LATE NIGHT VISITORS

The silence inside the inn was a stark, deafeningly quiet opponent to the contrastingly loud
roars of the storm outside; the pouring rain, along with the loud thunder, were sending
suppressed shivers down the two men’s spines.

They weren’t used to such strong tempests and being alone inside their own business was
making them slightly uneasy, for sometimes it was easier when there were other people
there, just as shaken as them; it gave them a reason to pretend serenity.

There was no reason to act calm that night, though. There was no one around to try to fool
with their façade.

But just as much calmness as customers would bring them, the brothers had to admit while
they tidied up the place as one swept the floors and the other cleaned the glasses that they
were just as grateful for the lack of guests. They considered that whoever was mad enough
to travel with such a storm would be nothing but bad news to them.

Peace could only ever last for so long, though.

The door to the inn was pushed open rather violently, which made them flinch harder than
the storm as its sounds sneaked in, two hooded figures standing on the threshold before one
—the smaller one —entered first, the other one still standing outside.

The shorter of the two brothers, brown long hair loose around his bearded face, broom
keeping his hands busy, approached the duo before the taller one could walk in and with
alarmed blue eyes, he spoke, “I’m sorry, folks, but we’re closed for the night,” He said
automatically, the lie slipping between his lips and sailing on his deep voice as fear took a
hold of him, not even bothering to look back at his older sibling to check his face for approval
for his lie or lack thereof. The fright that was apparent on his own visage was making him
look rather sheepish and meek, even if he looked buff enough to seem like a threat; the kind
of person that he seemed to be being a funny antonym to the body that served him as a
vessel.

The taller of the two moved the hood of his coat away, all while still standing outside,
revealing himself to be a man, seemingly in his forties, with some wrinkles around his face,
greying, short black hair, bushy beard to go along. “Come again?” He said, a bit incredulous,
his way of speaking somewhat effete and quite annoying as he basically yelled so as to be
heard. “The sign outside says you’re open.” He complained, pointing at the sign, grimacing
as rain hit him on the face, while his still-hooded partner quietly swatted at their own coat, as
if trying to dust themselves off.

“Well, the sign outside is wrong,” The older brother’s deeper, firmer tone was heard floating
throughout the room as he left his post behind the bar and came to stand next to the brunet,
black hair shorter than his younger sibling’s, but his beard even bushier, making his blue
eyes stand out more so, almost menacingly, perfectly in tune with his bigger body, taller and
more robust than his brother’s. “We are closed for the night.”

He didn’t look like a funny contradiction.

The older man’s gaze moved towards the second brother. He shuffled on his feet a bit as his
eyes scanned the tall man’s face, absentmindedly biting on his bottom lip as he frowned in
thought. Releasing his own flesh from between his teeth, he tried one more time, “My dear
gentlemen, can’t you make one little exception for just one night—”

“I think you did not understand me,” He said, his voice even lower as he scowled, visibly
annoyed, “I said we’re closed.”

He took one step towards the damp duo but, before he could get any closer to the man who
was standing outside, the other hooded figure got in between them, gently yet firmly
stopping him in his advance.

Feeling more aggressive than earlier at the apparent taunt, the bigger man tried to approach
them once more—

The hood was off in a second, revealing the young woman that hid beneath it.

And the innkeepers were both frozen in place at the sight of her.

Blonde hair that was kept on a rather high bun, a few loose strands framing her face which
had somewhat soft features to it, though the harshness of the character behind it could still
shine through, evident on the very faint yet still slightly present wrinkles in between her
eyebrows, the sole indicator that the woman in question did not smile much.

But it was not her face, no matter how pretty she was, what had paralyzed them.

It was her eyes.

Violet eyes weren’t a common sight, after all.

She was frowning at the tall man, a slightly bothered look on her face, “What seems to be
the problem with us staying, sir?” She asked, her accent surprisingly different not only to the
men in front of her but also to her companion’s; deeper and richer than her friend’s, thick
enough that the innkeepers could tell she was from some city other than the one near them,
but that was as far as they could gather from it.

The black haired brute was the first to snap out of it, “The problem is that you and your
partner here don’t know what no means.”

She let out a long exhale through her nose, her nostrils flaring as she did so, eyelids
drooping as she regarded him with a bored expression.

She opened her mouth to speak but then shut it, the man in front of her feeling as her eyes
went up and down his whole frame.

He knew she was assessing him.

She opened her mouth once more, this time not closing it before saying, “Listen here…”

“Reynold,” The brute conceded, crossing his arms in front of his chest, disliking her
consistent, evidently analytical stare.
She nodded her head only once, clearly unbothered by his menacing attitude, “Reynold,
yes.” She started again, “Listen here…” She trailed off once more, as if a thought suddenly
hit her, as if remembering something she had just forgotten.

She turned her head and looked at the man outside, “Walter, don’t be ridiculous and come
in, already.”

The man outside rapidly walked in, ignoring the angry glares he was receiving from Reynold
as he took off the long, black piece of clothing that had been protecting him from the rain,
hanging it on a coat rack that was placed right by the entrance to the warm-lit inn

The other brother quietly stared at the unwelcome visitor, noticing he was dressed in a rather
formal way for someone who was traveling, specially under such a weather; high waisted
pants as black as night, matching perfectly with his tie and shoes of the same color, his vest
of a lighter tone as it was more on the scale of gray, all of it looking so perfectly taken care of
that it was as if he had just bought the whole attire, his white shirt contrasting hard enough
against the darker tones that it brought out the paleness of his skin, the uncanniness of his
light eyes.

He noticed then that the man in front of him had one blind eye, the other one a very light
—maybe too light —tone of blue, both rather bloodshot.

The blonde had continued as the scrutiny happened, “We want to be here as much as you
want us to be here, but unfortunately we have no other choice,” She said, taking off her
raincoat, hanging it next to Walter’s on the coat rack, “We were on our way to the city when
the rain began and we knew it was only a matter of time before the storm took over. You
know horses are quite the scared creatures, don’t you?”

Reynold opened his mouth to reply—

“Our horses are even more terrified of nature than that!” She said, as if he had replied,
quickly cutting him off. “They’re too respectful of the power of natural laws, unlike the rest of
us commoners.” She didn’t take her eyes off him as she took a step towards him, “So, since
our horses are already safe in your stables, we will proceed to spend one night and one
night only in your cozy inn, if only to let the storm pass before we resume our travels, much
more safely than they’d be if we were to hit the road right now.” She offered him a
tight-lipped smile, “Doesn’t it sound like a solid plan?”

Reynold glared at her expression, narrowing his eyes as seconds ticked by.

“Brother,” The slightly smaller man tried to intervene—

“Where are you headed to?”

She raised one brow, the fake smile erasing itself from her face, “Where am I headed…?”

“We’re in the middle of a crossroads, here.” Reynold replied, leaning in and over her, trying
to look intimidating as he towered over her, giving her a quick once-over as to make a
statement; he knew they weren’t just commoners. “Where are you going to and from
where?”
Her expression deepened, her eyebrows lowered, her frown on display with all of its strength
as she completely disregarded any and all threatening behaviour from the man in front of
her, “My personal affairs aren’t of your business.”

“Your personal affairs are my business when you’re in my inn, at this time, with this weather.”
He growled back, disliking the fact that she did not cower at his sight, not even budging one
inch. “Especially so when it’s your kind under my roof.”

The smaller brother gulped.

At some point while the blonde talked with his brother, he had realised that she wasn’t trying
to taunt them nor laugh at them. She didn’t like messing around, it seemed.

He watched as the boredom of her expression turned to something else; annoyance.

He feared she was not one to mess around, because she was not someone to mess around
with.

“So you know what I am, don’t you, Reynold?” She said with a darkness to her voice that
hadn’t been there before, the only apparent change in her as her expression remained as
neutral as ever. Eyes lazily placed on him, though they were clearer than before in a way,
she took a step forward, seeing through the man’s pretense with ease, knowing very well he
was scared and had just been trying to hide it. “Should I be concerned?” She asked lowly,
allowing only him to listen, taking another step, “Should you be concerned?”

She kept on advancing on him, surprise clear on the other innkeeper’s face as Reynold’s
composure fell apart, evident on how he started walking backwards to keep distance with
her until his backside hit a table, leaving him trapped between the object and the woman in
front of him, already a few meters away from the other two.

Blue eyes widened as violet ones narrowed. She didn’t move her gaze from his, she had
already seen everything there was to see on Reynold’s face; there were faint scars all over
it, getting deeper on his nose and mouth, though the latter ones were hard to see with his
bushy beard. She had already noticed he was wearing a long sleeved, deep blue button
down, perfectly hiding his big arms behind the fabric, probably to not display the uncountable
scars on the skin beneath that she was certain he had.

She sensed his hand coming up between them, his fingers grazing the wooden cross that
hung at the long end of the rosary he wore around his neck, something the woman who was
cornering him had already seen as she was giving him that initial once-over.

“Should I be concerned?” He echoed quietly, the faint tremble of his voice being heard only
by her as his eyes scanned her face, ever so unreadable, before moving to the rest of her.

The seconds between his question and her answer seemed eternal as he stared, taking
quiet note of her attire; the black pants, boots, corset and gloves, the white shirt, its first
button undone, matching in tone, in style with her companion.

“You either laugh at us or fear us, Reynold,” She responded in a low voice, “And I don’t see
you laughing.”

She could hear his breath quivering.

She held his eyes there for an instant before the predatory gaze that had taken over
dissipated, giving way to her calculated calmness. “I’m not here for you. Let us sleep here
tonight and we’ll be out of your hair first thing in the morning.”

A small mercy from her behalf was the best deal he would get, he realised.

Reynold nodded his head, “Okay.”

Upon seeing him agree, the woman backed off, giving the man room to breathe. “We will
need two rooms.” She said louder, allowing everyone to hear her as she turned to look at
Reynold, speaking over the rumble of the thunder outside.

“I’ll book you in, right away.” Reynold said, regaining his composure quickly as he started
moving towards the counter.

“You don’t have to.” She responded, the sound of her voice making him slow down to a halt
and look at her. “We won’t stay here for more than a sleep.”

“I do have to,” He replied, moving once more, getting behind the bar. “I can’t give you a room
without booking you in.”

The woman stared at him, her eyes slightly narrowed. A beat of thunderous silence passed
by before she spoke, “Mister Knight,” She said without looking away from Reynold, “Could
you please bring our bags inside?”

“Right away, madam.” Her companion replied.

She then turned her head, looking over her shoulder at the younger innkeeper, “And you’ll
help him with that, won’t you…?”

He was staring at her and his brother before she addressed him. “Griffith.”

“Griffith,” She repeated his name, as if ensuring it remained in her head, “You’ll help mister
Knight with that.” She said, not letting him disagree with her before turning her head once
more.

Reynold watched as mister Knight opened the inn’s door and walked outside, his brother
following him.

As soon as the door closed, the blonde spoke again.

“This is the first time an innkeeper is so adamant on booking me and my driver in.” She said,
her eyes still on him. “We’ve stopped a few times before and not once did they even ask for
our names.”

“I’m sorry, madam,” Reynold replied, “I wouldn’t care much either but these are the rules
now.”

She caught that. “Now? Did the rules change recently?”

And he looked at her like he wished he could bite off his own tongue.
The blonde sighed and placed her forearms on the counter, clasping her gloved hands
together. “Reynold, correct me if I’m wrong here, but considering that you know I’m a
huntress and I know you’re a werewolf—” She noticed the way he flinched when she said it,
“—I think there’s already a lot of bad things that I shouldn’t know which I’m currently aware
of and, despite it all, everything remains just fine.” She narrowed her eyes, “Do you really
think it can get any worse than this?” She raised an eyebrow, “That I’m going to go around
telling people whatever it is that’s got you so wound up?”

Reynold looked away, suddenly very interested in the glasses that laid empty around him. “I
guess you’re right. I’m sorry, I,” He sighed, “I’m nervous.”

“You reek of fear,” She told him, “You might think the tough, bad guy act that you try to pull
works but it just makes it very clear that you’re terrified.”

He looked concerned, “Does it?”

She nodded. “You’re not really fooling anyone.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“What isn’t?” They heard Griffith’s voice as he heard his brother’s reply, both him and Walter
entering the inn with their belongings once more.

Reynold pointed to his left, “Go leave their bags in room one.”

“And two,” The blonde added, earning a look from Reynold that made her look back at him.
“My driver and I won’t be sharing.”

Nobody moved until the older innkeeper looked at his brother, “As she said. One and two.”

As soon as they were out of sight, the blonde spoke once more. “We’re deviating from the
point here.” She warned with a raised eyebrow. “What’s going on in Gyfford that makes you
so nervous?”

He looked at her with worried eyes, his eyebrows furrowed and a sigh that escaped him
through his nose.

She sighed as well, “Right.” She sat on one of the stools that stood to her sides, “I’m
traveling from Beyrseagh to Gyfford.” She opened her hands, displaying her palms, her tone
calmer, though it hadn’t been necessarily rough before. “There, I already told you something
that I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

The man seemed confused, “Why wouldn’t you?”

“That’s already asking for too much, Reynold,” She warned once more. “What I’m trying to
do here with you is what I call a vow of trust.” She explained, her eyes a bit wide as she
stared at the innkeeper, hoping he was following. “I’m telling you something important and, in
exchange, you do the same with me. We both know something that can harm the other and
promise not to use it against each other.”

He didn’t seem convinced. “And how do you know I won’t tell anyone what you just told me?”
“Because I have the information you may give me as a warranty. If you break the vow, I am
no longer obliged to keep it.” She raised an eyebrow, “Does it sound good enough for you to
tell me whatever it is that’s so worrisome?” A thought hit her head, “And before you try to
keep it a secret, please remember I know about your lycanthropy and you could say that’s
part of the vow as well.” She glared at him, a warning in her violet irises, “Hide information
that might spare me an inconvenience and I will share information that might give you one.”

“Alright, alright, you didn’t need to threaten me,” Reynold said, clearing his throat after the
string of words he had let out in a very high pitch, “I’ll tell you.”

The blonde focused on the tall man as he got comfortable on his side of the counter,
mumbling out a small ‘thank you, gentlemen’ as Griffith and Walter walked into the room
once more and informed her they had already placed their belongings where they had to be.

“A few weeks ago, some guards came to the inn and told my brother and I that the city of
Gyfford is under a strict lockdown; no one can go in nor get out of it. They’ve told us all
establishments that are within the city-state’s jurisdiction are under strict orders from the
governor to keep a record of every single person who they serve.” He pulled out a heavy
book from underneath the counter and placed it with a loud ‘thud’ on the table.

The woman didn’t even flinch.

Griffith did, a little.

Walter just blinked.

Reynold opened the huge book and started flipping the pages, showing the huntress what
he had written there in the past. “They want to know names, last names, where they’re
coming from, final destination and whether they travel together or not.” He pushed the book
towards her, letting her inspect it. “They also wanted us to write down physical descriptions,
but I told them we weren’t doing that because it felt like too much.”

She reached the last page that had anything written on it and read the names on there,
“What did they say to that?”

Reynold shrugged, “Nothing, I guess they knew it was no use arguing with me there. They
just glared and left.”

She looked him in the eye. “And did they ever come back to check whether you were taking
notes or not?”

He nodded vigorously. “Every single day. They check the book, ask some questions about
the people who stayed here and then they inspect the place like a murder just took place.”
He scoffed, “I think they’re hoping to find something I haven’t reported.”

She looked slightly uninterested as she kept on reading names, “Has it happened before?”

“No, but they did make my day a pain once when I had forgotten to write an old man’s last
name.”

She read the book. “This Charles over here?”

Reynold looked at the book where she was pointing and nodded his head. “That’s the one.
Poor guy was just going to a little village nearby to visit his daughter. They bothered me
about his last name for a whole day until I paid enough that they left.” His eyes narrowed, “It
didn’t even matter that Charlie’s a regular here and does that same trip every now and then,
they wanted some kind of retribution anyways.”

“Sounds to me that these guards are just trying to find excuses to profit out of all this.” She
raised an eyebrow. “Is the city really under a lockdown?”

“Oh, it is.” Reynold said, his expression grave. “News are there’s a killer on the loose who’s
been terrorizing everyone there. They can’t find him, hence the lockdown; to try and corner
him at some point.”

“How did you find that out?”

“Gossip always manages to find its way out the streets and into everyone’s mouths.” He
looked at one of the glasses he had nearby and toyed with it a little. “On a normal day, I
wouldn’t believe rumors, but considering the extra care the guards seem to be having…”

“Right,” She thought about it for a second, “And the inspections outside the city are
because…?”

“Official report is because this is the law, always has been and even if we’re not in the city,
we’re in its territory, so we should abide by it. My opinion is that the governor is desperate to
find something on this guy.” He shrugged, “They hadn’t cared about this particular law ever,
why care now?

She nodded her head, her expression still as neutral as ever, “I can understand why you
think that way.” She pushed the book back to him, “And I also understand why you have to
book us in.”

“I’m sorry, madam,” He said, genuinely feeling the way he spoke, “But it’s the rules.”

“And we must abide by them,” She said, “Alright, tell me whenever you’re ready to write and
I’ll spell it all out for you.”

The man grabbed a quill and waited for her instruction.

“Victoria Drawn for the first room, Geoffrey Steamfold for the second one.”

Reynold raised his eyes from the paper and placed them on the violet ones that were staring
right back, his quill still in the air, the fact that the driver’s name didn’t match the name she
had used to call him before being the one thing that prevented him from writing.

The woman didn’t waver. “Do you need me to spell out the last names?”

He started writing, ignoring the shocked glare he felt on the side of his head, knowing very
well it was coming from his own brother. “No, I think I got the message.”

The woman simply smirked.

“Arrival from and departure to…?”

“From Nordend to Gyfford.”

He raised his eyebrows, “You want to leave a record of your actual destination?”

“I think I’m doing the both of us a favor by doing that.” She said, narrowing her eyes, “It
would be quite suspicious, to say the least, if Miss Drawn said she was going somewhere
else but then she ended up entering the city, no?”

Reynold nodded as he wrote down the places she had told him. “You’re right about that,
madam.” He finished placing the information where it had to be set, “And what should we tell
them if they were to ask more about this ‘Victoria Drawn’ and her companion ‘Geoffrey
Steamfold’ who stayed for one night in our inn?”

Griffith cut into their conversation at that moment, “You should tell them the truth, perhaps!?”
He said, shocked at his brother’s deceitful behavior.

“He’s right,” The woman said, her eyes going from the younger man to the older one behind
the counter. “You should absolutely tell them the truth.”

The man raised an eyebrow, a bit wary. “The truth…?”

The blonde nodded. “Yes, the truth,” She smiled, “You could tell them a demon huntress and
her driver landed here on their way to Gyfford and, despite knowing your condition as a
werewolf, she decided to spare your life and go to the city under a false name and have
them laugh at you because of how ridiculous all of that sounds, before they take you in due
to lying to the authority and, therefore, obstructing the law, because no one in their right mind
would ever believe all of that to be true.”

She stared at Reynold for a second before looking at Griffith. Both brothers were looking at
her with horror all over their faces.

“That doesn’t sound very good, does it? Something about it lets you know it’s not going to
end well.” She smiled in a way that made it look like it pained her to pull such an expression,
“It’s like you’re asking for trouble.” She was grimacing, “But yes, you could say that,” She
made a pause, as if letting them think about that possibility. “Or,” She raised a finger, eyes
wide as if a revelation had just hit her, “You could tell them Miss Drawn is a private
investigator from Nordend who’s going to Gyfford with a permit slash invitation written by the
governor himself to aid with the pursuit of the killer that’s on the loose,” She said, her eyes
locked on Reynold’s. “And regarding Mister Steamfold, you could tell them he’s just her
driver, but he’s granted entry to the city as well, thanks to the same piece of paper that
grants Miss Drawn entry.” She shrugged, “They’ll find it hard to believe but, once they ask
their peers at the city’s entry and they tell them about this woman who showed them that
same permit you mentioned, they might let you be.”

Reynold nodded, looking a bit nervous about the whole thing. “Might?”

“I’m not sticking my neck out for any of those cretins.”

“So we have to trust you blindly?” Griffith was glaring at her, his eyes big and brow furrowed,
his fast breathing and his stuttering mouth evidence enough that he wasn’t necessarily
angry, he was actually dying of nerves. “We have to trust some mad woman will manage to
enter the city with no problem at all and no one will come after us because they won’t find
out she’s trying to pull a ruse?”

She gave him a no-nonsense look. “Yes.”

“And how can we be so certain that you’ll manage?” It was Reynold who had spoken then,
his tone softer than his brother’s. “I don’t mean to doubt your word, madam, but we don’t
have a way to know this will work.”

She offered him a small, tight lipped smile. “That’s the thing about the vow of trust; you can
never know for certain whether you’re getting betrayed or not. You have no choice but to
trust it.”

“You’re trying to cheat us,” Griffith said, “You know more about us than we do about you.”

“You know my driver’s real name is Walter Knight,” She responded. “You know I’m a demon
huntress that comes from Beyrseagh and is on her way to Gyfford. You know I’m going to
enter the city under a certain name, with a permit allegedly written by the governor which
claims I’m a private investigator that’s coming from Nordend to help with some murders. You
know I gave you false information.” She narrowed her eyes at the younger brother, “If you
think you don’t know just as much about me as I do about you, then you haven’t been paying
attention.”

“Is Victoria Drawn really your name?”

She looked at Reynold, “That’s not information you’ve earned the pleasure of knowing.”

“You know mine and my brother’s.”

“And I don’t know your last name, but you do know my driver’s.” She got comfortable on her
seat, facing Reynold once more, “Look, I know what I’m asking you to do might feel like a lot
and like it won’t work out, but trust me when I tell you that it will. I do have a permit that
grants me access to the city, no matter the lockdown. The guards that come tomorrow will
doubt you, but the information will check itself out. If you still doubt me, you can always tell
them you didn’t believe me, but the storm prevented you from warning them about me.” She
leaned back a bit, “If you end up needing to do that, I won’t take it as a violation to our vow.”

Reynold nodded, “Okay—”

“No!” His brother intervened, moving closer to them, clearing his throat to make his voice
return to its normal pitch. “It’s not okay,” He said, looking at the tall man with concern before
looking at the blonde, “How are we supposed to trust that you won’t come back to kill him?”
He was breathing rapidly, “Or that you won’t tell anyone about him? How?”

The woman didn’t lose her patience, not even the smallest bit of it.

Still as calm and collected as ever, she turned on the stool to face Griffith. “Correct me if I’m
wrong but, since your brother immediately knew the line of work I’m in just by looking at me,
I’m assuming he has met one of my colleagues before.” She got comfortable on her seat,
“Had he met one of my colleagues in the way he feared he was meeting me tonight, we
wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Griffith was a bit lost in her words. “Why?”

A certain annoyance gradually dripped into her tone as she leaned forward and replied,
“Because you’d know we’re far more straightforward when we want to kill a creature than to
request service while acting aloof, because your brother would be dead.” She sighed and
looked at Reynold, “In your life, how many times did you bump into a hunter here in your
inn?”

“That I know of?” The woman nodded in reply to his question, “Once. You.”

“And how many times in your life did you bump into a hunter?”

“Twice.”

“And how old are you?”

“Forty.”

“Don’t you think that if you were actually in danger, you’d already have found out? Don’t you
think that me tricking you into trusting me, just to send another hunter here to kill you is a bit
too elaborated of a plan to simply hunt down a werewolf that I could just kill myself?” She
didn’t react to the way both brothers flinched, “Don’t take this the wrong way but no one
cares enough about you to come and hunt you down. Since you’re still alive, you can rest
assured no hunter knows about you, even if you’ve met another one before so, please, do
me a favor and stop being so scared of this situation, alright?”

Reynold frowned at her, shaking his head as words stumbled one over the other to come out
of his mouth, “But you know and that other guy saw me on a full moon—”

“And didn’t kill you. In fact,” She quickly gave him a rather exaggerated once-over, “You’re
still in one piece, so I would bet that you didn’t even fight against him.”

Reynold looked at her, eyes wide, mouth slightly open.

She held his stare.

Without breaking eye contact, she unlatched a pouch that hung from her belt and dropped it
on the counter, the impact opening the already loose bag a bit and showing it was full of
gold.

It seemed to wake him up and finish convincing him. “It’s four coins for the two rooms.”

She took six out of the bag and handed them to him, “Two for the trouble of helping me out.”

“I still don’t buy it.”

She sighed at the sound of Griffith’s tense voice. Eyes still on Reynold, she spoke, “Pour me
a glass of wine, will you?”

Reynold immediately got to action.

“I’ll explain something very plain and simple to you.” As the tall man worked, she turned to
the shorter one. “Hunters certainly have a lot of passion for this profession, okay?” She
nodded her head, enticing her listener to nod his as well. “I won’t lie to you about that. We’re
on a line of work that people think is just an insane fantasy, because no commoner knows
demons actually do roam the Earth.” A pause, “Unless they have some direct link to demons
themselves.” She gave him a brief second to process the information, “So yes, you really
have to be invested in this line of work to keep up with it, but you know what else you need
to keep up with it, besides passion?”

Griffith slowly started shaking his head.

“Money.” She sentenced before quickly mumbling out a ‘thank you’ to Reynold, who pushed
her glass of wine towards her. “We need to make a profit or else there’s no way we can keep
the hunting up. Yes, a normal hunter would definitely kill a demon on sight, no doubt about
that, but they’ll always choose a demon whose head has a price over one who doesn’t and
do you know where you can find one of those wanted demons?”

Griffith, again, shook his head.

“In cities, because that’s where most people live.” She explained. “Demons are after humans
because they want to use them, consume them, torture them, abuse them, you name it.”
She made a gesture with her hand, indicating there were a lot of other different examples.
“The thing is, they want people. The more people are concentrated in one place, the bigger
the number of demons that will be attracted. The more demons are around people, the more
they’ll do those horrible things. The more they do those things, the more whispers of their
actions will be heard by the church.”

She paused there for a second, taking a sip of her wine and gazing at the glass, before she
looked at Griffith once more, “When the church hears about it, generally speaking, it puts a
price over the demon’s head to encourage hunters to track it down and kill it.” She looked
tired of the conversation already, “In short, demons live in cities, because humans live in
cities, so hunters will always go, practically exclusively, to cities. It’s not normal for a demon
to live where there’s no humans, let alone in isolation, pretty much like you and your brother
do. It’s even rarer than that to find a demon who lives in isolation and has a price over its
head, because there’s no humans for them to feast on, to corrupt.” She sighed, “So really,
how possible is it that there’s a hunter that knows about you and is looking for you?”

Griffith opened his mouth—

“And honestly,” She didn’t let him speak as she eyed the book Reynold had handed her
earlier. “I have a lot of reasons to believe neither of you is a threat to humanity and doing
things that would merit a search. In fact, I can tell your brother here is not a demon willingly.”
She shrugged, “I’m not going to kill someone who’s just unlucky enough to have been turned
into a creature, hence why we’re having this conversation right now.”

She drank a sip from her glass while the two brothers stared at her.

“So, now that I gave you an introductory class on demon hunting and population density in
rural and urban areas, is that enough to put your mind at ease?”

Griffith just stared at her slightly wide eyed. He blinked once, twice and then, after a brief
moment of silence, he turned away from her and walked out of the room, disappearing
through the door that stood on the wall behind the counter.
“Pay him no mind,” Reynold reassured her. “He’s just a bit shocked from all that’s happened
today, but he’ll be better tomorrow.”

“Aren’t you shocked as well?”

He re-filled her glass, which she had finished. “When you’re a werewolf,” He raised his
eyebrows, “You see some things on your nights out.”

“Right,” She grabbed the glass, “Like another hunter?”

He nodded. “Like another hunter, yes, indeed.”

She gave him an inquisitive look, “What gave me away?”

“Believe it or not, it was just your eyes.”

“I don’t find that too hard to believe.”

“No?”

She shook her head and took a sip of her glass. “If you see two different people with violet
eyes I think it’s obvious they’re bound to be related, don’t you agree? At least I’ve never
seen another person with these who didn’t share my last name.”

“Yes,” He frowned, “Which was what, again?”

She snorted, “Nice try.”

He clicked his tongue, “I was pretty close, wasn’t I?”

The woman laughed a bit, hiding her smirk behind her glass, before letting her expression
turn into a deadly glare. “Not even.” She took a sip, then placed her glass on the table. “But it
was cute to see you try.”

“You’re an expert on this whole thing, aren’t you? You know,” He gestured with his hands,
“The whole saying nothing about yourself and knowing it all about the others?”

“I wouldn’t say I’ve said nothing about myself.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. That’s why I disagree.” She took another sip.

Then silence.

Reynold looked away, feeling a bit awkward. “Alright.”

“Tell me about your encounter with my cousin.”

He looked at her, “Was it your cousin?”

She looked right back at him, bored. “How am I supposed to know?”

The man felt nervous, “It’s just that you said—”

“I know I’ve spoken very seriously up until now, but know that I’m able to crack a joke from
time to time, Reynold.”

His face was red, “I’m sorry, madam.” He sighed then cleared his throat, “I met him in the
woods one of my bad nights. I was going back to being human by the time he showed up.”

Silence.

His sentence made the air around them more tense, somehow.

“Go on.”

