“So… Thomas.” when Detective Kuhn merged his car onto an expressway, he asked in a curious, nosy and still careful tone: “What’s with the sudden career change? How the hell did you become a wizard? Is your … tribe, school, coven, or clan still recruiting?”

“Well, as you already know, it started with a horrible story of getting bit by a vampire in the line of duty, which forced Aimee to stay in the hospital for almost two weeks. When she was asleep, our mentor came without us knowing and placed a folded paper flower in her hand.” Thomas chuckled and said: “Shortly after we came out of the hospital, she came to us and recruited us. I don’t know if she’s still recruiting though.”

“What about you? Ms. Baker?” Detective Kuhn laughed and looked at Caroline through the rearview mirror: “Thomas said you are a different kind of wizard - or witch. What’s that called again? Sorry I’m having a brain fart moment - gardener?”

“Cultivator.” Caroline covered her smile with her hand: “We’re a different kind of power wielder - with some similarities to wizards and witches. We could fight with our weapons, and we could cast spells if we’d like. Then as a result we have to practice both martial arts and spell casting. ”

“Huh.” Detective Kuhn nodded: “Well, I don’t know jack, but I’m sure it’s pretty awesome.”

“It is.” Caroline chuckled: “And no, I don’t know if our master is recruiting. I could ask, but he’s a bit occupied for now.”

“Yeesh, can’t blame an old nerd for trying.” Detective Kuhn shook his head as he merged right and got ready to leave the expressway: “I guess when this is over, I want to pick your brains on the general idea of a cultivator - I’m thinking that I could add a new role in my campaign ...”

“Detective Kuhn is our head nerd in our precinct.” Thomas turned back and explained to Caroline: “He’s the biggest promoter of Dungeons and Dragons in our precinct and the most frequent Dungeon master. So be careful there.”

“There’s nothing to be careful of!” Detective Kuhn smacked Thomas on the side arm: “Who’s to say actual mages and - power wielders cannot play D&D?”

“I think our master could be quite fond of it.” Caroline smiled and acknowledged: “Don’t worry, when you have the character sheet ready I can definitely take a look for you. My younger brother likes to play with his friends so I know a thing or two myself.”

“We’re here.” before Detective Kuhn and Caroline could continue, Thomas pointed at a dive bar at the crossroads in front of them: “Talons & Fangs? That’s just way too on the nose.”

“So you think we’re going to deal with lycans?” Detective Kuhn sighed: “Yeah, daydreams and fantasies of my younger days don’t age well at all.”

When they walked into the bar, Caroline, and even Thomas could instantly smell the scent of blood, mixed with the smell of perfumes, some random herbs and alcohol. It was still early in the day, so there were only a few people inside the bar, and most of them were just there cleaning and reorganizing the chairs and tables.

“Sorry sir, but we’re not open now.” the bartender cleaning up her bar was an extremely beautiful brown-haired woman in a skin tight tank top and a pair of black jeans and long black boots with a flirty attitude: “But for two handsome gentlemen, and a beautiful tough girl like you, I could still make you my signature cocktails.”

“We’re not here to drink.” Detective Kuhn showed the bartender her badge: “I am Detective Kuhn from the SJPD, we’re here to ask some questions about a case we’re looking into.”

“Oh, please, officer.” the bartender leaned forward and winked at Detective Kuhn and laid her left hand on Detective Kuhn’s right forearm: “One drink wouldn’t hurt, right?”

“Well - ” Detective Kuhn’s facial expression shifted as if he got drunk or high just from that one wink and gentle touch from the bartender: “I guess one drink wouldn’t hurt.”

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Inside of Apartment 431, Detective Lee, Aimee and Jason were just looking around in the whole apartment.

According to Detective Lee, this apartment was the crime scene, where the tenant was the latest confirmed victim of the “Drainer”. The victim was found by the scheduled maintenance crew from the apartment complex who came into the apartment to fix the window and kitchen sink one month late to the victim’s original appointment. By the time the victim’s body was discovered, she was already dead for around three days and started to smell.

The forensics team went through the whole apartment carefully three times, and were only able to gather a few hair and fingerprint samples that were not in the SJPD or the federal database.

“The smell of blood is definitely strong here.” Jason put on his shoe covers and said to Detective Lee and Thomas: “I am not sure how vampires smell, but this kind of strong blood smell just kinda screams vampire.”

“Has the lab confirmed that the victim was drugged before her blood was drained?” Thomas also asked: “That was what we heard from that suspected vampire before he turned and got taken away, possibly by the cult members of Bleeding Daggers.”

“Yes, they did find traces of a cocktail mix of drugs, which include prescription opiates, cocaine and other psychedelics in her system. So the cause of death could just as likely be overdose as blood loss.” Detective Lee led them to a broken cupboard in the kitchen: “This is where we find signs of struggle, we found some skin DNA from the victim’s fingernails, but like I told you, no matches.”

“I am not sure if vampire DNAs are that much different from human DNA.” Jason gently opened the cupboard beside the damaged one, and found that there was a deep claw mark underneath: “So, Detective, do you think it would be appropriate if I cast a spell here that might … change the crime scene a little?”

“Change? Change how?”

“To be honest, I am not quite sure.” Jason shrugged: “It would reveal at least some tracks, that I am sure.”

“Is that so?” Detective Lee considered for a while, then sighed and said: “Okay, might as well - I don’t think they’re gonna do another sweep.”

“Thank you.” Jason took out his silver metal ball, and with a simple squeeze of his hand, the metal ball turned into a long silver pen. Then, he started writing in the air with this long pen. It was three sentences on top of each other made of Chinese characters, the first two sentences were each made up of four characters, and the last sentence was made of seven.

When he finished writing, Jason flicked his fingers at the words. The words in three sentences changed shape and rearranged their positions and formed into a silver pattern like that on a paper sigil.

“Cover your eyes.” Jason reminded Detective Lee and Thomas before jabbing at the pattern with his long silver pen like a sword.

The silver pattern exploded but did not release any shockwave at all, instead, it unleashed a flash of blinding while light.

When Thomas and Detective Lee moved their hands away from their eyes, they instantly noticed the silver markings that appeared out of nowhere all around them.