Evening dripped over Arab Street like candle wax—slow, heavy, and humming with heat.

  The nightlife throbbed with artificial joy: basslines from rooftop lounges, laughter from half-drunk tourists, neon lights rippling across the oily river like a bleeding mirror.

  But beneath the glamours and glass, the city whispered a different rhythm.

  A darker one.

  Dario moved through it like smoke.

  His boots were silent on the pavement, coat trailing behind him like a shadow. He slipped into a narrow alley behind what looked like an abandoned noodle shop—its flickering bulbs, warped signage, and yellowed menus a half-hearted glamour meant to fool the unwary.

  He wasn’t.

  Beyond a rusted gate and slumped dumpster, the true entrance shimmered—sigils carved into salt-crystal and bone pulsing faintly beneath brick, like bruises in the skin of the world.

  Dario pressed a hand to the central glyph.

  It pulsed once.

  Recognized his blood.

  And sighed open.

  Cold air spilled out, ten degrees too cold, steeped in incense, spiced wine, and the faint metallic tang of old blood.

  Inside, reality bent.

  The Red Velvet posed as a jazz bar, but those who knew better understood: it was a sanctuary for the undead. Neutral ground for vampires too old or too smart to die in back alleys. Singapore’s bloodlines were fractured, vicious, territorial.

  Qin made peace profitable.

  No feeding without consent.

  No killing without cause.

  Music oozed through the room like velvet smoke. Glamours drifted in layered waves—some seductive, others suffocating—woven into every note of a song that changed based on who listened.

  Dario stepped in. The room noticed.

  Patrons paused mid-sip. A few, mid-feed. Eyes tracked him. Some knew the face. Others only the reputation.

  Dario Moretti. Dhampir. Vampire killer.

  He didn’t stop. Didn’t look around.

  Qin would find him.

  Sure enough, a voice curled out from a velvet-draped booth.

  “The kin-slayer returns. Should I run, or pour you a drink?”

  Dario turned.

  Qin lounged like a spider in silk—one arm draped over velvet cushions, the other stirring a glass of something that shimmered in shifting colors. His nails gleamed obsidian. His smile was wide and knowing.

  He looked human.

  No one here believed that.

  Dario approached.

  “That depends. Is it going to cost me?”

  Qin’s grin deepened.

  “Everything does.”

  Dario sat without a word. No greeting. No handshake. There were debts between them. Not pleasantries.

  “You’re hunting the Hollow Fang,” Qin said, before Dario could speak.

  Dario nodded once.

  Qin’s voice dipped.

  “Bad business. Still… I wouldn’t push too hard. Michelle Teo’s a patron. She doesn’t like her pets being poked.”

  “She doesn’t like being exposed either,” Dario said. “And it’s bad for business when Division Zero shows up.”

  Qin lifted a brow.

  “Division Zero holds no sway here.”

  “The Ninth Precinct does,” Dario countered. “And vampire politics only stay polite when they stay underground.”

  Qin smiled lazily.

  “Please. We’re apex predators. Why shouldn’t we claim territory from the weak?”

  “See the light, Qin. Michelle isn’t an elder. And if she’s working with a necromancer, she might not be in charge at all.”

  A pause. A flicker.

  Then Qin leaned in, voice like silk wrapping around a dagger.

  “He’s not after blood. Or power. He’s circling something deeper.”

  “Be specific.”

  Qin swirled his drink, watching it swirl through hues.

  “Memory. Guilt. Old betrayal.”

  Dario’s jaw tightened.

  “Where?”

  Qin’s smile thinned.

  “He’s haunting the morgue under the condemned children’s hospital in Changi. A place even the dead avoid.”

  Dario stilled.

  “He’s making a slaymate.”

  Qin’s mask cracked for just a second.

  “He’s looking for a child. One who died unjustly. Betrayed in foster care. He’s digging for pain—the right kind.”

  Dario’s voice dropped to ice.

  “You’re not guessing.”

  Qin met his eyes.

  “I know the child’s name. And I know where the Hollow Fang will be tonight. I can even tell you how to find him.”

  Dario leaned in.

  “Then tell me.”

  Qin raised his glass.

  “A debt. Small. As these things always start. When I call, you come. No killing. No spells. No blades. You listen—and walk away.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Qin’s grin turned razor-thin.

  “Then you’re welcome to stumble blind through a Veil-thin ruin. But the Hollow Fang nests between planes. You’ll need a charm to even step in without bleeding spirit.”

  He reached beneath the table and produced a small bone talisman, still crusted with old sigil-ink.

  “One of Michelle’s enforcers traded this. Hated the Hollow Fang more than he feared her. I’ll give it to you—after the debt’s agreed.”

  Dario exhaled once.

  “I’ll accept.”

  Qin nodded, pleased.

  “South wing. Cold locker room.”

  Dario stood.

  As he turned to go, Qin’s voice followed—light and mocking.

