1982: Small Town Bloodline Records

The eyes of the toad, the tail of the mouse, the hair of the witch, the heart of the vampire, put them into the black fire, bang.

Let's look at the foul mixture at the bottom of the crucible.

"He...he's going to kill us all."

In the narrow and airless darkroom, the skinny vampire huddled in the shadows, sipping the putrid black blood in the cup.

His adam's apple fluttered up and down, his nervous facial expression, and his pointed ears conformed to all human fantasies about Nosferatu, while opposite him, Edgar seemed to be drawn from those unrealistic romantic love stories. Walked out of the general.

For a long time no one spoke: Edgar remained expressionless while he tried to hide himself from the invisible threat.

"I need you to swear." Edgar put the empty glass on the table and made a moderate sound - the vampire on the opposite side was frightened again, and it took a long time before he raised his drooping eyelids and reluctantly Glanced this way.

He raised his wrinkled face, as if he didn't understand what Edgar said, "Swear... swear?"

"Yes, swear, swear, you will not betray me, and you will not disclose these things we conspired to a third party."

The vampire tremblingly stretched out a hand in the air, "I...I swear, I won't betray..."

"It's not this kind of oath." Edgar raised the corners of his lips, forming a cold smile that never entered his eyes, "I'm not stupid, verbal promises can't represent anything. We are all creatures of darkness at our core, good or bad. Loyalty is the most unrealistic thing for us. You knew that I was following that person's footprints and contacted me proactively, and now you put on a sympathetic look, it is impossible for me to believe you. "

Speaking of this, the vampire didn't dare to fool him with those lies anymore, "Then what do you want to do?" He was a little more courageous, and he was no longer as frightened as before.

"Hand out."

The vampire complied.

Edgar took out a small knife with a special shape, and cut a cut in the palms of their left hands. Because of the special physique of the vampire, only a small amount of black blood leaked out, and the wound healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Before the wound healed, Edgar held that hand with great strength, and the face of the vampire on the opposite side showed an uncomfortable expression.

"Repeat again," Edgar ordered. "Repeat, you will not betray me, you will not betray all the details of our plot to kill Ignatz Dulles. A lock would cut off your tongue, break your limbs, and pierce your dark heart. So Edgar Fogelsand swore that I would not ask Ignatz Dürer if my plan should fail. Stanley and his supporters have betrayed everything about Sanna Stein."

Hearing that taboo name, Sana subconsciously wanted to withdraw her hand.

Edgar held it so tightly that he could see the traces of the bones under the stretched muscles.His eyeballs rolled around several times, and finally he said reluctantly, "I, Sonnen Stein, swear here that I will not betray Edgar Fogelsand, nor will I betray us to conspire to kill..." He I got stuck for a while, and shrank my neck under Edgar's unemotional gaze, "I will help Edgar Fogelsang sneak in and plan his path for all the details of Ignatz Dulles' plan , to provide all the assistance I can, if I have the idea of ​​betrayal, I will die under the shackles of the agreement."

As the last syllable was spoken, the black blood flowing from the wounds of the two people ignited black flames silently.

The flame rose from where their palms touched, climbed up their arms, and finally turned into a few sparks and penetrated into the skin of their chests.

Apart from a dull ache in the heart, there was nothing left of the spell.

"You...you know magic." The vampire's eyes were filled with awe, "You...you and that person, you..."

He wanted to say that you looked exactly the same, but he stopped silently thinking that Edgar might not like such a statement.

Edgar withdrew his hand, not intending to elaborate on the relationship between himself and Ignatz, "It will be a little bit. Now that we have sworn, let's get down to business. How are you going to help me infiltrate?"

Sana rubbed her hands, and she didn't seem to be as uninterested as before, "I was a little worried at first, but it's good that you know how to cast spells. If you are a spell caster, things will be much easier. Help you The key to sneaking in is blood, my blood, I will let you draw my blood later, and then tell you how to use it."

