"People are like sharks. Let them smell blood and you're done."

~Jackal Smorotori, former criminal investigator, inventor, and a vampire;

VII.

Giuseppe practically pranced around as he led the others to his grandeur mansion. Not that they knew it was that big, he just told them they were going to his place.

He was quite pleased with himself because he'd managed to make them come to his territory. Adrian had been all too happy to state that he didn't want Giuseppe anywhere near the SIB's office except in handcuffs, yet they needed to discuss the recent happenings. Which had consequently led to him proposing to hold this little meeting in his home. It had been met with the approval of others before Adrian could protest. Oh, what a lovely picture had Adrian's angry expression been. Just like the old times.

Adrian had tried to make them go to the branch office after that but soon changed opinion as he'd seen Giuseppe's grin. He'd clamped up and let Giuseppe lead. But Giuseppe knew the truth - Adrian didn't want other members of his office to know that little fact about him. A fact that he was a vampire.

Why he'd kept it a secret was beyond Giuseppe's comprehension. It didn't matter, he only cared to 'play friends' with SIB officers and what better way to start than helping out with the hot crime case of kidnappings that pissed him off.

His reasons might've also included something else, some other motives, like actually wishing to pierce the kidnapper right through his rotten heart so the asshole couldn't do it ever again.

A few days ago, he'd found out that his vampires had also been attacked during his absence and that felt like a challenge to his unofficial rule of Callahan's Morrow.

He had lost some men to that 'villain,' many good men, not like Seamus – the idiot who blurted out Adrian's secret. Oh, whatever, he'll punish him later and he had just the right punishment in mind.

Giuseppe noticed Adrian giving him a wary look and realized he'd been grinning like a madman.

"I was thinking," Giuseppe explained unprompted.

"It's never good when you think," Adrian supplied dryly, one brow arched in skepticism. That particular expression reminded Giuseppe of an old relic from his past. The relic of comradeship. A friendship that had died out.

A laugh bubbled from his throat, an unconscious reaction he must admit. How easy it really was to revert into old ways, to pretend the last two hundred years hadn't happened. But they have and nothing could bring back the past. The past when only concerns had been where to find fun, where next to travel, which game to play, what job to take... the time lost to another life.

Like Adrian had already stated, they weren't friends in this lifetime. Too many things had changed, Giuseppe changed, Adrian changed; everything had fucking changed! That didn't mean he couldn't miss his friend from back then, the one he had once been inseparable from... Shit, he shouldn't go down the pity party road; it clearly wasn't the time for that.

He cleared his throat awkwardly - a new feeling for him - and continued walking.

It was a silent and clear night; a slight breeze shifted the air around them. The waning moon stood strong, bathing the streets of suburbs into the pasty light, and the shimmer of the stars alluded to a game of hide and seek.

It was early autumn. Nevertheless, everything was still green, but soon would fade into reds, yellows, and browns mixing with the evergreen, and the soft, dull mist would blanket the ground in the early mornings. For now, the heat had eased up comparing to summer's fervor, but some nights still held warmth while some grasped the air with cold fingers.

Giuseppe watched as one of the leaves slowly fluttered to the hard-packed earth as it prematurely came off. Everything would die with the arrival of winter. The circle of life was the strongest trait of nature and he had to ask himself if that was how it should be. Didn't really matter, he was kind of immortal and had an unchanging physique that should have been just humus in the distant past.

Mentally shaking his head, Giuseppe tried to drop the morbid thoughts that would be better off with someone of a philosophical vocation than him. Really. Nothing good came out of his weird thoughts. Plotting, on the other hand, must be his life's true calling. He gave one last look to that solitary leaf on the ground before shoving the gloomy thoughts aside.

In this part of the Callahan's Morrow, there weren't many more-stories buildings, except a few older ones. It's filled with old houses, mansions, even villas that were rounded off with vegetation in the form of trees, grass, flowers, and in some cases exotic plants. Hell, even he owned a lawn...and a garden...and a pond filled with little fishes. Oh well, he was a rich little shit who liked his shrubbery green and the flowers colorful. He had always loved the wilderness and the freedom it represented.

Lost in thought, Giuseppe missed all the chat around him. He just didn't care enough to listen. But then they arrived at a gate.

