The old cannery squatted on the riverbank like a forgotten tooth.
By day, it was just another derelict industrial building: cracked brick, sagging roof, a row of broken windows staring blindly over the water. Graffiti bloomed along its walls in layers. Weeds sprouted between the cobblestones of the loading yard.
By night, it was worse.
They came three nights after the break-in, slipping along the shadowed side streets, avoiding the obvious approaches. Irina had provided a rough layout from “old memories,” and Dima had overlaid it with a recent satellite image.
“Here,” he’d said, jabbing at the screen. “This side door. No cameras obvious. Poor lighting. If they’re using it for anything sensitive, they’ll probably have internal security, but we can at least get eyes on the outside.”
“Such optimism,” Mira had muttered.
Now, crouched behind a rusted container, she watched her breath plume in the cold air and tried not to think about how stupid this was.
“You… stay… behind me,” Aleksandr murmured.
“We’ve had this conversation,” she whispered back. “I’m not a prop.”
“No,” he said. “You are… bait.”
She glared. “That’s worse.”
He smiled faintly. “You are… also… the one… who understands… the… machines. The files. But… if something… moves… at us, you let… me… hit it… first.”
Her retort died as the side door of the cannery opened.
A man stepped out, lighting a cigarette, shoulders hunched against the wind.
He looked ordinary.
“That’s the worst part,” Mira thought, watching the glow of the cigarette tip brighten and fade. “They *all* look ordinary until they don’t.”
Another figure moved in the doorway behind him, partially obscured by shadow. Taller. Still.
“Smell,” Aleksandr murmured. “Ours.”
Her skin prickled.
The man outside finished his smoke, flicked the butt into a puddle, and went back in.
The door shut.
“Back,” Aleksandr whispered.
They retreated into the deeper shadow of an adjacent building, behind a stack of old pallets. From here, they could see the upper windows of the cannery more clearly.
Two on the top floor glowed faintly, the cold blue-white of fluorescent lab lights.
“You sure you don’t just… want to send Yulia an anonymous tip?” Dima had asked when they’d pitched this.
“I’m not sending her into a vampire lab,” Mira had said. “I need to know what’s inside. Enough to decide whether to burn it metaphorically or literally.”
“And you’re taking *him*,” Dima had said, jerking his thumb at Aleksandr. “Because nothing says ‘discreet’ like taking a hundred-year-old myth into a building full of surveillance equipment.”
“His face doesn’t show up on cameras,” she’d pointed out.
Dima had pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course it doesn’t,” he’d said. “Why would it.”
Now, outside the cannery, she tried not to think of all the ways this could go wrong.
“We need… a way in,” Aleksandr murmured.
“Roof?” she suggested.
He squinted up. “Too exposed,” he said. “If they have… UV… toys… up there…”
She winced. “Point.”
“Basement,” he said. “They always… forget… the… old… ways.”
He led her along the river wall, keeping low. The water lapped darkly against the stones below, carrying the faint, sour smell of pollution.
“This is where they used to… unload the fish,” he said, nodding at a set of crumbling steps leading down to a lower doorway, half submerged at high tide.
“Scenic,” she muttered.
The door at the bottom was rusted shut, padlocked.
Aleksandr tugged the lock. It crumbled in his hand.
“Quality,” he said.
He shouldered the door. It shrieked, then gave just enough for them to slip through.
Inside, it smelled like old fish and new chemicals.
The basement was low-ceilinged, pillars marching in rows. Puddles dotted the cracked concrete floor. Pipes snaked overhead, some long-dead, some humming faintly.
“Listen,” he said.
She strained.
At first, she heard only the drip of water, the faint slosh of the river through gaps in the wall. Then, higher, a hum: the steady thrum of generators. Ventilation fans. Machines.
“This way,” he whispered, moving toward the sound.
They passed old cold rooms, their doors hanging open, metal shelves rusty. In one, graffiti read: FUCK THE BOSSES in shaky black spray paint. In another, someone had drawn a crude vampire with Xs for eyes.
Mira snorted softly. “If only,” she murmured.
