Evan watched the water wash the sweat and dust from his arms, a fierce light burning in his eyes.
"Only four left... No, I have to find a way to get more."
"My dear Magic Potion, what would I do without you?"
He knew perfectly well that, given his place in society, Pulis was his only connection to the Beyonder world.
There was no doubt that man had designs on him.
Anyone who used students as disposable drug-test subjects was no good.
But this was his only chance.
A man drowning at sea did not stop to check whether the plank drifting toward him had nails in it.
Grab hold first. Stay alive first. Everything else could wait.
After washing off the sweat, he took a long, satisfying shit.
For the past two months of drug trials, Evan's stools had either been tiny pellets like sheep droppings or completely shapeless.
Now he had passed a normal, solid log without a struggle.
"God, it feels good to take a proper shit!"
Evan dried himself and returned to his room.
He picked up the bottle of Phenobarbital from the table and shook out two pale-yellow tablets.
Then he tipped two grayish-white pellets from the bottle of Mercury Pills, tossed all four into his mouth, and washed them down with a gulp of water.
He climbed onto the iron-framed bed, pulled his old, pilled blanket over himself, and dropped his head onto the pillow. Within three seconds, he was out.
He slept deeply.
So deeply that he never noticed something approaching outside the window.
About twenty minutes after Evan fell asleep, a shadow appeared outside the closed window.
It did not push the window open or pick the lock.
It passed straight through the glass.
Like ink seeping through rice paper, the shadow slipped soundlessly through the window and gathered into human form inside the room.
In the darkness, a pair of dark-red eyes lit up.
Those eyes had no pupils—or rather, the entire irises were pupils.
They were a deep, fixed crimson, like two Rubies steeped in formalin.
He was tall and slender, and moved with an inborn elegance.
He looked like a gentleman accustomed to opera boxes, except that he now stood in a shabby apartment papered with old newspapers.
His dark-red eyes swept over the room: the newspapers on the walls, the extinguished Kerosene Lamp on the table, the damp clothes draped over a chair, and the frail figure curled up in bed.
When his gaze fell on the jumble of medicine bottles beneath the bed, he frowned slightly.
There was a trace of displeasure in his expression.
He looked like a researcher who had discovered his test subject taking drugs outside the experiment.
He did not hesitate.
From inside his Trench Coat, he drew a glass syringe. Its needle flashed coldly in the dark.
He bent down and gently pulled back Evan's blanket, exposing a thin arm.
The needle entered a vein in the crook of his elbow with such precise, delicate care that Evan did not even frown in his sleep.
Dark-red blood rose slowly into the syringe until it was full.
He withdrew the needle and pressed his thumb to the puncture for two seconds.
Then he put the syringe away and straightened.
The next moment, his body lost its solidity. Starting at his feet, it liquefied into a flowing pool of darkness and seeped soundlessly out through the window frame.
Silence returned to the room.
Only Evan's steady breathing and the faint scrape of a mouse digging at the base of the wall remained.
A few minutes later, another dark figure appeared.
This visitor did not seep through a gap in the window. She climbed in from outside.
She had none of that eerie ability to pass through solid matter. She seemed more like an ordinary person who had undergone rigorous training.
Her hands gripped the edges of the window frame with precision, her fingers applying force through some specialized technique.
The old window, which usually squealed at the slightest touch, opened without a sound.
It was as though someone had greased the hinges with invisible oil.
She vaulted into the room and landed with both feet almost together, her boots touching the floorboards as softly as a falling leaf.
Two swords were slung diagonally across her back. Their hilts protruded over her shoulders, wrapped in black cloth and visible only as vague outlines in the dark.
Her silver-white hair stood out in the moonlight.
Once she was still, her nostrils flared slightly.
"The stink of a Sanguine."
Her voice was so low and thin it almost blended with her breathing.
"So the rumors are true."
Her gaze swept the dark room and came to rest on the medicine bottles beneath the bed.
She crouched, picked up a bottle, and held it to her nose.
In the darkness, a pair of Golden Slit Pupils widened abruptly.
They did not look human.
Her irises were pure gold, her pupils narrow vertical slits like a cat's—or a snake's. Even in a room without a light source, they focused with perfect clarity.
"Two diluted Magic Potions?"
