As we continued to search the cathedral, Reina wouldn’t quit talking about that damn statue. She swore on her pet hamster’s grave that she’d saved me from being attacked. I wanted to believe her, but the girl had been jittery ever since she stepped foot inside these walls.

In under an hour we were almost done searching, and it looked like we were coming empty yet again. The complaints from Reina started on cue, but something about this place enticed me to continue searching.

“How about the sub floors?” I suggested. “We already searched this entire place inside out.”

“Sub floors?” Reina repeated. “As in a basement of sorts? Of a cathedral?”

I turned to her and raised an eyebrow at her. “Yeah? What’s the problem?”

“You are aware that spirits rest in these subfloors, right?”

Naomi rolled her eyes. “Not only are you painfully annoying and paranoid, but you’re superstitious, too?”

Reina smirked at Naomi’s comment. “Oh, some wannabe dark aesthetics girl forgot our little talk by the hot springs, now, didn’t she?” Naomi glared at her, and then Reina turned back at me. “I simply refuse to head down there and risk the chance of being driven mad by haunting ghosts and apparitions!”

Okay, something was obviously going on between those two. The fact that Reina brought up that incident again by the pool was confirmation of that. It made Naomi shut up right away, and she wasn’t the type to back down and take Reina’s shit easily. I wondered what had happened at the hot springs between them that Reina seemed to be holding over Naomi’s head. Whatever it was left a bad taste in my mouth, and I made a note to talk to Naomi about it later. But for now….

“Come on, let’s just check the basement and get it over with,” I said, trying to defuse the tension.

Reina shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest adamantly. “No way. I’m not going down there. It’s bad enough we had to search every inch of this creepy cathedral!”

“Then stay up here by yourself,” I said as I snatched Naomi’s hand and made for the stairs with my fist of flame. “Good luck with the vampire angel!” Naomi nearly stumbled as I made her follow me, probably not expecting me to bring her along. Once she got her footing she didn’t refuse, but Reina sure as hell had something to say about it.

“Wait! You’re not about to leave me up here all by myself!” she cried, her feet rushing down the floorboard. “Nero!”

She tagged along, that mouth of hers quiet up until we reached the subfloors. The basement of the cathedral wasn’t just a basement, but an actual crypt, which fed into Reina’s ideas of spirits haunting this place. Inside the stone walls were pockets with bones inside of them, stacked like bricks one over the other. There were plaques assigned to most of them but not all of them, and I took the time to read some of the names. “I wonder how long this stretches out for,” I muttered to myself. “This place seems massive….”

The walls were wide as they were long, our voices echoing down the many hallways. I could tell we were in for one hell of a walk, before I stepped on a block of stone, feeling it sinking from my weight.

Just like that, the area lit up, with artificial torchlights along the tunnels paving our way. The dome-shaped pathways stretched out like networks, and I insisted that we continued looking for the victims in the underground labyrinth.

Naomi made mental markers of the place, and I helped by running marks as check points on the walls. After a short while, I started to feel something surrounding us, so I tapped into my thermal vision for answers.

“Hold on, I’m picking up something,” I whispered to my team, and when I turned down the corner, I saw four bodies—three alive, and one dead...

The three that were alive coiled and cowered in fear when they saw me, twin little boys and an older lady who I believed was their mother Maria. The unfortunate victim sitting there with his bottom jaw torn out looked like their father, Max, Reina taking a step in front of me to look at the victims more closely.

“Please, please, don’t…” Maria wept. Their skins were covered in grime and blood, their clothes blotched and greasy.

I held up my hands to show I meant no harm. “It’s okay, we’re here to help you,” I said in a gentle voice. Maria continued weeping, clinging to her boys as her eyes bounced between us. “We are hunters. And it’s about time we bring you to safety.”

I glanced at Naomi and ordered her to check on the man’s body while I tried to calm the family down. She crouched beside him, examining the gruesome wounds on his face. The skin around the missing jaw was ragged, as if something had torn it right off his skull….

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“He killed him,” Maria cried. “That savage monster killed him!”

“How did no one find you down here? Enforcers had checked this place according to our file,” Reina asked.

“W-we were hidden,” Maria stuttered. “Blind-folded and stashed away. I don’t know where…” she cried. “The monster, he took us into a black hole and, and—I….”

“You’re in shock,” Reina said, putting a hand on her shoulder to ease her. “It’s okay. We didn’t come here to interrogate you. Try to relax. You’re safe now.”

Maria’s eyes were red and swollen, a sharp contrast to the pale, scared faces of her boys. She held them tight, convinced by our words but still in shock. The twins, Liam and Lucas, finally had a dawning moment that Reina was actually here to save them. They rushed in and gave her a hug. Reina was taken aback at first, then softened as she wrapped her arms around the trembling boys.

