"The Northern branch is demanding explanations," said one of the vampires who had just arrived.
"The Eastern clans are still silent."
"That's worse. Much worse."
"They're waiting," Anna replied.
"Or they simply don't want to deal with you at all," Gérard added.
She nodded.
"Let them. I'm not going to apologize for stopping the torture."
Gérard looked at her carefully.
"Do you really think that's enough? Just closing all of Elizabeth's centers?"
"I know it's not enough," Anna said.
She turned to him.
"That's why we'll start with a purge of the inner councils. Everyone who signed the protocols will be removed. Officially."
"And unofficially?"
A pause.
"They will be placed under surveillance."
Gérard smirked.
"You learn fast."
Off to the side, leaning against a column, stood Roy. His gaze was fixed not on them, but on the entrance.
"Some of those who left are already gathering," he said without turning around.
"They won't attack right now. But they'll start looking for weak spots."
"They'll find them," Anna replied calmly.
"There are always some."
"And?" Roy asked.
She looked at him.
"We'll strengthen them."
Roy nodded.
It wasn't idealism. It was strategy against the disloyal.
A little further away stood Kane Corvin.
His face was paler than usual, his movements more economical. He was still trying to pull himself together, looking down on everyone from above.
He raised his eyes to Anna.
"They won't accept you right away," he said.
"I'm not counting on it."
He smirked.
"If I still had my power, none of this would have happened…"
"No," she answered quietly.
"You simply wanted to control everything. Nothing would have changed."
He looked away.
The connection between them was constant, like a quiet background hum. He felt her presence in his own blood. It was humiliating.
And liberating.
At that moment, one of the young vampires returned to the hall.
"Confirmation," he said.
"Three of Elizabeth's centers are already under human control. Two were empty."
"In the third… they found survivors."
Anna closed her eyes for a second.
"Pass the coordinates to humanitarian organizations," she said.
"Let it be public."
Gérard raised an eyebrow slightly.
"You're revealing too much."
"I'm revealing enough for us to stop being seen only as monsters."
Roy added quietly:
"Or for them to start seeing us as enemies."
Anna turned to him.
"They already see us as enemies. The only difference is what exactly for."
Outside the windows, the sun was rising higher.
In the far corner of the hall, one vampire was quietly speaking on a secured line:
"Yes, she has become the new sire."
"No, Kane is alive."
"Yes, Gérard is still by her side."
A pause.
"Good. I'll take care of everything."
The clans were forming new alliances. Humans were preparing commissions and investigations.
Gérard stopped beside her at the window.
"You understand," he said quietly, almost intimately, "that the next fight won't be internal?"
"What then?"
"External."
She looked at him.
"International?"
"Human. Some are planning quite a lot. Especially a full takeover of New York, and then the whole of America."
A pause hung between them.
"They will not accept the existence of such a scale of hidden power."
Anna nodded.
"Then perhaps it's time to stop being a shadow."
Roy shifted his gaze to her.
"You want to come out into the open?"
"I want us to stop living like this. Humans are exterminating us. I think it's time we did something too."
Kane laughed softly.
"This will be war."
Anna looked at the sunrise.
"Perhaps."
She swept her gaze across the hall,the destroyed stage, the dead screens, the cracks in the marble.
"I would prefer peaceful coexistence, but they're not giving us a choice…"
Anna was saying what Gérard and his followers wanted to hear. She herself didn't know which side she truly belonged to.
She wanted to get rid of all those officials, including Roy, Gérard, and his entire trio.
— Ethan —
The sirens outside the shelter were growing louder. At first a distant, pulsing wail, then a sharp, insistent roar that penetrated the walls.
Apparently many dogs had begun searching for those responsible.
They were approaching like a pack that had caught the scent of blood, their echoes spreading through the night streets and mingling with the distant hum of the city that was only just beginning to wake.
Inside, in the cramped room with concrete walls and flickering screens, Ethan was the first to shrug off his jacket. The fabric slid from his shoulders and fell to the floor in a shapeless heap.
As if, along with it, he wanted to shed the remnants of the evening.
His hands still remembered Anna's cold touch.
Bullet softly jumped down from Flash's shoulder and landed silently on the table. Her little paws walked across the keyboard, light as a breeze, leaving thin claw marks on the black keys.
"Hey," Flash muttered, carefully pushing her away with his palm. His voice was low, with a slight note of irritation, but no real anger.
"You're going to delete all my files right now!!"
Bruno, still wearing his waiter's vest, closed the inner hatch. The heavy metal plate dropped with a dull clang, cutting off the outside world.
He checked the perimeter cameras on a small tablet, his fingers moving quickly but methodically across the screen. Only when all the sensors glowed green did he allow himself a deep, relieved exhale, his shoulders dropping.
"They weren't tailing us," he said, his voice hoarse from tension.
"At least not on the ground."
"By air?" Ethan asked, without taking his eyes off the large central screen.
"I don't think so," Flash shook his head.
He stood against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, his silhouette casting a long shadow in the dim light of the lamps.