Someone is watching.

I woke silently, crouching on the bed with a dagger in each hand, facing the window. It was still dark, the street lights bathing the bedroom in a soft glow. The hairs on the back of my neck pricked in warning. I scanned the room without moving my gaze from the window. The room was clear, but there was someone or something out there.

I jumped on the floor, then padded to the window. Flattening my back on the wall beside it, I peeked outside.

The parking lot was deserted but for the cars. Wait. Right there, at the edge of the road under the heavy cover of trees, was a shadow. I blinked and it was gone.

Was it my imagination? I scanned the area again, but everything seemed peaceful. At times like these, I wished I had shapeshifter senses.

Blowing out a breath, I checked the lock on the windows and door, then checked the apartment again. I was a little paranoid. Okay, maybe more than a little. But with the childhood I've had, I could never be too careful.

Eight o'clock was still a few hours away. There was no way I would be able to go back to sleep. So I ate a bowl of cereal, then stretched my weapons out on the living room floor.

Cleaning my blades always grounded me. It was something I did ever since I could hold a knife. The clove scent in the mineral oil I used to clean my blades was reminiscent of home and safety. With each stroke, my shoulders relaxed, my heartbeat steadied and a small smile unconsciously stretched on my face.

My crossbow was in mint condition. The only problem was that I was out of silver bolts. I had regular ones, but they didn't do much in a fight against an immortal. Their superior healing abilities compared to humans made every weapon useless against them if it wasn't silver.

I doubted I would need a crossbow anytime soon, though. For some reason, I felt that any fighting I would be doing, would be in close range.

After putting away my weapons, I went through an exercise routine that I learned when I was almost five years old. The shadow fighting routine had helped my muscles grow and honed my skills throughout my childhood.

Sparring with uncle Robert was the thing that most influenced my progress as a fighter. I was smaller than the average female, but I'd learned to utilize my size against opponents much bigger and physically stronger than me.

"You make a smaller target compared to others, so if you're fast enough, you can make it impossible to hit you."

And I was fast. Most vampires were lightning fast. But thanks to uncle Robert's training, I could match a vampire's speed on my worst days in a fight.

Lost in the movements that challenged my muscles, I was drenched in sweat when the bell rang. The screen by the door showed a sleepy Irene in a fuzzy pink onesie. I stifled a smile and cracked the door open.

"Good morning."

"Morning," she grumbled, "That idiot blood sucker is not meeting us in the office anymore. We're on our own this morning."

I assumed the idiot was Kit. I was kind of glad to hear I didn't have to see his mug this morning. "And that upsets you?"

Irene bared her teeth in a snarl, which, considering her fluffy slippers and dorky bunny ears on the hood she wasn't wearing, didn't have much of an effect.

"I'm glad I don't have to see his mug this morning," great minds think alike, "but we had an appointment with an informant for the case. We were supposed to go together. He went alone. He has blindsided me more times than I can bear in this case."

I opened the door a hair further, "okay, so what's the plan?"

"Get ready, we'll go over to speak to the victims' families. I'm hoping they'll say something more to you since you're human."

That was one of the reasons the Order needed headhunters. Some cases need information that only humans have.

Humans living on the street, for example, are a great source of info. Most of those humans, however, only trust immortals as far as they could throw them. Which was not very far.

"Alright, be ready in ten."

Irene nodded, turned to her apartment.

"Irene," I called.

She looked over her shoulder with a sleepy scowl. "What?"

I nodded to her bunny onesie, my face stretching in a grin despite my best efforts, "nice jammies."

She gave me the finger then slammed her door shut. Cracking up, I went inside, took a quick shower, opened an energy bar and ate while getting dressed.

Black cargo pants, gray long sleeve shirt underneath a black hoodie that was baggy enough to conceal the weapon's I'd stashed all over my body, but not too baggy as to be a hindrance in a fight.

