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Chapter 65 – Spot Check
[Spot's POV]
*ring*
*ring*
*ring*
"Moshi moshi, Spot speaking. Who am I talking to?"
"I need a new locator. The previous one you gave me didn't work — got destroyed after three uses," the voice said. Cold. Measured. The kind of tone that makes every sentence sound like the beginning of a threat.
"It *did* work," I said, glancing at the third ring sitting on the desk beside me. "Three uses, two rings found."
"One device. Two rings. That's barely acceptable."
"One device, two rings, *and* it burned itself out exactly as designed — which was the point. I'm not in the business of handing out permanent solutions for free."
Silence. The kind where someone's deciding whether to be angry or impressed.
"What do you want?" he said. Not a question.
"I originally wanted information in exchange," I said, "but something happened." I paused just long enough to be dramatic about it. "A complication."
"Define complication."
"One of our research sites got hit. Everything on the locator project — schematics, serum data, all of it — gone. Whoever did it knew exactly what they were after."
The bad kind of silence again.
"You're telling me," Mandarin said slowly, "that the only data capable of building a working locator was *stolen,* and you don't know by whom."
"I'm working on it. In the meantime, if you sent over a ring for research purposes, I could build something even better than before."
"No. Find them first. Call me back when you have something other than schemes."
The line went dead.
I set the phone down very carefully, because throwing it wouldn't solve anything and I'd already gone through three this month. Three rings and this much stinginess. Truly, greed works in mysterious ways.
---
The labs were two floors down, behind enough security to make a bank vault feel underdressed. Tinkerer was hunched over a workbench when I walked in, and Dr. Jackson was doing that thing he always does — looking extremely busy right as someone with authority walks through the door.
"Progress?" I asked.
"We don't *need* the stolen data," Tinkerer said without looking up. "Half of it was redundant anyway. We can rebuild the locator from memory. Slower, but doable."
"How much slower?"
"Weeks. Maybe less, if Jackson stopped acting like a moody teenager and actually did his job."
Jackson looked up, offended. "How I do my work is not your concern."
"Don't be like that, Jackson," I said, walking over to his station.
He straightened up automatically. Looked at me with defiant eyes. If he were a girl, I might have fallen for the charm. Alas.
"Dr. Jackson," I said pleasantly. "I don't think your assistance is necessary here."
"So what do you want me to do — make coffee?"
"Nothing so dull. I have a much better task for you, courtesy of yours truly. Find the thief who stole our data." I paused just to enjoy it a little. "If possible, bring me a cup of coffee with that thief's head on the side."
Jackson gave me a look that could've curdled milk. "Understood," he said flatly, in the tone of a man who absolutely did not understand but knew arguing wouldn't help.
He stood, phased through the wall like it was a courtesy door, and was gone.
I turned back to Tinkerer. "Three weeks. Make it less."
"I always try."
"Try harder."
---
*[Elsewhere]*
Three blocks away, in a museum that had closed two hours ago, a figure in black moved through the gallery like she owned the place — which, by the end of the night, she basically would.
She paused in front of a painting, tilted her head, and decided it was worth the trouble. The frame came off the wall without a sound.
"Nice," she murmured, rolling the canvas with practiced care. "This'll fetch a good price."
Somewhere above, a security camera's red light blinked, then quietly went dark.
She didn't look back.
---
*[Adrian's POV]*
"Funny story," I said again, because apparently that was still the best opener I had.
Mayura's visor didn't move, but I could *feel* the judgment radiating off her. "I thought you were planning on staying home."
"In my defense, I got attacked by a vampire."
"He's telling the truth," Daredevil said, which I appreciated.
Mayura's visor tilted toward him. "Does that make it better?"
"It's a *little* better," I said.
Moon Knight looked between all of us with the energy of someone whose patience was already running low. "Can we focus? Khonshu doesn't have all night."
He turned and started walking. We followed, because apparently that's just how things worked now.
Daredevil fell into step beside me and lowered his voice. "I thought you were her boss."
"He's family," Mayura said from ahead, without turning around. Apparently super hearing isn't exclusive to him.
"Family," Daredevil repeated, filing that away somewhere. "So how'd you end up here?"
"Short version," I said. "Vampires. Found a nest. Followed it. Also—" I gestured at Moon Knight's back. "This is Moon Knight. Special ability: random chaos. Usually effective."
Moon Knight glanced back with a look that conveyed exactly one thing: *doom.*
"We were tracking the same nest," Mayura said, cutting in before I could make it worse. "Daredevil picked up on the disappearances near Hell's Kitchen. The trail led here."
"Multiple groups converging on the same nest independently," Daredevil said. "That's either really good luck or really bad luck. I haven't decided."
"Bad," Tikki muttered from inside my hood. "Definitely bad. More vampires."
"Thanks, Tikki."
"Just saying."
---
The passage widened, and the smell changed — less concrete, more iron. The kind of smell that makes your stomach drop before your brain catches up on why.
Mayura's visor flickered. "Cold signatures. A lot of them."
"How many is *a lot?*" I asked.
"Twenty. Maybe more. Plus forty, fifty additional signatures — higher body temperature, which means still alive."
