“I’m still really not sure if it’s a good idea.”

“I can’t sneak in the building, I’ve got no other choice.”

I had just finished re-explaining to Marie what I was planning to do this evening. In front of me was her computer, and a plan of the city with pop-ups of a nice-looking glass skyscraper. This was where, according to Astarte, Alik lived. I was a bit sad he wasn’t living in an old giant crypt somewhere. It would have been easier to break into.

“I thought you could use your wolfy powers.” Marie retorted.

“Not possible.” I sighed. “It’s hard to explain, as the knowledge is not mine, and the way the Beast taught me is not something quite relatable to humans.”

“A bit like we learn spells?” Marie tried.

“No. Not at all. IT just gave me its experience, its failures and successes as a monstrous hunter. It’s not magic, I can’t just move in front of trained vampires in a fully lit boulevard and not be seen. In darkness, maybe, if I didn’t need to move much, certainly, but there…no.”

“Just going through the front door doesn’t seem the most sensible solution, though.”

“Why not? I’m pretty sur I can beat them if the situation calls for it. So why not just go ask Alik where Natasha is directly? I’ll know if he lies. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

“With you involved, I do not believe that one second.” Marie noted sadly.

I closed the internet navigator and turned around on the gaming chair to face my standing girlfriend.

“Nothing bad will happen to me. I’m worried about you though.”

“I used all my magic to put crazy strong wards, and Illy came this morning to check and improve them. I’ll be fine alone for one evening.”

“You should just have left with Illy.”

“And endanger her and her family? Out of the question. You’re being overprotective.”

“Maybe. Still, this could all be an elaborate plan for you to be separated from me.”

She sat on my knees and kissed me. “I’ll be ok. I promise, I’ll have my phone on the ready.”

I groaned, gently pushed her away, and began dressing myself in more decent clothes than just a t-shirt and pajama shorts. I had been drawing today and had forgotten to dress in the morning. Astarte had left at dawn for the airport.

It had been three days since Natasha’s disappearance. Time was working against us, but we couldn’t have acted faster. I needed the night to think about our next move, and then once decided, had to wait for the sun to set to go meet the Elder. Apparently, sun was detrimental to vampire’s health, albeit not as ashy as depicted in the movies. Going during the day would be unfruitful, as they would be hiding in their little coffins. At least that was the info King, doubled by Astarte, granted me.

I didn’t doubt Alik’s coffin would be little, but I doubted he had a coffin at all.

“You shouldn’t go as Ray.” Marie informed me.

“What… oh!” I was currently in my male form, so I transformed into my female self immediately. “Better not reveal that aspect to Alik, wouldn’t help with the parleys.” I approved.

“You can’t tell anymore, can you?” Marie asked me.

“Whether I’m Ray or Igris? Is that bad?” I stared at her. It wasn’t the first time she had questioned me about that.

She scratched her head. “No, not at all. Sorry. I just don’t see how it doesn’t bother you. As a psychology student, I don’t understand it. But I guess human mind theory is hardly applicable to you.”

“I still feel human. To put it simply, it doesn’t feel weird for me to be Ray or Igris, both feel perfectly natural, so I just don’t care about it, especially now that you’re fine with it.”

“I must admit, it sometimes feels like I’m two-timing.”

“With myself.”

Marie grinned. “With yourself.” She repeated before continuing, more seriously. “You’re right though, I wouldn’t say I’m completely fine with it yet, but I’m getting there. Which is weirding me out because I’m human and I feel I shouldn’t just roll with it so easily.”

“I don’t feel the same. You adapt to creepy child roommates, a werewolf partner and magic lessons faster than anyone in the world.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You can say that because I’m the only one who has to adapt to that. Obviously, I would be the fastest in the world.”

“I think that the fact that you can adapt at all is pretty epic.”

“Thanks. You should wear a skirt.” She said out of the blue.

“Erm, why?”

“You’ve got the perfect legs, show them. Helps in negotiations.”

“I’m not sure Alik is going to be interested. I would also rather not look sexy in front of a thing with the appearance of a kid.”

“Still, put up a skirt, it’ll make you look confident.”

“You just want to see me in a skirt.”

“Busted.” She lied.

She ruffled in her drawers, then held out a knee-high darkish skirt to me, with cute white polka dots scattered randomly on the fabric. I was going to say something, but Marie’s hand holding the piece of clothing was shaking. I had seen her wear this skirt before, but I didn’t remember on which occasion.

She saw my gaze. “It’s a gift from my mom. It’s precious to me. You can adjust its size easily.” She explained.

“Why do you want me to wear it?”

