Page 33 of Nocturne

32

CALLAHAN

“ T here’s only one way we’ll find her in time,” Abe says, his voice tight with urgency. “We need to use your connection to Lena.”

The sun has barely cleared the horizon, casting harsh morning light across Abe’s shattered living room. Glass crunches beneath our feet as we gather in what’s left of his once-immaculate space, the aftermath of Marco’s attack surrounding us like a physical reminder of our failure.

“What connection?” I demand, pacing restlessly. Every second feels like an eternity, every minute another opportunity for Dmitri to hurt Lena. “I’m not an actual bloodhound.”

“But you are,” Valtu interjects, watching me with keen interest. “You tracked her here despite Adonis’ cover. Found her through fog and darkness with nothing but instinct guiding you.”

“That was different,” I argue, though the memory sends a chill through me. “Dmitri was controlling me then. His compulsion drove me to her.”

“Not entirely,” Abe says, stepping into my path to halt my pacing. “Dmitri’s command gave you purpose, but the ability to find her came from within you. From your vampire nature.”

I stare at him, understanding dawning with sickening clarity. “You want me to tap into that side again. Let it take control.”

“Not control,” Ezra corrects, joining us with a leather bag slung over his shoulder. “Integration. The ritual we began was interrupted, but you’d already made progress. You felt it, didn’t you? The merging of your dual aspects.”

Yeah, I had felt it—that brief, perfect moment when the division within me began to heal, when vampire strength and human will existed in harmony rather than opposition. Before Marco’s attack shattered the tenuous connection.

“And if I lose myself to it?” The fear is real, urgent. “If Dmitri’s compulsion takes hold again?”

“That’s why we’ll be with you,” Adonis says. “To ensure you remain yourself.”

“And how exactly do we awaken my vampire side?” I ask, dread coiling in my stomach. “Another meditation? Because we don’t have time for that.”

“No meditation,” Abe says grimly. “Something more direct.” He produces a small vial from his pocket—the same mixture he’d used during our interrupted ritual. “This will help thin the barrier between your conscious mind and your vampire instincts. But it needs a catalyst.”

“Emotion,” Valtu supplies, stepping closer. “Specifically, rage. The primal fury that drives all predators. Your vampire side responds to it like a moth to flame.”

“You want me angry,” I state flatly.

“We need you furious,” Abe corrects. “Think about Lena. What Dmitri is doing to her right now. What he made you do to Elizabeth Short. The murder of your wife. Every violation, every manipulation, every life he’s destroyed in service to his madness. Think about all the justice that might not ever be served.”

The words strike like matches against dry tinder. Rage bubbles up inside me—not the cold, controlled anger I’ve cultivated in my career, but something dark and terrible. Something that burns through my veins, ignites my senses, turns my vision crimson at the edges.

“That’s it,” Ezra murmurs, watching closely. “Don’t fight it. Direct it.”

I close my eyes, surrendering to the fury—not drowning in it, but riding it like a wave. Images flash through my mind: Elizabeth Short’s mutilated body, Catherine’s gentle smile before I left for war, Lena’s face as Marco carried her into the night. Each memory stokes the fire higher until I’m consumed by it, transformed by it. Dmitri, laughing through it all.

When I open my eyes again, the world has changed. Colors are sharper, scents more distinct, sounds crystalline in their clarity. I can hear the wingbeats of birds outside, smell the salt in the ocean air, feel the vibration of passing cars on the highway far below.

“Fascinating,” Abe says, studying me with clinical interest. “You’ve achieved partial transformation without losing awareness. Remarkable control for one so young.”

I glance at my reflection in a remaining shard of window glass. My eyes glow crimson, fangs fully extended, features sharper and more predatory. Yet my mind remains clear, focused, determined. This isn’t the mindless bloodlust I feared—it’s power, raw and untamed but still mine to command.

“Now, before you begin tracking,” Abe continues, uncorking the vial, “this will help prevent Dmitri from seizing control when we find him. It won’t negate the blood bond entirely, but it should create enough interference to give you freedom of choice.”

He draws a symbol on my forehead with the liquid, which burns cold against my skin, then places three drops under my tongue. The taste is bitter, reminiscent of dirt and pepper.

“Remember,” Ezra adds. “You are not Dmitri’s slave. Blood heritage is powerful, but free will is stronger. Keep that truth at your core, no matter what happens.”

“Now,” Abe commands, “find Lena.”

