Chapter 64: Bloodline
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: PlumSauce
John and Liz couldn’t visit Coraci every day. The Association was always busy — never enough manpower to go around — and everyone had their own matters to handle.
Carolyn was temporarily partnered with a new intern because Liz had been reassigned to the research group focused on Coraci, working alongside Lucian. Smith had left West Bay City to help a newly relocated shapeshifter family settle into their new home. John had teamed up with Carol twice — Carol being the burly man with witch blood.
John was not at all comfortable working with him. Carol’s wrestler-like muscles were so imposing that they constantly drew attention, even attracting the police to question them at night, ruining any advantage of conducting a discreet investigation. Moreover, every time they returned to the office, John would complain to Instructor Jere that Carol always forgot to bring potions and silver chalk. When he needed to cast a spell and didn’t have the proper ingredients, he would just slice his own skin open with a Swiss Army knife — because the blood of a Witch Blood Descendant could substitute for most materials.
To avoid constantly working with the smell of blood in the air, John preferred to act separately from Carol.
It was five in the morning now. He stood before a gravestone, circled it a few times, and made a phone call.
“Hello? Who is this? I can’t really talk right now…” a woman’s voice said.
“Miss Adele?” John placed a sturdy cardboard box in front of the gravestone. “I’m standing in front of your grave. My name is Lockland, from the Unthreatening Creature Protection Association.”
The person on the other end of the line was the grave’s occupant — a zombie young woman, or perhaps a zombie elder, depending on how you looked at it. She had died at the age of twenty-three, roughly eighty years ago.
Fearing the groundskeeper might overhear, her voice was quiet as she spoke from inside the grave. “Hello… What can I do for you?”
“The body-shaping suit you ordered from the United States has arrived. You listed the Association’s office as your address, so I brought it here for you. Also, according to the calendar, your facial glamour spell is about to fade. I’ve brought the potion to renew it.”
Though John wasn’t a skilled spellcaster, he had grown proficient in using magical potions. Sometimes he could even manage a few small spells by following the incantations from his notes.
There was a pause on the line. Adele asked guardedly, “Coraci usually helps me with that. Why is it you this time? I don’t mean any offense… It’s just that my appearance is frightening, and I don’t want strangers seeing me like this.”
John sighed. “Coraci’s tied up with other matters and can’t come right now. You can trust me — I’m not human either. I’m a vampire, just like you, an undead being.”
“I’d rather skip the facial spell for now,” she said stubbornly. “Only Coraci has seen my rotting face, and I won’t let anyone else see it — not even a vampire. I’m sorry, it’s just something I’m firm about.”
“All right. What about the body-shaping suit? Should I leave it here?”
The suit was the type used for rehabilitation after skin surgery; Adele used it to maintain her body’s shape.
“Please place it in the shadow behind the largest tombstone on the west side of the cemetery. There’s also a brown paper bag there — that’s my latest work. Please take it back to the Association for me. Thank you.”
“Got it. I know where that is.”
Since awakening as a zombie, Adele had raised her coffin to be close to the surface. She had secretly dug a narrow tunnel from one side of the coffin to a patch of grass several meters away. That way, she didn’t have to lift her own headstone whenever she went in or out.
She made her living crafting small artisan goods — beautiful stone pendants wrapped in copper wire, tiny felted wool animals, handcrafted leather goods in the style of ancient Wales, etc. The Association had found her customers; she worked in the tomb during the day and occasionally went out at night for a walk. Payment went into a bank account opened under a human Association staff member’s name, with the debit card hidden inside her tomb.
It had been Coraci who’d rescued her in the first place and arranged all these referrals and connections for her.
John found the spot Adele had mentioned, set down the body-shaping suit, and took the paper bag.
In winter, sunrise came late. Even at six in the morning, the sky was as dark as night. As John walked alone along the path to leave the cemetery, a dreadful wave of loneliness suddenly washed over him.