“I don’t know. I’d hate it to be stained or broken.” It was the truth, but her fluttering eyes betrayed her own confusion.

“I wouldn’t be able to fight with it, then.” I deduced.

She gulped audibly. “I don’t want you to fight. I just want my friend back. Even if…”

I smiled and grabbed the skirt. “Don’t worry. I won’t seek revenge in your name. I’ll take the handicap, they need it.”

“Thanks, Gray.” She looked at the ground, shameful.

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

And with a determined gaze, I left the flat.

“Wait! I need to open up the wards!” Marie followed me towards the entrance.

“Hey! You ruined my cool exit!” I complained.

“Stop being a child, let me remember Illy’s instructions.” She passed me and knelt in front of the flat’s threshold.

I felt a click in a brain, and then I knew how to open my own wards. Which was weird because I didn’t know the spell on how to create aforementioned wards.

“Uh.” I said out loud.

“Stop stealing my spells, Gray.”

“Can’t help it.”

“…Please be safe.”

I kissed my girlfriend, then left, just as the last rays of the sun disappeared under the western horizon.

I took the taxi to a neighboring street, it forced me to wait in traffic, but I wanted to have my senses untouched by the foulness of the city subway.

After an hour or so, I arrived in the posh part of the city center. Natasha’s club was only a bloc away, but this part of town felt quite different. The streets were wide with large, expensive-looking buildings. They were not exactly skyscrapers, but were constructed in glass, and I found each one of them blander than the other. It felt like a horizontal level of Tetris.

Marie would have been proud of my video-game reference, but honestly, who didn’t know Tetris.

As I walked on the boulevard where the Elder’s building was, I saw a noticeable difference from the other high-end streets. Even larger, with an alley of trees in the middle, tons of chic hotels everywhere, most of them wooden or brick based. On this street stood the only skyscraper of the city bloc, rising well over everything else around.

Completely rectangular, with tinted glass panels, straight to the clouds. Impossible to climb, with no access to the roof, and with a more than likely crazy sophisticated alarm-system. There was only one entrance, one which I was getting closer to.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Marble-like steps, twenty or so, brought you to glass doors, themselves bringing you to a rather generic looking reception, albeit large and very empty.

There was no-one outside, but two men in classy uniforms were standing guard at the doors. Further inside, a young woman was sitting at the reception desk.

At least there were no metal detectors, or I would have been tempted to reenact a scene from an old action movie.

Wait, was Matrix old? Did that make me old?

As I questioned my age, I arrived at the entrance, and pushed one of the glass doors.

It didn’t budge, at first. Lost in thought and a bit nervous, I pushed harder.

The glass exploded, shattering all over the floor.

“Oops.” I said as I finally observed the neighboring door with ‘pull’ written on it.

“What the hell?” One of the two men exclaimed as they moved professionally to intercept.

They were human, strangely enough.

I raised my hands in the air, as one of them was reaching for a handgun hidden in his tuxedo-like jacket.

“Sorry! I didn’t read the sign!”

“Girl, you better explain who you’re affiliated with if you don’t…”

“She’s been expected James, let her in.” The woman at the reception said calmly.

“M’am?” The one who was speaking had reddish hair and blue eyes, showing his likely Irish ancestry. Even though he smelled definitely human to me, he was, as all the vampire goons I had met before, tall, with quite the muscles, and large as a professional American football player.

“The boss was expecting her to come…even though he didn’t tell me she would be destroying our facilities.”

“I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to make a mess.” As I continued walking, dodging the pieces of sharp glass on the ground, I realized the reception lady, unlike the two guards, was a vampire.

She had the perfect looks of the sexy stern secretary, but I recognized the unnatural beauty as to what it really was, a deadly honey trap. She didn’t feel sexy, she only felt dangerous to me.

“So, I’ve been expected. That saddens me a bit, I thought my plan was smart.”

“Breaking our door?”

I put a shameful hand on my cheek. “No. Sorry about that.”

“Our Master did not inform me of anything else, so I couldn’t answer you honestly, I apologize for the jesting.” She said with absolutely no emotions. “Benjamin, clean that up, will you? And James, would you please bring the lady to the penthouse?” For a fraction of a second, the vampire broke her exterior professionalism to look me over, but then looked back at her computer screen, and seemingly lost all interest.

The Irish looking guard walked quickly towards me. “This way.” He directed me. I followed him around the reception area towards four lifts. There wasn’t much to see, everything was in a white-grey color, no paintings, no carpet, no other color. I would have defined this whole floor as sterile and aseptic.

“This one.” He pointed at the only lift with a keyhole next to it.

The elevator doors opened without him touching the device, so I deduced it was remote controlled from somewhere.

