Emma grabs coffee while the men discuss.

The two men stood silently in the lab, studying each other intensely—as if trying to telepathically identify the other’s motivations. Neither seemed eager to start the conversation, but Damien knew his plan relied on Dr. Weylen being a willing partner—at least, for now. This required transparency.

“Doctor, as I’m sure you know, I am a very private man, but one with a lot of resources,” Damien started.

Dr. Weylen cut in, “Estimated net worth of 100 billion US dollars, but no one knows for sure. Official story is you come from old money, but no record of your family exists before your great-grandfather—supposedly some obscure Eastern European nobleman—makes a couple headlines for his dramatic move to London. The next two generations go back to quietly building upon the family wealth until you start using that wealth to make hefty political donations starting back around 13 years ago.”

The doctor’s blunt exposition made Damien chuckle. The old man did not seem impressed, but Damien didn’t need him to be.

“Well done, doctor. As I suspected, you did your due diligence researching me before agreeing to meet. I apologize if my vague backstory is not to your liking, but, as I will soon explain, I have my reasons to keep my history buried,” Damien mused.

“You’re a vampire,” Dr. Weylen said flatly.

“Excuse me?” Damien was taken aback by the doctor’s frankness.

“You’re doing a shit job of hiding it, I’m afraid. Sunken features, snow white skin, dead eyes, cold to the touch. I thought your kind were supposed to be able to blend in,” the doctor chuckled.

Damien attempted a smile, “You know much of my affliction, for a mortal. Indeed, what you say is true. It has been too long since I’ve fed, and I am drained from my travels. As such, my ability to hide my true form is currently diminished. I will rectify that soon enough, I assure you.”

Dr. Weylen shuddered at those words. Damien remained calm and composed, but the doctor did not want to overplay his hand.

“Harkon University has a long history of studying the occult. Rumor is the school was founded by a vampire, though I understand your kind is also exceedingly rare, so who knows for sure. As the world abandoned their superstitions for the ignorant comfort of modern science, this institution—and a few others we have stayed connected to—knew the truth. To this day, the tenured staff here at Harkon are all enlightened as part of our ‘initiation.’ It’s never been my main focus, but I thought I would be foolish to just ignore our available research on undead biology,” Dr. Weylen explained.

“Indeed. It would seem I underestimated this university and you. I knew this institution was once a beacon for academic study of all kinds. I’m happy to see that remains the case. It will be a great boon to my goal. Speaking of which, have you ever heard of enthrallment?” Damien asked.

————————————————————————————————————————

Emma stomped down the hall in a huff, stewing over her last encounter. She didn’t care who this Damien Nightingale was, he could not talk to her that way. Well, he technically could, as Emma was not about to lose her job just to tell off some rich douche, but he shouldn’t talk to her like that. On the other hand, she supposed the staring fit she had came off as rude too. Still, she saw no excuse for his disrespect. Had he handled it differently, she would have mustered up the courage to apologize. Regardless, she just hoped he’d be leaving as quickly as he arrived.

Emma entered the staff lounge and began brewing a fresh pot of coffee. The intoxicating scent of brewing coffee lingered in the air, a heady blend of deep, roasted richness and a subtle sweetness that teased the senses. Emma felt her sour mood begin to melt away as she was enveloped in the soothing aroma.

Just then, a familiar voice chimed in, “Emma! Hey! Brewing some coffee?”

She turned to face the direction of the voice to find it came from one of her close work friends, Quentin. Emma’s face brightened.

“Oh my God! Hey! You are never gonna believe how my morning is going,” Emma chimed back.

“Uh oh. Let’s hear it,” Quentin chuckled.

Emma was so ecstatic to be able to vent to her friend, she nearly tripped over her words, “I was prepping the lab for Dr. Weylen—you know how he is—and in walks some random guy to meet with him. There was something…off…about him, but Weylen was real interested in talking to him. They—rudely by the way—sent me on a coffee run, but I think they just wanted the room to themselves for a while. I don’t know, but I was supposed to be assisting Weylen in testing ZR-92’s ability to induce point mutations in TP53, and—“

“Whoa! Emma! Slow down! You said someone came to speak to Weylen. You didn’t recognize him at all?” Quentin asked, laughing.

Emma laughed and took a breath, “No not really. I guess he did look kinda familiar, but I didn’t recognize his name, Damien Nightingale.”

Quentin perked up when he heard that, “Yo, did you say Damien Nightingale? The billionaire?”

