1982: Small Town Bloodline Records

We held hands, sat on the green grass in spring and sang songs.

"Give old John a penny."

In the night, the silhouette of No. 39 Wiggerson Street was vague, like a dormant beast.

Carl slowed down and approached the building step by step, his heart beating like a bird with fluttering wings hidden inside, unable to calm down no matter what.

First he knocked on the door, but there was no answer—Edgar hadn't returned—then frantically found the small brass key from his pocket, inserted it into the lock, and opened the door.

There was no one in the living room, so he first went to the kitchen shelf to get a bottle of blood, and then tiptoed up to the second floor, pushing away the room at the end of the corridor.

Todd was still the same, bound by the head of the bed with a bloody rope.He has lost a lot of weight, his cheekbones protrude from his plump cheeks, and his red eyes are even more frightening.

He rolled his eyes, "Karl, you're here." If it wasn't for the fact that Karl had been with him day and night during this period, he wouldn't have recognized this shy and indifferent boy.

Karl shook his spirits and shook the bottle in his hand, "Look, it's time for dinner."

The blood was donated voluntarily by humans—at least that's what Edgar told him.He found a clean wine glass, resisted the discomfort in his stomach, poured a full glass and handed it to Todd's lips, watching him drink it little by little.

Blood flowed into his throat, and Todd's face was no longer so gray.

Edgar said he might lose his mind at any moment, but Carl sincerely hoped that such a day would never come.

"Okay, I'll wash the cups and come back."

After packing up the blood-stained cup, Karl left the room as if fleeing.

Of course he knew that Todd had been completely transformed into a vampire, leaving no trace of human qualities.He knew this and came to see him again and again.

For some reason, even after seeing Todd, the uneasiness in his heart didn't decrease by half, but intensified instead.

The water washed away the reddish marks on the rim of the cup. He dried the washed cup and put it on the table. He casually took an old book from Edgar's bookshelf and returned to Todd's side. Bought it from a second-hand dealer just so he could have something to do each night he spent with Todd.

Todd's eyes were empty, staring blankly at a small damp mark on the ceiling.They spread like a map, taking thoughts to unknown lands.

Carl opened the book and read word by word by the faint candlelight.He not only read according to the words and sentences in the book, but also occasionally inserted some of his own reading thoughts, such as what he felt was illogical or moved him. Todd just listened silently and rarely responded to him.

Because the book was so old that the traces of ink had become blurred, Karl read it even more slowly.

Gradually, he couldn't continue reading, stopped, and stared at Todd on the bed wordlessly.How he missed the laughing Todd.

Every afternoon they spent together turned into dim stars in the depths of memory, falling into the dark earth one by one, soundlessly.

"Carl, my family...how are they? And Daisy...how is she?"

Sensing his gaze, Todd turned his head slowly, met his sad blue eyes, parted his dry lips, and breathed out a few words.

Carl stared at him silently.How should he answer his question?

Mrs. Croft disappeared, and Mr. Croft was emaciated. He lost 10 pounds in just one week, his hair and beard turned gray, and his whole figure was like a skeleton wearing human skin , as for Daisy, she disappeared.

Todd realized something behind his silence, and moved his fingers, taking Carl's stiff hand lightly. "I mean... is my dad okay? Is... is he still alive?"

"He...isn't very well." Carl held his hand back and said with difficulty, "But he's alive." And just alive.

Losing his beloved wife and children, such a blow is tantamount to a disaster for a middle-aged man.He has lost all reason to live.

A small sob escaped from the back of Todd's throat.Carl could not bear to bury his head in his cold palm.

Why did cruel fate befall them?

Out of the corner of his eye, Carl saw tears running down the corners of Todd's eyes.

The vampire didn't have many tears, and what soon flowed out was black blood, criss-crossing his skinny cheeks, looking quite ferocious.

"Carl, I know it's wayward..." Todd called him softly.

Carl already knew what he was going to say, and he would have made the same request if they switched places, so he couldn't refuse Todd at all.

"Please, get me out of this place." Todd begged him softly, heartbreakingly, "Take me home please? I swear I'm not going in, I just... I just want to be out the window quietly Just take a look at him, just one look, and let me take a look at my dad again, okay?"

