Jonathan looked out at the well-lit night skyline. He yawned, much less of exhaustion, but more of boredom. Jonathan no longer needed to sleep or eat ever since he came back from the dead, and that made his days all the more longer. So in a way, he was kind of looking forward to this auction event.
“They’re going to open their doors soon,” Duncan muttered. “I’ve marked all potential entries and exits with a spell, so I’ll be notified if any magic sets it off. Jonathan and I will overlook the grand hall as a precaution. Lucy—”
“— Will be guarding the perimeter, right?” Lucy droned in a bored tone. She seemed to be really going for the female Dracula look tonight, with her dark cloak and a popped-up hood. She pouted while twirling her pistol absentmindedly. “You never let me see the fun stuff.”
“Come now, Lucy. We both know only you can be everywhere at once in the dark.”
“Hmph. Fair enough.” Lucy gave Duncan a side eye before transforming into a black cat. She leapt off the roof and perched herself on a nearby pole, casting her yellow eyes into the distance. Jonathan turned back to Duncan, who had already vanished without a sound. He shrugged and sped off to his designated location.
Jonathan found Duncan sitting on an indoor ceiling beam, overlooking the grand hall that looked way too flashy to host a supposedly illegal auction. Guests were sauntering through the doors, dressed in what looked like masquerade attires.
“I guess that’s how the promoters disguised the event,” Jonathan thought to himself. He sat across from Duncan, who had obviously noticed him but refused to utter a word.
“So, how’s it like being a witch doctor?” Jonathan started, trying to break the ice. “Do you… ya know… Do you do the voodoo?”
Duncan stared at him as though he just watched the worst comic in the city deliver the lamest joke in the world.
“F— Forget I said that,” Jonathan mumbled. “Let’s just—”
A small chuckle escaped Duncan’s lips.
“That’s a new one,” he said. “I do not ‘do the voodoo’. I’m a doctor; I cure people from voodoo curses. However, that requires having knowledge of voodoo to begin with. So yes, I can do voodoo magic.”
“What else can you do?”
“I can turn you into a frog if you don’t stop bothering me.”
Jonathan’s mouth slammed shut immediately, but Duncan let out a brief grunt of laughter yet again.
“I was only joking, boy. I can make you think you’re a frog, but I cannot actually turn you into one.” He grinned as Jonathan shuddered a little. That man sure had a strangely terrifying sense of humour.
“Good to know…” Jonathan muttered, racking his brains to change the topic. “Uhm… Does it ever bother you that Lucy is a vampire and drinks blood to live?”
“You’re very blunt, son. But no, it never bothers me.” Duncan continued looking out at the hall rapidly filling itself up. “For one, she will never attack people like me. Vampires need sustenance from beings with a soul, and mine has long since withered away. And for another, Lucy is a noble-hearted woman trapped in a demon’s body. She would never kill innocent people without sufficient justification.”
“You seem very familiar with her.”
“Of course, I’ve known Lucy for five hundred years. She has a righteous soul.” Duncan said. “I’m sure you’ve noticed, but she can go out in the sun despite the myth claiming that vampires cannot. Do you know why that is?”
Jonathan shook his head.
“Because she was the one who started that rumour,” Duncan continued. “Vampires used to terrorise villages during her time. She never joined in, only choosing the blood of wildlife to sustain herself. Human blood is very potent, and her kind rapidly grew in strength as a result of their lifestyle. They could wipe out entire towns within a single night, should they simply be in the mood. Then one day, Lucy had enough of their bloodlust and slipped a poison in her fellow vampires. A poison that lit up their vampiric blood like fire when exposed to the sun. And just like that, all of them burned up in full view of their potential victims as the sun rose over their town. Thus began the myth of the sun being lethal to vampires.”
“Her fellow vampires must have been really mad at her.”
“The most bloodthirsty ones were dead, and the remaining few went their separate ways and into hiding. So in my time, vampires were relatively unheard of until one rose to power. Count Vladislaus Dracula; I’m sure you’ve heard of him.” Duncan chuckled and shook his head. “Poor Lucy fell madly in love, and that man almost turned her back into the monster she was meant to be.”
“And then?” Jonathan asked eagerly.
