Yorkshire, England — 1642. English Civil War.
The battlefield was a quagmire of mud, gunpowder, and severed limbs. James, then just a human mercenary, was on his knees, a spear driven through his abdomen. All around him, his battalion lay dead.
Standing before him, a knight in black armor wiped blood from a broadsword. He wasn't an enemy soldier; he was a vampire feeding on the spoils of war.
"You refuse to fall," the vampire observed, intrigued. "Most men would be screaming for their mothers by now."
James spat blood onto the knight's boots. He gripped the spear in his gut and, with a guttural roar, began to pull it out, inch by inch. The pain was blinding, but the will to live was greater.
"Pain…" James growled, throwing the bloody spear to the ground and attempting to stagger to his feet. "Pain tells me I'm still here."
The vampire smiled.
"An interesting philosophy. Let's see if your flesh can endure eternity."
He stepped forward and offered his open wrist. James didn't hesitate. He drank, choosing the curse in exchange for the strength to never kneel again.
(...)
PRESENT DAY - Catskill Forest, New York.
The shape sliced through the air, too fast for the human eye, but too slow for Rose.
"Missed!" the mentor shouted.
Natalie tripped over a root, tumbling through the dry leaves until her back slammed against an oak tree. She growled in frustration, her red eyes glowing in the forest's gloom.
"You're thinking too much, Nat," Rose said, dropping from a high branch and landing silently beside her. "You're trying to calculate the trajectory. You aren't a student anymore. You are an animal. The deer doesn't calculate. It runs."
Ruby, sitting on a moss-covered rock, watched with a nostalgic smile, remembering her own stumbles decades ago.
"Let the girl breathe, Rose. She's been alive for six months."
"That's already more than enough," Rose shot back. "Again."
Natalie stood up. She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. The scent of the forest flooded her mind: pine resin, damp earth, and… heat. A heart beating fast, three hundred meters to the east.
This time, she didn't think. She just went.
The ground exploded beneath her feet. Natalie became a grey blur between the trees. She leaped over a stream, kicked off a tree trunk to gain momentum, and landed on her prey before the animal could hear the wind change.
She grabbed the deer, snapped its neck with a clean movement, and sank her fangs in. The warm blood calmed her.
Rose appeared behind her, arms crossed.
"Your posture was sloppy on the final jump." Rose paused, and a half-smile of pride appeared. "But the landing was decent. Not bad for a newborn."
Natalie wiped her mouth, smiling back, feeling the power coursing through her veins.
London - Butcher Manor.
The front door of the Victorian mansion wasn't opened. It was blown off its hinges.
Alice stepped through the smoke and wood splinters. Her black trench coat billowed in the wind of the explosion. In her hands, Tracy's two silver pistols gleamed.
The entrance hall was packed. Thirty vampires armed with submachine guns and swords.
They opened fire.
Alice didn't seek cover. She ran along the walls.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The sound of Tracy's pistols was like a judge's gavel striking. Every shot found a target. The hollow-point silver bullets exploded on contact, releasing pressurized holy water and wolfsbane inside the vampires' bodies. They didn't just fall; they burned from the inside out, screaming as they turned to ash.
Alice spun in the air, firing at two guards on the staircase, landed, and kicked a third in the chest, collapsing his ribcage. She was efficient death. No wasted movement. No mercy.
Upstairs, in his private office, James Butcher watched everything on the security monitors. He sipped an aged whiskey, showing no trace of concern.
"Sir…" Karone, his loyal servant, was pale, staring at the screen where Alice was slaughtering the last line of defense. "Should we flee through the tunnels?"
James laughed, a deep, raspy sound.
"Flee? I've waited centuries for someone worth killing. Let her come up."
Alice kicked open the double doors of the office.
The room was vast, decorated with weapons from past wars. James stood near the fireplace.
Karone stepped into Alice's path, drawing two daggers.
"You will not touch him!"
Alice didn't even slow down. She fired once. The bullet struck Karone in the forehead. The servant fell dead before her knees hit the floor. Alice stepped over the body without looking down.
"Hello, James," Alice said.
"Alice…" James spread his arms. "I see you made some noise."
Alice raised her weapons and fired.
Four shots. Two to the chest, two to James's stomach.
The impact forced the Elder's massive body backward, blood staining his white shirt. But he didn't fall. He smiled.
Alice pulled the trigger again.
Click.
Empty.
She dropped the guns to the floor and unsheathed her claws.
"I prefer it this way," James said.