At this hour, Coraci was probably sleeping soundly — but it was also possible he was awake, sitting in the isolation room, staring blankly at the dark corners.
Coraci wasn’t here. At this time of day in the past, they might have been sitting in the car — one with coffee in hand, the other with a blood bag — or walking side by side down a quiet evening or early morning street, Coraci explaining problems they’d encountered on the job, correcting John’s mispronunciations of certain incantations…
But Coraci wasn’t here.
At first, John had thought the situation would resolve in a few days, that they’d be working together again soon. But as the days went by, he began to worry about the future — what if he never got to partner with Coraci again?
He didn’t dare follow that thought any further. Narrowing his eyes, he slowed his pace. Ever since he and Coraci had undergone the “imprint,” whenever John focused, he could sense Coraci’s presence — his location.
Of course, Coraci was still in the isolation room; everyone in the Association knew that. But John couldn’t help secretly using the imprint’s power — it made him feel reassured, as if Coraci had never left his side.
That same morning, before sunrise, the Menkovár family had sent Coraci an email, detailing everything they knew about “Deville Zoltán.”
Over thirty years ago, one of the family elders had discussed bloodkin magic with Zoltán, but had never seen him again afterward. The elder had met him in Hungary and described him as a gentleman — serious, courteous, with no hostility toward bloodkin and no reason to ally with the Fallen Ones. Of course, it was possible he had changed over the years…
The elder’s account of meeting Zoltán was detailed enough to send a chill through Coraci.
When Coraci had first heard the man’s name, he’d felt a strange jolt. Now, the feeling only deepened. From the elder’s description, Deville Zoltán was a native of Hungary — and Hungarians, unlike most Europeans, placed the family name first.
Just like in East Asia, the surname came before the given name. Deville was his surname. Zoltán was his given name. His surname was the same as Coraci’s given name. He was Hungarian. And he, too, possessed the Eyes of Truth…
Coraci walked up to the door, knocked a few times, and then dialed the Association’s front desk.
Before anyone could answer, the door opened. Instructor Jere and a few exorcists stood there.
“I want to talk to you,” Coraci said.
“Actually, so do we,” Instructor Jere and the exorcists stepped inside and closed the door behind them. “Let me start… We have two pieces of news for you.” Instructor Jere looked exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept all night.
Coraci looked about the same, dark shadows under his eyes. “Two pieces… one good, one bad?”
Jere gave a wry smile. “I’m afraid both are bad.”
“Then I don’t have to decide which to hear first.”
Instructor Jere handed Coraci a faxed document. “The Salt Lake City office contacted your mother. This is her…” Jere had wanted to phrase it more gently, but ended up using the most accurate term: “…interrogation record.”
Coraci’s mother, Devine, had been living in the U.S. for several years. She was an expert in ancient spells, totems, and talisman culture.
The Salt Lake City office treated Devine like the West Bay City office treated Coraci. They used spells to probe her memories, detect residual magic, analyze her soul traits, and made her recall every detail of Coraci’s childhood.
Devine had no issues. She carried no demonic aura, and no traces of any unknown spells cast on her. She considered Coraci perfectly normal, exhibiting no unusual abilities. Coraci’s early spell training had been entirely under Devine’s guidance; she swore he had never been exposed to other magic users.
There was, however, one abnormal event: their family of three had once been in an accident, which had killed her husband.
At first, Devine insisted it had been a gas station explosion. Gradually, weighing the consequences, she told the Association what had truly happened.
“My husband’s real name isn’t Davy. It’s Deville Zoltán.”
By the time she said this, Salt Lake City had already emailed West Bay City. Devine did not yet know where “Zoltán” had been or what he had done.
She added, “My real name is Devillené Gizi Mira, not Devine Coraci. (Note 1) Both Zoltán’s and my parents were wizards in the Arcane Covenant. From childhood, we were involved in secret research for local institutions. Later, I married Zoltán and decided to leave that world for a normal life. But we couldn’t. They wouldn’t allow us to be set free. They killed Zoltán for buying us time. It was the Rangers who saved me and my son. I know the Arcane Covenant will always be a stain on me, and they won’t spare me or my child. We had to hide our identities… I never meant to deceive the Association.”
