Blood and Silver Bullets
The gun is already in my hand before my father finishes smiling.
"Seraphina." His voice carries across the tarmac like we're having tea instead of standing on opposite sides of a blood-soaked decade. "I wondered if you'd figure it out."
I don't answer. Words are what he wants—explanations, accusations, the chance to twist everything into something that makes sense in his sick calculus. My boots crunch on gravel as I close the distance. Thirty meters. Twenty-five.
Nikolai moves beside me, silent as smoke. His presence is a cold weight at my shoulder, steadying.
"You should get on that plane," I say. My voice sounds like someone else's. Flat. Empty. "You should run."
My father laughs. Actually laughs, the sound bouncing off the hangar's corrugated metal. "Run? From my own daughter?" He spreads his hands, the gesture almost paternal. "Sera, sweetheart, I think we need to talk about what really happened to Mara."
The blessed silver bullet in my gun suddenly feels too light. Three shots. That's all I have left.
"I know what happened." Twenty meters now. Close enough to see the gray at his temples, the lines around his eyes that weren't there when Mara died. "You killed her. You set up the ambush. You made sure she'd be alone."
"I saved the Treaty." He doesn't even have the decency to look ashamed. "One hunter's life against thousands of human lives. It was an easy choice."
"She was your daughter."
"She was a liability." He adjusts his cufflinks, casual as discussing the weather. "Mara was going to expose everything—the Consilium's human collaborators, the blood farms, the whole rotten infrastructure. She thought she was being noble. She was being naive."
Nikolai's hand touches my elbow. A warning or a comfort, I can't tell which.
"The Treaty is dead anyway," I say. "Cassia saw to that. Your sacrifice was for nothing."
"Cassia." My father's expression darkens. "That bitch has been playing her own game for decades. But she's not the only one with contingency plans."
He pulls something from his pocket. Not a weapon—a phone. He holds it up so I can see the screen. A video feed. Live.
My blood turns to ice.
Eliska. Unconscious in the safe house bed, Irina standing guard beside her. The camera angle is high, probably mounted in a corner. How long has it been there? How long has he been watching?
"One call," my father says. "That's all it takes. My people are already in position. You shoot me, your little vampire friend dies. Along with the Moravian witch who thought she could hide her."
Nikolai goes very still beside me. Not the stillness of calm—the stillness of a predator calculating angles, distances, the precise moment to strike.
"You're bluffing," I say, but my gun hand wavers. Just slightly. Just enough.
"Am I?" My father's smile widens. "You know me better than that, Sera. I don't bluff. I plan." He taps the phone screen. "See that red light? That's a dead man's switch. My thumb comes off this button, the call goes through. Automatic. Irreversible."
"Why?" The word tears out of me. "Why any of this? The Treaty, Mara, all of it—what was the fucking point?"
"Control." He says it like it's obvious. Like I'm stupid for not understanding. "Humans and vampires can't coexist as equals. Someone has to be on top. The Treaty was supposed to keep vampires in check, make them dependent on our goodwill for blood access. But people like Mara, people like you—you want to tear it all down. You want chaos."
"I want justice."
"Justice is a fairy tale we tell children." He takes a step toward me. Then another. "You think killing me changes anything? The system I built will outlive us both. There are a dozen men ready to take my place. Two dozen. The infrastructure doesn't need me anymore."
Nikolai finally speaks, his voice soft and cold as winter rain. "Then you are expendable."
My father's eyes flick to him. "The infamous Nikolai Thorn. I've read your file. Three hundred years old, give or take. Survived the Purges, the Inquisition, two world wars. You've seen empires rise and fall." He pauses. "Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me humans and vampires can live in peace without someone holding the leash."
"I have seen many things," Nikolai says. "Empires built on blood and lies. Men who believed themselves indispensable." His hand moves to the small of my back, a touch so light I almost don't feel it. "They all share one quality. They are all dead."
"Not yet." My father's thumb hovers over the phone. "Not while I have leverage."
The pre-dawn light is getting stronger. I can see the plane's pilot in the cockpit, watching us through the windscreen. Waiting. How much is my father paying him to ignore whatever happens out here?
"Let me guess," I say. "You get on that plane, you delete the video feed, and Eliska lives. That's the deal."
"Smart girl." He's proud. Actually proud, like I'm a student who finally grasped a difficult concept. "You always were the clever one. Mara had passion, but you—you have your mother's mind."
Don't bring her into this. Don't you fucking dare.
"Where are you going?" I ask instead. "Assuming I let you walk."