"He won't see me. I need this look, I need this to get me through the maddening pain...I don't want to be beaten by that beast, please, Carl, my friend."

Carl hangs his head like he didn't hear what he said at all.

"I beg you."

Edgar's warning echoed in his ears, he swallowed hard, and made an extremely difficult decision, "Okay, I promise you."

Everything went extremely smoothly.

Since leaving the day before, Edgar has not returned yet.Feeling guilty and owed to him, Carl tentatively touched the thin bloody rope to untie it for Todd.

Contrary to his expected difficulty, the blood rope spontaneously slipped to the side the moment it touched his finger.He quickly untied Todd, and after a while all the bloody ropes turned into a pool of stagnant liquid.

Todd moved his hands and feet that had not been used for a long time, and found that it was different from when he was a human being. His strength quickly returned to his body, and he could even cut Carl's neck if he wanted to.He shook his head, "I'm ready, let's go."

Thinking that Edgar might come back at any time, Karl didn't have time to leave him a token to let him know what happened here. He took a deep breath, took Todd's warm wrist, and ran with him into the vast night.

He is about to return to his old home with his friends who are no longer human.

The street lamps stretched their shadows long.

Wiggerson Street was not far from Solcroft's house, and the outline of the house could be seen in the distance as long as he walked three or four streets.Carl quietly looked at the friends around him, and found that those sorrows and pains were dissolved like salt into clear water, leaving only numb peace.He pinched his thigh nervously, trying to convince himself that he was too suspicious.

There was still a part of Todd that belonged to his friend, which he should have known from the first time he saw the creature Edgar bound to the bed.

They will always be friends, so don't worry.He walked the short section of the road that was brightest under the street lamps.

"Carl."

Hearing Todd's voice calling himself, Carl turned to look at him, "What's wrong?"

"Did you notice something was wrong?" Todd pricked up his ears and listened carefully. "It's like... a bird flapping its wings."

In the cold and silent night, tiny frost flowers fell quickly, and Carl tried hard to listen, but he couldn't hear the sound of birds flapping their wings that Todd said.

"Did you hear me wrong?" He stretched out his hands in front of him and let out a breath to keep warm, "Hurry up, I'm going to freeze to death."

The five senses of a vampire are dozens or even hundreds of times more sensitive than ordinary people, but since Carl said he didn't hear, Todd will naturally not entangle him again - he has already been exhausted fighting the beast in his body.

Just as they stepped into the dark realm again, the shadow they left far behind silently changed.

The huge wings have been spread, all the temperature in the air has been sucked away, and it is so cold that it almost freezes into ice.

Todd opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but the next second, his pupils dilated.

He heard the sound of coins clinking and clinking.He closed his mouth, stared at the figure of Carl in front of him, and blinked blankly.

"It's almost here, I can already see the lights on the roof and the second floor." Carl said quietly, hoping to inspire Todd.

Maybe it was because he was afraid when he got close. He didn't have the slightest doubt about Todd's silence, but just pulled him forward.

The closer he got to the familiar house, the slower Todd's footsteps became.

"Carl, I've changed my mind."

Suddenly, Todd's voice broke the silence of the night.

"what?"

The uneasiness and panic that had been forcibly suppressed by Karl suddenly emerged from the depths, and there were even more and more trends.

He stopped and turned to meet Todd's face.

Red eyes, sallow skinny cheeks, and knotted blond hair—is he really my friend Todd?Karl was in a trance for a moment, and then firmly pressed down such doubts.

He is my friend Todd Croft.he……

"Can I go in?" Todd, or this creature that looks a lot like Todd, raised a dry finger like a branch, pointing to the lighted windows on the second floor, "Can I go in?"

"This is your house...of course you..." Carl almost said it out of his head, but soon reason returned to his body, and he closed his mouth and stared at Todd in disbelief.

The voice of Todd swearing to him more than half an hour ago still lingers on the surface of his memory, how could he change his mind so quickly?

And not long ago, he seemed to have heard someone say that you can't trust vampires, vampires are born liars.

This was what Edgar told him, and he thought he had forgotten, but in fact he always remembered.

"You... who are you?"

At a time when day and night intersect, the edge of the dark sky is an ominous red of fire.

The bitter cold wind blows with heavy snowflakes, as if it wants to squeeze the last trace of warmth from the living body.