Alice lunged. Her first punch, charged with Dracula's strength, connected with James's jaw. It should have torn his head off. Instead, it merely turned his face to the side.
James spat out a tooth and turned back to her. The skin where she had struck wasn't bruised; it was turning grey, hard as granite.
He counter-attacked. James's punch hit Alice in the stomach, throwing her across the room. She crashed into a bookshelf, shattering it. His strength was absurd.
Alice stood up, spitting blood.
"You hit hard for an old man."
She attacked again, using her superior speed. She slashed, tore, and kicked. But with every blow Alice landed, James seemed to grow.
His muscles swelled, tearing his suit. His skin became a grey, impenetrable carapace.
"Don't you understand, girl?" James laughed, catching Alice's kick and hurling her against the fireplace. "Pain is my fuel! The more you hurt me, the more invincible I become!"
James began to unleash a sequence of punches on Alice's body with colossal force, discharging her own strength added to his back onto her.
Alice was gasping. Her body ached. She looked around and saw an antique spear decorating the wall.
She rolled, dodging a stomp from James that cracked the floorboards, and grabbed the spear.
With a scream of effort, Alice propelled herself forward and drove the steel tip into James's chest, right where the heart should be.
The blade pierced through his back.
James stopped. He looked down at the spear in his chest.
Then, he grabbed the shaft of the weapon and snapped it with one hand.
He didn't die. He didn't even falter.
"You missed," James whispered, grabbing Alice by the neck and lifting her off the ground.
He squeezed. Alice felt her windpipe begin to give way.
"But how… I… hit… the heart…" she choked out.
"The first heart," James corrected. His skin was now almost solid stone. "I am a chimera of war, Alice. I evolved to have redundancies. The second heart… is here."
He tapped the right side of his chest, where a heavy, rhythmic sound echoed like a war drum.
"And now, you will die."
Alice was losing consciousness. Her vision was darkening.
But then, Dracula's blood within her reacted to the mortal danger. A wave of heat and primordial fury exploded in her veins.
Not today.
Alice roared. Her eyes became furnaces. She grabbed the arm James was using to choke her and, with the sound of cracking stone, she broke his wrist, forcing him to drop her.
She hit the floor and, before James could react, Alice used her claws to slash James's leg, severing the tendons. The giant fell to his knees.
Alice didn't hesitate. She climbed onto his back.
James tried to throw her off, but she clung like a tick made of hatred.
She located the sound. The second heart. Right side. Back. Protected by calcified bone ribs and stone skin.
"Die!" Alice screamed.
She didn't use weapons. She used her hand. She concentrated all the Original's strength into her fingers, transforming her hand into a spear.
She struck.
Alice's hand pierced the stone skin, shattered the ribs, and plunged into the hot flesh. Her fingers found the pulsating organ.
She squeezed.
The second heart exploded inside James's chest.
The giant body shuddered violently. The grey skin began to crack, red light leaking through the fissures.
James fell forward, but used his arms to catch himself. He refused to lie down.
Alice jumped off his back, standing before him, covered in blood and dust.
James looked at her. Life was draining away, the stone skin turning to ash.
He smiled, blood trickling from his mouth.
"A good strike…" James coughed. "Worthy of recognition."
Alice stepped closer. She saw his life force leaking out. She needed that. She needed more strength for what was coming next.
She held his face and drank the remaining blood, absorbing the resilience and brute force of James Butcher.
When she pulled away, James was almost gone.
"Benjamin…" James whispered, his voice failing. "He isn't hiding. He went home. Venice. The alchemy catacombs."
"Why tell me this?" Alice asked.
"Because you fight well." James straightened his back, forcing himself to stay upright even as his legs turned to dust. "And death must be faced standing."
James Butcher died as he lived: a statue of war. He turned to ash in his position, leaving only dust on the expensive rug.
Alice stumbled back. Her body was wounded, covered in purple bruises, but it was already beginning to heal with the new strength she had absorbed.
She picked up her empty pistols from the floor and holstered them.
She left the silent mansion, staggering to a red phone booth on the rainy street corner.
Her hands trembled as she inserted the coin.
"Tracy?" Alice's voice was hoarse.
"Alice?" The armorer's voice sounded worried. "You sound like you've been hit by a train."
"Worse. But it's done. James has fallen."
"Shit… you're crazy. Where are you?"
"Near Camden. I need to get out of here."
"Stay where you are. I have the van two blocks away. Look for the headlights being off."
Alice hung up the phone and rested her forehead against the cold glass of the booth.
One down.
Venice awaited her.