She had Touched him. The sensation lingered on the right side of her waist – a blend of pleasure for the Id and mild pain for the Ego. And then he was gone.

"Eeeeeeeeek!" she screeched, launching at the door with a ferocity that manifested in banging, kicking, and scratching. Each blow dimly lit the surroundings, revealing light green shapes that she disregarded. All to fulfill the craving to Taste him.

...

"Will it hold?" Michael wondered, his eyes fixed on the door and walls glowing with protective runes.

David rearranged his parents' bed to uncover the center of the bedroom. He meticulously placed the bones and scales of a tiny reptile, which erupted into green embers the moment he closed the door. Standing beside the burning dismembered corpse, Michael pointed the revolver at the entrance. Mentally and Magickally drained, he held his ground, sustained by his seven points in Physique. He knew he could maintain the pose for a good few hours.

Meanwhile, his parents and brother attended to Chris, who had passed out the moment they laid him on the bed.

"Bring a wet towel, Dan!" Peter commanded.

"She carried him in," Mary pointed out, exchanging a concerned glance with her husband.

She retrieved scissors from a drawer and carefully cut through Chris's pants. There was no need for an x-ray to discern his broken right knee – the bone created an ugly bulge on his leg.

Peter grimaced. "Are there painkillers in the cabinet?" he asked Mary, referring to the one in their bathroom. Setting the leg was a fleeting thought due to the bone's awkward angle and the fracture's location.

"I'll check!" Dan said, after handing his mother the wet towel.

The cold, wet towel brought Chris back to consciousness seconds after it was placed on his burning forehead.

"Drink. It's water," Peter assisted him. "Dan?" he called to his son.

"I'm searching."

"Try the back of the lower shelf," Mary suggested as she went to help him.

"Got it!" Dan announced as his mother arrived at the doorway.

"Give me two pills," Mary requested and picked up one of the bags of chips that Dan had stocked in the room.

"Where are we?" Chris uttered with a small cry of pain from shifting on the bed. The flickering glow of the room, coupled with the pain, increased his nausea.

"Chris, look at me. It's Peter Mir. You're at my home, in my bedroom."

"Peter… Michael… Right!" Chris recalled. "Where is she? MK?!"

"The girl that brought you?" Peter turned toward the bedroom door, steadying himself against the loud banging accompanied by high-pitched ringing as the room turned light green.

Chris followed Peter's line of sight and gulped, his gaze scanning the rest of the room.

"Eat the chips and swallow the pills for the pain, Chris."

Chris had no appetite, but he forced himself to eat and drink an entire bottle of water before swallowing the pills.

"What's going on, Peter, Mary?" The injured man asked while Dan joined them next to the bed, fear and anger more prominent on his face whenever the room glowed. He and his parents wanted to stay as far away as possible from the burning corpse and Michael.

"It's his fault," Dan glared at Michael. "And probably what happened to you and that girl, too. Unless she's one of those monsters he talked about…"

Michael bit his tongue. His little brother was getting on his nerves again. 'Keep cool… Keep cool…' He had already snapped at them less than five minutes ago, and he didn't want a repeat if they disregarded it again.

"Monsters…?" Chris muttered.

Dan turned to him, noting his parents' disapproval. Apparently, they did listen to his brother. He didn't care and proceeded to explain what Michael and David had told them.

"MK… she's not a monster. She's my daughter's friend," Chris insisted.

"Then it's my brother's fault that she's this way. Maybe we'll also become like this-"

"Enough, Dan!" Mary rebuked.

"Son…" Peter's tone was softer, but frankly, like his wife, he didn't know what else to say.

"I'm not going insane, am I?" Reading the atmosphere and starting to feel the effects of the pill, Chris laid on the bed, mesmerized by the flickering glow and ringing.

Peter, Mary, and Dan opened their mouths, but despite their clarity, none could answer.

...

20:20

The Gray.

Eight pairs of eyes spectated from different spots, both in the open and hidden.