The inside of the elevator was much different than the reception room. It was all in red carpet, from bottom to top, and a large mirror with golden contours was hung on the back of it.

Did vampires have reflections? I felt like I should know the answer. They had to, because if not, this thing would have been a dead giveaway.

“So, what are you? Vampire? Hunter? You don’t feel like a witch.” As soon as the elevator began moving, my guide began talking to me.

“That’s rather impolite to ask, no?”

He raised his shoulders. “Everyone can tell at first glance I’m a human, I feel it’s just fair.”

I gave him a smile, and he visibly blushed.

I ignored the fact that I had inadvertently flirted with him and answered honestly.

“I’m a Conscient. My name is Gray. Nice to meet you James. I’m surprised you’re this casual, considering your boss.”

He grunted, not looking at me anymore, his gaze fixed to the door.

“Good to meet you too. I’ve got a good eye for people, and someone who honestly apologizes for showing off her strength feels like someone I could ask questions without it endangering my life.”

He was much more educated than the previous goons I’ve met. Although all of them had been vampires, maybe the transformation made them dumber?

“Seem like you’re a smart man, why work for the bloodsuckers?”

He didn’t answer. Numbers ticked higher and higher on the elevator monitor.

“What’s a Conscient?” He asked.

“I have not the faintest clue.”

“Seems fun.” I didn’t know if he didn’t believe me or if he was being sarcastic, but I was liking my guide more and more. Which would be sad if I needed to fight my way out.

I pinched the seam of my skirt. I had two reasons to avoid fighting now.

“We’re getting there, don’t piss off the boss.” Then numbers had reached fifty, and the doors opened up.

“Too late for that.” I retorted as I stepped out.

This floor was the complete opposite of the bottom of the building. I was standing in a corridor going left and right, with wooden doors and the architecture of something akin to an old house on the left, and on the right, glass panels showing a beautiful balcony, private pool, miniature golf course and an elevated bar.

In front of me, two giant ebony doors, opened, a magnificent red carpet urging me inside the giant room.

It was an office, eight times the size of what it should have been. I walked inside.

A statue of Venus on my left, probably millennia years old, was the first thing I saw, then the library, basically replacing walls as it surrounded the whole room. At the end of this literary paradise, at the far end of the room, a magnificent colored window, big as something you would have seen in a cathedral, dominated, showing the full view of the northern part of the city. In front of the architectural prowess stood a desk, where a lone child was working, piles and piles of papers stacked around him, multiple times his height in size.

As I got closer, Alik put his swan pen back in its black ink bottle and came to stand next to the furniture barely smaller than him.

“Igris. Or should I say Gray?” He smiled at me.

No aggression in his posture, but his words…

“Gray.”

“Just how Ray Dunkelbaumen asks to be called as well.”

“Yes.”

“You should be proud of yourself, Miss Gray, this enigma of yours was so inconsiderate of my intelligence, I didn’t realize the stupidity of the answer until recently.”

“I’m not following. I’m only here to ask you about my friend.”

“Miss Desire. Yes, I know.” He didn’t lose his smile.

“Desire? Natasha’s last name?”

“Well, it is the name she has chosen in this decade, yes. You’re not much of a friend if you don’t even know that.”

I couldn’t believe Nat had called herself Desire. Well no, I believed it way too easily.

“We’re only acquaintances, to be honest. But I like her, I just came to be reassured about her whereabouts.”

Alik tapped his desk with one finger rhythmically.

“Yes. Miss Natasha…is unavailable for the moment. She’ll be back shortly.”

He didn’t even try to hide the ominousness of his sentence.

“What does that mean?”

“It means she’s not dead.” Tap. Tap.

He didn’t lie. But I saw it in his eyes, he had done something to my favorite succubus.

“What did you do to her?”

“Me? Nothing.”

Half-truth, half-lie.

I growled.

His expression changed noticeably. “Fascinating. I hade some time to think after our first encounter, and I must say, I was really far of understanding exactly what you were at the time. Miss Desire has helped clear up some of the fog that was obstructing my vision, but she was rather…unagreeable doing so.”

My brain worked quickly. What could Natasha have told him? What’s more, why would she try to hide it? I looked back at the last time we spoke, after she had met Astarte…She had realized something.

I sighed.

“So, what dark secret have you uncovered, Licky Licky?” I taunted.

For a fraction of a second, his face took an inhuman aspect, and he hissed at me. Then, his normal childish face was back to normal.

“Do not call me that.” He said with unnatural calm.

“Would you do something that goes against Astarte’s protection?” Whatever he knew, he had no idea I could see through his lies.