Edgar's eyes fell on him, and he continued, "That man, he has a strong sense of territory, and the vampires who are allowed to enter there must be his people. Do you know how many vampires are under his rule? Next?" He compared a number, "Too many, we can't remember each other's appearance, so we have a unique set of distinguishing methods. That's the smell - that person will leave us more or less Traces—we all rely on that special smell to tell whether there is an alien intruder. Also, Mr. Fogelsand, if you want to sneak in, your appearance is also a shortcoming."

Edgar nodded, "I know this, I will pay attention to it." Time was running out, he changed the subject, "As far as you know, does he have any forbidden places, forbidden places that no one is allowed to enter? I I suspect what I'm looking for is inside."

Sanna was confused for a moment, and then nodded with certainty, "Yes, yes, it is his workshop, or laboratory, whatever it is called, anyway, he forbids all of us to approach, except for his closest heirs And some politicians who are regarded as pigs, few people can really enter that place. It is said that he put a curse on the door there-whoever dares to break in, whoever will be in trouble."

Afterwards, Sana added some things, and Edgar listened quietly, and it was hard to tell whether he believed it or not just from his facial expressions.

Because of the isolation, the passage of time becomes extremely indistinct.Edgar glanced at the non-existent window, "Tell me about your conditions."

"What?" Sanna exclaimed hypocritically.

There was a sneer in Edgar's eyes, "Do you think I will believe it? A vampire who kills humans without guilt and avoids the hunt of demon hunters will sympathize with humans? Not to mention that you have to pay so much blood as a price .Say it, what do you want, as long as I can pay for it, I will bring it back to you."

"...Really?" Sana gasped, he didn't expect his lie to be seen through from the very beginning, "Then Mr. Fogelsang, I want to..." He lowered his voice, his eyes revealed Greedy, "I want that person's blood, the more the better. Of course, it would be great if you could also give me some of your blood."

There is a saying that if a weak vampire can drink the blood of a vampire stronger than itself, there is a certain probability that they will be able to gain their power.

Sana had had enough of being oppressed and treated like livestock.

"You keep your promise like this, so you should be able to fulfill my little wish?"

A letter, lying quietly on the floor in front of the door, is like the kind of advertising leaflets stuffed in through the gaps in the doors and windows, and it also looks like the trick Carl and the others played when they were young: If they are grounded, they will run to his house, put some colorful cards in through the doors and windows, and disperse before the other party's parents find out.They used this method to help their friends through this unbearable loneliness, but at this moment, what this behavior brought was not any kind of warmth and emotion, only gloom and terror—their enemies declared so arrogantly, As long as they don't leave this small town for a day, he can find them anytime, anywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

Whoever left the letter must be treated with caution.

Carl and Mr. Morrison looked at each other, each seeing panic in the other's eyes.

"Do you want to pick it up and see who sent it?"

As he said that, Mr. Morrison couldn't help stretching out his hand to pick it up.

"No!" Carl snapped before his fingertips touched the paper, so scared that he almost fell to the ground.

Carl took a deep breath, went to help his father up, walked a little further, and then said in a slow tone: "Don't touch this, or anything of unknown origin." He took his father upstairs, "I I will come back to deal with this, you should avoid it for a while... because some methods of harming people do not necessarily require direct contact with the human body."

While waiting for Daisy and Eugene to come out, Edgar explained to him the principle of the curse in detail.

Looking back, the history of the curse is very long, from the ancient royal family down to the vulgar village witches, the traces of the curse are everywhere: they use the curse to kill their enemies and competitors, but they are always backlashed However, no matter what, the curse has developed into what it is now with the use of generations of people.

The dark side of human history is stained with blood from the curse.

A curse cannot exist independently, it needs a dependent medium, and needs the target to contact the medium—sometimes the medium is a physical object, sometimes the medium is a scent, in short, the medium is not a fixed and single thing.

After sending Dad back to the room, Carl closed the door and went back to the downstairs door alone.

He didn't touch the letter with his hands, but summoned his strength, carefully wrapped the floor with shadows, stretched out his slender and soft tentacles, and picked up the thin letter.

The letter was difficult to read because it was written in a complex script that didn't seem to be written in any language.

That was the problem, he found that he could recognize the writing.

