UCPA Chapter 52: New Nest

Chapter 52: New Nest

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: PlumSauce

 

On the way back to West Bay City, Liz drove. Carolyn slept deeply — these past couple of days had left her utterly exhausted. Along the way, the hunters passed by more police cars.

The events at the care facility and the campsite might never have a reasonable explanation. The old Atwood house would never again show signs of ghostly activity.

They didn’t reach the city until nightfall. Liz parked under the Association’s office building. When John and Coraci got out, Carolyn was still asleep, completely dead to the world.

“She’s always like this. Won’t wake up unless she really needs to,” Liz said with a smile. “Coraci, you okay?”

“What could be wrong with me?” Coraci replied, opening the trunk to retrieve his travel bag.

“Really don’t need me to take you home?”

“No, you and Carolyn should head home.” Coraci stepped back, waving to her. “Don’t forget, Mariana’s still home alone. You two are really irresponsible parents, leaving a kid by herself.”

Liz started the car. “Ha, this is the kid you and John brought back, and you’re criticizing our carelessness?”

The car disappeared into the night. John kept his eyes on Coraci’s back. Coraci stood by the roadside, taking out his phone, then putting it away — repeating it several times.

Just as John was about to speak, Coraci turned his head. “John, do you mind if I stay at your place for a while?”

“What?!”

“Is it inconvenient?”

“No…it’s not inconvenient. It’s just…” John couldn’t even explain why he felt nervous. “Aren’t you going home? You could call Wu Jiu and have him pick you up…”

Coraci turned away, as if he wanted to hide his expression from John. “I don’t know how to face them. Hai Jiu and Wu Jiu…how should I tell them?” He sighed. “I know I can’t avoid it, but…not today. I need some time.”

John didn’t know what to say. He took a few awkward steps, feeling as clumsy as a small human toddler. He wanted to reach out, touch Coraci’s shoulder — or, like Smith suggested, give him a hug — but now he was juggling the travel bag in one hand and a portable cooler in the other.

“Then let’s go,” he said. “My place isn’t close. We’ll have to walk a bit. Also…hope you don’t mind it’s in the basement.”

“I don’t mind. I’ve been in countless basements.”

“This one’s special. It’s a vampire nest.” John purposely lowered his voice, mimicking the eerie narration from old horror movies.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m close to the ‘lord’ of the nest,” Coraci replied in the same tone.

John thought for a moment, shifted all his items to one hand, and moved closer to Coraci.

“The lord of the nest wants to talk to you.”

“I’m already talking to him,” Coraci said, looking at him strangely. “Right now.”

“This isn’t a place for talking,” John whispered in a deliberately mysterious tone. “The lord is taking you to the nest!”

He couldn’t hold back his laughter; the last word quivered as he said it.

Glancing around, the street was quiet. Using his free hand, he looped it around Coraci’s body and, catching him by surprise, lifted him up onto his shoulders.

A bloodkin’s speed was like a gust of wind, far faster than any human could run or walk.

“Hold on to your bag!” John shouted.

“Should I struggle symbolically?”

“No need. I’ll assume you already did!”

Coraci wanted to laugh, but his posture made it impossible. John leapt over the walls at the end of narrow alleys, sometimes stepping on the lighted signs outside small shops.

Occasionally, cars passed on wider streets. Young people leaving bars leaned against lamp posts, chatting. No one noticed the bloodkin and his companion flash past the shadows of the night.

John’s home looked no different from a human residence — except there were no windows, and air circulation was poor. Of course, he didn’t need to breathe.

After a quick wash, Coraci laid a temporary bed on the floor. When John went to wash his face, he stared into the mirror, emptying his mind for a long moment. Luckily, vampires appeared in mirrors, unlike in legends. Otherwise, he couldn’t have adjusted the unnatural expression on his face.

He thought it must be because he had seen Smith. Every time he saw Smith, he felt awkward because Smith always teased him and Coraci.

“It’s just a temporary stay…like in the Bunker, or like kids sleeping in a friend’s attic…” he repeated silently to himself.

When he returned to his bed, Coraci was already deep asleep. John didn’t want him sleeping on the floor. Hence, he tried nudging the black-haired man who was curled up into a ball. There was no reaction, so he lifted him gently and laid him on the bed.

“Sleeping so deeply…hardly human at all,” John muttered, smiling to himself.

