Leona bowed slightly and left, while LaCroix had an exchange of looks with Mercurio and let him leave. After them closing the door, Veronica raised her question in a worried expression:

"Do you need me to take the lead on this? It sounds…quite dangerous."

"No, if you are distracted from the sarcophagus, that will be exactly what Sabbat want by doing this…no, you just…keep working with Beckett, watch over the excavation and make sure those humans won't suspect anything…"

Veronica smiled wryly, seemed couldn't understand his obsession with this project: "I don't understand why everyone is so nervous about it…they are just myths and stories, right? An old superstition…"

"But you feel it, too, don't you? That kind of…disturbance in the air."

Unable to disagree, Veronica didn't respond further, stroked Sebastian's face gently with her hand, as if trying to convince him in a sensational way instead of using logic, so Sebastian kissed her hand and consoled her:

"Don't worry, I'm just…making sure nothing will go wrong."

At the same time, Leona made a strange request to Mercurio when they got off the elevator and back on the parking lot. "Do you have…strong alcohol stuff in your place?" She asked, "Like…strong enough to get a vampire down?"

Having a bad feeling about why she asked, Mercurio hesitated and answered: "Plenty in my basement. What?"

"Can I have a drink at your place? Just…you know we vampires are more tolerant about alcohol so…if I have to pay at the bar to get drunk, I can't afford it right now…I'm just a blood van driver, I don't really have that income…" Feeling pathetic about the fact that she didn't have the money to do this because of her cowardly choice of career, Leona laughed at herself, "Gosh, it's stupid. Forget about…"

"It's ok." Mercurio said yes—it's not like he's a professional wine collector who does it for investment, "But just so you know, I'm planning to call a girl and relax tonight, so you will have to stay in the basement, alright? I need some…pressure-relieving after this, too."

"Deal, I intend to be alone, anyway." Leona squeezed out a smile, "Thank you for…everything."

So they split their way after arriving at Mercurio's villa, and Leona indeed behaved herself, stayed underground, drinking, allowing the ghoul to enjoy his crazy night with the lady uninterrupted, without the likes of that embarrassing incident at the first time they met. Still, after a few failed attempts of trying to force himself asleep, Mercurio put up his shirt and trousers and got up to work, unwillingly.

He made a video call to someone at Chicago, got some files faxed about two individuals over there: one was the social worker who picked up Leona on the street and took her into the orphanage, and the other was the…philanthropist who sponsored her in high school and college. He got the names of these two people over his stay in that city.

The social worker was an old lady who passed away two years ago, seemed pretty clean and ordinary—Leona attended her funeral, actually—so he quickly put her document away; the entrepreneur who kindly donated his money to Leona, however, was more tricky.

He looked all legitimate at first glance, but when Mercurio double-checked the financial status of his company—a pharmacy chain—something shady came up: it was a money laundry place. Though they covered it quite professionally, Mercurio himself rose from criminal organizations, so he saw through it anyway.

So…was it just a coincidence? A crime boss found his heart once in his life and…gave a helping hand to an strange, orphan girl who had been missing for two years?

But with this bit of superficial info, Mercurio couldn't infer too much, and…he didn't really want to. This poor chick's life was hard enough, and she seemed not the conspiring type…

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"Mercury…Mer-cu-ry…"

And there Leona was, pounding on his front door, totally befuddled, murmuring in a little girl's voice, so groggy that she mistook his name for some stupid Roman god. Mercurio quickly put away all the files and rushed to open the door: "Shush! Somebody is asleep upstairs…"

Upon his warning, Leona put her index finger on her mouth and shook her head greatly up and down like her neck was a spring. She smelt of Vodka.

"God…how much did you drink…"

Probably because Mercurio warned her to be quiet, Leona snuck in furtively like some funny thief in a comedy cartoon, then whispered to his ear: "E-ve-ry-thing."

