The Hunters Volume Two: War

Chapter Nine: Friends

  "Why did you wait so long to tell me about this?"

  "It didn't seem that important at first!"

  "'Didn't seem important?' How did that not seem important?"

  "Clearly you don't know as much about vampires as you think you do. Because if you did, you would know that it is impossible, even for a Royal Blood like me to completely shepherd such a large number of vampires! We are creatures of the night and its desires! We don't play by the rules of your day world!"

  "Well apparently neither does this mysterious killer and guess who's winning in the score sheet now?!"

  After a long talk where the three of them had explained–Mia had explained, while Veronica had just stood there glaring at Lee who never stopped smirking mockingly in return–the reason for their impromptu battle, Veronica had finally revealed her reason for seeking out the leader of the Hunters. A week ago, one of the vampires had left to feed but had failed to return the following day. According to his roommate, he never showed up even in the days after that. Out of concern, he had voiced his worries to the vampire princess who had assumed it to be a case of a vampire going rogue. Her assumption had not been out of ignorance as that was not the first time a vampire had chosen to stray off rather than live under the watch of their mortal enemies the Hunters. But even those vampires had been tracked down and while they had not been punished, since no vampiric law had been broken by their departure, they had been kept under close monitoring by the Hunters for if and when they inevitably went too far and grievously harmed a human. As expected, the number of rogue vampires remained at a minimum. But unlike those guys, this one never contacted anyone and all attempts to reach him failed, leaving Veronica with no choice but to send out other vampires to hunt him down.

  It had been when one of her men had failed to return and his colleague had ended up bringing her his Sun Ring that Veronica had realized what was happening. Someone or something out there was hunting vampires in Starlight Bay. As a Royal Blood as well as her father's representative, Veronica knew it was her duty to lead and serve as a pillar for her kind in this unfamiliar setting they had found themselves in. But she also knew her limits. She was a leader, not a detective or anything of that sort. Hence she had sought after the one person who was responsible for the most number of vampire deaths in the history of her kind. In other words, she aimed to 'use a Hunter to catch a hunter.'

  "So what will it be then?" Veronica asked, one hand on her hip as she stared at Michael's thoughtful face. 

  "If someone really is going after your people," he began slowly. "Then they definitely need to be stopped, otherwise they would likely move on to other targets."

  "And besides, it's not like we can say no," Lee drawled out indifferently. "Seeing as Michael here basically signed us to be your... I believe your friend called us watchdogs?"

  "Dorerra is not my friend," Veronica glared heatedly at the Asian. "And if you have a problem with my people, then you better—"

  "Better what?" Lee interrupted and scoffed, his voice full of derision. "Man, you guys used to be so much fun back in the day."

  "You mean when you would slaughter us without mercy?" Veronica said angrily.

  "Exactly!" Lee replied without the slightest hint of remorse, further fueling the vampire's fury. "But isn't that why you came to Michael? Using a killer of vampires to catch another killer of vampires, that's what you intended to do, right? Well let me tell you a little a secret." He leaned closer to Veronica who was rigid with barely restrained rage till he was right beside her ear. 

  "I've killed twice as many of your kind as he has."

  Her claws struck faster than Mia's eyes could track yet Lee barely had to tilt his head to dodge it and grabbed her hand in a vice like grip. 

  "That's enough Lee," Michael said with a note of finality in his voice. The Asian spared Veronica one last mocking glance before he chuckled and moved to lean on the trunk of a nearby tree. With a quick flick of his hand, he retrieved his book from within his ripped jacket and continued his reading.

  A low growl reverberated from deep within Veronica as she glared furiously at the white haired Hunter. If looks could kill, he would have turned into a smoldering pile of ashes a long time ago. Forcing herself to focus on the matter at hand, Veronica turned her attention back to Michael. 

  "I've ordered the rest of the vampires to remain inside the campus and to always move around in pairs but I don't know how long I'll be able to keep them in line. Eventually one of them is going to mess up and get killed and I really don't want that."

  "You did good," Michael assured. "Vincent said something about some defectors from the Arcane Circle. Add that to the unexplainable disappearance of numerous Variants from the Rome's radar and it's pretty clear something's up."

