Chapter 2: Don't Worry, It's Fake.
The lady at the front desk shrinks at the sight of me, but manages, "C-can I help you?" in a weak voice. Her eyes flicker to the sword strapped to my side, and the other three knives strapped to my legs. She didn't even know about the two other smaller ones in my pocket.
"Im looking for Isaiah Lockwood." I say, with an attempted smile. I was no good with people. I trained how to kill things from as far back as I could remember. There was no time for friends who couldn't help me train. Even helping Michelle was beneficial to me, as it showed a new dance-like way of fighting. It wasn't my style, but the more I knew, the better I was to become.
"Y-You can't bring w-weapons into a hospital." she sputters, looking at the sword on my hip, then glancing at the floor.
My smile fades quickly. I wasn't angry with the girl, but I was losing my patience with her. I understood her fear, a lot of the higher ranking hunters can kill regular people and say it was a vampire or a witch and get away with it. Any with a Gold License don't even need to justify why or who they kill. No one questions a Gold Hunter.
I take a deep breath, calming my temper, "Don't worry, It's fake." I tell her, pulling the bone sword from its sheath. It had beautiful curvy carvings decorating the sides. It was letters used during magical procedures. It was the only way we knew how to hurt witches. Most things without magic just bounce right off magic users. It was once my mother's bone sword. It was passed down to me when I graduated. "It's made from rhino bone. It's for killing vampires, not people."
Her eyes widen with fear as I slip it from its sheath, a small whimper of fear escaping the girl. But, she says nothing more as she shrinks back into her chair.
"Look, Isaiah is a friend of mine, I have no intention of hurting him or anyone else. Tell me where his room is, or I go door to door 'till I find him." I state, glaring at her. It was people like me who gave Hunters a bad name. But I wasn't lying, I could never hurt a human.
She begins to type something in on her computer, and I lean on her desk, looking over to her screen as she searches the computer for Isaiah's room. Poor girl was scared of me, but there was no way I was going to leave my sword behind. I'm not the only one on the hunt. I've been attacked before while between contracts. If I made a habit of leaving my Mother's sword at entrances with nice nurses, I was going to get myself killed.
She points down a hallway on her right, "Room 114." She says, "On the left."
"Thank you for your assistance," I look at her name tag, "Erin."
She nods, not looking at me. She looked guilty, like she was showing me to the next person I was going to kill. Luckily, I had no intention of being any crooked hunter. There's no way I would kill a fellow human being. I have gotten myself into trouble on multiple occasions, refusing to kill a target not proven to be a monster. Although a lot of hunters kill simply by suspecting they may be, I would rather die than kill an innocent person.
I come to room 114 and read the last name on the tag attached to the door, Lockwood and open it. Isaiah was sitting on a bed propped up like a chair, his arm in a sling, his leg in a cast, and a split lip. He jumps to attention, almost knocking over his jello from the table that had been maneuvered over his bed. "Oh, Quinn!" He gapes, swallowing the lunch in his mouth. "How did you-? I mean what are you-?"
"My next target is Fletcher." I state, skipping over any formalities before he could start flirting with me. "I need to know everything you know."
He shakes his head, "You wanna know what I know? I know that we should leave it alone. Let it stay here till it decides to move on. Let it take its victims. It never kills them anyway. Just let it-"
"What type of nonsense is that shit you're spitting out?" I say, interrupting him, "You sound like a scared little girl. Since when have you-"
"Since I almost died!" he whispers urgently to me, "Quinn, this one is bad news. No one believed me when I said it was a Royal. Some people from Headquarters came to ask me my opinion, then they laughed it off! I talked them up only one star when I said it should be a five!"
"That's impossible." I say, "Everyone knows that the Royals stick around in the same area and they were last spotted in the south somewhere. There's no way a Royal would be this far north."
"That's what they said too!" He shouts, then takes in a deep breath, "Quinn, please believe me. Don't go after this one. It'll move on eventually once people learn not to come out 'cause it's in the area. Word is already spreading like wildfire that there's a vampire in that burned down building just north of downtown."
"Oh, please." I say, "I know you were in the top 10 out of the 100 people that graduated, but I was at the top of the class. When they tested me and the other top five, I was given two vampires and I still came out with barely a scratch. Even David got beat up real bad."
"Quinn," He pleads, "I know you wanna do your parents proud. I know you want to catch up to your dad so you can earn his respect, but killing yourself is not the way. I know you'll probably think I'm as crazy as the people who came from Headquarters, But-" He swallows and looks around the room, "Fletcher said things during our one sided fight." he puts emphasis on 'one sided', "He was asking who he would have to talk to at Headquarters about a coming war. Of course I didn't believe him or give him any names but, a war?"
I stare at him, then laugh, "How hard did you hit your head?" It was rare that vampires spoke at all, let alone full sentences. They were mindless animals, that only thought about how to suck the blood from innocent people. I had only heard them say one worded phrases like, 'Blood.', 'Die.' and 'Gimme.'. Nothing close to anything coherent.
"I didn't hit my head, it broke my arm and my leg, very much on purpose." He says angrily.
I crack a smile, "Come on, Isaiah. I've been fighting vamps since I was old enough to hold a sword up. I've never seen one speak anything more than one word sentences and mumbles. The smarter ones know to keep their mouths shut, or else they sound stupid."
He sighs, and sits back into his bed. "Fine. Don't listen to me. Just, be careful. Please."
I stare at him, trying to distinguish how much of what he said he'd made up. Why would he though? Was he trying to keep me from his prey? What reason would he have to lie to me? I leave, not looking back. If he was telling the truth, and it was a Royal why would it come here? So far away from the other royals? No one quite understood what the royals did, but they seemed to be important to the other vampires, In some sort of leadership way. But we also know that there's less than a dozen royals and they are almost Impossible to kill. They're much quicker, much stronger, smarter and heal much faster than any other vampire.
There's rumors that the older the vampire, the stronger it gets. That royals are simply extremely old vampires. But, It was just a theory, one has no proof that that's how it is. But we do know, the fresher the vampire the harder it is to control the need for blood. Fledgelings are easily caught if the one who changes it doesn't take it In under its wing.
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