Up a narrow stair, they found a metal door that had been installed more recently, frame clean, lock shiny.
“Wait,” she said, hand on his arm. “Cameras?”
He cocked his head. “One,” he said. “Above.”
Her eyes scanned the ceiling, found the small dark dome tucked into a corner.
“You’re sure it won’t see *you*?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “But it will… see… you.”
She chewed her lip, thinking.
“If we go through here, someone’s going to know,” she said. “Maybe not now. But later. Footage. Logs.”
He shrugged. “We are… already… on their… list.”
“We don’t have to make it easy,” she shot back.
He watched her think, indulgent.
“Another way?” he prompted.
She scanned the wall.
There—a vent, near the ceiling, new metal against old brick, humming faintly.
“Air intake,” she said. “Probably for the clean rooms.”
He followed her gaze. “Too small… for you,” he said.
“But not for you,” she said.
He arched an eyebrow. “You want me… to… crawl… through… their… veins.”
“Yes,” she said. “You’re stealthier. No cameras see you. You go, scout. Come back. Then we decide if we go upstairs like idiots or go home and call in bigger guns.”
His mouth curved. “You… make… a good… general,” he said.
“I make… a good… terrified person who likes information,” she corrected.
He shrugged off his coat, handing it to her.
“Keep this,” he said. “If I… don’t… come back—”
“Don’t say that,” she snapped.
He smiled, a little. “Then… you will… have… something… to… burn,” he said. “For me.”
Her throat tightened. “I’m not… planning… any… funerals,” she said.
“I know,” he said softly. “Neither am I.”
He reached up, braced his hands on either side of the vent, and pulled.
The screws groaned. The grate popped free.
“You sure you’ll fit?” she asked, eyeing the narrow duct.
He smirked. “I am… more… flexible… than I look,” he said.
Unfair.
He swung himself up with fluid ease, vanishing into the dark rectangle.
For a moment, she saw only his boots, then nothing.
“Mira,” his voice whispered in her ear. “I will… be… five… minutes. If I am not… back… in ten… you… run.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she hissed.
“Then you will… die… romantically,” he said. “I would prefer… you… lived… stubbornly.”
“Five minutes,” she said. “No heroics.”
He laughed once. “Too late,” he said, and the comm crackled with his movement.
She leaned against the wall, coat hugged to her, every nerve stretched.
She hated this.
She hated waiting. She hated not knowing. She hated being the one standing in the dark while someone else went into danger.
“You put him in that vent,” a dry voice in her head said. “You wanted information. You wanted to *see*.”
She dug her nails into her palm.
“Four minutes,” she murmured. “Three.”
His breathing in her ear was steady, muted. Occasionally she heard the faint scrape of metal, the soft thump of his hand on a bracket as he shifted.
Then—
“Mira,” he whispered. “Stop… breathing… so loud.”
She held her breath. “What?”
“I am… above,” he said. “A… room. I see… two… technicians. Human. And…”
He paused.
“And?” she hissed.
“And… one… of us,” he said. “Young. Strapped… to a table.”
Her stomach turned. “Alive?”
“Yes,” he said. “Barely.”
“Experiments,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said again.
She clamped down on the surge of anger. “Can you… see… what they’re doing?”
“Needles,” he said. “Lines. Lights. UV… but… filtered. They are… testing… thresholds.”
She closed her eyes briefly.
“Mira,” he added, voice lower. “There is… something… else.”
“What?” she whispered.
“A… tank,” he said. “Like… for… fish. But… big. Dark. I… smell… blood… and… electricity.”
“Is there… someone… in it?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Or… something… that used… to be… someone.”
Her skin crawled.
“Get out,” she said.
“I can… get… closer—”
“Get. Out,” she snapped. “We’re not… equipped… for whatever… that is. We need… Irina. Or… all of them. Or… a bomb.”
He was silent for a heartbeat.
“If we… leave… them…” he said. “That… one… on the table…”
“I know,” she whispered. “I know. It’s… killing me too. But if we rush in there now with… pepper spray and your… fists, we die. And they… keep… doing this. If we go home… tell Irina… tell Yulia… tell… everyone… we might… *stop* it.”