“He was after someone else, but his chase brought him to me and his prey disappeared.” He
looked around, nervous enough that he felt he was being watched, “I felt he was about to
change targets to not leave empty handed, but then the one he was after returned, so he
was gone after him.”

She frowned, “Another werewolf?” Upon hearing her words, Reynold nodded. “Where was
this?”

“In the woods east from here, to Gyfford’s west, between the city and this inn.”

“I see,” She said, frowning. “And what did he look like?”

His eyeballs moved up to the ceiling, as he tried to recall the memory of his encounter. “He
wasn’t too tall, but he was taller than you,” He narrowed his eyes at her, “Maybe by half a
head. His hair was short and wavy, a bit lighter than yours.” He brought his hand to his face,
his index and thumb pressing on his eyes. “Can’t recall scars or marks. He was fighting the
other one, so he was a bit beaten up.” He opened his eyes to look at her again, “He did look
a bit older than you.”

“And where did he and his target head off to?”

“I can’t say for sure, but I think they were moving to the west. Towards here, in a general
sense.”

She nodded once, a sort of period that ended the topic they were talking about.

“So your brother can’t turn into a werewolf?”

“No, he’s not one.”

“He is,” She corrected him, a raised eyebrow emphasizing the point she was trying to make.
”The fact that he can’t turn into one doesn’t change that.”

He narrowed his eyes. “And how do you know that?”

“Have you been settled here for too long?” She replied to his question with another question.

The inquiry took him by surprise. “All our lives.”

“And how long have you been a werewolf?”

“All my life.”
She focused all of her attention on him. “Tell me more about it.”

“It runs in my family’s blood,” He replied, “We’ve been affected for generations.”

“So it’s an old affliction that gets passed,” She stated, making the man nod. “Your father or
your mother?”

“My father.”

“Does he live?”

“He passed away.”

“Killed by a hunter?”

He shook his head, “By himself.”

The woman’s eyebrows raised millimetrically. “I was not expecting that.”

Reynold sighed and started cleaning the bar. “He wasn’t either, if we’re honest.”

“Why did he do it?”

“While transformed, he killed my mother. He couldn’t do anything to stop himself so when he

turned back to normal, seeing what he had done, he felt so guilty about it that he hanged
himself.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It happened long enough that it doesn’t hurt anymore but I appreciate your words.” A pause.
“He did teach us —me —about this disease and how to deal with it.” Another brief pause,
“And about the existence of hunters and to stay away from them.”

She nodded, her eyes wandering around the inn and landing on a wooden cross that hung
on the wall behind him. “Quite the religious man, aren’t you?”

“What makes you say that?”

She looked at him with a no-nonsense expression. “Rosary around your neck, cross behind
you on the wall.” She took a sip. “It’s an uncommon sight in inns. Stands out a bit too much.”

The man scratched his neck, “Well, it’s my inn,” He said, “So if I want to display my beliefs in
it, I will.”

“Like any good man of God would do.”

Something in the way she had said that struck him on the chest, but he paid no mind to it.
“God doesn’t forget those who follow Him.”

“There’s a rumour about hunters, something regarding us being of angel descent. Did you
know?”

His teeth were grinding together. “No.”

“You could say it’s mostly a myth, but the story is interesting.” She got comfortable on her
seat. “It says we’re the offspring angels and mortals, who come to the world to hunt down
the followers of Satan.”

He was paralyzed by the clear implications of violence behind her words, even if her tone
suggested something else entirely. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t keep cleaning the countertop,
his hand frozen like he was already a corpse.

Since no response came from the man, she decided to be really clear by saying, “You know
that due to your condition you fall under that category, right?”

“I am well aware.”

The tension on his body and tone clashed with her ease and her relaxed posture.

He had not imagined the woman that had appeared during the storm would be able to turn
the tables on him in such a way, let alone make him cower in fear while she loitered on his
counter.

She raised her glass, “To kill a man who’s as faithful as you in the name of his own God,”
She looked at him, “Sounds a bit twisted, to say the least.” She stared for a second, “And
ironic because you might be one of the biggest believers I’ve encountered in the last couple
of days and that wouldn’t mean anything. You’re just another one of His enemies in our
book, another demon for us to banish, forget about being considered anything but that, let
alone a man.”

“Right.”

“And yet here we are.”

He grew impatient, “What are you trying to say?”

“God’s not going to save you,” She warned, “The will of those you encounter may.”

The man poured himself a glass at her words and took a big gulp. The blonde raised her
eyebrows at him, but made no comment as he placed his glass on the counter once more.

A question struck her, then. “How do you deal with your lycanthropy on full moons?”

“I do what my father told me to do: I go into the woods and let it happen.” He told her ,”The
next day, I come back home and my brother nurses me back into humanity.”

She nodded. “I see.” He didn’t look too comfortable, “I will not kill you, Reynold,” She
sounded somewhat annoyed but mostly tired, “You can try to ease off a little.”

And he would have not believed her, his fears keeping him at bay on a normal day, but he
noticed the very subtle shifts to her demeanour; the faint softness to her eyes, the
understanding that was hidden all over her expression…

“How did you know I’m a werewolf?”

“These are things you know when you’re in this line of work.”
“So you’re not willing to tell me this either?”

“I just did.”

He sighed and took a sip of his ale, deciding to change the topic. “How come you have a
driver who’s blind from one eye?”

“Mister Knight might not be the best driver around but while I’m the only one crazy enough to
give him a job, he’s the only one crazy enough to work with me so we’re together in this,
even if my line of work is as risky for him as the mere thought of a partly blind driver is for
me.”

“So he’s not a hunter like you?”

“No, but he’s been around me for a while.” She took a sip, “I have no doubts he knew about
your condition right away as well, so if you’re trying to buy my silence with some wine, you’re
a little bit too late for that.” Seeing the look of discomfort on his face, she finished her glass
and placed it near his, “I think it’s high time we went to bed. Early start tomorrow and all
that.” She stood up, “Thank you for the drink. Good night, gentlemen.” She turned on her
heel and left, closing the door to her room after she entered it.

Locking it.

The man relaxed once her presence finished leaving the room, slowly starting to move again
to clean the counter, when he noticed the uncanny choice of words the blonde had made to
leave—

He flinched when he heard Walter’s room’s door closing with a faint click, out of nowhere, a
‘good night’ being quietly said into the room he was abandoning.

He had forgotten the woman’s driver was still there.

Considering it had been a far too long night, Reynold abandoned the counter as it was, with
two empty, dirty glasses lying idly on top of it, deciding that putting an end to such a night
was far more important than erasing the evidence of it.

Reynold woke up a bit later than usual, but still early for a normal person’s standards.

Something told him that maybe he should’ve, but he hadn’t expected the woman and her
driver to wake up even earlier than him.

He came into the main space of his inn only to find the eccentric duo leaving through the
main door with baggage to return a few seconds later, empty handed.

The blonde looked at him as she walked by, “Good morning,” She said, still moving to her
room, returning a moment later with the last of her belongings. “We’re already preparing for
departure.”

“That I can see,” Reynold commented, before frowning as he sniffed, “What’s that smell?”
“Walter cooked,” The blonde said as she made her way to her carriage while her driver,
already done with placing his stuff in their ride, moved towards the counter and pushed a
plate Reynold had not seen before towards the bouldering man.

“I made breakfast for all four of us,” He said, “We’ve already eaten, but there’s still enough
for your brother and you, mister.”

The innkeeper stared down at the delicious-looking plate with a raised eyebrow and slightly
widened eyes, before looking at the older man and asking, “You used my kitchen without
permission?”

The driver blinked, “I took some liberties, yes.”

Reynold stared at him for a second before sitting down and quietly eating the food on the
plate while the woman entered the inn once more, letting him notice something on them he
had not realized before. “Why are you both wearing your raincoats?” He asked, his eyes
darting from the blonde to her driver, who was even wearing the coat’s hood above his head.

“No more room in our bags,” She replied, “And they’re damp, so it’s not like we have some
other way to carry them either. We’re going to wear them and let the Sun dry them up.”

Reynold frowned at them, finding the couple to be rather weird, “I see,” He said, before a low
groan that came from behind him made him turn to watch as Griffith entered the room, low
sounds of complaint coming out of his mouth. Finding him a bit dishevelled, a hand on his
neck and a look of tiredness on his face, the older brother spoke once more, “Should I say
good morning to you?”

Griffith shook his head as he grimaced, “I slept awfully, my body’s sore, my head hurts and
I’m tired,” He said, massaging the back of his neck a bit with his hand. “I even feel dizzy.” A
pause as a frown settled on his face. “Where did that food come from?”

“I’ll make you some tea once they leave,” Reynold offered gently as Walter pushed the other
plate towards Griffith, ignoring his question.

The blonde caught his quiet order for her to leave, evident in how she quickly commanded,
“Mister Knight, please ready up the horses.”

He nodded at her and then, as he gestured to the brothers, letting out a quiet ‘gentlemen’ as
a sort of goodbye, he left the room and waited outside.

The woman approached the men who were sitting down by the counter, eating breakfast
with their eyes on her and spoke, “Well, gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure.” She bowed her
head just a bit, “We’ll get going now, so we won’t be bothering you anymore.”

Reynold shared a look with his brother and, clearing his throat, after a moment of silence, he
finally spoke, “We wanted to apologize for our behavior last night.” His brother nodded at the
sound of his words, “It was all completely uncalled for.”

“It was not right to react in the way we did, especially me.” Griffith added. “It’s just that you
were quite the surprise, last night.”

“Quite the unpleasant surprise, I know.”

They both opened their eyes wide, a bit embarrassed by her remark, “No, no,” Reynold
started, “We didn’t want to imply—”

“But I was a very unpleasant surprise, no matter what you tried or didn’t try to imply.” The
woman replied, “Don’t worry, I understand, no one wants to see themselves in the position
you both were last night.” She shrugged lightly, “It was uncomfortable for you, it was
annoying for me, but no one was hurt and we’re all here now.” She looked at them both,
“There’s no insult in the truth.”

“Speaking of truth,” Reynold said, dropping the subject there as he grabbed the record book
of the inn and placed it on the counter, “I want you to leave this place knowing we’ll remain
true to our word,” He opened it on the last written page and turned it around for the woman
to read, “It’s the least we can do for—”

“Sparing both of your lives.” She finished the sentence for him as she read the names she
had given him last night written on the page.

She didn’t have to look at them, she simply knew they had both gulped at that.

That was the thing about unwilling demons, she had learned; they just never dropped their
guards completely around someone they could call a threat.

To their eyes, she might be the biggest threat they’ve ever encountered, no matter how hard
she showed her uninterest in them.

She might as well have a little fun from time to time with their jumpiness, she thought, but at
the same time that wasn’t the kind of person she was.

At least, she wasn’t feeling like that kind of person at the moment.

She closed the book with a sigh before looking at them once more, “Thank you, but know
this was unnecessary. I saw you writing down the information I gave you last night.”

Reynold was a bit confused at her dismissive behavior. “But you couldn’t—”

“I could see what you were writing and I did. I already knew you were being loyal to our little
deal.” She informed him, then pushed the book a bit towards him. “And, honestly speaking,
you are the one doing me a favor here, you’re not repaying any kindness I’ve had or didn’t
have with you.”

The deep frown on his face showed exactly what he was thinking, what he felt; complete
confusion. “But you didn’t kill us.”

“Because I wasn’t even looking for you in the first place, I just happened to land here in the
middle of a thunderstorm.” She explained, raising an eyebrow, eyes droopy with what both
men thought was her signature look of boredom. “So no, I didn’t spare your life because I
didn’t come for it to begin with. You just happened to be kind enough to do me a favor.
Whatever reason you might have to help me out, that’s on you.”

They didn’t know what to say to her, seeming she always knew what to say to leave them
wordless, completely naked in front of her scrutinizing stare.
She continued speaking right as they opened their mouths to reply. “So, since I’m the one
who’s in debt here,” She looked down at herself, feeling the different pockets she had with
her hands, “Let me leave on a good note.”

They both stared as she patted herself down with a small frown on her face, clearly looking
for something and seemingly completely oblivious as to where she had placed it.

She raised her head and eyebrows as she looked to have finally found the right place:
whatever pocket was located on her chest, above her right breast. She moved her raincoat
out of the way and unbuttoned the small compartment that was placed there to take out a
piece of paper that was folded in four which she handed to the men.

Reynold grabbed it and unfolded it, revealing a very detailed drawing of a flower.

“Lycanthropy doesn’t run in your family’s blood, like you told me.” The woman spoke, making
Griffith’s eyes shoot up to look at her, “It’s not a disease; if only the firstborn displays the
most explicit of symptoms such as transforming under the full moon, then it’s the product of
a witch’s curse, not actual lycanthropy.” She told them, “Someone in your family must have
been cursed by one and then the curse simply got passed on, since it was never lifted.” She
looked at the older brother, then made eye contact with the younger one, “I’m assuming
neither of you have children?”

They shook their heads.

“Good,” She said, “So you’re both the last links of this chain, for the time being.” She felt the
way Griffith was staring at her, realized what he was thinking and immediately replied to the
unspoken question, “Yes, you are affected by this curse as well, even if the more evident
consequences of it aren’t triggered on you. If you had a child, your child would show the
same symptoms as your brother does. It’s always the firstborn.”

“And how can we break the curse?”

She looked at Reynold with a faintly pained expression, “You can’t. Witchcraft can only be
handled by witches and you won’t find a one who’s willing to help you without causing you
harm in some consequential way.”

The small glimmer of hope she had given them was instantly quelled.

“And what’s with this drawing?” Reynold asked, making a gesture with the paper.

“That flower on the paper is called wolfsbane,” The woman said, “It’s a rather strange flower
that grows naturally in some spots in the forests near the Strachan hills, up north.” She
patted herself down once more until she found the right spot, this time located on her left
thigh, and quickly took out a small purple flower that was a bit crumpled from being in her
pocket. “This one,” She said, handing it to Griffith and watching as the brothers looked at it,
then at the drawing. “I drew a reference of how it normally looks because this one is
practically destroyed by now, but it’s good for you to also see the colors it possesses.” Her
features eased into a quieter, calmer look, her eyelids lazily droopy as she talked in a more
familiar way, her voice softening slightly, “It won’t cure your ailment, it won’t lift the curse, but
it will lighten its effects.” She looked at the flower, then, “You must make tea out of its leaves.
Drink a number of cups a day for the first few weeks and you will soon notice the effects of
your affliction in your human form will lighten up; you’ll have less body hair, you’ll become
less aggressive, more prone to calmness…” She then raised an eyebrow, “And your
transformations will be far less aggressive, too. You’ll remember more about them than just a
few flashes.”

“I’ve never seen a flower like this before,” Griffith said with a tone of warning, allowing the
woman to quickly realize he was afraid of not ever finding it.

“It’s not normal to come across it, that’s for sure,” She admitted, nodding her head, “But
that’s mostly due to it being a mountain flower.” She raised an eyebrow, “You know we’re not
on a mountain, right?”

“Up north in the Strachan Hills you said, right?” Reynold asked her as he carefully inspected
the small flower.

“That’s right.” The blonde responded, “You’ll find a lot of it there and it’s a rather safe place to
harvest it. Be mindful of not taking every single flower you find, not only for others to be able
to use it if they need but also to let it keep growing.”

The youngest one hadn’t liked the sound of that. “A rather safe place?”

“It’s a flower that’s used for witchcraft as well, so I advise eyes wide open when you go
looking for it. I’ve found the ones growing in those hills are natural, not planted or looked
after by occultists, so it should be an area mostly free of potentially dangerous people.”

The woman stared as Reynold gently grabbed the flower from his brother’s hands and
inspected it with big eyes and a concerned look as if fearing the flower would disintegrate on
his hands were he not careful enough.

She placed her hands over his and his eyes immediately shot up to hers.

“Drink its tea.” She commanded, “As much as you can without getting tired of it in the first
month, then keep on drinking at least one cup of it a day after that.” She nodded her head
slightly, “It will help a lot with your symptoms.”

As he stared at her, unsure of what to say or how to react, she turned her attention away
from him and to the other man that stood in front of her, “You said your head hurts. Would
you say you feel rather lethargic as well?”

Griffith didn’t have to think his answer, “Yes, actually.”

She nodded in acknowledgement. “I’m no doctor, but judging by how pale you’re looking and
considering your other symptoms, I’d say you’re suffering a mild case of iron deficiency.” She
stated, “Eat more red meat these days, go out in the sunlight a bit and rest up, you should
feel better in less than a week.”

Griffith nodded his head, “Okay, I will.” He said, not daring to doubt her words.

“Thank you.”

She looked at Reynold once more.

He was looking at her with big, watery eyes, his huge frame looking small behind such a
vulnerable expression as he opened his mouth to speak again, as softly as he had done
before, “Thank you for all of this. I don’t know how to repay this kindness.”

She shook her head, “You don’t have to repay me, I was the one in debt, after all.” She said,
before conceding in a smaller, more hushed voice, “It’s a small gesture if we place it next to
letting Walter and I stay despite all your fears.”

He shook his head, unable to understand the woman in front of him. “Thank you, madam—”

“Keep the beard, the long sleeves, the rosary.” She cut him off as a thought hit her. “Hide
your scars and keep up the just-a-human disguise, try not to look too messy; take care of
your facial hair and make it look better.” She said, “Because your whole getup reeks of
someone who suffers lycanthropy and other hunters that may come across you will hunt you
down if they get a sniff of your condition, no questions asked.” She looked him in the eye,
“Don’t consider my actions today the norm, because they’re the only exception to it.”

The brothers both nodded their heads at the ominous warning before Reynold smirked and
spoke, “I will keep in mind that only Miss Victoria Drawn should be trusted.”

The woman shook her head, “I have no clue who that is, sounds invented.” She frowned
then, “But there’s this huntress…” She looked awfully serious, “Blonde, violet eyes, goes
around with a partly blind driver…” She pretended to trail off before looking at them,
“Clarisse Vanhaus I’ve heard is her name. You might find her to be an okay kind of person,
sometimes.”

Reynold chuckled, interpreting a message that had not been in Clarisse’s words. “Alright, so
we can trust in the Vanhaus.”

He hadn’t expected to hear her laugh at his response.

“Oh, dear,” She said in between a few chuckles as she walked outside, shaking her head,
turning her face to look at the brothers.

“The Vanhaus are the ones you should trust the least.”

With those words and without a proper farewell, she turned from the men and walked to her
carriage, her driver rallying their horses to start strutting down the road.
GRAND ARRIVALS
November 12th.

A storm hit Walter and I while we were on our way to Gyfford, so we had an enforced stop
at the first inn we came across. It was the Crossroads Inn which is located, of course, at
the heart of the intersection of all the paths that meet there: the one to the North which
lands in Nordend, the West one to Beyrseagh, South to Hekseir and finally the shortest
trail, East to Gyfford.

There we met Reynold and Griffith; two brothers with a lycanthropic curse that’s been
following them all their lives and their family for generations. They didn’t even know it
was a curse to begin with, didn’t know how it worked, the words said to cast it, didn’t
know a thing about it.

I sensed them immediately; the feeling was strong, it’s evident they haven’t got a clue as
to how to hide their essence. The symptomatic one of them (Reynold) already knew I was
a huntress based on the way I looked, on my eyes. I believe both him and his brother felt
my essence as well, but that’s not something I know for certain. All I could gather was
that he had met another Vanhaus before, therefore he was able to identify me by my
features, more specifically by the color of my irises.

After diffusing the tense situation that is bound to be generated when a demon
surprise-meets a demon hunter, we talked a bit and information was gathered. In short, I
believe Reynold has come across my father. While the description he delivered would
match any Vanhaus well enough, the fact this hunter was in Gyfford’s outskirts doing
something as uncanny for a Vanhaus as chasing a werewolf, of all things, is what tells me
it’s probably him.

Werewolves aren’t a common sight in Gyfford. It’s a city ruled by vampires, after all. The
occasional witch-produced one like Reynold and his brother —who live outside of the
vampire-infested city, helping their case —is fine, but for there to be another one,
especially one a Vanhaus had wanted to hunt down, it can only mean there’s something
else going on in the city, something darker than what’s on the usual program.

I believe it would take a series of uncanny factors for a man like my father to disappear.
He’s not someone who would just go missing and yet here I am, on a carriage, making my
way from Beyrseagh to Gyfford, because the man has just dropped off the face of the
Earth.

Anyone who knows me knows it would take a lot for me to abandon my personal crusade,
my duties back at my mother’s house just to return to my father’s.

The thing is, there’s a stark difference between dying and disappearing.

The latter is more disturbing.

She stared for a minute at the last sentence she wrote.

Clarisse had been keeping journals for many years, having mastered the ability of writing
literally anywhere, at any possible and available time; the swaying of the carriage, no matter
the terrain they were navigating, was never enough to make even the smallest of ink
droplets fall from her quill.

Unlike what many people who had met her thought, Clarisse wasn’t an introspective person.
She didn’t spend her time thinking, she didn’t have thoughts running around inside her mind
at a speed which she couldn’t match, she didn’t have anything but a perfectly controlled
calmness, a silent mind that would focus perfectly on the task at hand, working for her,
alongside her. She wouldn’t hear her own conscience’s voice at all times; her mind’s voice
had to learn rather abruptly, rather forcefully, to remain silent, unless she allowed it to speak.

Her head was mute, unless Clarisse deigned to sit down, give it a voice and listen.

And that’s why she would write.

Writing, she had noticed at some point, was a very powerful ability to have under one’s belt
when one was like her; it was the one time she’d listen to what the voice inside her head had
to say, only to let it out in the most sensible string of words she could come up with. At any
other given time, her mind was to remain perfectly silent, working alongside and for her, but
quiet, uninterrupting.

Obedient.

She wasn’t a cruel ruler, though; she’d never censor her thoughts, writing down whatever
she’d come up with as exactly as possible, helping herself by digesting her thoughts and
then writing them down as clearly as she could. The words on the paper would later on allow
her to analyze her own head, really listen to herself and act according to her own thought
process.

It was like a delayed conversation held with herself.

So, considering the rare nature of her thinking and writing, Clarisse really wasn’t a stranger
to moments like the one she was facing, where her own mind surprised her and left her at a
loss.

There’s a stark difference between dying and disappearing.

The latter is more disturbing.

She had never thought of the concept of a disappearance. It was one of those things, she
decided, one would face only when reality itself made them face it, something one couldn’t
grasp abstractly through sitting down and thinking, imagining.

She was surprised at the statements on the page, mostly because she fully agreed with
them, having absolutely nothing to say or to disagree with for there was nothing up for
discussion or debate: she completely accepted the fact that disappearing was far more
disturbing than death.
Being a Vanhaus implied a certain risk of dying, something she was aware of and okay with,
but vanishing was not something that was even considered a possibility, for it had never
happened before. A few of her relatives had died at the hands of demons, something quite
common despite not happening too often and, in the end, the result was rather certain;
death.

Her father’s current status as missing was new, not only for him but for the whole Vanhaus
family. It was the first time Clarisse had to face something as uncanny in her eyes as a
person simply disappearing and it was rather unexpected too because the man was a very
by-the-book player; he’d be in Gyfford, hunt the vampires that live in there, never really leave
the city, all the things that were normal for him and for anyone in her family, really.

But this time, you were out in the woods following a werewolf, of all things. Then, you were
gone.

It was a very not-by-the-books thing for him to do.

And all of that she had written and thought about was just regarding her father. She hadn’t
gotten to the things that were mostly about her.

There was more she wanted to write, more things that ran from one end of her mind to the
other, begging to be translated from a string of thoughts to the ink that carefully hung from
the quill on her hand, only to be plastered as words on the journal she carefully held, but the
carriage had just abruptly stopped and it had made her attention jump away from her writing.

She looked out the window and she realized they were already at the city’s entrance; a
towering gate on a carefully constructed stone wall stood right in front of her, along with two
guards, one of them was currently hostigating Walter with questions while the other one
stood a bit further behind, closer to the entry to Gyfford.

She opened the door to her left and, peeking out of the vehicle, she asked, “What seems to
be the issue?”

She knew perfectly what the issue was but Walter and her were creatures of planification;
they’d play out the parts they had rehearsed days before in Beyrseagh in order to enter the
city with a successful ruse, no matter what happened.

The question she had released into the air made both her driver and the policeman who had
stopped them turn to look at her.

“He’s asking for my identification but seeing it doesn’t seem to be enough to please him,
madame.” Walter said, displaying for her the document that named him Geoffrey Steamfold.
“He won’t let us through.”

She raised her eyebrow, before looking at the policeman, “And why is that?”

The man approached her, his expression neutral. “I don’t mean to disturb you, madam.” He
said in a monotone voice, “But the law is the law.”

“And we must abide by it,” Clarisse said, nodding her head, “But I’ve been to Gyfford several
times and this is the first time a police officer stops my carriage and denies me entry to the
city.” Her eyes were locked on his, “May I know the reason why?”
“The city is under lockdown for the time being,” He told her, “Police matters.”

And that was that.

Clarisse nodded, “Right,” She said, before chuckling, a smile on her lips and a shake of her
head, “Right.” She repeated, this time nodding her head, looking at him once more, pausing
before asking, “You’re new around, aren’t you?”

He looked rather offended, “Excuse me?”

She raised a brow, “Don’t you know who I am?” She then looked concerned as her brow
furrowed and her smirk faltered, “Weren’t you informed of my arrival?” She then looked a bit
annoyed, “I’ll have to talk to the governor about this.” She looked angry, “It’s unacceptable.”

“I’m not sure I follow, madam,” The policeman said, his brown eyes locked on her violet
ones, something like concern shining in them as his eyebrows creased and his mouth
formed a tight line.

“Of course you don’t follow,” She said, looking as if she were genuinely angry. “If you did,
you’d know better than to deny me entry to Gyfford.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but opted not to as he watched her go through one of her
bags, looking for something within her personal belongings while she mumbled out a string
of annoyed words, finally managing to find it and taking a rolled and sealed piece of paper
out of her bag, quickly turning in her seat and, with a flick of her wrist, practically swatting the
paper at him, offering it for him to take and inspect, her eyes narrowed and her expression
one of distaste.

The man quietly and rather awkwardly grabbed the offering, inspecting the neat dark red
seal and identifying it as Gyfford’s official mark before breaking it and reading the paper’s
contents.

As he advanced on the ink, his expression mutated from one of quiet doubt and concern to
one of focus, then one of shock and finally one of embarrassment.

“I believe the governor wouldn’t be too happy if he were to find out the investigator he asked
for was sent back the way she came because some policeman didn’t know who she was and
did his job poorly, now would he?”

The man shook his head rapidly, “No, ma’am.”

“Then stop mucking around and let us through.” She said, her tone stern and her brow
furrowed.

The man nodded immediately, giving her back the letter she had handed him before, “Yes,
ma’am.” He said in a tense tone, before jogging back to the city’s gates, opening them
without any more delay, his partner confused but obliging as he helped him open the entry.

As the carriage started once more, she settled on her seat and looked through the window to
the city that presented itself to her as they advanced on its cobblestoned streets.
Clarisse had no problem admitting she was a city-woman: she liked the architecturally
beautiful buildings, the grand markets on the busy streets, the carefully planned lighting that
made the scenery look warm at night, even on times when the stone was wet with heavy
rain’s produce.

Gyfford was exactly the kind of place she liked, with complex details on the different towers,
mansions, houses, stores, establishments that paraded for her on the carriage’s window as
she made her way through the city.

Then there were the people.

She ignored them as their frames appeared and disappeared while the carriage moved
forwards.

She had conflicting emotions regarding people. She had found she didn’t mind the sound of
mild crowds, of busy streets and popular markets on a weekend. In fact, she actually kind of
enjoyed the sound of people around her, sometimes.

People in themselves were a whole different story, though.

She didn’t necessarily dislike people, she was okay with them back in her city and in a
handful of towns and places she had visited in the past. Her issue was specifically with
Gyffordians. Entitled, preposterous and annoying were the first three words that came to the
forefront of her mind when thinking of how to describe them.

She had thought of, at least, twenty-seven other similar adjectives, but those were her go-to
ways to qualificate Gyffordians in just a few seconds.

And that was only what she thought of the human, most common citizens of Gyfford she’d
meet during her time there. She was doing her best not to think of the rest; the monsters that
walked alongside them, if only to use them to hide in plain sight.

And the demons, of course. How could she ever forget those?

Able to recognize every twist and turn the cobblestoned streets of Gyfford could offer,
Clarisse realized they were nearing the Vanhaus mansion, already.

The place was near the heart of the city, in one of its less occupied streets but still a busy
one, after all, as tall buildings rose around it, unable to mask the spacious land of the
mansion, contributing to the task of making it stand out even more, as the greenery that
flanked the small road that led from the main street to the building’s entry contrasted strongly
with the duller colors of the buildings around it, the gardens of other houses being its only
allies in the battle of colors.

Something about the building seemed to call the passerby’s attention, though it was
practically impossible to pinpoint what about it exactly had that ability to steal someone’s
focus; the place had grown old and no one had really taken care of it, the family’s mansion
looking outdated, anything-but-splendorous and yet it still managed to make people stop and
stare, something the newer, more looked-after houses around it didn’t seem to manage
doing. The old place still had its charm, always making anyone look at it twice.
Or maybe they were a bit disturbed by it, by how dark and uninviting, how daunting it looked,
no matter that the feeling of it was quite the opposite.