A green net signified that access to the entire apartment was locked from The Gray. If the bounty was indeed inside the apartment, breaking in would be a hassle but not impossible. The real problem, evident to those who knew him, lay in entering the apartment without the resident's permission. Some could manage, but they were generally the weak and would still need to do it in the Material Dimension, inevitably attracting the attention of its inhabitants. The strong, of course, had methods to gain entry, often utilizing regular humans, but without their protection, the weak would ruin their tools before permission to enter was granted.

It was nighttime, the preferable period for action, especially for those who had found the bounty's home first – the Werewolves and Vampires who didn't shy away from being in the open, though on opposite ends within a hundred-meter diameter with the building as the center.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Time trickled by with nobody making the first move. The night was long, even when considering all the obstacles between everyone and the bounty and those for whom he was also an objective.

20:30

Ten minutes passed as attention gathered on the pair from the Lycander Clan.

20:40

20:50

20:59

Everybody tensed and readied, familiar with Werewolves and their tendencies to act at round numbers, believing the two Lycanders wouldn't wait another hour. As seconds remained, some moved their lips as they reached "50".

20:59:59

"The bounty would only be licit for another twenty-four hours. Can you really get past me and everything I laid out to guard him before it expires?" A man, short and in a trench coat, exited the building's lobby.

21:00

Two howls shook the Terminal Dimension. Brown and gray-furred abominations, two and a half to three meters tall.

"Sierra and Ramon…" David grinned at the two charging Werewolves, humanoid beasts with large heads resembling nightmarish wolf heads. "So be it," his grin vanished. He took a step back to the lobby and out of The Gray.

The two Werewolves leaped. Instead of risking entry into what they couldn't see in the building, they climbed the structure from outside.

"David's most likely not lying about the expiration of the bounty," said Colan. "But it is him we're after."

The other three didn't argue. In contrast to the Werewolves, they had the sensibility to prioritize yielding the Demonic Bounty as their main objective.

The six spectators remained stationary. Unless someone entered the building from the entrance, they could keep watching the two Werewolves gradually weakening and unlocking the seal David employed.

21:45

"The net's starting to collapse," Novak commented. "Mm?"

A silvery streak shot from the building's entrance.

"David's escaping?!" Galeward of the House of Dobroutes, the handsome stranger who talked Rika into listening to MK, remarked first.

"Chase him from afar!" Colan promptly ordered. "He's picking this time to break the mutts' rhythm."

"The hue surrounding him…" Novak squinted, his pupils morphing from humanlike to thin slits. "It was green when we confronted him. The quality of his Magick changed, too."

"Beware of any trick he might pull. Running is his best skill, and catching his enemies off guard is a close second!" Colan warned.

"Then are we to confront him? The dogs are undecided…" Galeward pointed back with his thumb. "Neither are the other two…"

"Only us and the Lycanders should have business with David. Otherwise, she would have said something about others," Colan asserted. "Stay with me," he told the silent Fourth. "Novak, Galeward, prepare to intercept him!"

The four split up, with Galeward and Novak moving to the right.

"Shadow Walk!"

"Bats Swarm!"

One transformed into a dark red shadow, and the other into a swarm of black bats.

The silvery David was quick, but among him and his four pursuers, the dark red shadow was by far the quickest. In under eight seconds, it closed the gap, and from beneath David's feet, an elongated, Vampiric arm thrust.

David jumped, avoiding the Crescent Blood Ray Galeward executed from his shadow. His voice couldn't be heard, but the attack was flawless and surely spoken prior to delivery.

The swarm of black bats came right after David lost the momentum of his escape. They didn't attack, just hindered him from pulling away before Colan and Fourth arrived.

David waved his hands, creating silvery afterimages. He got some of the swarm, injuring Novak and countered another Crescent Blood Ray by Galeward, even leaving a claw mark on his arm, spraying blood.

"Circle him!" Colan ordered.

The swarm and shadow blocked east and west. Colan and Fourth blocked north and south.

The swarm gathered around a slightly weakened Novack, and from the shadow emerged Galeward in his Vampiric form, holding his right arm.

"Go home, Colan," David said, his tone regal and authoritative, as he had spoken to Michael a few times, but without the same effect on the four.