  “Welcome to Singapore, kin-slayer.”

  Dario didn’t look back.

  ______________________________________________________________________________

  The hospital loomed like a corpse in moonlight—hollow-eyed windows, moss-cloaked walls, a rusted gate sagging under the weight of dead vines. The air reeked of rot, mildew, and ritual ash. Even the ghosts seemed to hold their breath.

  The faded signage above the entrance was little more than a whisper now—once a promise of sanctuary, healing, light, now reduced to rusted silence and peeling paint.

  Now, it reeked of abandonment.

  Dario stood at the threshold, his blazer lifting in the heavy wind. He extended his shamanic senses—deep, instinctive—and felt it at once:

  Something was breathing beneath the skin of the world.

  Not living.

  Not dead.

  Contained.

  The building’s faded wards weren’t to keep intruders out.

  They were holding something in.

  He stepped through the rusted gate, boots crunching through broken glass and brittle leaves.

  Inside, the air was wet with mildew and grief, thick as fog and twice as suffocating. It clung to his skin, his thoughts.

  Wheelchairs lay overturned like fallen sentinels.

  Cribs rusted shut in what was once a playroom.

  Paintings peeled from the walls like memories trying to forget themselves.

  The emotional residue was overwhelming—panic, hunger, abandonment. Not ghosts, not yet. Just echoes that refused to fade.

  Dario pressed on.

  The stairwell was hidden behind the collapsed frame of a waiting room, buried beneath soot and silence. At the bottom, a heavy door sealed in bone-thread and glyphs pulsed with dormant energy—just as Qin had described.

  The deeper he went, the colder it became.

  Frost clung to the railings. Black-flamed candles burned in silent alcoves, their light dancing to a rhythm of forgotten pain.

  At the base, the final ward awaited.

  Dario pulled the charm from his coat pocket—a bone talisman etched with Veil-bound sigils. It pulsed against his fingers, reacting to the wound in the world.

  He pressed it to the seal.

  The Pale Curtain stirred.

  The door groaned. The glyphs trembled. And with a hiss, it opened.

  Cold air rushed out, laced with incense, rust, and the copper tang of memory turned sour.

  Dario stepped through.

  The room was vast and silent.

  Not peaceful—watchful.

  Cold lockers lined the walls like drawers in a mausoleum. Most were shattered, others still pulsing faintly with necromantic residue.

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  At the center, the magic was fresh. Alive.

  A ritual circle glistened wetly under candlelight.

  Blood sigils crawled along the floor—not drawn, but birthed.

  Lines that writhed with residual hunger, as if the floor itself had bled to create them.

  Dario’s jaw tightened.

  This wasn’t preparation.

  It was already in motion.

  In the middle lay a small, pale body. A child.

  Her limbs curled as if shielding herself in death.

  Dario crouched outside the circle.

  “You’re late, Dario,” came a voice behind him.

  He turned sharply.

  A man stepped forward, half-illuminated by floating will-o’-wisps that pulsed like veins of lost souls. He wore a plain white mourning mask, featureless and cold. A black suit, sharply tailored, hugged his gaunt frame, contrasted by an immaculately white shirt. But it was his eyes—joyless, empty—that betrayed the truth.

  The Hollow Fang.

  “How do you know my name?” Dario asked.

  The masked man didn’t answer. He simply gestured toward the ritual circle—toward the small, still body cradled within painted sigils.

  “Her name was Nadia,” he said softly. “She died locked in a closet. Starved by the people who swore to love her. I’m giving her a second chance.”

  “You’re binding her,” Dario growled. “You’re making a slaymate.”

  The Hollow Fang’s posture stiffened.

  “They forgot her. She deserves to be remembered. She will be loved.”

  Suddenly, the ritual flared. Candles erupted in blue-white fire. The child’s body twitched, not with breath—but with something deeper, something that echoed through the Veil like a scream held underwater.

  Dario reached for a throwing dagger, aiming for the circle’s center. If he disrupted the pattern, he might sever the link—

  But the Hollow Fang moved faster.

  A whip of necrotic energy lashed from his hand, striking Dario mid-motion.

  Agony. It tore through him like a serrated brand—cutting deep, burning worse.

  Dario gritted his teeth and kept his grip on the dagger.

  He tried to push back—his eyes glowing faintly as he activated his hypnotic gaze, trying to slip into Hollow Fang’s mind, to interrupt his concentration.

  For a moment, it worked.

  Their minds touched—

  And Dario screamed.

  Counter-memories flooded in. Raw and venomous. Not illusions—real memories, dredged from ancient grief. Burial mounds. Forgotten names. Centuries of betrayal.

  “Amateur magic,” Hollow Fang said coldly. “Mind games are parlor tricks.”

  His voice dropped, almost reverent.

  “Let me show you what necromancy can do.”

  A second whip of energy lashed forward, striking Dario in the chest and lifting him off his feet.

