2006, 28th January

Paris, France

Lionel Bellone had dedicated his attention and forces to hunting down two targets that he knew the people he sent out could not apprehend.

Lucia had surprised him with this manipulation, placing so many people she was close to around him; he hadn’t known the girl had ties this strong to Apotheosis.

But this would further his designs quicker than he had anticipated.

But for now, he had left his back exposed, and predictably enough, yet another player of this city had decided to close in.

Delphine had lived for a very long time in Paris, a glass ceiling seemingly hovering over her head.

Stuck in the body of a child, she was nevertheless blessed with an existence above the mortal condition.

But inequality was a fact of life, even among her peers, and her theoretically limitless potential would never bloom in the face of competing predators.

Especially considering the competition was Lionel Bellone.

But an opportunity had presented itself for the first time in decades; to take the head of the snake.

There hadn’t been a time when Lionel’s men had stretched themselves so thin across the city before, and she could not imagine such an opportunity presenting itself again any time soon.

So she dove in, preparing her ambush.

And the jaws of the trap snapped shut.

A lookout stationed to keep watch for Lionel’s arrival fell thrashing to the floor as if toppled by a powerful gust of wind, then a thundercrack accompanied it, and a wave of force that threatened to knock Delphine and the men around her off their feet.

“He’s here! Fan out!”

Her men started to station themselves around her before stopping dead in their tracks, clutching their hearts as they dropped like flies.

Horrific visions of nightmarish logic played across Delphine’s mind, causing physical agony.

And she knew what a mistake she had made.

She made to call for her getaway vehicle with the cellphone she had concealed in the pockets of her frock.

It did not arrive.

So she ran.

She knew the monster was following her.

She knew Lionel would not kill her too quickly, preferring to tire her out, toy with his prey.

The predatory mind was flushed with positive feedback when bringing down its prey, an incentive offered by their own biology.

Toying with their prey, letting it believe it had a chance at escape before entrapping it between teeth or claws once more, this pseudo-sadism that was a fulfilment of their predatory drive, was one of the few indulgences Lionel had left after all his centuries of life.

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A fact that Delphine was counting on.

She saw liquid shadows follow her through the periphery of her vision as she led him further to her prepared trap.

A building very close to being opened for public use, a property that was in fact, owned by Delphine under a proxy- was to be the site of her trap.

She ran across corridors lined with laser traps, and from the silence behind her, Lionel had evaded them with ease.

But she had expected that much.

Narrow corridors led to a spacious central hall.

Spacious enough to fit an oil tanker truck within it, even if there was no conceivable way to actually drive one inside through the corridors leading to it.

Unless one was assembled inside, kept there for a very specific purpose.

Delphine found herself cornered in her own premises, Lionel now choosing to make himself seen, casually striding towards her from the other end of the corridor.

No words were necessary; he pretty much had her throat trapped in his fangs.

Or so he thought.

The truck screamed as it barreled through a wall, tires scraping against the linoleum floor.

And slammed into Lionel, who made no attempt to sidestep it.

It came to an abrupt halt, robbed of all momentum, even as Lionel disappeared within folds of metal wrapping around him.

All within calculations so far.

Then her men, concealed behind the wall, emerged and opened fire on the truck with heavy weaponry, even as Delphine rushed to place a wall between her and the incoming explosion.

The display of light and sound was disorienting enough as the explosion reverberated within the interiors.

Delphine, concealed around the corner as she was, was not within line of sight of the wreckage, and was only privy to her mens’ reactions as a cue that something had gone terribly wrong.

The man nearest to her held on to his weapon like his life depended on it, which it probably did, emptying it on something, not letting go of the trigger even when the entire cartridge was spent.

Delphine poked her head around the corner to see a patch of darkness emanate from within the flames, a darkness so deep it robbed everything around it of dimensions, like a tear through the screen of reality.

The flames around it died, and the shadows spread to what boiling metal remained of the tanker truck she had rammed Lionel with.

When the darkness receded, everything it had embraced was simply… gone.

Nothing; not energy, not matter, left behind, simply dying in Lionel’s shadow.

Tendrils of darkness reached out from the central scotoma torn across the face of reality.

The tendrils plunged through the surrounding mens’ biomass, and they began to bleed from each visible orifice, before being rent to component molecules, all matter pulled into and disappearing down that patch of black shaped like a man.

Then the shadows receded, and Lionel Bellone stepped from within them, a flesh and blood organism once more instead of a patch of pure absence.

He stepped purposefully to Delphine, and she knew she could not stop him.

He stopped, looking around.

Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he turned on his heel and left.

The overfed cat had had its fill with simply tearing a leg off the mouse, and had allowed it to escape to hunt some other day.

Delphine trembled with pent up rage, fear, frustration and a cocktail of other emotions.

Lionel was counting on that fact.

A vampire that could afford to take a long view of things would collect themselves for decades or maybe even centuries before planning another assault.

On the other hand, a creature that had been thoroughly humiliated in such a fashion would tunnel-vision, and attack the greatest vulnerability Lionel had left unguarded.

Delphine would attack his daughter.

Lucia would either fall to her, or she would be forged anew, with even greater strength.

She had moved against him sooner than he had expected and he had clearly underestimated her ability to form ties around her.

Now it was time to see where her potential truly lay.