More sounds from the hallway suggested additional hostiles, but these moved with less coordination. Panic was setting in among the remaining attackers as they realized their carefully planned assault was being systematically dismantled by two predators who treated violence like performance art.
The next vampire through the door moved with desperate aggression, claws extended and blood magic already forming defensive constructs around its hands. It was older, stronger, probably third generation based on the way reality seemed to bend around its presence.
[TARGET ANALYSIS: ENHANCED THREAT LEVEL]
[BLOOD MAGIC DETECTED: MULTIPLE CONSTRUCTS]
Kaine smiled, cold and predatory. His system was feeding him tactical data faster than conscious thought, overlaying weak points and optimal strike vectors on his enhanced perception like a targeting computer.
The vampire launched its blood constructs—a dozen crystalline spikes that should have turned Kaine into a pincushion. But his enhanced reflexes were already moving, Soulrend carving through the air in patterns that seemed almost casual but intercepted every projectile with clean precision.
Instead of pressing its advantage, the vampire hesitated—a fatal mistake against someone with Kaine's system-enhanced reflexes. He closed the distance in two fluid steps, his enhanced speed making him appear to disappear and reappear across the intervening space.
But rather than going for a killing blow, Kaine grabbed the vampire's wrist and applied leverage without discrimination. The joint popped as tendons snapped, and the vampire's hand flopped uselessly at the end of its broken arm.
"Whoops," Kaine said, his voice carrying dark amusement. "Butterfingers."
The vampire tried to form blood constructs with its remaining hand, but Kaine was already moving. He grabbed the creature's functioning arm and began methodically breaking fingers, starting with the pinky and working his way toward the thumb.
Each bone snapped with a wet crack, the vampire's screams pitching higher with every break. By the time Kaine reached the thumb, the creature's hand resembled a bag of broken pottery held together by skin and spite.
"Hard to make your little blood toys without working fingers, isn't it?"
The vampire tried to bite him—fangs extended in a last desperate attack—but Kaine caught its jaw in his free hand and began to squeeze. The creature's mandible cracked under pressure, black blood leaking from its gums as teeth loosened in their sockets.
"You know what's funny about vampire fangs?" Kaine asked conversationally, continuing to apply pressure. "They're only scary when they're attached to something."
He gave a sharp twist, and the vampire's lower jaw separated from its skull with a sound like pop corn being made. The creature's fangs were still embedded in the detached mandible as Kaine held it up for examination.
"Much better. Now you can't bite anyone."
The vampire tried to scream, but without a lower jaw it could only produce gargling sounds as blood poured from its ruined mouth. Kaine tossed the severed jaw aside and grabbed the creature by what remained of its throat.
"This is the part where you die," he said, driving his fist through the vampire's chest with enough force to punch through ribs and spine.
His hand emerged from the creature's back clutching something that might have been a heart, if vampires still had functional organs. Black ichor dripped between his fingers as he squeezed, reducing whatever it was to pulp.
[MORTAL ESSENCE ABSORBED: 145 ME]
The vampire's body hit the floor like a sack of broken bones, its remaining eye staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Kaine wiped his bloody hand on his shirt, adding to the collection of stains that had accumulated during the evening's festivities.
Silence settled over the bedroom, broken only by the sound of Marcus methodically checking corners for additional threats. The Ghoul moved with professional thoroughness, his pale eyes scanning for anything that might still pose a danger.
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: ALL CLEAR]
[PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: INCOMPLETE]
"Well," Kaine said, turning his attention to the survivors. "That was invigorating."
Victoria and Clarissa were still crouched behind the bed, their faces pale with fear and splattered with various shades of blood. The human thrall had finally succumbed to blood loss or shock, his body sprawled across silk sheets that would never be the same color again.
Clarissa tried to run.
It was a pathetic attempt, really. She made it perhaps three steps before Kaine's enhanced speed allowed him to intercept her path. His hand closed around her throat with gentle but absolute pressure, lifting her off the ground with casual ease.
"Where exactly did you think you were going?" he asked, his voice carrying the kind of conversational tone that made the question somehow more threatening than any scream.
Clarissa's eyes bulged as she clawed at his hand, her vampire strength insufficient to break his grip. Kaine held her there for a moment, letting her feel the weight of inevitability, then made a decision that was both practical and artistic.
He threw her.
Not at the wall or the floor, but directly upward with enough force to embed her in the ceiling. The expensive plaster cracked as Clarissa's body punched through it, her legs dangling like macabre decorations while dust and debris rained down on the room below.
She twitched once, then went still. Black blood began to drip from the ceiling like a leaky pipe, adding to the abstract patterns that decorated the bedroom walls.
[MORTAL ESSENCE ABSORBED: 95 ME]
"Redecorating was long overdue anyway," Kaine observed.
That left Victoria.
The insurance executive was pressed against the far wall, her perfectly styled hair disheveled and her expensive suit stained with other people's blood. She watched Kaine approach with the kind of trapped-animal desperation that suggested she was finally beginning to understand the full scope of her mistake.
"Please," she began, her voice shaking. "I can pay you. Double. Triple whatever they're paying you."
