Inside a sealed shelter beneath the ruins of another world, an older vampire stood so quickly that the stool behind him fell.
The others turned toward him.
He held up one hand for silence. The call had reached the blood he had spent so long hiding from the people outside.
Alucard's inheritance.
Two names.
Proxima.
One of the younger men moved toward the sealed entrance.
The older vampire caught his shoulder.
"Where are you going?"
"To answer."
"You can answer from here."
The young man looked down at the hand holding him. Startled by the strength of his own grip, the older vampire loosened it before he hurt him. He had not meant to hold so hard.
The others had begun moving too. Someone tested the weight of a storage chest that had taken two people to carry the day before. Another pressed a palm against the shelter's dim formation and watched the light steady.
Their blood was responding.
That didn't mean he trusted the people who were calling them.