He was supposed to be walking... the word "should" was used because he was being held in someone's arms.

The wide cloak kept the wind and snow out, and he lay helplessly on the man's chest, opened his mouth, but didn't make a sound.After a while, the man moved his arm holding him and switched him to the other side, but it was only for a short moment, when the biting cold wind came in, he shrank his body and tried his best to get into the man's arms .It was obviously a cold embrace like winter, but it reassured him so much, he hesitated for a moment, stretched out his hand to wrap around the man's neck, and pressed his cheek to that place.

"..." That person seemed to call his name, but the noise brought by the wind and snow was too loud, and he just couldn't hear that person's shout.

In response, he moved a little closer to that person, hoping to warm him up with his almost frozen body.

"Vampires are beasts."

This time he heard it clearly, but blinked blankly because he couldn't understand.

"A beast with only emotion and no rationality."

The man's fingers were as cold as ice, and his whole body seemed to be immersed in a frozen lake.

The thick ice on the lake broke, and he fell deeper and deeper until he touched the monster that lived at the bottom of the lake.

In the abyss, the monster opened his eyes and stared at him wordlessly, and he, who felt the call from the same source, also stared back.

--Who are you?

"who are you?"

The momentary hallucinations faded before his eyes, and Carl realized that he was still on the streets of Brodica, confronting the vampire who had been his friend.

——Is that my memory?Why can't I remember anything?

Whether it is walking in the wind and snow, or falling continuously at the bottom of the lake, these are things he has never experienced in his life of more than ten years.He shook his head, pushing the flood of memories out of his head, focusing on the vampire in front of him.

Todd Croft, or the vampire who had been Todd Croft, stared at him without emotion.

The moon had already hidden in the thick clouds, and only their long shadows drawn by the street lamps were left on the empty streets.Karl clenched his fists, trying not to back down under the pressure of this terrifying inhuman creature.

That's it, pure and almost inorganic eyes, like a beast, as if I've seen it somewhere.He swayed a bit, but not from cold or fear.

Was he about to lose control of his body again?At such a critical moment.Out of Todd's sight, he pinches himself, hoping the pain will wake him up.

The vampire on the opposite side showed its long and sharp fangs, and the faint red eyes shone with a cold and bloodthirsty light.

No matter how much he tried to convince himself, he could no longer lie to himself that this was his old friend, Todd Croft.

He swallowed the heavy lump in his throat, mustered up the courage to repeat his question again.

"who are you?"

The vampire on the opposite side snickered, "Haven't you noticed yet? I'm Todd Croft."

Facing Carl's horrified eyes, the vampire took a step closer, and changed his tone again, "Carl, dear Carl, please, please, take me to see my poor father, please."

escape!Such thoughts only flashed in his mind for a moment and then went out.

It's not that he hasn't seen the overwhelming power gap between himself and Edgar.

Facing vampires, human beings are naturally like animals in a slaughterhouse in the dark night without the sun.

"Carl, I swear I won't go in, I just want to peek at him quietly out of the window, please."

As long as he doesn't look, as long as he doesn't think about it, he can recall the embarrassed and shy smile on Todd's face in the past.

"My poor father, I can't even imagine what he will be like after losing me and my mother."

The tone was vivid, as if it was the Todd Croft in Carl's memory—if you don't count the mockery and malice in his eyes.

"Please, kill me." The vampire on the opposite side raised his hand and slowly touched Carl's neck. Carl was so stiff that it was difficult to even move, "Look, is it the same Todd you remember? Croft is exactly the same? So I am Todd Croft, but in a vampire version, satisfied with this answer?"

"Since..." Carl closed his eyes halfway, not looking at the perverse facial expression of the vampire, "Since when?"

He remembered the dawn when Edgar had brought him to the room at the end of the second-floor corridor at 39 Wiggerson Street, and he swore he had seen the real Todd then.

The real Todd, as if someone had rubbed a handful of glass shards into the flesh and blood of his heart, even thinking about it was bloody and painful.

"Since when did you ask me?" The horrible vampire laughed maniacally, so wildly, so fearlessly, as if Karl had just told him a joke.

The vampire's icy fingers pinched his main artery, and a little force could bring his fragile life to an end.