Daggers in my arm seaths, two long knives on my hip holster, another long blade knife strapped to one thigh sheath, and my set of throwing daggers strapped to the other. I assembled my crossbow and wore it plainly on my back. If Irene said I couldn't wear it in public, I'd take it off then.

When we met in the hallway a few minutes later, she raised a brow at my weapons but didn't make any remark.

"Say, do you know anything about the mission Kit hijacked from me?" I asked her.

Irene pushed the button for the ground floor in the elevator. She stayed quiet for a moment before shrugging, "the target stole a spell book from a coven here in Portland. The director wanted to teach the coven a lesson in better protecting their artifacts by not assigning the mission to an agent of the Order. That's why it ended up in headhunters' hands."

"Huh," The coven must have been livid, indeed, to be brushed off like that. Headhunters usually didn't get such significant missions, and a stolen book of spells was quite important. A spell book contains a collection of magical spells that a coven develops over centuries. Every witch coven prized their book of spells, it was quite negligent of them to have it stolen.

"Still, that was careless of the director. What if the book fell into the wrong hands? Hell, if some greedy headhunter was the one assigned to the case and discovered what the man had stolen, you would have a lot more difficulties getting the book back." Because spell books could sell for fortunes on the black market, and I knew more than a few headhunters who had no moral scruples whatsoever. They would've sold the book to the highest bidder, not caring about the consequences.

"Mhm, that's why he sent Kit after it, in the end," Irene said, "I don't always understand or agree with the director's actions. If Kit was late and the book got in the wrong hands, it would've been a catastrophe on so many levels."

"Kit told you about the possessed human?"

"Yeah," she frowned, "it was... interesting. Such high level demon possession doesn't occur much, and what the hell did a demon like that want with a book of spells?" She shook her head as if to clear it, "anyway, one of the agents was assigned to find out more about that."

I was surprised she shared that much. But then again, it wasn't something I couldn't have deduced myself. We walked out of the elevator, passing by the charming clerk. I beamed at him and waved. His glowering increased ten fold.

Irene snickered when we were out, "careful, or he might cut off the hot water in your unit."

"Hey, I'm just being a friendly little human."

"Right."

Before I got into the car, I skimmed my gaze over the forested area surrounding the parking lot. My eyes found the place where I'd spotted the shadow earlier this morning. I shook my head. It was just my imagination.

The sound of the cool morning breeze rustling the leaves was evocative of home for me. But the distant noise of traffic was a harsh reminder of where I was and what I had to do. I got in the car, closing the chilling air outside.

I unstrapped my crossbow, put it on my lap and got the datapad out of my pocket.

"So, we'll go see the victims' families?"

"Yeah," Irene drove out of the parking lot, "my instincts tell me that there's something we're not seeing, some sort of link between the victims. I just can't figure it out."

"Never underestimate shapeshifter instincts," I murmured uncle Robert's words under my breath. Irene hummed in agreement. Right, advanced hearing. Gotta be careful, there.

***

We reached the first house after a long hour thanks to traffic. The place was located in the far west of the city limits, in an area populated purely by humans. From the size and the state of the houses, the neighborhood was obviously home to a privileged portion of Portland's elite. The substantial green areas surrounding each house and the fountains and pools made that pretty clear. A woman in her late forties stepped out on the porch to greet us.

We went inside, the grief of the mother who had just lost a daughter was suffocating, a heavy weight on my senses. Even through her hurt, the mother answered all our questions, even let us go through her deceased nineteen year old daughter's room that she couldn't bring herself to clean up yet.

But we found nothing. Nothing other than what was already noted in the case file. What I did notice was the resigned expression on the woman's face when we were leaving and Irene told her we'd do our best to catch the killer.

I covertly signaled for Irene to go ahead of me.

"Mrs. Johnson, I'll give you my number in case you remembered something, anything at all," I told the mother when Irene was back in her car.

"I already have agent Kim's number."

"I know, I just felt that maybe you'll be more at ease talking to a human."

