Human Nature
Chapter One
This is the first part of my ongoing Vampire Fantasy Action story. Upcoming entries will be open to full subscribers to my Substack.
*****
Richard pushed through the precinct doors, the air thick with sweat, stale coffee, and the lingering bite of cigarette smoke. The desk sergeant, a bulldog of a man with jowls to match, glared from behind the counter. Around him, officers shuffled through their routines like tired machinery. The more things changed, Richard thought, the more they stayed the same.
The sergeant’s eyes narrowed as Richard approached.
“What do you want?”
“An associate of mine was brought in for questioning,” Richard said, voice flat. “I’m here to take custody of him.”
Static hissed from a battered radio, filling the silence before the sergeant snorted.
“That’s an interesting accent you got there, mister. Where you from?”
Richard gave a small nod. “A lot of places. The man’s name is Keita Malinke.”
The sergeant gave a humorless chuckle as he thumbed through paperwork.
“Fancy. They all look the same to me, buddy.”
No shouting, no blood, no broken glass. Good. Nothing had happened, yet. Richard intended to keep it that way.
“So,” he said, his tone sharpening, “do you have him or not?”
“We got him,” the sergeant said. “Your friend walked into a bodega, helped himself to half the shelves, walked right out, and started handing it all to the bums out front. The clerk nearly shot him.”
Richard’s mouth twitched. “He’s charitable like that.”
“Yeah, I bet. I’m gonna need to see some ID.”
Richard laid a wallet on the counter. The documents were all fake, of course. Alongside them, he slid a fat manila envelope across the wood.
“Time is of the essence, Sergeant.”
The man let out a low whistle as he thumbed through its contents.
“Well, it’s no skin off my nose. But you might want to talk to him. Guy doesn’t speak a lick of English, and he hasn’t been exactly... cooperative.”
Richard exhaled through his nose. “Whatever gets this over with faster. Lead the way.”
The sergeant led Richard down a scuffed hallway, the flickering fluorescent lights painting the cracked tile in sickly yellow. The faint hum of the city’s night pulse seemed distant here, as though the building itself swallowed sound.
They stopped outside a holding cell. Keita sat on the bench, his frame impossibly broad even in the too-small space, his skin like polished obsidian. His gold ringed eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, a thing only Richard would notice.
“Open it,” Richard said.
The sergeant hesitated for the briefest of moments, then swung the door wide. “He’s all yours. Try not to let him walk into any more bodegas.”
Richard stepped in, the cell door clanging shut behind him.
Keita rose to his full height, towering, every motion precise and regal. “You took your time,” he said in a deep, resonant voice that vibrated in Richard’s chest more than his ears.
Richard arched an eyebrow. “I got here before you tore the place apart. You’re welcome.”
Keita’s jaw tightened. “They stopped me from doing my duty. The weak were hungry. I fed them. That is what kings do.”
“This isn’t Mali in the 13th century,” Richard said, his tone dry as ash. “You can’t just stroll into a shop, take what you please, and pass it out like some midnight messiah.”
“Then this age is worse than I feared.” Keita crossed his arms, the motion making his leather cuffs creak. “Your mortals live in plenty yet starve. Your kings hide behind glass and screens, while the poor freeze on their steps. And you would have me stand idle?”
Richard sighed, leaning against the bars. “You’ve been asleep too long, my lord. The world turned, and we turned with it. We keep the balance now. No wars, no crusades, no kings and their vendettas. Just quiet nights. We protect the herd by keeping their world steady.”
Keita’s eyes narrowed, catching the light like a predator. “And when the herd devours its own?”
“Then we work in the shadows,” Richard said softly. “Subtlety, not spectacle. If you burn too brightly, you invite hunters. And trust me, these days, they carry more than torches.”
For a long moment, Keita said nothing. The air in the cell felt charged, like the seconds before a thunderclap. Then, slowly, he sat back down, his massive frame folding with the dignity of a king on a throne.
“You will teach me this new world,” Keita said at last.
Richard smirked, stepping back toward the door. “Good. Because I’d hate to have to bail you out twice in one week.”
Keita’s lips curled in something between a snarl and a grin. “Then let us leave this cage before I remember what it is to break them.”
Richard rapped on the bars, and the sergeant returned, keys jingling.
As they walked back down the hallway, Richard glanced sidelong at Keita. “First lesson: next time, we pay for the snacks.”
Keita gave a rumbling laugh that echoed off the tile. “Then this age has made you soft.”
Richard’s smile was all fang. “No, my friend. Just patient.”
*****
The precinct door slammed open so hard it cracked the plaster.
Richard froze mid-stride, one hand on Keita’s arm. Something had entered, something wrong.
The figure that stepped inside looked like a man only in the vaguest sense. He was pale, gaunt, dressed in a filthy trench coat that might have been black once but was now soaked with alley grime. His hair hung in strings across his face, and when he smiled, the lights overhead flickered.
The desk sergeant started to rise, his hand going for his sidearm.
“Sir, you can’t just…”
The stranger’s hand shot out faster than any human could see. His fingers wrapped around the sergeant’s skull. For one heartbeat there was silence. Then a wet, sickening crack as the man’s head imploded like a melon.
Blood sprayed across the wall.
The other officers drew their guns. Too slow, too human. The intruder’s body convulsed, bones snapping audibly as his form split and bulged. His coat shredded as black tentacles erupted from his back, slamming into the ceiling tiles, the floor, the desks. The air filled with screams and gunfire.
Richard didn’t flinch. His pupils shrank to thin red slits.
“Sleep,” he whispered.
The command was absolute. Every officer in the room dropped where they stood, guns clattering to the floor. The gunfire ceased. The only sounds were the drip of blood and the wet slap of tentacles against tile.
Keita stepped forward, calm as a god in a storm. A black shape coalesced in his hand, a blade, impossibly long, forged from shadow and starlight. The air grew colder.
The creature let out a shriek that shattered the remaining glass in the room and hurled itself toward them, tentacles tearing chunks out of the walls as it came.
Keita moved like a thunderclap. One sweeping arc of his void-forged sword severed two limbs, spraying ichor across the ceiling. The creature recoiled, smashing desks and chairs to splinters in its rage.
“Hold still,” Keita rumbled, and brought the blade down again, splitting the thing from shoulder to hip.
It screamed, a sound like metal shearing, and collapsed into a heap of twitching flesh before dissolving into a steaming black puddle that hissed on the tile.
The station was silent except for the hiss of ruptured pipes and the faint buzz of failing lights.
Richard exhaled slowly, letting his mind pull back from the edge of the predator’s instinct that always whispered to him. He glanced at Keita.
“Welcome to New York,” he said dryly.
Keita turned his golden eyes toward him. “Your age seems in need of more kings.”
Richard smirked. “Let’s start with a mop.”