Carl didn't even struggle, and asked calmly, "Since when did it belong to you?"

The vampire's laughter stopped abruptly, and he said sharply, "Yes, you guessed right! You saw your friend, that morning, you saw that poor human boy for the last time, and then it was me all the time, I pretend to be very similar, right? Is it exactly the same as him? You, and that invincible Edgar, you have been deceived by me! Human beings, with their weak will, want to fight against me? I was born in The will of the great Mr. Dulles is his most loyal blood!"

it is as expected.

Carl closed his eyes.

He still saw Todd for the last time, but he didn't cherish it.

"So it's a lie to say you want to see Dad?"

The vampire gradually tightened the strength of his fingers, and in the fear of impending suffocation, all he thought about were irrelevant things.

Sergeant Croft with gray hair, and Papa's sad eyes.

He might not be able to attend his mother's funeral.

Why didn't he take Edgar's warning to heart.

Edgar...

"Yeah, Edgar isn't here after all, so I can't just do nothing, right?" After catching the prey he wanted, the vampire showed off triumphantly, "I was still hesitant to get you out with such an excuse, I didn't expect you to be so naive and weak, so quickly fell for it." He changed back to Todd's pitiful tone, "Oh, my poor dad, he must be heartbroken."

——The reason why human beings are fragile is that most of the time they don't realize how fragile they really are.

Carl raised his hand, trying to break the pincer-like fingers around his neck.

"Edgar attaches great importance to your safety, but so what? You escaped from the safe house he built for you, and you yourself pushed yourself to destruction!"

The power of the vampire is beyond the reach of human beings. No matter how hard he tries, the fingers of the vampire are like hard iron bars.

The dream scene resurfaced again, only this time it was reality.

The blood-colored pupils, the fingers on the neck that kept tightening, and his own struggle that was too weak to be ignored.

The air pouring into the lungs was getting less and less, and a large blood-colored spot appeared in front of the retina. Carl could no longer tell the strength to fight the vampire, and his arms fell limply.

Why doesn't he suck my blood?Why did he strangle me like a murderer in the human world?Could it be because I poured him a cup of blood when I came here, so he is not hungry at all now?

A vampire who doesn't suck blood, thinking of this, a faint smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

"What are you laughing at?!" The vampire who misunderstood the meaning of the smile shook him frantically, "You are going to die, yet you can still laugh!"

why not?

He tried his best to lift his eyelids, but what he saw was not the twisted and hideous face of the vampire.

On the edge of life and death, all the noise is gradually moving away from him, and he is immersed in the endless hallucinatory world, unable to wake up again.

The cold bottom of the lake... It's not right to call it the bottom of the lake. He was buried in the soft gravel, and it was difficult for him to move even a little.

After a long time, maybe decades, maybe only a dozen seconds, he struggled to stand up and walked towards the bloody full moon at the end of the horizon step by step.

The sea of ​​soft white sand was studded with black metal crosses, and he tripped over them several times, but even so, he made his way to the monstrous creature bound to a cross at the end of the world.

are you calling meHe looked up, meeting the creature's mournful, empty eyes.is it you?

The huge cross almost split the black sky, he noticed the black wings hanging behind the monster, and countless black feathers were falling down.

The black feathers wrapped him up, warm and peaceful, as if returning to his mother's body.

why are you calling meHe reached out his hand towards the monster's shell.

The moment he touched the monster, countless consciousness flooded into his mind.

Pain, sadness, anger, resentment, and... despair.Unable to bear so many negative emotions, he screamed... The next second, he realized the change of perspective.

He who was still looking up before opened his eyes and found that he was looking down at the entire desert.

Countless crosses, soft white sand, pure black night and bloody moon, the world fell into a huge long sleep.

He becomes a monster chained to a cross.

—No, I am him, and he is me.

Black flames burned in the pupils of the strange creatures, the flames of famine, plague, and war.The flame spreads around, burning all living and non-living things it can touch.

Soon, the sky tore apart, the sea of ​​sand burned up, the cross made of black iron was melted, and the huge bird-shaped creature flapped its wings and flew high.

This time Karl opened his eyes, the whites of his eyes and pupils turned into pure black that did not absorb light.

The vampire instinctively felt fear and wanted to let go, but it was too late.