“How?”

“Ask yourself and you’ll know how.”

I take in a deep breath and close my eyes, focusing on her. Not just her scent or the memory of her face, but the essence of her—the connection we’ve forged through blood and body and something deeper. Something that defies rational explanation, leaving only a supernatural one.

And there it is—a tug in my chest, subtle but undeniable. A compass needle pointing toward true north.

“I can feel her,” I whisper, surprised by the gravelly quality of my voice in this half-transformed state. “She’s alive. In pain, but alive.”

“Where?” Adonis asks, already moving toward the door.

I turn, following the invisible thread that binds me to Lena. “Northeast. Downtown, I think. Industrial district.”

“Let’s go,” Valtu says, grabbing a leather jacket from the back of a chair. “Adonis drives. Callahan navigates.”

We pile into Abe’s Packard—Adonis behind the wheel, Valtu riding shotgun, Abe, Ezra and me in the back. They place me in the middle, for safety’s sake, just in case I lose control and try and jump out of the vehicle. As the car roars to life, I focus on that tenuous connection between Lena and I, letting it grow stronger, clearer.

“Take Sunset,” I instruct, leaning forward between the front seats. “Then north on Figueroa.”

Adonis nods, pulling onto the highway with precise control, accelerating until the speedometer climbs past ninety.

“I just need to ask,” says Abe from beside me. “How much of your vampire self are you aware of? How much is Callahan right now?”

“Both. Neither,” I reply, the contradiction making perfect sense to me now. “The division is fading. I can feel the vampire’s hunger, its need for blood and violence, but it doesn’t control me. It’s just…part of me.”

“Remarkable,” he murmurs.

“Necessity,” Ezra suggests from my other side. “The mind adapts when survival demands it.”

I barely hear them, focused on the pull growing stronger with each mile. “East now,” I instruct as we reach downtown. “Near the railroad yards.”

Adonis follows my directions without question, navigating through morning traffic with preternatural reflexes. Finally, I feel it—a sharp tug in my chest, almost painful in its intensity. I even smell her now.

Night jasmine.

“Stop here,” I command, and Adonis pulls to the curb three blocks from our destination.

The warehouse rises before us, decrepit and abandoned, windows boarded over, chain-link fence surrounding the perimeter. It looks like dozens of other buildings in this industrial wasteland, forgotten relics of the wartime effort. But my senses tell me different—there’s life inside.

“Two guards at the main entrance,” Valtu observes, his eyes narrowing. “Another on the roof. All vampires.”

“Ivanov’s men,” Ezra confirms. “We’ve seen them at the Crimson Clover.”

I scan the building, my enhanced senses detecting movement, heartbeats, the faint scent of blood. Lena’s blood. The rage I’ve been containing threatens to explode, but I force it down, channeling it into cold purpose.

“We need a plan,” Abe says. “Draw them away from the entrance, then?—”

“I’ll take care of the guards,” Adonis interrupts, his massive form unfolding from the driver’s seat. “Wait for my signal.”

Before anyone can object, he’s moving, crossing the street with deceptive casualness. Valtu sighs, exchanging a look with Abe.

“Always the direct approach with that one,” he mutters.

We watch as Adonis approaches the fence, hands in pockets, appearing for all the world like a lost traveler seeking directions. The guards tense, hands moving to weapons concealed beneath their coats. One calls out a warning.

What happens next occurs almost too quickly for even my enhanced vision to track. Adonis vaults the fence in a single bound, landing between the two guards. His hands move in a blur. There’s a sickening crack, a spray of dark blood, and both guards crumple to the ground.

Adonis gestures toward us—the signal.

“Go,” Abe says, and we’re moving, crossing the street in a tight formation, approaching the warehouse from different angles.

I scale the fence easily, vampire strength making the climb effortless. The guard on the roof hasn’t noticed his colleagues’ fate, attention focused outward rather than down. Valtu disappears around the side of the building, seeking another entrance, while Ezra follows Adonis through the front.

I move to a boarded window, peering through a gap in the planks. What I see makes my heart stop.

Lena hangs from chains in the center of snuffed out candles, her naked body suspended above a concrete floor stained dark with blood. She’s barely conscious, head lolling forward, hair matted with sweat and blood.

God, the blood.

She’s covered in blood.

Around her, three figures in red robes and strange masks move with ritualistic precision, arranging objects on a small table.

