I spent almost an hour cleaning.
An hour during which my newly-acquired Master Clockmaker mind waged a merciless war against chaos.
Every tool lying at the wrong angle, every drop of reagent on the countertop felt like a personal insult.
It wasn’t just cleaning; it was calibration.
Bringing my world in line with a new, crystal-clear perception.
And while my hands worked, my head thought.
There were many thoughts, but they no longer swarmed in panic.
The Master’s mind viewed the current vampire problem not as an existential threat, but as a malfunction in the complex mechanism of my survival.
A malfunction that needed to be fixed.
And the fact that I hadn’t yet found an elegant solution stung my new essence.
I didn’t feel like sleeping.
The adrenaline from the day’s events and the awareness of my situation worked better than any coffee.
That being the case, I couldn’t waste time.
I decided to replenish my supply of Intellect Potions.
All the components were at hand, and thanks to the clockmaker skill, the process went like clockwork.
Every movement was precise, every measurement perfect.
I even noticed a couple of minor design flaws in my own Marx Generator that I could fix later.
[Created Potion: Intellect Potion.
Difficulty: Normal.
+30 CP gained!]
…
[Created Potion: Intellect Potion.
Difficulty: Normal.
+10 CP gained!]
Five vials brought a total of 80 CP, bringing my balance to an even 200.
A nice bonus.
When I finished, the horizon had already turned rosy.
Dawn.
Since they hadn’t shown up during the night, my lair was still undiscovered.
After setting up a simple tripwire alarm at the garage and house entrances, I collapsed onto the bed fully clothed and passed out instantly.
Waking up at one in the afternoon was unpleasant.
No motivation, no overflowing energy like the previous days.
Just dull apathy, irritation, and the cold realization that every hour of delay was an hour I was giving my enemies.
The fox isn’t knocking at the door — it’s breaking it down.
Without hesitation, I cracked open one of the freshly brewed vials.
The familiar chill of the Intellect Potion chased away the apathy, replacing it with sharp, analytical clarity.
Sitting before my laptop, I began to systematize my thoughts.
Assets:
1.
Skills: ‘Master Clockmaker’ invaluable for crafting, useless in combat.
And my trump card — Inventory Touch.
The ability that made the vampires and their car disappear.
I’m still endlessly thrilled that vampires, as undead, are considered ‘non-living’ by the system.
This is my joker, and if the enemy finds out about it, I lose.
2.
Equipment: UV projector.
Ten Muscle Stimulant injectors.
A legal self-defense kit: powerful pepper spray, a couple of stun guns, a tactical baton.
And a heavy class-4 body armor.
I tried it on — thirteen kilograms felt like a cast-iron slab.
But under the stimulant’s effect, I could not only walk in it, but run.
3.
Resources: About 19 thousand dollars in cash.
My Honda.
And the Toyota with the vampires inside — potential kinetic weaponry.
I could drop it from a great height or materialize it in the enemy’s path.
The idea of finding something more massive, like a train car, was tempting but impractical.
Vampires, judging by my meta-knowledge, were almost always incredibly fast and agile.
They needed precision and cunning, not brute force.
The Problem:
A clan, a house, a family — or just an organized group of supernatural predators — is hunting me.
Solution Options:
1.
Run.
Move to another city, another country.
But that’s not living; that’s surviving in constant fear.
They’ll find me.
Not today, then in a week or a month.
You can’t run from yourself or your problems.
Option discarded.
2.
Fight.
The only logical path.
But with caveats.
I’m weak in a direct confrontation.
Even with the stimulant.
With body armor, the projector, and Inventory, I’d lose to a squad of experienced vampires.
So I can’t hit head-on.
I need to hit asymmetrically, using my main advantage — intelligence.
The problem is compounded by the fact that I can’t just neutralize the problem; I need to SOLVE it, tear it out at the root so they leave me alone, which means I need an ultimate solution.
