The night was heavy with silence, the kind that clung to the skin and whispered things you didn't want to hear. Whitmoor was changing—no longer the sleepy college town it once pretended to be. Something ancient was waking, and its heartbeat pulsed beneath the very ground.
Mr. Sabastin stood by his window, his usually impassive face drawn tight. He could feel it. A ripple in the veil. A breach. The vampires were no longer in hiding.
He picked up a glass vial from his shelf, swirling its dark blue liquid slowly, almost meditatively. "It's begun," he muttered.
Across town, in the abandoned train yard just beyond the old railway, a massacre was underway.
Steve stood amid the carnage, blood still dripping from his fingertips. His smile was razor-thin, his eyes glowing faintly red beneath the moonlight. Around him lay the twisted corpses of two vampire scouts who dared to question his authority.
"They thought leadership meant mercy," Steve whispered, wiping his fingers clean on one of their jackets. "Idiots."
He turned to the half-circle of vampires kneeling before him—newly turned, feral and eager.
"We don't blend," he snarled. "We conquer. Whitmoor has hidden one of the oldest sources of blood memory in vampire history. And we will find it."
The youngest vampire, a redheaded boy no older than seventeen when he died, lifted his hand shakily. "W-What exactly are we looking for, Master?"
Steve stepped forward, slow and deliberate. "A blood key," he said. "A relic created from the veins of a Monarch—a vampire who drank the essence of time itself. It's been hidden here. Sabastin's protecting it... or perhaps," his lips twisted, "he's just as lost as the rest of them."
Suddenly, his head snapped to the side.
He heard something.
Or rather, someone.
A heartbeat.
Weak.
Panicking.
Running.
"Someone's listening," he whispered, and in a blur, he vanished.
---
Marcus Griggs had never believed in the vampire rumors. A janitor at Whitmoor since '93, he'd seen the town change—new tech, new students, and yes, a few strange murders over the years, but monsters? No.
That belief shattered the moment Steve materialized before him, silent as a blade in the dark.
"You've been spying," Steve said.
Marcus dropped his flashlight and fell to his knees, trembling. "P-Please, I have a family. I—"
Steve tilted his head, frowning. "Why do humans always say that?"
In one swift motion, Steve plunged his clawed hand into Marcus's chest, gripping his heart. The old man gasped, eyes wide. But instead of killing him outright, Steve leaned in.
"Tell them," he whispered, squeezing just enough to make Marcus cry out, "Tell them I'm coming. Tell Sabastin the past never stays buried."
He released him, letting the janitor collapse in a bloody heap, barely breathing.
"Leave him alive," Steve called to the others. "Let fear spread. It's the best messenger."
---
Back at Alex's home, things were far from calm.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror, watching his veins shimmer faintly silver beneath his skin. His pupils had begun to sharpen into slits under certain lights, and his fangs—it wasn't imagination anymore—were there.
Not full.
Not vampire.
But something in-between.
A Hybrid.
"Adam…" he called, stepping out of the bathroom.
Adam was sitting on the edge of Alex's bed, scrolling through photos on his phone from the last time they broke into Sabastin's lab. One photo stood out—a strange crest on one of the test tubes.
"You ever seen this symbol?" Adam asked, turning the phone to show him.
Alex's eyes widened. The same crest had burned into his mind from a dream—or perhaps, a vision—the night after he drank the blood mixture.
"It's the Monarch's Mark," Alex said slowly. "Sabastin's chasing something… and I think whatever he was trying to control is now inside me."
"You're not seriously saying you're royalty or some chosen blood king, right?" Adam laughed nervously.
"I'm saying we don't have much time."
Suddenly, there was a knock at the window.
Both boys turned sharply.
Standing outside in the rain was a girl. Pale. Wide-eyed. Trembling.
Alex opened the window. "Are you alright?"
The girl collapsed into the room. Her school uniform was torn, and her neck had two deep, bloody punctures.
"He's here…" she whispered. "He killed them all. The vampires... they're taking over the north side. They're looking for something…"
Alex bent over her, eyes scanning her injuries. "Who did this?"
The girl's lips trembled. "His name was… Steve."
---
Far beneath Whitmoor College, in a tunnel hidden behind the oldest building's boiler room, Sabastin stood before a sealed vault door. His fingers traced the ancient symbols carved into the steel.
"So you finally woke up," he muttered.
A soft hiss echoed behind him as one of his older students, a quiet girl named Eliza, approached with a lantern.
"Sir, the bodies from the train yard have been recovered… they weren't drained. They were torn apart."
Sabastin nodded. "Steve doesn't feed like the others. He destroys."
Eliza hesitated. "Do we tell the council?"
Sabastin turned to her slowly, and for the first time, Eliza saw a flicker of fear in the old man's eyes.
"There is no council anymore."
He placed his hand on the vault.
Only a Monarch could open it.
Only blood royalty could awaken what lay within.
And Alex, unknowingly, was the key.