“That was some sort of aura. It sucked the life force out of anyone in the surrounding and fed it to the user, giving him extra mana.”

Lauren was in a better situation than the other mercenaries. Her telekinesis power deflected some of that influence. In comparison, Katie was much weaker. Her body was fine, but she was starving.

“The attackers must’ve sent one of them in posing as a mercenary, allowing him to get into the perfect position to s…”

“Yeah yeah whatever.” Katie regretted asking the question. She cocked her pistols again and stood up, aiming at the vampire leader. Lauren coughed in surprise. What the hell? Did she really just go out against a dozen supernatural enemies with no backup and just her guns blazing? She went through all the trouble to get close to Katie and explain what happened to her because she felt like she needed an ally to survive through this, but…

The vampire leader’s hands came together, and Katie felt herself being thrown back by a blast of volatile red energy.

“Fucking idiot.” Lauren flattened her hands and laid down behind a killed guard, pretending to be a corpse. Without backup, she didn’t stand a chance against dozens of attackers. All the guards and most of the mercenaries were slaughtered already. She had to wait for a further opportunity.

Despite pretending to be one of the dead, Lauren had a her power on the ready.

She has already tossed Katie out of her mind. The girl was no doubt dead now, thanks to her own foolishness.

Meanwhile, the vampire leader walked up to Lauren’s and Katie’s employer.

“Jason Loon.” He said with a low, vibrating voice. “Two days ago, your men abducted one of us. Where did you take him?”

Lauren frowned. As a mercenary, it was her job not to ask questions about her employer, but this time she was willing to make some adjustments. What was going on here might be closely related to her own interest.

The mob boss suddenly smiled.

“I am just a pawn. The people that wanted your friend, they are someone you don’t want to mess with. Unfortunately for you, you don’t seem to have a choice.” Suddenly, he glanced at something behind the vampire leader.

The vampire leader’s form disappeared. Boss tried to move, but several other vampire guards stopped him.

When the vampire leader reappeared, just ten seconds later, he was holding a man in his arms.

Mr. Hunter.

Boss’s expression changed. Just a couple seconds ago he was being cocky because just as the battle began, he sent Mr. Hunter to a sniper position. His butler was a former Special Forces sniper. From what Boss saw, these monsters couldn’t take a bullet to the head and live. If Mr. Hunter could snipe the vampire leader with the element of surprise, the rest of the vampires would be defenseless.

That hope faded away when the vampire leader snapped Mr. Hunter’s neck.

“Now, I am going to ask you again. Who do you work for?”

Boss hesitated, and the vampire leader stepped on his left knee. Following a loud, bone-chilling sound, Boss screamed.

“Unfortunately for you, you have three more limbs.”

“Look,” Boss tried to negotiate. “I want to make a deal with you. If I talk, you have to offer me protection...ahhh!”

He screamed as the vampire leader crushed his other knee.

“Fine!” He finally gave up. “I know…”

Suddenly, his words were turned to a scream. He laid back on the ground, piercing the mansion with his voice. His agony was obvious. The vampire leader frowned and reached into the man’s body with his own power, trying to do something about it.

But it was too late. The vampire leader scanned the man several times before coming to the unfortunate conclusion that there was nothing he could do about it.

“Please…” Boss made a last desperate cry before exploding.

Blood and gore replaced the human being.

The vampire leader took a step back. Blood dripped out of his mouth. The explosion damaged his psychic energy, and it was reflected onto his body.

“What do we do?” One of the cloaked figures walked to their leader and asked.

“Let’s go. This lead is over.”

Lauren took a deep breath of relief and laid back. This might be the best case scenario for her. She was being involved into something she couldn’t handle. She was lucky to be alive. Sure, her mission failed, but she did get the initial payment from boss. All she wanted to do right now was wait until the vampires get out, get herself out of this slaughterhouse, and forget about what happened here and continue with her life.

Well, things didn’t go like how she planned.

“What’re you doing here?” A voice appeared from behind her.

“Oh..damn it!” Lauren tried to suppress a surprised shout. She turned around and saw someone who she thought was dead. Katie. “What the hell? Keep your voice down!” As glad as she was that she had one more ally to work with, she didn’t exactly favor having Katie here. She has proved her foolishness for more than once. Even now, when they were supposed to be moving quietly, she was being as loud as ever.

“What’s the matter?” Katie ran her finger through one of the many holes on her jacket. The blast took out a part of her clothing. It also took out a part of her chest, but she didn’t give a damn about any of them. However, she wasn’t too satisfied with how Lauren was hiding from a fight. What’s the point of being here if she didn’t want to fight?

“Keep quiet god damn it!” Once again Lauren shushed. Now she really hoped Katie was dead. “You’re gonna get both of us killed!”

“Really? Well, I’ll be happy to die beside you.”

“Are you seriously flirting with me now?” Lauren was already toying with the idea of snapping Katie’s neck with her telekinesis. “Shut the fuck up god damn it! I don’t want to die today. It’s just not a good day to die.” She whispered.

“Then when is a good day to die?” Katie asked curiously.

“To be fair, everyday is a good day to die.”

