After telling Ethan what happened I was at the table looking over the journal that I got from Bryan’s house and this time I went deeper into the more recent entries and felt like smacking my head. Apparently a few week backs he had made a deal with Geoffrey that he would help him with spells if he made Bryan a vampire that he could sacrifice for his ritual. If I had read that far ahead then we wouldn’t have almost died trying to save a vampire that was in no danger at all and we wouldn’t have tipped Bryan off that a Wizard was hunting him.

Now we had to deal with all of this before Bryan became an Immortal and decided to come after me and Marcus. We would also need a plan for if we failed and how we were going to deal with that.

“So have you learned anything?” Ethan asked floating and I nodded showing him the passage while eating my cereal and thinking of my next plan.

“Where did he learn this type of magic if it’s forbidden?” he asked me and I moved the journal several pages to where Bryan talked about a man in a black and blue mask in the cloak that approached him and told him of a way to become immortal.

“Does it say anything more about him?” he asked and I shook my head I had searched the entire book but besides this passage and calling him the man in the cloak he is not mentioned in any of Bryan’s books.

“I have nothing on this guy or why he is helping Bryan get his desired immortality or how it would be accomplished at all.” I muttered stabbing my spoon into my cereal and that was frustrating me more. I had gone in on faulty information before and it almost killed me so I wasn’t fond of a repeat performance as I got lucky last time and unless I was going to be lucky twice in a row the next time I might actually die. And that isn’t something I was ready to experience.

I knew that there weren’t any more clues available and that I was approaching the finish line so there was only one option left to me and that was face off against Bryan and come out victorious otherwise I would have to give up and I was too far in to give up now.

Getting ready I grabbed my cellphone. It was in a red and black case. It was a metro pcs and had trouble holding a charge but it was mine and given the fact that I didn’t like change so I kept it no matter the headaches it gave me.

Calling Marcus wasn’t hard he was in my most recent contacts and I had to wait for a couple rings before he answered but before he even got to ask what was going on I cut to the chase.

“Do you still want revenge on Geoffrey?” I asked him and when he said yes I told him to come to my house. It was time to plan this thing out and hopefully finish it once and for all.

I had to change out of my pajamas and get changed into a black shirt and blue jeans with black and blue sneakers. Ethan was a ghost so he was frozen in the moment he died. He didn’t get dirty or sweaty so he was always ready to go.

All that was left was to grab my coat and change it to black to make a statement of how serious this job was to me. I had grabbed some talismans and a few potions and I was ready to go.

It took a thirty a little over an hour for Marcus to arrive. He was serious about this too. For him this was clearly about revenge. He would accept nothing less. Marcus was a handful when he was playful but when he was in vengeance mode he could be downright cruel I was just glad his hate was focused on Geoffrey right now. Him and Bryan. He was clearly not over being staked in the heart and being shot.

“Do you know where they are?” he asked me and I nodded I had used translocation to steal his wallet from his pocket when he had been fighting the bouncer. He had never noticed the object being teleported from his pocket into my hand. With the right locator spell on the wallet I should be able to find him due to the connection between him and it.

“Invenimus.” I chanted and I could feel the connection between the Geoffrey, the wallet, and me. I pointed the direction which Marcus nodded and followed. The driver was given the directions and off we went. Our reasons might not be the best but we were determined. That would have to be enough.

“What are you planning on doing when you catch the guy?” Ethan asked me as we got closer and closer to the destination. I had been holding the answer out on him long enough and he must be wondering why I am still doing this even after his aunt went missing given that I wasn’t being paid.

“The Council of Magic has a bounty on all Dark Wizards and Witches.” I told him. one of the reasons that I was still doing this job. I would probably be paid very well for catching Bryan.

“Yeah okay but what happens after?” he questioned clearly curious. The cat was already dead so I figured why not just tell him.

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“We have a prison set up that makes it impossible to use magic. We’ll send him there.” I told him and waited for the Harry potter reference. It did not take not long.

“Like Azkaban?” He asked and the fact that I knew he would say that shows how despite how short I have known him I knew that he would ask that question. That or it was an obvious reference.

“Yes but we have actual people that guard the prison.” I told him looking as the we got farther and farther out of the city and got further and further into the countryside. I felt more and more uncomfortable as we became surrounded by trees. According to the signs we were heading into Lancaster County.

“How did you become a Vampire?” Ethan asked Marcus who was starting to fall asleep. Marcus ignored him trying to get back to sleep. Ethan however would not be dismissed he kept calling him trying to get him to wake up and I believe that if it wasn’t the fact that he couldn’t touch anything he would be shaking Marcus right now to wake him up.