The rage I’ve been containing explodes through every restraint. A roar builds in my chest, primal and unstoppable. The plan, the stealth, the careful approach—all of it evaporates in the inferno of my fury.

I rip the boards from the window with my bare hands, glass shattering as I launch myself through the opening. I land in a crouch inside the warehouse, a growl tearing from my throat that sounds barely human.

“Dmitri!” I roar, fangs fully extended, vision washing crimson. “Get the fuck away from her!”

The figures in red robes spin toward me, momentarily frozen in surprise. I use that moment to cross the distance between us, moving faster than I ever have before. The first robed figure—the one in the wolf mask—raises his hands in defense, but he’s too slow. My fist connects with his chest, sending him flying backward into a stack of crates.

Chaos erupts as the others burst through various entrances. Adonis and Ezra through the front door, Valtu from somewhere in the shadowy rafters above, descending like a bat. The warehouse fills with snarls and shouts as the Ivanovs’ guards emerge from hiding places, converging on the intrusion.

I ignore them all, focused solely on reaching Lena. The skull-masked figure—Dmitri—steps between us, arms raised in an arcane gesture.

“Victor,” he intones, his voice resonating with unnatural power. “Stop.”

The compulsion slams into me like a freighter, trying to seize control of my limbs, my will. For a moment, I falter, the flood of vampire instinct to obey my sire crashing against the barriers Abe’s potion has created in my mind.

“You are my son,” Dmitri continues, pressing his advantage. “My blood flows in your veins. You will obey.”

I stagger forward another step, fighting through the compulsion with gritted teeth. “I’m. Not. Your. Puppet.”

Around us, battle rages. Adonis has cornered the sun-masked figure—Katya—driving her back with relentless attacks. She’s quick, dodging most of his strikes, but he’s stronger, each blow that lands sending her reeling. Valtu moves through the shadows, appearing and disappearing, cutting down Ivanov guards with vicious efficiency. Abe and Ezra work in tandem, centuries of partnership evident in their coordinated movements as they fight toward Lena.

Dmitri’s attention divides, sensing his forces falling around him. I seize the moment, lunging forward with vampire speed. My shoulder connects with his midsection, driving him back. We crash into the table of ritual implements, sending them scattering across the floor.

“You defy your own blood?” he snarls, recovering his balance with inhuman grace. “Your heritage? Your destiny?”

“I make my own destiny,” I growl, circling him warily.

A bestial roar shakes the rafters, sending dust cascading down from above. Marco crashes through a skylight, landing in the center of the battle like some nightmarish gargoyle come to life. His wings spread wide, yellow eyes scanning the chaos until they lock onto me.

“Perfect timing,” Dmitri laughs, the sound hollow behind his skull mask. “Kill him,” he commands Marco, pointing at me.

Marco charges, moving with the same terrifying speed as before. I brace for impact, but Valtu intercepts him, driving a shoulder into the feral vampire’s side. They roll across the floor in a tangle of limbs and snarls, crashing into the base of the candlelit circle.

“Get Lena!” Valtu shouts to me between blows. “I’ll handle this abomination!”

I turn back to Dmitri, only to find him advancing on Abe and Ezra, who have reached Lena’s suspended form. With a gesture, he sends Ezra flying back, crashing into a support column. Abe stands his ground.

“This ends now, Dmitri,” Abe declares, interposing himself between the Ivanov patriarch and Lena.

“You’re right, Abraham,” Dmitri agrees, his voice chillingly calm. “It does end. With the opening of the gateway.” He turns toward me, arms spread wide. “Victor. Come to your father. Help me complete what we began with the Black Dahlia.”

The compulsion rolls over me again, stronger this time. I feel my body responding against my will, taking a step toward him, then another. The vampire side of me recognizes his authority, yearns to submit, to please the sire whose blood flows in my veins.

“Fight it, Callahan!” Abe shouts, engaged in his own struggle with Dmitri. “You are not defined by his blood!”

Across the warehouse, a scream cuts through the chaos. I turn to see Adonis standing over Katya’s kneeling form, her sun mask knocked aside to reveal her beautiful, terrified face. With one swift motion, he seizes her head between his massive hands and twists. The crack echoes like a gunshot, followed by a wet tearing sound as her head separates completely from her body.

Adonis lifts the severed head, regarding it dispassionately for a moment before drop-kicking it across the warehouse like a macabre football. It bounces once, twice, then rolls to a stop at Dmitri’s feet.