“Of course not.” He lied.

“And you’re not related in any way as to her sudden voyage in China?”

“I wasn’t even made aware of that.” He lied again.

Shit. Pardon my language.

“Give Natasha back.”

“Oh no, I have to make sure…”

“I am the same person.” I interrupted him.

“What?” He gave me a puzzled look.

“I am Ray and Iglis. Both Conscient in one body, just as that old prophecy said. I’m the one who brings apocalypse yadi yada. You know the truth, now release her.”

His eyes took a very dark tint. “You don’t understand at all what this means. You’re not the bringer of apocalypse, that is something only younglings like you think is a bad thing. No, what you bring is the exact opposite of everything I ever stood for.”

“And that would be?”

“When two become one. When true Oracle listens to the reflection of the sun. Chaos shall come. Loss shall roam and rules forgotten.” He recited.

“What meaning have you found in that? It doesn’t make sense to me.” I asked provocatively.

“It’s a translation from old Sumerian, of course it doesn’t. It means a full Conscient doesn’t bring the apocalypse, it just brings chaos and destruction. You understand why you can’t be left alive.” He didn’t move, nor was his posture aggressive.

“Don’t you know the most likely way to realize a prophecy is to try and stop it? If you really believe I need to be stopped, why are you not attacking me, then?”

“It’ll come. Astarte won’t be back for at least a week. I’ll have plenty of occasions until then. And you are right about the prophecy part. We have thought about it and found a solution. Do not worry about that.”

He had made a mistake unknowingly. He had said “we”. The witch coven, or Mr. Marak alone, I was certain he was involved in this. Why he was helping the Elder with his violent crusade seemed evident as well, if they realized I was a 'real' Oracle.

“I could just kill you now.” I stated, not showing what I had just learned.

“Something you shouldn’t be able to do and is still a question your friend needs to answer. In any case, the plan is already in works, my death wouldn’t change a thing.” He calmly explained.

“Let Natasha go, in that case. She doesn’t know why I’m strong. I haven’t shown her anything.”

He looked at me with great interest. “Really? I wasn’t able to tell truths from lies before with you, why should I trust you?”

“I’m not lying.”

“Hmmm, let me propose a deal. I’ll give you Miss Desire back in exchange for that specific information.”

I didn’t think long about it. “Sure. We’ve got a deal.”

He acquiesced, and with no order from his part, a hidden door behind the library opened. A Frankenstein-like monster, humanoid but seemingly stitched up from bottom to top, completely naked but a complete of genitalia, pulled a half-naked, bloody woman I could only identify by smell, as her face was so swollen, so blue and violet, it was unrecognizable.

“Nat!” I couldn’t refrain a shout from my mouth from escaping. She was still alive, but her heartbeat was weak.

KILL HIM

No. NOT YET.

I was looking down at the ground, or more specifically at the cute polka dots on my skirt. I calmed down. My gaze went back to Alik, and I stared directly into his eyes. “You’ll pay for that.”

“Not while you’re alive.” He promised back. “Your part of the deal, if you won’t mind.”

“I’ve got the power of the Beast in me.” I answered with no hesitation.

“Gevaudan? The wolf monster in France? Yes, it makes sense, Jeanne had its pelt. It wasn’t strong enough to beat me in a one-on-one at the time, though.” Alik nodded.

“It got stronger with age I don’t know what else to tell you. I’m strong, and that’s where my power comes from, I’ve given you what you wanted.” I felt the monster inside me getting closer and closer to my skin.

Alik took a moment to think, then gestured at the stitched-up abomination with his index finger. Natasha gave out a painful moan as the giant thing dropped her on the carpet and disappeared back into the hidden door.

“This is satisfactory. You’re definitely hiding something else, but it’s much more than what my ex-magic advisor could have informed me about. Have a nice evening, Miss, or Mister, Gray. It’ll be the last one you’ll have. Forever.” And he sat back on his desk.

“You were already aware she did not know anything.” I accused him as I picked Natasha’s unconscious body delicately from the ground.

“Evidently. The magic elixir she took has since long lost its effects. She had no way of resisting my compulsion.” He answered without looking up.

I left the room, showing my back to him.

He wouldn’t attack now. Nor would I.

I had a week to survive, until Astarte arrived.

I had no doubt I would succeed, but I wasn’t sure Marie would make it this long. I wasn’t even sure Natasha would make it through the night.

I exited the building with no problems. James, the Irish guard, gave me a strange look as I carried my friend away.

I sent a message to Marie, as I didn’t have time to call her.

The body on my back needed urgent intensive care, and I would not wait for a taxi or an ambulance.

I ran to the closest hospital.