INT.THE LAIR - DAWN
This room is a prison. Steel bars guarding the doors, a triangle of sunlight as a secondary measure, and the impassive figure of Blade standing just inside the shadows Whistler is next to him with a shotgun.
Against a shadow-darkened corner is a huddled figure. Blood is still splattered over her arms and neck but the deep cavity of her wound is gone, healed. She twitches and moans as something fights inside of her.
WHISTLER
It's
gone on too long. You know what needs to be done.
BLADE
Give
her another dose.
WHISTLER
Blade,
I'm sorry, but you should just have let her die.
BLADE
Another
dose, old man. A chance, like the one I gave you.
Whistler sighs and pulls a syringe out of his pocket. Blade holds Meg down, her fangs snapping at both of them, her eyes sightless with the thirst. They plunge it into the fat vein at her neck and she screams before collapsing.
The two men watch for a few moments, the sunlight tracing a path behind them. The figure on the floor is terribly still but if one looks closely, her skin is fighting between the terrible pallor of death - and life.
WHISTLER
If
this one doesn't work?
BLADE
Call
Karen.
WHISTLER
Who
is she? Another bystander? Why do you care?
BLADE
Just
another fool trying to hold back the night. Call her.
His mentor stares at him for a long moment, trying to determine what is going on behind that inscrutable front and then leaves.
Blade crouches next to the woman, her features contorted as the vampire strain within her fights with a cure that has always worked before. There might be some compassion in his eyes, or something entirely different.
INT.THE LAIR - EVENING
Blade is on a video connection with Karen, the hematologist from the first Blade, the one who discovered the cure. She is still pretty and the tiny scars at her neck are the only reminder of her own trip there and back again. She is wearing a white lab coat and appears to be at work in some kind of lab or hospital.
KAREN
We
haven't had any other reports of problems. Are you
sure
she wasn't bitten by a revenant or something we haven't
encountered
before?
He doesn't answer.
KAREN
(cont.)
You
have to be truthful with me. I can't fix what I don't understand.
Something crosses his eyes. Something that frightens him. The edge he walks upon is so finely tuned, between madness and safety. Revealing to another that he toed the line is difficult for a man like Blade to do.
BLADE
I
bit her.
Shock and then understanding.
KAREN
The
cure isn't based off of your DNA, which is unique.
It's
not surprising that efficacy would fall.
She reaches for a lab manual, already her mind is working on the implications of what he's saying.
KAREN
(cont.)
I
think I can alter the formula to account for the strain difference.
The
same procedure should work. And as long as she doesn't
go
into shock from multiple vaccinations.
BLADE
You
can cure her?
KAREN
I'll
need a little time. And a fresh sample of your blood.
BLADE
You'll
have it.
Karen stares at him over the line. Her dark brown hair is loose against her lab coat and one hand rises to it unconsciously as she remembers the horrors she witnessed at Blade's side.
KAREN
Is
the serum still working?
BLADE
Focus
on the cure.
He reaches for the off switch as she lifts one arm as though she could stop him through the connection. They both pause, caught for a moment in some shared wish to maintain their link.
KAREN
Blade…
BLADE
What?
KAREN
Be
careful.
He turns off the screen and sits there in silence for a while. Behind and below him is the black 1968 Dodge Charger that he has driven for years. The hood is open as Whistler is in the middle of installing new modifications. Weapons and security systems are all around them, painstakingly built up in the week after they came to New York.
This is his life, Whistler's life, and he's just done something that goes against everything they've ever worked for. He's created a vampire on purpose.
Against this backdrop, a woman's scream rings out, a howling shriek of pain.
Blade's face tightens and he grabs a sterile syringe and needle off of the countertop. Without looking down he stabs it into the thick vein of his forearm. Blood wells and then is drawn into the barrel as doubts cross and recross his face.
EXT.NEW YORK - EVENING
A group of vampires is lurking in the shadows of a seedier district. Like wolves, they are hunting prey, singling a human out from the herd and pulling them back into the darkness.
All are young. All are the half-breed products of a pure-bloods bite, not a single true-born vampire among them.
They are hunting humans and Blade is hunting them.
They've caught one as he approaches. An older man who whimpers as he is backed into a dank corner, begging for mercy and offering his wallet as though that would sate them.
BLADE
Time
for some pain, motherfuckers.
VAMPIRE
1
Take
a hike, asshole.
VAMPIRE
2
Wait, I'm
hungry and this one looks meatier.
Giggles from the group as they turn towards their new prey. A flanking movement as they try to surround him, Blade is unconcerned through it all, his shades hiding anything that might be going on in his eyes.
Seven vampires. One daywalker. It's not really a fair fight.
VAMPIRE
3
Take
him down.
The group lunges, hissing and snarling. Blade skewers the first and drives the startled vamp up onto his closest comrade. Locked together with silver they scream as they ash. The other five hesitate, and one realizes whose found them.
VAMPIRE
1
Oh
fuck! BLADE!
BLADE
You
just won the fucking lottery.
He punches Vamp 1 in the face and knocks him backwards against a wall. The other four share a glance and renew their attack, secure in their newfound strength. His katana shines with fire as he beheads two and slices the hand off a third. Tiny embers falling all around him in a strange shower of orange, red and the finally black dust.
VAMPIRE
2
Let's
get out of here!
He runs for it.
BLADE
Leaving
so soon?
From his belt he grabs a thin silver stake. With a single flip he sends it into the fleeing vamp's back. Ash crunches and scatters across the street only inches from the end of the alleyway. Blade nonchalantly stakes the handless vampire who is still screaming and turns for the last one, the only one who recognized him.
