Father Anderson sheathed his bayonets, the scattered pages reforming into a Bible in his hands. Mercy was foreign to him when dealing with the unnatural—killing was his solution. While his demeanor toward heretics and nonbelievers was far from warm, he didn't strike without provocation.
Yang Valentine's body glowed with a faint blue light, crumbling to ash bit by bit. In his final moments, he'd tried to barter secrets for his life, but Anderson had no interest in the ramblings of a monster. His radiant bayonets dispatched the "formidable" vampire with ruthless efficiency—at least, formidable compared to the usual bloodsucking rabble.
"Strayed lamb, blackened by sin…"
Anderson glanced at Blade, still writhing under the burning bayonets, muttered a brief prayer, and scattered his Bible's pages around him. The gesture resembled tossing flyers, yet under the holy glow, it carried a solemn weight. As the light faded, Anderson vanished.
Blade remained, gritting his teeth against the searing pain. "Damn it! Who are these people?" he growled, struggling to his feet. His wounds still bled, the vampiric half of his being scorched nearly to oblivion by Anderson's power. Weakness gnawed at him as he fumbled for his phone and dialed Nick Fury.
The call connected quickly. Blade knew Fury was waiting—his earlier mention of Hydra had guaranteed that.
"Hey, get to my location. Now. Come yourself, and bring blood bags—type doesn't matter," Blade said, his voice frail. He didn't expect Fury himself to show, but right now, that paranoid bastard was his only lifeline. His backup wasn't suited for this battlefield, and without them, he had no choice but to rely on Fury. Knowing Fury, Blade's phone—or something on him—was likely bugged for tracking. That distrustful spymaster never left operatives unchecked.
Fury's decoys were probably nearby, sustained by nutrient vats in safehouses stocked with pilfered S.H.I.E.L.D. funds. Blood bags? Fury had those in spades.
"I'm on my way," Fury replied, still smarting from Hellboy's punch, though he'd just climbed off the floor.
A young voice, tinged with childish glee, broke the silence. "Well, I came all this way for a look."
A boy in a Third Reich uniform appeared before Blade—cat ears, cat tail, and all. Warrant Officer Schrödinger, the living embodiment of that Schrödinger's cat, the pet of the infamous "cat-loving" scientist. As the intelligence officer of the Last Battalion, he could appear anywhere, existing and not existing, alive yet not alive. To him, such distinctions were meaningless.
"A different kind of vampire?" Schrödinger mused, speaking to the air. On a small TV screen elsewhere, his image flickered. "Should I bring this guy back?"
"No need. The plan's about to launch—irrelevant now."
"Roger that!" Schrödinger saluted, then yanked Anderson's bayonets from Blade's body. With a playful tug, he vanished, perhaps driven by feline curiosity, like a cat knocking a glass off a table just for fun. His habits were unmistakably catlike.
Blade staggered upright, cursing under his breath.
"How do you plan to deal with this little mage?" Korlic asked, his foot pinning Casillas's leg to prevent any teleportation spells. When Casillas had stirred, Korlic interrupted his casting with a swift strike. Though Korlic's temper wasn't gentle, he merely forced Casillas to lie still and cool off, sparing him a knockout blow. Perhaps the massive lump on Casillas's head stirred some pity.
Mages often opened with tricks from other dimensions, so Korlic kept a sharp eye to stop Casillas from pulling that stunt on the Holy Mountain.
"Want an heir?" Bul-Kathos asked, rubbing his temple as he eyed Casillas. The mage was just a fool who felt betrayed, not yet steeped in true evil—but he'd already taken a barbarian beating. Talk about bad luck, like a rookie skipping night training to hit a tavern, only to run into the commanding officer on leave.
"I'm not babysitting a kid," Korlic scoffed, lifting his foot and vanishing, leaving Casillas staring up at Bul-Kathos.
"Teacher!" Casillas cried, summoning the Ancient One. She rejected the call, but a hand emerged from a portal to slap him across the face. Scheming for the Dark Dimension's power wasn't a grave sin, but it was far beyond what an immature mage like Casillas could handle. Worse, his "teacher" was the Dark Dimension's lord—pure, rotten luck.
"Alright, let's see which idle ancestor wants you as an apprentice," Bul-Kathos said, hoisting Casillas to his feet. A crowd of ancestral spirits materialized around them.
"Bul-Kathos, another mage?" one grumbled.
"I still can't stand mages," another muttered.
The spirits chattered, few showing interest. Most vanished, leaving only a handful behind.
"You trust me with him?" a calm-faced spirit asked—Banar, the berserker.
"Banar, he won't survive your secret realm," another spirit, Qual-Kehk, the general of the mountain's guardians, said with a mix of urgency and worry.
"Why do you always butt in, Qual-Kehk?" Banar retorted.
"Because I care about life," Qual-Kehk shot back.
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