REBORN AS A NECROMANCER : BUILDING THE ULTIMATE UNDEAD ARMY

Gwen was waiting at their usual meeting spot—a 24-hour diner on the edge of downtown that served coffee strong enough to wake the dead. Literally, in Kaine's case. She looked up from her phone as he slid into the booth across from her, Marcus taking his customary position by the window.

"You look like shit," she said by way of greeting.

"Thanks. Always a pleasure." Kaine signaled the waitress for coffee. "We need to talk."

"About your mysterious supernatural problem? I'm all ears."

Kaine took a deep breath and began explaining. The resurrection in the cemetery. Chad's transformation into something far beyond a normal wight. The chase through the industrial district and the blood magic that should have been impossible.

Gwen's expression grew darker with each detail.

"Let me get this straight," she said when he finished. "You created a wight. Not just any wight—a former Shadow Guard operative who now has vampire-level blood magic and is running around the city with a grudge."

"That about covers it."

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" Her voice rose enough to draw looks from the workers. She lowered it to a harsh whisper. "We already have a murderous psycho carving X's and O's into couples. We don't need another fucking maniac on the loose."

"I know. It's not ideal."

"Not ideal?" She stared at him in disbelief. "Kaine, the organization is going to notice when one of their dead agents starts showing up on security cameras. They're going to come looking."

That was a complication he hadn't fully considered. Chad had been a Shadow Guard operative, same as both of them. His file would be marked as KIA, but if he started leaving bodies around the city, someone would eventually connect the dots.

"We'll deal with that when it happens," Kaine said. "Right now, Chad is long gone. That blood magic trick of his? He could be anywhere by now. Three states over, for all we know."

Gwen rubbed her temples. "This is a nightmare."

"Which is why I'm suggesting we focus on what we can actually hunt. The X and O killer has been active, predictable. We can track him."

"One problem at a time?" The M|V|LE&MPYR team worked hard on this chapter.

"One problem at a time."

She considered this for a long moment, then nodded. "Fine. But when your pet wight starts leaving bodies in his wake, that blood is on your hands."

"Understood."

They finished their coffee and headed back toward the crime scene—an abandoned site where the first X and O murders had been discovered almost a week ago. The police tape was still up, though the area had been thoroughly processed and abandoned.

The site was a half-finished office building, frozen in development when the construction company went bankrupt. Although the real reason was that nobody lived around here anymore.

Steel girders reached toward the sky like skeletal fingers, and the concrete floors were littered with debris and graffiti.

"Remind me how they were found?" Kaine asked as they ducked under the yellow tape.

"Young couple. Early twenties. Mark Rodriguez and Sarah Kennedy. They were found on the third ground. Couple of rounds were fired on site," Gwen pulled out her phone, scrolling through crime scene photos. "The killer had carved an X into Mark's chest and an O into Sarah's forehead. Both were drained of blood, but not completely. Maybe sixty percent."

"Vampire?"

"That was my first thought. But the bite marks were all wrong. Too shallow, too precise. Almost surgical."

They climbed the concrete stairs to the third floor, their footsteps echoing in the empty space. The bloodstains were still visible on the floor, dark brown patches that marked where the bodies had been found.

Kaine crouched beside the larger stain, studying the pattern. "He took his time. This wasn't a feeding frenzy."

"No. It was methodical. Ritualistic." Gwen pointed to scratches in the concrete nearby. "See these marks? The killer dragged something heavy across the floor. Maybe a ritual circle?"

"Or positioning the bodies for some specific arrangement."

They spent the next hour examining every inch of the crime scene, looking for details the police might have missed. The killer had been careful, but no one was perfect.

"Here," Gwen called from near the eastern wall. "Scuff marks on the concrete. Fresh ones."

Kaine joined her, studying the marks. They were too regular to be accidental damage. "Almost like he was pacing. Nervous?"

"Or excited. Some killers get off on the anticipation."

"The positioning bothers me," Kaine said. "Back-to-back, facing east and west. That's deliberate."

"Sunrise and sunset?"

"Maybe. Or cardinal directions have some significance." He stood, brushing dust off his knees. "What's bothering me is the blood drainage. Sixty percent is oddly specific."

"You think there's a reason for the amount?"

"Everything else about this is planned. The symbols, the positioning, the location. I doubt the blood loss is random."

They left the site and headed back to Gwen's apartment.

"Okay," Gwen said, settling at her computer. "Let's see what we've got."

She pulled up the files they'd been collecting on the X and O murders. Multiple crime scenes in the city so far, plus the evidence they'd found of similar murders in other cities dating back several years.

"Denver, Seattle, Portland, and now here," she read from her notes. "Same M.O. every time. Young couples, X and O carved into their bodies, partial blood drainage."

"Any pattern to the timing?"

"Every three to four months. Always during a new moon."