Maybe it had something to do with its owners, with the aura that being one of them brought
or with the unfortunate, usual company a family of demon hunters seemed to prefer, to seek.

The land that belonged to the Vanhaus mansion was surrounded by an iron fence which
ended on the main gates as the only way in, green gardens to both sides of the small road
that connected the street and the main door of the building, with bushes and colorful flowers
decorating the grass in organized patterns as it neared the mansion’s door. It made the
blonde raise a brow at them; they hadn’t been there before, those flowers. She knew they
were her father’s wife’s doing, for it would be all dead and rotten if it were up to the man’s
cautiousness and care.

Walter drove them both up to the entry and, as Clarisse exited the carriage, she saw the
door to the mansion open, a woman standing by the door.

She walked up to her, giving her a quick once-over as she did so; she was just as tall as her,
her brown hair slightly longer and a bit straighter, her hazel eyes expressing the tiredness
she felt, the wrinkles on the corners of her eyes, in between her eyebrows, her laughter lines
and a few gray hairs being the only indicators of her age, of how time’s passing had affected
her.

Clarisse could see beyond it, though; the slump of her shoulders, the exhaustion her gaze
hid behind a pretense of simple lack of rest, the absence of a smile, the missing glow to her
figure.

She was tired. Far more tired than Clarisse remembered her.

Still, there was awareness in her pupils as they followed the newcomer while she
approached.

She recognized it as the awareness that was typical of fear.

She gave Clarisse a once-over similar to the one the younger girl had given her, though
much more concealed behind her sheepish look and definitely not as analyzing; she was just
gathering what the passing of time had done to the younger woman, becoming familiar with
the image of her. “You came.”

“Well, you did ask me to do so in your letter,” Clarisse replied, a raised eyebrow and a fake
look of confusion in her expression, mockery in her tone, “Didn’t you?”

“Yes, I know, sorry,” The older woman said, shaking her head slightly, feeling slightly
inadequate.

Clarisse then eased off a little, aware of the silent implication of the other woman’s words.
“You weren’t expecting to have me here, let alone so quickly. Right, Aurora?” Clarisse asked
the older woman, the sound of her name keeping her attention on her.

Aurora’s eyes were jumping from one place to another, the brunette unsure of where she
should look, the girl’s stare too intense, too much like her father’s for her to look at her eyes.
She was a bit afraid of whatever she could ever find in there.

Had she looked, she would have found that she could see absolutely nothing but an
eternally rehearsed neutrality.

Sensing the woman’s unease, Clarisse turned to look at her driver, who was tending to the
horses, seeming ready to leave with them, her bags all out of the carriage already, “Walter,
what are you doing?”

He looked at the reins in his hands, at the creatures, then at Clarisse. “I’m taking the horses
to the stable, madam.”

She shook her head. “You’ll help me take our bags upstairs. We can take care of the horses
later.”

Walter’s eyes moved to the other woman, before going back to the blonde who was already
picking up some of her luggage, “But, madame, I wouldn’t want to overstep—”

Clarisse was already inside the house, “You’re not overstepping, I’m inviting you in.” A
pause, “Ordering you in.” She looked at Aurora, “Let me take care of this and then we’ll talk.”
She said, before disappearing into the mansion, Aurora nodded her head but remained by
the door.

Walter was still outside, his hands already on the remaining bags but his feet not even
inching closer to the entrance, eyes lost on the threshold.

Aurora’s eyes finally settled on him. Sensing his unease, she asked, “Do you need help with
that?” Her words made him snap out of it, making him quickly whip his head towards her,
eyes immediately finding hers.

“No, ma’am, but thank you for the kind offer.” He said automatically, a polite smile placing
itself on his face, a clear habit.

And remained still, eyes unfocusing on hers as they crawled back to the door, the threshold,
the Vanhaus mansion behind it.

Aurora was starting to feel awkward, “Okay, then,” She started, “Then go on and follow
Clarisse, if you will, Mister Walter.” She somewhat commanded him.

Her words, the gentle reminder he was not following the task handed to him earlier by the
younger woman, it was enough to finally and truly snap him out of the daydream he seemed
to had fallen into, so the dark haired man nodded his head, letting out a mumbled ‘Oh, right,
right away’, as he finally stepped in the house and trailed after Clarisse, following her
footsteps and the sound of her voice as she called for him.

He moved through the spacious mansion, his feet swiftly following Clarisse’s whereabouts,
his eyes darting from one place to another as he marveled at the old beauty the Vanhaus
manor proved to be, with paintings hanging from the white walls, the dark wood of the stairs,
the deep red of the carpet accentuating the warm colors within, the delicate structure of the
arcs and thresholds in each room.
He thought about how the mansion’s outside and its inside didn’t make much sense
together, as one was old and uncared for, seemingly holding up by the sheer willpower of the
building to survive, while the other was beautiful to a point that was completely
unimaginable.

The uncanny juxtaposition of mismatching inner and outer parts reminded him of his matron
a bit.

He climbed the stairs and reached the second floor, finding portraits that hung from the walls
of the landing, all through the halls, flanking the doors that appeared as one walked. Moving
towards Clarisse’s voice as she said ‘I’m right here, Walter’ to guide him towards her, he
took a left and walked all the way down, passing by the portraits of many people with the
same peculiar characteristics as his boss; blond, wavy hair and violet eyes, all of them done
from the waist up, apparently organized according to the lineage; the ones closest to the
stairs were, judging by the style the portraits possessed, the colors, the fading of them, the
oldest in the family, the genealogic tree advancing as one walked through the halls, as the
paintings started to look fresher, newer.

He walked past the painting of a young man, no traits of time’s passing on his features, with
a calculating stare, no smile on his face, though he sensed an air of smugness to him. His
hair was slicked back and he was wearing a black suit with a white shirt, a purple
handkerchief peeking out of his chest pocket, a cravat of the same color decorating his neck.
He read the name on the plaque underneath the frame; Edward Vanhaus.

Moving past the man, Walter encountered the very last painting before he reached his boss’
chambers; one containing none other than Clarisse, her name written on a plaque in a
similar fashion than the ones before, only hers was evidently the newest, with Edward’s
being the immediate second in line, but still clearly much older than hers. She looked far
younger than she was, the portrait having been done quite a number of years before that
day. She was wearing a purple dress that showed off her shoulders, her hair up in a bun, a
fashion similar to the one she normally followed.

Her expression was quite different to the rest of her family’s, but still so evidently hers that it
spooked Walter a bit how the artist had managed to capture her so perfectly; Her brow was
furrowed in that expression she’d usually fall on that was the fine line between anger and
judgment, where the person on the other side of that stare didn’t know what to do with
themselves, for it was impossible to decipher what was going on inside her mind.

She did look a bit more on the angry side, though.

He entered her chambers, quietly putting the bag of hers he had carried on the floor as he
watched the blonde put things away in different drawers. His eyes wandered the room; it
was rather sober, he decided, much like his boss, one more time; white walls, dark wood
details and furniture, a double bed with deep red sheets and a matching color on the carpet.
Not many decorations, though he guessed it made sense, considering Clarisse didn’t really
live there. The room looked sterile, clearly cleaned recently, but also evidently empty for a
number of years.
“Will you stand there or will you lend me a hand?” Clarisse’s voice made his attention snap
to her, the look in her eyes directing his legs to move, to make him approach the woman and
aid her as she put things away, “Took you long enough.”

“Sorry, madam. Your family’s manor is a bit...” He apologized and lost the word he was going
to use, grabbing clothing from her luggage and handing it to her so she could continue
putting it in its place. “Intimidating,” He settled for saying after a second, watching Clarisse
nod her head in agreement. “He finally dared to ask, “The man in the portrait next to yours, is
he your father?”

She didn’t look at him as she continued with her task at hand. “Yes, that would be him. He
definitely doesn’t look that way nowadays,” She clarified, “Portraits get done when we turn
eighteen, so he’s far younger on the painting than he is now.”

“That explains the way you look in yours,” Walter said, his words making Clarisse freeze,
before slowly turning to look at him with a scowl. Upon seeing her face, he quickly explained,
“You look different, madame.”

His explanation didn’t work, her scowl still there, but Clarisse’s expression then shifted to
one of complete boredom as she spoke, “The thing that’s throwing you off a loop is the fact
that I’m wearing a dress on mine.” She continued with her task, “It was the last time I wore
one, in fact.”

“Not particularly fond of them?”

“I am, actually, the one in the portrait’s of my favorites,” Clarisse responded, “But I’m
extremely picky with them. I seem unable to find one that I really want to wear.” A pause,
“And they’re not the most comfortable nor suitable thing to wear when you’re in the line of
work I’m in.” She looked at him, “It's a little bit hard to conceal my work tools when there’s
not enough linen to cover them to begin with, no?”

The man nodded his head, “You have a point, madam.”

“Have you ever been to Gyfford before, Walter?” Clarisse asked him suddenly, changing the
topic.

“No, madam.” His reply was quick, familiar. “This is the first time.”

She looked genuinely surprised at his reply, her brow furrowed in a look of confusion, a
raised eyebrow emphasizing it on her expression. “Really?” The man nodded, “I thought a
man like you would have been to Gyfford before, once or twice.”

“Families like mine tend not to stray too far away from the city they’re from, madam.” He
explained.

“I know,” Clarisse replied, “But I thought maybe you didn’t care much for that and traveled
anyway.” She said, giving him a knowing look. “You know…” She trailed off, “Nordend isn’t
necessarily a fun city to live in. Not many interesting people to meet, either.”

Walter frowned at that, then raised an eyebrow.

Clarisse rolled her eyes, “Oh, come on. You know I’m not talking about you.” Then mirth lit
up her eyes. “And it’s not like you’re the most interesting man on Earth, either.”

“I always imagined you thought nicely of me, I must admit this discovery is not something I
will recover from anytime soon.” He said, before shaking his head as he replied to the
previous question. “Nordend may be boring and its people even worse,” He shrugged, “But
it’s home and home I stay.” A pause. “Well, I’d stay if I weren’t working for you, madam.” He
thought about it, “Actually, if I’ve learned about new places by visiting them, that’s all
because of you, madam. I would have always stayed in Nordend, had I not met you.”

She nodded her head, “I see.” A pause, “Politics are hard, aren’t they?”

He raised his eyebrows, his eyes a bit wide and a chuckle on his lips, “That they are.”

She chuckled dryly. “They are, indeed.” A pause, “And how do you find our manor? I know,
the outside doesn’t look as inviting, but do you like it now that you’re inside?”

“I haven’t seen such a beautiful place in quite some time.” Walter responded, “I didn’t know
your family had this type of money.” Upon Clarisse’s inquisitive look as a response to that
last statement, he quickly added, “The place looks…” He thought of a word, “Expensive,
madam.”

She thought of his words for a little, before nodding her head slightly. “I guess it does look
expensive, but don’t let it fool you, we’re not rich.” She turned away from him as she kept
organizing her stuff, “We stopped being wealthy a few generations ago. This is all just family
property that got passed on, inheritances and all that. Now either we work as hard as
humanly possible or we don’t see a dime.”

They finished putting her clothing away and Walter moved to the bag he had carried
upstairs—

“That one will be going downstairs again, I’m afraid.” Clarisse said before he could open it,
her eyes shining with mirth as she watched Walter’s face turn to one of tired annoyance. “I’ll
take it.”

“No, it’s alright, madam,” He said, already grabbing it, “I can move it for you—”

“It’s best if you get settled while I do it,” Clarisse said, taking the piece of luggage from him.
“Your room is on the other corridor, right at the end of it, like this one. Get your things there.”
She commanded, then left the room with her belongings in hand, only to bump into Aurora in
the hall.

“Clarisse—”

“Let’s go have this conversation in my father’s office, Aurora,” She cut her off, “I have to
leave this over there.” She emphasized her words by displaying her luggage to the woman,
who only nodded her head and turned to lead the way.

They moved rather quickly through the spacious mansion, the blonde not sparing a second
glance at anything in the rooms nor the walls as they quickly reached her father’s office, on
the ground floor; a room with a wooden desk in its interior, located right in the heart of a
spacious ambience that had shelves on three of its four walls, stacked with books while the
free one offered a view of Gyfford through a huge window. The wooden floors decorated with
a deep red carpet that rose the desk slightly above the rest of the objects in the room,
Aurora entered and stepped to a side, letting Clarisse in before closing the door behind
them.

“Let’s get straight to the point, shall we?” Clarisse asked as she walked towards the woman,
not bothering to let go of her belongings as one of her hands went through one of her pants’
pockets, taking out a folded envelope from it.

Aurora’s eyes on her, Clarisse straightened the envelope for the older woman to recognize,
violet eyes set on hazel ones. She then took out two pieces of paper from it; the permit she
had used to enter the city and a letter, addressed to a certain ‘Miss O’Callaghan’, written by
Aurora and signed by her as well. “Explain this to me.”

Aurora sighed, “Your father said to write a letter calling for your aid if he went missing.”

“Aurora.”

The woman stared at the blonde, who seemed not to blink.

“You’re not telling me a thing, really.”

“I know,” She said, before taking a seat on one of the chairs that were located around the
desk. “It’s hard to explain…” She began, trailing off.

Clarisse suppressed the sigh that wanted to escape her lips.

Aurora looked at her with fear in her watery eyes, “I’m scared for him.”

And then that sigh escaped her lips.

She let go of the luggage she was holding and put the letter and the permit away, moving
towards the woman and sitting next to her, “I’ll need you to explain the situation from the very
beginning and with as much detail as you can.”

She was met with silence, with a doubtful look, like Aurora was afraid of even opening her
mouth, fearful of what Clarisse might say to whatever she could tell her.

Clarisse raised her eyebrows, “I can’t help the situation if I don’t know what’s going on.”

Aurora nodded her head, a shaky sigh leaving her lips. “Your father’s been investigating
something for a few months now,” She began, “He didn’t tell me much about his discoveries,
but I could tell it was getting dangerous, more dangerous than what’s common. He was
coming back home with far more scratches than what was usual for him.”

Clarisse just stared with slightly narrowed eyebrows, demonstrating she was listening.

Aurora went on, “One night he came in looking like a corpse, Clarisse.” The woman let out
with a wavering voice, her face distorted into a look of pure horror, sadness. “He ran into his
study and started writing the permit for you to enter the city like his life depended on it before
coming out again, ready to leave once more.”
Clarisse’s brow was furrowed, her attention on the brunette. “When was the last time you
saw him?”

“That same night,” Aurora confessed, “He was about to leave, then he turned and told me to
write a letter to you and send you that permit if he was not back before two days passed.”

“So he’s been missing for three.” She saw the other woman nod. “Did he tell you where he
was going?”

Aurora shook her head. “He told me nothing, only to turn to you if things didn’t go as
planned.”

Clarisse sighed, laying back on the chair for a second.

She inhaled slowly, before exhaling at the same speed.

“As planned,” She repeated, eyes focused not on something within the room, but in her
mind.

The missing man.

Damn you, father.

She stood up, “Do you know how to get into his study?”

“I do,” Aurora said, “He showed me before leaving, said you’d need to enter.” She stood up
and walked to the window, closing the curtains, before moving to one of the bookshelves that
stood on the walls.

Clarisse watched her intently as she tilted a series of books in a specific pattern, before
pushing on the wall, the bookshelf she had been standing in front of began moving
backwards and it revealed a passageway to its left, the wall hollow on that area.

Clarisse and Aurora entered the hole in the wall, the former grabbing her luggage and a
candle as she did so and the latter closing the entry by pushing the bookshelf back to its
original position. “The lock resets whenever the wall reaches its rightful place”, she
explained, before walking ahead, grabbing the candle from Clarisse, “Follow me.”

They walked through the narrow hallway then down a set of stairs until they reached a
spacious room, which Aurora lit up by using the candle’s fire to light some torches that hung
from the walls of the dungeon-like space.

Clarisse’s eyes inspected the room carefully; there were three walls composed solely of
bookshelves, two of them containing books of theology, demonology, metaphysics and other
different yet related disciplines. The other one was occupied by records on different clans
and families of both demons and demon hunters. The last of four walls had different
weapons hanging on it; crossbows, swords, knives, darts, anything the man would ever need
to do his job. On the corners of the room, mannequins with different pieces of clothing which
would provide armor and conceal it at the same time, under folds of linen.

In the middle of the room there was a big bureau with two display caskets on its sides; one
containing all their holy artifacts, the other one containing all the unholy ones.
There was dry blood scattered all around the place.

The feeling of both light and dark energies in the room, each of them so strong they seemed
to perfectly neutralize each other, leaving a tranquility in her senses that Clarisse could only
compare to that of the eye of a storm.

“Would you mind leaving me alone here for a minute?” Clarisse asked, “I’d like to look
around.”

Aurora actually looked thankful for the request, “Not at all,” She said, moving towards the
stairs once more, “I’ll wait for you upstairs.”

“Don’t bother,” Clarisse said, leaving her bag near the weaponry the room had on display, “I’ll
go to you once I’m done.”

Well aware she was no longer needed nor wanted in the room, Aurora left, though Clarisse
held still until she heard the older woman’s departure, how she opened and closed the
secret passage.

She took a look around the place and tried to take a mental note of all things that were out of
place; the most obvious was the blood that stained the floor, the desk, even the chair by the
bureau. As her eyes wandered around the place, the noticed some other things; there were
a few papers thrown around the place, some crumpled and some simply abandoned, like
someone had been trying to write a letter but the right words never came, the frustration
making them discard it all with a certain violence, rush, desperation.

She slowly approached the bureau, scanning everything that was on sight; there was ink on
a few of the pages, while others were perfectly empty. All of them had blood that she could
only assume was her father’s, decorating it all with red dots here and there. Abandoned, to
the left of its wooden surface, a candle that seemed to have been consumed by its flame.

She stood by the desk’s chair and noticed the drawer on the right was slightly open,
revealing the contents in it; bottles containing wax beads of different colors, a spoon for
melting them over a flame and several different seals.

She opened the drawer a bit more.

There were a lot of seals. She recognized Gyfford’s coat of arms in one of them, then saw
Beyrseagh’s, Nordend’s, she even saw a few that belonged to cities she had never been to,
then there were some she had no clue what they could represent.

She ignored the other seals, picking up Gyfford’s and giving it a closer look: It was stained
with dried, red wax on one end, bloody fingerprints on the other.

She placed it on the table and closed the drawer. She picked up all the papers that were
scattered on the floor and placed them on the desk as well, taking a seat as she did so.

She took out of her pocket the permit that had allowed her into the city and placed it with the
rest of the papers, along with the letter Aurora had written for her.
Taking a look at it all, making sure all items were in place, Clarisse sighed through her nose
and slowly took off the gloves she constantly wore, leaving them on the side, her eyes on the
pages in front of her.

A slow breath left her lips, her perfect pretense of steadiness making it sound constant,
solid, though she could still tell there was a slight tremor to it, the one that came from deep
within her soul, no matter how calm and collected she could be.

The one that appeared when she turned to a darker side of herself.

Her fingers moved towards all the things she had placed in front of her, her eyelids closed as
she braced for the contact.

The moment her hands touched all of those pages, flashes of memories struck her as fast as
lightning before she opened her eyes and came across a familiar image. The picture was
shifted ever so slightly, like a painting that’s slightly tilted to a side; she was still in her
father’s secret study, but it was tidier, cleaner, the atmosphere lighter. The place was dark
enough she couldn’t see until her eyes managed to adjust to the darkness, the torch that
Aurora had lit up for them and placed on the container on the wall gone, as if it had never
been there..

She heard the passage into the dungeon-like room open and, in a matter of an instant, she
saw her father stumble down the stairs with a torch.

Her father’s face, much older than she remembered it, was a bloody mess; his blood poured
from his broken nose and stained his face, the shadow of a beard on it, his mouth, his
clothes. His broken, bruised lip helped with the task of making a mess of himself, while the
black eye he sported impaired his vision, his other eye bloodshot and teary. He had red
liquid all over his blond hair, as if he had an open wound somewhere there. It was hard for
Clarisse to tell if he had any more wounds on his body, for his coat covered him from the
neck down.

She immediately guessed he was trying to hide the damage from Aurora.

The man placed the torch on the wall and stumbled around the place, leaving a red trail
behind.

Clarisse watched as he practically crashed against the bookshelf right behind the bureau.
She turned on her seat to look as the man searched for a book, picking one out, pulling it
out, before shaking his head with a frown on his face and placing it right back where it was.

She watched him repeat that process at least two more times before moving away from the
books, empty handed, his backside landing somewhat violently on the bureau, making the
furniture move along with him a bit.

He was frowning at the tomes in front of him, shaking his head slightly, like he was thinking
and everything that he could come up with was wrong.

He then turned his head to his right, to the bookshelf that was to the bureau’s and Clarisse’s
left. After a few seconds of consideration, he moved towards it slowly, as if he were
struggling to even drag himself to it.
Her eyes on his back, his daughter watched him as he remained there, standing as still as
possible —which wasn’t exactly a lot —, apparently staring at a few of the books in front of
him.

After a few instants, Edward moved away from whatever he had been looking at, dragging
himself to the bureau, the look of confusion he had been sporting looking suddenly less
dramatic, like he had found a certain North to follow.

She moved out of the way as if her presence in the room was real, watching as her father
took a seat where she had been and quickly opened the drawers to his right. From one of
them, he took out a few sheets of paper. From the other, a quill, ink and a few matches.

He lit the candle that was by the desk’s corner and, with the new source of light, he began
writing.

She leaned over his shoulder.

My daughter,

It is of utmost importance that you come to Gyfford right now.

Then, he stopped writing, his hand lingering in the air, his pulse perfectly unsteady as his
hand trembled.

With a sigh, he shook his head and crumpled the paper, then threw it to the ground.

Edward tried again, on a new page.

Daughter,

If you’re reading this, you’re needed.

And he stopped once more. A sigh, the sound of paper being discarded, a new page landing
on the bureau, the man being cautious enough to avoid getting the pages stained by the ink
of his quill, as if he weren’t staining them all with his own blood.

A new attempt.

Daugh

He couldn’t finish the word ‘daughter’ because he was already throwing away the page and
trying again.

Clarisse watched as her father tried time and again to address her on a sort of letter, only to
end up discarding them all.

It was only on the seventh attempt that he managed to finally try something different.

Clar

As he got to the middle point writing her name, he stopped.

He hesitated, Clarisse noticed. The furrowed brow, the controlled shake of his hand, the way
the tip of the quill was so close to the paper, all those giveaways told her he was considering
his options.

She knew exactly what he was thinking.

Finally, he settled for what he must have considered the safest bet, the option which Clarisse
considered was the only real option the man had;

Clarisse.

And then he stopped again, this time not out of hesitation but due to doubt.

Clarisse, for once, couldn’t really tell what was up with him.

A brief instant turned to seconds which eventually were cut off short by a drop of ink falling
from the quill and staining his daughter’s name, making it illegible and making him blink,
pulling him off whatever train of thought he had gotten into.

She watched as the man sighed once more but, instead of repeating the same pattern again,
he just dropped it all on the desk and laid back on his chair, seemingly still somewhat lost in
his own thoughts.

A few minutes passed as his eyes scanned the alternatives in front of him, something he
could see in his mind and Clarisse was ignorant to. Eventually he settled for one of his
choices and proceeded to act upon it; he sat straight, discarded the stained page and picked
up a new one, not before wiping his hands on his pants as best as he could. He breathed
slowly, deeply, calming down his beating heart and finally managing to minimize the
trembling on his hands.

Once he was more collected, he started writing once more, this time on a handwriting that
the blonde didn’t recognize as his own;

The government of Gyfford requests the immediate presence of private investigator

Miss Victoria Drawn in the city to aid in the pursuit of the killer on the loose.
Miss Victoria Drawn is to be granted entry to the city, this letter being her
safe-conduct as well as an authorization for her to dispose of all confidential information
regarding the crimes of the city. She is to be allowed entry to any and all reunions and
meetings in Gyfford, official or not, as well as to matters of the state, nevermind their
nature, as long as Miss Drawn sees fit. Denial of these rights will be considered crimes
against the city and its citizens and will be punished as such.
 Signed,
Charles Robertson, Governor of Gyfford.
She watched as Edward signed the paper with an intricate design, took out Gyfford’s seal
from his drawer along with some purple wax and proceeded to stamp the letter with the city’s
official symbol. Then, once he checked his creation and seemed satisfied enough with it, he
rolled the paper and sealed it with the same wax and seal, the man’s replica of Gyfford’s sigil
giving the permit a sense of validity that otherwise he feared it wouldn’t really have.

Finally done, Edward stood up and walked up the stairs, Clarisse not needing to follow him
as the scenery changed in front of her, the spectral vision shifting to show her what had
happened next.

He walked to the manor’s entry, Aurora trailing behind him as she appeared right outside his
office’s door. Seemingly afraid, the woman’s hand grasping forcefully a rosary she held,
tangled all around both of her hands’ fingers, she tried, “Edward, don’t go.”

As he reached his destination, he turned and looked at Aurora, “It’s not like I have a choice,”
He informed her, his voice deep and raspy, as if he had overused it. Moving closer to her,
placing his free hand on hers, he spoke again. “We all have a role to play,” Then, he offered
her the forged permit, “This one being yours.”

The woman’s look of distress seemed to deepen as she untangled one of her hands from
the rosary, using it to grab the paper. “You told me never to ask questions or I’d be dragged
into this world of yours. Now, you pull me to it?”

“I only need you to send this to my daughter in two days if I’m not back before then.” He
turned on his heel and walked outside, “She lives in Beyrseagh in her mother’s home so to
have it reach her, you will have to send a letter to Miss O’Callaghan, send it with your name,
don’t write anything else in it.” He looked at her, “Clarisse will know it’s for her.”

Edward then looked away, ready to leave, before he stopped himself and turned to Aurora
once more, “And before I go, my dear,” He said, “No one dragged you into this world of
mine.”

Aurora opened her mouth to speak—

“You walked right into it.”

And then, he left.

And as he walked away, the illusion turned to black.

Clarisse opened her eyes only to find she was down in the secret room, once more. She was
still sitting on the desk, having never moved from it, her hands still on the pages she had
placed on the desk.
She took a moment to collect her thoughts, to process the ghosts of memories she had just
witnessed and gather all the information that was there for her to learn from it, all while
putting on her gloves once more.

There were a few things she immediately picked up on, the first one being how much her
father hesitated throughout the whole thing, unable to rest long enough on one place that he
was already moving someplace else, a new thread of thoughts initiated on his mind.

She had never seen the man so full of doubts, unknowing where to go next, as if he were a
novice just starting on the job.

Whatever it is he was facing, it was something that is set completely out of his usual
encounters and has forced him out of his mold; something out of the ordinary for him,
something he has not seen before or hadn’t expected to see in such a form.

After processing that tidbit, she thought of how badly injured he was. It was common for
hunters to get wounded while working, but she had never seen her father under such
conditions, where he looked to be closer to his own coffin than to saying something along
the lines of ‘you should see the other guy’.

His foe was much stronger than anything he has faced before or, at least, stronger than what
he was expecting it to be, thus trashing him like that.

She then thought of how her father sat down to write asking for her aid but regretted it every
single time he attempted to address her.

Such was the challenge his foe presented that he had to ask for my aid but, at the same
time, he couldn’t address me directly.

But did he feel like he couldn’t talk to me because we haven’t done as much as perceive
each other in a decade or was that because he simply couldn’t afford the risk of writing my
name on a page?

He had tried several times, but had avoided mentioning her in the end, discarding all of the
attempts where her identity was revealed. In the end she was contacted, though she had not
been named, no letter nor permit addressed to her, all under pseudonyms, fake permits,
wives and ex-wives.

Such was the challenge his foe presented that he had to ask for my aid, despite being
unable to write down my name, creating the curious situation where I get a permit to enter
the city under a fake name, all handled by my father’s wife and sent directly to my mother.

And there was the fact that the city was under such a lockdown that she needed the permit
her father had forged for her.

What’s up with that?

She immediately ruled out the possibility of a coincidence, knowing very well the situation
that went on at Gyfford had all to do with her father and whatever haunted him.

But did you make up Gyfford’s killer for some odd reason or is this killer the problem you
contacted me about in the first place?
Easily checkable. Will ask Aurora.

After she finished going over what she had seen, her eyes wandered to the tomes her father
had singled out in her vision.

She stood up and walked to the bookshelf behind the bureau. Upon a first check, she
realized she was looking at books of demonology and occultism mostly, those which detailed
the creatures one could face.

Looking at them a second time, she managed to identify those touched by her father, his
blood staining their spines. She knew most of them very well and they were nothing special
nor out of the ordinary; just books that informed the reader about different kinds of demons.

There were two she didn’t know so well, though.

She picked up one of those and inspected it: the title read ‘In-Depth Knowledge of
Vampirism; Characteristics and Secrets of the Deadliest Killer’ and had been written by
someone she could only assume was her great-great grandfather or something like that. She
didn’t know, really, but the last name Vanhaus indicated they had to be related in some way.
It didn’t surprise her at all that her father possessed such a book and, as quickly as she had
picked it up, she put it down.