The windowless basement made it impossible to tell the time. When Coraci woke the next day, a table lamp was on, probably because John worried he wouldn’t be able to see in the dark.

He glanced at his watch — morning already — and realized he was lying in bed. Sitting up, he noticed the small room was empty; John wasn’t there.

After washing up, he sat by the lamp for a while, idly flipping through some magazines. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a shadow beneath the bed.

He crouched down and almost laughed out loud. John was lying straight under the bed. If he weren’t lying on a sleeping pad in his pajamas, his pose would be no different from a corpse in a coffin.

Coraci couldn’t resist reaching out to gently touch John’s face. There was no warmth; the skin was hard and cold. When awake and moving, John’s skin felt much softer.

“Thank you…for everything,” Coraci whispered. He left a note for John and quietly left the basement.

As soon as he reached the street, his phone rang. The caller ID showed his own home number. His hand trembled slightly as he answered.

It was Wu Jiu. He had heard the Association members had returned from the old Atwood house and wanted to make sure Coraci was okay.

Coraci took a deep breath and stood by the roadside as people hurried past. He preferred handling certain things without John around. He didn’t know why he felt this way, but somehow, if John were here, he felt even less capable of facing what needed to be faced.

 

A week later, Coraci and John stepped out of an apartment. They had just met a female bloodkin, wild like John. She was actually several hundred years old but had the appearance of a thirteen or fourteen year old. This was her first attempt at living as a student, so she sought help from the Association to avoid routine human health checkups.

After leaving the apartment with her basic registration records, Coraci suddenly stopped and called out to John. “By the way…I want to get your opinion on something.”

“Hm? What is it?”

“Do you want to move in with me?”

John spun around so fast his entire face was paralyzed.

Coraci spread his hands. “I’m just asking if you want to move in, not proposing marriage. No need to look so shocked…”

“But…” John stammered, “why are you bringing this up now?”

“Selfish reasons, probably,” Coraci said. “I often take in supernatural beings with nowhere to stay. Recently, my second floor has a few pixies and an ad designer ghoul planning to move to the U.S.… Honestly, I can’t keep up sometimes.”

He paused. “You know Hai Jiu and Wu Jiu have already left.”

A few days earlier, Hai Jiu and Wu Jiu had departed. They knew everything that happened at the Atwood manor from start to finish. Hai Jiu said she didn’t blame Coraci, but she couldn’t face him or live with him — at least for now.

“You saved us. You’re our friend. That won’t change,” she had said. “But I have to leave. Maybe one day I’ll return… Maybe not. I can’t be certain. I just…I can’t look at you. Every time I do, I think about what happened…”

Between a contractor and a loved one, Wu Jiu had chosen the latter. He had formally apologized to Coraci, said goodbye, and even baked several days’ worth of pastries, leaving him half-amused, half-exasperated.

If Coraci had wanted, he could have easily prevented the specters from leaving. He had contracts with them and had used transformation spells on them that required their obedience. But he hadn’t done so.

Specters didn’t need houses or property. Hai Jiu and Wu Jiu could go wherever they pleased.

This was also why John had started driving without a license. With Wu Jiu gone and Coraci unable to drive, John had pushed himself to adjust over a few days. At first, he had refused, saying he had no license. Coraci had asked, “Did you think Wu Jiu had a license?” and handed him a fake one.

Now, John hesitated before starting the car. “If I move in…you’ll have to close the bathroom door when you use it, right? Is that okay?”

“Do you think that house only has one bathroom?” Coraci asked. “Wait…are you considering saying yes? You hadn’t said a word before — I thought you weren’t moving in.”

“Why would I say no?” John asked, a little excited. “I’d be happy to help you.”

Coraci lowered his head, smiling sheepishly. “Actually, I’m not asking because I need your help. I’ve wanted to ask ever since the Bunker incident… But there was never a proper moment.”

“A proper moment?”

“I heard your basement was being reclaimed by the landlord. I figured this was the perfect opportunity. If I asked now, you’d probably say yes.”

John looked at him in disbelief. “How did you know the landlord was reclaiming it?”

Coraci shrugged with a smile. “Because I care about my partner.”

“Guard Captain Volvo was right,” John said suddenly, for no apparent reason.

He drove the car out of the city. John planned to drop Coraci home first, then return to his basement to pack over the next few days.

“What do you mean?”

“Remember back when we first went to the Bunker? He actually thought you were the vampire.”

