Sitting by the lake, Yang Bo fiddled with his phone. The good news was that he finally had a signal. The bad news was that he had no identification, so he couldn't use anything that required registration.
He took the number Blade had left him out of his backpack and dialed it.
Ring... ring...
After a few rings, Blade's voice came through the phone.
"Yang Bo?"
Yang Bo froze for a moment. He had only just bought this number, yet Blade had guessed who he was right away.
"That's right, it's me!"
"Are you free today? Can you give me the addresses of some more vampires? I'm itching for some action..."
Blade fell silent at his words. Beside him were an old man with graying hair and a Black woman. Had Yang Bo been there, he would certainly have recognized her as the female lead from Blade.
"Where are you?"
Blade's voice was level.
"In Central Park. Call me when you get here, and I'll meet you at the main entrance!"
Yang Bo hung up with a smile.
"More income coming my way!"
He headed out of the park and waited outside a café for over half an hour. Then an engine roared, and a black Dodge muscle car pulled up beside him.
Through the window, Yang Bo saw the two people inside. He stood, walked over, opened the door, and climbed into the back seat.
"Erik, I remember this being a two-door car. Did you modify it?"
Before Blade could answer, Yang Bo turned to the female lead beside him with a smile. He wasn't particularly interested in Black women, but one who could land the female lead really was beautiful.
"Hello, my name's Yang Bo. Nice to meet you!"
Karen ignored him. Her entire worldview was still being rebuilt, and she had yet to fully come to terms with being bitten by a vampire the day before.
Yang Bo didn't pester her. Instead, he turned to Blade, who was driving. "Where are we headed?"
"Taking her home first!"
With that, he stepped on the gas, and the car shot forward.
Karen lived in the Bronx, the northernmost of New York's five boroughs. Its residents were predominantly of African and Latin American descent, with relatively few Asians. Its crime rate was among the highest in the country.
It was also the poorest borough. Yang Bo watched the buildings around them go from prosperous to dilapidated, as though they had returned to the United States of the 1990s. Newspapers and garbage littered the ground.
For some reason, Yang Bo felt more comfortable in this environment than in bustling Manhattan.
With a squeal, the car came to a steady stop outside an apartment building. Yang Bo frowned slightly at the building in front of him. He could sense a vampire in a room on the second floor.
Karen opened the door and got out. Blade instructed her solemnly, "Don't forget what we told you. Keep your eyes open. They're everywhere!"
Blade drove off, and Karen's angry, defiant shout came from behind them. "It's daytime!"
Sitting in the back seat, Yang Bo chuckled. "What's this? Trying to get yourself a girlfriend?"
Karen looked a lot like Blade's mother. Perhaps because he had lost his mother as a child, Blade felt a strong fondness for Karen. That was also why he had stepped in to save her.
Blade didn't answer Yang Bo's question. Instead, he said, "Those vampires' familiars already have their eyes on her. We need to get information about the vampires out of them."
After circling the apartment building, Blade parked outside its entrance again. Yang Bo glanced at the police car parked nearby and followed Blade inside. Standing in the elevator, he asked, "What do you think of those vampire worshippers?"
"They're trouble. They're still human, after all!"
Yang Bo nodded at Blade's answer. In Blade: Trinity, the vampires had exploited precisely that, getting Blade to kill a familiar disguised as a vampire in the street and making him a wanted man. But Yang Bo didn't care. The moment he had come back to life in that alley after a vampire bit him to death, he had sworn to kill every vampire. Anyone who stood in his way would be his enemy.
They reached Karen's floor and saw a man in a police uniform entering her apartment. They exchanged a glance and ran over together.
Blade was a little faster than Yang Bo. He charged into the apartment and knocked the cop, who was trying to draw his gun, to the floor. Grabbing him by the collar, Blade hauled him up and told Karen, "He's a familiar!"
"Someone who wants to become a vampire!"
With every sentence, Blade delivered another vicious blow.
"If he's loyal enough and proves his worth, his master might turn him into a new vampire!"
Karen finally caught on, her expression darkening. "Wait, you used me as bait?"
Blade grabbed the familiar and slammed him hard onto the table. "Don't flatter yourself!"
Yang Bo entered the apartment as well. Seeing the familiar taking a beating, he pulled out a wooden Stake. If they hadn't needed him to lead them to the vampire bar, Yang Bo would have pulled out his brand-new iron axe instead.
"Erik, want me to take over? I don't think you're getting anywhere like this! Don't worry. When it comes to torture, nobody would dare claim first place if we Chinese claimed second!"
Then he turned to Karen. "Beautiful, could you please find me a needle?"
Karen frowned at Yang Bo. "What are you trying to do? He's a cop!"
Yang Bo chuckled and walked over to the familiar. Reaching behind him, he gripped the back of the man's neck and forced his head down, revealing the brand on it. "This is a vampire brand."
"It means this officer is some vampire's private property. If another vampire wants to touch him, they need his master's permission!"
Blade studied the brand on the back of the familiar's neck intently. "That's Deacon Frost's mark. We've been tracking him for a long time!"
Yang Bo added, "Beautiful, as far as I'm concerned, he's no longer human. He's a weapon the vampires use against us. Do you understand?"
As he spoke, he pressed down hard and forced the officer to the floor. Blade crouched and began searching him, removing his wristwatch with one hand and slipping it into his pocket. Watching Blade's practiced movements, Yang Bo couldn't help quipping, "Erik, you're the mighty Blade, the Daywalker. Do you have to be so good at robbery?"
Blade showed no embarrassment whatsoever. Instead, he replied as though it were perfectly reasonable, "What do you think I live on? It's not like I can ask the public for donations!"
Once he finished robbing him, Blade casually hauled the man off the floor. "Officer Krieger, are you going to be a good little vampire lapdog?"
Before you continue