"Surrender and come along with us; that's the only way!"

David sneered. It was a genuine attempt and a final one to discourage Colan from fighting him. Not that he had absolute confidence in anything, even when accounting for all contingencies. For their past, he gave the Vampire the chance.

"Then who are you willing to sacrifice first?" David tucked his hands into the deep outer pockets of his trench coat.

"Together!" Colan roared and dug his fingers into the space of the Terminal Dimension. The other three did the same, prying the space sideways, and when the tear they made combined, all five were tossed out of The Gray to the Material Dimension.

Novak and Galeward transformed into their grotesque Vampiric forms. Colan closed and opened his eyes, undergoing a subtle transformation, suddenly appearing as a more refined, shining version of himself.

Fourth maintained their concealment under their cloak.

"Crescent Blood Ray!" Novak and Galeward swung.

"First Blood!" Colan charged behind the long-range attacks, his right arm emanating a fang of red Magick.

David spin-kicked, tearing an opening to The Gray that sucked in the two rays. He took out his right arm from the pocket, a closed silvery fist, and punched at the incoming sharp end of the fang.

As the fist and fang made contact, a burst of warm air escaped David's hand, breaking apart the fang without slowing its advance. The warm air scorched Colan's hand, then arm, reaching rapidly to his shoulder...

"The sun!" He exclaimed in understanding, his scorched hand grabbing David's fist, halting its progress. It was irrecoverable and would soon turn to ashes anyway.

"Solar energy," David opened the fist, revealing a cracked marble glowing in intensifying yellow.

Colan leaped backward as the illuminating yellow consumed David's figure, allowing only his voice to be heard.

"Your arrogance knows no bounds, which is why this scar is a result of the invention of the humans you enjoy so much controlling and feeding on."

The light spread in a radius of two hundred meters before it started to dim and dissipate. When darkness returned, with only the light of the moon and streetlights, the four pursuers from the House of Dobroutes surrounded David from four hundred meters away.

Colan, Novak, and Galeward were in their normal human form, already chugging down Blood Health Potions. Their fronts were burnt and bleeding, especially Colan's, but the potions were steadily working, although Colan's right arm was beyond repair. Meanwhile, Fourth just stood there.

David tucked his hand right back into the same pocket.

"You know why I had the gall to do what I did to Him, Colan? Not because He can't come after me, but because from the very beginning, I had the perfect plan to deal with those that can be sent after me."

"This is no real sunlight," Colan hoarsely commented. "It won't burn the same a second time!"

"I'll admit that the radiation of the Solar Magick Ions declines using this method, if that's what you mean, old friend. But it's good enough to sting those of your kind at the Third Metamorphosis and deter anyone below."

"My kind, Empty Flask? You're making an enemy of all creatures of the night! Exploitation of the sun's Solar Magic Ions isn't a new discovery. Mortals of the Material Dimension are inept and can never muster their trinkets as weapons against us. Anyone else… those that can take a step into The Gray, are those we agree to acknowledge and have tried so before. The outcome was a unification of every Nightly Creature. Did He not teach you lessons of past wars before your infiltration?"

David seriously mused. "I did manage to think of the possibility on my own. It's not a difficult tool to make, yet very effective and still… before the idea crossed my mind, I couldn't find anything similar that can be considered a weapon."

"Then you understand. You may keep using it against us now, tonight, but a night longer and you'd be smitten by the wrath of darkness-"

"It doesn't change the fact that I got you with, as you said, 'mortal trinkets,'" David interjected. "And 'creatures of the night'? 'Empty Flask'? Did He not teach anything at all about me?"

David's tone had a sudden change. To the "regal" and "authoritative" added "overbearing."

"What would you call the one who scares you to take away the fear he instills in your soul? How will you conceal the cowardice when his name is spoken? I didn't pick this name. My foes and allies declared me 'Cursed Template'!"

In the cloudless sky, Colan and the rest could swear they heard the crack of thunder.

"As for you, 'creatures of the night,' you're but substandard commoners, pilchards in the vast ocean of Leviathans I hunt!"