  "So what do you intend to do?"

  Michael glanced over at Lee who  raised a white eyebrow. "Looks like the Hunters are going to be paying a visit to the Arcane Circle. Chances are that their defectors are probably involved with the missing Variants."

  He turned to back to both girls with a firm look on his face. "Meanwhile, you two cannot leave school grounds, at least not till we're back. It someone really is going after vampires, then there's no way they'll be able to ignore the vampire princess herself out in the open."

  "Understood," Mia agreed.

  Michael stared pointedly at Veronica until she finally caved with a reluctant sigh. "Fine."

  A short harsh laugh destroyed the little peace that had just managed to worm its way into the discussion. Almost predictably, Veronica's scowl returned in full force and glared at Lee with barely contained rage. Mia was just confused, the poor girl not knowing whether or not to offer her help in this situation without knowing how not to make it worse.

  Lee's book snapped shut loudly in the quiet clearing and he chuckled at Veronica. It might have seemed like a harmless laugh but Veronica knew it was much more. She could practically feel the amount of disregard, disrespect, disgust and sheer ridicule lacing that sound. Her claws appeared on reflex and she started towards Lee only to be stopped in her tracks by Michael's hand closing around her arm. 

  Her eyes flashed red when she  spun her head to fix her scathing glare on him. "Let go of me."

  "No. It's not worth it."

  "That's right, princess," Lee taunted her with a cruel smile. "You're not worth it.

  She didn't know whether her body had gotten so good at acting on its own or if it was because that damn Hunter was so infuriating. But by the time she realized that she had ripped her hand out of Michael's and was currently moving towards with Lee at  supernatural speeds, it occurred to her that there was no way the Hunter had not been doing this on purpose. As for what he was hoping to achieve by  antagonizing her, Veronica had no idea and frankly she couldn't care less. Right now all she cared about was using as much strength as her Blood Magic could force into her claws tear out his stupid vocal cords right out of his necks.

  Even as she approached, the platinum blonde young man merely regarded with a bored look and an infuriatingly arrogant smirk on his lips. Veronica's hand struck forward faster than a speeding bullet and her claws found their target in the Hunter's neck, only to end up unable to even break his skin.

  Veronica's mind screeched to a halt in that instant. What the hell was going on? It felt like she had attempted to claw through solid steel that had been covered with a layer of flesh. She raised her eyes to meet his and saw that they were red once again. Was that his Variant Magic? But she had never heard of any Variant ability that activated like that.

  "Are you done?"

  Veronica snapped out of her thoughts and growled at him. Before she could attack him again, a heavy pulse magic surged through her and she felt herself stagger slightly at the sudden and unprecedented decrease in her physical capability upon the forceful cancelation of her Blood Magic. She whirled around to vent her frustration on Michael who silenced her with a shake of his head.

  "Stand down Lee."

  The Hunter in question merely gave his leader a sideways glance before scoffing and moved to leave the clearing entirely. Mia stiffened unconsciously when he walked past her, her natural instincts of self preservation yelling out at her to move.

  "Get your kids under control, Michael," he said in a tone that had Mia's blood dropping a few degrees. "Who knows? I might end up 'losing control' around one of them soon."

                                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  A silent sigh escaped Dean's mouth as he stared out the window a few feet away from where he sat at the furthermost left edge of the gallery of a lecture hall. Somewhere down below, a middle aged man was droning on about the relation between psychology and the paranormal. Most of the students were actually paying attention while a few of them were like Dean, completely unresponsive to anything outside their own world space. Though unlike them, Dean was a well experienced member of the  supernatural world, meaning that he had practically nothing to gain from this class.

  His hand clenched tightly into a fist around the pen he held for a while before he released it. His other hand reached out and felt the warmth radiating off the object. Ever since he could remember, Dean knew that his body temperature had never made it up past fifteen degrees, no matter how hot the weather got. Not being able to sweat definitely had its advantages but there was the fact that it made prolonged physical contact with other living things more than a little difficult. A few decades ago, even remaining near him for more than a few minutes would put a normal human at immense risk of death, whether by hypothermia or simply dropping dead by virtue of his death inducing magic overflowing out of him. 