Ethan could keep annoying Marcus for the rest of the trip and they both knew it and all Marcus could do was try to ignore him because for all his strength he could not punch or kill a spirit. Marcus was trapped in the car. He couldn’t hurt Ethan and Ethan wouldn’t leave him alone until he was told the answer. This was a living example of the phrase stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“I drank vampire blood. I died. I came back and ate a person.” He said finally giving in and answering the boy without giving a real answer. I had to admit the reason that I hadn’t sent Ethan back to the necklace yet was that I was curious about the reason too and Marcus was just making me want to find out more and more.

It was funny if Marcus had gone on with a huge speech filled backstory that explained what happened to him I probably wouldn’t care and would have just tuned him out. The fact that he wouldn’t tell me only made me want to find out more and more.

“Why do Vampires say they eat people when they drink their blood?” I asked. That had always been something that bugged me. I guess saying you drink people would just be as confusing as the person was still there after their blood was drained.

“I don’t know, maybe because it sounds better than saying you have to suck people to live.” He said with a grin on his face which Ethan caught on to and started laughing. I just sighed at the idiots that I was stuck with. The universe clearly hated me if these were people I willingly hung out and worked with.

“So do you eat people?” Ethan asked and Marcus sighed because he realized that he wasn’t going to be getting any sleep.

“No I don’t eat people.” Marcus said while he was stretching out his legs and his arms while still sitting down.

“Then do you eat animals?” Ethan asked him and was about to say something when Marcus shook his head.

“It is possible to survive on that stuff but no I drink human blood.” Marcus said confusing Ethan as he tried to think how he could drink blood without killing people.

“Then how do you survive if you don’t eat people?” he asked him.

“Killing people for blood only makes Vampire hunters and I am not going to spend my immortal life running from someone who wants revenge on me.” He told him. It was true that it was one of the major fears that Marcus had about his immortal life that he told me about. The chance that someone might become a vampire hunter and track him down for revenge was something that Marcus wanted to avoid very much. It was why he focused so much on his hypnotism.

With the way that everything is being monitored by technology it was very hard for Vampires to stay in the shadows. And so because of that the council made a deal with the vampire species as a whole. If they blended into the shadows if they remained just superstition and did not form massive groups that we would help them blend in with the world.

“Why do all that work just to stay hidden?” Ethan asked simply not getting what would happen if Vampires and Humans were revealed to exist to each other even if all the other magical races stayed secret.

“It is like if zombies and humans lived together. The zombie would require brains to live but the people wouldn’t want to give the zombie the brains it needs.” I told him simply. People weren’t like animals they could not live safely knowing that there were creatures that would hunt them like prey if they weren’t lucky.

“Alright so how do you get blood then?” he asked Marcus. I was getting more stressed the further we got into the country and there was more and more distance between buildings.

“I get it from people.” Marcus said purposefully trying to get Ethan confused by his choice of words. It looked like it was working. Ethan was thinking deeply over how Marcus could get blood from people without biting them and draining them in the regular way like on television.

Ethan could have asked for Marcus to give him the answer but it looked like he was trying so hard to figure it out on his own and not give Marcus the satisfaction of what was going on in his head.

Marcus seeing that he finally got Ethan to shut up he laid back down to get some rest. Marcus was truly skilled at sleeping. There were very few places that could bother him when he took a nap.

“Hey Alex what’s the answer?” he asked me once he was sure that Marcus was sleeping. I truly hated Marcus right now he had to confuse the kid than leave me to be the one to answer him.

“He has people donate him blood.” I gave in and told him. Marcus preferred to let his food come to him and Hypnotism let him do that. It was his most practiced skill. He had groups of people purely hypnotized just for the purpose of putting their blood in bags and bringing them to him. he had different people for every day of the week just so he never got bored on one flavor.

“Wow I don’t know if that is pure genius or just lazy.” For Marcus it was both. He was not a fan of hard work and if there was any way that he could figure out a way to work around it he would find it.

“How close are we?” Ethan asked and I told him if we kept going at this pace that we would arrive at the location in about ten minutes.

“I would ask if you are ready but that would probably be stupid right?” he asked I wondered if he was trying to ask me without asking me or if he was being serious.

“I’m fine.” I told him and close my eyes focusing trying to focus on nothing else but I couldn’t help imagining what would happen when we showed up at the place where everything was going down and if I would be coming back in one piece.