He snarled softly. The sound made the hair on her arms stand up.
“I do not… like… this,” he said.
“Neither do I,” she said, voice shaking. “But I like the alternative less.”
Another long second.
“Very well,” he said, voice tight. “I am… coming… back.”
She heard him retrace his path. Scrapes. Soft thumps. Once, a muttered curse in a language she didn’t recognize.
Then his boots appeared in the vent opening.
He dropped lightly to the floor, landing in a crouch.
His face was pale, eyes darker.
“Show me,” she said.
He blinked. “Show you… what?”
“What you saw,” she said. “Not now. Not… here. But… you said… there was… a way. The… red… thread.”
He stared at her.
“You are… sure,” he said slowly.
“No,” she said. “But I want… to *know.* Not just… guess. Not just… imagine. If I’m going to fight this, I need to *see* it.”
“It will… hurt,” he said quietly. “For you. And… for me.”
Her throat worked. “We hurt anyway,” she said. “Might as well… be… accurate.”
He searched her face.
“Later,” he said. “Not… in this… hole. Home. With… doors. And… walls. And… tea.”
She nodded.
“Home,” she said.
***
Back at the apartment, after three cups of strong black tea and a shower hot enough to turn her skin pink, Mira sat cross-legged on the sofa, a towel around her hair, heart thudding.
Aleksandr sat opposite, on the armchair, elbows on his knees. The lamp cast warm light over his features, humanizing them without softening.
“Last chance… to… back out,” he said.
She swallowed. “How does it… work?” she asked.
“You take… a… little… of my blood,” he said. “On your tongue. Do not… swallow… at first. Let it… sit. I will… do… the rest. Guide. Like… with… your… sleep. But… deeper.”
She tried not to dwell on the words “my blood on your tongue.”
“I thought… the danger… was… the other way,” she said. “You… taking mine.”
“That is… another… danger,” he agreed. “But this… carries its own. You may… see… more than… you want. And… feel… it. Not… just… watch… like a film.”
“Will I… die?” she asked bluntly.
“No,” he said. “Not… from… this. But you may… hate me.”
“If I’m going to do that, I’d rather have… good reasons,” she said.
He huffed.
She shifted on the cushion.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s… do it.”
He exhaled.
“Give me… your hand,” he said.
She extended it.
He took her wrist gently, turning it palm up. His thumb brushed the thin skin there, feeling the pulse.
“This is… the hardest… part,” he said. “For me.”
“You’re… not biting,” she said.
“No,” he agreed. “But… blood… is… blood.”
He lifted his own other wrist, studying it.
Unlike hers, it bore faint scars: thin, pale lines that suggested this wasn’t the first time he’d opened his own veins.
Before she could second-guess herself, he raised his wrist to his lips and bit.
His fangs slid in effortlessly. Dark, almost black blood welled.
Her breath caught.
The smell hit her—a dense, metallic, strange note that wasn’t quite like the bagged blood. Older. Richer. Like iron soaked in century-old wine.
He held his wrist over her hand.
“Open,” he said quietly.
She obeyed.
A thick drop fell onto her tongue.
It was warmer than she expected. It slid over her taste buds like molten coin, heavy and complex.
She expected to gag.
Instead, her body reacted with something that felt disturbingly like… *relief.*
Her eyes fluttered shut.
“Taste,” he murmured. “Do not… swallow… yet.”
The flavor exploded: rust, smoke, sugar burned just before it turns black, the bitter of strong coffee, the faint floral of old cologne, the musk of damp earth.
Beneath it, something else: *him.* The particular way he moved, the cadence of his thoughts, the weight of his years.
Her pulse stuttered.
“Now,” he whispered. “Breathe. I will… pull… a little. Gently.”
It felt like a current running the wrong way: not her taking from him, but him reaching along the drop, into her mouth, her veins, her nerves.
Her body went heavy and light at once. The room tilted.
