Chapter 85: Fifteen-Minute Countdown
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: PlumSauce
Around 6:05 a.m., in the countryside over 180 miles from West Bay City, the werewolves reached the house’s porch. One blocked the door while the others approached the windows.
Not far away, Charlotte was still on the phone with Emma Singer.
“Yes, Lucian is worried about you, but he’s very busy right now…”
“Why isn’t he coming to save us!” Emma complained, cupping her hand over her mouth. “Sai said Lucian and Lizbeth specialize in handling these damn monsters — this should be their job! We shouldn’t even be caught up in this!”
“Lucian is working on it. What floor are you on now? Haven’t you reached the ground floor yet?”
Sai held his phone silently, following Carolyn’s instructions. He repeatedly signaled Emma to keep her voice down, but she was too panicked; no matter how much she tried, her voice inevitably rose.
By 6:07 a.m., inside the Iris Hotel, the Gorgon’s figure had disappeared from the surveillance cameras. Perhaps she was hiding in a camera’s blind spot or in the ventilation system. The hotel still had other guests; it wasn’t only Sai and Emma. Though completely blind, the Gorgon could locate prey by heartbeat and scent, able to identify her target from quite a distance.
At 6:11 a.m., Emma Singer temporarily ended the call with Charlotte. Before hanging up, she had said they had entered the elevator and were heading to meet the hunters waiting in the lobby. The Association had sent personnel into the hotel to assist Sai and Emma while disrupting the Gorgons’ senses.
At 6:12 a.m., elevator #3 passed the third floor, heading to the first. Emma’s phone rang loudly. She answered promptly, and Charlotte asked which elevator they were in, explaining that Lucian’s people were waiting just outside. For safety, she instructed them to close their eyes when the elevator doors opened and wait until they were guided out of the hotel lobby before opening their eyes again.
At the same time, the Gorgon Peggy suddenly appeared in the hotel lobby.
Before the specters, hunters, and exorcists could act, John and Carl had cut the building’s power and disabled the surveillance system, ensuring that whatever happened in the lobby could not be recorded or clearly observed.
Before the backup power came online, chaos erupted. The Gorgon detected unusual movement inside elevator #3 and dashed toward it, tearing off her headscarf.
She sensed an ordinary human nearby, waiting for the elevator, but the person showed no reaction — no scream, no petrification. She could not perceive the change in light at this time and could not understand why this human remained unaffected.
At 6:14 a.m., specters with telekinesis joined forces with the exorcists, their pale, transparent necromantic swords piercing the Gorgon’s body. She struggled violently, her terrifying screams echoing through the lobby. Crouching, the reception staff at the front desk had their heads held down by hunters, while exorcists chanted spells.
A commotion broke out near elevator #3; humans could not see clearly what was happening. Seconds later, before backup power restored the building’s lights, the specters had enshrouded the Gorgon’s face, and hunters dragged her corpse into the stairwell.
The lobby lights returned. Hotel staff and Association members were stunned. The staff didn’t understand what had happened, while the Association’s personnel were puzzled that elevator #3, which should have already arrived, had closed its doors and risen back up.
At 6:15 a.m., outside the Lockland family cabin, morning light filtered through thick blackout curtains, casting thin lines on the floor. These lines were intermittently obscured by moving shadows — the werewolves had blocked every possible exit.
Roy could escape via mist form, but Zola and Jane lacked this ability.
Coraci dialed John’s number; the busy signal rang for what felt like an eternity before connecting.
“We’ve taken down the Gorgon,” John said, hurrying upstairs with others, trying to understand what had happened in the elevator. “Wait…what? Werewolves? Why?”
Before Coraci could answer, he received another, far more horrifying answer — the hunters had reached the tenth floor of the hotel. Elevator #3 stood open; the doors were blocked and couldn’t close.
Blocking the doors was Sai’s corpse.
His feet pointed outward, his head inward — he could not have fallen that way himself; someone must have deliberately dragged him into that position. Emma lay inside the elevator, clutching her phone.
Their skin had taken on a terrifying hue, a mix of dark purple and crimson, as if the flesh beneath had turned to pulp. Yet there was no external injury, and even the bloodkin couldn’t detect any scent of blood.
