The air in The Grand Veridian was a carefully curated illusion of tranquility. Soft classical music, the clinking of expensive silverware, and the murmur of polite conversation created a soundscape designed to soothe the city's elite. From his corner booth, Vicky Thorne watched the illusion with the detached amusement of a lion observing a herd of gazelles. They were all so blissfully unaware, wrapped in their cocoons of wealth and status, oblivious to the predators that walked among them.
He felt her approach before the maître d' announced her. Dr. Sarah Chen. Her heartbeat was a steady, disciplined rhythm, a testament to years of training and a will of iron. Yet beneath that calm exterior, Vicky's enhanced senses detected a frantic, almost hummingbird-like flutter of intellectual curiosity. She wasn't nervous; she was hungry. Hungry for data, for answers, for the solution to the puzzle that was Vicky Thorne.
She was a woman who was attractive in a severe, functional way. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tight, professional bun, not a single strand out of place. She wore a charcoal-grey pantsuit that was clearly expensive but utterly devoid of personality. It was a uniform, designed to project authority and deflect attention. Her eyes, however, were anything but neutral. They were a piercing, intelligent shade of grey, and they were already scanning the room, analyzing every detail, every exit, every person.
The maître d' led her to the table, his deference to Vicky now bordering on reverential fear. "Mr. Thorne," he said, his voice a hushed whisper. "Your guest has arrived."
"Thank you, Jean-Pierre," Vicky said, not looking at the maître d', but at Chen. "That will be all."
He subtly used his Blood Dragon Presence, not to intimidate, but to project an aura of absolute command. Jean-Pierre bowed slightly and vanished, leaving the two of them alone. Marcus, sitting at an adjacent table, remained perfectly still, his eyes scanning the restaurant, a silent, unmovable guardian.
"Mr. Thorne," Dr. Chen said, her voice crisp and professional. She did not offer to shake his hand, instead taking the seat opposite him. "Thank you for agreeing to meet."
"The pleasure is all mine, Dr. Chen," Vicky replied, his tone smooth as polished glass. He gestured to the bottle of sparkling water on the table. "Can I offer you a drink? Or perhaps your agency has policies against such fraternization?"
Her eyes narrowed slightly at his use of the word "agency." It was a subtle probe, and she didn't take the bait. "Water is fine, thank you. I'm sure you're a busy man, so I'll be direct. My name is Sarah Chen, and I'm with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We're conducting an inquiry into certain financial and corporate irregularities that have occurred in Veros over the past year."
"I'm aware," Vicky said. He poured her a glass of water, his movements economical and precise. He could feel the eyes of her surveillance team on him—one sniper team in the building across the street, two agents posing as a couple at the bar, and another pretending to be a busboy. They were good. But they were also loud, their anxious energy broadcasting their presence to his senses like a foghorn.
"Are you?" Chen asked, raising an eyebrow. "Then you must be aware that Nightwatch Holdings, a corporation of which you are the sole registered owner, has seen unprecedented, almost impossible growth, much of which seems to be directly correlated with the simultaneous collapse of Vance Holdings."
"Correlation does not imply causation, Doctor," Vicky said, taking a slow sip of his own water. "I believe that's a fundamental principle of logical analysis. Or has that changed since your time at MIT?"
The mention of her alma mater, a piece of information not on any public record, landed like a stone in a calm pond. Her calm façade didn't crack, but Vicky felt her heartbeat skip a single, almost imperceptible beat. A flicker of surprise, quickly suppressed.
"My educational background is not relevant here, Mr. Thorne," she said, her voice a little tighter.
"Isn't it?" Vicky countered, leaning back in the booth. He let his gaze drift past her, toward the window. "I believe it's entirely relevant. It tells me that you are not a typical FBI agent. You are a specialist. A profiler. You look for patterns in chaos. And you've found a very interesting pattern, haven't you? A pattern that led you from corporate finance to me."
He brought his gaze back to her, and for a fleeting moment, he let a fraction of his true nature bleed into his eyes. Not the full crimson-gold of his draconic form, but a subtle deepening of color, a hint of ancient power that a normal human would dismiss as a trick of the light. But Sarah Chen was not a normal human. He knew she would register it, even if she couldn't understand it.
"The problem, Dr. Chen," Vicky continued, his voice dropping slightly, becoming more intimate, "is that you are using the wrong map. You are trying to navigate a jungle with a street map of Manhattan. You're looking for financial crimes, for corporate espionage, for motives you can understand—greed, ambition, revenge. You assume I dismantled Vance Holdings because Damien Vance stole my girlfriend. That's the sort of simple, human motive you can plug into your profile, isn't it?"
Chen remained silent, her face a mask of professional neutrality. But her mind was racing. He had just confirmed his involvement in the Vance collapse, something they had suspected but couldn't prove. And he had just revealed a personal motive that was buried so deep in his past it shouldn't have been on any investigative radar.
"You're mistaken if you think I operate on such... petty motivations," Vicky said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Damien Vance was an insect. His corporation was a sandcastle. I swept them aside not out of revenge, but because they were in my way. You are investigating the ripples in a pond, Doctor, while ignoring the tidal wave that caused them."