“And then she spent another fifty years or so mourning after he was destroyed by the forces of good. I’d say that’s a good thing actually, if you ask me.” Duncan shrugged. “She developed a taste for human blood under Vlad’s influence, and it took me another twenty years to help her wean off that addiction.”
“So she was one of Dracula’s vampire brides.”
“The original bride, in fact. But it was a pity that man never truly loved her in return. Lestat was a much better suitor for her, but she never was interested.” Duncan shrugged. “Women…”
“How about you? Did you have a family?” Jonathan asked.
Duncan cast his eyes downwards. “Not anymore. The joy of having a family diminishes with every new one, and the pain of losing them only grows each time. Why subject myself to eternal torture again? Immortality is only for those who are truly unafraid of loneliness, and I only wished I had someone to tell us that before I made my irreversible choice.”
“When was the last time you had a family?”
“Rather recent, actually. In 1951, I met the kindest, most beautiful woman in my life.” Duncan smiled warmly. “Her name was Maya, and she was my nurse after World War II. I was unfortunate enough to be right under The Fat Man when it detonated over Nagasaki, and I died from radiation poisoning every day. It was only thanks to the few hundred lifelines I had accumulated over the years that saved me from entering oblivion.”
Duncan’s voice softened. “Despite spending years talking to a mummy, Maya never gave up on me. She was posted elsewhere when I fully recovered, and we spent the days writing letters to each other. Of course, these letters are no longer here, but her words have never left my mind.”
“What happened to the letters?” Jonathan queried. “I’d suppose something so precious would be locked away safely.”
“They were taken away when our house was…” Duncan closed his eyes painfully as his voice trembled. “I’m sorry, I wish not to talk about this further.”
An alarmed expression suddenly crossed his face as he jumped off the roof beam, landing on a small platform in the attic. Jonathan looked at him quizzically and followed suit.
“A dark magic user just entered the compound,” he said. “This bodes ill; such mages rarely have good intentions.”
Duncan muttered an incantation under his breath again as strange glowing symbols decorated his clothes.
“Let us find out what that mage wants.”
~ ~ ~
“I’m so bored…”
The cat yawned and preened itself for the umpteenth time, pacing around the roof. The pale moonlight reflected off its eyes as they zoomed in on a family of rats scurrying along the sewer pipes.
“If I’m going to be a cat, I might as well behave like one.”
Its black fur moved slightly in the wind as it crouched, preparing to pounce and sink its teeth into rodent meat—
“Finally, some action!”
The cat sank into the shadows instead. It travelled along the darkness, gliding and crawling along the intersection of shadows that served perfectly as roads leading to any desired destination. A blob of black separated itself from the rest of the shadows and morphed into a bat, observing the masked man taking down several guards at the same time. His actions were swift and precise, clearly showing the years of experience he had killing armed men.
The intruder walked briskly towards the entrance with his gun at the ready. The bat flew towards him with an unnatural speed and stopped in front of him, transforming back into her true form.
“Halt! In the name of— Why, you certainly aren’t easily impressed, are you?” Lucy said, dancing around the shots aimed at her body, each of them potentially hitting a fatal area. She vanished into darkness again and reappeared behind the man, pinning him down with a playful chuckle.
The man fired his pistol from under his arm. Lucy hissed and let go of him as bullets pelted her abdomen. He lunged towards her and caught her in a headlock. The assassin pulled the trigger against her temple.
“Ow, you play rough!” Lucy stumbled away as her wounds pushed the lead out and closed themselves rapidly. She pulled her own pistols, wielding them with both hands. “But you’re not the only one who can wield this magic.”
“I don’t have time for your games, Bayonetta. I’m not here for you.” The man flicked a knife at her heart, which broke off into pieces as bullets met it mid-trajectory.
“Bayonetta? Can’t say I recall ever going by that name before…” Lucy fired again at another incoming knife, which snapped off into two pieces. One of them found its way to her face this time, and she clutched her bleeding cheek where it had grazed her.
“Silver?” she gasped as blood continued to drip down her face. “Hey! How’d you know— Argh, figures…”
She transformed into a raven and pursued the masked assassin fleeing into the darkness.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRj8y4PGCoC