BLADE
(cont.)
Are
you ready to die?
Vamp 1 is trying to get to his feet, a little bravado left inside of him.
VAMPIRE
1
You
can kill me, but more are coming.
BLADE
Yeah,
yeah. Funny how that works. More come, and more die.
I've played this game before.
VAMPIRE
1
No,
man. Something bigger. Something that will take you out.
The vamp tries to go for a knife on his belt. His hands slow inches away and he looks in surprise at the silver stake that has gone through his stomach.
VAMPIRE
1 (cont.)
Too
bad I won't be around to see it happen.
BLADE
Hasn't
happened yet.
VAMPIRE
1
(Cackling.)
It
will. Go to LA and you'll see. There's a new plan.
Go…to….LA…
The ash starts slowly and then like wildfire races across the vampire's body. Blade retrieves the stake, wipes it on his pant leg and reinserts it into the holster. He goes and gets the other one and reholsters that.
The vampire's last words have hit something inside of him. There was truth in them. His entire purpose is stopping the vampires. If they think they have something that can stop him, it's his job to go and show them otherwise. Deacon Frost couldn't kill him, the Blood God couldn't kill him, the Blood Pack couldn't kill him, and Jared Nomack hadn't even come that close. Whatever they were cooking up would be just as easy to stop.
A new thought stops him. There's no cure yet for the woman.
Shaking his head he gets into his car. She'd known the wound was fatal and she'd known the risks of hunting vampires. His hand falls to the katana and imagines it ashing her to dust inside the prison room. The vision disturbs him.
There has to be a way to wait longer for Karen's help.
INT.THE LAIR - ALMOST DAWN
Blade pulls into the lair. It is quiet. Too quiet. He unsheathes the katana as he walks up the old steel steps. His boots don't make any noise as he creeps upward.
He listens. There is no sign of Whistler, no human heartbeat that he can detect, and there's no sign of vampires either.
He turns towards the prison and the strange sensation he feels from inside of it. The door is unlocked. Slowly he pushes it open.
The room is empty.
WHISTLER
She's
gone.
He spins, Whistler is bandaging a wound on his arm, the white cloth wrapped tightly around a long wound. There are bloodstains across the old flannel he's wearing and a smudge of it in his long grey hair.
BLADE
What
happened?
WHISTLER
She'd
been the same way all night. Laying there so quiet I thought
she
was dead. Went in to check on her about an hour ago. Anyway,
she
got the jump on me. I stabbed her but she grabbed the knife and
got
me in the arm.
BLADE
Did
you follow her?
WHISTLER
As
far as I could. What are you going to go?
Blade's face tightens. The choice has been made for him.
BLADE
I'll
put her down. You were right, old man. It should have been
done
that night.
WHISTLER
And
you shouldn't always listen to me. A little compassion
makes
me remember that you're half-human. I screwed this
one
up, not you.
BLADE
She
won't make it far with dawn so close.
MEG
Closer
than you think.
Both men whirl. Meg is standing shakily next to Blade's car. She looks awful. The blood of two nights earlier has gone black and flaky, smearing her skin with its brown remnants. Her eyes are no longer brown but the same amber shade as Blade's and this gives him a start, as though he truly is looking into a part of himself.
MEG
(cont.)
I'm
sorry, Whistler. I'm having some problems controlling
myself.
BLADE
Why
did you come back?
MEG
To
try and kill you. Or make you kill me…
Whatever
comes first.
A strange stand-off then. The three stare at each other in mixed disbelief and warring emotions. But truly, it is between Blade and Meg, as they are bound by something stronger than either of them understand.
BLADE
It
was the only way.
MEG
You
had no right. I asked you to leave me be.
To
let me die.
BLADE
I
couldn't. There is a cure. A way to save you.
MEG
But
it didn't work!
Her voice rises in anger.
WHISTLER
We're
working on it.
MEG
And
I'm a fucking vampire! You had no fucking right!
BLADE
You're
not under thrall of the thirst.
MEG
I
can feel it inside me.
(Her
hand thumps against her skin.)
I
can feel it.
BLADE
But
you can control it.
Meg is about to respond when a sudden flicker of light crosses the barrier of the window. It lances across her skin and she screams. Her skin is burning. She spins but the light reflects off the Charger's mirror. She is really screaming now.
Whistler hasn't moved. To him, there is no other solution to this.
But not for Blade, he vaults the stairs and lands next to Meg. She thinks he's come to end it and doesn't fight him, a strange sense of peace in her eyes as she waits for the killing blow.
He spins out of his long duster and wraps it around her in a single smooth move, pulling her out of the sunlight.
He grunts as Meg drives one of his own silver stakes into his chest. She fights with him as he pulls it out and throws it to the ground. Her skin is burned and blackened from the bout with the sun, obviously she has not gained his ability to daywalk, but the fight hasn't gone out of her either.
MEG
Do
it! Kill me!
Blade punches her so hard she flies backwards, almost back into the sunlight. He grimaces at the injury and walks so that he is standing over her. Whistler limps to his side as they look down at the unconscious woman.
WHISTLER
It
would be a kindness.
BLADE
Woman's
got no bloody patience.
He bends and lifts her over one shoulder.
WHISTLER
You're
not thinking about keeping her? Blade?
We
can't keep getting involved with strays.
Blade turns and grins Whistler a toothy grin.
BLADE
She's
better than a puppy.
He starts climbing back toward the top of the lair, Meg hanging loosely over his shoulders. Whistler watches him walk, a little angry, but more perturbed than anything.
WHISTLER
Puppies?
He better, sure as hell, not bring home any puppies.