“Mugging gone wrong. Local business owner dies in a mugging gone wrong. There are currently no suspects, but local law enforcement tells us this was done by a human being with a knife, not a changed.”

Great. I don’t bother reading the rest of the article. I’ve spent the last couple of days since my encounter with Devotion, aka Faith, and Mystica Parallax, investigating what happened to my target. He was pronounced dead on the scene, but they did manage to ID him as I didn’t have the time to burn his personal effects, leaving his wallet on his person. Luckily for all intents and purposes it was simply a “mugging gone wrong”, or in the case of HDA, a vampire hunting at night. I’m not sure how long that will last, depending on how much they know about The Board. The website used by assassins and fixers, and where the people list their missions and needs. For once I’m regretting choosing Empress of Blood as my moniker, but oh well. Time to go to university.

Martial Law is still technically in effect, but the streets have returned to a state resembling normal. People are out and about, and public transport is carrying people to their destinations. Usually I keep up with pretenses, and have a car service drive me to school, but today I want to walk.

Walking across the streets of New York I take in the surroundings that have become somewhat familiar in the last month or so since I moved here. It’s still a bit unusual to walk the streets during daytime, but it’s nice to see a city so filled with life and people going about their day. It takes around 45 minutes to walk from my apartment to the University, but I’m not short on time today as classes don’t start until after lunch. I haven’t really made any friends at university, so I rarely eat, often just grabbing a drink or something at the cafe or cafeteria. I haven’t really felt the need for friends or relationships with other people. It wasn’t really something I imagined I ever could have, but having a few friends can’t hurt, right?

I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of blood and life force surrounding me. I’ve gotten a lot better at controlling my urges in the past week, enough that I probably shouldn’t lose control even if Faith is bleeding before me. Hopefully. I open my eyes, determined to make the best of the day that I can, as I’m slowly coming to realize that this is probably the most amount of normalcy I could ever hope for in my life.

The day was uneventful, peaceful and quiet. Is what I’d like to say. Why am I currently standing in the middle of a hostage situation? Let me recap.

I arrived at Uni around lunch time, sitting down at a café and ordering a coffee. Only to have Faith sneak up on me, breathing into my ear and sending shivers down my spine. She wanted to complain that I still haven’t called her, and left me saying that It’s not good for my body to hold it in. We both knew she was teasing me. Once I have my claws on that fox she’s never going to get away.

Classes were getting back to some state of normal, mixing in new knowledge with old. I’m getting increasingly suspicious of Professor Ingrid, she simply knows too much too soon, but her pupils are normal, so she herself doesn’t have a contract with a god, I think. Still not exactly sure if all gods leave weird pupils. My suspicion only increased when I saw Faith and Ingrid discussing something in hushed voices at the corner of a building, only to go quiet when Faith saw me. I didn’t buy that disarming smile and wave, and I think she knows it. I have one theory, but no way it can be that simple, right? Right? I’m not sure anymore.

After classes I was roaming the city for a bit, taking in the sights and getting familiar with the places I haven’t been to. This is a big city, a lot bigger than anything I’m used to, so everyday brings something new, which is nice. Along the way I noticed the scent of a particular foxy girl. I feel like I’ve seen Faith everywhere I go since the first time I met her. She was surrounded by a group of really sketchy looking people. So I helped her out, summoning my spear, courtesy of Athena, and we quickly dispatched the guys. Learning the situation from her apparently they were sent to keep her occupied, and Mystica is also upheld by some other incident happening across the city. There is a group of changed causing chaos and mayhem, but HDA doesn’t know yet what they want. They are currently holding a group of school kids hostage, so I sort of just followed Faith. She still doesn’t know that I know “Devotion” is her, I think. Anyways, here I am. Listening to some officer guy not really knowing what to do about the situation he has at his hands. It’s so annoying to listen to, guess I’ll help out a little bit.

“Are you using military or law enforcement equipment?”

“Military, but why? Who are you?”

I look at the map laid out over the hood of the car, and scan around the vicinity. We’re currently barricaded behind a few police vehicles, while a group of children are being held at gunpoint inside a café. We can see them through the windows, but one guy is outside with a hostage shouting demands at the negotiator. Why are changed using guns? No idea.

“Place an officer at each of these locations, here, here, here, and here. Place two plainclothes at this location, and I want a sniper here and here.”

I point out a few blind spots and locations that can be used to simultaneously take out everyone. I don’t know how the police here operate in hostage situations, but it’s so ridiculously obvious how to solve this I can’t understand why they haven’t yet.

“Excuse me but you can’t jus-”

“Do what she says.”

The officer looks at Devotion with surprise, before nodding and issuing out the orders over his radio. Devotion keeps her eyes on me as I pull of my jacket, and waiting for the confirmation that everyone is in place.

Having gotten said confirmation, I simply walk out from behind the barricade, and walk towards the elf holding the little girl hostage. He looks at me confused, and why wouldn’t he? Here I am, a beautiful girl walking towards him with no weapons, no equipment, the only thing I’m carrying is a smile on my face and a slow but steady gait. This moment of confusion is what I’m after, and I tap my shoe on the ground, only to see a bullet drill through the elf’s head, followed by the sound of a gunshot.

The death of what I assume is their leader causes the rest of the terrorists to freeze up, processing what happened. I have now given the officers I had placed around a few seconds to take out each target corresponding to their location. Everyone should have a clear shot, without implicating the hostages as long as their training isn’t even worse than I think it is. A moment after the first shot, a barrage of bullets hail at the remaining offenders inside the café, and a second later they all drop dead.

“What was that?”

What was what? Oh. Shit. I just took command on instinct. I revealed way too much didn’t I? Those are special forces tactics, although they differ from country to country, apparently our resident snowy fox noticed. I hate when she notices things I don’t want her too, but her intelligence is just so god damn appealing, and hot, very hot. “I see you’ve been enjoying yourself, sis, but do focus on your current predicament, will you? She already knows you’re contracted to me, so just use that as a flimsy excuse and put it off for later? I can’t believe you’re both so incredibly brilliant and incredibly stupid at the same time.”

“I uh. Athena took control of my body for a few seconds to give out instructions, as she’s very experienced?”

I really don’t sound convincing, but I mean. I just gave them a perfectly executable plan, that no civilian should be able to come up with, and I just took command of the officers and gave them orders. Yeah I fucked up.

“Haha, yeah no sorry. That excuse simply isn’t working. You’re coming with me back to HDA.”

Great. Didn’t I just swear a few weeks ago that I wanted nothing to do with them, and do everything to don’t get involved with HDA? I swear “Faith is trouble” is becoming my new life motto.