The whistling of birds' wings.

At the end of his consciousness, Karl finally heard such a voice.

"So what are you going to do with this man?"

In the hotel room, Antiago held an impromptu meeting with two other men in their early 30s.

Ravenna Hicks raised her eyebrows, pointed to the tightly bound man in the corner and asked such a question.

"I'll make a phone call to report to my family, hoping there is a way to get him the punishment he deserves."

Generally speaking, when they encounter such human beings, they will first find out some insignificant crimes and then change the punishment to decades by intervening in the judiciary.

After all, they don't have any qualifications to judge human beings.Antiago scratched his hair, "Probably that's all. I haven't investigated the true identity of the mastermind behind it."

"You don't need to tell me even if the investigation turns out." Ravenna winked at his companion, "Night is the time for dark creatures to wreak havoc, so let's try our luck first."

Thinking of something temporarily, Antiago opened his mouth, but Su Shi didn't say anything, "...Be careful on the road." He added a little unnaturally.

After watching them leave, Antiago picked up the phone by the bed, and deftly turned the dial to dial a series of numbers.

beep beep.While waiting for the call to connect, his heart was beating fast, as if something terrible was about to happen.

The last time his heart beat so fast was when he went to an old castle with his uncle to help the mistress exorcise the demon, but they underestimated the strength of the demon, and the demon controlled the mistress The three-year-old daughter stuck a dagger into his uncle's chest while his uncle was not paying attention.He muttered twice, and heard a familiar voice on the other end of the phone.

"Good evening, Leah." He lowered his voice. "To make a long story short, I have to ask you something."

The woman on the other end of the phone laughed twice, "What's the matter? You won't mess up the case again, right?"

"No, it's another matter... I don't know if it has something to do with the current case, but it doesn't hurt to know more."

The woman still didn't take his request seriously, "Honey, you have to know that sometimes the more people know, the more dangerous they are."

"In our line of business, when will one day not cross the river by feeling the stones?" He waved his hand, obviously tired of such meaningless greetings, "Ten years ago, what happened inside the Dawn of the Spellcaster group or the witchcraft organization?" What? Why did the old man in Ravenna's family suddenly pay attention to this matter, did they discover something extraordinary?"

"Why did you suddenly think of asking this?"

The woman's voice suddenly became tense, which just verified some of Antiago's inner guesses.

— She must know.

"Tell me what the hell they did, Leah, please." He whispered over his mouth with one hand, "I met the vampire who escaped from that incident ten years ago, and he was also chasing Boo The truth behind the massacre at Lodhika Hospital. I doubt he knows something, and he warned me not to be curious about what Daybreak did... God, he doesn't know the more he says that the more curious I become ?"

"Oh no..." The woman gasped, as if she hadn't expected such a deep involvement behind this ordinary murder case, "Antiago, you have to swear that you will understand what you heard today Everything was kept under wraps."

Antiago spoke without thinking, "I swear, I swear by my family's surname and my own name, if I violate it, I will be deprived of everything and die."

Faced with such an oath, the woman is still hesitating, "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes, hurry up, the longer the delay, the worse it will be for me." Antiago knocked on the table, "Please."

"Well... I don't know the specifics, because the underground fortress of Daybreak was burned, and only a few things remained." The woman named Leah had already expected what Antiago would say. He interrupted impatiently, "It's not an ordinary flame, it's a flame created by magic, and it won't go out unless all the targets are burned."

"Any more?"

The woman lowered her voice, "You know the origin of Dawn. A wizard named Ivan Oscar created it in 1530. At first, he just wanted to provide a shelter for those who were persecuted by vampires, but he died After that, things got out of control, and Dawn became one of the most notorious witchcraft groups in human history. It started with the second-generation leader Thomas Reilly. The remaining ancient books and research materials at the scene of the fire were taken by the Hicks family The people are closely guarded. I have vaguely heard that they have deciphered the ancient witchcraft texts on those materials, and it is reasonable to infer that Lixiao is doing a very terrible experiment. "

"what?"

As if infected by Leah's tension and fear, Antiago's hairs also stood on end.

"They're creating a god who can kill even in the dark."

On a moonless night, the vampire's eyes widened in disbelief.