He had seen similar writing that night at Webster Manor, and he couldn't read the twisted characters at all.

But now, he realized that he could directly comprehend the meaning behind these words.

On Wednesday morning, the sun still hadn't risen, but the snow was still falling, and it was knee-deep in the yard.

After Daisy's accident, Carl and Mr. Morrison were the only ones at the table at 30 Wiggelson Street.

Carl stared at the scrambled eggs and bacon on the plate with no appetite-vegetables are the scarcest resource at this time of year, and people can only rely on those foods that are easy to store to survive.He who didn't have the habit of wasting food forced himself to swallow all these things, filling his empty stomach, but the terrible hunger still didn't lessen.He put down the fork, and his thoughts wandered far away: maybe in the eyes of others, there are murderous intentions lurking everywhere outside, except him.As long as he tried it once, the feeling of gaining power would be addictive, and he wanted to go outside to hunt again.

"Are you full?" Mr. Morrison asked his children as usual, pretending not to see the hideous shadows on the walls and the floor.

Carl nodded and pushed the plate away a little, "I'm full."

He wanted to help his father clean up the tableware, but was declined by the other party, "Go and do your work, I am bored every day, don't deprive me of this only fun."

Now that the other party said so, Karl didn't insist anymore, and left the restaurant to go to the basement.

Since yesterday evening, Edgar has locked himself in it—sleep, he said so, he said that even a vampire is not a perpetual motion machine, and needs sleep and rest.

I don't know where Edgar went before, but when he came back, even though the vampire's face was pale, Karl could see the weakness in his expression.

In human terms, he looks like he's bleeding out.

Before going to bed, Karl watched him drink half a bottle of blood before lying down and closing his eyes.

—without breathing or heartbeat, he looked like a perfect corpse.

Carl sat with him for more than an hour before tiptoeing out of the basement.

While Edgar was sleeping, Eugene came out once.

His face was exhausted, and his body was covered with dried blood.

"She's fine, that's all I can tell you." Eugene didn't say much else, and before entering the bathroom, he took off all the blood-stained clothes and handed them to Carl, "Burn them."

He didn't know why he did it, but Carl did it anyway: the black flames licked the dirty clothes, burning them to ashes in no time.

After Eugene took a cold shower and changed into clean clothes, he came out.

He asked for one more thing besides the clean clothes he had brought to Daisy.

"I want blood, a lot of blood."

Karl knew where Edgar kept his blood—the second shelf in the study on the left, the third shelf, all of it.

There was still steaming blood in the container that had been cast with a special preservation spell. Eugene opened the tin seal and smelled it, "It's still very fresh."

There were five of these bottles on the shelf, and Eugene thought for a moment before taking four of them.

"If he wakes up, tell him. This is a normal procedure. I only need half a bottle. The one who needs a lot of blood is the little girl—her internal organs were all shattered before she was transformed, and she was seriously injured. Transformed into a vampire by me, she has gained a powerful self-healing ability, and she also needs a large amount of energy supply to repair her body little by little."

"Is this enough?" Of course Karl knew this truth, and he didn't get entangled with Eugene here.

Eugene sighed inaudibly, "It's almost enough to tell lies, but I don't know the truth."

After speaking, he re-entered the room with the bottle.

Far away, Karl seemed to hear Daisy's sobbing, and then the door was tightly shut.

Standing in front of the basement door, Carl stopped his contemplation, raised his hand and knocked lightly twice.

"Come in."

It was Edgar's voice, and he seemed to have woken up before he came.

Hope he can be better, with such a mood, Karl twisted the doorknob, and before he saw the vampire, he smelled a strange smell of chemical reagents.

Unlike the empty upstairs, where there are piles of tools that he can't see the use of, he takes every step very carefully, for fear of stepping on something that shouldn't be stepped on.

"What are you doing?"

When he finally walked to the small room with the coffin in the innermost part, and saw the vampire sitting, he had an intuition that something looked wrong.

