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Chapter 26: Vampire Capture Operation
Under the surgical lights.
Blood was being pumped into the body and the head was visibly regrowing at speed. In under thirty seconds, what had been removed was back in place.
The moment his head returned, the man on the table came out of sedation and into full panic, straining against the restraints and screaming at volume. His eyes were red and full of something that had seen this before.
"Let me go! Let me go right now!"
"I swear I'll never drink blood again! Please, I'm begging you, let me go! I know what I did was wrong! Ask me anything, I'll tell you everything! Anything!"
The screaming made Matthew's expression tighten.
Birkin noticed and turned toward the staff outside the glass. "Quiet him down."
The sedative system ran until the man stopped talking and his eyes went blank. Then it stopped.
What followed was a series of tests that Birkin conducted with the focused efficiency of someone who had found exactly what he was looking for. Severed hands. Severed feet. In Birkin's working vocabulary, these were minor injuries.
Matthew watched for a short while, then stepped outside the glass and declined to watch the rest.
Birkin finished the testing sequence. Every result pointed the same direction: extreme regeneration, no scarring, no lasting damage under any condition he had been able to apply. Complete recovery with adequate blood supply.
He set down the instruments.
"Based on all test results, the specimen regenerates at an extreme rate when blood supply is sufficient. Heart perforation, decapitation, nothing is lethal. He simply recovers."
"My suspicion is—"
"Vampire." Matthew said it from outside the glass before Birkin got there.
"Yes." Birkin nodded.
"Then we test with silver."
Matthew's voice carried easily. "There's a medieval great sword in my office, pure silver, display piece on the bookshelf. Have someone bring it."
Vampires were real in the Marvel universe. They came from Blade, which had been one of the most popular franchises of its era. Matthew had no reason to assume those elements hadn't carried over into the world he was currently operating in.
A staff member retrieved the sword. Matthew carried it back into the examination area and looked at the sedated man on the table.
No hesitation.
A flash of silver.
All five fingers, severed at the base.
This time, regardless of how much blood the staff cycled into the body, the wounds didn't close. Instead of healing tissue, the cross sections showed something that looked like a burn. Clean-edged, darkened, final.
Birkin stared at this with his eyes very wide.
The expression that came onto his face was one that people who worked alongside him had learned to recognize. It meant he had found something he very much wanted to keep working on.
"It's real! Vampires are an actual species!" A laugh escaped him that the room could have done without. "This is incredible!"
For William Birkin, there was nothing better than discovering a superior specimen. The only thing that ranked higher was an experiment succeeding. Right now he appeared to have both at once.
"Suspend the sedative," he called out toward the glass. "Let him wake up."
The smile that came onto his face did not belong in a room this brightly lit.
"He said he'd tell us anything we wanted to know. Good. We'll start with where the rest of his people are. Then we bring them all in."
"A specimen with this level of regeneration could be exactly what this research needs."
The man woke up fighting. The moment he registered the wound on his hand, the struggling intensified.
"Please don't kill me! I was wrong to attack anyone, I know that! But I was so hungry, I was so hungry . I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please!"
Tears were running down his face. The fear there was total and unguarded.
Birkin's expression shifted into something warm and unhurried. He spoke quietly.
"Don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you this time. I only want to ask you a few simple questions."
"If you answer honestly, I'll let you go. Does that sound fair?"
The man looked at him as though he had heard something impossible. "...Really?"
"Of course. Why would I lie to you?" Birkin's tone carried the specific warmth of someone who was absolutely doing exactly that.
"Then ask me anything! Everything I know, I'll tell you! Just please let me go!"
He was a drowning man grabbing at whatever was in reach. He didn't entirely believe it. He couldn't afford not to.
"All right." No preamble. "Where are your companions?"
The man flinched. He started to say something. Birkin cut him off.
"Take your time. Think about what the wrong answer would mean before you give me one."
"Now. Tell me."
The fixed smile under the cold light made the room feel smaller. Cold sweat ran down the man's face. He swallowed hard.
He looked at Birkin's face. He looked at the instruments from earlier, still wet.
He made his decision.
I'm sorry. Forgive me.
I can't take this anymore. I can't spend the rest of my existence being used in this place.
So.
"I'll tell you." All the fight went out of him at once. "Everything."
He gave up every location he knew. Dozens of them, one after another, without pausing. His eyes held the specific focus of someone thinking only about surviving the next few minutes. No guilt in them at all.
When he finished, he stopped talking.
"Is that all of them?" Birkin looked up from his notes.
"Yes." Then, reading Birkin's expression: "It really is all of them. I know how that sounds, but listen. Our population is small compared to humans. We avoid contact to stay under the government's notice. Those are genuinely every location I'm aware of."
"I see." Birkin stroked his chin, then looked up with a smile. "I believe you."
"Then you'll let me go?" The man watched him with everything he had left.
Birkin said nothing.
He turned toward the glass.
"Re-administer the sedative."
"No! You can't do this! You promised! You promised!"
"You treacherous bastard! You'll burn for this! You'll burn for this!"
Birkin walked out with the screaming behind him and gave no indication that he could hear any of it.
He handed the list of locations to Matthew. The look on his face was the one reserved for experiments going exactly right.
"Boss. Give the order."
"Every last one of them, hiding in the sewers." He could barely contain it. "I want them all brought in."
***
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