“Focus,” he said, his voice suddenly *inside* her head more than in her ears. “On… me. On… my voice.”
The lamp’s glow dimmed. The walls blurred. The sofa under her knees became a suggestion.
The taste on her tongue intensified, then... shifted.
She *fell.*
***
She hit a ballroom floor.
Not literally—her real body stayed upright on the couch, hands twitching, fingers curling—but in the vision, she stood in the middle of a shimmering, gaslit room.
Music swelled: violins, cellos, the soft thump of a bass. Men and women in formal dress whirled around her, the air thick with perfume and cigarette smoke.
Her own clothes looked down at themselves: a dark coat, a stiff-collared shirt, polished boots.
“Aleksandr,” she realized. “I’m in *him.*”
“Yes,” his voice said—not from outside, but inside, layered with the sensations.
“First time we wore this coat,” he said. “Vienna. 1920. Elizaveta insisted.”
She turned—his body turned—toward a flash of movement.
Elizaveta danced.
She wore a silver dress that caught the light like water, her hair in loose waves that defied fashion and decorum. Her scar glinted faintly when she smiled—a sharp, delighted thing—as she spun with a man whose face Mira didn’t recognize.
“You miss her,” Mira whispered, forgetting her role.
“Always,” he said. The ache in the word pressed on her ribs.
The scene blurred, shifted.
Mud.
The stench of rot and sweat and fear. The weight of a rifle in hands that shook. Rain plastering hair to a younger forehead.
Screams. Explosions. The sharp crack of gunfire.
“Here,” Aleksandr said. “The end. The first one.”
She felt her lungs burn, muscles strain, the sick terror of knowing you are too far from safety and too close to death.
A shell exploded nearby. Debris flew. Pain—sharp, total—ripped through the body she wore.
The world went black.
Her real heart hammered.
“Enough,” she gasped.
“Sorry,” he said, voice strained. “It… came… with it.”
The darkness shifted.
Light again, but different: dim, flickering, candle and electric bulb fighting. Stone walls. The Morozov crypt.
She lay on a slab, new-unliving, Elizaveta’s face above, younger, worried.
“You chose... to show me this,” Mira said.
“Yes,” he said. “So you… know… what it means… that I am… here.”
He showed her.
Not every year. Not every night. Flashes.
Sitting in a salon, listening to a poet recite verses that made human women weep and human men nod solemnly. Boredom coiling around hunger.
A man in a uniform, eyes wide as he realized the hand on his shoulder was stronger than any he’d known. The rush as old blood slid down Aleksandr’s throat. Guilt. Pleasure. Control.
A winter night on a rooftop, snow flakes dusting his hair, watching the city burn in patches, thinking, *We will outlast this too.*
A young woman in a borrowed dress, laughing as he taught her to waltz in a kitchen when the ballroom was closed. The feel of her pulse under his palm as he spun her.
A long, dark road east with Lev, trains in the distance, the taste of cheap vodka and grief.
Elizaveta in the crypt, pressing a vial into his hand, eyes determined.
Her words echoed: *You will wake. I promise.*
Then—stone. Silence. The slow shutting down of everything.
Mira’s throat ached.
“Enough,” she whispered again, tears hot at the corners of her eyes.
“One more,” he said gently. “Then… what you… asked.”
The cannery.
He’d shown her glimpses with words earlier. Now she *saw.*
The vent. The grate. The room below.
The young vampire on the table was male, perhaps in his twenties when turned. His skin looked grey, his lips cracked. Needles pierced his arms, his neck. Tubes ran to machines that beeped faintly.
The UV array above him glowed a sickly purple. His skin under it smoked just enough to redden, not enough to ignite. He convulsed.
Mira flinched.
In the tank, shadowed but not enough, something moved.
A shape half-floating, half-curled. Limbs thin, veins dark under the skin. Eyes closed. Mouth open slightly, revealing teeth too long.
She felt Aleksandr’s horror *and* his fascination.
“What is that?” she whispered.
“Hybrid,” he said. “Or… attempt. Human… bones. Our… teeth. I do not… know. He… is… playing… God.”
