With the Edge of a Blade

Posted on Mon Mar 23rd, 2026 @ 8:50am by Kennedy Kelly & Hayden Davis & Alaric Thane & Josiah Martin

2,822 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 7: Pathogens and Contagions
Location: Club Blood, New York City
Timeline: March 10, 1992

Club Blood squatted on a side street in the Meat Packing District. With its windows blacked out, a single red bulb burning over the door was the only thing distinguishing it from the abandoned buildings pressing in around it. The bass from the music inside was far too loud to be contained, leaking through brick and mortar and onto the sidewalk in a low, industrial thrum that rattled trash cans and made the line of patrons sway as if they were already dancing. You never would have guessed it was cold from the way they were dressed, black leather and fishnets, exposed skin painted moon-white, bodies huddled together in a line that wrapped around the warehouse-turned-nightclub.

Across the street, the X-Men clustered inside one of the many empty buildings. Its windows long since smashed, gave them a clear but unobtrusive view of the club. Being close felt better than waiting back at the mansion, especially now that Jennifer and Maeve had disappeared inside and whatever was happening to them was reduced to a troubling unknown. From here, at least, they could watch and feel the ominous energy Club Blood radiated into the night.

“It’s freezing in here,” Kennedy grumbled, rubbing her gloved hands together. “How long do you think it’ll take them to find something?”

Joey bounced his weight back and forth from one boot to the other, breath fogging faint in the broken-window cold of the long-abandoned building. He kept his hands tucked under his arms more for something to do — and to resist the urge to shift — than for any kind of warmth. Across the street, the red bulb over Club Blood painted its sickly glow, a wound that wouldn’t close.

“Freezing builds character,” he muttered without looking at Kennedy. “Or hypothermia. One of the two. Probably hypothermia, but character sounds nicer.”

He couldn’t look at the line for long. Not that he needed to. Black leather, bare shoulders, pale skin, bodies pressed together for warmth or for something else. The rhythm of the bass pulsed, rattling his ribs even from here, like a low mechanical heartbeat that didn’t belong to anything alive. It made his teeth itch, and his non-existent whiskers twitch.

He would not shift. Not before he had to.

The thought had come and gone twice already.

Shift. Smell them. Count them. Map it.

No.

He couldn’t trust the rat right now. Not after what happened under the Cyclone. Not after the way his claws had gone in and not stopped until there was nothing left to go into.

He swallowed.

“They won’t move fast,” he added, tone flattening into something almost instructional. “It ain’t like in movies. You don’t sprint after a deer unless you want the whole herd bolting. You hang back. You let ’em wander closer on their own.”

He nodded slightly toward the door.

“Real predators don’t hurry. They let the prey think they chose to step into the clearing.”

He folded his arms tighter. He could imagine the air inside — sweat, alcohol, perfume, copper. Even from here, he could see the way the bouncer’s eyes tracked the line. Assessing. Selecting. It made something in his spine tighten.

He was going to have to do it again.

Not fight.
Not subdue.
Not scare.

Kill.

He did not allow himself the easier word. The storybook one. The one with fangs and curses and neat moral edges.

They had looked like people when they turned to ash.

His jaw worked once.

If I have to—

The thought stumbled into something half-formed. God, I don’t—

He cut it off before it could finish. Before it could turn into a prayer he wasn’t sure how to mean.

“Long enough for them to get noticed,” he said instead, nodding toward the door as another pair disappeared inside. “Long enough for someone to decide they look worth the trouble.”

He risked another glance at the line and immediately looked away again, jaw tight but expression neutral.

“Next time,” he added lightly, “we stake out a bakery. I’d feel a lot better about that. Worst-case scenario, somebody steals a croissant.”

He adjusted his stance again, boots grinding faintly on broken concrete. Waiting. Not shifting. Not letting the other shape up.

Because if he did—

He wasn’t entirely sure it would stop when he told it to.

And that frightened him more than the red light across the street ever could.

“You’re being weird and twitchy.” Kennedy replied to Joey with that rabbit-like wrinkle of her nose that told everyone she disapproved of something. “You aren’t going to freak out, are you?”

"God, I hope not," said Hayden, arms wrapped around her torso. "Maybe some jumping jacks or something. Warm up and change your focus for a minute." She thought that it wouldn't be a bad idea for herself, either.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Kennedy said while standing up and doing a few jumping jacks to help warm her up, she only stopped when her breathing was labored. “Just don’t rat out on us, okay?” She said between visible puffs of air.

“Please don’t.” A stranger’s voice cut through the room and caused the team to visibly jump in surprise. “And you should stop sweating and breathing so loudly, they like that.”