“That’s a great point.”

At first Lauren didn’t realize anything, but she soon came to a terrible conclusion.

The voice that answered Katie belonged to a man, and last time she checked, both her and Katie were women.

Lauren turned around and found herself staring down at the face of the man who killed Mr. Hunter.

An invisible shield was formed between her and the vampire leader. Her mind immediately turned to analyze the situation. She could never break out of this by force, and from the looks of it, the vampire leader wasn’t afraid of killing those in his way.

But the vampire leader didn’t strike. Instead, he started talking.

“My name is Beinoff. I am the head of the Fu family.” He tilted his head at the defensive Lauren. “If I wanted you dead I would’ve killed you by now. Your caution is pointless.”

Lauren didn’t move.

“Oh don’t worry. She’s just a dull woman.” Beside, Katie smiled. Unlike Lauren, she didn’t even put up anything resembling a defense. “Hello Beinoff. My name is Katie. She’s Lauren, by the way. Beautiful name. Terrible personality.” She rolled her tongue on the “r”s of the terrible.

Lauren bit her lips.

Beinoff glanced at Katie. At first he just saw her as someone lucky enough to survive one of his hits, but now he saw differently. Not everyone could survive that blast, and not everyone would be as chill as Katie was now after a brush with death.

“What do you want?” Lauren finally asked. The three of them couldn’t just keep it like this the entire time.

“We’re not enemies.” Beinoff tried to appear as in control as possible. He wasn’t exactly comfortable with talking with Katie, whose actions he couldn’t predict. He was more than happy to turn to someone much more normal. “That man who hired you, Jason Loon, was working for someone else. Someone evil. This someone sent him to abduct a family of mine. I came here to take that family member back, and if that can’t be done, avenge him.”

“Why should I believe anything you say? Ten minutes ago we were still at each other’s throat.” Lauren kept her guards up.

“We also killed a couple of your family members, by the way.” Katie interrupted and answered Lauren’s blazing eyes with a sweet smile. “You’re welcome.”

“Them?” Beinoff glanced at the vampires, who were ravaging through the guards and mercenaries on the ground. “These beasts are just cannon fodder. I can pull up an army in a couple of hours.”

“As for you two...I decided to talk to you two rather than kill you guys because we are essentially on the same side in this war.” Beinoff started again. Lauren frowned, wanting to seek a chance to shut down the conversation and flee this field without angering Beinoff, but she never had the chance.

“War? There’s a war?” Katie jumped in again with her interest peaked. “Tell me about it, and it better not be some boring drama with a couple dozen people in total on both sides that is just called a war to sound cool and be clickbait.”

War was good. Peace was boring. Wars are fun.

Beinoff took a deep breath. He would rather fight an army of mercenaries than talk to Katie, but he had no choice. Both Katie and Lauren could be his allies, and taking them out by force would be stupid.

Patience is a virtue…He whispered to himself.

“A couple weeks ago, news have gotten around in the supernatural circle that people of all races and all powers are disappearing. I even heard of a phantom mage who got kidnapped. Ever since then the circle has been trying to find the one behind this, but whoever the power is, it’s discreet. It only relied on lower level underlings to carry out their missions. Whenever things got rough, these underlings were silenced. He,” He gestured at where Mr. Boss’s body was, “he was the closest we got to, but the mastermind must’ve set up something. He was silenced before he could give me any important information.”

“And you think because someone’s kidnapping supernatural beings and both of us have supernatural powers, we’re on your side?” Katie concluded.

“Wait a second. If he’s with some mysterious organization, then why did he rely on mercenaries to protect himself?” Lauren found a problem with Beinoff’s explanation.

“Whoever the organization is, it made no effort to get its own hands dirty. Those exposed were left to die, if they weren’t executed first.”

“Sounds awesome.” Katie was already getting bored. She tilted her head. “Give me the name and address of one of these underlings you know and I’ll go have some fun with him. I can make sure he spills everything he knows and has.” She licked her lips.

“Actually,” Beinoff suddenly seemed a bit embarrassed. “we don’t have another name and another address.”

Katie threw her hands up.

“So all these talking are just BS.”

“I can leave you a link to my ShadowNet account.” Beinoff suggested. While Katie didn’t demonstrate much destructive power in the fight, Beinoff could see she had her rapid healing. Adding to that was the fact that Katie obviously seemed insane. Someone who could heal quickly was dangerous. Someone who could heal and wasn’t afraid of pain or danger was deadly.

Katie nodded. The fact that Beinoff didn’t have anything to give her now didn’t mean it would stay the same in the future. She took out her phone, logged onto the ShadowNet, and entered a passcode Beinoff gave her into the search tab.

“Fu7?” She wondered at Beinoff’s username.

Beinoff nodded, and Katie added him as a friend.

“Look, I don’t want to have anything to do with you and your war.” Lauren finally had a chance to cut in. She considered fleeing, but if she was caught, which was the most likely, the situation could get a lot worse.

“Just add me. If you get into trouble in the future, I might be able to help. It can never hurt.” Beinoff added.

Lauren finally agreed. When she looked up, Katie was already gone.

She was never a fan of talking.