"Um," the ghost guy said, flickering between physical and metaphorical energy a few times as he turned toward Giuseppe. "This is one of the largest real estates around. Why are we here?"

Giuseppe hummed.

"Wait, this is yours?" the third vampire in their group exclaimed. The guy was too loud for his own good.

Giuseppe laughed, clamping down on the smug expression that fought to escape through his control. "We are on my property. Don't worry; we won't be walking for long."

A beautiful, ornate, dark fence placed on the low wall enclosed the green land and its gates lead to a paved road and a wide cobblestone path beside it. The walking path deviated from the line of the road and veered into a line of trees, their branches practically forming a tunnel over the stone trail, Giuseppe knew because it was him who had paid to make it that way.

The canopy of green was currently darkish, its real color unnoticeable, and the cobblestone path was creamy white, but under the cover of the night, both were painted into shades of gray, black and white.

Their party had been walking for about ten minutes before passing the biggest tree on the land, the bough of the old oak standing strong and proud, and then they stepped into a clearing to see the grandeur building.

A whistle sounded through the air, followed by an exclamation, "That's a fucking mansion!" after which Tucker turned to stare at Giuseppe in wonder and continued, "You call that a house? For fuck sake, that could be considered a palace!"

Ghosty-guy looked like he was in awe too, widened his bluish eyes in disbelief, and exchanged a few glances between the building and Giuseppe.

In front of them was a three stories tall building filling their view. It had wide ashen steps leading to a porch with pillars on which stood a veranda; the patio around the house was made from the same stone as the path to the building was. And the entrance was a big, majestic thing, dark wood lining its sides while the center was made of a different type of wood and not just being of a different color.

Giuseppe was pretty sure that Zac, the man in charge of Giuseppe's finances, had muttered something about spitting out a fortune when the building had been constructed and furnished. Giuseppe didn't care; his house, his money, his rules.

The mansion was comparatively modern, the undertones of the old Maritonian architecture seen in its wide corridors and entrances. Federative Empire Maritonia, the country of Giuseppe's origin which was a small nation on the south of the continent. Even though it was part of the Federative Union of Sipihira Astoria, it was still far, far away from Sipihira Stainfield Federation on the north where Callahan's Morrow was located so the difference in architecture provided a stark contrast to other mansions in the town. Ah, he almost missed his homeland.

When they came close to the said house – in front of which was a large paved land with a few cars parked on the outskirts – Giuseppe knew others could see the detailed ornaments adorning it: carvings, colored window glass on some windows, and much, much more.

Behind the house – or mansion, he didn't really care what they called it a vineyard stretched deep all the way to the Stepperd Hill which signaled the invisible borders of the Callahan's Morrow. It wasn't just Maritonian-styled architecture and decorations he couldn't part ways with, the vineyard had been a spur-of-a-moment decision, something he didn't like to think about, but it ended up a good business venture since the soil was perfect for growing the winemaking grapes.

They had had a vineyard back then; one part of his family grew it and winemaking had been something he'd grown up with. His uncle had been in charge while his father taught the children from the town and anyone willing to learn old fighting techniques, a Maritonian legacy.

He could still remember training as the grapes, fresh and plump, fermented, air filled with a sweet aroma, and training grounds full of sounds of laughter and more disciplined calls and shouts. A few of his siblings, hardly teens at the time, had been assigned teaching the children, and for the life of him, he couldn't remember at least one of their faces, his brothers and one sister completely lost to the flow of time.

Had he been anything else, Giuseppe might have worried what not caring one bit about it made of him. But he was a survivor. One little, vague and fragmented, the memory of his human life that was long behind him didn't matter, and remembering was done with such cold detachment, which he usually ignored, but today he asked himself if that was really how things should be.

Giuseppe swiftly ushered his companions through the brown door with a loud, "Come on, move it! I'm hungry," and all the grace of a lion running after its prey before his mind could start reminiscing about lingering reminders that should have been long buried in the ancient past.

Nicole shot him a wiry look, and as a response, he just shrugged. He didn't want to make her scared so he kept his expression in check, ignoring her action. What had happened to her? It must have been a vampire attack or something similar to garner all those responses from her to interaction with vampires, he mused in his head.