"Oh," her eyes widened, then she glanced to where Irene sat in the car waiting for us, "you're human? I didn't know the Order employed humans."

"Just in this case," I smiled. She bit her lip, her blue eyes bruised from crying and lack of sleep.

"I know this is not a nice thing to say, but" she took my hand in hers, "those people, the Order, they're immortals. They wouldn't understand our suffering. To be honest, I'm not really expecting them to do anything, you know. We're human, our lives mean nothing to them."

I wanted to comfort her, to tell her that human lives mattered, too. But then I remembered the director's attitude toward this case and shut my mouth. She was right, and I wouldn't lie to her, even to make her feel better.

"But you're human, you understand," she added, "all I want is to know why my baby had to die like that. I just want to let her go in peace and I can't even do that when they won't release her remains to us. I don't even have a grave to visit. So please, if you could just find out why she died, please tell me."

I squeezed her hand, so fragile, so human, and nodded, swallowing the knot in my throat. She saved my number on her phone, then I left her behind and joined Irene in the car.

"So?" Irene said as soon as I closed the door.

"Nothing, I told her I'm human and gave her my number in case she remembers anything interesting," I mumbled, leaning my temple against the cool glass of the window.

"Hopefully, it helps," She said, driving away. But we both know it was unlikely.

The feelings of doubt and resignation echoed in almost all the families we visited after that. I stayed behind every time, making sure they knew that they had someone on their side in the investigation. Someone human.

A little voice in my head whispered I was a liar, but I told it to shut it.

In one case, the victim's brother, a young man with rich dark skin and brown eyes overcast with sadness, nodded at Irene who had gone ahead of me to the car.

"We have nothing against her, but the Order's record in dealing with humans isn't great. I feel better knowing you're working on this case, too."

His wife, a beautiful redhead with light gray eyes and skin of palest alabaster, leaned against his side, wrapping an arm around his waist. She looked up at him with a determined look.

"We should tell her, maybe it'll help?"

The husband looked at his wife for a long moment before letting out a deep sigh. He kissed his wife's forehead, glanced at Irene again in her car, then turned to me.

"There's something we didn't mention to the agents, though I doubt it'll help."

"You never know."

"About a month before she passed, Mila was talking about that Pure Human Community. She'd attended one meeting with them but hasn't been there since, as far as I know. We didn't tell the agents because, well, it's kind of obvious I guess. The last thing we wanted was to alienate them further from us, from Mila."

Pure Human Community. I recognized the name. A group of humans who believe the human race to be superior to all others, and that it should not interbreed with the immortals. More, some of them went as far as to preach complete racial segregation, saying that immortals needed to go find their own land to live in.

Which, if it happened, would pretty much mean trouble for immortals. Because for all their arrogance and feelings of supremacy, immortals needed humans more.

Especially vampires. Other than their need for blood, vampires couldn't procreate, so the only way to have more vampires was to turn humans.

Immortals needed humans. But humans didn't need immortals. Ironically, that fact, more than anything else, is the reason for immortals looking down on humans. As if they don't want humans to get a grasp of the power that they hold.

When I joined Irene in the car, I conveyed what the victim's brother told me.

"You do realize that most people we talked to today are either afraid of you or hate you," I told her.

Irene's lips thinned. She stopped the car in a red light and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel.

"This could be a problem," She paused, glancing at me, "to be honest, the Order's original image wasn't supposed to be this... unapproachable institution. You know, the Order was created in the first place for the sake of humans. They're the most vulnerable when immortals go rogue. But over the last century, the Order has been fostering more and more radical individuals who view and treat humans as less. It's becoming a problem."

"Well, can't really expect much from the agents when the director himself is a self-serving prick."

Irene winced, but didn't defend her boss. Good thing, since I was starting to like this fox.

"How long have you been part of the Order?" I asked.

"Fifteen years now."

I looked at her, "how old are you, exactly?"

A grin displaying straight white teeth and a pair of gleaming fangs, "How old do I look?"