She then grabbed the other book she didn’t know and that one did catch her eye a bit more.
It was titled ‘Unknown Creatures of the Night’ and had been written by someone with a last
name different to hers. Opening it and skimming through its introductory pages a bit,
Clarisse realized she was facing a detailed list of uncommon creatures one could face, with
their more distinguished traits and abilities to watch out for; Ale and their easily-persuaded
minds, banshees and their wailing, dybbuks, drudes, cambions, incubi and succubi, selkies,
the list was surprisingly long and included demons Clarisse had never seen if not in books,
like familiars.

Witches stopped being so ridiculously obvious like a century ago.

As she continued skimming through it, she found a category she hadn’t expected to see in
such a book and stopped as she stared at it, at the few droplets of blood that had bled
through the page and clearly belonged to her father.

‘Werewolves?’ She thought in her surprise, frowning as she realized Edward had looked at
this book specifically for this section.

She ignored the portrait of a werewolf that covered half the page and read the introduction to
the chapter:

One may think werewolves are one of the most common creatures to
encounter but, truth be told, they’re actually of the rarest; pure lycanthropy is not
something widely spread, as most humans who possess the abilities of a werewolf
are either the result of a scratch or the consequence of a deal with a witch; both
treatable, curable. Real lycanthropy, the one originated within the monster’s heart,
is something not even Saint Raphael himself could ever take away. Both pure and
impure lycanthropy give the bearer the same array of abilities under the same
number of conditions. The difference between both lies in the behavior it handles
within the bearer; impure lycanthropy works as a disease, harming the heart and
soul of whoever possesses it, being treatable and possible to recover from it and get
rid of it. Pure lycanthropy works in the polar opposite way: the bearer benefits from
the condition, like it’s a mutation in their genes for a better life quality. As such,
it’s not something they could (or would want to) ever get rid of.

What condition defines pure lycanthropy from impure? Whether it’s a

condition given by the Dark Lord to its followers or it’s something else. If it’s not a
gift from Hell itself, then it’s a curse placed on the bearer by one of Hell’s
creatures, not placed for the bearer to benefit from it, but to suffer due to it.

She frowned at the text. The information it provided wasn’t necessarily secret. While it was
true no Vanhaus, her included, ever really thought of werewolves —or, rather, anything that
wasn’t vampires, her being the only exception to that rule —and therefore didn’t have such
information on the front of their minds, it wasn’t something they didn’t know. Just a bit of
thinking could easily lead any of her relatives to the same knowledge the book provided.

Why on Earth were you reading this?

She did recall that her father hadn’t lingered on that book long enough to claim he had read
it the same night he wrote her permit, though. Judging by the stains and remembering her
vision, he just pushed the pages around a little bit and let go of it, but she was certain he had
inspected it at some point previous to the night of her vision. If not, it was an extremely rare
coincidence he managed to only stain the werewolf section of the book.

Especially curious if I also remember you were chasing a werewolf outside Gyfford some
nights ago.

And then she recalled a moment in her vision when her father did linger for a bit longer than
just an instant.

Clarisse closed the book, put it away and walked towards the bookshelf to the bureau’s left.
She tried to remember the exact spot where he stood, guiding herself by her memory and
the bloodstains on the ground. She stopped moving where she deduced he had been and
looked in the general direction she recalled he had stared.

The tomes in front of her had family names, some she could identify as holy, then others she
remembered to be unholy: they were all the records her family possessed on other clans,
both of hunters and demons.

No book had her father’s blood as a clue of what had caught his attention, but the same gift
that allowed her to see into the past (or maybe it was the one that rendered her eyes violet)
offered her a helping hand in the shape of a hunch, directing her gaze to one specific tome
that called for her attention.

Letting her instincts guide her, she read the book’s spine.

Rooke Clan
A tale as old as time, like cats and dogs and all that, aren’t we?

She inspected the book, her gloved fingers caressing the letters she had just read: the book
was bigger than any other that shared a shelf with it, none of them coming close to even
competing with its size. Besides the name on the spine, the book was completely blank on
its front and back, both sharing the same shade of black, dark and uninviting.

Clarisse picked up the book.

No Vanhaus alive was ignorant to who the Rooke were: A noble family of the seventh circle
of Hell, the Rooke were of the oldest infernal clans, their name well known, owners of a
gigantic influence. They were one of the most powerful houses of demons that roamed the
Earth, their name feared by all who knew it; mortals, celestials and even some infernals.

In some ways, they were to Hell what the Vanhaus were to Heaven; an ancient family with
renown and power. Surely, they had their stark differences, like how the Rooke were
pureblood demons while the Vanhaus were mortals, barely within the category of celestials.
They couldn’t be considered perfect counterparts but one thing remained true, for apparently
all powers that existed seemed to have worked together to make it happen, albeit
accidentally; wherever one of the two families settled, the other one would eventually follow,
for the Rooke and the Vanhaus were to chase each other until the very end, where one
would triumph over the other.

It couldn’t just be a coincidence that the Rooke were a family of vampires and the Vanhaus
specialized on hunting that specific kind of demon, after all.

But not Clarisse. She didn’t specialize in that. She didn’t take after her family in that sense.

Nor in many —or any —other senses, for that matter.

That specific family feud ran in her blood, though, so she still felt compelled to open the tome
and inspect it.

The book was actually a registry of all members of the Rooke family, written collaboratively
by all the Vanhaus who had learned something new about one of them and could contribute
it to their records.

Each chapter belonged to a different family member and contained all the information
regarding them, along with their placement on their genealogical tree and a portrait so as to
be able to recognize them.

There were blank pages at the end of some of the chapters, space to be filled with new
information on the subject of the section, the ones with no extra pages being only the
chapters regarding long-ago slain characters.

She flipped through it, stopped at some portraits, read the name of some of the collaborators
(and some of the protagonists) and came to the conclusion that there was nothing of value in
that registry for her to learn.

So why were you staring at this big old thing?

It was not a minor fact that the Rooke, just like the Vanhaus, were mostly settled in Gyfford.
Mostly, because Clarisse was a Vanhaus and she didn’t live in Gyfford anymore, but she was
certain there was no Rooke hiding in Beyrseagh, where she had settled after she abandoned
her homecity..

She could only guess some Rooke had decided to emigrate and leave their shared legend
behind, as well.

It’s only fair, right? Considering we’re some twisted mirror images and all that folklore
regarding us.

But it didn’t explain why her father would stare at that book, for everyone knew the Rooke
lived in Gyfford since before the city even existed and, in the end, they were vampires, not
werewolves.

She thought about the way demons handled themselves in search for more information: the
strongest demonic clans would each settle on a city and rule it parallely to how mortals did.
While there was a governor in each city-state, there was also a demonic ruler, who’d control
the city’s infernal inhabitants just like the mortal leader would handle their subjects. Of
course, no mortal was aware of such a thing, with only those involved with demons being
aware of them, their presence, the fact that they were there. It was a case of two realities
coexisting in the same space, though one of them was completely oblivious to the existence
of the other.

Demons, on the other hand, were always perfectly aware of the mortals that surrounded
them, though. It was a one-sided knowledge.

The clan that ruled over a city would determine the type of demon that would hide along with
them on it: if the clan was composed of banshees then the city would be infested with them,
making other types of demon practically impossible to find because demons were
ridiculously territorial creatures. It didn’t matter if all came from the same pit of Hell; if two
demons didn’t belong to the same family or, at least, race, they’d compete until one
surrendered completely to the mercy of the other.

The Rooke were known to have always ruled over Gyfford, meaning vampires walked the
streets of the city when the Sun wasn’t out to keep them at bay.

She’d have to check her father’s registries, but Clarisse was quite certain no other creature
roamed in Gyfford; a Rooke would never be caught being kind with other demons, let alone
those they consider below themselves, specially lycans. As the only demon of mortal
creation, the only one without passive immortality, they were deemed as inferior by all other
monsters, especially those of noble blood.

So I really doubt your Rooke friends were involved in some way with the dogs you’ve been
chasing, Ed.

In the end, none of what Clarisse had found made any sense to her.

A sigh escaped through her nose as she put away the book once more.

She sat down by the desk once more.

Being who she was allowed her to feel things others wouldn’t feel. She could sense things
that had been sanctified, just like she could feel things that had been involved in demonic
affairs.

The items on the caskets to each side of the desk pushed and pulled her; those of holy
backgrounds seemed to call her, to calm her senses. Those with the darkest energies spoke
to her with a completely different tone; they repelled her, they tried to twist her heart. Had
she come from an infernal background rather than a celestial one, she’d feel things the other
way around.

As she abandoned that neutral spot she had been on and paid more and more attention to
all those different feelings, separating them one by one and letting herself properly feel each
of them, she realized one thing: between the darkest of sensations, there was one that was
not pushing her away.

It seemed to be inviting her in.

And it was curious, for it seemed weaker than the rest but, as Clarisse paid more and more
attention to it, she realized it was actually stronger than the rest, it was just acting weak.

Curious.

She had never felt anything like that before.

She stood from her seat and approached the casket that contained her father’s unholy
treasures, things he had stolen from demonic enemies and put away in what was deemed
the safest place of them all; his manor, a sanctuary where demons wouldn’t dare come in.

All other items on the casket might as well have been gone, for she didn’t even register their
existence as her eyes landed immediately on the one thing that had been emanating the
pulsing energy that called her attention: it was a ring, similar to a wedding band, though it’s
color was pure black. It had a small stone on its center; a green gem that seemed to glow,
ever so slightly.

She stared at it for a small instant. How come she felt this ring’s invitation? How come it
spoke to her soul, begged for her to approach it? It was something that could happen with
holy things, but it had never happened to her with an infernal object; those would always
scream at her to stay back.

She raised an eyebrow, then scowled.

You wish I would.

Feeling she had nothing else to see, she climbed up the stairs and out of her father’s office.
Once out, she walked past the staircase, straight from the room she was in to the one right
in front of it; a spacious living, with a window that overlooked the gardens and a chimney on
the wall opposite to it, long settees placed around it, a small coffee table right in the middle.

The blonde walked up to Aurora who stood by the window, eyes unfocused as she stared
outside, her mind elsewhere.
Her footsteps so silent and the older woman so distracted, Clarisse’s presence passed
unnoticed until she was standing next to Aurora, making the woman flinch at her sudden
appearance.

The blonde did not react beyond simply looking at her, one of her eyebrows raising
millimetrically.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” The older woman tried to pretend she had not
been scared by her sudden appearance.

“I’m not sure,” Clarisse responded honestly as she walked to the sofa and took a seat, her
breath escaping her in a loud sigh and the end of her sentence, “I guess not.” She put her
foot on her knee, her elbow landing on the armrest as her index finger came to rest above
her lips, her brow furrowed and her eyelids heavier than usual, a calculated laziness to her
violet eyes as she stared at the empty fireplace.

Aurora walked to the sofa opposite Clarisse's and sat down, “I doubt I know more than you
do,” She admitted, “But anything I can help you with, I will.”

She didn’t expect the blonde to snort.

“I don’t think you can help me, Aurora,” Clarisse said, a smile of mirth on her lips, “Let alone
want to.” She quietly commented and when she saw Aurora open her mouth to protest, she
continued, “I don’t think there’s much you can do, besides telling me anything you’ve seen or
know regarding my father and Gyfford’s current situation with this killer on the loose we
seem to have going on.”

She stared at Clarisse, the resolution she felt when she was ready to talk back dissipating
fast, leaving room for a certain impotence once more. “I told you what I know.”

She was met with silence.

The blonde’s eyes scanned her face, posing themselves on every single detail they found;
the corners of the older woman’s mouth, the wrinkles around her eyes, the length of her
eyelashes, all while her mind ran at the same speed as her pupils as she tried to think of
what she could be missing, what Aurora could do for her.

“You told me what happened the last night he was here,” She stated, seeing Aurora nod her
head, “What about the previous nights?”

Aurora’s eyes narrowed as she thought, the expression of concern never leaving her
features. “It was usual for him to disappear during the night. He’d leave for hours, sometimes
he’d be away the whole night and arrive at the crack of dawn, but that wasn’t really out of the
ordinary.”

“He left at dusk and arrived at dawn more often than not?”

Aurora shook her head, “He wouldn’t be gone that long so often, but it was something that
would happen from time to time.” A beat, “It did increase in frequency the last few nights
before he disappeared.”

Clarisse nodded her head once. “Did you notice something else?”
“Like what?”

“Anything you can tell me,” She replied automatically, “Whether he wore different clothes, if
his expression was different to what his common looks were, if he had any markings or
observable physical changes to his demeanor, whether he sported wounds of any kind…”
She trailed off, expecting violet eyes posed on Aurora’s hazel ones as she hoped her list of
things to look out for had sparked a memory on the other woman’s brain.

Aurora’s eyes weren’t on her face as she frowned, deep in thought. “He’d never leave the
house unarmed.”

“That’s common for us—“

“He’d be far more armed than usual.”

Clarisse closed her mouth slowly, before nodding. “What weapons?”

“He took more knives, some he didn’t even bother concealing with his clothes.” She was
looking around, lost in thought, “He started wearing his rosary more often, I think he even
took holy water and a wooden cross with him.” She looked at Clarisse then, “Is this helpful?”

She nodded. “Plenty. What about his clothes?”

“What about them?”

“Was there anything peculiar about them?”

Aurora thought it out for a minute, but then she shook her head. “Nothing.” A moment
passed, “He looked more serious, more stressed than usual. Tired, thinner, frustrated.”

It consumed him, whatever he was fighting against. “What about wounds? Did he have
any?”

Aurora closed her eyes, “He’d come with torn clothes, mud and bruises all over his body, but
I can’t recall anything particular—“

“There was too much blood in his study,” Clarisse cut her off, “It means he came in bleeding,
at least once.” Her eyes intently on Aurora, she continued, “A scratch, bite, slash, anything,
but he must have had an open wound at least once. Can you remember?”

Clarisse stared at Aurora as she played aloof, subtly putting the motive of her question on
her own deductive skills and the blood she had seen in her father’s study.

There weren’t many people who knew what she could do, the abilities she possessed. They
were secret and she believed that to share one’s secrets was to put oneself in the hands of
others.

She didn’t like the sound of that, for she knew others were to never be trusted.

She already knew her father had been a bloody mess that night but she needed to mask her
knowledge by asking questions she already had the answers for.
She also remembered he had been hiding some wounds with his coat and that popped
collar, so the truth was she was actually hoping that, by working Aurora’s memory a bit, she
might be able to remember something she hadn’t been able to see.

The older woman closed her eyes once more, trying to bring back the image of her husband;
his face, his neck, his arms and hands…

“…There were a series of gashes on his forearm,” She moved on in her mind, “I remember
seeing his whole back bruised once, deep slashes on his sides.” A beat, “Blood pouring
down his neck, but I can’t really remember exactly…”

She trailed off, seemingly disturbed by the images in her mind.

Clarisse’s inquisitive gaze softened.

“That will do for now,” She said, breaking Aurora’s trance as she stood up, walking around
the room slowly.

She had been told things she hadn’t been able to see, like the wounds on her father’s
forearms, the blood that poured down from his neck.

But that wasn’t really what concerned her at that very instant.

Clarisse’s eyes never left Aurora’s frame; she could tell the woman was shaken, afraid in a
way only someone like her could be.

Someone fragile.

With the pursed lips and the bottom one quivering, even if she tried to hide it. The furrowed
brow and the watery eyes that the blonde knew were most definitely accompanied by that
distinctive feeling of oppression within the chest, so characteristic of fear.

So she decided it was high time she changed the subject, if only to relieve the woman from
her suffering for an instant.

“Do you happen to know anything of what the governor’s up to?” She asked. “Any meetings,
public appearances…?”

The complicated expression eased a little, gratefulness shining behind hazel eyes at
Clarisse’s mercy. “He’s hosting a ball tomorrow evening.” She replied, looking at her. “Only
the influential families along with those of politicians and noblemen are invited. There’ll be
security all over the place, they want to make sure no one who doesn’t have a reason to be
there gets in.”

Clarisse raised a brow. “Seems unnecessary. People always sneak in, at least a handful, but
that’s just how parties go.”

“The governor has been adamant on not letting trespassers in.” Upon seeing Clarisse’s
continuous confusion, she explained simply, “Everyone’s worried about the murders that
have been going on.”

“What do you know about that?” She asked, swiftly moving to her seat again and leaning
forward, pleasantly surprised Aurora had driven the conversation there.
“There’s been a series of murders all over the city,” She started, “Murders and
disappearances. People get gruesomely killed or they just go missing, but there’s always
signs of struggle in their last known locations.”

Those last details were not things for someone like Aurora to know. “How do you know that?”

Aurora stood up and walked to Edward’s office once more, Clarisse following closely behind,
then watching as the older woman moved around the papers that were on top of her
husband’s desk. “Edward had hoarded every single piece of writing that talked about them,
from newspapers to police reports.” Her eyes widened, “Here,” She said, pointing at one of
the reports and leaning over, her eyes darting from one place to another, which prompted
Clarisse to move closer, stand next to her, look at what the other woman was pointing at.

“This report talks about a missing woman who lived alone in one of the residential buildings
downtown. Her neighbors heard noise coming from her apartment and warned the police. By
the time they arrived, the noise had quieted down a while before, but no one answered the
door.”

Clarisse hunched forward, leaning over her father’s wife’s shoulder to read the rest of the
report. “Upon lack of answer on the door, officer Malstone kicked the door down and
encountered an empty room that was thrown upside down. The small dining table was
knocked over, chairs broken and blood splattered all over the floor, walls and even the
ceiling.” She raised her eyebrows, “On the ceiling?” She grimaced, “A bit messy, isn’t it?”

“Much,” Aurora said, “And the description of the mess left there is similar to this one,” She
said, pointing at another report. “A couple, also from downtown, disappeared with no trace
left behind save for a destroyed living room with blood all over the place.”

“What do the newspapers say about this?” Clarisse asked, not expecting an answer as she
grabbed one of the few that laid on the table and inspected it.

“Nothing of value,” Aurora still replied, “But your father wanted to know what the general
public knew.”

“That there’s disappearances and it looks like it’s one killer on the loose.” Clarisse raised an
eyebrow at the paper.

“Your father suspected it wasn’t a simple killer, the reason why he collected the newspapers
and stole the police reports.”

“Of course it wasn’t, judging by recent events.” Clarisse said, “The man wouldn’t go missing
due to just a psychopath.”

‘Man wouldn’t go missing due to most creatures’, she thought, but knew she couldn’t voice it
to Aurora.

It seemed to her that it could break her.

“So he did some of his research here in the open?” She changed the topic, “Seems a bit
uncanny for my father not to hide everything.”

Especially from you.

“He wanted me to help.” She looked at Clarisse, “He thought my experience would prove
useful to determine the nature of the wounds in the murder cases.”

She raised her eyebrows, “Right,” She said, honestly surprised, for Clarisse had completely
forgotten Aurora had been a doctor before meeting her father, with the knowledge of an
apothecary and the ability of a surgeon, minus the recognition of one. The woman could see
awful wounds and not bat an eyelid, but she guessed it was different when the one sporting
them was the man you loved. “And did it help?”

“It did help in determining that the killer couldn’t possibly be human.” Aurora replied, “The
killed were slaughtered, with slashes all over their bodies and even some chunks of them
missing, like they had been eaten.” The older woman didn’t react at all to her own words,
while Clarisse raised her eyebrows. “Some wounds looked as if they had been done by
claws. Either the killer has a knack for replicating animal attacks to the point of even
committing cannibalism or it is not human.”

Clarisse slowly nodded, “Nonhuman, clearly. I don’t doubt there’s someone sick enough to
attempt all of that, but to do it so frequently without missing a detail?” She narrowed her
eyes, “Too perfect for it to be an act.” And before they could go back to talking about her
father, she continued, “So the governor is throwing a ball to put the eye somewhere other
than these killings and kidnappings?”

Aurora nodded. “Pretty much.”

Clarisse nodded her head. “Very well.” Eyes on Aurora, “Do you happen to know where I can
find a tailor nearby?”

Aurora was rather thrown for a loop, “A tailor—”

“I need someone who can fix one of my old dresses,” Clarisse said, “I won’t find a nice one
in just one day and I need something suitable for my needs so one of the old ones it is, but
I’m definitely larger now than when I was living here.”

“You don’t have anything other than the ones from when you were a teenager?” Aurora
asked, then frowned, “How old were you again, dear?”

“Dresses are not part of my usual wardrobe and I’m twenty-eight, Aurora.” Clarisse said
matter-of-factly, lazy eyelids as she gave her a bored look. “So I need to fix an old one to fit
me. Do you know who can do that for me?”

Aurora nodded a bit, still surprised at her husband’s daughter’s lack of interest in pretty
things. “You could ask old Jess, her shop’s three blocks up north, you will see a sign.” A
pause, “She’s worked with Edward before, so she already knows your needs when it comes
to clothing.”

Clarisse nodded, “Perfect, I’ll get to it right away,” She announced, turning to go to the door,
“Thank you for your help with all of this.”

“Not a problem,” Aurora replied, watching Clarisse’s retreating frame, her expression
scrunching up as she thought, as her mind recalled something she thought she hadn’t
caught.
And by the time the blonde reached the threshold, right before she was about to cross it and
leave the room, Aurora finally managed to put in words what she had thought she had
forgotten.

“Bite marks.”

The blonde turned to look at Aurora, the sound of her voice having been disruptive enough
in the quiet ambience that it almost startled her. “I beg your pardon?”

There was a serious air to her, dreadful concern making her expression serious, focused.
“The wounds on your father’s neck,” Aurora offered as an explanation. “They resembled bite
marks.”

And the quiet, contemplative look on Clarisse’s expression turned to one of deadly
seriousness, a certain resolve. “I must admit, I was awfully wrong at the beginning of our
conversation.”

Aurora frowned.

“You’ve been extremely helpful, Aurora.” She said, “You’re much more capable than what
I’ve given you credit for. Know that I won’t make such a mistake again.”

And before Aurora could open her mouth to reply, Clarisse turned and left.
FIRST ENCOUNTERS
November 13th.

Walter and I entered the city under our false pseudonyms, Geoffrey Steamfold and
Victoria Drawn, the forged permit in my power allowing us to override the lockdown and
to remain incognito for the time being.

My information on what’s going on is not extensive; there’s something on the loose in

Gyfford that’s terrorizing the city and it’s called my father’s attention. As he tried to fight
against it, he found himself unable to defeat it and forced to call for aid. Edward then
contacted me through veiled means and false names and, after managing to do so,
disappeared.

I believe his refusal to address me directly is just to give me an advantage; whatever is

killing all these people has no possible way of knowing there’s another Vanhaus in the
city, even if it had caught the letter Aurora sent to my mother. No Vanhaus was mentioned
in the message sent from Aurora Clerk to Selene O’Callaghan, people understood to be
mundane. Why would two women sending each other letters raise any sort of suspicion?

Those are the facts. Then, there are the questions. What could possibly harm my father to
the verge of death? Why would he be curious about werewolves, when this city is ruled by
vampires?

And then there are my dreams to worry about. My mind tends to be a blank slate,
darkness reigning during sleep, a consequence of my heritage. Due to it, when there’s
something to be seen in my dreams, it’s something I must pay attention to; depictions of
things that could come to be in the future ahead of me. Divination, I’ve found, is a curious
side-effect that comes with having the parents I have.

The visions always come in waves of three; I dream the same things for three nights, the
final time being the one I can remember the best, the rest being just blurry memories I
can’t finish collecting.

Last night, I had my third wave. The series of images I’ve seen are now as clear as they’ll
be; a dark night sky, a ballroom, myself dancing with someone for hours on end. The
sway seems eternal, rehearsed, like my partner and I have been doing that same
choreography for years and years, together, with certain animosity, like there’s no room
for tranquility, like we’re in the eye of a storm. Their green eyes, electric, appealing.
Dark, yet managing to be inviting, somehow.

Then the dream had changed and I saw something quite disturbing; myself, my wrists slit
open, my own blood used to paint symbols on my skin, a pentagram on my forehead, my
eyes white as I recite words in a language I’m not supposed to know or, at least, speak in.
I’d never seen anything like that before, it was quite a shocking first. Not something I’m
particularly fond of dreaming about. I guess it’s only natural for a hunter to dislike seeing
themselves in such tricky positions, I believe, even more so when the hunter in question is
me. Especially then.

Whatever that was, though, I can’t bring myself to care much about it. I keep leaving it
aside in my mind, as if it weren’t as important as that stranger with green, electric eyes. I
can now remember a strong jawline, prominent, high cheekbones, straight nose, no
wrinkles, cat-like features, an intense stare, black, long, silky and slightly wavy hair,
contained on a low, loose ponytail.

The dictionary definition of beautiful.

Female, I’m surprised to find, but there’s something not so female about them (her?). It’s
strange, for the word beautiful comes out along with the word handsome, I don’t really
know why.

I guess I’ll find out.

Tonight, probably.
Clarisse allowed the ink to dry as she put away the quill and relaxed against the backrest of
her seat, her eyes on the desk located within her old bedroom, on the last few words she
had written.

Dreams always left a sour taste in her mouth, they always made her feel uncomfortable, like
she had just seen something that wasn’t for her to witness, like eavesdropping a private
conversation, looking through a door’s keyhole, spying on someone that didn’t even suspect
her presence. She had learned to accept the inevitability of dreaming with time, the
aftermath becoming easier to deal with as time passed though it wasn’t easy, exactly.

She didn’t know what to make of her clairvoyance, one of her few secrets, the one she could
control the least. Surely, she had used the information provided to her by her dreams to her
advantage before but as prophecy after prophecy became reality she couldn’t help but
wonder; was she seeing something she could avoid, a future not yet written but possible, or
were these predictions already carved into stone, the consequences of the routes she would
take in order to fix the future she visualized? Only one thing she knew for sure; not once did
her gift fail at its task. Time after time, she had seen the hand that eventually got played.

A sigh escaped her through her nostrils as she laid back on her chair, a hand going to her
bare shoulder, rubbing a spot where a knot had formed, muscular pain being such a big part
of her life that she didn’t really feel it anymore.

Clarisse had seen horrendous things in the past. She had foreseen some creatures she had
gone up against, monsters and rites, sacrifices and suffering, flesh and blood and murder
and so much more. She thought she had seen it all in her dreams but she had never
glimpsed something so haunting like the prediction her mind had conjured the night before.
Herself with satanic symbology painted in blood all over her body, the devil’s tongue on her
mouth, on her voice.

She could think things through calmly, pick up the pieces of the future she had and place
them as she should, as if it was a puzzle her mind laid out on a table for her to solve.

This time, she found herself ignorant of where to place that one piece of the jigsaw.

And her mind being keen on shifting her focus back to the green eyed stranger didn’t help
with the task.

Her hand dropped from her shoulder as a frown formed on her face. What was it about that
other piece of the future that she seemed unable to think of anything else? Fixations were
not a part of her personality, yet there she was and there her mind went.

Maybe this stranger is more than what meets the eye, she thought. An obvious fact, she
realized, once the statement was conjured up by her mind.

Of course they are more than what meets the eye, was the line that came right after the first
one, along with a bored look as her eyelids lowered and her right eyebrow raised.

Of course she’s more than what meets the eye, she tested in her brain and Clarisse realized
she wasn’t certain that was the right pronoun.

They until further notice, then.

With a long exhale, she got up from her chair, to ready herself for the night.

“You can try and pretend you’re not shocked, Walter.”

“Sorry, madam,” He looked straight ahead once more, “I just had never seen you all dressed
up before.”

Clarisse raised an eyebrow at him, even though the man couldn't see her anymore, as he
looked ahead again.

The purple dress worn for her portrait —the only one she owned that was there in Gyfford
with her —had been taken to Jess, an old seamstress who had worked with her family on a
number of occasions, aware of the special arrangements the Vanhaus’ wardrobe usually
needed. With that in mind and Clarisse’s new size needs to meet, the woman fixed her outfit
in no time. She even managed to get Clarisse’s last petition in: to dye the dress’ fabric a
calm blue tone.

The night then had passed quickly, the evening of the event arriving practically in no time as
she readied up for it. Being who she was, Clarisse had to plan everything out carefully, even
alternatives if push came to shove; from something as banal as her outfit to something as
crucial as what weapons to bring with her in case she encountered the killer or some other
creature in the ball, something she was actually not really expecting to happen, though she
knew something would show up.

It always did.

So everything had been thought out in advance; she was going to wear the dress that
showed her shoulders and that she had worn for her portrait, she was to take a few knives
and a wooden stake with her which would all be concealed by the fabric, strapped to her
thighs and calves, the various openings of the dress’ skirt allowing easy access to them if
they ever became necessary. Hidden on the upper part of her dress within the corset, she
had some vials with holy water, strapped to the dress and concealed by being within a few
sort of pockets. Around her neck, a silky neckband with a silver cross.

The only thing she was uncertain about were the heels she was forced to wear; boots
weren’t exactly the most elegant of shoes, but the delicate ones she was wearing were
rather uncomfortable for anything work related.

She hoped fighting wouldn’t be necessary during her evening out. She’d take them off if
needed, but she didn’t really want to discard them, they were pretty enough she wanted to
keep them.

She knew losing them was kind of inevitable anyway.

