Chapter 10: The Antique Trap
Dot's antique shop sits in morning sunlight like a deceptively peaceful trap, its weathered brick facade hiding secrets that could reshape supernatural politics. Dexter crouches behind a parked car across the street, vampire senses cataloging wrongness that mundane perception would miss entirely.
Too many heartbeats inside the building. Seven, maybe eight, when there should be only two. Chemical smells of accelerants drifting through cracked windows. The metallic tang of concealed weapons, blessed steel that burns supernatural flesh.
[WARNING: CANON DEATH EVENT IN 30 MINUTES]
[INTERVENTION RECOMMENDED]
[CASUALTY RISK: HIGH]
[SPECIES ENERGY: VITALITY 85/100]
The system interface pulses red with urgent warnings while Dexter studies the tactical situation through his camera's telephoto lens. Circle members have transformed Dot's sanctuary into a killing ground, positioning themselves for maximum damage when Clary and Jace arrive seeking answers about the Mortal Cup.
But they're not here yet. In the original timeline, they arrive just as the trap springs, giving Circle members every advantage. This time, I have advance warning. This time, maybe I can save her.
Isabelle Lightwood crouches beside him, her Shadowhunter training allowing her to read the battlefield with professional efficiency. "Multiple hostiles, defensive positions, civilian in immediate danger. What's the plan?"
"I go in first," Dexter replies, adjusting his camera settings for low-light combat photography. "Photography gives me cover to move around, document evidence, plant surveillance that will help when backup arrives."
"That's not a plan," Isabelle observes with the dry humor of someone who's survived more impossible situations than she should have. "That's a suicide note written in good intentions."
She's right. But I can't explain about temporal mechanics or canonical events, can't tell her that I know exactly when and how this unfolds because I watched it happen in another world.
"Trust me," Dexter says, knowing it's insufficient but unable to offer better explanation. "I have advantages you don't see."
He crosses the street with mundane casualness, camera hanging around his neck like tourist camouflage, enhanced senses screaming warnings about the predators waiting inside Dot's carefully organized domain of mystical artifacts and hidden knowledge.
The shop's door chimes softly as he enters, announcing his presence to everyone—Circle members, Dot herself, and whatever supernatural forces have been drawn to this convergence of fate and violence.
"Dexter?" Dot Rollins emerges from behind the counter, her voice carrying the cautious warmth of someone who recognizes him from Clary's descriptions. "What brings you here so early?"
Dorothea "Dot" Rollins. Warlock, seer, keeper of secrets that Valentine would kill to possess. In the show, she was wise and protective, dying to protect Clary's access to suppressed memories. Here, studying me with those knowing eyes, she's powerful in ways television never captured.
"The building will become a barbecue with extra demon sauce—EVACUATE NOW!"
The words explode from his throat, mangled by the curse into apparent madness. But Dot is a warlock with centuries of experience reading supernatural signs, and she hears sincerity beneath the scrambled warning.
Her expression shifts from confusion to alarm as she begins weaving defensive spells, hands moving in patterns that make the air itself respond with protective energy. Too late—Circle members emerge from hiding places throughout the shop, weapons drawn, faces carrying the righteous fury of religious extremists.
"Dorothea Rollins," the lead attacker announces with ceremonial formality. "By order of the Circle, you will surrender all information regarding the Mortal Cup's location."
"Never," Dot replies, magic crackling around her fingers like captured lightning. "Valentine's crusade ends here."
The attack comes from multiple directions simultaneously—blessed steel that burns supernatural flesh, accelerants that turn innocent merchandise into weapons, coordinated violence designed to overwhelm even warlock defenses.
Dexter triggers Vampire Speed Burst, moving faster than human reflexes should allow, intercepting the Circle member who lunges toward Dot with a blade that glows with angelic power. The collision sends them both crashing into a display of crystal balls, and his enhanced senses scream warnings about weapons that cut deeper than natural metal.
[ABILITY ACTIVATED: VAMPIRE SPEED BURST]
[VITALITY COST: 25 POINTS]
[REMAINING VITALITY: 60/100]
The fight is brutal chaos—Circle members trained for supernatural warfare versus a warlock defending her sanctuary and a photographer with borrowed vampire abilities. Dexter uses his camera equipment as weapons, flashbulbs disorienting attackers while he documents evidence of Circle operations that could prove valuable later.
I can't be everywhere at once. Can't protect Dot while fighting trained warriors, can't prevent the fires while intercepting blessed steel, can't save everything that needs saving.
When Clary and Jace burst through the shop's front entrance, the situation spirals beyond any possible control. Circle members adapt their tactics, using Clary's arrival as distraction while focusing their assault on Dot's position behind the counter.