Edgar held a pair of scissors in his hand, and was cutting off strands of blond hair that reached to his chest.He cut it very carefully, as if his hair would feel pain, but looking at the long and short light blond hair piled up on the ground, like the moonlight streaming down on a summer night, Karl still couldn't help feeling something similar to regret.

"...Why did you cut them off?" His voice trembled a little - because the vampire in front of him looked like he had just stepped out of that dream, with jagged blond hair and unfeeling eyes.

Edgar motioned for him to sit beside him.

He hesitated for a moment, but sat half a meter away from him.

"I want to sneak into Ignatz's underground fortress, just changing the smell is not enough." Edgar replied, without stopping at all, and quickly cut his beautiful blond hair to the chin so long.

"Will it... still grow?" Carl blinked as if he was not used to it, "I like your hair."

Edgar glanced at him. "Slowly, but still...what?"

Many of the vampire's bodily functions have stopped, but not including the growth of hair and nails, which means that as long as it takes long enough, his blond hair will still return to its original appearance.

Carl took the scissors from him, "It's not convenient for you, I can trim it for you."

"Thank you."

Carl didn't speak, and carefully trimmed those blond hairs of different lengths so that they could be seen.

In the past, the person who helped him cut his hair was his mother. He always moved around on the seat, which made her stop her movements in distress, took out sugar cubes from the jar on the side, and quietly stuffed them into his mouth.

He wanted to tell Edgar about the letter, saying that he could actually read the words on the envelope - obviously he had never touched these things.

"While you were away, someone sent a letter. I didn't let my father touch it, but I picked it up and read it myself. There was no signature on the letter, only my name was written... I opened it, and there was only one sentence in it It was 'Enjoy your last moments', and I felt no other unusual threat." Then the letter burned itself, leaving no trace.His hand was unsteady, and he almost cut the vampire's ear, "...I'm sorry."

"He knows I'm here, he's always known." As for who that "he" is, they all know it well.

Carl stabilized his mind and continued with the work at hand, "Is he here to seek revenge?"

If it was seeking revenge, it would make sense: after all, he killed several of the opponent's right-hand men, including the opponent's direct descendants.

"I don't know." Edgar did not confirm his guess, "Ignatz is not such a sentimental guy, he is more ruthless than you can imagine."

Carl stopped talking.

In fact, they had no other choice but to hope that Edgar's plan would succeed.

"Is it the day after tomorrow?"

Today is Wednesday, and the day after tomorrow is Friday, and Ignatz will leave his fort on these two days.

If they miss this recent opportunity, everything will have to wait until next week, and no one knows what kind of accident will happen in the five days of next week.

"Yes."

When the manicure is finally done, the man in the mirror looks a little more handsome than when he had long hair.

"Looking at it now, it seems to be not bad."

Carl suddenly remembered that unreasonable dream.

The vampire in the dream wearing a wide cloak had the same beautiful platinum hair falling from the brim of the hood.

"Bring me a bucket of water, please." Edgar picked up the source of the smell, and applied the dark paste to his hair.

Carl, who roughly knew what he was going to do, put down the scissors, ran up as fast as he could, and brought a bucket of clear water with crushed ice floating on the surface.

Edgar's hair was already covered with the acrid paste, and half an hour later he washed it off with water.

After repeating this four or five times, the short light blonde hair was completely dyed brown-black.

At this moment, Karl stared at him for a long time, as if he had never known him before.

Perhaps due to the change in hair color, the blue iris looked darker and colder than he remembered.

"You look so strange." The outline of the vampire in front of him was cold and hard, with no warmth in his eyes. He tried to search his memory for the appearance of Edgar in the past, "I almost couldn't recognize it."

Edgar, who had changed his image, looked at himself with scrutiny, "I will change my facial features and height at that time, hoping that I won't be recognized."

He spoke very lightly, as if sneaking into Ignatz's secret base was nothing more than a trivial matter.

"Okay, let's get down to business."

He opened the desk drawer and took out something carefully wrapped in white linen.

Carl watched him untie the sackcloth. It turned out to be the copper needle he had given to Edgar that day, and it was also the source of all his unease.