"Does it matter?" He shrugs. "Somewhere without extradition treaties. Somewhere the Consilium's reach doesn't extend. I have accounts, resources, friends in low places. I'll be comfortable."
"You'll be alone."
"I've been alone since your mother died." For the first time, something cracks in his facade. Just for a second. "You think I wanted this? Any of this? I did what I had to do. What someone had to do."
"You murdered your own daughter."
"I saved thousands of lives." His voice hardens again. "Mara's death bought us five more years of peace. Five years of humans not being slaughtered in the streets, of vampires not being hunted to extinction. Was it worth it? Ask the people who are still alive because of that choice."
My finger tightens on the trigger. The blessed silver bullet is inches from his heart. One shot. That's all it would take.
But Eliska—
Nikolai's hand presses harder against my back. Not restraining. Anchoring.
"There is a third option," he says quietly.
My father's eyes narrow. "I'm listening."
"You leave. You get on your plane, you fly away, you live out your days in whatever hole you've prepared." Nikolai's voice never rises above a conversational tone, but there's something underneath it. Something old and patient and utterly merciless. "But you do not delete the feed. You give us the access codes. You tell us where your people are positioned. And then you pray we are feeling merciful."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because if you do not, I will find you." Nikolai steps forward, moving past me. "I have three hundred years of practice hunting men who thought themselves untouchable. I have contacts in every major city, every criminal organization, every government that matters. You will not sleep soundly. You will not know peace. And when I finally catch you—and I will catch you—your death will not be quick."
The temperature drops. Actually drops, like Nikolai's brought winter with him. My breath mists in the air.
My father's hand trembles. Just slightly.
"You're bluffing," he says, but he doesn't sound certain anymore.
"I have never been more sincere." Nikolai's eyes catch the dawn light, reflecting it back like a cat's. "Ask yourself: do you truly believe you can hide from me? From what I am?"
Silence stretches between them. The plane's engines whine, impatient.
My father looks at me. "Sera. You're really going to let this monster threaten your father?"
"You stopped being my father when you killed Mara." The words come out steady. Final. "Now you're just a man who needs to disappear."
Something in his face crumbles. Not much. Not enough. But I see it—the moment he realizes I mean it. That whatever bond we had, whatever remained of our family, died the same night Mara did.
"Fine." He pulls up something on his phone, taps a few buttons. "The codes are sent. The feed is yours. My people will stand down." He looks at Nikolai. "But if you come after me—"
"I will not need to." Nikolai's smile is terrible. "You will destroy yourself. Men like you always do."
My father backs toward the plane, phone still in hand. He doesn't turn his back on us. Smart. At the stairs, he pauses.
"Sera. For what it's worth—I am sorry. About Mara. About all of it."
"No, you're not." I lower my gun. Not because I forgive him. Because he's not worth the bullet. "But you will be."
He climbs into the plane. The door seals. Thirty seconds later, the aircraft is taxiing down the runway, engines screaming as it lifts into the pale morning sky.
I watch until it's a speck against the clouds. Then nothing.
"We need to move," Nikolai says. "Now."
We're back in the car, Nikolai driving too fast, when my phone buzzes. Irina.
"The feed's down," she says without preamble. "Whatever you did, it worked. We're clear."
"Any sign of his people?"
"Two men in a van across the street. They left three minutes ago. Drove off like their asses were on fire." She pauses. "What happened?"
"He's gone. On a plane to somewhere without extradition."
"You let him go." Not a question. Not quite an accusation either.
"I let him run." I close my eyes. "There's a difference."
"Sera—"
"How's Eliska?"
"No change. Still out. Still..." She doesn't finish. Still dead. Still waiting to wake up as something else.
"We're ten minutes away," I say, and end the call.
Nikolai doesn't speak. His hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and there's something wrong with his face. Not wrong—different. The careful mask he usually wears has slipped, and underneath is something raw.
"You didn't have to threaten him," I say. "I would have found another way."
"There was no other way." He takes a corner too fast. "Men like your father only understand power. Threats. The certainty of consequences."
"You meant it. About hunting him."
"Every word."
I should probably be disturbed by that. By the casual certainty in his voice, the promise of violence delivered in that soft, cultured tone. Instead, I feel something else. Something warm and fierce and entirely inappropriate given the circumstances.
"Thank you," I say.
He glances at me. Just for a second, but it's enough. I see the surprise there. The confusion.
"For what?"
"For not making me choose." Between vengeance and Eliska. Between what I wanted and what I needed. "For giving me a way out."
"Sera." He says my name like it costs him something. "I would burn the world for you. Letting one man escape is hardly a sacrifice."