"I'd say twenty four or so. But you're not human so my guess is groundless."

"Thirty five, actually," Irene said, "I'm the youngest agent in the Order."

But certainly not the weakest, I thought. "So what do you think about the Pure Human Community? Think it has something to do with the case?"

"Well, there's only one victim who's been to one of the community's meetings so far," Irene said, "and although I doubt it, we should first make sure that the rest of the victims didn't have anything to do with the community, then we can rule it out."

Irene took a right, we were almost at the edge of the invisible barrier between the mostly human part of the city and the immortals'. The streets were crowded, the buildings all high-rises and the people rushing by and somehow managing not to bump into each other all wore suits and business attire. The intersection in front of us was a giant tangle of honking cars and angry drivers. Irene leaned back with a sigh. We would be here for a while. It was already six o'clock. Luckily, we had finished visiting all the victims' families.

Now we were heading to one of the crime sites. But traffic wasn't cooperating.

"I'll call back the other victims' families and ask them," I said, there was a very slim chance that all the victims were part of the Pure Human Community, because otherwise it would've come up at least once in the investigations. But my instincts were screaming at me that there's a clue somewhere there. It's right there, lurking in the back of my mind, but I just can't reach it.

Don't think about it. If I don't think about it, it'll come to me.

"You do that," Irene said, "but we'll need to drop by the community's headquarters."

"I bet they'll be thrilled to speak to an agent of the Order."

Irene snorted, was about to reply when loud screaming had us both looking in the rearview mirror. We were out of the car a second later.

People were hysterically running. The citizens closest to us obviously had no idea what was going on, some froze and waited while others ran, joining the wave of frightened men and women coming down the street.

Irene and I pushed through, in the opposite direction. People were abandoning their cars when they realized the road ahead wasn't clearing up anytime soon.

I kept looking for the source of the panic, but being five feet three didn't help much. Damn tall people. I jumped on the hood of an SUV then to its roof. Irene was beside me in a moment. We both gaped at the scene about a hundred yards or so ahead of us.

Then we were both running in that direction. Irene held a phone to her ear, no doubt calling for backup because we would definitely need it.

A hoard of creatures with reddish skin and scraggly hair, vaguely humanoid in shape, was besieging a small red car. As I got closer, the demonic magic assaulted my senses. Lesser demons. There were at least twenty of them, trying to peel open the car to get to the human woman cowering inside. The hood of her car was all but crushed, smoke emerging from it.

How in the world could this many demons have passed through to our realm, all in one place? And why were they working together? Usually, lesser demons were less than animals, with no reason guiding their actions. But this? This felt as if someone was holding their reins.

The demons' wrinkled skin was an unnatural shade of red, their eyes glowing black beads with no pupils or whites, their ears long and pointed on top of their long heads. Two holes below their eyes was what I assumed was a nose, a pair of long fangs protruding from their lower jaws, and their thin, frayed strands of hair a dirty tan color.

The car must be armored. One of the demons was punching the driver's side window with unrelentless force, out of all his brethren, he was the one closest to getting the woman inside. Speeding up, I notched a bolt and fired. He screamed, the high pitched sound carrying over the sound of banging and the distant sirens. The demon now had a nice stick in his eye that would keep him busy for a bit. It wouldn't do much damage; it wasn't silver, but a stick in the eye would hurt like hell anyway.

We reached them, the area around us was thankfully devoid of humans except the woman in the car, so no one would get in the way.

I got my long blade out and started cutting through mangy demonic flesh. At first, they were all so focused on the car that they didn't immediately realize what was going on when I sliced one demon's throat and buried my dagger in the other's.

The silver sizzled upon meeting their flesh. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Irene gracefully slicing through demons on the other side of the car with an elegant Katana. Where in the world had she been hiding that thing?

I focused on my own fight. The demons now split in three, one third was fighting me, one third fighting Irene and the other furiously trying to get the woman in the car. This only proved my thoughts that someone else guided their actions.