"Clary, run!" Dot shouts, unleashing magic that turns shop fixtures into weapons against her attackers. "The Cup—it's in the cards! Madame Dorothea's cards!"
She's giving Clary the crucial information, sacrificing secrecy to save lives. But Circle members hear everything, and now they know the Cup's location too.
Dexter fights his way toward Dot as flames engulf the rear of the shop, using Blood Healing to close wounds from blessed steel while his enhanced senses track multiple threats through smoke and chaos. She's injured but alive, warlock magic keeping her functional despite bleeding from several cuts.
[ABILITY ACTIVATED: BLOOD HEALING]
[VITALITY COST: 30 POINTS]
[REMAINING VITALITY: 30/100]
He reaches her just as a Circle member's blade finds its mark—not a killing stroke, but deep enough to disrupt her magical defenses. Dexter places his hands on the wound, channeling vampire regeneration through their shared contact, watching flesh knit together with supernatural efficiency.
She's going to make it. Despite the canonical timeline, despite fate itself, Dot is going to survive this.
But survival comes at a price. As Circle members retreat from the burning shop, one of them triggers a final trap—accelerants that turn the entire rear section into an inferno, collapsing support beams and trapping Dot beneath burning debris.
Dexter tries to reach her, but Jace drags him back while Clary screams in helpless fury. The last thing he sees is Dot's face through the flames, her lips moving in what might be blessing or curse, her eyes holding the kind of peace that comes from duty fulfilled.
"Thank you," she whispers, voice barely audible over the sound of collapsing architecture. "For trying."
[DOT ROLLINS: DECEASED]
[CANON DEATH DELAYED BY 8 MINUTES]
[OUTCOME UNCHANGED]
[SYSTEM LESSON: NOT ALL FATES CAN BE REWRITTEN]
[VITALITY: 15/100 (CRITICAL LOW)]
The system interface displays cold statistical analysis while Dexter kneels in the street outside the burning shop, watching firefighters battle flames that started with supernatural accelerants. He had advance warning, vampire abilities, knowledge of exactly how events would unfold. It wasn't enough.
I couldn't save her. Despite everything—the contracts, the power, the impossible knowledge—I couldn't save one person who deserved to live.
"You tried," Raphael Santiago says quietly, appearing beside him with the silent movement of a predator who's been watching from shadows. "That counts for something."
"Does it?" Dexter asks, voice rough with smoke and failure. "She's still dead. The Cup's location is compromised. Valentine gets closer to his goals while I play games with borrowed power."
Raphael's presence here isn't coincidence. He was tracking the same Circle agents I was, following vampire intelligence networks that suggested something major was about to happen.
"If you want real power," Raphael continues, studying Dexter's depleted state with calculating eyes, "you need deeper bonds. Clan contract instead of individual. But clan contracts require proof of loyalty."
"What kind of proof?"
"Trial by combat. Trial by blood. Trial by sacrifice." Raphael's expression carries the weight of someone who's survived ordeals that destroyed weaker beings. "Are you prepared for that level of commitment?"
He's offering evolution of our contract—from individual bond to clan membership, access to collective vampire power instead of just his personal abilities. But trials are notoriously lethal, designed to weed out candidates who aren't worthy of permanent inclusion.
"Yes," Dexter says without hesitation, grief and failure crystallizing into desperate determination. "I accept."
[CONTRACT EVOLUTION AVAILABLE]
[INDIVIDUAL → CLAN CONTRACT]
[WARNING: TRIAL OF BLOOD REQUIRED]
[FAILURE RESULTS IN CONTRACT TERMINATION AND PERMANENT VAMPIRE AFFINITY LOSS]
[ACCEPT? Y/N]
"The trials begin at sunset," Raphael says, extending a hand to help Dexter stand. "Hotel DuMort. Bring nothing but determination and willingness to bleed for power."
Three hours to recover, to say goodbye to whatever humanity I might lose in the process, to prepare for trials that could kill me or transform me into something capable of actually protecting the people I care about.
Across the street, Shadowhunters investigate the burned remains of Dot's shop while Clary cries over losses that could have been prevented if fate worked differently. Jace's expression carries the weight of another failure, another civilian death on his watch.
I couldn't save Dot. But maybe, if I survive what's coming, I'll have the power to save the next person. Maybe that's worth whatever price the vampires demand.
Time to find out what I'm willing to sacrifice for the chance to change fate itself.
His phone buzzes with a text from Aria: "I heard about the fire. Are you okay?"
He stares at the message without responding, because he doesn't know the answer anymore. Is he Dexter Hale the photographer, struggling to maintain a mundane life while supernatural chaos destroys everything around him? Or is he becoming something else—something that bleeds and fights and fails to save people he cares about, but keeps trying anyway?
The trials will answer that question. One way or another.
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