Chapter 12 #2
“Which we have,” Julian said with a little flourish. He tapped another key. “Your precious Pentacoris fragment is listed as Item Seven.”
I frowned. “If they label everything by number, that means there is an auction manifest.”
Julian’s smile thinned. “There is.”
“Do you have it?”
He hesitated for half a beat, then spun the laptop back toward himself. “Yes and no.”
I arched a brow. “You either hacked it or you did not, Julian.”
He sighed as if I had insulted his religion. “I have it, but some of it is still scrambled. Let me show you the fun part.”
He keyed in a string of commands. A window opened, listing items in a sterile font, each with a line of description and a series of internal codes.
Con and I stepped closer.
Item One—Acquired grimoire, pages partially intact, origin unknown.
Item Two—Dark warlock bone fragment, lesser variant, high magical conductivity.
Item Three—Feral lycan blood sample, stabilized.
Item Four—Cursed relic, recovered from Eastern crypt, details redacted.
Item Five—Magical artifact, warded container required.
Item Six—Confidential, invitation only.
Then Item Seven, our target—Metallic fragment, unidentified alloy, part of ancient construct. High resonance. That was the piece.
“That is quite a shopping list,” I said.
Julian smirked. “We should bring a cart.”
“Is this everything?” Con asked.
“No,” Julian answered. “There are more pages.”
He scrolled. Item Eight, Item Nine, each with short tags and codes. Then he stopped.
Abrupt.
His expression changed.
He blinked once, the humor draining from his face. His mouth pressed into a flat line.
I watched his eyes, not the screen. “What is it?”
Julian did not answer right away. He swallowed, then turned the laptop slightly, as if he were not sure he wanted me to see.
Item Ten had fewer words and more redacted blocks than anything else on the list.
Formula, experimental, successful version of human enhancement compound. Combat proven. Full process, vector, and stabilizers included. Limited copy.
My stomach went cold.
“Say it,” I told him.
He met my gaze. “Whatever formula they used to make those enhanced soldiers, it is for sale.”
The room felt smaller all at once.
Con straightened, eyes sharpening. “The compound that turned those humans into the things we fought last night.”
Julian nodded. “Or an upgraded version. The tag says combat proven. That usually means field tested, refined, and ready to ruin someone’s day.”
Manu’s expression stayed calm, but his fingers drummed once against the table. “If that formula spreads, it changes the balance. Permanently. No more isolated enhanced humans. We would be looking at armies.”
I stared at the screen, at the bland words that masked something that had already shredded vampires and lycans alike. I remembered how the enhanced moved in the cemetery, silent and precise, eyes empty of anything but purpose. Tools, not soldiers. Manufactured monsters.
“Is it at the same location as the piece?” I asked.
Julian shook his head slowly. “I do not think so. The manifest tags for Item Ten are different. Separate routing. Different holding protocols, more secure. The fragment is in the warehouse. The formula is probably being kept somewhere else until the main event.”
“So the formula is not in the industrial district,” I said.
“No. The fragment is bait and profit. The formula is the real prize,” Julian said. “Whoever wins that auction will not care about one pretty shard of metal.”
“They will care about an army,” Manu added.
Con’s voice went very quiet. “We need that formula.”
I nodded. “We cannot let it be sold.”
Julian leaned back in his chair. “And here I was hoping we would just crash one warehouse and call it a night.”
I ignored him. “We have two targets. The fragment we can intercept at the warehouse. The formula, we can only reach through the main auction.”
“So we need to be approved for that auction,” Con said. “Cleanly. No side doors, no guesswork. We walk in as buyers, we walk out with the formula, and we burn every copy.”
“Burning will be difficult,” Manu said. “These people do not keep one copy of anything. They will have backups.”
“Then we take the original and any data we can get,” I replied. “We destroy what we find and trace what we cannot. Step one is getting close.”
Julian rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “You realize what you are asking, right? These are people who vet buyers so thoroughly that they know who you owed money to in college. They do genetic cross-referencing. They calculate risk factors on social behavior.”