I kicked back when I felt one of the demons sneak behind me, and heard a satisfying crunch and a squeak while I cut my blade through a demon's chest in front of me. I had to keep moving, keep fighting, otherwise I was dead meat.

Blood sprayed my face and clothes, and at one point a demon managed to score through my side with his black, sharp claws. It stung, but it was shallow, and I knew the wound would be closing in a matter of minutes.

"Remember, most demon hearts are a little bit to the right compared to ours. Right here," Uncle Robert's voice rose in my head, his ghost fingers tapping on my breastbone like they had done when I was six years old.

I buried my blade in a demon's chest where the heart would be, he reached at my neck with his claws, I ducked down, keeping the weapon in his heart then twisted it until blood spurted from his mouth.

The sound of steel groaning had me whipping my head to the car where one of the damn creatures had managed to cut through the steel of the roof. He was opening it like a can of sardines. Taking advantage of my distraction, a demon buried his claws in my side. This time it was deep. I twisted out of the way, and sliced his throat open. Blood sprayed my face, but I was past the point of caring when I could feel not only blood and gore, but also the entrails from a demon I'd disemboweled earlier, and who knew what else stuck to my skin and clothes.

More demons got in my way. I could hear the human woman screaming in terror when one of the creatures reached inside the car through the gap they made in the roof, plucked her like a toy and leapt to the ground.

In my haste to get to her before they disappeared, I left my back open to one demon and felt his claws digging into my back deep enough that my eyes burned. I swirled around, cutting through his chest and kicking him out of the way. When I turned back, the demon holding the screeching woman over his shoulder disappeared into a side alley. I sprinted after them and heard Irene call to someone else. But when I reached the alley, it was deserted.

"Damn it!" The alley had no other exit, but there was no trace of them. It was as if they disappeared into thin air. I ventured deeper into the alleyway.

"Where are they?" Irene called, coming to join me. The red blood on her ivory skin was almost too eerily beautiful.

"They're gone!" I called back, pausing when I sensed something weird.

I looked around. Nothing. But my senses picked up a flare of demonic magic. This was no lesser demon's work. I stopped, waiting for Irene to catch up so she could pick up on the magic. I couldn't expose my ability to sense magic as well.

As expected, when she paused next to me, a frown tugged down her brows, "magic," she snarled, "someone used some very heavy magic here. And it wasn't one of the demons we were fighting. Someone stronger."

She looked around, but found nothing out of the ordinary. We exchanged a look then we both looked up.

"Either he can fly," I said, knowing full well that it was unlikely because he would've been seen at some point.

"Or he teleported," Irene added. In both cases, we were screwed. Teleportation consumed a tremendous amount of magic. That meant this thing was powerful.

"The rest of them?" I asked.

"Backup is taking care of them."

"Nice of them to finally show up," I grumbled, as we headed out of the alley.

"He left his little demon army and took off," Irene said, "it means he has more of them."

I cursed. This many demons in one city was not normal. It finally dawned on me that the demon and whoever was holding his leash took a young human woman.

"You think he's our guy?" I asked Irene.

"I guess we'll know for sure if a body of his previous kill is found."

The idea that somewhere in the city a woman's body was disregarded like trash made my hands tremble in rage. We finally got out of the alley to find a carnage in the street.

The car of the victim was the center of it all. Bodies upon bodies of demons lay butchered around it. Blood and gore sticking to every surface around. An army of armed Order personnel was already cleaning the scene. They threw bodies in a big, black truck that they somehow managed to drive on the sidewalk because the road was packed.

Well, at least there were no humans nearby.

Irene muttered a very colorful curse. I followed her gaze to the windows of the buildings around and whistled.

"Your boss will have an aneurysm," I told Irene.

Every single window had at least three humans crowding in and filming the whole thing. To be honest, I didn't care as long as they were safe. At least now, news of the kidnapping would be on every human platform. And as far as I was concerned, it was a good thing. People will be more careful now.