Afterward, Devine begged the Salt Lake City staff to protect her and swore she had fully severed ties with the Arcane Covenant.
Coraci couldn’t read any further. His eyes stayed fixed on that last paragraph, unable to lift his head.
“What a joke…” His thumb pinched the edge of the paper until it wrinkled. “I’ve seen a photo of my father. He looks nothing like Zoltán — absolutely nothing! And Zoltán’s age doesn’t match…”
It wasn’t just the appearance. He had always thought his father’s name was Davy. His mother had said their family left Baranya long ago, and their names weren’t Hungarian.
Actually, he did have some mental preparation. While reading the bloodkin elder’s documents, he had sensed it. Deville was not his first name — it was his surname.
“You’ll see soon enough,” Jere said, exchanging glances with the exorcists. “Devine told the Association that the photos she gave you were deliberately faked. She wanted to erase all traces of your father. As for Zoltán’s age…we believe that, although Zoltán is your father, that ‘physician’ can no longer be considered him.”
“What is he, then?”
“Anything is possible,” one exorcist said. “The real Zoltán is probably dead. He once betrayed the Covenant’s secrets to the Rangers; the Covenant won’t forgive him. Coraci, you saw him yourself, up close. At the time, you still had the Eyes of Truth. What did he look like in your eyes?”
Coraci recalled. The man had no undead traits. He was flesh and blood. Any changes to his soul were beyond the Eyes of Truth.
“Devine left other things unsaid,” the exorcist sighed. “There’s an important part she refused to reveal, and she refused memory probing. Forcing it would leave irreparable harm. Salt Lake City won’t do that.”
“Why won’t she say it?” Coraci asked.
“Devine wants to see you. She said…she wants to see you one more time, then she’ll tell us everything she knows.”
Coraci gave a bitter smile and lifted his head. “I get it. She wants to make sure of who I am.”
No matter what Zoltán had become, his and Devine’s descendants could not carry devilish traits. Devils and humans cannot produce offspring. The only possibility was that their child had been replaced by a devil as a fetus or infant.
“So Devine is on her way to West Bay City?” Coraci asked.
Jere nodded. “Yes. Two colleagues from Salt Lake City and three European Rangers are escorting her. That’s the second piece of bad news.”
Seeing his mother couldn’t possibly count as bad news. Coraci clasped his hands together and let out a self-deprecating laugh.
What if Devine really thought he wasn’t her child? Coraci sat rigidly in place, maintaining a calm exterior that had already drained all his strength.
“I know this is very hard for you,” Jere said, stepping forward before leaving the isolation room. He had meant to pat Coraci on the shoulder but withdrew his hand at the last moment. “I’m really sorry. I don’t know what to say. You haven’t done anything wrong, but we have no other choice.”
Coraci stayed in the isolation room, using the clock on his phone to track the days. There were no mechanical clocks in the room — too easily used as magical tools.
You haven’t done anything wrong, but we have no other choice.
He remembered the first time he’d heard a line like that — from Smith. Back then, Smith had still been called “Eileen,” his wife. When they divorced, she had said, You haven’t done anything wrong, but I have no other choice. I can’t live a normal life with you.
Hai Jiu had said the same: You haven’t done anything wrong, but I can’t face you. I can’t stay here anymore.
It seemed everyone said it that way: You haven’t done anything wrong, but I have no other choice. I can only leave you, hurt you, push you far away.
He had heard variations of that phrase over and over, in a life that might not even truly belong to him.
Three marriages had been fake — only one real, with a shapeshifter. The modern, Bluebeard–like aura of mysterious charm was a lie; in reality, every night he busied himself tending to supernatural beings seeking help or a place to stay. Every room in his house had been seen by someone — nothing mysterious about it. His name was false, his mother’s identity was false… Even his entire life might be false.