He leaned forward, his voice now a low, conspiratorial whisper. He used his Mind Control, not to command, but to weave a subtle thread of paranoia and doubt into her thoughts. You are out of your depth. Your superiors have not told you the truth. This is bigger than you know.
"Tell me, Dr. Chen," he said softly. "What did they really tell you about your assignment? Did they tell you that you're hunting a mysterious billionaire? Or did they tell you that Veros has a supernatural infestation, and your job is to catalog it before it gets out of control? Did they mention the Silent Dragon? The Bronze and Silver Tier masters that your agency has no actionable intelligence on? The ones whose enforcers have been quietly disappearing for months?"
Every question was a hammer blow to her composure. Her heartbeat was no longer steady; it was a frantic, staccato rhythm. She was losing control of the interview, of the entire situation. He knew things. Things that weren't in any FBI file.
At the other table, Marcus's focus sharpened. He wasn't listening to Vicky's conversation. His job was security. And his enhanced vampiric senses had just detected something wrong. A new energy signature had entered the restaurant. It was subtle, almost completely masked, but it was there. Cold, disciplined, and filled with a quiet, predatory hunger. A Chi user. A powerful one.
Marcus met Vicky's eyes for a fraction of a second, a silent communication passing between them. Vicky gave a barely perceptible nod. Acknowledged. Continue observation.
The Silent Dragon was here. They were watching. This meeting was now a three-way chess game.
Vicky turned his attention back to the bewildered agent in front of him. "You look troubled, Doctor. It must be difficult when the puzzle pieces don't fit the picture on the box. Especially when you realize the picture on the box was a lie to begin with."
"Who are you?" Chen finally asked, her voice a strained whisper. The question was no longer an investigator's probe; it was a plea for understanding from a mind confronted with an impossible reality.
"I am a consequence," Vicky said simply. "I am what happens when power is left in the hands of the weak and corrupt. I am the new reality. Your task force, your government... they are relics of a dying age. They are trying to put a bandage on a limb that has already been amputated."
He decided to give her a gift. A piece of real, actionable intelligence. A breadcrumb to lead her down a new path, a path he controlled.
"You want a real case, Dr. Chen?" he asked, his tone shifting from philosophical to practical. "Something your agency can sink its teeth into? Forget about me for a moment. Look into the disappearances at the Veros Port Authority over the past two years. Specifically, look for a pattern of missing dockworkers and a spike in contaminated seafood shipments. Your agency will assume it's a drug smuggling ring. It's not."
He paused, letting the information sink in. "There's a colony of Deep Ones living in the underwater caverns beneath the port. They've been preying on the homeless and the isolated for decades. Their numbers are growing. They are a genuine, low-level supernatural threat. Verifiable. Tangible. Something you can fight."
He was, of course, referring to a nest of creatures that one of Elias's patrols had discovered and marked for extermination next week. Sacrificing them to redirect the FBI's attention was a small price to pay.
"Why?" Chen asked, her mind struggling to process the impossible information he was giving her. "Why would you tell me this?"
"Because you're asking the wrong questions," Vicky said, rising from his seat. "You're focused on the new dragon that just landed in the forest, when you should be worried about the vipers that have been living in the undergrowth all along. My business in Veros is a stabilizing force, Doctor. I eliminate chaos. I create order. The Silent Dragon, the creatures in the port, the other... things... that lurk in this city's shadows? They represent true chaos."
He placed a black, metallic credit card on the table to cover the bill. It had no name, no number, just a simple, elegant crimson pact seal. "Consider this a professional courtesy. A piece of advice from one apex predator to another. Choose your targets wisely. Some are far more dangerous than they appear."
He gave her a final, unsettling smile. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Dr. Chen. I have a feeling we'll be speaking again."
With that, he and Marcus turned and walked away, leaving Dr. Sarah Chen alone at the table, her world completely shattered. She had come here expecting to interview a criminal mastermind. She had left with a warning from a being who saw her, her agency, and her entire government as an irrelevance. The file on Vicky Thorne was no longer just a case; it was an abyss, and she had just stared into it.
As they rode the elevator down in silence, Marcus finally spoke, his voice a low whisper. "Master, there was a watcher. At the bar. Posing as a businessman. His Chi signature was strong. Bronze Tier, at least. He left the moment we stood up."
"I know," Vicky said, his eyes distant. "They wanted to see how I would handle the FBI. They're testing me. Assessing my methods. They're cautious. Good. It will make their eventual destruction all the more satisfying."
They stepped out into the bright afternoon sun. Vicky felt its warmth on his skin, a pleasant sensation that no longer held any threat. He was a creature of the day as much as the night now. The city sprawled before him, a kingdom of glass and steel and mortal souls.
The first move on the new chessboard had been made. He had planted a seed of doubt in the mind of his enemy, redirected their focus, and asserted his dominance without revealing a single truth about what he was. The Silent Dragon had shown their hand, confirming they were watching him. And in the shadows, the other ancient powers of Veros were stirring.
Vicky slid into the driver's seat of the Koenigsegg, the engine purring to life with a quiet promise of unimaginable power.
The game was afoot. And he was enjoying it immensely.