Kaine smiled, and it was the kind of expression that belonged in nightmares. "Oh, you're definitely going to pay me. But not the way you think."
He grabbed her by the throat—not hard enough to crush her windpipe, but with sufficient pressure to make his point clear. Victoria's feet left the ground as he lifted her to eye level, his enhanced strength making her vampire durability irrelevant.
"See, the thing about insurance fraud," Kaine said conversationally, "is that it's supposed to be a victimless crime. Just numbers on a spreadsheet, right? But then you had to get creative. Had to involve actual people. Had to make it personal."
Victoria's claws raked at his arm, opening shallow cuts that healed almost as quickly as they appeared.
"And the really stupid part," Kaine continued, tightening his grip slightly, "is that you hired me to clean up your mess, then tried to have me killed before I could collect my fee. That's just poor business practice."
He slammed her against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster, then pulled her back for another impact. And another. Each collision left spider-web fractures in the expensive wallpaper and drove the air from Victoria's lungs in progressively weaker gasps.
"My fee," Kaine said, his voice never losing its conversational tone, "is two hundred thousand. Plus expenses. Plus hazard pay for the military-grade assholes you sicced on me. Plus interest for the inconvenience."
Victoria tried to speak, but Kaine's grip made vocalization impossible. He loosened his hold slightly, allowing her to gasp out words.
"I... I can... bank transfer..."
"Damn right you can. Phone. Now."
He released her throat but kept one hand pressed against her chest, pinning her to the wall. Victoria fumbled for her phone with shaking hands, nearly dropping it twice before managing to unlock the screen.
"Online banking," Kaine instructed. "Nice and slow. No sudden movements, no emergency calls, no cute tricks. Just a simple wire transfer."
Victoria's fingers trembled as she navigated to her bank's app. The login took three attempts—fear and adrenaline making her clumsy with the biometric scanner.
"Account balance?" Kaine asked, leaning over her shoulder to watch the screen.
"Two... two point seven million," she whispered.
"Good. Means you can afford my rates without going bankrupt. Though after tonight, I'm thinking about raising my prices." His grip tightened on her shoulder. "Routing number for Kross Consulting is 031-176-2847. Account number 4472-8839-1156-7723."
Victoria's hands shook as she entered the information, double-checking each digit under Kaine's watchful eye. A single mistake could be interpreted as defiance, and she'd seen what happened to defiant people tonight.
"Amount: three hundred thousand, exactly. Reference: Professional services rendered."
The transfer confirmation screen appeared, requesting final authorization. Victoria hesitated, her finger hovering over the confirm button.
"Problem?" Kaine asked, his voice carrying the kind of casual menace that made the question somehow more threatening than any scream.
"No... no problem," she stammered, hitting confirm.
The screen showed a successful transfer message. Three hundred thousand dollars, moved from Victoria's personal account to Kaine's business account in less than thirty seconds. The wonders of modern banking.
"Good girl," Kaine said, taking the phone and checking the confirmation details. "See how easy that was? If you'd just done this from the beginning, we could have avoided all the unpleasantness."
He pocketed the phone, then grabbed Victoria by the jaw. His fingers found purchase on either side of her face, and her eyes widened as she realized the payment hadn't bought her freedom—just a brief delay.
"But here's the thing about breach of contract," he continued conversationally. "Payment covers the original fee. The attempted murder? That comes with penalties. And my penalties tend to be... educational."
"You have your money!" Victoria gasped. "Three hundred thousand! The job is done!"
"The job was killing a suspected vampire. That's what I'm on. The money covers professional services rendered. But trying to kill me before I could collect? That's a separate invoice entirely."
Kaine's grip tightened, and Victoria felt her jaw joints beginning to strain under the pressure.
"This is for poor business practices," he said, and began to pull.
The sound was indescribable—part scream, part tearing fabric, part wet ripping that seemed to go on forever. Victoria's jaw stretched beyond its anatomical limits, tendons snapping like rubber bands under tension. Black blood fountained from her mouth as Kaine methodically dislocated every joint in her skull.
When he was finished, Victoria's jaw hung at an angle that defied biology, her mouth opened wide enough to fit a softball. Black ichor poured from the ruined cavity, pooling on the floor in abstract patterns that complemented the rest of the bedroom's new décor.
She was still alive—vampires were notoriously difficult to kill—but her capacity for coherent speech had been permanently revoked.
"There," Kaine said, releasing his grip and letting her slump to the floor. "Now you can't lie to anyone else about contracts. Consider it a learning experience."
Victoria made wet gargling sounds that might have been attempts at words, her hands clutching at her ruined face in futile desperation. Kaine watched her suffering with the detached interest of someone observing an interesting biological specimen.
"The really ironic part," he continued, "is that you actually could have walked away from this. Pay the fee, keep your mouth shut, maybe learn to pick better business partners. But no, you had to get creative with the hit squad."
He knelt beside her, his voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried more menace than any shout.
"I want you to think about that while you bleed out. Think about how a simple wire transfer could have bought you a functioning jaw."
Victoria's eyes rolled back as shock and blood loss began to take their toll. Her supernatural healing was trying to repair the damage, but Kaine had been thorough in his work. It would take decades for her jaw to heal properly, assuming she lived that long