The second I got home I let gravity pull me into my bed, face first. That was fun, and exhausting. Faith. I look at the note in my hand, committing her number to my memory before putting it in my nightstand drawer. I really need to feed tomorrow. I can probably pair it up with my mission, who was the target again? Pulling up the mission details, I give it another once over. I’ve already been provided with his daily routine and routes to and from work. Seems quite simple, except the fact they requested him to disappear, so that means no body. Honestly it’s like I was made for this. For now it’s quite easy to not leave anything behind. Suck them dry, and then simply set fire to the husk. Something happens to their bodies when I empty their life force, it’s like I’m altering their body structure and DNA, leaving the burnt remains in a state where they can’t be ID’d, as long as I remember to remove or crush their teeth. I’m not sure how well preserved dental records are, but leaving things up to chance isn’t really my style. However, that is tomorrow me’s problem, for now. Bed.

Ah, there he is. I’m sitting on top of a two story building, waiting for the target to leave work so I can follow him. He passes through an alley on his way to his car. Not a very important person, but he’s started dealing in changed. Meaning he’s enslaving and selling them. Apparently he’s in contact with someone producing magetch? A weird mix of technology and magic, brought on by the shift. They’re able to negate or diffuse the use of powers, rendering them virtually as a regular human being. I really shouldn’t let this get to me, as I know rage leads to laps in judgement, but this reminds me of what those fuckers did to me in that laboratory. No. He has to go. Me getting paid to remove him is just an added bonus.

He crosses the street and enters the alleyway. I turn to the other side of the building and jump down, silently landing in the shadows. Tensing my muscles and lowering my center of gravity, coiling up like a spring ready to launch. He passes by me and I uncoil, leaping at him, pulling my legs around his waist and covering his mouth as we fall to the ground. Leaving me sitting on top of him as he lays face down on the ground. I take a quick look around to make sure nobody has noticed us, as my fangs extend and I bite into his neck. Sucking out someone’s blood and lifeforce doesn’t take too long, around 10 seconds or so. I just have to make sure he’s pinned down as his strength leaves his body at the same rate his blood does.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

Huh? I turn around to where the voice came from, and see two women staring at me. The taller one has peculiar hair, I don’t know why I’m focusing on that right now but it’s pulling at my attention. Silky black hair, with purple sparkles floating around, shifting and moving around the strands of her hair. It reminds me of looking at the night sky, unclouded. The stars shift between different hues of purple, all the while moving.

“Devotion, she’s doing something to that man. Restrain her while I help him.”

My attention is pulled towards the other woman, and my senses return to me. Oh no. Her hair is white as snow, with fox ears adorning her head, and nine separate moving tails behind her, leaking out frost and snow into her surroundings. I can feel the temperature drop as the world slows down, and two icy vines shoot towards me. All I can do is watch as my brain recognizes her scent, but it can’t comprehend the current situation. The image of Faith from last night is all that is occupying my mind. Alluring. Seductive. Confident. Playful. As I’m lost in a daze I notice my wrists turning cold, snapping me back to reality as I see her vines of ice are shackling me, holding me in place.

Something snaps inside me. Memories of my past trauma. Chained to an operating table. Having my body cut open, and everything pulled out of me. Over. Over. Over, and over again. Nothing matters right now. All I want to do is destroy the source of my confinement. There is no friend, foe, or anything in between. All that stands before me is an obstacle to my freedom, and it must die. In one fluid motion I release myself from my food, pouncing towards the snow fox as my claws extend and aim at her chest. I can see her surprised expression, as the world keeps slowing down, feeling like I’m floating in the air. In my peripheral vision I can see the star lady turn around towards me, but it doesn’t matter.

Centimeters away from impaling the fox, something pulls at me, locking me in place. I let out a growl at the second offender. Not one of annoyance, or displeasure, but a growl of pure animalistic instinct. I turn back towards the fox in front of me, and I extend my claws. All I want to do is impale her, feast on her blood, let her know who the prey is and who’s the predator. I can feel my claws sinking into her skin, and the smell of blood and life force fills my entire being. Feed. Feed. Feed. I pull my claws back from their full extension, and lick the blood off them, marking my prey so it can’t get away from me.

Clarity. The taste and smell of the familiar fox girl gives me some clarity, and I realize I’m still suspended in the air. The icy shackles have long been broken, and there’s nothing supposed to keep me here, but I feel the pressure of something having taken hold of my every limb. My bestial instincts recedes back into somewhere in my body, replaced by the dread and terror of my memories back in my old country. This time I’m not letting it consume me. I have to get away. I don’t particularly care for morals, but these two aren’t who I’m after, not tonight. Something screams at me in the back of my mind. A solution to my current problem. I give myself in to my instincts, and I feel my body liquify into a puddle of blood. My blood seeps through the spatial shackles, and a second later I’m standing besides Faith. Giving into one last urge, I sink my fangs into her neck to taste her divine blood. My holy nectar. I don’t linger around for very long, simply piercing the uttermost layers of her skin, licking my lips. In a seductive growl, I whisper into her ear.

“See you around, my foxy snack.”

I run at top speed, and delve into the shadows. Running and running to get far away. I know as I am know I can’t win a fight against those two. Whatever they did disabled my mobility, and I don’t think liquifying into blood will work again. I could probably fight them in my goddess form, but that would reveal myself to Faith, something I don’t want to do, at least not yet.

A feeling of deja vu hits me as I fall face first into my bed. Tonight did not go as planned. I don’t think anyone is going to recognize that guy, as I did drain him, but I’ll have to keep an eye out. Luckily it will probably be seen as a random encounter, but why was Faith there? That form as well, is she like me? I’ve never seen a single tail on her, let alone nine of them. That other girl as well, I feel like I’ve seen her before. I pull up my phone and search through the more famous changed, before I land on one specific one, shaking hands with the Mayor of NYC. Shit. That was Mystica Parallax. Well, the good thing is since she’s the founder of HDA, they’ll probably keep this situation extremely secret, since Vampire’s aren’t exactly supposed to exist, and Faith should know this due to her contracts. The bad part is. They know a vampire exists. In this city. Shit.

I decide not to think about it for tonight, I can come up with contingencies later, as there is no way they can track me. I changed forms in a place without cameras and people, making sure they weren’t following me. I don’t know what their powers are, or how strong, but I do know that Mystica uses some sort of spatial based powers, but I’m not sure if that includes spatial displacement or teleportation. 

Soaking in the warm water of my bathtub as I overlook the city at night, I can feel something across the city. Faith. In my, for a lack of a better word, bloodlust, I marked her. Making me able to sense her at a certain distance, and it seems that distance has grown, as she’s probably around 10 km away from me. Is she at home? Or is she at the HDA? I don’t know. One thing I do know is that I’ll never forget the taste of her blood and life force. I knew she was going to be trouble.