Chapter 191: Six Days of Pressure III
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After becoming true vampires, that discipline sharpened into something more dangerous.
He began with blood control.
Always the simplest foundation first.
Vera learned with control.
Vela learned with instinct.
That was the difference between them, and it became clearer every hour he watched them.
Vera was the one who listened fully before acting. She preferred understanding the shape of a thing before forcing it to obey. Her blood constructs were cleaner. More stable. More elegant.
Vela learned faster in bursts. Her first movements were rougher, but when instinct clicked, she made aggressive progress all at once, as if her body already understood violence better than explanation.
Bat Bat, naturally, tried to become the "senior instructor."
She hovered near the training area in the inner courtyard, arms folded, chin high, wings twitching with self-importance.
"No, no," Bat Bat said at one point while Vera was shaping a thin blood needle. "Need more attitude. Blood listen better when you look scary."
Vera turned her head slowly and stared at Bat Bat.
Bat Bat’s face remained perfectly serious.
Vela actually snorted.
Sekhmet did not correct them immediately. He wanted to see how they handled interruption.
Vera turned back to her blood needle and made it thinner. Cleaner.
Vela, without looking away from her own hand, flicked a tiny blood bead directly at Bat Bat’s forehead.
It hit.
Bat Bat gasped in outrage.
"Assault!"
Elena, who was watching from the courtyard shade while pretending to supervise servant cloth folding, spoke without lifting her eyes.
Bat Bat turned and pointed at Elena dramatically.
"Elena likes violence," Bat Bat accused.
Elena finally looked up.
"Only when it improves discipline," she replied.
Bat Bat muttered darkly about "house conspiracy" and drifted away to whisper to the spirit, who sat on a windowsill now and watched everything with wide green eyes.
The spirit had changed too over those days.
Not much in strength. But in behavior.
It no longer curled into itself at every sound. It stayed close to Bat Bat when possible, close to shade and leaves whenever available, and seemed especially interested in bowls of water with petals floating in them.
Bat Bat had named it Leaf.
Not because Sekhmet approved. Because Bat Bat had announced, "Spirit is Leaf. Done."
And somehow that had become reality.
Leaf still could not speak. It made tiny sounds sometimes, soft as stirred grass, but it understood more than it showed. Auri reported that it liked the quiet sections of the void land and had taken to following Bat Bat’s voice with visible curiosity whenever Bat Bat visited.
On the fifth day, Raka sent another report.
Sekhmet received it after noon through the communicating stone while reviewing final item security.
Raka’s voice came low and controlled.
"Iron House has hired extra hands," he said. "Not local street trash. Cleaner men. Discreet. Some are already in the city. Some arrived last night."
"How many."
"At least twelve confirmed. Possibly more. Not enough for open war. Enough for sabotage, targeted panic, theft, or a staged incident."
Sekhmet’s eyes hardened.
"Anything else."
A brief pause.
Then Raka said, "They are spreading soft rumor again. Not open attacks. Just whispers. Dawn House is desperate. The auction is a bluff. The heir returned broken from purgatory. Some are saying the family is cursed."
Sekhmet’s face did not change. Inside, something colder than anger settled.
Iron House was trying to poison expectation before the first item even touched the stage.
"Good."
That meant they were afraid enough to prepare.
"Continue watching," Sekhmet said. "If they move directly, I want names before bodies."
Raka gave the immediate answer of a man whose will was no longer fully his own.
"Yes, master."
The stone dimmed.
Sekhmet stood alone in the study afterward, looking at the auction item list laid across his desk.
Warblade. Bracers. Cloak. Spear. Chain whip. Daggers. Vest. Ring. Staff. Anklets.
Ten pieces of carefully measured temptation.
He had spent half the week building a room to sell them.
Iron House had spent half the week building reasons for buyers to distrust the room itself.
That was the real fight. Not merely selling objects. Controlling the mood. Controlling fear.
Controlling the first heartbeat of a room full of greedy people before greed turned into suspicion.
Mira understood that.
Auri understood it too, in her own way.
That evening he brought both of them into the study and gave them the final internal structure for the day before the auction and the auction itself.
Mira would stand where every buyer could see her.
Auri would move where no one would think to look.
Mira would control language.
Auri would control silence.
If panic began, Mira was to slow the room and anchor attention. If someone tried creating a public disruption, Auri would remove the cause if possible before it became visible. If something became visible, then the response would depend on whether the threat was political, physical, or supernatural.
Mira listened with her usual stillness.
Auri listened like a weapon waiting to be pointed.
When he finished, Mira asked the important question.
"And you, young master."
Sekhmet looked at her.
"Where will you be."
He answered without hesitation.
"Everywhere that matters."
Mira did not smile. But she accepted the answer, because it sounded exactly like him.
That night, when the house finally quieted again, Sekhmet checked his bloodlust.
He did not want to. He did it anyway.
The system responded at once.
[Current bloodlust: 58 percent. The rise is slower today, but it is still rising. Your feeding has been controlled, your blood use has been moderate, and your emotions have remained restrained. That is why the increase is limited. But do not mistake slower growth for safety. The pressure is still building.]
Fifty-eight. Not a spike. Not a disaster.
But the number bothered him because it moved at all. The warning had not been a dramatic moment that passed.
It had become part of the week.
A hidden second countdown under the auction countdown.
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