"Servants," Daredevil said grimly. "Human, but turned. Loyal to whoever runs this nest."
Vampire math. My absolute least favorite kind of math.
"Okay," I said. "If we're doing this, we're doing it properly."
"Plagg, Ziggy — unify."
The dual transformation hit differently than usual — claws sharpening, and a faint shimmer running up my forearms as I focused on *creating.* Four short silver blades formed in my hands, edges humming faintly with the Goat Miraculous baked in.
"Garlic," I said, holding one up. The metal had a faint herbal sheen to it. "Coated directly into the alloy. Permanent. Should make them very unhappy."
Mayura looked at the blades, then at me. "You made garlic swords."
"I made *silver swords coated with garlic.* Garlic swords sounds considerably less impressive."
"It's the same thing."
"It's *branding.*"
"Why didn't you just make an anti-coagulant gas? Far more efficient."
"First, Geneva Convention. Second, we should actually sharpen our skills once in a while instead of taking shortcuts."
Daredevil exhaled through his nose — somewhere between a laugh and disbelief. "Can we please just go?"
"Right. Yes. Going."
---
The chamber was massive — like someone had hollowed out an entire subway depot and decided *this* was the perfect spot for a vampire nest. Cages lined one wall. Vampires lounged on raised platforms like they were waiting for a show.
We were the show.
"Last chance to back out," I said quietly.
"No," all three of them said at once.
"Okay. Cool. Just checking."
We hit the room from four directions. In retrospect, probably the smartest thing we did all night, because it meant no one could focus on just one of us.
Mayura teleported into the thick of it instantly — blinking between vampires like a strobe light with consequences. One moment she was at the cages, the next she'd driven a sword through a vampire's skull hard enough to crack the support pillar behind it.
Daredevil moved like he'd mapped the whole room by sound before we even walked in. Batons cracking against skulls and ribs, ducking under claws, using the servants' own momentum to flip them off their feet.
Moon Knight just *demolished.* His wooden club connected with vampires and they simply stopped being a problem. One swing, sometimes two. When it came to the servants, he switched to open palm strikes — careful not to kill, which told me he understood the difference even if his costume gave a confusing first impression. Still, I gave him the sword for a reason.
Me? I had garlic blades and a room full of vampires who'd apparently never met someone who could make their own biology annoying.
A vampire lunged — I sidestepped, drove the blade through its chest. It shrieked, smoke curling off the wound where the garlic hit, then went still.
"Okay, that *works,*" I muttered, already turning.
The fight blurred — dodging, striking, the occasional vampire getting too close and regretting it. Servants dropped from chi strikes, unconscious but breathing. Mayura's portals redirected attacks back at the attackers. Daredevil's senses meant nothing got behind him. Moon Knight kept swinging, tireless in a way I was choosing not to think about too hard.
By the time it settled, fifteen vampires were properly down, and the rest of the room was full of groaning, unconscious servants.
"Fifteen," Mayura confirmed, scanning. "Five remaining."
"Where?" I asked.
That's when the laughter started.
---
A boy stepped out from behind one of the platforms. Maybe nine years old. Rumpled pajamas. The kind of haircut a parent gives a kid who won't sit still for a barber.
He looked like he should've been asleep three hours ago, not standing in the middle of a vampire nest with a smile that had no business being on a child's face.
The five remaining vampires moved to flank him immediately — not to protect him. *Reverentially.*
"Wow," the kid said, looking around at the carnage with something that might've been genuine admiration. "You guys made it pretty far. I should probably introduce my—"
Moon Knight moved before the kid finished the sentence.
The sword — the one I'd given him before the fight — came down in a clean arc.
Everyone froze and stared at him.
"What," Moon Knight said, mid-swing. "It's obvious the kid's the mastermind."
"Moon Knight, *wait—*"
Too late. Already happening.
Here's the thing about hitting the kid — every time the sword connected, or my blade grazed him, or Daredevil's baton clipped his shoulder, a cloud of fine red smoke puffed out from the impact point. Harmless-looking. Kind of pretty, actually.
Then my eyelids got very heavy.
"That's—" I yawned mid-sentence, which is not a good look during a fight. "That's not great."
"Sleeping gas," Daredevil rasped, already swaying. "He's releasing it on contact—"
The kid laughed, delighted, dodging another swing from Moon Knight with speed that absolutely did not belong on a nine-year-old. "Fast learners! I'm actually fifty, by the way — used to be a mutant before I was turned, and my little gift just—"
He didn't finish.
Mayura appeared behind him. No warning. No buildup. Just *there.* One motion, clean and decisive.
The red smoke stopped immediately. My eyes snapped back open, sleepiness gone like a switch flipped.
"Villain monologue trope is overrated," Mayura said flatly, stepping over the body without a second glance.
The five remaining vampires looked at each other — and bolted in five different directions.
"...okay," I said, blinking the last of the drowsiness away. "That was efficient."
"Thank you," Mayura said.
Daredevil straightened slowly, rubbing his eyes. "Remind me never to get on her bad side."
"Too late for me," I muttered. "Already there. Permanently."
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End of Chapter 65
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