She sighed and walked from the main entrance to her manor to her carriage where Walter
was already ready to ride away, his eyebrows still at the level of his hairline, when Aurora’s
voice calling her name had made her stop at the door, hand already on the handle, her head
turning to look at the older woman. “Yes, Aurora?”

“You remembered to bring your permit with you, right?”

Clarisse raised an eyebrow, “Of course.”

The woman nodded, “Okay, alright,” She looked away, her brow furrowed, lost in her
thoughts as if she were looking for something else that she wanted to say.

And then Clarisse let out a long exhale through her nose, her features softening as she
realized what was going on.

She’s nervous.

Scared.

“Worry not, Aurora,” She said, making the woman’s eyes land on her once more. “There’s no
scary monster that’s willing to face me on the dance floor.” She smirked, “I’m too good for
them.”

The woman by the mansion’s door stared, before her shoulders eased a little, her
expression calmer. “Your father would do that a lot,” She said, “Joke to assure me everything
would be alright.”

“I know.” Clarisse’s smirk was still there, “I learned it from him.”

“Do you do it, usually?” She asked, “Back in Beyrseagh?”

“No, it’s not my style. I find it a bit silly.”

Suddenly her smirk and the whole confident act, while looking perfectly genuine, felt empty.

“Then what do you do?”

Clarisse stared, the smirk faltering, her expression barely but slightly scrunching up,
confusion toning her features in a practically invisible way that only someone who knew her
very well could pick up on. Aurora simply felt something was off, but couldn’t pinpoint what,
exactly.

“I do nothing,” Clarisse replied honestly, “I usually don’t have to reassure anyone.”

It was Aurora’s turn to look confused, only it was far more evident on her face than on
Clarisse’s, “Then what would you tell your mother when you had to work?”

Her eyebrows rose millimetrically.

Ah.

Her features softening once more, Clarisse once again resorted to honesty, “I’ve never had
to tell her anything. She knows what I do, the risks it implies and that to voice any worry is
senseless for it wouldn’t change a thing.”

The smirk wasn’t back on, though.

Aurora was curious, “Is she in the same line of work as you and your father?”

“No.”
It was evident she wasn’t curious about Clarisse’s life, but about her mother’s. “Then how
come she never worries?”

“I know for a fact she’s aware there’s bigger troubles to worry about than whether her
daughter is reckless or not in a job but, in any case, supposing such weren’t the case, I
didn’t say she doesn’t worry,” Clarisse corrected, opening the door which handle she had
been holding, “I just told you she never voices it.”

She climbed on the carriage and, before closing the door and hitting the roof to signal for
Walter to drive away, she said one more thing to the woman that stood there looking at her
like she had two heads above her shoulders.

And, unlike Walter, not because of her dress.

“There’s worse things than death, Aurora.” She was looking straight into her eyes, “Keep it in
mind, especially when around a Vanhaus.” She smiled, though it wasn’t anything sweet,
“God knows we like to live risking an early departure from the mortal plane.”

Then she closed the door, banged her fist on the carriage’s roof twice and she was on the
road to Gyfford’s Palace.

Her eyes immediately darted to the window, her focus getting lost on the constantly changing
scenery as her ride moved forward and advanced into the night.

She hadn’t meant to sound harsh when talking to Aurora. It had been quite a long time since
she had had to deal with someone who didn’t belong to her circle.

Her circle being her mother, Walter and one or two other hunters she could tolerate, maybe,
and they weren’t around often enough for her to really consider them part of her circle.

And that was it.

A sigh escaped her through her nose.

She hadn’t meant to be so harsh with the poor, former nurse but she had been and she had
a feeling she only managed to make the older woman worry more, if such a thing was
possible.

I’m not good at people.

Because Clarisse knew she was good enough at it that she could act, persuade, convince
people and sway them to think, say or believe whatever she needed them to, but that was
about it. Good enough to use it for work but a rather lacking skill of hers when it came to
anything else. She didn’t have a silver tongue nor good abilities when it came to socializing,
hence why she preferred solitude.

Or just whatever creature she was preparing to slay.

Or just Walter.

But she had made her peace with it, anyway. She knew she was bad at it and therefore tried
to avoid it as much as possible or, in any case, try other people’s approach at it, like she had
done when imitating her charming father’s trick for reassuring others of his well-being.
She just couldn’t believe she was so bad at it that she made it worse.

Another sigh escaped her, making her eyes close as her face contorted on a grimace.

There’s worse things than death.

Contrary to popular belief, Clarisse didn’t lie much. She did it only when deemed necessary
but avoided it at all costs if possible because, now in tune with popular belief, Clarisse had
spent most of her life lying and she had learned a lot about them back then.

Lies, she had discovered during that time, were easy to say but hard to maintain after a
while. They proved to be exhausting work; one had to keep track of them, be careful not to
have lies step on each other and be honest to oneself in how there were some people who
simply couldn’t be lied to.

Lying required a privileged memory, which explained why people who knew her a little —but
not enough —would think of her as a liar; good memory and attention to detail were the two
main ingredients, she believed, for a trustworthy person because no one dared question
their word. At the same time, good memory and attention to detail were a deadly
combination for someone whose approach to life was through lying.

She happened to have both; the power of remembrance and a good eye, just like she
happened to be both at different points in her life; someone honest and a liar.

But alas, some people just couldn’t be lied to.

She knew that much after years of trying to lie to herself.

So she had vowed not to lie unless really necessary, mostly because she couldn’t see the
point in it anymore and also because, after all, the truth proved itself time after time; honesty
is the best policy.

She couldn’t clear her mind from her rambling, rampaging thoughts. As the carriage gently
rocked her back and forth, from side to side with its steady speed, her eyes wandering
through the night’s scenery, she realized it was futile not to think of the things that haunted
her, the lying, the secrets, so she let them be.

She knew it would all play a role in the events to play in her near future.

She sometimes found it to be a curse, how she could always remember her dreams by the
time she reached the third wave of them.

Eyes closed, she could see the snapshots of her dreams clearly and no matter how hard she
tried, she couldn’t clear her mind from then.

She couldn’t erase the image of herself, slit wrists, her blood used to paint symbols on the
ground, a pentagon on her forehead, her mouth moving and reciting things in a satanic
language those of her heritage were forbidden of speaking in.

She was fine with it, though. Surely, the image disturbed her but with every curse came a
blessing. Memory was both. Those images of her were a curse.
And then there was the fact that she didn’t want to forget the lovely stranger with green eyes
and black hair.

Not out of a desire to do her job properly, but because of something else entirely.

Curiosity. Interest.

A blessing. At least, for the time being.

She was remembering the face that came with the green eyes. The defined jawline, the
feline features, the black hair.

The dictionary definition of beautiful.

Female.

And handsome.

Male.

She watched as the dimly lit cobblestone streets gave way to the bright entrance to Gyfford’s
Palace: a humongous, white building that stood just a few meters away from her as her
carriage made its way up to the entrance, having just passed the iron fence that indicated
the street’s end and the palace’s front patio’s beginning.

She waited for Walter to halt the horses and open her door. Thanking him with a small nod of
her head, she climbed out of the carriage.

“Two hours and then I wait for you around here, madame?”

Clarisse’s eyes were on the two guards at the entrance, just a few meters away from her.
“Three hours, mister Knight.”

He nodded, even though she couldn’t see. “Will do.”

As he got back on the driver’s seat, she calmly walked to the entrance: a tall, white double
door with golden markings on the threshold, two policemen dressed in their usual black
attire, with their swords sheathed on their left side and a tall hat with a chin strap and
Gyfford’s official emblem on their foreheads.

When she reached them, they both looked at her.

She raised an eyebrow at one of them, hiding the smirk that threatened to come out as she
saw him flinch, his spine stiffening.

“Miss Drawn.” The man acknowledged her.

“You’ve got a good memory, I see,” She said, “Glad to know yesterday’s incident won’t
happen again, or will it?”

“No, Miss Drawn.” The man replied before looking at his companion, “She’s allowed to
enter.”

The other policeman seemed confused, “We need to see her invitation.”
Clarisse raised an eyebrow at him.

“You can’t get in without one,” He insisted.

His partner looked uncomfortable, “Sean—“

“Silence, Stewart.” The man said, a bit annoyed. “I won’t let her in unless I see her invitation.
Rules are rules.”

Clarisse stared. “Sean,” She called him, “That’s your name, isn’t it?” When she saw the man
nod, she continued, “I’ll have you know I wasn’t invited, but—“

“Of course you weren’t,” The man cut her off, “You’d know it was a masquerade, had you
received the invitation.”

She didn’t like learning that. “Beg your pardon?”

Sean huffed a laugh, “It’s a masquerade, Miss Drawn,” He told her with mockery in his tone.
“So, clearly, you can’t go in since you don’t have a mask, let alone an invitation.”

Annoyance was brewing, so she quickly took her fake permit out of one of her dress’ pockets
and shoved it in his hands, “Read that thing, Sean.”

The man inspected the permit with a look of distaste, his lip up and his eyebrows contorted
in disgust, as if the permit Clarisse had given him reeked of a foul smell. “I guess this allows
you in, Miss Drawn,” And she was starting to hate the way the fake name rolled off his
tongue, “But the dress code is strict and I don’t see at least half of your face covered.”

Clarisse glared at him, “It’s a ball to serve as relief from a killer that’s on the loose in Gyfford
and you’re telling me the governor would rather we all wore masks instead of having our
faces uncovered, thus being easily identifiable in case there’s trouble?”

The policeman pretended to think for a minute before nodding, “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
He smiled at the angry woman, “But hey! At least you’ve proven a point there; you really are
good at your job.”

She was rather annoyed, ready to reply to him in quite the impolite manner—

“It’s a masquerade because we’d all like to forget our lives and the threat that’s above them,
at least for a night.”

Clarisse turned with a frown on her face at the sound of those words, seeing the owner of
the female voice with a rough yet still clearly Gyffordian accent that had spoken them; she
was barely shorter than the blonde, dressed in a deep blue gown and a half-mask that
matched the color. Her ginger hair was long and wildly curly, though it had been tamed and
fashioned into a high bun, a few curls framing her face and bringing out the freckles that
dusted her face, her neck, her chest.

It was hard to distinguish the color of her eyes which seemed to camouflage with her mask’s
color, but Clarisse already knew they were a rich, musky green.

“And that includes the governor, I’ll have you know, but there’s people who shouldn’t be able
to look away from their responsibilities and he’s one of those.” The woman said, looking at
Clarisse, before looking at the policemen in front of the door, “So if the woman here is
allowed in due to political reasons then, please, stop being idiots and let her in.”

The annoying policeman looked at her, while the other one simply wanted the whole thing to
end. “But she doesn’t have a—”

He was unable to finish his sentence as the redhead rolled her eyes and took a mask
identical to hers out of her handbag, handing it to the blonde next to her without even taking
a glance at her. “Now she does.”

Clarisse grabbed the mask and put it on, its color matching rather nicely with her dress. A
sickening smile on, she asked, “Will you let us in, now?”

“I suppose I must let you in,” The grumpy policeman said, before looking once more at the
redhead, “But where’s your—”

She handed him a folded piece of paper she had taken out of her handbag while he spoke.

He grabbed it and inspected it reluctantly. “Alright.” He admitted defeat, “You may enter the
royal palace, Miss Drawn, Miss Hyde.”

And with that, both policemen stood aside and opened the doors to let the women in.

They both entered the drawing room, a rather small and quite crowded space where guests
would be received by butlers; they’d have their coats taken away and a glass of wine would
be placed in their hands to start off the evening as they were guided to the main ballroom,
the bright red carpet that was placed on top of the wooden floor indicating the way: straight
from the entrance to the first door that was on the floor above, just a set of stairs separating
them from the main event.

No coats to take away and a glass of wine on the hands of each woman, Clarisse and the
redhead that had helped her in made it through the drawing room in silence, feeling it too
small and too packed with recently-arrived people to talk with at least a small sense of
privacy.

Side by side, they stood by the doors to the ballroom as one of the governor’s servants
opened the door for them.

The ballroom was ridiculously big, with the same wooden floor as the drawing room and
deep red walls with golden decorations and adornments all over them. There were windows
that overlooked the royal gardens on one of the walls, their beige curtains moved to the
sides to allow people to take a look at the view, a tall floor-to-ceiling mirror centered on the
wall opposite to that one and five glass chandeliers of intricate patterns that dangled from
the roof, illuminating the room in a dim lighting as its candles were slowly consumed.

There were people all over the room, scattered in small groups and chatting their tongues
away, everyone wearing masks and colorful attires, some covering their whole body, from
head to toe, full face masks in place, while others opted for something less extreme and just
had their eyes covered, their outfits more mundane, showing a bit more of skin.

And then, a few steps into the room, as the doors closed behind them, the redhead broke
the silence.
“So, Miss Drawn,” She said, looking at Clarisse with a knowing look, a smirk on her lips. “You
don’t write anymore?”

Clarisse sighed, her shoulders relaxing, a similar expression on her face, “I’m glad to see
you too, Marion.”

The shorter woman raised an eyebrow, “Well, I wouldn’t know,” She started, “Since you
haven’t written at all lately, let alone letting me know you were coming to Gyfford.” She
sounded offended, “Do you have quills back in Beyrseagh? I can lend you one of mine when
you return there.” A pause, “Or maybe you didn’t write because you don’t know how to use
them?” A quiet gasp, “Oh, Lord, what if you don’t know how to write—“

“Alright, I get it!” Clarisse said, though there was the hint of a laugh on her lips, “I’m sorry for
not letting you know I was coming.”

Marion narrowed her eyes, “Apologies are always late.”

“Apologies are always the moment they’re needed, so they’re always on time, my
apologies.”

She grimaced at the blonde, “Hide that shit eating grin from my sight before I slap it off you.”

And then Clarisse was laughing at the threat, “Oh, I missed you, Marion.”

The redhead gave her a tight-lipped smile and moved closer to the blonde, squeezing her
arm, “I missed you too, Clarisse.” She eased her grip on the other woman’s arm, though did
not release her, “I will forgive this offense but you will have to make it up to me at some
point.”

“I know,” Clarisse said, “I will.”

“Think of a very good way to compensate me. I find myself quite damaged, I’ll have you
know.”

“I know, I’ll think hard.”

“Moving on to more pressing topics before you actually start thinking and smoke comes out
of your ears,” Marion said as she slowly started to walk around, the blonde following her
lead, “What brings you to Gyfford? Did you miss Daddy Vanhaus—”

“I will pretend I did not just hear you call my father that.” Clarisse said with a scowl, earning a
hearty laughter from the woman by her side. “God, I forgot how disgusting you could be.”

“It’s my greatest asset.”

“Your distaste?”

“My ability to make you shiver.”

Clarisse rolled her eyes, “You certainly do have that power.” She chuckled, “My father
needed my help with something.”

Marion nodded, “With the murders, no?”

“Yes, what do you know about them?”

“I know there’s a creature on the loose that’s killing like crazy,” The redhead replied, “So,
pretty much the same as you.”

“I think it’s a vampire.”

“A vampire?” Marion echoed, a frown on her expression. Upon seeing Clarisse nod, she
continued, “I don’t know, Clary. Looks much too messy for a vampire.” Then, a knowing look,
“Getting carried away with your family rivalries?”

“You know I care little for those stupid conflicts.”

“Ah, but your blood tugs at your heartstrings,” Marion smirked, “You can’t help it. You hate
the bastards and honestly, that’s alright,” She made a no-nonsense face, “Who on this planet
doesn’t hate those leeches?”

“But it really isn’t that,” Clarisse said, “I’ve read reports of bite marks on the victims.”

A second of silence. Then, “Have you heard the state of the bodies whenever there was
one? A vampire wouldn’t make such a mess out of a victim.”

It was a sound argument, but she couldn’t quite accept it, “If it’s not a vampire then what is
it?”

Marion looked at her in the eyes as she said, “A werewolf.”

Her eyes widened slightly, her eyebrows shooting up. “A werewolf?” She repeated, seeing
her friend nod. “You really think a werewolf made all of this mess?” A huff of a laugh, “Marion
Hyde, do you remember how werewolves even work?”

“As if I could forget.” She said, a raised eyebrow judging Clarisse’s reaction to her deduction.

“Then how come you think it’s a werewolf?” She asked again, “How many full moons have
you had these days? One per night?”

“I know it sounds a bit ludicrous, but those wounds couldn’t be made by anything else but
something animalistic, rather than demonic.”

“But the rate at which the murders have happened…” She trailed off for a second, realizing
she wasn’t entirely sure of how often the killings happened, but aware that it was often
enough it couldn’t just be once in a full moon, “It just can’t be a werewolf.”

And she completely ignored the knowledge that her father had been curious about
werewolves, too.

Marion shrugged, “Maybe it’s many.” Clarisse stopped walking and looked at her, making her
feel the judgment. “What?”

“You’re telling me a bunch of werewolves, who are as intelligent as a dog when they’re in
their beastly form, decided to organize and commit crimes?”

Marion rolled her eyes, “When you put it that way—”

“And it still doesn’t make sense, because there’s killings that must have happened when
there was no full moon, so—”

“Alright, alright, you win, Miss know-it-all!” Marion said, letting out an exasperated sigh,
“God, have you gotten more insufferable while you were away?”

“I’m the same me I’ve always been, you just aren’t used to it anymore.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t miss it.”

“Right,” Clarisse chuckled, before quieting down and returning to the important matter, “So, if
it’s too messy for a vampire and too frequent for a werewolf, what could the creature be?”

“I don’t know,” Marion responded, “Gyfford belongs to the vampires and they don’t let
anything else walk around here freely, so I guess we will have to watch it all play out a bit
more to be able to take a proper guess.”

Clarisse nodded, “We need to gather some more evidence.”

“That we must.” Marion said, her eyes unfocused as she thought, frowning as she recalled
Clarisse’s previous words. “You said you came to help your father?”

“That I did.”

“It’s the first time I ever hear of a Vanhaus asking for another Vanhaus’ help, let alone
Edward asking for yours.”

The tone had been inquisitive. “I didn’t say he asked.”

Because technically, he didn’t.

She ignored Clarisse’s statement. “I wonder if you really came to help your father or if there's
something else going on.”

Clarisse turned her head to look at her, only to find Marion already staring back. “Like what?”
She asked her, nonchalant.

“I don’t know, but I do know that I haven’t seen Edward in a while,” She raised an eyebrow,
“One would even start to think he’s simply not around.”

“And he’s quite the social man, my father.”

Marion hummed her agreement, “Unlike you, which makes your presence in a party
something rather funny, because I can tell you’re suffering just by being here.”

“Every second I draw breath in this room is agony.”

Marion chuckled at the monotonic voice she had used, “Which is why it’s evident something
is wrong, because if your father was available, you wouldn’t be here.” Marion looked at her
with a smug expression, “He’d be, instead.”

Clarisse’s expression remained as neutral as ever though a certain tint of friendliness, of

familiarity softening her usually rough stare. “Or maybe I was invited while he wasn’t..” She
said, earning a raised eyebrow and a knowing look, which made her smirk in response,
“Does it sound that hard to believe?”

“I’m not going to lie, it does, Miss Drawn.”

“Maybe I wanted to see you.” The comment made Marion laugh out loud, “Alright, there’s no
need to laugh like that.”

She was still laughing, “You’re so funny sometimes, Vanhaus.” Marion said in between
chuckles, going as far as wiping a tear from her eye, “It amazes me.”

“I’m funny when I’m trying not to be, which can be quite frustrating sometimes.”

“You’re funny all the time.”

“My point exactly.” Clarisse deadpanned.

They looked at each other for a brief instant before they both laughed.

“I’ve missed you,” Marion then said as she stopped laughing. “Gyfford is simply dull without
you.”

“And it takes a lot for a city like Gyfford to become dull.” Clarisse said, which made Marion
nod.

“It’s not easy, certainly.” She replied, “Just like getting you to talk.”

“Of the hardest things a human can attempt.” The blonde retaliated with a smile.

“And for that I’ll admit my defeat and let you be, for now.” Marion said.

“Thank you—”

“I don’t really need you to confirm Edward’s not around, anyway.” She smiled, “I have eyes.”

Clarisse sighed, annoyed. “Are you done now?”

“I am,” Marion said, still grinning. “I’ll be around if you need me,” Her eyes landed on a man
who was walking up to them, “Distracting him from pestering you, if you want.”

Clarisse’s eyes followed hers and she saw a familiar face. “Oh, God. Please do.”

Marion nodded once, “You owe me two.” She said and, with that, she downed her glass,
gave it to Clarisse, walked up to the man, intercepting him as she basically hollered,
“Sebastian! It’s so nice to see you.”

She watched her friend as she did her best to pry the man’s attention from her, going as far
as grabbing his face, forcing him to look at her, giving him one kiss on each cheek then
linking their arms together in order to drag him away.

The world of demon hunting wasn’t a big one, so it was natural that families which have the
job running in their veins, being passed on from generation to generation would eventually
meet and form a bond; either one of rivalry or one of make-believe comradery.
Sebastian Wargnote, the tall man who had been trying to approach her until Marion
intercepted him, fell in a rather uncanny, new category that he himself had created which the
blonde could not finish understanding; he rivalred her every single time he had the chance
to, but appeared to try and get closer to her, not in a make-believe comradery but in what
Clarisse could identify as some poor attempt at getting intimate with her. She, on the other
hand, couldn’t care less about the man.

What was it with men, trying to prove a certain superiority they felt they had, only to later on
try and hit on that one which they had just tried to outshine? Did they think women found it
attractive when someone tried to put them down only to later on chat them up? Was it an
attempt to get on a teacher role, with the excuse of saying they could show them the ropes,
teach them how to do better?

Did they feel the need to do that with every single being they fancied? To belittle them only to
feel superior enough that they were the one that should be sought, not the other way
around? Only to feel anger later, when they got rejected?

Clarisse couldn’t wrap her head around human relationships and how they worked. At least,
she couldn’t wrap it around the concept of men.

So, Sebastian wasn’t a threat as a rival, but he certainly was an annoying, make-believe
comrade with a tint of rivalry. She wished him as far away from her as humanly possible, for
he always tried to strike a rather boring conversation with her whenever they crossed paths
and the blonde didn’t have the time nor the patience for it.

Marion Hyde was a whole other concept.

Just like Sebastian, she had created a whole new category for herself; she had been the first
other being Clarisse had ever deigned to call a friend.

The Hyde family and the Vanhaus family had always had a certain competition between
them going on, but there had never been any real animosity between them, so when the
Hyde heir happened to be of her same age —and, thankfully, gender, —Clarisse realized
just how inevitable a friendship between them was: there simply existed no way of escaping
it, really.

Not that she wanted to escape it; not only were they a clan of rather good hunters, the Hyde
family had a certain political position that gave them a grade of immunity in the city which
they sometimes felt generous enough to share with their Vanhaus’ counterpart, along with
the information they’d gather in some of their hunts, sometimes.

And, besides the work-related advantages being friends with a Hyde could bring, Clarisse
genuinely enjoyed Marion’s company.

Ever since they started taking up on their respective families’ traditions, they’d work together
whenever the need arose and the competition they’d try and keep up would always be
nothing but a game to entertain themselves while on the job. Such was their chemistry that
Clarisse quickly found her friend reaching out to her just because and was rather surprised
to find herself doing the same, from time to time.
She figured the banter about her missing her when she left for Beyrseagh was more than
just playful joking.

She figured Marion had really been hurt by her departure. She had missed her as well.

I’d have to really make it up to her, later.

There were more pressing matters to attend to, at the time being.

She walked away and made sure to disappear from Sebastian and Marion’s sights, subtly
hiding in between different groups of people as she scanned the area and tried to find a few
recognizable faces.

She was just a bit surprised to see so many other hunters in the ball, though she imagined it
was to be expected, considering the attention the killings seemed to be getting from literally
all Gyfford.

And then her eyes finally landed on the one person she had been looking for: the governor.

A man in his forties, barely taller than her, a bit on the large side of sizes, with slicked back
ginger hair and a bushy, ginger mustache covering his top lip. A black mask covered half of
his face and a red-and-gold outfit decorated his body, making him look rather polished with
his good posture, very similar to those within the military ranges, though anyone who knew
anything about Gyfford and had enough deductive power could easily tell that Charles
Robertson had no military knowledge, training nor desire to participate in anything like that;
he was an office man and an office man he’d remain until the last of his days.

He was chatting with a few other guests, politely acknowledging their presence in his party
when Clarisse saw him and approached him, bowing when his eyes laid on her figure.

“Lord Robertson,” Clarisse said, “It’s an honor to finally meet you.”

The man bowed his head, “The pleasure is mine, Miss…”

“Miss Drawn.”

“Miss Drawn,” The governor repeated, then frowned, “That’s a name I can’t recall.” He
looked at her, up and down. “The first one from the night.”

He was questioning her presence.

Clarisse chuckled, “With the number of guests, I’m honestly surprised mine’s the only name
you can’t remember. A privileged memory, the one you have.” She said, nodding her head
once. “My family name is odd to you because I’m not from Gyfford.” She simply stated, “I’m
from Nordend.”

It made the expression on the governor’s face turn into something far more serious than it
was just a breath earlier.

“And what is someone from Nordend doing in Gyfford, let alone this party?” He asked,
moving just a step closer to her.

It didn’t feel like a threat.

It felt like concern.

Clarisse could tell the governor was just trying to keep what he felt was a private
conversation as private as it could be inside a ballroom filled with guests.

Considering all of that, she took a step closer, a hand of hers going to the man’s shoulder,
the other one floating in the air, expectantly waiting for his hand to come up and join it.

Understanding the cue, the older man grabbed her by the waist, held her other hand and
started to dance with her, their pace much slower than the other couples as their minds
weren’t that much into it.

“I was invited to Gyfford by you, my Lord.” Clarisse replied, her expression one of slight,
amused disbelief, “For such a good memory, you seem unable to remember important
things, like sending me an invitation.”

“It’s not like me to forget those things,” The man said, his tone quiet and calm, like he was
warning her that he knew he had not sent anything to anyone.

And Clarisse caught it immediately. “Then I guess you’ve been having help with the
quill-pushing and it’s becoming hard to keep tabs on every single letter sent with your name,
isn’t it?” She asked, “Because I have a letter with your signature and seal that invited me to
Gyfford and allowed me to stay for as long as I wanted.” She eyed him, “It also gave me
entry to events like this one.”

“And why did I send such a letter to you, Miss Drawn?” He asked, incredulous, with an
eyebrow raised so high it was visible above his mask.

“Because you need help with the murders, Lord Governor.” Clarisse retaliated.

She knew she had said the right thing when his expression shifted and his step faltered. His
eyes scanned her face. Then, the look of shock turned into a scowl, “What would you know
of that?”

She raised an eyebrow, “It’s all over the papers in Gyfford.”

“But I made sure the news didn’t leave this city—”

“I learned about the killings in your letter, Lord Governor,” Clarisse said, “Whatever I learned
about them, I did upon arrival, not before.” A pause, “So nobody outside of Gyfford knows,
just me and I’m already here.”

They swayed to the music a bit more, Clarisse watching as the man calmed down ever so
slightly, though tension was still there.

“I’m the best investigator Nordend has to offer and if there’s something you should know
about Nordend it's that there’s too many crimes and far too much competition in my line of
work.”

“I guess that puts a good word in for you.”

“The results speak for themselves and the outcome never changes; I manage to crack the
case and get whoever’s responsible thrown in a dungeon.” Clarisse said, a stone-cold
expression on her face, “Rest assured, Lord Governor. Whoever invited me in your stead,
they were just trying to aid Gyfford’s cause.” A pause, “Though maybe you do want to
re-check just who’s helping you write and send letters. They seem to be forgetting to let you
know about what they do in your name.”

His scowl was still in place. “That much is true.” He said before sighing, “So, what are you
looking for here? You won’t find the killer in a ballroom.”

“You’d be surprised,” She thought out loud, feeling him tense up, “Though I agree, this killer
wouldn’t be seen here.” She said, trying to get him to relax again. “I’m here to gather more
information about the murders.”

He didn’t look pleased by her statement. “What else is there to learn here?”

“What gets released in papers usually isn’t all there is to whatever’s going on.” Her stare
didn’t waver from his light blue eyes. “So I’m wondering if you have information that is not of
public knowledge.”

His gaze was hard, temperamental. “What’s been released in the papers is all there is. I
don’t lie to my citizens nor hide information from them. There’s a killer on the loose and they
all deserve to know to protect each other.”

“Because you can’t do it for them when you should.”

The man wanted to protest against her words—

“But that’s exactly why I’m here.” She said, a smirk on her face. “To re-establish your city’s
safety and guarantee it stays put, granted that your guards and soldiers keep it that way.”

The man’s bravado dissipated slowly. “I guess that’s why I invited you here.” He said, a slight
annoyance in his voice.

Clarisse smiled, as if she hadn’t picked up on the negative tone. “Exactly!” She said with a
nod of her head, swaying with him to the music. “And that’s why I need more information to
help you and your city crack the mystery and catch the rogue. What’s on the papers is not
enough.”

“Yet it’s all there is.”

Her eyes hardened, the naïve look she had sported just a second ago disappearing
completely. “It can’t be all there is.” A pause, “Do citizens know they’re locked in the city?”

“They aren’t locked,” The man replied, “Gyffordians can leave the city. It’s only those who
aren’t from here who aren’t allowed out.”