Not some hypothetical Necromizer from the Arcanum, which I’d subconsciously been thinking about for a while — no, I need heavy artillery!
I leaned back in my chair, letting my enhanced brain sift through terabytes of information gleaned from my past life.
Comics, movies, TV shows, fan wikis…
All that seemingly useless geek clutter was now my main armory.
My mind built schemas, discarded options, searched for connections…
And it found one.
The picture clicked into place.
Like the final tumbler in a complex lock snapping open, opening a door.
In this world, if I was lucky, even in this city, there existed one specific character.
Not a hero in shining armor, not an omnipotent cosmic being.
A narrow specialist.
Someone for whom fighting vampires isn’t just a mission, but a life’s work.
Someone with the knowledge, experience, and weaponry to solve my problem once and for all.
The plan was insane.
Dangerous.
The probability that they wouldn’t even want to listen to me, and at most would just kill me on contact, was high.
But it was the only plan that could work.
All that remained was to find him.
Eric Brooks, aka Blade, aka the baddest vampire ripper this side of town, aka one of the representatives of the ‘shadow’ side of this world, hidden from the eyes of ordinary people, just like the vampires themselves.
My memory helpfully supplied information that he was either a half-blood vampire without the weaknesses of ordinary bloodsuckers, or an ordinary but insanely trained human, perhaps possessing Qi — in short, variations of Blade exist across the multiverse; I just had to hope mine turned out sane enough.
So, the plan was set.
Insane, but the only right one.
The hardest part remained: finding, in a multi-billion world, a man who most likely didn’t want to be found.
How to reach him?
I could only rely on a digital trail, however faint, and a mind boosted by an Intellect Potion.
Another question arose: how to get his attention?
Would the legendary Blade, perhaps the best vampire hunter in this world, care about the problems of some nobody that these very vampires, whom he butchers by the dozen, want dead?
Probably not.
But I wasn’t going to come empty-handed.
Social capital among the ‘powers’ of this world is priceless.
Especially among those who wouldn’t want to dissect you in an underground lab.
And situations like mine are the best way to earn it.
The main thing is that both sides benefit.
And I have something to offer.
I didn’t earn the self-proclaimed proud title of garage pseudo-genius for nothing.
Time to begin.
I booted up a virtual machine on my laptop, connected to a VPN, routing traffic through several countries, and only then opened the Tor browser.
Of course, it wasn’t one hundred percent protection, but in the terabytes of junk internet traffic pouring into the network every second, my harmless search for a fairly common name like ‘Eric Brooks’ should drown without a trace.
Naturally, a social media search was ruled out immediately.
That would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, after first dumping a dozen more haystacks on it.
My approach was different.
My Intellect-boosted brain worked like a search algorithm, cutting through gigabytes of useless information based on clearly defined criteria.
Name: Eric Brooks (or Brook).
Ethnicity: Black (probability >98%).Origin: British (probability >80%).Physical Data: Athletic or large-athletic build.Additional (optional): Possible military background.
I scanned news archives, government publications, digitized newspaper clippings.
Dozens of Eric Brooks — footballers, musicians, politicians, ordinary workers — flashed before my eyes and were immediately discarded.
Until, after almost an hour, fate led me to a dusty forum for military medal collectors, into a discussion thread about the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
A prestigious award given by the Crown for outstanding contributions to public safety, science, or the arts.
In 2003, it was awarded to 79 people.
And among them was one Eric Brooks.
The post included an old, grainy photo from a British newspaper.
In it, among people in formal suits, stood a tall, healthy black man.
He was wearing an absurd, long leather coat absolutely unsuitable for the ceremony.
The medal was carelessly pinned to his lapel, and a fake, forced smile for the camera was frozen on his face.
He looked like he’d been dragged into the spotlight from a dark basement, and he hated every second he was at this event.
Bingo.
That was definitely him.
I had a lead.
A direct search for Blade was doomed, but now I had a point in time and space.