“No!” Dmitri’s anguished cry shakes the very foundations of the building. His attention diverts momentarily from Abe, giving the vampire doctor the opening he needs. Abe lunges forward, nails and teeth bared, but Dmitri recovers in time to catch his wrist, the two ancient vampires locked in a contest of strength.

I fight through the compulsion, step by agonizing step, moving not toward Dmitri but toward Lena. Her eyes flutter open as I approach, recognition dawning through the haze of pain.

“Victor,” she whispers, the word barely audible.

“I’m here,” I assure her, reaching for the chains that bind her wrists. “I’m getting you out of here.”

A howl of rage draws my attention back to the center of the room. Marco has gained the upper hand against Valtu, pinning him beneath his grotesque form, claws raised for a killing blow. Before I can move to help, Valtu produces something from inside his jacket—a silver flask that he smashes against Marco’s face.

The liquid inside ignites on contact, engulfing Marco’s head in blue flame. The feral vampire reels back, shrieking in agony, wings beating frantically as the fire spreads across his mutated body.

“Holy fire,” Valtu explains, rolling away from the thrashing, burning creature. “Always carry some for emergencies.”

The flames spread rapidly, catching on the scattered candles and ritual implements. In moments, half the warehouse is ablaze, cutting off the main entrance. Marco, still screaming, crashes blindly through the warehouse, setting more fires with each pass of his burning wings.

“We need to leave,” Ezra shouts, rejoining the fight after recovering from Dmitri’s attack. “This whole place will go up in minutes!”

I redouble my efforts on Lena’s chains, vampire strength straining against the metal. With a final heave, the links snap, and Lena collapses into my arms, weak but alive.

“Wait,” she murmurs against my chest. “The others…still in danger…”

She’s right. Across the burning warehouse, Abe and Dmitri remain locked in combat. Behind them, I see the wolf-masked figure—Dr. Goldman—regaining consciousness, reaching for something on the floor.

A gun. He’s reaching for a gun.

Without conscious thought, I’m moving, placing Lena gently on the ground before launching myself across the warehouse. I cross the distance in heartbeats, vampire speed carrying me forward just as Goldman raises the weapon toward Abe’s unprotected back.

I crash into him with the force of a freight train, sending the gun flying from his grasp. We roll across the floor, coming to a stop with me on top, pinning him by the throat. His wolf mask has been knocked askew, revealing a middle-aged man with clinical, emotionless eyes.

“The son returns to the fold,” he says in a calm, detached voice that sends chills down my spine. “Your father will be pleased.”

“I’m not his son,” I growl, tightening my grip. “And I’m not returning to anything.”

Something shifts in Goldman’s expression—fear, perhaps. “You don’t understand what you’re interfering with,” he gasps. “The gateway must open. It’s the only way to save our kind.”

“Our kind doesn’t need saving,” I tell him. “Not by the likes of you.”

A noise behind me—the distinctive sound of wings cutting through air. I turn just in time to see Marco, still partially aflame, diving toward me with claws extended. There’s no time to dodge, no time to do anything but brace for impact.

But the impact never comes. Instead, Marco crashes to the ground feet away from me, Valtu’s silver dagger embedded in his back. The feral vampire thrashes, howling in pain, trying to reach the weapon lodged between his shoulders.

I seize the opportunity, releasing Goldman to launch myself at Marco. The vampire’s transformation has made him stronger, faster, but also more bestial, less tactical. I use that against him, feinting to draw his attack before ducking under his guard.

My hands close around his chest, fingers digging through flesh and bone with strength I didn’t know I possessed. Marco shrieks, yellow eyes widening in shock as my hand closes around his heart, tearing it free in a spray of dark blood.

“If I can’t kill you once, I’m going to kill you twice,” I rasp.

The organ pulses in my palm, still beating. Before I can think, before I can question, the vampire part of me acts on pure instinct. I raise the heart to my mouth and bite down, blood exploding across my tongue, filling me with power unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

Marco’s body collapses, the unnatural life force animating it snuffed out instantly. The taste of his heart, his blood, rushes through me like fire, heightening my senses, sharpening my focus. I feel invincible, immortal, truly vampiric for the first time.

I stare down at his body and grin.

And you’re going to stay dead this time.

I turn back toward Goldman, only to find him already engaged with Valtu, who has the doctor by the throat, expression cold with centuries of hate. He squeezes his throat so hard that Goldman’s neck cracks before his head comes clean off.