“Thank you,” Maria said, bowing ten times over. “Thank you so much!”

“Let’s get you out of here,” Reina suggested, rising to her feet, her attention immediately turning to Naomi. “What was that?” she asked as Naomi got up on her feet too with her hands in the pockets of the black jacket she’d tossed over her uniform.

Naomi turned to her. “What was what?”

“That thing you took from that man’s pocket.”

“You’re seeing things. I didn’t take anything from his pocket.”

Reina glared at her but didn’t have a comeback. I turned to Naomi and then back at Reina before shrugging it off. Naomi didn’t look like the type who’d pickpocket, so maybe Reina was trying to stir up some unnecessary drama.

“We need to get moving,” I said, giving Reina a pointed look. She seemed to understand, shrugging off her suspicion and turning her attention back toward Maria and the twins. “Once we are topside, we’ll call enforcers for Max.”

We led the disheveled family through the dark, humid alleyway, each of us keeping a sharp eye for any signs of the monster who had captured them. Maria held Liam’s hand, and Liam held Lucas’. Lucas clung to Reina from the string of four, the boy seemingly attached to her more after she’d rescued them. The boys kept casting fearful glances over their shoulders, but they were brave and steadfast on leaving.

We moved along the labyrinth using Naomi’s markers. I remembered some of them as we passed by, a few misaligned stones here and there, a scratch on the wall, a piece of cloth tied to a piece of bone protruding from the wall. Our steps echoed down the cold stone as we paced back toward the exit, until the lights started to flicker.

Before I could get a word out, they completely turned off, leaving us in darkness again.

Maria immediately began to panic.

“This way,” I murmured to my team, leading them toward the exit. I had memorized the route, turning on my flames to guide us down the path. But then I heard low grunting from behind us, my feet instantly stopping at the sound.

“What was that?!” Maria cried.

“I’ll go investigate.”

“No, I’ll do it,” Naomi suggested.

“I want you with Maria and the boys.”

“Reina is with Maria and the boys.”

“We haven’t made it out of the cathedral yet, Naomi. Reina might need your help. Make sure they make it out safely.”

Naomi stayed silent for a while before she gave in. “Fine.”

I smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll be alright. We have our H-Tec. If it’s something I can’t handle alone, I’ll buzz you. Deal?”

She gave me a skeptical look before her eyes turned back to the tunnel we just left, and then she walked away to the family.

“Be careful,” Reina said, using the flashlight from her phone to see. And just like that, they were off.

Using my palm of flames as a guide light, I went back the direction we came from. Now alone, I felt the pressure of figuring out what was behind that noise. I didn’t want to be caught off guard, walking into unknown territory. The darkness seemed to close in around me, swallowing my flames the deeper I went. My steps were slow and steady, and I made sure to keep my eyes as sharp as possible. The element of surprise was out of the question as I carried this makeshift torch for vision. I couldn’t sneak up on them if I couldn’t see where I was going. But just as I turned the next corner, the grunting sound came again, this time closer than before.

My flame danced in my hand, casting elongated shadows along the walls that I kept mistaking as figures. The aged carvings and skeletal remains seemed to come alive as I scanned them with my light, making me think of that one bootleg Indiana Jones movie I watched years ago with Mom. My adrenaline was spiking right now, but I pushed on. The grunts came another time, and now I was starting to believe that I was being lured somewhere….

Down one hallway, and out the other.

I was being baited hard, but I had no choice but to bite the line and see where this took me. If I killed this bastard now, Utoro wouldn’t have to worry about him terrorizing this church anymore.

All of a sudden, I saw a cool-toned light down my path. I followed it to an open circle that was giving off sewer prison vibes. The entire atmosphere changed, my eyes scanning the stacks of bricks as they towered beyond the limits of the underground crypt. It didn’t make any sense how massive this place was, and it made me question the purpose of a space like this being under a place of worship.

I brought myself to the center, the ground streaked with fresh blood. I turned off my flames as the light continued to pour down from above, where I realized it was the moon giving off its shine.

“Pretty sweet, huh?” someone behind me said. I looked up to see a guy in stitches sitting on a torch perch meters over my head.

I saw staples and lines across his face, down his arms, and over his scrawny legs. He was wearing a simple white T-shirt with a dark pair of pants, the guy looking like he just rolled out of bed. His hair was black, tousled, and greasy, but his eyes…. Those were what caught my attention.

They were bright blue, glowing like flashlights. They had a cold, icy edge to them, the kind of gaze that belonged to only the worst kinds of monsters. A chill ran down my spine as he jumped down from his perch, landing on his bare feet, with a wild and excited grin plastered on his pasty looking face. He flashed me his jagged teeth and greeted, “Welcome! Welcome! To my kingdom,” he said, spreading his arms wide, showing off the vast emptiness of his underground domain.

Was this Reina’s vampire angel?