“So the lockdown is somewhat secret, isn’t it?” Clarisse said, raising an eyebrow, “You keep
it secret to hide just how bad the situation is, so your people don’t lose their minds. Right?”

She knew she was spot on when the man looked around briefly, before bringing her closer,
placing his mouth near her ear, to speak as privately as possible in the middle of a party.

“The crime scenes are a bloody, chaotic mess, every single time. Sometimes, there’s
corpses that are as maimed as the scenario makes us think they’d be, some other times,
there’s no corpse at all. Nobody ever saw anything and those who heard something, heard it
a minute too late, with the killer already gone.”

“And what is it that they’ve heard?”

“The screams of the victims, but never anything that could reveal who the killer is.” The
governor continued. “The places where the murders and kidnappings take place, assuming
those who disappeared have been kidnapped and not just murdered and hidden
somewhere, are always wrecked and destroyed but there’s not an item missing so the killer
is not a thief nor does it with that purpose. He’s been attacking people who live alone,
normally downtown where most people live alone, though he’s had a few victims in other
neighborhoods, just not as often; people who live uptown tend to live together and that
seems to put the killer off.”

Lower classes. Singles. “See? You’re already telling me things that aren’t in the papers.”

“But these things are just mere deductions, not things that we can ensure are facts.”

“When deductions are based on facts, they are just as useful.” She informed him, “So the
dead and missing victims are people with no one around to miss them.”

He looked uncomfortable at her choice of words. “You could say so.”

“And the rate at which these attacks have been happening?”

“Unclear. It’s too erratic to pinpoint, we just know it’s more often than not.” He sighed, his
eyes shutting close as he shook his head, “I’ve had enough of this,” He said, “I want tonight
to be a chance to forget about it for a while, not another instance where we keep on talking
about it.”

“Some of us don’t get the luxury of stopping our work, let alone forgetting our responsibilities,
Lord Governor.” She said, pointedly, a raised eyebrow. “That includes me and it certainly
includes you.”

“Then I’ve had enough of this dance and our conversation is over,” He said, releasing the
woman from his grip, making Clarisse simply look at him as he bowed his head, “I hope you
manage to have a good night or, at least, please,” He grimaced at her, “Don’t ruin it for
everybody else. I’ll have to get you kicked out if you do.”

Clarisse bowed as well, “Nobody else will be made uncomfortable, Lord Governor.” She
smiled, “It’s only a few who get so squirmy with the truth.”

The man glared at her, then walked away.

“I’m glad he’s gone,” She heard a man say behind her, making her turn to look at him. “He
was taking too long with you.”

She was certain she had never seen someone so generic in her life; black suit, white shirt,
black mask, brown hair, clean shave, taller than her.

He had two glasses of champagne in his hands.

She smiled, “It’s always good to chat with the governor,” She said.
“I bet it is,” He said as he nodded, before handing her a glass, “Care for a drink?”

Clarisse shook her head, “I don’t drink, but thank you for it.”

He looked a bit let down, “Alright,” He said, quickly downing his glass and leaving both on a
butler’s tray as he walked past them. “What about a dance?”

And she wanted to say no, but she had to look the part of just a simple guest, so she had no
real alternative other than saying yes and entertaining the poor man a bit.

The night passed by as she danced with him, then another, then another, all of her dancing
partners blurring together as they were all quite forgettable, not even moving along to the
music that well.

Then the actual dancers, those who really just wanted someone fun to dance with and had
no secondary intentions with her, appeared to sweep her off her feet. She did have fun with
those, feeling surprised she was actually enjoying herself in such a formal setting like a ball.

And then the other hunters came to dance with her, recognizing her for who she was, killing
the mood instantly.

Some of us don’t get the luxury of stopping our work.

They’d approach her looking for details, for something that would get them closer to being
the ones who solved the problem, doing their best to not offer anything they knew in return,
because all hunters sort of competed with each other and they’d always try to get advantage
over the other.

No such thing as a community to be seen in between their lines.

So Clarisse dealt with them in the way she had always done; she offered very important
information which anyone with enough mental capacity could tell was just what was of public
knowledge. Somehow, in the way she sold her speech, she’d always somewhat persuade
them to believe she was actually telling them something groundbreaking when, in fact, it was
what she had learned in the papers.

“Bloody mess, even on the ceiling.”

“Eaten corpses.”

“Disappeared victims.”

But nothing about the lower district’s victims nor the fact that they were usually singles. That
was for her and maybe for Marion.

She’d tell other hunters her information if partnering started to look like the best choice. Until
then, she’d stay alone.

After the fifth hunter and feeling it deep in her soul that it was only a matter of time before
Sebastian approached her because she couldn’t spot him nor Marion, she turned towards
where she remembered the exit was and—

“Clarisse?”
She tried her best not to groan at the sound of the annoying man’s voice.

“Yes, Wargnote.” She said, turning to look at him. “What do you want?”

The tall man stood right in front of her, his clothing as dull and boring as most of the other
men she had seen in the dance, only one or two of the ones she had crossed paths with
being bold enough to break the norm and wear something memorable, for once. Sebastian
was in a black suit, with a matching bowtie and mask, a white shirt and a light grey
handkerchief in his suit’s pocket. His brown-blonde hair was short and a bit messy, a shadow
of a beard dusted the lower half of his face and his hazel eyes stood out due to the darkness
of the piece that covered the upper half of it.

And there was what Clarisse could and would only catalog as a ridiculously stupid, cocky
smirk on his lips.

“Is this the way you greet an old friend, after so long being away?” He said, moving closer to
her, his arms extended to his sides as if he were getting ready for a hug, a glass of
champagne in one his hands, some of the liquid spilling due to his sudden movement.

“No, I greet my friends the way I greeted Marion earlier.” Clarisse said, a raised eyebrow.

“So you’ll greet me differently, then?” He said, his smile growing in size. “Maybe with a
dance?”

She glared at him, “I’ll greet you by completely ignoring your presence, how does that
sound?”

He chuckled, “Come on, Clary,” He said, smirking at her annoyed expression. “Why can’t
two colleagues have some fun and dance a bit?”

She realized then, by the slight slur of his words and by the fact that he genuinely seemed
like he just wanted to dance and socialize that he had drunk one glass too many while on the
job.

“Don’t call me Clary,” She said, a stern look on her face, but then said no more.

He raised a brow and pouted a bit, “Marion calls you that.”

“Marion is allowed to call me whatever she wishes. You haven’t earned that pleasure.”

He winked, like he was making a very solid point when he replied, with a pointed finger,
“Yet.”

Clarisse just stared, her ever-present neutral expression all over her face.

“Come on, Clarisse,” He said with a begging tone. “You’re good at dancing and you know the
party is not over yet.” He finished the glass he was spilling all over the place, “And maybe we
could even chat about what’s brought you here,” He smiled, a knowing look in his
expression, “Though I think I know what it is.”

“Everyone knows, it’s not like it’s a mystery, Wargnote.”

“Call me Sebastian.” A beat. “Actually, call me Seb. You know, since we’re—”
“We’re not friends—”

“—Friends and all, right, Clary?” He said, stifling his laughter at her annoyed expression.

She sighed, rolling her eyes and looking away as she spoke, “Can you please just leave
me…”

The word alone never made it out of her throat as she focused on something she had seen
in the crowd while she desperately tried to avoid the insufferable man’s gaze.

Someone.

There was someone who was chatting up a woman, their back to Clarisse. The scene in
itself wasn’t that spectacular; just a blushing girl who was being charmed by some random
stranger, but there was something to that stranger that had called Clarisse’s attention.
Something in the way they held themselves, so assertive, rather dominant of the situation,
yet so non-threatening, so inviting.

She frowned at the long, black hair that was caught on a low, loose ponytail.

It rang a bell, looked familiar.

Then she realized what about it was so ingrained in her memory.

Handsome, yet beautiful. Assertive, yet inviting.

This stranger reminded her of the one she had been dreaming of.

“Excuse me,” She said mindlessly to Sebastian as she walked away from him, her eyes
never leaving the stranger’s back.

She was just a few meters away when the stranger and the blushing girl started dancing to
the music, moving away from Clarisse.

She was certain she had felt the stranger’s stare on the back of her neck as she turned and
looked immediately for a dancing partner.

Sebastian was approaching her, “Hey, you—”

“You wanted to dance, right?” She asked him, waiting for him to start nodding before she cut
off his response by grabbing his hands, placing them where they should be and positioning
hers on him. “Then let’s dance.” She commanded, starting to move and making him follow
her.

“But I should be leading—”

“I like it more this way,” She quickly shut him down, “Plus, you’re really slow with how much
you’ve drank, so it’s better if I lead, anyway.”

He looked embarrassed at her words, “I didn’t drink that much—”

“Your slurring says otherwise. Now, shut up and dance.”

She led Sebastian towards the multitude that was dancing, having lost the stranger and her
partner, but knowing they should be somewhere around there.

The music changed into something faster, a dance where people could switch dancing
partners if they wished to.

Clarisse definitely wanted to, but she wouldn’t let go of Sebastian until she had found her
objective.

The rhythm sped up and the steps to the dance became faster and faster, the people around
her forming a chaotic labyrinth of swirling bodies that made it harder and harder for her not
to lose Sebastian and help him keep up, something that proved impossible when she twirled
like she was supposed to.

She imagined her drunk companion had probably staggered backwards or something
because as she finished turning, the man was nowhere to be seen, already swallowed by
the sea of people. She wouldn’t even try to call his name, the music and the noise so loud he
wouldn’t hear her, just like she wouldn’t be able to hear him.

She looked around, trying to find someone else to dance, but was quickly losing that hope—

Until the rhythm changed once more and someone grabbed her from behind, a hand on her
waist and another one on hers, guiding her in sway.

She allowed this person to guide her, letting them make her twirl as the music commanded it
and ending up in their usual waltz position, her hand on her new partner’s shoulder, their
bodies too close for her to be able to see their face, her head trapped between their shoulder
and neck, for they were maybe half a head taller than her.

“Weren’t you taught that it’s rude to stare so much?”

Clarisse blinked, slowly, calculating her response. “I should ask you the same thing.” She
replied, “People can tell when they’re being looked at.”

“I know, I did that on purpose.” That rich, deep, feminine voice replied. “So you’d know how it
felt for me.”

“If you’re expecting an apology, I must inform you it’s not coming.”

“No, I’m just expecting a reason.” She replied, her voice low, “What about a woman chatting
up another woman is so intriguing that you burnt a hole on the back of my head?”

“The fact that one of them is dressed like a man, maybe?” Clarisse replied as she tried to
pinpoint where the woman was from based on her accent: it sounded Gyffordian, but there
was something a bit rougher about it, a bit harsher.

The word older popped up in her head but it didn’t make much sense.

She felt rather than heard the chuckle that made the woman’s chest vibrate. “Were you
jealous she had my attention while you didn’t?”

“Maybe I was,” Clarisse said, “I want to know who the woman in the suit is.”
“Well, she’s dancing with you and not with her, now.” A pause, “Doesn’t that make you
happy?”

“Not enough to make me happy, unfortunately,” Clarisse said, “I was hoping to get to know
this woman.”

She was using the moment to feel, see, even smell the woman; she was clearly half a head
taller than her, her body not slim but fit, with hard arms and a strong back. In the distance it
looked black but up close Clarisse could tell the woman’s tailcoat jacket was a very deep,
dark purple, her pants and shoes black, just like the vest she had on. Underneath it, she
wore a white shirt and there was a green cravat decorating her neck, its color matching that
of her pocket’s handkerchief.

The woman kept moving, gently yet dexterously guiding Clarisse through the moves, like she
had danced playing the part of the lead many times before; experienced. “I wouldn’t be
happy myself if you got to know me and I didn’t get to know you.”

“Then let me be the first,” Clarisse said, “My name’s Victoria Drawn. What’s yours?”

“Elizabeth Falkner.” The woman said. “What brings you to Gyfford, Victoria?” She asked,
nonchalant. “You don’t look familiar and your accent is a bit quirky. From Beyrseagh,
perhaps?”

It took her aback that the woman could identify the slight difference in her way of speaking,
let alone that she could tell where, exactly, such a distinction could originate, considering
Clarisse had a Gyffordian accent, only it had been a bit tainted by her rather long stay in
Beyrseagh, with a few of her vowels being just barely more breathy than those of the city
she was in.

She knows her geography.

“Do you know all the ladies in this room, Miss Falkner?” She asked instead of replying.

She chuckled, the sound rich, the reverberations within her body making her chest press
against Clarisse. “Not as profoundly as I’d like to, but I do know all their names, my dear.” A
pause, “The night’s long and I like to talk, meet new people, keep them in my mind.”

“That’s a lot of things to know and a lot of people to talk to.”

“And yet nothing I know is regarding you, Miss Victoria Drawn from Beyrseagh, whom I’d like
to know better.”

“I came here to visit the city,” Clarisse said, “I have family here but we never really attend
these events.”

“And what made you change your mind for this one?”

She shrugged, ever so slightly. “Curiosity.”

“It’s fun to be curious.” Elizabeth conceded with a slight nod of her head that Clarisse felt
against her own.

“And you?”
“What about me?”

“Where are you from?” Clarisse asked.

“I’m born and raised in Gyfford, my dear.”

“Your accent doesn’t sound that Gyffordian to me.” She warned, “It sounds rougher.”

“Because my family is very old in this city.” Elizabeth explained. “The accent used to be
harsher, but with time it softened.”

“Yet your family’s accent didn’t?”

Elizabeth shrugged, “The rougher version stuck with us.” She simply said, before sighing.
“You know, Victoria, I’m sad we had to start chatting this way.”

It confused her. “What way?”

Then she felt her muscles tense when she heard Elizabeth say, “Lying to each other.” A hot
breath washed over her ear as the woman continued talking, “Because there’s no way you’re
just visiting your family when there’s a complete lockdown in the city.”

Before she had time to react to the woman’s words, Elizabeth made her twirl once more, the
spin ending with the taller woman dipping her, then bringing her up to their waltzing sway
once more, only this time they were slightly more separated.

Enough that they could see each other’s face.

Clarisse felt her breath get caught in her throat as she stared at those green eyes on the
beautiful stranger’s face, their color enhanced by the deep purple mask the woman wore,
covering the upper half of her face, allowing the blonde to see an impish smirk place itself on
her lips.

Beautiful and handsome.

A beautiful woman that dressed like a man.

She didn’t need her to take off her mask to see the full image of the woman’s face; she had
seen it before in her dreams.

She was too lost in her own mind to realize that the woman’s hand which wasn’t on her waist
suddenly crawled up to her face, holding her by the jaw as she analyzed her face.

She broke out of her trance-like thinking when she heard her say, “No mask could ever hide
the uncanny beauty of a Vanhaus’ violet eyes.” She licked her lips, “Especially when the
owner makes them justice by being just as beautiful. Don’t you think, Miss Victoria Drawn?”

And it was then that Clarisse felt it.

It was much like a sound that had been playing in the background, noticeable yet masked
due to the other noises in the room. It would take the main place in her ear as it suddenly
grew louder, becoming something different to what it was: It had always been there, but it
was just now that she had managed to finally pay attention to it.
The stranger that held her so closely reeked of the darkest of pulses.

Whatever this woman in front of her was, she was certainly not human.

She was demonic.

So lost had she been in her own thoughts, in her pursuit of the stranger of her dreams, the
dark haired woman had managed to slip past her defenses easily enough that it was the first
time Clarisse actually felt in danger in a very long time.

A chuckle brought her back to Earth, “I must admit, wearing baby blue to try to conceal the
color of your eyes was actually a good trick, but it’s one that would only work on idiots.”

She eased against the woman’s hand, still swaying along with her, “I think this is quite unfair,
Miss Elizabeth Falkner.” She replied.

The green eyed woman raised an eyebrow, her gaze lazily placed on Clarisse’s. “How so?”

“Because now you know my real last name and I’m quite certain I don’t know yours.”

The woman laughed, flashing her smile.

Clarisse’s eyes didn’t waver from hers, but she had noticed the fangs.

Vampire.

“I won’t tell you, mostly because you’ll figure it out soon enough.” She smirked, “But I want to
play a game with you, Miss Vanhaus.” She said, releasing her face and bringing her closer
again, only this time leaving enough room so they could see each other’s faces.

“What game?” She asked, suddenly hyper aware of the other woman’s body against hers,
what her hands were doing, the steps she was taking, even if she had kept on moving to the
music and there was no other mechanism going on behind the scenes.

“I’ll tell you my name, but not my family’s. In exchange, you don’t tell me yours, for I already
know you’re a Vanhaus.”

It’s as good as it will get. “What’s your name, then?”

She moved closer, a smirk on her lips and lazy mirth in her eyes as she said, “Eryn.”

“And how am I supposed to find out your family name, Eryn?”

“I bet you’ll come up with something, Miss Vanhaus.” She replied, “Your family is full of very
intelligent people.”

“And yours is full of very questionable ones, I bet.” Clarisse said, “I doubt one could even call
them people, no?”

“You don’t have to tiptoe around the fact that I’m not human, Miss Vanhaus,” Eryn replied, as
nonchalant as ever, “I can tell you know. You sense me just as easily as I sense you.”

“With the fangs and the charm, it’s hard for vampires to hide from hunters, I assume.”
A gamble; a bet to see if that was what she really was.

“You’d be surprised,” Eryn replied, “Though it’d be foolish of you to shrug me off as a
vampire.” A beat, “Just like it would be foolish of me to catalog you as just another huntress,
am I right?”

“Vanhaus aren’t simple hunters.” Clarisse replied.

Not a vampire?

Not just a vampire.

“We all know you are gifted ones, dear,” Eryn replied, a playfully exasperated tone in her
voice, “But I’m not talking about that.”

Clarisse’s expression hardened, “Then what are you talking about?”

Eryn smiled, “You can’t hide from me.” She inhaled deeply, “I can feel there’s more to you.
Downplay it all you want, but there’s something that calls to me within you,” Her grin grew in
size, “But what exactly, I have no clue. That’s for you to tell me.”

“There’s nothing for me to tell you.”

Eryn chuckled, shaking her head, “I hope you’re just lying to me and not to yourself, Miss
Vanhaus, because that can only last for so long before the truth slaps you in the face.”

“I don’t lie to myself, Eryn,” Clarisse replied.

“Then I guess I’ll have to figure out what’s so odd about you on my own.”

“You won’t get that much time around me, I’m afraid.”

The dark haired woman raised her eyebrows, “Thinking of eliminating me here?” She clicked
her tongue in a sound of disapproval and shook her head, “I’d advise you against it, my
dear.” She smiled, again, “You wouldn’t want to cause such a fuss in the middle of the
governor’s ball, would you? That would drop your sweet-Miss-Drawn-who’s-on-a-visit
façade, get you kicked out of the city, maybe even framed as the mysterious killer that’s on
the loose.” She was staring into Clarisse’s eyes, “No, neither you nor I can wreak havoc in
here, so I believe your best bet is to just keep dancing, pretending there’s nothing to see,
don’t you think?” She brought the blonde barely closer to her body, “Maybe we could even
get to know each other while we do it.”

“Without ruining our game?”

“Of course,” Eryn replied. “I’d like to earn the privilege of knowing your name. I feel like I
haven’t done that yet.”

“What even brings a demon to a party like this?” Clarisse said, a bit annoyed at the fact that
Eryn was right: they couldn’t make a fuss. Clarisse couldn’t afford blowing her cover.

On the other hand, it means she can’t attack me nor anyone here.

That would make me kill her, instantly.

Blowing my cover but getting rid of her in the process.

It was a stalemate, she realized. One she’d be forced to play along with.

Eryn huffed a laugh, “What reason is there for a demon not to attend a party like this? Look
around,” She said, her eyes scanning the room as Clarisse’s did the same. “People with
power pretending they won’t but knowing very well they’ll end the night by giving into their
darkest desires; gluttony, envy, and lust being the main protagonists of the evening.” She
looked at Clarisse once more, “I thrive in places like this.”

She rolled her eyes, “But surely someone like you has a reason to come here because you
can’t be here to—”

“To party like mortals and side by side with them,” Eryn finished for her. “Which is exactly
what I came to do; enjoy myself and the night.”

Clarisse huffed a laugh, though it was humorless, “And enjoy a girl or two, while you’re at it.”

“Getting to know you seemed far more interesting than whatever any girl in here could do for
me.”

“I must admit I feel flattered, but that’s a rather rude thing to say, considering you were
chatting up a lovely lady before me, don’t you think?”

“I don’t mean it that way. She was truly endearing and I enjoyed her presence while it
lasted,” Eryn said, nodding her head, “But I had to know you.”

“You don’t know a thing about me yet.”

Eryn smirked. “I know you’re a Vanhaus.”

“And discarding me as just a Vanhaus, we’ve already agreed, would be quite stupid of you.”

“I really like you,” Eryn then said, still smiling at her, “You make me feel intrigued and I’ll have
you know, that’s not easy.”

“Now I can’t help but feel sorry for your friend,” She said, “What did you even say to her to
leave her to come to me?”

“It’s hard to keep track of your dancing partner when there’s so many people around you.”
She shrugged, “I have no clue where she is, right now.”

“You didn’t even bother looking for her?”

“You didn’t even bother looking for your partner either, Miss Vanhaus, so don’t accuse me of
committing a crime when you’ve done exactly the same.”

“I had a good reason to ditch him.”

“What is that?” Eryn asked, then smiled, a gesture full of mirth, “That he was a drunk man
with no sense of rhythm?”

“That he was just an excuse to get on the dance floor and look for you.” Clarisse confessed.
“All of that just for poor, little old me?” Eryn asked, a cocky expression on her face, “You
must want me a lot.”

“Like most of the people here, it seems,” She commented, “Are you aware that practically
everyone around us steals glances at you whenever they can?”

Eryn nodded, “I am. Again, I can feel it when people stare.”

Was it that Eryn was incredibly arrogant or was she hinting at something else?

“Then why do you care so little about them when you made a whole scene just to confront
me about it?”

“You think that was a scene?” Eryn asked, a grin on her face, “You’re so dramatic.”

“Come on, appearing behind me like that?” She huffed a laugh, “You have a flair for the
flamboyant, don’t you?”

“I like to be memorable.” Eryn replied, “And the flamboyant is quite memorable, in my

opinion.”

“Maybe not for the right reasons.”

“All publicity is good publicity in my book,” Eryn countered, “And I can tell you like me.”
Clarisse opened her mouth to protest, “You wouldn’t still be dancing with me if not.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, it has absolutely nothing to do with you being a threat, the fact I’m
still here.”

“No?” Eryn said, her eyebrows up, “I’m honored that you’d dance with me for something
other than just your line of work then, Miss Vanhaus.” Her voice dropped lower, “You must
really, really like me, then.”

It took her aback, for she hadn’t expected the woman to take her seriously. “That’s not what I
meant.”

Eryn smiled. “But it’s what you said.”

“Sometimes what we say is not what we mean.”

“And sometimes what we say is not what we mean but what we mean to say.”

Clarisse frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does, you’re just surprisingly slow for a Vanhaus.”

She didn’t like that matter-of-fact tone the other woman had used. “You underestimate me.”

“I’m not underestimating you, my dear,” Eryn replied, her tone gentle, smooth. “I’m
estimating you.” She smirked, “Seeing what makes you tick.”

“And why would you do such an annoying thing?”

“Because it’s fun.”

“It’s not fun, it’s dumb.” She said, starting to dislike the smile on Eryn’s face. “And you still
haven’t explained why you were so bothered by my stare but not by theirs.”

Eryn looked away, her eyes scanning the room, making eye contact with a few other guests,
“You’ve caught me generous today, so I’ll tell you.” She said, looking at Clarisse again, “I felt
your presence when you entered the room and have been hoping to bump into you ever
since.”

“There’s quite a number of hunters in this ball, some with families that go as far in the job as
mine.” She narrowed her eyes, “I’m certainly not the only one who has a certain presence,
so If you think I’ll believe it’s just that why you approached me, you’re wrong.”

Eryn was still smirking, “But your presence is different,” She insisted, “There’s more to it.”

“And that’s still not the reason why you’ve approached me.”

They held each others’ stare for a few moments as they danced, Eryn making Clarisse twirl
and quickly catching her with a firm yet gentle grip.

She cracked a smirk, then, “Alright, I’ll tell you.” They moved for a few seconds to the sound
of the music before she finally spoke again. “Truth be told, there’s something about the way
you look at me that’s completely different to the way the rest do and I want to know what’s so
special about it.”

She looked around a bit, before looking at Eryn again, “They look as surprised to see a
woman in a suit as I was when I first saw you.”

“They all want,” Eryn said as she looked around, before looking back at Clarisse, “But you
see.” Her pupils darted from one place to another as she stared at her face, “What’s so
different between you and everyone else in here?”

She was, admittedly, lost in the conversation. “I’m a Vanhaus.”

“That’s not it.”

They kept on dancing, Clarisse’s eyes locked on green ones which didn’t waver from hers.

She felt the rush of questions, so many things she needed to know and she could bet Eryn
had the answers.

What are you doing here and how did you know about the lockdown?

What did you mean by I see you?

I saw you eye my neck. When will you try to attack?

And she felt she was about to get an answer for one of them when Eryn’s eyes darted down
and then to the side, first catching the cross on her neckband, a quiet chuckle resounding
within the vampire’s mouth when she saw it, then landing on her neck, the laughter dying
instantly.

She even saw her head move ever so slightly towards her mark.
Clarisse moved one of her hands from Eryn’s shoulder to her own leg, sneaking through the
fabric of her dress to grab one of her silver knives.

Eryn’s mouth opened slightly at the same time she gripped the leather handle of her
weapon.

She cursed herself for placing the wooden stake on her other leg, near her ankle.

She wouldn’t be able to reach it in time and it was the only way she’d manage to kill a
vampire. Silver only bothered them, she knew.

And then they both heard a loud thud, some panicked screams and gasps as the girl who
had been dancing with Eryn before finally appeared again, the dancing couple’s eyes going
to the woman who was falling to the ground, unconscious, scaring the guests around her as
she did so.

Clarisse immediately seized her opportunity and took the dagger out of its sheath, quickly
placing it against Eryn’s chest, where her heart should be, her other hand grabbing the taller
woman’s coat and using it to conceal her weapon.

“What have you done to her?”

Eryn’s eyes were droopy but her eyebrows were high in a look of surprise as her pupils
scanned the knife that was now pressed against her chest. “I just gave her a little kiss, that’s
all.” She then looked at Clarisse, “How could a little kiss make someone faint?” She
chuckled, “She’s not even dead, Vanhaus.” Rolling her eyes, she added, “You’re
overreacting with that knife.”

And then Clarisse noticed something that certainly had been there all the time, only neither
Eryn nor her had paid attention to it.

There was a drop of dried blood on the corner of Eryn’s mouth.

She pressed the knife a bit harder against the woman’s body, “You bit her.”

Eryn noticed Clarisse’s stare on her lips, touched the dirty place with one of her fingers and
noticed the blood, quickly licking it away as she looked at the blonde again, “It’s hard to go
against your own nature,” She raised a brow, “Some would say that it’s even impossible,” A
smile slowly forming on her lips as she said, “Isn’t it, Vanhaus?”

The expression, the tone, the way she had said her name made something in Clarisse’s
mind click, like she had finally found the final piece of the puzzle.

So, as she held the dark haired woman’s stare, Clarisse finally finished their game, solving
the equation by simply saying;

“Your family’s name is Rooke.”

Eryn smiled, but this time it didn’t feel as inviting as before.

It was menacing.

Clarisse finished placing it all together.

“Your name is Eryn Rooke.”

And the smile in the Rooke in front of her turned into a grin.

“Congratulations for winning, Miss Vanhaus.”

Then she lunged for her neck.

Clarisse quickly pushed her head against Eryn’s, headbutting her and blocking her from
reaching her neck, but she knew the Demon was just playing when she heard her laugh and
felt her slowly overpower her, her strength far bigger than her own.

Time was running out as Eryn’s mouth, already open and fangs ready, slowly approached
her neck, not going faster not out of the impossibility of it, Clarisse realized, but because the
other woman was toying with her.

Clarisse reacted, generating a chain of events that happened so fast, they might as well all
have happened at the same time.

In a desperate and quick, direct response to Eryn’s approach, Clarisse turned the knife she
had on her hand and stabbed her own leg with it, letting out a scream as she did so.

It took the taller woman by surprise, making her grip on the blonde falter.

As people started to realize what was going on, turning to look at them, Clarisse took her
chance and pushed herself off Eryn, throwing herself to the ground as she kept on wailing in
pain, before pointing at Eryn and saying, “It’s the killer!”

And then Hell itself broke loose on the dancefloor.

People running from one end of the ballroom to another, screaming and shouting all over the
place.

For a very brief instant Eryn stood there, staring at Clarisse, shock written all over her face.

A few guards left the Governor’s side to approach the killer and the victim.

A smile formed on Eryn’s face, her eyes wide and still locked on Clarisse.

As they came close to her, Eryn finally sprung to action, quickly moving in between running
people and disappearing in the crowd, her eyes never leaving Clarisse.

The blonde could still feel her presence and had the feeling she could see her, but she could
no longer identify her, somehow.

She got up from the ground with the help of a few guards who had rushed to her, her eyes
locked on the people who ran as she scanned the area for the green eyed Demon, but it was
too late.