“That’s because he’s a very naive werewolf, and he doesn’t have the Eyes of Truth.”

“That’s not the point,” John said, one hand on the steering wheel. Driving a modern car was much easier than he expected — no need to manually shift gears. “Look at yourself — living alone out in the suburbs, in a house left by your family. The house is insanely far; driving to the city center takes forever. You have gargoyle statues at the entrance and a bunch of mysterious things inside… Don’t you feel more like a vampire from a novel? I’m like the innocent human being deceived by a vampire.”

“You always love using the word ‘vampire’,” Coraci said, ruffling his hair and smiling wryly. “If the domain bloodkin heard you talking like this, they’d probably crush a cup in anger right on the spot.”

“My sister says it too,” John replied. “She also likes to say ‘monster’ or ‘demon’, referring to all of us and herself.”

“There’s nothing wrong with monsters. Human kids fantasize about being irradiated by gamma rays or bitten by insects, thinking they’ll become special.”

After dropping Coraci off, John drove back toward his own home. The car had effectively become his now. Coraci’s house was really too far. He could’ve driven the same amount of time in another direction and ended up in a whole different city. Luckily, John didn’t need to rest at night and never got tired.

Back in the basement apartment, John eagerly began packing. From the refrigerator down to his socks, he meticulously planned the moving sequence, considering what to take and what to leave behind.

He even called home to tell them he was moving in with his partner, though he didn’t say it was his partner’s house — just an employee apartment of some kind.

“You didn’t bite him already, did you?” his father asked, cutting straight to the point.

Even admitting it wouldn’t have mattered much. In that situation, he had no choice. Still, John lied, denying it, and went on to explain why he refused to bite colleagues.

His father sighed, completely ignoring the lie. “How many times did you bite him?”

John slumped his shoulders. Even though his father was far away, on the other end of the phone, he still felt scolded in person. He explained everything and assured him it happened only once.

His father said very seriously, “Remember, a ‘bond’ is extremely unethical. We live in a civilized society now; we must never form a bond with a human.”

“What?”

“Sorry…It’s my fault. I’ve been careless. We always used syringes before, so I thought it wasn’t necessary to explain all this. I didn’t make it clear — I’m not a good teacher.”

John’s father was the first vampire in their family. From a human biological perspective, he would be considered a stepfather. Even though he was also a wild bloodkin, he had lived long enough to know many bloodkin customs.

He explained to John that the first bite from a bloodkin “marks” a human, making them easier to subdue later. Coraci had already mentioned this at the Bunker prison.

The second bite from the same bloodkin is called an “imprint.” Beyond making the human easier to control, the bloodkin can sense the human’s life and death from a distance roughly the size of a medium city. It lets the bloodkin know how many potential prey remain.

The third bite from the same bloodkin is a “bond.” Unlike the previous bites, this one is lethal in effect: after a bond, the human must obey all commands from the bloodkin. The human retains awareness and their daily life is unaffected, but if the bloodkin orders them to lie down and expose their neck, they must comply. If the bloodkin commands silence, the human cannot disobey.

Bloodkin hunting was nothing like what horror stories described. They weren’t lions roaming the savannas, waiting to hunt only when hunger struck. Only thugs or killers drained humans in alleyways, leaving a mess.

A safer approach was to maintain a supply of “food”: humans who lived normally but provided fresh blood when needed. No one died, no supernatural cases arose, and bloodkin remained undetected.

Sometimes hunters get bitten by accident during a fight. Then they would inevitably kill the bloodkin to prevent a second or third incident. Of course, in the past, some humans voluntarily followed a bloodkin for various reasons.

Deceiving humans into a bond was unethical. Now, whether domain or wild, all bloodkin recognized this as a moral standard. Fortunately, using syringes to draw blood did not create a mark; even if the same person’s blood was used repeatedly, it wouldn’t form a bond. Only fangs could establish a mark, imprint, or bond.

“I hear your partner is an expert spellcaster — he probably understands all this,” his father said. “So you need to be careful not to give him the wrong impression.”

“Yes, I know. It was an accident. I promise it won’t happen again.” John sat up straight, though his father couldn’t see him.

His thoughts tangled like a bowl of spaghetti. He marveled at why Coraci wasn’t scared… Or perhaps, he himself really didn’t seem threatening at all.

After hanging up the phone, John went to rest, while Coraci stood outside his gray house.