She wanted to vomit.
She tore herself back, wrenching her tongue against the metallic taste.
The connection snapped.
She found herself on the sofa, gasping, hands clenched in the fabric.
Aleksandr sat opposite, palms pressed to his knees, breathing as if he’d run.
Their eyes met.
“You… saw,” he said.
“Yes,” she said hoarsely. “I… felt.”
“I am… sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be,” she said. “Now I… *know.* Not just… guess. Not just… read. I *know* what he’s doing.”
“And me,” he said quietly. “You… know… me.”
She swallowed.
“Yes,” she said. “More than I… expected.”
“Do you… regret… asking?” he asked.
She thought of Elizaveta’s laughter. Of her walking into fire. Of mud and bullets and the taste of old fear. Of the cannery. Of the boy on the table.
Of Aleksandr’s first breath in the stone. Of his voice in her mind.
“No,” she said. “I regret… that you had to… live… through it. But not… that you… shared.”
Relief flickered across his features, quickly masked.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “God,” she said. “Your blood tastes… intense.”
He huffed. “Yours… will too,” he said absently.
Her cheeks heated.
“We’re not… there yet,” she said.
“No,” he agreed. “We are… here.”
He leaned forward suddenly, elbows on his knees.
“What you saw… there,” he said. “In the tank. In the needles. That is… not… a one-time… monstrosity. Kalugin will… scale. If we do… nothing, he will… create… a new… kind… of us. One… bound… to him. He will… sell… them. Leases… on immortality. Bottled… hunger.”
Mira’s skin crawled. “We have to… stop him,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“With… Irina?” she asked. “With… your… board?”
“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “We cannot… hit… that… alone.”
She exhaled. “Okay,” she said. “Then tomorrow, we… tell her. All of it. And… we get Yulia ready for… another… round.”
He smiled mirthlessly. “You want to… leak… a… vampire… lab… to the press,” he said.
“Not… the vampire part,” she said. “The… illegal human experiments. The corruption. The money. The rest…” She gestured vaguely between them. “Might leak on its own.”
He laughed, genuine this time.
“You are… very… dangerous,” he said.
“You keep saying that,” she murmured.
“It keeps being… true,” he said.
She rubbed her eyes, exhausted.
“Hey,” she said.
“What?” he asked.
“That… thing you did,” she said. “With the blood. The… red thread. Does it… go… both ways? Could you… see… *me*… like that?”
He inhaled slowly.
“Yes,” he said. “If… I… drank… from you. Or… if… we… shared… differently.”
“Differently,” she repeated.
“Later,” he said. “When we are… not about to… wage… war.”
She nodded.
“But… you should know,” he added. “I have… already… seen… pieces.”
She stiffened. “What?”
“Your… memories… cling,” he said. “When I… was in your head… helping you sleep. When you… took… my… blood. It is… not… one-way. I saw… a little… girl… on a beach. Your father… pointing… at a ruin. Your mother… braiding… your hair. A banner… at a protest. Your first… academic… rejection… letter. You standing… in front of the estate… gate… for the first time. The way… your hand… shook… when you cut… the chain.”
Her eyes stung. “You didn’t… tell me,” she whispered.
“I did not… know… how,” he said. “I did not… want you… to feel… stripped.”
She snorted softly. “Little late for that,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “But… now… it is… even.”
She exhaled, tension bleeding out.
“Are you… afraid… of me?” he asked, echoing her earlier question to him.
She looked at him.
“Yes,” she said. “And no. And… that’s… probably… healthy.”
His mouth curved. “Good,” he said.
She stood, legs shaky.
“Come on,” she said. “If we’re going to take on the vampire-industrial complex tomorrow, I need at least *some* normal sleep.”
“You…” he said, bemused, “think… this… is… normal.”
“It’s my… new normal,” she said over her shoulder. “You’re in it now. Get used to it.”
He watched her disappear into the bedroom, a slow, incredulous smile spreading across his face.
“I am,” he murmured to the empty room. “Very much… trying.”
***