The award ceremony.
And there were other people there too.
His circle.
I began to unravel this digital knot further, running the names of those who received the award that same day.
Writers, actors, scientists — all misses.
Until I stumbled upon Ben Carper.
Another photo, from another newspaper.
A brutal forty-year-old veteran who, like Blade, came to the ceremony in inappropriate clothes — a field jacket — and smiled just as falsely at the camera.
Two black eyes on the face of high society.
They definitely knew each other.
Unlike Blade, Ben Carper turned out to be much easier to track.
His digital footprint was clear.
I found his social media account in a minute.
The man, now fifty-six, a retired British Army soldier.
Lived a quiet pensioner’s life: fishing photos, rare pictures with his wife.
His phone number, of course, wasn’t publicly available.
Time for a risky move.
Using data ‘doxing’ services on Blade himself would be suicide — someone would definitely trace such a query.
But on a modest British pensioner?
Minimal risk.
I logged into a shadow forum, found a trusted specialist, transferred him 100 dollars in cryptocurrency, and waited.
Half an hour later, a message arrived in my secure inbox with a single line: a British phone number.
A quick anonymous registration on Skype — I’d wisely removed the SIM from my phone long ago — 30 dollars for an international calling package, and there I was, sitting, staring at my laptop screen.
It was two in the afternoon my time.
In Britain, depending on where he lived, it was about five to seven in the evening.
Perfect time.
My heart started pounding.
I was moving from theory to practice.
Right now, with one press of a button, I would be trespassing into a world from which there was no easy exit.
A second’s hesitation, and I pressed call.
Long, drawn-out tones of an international call…
and finally, a click.
A calm male voice with a British accent came from the laptop speaker:
“Hello?”
“Ben Carper?” I tried to make my voice sound as confident as possible.
“That’s me,” the answer was short, clipped, like a sergeant’s command.
No pleasantries.
Knowing that long preludes were useless with such people, I decided to go all in.
“I need Eric Brooks.
Get me in touch with him.
Urgently.”
Silence on the other end.
Long, heavy, oppressive.
I already thought he was just going to hang up.
“Who’s asking?” The voice became even colder, if that was possible.
“A man in serious trouble.
Trouble that hides in the shadows and has pale skin,” I veiled the hint just enough that the right person would understand, and an outsider would think I was crazy.
“No idea what you’re talking about, kid,” followed the predictable refusal.
“And I don’t know any Brooks.
I’m not a charity for paranoids.”
He didn’t hang up.
That was the key.
He didn’t hang up.
It was a test.
He was waiting to hear what I’d say next.
Ah, screw it!
Let’s play the role he wants to hear.
The role of a desperate client.
“I’m not asking for charity!” I deliberately added pathos and a tremor to my voice.
“I need a specialist.
The best.
Someone who can save my pathetic life, and maybe this whole damn world!
I’m only nineteen, I haven’t really lived yet…
Please.
Tell him.
He’ll understand.”
I poured all the sincerity I could muster into that last sentence.
After that — a dead tone.
He hung up.
Crushing, deafening failure.
I hadn’t convinced a grizzled, hardened veteran who had probably sent more people and non-people to the afterlife than I’d seen in my entire life.
My pseudo-brilliant venture with Blade had failed before it even started.
So, Plan B.
A panicked, risky, disgusting Plan B.
I needed to somehow extract one vampire from the ‘Cruiser.’ Isolate it into Inventory separately from the car.
Then interrogate it in the garage under the UV projector, after wrapping myself in body armor and keeping a stimulant ready.
That way I’d at least find out who they were and what they wanted.
But HOW, DAMN IT, do you get one creature out of a locked car that exists in my pocket dimension?!
Summon it into reality?
The doors would be locked.
While I was breaking them open, the creatures inside…
if they were even still ‘alive’…
No.
Too risky.