By the time Marion finally found her, approaching her by the side and asking her if she was
okay, Clarisse could no longer feel Eryn in the room.

She was gone.

“I’m fine,” Clarisse said, shooing away the guards as she stared at her wound, “Miss Hyde
will help me from here, gentlemen.”

“You were right,” A man’s voice said, making the blonde look up to find the Governor, his
mask gone and his expression one of pure terror as the color was drained from his face.
“The killer was here.”

Clarisse had her arm over Marion’s shoulders, the ginger’s arm around her waist, helping
her stand without using the wounded leg. “Let it be a lesson, Governor.” Clarisse started as
she limped closer to him, “You can’t run from the ghosts that haunt you, let alone forget
about them by looking away.” She glared at him, “You must face them at some point.”

“And not give them a masquerade where they can literally hide their face while laughing at
yours.” Marion said, a raised eyebrow and a sneer on her lips, before smiling at him and
saying, “If you excuse us, my friend Miss Drawn here needs medical assistance urgently.”

The Governor reacted then, “I’ll call—”

“Call my driver, Mister Steamfold, he’ll know where to take me,” Clarisse commanded,
interrupting him. “Just help me get to the door.”

A squadron of guards formed around them, helping them navigate the crowd without much
trouble as Marion helped Clarisse walk.

“Quite a party, wasn’t it?” She asked the blonde, the mask covering the clearly preoccupied
look she had on her face.

Clarisse used her free hand to rip hers off her face. “Nothing says party like a knife fight and
some stabbing.”

“It isn’t until then that the real fun begins.” She said, then chuckled, “But really, of all things, a
knife?” Marion asked, a bit incredulous, both of her hands were too busy holding the blonde
to take off her mask. “Who the Hell was that woman? And why did she stab you?” She
frowned, “Was she really the killer?”

Clarisse shook her head, “She didn’t stab me, I stabbed me.”

“Alright, unexpected.” Marion said, raised eyebrows.

“She was a vampire,” Clarisse said, “She was going to bite me and I had nothing else to do,
nothing on me to keep her at bay.”

“Wooden stake?”

“All my weapons look like the one that’s currently dangling from my leg, Marion.” Clarisse
explained, “My only wooden stake is hidden by my ankle.” She sighed, “Couldn’t reach it in
time without alerting her.”

“Ah, no.” She tutted, “And silver won’t do the trick in this case.”

“Could have distracted her, maybe, but I fear attacking her would have just caused her to
bite me faster.”
“I can’t believe a vampire, of all things, took you by surprise.”

“Fighting here wouldn’t have been easy, she made me realize that much.” She looked at
Marion, “She could have framed me as the killer and then I’d be screwed.” She averted her
gaze before Marion could reply, saying, “That’s why I turned it on her before she could turn it
on me.”

“You know, Clary, you never disappoint.” Marion suddenly said, “You’re a box full of surprises
and when I say surprises, I mean it.”

“I make do with what I’ve got.”

They reached the entrance and Walter was already there, getting out of the carriage and
rushing to Clarisse to help.

As he approached, Marion spoke once more, “I saw you dance with her and wondered what
on Earth were you doing, dancing with another woman?” A chuckle, “Now that I know she
was a vampire, I guess it makes sense.” Then, a pause, “But will you mention the uncanny
resemblance at some point?”

Clarisse stared at her confused as Walter reached them, he grabbed Clarisse and helped
her stand, relieving Marion from that task. “I beg your pardon?”

Marion raised her eyebrows, “You mean to tell me you didn’t notice?” She asked and, upon
seeing Clarisse’s expression of confusion, “Clary, she looked just like you. Had I not known
you, I could have sworn you were twins.”

Clarisse stared at her, her head shaking slightly as her brow furrowed.

Marion continued, “Who was she?”

And all the response Clarisse could let out was four simple words.

“I need to go.”

Ignoring the pain and the complaints of both her driver and her friend, Clarisse climbed her
carriage and commanded the man to drive them back to the Vanhaus mansion immediately,
leaving Marion behind to stare at the carriage as people rushed around the still woman.
PROSOPAGNOSIA
The door to the Vanhaus mansion was pushed open by Walter, who held Clarisse up by her
waist with his other hand.

The blonde’s leg was all bloody due to the wound it sported, her dress ripped above her
knee as she had used some of its fabric to bandage herself, the knife already out and the
bleeding as contained as some piece of linen could manage to.

They entered her family’s house and Aurora, who heard the noise and came quickly into the
room, dropped her expression of worry and picked up one of full focus as she initiated the
drill a Vanhaus would pretty much trigger whenever they appeared sporting a wound; she
cleared the area and guided the woman to the nearest room with a table, helping her up on it
and making her lay down.

Walter stared at Clarisse with concern, a look which Clarisse replied to with a simple
dismissive gesture, clearly indicating that whatever was going on was fairly common, nothing
to worry about.

“Mister Knight,” Aurora said, her voice carrying its typical gentleness but with an air of
authority that hadn’t been there before, “Bring me my medical supplies. They’re in my study,
the room next to Edward’s office.”

Walter immediately followed the orders he was given.

Clarisse tried to sit up, but Aurora forbade her from doing so, placing her hand on the
younger woman’s chest and lightly pushing her back.

She complied but still complained, “It’s not that big of a deal, Aurora.”

“I will determine that.” The former nurse scolded.

Clarisse rolled her eyes but allowed the woman to work, feeling as she carefully untied the
knot around her leg and inspected the gash on her thigh.

The cut wasn’t too big and it was surprisingly superficial. “Who did this to you?”

“I did.”

She raised her eyebrows, looking at Clarisse as the blonde raised her head enough to meet
her eyes. Then, she looked down at the wound again and spoke. “Makes sense, then.”

“What does?”

Walter came back with Aurora’s demands, helping her by handing them to her and stepping
back to let her do her work.

“This will sting,” She warned the blonde as she started to clean her wound, a bit surprised
and at the same time expecting the fact that she didn’t hear Clarisse complain. “Makes
sense that the cut is rather harmless,” She replied to Clarisse's question. “It’s deep enough
to look bad but it’s not worrisome at all.”
“I know my anatomy lessons well enough to not kill myself by accident.” She said, closing
her eyes and gritting her teeth at the burning sensation on her thigh.

“Good,” Aurora said as she nodded her head somewhat absentmindedly. “Your father didn’t
and came back with ridiculous injuries.” She gestured for Walter to approach her, “I will now
stitch you up,” She informed the blonde, before looking at her helper and asking him for a
hand with it.

Walter watched with raised eyebrows, “What do you want me to do?”

“Grab the scissors and follow my instructions.” When she realized the man had no clue
which scissors to grab, she picked them up, placed them in his hands and continued
working, telling him what to do as she did her best to stitch Clarisse up.

As they finished their job, Aurora cleaned the wound once more, placed an ointment on it
and wrapped it with fresh bandages. “Try to avoid doing anything strenuous with this leg, will
you?” She asked Clarisse as she approached her side to help her sit up.

“That will be hard to promise.”

Aurora’s expression turned stern, “Try.”

With Walter’s help, she got off the table and on her feet, though the man held her up enough
to avoid putting too much weight on the injured one.

“I need to get to my father’s office,” Clarisse said out loud, mostly so that Walter would get
the tip and help her get there.

It didn’t seem to sit well with Aurora, “Your father’s office?” She asked with a dubitative tone.

“Yes, the real one,” Clarisse said, looking over her shoulder at the woman as they were
already in slow course to her destination.

She saw the way Aurora eyed Walter’s back, questioning his presence in such a private
place.

“He’s trustworthy,” Clarisse replied, not bothering to be subtle about it, turning her head to
resume her walking.

They slowly made their way to the dungeon-like office, with Walter helping the woman as
much as he could with her translation, especially down the tricky stairs. Once they made it to
the room, Clarisse released herself from him, “It’s alright, Walter. I’ll let you know if I need
any more of your help.”

“Are you sure, madame?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Quite certain,” She replied, “I appreciate your concern, though.”

Not a second passed after that before they heard someone descending the stairs, Aurora’s
voice floating down towards them as she said something that seemed directed to Clarisse
for she was complaining about how stubborn she was, just like her father.
The words froze in her mouth, though, as she saw Clarisse standing alone by the libraries,
her back to her, Walter almost on the opposite side of the room, his eyes going from the
blonde to the brunette, an expression of fearful concern on his face, like he was just caught
red-handed.

“I will go upstairs—”

“You will stay right here.” His boss commanded him with a quite authoritative tone.

The man sighed and seemed to shrink slightly, clearly uncomfortable by the situation, “Yes,
madam.”

Aurora’s eyes stayed on him, though she was still talking to the other woman, “Clarisse, I
don’t think—”

“Walter has been working alongside me for a number of years now, Aurora,” She said,
turning to look at the woman, her expression as impassive as ever. “Not only is he my driver,
he’s sort of my right hand when the need demands it, so he’s quite savvy by now with how
demon hunting works.” She analyzed the former medic’s face, “He’s trustworthy, very helpful
and might aid me in doing my job more efficiently.” She turned to look at the books all around
her, “If you don’t trust my judgment, feel free to stay here with us and keep an eye on him,
but I can guarantee you that there’s no one around as reliable as Walter.”

Aurora stared at her back as she moved her fingers from one book’s spine to the other,
carefully analyzing the title each one of them had.

Walter broke the tense silence, “Do you need any help looking for something, madam?”

“Actually, yes.” Clarisse replied, her expression one of complete concentration. “The
bookshelves next to this one contain books on demonology. Care to see if you find anything
talking about vampires?”

And it was Aurora’s voice the one they heard replying, though it was with a question, “Isn’t
vampire-hunting what your family specializes in?”

“It is, but you could say I’m the one exception to the rule.”

“Really?” Upon hearing the blonde hum an affirmative response, she asked, “And why is
that?”

Clarisse looked at her over her shoulder, “Because I’m proficient at hunting witches instead.”
She turned once more towards the bookshelf she was investigating, “Never encountered
enough vampires to know much about them, if I’m honest.”

Aurora frowned, “Witches?”

“Yes, witches.” She responded, still scanning the books. “Where I live there’s a lot of witches,
not so many vampires.”

She felt uncomfortable in her own skin, all of a sudden. “Are there witches in Gyfford?”

“No, not really. You see,” Clarisse turned to look at her, pausing her search for a second,
“Demons are very competitive creatures. Once a big family of them establishes themselves
in a city, they don’t really let any other family, let alone another race, settle down in the same
place. At least, not without them being recognized as the rulers of wherever city they’re in. If
they compete with families of the same race, you can only imagine how bad they can get
with one of a different kind.”

Clarisse had a calm expression, her eyelids a bit heavy with ease as she continued
speaking, “Gyfford is ruled by a family of vampires, so there’s very slim chances of any other
kind of demon walking around the place. Sure, maybe there’s one witch or one werewolf or
even a drude walking around, but they’re mostly astray; they’re probably hiding from
Gyfford’s ruler, so as not to have to respond to them. In short; they’re innocuous and nothing
you should worry about.”

“The Rookes.”

Walter turned to look at Aurora at the sound of her voice.

Clarisse simply stared, nodding her head. “Yes, the Rooke clan controls Gyfford.”

She was not surprised the woman knew about the Rookes; oldest vampire family to exist,
living in Gyfford before the city was even conceived in the first humans’ minds.

Natural nemesis of the Vanhaus clan.

Aurora nodded her head, a frown on her face. “Your father would mention them from time to
time.”

“To you?”

She shook her head. “To other hunters. He never really told me much of what he did for
work.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Were you ever interested in knowing?”

“He said it was too dangerous for me to know.” Was her reply, accompanied by a worried
look on her face.

“Too dangerous?” She raised her eyebrows in surprise, before clicking her tongue and
turning to continue searching through the library.

“Yes,” She heard Aurora’s hesitant voice reply, pausing before adding, “Isn’t it?”

“I don’t think knowing these things would be dangerous for you.” She told her, “If anything, it
would make you more capable of helping out, sometimes.”

And Aurora’s response was silence.

Clarisse halted her task for a second time.

She knew her father very well, unfortunately, so she knew what the silence meant; Edward
had made the woman feel she was not only incapable of such work, but also an annoyance,
an obstacle for it whenever she tried to aid. He, Clarisse knew, had probably made the
woman feel fear anytime she got too curious, rendering her scared of their line of work, so
she’d keep herself at bay and never get involved.
Maybe it was an attempt to keep her away from the things that made the job actually
dangerous, maybe it was a hunter’s competitive nature making him see threats where there
were none, Clarisse didn’t know but she knew one thing; she was not her father.

She turned to look at the woman, “If you want to stay here while we discuss these things,
Walter and I won’t mind. If there’s something you wish to know, just ask and I’ll explain. I
think you could benefit from knowing a few things.” She shrugged, “Maybe it would help
soothe your fears, to know these things aren’t as far away and as monstrous as one would
immediately think they’d be, based on myths.” A thought occurred to her, “Oh, and if there’s
something you think you could contribute to our research, please, speak up,” She saw the
woman’s eyes grow in size at those words, “Because I’ll accept all the help you’re able and
willing to provide.”

The blonde could see the tension leaving the older woman’s body as her shoulder slowly
lowered, her eyes still widened and her mouth slightly agape. She heard her mumble ‘I see’
before she smiled at the woman and turned to continue with her task.

Slowly, Aurora dared.

“Vampires rule in Gyfford.”

“Yes.”

“And what rules in Beyrseagh?” A pause, “Witches?”

Clarisse’s eyes scanned the tomes in front of her, “Beyrseagh was ruled by a council of
witches, so it was many witch families running the place, the oldest of each clan
representing their own by participating in this council. That’s a very weird thing to have, but
the general rule remained; there weren’t too many demons of any other breed.” A pause,
then she raised her eyebrows, though no one could see it, “There were a bunch of
werewolves here and there, but those were mostly the consequential damage of having
witches freely around the city.” She made a face as she explained, knowing Aurora wouldn’t
see the connection between both facts, “Witches can curse people with lycanthropy. A
werewolf can be the byproduct of witchcraft or vertical passing of a curse. There’s some who
are products of demonic blood and then a few which are the result of an infection by another
werewolf. The last handful of them I’ve come across are all just witches’ curses.”

Aurora’s mind had remained on the first sentence the blonde had let out. “What did you
mean by ‘was ruled’?”

Clarisse nodded. “I mean that Beyrseagh was ruled by witches, but nowadays the council is
dead and gone. They are currently very weak back home, so there’s no ruling demon in the
city for the time being.”

“What happened?”

“I happened. I hunted them down.”

Aurora’s eyebrows raised, “All of them?”

“Not all of them, but the matrons, the leaders of each coven.”
She looked really surprised. “That’s incredible.”

Clarisse made a face, like she didn’t fully agree with that statement, “You could say that but
yes, that’s why I know more about witches than vampires; I just happen to live in a city filled
with them.”

“It makes sense now,” Aurora said, holding her breath for a second before speaking once
more, “But then why are you the only one who knows more about other demons in your
family?”

“Because I’m the only one who moved to a city with a ruling demon that’s not a vampire. The
rest decided they’d rather fight a known enemy instead of an unknown one.” She was
curious, then, “Do you know why Vanhaus know so much about vampires?”

“Because…” And as she trailed off, silence reigned.

Clarisse chuckled, “Right,” She mumbled as her eyes finally landed on the tome she had
been looking for; a big book which’s spine read The Rooke Clan on an old calligraphy.

She took it out of the library and placed it on the desk in the middle of the room, her deep
blue lace gloves keeping her safe from accidentally seeing more than she wanted to as her
fingers ran over the leather cover displayed in front of her. The tome was a logbook her
family had written and kept updating regarding the Rooke clan. They’d write about every one
of its members, give them a portrait and a specific characterization, to make them easier to
hunt and to track whether any of them remained alive or not.

It was a hit list with details on every target, basically.

“It’s a tale as old as time, the war between good and evil. God expels Lucifer from his world,
creation happens and then it’s a constant battle between holy spirits and sinful ones. This
world is the response to Lucifer’s original sin tainting God’s creation of mankind. We are all
inclined to goodness by design, so it’s only logical that the Devil would come to this plane
and try to build that same natural influence, trying to take over what belongs to God.”

Carefully so as to avoid worsening her injury, Clarisse sat down by the desk as Aurora
approached it. “The result is the world we live in, which is constantly being influenced by
both Heaven and Hell. These influences are easy to see; people kill other people, people
protect other people. Again, good versus evil.”

She frowned as she inspected the tome. “The thing about wars is that both sides want to win
and see the other lose. The Devil started releasing his followers on this realm, so God had to
respond in some kind of way; while Lucifer allowed demons to come straight from Hell and
permitted them to reproduce with humans so as to make their bloodlines demonic, bringing
them closer to his flames, the angels, under God’s command, blessed some mortals with
celestial blood, granting them gifts that bring them closer to holiness and make them
powerful assets against demonic creatures, thus us, demon hunters, were born. Demons
and infernal-blooded mortals are on the loose, trying to spread sin, while us of celestial
descendance try to stop them. We are Heaven’s response to Hell’s intentions.” Her eyes
then moved to Aurora, who seemed to be hanging on her every word. “You don’t have to be
of celestial blood to be a hunter, but those of us who are were practically made for the job,
because when an angel blesses a human, they grant them the power to perceive things
beyond our human senses, feel other people’s energies and auras in order to identify allies
and foes and a gift that will make them efficient against hellish creatures. Sometimes,
against a specific set of them.”

She opened the tome and looked at the family tree drawn on the first few pages, each name
coming with a page number, a special kind of index. “When the Rooke clan first appeared on
these lands, they were unstoppable. No hunter could hunt them, no one posed a threat for
them. They’re very high-ranking demons in Hell. A noble, pureblood family, somewhat close
to Lucifer himself.” She said, raising her eyebrows a bit. “And they seemed to have a knack
for killing hunters. They became known in both Heaven and Hell as the hunters of hunters,
for they were killing us all, paying us with the same coin. I believe they came to Earth with
that sole purpose.” She frowned as she thought, “They were practically eradicating celestial
presence on this world. As demons advanced on Earth, angels begged the Great Seven for
aid.”

“The Great Seven?”

“The Archangels,” Clarisse quickly explained, “The most powerful of creatures in Heaven
after God; Uriel, Selaphiel, Jegudiel, Barachiel and then the Three Princes of Heaven, the
leaders, the ones who rule right after Him; Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.”

Aurora raised an eyebrow “The Archangels weren’t helping?”

Clarisse shook her head. “They weren’t getting involved, considering it was a task
manageable by lesser angels, but started doing so after seeing their power was needed. Six
of the Great Seven granted their blessing to a lineage of their choosing.”

“Which one wasn’t cooperating?”

“Saint Raphael.”

“Why?”

“Raphael is the Angel of the sick,” Clarisse explained, “He’s the patron of medicine, of
healing—”

“And celestial blessings were basically granting humans ways to kill, which sometimes they’d
use on things other than the creatures they were meant to destroy, so you can imagine the
moral complications he faced.” Walter interrupted her, giving Aurora a knowing look, hiding
behind a shrug and a sheepish look at Clarisse’s raised eyebrow.

“Yes, that’s a way to put it,” The blonde continued, “But the efforts of all other six weren’t
enough to stop the Rookes, so they all begged —the other two Princes too, —for Raphael to
aid as well.”

“And he did?”

Clarisse nodded. “It took some time, but eventually he agreed to help, on his own terms.
He’d find a lineage he deemed worthy and grant them a gift of his own making, one not
made to kill, but to protect.” She stared at Aurora, “And that’s how the Vanhaus came to be.”
The older woman’s face was one of awe. Clarisse didn’t know whether it was because of
what she had just told her or the ease with which she was telling her these things but one
thing was apparent; her father hadn’t told her a thing.

She was not surprised.

“And what is the gift he gave you?”

“Raphael decided he’d give his lineage the perfect gift to make them stand a chance against
the Rookes, so he kept his word and granted the Vanhaus the blessing of protection. We’re
immune to disease. Poison doesn’t affect us, illness is shrugged off, infections are
impossible; the worst of venoms might give us a headache, at most. It doesn’t sound like
much but it becomes a very powerful gift when you realize what a demon does to a human
when attacking them is, in a way, infecting them.” She raised an eyebrow, “Vampirism,
lycanthropy, the plethora of consequences facing a demon has are all diseases for the
human body. Raphael protected us of all that by granting us his gift.”

Unable to find Eryn Rooke on the index, Clarisse started skimming through the tome,
reading the names of generations of vampires, looking for hers. “Suddenly, the Rookes had
a worthy match, a clan of hunters who wouldn’t succumb to their evil powers. Our efficiency
hunting them made us their most desired target which, in return, made us want to hunt them
almost exclusively.” Her eyes found Aurora’s, “And that’s how Vanhaus and Rookes came to
hate each other and play an eternal game of cat and mouse throughout the generations, with
the roles of cat and mouse changing hands from time to time.”

She reached the last log on the tome; Viktor Rooke.

No Eryn Rooke to be found.

How come that you’re not in the logbook yet, Eryn?

“Here, madam,” Walter said as he approached Clarisse on the desk, “I think this might be
useful.” He laid the book he had on the table; it explained the abilities someone with
vampirism possessed.

“Thank you, Walter.” Clarisse said, skimming through that book as she returned her attention
to Viktor Rooke’s log.

The first thing her eyes fell on was Viktor’s portrait; a man of raven black hair, slickened
back, a few wrinkles around his bright-blood-red eyes, a careful beard decorating his strong
jawline, his stern expression.

The stark resemblance with Eryn was there, in the piercing stare, the strong features.

Your father, I’ll take it?

She read the information to the side, its author unknown to her, being only aware that it had
not been her father, for the calligraphy didn’t match his, though there were some annotations
on his handwriting here and there;

Viktor Rooke, firstborn of Laura and Arwin Rooke, natural successor of the
Rooke line, current FORMER leader of the Rookes and Ruler of Gyfford; king of
demons in the city, spokesperson for the Rooke clan in Hell, member of the Inner
Circle Council of Lucifer.

Brothers: One, Vincent Rooke. Younger.

Spouse: None UNKNOWN.

Children: None ONE, ERYN ROOKE.

There you are.

She kept on reading on Viktor, learning a few things about the man, if one could call it that;
the previous writer— her great grandfather, by the looks of it— believed him to be alive, but
her father had discovered the monster had died, at some point, the series of events that led
to his demise a mystery, his ending being the only thing the Vanhaus could be certain of.

Edward had written everything he had discovered on their foe, correcting the original
information, as it was usual on the Rooke tome; Viktor actually had married someone, some
sort of arrangement for power, certainly, as Rooke mocky marriages usually were, but the
spouse remained incognito. The only thing he had managed to find out, besides that he had
died somehow and that he had been married at some point, was that the marriage had
sprouted one child that they know of, their name being Eryn Rooke.

Their. Not her?

There was a little footnote linked to Eryn’s name, in her father’s handwriting, which caught
Clarisse’s eye.

Not enough information on the Rooke heir to start their own log. The
knowledge of this spawn being real is available only through interrogations
which took place in the slums. Their appearance and gender remain a mystery.
Only knowledge on them is the one that updated Viktor’s log.

She couldn’t help but feel surprised at it all; Eryn was a complete mystery to everyone, not
just her, and it seemed her story, the one full of doubts, question marks and questions left
unanswered, started with her father.

And that’s without wondering who her mother might be.

All logs in the logbook were very detailed descriptions of each Rooke’s life and demise,
along with a list of their abilities, sightings, encounters, everything. Viktor’s log was
incomplete in comparison; a very vague description of his family’s composition —mother,
father, younger brother —, the confirmation that he was the next in line and his children
would be after him, then some encounters and that was it. Added years later, by the look of
it, were Edwards’ annotations, which added that he had died at some point in some way
which remain unknown to them and that he had actually had one child whose identity
remained a mystery to the man.

Curious.

Why was this one vampire so unknown to them?

She eyed the encounters section, where one of her ancestors had left a little detail on
Viktor’s behavioral pattern;

Viktor Rooke is a force to be reckoned with; each Vanhaus that has met him,
has met their demise on him. The vampire lord seems more powerful than any of
his brethren before him and has managed to remain ever elusive due to the
annihilation of any and all forces who come too close to him. Defiance seems
impossible. He keeps his family mostly a secret to avoid having them hunted, too.

Protective. Powerful, too.

She moved on to the next paragraph.

Viktor Rooke’s reign is a quiet one for now; no real motion in Gyfford’s
underbelly, with demons actually laying rather low. It seems there’s a certain
turmoil, chaos, but due to what? Investigation is necessary for further
understanding of the scene we’re presented with.

And then the calligraphy changed to that of her father’s;

Elric Vanhaus, former hunter in charge of Viktor Rooke, has been found
dead sometime between his last entry in this section and this paragraph.
Succeeding him in this hunt is Edward Vanhaus, grandson of his.

Viktor was not seen again, Elric being the last Vanhaus to ever see him
alive. It is unknown what happened to him. Some thorough investigation
followed and the name ‘Eryn Rooke’ was heard among low-lifers. Upon the
application of pressure, some talked; this Eryn Rooke is recognized by Gyfford’s
demons as their ruler. By extension, it is understood they are the heir of the
Rooke clan, as the clan’s customs usually dictate.

By the information gathered it is safe to assume, then, that Eryn Rooke is

Viktor’s child, presumably his only offspring. What happened to him and to the
hunter that gave chase to him remains unknown, but one thing is certain; both
of them are dead.

Eryn Rooke remains unseen, unknown.

Clarisse had to remind herself to blink after reading her father’s entries.

A sigh escaped her lips as she sat back on the chair, rubbing her eyelids with her thumb and
index. Not only was there virtually no information on Eryn, her predecessor’s log wasn’t
necessarily detailed, either.

This was going to prove a difficult hunt.

“Aurora,” She said, making the older woman look at her, “Have you ever heard my father
mention the name Eryn?”
“To me? No, never.” Aurora replied, though there was a frown of concentration on her
expression as she continued, “Though I believe I’ve heard him talk about someone of that
name, I think he was talking to someone about some Eryn Roo—”

The woman was immediately shut down by Walter, who had practically jumped to her and
put his hand over her mouth, his eyes open like plates as his brows furrowed and his pupils
danced over the woman’s shocked expression, a mixture of judgment and astonishment
decorating his features.

Aurora immediately slapped his hand away, “What on Earth prompted that?”

“You do not say a demon’s name out loud!”

Shock became confusion, “What?”

“I’m afraid his drastic reaction was actually the right one, Aurora,” Clarisse said, calm as
ever, “I can tell my father hasn’t told you, so I’ll explain it. Names are a powerful thing, they
hold a lot of weight on us and by themselves, they might be the most powerful thing we own,
no matter who or what we are. Commonfolk won’t see themselves affected by their name
being said out loud, but celestials and infernals do.” Her eyes remained on Aurora’s, “As you
probably know due to your catholic background, when you say an angel’s name, you’re
summoning them, surrendering yourself to their mercy, in a way.”

“You call for their grace.”

“That’s right, you call them and, as you know, demons come from a fallen angel, so it’s no
surprise that there’s a lot they share with their counterparts.” Her expression hardened as
her eyes narrowed when she let out, “So you can imagine it’s not a very good idea to give
power to a demon by saying their name and surrendering yourself, in a certain way, to their
summoning.”

Clarisse placed her elbows on the desk, letting her head rest on her hands, “There’s ways to
mention them and dodge the whole power thing, of course, like not saying their full name,
hence why I only said Eryn, but it’d be in your best interests to remember not to mention any
powerful entity by their full name, ever.”

“This includes celestial beings, madam,” Walter added, looking rather apologetic, sheepishly
looking away when Aurora’s eyes tried to meet his.

“It does,” Clarisse said, “So, let’s try again. You’ve heard the name Eryn?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Who did my father mention it to?”

“It wasn’t your father mentioning it. People were mentioning it to him.”

Clarisse frowned. “Who?”

The older woman shook her head, shrugging her shoulders, “I don’t know, many different
people, though they all looked to be from the slums.”

The blonde’s eyes scanned the logbook. “Beggars and harlots, weren’t they?”
Aurora’s cheeks flushed at the younger woman’s words. “Yes. It looked like your father knew
them, probably from his outings. They’d come here and talk with him in his office.”

“Sounds like he was paying them to scout Eryn for him. They give him information, he gives
them gold.”

Aurora hummed in agreement, then opened her mouth to say something, before closing it
again.

The blonde noticed and raised an eyebrow at the whole thing. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

Clarisse could tell a lie when she heard one.

“Aurora.”

“What?”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

The hazel eyes in front of her scanned the room, her whole demeanor that of a fearful rabbit
that had been cornered by two wolves.

It was a shame, really, that Aurora didn’t realize she wasn’t a rabbit but another one of the
pack.

“I tried not to eavesdrop on your father in his meetings.” She said, admitting to something
with what she didn’t say.

“But you did anyway…” Clarisse began, trying to read the woman’s expression, thinking of
the context of the situation, her eyes landing once more on the blush of her cheeks and the
guilty look in her eyes, before finally deciding, “...because you didn’t know what, really, went
on in that office.”