“Is that supposed to scare me?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “It is supposed to make you appreciate me.”
I gave him a look. “I already appreciate you. Now help me get approved for that auction.”
He brightened. “That is all I wanted to hear.”
Con exhaled, steady but tight. “You said her application is pending.”
Julian swiveled the laptop back toward himself and pulled up a new screen. Rows of numbers, some highlighted in green, others flashing amber.
“Your candidate profile is in the system,” he said. “Marcus did his part. Dimitri’s past deeds are tied to your alias. They have you flagged as a private collector who handles dangerous inventory quietly.”
“Correct,” I said.
“They believe you have a history of buying cursed items and keeping your mouth shut,” Julian added. “They also think you are more loyal to profit than to any clan or council.”
I snorted. “That is adorable.”
“They like you,” he said. “They really do. But.”
“Of course there is a but,” Con muttered.
“But the screening algorithm is cautious,” Julian said. “You are tied to Dimitri’s purchasing history, but you do not have a long enough personal track record. Their system has you in the maybe pile.”
“The maybe pile does not get invitations,” Manu said.
Julian nodded. “Not without help.”
I laced my fingers together, resting my knuckles against my mouth as I thought.
“Can you tweak it?” I asked Julian. “Push me from maybe to approved?”
“If I do it wrong, they will know someone tampered with the list,” Julian said. “And they will shut everything down.”
“That is not an answer,” I said.
He glanced up at me, eyes bright. “Yes. I can work on it. But I need time. And a gentle touch.”
“We do not have gentle,” Con said. “We have necessary.”
Julian grinned. “Then let me adjust their definition of necessary.”
He took a breath, then focused on the screen again. Lines of code scrolled past. He explained as he worked, not for his own benefit, but so we understood how thin the ice was beneath us.
“They use a weighted system,” he said. “Reputation, references, risk. I cannot just assign you a green check mark. That would be traced. I have to assist their qualification process.”
“Assist how?” Manu asked.
“I feed the algorithm data it expects,” Julian replied. “A few more minor deals under your alias. Small transactions, nothing dramatic. Enough to increase your score without triggering manual review.”
He typed faster now, fingers flying.
“I also plant references from existing approved buyers,” he went on. “Names already in their network, flagged as reliable. Most of them will never know they vouched for you.”
“Most?” I asked.
“One or two might,” he said. “But by the time they do, the auction will be over.”
“And if they decide you are faking?” Con asked.
“Then they lock the system, erase the manifest, move the formula, and we lose this chance,” Julian said. “Which is why I do not make mistakes.”
I met his gaze. “You sure?”
He held my stare for a long moment, then nodded. “I’ve got this.”
The room felt tighter, charged with a new urgency. The fragment and the formula. Two fronts in the same war.
I blew out a slow breath. “Work your magic, then. Get me into that auction.”
Julian grinned, teeth white in the low light. “Oh, I will.”
I pointed at the laptop. “And Julian?”
“Yeah?”
“If you find out who is selling that formula, I want their name.”
His smile faded into something colder. “So do I.”
Manu folded his arms, looking from me to Con. “In the meantime, you prepare for the warehouse. Once Julian confirms your invitation, you will be fighting on two fronts.”
Con’s jaw tightened. “We can handle it.”
I felt the weight of his statement settle over both of us. We had handled worse. We would handle this. Because we had to. There was no alternative.
I straightened. “Then let us not waste the night.”
Julian turned back to his code.
Manu shuffled through files, pulling out schematics for the warehouse.
Con shifted closer to my side, the familiar gravity of his presence sliding into place.
The map glowed on the screen, red dot pulsing like a warning.
The game had changed. The stakes had not.
We were still hunting a fragment to save our king’s life.
Now we were also racing to keep the blueprint for an army out of the wrong hands.
One mistake, and the world we knew would end in a flood of crafted monsters and human greed.
So we did what we always did.
We planned a heist.
And prepared for war.