John froze completely, unable to catch Coraci’s words over the phone. All he heard was Carolyn shouting: “It’s him! The one waiting for the elevator! While we were busy dealing with the Gorgon, he—”
Then from the phone came the sound of shattering glass and a girl’s panicked scream. John shuddered. He asked Coraci what had happened, but the call abruptly ended, leaving him unsure whether the phone had malfunctioned or fallen.
At 6:17 a.m., the werewolves began transforming, tearing at the cabin door and smashing windows as they rushed inside.
Zola clutched Jane tightly, trying to stay in the shadows as much as possible to protect her daughter from the sudden intrusion of daylight. Jane was still too young; even the morning sunlight could kill her.
John redialed repeatedly, but the phone would not connect.
Bloodkin did not feel cold, yet now he felt as if he were submerged in the icy depths of the ocean floor, fear spreading through every limb and bone.
By 6:20 a.m., giant wolves, standing upright at nine feet tall, surrounded the cabin’s occupants. They moved slowly, emitting deep, threatening growls.
Roy tensed. He had experience with werewolves. Transformed, they behaved like pack animals; facing them required showing no fear, no hint of being prey, asserting dominance and direct eye contact. If they appeared as a group, they would wait for the leader’s command before attacking.
Zola, outwardly fragile, hugged her adopted daughter and glared at the enemies, her eyes burning red.
The phone that had fallen earlier was now crushed under a werewolf’s claw. Coraci gripped the silver sabre John had left him — a weapon he had often used — but he knew he was unskilled in combat. Against the wolves’ speed and strength, he had no time to cast spells.
Eyes of Truth…has it failed again? The thought surged in Coraci’s mind. He could not determine if it had. Now, with no creatures disguising themselves in the room, he had no way to verify.
If Eyes of Truth had failed, he could once again be on the verge of losing control. Over the past three years, he had largely maintained mastery over himself but never absolute control.
And now… perhaps wielding the devil’s power was the best choice. Six werewolves — what could they do? Under the edge of obsidian blades, they would be reduced to fragments.
Coraci had to admit, at this very moment, the urge to kill was rising within him. He wanted to drop the silver blade and let his consciousness slip into the Abyss, allowing the devil Deville Coraci to end everything.
But he dared not. Another voice kept warning: You will kill John’s family along with them. You might even be willing to die with them. You’ve already considered that your enemies may be coming for you. You are afraid, unwilling to submit, and you have tasted the sweetness of living freely.
Roy realized with a jolt that something was off about the person beside him… Mr. Devlin’s body temperature plummeted, his heartbeat slowing to an inhuman rate, yet his life signs did not vanish.
He looked at Coraci and was startled — the whites of Coraci’s eyes were marked with thick blood vessels, and his irises had turned entirely black, without pupils or ciliary structures, without reflecting any light.
Zola tried to pull the blackout curtains across, but a werewolf leaped in front of her, knocking her to the ground. She rose, roaring in anger, only for the wolf to laugh and rip apart the entire window frame. More sunlight poured in, and Jane huddled desperately within the remaining bit of shadow.
Roy and Zola, two bloodkin, could not defeat six werewolves. It would be the same even with Coraci — as a human, as he wouldn’t be able to handle one werewolf. And the other kind of power…might destroy everything in front of them.
“Let me give you some advice, Mr. Deville Coraci.”
A familiar voice came from outside. Charlotte stood beyond the now-removed door.
“Let’s analyze the situation first. Mr. Roy is an experienced, older bloodkin — perhaps only two werewolves could take him on at once. Zola…she lacks combat experience and will be slowed and pained by the sunlight. As for young Jane…as far as I know, she’s still very young; exposure to sunlight would reduce her to ash instantly.”
“You…you’re Lucian’s assistant?” Coraci fixed his gaze on her.
Charlotte continued, “Option one: you do nothing. I have six werewolf warriors — four attack Roy and Zola, one watches you, one drags Jane into the sunlight. Option two: you have enough power to kill all of us; we cannot resist. If luck’s on your side, you might not harm this family of vampires. If not…you either kill them all, or accidentally destroy this house and give Jane a taste of sunlight. You can take that gamble — if you trust your own control.”
Coraci recalled how Charlotte had treated him carefully when he’d gone to Lucian to check the magical marks on his body. She had even driven him home once.
Something felt off. Even if Lucian had been obsessed with finding him, he wouldn’t do it in this way…
“You want me to come with you,” Coraci said, looking at her.
Charlotte nodded. “Yes, Mr. Coraci. Option three: you go with me, and we remove ourselves from this family entirely.”