It was morning, unusually early for him. He wore a light blue shirt and a casual suit. The pants were a bit wrinkled… He hadn’t realized yet the need to iron after Hai Jiu left.

A black Ghost parked in front of him. The driver got out, nodded, and opened the rear door for him.

Coraci stepped inside and greeted the man beside him. “Good morning. Didn’t expect you to come personally.”

The man adjusted his glasses, shook his hand, and nodded politely, elegant as if they were attending a high-society ball rather than sitting in a car. Few people nowadays wore formal three-piece morning suits, except for Lucian Blackmoon.

“I reviewed the materials you sent,” Lucian said softly, as always. “I’m very willing to help. This will also benefit my research. But there’s one thing I don’t understand…”

“What is it?”

“These materials… You could have submitted them to the Association headquarters. Or, if you trust the Blackmoon family’s ability more than the Association, why didn’t you tell Lizbeth first instead of contacting me directly?”

Coraci shook his head. “I’m too familiar with Liz. I didn’t want to tell her for now.”

“You’re afraid they’ll find out.”

“Yes.”

In the materials he sent to Lucian, Coraci had enumerated every detail that puzzled him. From the strange visions John had seen while feeding, to Russell borrowing his soul, to the recent incident at the Atwood manor when he lost consciousness and then awoke…how the black worm had disappeared, the basement full of cut marks, and no one knowing exactly what had happened.

The hunters from the Association had all assumed the cuts were caused by evil spirits, and even John believed that. Coraci had felt fear from that moment onward. He decided to rely on the expertise of the Blackmoon family researchers to examine the secrets hidden within himself. He wanted to uncover what had really happened to him, and Lucian also needed a…subject for study.

“You’re not afraid?” Lucian queried.

Coraci shook his head firmly. “I’m a researcher myself. I’m not afraid of ancient magic. The warden in the Bunker once told me to stay vigilant, and the thing I’m truly afraid of is…”

He smiled, leaving the rest of the sentence unsaid. He knew Lucian would understand.

 — What I fear is the unknown force lurking inside me. I fear that one day I might drag the people around me into hell.

 

Author’s Note:

And so, the next event begins…

 

From The Unthreatening Creature Protection Association’s Guide to Unscientific Monsters:

Vampires (Blookin)

Marking, Imprinting, and Bonds:

These effects only occur through fang-borne feeding. Using a syringe or drinking from a cup of blood does nothing.

• The first feeding marks the prey. When that prey encounters the same bloodkin again, he is easier to subdue. The mark also helps protect the prey from the werewolf’s curse of beastification. 
• The second feeding by the same bloodkin creates an imprint. Once imprinted, the bloodkin can sense the prey’s location within a certain range (for example, within several miles). In truth, most bloodkin rarely bite the same person twice. Without hypnosis, unwilling prey fights back desperately, or reports the attack to hunters afterward. If a hunter happens to be bitten during a mission, he will usually stop at nothing to track down and kill that bloodkin. (To avoid such trouble, bloodkin sometimes knock humans out and draw blood with syringes instead. In modern times, they can also buy blood packs from special sources — even those mixed with other magical creatures’ blood. The stronger the bloodkin, the less blood he needs per feeding.) 
• The third feeding seals a bond. After this, the prey unconditionally obeys that bloodkin’s orders.

The bond doesn’t alter the prey’s actual thoughts; it only forces obedience. If ordered to kill, the prey still thinks, Killing is wrong… but I must do it. However, he cannot perform tasks beyond his physical limits. A weaver, for example, cannot be commanded to lift a horse.

Many bloodkin of old deliberately lured humans through these three stages to secure both sustenance and playthings. Even then, prey under a bond might resist. Bloodkin must word their commands carefully and strategically. (For instance, “You cannot harm me”… but the prey might still summon others to do the harm.) Without specific orders, prey might even choose to commit suicide.

Most importantly, the prey must understand the command. If you give an order in ancient Chinese to a Viking raider, he won’t comprehend it. He’ll still swing his axe at you — just with a bit more difficulty.

Because hunting is difficult, natural abilities are limited, and commands require careful precision, bonds — though seemingly powerful — are actually rare.

Note: Perhaps the “three times” reminds some of WOD’s blood bond, but this is the opposite. In WOD, when two vampires drink each other’s blood three times, they become absolutely loyal to one another, and blood bonds don’t require constant commands. When a human drinks, he becomes a ghoul. That is not the case here.

 

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