After being injected with the weird liquid in the copper tube, his body's mutations began—obviously he was gradually able to control this ability, but after that incident, things developed in an uncontrollable direction.

"The needle you gave me, I tried to analyze the components of the remaining liquid, but many of the components in it will evaporate quickly once they come into contact with the air." Edgar said very sorry, "Through the remaining ingredients, I guess it's supposed to trigger something—perhaps an untapped power in your soul."

"Yes, we've been doing what you said the whole time, yes, it's been successful, whether it's injecting 'that' into the target's body or eliminating the girl who was used, we've done it."

Ravenna put away his usual carefree expression, and said respectfully to the receiver: "I'm sure."

In fact, he didn't see the girl's body, but Husserl said that the vampire named Edgar Fogelsang had a quirk, and as long as the girl was with them, she would definitely die .

"Let's talk about other things. The kid in the Wayne family has almost known the real culprit, but this town has been deeply infiltrated by vampires. If we want to solve this case, we or him alone are not enough. Some political necessity is needed."

During this period of time, he more or less knew what Antiago Vinn did: they arrested Hangel Villard on murder charges, and according to the existing laws, this man would probably be sentenced to More than 100 years in prison, but it will be difficult for them to pursue anything further - Sheriff Marmon Croft, who was in charge of the Willard case, was suspended indefinitely, and all the work on hand was given to him His subordinates deal with it, and the white-haired man who has been inseparable from him recently does not know where he went.

This is what conservatives do to people like them: when politicians refuse to admit that there is a dark side to the world, that dangers lurk closest to them, their activities are subject to varying degrees. obstacles.

Once their actions are hindered, those fallen humans who colluded with dark creatures will become more and more unscrupulous.

They talked again, mostly Ravenna, and the man on the phone listened and occasionally gave him orders.

— You mustn't fail, or we're all doomed.

The old male voice on the phone warned him sternly, if you fail, then they may not have such a good opportunity again.

"Yes, I see, the time is almost up, it's time to prepare to collect the net."

Ravenna hung up the phone, leaned against the wall tiredly, staring at his toes in a daze.

Every two or three days, he would report their current progress to his uncle, the person who held the real power in the family.

He also knew how much they had paid to capture that creature—both he and Husserl were among the best hands in the family, and the complicated preparatory work alone had consumed huge financial and material resources.

And the reason why they put all their eggs in one basket was indeed as his uncle said, in order not to ruin their entire family.

Because of the unconditional pursuit of dark creatures since the Middle Ages, his family is famous in another world, and this reputation has continued to this day—even if they had to restrain their style to adapt to the changes of the times, they still Many people accused them of being too ruthless.

I don't know when, every newborn born in the Hicks family will face two choices: to become a demon hunter, or to be an executioner who handles worldly things for the demon hunter.

Not everyone is as smooth as the Wayns.For example, he and Husserl, they have always acted together, he hunted and killed dark creatures, and Husserl dealt with the complicated relationships in human society.

Many praised their thoughtfulness, but they knew it was a last resort.Since a long time ago, the Hicks family has realized that there are fewer and fewer people who can inherit the power of the demon hunter. Many children are born as ordinary people and have to be sent to other places to be raised incognito.Today, there is no young man in his next generation who can be cultivated: his elder brother has been married for more than five years, and his only daughter is also an ordinary person.

Faced with such a terrible fact, they had to start thinking about how to deal with it in the future.

For hundreds of years, it is impossible to erase the blood that has been shed, and the evil consequences of their cruel style can no longer be erased.

They hate dark creatures, just as dark creatures hate them.

If they can't bring that thing back, if one day he still has a few uncles in trouble, those vengeful dark creatures will definitely break into their homes, tear the chests of those who can't resist, and eat their internal organs, Drink their blood until the name Hicks is wiped from that world.

"What did he say again?"

Husserl's voice rang above his head.

"Same old thing." He waved his hand wearily, as if trying to repel an annoying fly.

Not only was Husserl not driven away, he even walked to his side, "Are you really sure of success?"

