~ Support & Read 80 Advanced Chapters on Patreon!
❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁
"Yes."
"The body!"
Once Giorno—suspended in midair—started talking, he couldn't stop. He confessed everything he knew.
Which, admittedly, wasn't much.
"After Andrew died, a patrol officer really did chase after them."
"Andor."
"And he actually caught up."
"We suspected Andor from the start. So three days after the incident, Bruce and I followed Andor to a warehouse outside the city."
"The two gunmen who shot Andrew were inside."
"Andor was kneeling on the ground in reverence."
"Because..."
Giorno's eyes grew distant, as if lost in memory—almost entranced. "Bruce and I saw the holy marks on their backs!"
Hawk raised an eyebrow.
His mind clicked, and he immediately understood what Giorno meant by "holy marks."
Probably the scars where those two bastards had severed their own wings.
Sure enough—
Giorno continued.
"Later, Bruce and I were discovered."
"But the Lord's messengers didn't punish us. Instead, they told us the end times were coming, and they—as the Lord's heralds—had come to guide humanity."
"..."
"Bruce and I followed their instructions and made the case look like gang violence."
"But Amy was too persistent."
"To complete the messengers' orders, Bruce and Andor had to personally threaten Amy."
"Their warning worked."
"Amy stopped coming to the precinct to make trouble."
"After that, Bruce and Andor faked their deaths as instructed. Then I secretly swapped out Andrew's body and let them take it."
"..."
When he finished, Giorno fixed Hawk with a furious glare. "That's everything I know. Now—let my son and grandson go."
Hawk regarded him with a neutral expression.
The next second.
He turned and vanished from the house.
Giorno, still suspended in midair, blinked in confusion. Just as he was about to speak, a searing, agonizing pain tore through him.
And then—
BOOM!
Giorno and the house exploded together in a single devastating blast.
...
When Hawk returned to SHIELD's New York headquarters, Gwen and George had already arrived.
George was gawking at his surroundings like a country bumpkin visiting the big city for the first time, marveling at the massive SHIELD complex hidden beneath Times Square.
Good grief.
He'd been a New Yorker his whole life, and he'd never known such a massive secret facility existed right under Times Square.
Hawk's arrival was silent.
But the moment he appeared, Gwen noticed him immediately.
Hawk glanced at Gwen, then looked at George.
"Andrew's body is at the 21st Precinct?"
"...Yes."
George snapped back to attention and looked at Hawk.
"What about it?"
"Has DNA testing been done?"
"The body's been in storage the whole time..."
George frowned, then caught on. "Are you saying that's not Andrew's body?"
Hawk's expression remained calm.
"Giorno just confessed. After Bruce and Andor faked their deaths, he switched the body and transported it to Paris."
"What?"
George was stunned.
Sharon had already dispatched agents to the 21st Precinct's medical examiner's office to retrieve the body supposedly belonging to Andrew.
They already had Hawk's DNA on file anyway.
That data had been recovered from HYDRA's underwater Atlantic base.
So...
Running a DNA comparison would be simple.
Gwen frowned. "Why would they want Andrew's body? Cloning?"
Sharon finished giving orders and walked over. "I've sent people to retrieve the body."
Gwen looked at Hawk.
Hawk was frowning too, a possibility forming in his mind.
But...
He looked up at Sharon. "Where's Blade?"
When Corvinus had first mentioned things, nothing had registered. But after Giorno revealed that Andrew's body had been switched, certain scenes from Blade II finally clicked into place.
Speaking of which—Blade's old man.
Whistler.
He'd been killed by vampires in the first film, only to return in the sequel after being turned into one himself.
Granted, Andrew's body had been moved a year after his death.
But—
Those two so-called Blood God messengers weren't real vampires either. God only knew what kind of divine artifacts Yahweh had given them to complete their mission.
Hawk's mind raced.
The next second.
After Sharon provided Blade's current location, he turned and vanished once more.
Same principle as always.
He wasn't a detective. He didn't need evidence. Suspicion was enough.
...
Blade's warehouse.
The Blood Pack squad from Corvinus Castle had arrived at the Daywalker's lair after nightfall, hoping to form an alliance against a terrifying new threat.
Reapers.
These were creatures mutated from vampires—stronger, faster, and fed on both vampire and human blood.