“Prostitutes walked in and out of this place like it was the common market, what else was I
supposed to think!?” She sounded scandalized, nervous to have been put on the spotlight
like that by the daughter of the man she was supposed to be faithful to.

Had she not been so focused in defending herself, she would have noticed the lack of
accusation on the woman’s voice, the look not of prejudice but understanding on her face,
the need to know what she had heard not out of a morbid curiosity but the desire to make
things right and understand her natural enemy better.

“What did you hear?” Clarisse said as she shifted on her seat, hands clasped together, her
complete attention placed on the woman in front of her.

A few seconds passed where Aurora finally assessed the huntress’ demeanor and realized
no judgment was being passed on her person. Her shoulder relaxing as a sigh escaped her
mouth and the blood evened out on her body, she finally spoke, “They all came to your
father with different stories; some would call Eryn a man, some would call them a woman.
Tall, short, black skin, vitiligo, pale skin, black hair, blond curls…” She shook her head,
“Some even thought Eryn was more a concept than an actual person, but then that was shot
down by someone who said Eryn was Viktor’s only child and successor.”

“And we believe this to be true because…?”

“Because the woman who said that told your father her sister actually worked for Eryn as a
prostitute in a brothel they own, somewhere downtown.” Aurora said, “She came to him
telling him she had information on the pimp Eryn—” A thought ran through her head as clear
as water —”You-know-what-last-name, that she wanted to give your father because she
hated how her sister seemed to not have a mind of her own anymore, apparently living only
for her employer’s every beck and call and she actually hoped your father would do
something to stop that.” She looked away, lost in memory, “I don’t think anyone knew who
your father is and was doing, gathering all that information. They all came for the payment
he offered in exchange for some intel except for that one woman, who came hoping to trade
information for her sister’s freedom from Eryn’s grasp.” A beat, then she added, “That was
what made your father believe that woman; she seemed to have a real link, albeit indirect,
with his target.”

Clarisse thought of how there was no description whatsoever of who Eryn was, how she
looked like, not even a he or a she anywhere in the paragraphs, Eryn always being
mentioned as they.

It seems so many different stories still planted the seed of doubt, then.

“And did my father help her?” She settled for asking.

“Not that I know of,” She offered with a defeated expression, “As time passed, it got harder
and harder to get anything out of him. I remember him being frustrated at how no two people
would describe Eryn in the same way.” And as her words left her mouth and made the
blonde hum in thought, Aurora’s memory got stimulated and she remembered one thing,
“But they all remembered green eyes.”

Clarisse’s violet stare was anchored on hazel eyes. “Green eyes?”

“Yes,” Aurora nodded, focused, “They all described different people, but they all mentioned
green eyes. One of them went as far as saying their eyes could look right through you and at
your soul.” She chuckled, “Seemed a bit dramatic for me…”

And, as she trailed off, Walter completed the sentence for her.

“...But suddenly it doesn’t seem that dramatic anymore, does it?”

The blonde frowned deeply as she took Aurora’s descriptions in, her mind making
connections, pulling at memories, trying to see the picture.

Eryn Rooke had been at that party with her; she was certain the woman she had met was
her, the green eyes being a clear indication she was also the one everyone else had
described, but what was up with the different appearances? As far as she knew, vampires
didn’t have shapeshifting abilities and the book on vampirism Walter had placed in front of
her confirmed it. It was true that the most powerful demons had certain, special abilities, but
Viktor didn’t have any ability like that, as recorded in the Rooke logbook.
And how could she possibly have green eyes to begin with, if vampires were biologically
drawn to blood red ones, like her father before her?

It’d be foolish of you to shrug me off as a vampire, Eryn had told her as they had danced.

Whatever made her special, it had to come from her mother’s side, the one part of the
equation Clarisse didn’t have.

And then, as her mind went back to their dance, their game of cat and mouse, she
remembered something else.

There’s something about the way you look at me, Eryn had said, they all want, but you see.

She couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t explain how she knew it, but somehow she was
certain that the woman she had danced with was Eryn Rooke; that was her physical form.

With a newfound resolution at the challenging mystery the green-eyed vampire posed to be,
Clarisse flipped the pages on the Rooke logbook back to the index and added Eryn’s name
to the list, before returning to the first empty page on it and writing it again on the top. Then,
she cracked her fingers and, pulling from memory from both her dreams and their first
encounter, she slowly started to work her way through a detailed portrait of the woman who
had danced with her.

Aurora raised an eyebrow at the sudden seriousness that took over the blonde, “What are
you doing?”

“Giving the masked demon a face,” She replied. “It’s time we all learn who Eryn Rooke is.”
REASSESSMENT
Truth be told, Clarisse didn’t get too far with Eryn’s portrait.

She was ready to work through the night, logging in as many details as she could regarding
the Rooke heir in terms of both her appearance and general self, but as soon as she
declared her intentions, Aurora had complained.

‘You have a serious injury,’ she had said. ‘Drawing can wait. Your health cannot.’

And Clarisse would have refused to hear her out, a perfect counterattack at the ready,
dancing on the tip of her tongue but when even her ever-loyal driver slash companion
teamed up against her and agreed with the medical expert, it was hard not to simply sigh
and admit defeat.

She knew just how annoying Walter could become, did he find the need to.

So she had no choice but to allow them both to help her up and out of her father’s office, but
not without the huntress taking her work with her, both the logbook and the book on
vampires Walter had found in her hands, the attempt to bring tomes out of the dungeon-like
room making the older woman warn that it was not allowed.

‘Whatever is in this room must remain locked up in here,’ Aurora had complained. ‘Your
father always insisted on this rule.’

And that time, Clarisse was able to refuse hearing her out.

‘As you probably gathered by now, I don’t do things like he does,’ was her response. ‘I find
working in my own style suits me better…’ And, as a thought hit her, she dared, ‘Unless you
really want me to do things his way, that is.’

And that was all that was needed for Aurora to stop trying.

As she laid in bed, her back against soft pillows, Clarisse chuckled at the thought. The
former nurse could try and deny it as much as she wanted, unconsciously hiding it behind
darting glances and nervous body language, but it was evident she liked being on the loop of
things. The blonde knew that, if anything, Aurora felt less like an idiot, less afraid of the
world, more in control of her own fears and so much more helpful and God knows how
useful someone with so much medical knowledge could prove to be in dire times like these.

Such a shame, she thought, that her father could be such an asshole. He could have had a
potentially powerful ally by his side had he not been so focused on being an idiot. Maybe, he
wouldn’t even be missing.

But alas! I would be out of something different to do right now, so I might as well be grateful
for it.

So she had to admit, while she loathed the zealous competitiveness of her line of work and
how it had deep roots within her family’s hearts, she could find a certain amusement in how
it ended up sabotaging those who followed its dark commands. She did feel a certain sorrow
at the thought of how badly it had backstabbed her own father, though, because the man
wasn’t bad per se; he was just too protective of his work to ever let his guard down and let
himself be surprised every now and then, let alone letting someone in.

Aurora’s marriage to him must have been a lonely one, she mused.

It was hard to picture her father with someone. She had never really seen him with her
mother, she couldn’t start to imagine him with someone else, not to mention someone like
Aurora; so easily pushed to fear, to cowardice…

…but was she easily pushed or did her father mold her into that? Was she so naturally afraid
of whatever lurked in the shadows or was it Edward’s whispers of danger that poisoned her
mind and filled her arteries with terror? It certainly wasn’t something beyond the man; it was
easier to keep someone scared at bay than to try and do that with someone curious and,
after a healthy amount of reassurance, Aurora proved to have an inquisitive mind. It seemed
only natural for someone so hellbent on crushing the competition like the hunter to stop
absolutely everyone from prying on his work, improbable opponents and potential allies as
well.

Better be safe than sorry, no?

So in love with his work had he ever been that he always lost sight of the world around him,
so it really was a mystery to Clarisse how a kind-hearted woman like Aurora ended up with
such a calloused husk of a man like her father. Whatever he did to manage pulling someone
like the brunette in, Clarisse couldn’t imagine.

She felt a pinch of sadness at the thought, not because of missing out on her father’s life, but
due to leaving poor Aurora at his mercy. Empathy; could she have prevented the woman
from living such a life, had she stayed in Gyfford and forced her father to look around at the
people who surrounded him, from time to time?

The thought’s attempt to invade Clarisse’s psyche was futile; she could see no purpose in
ruminating the past, in contemplating the could-have-beens. All she knew, all she had, all
she wanted to think of was the here and now, with the actions that led up to it; her departure
from Gyfford when she turned eighteen, to follow her mother to Beyrseagh as she split from
her father, to get entangled in her mother’s side of the family, to see her succumb to her fate
and become bed-ridden, to see herself drown in the dark waters of fury inside of her as she
slaughtered every witch she encountered—

She clicked her tongue as the graphite broke under the tension of her hands. It was already
hard to draw in bed, with only the book itself serving as a hard surface, she had to go ahead
and make it harder by refusing to take off her gloves, rendering her unable to properly sense
her grip and keep it in check.

She sighed as she dropped all objects next to her and started soothing her hands, opening
and closing them, letting her fingers rest as she stretched them and made them pop a bit.

Truth be told, not even the events that led up to her present were that important to her,
anymore. Nothing really took up much space in her mind, ever in control, ever-focused.
She just couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for Aurora, who seemed to be trapped in a life she
didn’t imagine she’d ever have. Maybe she didn’t imagine such a life was even possible,
real, but, as Edward had put it before disappearing, she walked right into it.

What a cunt, really.

There were softer ways to let someone know they had made a terrible mistake.

Then, she remembered herself trying to ease Aurora’s mind, telling her she was OK with
dying, that there were worse things, something like that.

A small, dry laugh escaped her lips.

A chip off the old block, I suppose.

Everything was always easier, in hindsight. Not so much when you were there, facing the
music, but damn if she was not surprised at seeing just how lacking in social skills her father
could be, especially considering he was supposed to be the extroverted one.

That goes to show you can be outgoing and asocial, if you try hard enough.

And as the concept of being social danced around her mind, Clarisse wandered back to the
ball. She tried to keep a hold of Marion and their exchange and think of that for a little, of the
several men who had danced with her. She tried to think of her talk with the Governor, she
even hoped to think of Sebastian and his annoying existence, but she couldn’t help herself
as her thoughts forced her to go back to Eryn.

She got out of the bed and moved to her desk, making enough room to work comfortably as
she laid the Rooke book on the table and sat down. She opened the tome on Eryn’s log and
grabbed her pencil…

…And stopped dead in her tracks.

She stared at what little progress she had managed to clock in; Eryn’s portrait wasn’t more
than just a very rough sketch, just a base for anyone’s face, with a few shapes that indicated
the Rooke heir’s general facial structure, but that was about it.

Then, the spot where the tip of her pencil had broken, before.

She knew she couldn’t manage to do this with those thick gloves of hers on, but she was
wary of what could happen were she to touch the old logbook with her bare hands.

She had dealt with her fair share of psychics, but she had never met anyone who could do
what she did. Psychometry, the ability to obtain information through touch, was a very
unusual ability for anyone to possess, let alone a celestial hunter. Psychic powers of any
kind were considered to be a part of witchcraft and, therefore, they were cataloged as tools
of one of the deadliest things to ever come out of Hell; witches.

One could perfectly understand, then, why no hunter owned a power of the sort; to have one
meant to have one of the Devil’s gifts, in a way. You were not an agent of God but a demon,
meant to be destroyed.

One could perfectly understand, then, why Clarisse had always kept it a secret.
There were so many things being Raphael’s favored could protect her from but,
unfortunately, witchcraft was not one of them.

Prejudice, either but, truth be told, she could understand it. She really could.

Deep within the depths of her, in those shadowy corners of her mortal heart that were hidden
from God’s all-seeing sight was were her psychic powers hid, a thing that had been seen by
her as an insult to her whole existence for years on end, before she finally accepted it as just
a part of a greater whole; Clarisse Vanhaus, the most efficient huntress to date, the one who
always knew information with keen details no one could fathom how she could possibly
obtain.

This curse of a power distinguished her from others, making her unique not only amongst
hunters, but also with her closest peers and most immediate competitors; other Vanhaus.

In the end, wasn’t that not only a curse but also a blessing, then?

—No.

She frowned, her eyes shut closed as she erased the thought from her mind.

That’s pushing it too far, calling it a blessing.

But still, it was a useful trick, even if its power was a bit too much for her to handle,
sometimes.

Because that’s what it was; a trick, one she could do. Nothing else.

So, diminishing the ability and making it as small as she could in her mind, she took off her
gloves and focused as she grabbed the pencil again.

She concentrated as hard as she could, using all of her mental power to focus on just
drawing, on just touching the paper and feeling nothing but the texture of it against her
fingertips. She tried to cage the wild beast of witchy heresy that threatened to come out
every time she felt something grazing the palms of her hands.

She steeled herself with a shaky breath and, carefully, she tested her mental prowess and
approached the paper, ready to continue her work.

She should have foreseen the failure in her future. She should have foreseen it before the
moment she heard her own breath catching in her throat, but she failed to do that, too.

Her mind vanished from the present as millions of images from a thousand different pasts
flashed before her eyes at a speed that could prove neck-breaking. Ancestor upon ancestor
of hers, logging someone into the book, layering their own emotions and thoughts into the
tome, things she accidentally tapped into with her mind as she also saw the memories of
each author, the images of the retelling they were writing down as simple recordings of
encounters and sightings, loaded with so much intensity and blood that she could swear she
was everywhere, she was in all those encounters and sightings, she was in all those pasts,
writing down all the content the book had, she was killing and being killed, she was pushing
her stake deep into vampiric hearts and having their blood splattering all over her face, she
could smell death and decay, theirs and hers as fanged smiles sunk deep into her—
She came back to reality at whiplash speed as Walter knocked the book away from her
hands, his face contorted into what Clarisse could have labeled as a flawless imitation of
Aurora’s eternally worried-to-death expression.

She tried to ground herself as the old man approached her with his handkerchief in hand;
she was trembling, adrenaline shooting up her veins and clogging her arteries with such
imperious power that her breathing was ragged and her energy spiked, a telltale sign that
soon she would be fatigued beyond what could be achieved by simply trying to draw,
accompanied by pain in places where she hadn’t been struck, the feeling of hot blood
sticking to sections of her skin that were squeaky clean.

She hadn’t noticed the blood that came out of her nostrils, ears and tear ducts until Walter
kneeled in front of her and cleaned them all off, patting gently with the white piece of cloth he
had.

“Didn’t imagine drawing was such a dangerous activity, madam.”

“Honestly, me neither,” She said, her voice trembling like the rest of her, though it quickly
steeled as she added, “But here we are.”

“How about you warn me next time you’re about to take those pretty gloves of yours off?” He
asked her in a low voice, “So I can be aware of whether you need my help to come out of it
because, this time, it was sheer luck, Clary.”

It was probably the first time in years he called her Clary, the first time in a while he spoke to
her with a tenderness he reserved for a very select group of people; those he sometimes felt
the need to be a father for.

In those quiet, secret moments where Clarisse wasn’t madam but Clary, the blonde would
relent and pull down a few of her walls.

She told herself she pulled those walls down because she wanted to be kind to her
companion.

“I didn’t think this was going to happen,” She replied with a tone as low as his, a certain
embarrassment hiding behind the words, like a teenager caught red-handed, doing
something not necessarily bad, but wrong in a way that could be avoided, had she known
how to do it right. “I was just trying to draw better and the gloves were in the way.”

She knew, in reality, she pulled the walls down because she could use a little vulnerability
and fatherly care, from time to time.

And she was not getting that from Edward. Never did, never would.

“I know, that’s why I’m telling you to let me know next time, so we can think of alternatives
together, if nothing else will work.” Walter said as he stood from the ground, putting the
bloodied linen away in one of his pockets as one of his eyebrows arched in thought, “How
about drawing in a simple piece of paper, then placing that in the Rooke tome?”

As her breathing became more collected and the shaking of her limbs quieted down,
adrenaline giving room to calm and rationality taking over once more, Clarisse kept her
frown in place and replied, “That’s not how it’s done.”
Walter sighed, cocked his hips to a side and crossed his arms in front of his chest, “You and
your silly rules that you follow down to a T,” He said in a cocky tone, like he knew better than
her, “Have you ever stopped and imagined just how much better the world would be if you
thought outside of the box sometimes? The things you could get done, the power you could
achieve?” He blew air out of his mouth, a little whistle coming out as he did so,
“Unimaginable, really!”

“You say that as if I weren’t outside the box enough, already.”

Walter simply raised an eyebrow.

“Alright, old man,” Clarisse responded, already looking annoyed at his condescending
behavior, “I got it.” She put on one of her gloves, picked up the book Walter had pushed off
the desk and placed it to a side, open on Eryn’s entry. Then, as she took off her glove again,
she grabbed the pencil and said, “Now go and bring me a piece of paper I can work on,”
Waving the man away, giving him a silly little task as if to put the chain of command in order
once more.

He shook his head as he left her room, though she could hear the faint chuckle and low ‘right
away, madam’ he had mumbled under his breath.

Being alone once more, Clarisse let out a long breath. She walked to the bathroom and
washed her face, ridding herself of any remnants of blood and trying to clear the leftover fog
off her mind. While it was true that she was mostly in control of it, it didn’t deny the fact that it
was a wild beast on a leash, that mind of hers, with its psychometry and the truths she
forced into drawers and cabinets, not to deny them but to keep them out of sight.

She returned to her room just in time to see the older man with a few paper sheets in his
hands. He showed them to her, “I believe these are mind-probe-proof, madam,” He said, his
voice low, a certain mirth hiding in his tone.

There was both caution and recklessness in the way she took the papers from him; an
imperceptible hesitation before she quickly faked nonchalance and took them without even
looking at them, her eyes on Walter’s as she gave him a bored look, perhaps a little too
trained on him, one of those hidden tells that told the keen minds who knew her in-depth that
her real attention was elsewhere, worried about something else she was pointedly trying to
ignore, hiding her concerns in a quiet-yet-visible leap of faith.

No one knew her well enough to tell.

Not even Walter.

She quickly registered the empty canvas —in all senses —these papers were, grateful for a
break from her tempestuous mind and quickly —or, better said, as quickly as her wounded
leg let her, —she retreated back to the desk, getting comfortable enough to work.

“Having already forced you to bathe, change and get back to this room where you could be
more comfortable, should I also force you to eat something, madam?” Walter asked. “I know
it’s extremely early in the morning and, therefore, no real time for a proper meal, but I doubt
you had one.”
She blinked at the words as she registered them. She had not eaten at the ball and she had
not slept yet. She figured it was around two, three in the morning of the day after, already.

She was so wired still, she didn’t feel the crash of energy or, actually, lack thereof, but she
knew she’d feel it soon.

“How about some toast and a coffee?” She said, to which Walter replied with a glare.

“It’s not the proper time for a coffee.”

“It’s technically early morning.” And at this Walter raised an eyebrow, an expression that
read, ‘you think I don’t know what you’re doing?’, so Clarisse added, “I always have coffee in
the mornings.”

The partially-blind man held her stare for a second before letting out a long exhale of defeat
through his nose “Very well, madam.” He said, then left the room.

She watched him leave with a triumphant smile, then turned back to her desk, staring at her
new, empty canvas. Mind re-focused on the task at hand, the blonde grabbed her pencil and
began her work, her mind conjuring up the vampire’s face, her expression as they first met,
then as she revealed her true nature. Surely, she had had a mask on, but Clarisse didn’t
mind; she had dreamed of her face well enough to know what hid beneath it.

A few rough lines quickly became a structure which, with a bit of time, became a sketch. She
had not registered the moment when Walter had come in to leave a generous coffee and
some baked goods for her, a jug of milk and a single sugar cube by the big cup, but she
figured it had been while she finished her first draft.

Somewhat absentmindedly, she used her left hand to prepare her coffee while her right kept
working on her portrait, albeit more slowly; she dropped the cube on the cup and filled the
missing third of it with milk, gently using the spoon to mix it all up before licking it clean and
leaving it to the side of the cup, on the small plate.

She took a moment to take a bite out of whatever it was that Walter had brought her
(something with a bit of chocolate inside, she quickly discovered) and then she washed it
down with a sip of her coffee, savoring it while she tried to figure out what exactly of her work
was not convincing her. It wasn’t necessarily wrong, it was still very much a draft, undone, a
work in progress, but there was something essential to the Rooke heir that was missing.

It wasn’t the strong facial features or the rough jawline, she had given them structure. It
wasn’t the way some loose strands of hair seemed slickened back as if pushed by an
invisible wind nor the ones that would frame the sides of her head. It wasn’t the shape and
form of her mouth—

She frowned as she stopped her drinking, putting down the mug.

It wasn’t necessarily her mouth or her eyes (because she did find something off about them)
that were wrong, but they were lacking something unique to Eryn: her expression.

Dark yet inviting.

Violent, but with a dash of…

The word ‘pleasure’ invited itself to the forefront of her mind.

She carefully erased a bit of the graphite on her face and drew over the remnants, focusing
on the feeling of it rather than the mechanics of how the face muscles work.

Her eyes were constantly hooded, a look of perfectly knowing what’s going on in her
surroundings at all times, like she’s in on a secret you’re not a part of yet, but say the right
thing and she might confide in you. Complicity, a playful curiosity. Complete power over you,
if she wanted.

Her mouth was a different ordeal, but it worked in tune with the message her eyes seemed
to send. Full lips, nude, always parted in what Clarisse considered both a threat and an
invitation; inviting, for they looked like the breathless aftermath of a kiss, the hungry hope of
seconds and thirds, but threatening, for they carefully displayed the deadly fangs she
possessed, like a promise of violence. Always a faint smirk, like she was toying with you. A
snake hidden in the innocuous tall grass of her plump lips.

Her expression was exactly that, Clarisse realized as she gave her work a few strokes;
death hiding behind welcoming tints, like a carnivore plant waiting for a foolish fly.

She paused to admire her work, giving the pastry she had tried before a second bite. She
needed to clean the drawing up and layer in details, but that was definitely Eryn staring back
at her, eyebrows furrowed in a dangerous way, lips hinting at that apparently ever-present
smirk.

She took another gulp of her coffee before cleaning up the draft and beginning the process
of really making her foe stand out in the portrait, adding in every little detail she could think
of, going as far as coloring it as time passed and her pastry was finished and her coffee cup
was either empty or cold. It was not part of the Vanhaus protocol to add color to portraits,
most of them being in black and white and only a handful of them having a dash of color
here or there if it were relevant for some reason, but Clarisse considered it was crucial her
portrait of Eryn was as spot-on as possible and color was essential for that, specially
because no one had a clue how she looked, apparently, and no other Rooke had eyes of a
color other than red.

And that is an indicator.

Indicators, hints as to what the creature in front of one might be. In Eryn’s case, a curious
backwards version of it where the indicator hinted that she was not just a vampire.

She discovered her coffee had gone terribly cold some time later, as she gambled and
distractedly tried to drink the remnants in the cup, if any, as she watched her finished piece.

Eryn Rooke, in all her glory, stared right back.

She looked more deadly than inviting.

She supposed that was a good enough warning for anyone who saw the portrait not to mess
with her.

She eased against her chair and stretched her back, hearing it pop here and there. She felt
she had done a good job, but work was not done yet.
She eyed the logbook.

Putting her gloves on, she moved aside her portrait and grabbed both the heavy tome and a
quill, along with some ink.

Then, albeit hesitantly, she wrote, not without leaving a note to the reader.

Edward Vanhaus, former hunter in charge of the Rooke heir, has been found missing
somewhere between the previous entry and this one. Succeeding him in his investigations
is Clarisse Vanhaus, daughter of his.

The following entry is regarding the current Rooke leader, Eryn Rooke. Not much about
them is known yet, therefore the entry shall be written with alleged and deduced
information and later on corrected or even replaced once confirmation or denial of these
hypotheses is reached by yours truly or whoever continues on this search, shall my life be
ended before I can complete this profile.

Eryn Rooke, firstborn of Viktor Rooke and an unknown female, natural successor of the
Rooke line, current leader of the Rookes and Ruler of Gyfford; queen of demons in the
city, spokesperson for the Rooke clan in Hell, member of the Inner Circle Council of
Lucifer.

Siblings: none.

Spouse: none.

Children: none.

Appearance: Eryn Rooke is a female, of bright green eyes and raven hair, worn in a low
ponytail. Her facial structure is rough edges and hard angles, reminiscent of the standards
of androgynous beauty, though she presents features that are predominantly female like
high cheekbones and a smaller yet straight jawline.

She closed her eyes for a brief second as she pictured her at the ball, with that deep purple
suit on, the green cravat, how she naturally, almost instinctively fell into the leading role
during their shared dance.

Even if she doesn’t seem to present herself as completely female, choosing to wear
male-clothing and picking male societal roles instead, she uses a female name and
pronouns, which indicate what she identifies as. She is around 1,78m in height and her
age is unknown.

Then she remembered the way she had acted, how she quickly dismissed her fainting
victim, clearly a prisoner of blood loss’ effects, an attack that happened right there in front of
all of them, yet nobody noticed.

Not even Clarisse herself, until it was too late and the consequences were evident.

Personality wise, she seems brazen in quite an extroverted way. She flaunts herself around
and doesn’t hide to do her dark deeds; she attacks her victims in broad sight and goes as
far as doing it in crowded places, though no one seems to care or, better said, see her. This
makes her all the more interesting, for she is on full display and yet no one ever caught a
glimpse of her, apparently.

She tried her best to recall every single thing that happened at the ball and how to
summarize it to the best of her abilities as she wrote and, as her mind scrambled, it was then
that she remembered Marion’s comment.

‘She looked just like you’…

…except she didn’t.

There are reasons to believe she can mask herself somehow, make herself completely
invisible to others in some sort of way, whether it is through shapeshifting or something
else. It is not uncommon for the Rookes to display abilities unique to each of them so,
while shapeshifting is completely out of the table for a by-the-book vampire, it shall be
considered a possibility with Eryn Rooke.

She couldn’t help the dark, single chuckle that bubbled up her throat as she wrote the next
warning;

It’d be foolish of us to shrug her off as just a vampire.

Not wishing to simply repeat her foe’s words, she added a little something to it.

There’s more to her than just a lineage of vampirism.

And she was about to stop, but then—

She seems to prefer women as her prey and company.

It felt a little silly, clarifying that part, but she assumed it could be of interest or use in a way
or another. Still, considering she was already running out of important and possibly true
information to log in, she let the ink dry, waiting a prudent amount of time before placing the
drawn portrait on it, loose like a bookmarker, and closing the heavy tome.

Clarisse sighed with exhaustion as her body’s energy levels finally caught up with her.
Sleeping sounded delightful and every inch of her craved a restful slumber, but she still had
one final, little thing to do before it.

She had to organize her thoughts.

November 14th.

I’m currently writing this somewhere between four and five in the morning, I believe. The
manor is quiet, even Walter must be asleep.

I had never met a Rooke before last evening. Eryn Rooke, the apparent current leader of their
clan, was the one to take that first from me. She is the stranger I’ve been dreaming of, the
green-eyed, beautiful yet handsome one. I could confirm as much after being at close-quarter
distance from her.

I used my false identity to enter one of the Governor’s parties, though I couldn’t get in
without a little help from Marion who quickly handed me a mask as she bumped into me at
the entry, for the ball was actually a masquerade and I wouldn’t have been able to get in
without one.

I find that a bit ridiculous. Who would throw a masquerade with a killer on the loose? It’s
clear the murderer is a demon and those tend not to attend parties, but commoners don’t
really know any of this. Just more reasons to not throw a party like this, especially when you
consider, as someone who does know a bit of these things, that Eryn Rooke, the vampire
queen of the Dark Gyfford, was there. The one exception to the ‘demons don’t like parties’
rule and, perhaps, to all rules in general.

She is an enigmatic pest, in my eyes. Vampires in themselves are, but Eryn just takes it to a
deeper level. Charismatically violent, with a reckless abandon and curious abilities. She talks
in riddles and doesn’t explain what she’s trying to say, but I think that’s mostly done to annoy
me. Little does she know, though, I’m the pest control.

We danced together when I was still unaware of her identity, knowing only she was the
stranger in my dreams. I believe she already knew who I was, so that just makes the situation
all the more strange to me. Why entertain me if you already know I’m your nemesis? Because
that’s what we are; the heir of both our clans are sworn enemies since birth, not even until
death do us part, for we are to hate each other in the afterlife, too.

Perhaps she was trying to toy with her food… but then our chatting wouldn’t make much
sense. She told me about how ‘everyone wants, but I see’. I cannot make sense of it still, but I
feel she has given me a hint as to something there.

And then there’s the whole thing with Marion, who watched us dance, but did not see Eryn.
She saw someone who looked just like me, instead.

Could those two things be connected? Seeing and wanting, and Marion’s (and everyone’s)
blindness to her? Because no one seemed to know what she looked like.

It makes me wonder if I even saw the real Eryn. If Marion got fooled, what would make me
any different? Dreaming about our encounter gives me the feeling that, perhaps, I did see her
for what she truly is, that this cat did catch the right rat, but I could be wrong. Everything is
just an assumption with her.

There’s much I don’t know yet, but I intend on finding out. What I do know is that Eryn Rooke
plays a part in the pest I’ve been called to eradicate.

I just need to see where she fits. In the role of my prey, probably.

Preferably.