Maybe it was simpler to drive out into the city in my Honda and play bait?
A stupid idea.
Too risky.
The stimulant would help me in a fight, but it wouldn’t make me a super-soldier.
Against a coordinated group, I’d still be mincemeat.
Maybe luring them one by one, like in a game?
Too many variables.
I needed to think.
The Master Clockmaker’s mind, sharpened by the Intellect Potion, rejected rash decisions.
Panic was a malfunction.
I needed to eliminate the malfunction calmly, methodically, step by step.
First — information.
Without knowing the enemy, any plan is a shot in the dark.
And for information, I needed a source.
I looked at the closed garage door, behind which stood the Toyota Land Cruiser with its silent contents.
My own mobile vampire crypt.
Right.
Plan B it is.
At that moment, a sharp, unfamiliar ringtone sounded from the laptop screen, from the Skype window.
Incoming call.
The caller ID was a meaningless jumble of letters and numbers.
My heart skipped a beat, then started pounding wildly.
It could be them.
They could have hacked my laptop.
But my instinct, sharpened by danger, screamed: “Answer!” I pressed the green button.
“Yo.
You need a narrow-profile worker?” a low, brutal voice came from the speakers.
Another British accent, but different — deeper, with rasping undertones.
A gravelly voice.
No way…
“You…
you know about bloodsuckers?” was all I could choke out.
“Well, I know they suck.
But in my case — not blood,” the owner of the voice chuckled hoarsely at his own crude joke.
“So, gonna fill the worker in?
I’ll quote prices on the spot.”
It was him.
Blade.
Carper had passed on the message after all.
“Yes…
yes, of course!” I cleared my throat, trying to gather my thoughts.
“It all happened yesterday.
New York, Manhattan.
I left college, got in my car, and almost immediately noticed I was being tailed…”
I briefly recounted the chase, deliberately omitting the existence of the inventory and exactly how I’d gotten rid of the pursuers.
I lied, saying I’d simply lost them in city traffic.
My story was flimsy, and Blade, without interrupting, let me finish, then asked just one, most important question:
“Got it.
Now explain why the hell they opened a hunt on you, a snot-nosed brat?
From your voice, you don’t sound like someone who crossed them.”
“Um…” I hesitated.
“Apparently because I stole the Ghost Orchid.”
And before he could react, I hastily added:
“But I didn’t know it belonged to anyone!
Honestly!
I was just walking through the park at night, and I see this incredible flower blooming on a tree.
How could I resist?”
Silence hung in the speakers, then a sarcastic chuckle came through.
“Yeah.
Sure.
You just happened to be at night in a place considered sacred among the initiated.
You just happen to know the name of the rarest mystical ingredient.
You just happen to be able to see and pick it, unlike 99% of mortals.
And the cherry on top — you just happen to know about the shadow side of this world and a fixer like me.
Kid, you’re a lousy liar.”
I felt like I’d been doused with ice water.
He saw right through me.
“Fine,” I swallowed.
“I didn’t find the flower by accident.
But I had no idea it had owners, that’s the truth!
And as for why I needed it…
I’d prefer to discuss that in person.
That question may directly relate to payment for your services.
For a rough idea of the payment’s value, you could watch the movie Limitless.”
This was my only trump card.
To shift the conversation from “help a poor student” to “I have something that might interest you,” and I’d even given a not-so-subtle hint as to what.
“Hm.
Fair point.
You’ve got my interest,” he agreed after a short pause.
“And there’s too much sensitive info over an open line, even if I’m calling through a secure channel.
Fine, I’ll be in New York in eight hours.
Manhattan, the Lily and Milly cafe.
Know it?
You’re buying their signature burger and a story I can believe.”
He paused and added with a hint of dark humor:
“And try to stay alive ’til then.”
The call ended.
I leaned back in my chair and exhaled loudly, feeling weakness spread through my body.
Fear mingled with euphoria.
I did it.
I was going to live.