A man stepped out from the shadows, his skin was a rich dark brown and his tall frame was lean and athletic. He wore sunglasses despite the dark environment and he was clad head to toe in black, with a long black leather trench coat that covered tactical body armor down to his heavy combat boots. “Rumor has it, you kids are looking for trouble.”

Alaric was wearing his traditional Limbo clothes for the night. It marked him as something other than local, but he wore them without apology. He also thought that he might fit in a little better should they need to portal in. The appearance of a new player, though, might change that.

Alaric stepped forward, positioning himself near the front of the group.
He assessed the newcomer's garb, stance, and the stillness in which he'd entered the room. A warrior. That much was obvious. The man carried himself like someone who had survived too much to bluff.

Alaric met his gaze evenly. "We don’t chase trouble. We track it," he said. There was no posturing, no sarcasm, just genuine respect and honesty. "It's true though, rumors travel faster than prey."

“Showing up where Xarus holds court and expecting anything but death is looking for trouble in my opinion.” The man was like a moving shadow as he circled and assessed the X-Men. “Now what has got a group of kids looking for vampires?”

“Our friends were bit.” Kennedy blurted out much faster than she probably should have, there was something about this man that made her uneasy but he also didn’t feel as dangerous as the vampires they had encountered on Coney Island. “A vampire showed up at our home and they got hurt, now we’re trying to stop them.”

“Are you talking about Damien and his group of Lost Boys on the boardwalk?” The man in black asked with a touch of dismay before his tone returned to cool and stoic, “Are you telling me you know something about that?”

Joey bristled involuntarily, mentally raising the fur he hadn’t yet sprouted before he could quite tamp it back down.

“Well,” he shrugged, “we could pretend we were home doing trig, but math’s never really been my strong point.”

Mentally, he cursed Kennedy for letting the cat out of the bag.

“So yeah. We were there. All the screamin’ and bitin’ folk kinda killed the boardwalk vibe.”

He scratched the back of his neck lightly.

“’Sides, they weren’t all that subtle. Whole dramatic ash-in-sunlight thing. Real theatrical. Zero outta ten for low-profile execution.”

His mouth twitched faintly.

“As for what we know? They’re fast. Travel in packs. Hate sunlight.”

He paused a moment, brushing at his sleeve involuntarily.

“Oh, and they’re real hard to clean up after. That dust gets everywhere. You ever try gettin’ vampire ash outta fur? Absolute nightmare. Pretty sure I wore half of him home. Took near a full brush-out to stop smellin’ like burnt crypt. Ought to count as community service.”

Hayden stayed back. She knew something about it, or at least her part in it. But she wasn't going to offer that information just yet. Especially if this guy still saw them as kids instead of X-Men after Joey's remark about fur.

"It's a little more than knowing something about it," said Alaric. "As you can imagine from what you've just heard. What do you know about Xarus and the court he holds?" he asked, using the name that their visitor gave them.

“This isn’t a game of cards or some kind of truth-or-dare tit for tat,” the man said, a thread of frustration tightening his voice. “A pack of, admittedly sloppy, vampires was wiped out in their own hunting ground by a group of people I’ve never seen before. Now I find you four poking around a very dangerous club that happens to be crawling with even more of them while saying someone of your friends where bit.” His gaze hardened. “I’m not stupid, and I don’t have time for polite little tea parties.”

The man in black rolled his shoulders, trying to bleed off the irritation building beneath his calm exterior. “If you don’t even know who Xarus is,” he continued, “then you have absolutely no business being here.”

He tilted his head toward the club entrance.

“Xarus runs the vampires in New York. Every last one of them. Claims he’s the son of Dracula himself.” A faint, skeptical scoff slipped into his voice. “He has—had—twelve vampires he personally turned to help him rule the city. Damien was one of them.” His eyes swept across the crowd gathered outside the club. “This place is where they meet once a month.” He paused, letting the weight of that settle. “It’s also where they feed.”

The hunter gestured toward the eager line of people waiting outside the door. “You see all these people hoping to get in?” he said quietly. “They’re not guests. They’re dinner.” His attention snapped back to them, expression grim. “And I’m here to stop it.”

Alaric didn’t bristle or wince at the tone. Instead, he listened. When the warrior finished, Alaric stepped forward slightly. They were on the same page as far as stopping the vampires and now it was time to cut to the chase. Plus, he needed to let them know they weren't there for tea parties or truth or dare.

"Then we don't disagree." His voice stayed calm and level. "Alaric Thane. Lord of Limbo and member of the X-Men." He gestured subtly toward the others with him.

"We dispatched Damien and his crew under the roller coaster on Coney Island. Further investigation led us here." His gaze flicked briefly toward the club entrance, studying the line of people waiting to become prey. "If this is Xarus’s feeding ground, then we’re exactly where we need to be." He looked back to the hunter. "Sounds like we’re working the same target."