“Billionaire?” Emma repeated.

“Yeah! Hold on,” Quentin dug his phone out of his back pocket and began to search for something.

Emma took advantage of the pause to examine her friend. He was smaller in stature, but with an exquisite physique and full build. He had ageless chestnut skin, fiery, dark eyes, and voluptuous lips. Emma would have written Quentin off as “just another fuckboy,” had he not been such a genuinely nice and engaging person. Being similar ages with similar interests, they became fast friends at orientation.

"Here, look!" Quentin proudly exclaimed, revealing the screen of his phone.

Displayed on the screen was an article: "The Invisible Man: How Damien Nightingale Went from British Enigma to American Political Insider." The article included a handful of professionally-taken photos of the man the claim to be Damien Nightingale. Most of the pictures were shots of Damien waving to a crowd, or shaking a politician's hand. Emma certainly felt the man in the pictures looked like the man she met earlier that morning, but something seemed off.

"Are these old pictures?" Emma asked, beginning to skim the contents of the article.

"What? No, I think they're all pretty recent. The article is only a few months old," Quentin replied confusedly.

Emma muttered something, but was primarily focused on reading. The article was a full character piece on Damien. It touched on his obscure past, his vast wealth and the rumors of him being secretly even more wealthy. It mentioned some conspiracies surrounding him, including one persistent rumor that the Nightingale family was a part of the secret cabal that ruled the world from the shadows.

Then she got to the section on Damien's controversies. Apparently, he didn't have much dirt on him, which the article implied was suspicious. However, some of his political dealings had been controversial—mostly just along partisan lines—and his sudden interest in influencing American politics drew more than a few skeptical eyes on his dealings.

Emma admittedly didn't care for some of Damien's political donations, but there was nothing abnormal about them. One controversy did stand out though.

The section of the article read, "In 2021, TikTok user @fat_brian69, later identified as Brian Foster, posted a now deleted TikTok claiming that DamienNightingale is a vampire.

Similar to many other videos that claim a celebrity is actually a vampire, Foster first presented a side-by-side between a picture of Nightingale and the image of a painting, believed to be depicting a Romanian nobleman from the 14th or 15th century, and claiming they look exactly the same. He then referenced Nightingale's mysterious history, claiming it to be fabricated, and lastly made a claim that no sources have been able to verify. Foster claimed he had an encounter with Nightingale in which the billionaire looked 'dead or disfigured,' and that it was his 'true form.'

Though this type of conspiracy video would not normally garner mainstream attention, a follow-up TikTok from Foster claimed that Nightingale had reached out and demanded he take down his original video. Foster had refused. Shortly after the second TikTok was uploaded, the entire account was deleted. Internet sleuths were able to confirm that Brian Foster was reported missing the following week. Findings from the police investigation corroborated pieces of Foster's story of his encounter with Nightingale. What started as an absurd TikTok conspiracy became an internet sensation.

The public outcry over this strange story led to one of the only known sit-down interviews with the mysterious billionaire. The police had already ruled him out as a suspect by that time, but he wanted to set the record straight on the entire scandal. Shockingly, Nightingale confirmed Foster's story, but provided a twist. Nightingale was not a vampire, rather he had a rare skin condition that flared up sporadically.

As to why Foster reacted so intensely, Nightingale said, 'I believe the man is unwell and creating delusions for himself.'

Shortly after this interview, the online hype around the drama simmered down. Within a month, it was as if it never happened at all.”

The article continued from there, but Emma had seen enough. Of course, she didn't believe in absurd things like vampires, but Emma also didn't buy that it was a skin condition. She had seen him in this state first hand. Foster had described it as looking dead. Emma agreed with that description, though he admittedly didn't look grotesque—just unnerving.

“Yeah, Quentin, I think this is him, but he must be sick—or something—because he didn’t look all handsome like that,” Emma finally said.

“Handsome, huh?” Quentin mocked.

“Grow up. Anyway, I gotta get back to the grumpy douchebag convention,” Emma groaned, preparing two cups of piping hot coffee.

“Ew,” Quentin laughed.

“You’re telling me,” Emma shot back as they went their separate ways.

————————————————————————————————————————

"So, you can control minds," Dr. Weylen said nervously.

"In a sense, yes," Damien confirmed, "I cannot pick and choose how I manipulate the mortal's mind, but once one has become my thrall, they are unshakably loyal and obedient. They will do anything I ask, even die, without question."

