"Hey, hey, hold on!" Blade interrupted, stopping his kunai play. "No empty words. In blood."
Damn! Likkus cursed mentally. A Blood Oath. An ancient, unbreakable ritual. It wouldn't just bind his will; it would drain him, make him vulnerable for weeks. And breaking the oath would lead to the degradation of his blood, the loss of purity, and a fall in the clan hierarchy. It was worse than death. But he had no choice.
He stretched out his hand and, focusing, uttered the words that echoed with pain in every cell of his body:
"I, Likkus Haskiel, a pureblood vampire of the second generation, swear by my blood that I will leave the human known as John Thompson and his associates alone. I swear by my blood that I will not plot evil against him, either personally or through third parties. I swear by my blood that if I become aware of a direct threat to his life, I will warn him of it."
At the last word, he doubled over, and a clot of dark, almost black blood burst from his mouth. It fell on the asphalt, and it hissed as if from acid, leaving a smoldering symbol for a moment. Likkus paled even more and seemed to age several years.
"Now you're talking!" Blade grinned. "Always knew Haskiels could be reasoned with. Well, bye."
"Wait. My people..." Likkus asked in a weakened voice. "The ones who were watching him yesterday. Did you kill them?"
"First of all, not 'people.' Second, none of your damn business," Blade tossed back, and walking around the car, he got into the front passenger seat.
Before getting behind the wheel, the boy turned to the Vampire.
"I wouldn't mind establishing cooperation with you in the future, Lord Likkus."
"Go to hell!" he hissed, glaring at him with hatred, and turned to his car.
The young man shrugged, got into the Honda, and drove out of the alley, unhindered.
In his car, Likkus leaned back in the seat, trying to catch his breath. He analyzed what had happened and concluded that they had gotten off lightly. They lost one offshoot, a couple of years of his life energy, and three ordinary resurrected ones. In return, they received... a kind of immunity. As long as the boy was alive and under Blade's protection, their clan, bound by oath, would be out of the Daywalker's sights.
"Lord, are we really... going to leave him alone?" asked the assistant, pulling out onto the night street.
"It's the best we can do," Likkus replied, looking out the window. "Blade is here for a reason. Purges are coming. And in the coming months, or even years... we'd better lie low."
We drove in silence for a few minutes. I was driving, still feeling the aftertaste of adrenaline and victory. Blade silently watched the passing lights of nighttime New York, and I could only guess what he was thinking. Probably analyzing the last meeting, me, my words. Despite his ostensible carelessness, he was clearly a professional to the core.
"'Just evaded surveillance,' you say?" he suddenly broke the silence, without turning his head.
Yeah, right... Inventory, System, meta-knowledge. Secrets that are worth more than life in this world. I was silent, and after thinking for a couple more seconds, Blade suddenly slapped himself on the forehead sharply, but not hard.
"Damn. How did you even find out about the existence of Vampires? And about me? That's the first thing I should have asked. Your damn watch threw me off."
"These are... the secrets that I would prefer to keep to myself," I replied cautiously.
To my relief, he was satisfied with this answer. He grunted, turning to me.
"Keep it to yourself, then. Everyone has their skeletons in the closet. Don't sweat it, I'm a solid nigga. If you periodically supply me with your potions, we'll become best friends in general. Moreover, I plan to stay here for a while. It's time to thin out the local livestock a little."
"What about the Haskiels? Are you going to leave them alone?"
"What about them? I only kill arrogant bastards and complete psychos. These, you saw for yourself, are amenable to negotiation. They are part of the ecosystem, and not the worst one. They run businesses, provide protection, pay taxes... well, their own, Vampire, taxes. As long as they sit quietly, I don't give a damn about them."
"I see. The main thing is that I can breathe easy now. And I really can supply you with useful stuff. But not for free, of course."
"Ha! You wound me," Blade smirked. "Uncle Blade always pays his bills."
"That's settled, then," I nodded. The tension had subsided, and I allowed myself to switch the topic to what really interested me. "By the way, when Likkus was swearing... what does 'pureblood vampire of the second generation' mean?"
Blade looked at me with genuine surprise.