While the man’s eyes were hidden from view, a flicker of surprise still betrayed him. His brow lifted then fell from Alaric's words before his expression settled back into a stoic, unreadable mask.

“Even if Damien’s Lost Boys were nothing more than a pack of sloppy punks, wiping out an entire coven in a single night is still impressive.” His voice carried a measured weight. “We’ve been chipping away at covens all over New York, but places like this…” He glanced toward the pulsing lights and shadows of Club Blood. “They keep the bloodline fed. Fresh recruits served up on a silver platter. Kids who think this dark, murderous life is something beautiful and brooding.”

He shook his head, the gesture edged with quiet disapproval. For a brief moment there was pain in his words but like every other time, the emotion vanished as quickly as it had surfaced.

“Still,” he said after a pause, his tone sharpening with purpose, “maybe we can make something happen here tonight… if we work together.” A faint, almost challenging curve touched the corner of his mouth. “You can call me Blade.”

Joey's brows lifted slightly at the name.

"Blade," he repeated before shrugging faintly. "Well, cooler than Rat Pack I guess."

His gaze drifted briefly back toward the club entrance, watching the slow shuffle of the line beneath the red bulb before he pulled his attention back to the hunter.

"Well, we kinda figured the place for a vampire den. Kinda why we're here."

He scratched lightly at the back of his neck again. "Some of our friends are already inside. They got bit at Coney Island and figured they could pass for interested recruits."

His mouth twitched faintly. Under his breath, he added, "Not my favourite plan."

"So... Umm, ideally whatever happens next happens before that story gets tested or they decided Vampirism's a lifestyle choice." He jerked his head towards the club. "So you usually do this loud, or is there a quiet way to ruin a bloodsucking convention buffet?" He shrugged again. "'Cause I'm pretty sure whichever version doesn't end in a riot or the city on fire."

Alaric looked at Joey and grinned. "We should be able to keep the fires to a minimum. Our very own Calypso can help with water flow."

He looked to the others in the group and settled back on their visitor. "Blade it is then. Two of ours are already inside running surveillance. They’re feeding intel to our telepath on the best place to enter. Once she contacts me with a visual, I’ll open a gate, a teleportation portal, directly into position."

His tone remained even. "We can walk right in and surprise the vampires. You know them better than we do. Join us."

“Telepath? A portal?” Blade’s expression slipped again as the pieces finally clicked into place. He studied them a moment longer, suspicion giving way to recognition. “You’re telling me you’re mutants? …Yeah. That actually explains a lot.”

Kennedy pointed to each member of the team in turn, rattling off their codenames like a roll call. “DarkFang. Rat Pack. Calypso. Artemis. We’re members of the X-Men.”

“No shit,” Blade replied dryly. For someone who lived in the shadows, he kept a close eye on the ever-growing list of superhumans in the world. His gaze flicked over the group again. “Would’ve been helpful to lead with that.”

Before the conversation could slide into another round of introductions, a sudden image pressed into the minds of every X-Man present—the interior of Club Blood, clear and immediate. Over it came Jean’s telepathic voice, calm but firm.

~* 'Alaric, place your portal on the second floor.' *~

Alaric didn’t hesitate once Jean gave him the portal’s location. With an effortless flick of his power and a subtle twist of his wrist, space itself seemed to fold open in front of them. A shimmering tear formed in the air, widening into a portal that revealed a scene already tipping into chaos.

On the other side, the interior of Club Blood pulsed with blinding lights and thunderous, bass-heavy music that reverberated even through the opening. The air beyond looked thick with motion, bodies shifting, lights flashing, and on a balcony ledge just inside the portal, a handful of vampires had already begun to snarl and bare their teeth, agitation spreading among them like sparks catching dry tinder.

Blade stood still for a moment, eyes narrowing as he took it all in. He assessed quickly, the positions, exits, threats, while also noting the quiet precision of the X-Men at his side. He saw what they brought to a fight like this: coordination, power, and the kind of resolve that meant they weren’t backing down once they stepped through.

“Whistler,” he said, touching the earpiece briefly, his voice low but firm. “I’m going in with backup. Watch the doors and get ready to move.”

A faint crackle answered him, but Blade was already shifting his stance, ready.

The music from inside Club Blood seemed to swell, the pounding rhythm spilling out through the portal along with the scent of sweat and blood. The snarling vampires on the balcony had spotted them now, their attention snapping toward the sudden distortion in space.

Without another word, Blade stepped forward.

And with that, the vampire hunter and the X-Men crossed through the portal and into Club Blood.

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