Chapter 786: Doorway

Alex listened while Vesa gave the shelter the few warning signs they had actually observed.

A clear answer did not mean everyone beside that person was well. The woman under the pump room had needed help keeping her wound closed, and Thepes’s first attempt had moved her arm against her will.

Vesa did not pretend those few observations explained every possible change.

The shelter’s older speaker repeated the signs and said they would watch the injured man with them. Then he withdrew from the conversation, leaving a way to answer again if the condition changed.

Alex left that response quiet. The shelter had its own injured man to look after now.

Dorian returned with the first local arrivals.

The man leading them was lean and gray-haired, with a weapon at his waist and a coat kept carefully closed despite the warmth in the ruined street. Behind him, several vampires pushed a cart loaded with water containers, folded cloth, and pieces of a dismantled bed frame.

He stopped when he saw Alex and went to one knee.

The people behind him began following the movement, leaving the cart standing across the route used by the attendants.

Mingyue stepped toward it.

"Move that to the wall first."

One of the arrivals looked up, startled, then rose to help her clear the path before the next bed came through.

The gray-haired man remained kneeling until Alex reached him.

"You brought what we needed," Alex said. "Stand up and tell Dorian how many can help carry."

The man rose.

"My people can fight for Alucard’s successors."

"Today they can help keep the wounded alive."

Dorian took the cart toward Selene’s people. Two of the new arrivals went with him, already untying the cloth rather than waiting for a second command.

The gray-haired man’s gaze moved past Alex into the broken room.

Thepes was watching him from inside the ice.

"Who is that?" the man asked.

"Thepes."

"Why is he bound?"

"He attacked us. The restraint stays until he can be kept from hurting the people here."

Thepes smiled without warmth.

"And now you’ve come to stand beside the people who put it on me."

The older vampire’s hand moved toward his weapon.

Alex stepped between him and Thepes before the blade left its sheath.

"You came to help. Keep your hand off it."

The man looked at Alex, then back at the blood sample held beside Thepes.

"What is he doing with that?"

Vesa answered from the wall.

"Helping us hear people the inherited call couldn’t reach clearly."

Vesa’s small claws tightened against the stone. "That’s the useful part of what he’s doing. The rest stays inside those restraints."

"He is one of your followers?"

"No," Thepes said.

The word came before Alex could answer, and the gray-haired man’s expression tightened.

Alex could see his confusion. He clearly hadn’t expected Alucard’s successors to need help from a prisoner.

"He was built around an artifact," Alex said. "Vampire essence and other remains were used with it. He raised the dead against us, then fought us himself. Helping with the call hasn’t undone any of that."

The man’s gaze sharpened at the mention of the artifact.

"Alucard’s?"

Alex nodded.

"And you keep him alive around it?"

Thepes pulled against the ice.

The small sample twisted inside its boundary. Vesa raised her hand and kept it apart from the call before the movement could reach anyone listening.

Alex looked back at Thepes and saw the anger on his face. The gray-haired man had barely entered the camp before looking at him as if the artifact mattered more than the person around it.

Mingyue moved beside the restraint.

"Leave the sample," she said. "This argument stays in this room."

Thepes stopped pressing it forward.

The gray-haired man drew his hand away from his weapon, but his voice remained hard.

"If he used our dead and attacked the heirs, why let him keep what belonged to our Progenitor?"

"He’s alive," Alex said. "Taking it out isn’t recovering an item from storage."

"You would risk the people here for him?"

"That’s why he’s restrained. You don’t make them safer by starting another fight beside their beds."

The man looked toward the treatment route.

One of his own people was carrying the foot of a bed with a soldier who had fought under Dorian. A human nurse walked beside them, keeping the patient’s arm from slipping over the side.

The gray-haired man’s jaw tightened.

Alex waited. A carrier called for room, and the gray-haired man had to step aside before he answered.

At last, the man turned back.

"I won’t stand guard over him."

"Then stand guard over them," Mingyue said, pointing toward the sheltered buildings. "Dorian will show you which road needs people."

The man looked at her for a moment, then lowered his head.

"As you wish."

He left the doorway and joined the arrivals unloading the cart.

Alex watched until Dorian took him toward the perimeter.

Thepes looked up at him.

"He heard your names and knelt. He heard mine and reached for a blade."

"He knows what you did in the battle."

"He knew enough to want what was inside me."

Alex had no answer that would make the man’s reaction harmless.

"I told him he couldn’t take it."

Thepes looked toward the street, still angry.

Vesa waited until he let the sample settle before returning it to the part of the call that needed it. She did not treat his earlier help as permission to stop watching what his temper could do.

The pilot’s voice reached Alex again.

"We’ve changed course. The passengers are settled, and the attendants have the people for treatment together."

Dorian’s first report had arrived while Alex was dealing with the loyalist. The freight ground was clear, though debris blocked one corner. His soldiers were marking the usable part and keeping the road open for the carriers.

Alex passed that on.

"Call again before you come down," he said. "We’ll tell you if anything changes."

At the far side of the street, the local arrivals began replacing exhausted fighters along the perimeter. The gray-haired man obeyed Dorian readily enough, though he stationed himself where he could watch Thepes’s doorway.

Alex turned back to the call. A little blood and two names could get him an army or a slammed door. Getting beds, carriers, and a patch of clear ground had taken considerably more talking.

Then one of the quiet responses changed.

A shout broke through it, followed by a crash.

Vesa turned toward the altered pattern.

"Someone is hurt," she said.

Another voice shouted for people to move away from the door. Alex could hear something striking it from the other side.

Thepes raised his head.

"That one came through my part," he said.

Mingyue reached for her sword as the next impact shook the voice trying to answer them.