“You’ve been looking for me all this time?”
Charlotte’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Perhaps…you could put it that way. I just didn’t know before that it was you I should be looking for.”
“I thought so,” Coraci said. “You — or, no, you all — have been searching for the devil fragment since I left Hungary.”
Between them, a werewolf growled low, blocking him from approaching further.
Charlotte shrugged. “I haven’t been to Hungary. This is just my work.”
“An Arcane Covenant undercover operative,” Coraci said, staring at her. “Lucian really is foolish — he never realized?”
“Researchers from the Blackmoon family are all like that,” Charlotte said. “They care about academic value, not people’s private lives. Hiding in plain sight beside him was the easiest thing in the world. Now, we shouldn’t waste time on irrelevant chatter. Make your decision. Come with me, or…?”
“You don’t trust me, I can’t trust you either,” Coraci said. “You might not keep your word and spare them, and I could just come with you first and then kill you.”
“How will you know until you try?” Charlotte lifted the hard-sided case by her feet and opened it. Inside was a black robe, its fabric embroidered with faint dark lines, thicker even than the kind bloodkin Danny wore.
“Every bloodkin knows what this is,” she said. “It can protect them from sunlight. I’ll give it to the bloodkin girl. But first, I need to give this—” She retrieved a syringe from a compartment in the case.
Charlotte stepped back. A werewolf picked up the robe and tossed it into the middle of the room. The other werewolves, under orders, withdrew from the encirclement, retreating next to Charlotte and Coraci, giving the bloodkin family a path to escape.
One werewolf held Coraci in place while Charlotte approached from behind with the syringe.
“Where are you taking me?” Coraci asked.
“Enough of your questions — your Association has dealt with us before. Asking now is pointless. Can I tell you where our base is?”
Seeing the werewolves step back, Jane hurriedly pulled on the black robe. Roy shielded her and Zola behind him.
“Coraci?” Roy stared at him. “You are…Mr. Deville Coraci? I know you. John and you are…”
“Take them away from here, Mr. Roy,” Coraci said.
The moment he finished speaking, the needle had already pierced the vein in his neck.
Instantly, a surge of darkness nearly consumed him. He resisted — he didn’t want to gamble with the safety of the entire Lockland family; he couldn’t guarantee his humanity would win.
“I won’t just hand you over to them!” Roy gestured for Jane to leave first, yet he didn’t move an inch himself.
“I can protect myself. If you don’t believe me, you can ask John.”
Coraci smiled. He was surprised to feel his thoughts blur, his limbs go weak. At first, he thought Charlotte had injected some magical potion, but he realized it wasn’t that — it was an ordinary chemical compound designed for human bodies.
Magic might be resisted by a devil’s soul, but sedatives and relaxants targeting the human body were different. As long as he is still considered human, they will take effect.
With his last ounce of consciousness, Coraci spoke to Roy. “Run. Don’t let me do this for nothing.”
Zola grabbed Jane and ran toward the dense forest. The sunlight forced them to keep their eyes shut, but fortunately, the black robe worked — the child remained unharmed. Roy clenched his fists, turned and leapt out of the house himself.
In Coraci’s mind, the dark urges that had been clawing at him blurred and receded…but they did not vanish. He hoped Charlotte would take him away quickly, anywhere at all. He would wake eventually.
He no longer worried or feared; a dark thrill stirred within: They need me, so I will wake. At that time, I won’t need to protect anyone. I will no longer have to maintain the clarity of human will. Then, I can slit their throats, shatter their bodies…
The werewolves carried the unconscious Coraci on their shoulders, following Charlotte’s lead. Charlotte commanded two of them to follow her, telling the others, “Bloodkin move fast. Can you still track them?”
“I can try, ma’am,” one replied.
“Then try. Find them, kill them. It’s daytime now — use it.”
The two werewolves following Charlotte reverted to human form, one male and one female. They boarded a small transport truck. The male loaded Coraci into the cargo hold, shackling him, while the female rode in the cab with Charlotte.
Charlotte glanced at the map. “I’ve driven from West Bay City many times. But from here, this route is new to me. The distance isn’t far. You drive. I’ll navigate.”
“Where are we going?” the werewolf asked.
“To the Blackmoon estate,” Charlotte said with a smile.
This Title is available for faster chapter releases through paid Patreon membership. Any proceeds go to keeping the website running. Check it out HERE.