Across the warehouse, Dmitri has gained the upper hand against Abe, driving him to his knees. A blue blade gleams in Dmitri’s hand, poised for a killing strike.

“It’s over, Abraham,” he declares. “The gateway will open, with or without your cooperation.”

“Tell that to your daughter,” Abe replies, blood trickling from a gash on his forehead. “Tell that to your precious doctor.”

Dmitri hesitates, glancing around the burning warehouse, taking stock of his fallen allies. His forces decimated, his ritual interrupted, his carefully laid plans crumbling around him.

Then his gaze falls on me, standing over Marco’s body, heart’s blood still dripping from my chin. Something changes in his posture—a new calculation, a shift in strategy.

“Victor,” he calls, voice resonating with compulsion once more. “Come to me, my son. Your service is required.”

And I feel it—stronger than before, almost overwhelming. My body responds against my will, taking one step toward him, then another. The blood bond between us, strengthened by Marco’s heart, pulls me forward like a puppet on strings.

“Kill Van Helsing,” Dmitri commands, gesturing toward Abe’s kneeling form. “Prove your loyalty to your bloodline.”

My legs continue moving, carrying me toward them even as my mind screams in opposition. I’m vaguely aware of Valtu and Adonis shouting, of Ezra rushing to Lena’s side, but they seem distant, unimportant compared to the compelling need to obey my sire.

Abe looks up at me as I approach, no fear in his eyes, only sadness. “Remember who you are, Callahan,” he says quietly. “Not what Dmitri made you, but what you’ve chosen to be.”

I stand over him now, fists clenched, body trembling with the effort of resisting Dmitri’s command. The vampire side of me howls for blood, for obedience, for acceptance from the father I never knew I had. The human side fights back with every memory, every principle, every moment of connection with Lena, with my new friends.

“Kill him,” Dmitri repeats, impatience coloring his tone. “Now!”

He holds out the blue mordernes blade for me to take. The weapon glows in the firelight, hungry for vampire blood. My fingers wrap around it and I raise it slowly, muscles straining against my own will.

“Victor, please,” Lena’s voice cuts through the compulsion, weak but determined. “You’re stronger than his blood.”

Her voice anchors me, gives me something to cling to in the storm of competing instincts. I focus on it, on her, on the connection we’ve formed that transcends all of this.

And in that moment of clarity, I understand what I must do.

I let my body move forward, as if surrendering to Dmitri’s compulsion. One step, two, circling around Abe as if to position myself for the killing blow. Dmitri’s posture relaxes slightly, victory within his grasp.

Then I pivot, moving past Abe toward Dmitri himself. Surprise registers in his eyes a fraction of a second before my blade plunges into his chest, driving through bone and sinew to pierce his heart.

“I am not yours,” I tell him, twisting the blade deeper. “I never was.”

Dmitri stares at me in stunned disbelief, his compulsion shattered by the mortal wound. “My son,” he whispers, blood bubbling from beneath his skull mask. “My blood…”

“Blood isn’t destiny,” I say, echoing Lena’s words from earlier. “It’s just blood.”

He collapses to his knees, the skull mask falling away to reveal that face so similar to my own—the same jaw, the same brow, features that might have been carved from the same stone. For a moment, I see what might have been, the heritage I could have embraced, the father I might have known under different circumstances.

Then his skin begins to gray, cracks spreading from the wound in his chest, turning his flesh to ash from the inside out. His eyes, still fixed on mine, hold a final question that will never be answered.

He’s gone.

I stand for a moment, blade still extended, body vibrating with adrenaline and power and something else—completion. The vampire rage that drove me here hasn’t vanished, but it’s no longer separate, no longer other. It’s simply part of me.

“Callahan!” Ezra’s voice breaks through my reverie. “We need to leave. Now!”

Oh, right. The fire.

The warehouse is fully engulfed now, flames racing along the walls, consuming the wooden beams above. I turn to see Ezra supporting Lena, while Adonis helps Abe to his feet. Valtu is already at a side door, holding it open against the encroaching fire.

I cross to them quickly, taking Lena from Ezra’s arms. She feels impossibly light, fragile despite the vampire strength I know lies dormant beneath her wounds.

“You came for me,” she murmurs, her hand reaching up to touch my face, wiping away a smear of blood—Marco’s blood—from my chin.

“Always,” I promise, cradling her against my chest as we follow the others through the door, into the harsh daylight beyond. “Always.”