But that wasn't even the worst part.
The worst part was that any vampire bitten by a Reaper would undergo an agonizing transformation within minutes, becoming a new Reaper.
That was why Corvinus had dispatched the Blood Pack to New York City.
If the Reapers weren't eliminated quickly, the entire vampire species faced extinction. And once vampires were wiped out, the Reapers would turn their insatiable hunger toward humanity. A global catastrophe.
So—
When the Blood Pack arrived in New York and realized they couldn't capture the Reapers on their own, they'd thought of Blade.
Blade had recently retrieved Whistler—now a vampire—from one of their nests.
Fortunately.
After injecting Whistler with the vampire cure serum, the old man had recovered.
Now, Blade was showing his father around the warehouse—which SHIELD had renovated during Whistler's absence—when the Blood Pack arrived.
Just as Blade was wondering whether this might be some vampire trap—
Hawk appeared silently. He glanced at Blade, then noticed the tense Blood Pack members and raised an eyebrow. "Looks like I got here at the right time."
As he spoke.
SNAP!
Hawk snapped his fingers. Then, under Blade's watchful gaze, he walked up to a vampire with Asian features—one who bore a striking resemblance to a certain martial arts movie star.
"Bruce and Andor. Know where they are?"
"Who the hell are you??"
The vampire codenamed Snowman—Chupa—struggled against Hawk's hold.
Hawk said nothing. A flicker of thought, and BOOM—Snowman exploded in midair.
But the explosion didn't spread. The moment it detonated, it froze in place.
Somehow, that was even more terrifying.
Behind his sunglasses, Blade's eyes twitched involuntarily.
Whistler's mind screamed: Where the hell did this absolute monster come from?
Hawk walked over to Nyssa—the only female vampire in the Blood Pack.
Just as he was about to question her—
A bald, muscular vampire stepped forward. "Wait. If you have a problem, take it up with me. I'm their captain."
Hawk's gaze shifted to the bald vampire. Something clicked.
"Reinhardt?"
"...That's me."
"Good."
Hawk smiled faintly, released his hold on Reinhardt, and waited for him to land. Then he checked his watch and addressed him directly.
"It's seven PM. I'm giving you two hours. When time's up, either you bring me the two people I want—or I kill every member of your squad."
Reinhardt's expression shifted.
Hawk glanced at him.
Eye Blast.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Reinhardt rocketed backward out of the warehouse, crashing into a pile of scrapped car parts outside.
"Remember—you have two hours."
"Bring me Bruce and Andor."
"Otherwise, I will kill every single one of your teammates."
"..."
Reinhardt pulled himself out of the crater, shot a glance at Hawk inside the warehouse, eyes flickering with calculation, then blurred away at top speed.
Two hours.
Not much time.
After Reinhardt left, Hawk chuckled softly. A slight motion of his right hand, and the remaining three vampires—two males, one female—dropped to the ground.
Blade opened his mouth to speak.
Just then.
Hawk's gaze shifted. His right hand shot toward a dark corner of the warehouse, fingers closing into a fist.
"Since you're already here, come on out."
"..."
A dark figure hurtled toward him. The next instant, a vampire shrouded in monk-like robes was telekinetically yanked into Hawk's grasp.
The moment this robed shadow was captured, countless bestial shrieks erupted from the surrounding darkness.
Getting closer.
Getting louder.
Blade drew his sword instinctively.
"Something's coming."
"Reapers!"
"Fuck—let us go! You're going to get us all killed!"
The Blood Pack members recognized those shrieks. Their faces went pale as they struggled frantically against their invisible bonds, screaming at Hawk.
Just then.
CRASH!
Before Hawk could get a good look at the robed figure, the warehouse's skylights shattered. Glass rained down as something dropped through the opening.
In the moonlight, a creature descended—skin deathly pale and hairless, eyes completely black with no visible pupils, jaw splitting open like flower petals to reveal a circular maw lined with ring after ring of razor-sharp teeth.
The next second.
CRASH!
CRASH!
CRASH!
One after another, more of these monsters—previously hidden God-knows-where—came pouring in from every direction, as if someone had kicked over a hornet's nest.
These were—
Vampire mutations.
Reapers.
❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁
~# 80 Advanced Chapters Available on my Patreon!
https://p-atreon.com/dragonnx
(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)