Then she put up a silly smirk on her face and sat down in the living room, dragged Mercurio's trousers with one hand and tapped on the sofa cushion by her side with another, inviting him to sit here and grumbled: "Ahhh…I don't get why anyone would want to even become vampires in the first place, if there's an option of being ghoul, you know? You guys can live the life soooooo much easier than us…"

Mercurio chuckled lightly. He wanted to correct Leona's saying, because not every ghoul lived so…handsomely with dignity like him: most of them are walking blood bags, cheap labors and servants of dirty work to their masters, some are even pets and sex slaves. But he knew Leona wasn't here to learn and debate—not this Leona, at least—and looking at her dumping away all the coolness she tried so hard to put on like now somehow amused him, so he just went with her opinion: "I know, right? You guys are really messed up."

"So…" And Leona suddenly changed the subject, "You spent your time with your girl already?"

Mercurio was literally astonished by this question. He turned around and looked at her, like he was making sure it was the Leona he knew, the very-serious-about-adult-topics, always-accusing-him-of-toying-with-women Leona, and replied: "Umm…yes?"

He didn't know why he felt so…"shy" right now, considering he was usually the one who kept flirting with her "improperly".

"How was it? Was it good?"

"Erm…yeah, I think so…right…Leona, I think you should…"

"I can never understand why you westerners are so big about sex. You said it's…what, stress-relieving? Maybe it's because I've never had it. Well, you can't understand something you've never experienced, can you?" After making this really precocious confession, Leona paused for a second and seemingly an idea had come up in her mind, "You are supposed to be really good at it, right? Since you are very…experienced…"

"…Uh, well, Uh…Listen, Leona, you are drunk—"

"Then you teach me, so I can learn from the best."

Leona suddenly flipped around and sat on Mercurio's laps, with her thighs right open to him, then started to unbutton her shirt disorderly, since she couldn't really control her fingers in a precise fashion right now.

"Shit…wait, wait, Leona, wait!"

"Don't worry, I'm unskilled but…well, I'm a virgin so I'm very tight, you guys like it, right? That should make it up…"

"That's not the problem…"

"Then why! You are the one who said I looked like your secretary in the secretary play!" Leona struck him on his chest, desolate again like a teenage girl who got turned down publicly on her prom, "Why! Do you think I'm ugly?"

"No, no no no, I…"

Mercurio lost his words. He didn't understand himself, too. Before he never said no to a girl who…took such an initiative, and he was never picky about women. He liked all types of them, really, at least in bed. Apart from that, Leona wasn't ugly at all; actually, the way she looked at him right now, the way her shirt was half-opened just enough to let him take a glimpse at her breasts, her posture, her voice…would have all worked perfectly on him.

But he just couldn't do it. He saw her eyes swelled, her mascara smudged, and dried trails of tears on her face. Then, all he could think about was how long she had cried when he could escape from everything in that woman's coquettish moaning upstairs.

Men of his background from his world—a world of drug dealings, cartel fights and gun trafficking, always tend to view women to be something fragile and…decorative, something to have an affair with and boost about, and at best, a princess in the castle that needs defending; even those strong, socially-acknowledged women won't qualify in their standard, because with all their educations, they get too…arrogant and obsessed with ethics and will crush easily once faced with a moral dilemma. They are only strong under the sunlight, in a place where justice holds some authority.

Yet right now, Mercurio felt ashamed…strangely enough in front of Leona, when she was acting like a emotional crybaby. He suddenly realized how high the wall of defense she put on to confront everything she had been through, and compared to that he didn't even give a good fight…against whatever it was in his past.

"Listen, Leona, I can't do this, because you don't really want to…"

Just when Mercurio determined about his response, he stopped, for Leona fell on his shoulder and slept already—she was worn out, and Mercurio hadn't reacted to her for too long.

"...Alice…why do you…smell like alcohol again…are you drunk…"

Leona griped, then went into a deep and sweet slumber. She purred when she slept, like a cat enjoying the petting of its human companion. Mercurio grinned, helped her tidied up her clothes and carried her back into the basement, then went back to bed himself. Luckily for both of them, when Leona woke up next evening, her mind was solely troubled by the painful hangover and didn't remember a thing.