  He crashed into a locker. Metal screamed and crumpled as he collapsed to the floor, breath gone, blood running.

  Pain rippled from collarbone to hip.

  He clutched at his side, gasping, as the edges of the world began to blur.

  “You never understood,” the Hollow Fang whispered, stepping closer. “The dead don’t want revenge. They want to be loved. Reviving them—that’s mercy.”

  Dario’s fingers fumbled for a charm on his belt.

  He couldn’t let this end here.

  He couldn't—

  He triggered the spell too late.

  A third lash—this one laced with raw necrotic force—struck his chest. Bone cracked. Flesh seared. His entire body convulsed.

  Dario collapsed, coughing blood, one hand clutching at his ribs, the other twitching with what little strength remained.

  The Hollow Fang loomed.

  His voice distorted now, as though someone else was speaking through him.

  “You won’t stop this. You’ll watch.”

  And then—he vanished. A ripple of shadow mist and blood-slicked air, and the room was silent.

  Dario lay on the morgue floor, barely conscious.

  The candles still flickered, casting twisted shadows across the walls.

  He could feel the Veil tearing wider. The circle still pulsed. The magic wasn’t done.

  He dragged himself forward, hand trembling. Reached into his pouch.

  A small vial. Banishment salt.

  With the last of his strength, he shattered it across the sigils.

  The circle screamed—not aloud, but in his blood, in the stone. The lights dimmed. The connection to Nadia’s spirit was severed.

  The body stilled.

  Silence returned.

  Dario collapsed fully, breath shallow. Blood pooled beneath him. His vision blurred.

  The last thing he saw was the girl’s face—peaceful now.

  Then the world went dark.

  ______________________________________________________________________________

  The ferry had long since stopped running.

  But Dario didn’t need a ferry.

  Gritting his teeth, he spotted a speedboat moored at the pier—a sleek, unguarded thing rocking gently in the moonlight.

  It would do.

  The boat cut through the water like a shadow, skimming between mainland Singapore and Lazarus Island, engine humming low. One hand gripped the wheel. The other pressed tightly against his ruined shoulder.

  Pain laced every breath. His blood felt hot and heavy, his skin cold.

  He had sealed the worst of it with runes, but the damage wasn’t just physical—it was spiritual. Something inside him was unraveling, like a thread being pulled from the core of his being.

  Dhampirs didn’t heal normally.

  Not from this.

  This wasn’t an injury. It was a curse—one only a necromancer could address.

  And he only trusted one.

  The stars blurred and spun, and still he pressed on. He knew this path. Had traced it through months of searching. Had pulled strings, made deals, accepted the Singapore assignment just to get close.

  The jungle greeted him with cicadas and silence, wrapping around him like a wet shroud. The trail was narrow, half-consumed by underbrush. But he remembered it.

  Past the shattered shrine.

  Along the ridge where Kai once meditated.

  Through the warded silence.

  Then—the house.

  It emerged like a half-remembered dream, veiled in ferns and old charms. Its walls were worn, sun-bleached and weather-beaten. Only the ward-stones still glowed, casting soft blue halos near the fence. Fireflies hovered near the porch, as if guarding the place with soft light.

  Dario’s knees buckled.

  But he didn’t fall.

  He crossed the final stretch of earth and knocked once—sharp, deliberate—on the wooden door.

  Silence.

  Then the sound of bare footsteps. The slow creak of old wood.

  The door opened.

  Kai stood there, shirtless, his skin damp with sweat and tattoos glowing faintly in the light. His eyes flicked over Dario in silence—expression unreadable at first.

  Then came the shift.

  From surprise, to recognition, to wounded restraint.

  “Dario… you’re bleeding.”

  Dario exhaled, voice low and rough.

  “I wouldn’t be here if I had another choice.”

  Kai’s eyes took in everything—the blood, the ruined coat, the way Dario leaned against the frame like gravity had become optional.

  “What happened?”

  “A case. Necromancer. Went bad,” Dario rasped. “I need healing. Not stitches. Not spells. Bloodwork. Shamanic. You.”

  Kai didn’t respond.

  The silence stretched—too long. Too familiar.

  And it hurt worse than the lash that tore through his ribs.

  Dario straightened, barely.

  “Don’t do this,” he said, voice quieter now. “You told me once… if I ever came back half-dead, you wouldn’t close the door.”

  Kai’s jaw tightened.

  “I also said if you came back, it better be for more than survival.”

  The words hit like glass.

  Dario didn’t flinch.

  “I don’t have the luxury of more. Not tonight.”

  A beat.

  Kai looked at him—really looked at him.

  Saw the blood-soaked shirt. The paleness under the bravado. The familiar fire, flickering but unextinguished.

  Then he stepped aside.

  “Get in,” Kai said flatly. “Before you collapse at my damn door.”

  Dario exhaled once—relief, guilt, something tangled between the two—and crossed the threshold.