But the confrontations with remnants of the Arcane Covenant were real. The gruesome deaths of colleagues were real. Deville Zoltán, who kept appearing in his life, was real.
And the Umbral traits detected in him — the devilish aura — were real.
Yes, you are innocent. But this is our work.
The voice suddenly echoed in his mind. It had appeared out of nowhere, like a memory he could not place. Every word made him shiver, triggering a reflex of intense discomfort. Whenever he had shouted at something in the past, someone had said this to him.
Who was speaking? When had they said it? He couldn’t remember. Tiny fragments of memory flared like matches struck in darkness, small flames that vanished almost instantly.
Along with them came hazy shapes and lights, like tail lights seen through wet frosted glass. He tried to push the memories away, unwilling to recall them. The more they resurfaced, the further he felt from the life he lived now.
Coraci leaned against the pillow, forcing himself to steady his breathing. His chest felt as though a thousand pounds were pressing down on it, making it hard to inhale.
He scrolled through all the contacts in his phone. Most were Association members and dark or supernatural beings he had met through work; the rest were booksellers, ticket agencies, and the like.
At some point, he dialed John’s number. John had just returned home — Coraci’s home — and was cleaning a floor mat dirtied by a local Bigfoot.
“Hey, you’re still up?” Coraci asked.
John replied with a question of his own, “And you? Are you awake, or have you been up all night?”
Coraci lay in bed and raised his arm, staring at an ugly scar on his forearm — the one he had cut himself using John’s fangs.
“John, will you still come to the office after dusk today?”
“Of course. Do you need me to bring anything?”
“No, I only need you.”
John locked up. He had never imagined Coraci would say something so…intimate.
“Go tell Instructor Jere you want to see me,” Coraci continued. “Tell him we’ve already completed the imprinting, and then… let’s make a bond.”
“What are you talking about?” John exclaimed, dropping the brush he was holding onto the tile floor.
“Vampire — third time — bond with me,” Coraci said firmly.
Author’s Note:
Note 1:
Hungarian names are similar to East Asian naming conventions: the family name comes first, followed by the given name.
For example, Hungary had a former president whose family name was Göncz — Göncz [Given Name]. His daughter, Göncz [Another Given Name], later served as Minister of Foreign Affairs. It’s not that their given names were the same; they simply shared the family name.
In addition, the way Hungarian women adopt their husband’s surname after marriage is not a simple replacement. One common method is to add the suffix “né” to the husband’s surname, though there are reportedly seven different variations.
According to Wikipedia: Modern Hungarian women’s names can become quite complex. If a woman marries, her name can take seven possible forms. For example, Ms. Szendrey Júlia married the famous poet Petőfi Sándor:
- Following the husband’s surname while keeping her own given name: Petőfi Júlia
- Retaining her full original name
- Husband’s surname plus the suffix -né added before her full original name: Petőfiné Szendrey Júlia
- Husband’s full name plus -né added before her full original name: Petőfi Sándorné Szendrey Júlia
- Dropping her own name and adopting husband’s full name plus -né: Petőfi Sándorné
- Adding the husband’s surname before or after her own surname with a hyphen: Petőfi-Szendrey Júlia or Szendrey-Petőfi Júlia
Therefore, “Devine” is actually a pseudonym she adopted to hide her identity. She treated it as a “first name,” but it is technically a variation of her family name — her actual surname should be “Devillené.”
Her full original name is not important for the story.
Additionally, after moving abroad, some people deliberately reverse their names when introducing themselves (similar to East Asian practice), while others do not. Devine deliberately did not reverse hers.
From The Unthreatening Creature Protection Association’s Guide to Unscientific Monsters:
Zombies
Zombies are undead creatures. They have no lifespan limit, but their strength is weak, and their appearance is slightly unsettling. Essentially, they are exactly what you’d expect from the common concept of a zombie.
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