Elara stared at the word on the manifest. Sanguis Antiquus. "Elder Blood," Julian had called it. The venom of the first vampires.
She didn't need a biology degree to understand the math. Thirty-two million dollars' worth of forced mutation. A feral army. Hidden right under the IRS's nose.
Click.
The single fluorescent tube in the ceiling died.
The darkness was absolute. It wasn't just an absence of light. It was heavy. Suffocating. The low hum of the building's ventilation system ground to a sudden, sickening halt.
Elara stopped breathing.
A loud, metallic CLANG echoed down the concrete corridor.
It came from the freight elevator. The heavy doors were being pried open. Not electronically. Mechanically. Someone was forcing them apart with brute strength.
"Flashlight. Off." Julian's voice was a ghost of a whisper right next to her ear.
Elara fumbled with the cold metal cylinder. Her thumb found the rubber switch. She clicked it off. The darkness swallowed them whole.
Footsteps.
They were slow. Wet. Heavy boots dragging against the concrete.
Then came the smell. Ozone. Burnt copper. And raw, rotting meat. It was the same stench as the ghouls from the penthouse, but much, much worse. It smelled ancient.
"What is that?" Elara mouthed, terrified to make a sound.
"A Cleaver," Julian breathed, his chest brushing against her back as he stepped in front of her. He didn't use Latin. He used the street name. "A mutated enforcer. No brain. Just muscle and hunger. They sent it to burn the records."
The heavy footsteps stopped right outside their chain-link cage.
A low, wet snarl vibrated in the dark. It was sniffing the air. Searching.
Julian didn't hesitate. He didn't wait to be hunted.
He moved.
He lunged out of the cage. The air cracked. A sickening THUD echoed as Julian's fist met solid bone. The creature roared—a sound that was half-bear, half-chainsaw.
Elara pressed her back against the cold iron shelving. Her hands shook violently. She couldn't see anything. She could only hear the brutal, messy violence.
Flesh hitting concrete. Metal shelving screaming as bodies slammed into it.
"Julian!" Elara yelled, unable to stop herself.
A heavy, rusted pipe swung through the dark, striking the iron cage inches from Elara's face. Sparks showered the floor. In that split-second flash of light, she saw it.
The Cleaver was massive. Gray, necrotic skin. Dead eyes. It was swinging a three-foot length of steel rebar.
And Julian was bleeding.
The rebar had caught him across the shoulder. The neon-green shirt was torn. He hissed in pain, his fangs fully bared, eyes burning like twin flares in the dark. He caught the next swing of the rebar with his bare hand.
The metal groaned. Julian twisted his wrist. The pipe snapped.
But the creature was too big. It didn't feel pain. It rammed its massive shoulder into Julian's chest, throwing the billionaire backward.
Julian crashed into the metal table. The cardboard box shattered. The thirty-two-million-dollar manifest scattered across the filthy floor in the dark.
The Cleaver turned. Its dead eyes locked onto Elara.
It raised the broken rebar.
Elara didn't have magic. She didn't have fangs. She had eighty thousand dollars in student loans and a very heavy, industrial-grade flashlight.
She gripped the metal cylinder with both hands.
"Hey, ugly!" Elara screamed.
The creature paused, its head snapping toward her voice.
Elara slammed her thumb on the power switch.
CLICK.
Two thousand lumens of tactical, blinding white light blasted directly into the creature's dilated, dark-adjusted eyes.
The Cleaver shrieked. It dropped the rebar, throwing its massive hands over its face. The light burned its mutated retinas.
It was a two-second window.
Julian didn't miss it.
He launched himself off the broken table. A blur of pure predatory speed. He grabbed the screaming creature by the back of the neck and slammed its skull directly into the solid concrete wall.
Crack.
The creature went limp. It crumpled to the floor like a puppet with cut strings.
Silence slammed back into the corridor. The only sound was the heavy, ragged breathing of two survivors.
Elara slowly lowered the flashlight. The beam illuminated the dead Cleaver, then swept across the floor, settling on Julian.
He was leaning against the wall, clutching his torn shoulder. Blood—dark, unnatural blood—was seeping through the ruined fabric. He looked completely drained.
The Mate Bond flared in Elara's chest. It wasn't panic this time. It was a sharp, phantom pain echoing his injury. She gasped, grabbing her own shoulder.
Julian looked up at her, panting. "Grab the papers," he rasped, his voice rough and unsteady. "All of them. We have to go."
"The elevator is dead," Elara said, her voice shaking as she dropped to her knees, frantically gathering the scattered manifest pages into her arms. "The power is cut."
Julian pushed himself off the wall. He stumbled slightly, a king suddenly stripped of his invincibility.
"Then we take the stairs," he said, wiping blood from his jaw. "Welcome to the underground, Elara."