"So, why not just do that to everyone then? No risk that way," Dr. Weylen replied.

"If only it were so easy. Unfortunately, the power is much weaker than it sounds. It is not a passive ability. I have to constantly maintain it or the link will sever. This is not that hard to do by itself, but maintaining a link with too many thralls can be physically taxing for me. Even after generations of training, I can only manage a handful of thralls at a time,” Damien explained.

“What happens if the link is severed?” The doctor inquired.

Damien shook his head, “It is very damaging to the brain. Some die, most go insane, and there are the rare few that recover and are simply freed from my control.”

“How long does it take to fully enthrall a person?” Dr. Weylen continued to probe.

“That depends. In theory, I could do it within seconds of seeing them. However, that would almost definitely kill them. This power is best used in low doses over extended periods of time. The longer this process takes, the safer it is for the mortal’s mind,” Damien digressed.

“Hm. Interesting. So, how does this ability pertain to your ‘groundbreaking scientific opportunity’ that you mentioned in our previous discourse?” Dr. Weylen asked, a sinking feeling growing in his stomach.

The vampire glinted his teeth, his face contorted into a horrible sinister expression, “Well, doctor, I will let you in on a secret of mine. One no one has ever known. Though I am a true master of all the powers granted by my affliction, I have known disturbing little about them most of my existence. For an incomprehensible amount of time, I have believed them to be ‘magic,’ something beyond the realm of science. I have recently been enlightened. I have begun to learn: ‘magic,’ is simply science that cannot yet be explained. That is where you and your team come in. You will conduct tests to determine how this power works on a scientific level—which does, of course, mean we’ll need a human subject to agree to the test as well—but I don’t believe we’ll have a problem recruiting with my resources.”

The doctor was so shocked he could barely utter a response, “These experiments are unethical—I agree with you, the research potential is there—but even the dark money pools that normally fund supernatural research would refuse to green light enslaving someone’s mind to a vampire. Hell! Even if we were entirely independent, I could never put my name on that research! It would ruin me.”

Dr. Weylen face turned white as he met the soulless eyes of **** itself. The vampire’s sickly appearance had deteriorated further into true ghoulishness. His sinister expression growing darker by the minute as bloodlust began to consume him. After a moment, Damien collected himself, and laughed a horrible, demonic laugh that sent chills down the doctor’s spine.

“Oh, Dr. Weylen, my friend. You need not worry about these trifling concerns. I have already laid the groundwork for this plan to be set in motion. I have been planning for a hundred years for this opportunity. I will spare no expense. The research will be well funded, and you and your team will be lavishly rewarded for work. The most expendable among you will finish this endeavor a millionaire. You, sir, will never want for money again,” Damien’s honeyed words dripped from a fanged smile, like a starving hyena that finally cornered its prey.

“W-well, yes, I suppose that would work. Err-but the tests you want done would really benefit from a larger group made up of small teams each specializing in different fields, none of which really have anything to do with genetic mutation,” Dr. Weylen stammered.

Damien shook his head, “We need as small a team as possible, doctor, and I encourage you to prioritize your own field when recruiting. These tests are merely phase one. Phase two, assuming we get that far, will require much expertise in genetic mutation, but we can discuss that later. Our time grows short, and I require something else of you, Dr. Weylen.”

The doctor, too tense to speak, nodded slowly.

The vampire continued, “Before I can finalize the necessary preparations for our project, I need to satiate my hunger. I noticed the little delicacy you had prepping the lab for you earlier. What is your opinion of her?”

“What? Delicacy? Oh, you mean—Lovelace…uh…Emma Lovelace is her name. She’s…uh…well…I’d say of all the assistants here, she is the one I respect the most. Very bright young woman with a promising future ahead of her. God, you’re not gonna kill her, are you?!” Weylen blurted confusedly.

“No, doctor, I simply wished to know if she would be a worthy addition to your team. It will not kill her, but feeding on her will make it impossible to hide my affliction from her. If she must know our secrets anyway, she may as well work for our benefit,” Damien mused.

“But why pick anyone from the lab? Wouldn’t you normally target an unsuspecting stranger?” Dr. Weylen wondered.

“Does it matter?” Damien replied, his frustration with the doctor finally slipping into his tone.

“No! Er…, no, I suppose not,” Dr. Weylen shook his head, a tinge of guilt turning his stomach.

Damien smiled, “Perfect timing.”