"Yes." Ravenna's rare weakness didn't last long, and he turned back to the cold and shrewd him before, "Dawn has been studying for hundreds of years, and it seems to be successful, but because of the betrayal of the insider, everything Destroyed at once. They deciphered the data rescued in the fire, and found that how to control it had been considered since the dawn of time-long ago-people who came after need only slightly improve on their proposed plan."

If it were Brodika's short summer, it would be almost dawn, but the December darkness was still not over.Everywhere was very quiet.

Thursday passed amidst the usual hunting and intense preparation, and Edgar had his special access to blood, and the vials on the bookshelves were filled with blood again and sealed with tin seals.

Except for one thing, Edgar received a young man with white hair in the living room.

During the whole process, Karl stayed quietly in his own room upstairs as he requested, without making any weird movements.

I don't know what they talked about, but when that person left, Edgar's brows were always frowning.

Today is Friday, the Friday Edgar decides to go.

Carl quietly got up from the bed, wanting to see if Edgar had set off.

No matter how many times he talked about it, he still didn't come to an agreement with Edgar on the issue of Ignatz, or that they didn't know what would happen if he allowed the monster in his body to grow up, and what would happen if he left Blow Whether they will separate after Dika Town.The only thing they need to consider at the moment is how to complete revenge on Ignaz with only one chance.

But now they don't talk about it anymore: Daisy's condition is not stable, Eugene has to be with him for a long time, and Dad is the only human here, and they need Carl to stay here to keep them safe.

If Karl also leaves, then once Ignatz or those who have taken advantage of Daisy because of coveting Karl come to the door, what awaits them will be a catastrophic ending.

"It feels like I can't do anything."

Edgar was drawing blood from his veins with a disposable syringe to see if the strange fluid was doing anything to his body.

"Not everyone can survive a vampire attack, let alone protect others, and you should be happy."

"Probably." He didn't say, if not for him, perhaps the people around him would not have encountered such misfortune.

Black and red blood entered the needle tube, and he was surprised to find that his blood was still normal red, no different from others.

In his imagination, his blood might have turned black long ago due to swallowing too many filthy things.

"Because at present, your body is still a human being." When he raised his question, Edgar thought for a while and replied uncertainly, "But with the release of the seal, the soul will gradually affect the body , I don’t know how the process will play out.”

Edgar also said that he doesn't know exactly what Daybreak did to his soul, but what is certain is that they must have put a lot of evil power into it.

For now, he is still a human being. Edgar's words made him laugh, and after laughing, his heart felt like a piece of lead was pressed.

He didn't know if he continued to eat like this, would he turn into a real monster when he opened his eyes one day?

The blood was injected into a test tube and sealed. Edgar would test them with the methods he knew and inform him of the results. Before that, he had no choice but to wait.

Carl pulled his sleeves down.A little pain, but tolerable.

"Is that enough?"

"Almost. But don't get your hopes up."

"It's ok."

He always wanted to find time to talk to Edgar about the dream he had.

The eerie creature in the dream, the blue-eyed vampire, and the oath were as real as if he'd experienced them at some point in the past.

But he was so afraid of getting a definite answer.

- Were we ever in love?

He didn't know what happened between the weird creature and the vampire.If true, how did vampires feel in the centuries after the creature was captured by the Dawnmen?

Are you looking for it all the time, or giving up?

Seeing his sad face, Edgar, who misunderstood his concerns, pulled him slightly closer.

"Stop thinking like that."

"what?"

"Without you, there would be no me." Edgar held his hand and pressed his lips to his fingertips, "It's like this. One day you will remember, so don't doubt the value of your own existence. "

……

He went downstairs just in time to meet Edgar who was about to leave.

I don't know what method Edgar used, he became shorter, his back was no longer straight, and because of the dark hair dyed, his slightly adjusted facial features looked extremely dark.

He wore an old patched coat, and he looked nothing like the man Carl remembered.

Carl wrinkled his nose and sniffed, but he didn't smell anything—he just had the feeling that a certain smell was no longer the same as the one he was familiar with.

Edgar didn't linger long, Carl looked at him, he had a lot to say, but this was the only thing he said in the end.

"Be careful on the road."