The words hang in the air between us. Too big. Too much. I don't know what to do with them, so I do what I always do—I deflect.
"That's very dramatic. Very vampire of you."
"I am three hundred years old. I have earned the right to be dramatic."
Despite everything—my father's escape, Eliska's transformation, the Treaty collapsing around us—I almost laugh. Almost.
We pull up to the safe house. Dawn is breaking properly now, the sky going from gray to gold. Nikolai flinches as the light touches his skin, but he doesn't burn. Not yet. He has maybe an hour before the sun gets strong enough to hurt him.
Inside, Irina meets us at the door. She looks exhausted, her usual composure frayed at the edges.
"She's stirring," she says. "Not awake yet, but close. Her body's starting to respond to stimuli."
I push past her, into the bedroom. Eliska is exactly where we left her, but Irina's right—something's different. Her chest rises and falls in a rhythm that's almost normal. Her eyelids flutter, like she's dreaming.
I sit on the edge of the bed, take her hand. It's cold. Colder than it should be.
"Ellie," I whisper. "I'm here. I'm right here."
Her fingers twitch in mine. Just slightly. Just enough.
Nikolai appears in the doorway, backlit by the rising sun. "Sera. We need to talk about what happens next."
"Next?" I don't look away from Eliska. "Next she wakes up. Next we figure out how to help her adjust. Next we—"
"Next the Consilium comes for us." His voice is gentle but firm. "Your father may have fled, but his allies remain. They will want answers. Retribution. Someone to blame for the Treaty's collapse."
"Let them come."
"Sera—"
"I said let them come." I finally look at him. "I'm done running. Done hiding. Done playing by their rules."
"Then what do you propose?"
"We fight." The words feel right. Feel true. "We find everyone who helped my father. Everyone who knew about Mara and did nothing. Everyone who's been using the Treaty to control and manipulate and kill. And we burn it all down."
Irina makes a small sound. Not quite approval. Not quite horror.
"That is a war," Nikolai says softly. "Against the most powerful vampires in the world. Against the human organizations that have spent decades building their infrastructure. Against—"
"Against monsters." I stand, still holding Eliska's hand. "Yeah. I know. But someone has to do it. Someone has to—"
Eliska's eyes open.
Not slowly. Not gradually. One moment they're closed, the next they're wide and staring and completely, utterly black. No iris. No white. Just darkness, like looking into a well that has no bottom.
She sits up in one fluid motion, impossibly fast, and her hand clamps around my wrist hard enough to bruise.
"Sera." Her voice is wrong. Layered. Like multiple people speaking at once. "Sera, what did you do to me?"
I open my mouth to answer, but before I can, she screams.
Not a human scream. Something else. Something that makes the windows rattle and the lights flicker and Nikolai stumble back like he's been struck.
And then she's moving, tearing away from me, slamming into the far wall hard enough to crack the plaster. She's crouched there, feral and terrified, and when she looks at me again her mouth is open too wide, showing teeth that are too sharp, too many.
"What did you do?" she shrieks. "What did you DO?"
Irina starts forward, hands raised, but Eliska hisses at her—actually hisses, the sound inhuman and venomous—and Irina freezes.
"Ellie, please." I take a step toward her. "Please, just listen—"
"I can hear your heartbeat." She's crying now, black tears streaming down her face. "I can hear your blood moving. I can smell it. God, Sera, I can smell everything and it's so loud, it's so—"
She lunges.
Not at me. At Nikolai.
He catches her wrists, barely, and they go down in a tangle of limbs. She's fighting him with strength that shouldn't be possible, snapping and clawing, and he's trying to restrain her without hurting her but she's not making it easy.
"Sera!" he shouts. "The sedative! In my coat!"
I scramble for his jacket, find the syringe Irina prepared. Enough to knock out a full vampire. Enough to maybe calm a newborn.
I'm moving toward them when Eliska breaks free. She's on her feet, backing toward the window, and the morning sun is streaming through the glass behind her.
"Eliska, no!" Irina screams. "The sun—"
But Eliska isn't listening. She's staring at her hands, at the black veins spreading under her skin, at the wrongness of her own body.
"I'm a monster," she whispers. "You turned me into a monster."
"You're alive," I say desperately. "Ellie, you're alive, that's what matters—"
"I'm dead." She looks at me, and for just a second her eyes are normal again. Brown and terrified and so, so young. "I'm dead and you brought me back as this."
She reaches for the window latch.
Nikolai moves faster than I can track, but he's not fast enough.
Eliska throws open the window and sunlight floods the room, and she's standing right in the beam, and her skin starts to smoke—