  When the Hunters had arrived at Starlight Central Academy first, Michael had not allowed him to attend classes with other students, partly out of his own request. Death did not discriminate between friend or foe, innocent or guilty. All of the Hunters had struggled to adjust when they had first discovered their abilities so long ago. Dean was anything but arrogant but he was pretty sure that none of them had it quite as bad as he did. He never did get the chance to form any useful emotional connections over the years. Not because he would outlive them but because it was immensely difficult to keep a relationship when your partner could possibly die from merely being around you for too long. 

  A tapping sound from the desk beside him drew his attention back to the class that he was now noticing had just ended. Dean turned his gaze upon the curly haired young man occupying the desk beside him.

  "Hey dude, you don't look familiar," the other guy said lightly. "This your first time coming to Professor T's class?"

  "'Professor T?'"

  The boy chuckled at the nickname even as he gathered up his things. "Yeah, the T stands for Thomson but everyone just calls him Train because of how long his classes are."

  Dean gave a small understanding nod. "Oh. Then yes, this would be my first time in his class."

  The boy actually looked surprised for a while before offering his hand. "Really? I'm Luke Munroe by the way."

  Dean ended up staring at the outstretched hand way longer than he should have before he finally, almost reluctantly accepted the handshake. "Dean Hanson."

  "Cool. So you've never been to his class before because you didn't want to or was there another reason?"

  Still surprised at the whole unfamiliar scenario, Dean took a while to organize his reply. "I uh, wasn't feeling very well at the start of the semester."

  "Hey man don't sweat it," the boy, no, Luke waved off his reason smoothly. "We all have our secrets. Any way since you're wanting to get back into the school life, tonight's the first game of the season so you're definitely gonna want to come. So I'll see you there alright? Catch you later bro!"

  And with that, Luke left the dark haired young man to fix himself into a group of other laughing students on their way out of the rapidly emptying lecture hall. 

  Dean had no idea how long he sat there wondering what the  hell had just happened. Never for as long as he could remember had something like this ever happened before. All his life people had always gone out of their way to avoid him. Some did it knowingly mainly out of fear of who he was or because of the nature of his power for the few who knew about it. Others who were ignorant yet sought to put as much space between him and them as possible did so because of the natural instinct of the human body to keep itself away from what it perceived as the end of all life. It was a more than a little sad to think about but Dean was pretty sure he didn't have a single true friend outside his pack. Not that it had ever bothered him before but something like this happening just now that his powers had been sealed had only pushed it back into focus for him. The overwhelming loneliness that had remained his constant companion ever since that fateful day in a small house in a village that had long been lost to time and history.

  His eyes soon caught sight of someone waving at him from the hall's entrance. It was Lisa and she was dressed in a slightly loose Starlight Academy jumper and jeans. Her thin rimmed glasses shifted lightly on her nose as she waved a bit more vigorously when she saw that he had noticed her presence. Dean sighed and rose to meet her. He knew exactly why she was here.

  "Jade sent you?" He said as they walked into the hallway.

  "Yeah," Lisa replied. "She's waiting in the dorms."

  As they navigated their way towards the exit of the building, Lisa observed that Dean would always walk in a manner that prevented him from making contact with other people in the hallways, including herself. He would either walk slightly ahead of her or beside her but always with at least a foot of space between them. There was a detached look on his face as he walked. It felt a bit too much like that of someone who had resigned himself to an inescapable fate. Aside from that, Lisa could tell that there was something else on his mind. Whatever it was, it was weighing down on him heavily. As far as she knew, which admittedly was not much, this seemed to be something that the broody Hunter had gotten used to feeling. Lisa was not a therapist but even she knew that it couldn't be healthy to carry so much mental baggage without a way to relieve them. But the problem was that she had no idea what to do. It would be pretty hypocritical for her to attempt to give emotional advice to another person considering the massive self esteem issues she herself was still dealing with. There was something immensely humbling about seeing someone who was regarded as a pinnacle of power and fear experiencing such a mundane thing like depression.