ago and had never been replaced. His hair was long, gray, tangled with debris from his tower's dusty contents.
But his eyes were sharp. Intelligent. Assessing us with calculation that belied his mad hermit appearance.
"You killed Marcus?" His voice was a rasp, unused to conversation. "Impossible. The first vampire cannot die."
I reached into the van, retrieved the bundle I'd prepared specifically for this moment.
Marcus's desiccated corpse hit the ground at Tanis's feet.
The historian dropped to his knees, hands trembling as they examined the remains. Vampire senses confirming what his conscious mind refused to accept.
"The original," he whispered. "Destroyed. How?"
"I'm hybrid. System-enhanced." The lie was partially true—hybrid nature was obvious, System remained secret. "I need everything you know about Alexander Corvinus. His powers. His weaknesses. How to kill him."
Tanis looked up from the corpse, expression shifting from shock to something approaching excitement.
"Kill the progenitor? You're insane." A laugh escaped him—edge of madness, certainly, but also genuine amusement. "But I'll tell you everything. Come—I have wine and a thousand years of forbidden knowledge."
He turned, retreating into the tower's darkness. We followed.
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