Kaine studied the timeline she'd created on her whiteboard. "He's mobile. Travels light. Probably has a day job that involves travel."

"Or he's independently wealthy and this is his hobby."

"Cheerful thought."

They worked in silence for a while, cross-referencing databases and news reports. The killer was careful about avoiding detection, but patterns were emerging. He targeted couples in isolated locations. Always young, always attractive. Never anyone with children or strong family connections.

"Victims of opportunity," Gwen muttered. "People who won't be missed quickly."

"Or people who fit his specific criteria. Look at the photos again."

Gwen spread the victim photos across her coffee table. Eight faces stared back at them, four men and four women from the verified cases.

"They all look similar," she said after a moment. "Dark hair, similar bone structure. If you squint, they could be related."

"He has a type. But why?"

Before Gwen could answer, her computer chimed with a new search result. She'd been running background searches on the X and O symbolism, looking for historical or occult significance.

"What've you got?" Kaine asked.

"Something weird. A Reddit post from three years ago." She clicked on the link. "Someone posting about a cult that believes in the 'cleansing power of the X/O Judgment.'"

"Read it."

Gwen cleared her throat and began reading from the screen:

"'Has anyone else heard of the Game of Salvation? My grandmother used to tell stories about it when I was a kid, said it happened in her village in Eastern Europe before she came to America. There was this vampire lord who ruled over a plague-infected village, and he created this twisted ritual...'"

She paused, scrolling down. "It gets weirder. According to this post, the vampire would select ten villagers every full moon—five marked with X, five with O. Then he'd flip a coin to decide which group died."

"Jesus."

"It gets worse. The post claims this happened about three hundred years ago, during the early vampire emergence. The villagers went along with it because they believed the ritual was keeping the plague at bay."

Kaine felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. "Keep reading."

"'X meant male, O meant female. The coin flip determined who lived and who died. No contest, no escape. Just random chance disguised as divine judgment. The vampire called himself The Arbitrum, and the villagers believed he was saving them from divine punishment.'"

"Bullshit," Kaine said. "Has to be."

"Maybe. But listen to this part: 'The plague itself wasn't natural—it was the vampire's doing all along. He infected the village, then offered the solution. The Game was just a long-term supply chain for blood, disguised as holy ritual.'"

Gwen looked up from the screen. "The post says The Arbitrum disappeared suddenly one day, and the village was eventually abandoned."

They sat in silence for a moment, processing the implications.

"So we've got a serial killer using X and O symbols," Kaine said slowly. "And there's a legend about a vampire who used the same symbols in a ritualistic murder game."

"Could be coincidence."

"Could be. Or we're dealing with either a copycat or something much worse."

"You think the vampire is back?"

"I think we need to find whoever posted this story three years ago and ask them some very pointed questions."

Gwen was already typing, pulling up the user's profile. "Account name is PlagueHistorian47. Last active... two years ago."

"Dead end?"

"Maybe not. Look at his post history. He's been researching historical vampire incidents across Eastern Europe. Lots of detailed stories, all with similar themes."

Kaine leaned over her shoulder to read. "Either this guy is a really dedicated fiction writer, or he knows something the rest of us don't."

"There's something else," Gwen said, scrolling through more posts. "He mentions other symbols, other games. The X and O thing wasn't unique—it was just one variant of a larger pattern."

"What kind of pattern?"

"Vampires using ritualistic selection methods to maintain control over human populations. Turn survival into a game, make the victims complicit in their own deaths."

Kaine thought about the crime scenes, the careful positioning of the bodies, the precise amount of blood drained. "If our killer is copying historical vampire rituals..."

"Then he's not just a serial killer. He's trying to recreate something specific."

"But why? What's the endgame?"

Gwen pulled up a map of the city, marking the crime scene locations with red pins. "Maybe he's not copying the rituals. Maybe he's preparing for something bigger."

"Like what?"

"Like bringing The Arbitrum back. I mean think of it. What would you do when you see a cheap knockoff of yourself,"

The suggestion hung in the air between them, ridiculous and terrifying in equal measure. But as Kaine looked at the evidence spread across Gwen's apartment—the photos, the timeline, the symbols—he couldn't shake the feeling that they were missing something crucial.

"We need to find PlagueHistorian47," he said finally. "Real name, current location, everything."

"Already on it." Gwen's fingers flew across the keyboard. "But Kaine? If this is what I think it is, we're going to need more than just the two of us."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean if someone is trying to resurrect a three-hundred-year-old vampire lord, we're going to need backup. The kind of backup that doesn't officially exist."

Kaine nodded grimly. The Shadow Guard had resources for dealing with supernatural threats, but getting their help would mean revealing his own transformation. It was a risk he wasn't sure he was ready to take.

But if the alternative was letting an ancient vampire return to power, he might not have a choice.

"One step at a time," he said. "Find the Reddit user first. Then we'll figure out what we're really dealing with."