Chapter 22: The Final Threshold
Lucius
The riverside smelled of diesel and impending murder.
Jonas walked beside me, oblivious to the calculation behind my friendly approach. He was mid-tier Death Dealer—loyal to Kraven, competent in combat, utterly unremarkable. The kind of soldier who followed orders without question and died without anyone caring.
Tonight, he would die. And I would care only about the BP he represented.
[ JONAS - DEATH DEALER - 89 BP ]
[ STATUS: UNAWARE. PATROL ROUTE. ALONE. ]
"Kraven's mobilizing everyone," Jonas said, scanning the dark water. "What the hell is happening?"
I matched his pace, keeping my voice concerned. "That's what I was hoping you could tell me. I've been hunting in District VII—came back to find the mansion in chaos."
"You haven't heard?" Jonas's expression shifted to something between shock and excitement. "One of ours went rogue. Killed two guards, kidnapped some experimental subject, ran off with Selene."
"Which one of ours?"
"New guy. Lucius something. The Butcher."
I kept my expression neutral. "The fledgling who killed Raze?"
"Same one. Kraven's offering five hundred BP for his head. Half the coven is out searching."
Five hundred BP. Enough to tempt even loyal Death Dealers into betraying their own. Kraven was serious about finding me—or desperate.
Probably both.
We walked in silence for another minute. The Danube's black water reflected city lights, peaceful and indifferent to the violence about to occur on its banks. Enhanced Senses tracked Jonas's heartbeat—steady, unsuspecting. His weapon was holstered. His guard was down.
Perfect.
"Jonas."
"Yeah?"
I drove the silver dagger through his spine.
The blade entered between vertebrae with surgical precision—severing the spinal cord, paralyzing everything below the wound. Jonas collapsed without a sound, body betraying him before his mind could process the attack.
I caught him before he hit the ground, lowering him gently to the riverside stones. His eyes were wide, confused, trying to understand why his legs wouldn't move.
"Why?" The word came out as a whisper.
"Because I need what you have."
I bit into his throat.
[ BP ACQUIRED: 89 ]
[ CURRENT BP: 1,053/1000 ]
[ THRESHOLD EXCEEDED ]
[ HYBRID FUSION PROTOCOL INITIATING ]
The blood tasted like loyalty and routine—a soldier's life distilled into copper and memories. Memory Siphon Lv.2 extracted everything useful: Kraven's shoot-to-kill order, the exact number of Death Dealers mobilized (forty-seven), the disturbing detail that Rigel was under house arrest for "suspicious loyalty."
And the worst part: Viktor's awakening ceremony had been moved up. Seven days instead of seventeen. Kraven was panicking, needed Elder authority to legitimize his manhunt.
I drained Jonas completely, feeling his heart stutter and stop beneath my hands. His body would dissolve by dawn—vampire physiology breaking down without blood to sustain it.
The river accepted him without complaint.
[ HYBRID FUSION REQUIREMENTS MET ]
[ VAMPIRE GENE TREE: TIER 2 ACTIVE ]
[ LYCAN GENE TREE: TIER 1 ACTIVE ]
[ INITIATING FUSION PROTOCOL... ]
[ WARNING: PROCESS IRREVERSIBLE. PROCEED? Y/N ]
Yes.
The transformation hit like a freight train.
Every bone in my body broke simultaneously. Not cracked—shattered, then reformed in configurations that shouldn't exist. Muscles tore themselves apart and rebuilt in layers of vampire strength and Lycan power. Skin shifted between textures, finding a new baseline that was neither species and both.
I screamed. The sound echoed across the river, inhuman, primal.
[ FUSION PROGRESS: 12%... 27%... 43%... ]
My spine curved, straightened, curved again. Ribs expanded to accommodate lungs that were restructuring around new demands. Hands cramped as claws extended—not the partial transformation I'd used before, but something permanent, something integral.
[ FUSION PROGRESS: 61%... 78%... 89%... ]
Eight minutes of agony. Eight minutes of screaming into darkness while my body unmade and remade itself. Eight minutes that felt like eight centuries.
[ FUSION PROGRESS: 100% ]
[ HYBRID FORM ACHIEVED ]
[ - VAMPIRE AND LYCAN ABILITIES STACK ]
[ - TRANSFORMATION AT WILL ]
[ - MAINTENANCE COST: 5 BP/HOUR UNTIL LV.5 ]
[ - UV SENSITIVITY: STAGE 3 (SEVERE) ]
[ - SILVER SENSITIVITY: STAGE 2 (MODERATE) ]
[ CURRENT BP: 553/1000 (500 BP CONSUMED BY FUSION) ]
I lay on the riverside stones, gasping through lungs that worked differently now. The pain faded slowly, replaced by something else—power, raw and absolute, coursing through rebuilt veins.
I stood. Tested the new body.
The world looked different through hybrid eyes. Colors sharper, details clearer, every shadow containing information I'd never perceived before. My muscles responded with velocity that exceeded anything I'd experienced—vampire speed amplified by Lycan power, creating something faster than either species alone.
I jumped.
Thirty feet. Straight up. Landing on a warehouse roof with the casual grace of stepping over a puddle.
The hybrid form was still active—I could feel it, the 5 BP per hour drain pulling at my reserves. But the capabilities justified the cost. I punched a ventilation shaft experimentally. The metal crumpled like paper.
"This is what they fear."
I retracted the transformation, feeling the hybrid physiology settle into something more human-looking. The claws receded. The heightened senses dimmed to their enhanced baseline. But underneath the surface, the power remained—waiting, ready to emerge at a thought's command.
Dawn was approaching. Orange light crept across the eastern sky, promising UV radiation that would burn even in my new form. The clinic was fifteen minutes away by rooftop.
I ran.
The hybrid speed made the journey effortless—a blur across Budapest's skyline, leaping between buildings, covering distance that would have taken an hour on foot. I arrived at the clinic with twelve minutes to spare before true sunrise.
Selene was waiting just inside the door, weapon drawn, tension evident in every line of her body. When I entered, she studied me with the professional assessment of a warrior evaluating a potential threat.
"You look different," she said. "Something's wrong."
I grinned, letting my fangs show. The gold flicker alongside vampire white was new—a visible sign of the hybrid nature now integrated into my baseline physiology.
"Something's very right." I moved past her into the clinic's dim interior. "I became what they fear."
Michael watched from the operating table, still chained, eyes tracking my movement with the wariness of prey evaluating a new predator.
He wasn't wrong to be afraid.
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