"You know how to find me, but you don't know their internal cuisine? Funny. Okay, listen to a mini-lecture on vampyrology. Maybe one day it'll save your ass. In short. It all started with Varnae. The first Vampire. Created by who the hell knows, when the hell knows. Among ghouls, he's called the Progenitor. Definitely a damn strong bastard who'd twist me into a pretzel with one finger. Fortunately, we haven't met personally."
"Maybe he died a long time ago?"
"Nah," Blade shook his head. "That kind of scum doesn't die. Just doesn't stand out. So, the Progenitor went into the shadows five centuries ago and passed the power to his direct Descendants. There were six of them in total. I, by the way, offed one personally. Of the remaining five, the most famous is Dracula. Now he rules the entire Vampire coven and is considered the strongest of them."
"And he lives in a castle somewhere in Romania?"
"Ha, almost guessed it. In Chernobyl," Blade's answer made me lose my speech for a second. "He likes the atmosphere. Very post-apocalyptic. The first generation of purebloods have already come from the Descendants, then the second, like our acquaintance Likkus, then the third. Then the blood is diluted greatly, and ordinary Vampires come out. Therefore, there are no fourth-generation purebloods in nature."
"And how do they... reproduce? Through bites?"
"Varnae and his Descendants can do it the classic way. You know," Blade smirked lewdly. "The first and second generation purebloods, too. But the third generation rarely gives birth. So, yes, most new Vampires appear through a bite."
"So, some of them... are alive to some extent?" This question worried me especially acutely.
"To some extent, yes. Especially those who are born, not turned. For those turned by a bite, it's like a genetic disease, a virus. But there are exceptions. Just like our case. Clans like Haskiel prefer not to turn the living, but to revive dead bodies and put them at their service. Such dummies are definitely not alive. They have no soul, no thoughts of their own. Only fragments of the personality they had in life. Willless dolls."
A cold wave ran down my spine. There it is. The explanation. Animated corpses. The System unashamedly marked them as "non-living objects," allowing me to put them in the Inventory. But Likkus... a pureblood, a born Vampire... I suddenly realized with absolute certainty that my touch wouldn't work on him. My main trump card, my seemingly ultimate ability, had a blind spot. And I almost bet everything on it, without even knowing the rules of the game.
After all, in this world there are, or will soon appear, other forms of life that may not seem so at first glance. The boundaries of the definition of "alive" here are blurred beyond recognition. My brain began to frantically go through options, and a chill ran down my spine from each new example.
Take Vision, for example. A synthetic Vibranium body, a computer mind based on artificial intelligence... and a soul, or semblance of one, bestowed by the Infinity Stone. Is he alive? From a human ethics point of view, absolutely. But for the soulless System? He wasn't born, he has no DNA. And his "soul" is, in some ways, artificial. Will I be able to put him in the Inventory? The very thought of it was monstrous.
Or even simpler—Sandman, Flint Marko. His consciousness, his personality, his soul—no doubt, human and alive. But his body is just silicon dioxide, animated sand. What is the criterion for the System? A biological shell or the presence of a sentient soul? Will I be able to "collect" him in the Inventory like a pile of sand, or will his will make him a "living" object?
And what about Ben Grimm, The Thing from the Fantastic Four? His body is living stone, an organic silicate rock. He breathes, eats, thinks. He is definitely "alive," even though he is not made of the usual protein. So, it's not about the chemical composition. What about exotic races from space? Beings of pure energy, collective minds, crystalloid life forms...
My Inventory, from an ultimate weapon to "click and defeat any undead," was turning before my eyes into a high-precision surgical instrument with incomprehensible instructions. Using it at random is tantamount to attempting brain surgery with a jackhammer. From this moment on, every new opponent will be considered "alive" by default. Every threat requires deep analysis. Relying on the Inventory as a panacea is a deadly mistake, which I, fortunately, realized before it killed me.
"We're here," I said, stalling the engine near my house. The awareness of my own luck, and at the same time, vulnerability with stupidity, left a bitter taste.
Blade glanced at my modest one-story house.
"Well, come on, show me your Resident Evil."