She picked up another bottle, pulled out the stopper, and sniffed it. Her frown deepened.
"A new Magic Potion. It isn't in the Potion Codex. The Sanguine here must have invented it."
She gently returned the bottle and turned her gaze to Evan, fast asleep in bed.
She leaned down until her face was almost beside his and paused near his nose for several seconds.
Her Golden Slit Pupils narrowed slightly, as though she were reading something in the air that ordinary people could not perceive.
Then her expression changed.
"Master above. Two... five? Five drug components? And two Magic Potions?"
She straightened and looked down at Evan's gaunt face, which seemed especially young in sleep. Genuine bewilderment entered her voice.
"How are you still alive?"
Her gaze followed the edge of the blanket to Evan's exposed arm.
Her Golden Slit Pupils shone like two tiny lanterns in the night, letting her see more clearly than she could by day.
The dark-red Syphilis rash on his arm was slowly fading, its edges shifting from coppery red to pale pink.
The needle marks from his earlier blood sales were shrinking too. The bruises around them faded before her eyes, from deep purple to yellow-green, then to normal skin.
"No wonder the Sanguine used you to test drugs."
She straightened and folded her arms across her chest, a complicated light flickering in her Golden Slit Pupils.
"That body is a first-rate vessel for testing drugs."
"If this continues, he'll almost certainly become a Blood Slave to those Vampires."
She paced two silent steps across the room, her boots making no sound on the wooden floor.
"Can't let such a promising recruit go to waste. Drug Resistance like that—he was born to be a Demon Hunter."
Her lips moved, her muttering softer than a whisper.
"I need a good plan."
"The Beyonder world is too strange for someone from the bottom of society. Telling him outright would be too much."
"And I can't let him think I'm some pretty con artist. He might run straight into the Vampires' arms, and that would make things worse."
She stopped, her Golden Slit Pupils narrowing as a thoughtful smile curved her lips.
"He needs to face a crisis and see how terrifying the Sanguine are for himself."
"Then I'll make a grand entrance and rescue the beauty."
With that settled, she gave Evan one last look and turned toward the window, moving as lightly and silently as she had on her way in.
When she closed it behind her, the hinges made no sound.
The night swallowed her.
Silence settled over the room once more.
There was only Evan's steady breathing, the rustle of a mouse digging at the base of the wall, and the lonely bark of a Stray Dog somewhere down a distant street.
At three in the morning, Evan opened his eyes.
Just like yesterday, there was no lingering in bed, no struggle through grogginess. It was as though someone had flicked on a light: his mind switched from darkness to full wakefulness in an instant.
Fourfold concentration had arrived right on time.
But unlike yesterday, his body felt something entirely new.
Comfort.
A comfort unlike anything he had ever felt.
It had the languid ease of sinking into a hot bath, along with a deep, full-bodied sense of well-being that seemed to rise from inside his bones.
Every muscle was warm, supple, and brimming with strength.
His joints no longer ached. His chest no longer felt tight. Even his breathing was deeper and longer, each breath reaching the very bottom of his lungs.
He sat up in bed.
"Creeeak!"
The springs let out their usual bizarre shriek.
Evan looked down at the Panel.
[You have reversed the Side Effects of the Potion Chain.] [You have gained a trace Beyonder Characteristic: Basic Sanguine.]
The words lingered on his retina for a full three seconds, each one seeming to brand itself there.
Evan's breath caught.
"A Beyonder Characteristic?"
His voice trembled despite his efforts to control it.
It was not fear, but something more primal—the feeling of someone who had groped through the dark for too long suddenly brushing a hand against a doorknob.
He quickly scrolled up the Panel.
Sure enough.
The three fields that had always been blank—Profession, Status, and Characteristic—were there.
The Characteristic field no longer showed a gray "None."
[Characteristic: Basic Sanguine 2% (click to expand details)]
He opened the details, and lines of text unfolded across his vision.
[Basic Sanguine: a low-level Sanguine with physical strength and self-healing abilities far beyond those of ordinary humans.] [Each 1% of progress increases self-healing ability by 1% and Blood Quality by 1%.] [At 30% progress, basic characteristic effects activate: physical strength and self-healing ability increase significantly.] [At 70% progress: gain full physical strength.] [At 100% progress: gain full self-healing ability.]