The beast's instinct made him aware of the danger approaching, he quickly loosened the neck of the man in front of him, took two steps back, and tried to distance himself.

With the light of the street lamp that seemed to be yellowed by tobacco, he saw that Carl's eyeballs had completely turned into a pure black color—not a single bit of blue was mixed, the purest deep black.

That look reminded him of the icon in the church: the same ruthlessness, the same coldness, the same indifference...

Weird lines spread across Karl's pale skin.He didn't know what happened, he glanced casually at the ground from the corner of his eye, and finally realized that something was wrong.

Originally, there were long stretched shadows of the two of them on the ground, but at this moment, only the shadow of Karl baring his teeth and claws remained.The shadow quickly spread and expanded until there was no trace of light on the ground.

It's like trying to wrap up the whole world in front of you.

The vampire who used to be Todd Croft knew that he should turn around and run, but many small hands stretched out from the shadow under his feet, and gently grabbed his ankle, but he couldn't break free.

Karl raised his face—the vampire didn't know whether he still had his sanity—frowning tightly, his teeth biting his lips, and huge beads of sweat slid down his forehead, as if he was enduring some kind of great pain.

"You..." He only had time to say such a word, and then closed his mouth in horror.

The vampire glanced behind Karl in horror, and saw two lumps of flesh growing on his back—probably flesh, he didn't know what they were anyway—swelling until the fabric couldn't wrap around them. .

What kind of terrible monster is this?He tried to pull the foot out of the little hand, but failed again.

Seeing that the sarcoma was about to stretch out his clothes, he rolled his eyes and kept doing nothing, raising his hand to cut off Carl's carotid artery.

No matter what kind of creature it is, as long as it is dead, it will not pose a threat.He couldn't help being proud of his ingenuity, but when he touched the stone-cold skin, black flames burned from his fingertips.

Maybe the vampire was born with a slow sense of pain, or maybe the flame was just an illusion, but he didn't feel any pain at all.He stared dully at the small flame on his fingertips, and it took him several seconds to realize what it was.

At this time, the flames had already spread from his palm to his forearm. He tried to move his fingers, but the burned fingers did not obey his order, and turned into powder without sound.

Only then did the belated fear run up his spine and into his mind.

"What the hell is this?" He stared at Carl in panic, "Didn't Mr. Ignatz say that you are an ordinary human? Why do ordinary humans become like this?!"

No longer caring about strangling the threatening creature in front of him, he screamed and threw his arms against the wall, trying to extinguish the weird black flame.

It was useless, no matter how hard he tried, the black flame continued to spread slowly towards his heart without being disturbed.Staring vainly at his own vanished body, he suddenly knelt before Karl.

"Please, let me go, let me go!" He raised his head, staring at Carl's face distorted by pain, "Your friend, Todd Croft is still alive, but I locked him up in the depths of his heart." I'm going to let him out right now, as long as you let me go. I swear I won't do bad things again... Please, I don't want to disappear!"

Karl, who was battling the invisible enemy, didn't seem to hear him at all.

The bulging tumor behind him was getting bigger and bigger, and the sound of the fabric cracking could be heard.

"Carl, my dear Karl, can you bear to see me disappear?"

Suddenly, Karl stopped struggling, and he stared blankly at the begging vampire in front of him, revealing a trace of sadness imperceptibly.

It was this sadness that made the vampire think he was about to be saved, and he begged harder.

It's fine if it's another vampire, but as long as he doesn't let his heart disappear, Lord Ignaci must have a way to regenerate his disappeared body.

"what--!"

Before the vampire could finish his last sweet dream, the miserable scream that almost tore the eardrums brought him back to reality forcibly.

Carl curled up, screaming in vain.The two lumps of sarcoma had grown to the size of a baby, but it was disgusting to watch.

The black flames had already burned the vampire's chest, and he rolled on the ground, raising his head with difficulty.

——If he could, he would rather not see anything.

The wings broke free from the cloth wrapping and raised high. If the ominous and evil colors were not counted, this scene was like the arrival of the archangel Michael in mythology.

Black feathers fell from midair, with a metallic luster.

Before being engulfed by black flames, the vampire deeply seared this scene of doomsday into his mind.

The angel in charge of plague, war and killing resides in the human body and descends in the snowy field.