"Yeah," she winced, "and guess who'll be blamed for it." She cleaned her sword using her shirt, then put it in a back scabbard underneath her jacket. I blinked, and the bulge of the sword disappeared. My brows rose.

"Neat trick," I said.

"Thanks, unfortunately I can't make us disappear," she replied.

"Why would you need to?" I asked, wiping my weapons on my pants and putting them back in their sheaths.

"Because we're about to be shit on," she said, scowling at a person in the crowd of immortals. Kit. "Several times this day."

Kit stood up from where he was crouching next to a fallen demon and walked up to us. Well, walk was the wrong word. He stomped, charged, moved toward us in profound anger.

"The hell is he mad about?" I muttered, wincing when I moved my side the wrong way. My whole body was battered. We walked up through the cars to meet Kit halfway.

"Right under your nose," he hissed, scowling at us, "he took another victim right under your damned noses. What the hell were you doing?!"

"In case you haven't noticed, there was the small matter of a mini demon army we had to deal with," Irene said in a flat voice, "do we know he's our guy?"

"We found another body," Kit spat out. "which means we have a week to save the one you let him have."

"You know what? fuck you, Kit." Irene said then sidestepped him and headed down the streets.

I followed after her, not in the mood to bear any of Kit's wrath. I was still hyped up from the fight and I didn't need an excuse to beat his ass to a pulp. That wouldn't go well with the Order.

We reached Irene's car, parked right where we left it, and got in. I felt bad about staining the beautiful seats with the blood on my clothes, but when Irene got in without hesitation, I did the same.

As soon as the doors were closed, Irene turned on the car and drove up to the sidewalk then sped up.

"I can't believe that presumptuous asshole!" She hit the steering wheel with her palm. It bent a little. "I'd like to see him fight two dozen demons on his own! That -"

I winced at the curses, then leaned back in my seat and let her vent her anger. I knew why she was so mad. She felt guilty about the whole thing. The woman was kidnapped right under our damned noses, as Kit so eloquently put it. Even if logically, Irene knew there was nothing else she could have done to prevent it, she still felt guilty.

I looked out the window, feeling disgusted by myself. Not because I wasn't feeling guilty. I was. The guilt was choking me. But in my case, the emotion was not misplaced.

Because unlike Irene, there was more I could do to help that woman. If I had wanted to, I could've incinerated the demons around me in a matter of seconds.

"Keep your head down. Do not reveal your magic to anyone. Your life depends on it."

For the first time, the echo of uncle Robert's words left me with a cold, heavy feeling. I hugged my middle, welcoming the sting in my side and back as my wounds stretched. I was such a coward. I should've used my magic, I should've saved that woman even if it meant my own demise. But the thought never even crossed my mind. I was so used to hiding my powers that I hadn't even remembered them during a life or death situation.

But would it have worked? Even if I wanted to use my magic, I had no idea if it would've worked.

It didn't matter. I still felt guilty.

Irene's phone rang. She took the call. Kit's delightful voice filled the car.

"Your presence is requested in the Office immediately. Bring the human."

The line went dead. Irene jerked the car to the side of the road, pushed the brakes, put her head on the steering wheel, then, "Uuuugh!!"

I sighed. I couldn't even muster the will to be angry at the way Kit referred to me. Bring the human. Was I some kind of pet?

Irene started the car again after her mini breakdown.

"What does he want?" I asked.

"The director will want to chew us out, too, of course," Irene said, "Damn males! I want to tear their tongues out and shove them up their asses with a sledge hammer, dickless assholes!"

I couldn't help it. I laughed out loud until tears streamed down my face.

"I don't know about that, but I want to shave Kit's beard and head," I said.

Irene's lips twitched, "he is very fond of that hair of his."

Then we both cracked up. The guilt was still eating away at us. But if we let it rule our lives, we wouldn't get anything done, and we had a serial killer to catch.



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Mia <3