Oh, it will be satisfying to find out who did it and snap their neck when I find them. No one saw the look of dark satisfaction he felt forming on his face. Good. It would be awkward to explain while he guided them through the hall, and it might end up looking like he was bringing them their deaths. Since he wasn't doing that (at least not yet), he didn't want his actions to be misinterpreted.

The hallway could easily hold four or five people walking beside each other, per his orders when the house had been designed. The fancy paintings and old but preserved rug adorning it were almost the most noticeable furnishings, handpicked by himself.

A blond head stopped in front of one of the mentioned paintings, Adrian's eyes wide as saucers, then concealed his surprise behind an unreadable expression under which, as Giuseppe knew for a fact from the power lashing out, lurked quite a few emotions.

Big, matte-green leaves on the edges of the canvas seemed to be swaying in the wind, and in the middle was a grassy clearing where two men standing together, hugging and laughing, one with dark blonde hair while the other, a slightly taller one, had hair bronze-colored where the sunrays touched it. Behind them was a small creek, aqua-blue easily seeping through the vibrant green.

When Nicole noticed the peculiar painting, her gasp made Tucker and Jonnatan look too. Their jaws almost fell to the ground. Giuseppe expertly ignored them with a wide smile as he pointed the passage to the sitting room.

The two men on the picture were, in fact, Giuseppe and Adrian, in a position no one who knew them today could imagine then in – no hostility between them, just pure undulated friendship – Giuseppe's left arm over Adrian's shoulders, bent in elbow and fingers tangled in Adrian's hair, and Adrian playfully glaring back at the culprit messing with his hair with his deep brown eyes sparkling in the sun, yet his fondness apparent behind the gruff façade. It was so much different from what they had now. Giuseppe bit down a sigh.

As others got to the entrance to the spacious sitting room, still nursing shock of recognizing the two vampires on the painting (honestly, their expressions of horror are adorable), Giuseppe disappeared to the pantry just meters aside and grabbed himself a snack. Adrian waited for him to come back, standing in front of the beautiful painting, now frowning as he scowled at it.

"Why do you have this?" he asked as he shifted to see Giuseppe precariously dangling a bottle filled with a red liquid on his fingers.

"It's a beautiful sight."

That was obviously not the answer the other vampire wanted to hear if the erratic twitching of the blonde's eyebrow was any indication.

"How the hell did this painting survive?" Adrian turned to stare daggers at Giuseppe who in turn smiled mysteriously.

"I had it redone after some time. Julius was kind enough to re-do it."

Adrian stared a bit more then turned away with weird expression appearing on his face, it seemed he was in pain or would barf any moment now. Oh, good. It affects you too. Just like it affects me...

***

Finally, they settled in the resting room. The whole house was enormous, and the rooms were ginormous. Just like this one, there was enough space for many people to sit and rest, though the couches surrounding a table were a few, others put in the corner of the room. Why would anyone need so much space? She wondered.

Nicole didn't wait for others and just dived onto the biggest couch in front which was a table. Not really a regular coffee table since it was higher than it should be but still not as high as normal tables were, something in between. A dark wood of it complemented the rest of the furniture that seemed to be a combination of old and modern. A window looking at the east of the town was big, the wooden framework decorated with carved flowers and the breeze coming in was the best kind of refreshing.

"Aaah, it's so comfy," Nicole said after falling into the black couch, not even trying to act normal, she just wasn't processing what had happened. It had come out of the blue and metaphorically struck her right up her head. She should have some kind of reaction, anything really. But it seemed mulling over it was a moot point, whatever the outcome should've been.

Adrian sent her a quick look of uttermost betrayal, as if commenting that Giuseppe's couch was nice was somehow a bad thing, before schooling his features into a bored expression.

"Let's have a seat, now shall we."

After Giuseppe's proposition, those who were still standing sat down. Though some with sour expressions on their faces, like Adrian who stayed close to Nicole giving her what she would describe a worried glance. Tucker and Jonnatan took the other couch, a cream-colored one, and Giuseppe seized the lone sofa between the two couches which started seeming like a throne when he leaned on the backrest.

A snap of Giuseppe's fingers summoned a finely dressed woman, and Nicole was quite certain he used a dab of magic to do so. A woman with light brown hair pulled into a neat bun and big green eyes lined by black kohl stepped in from another room, slowly and gracefully until she stood beside Giuseppe and watched him with badly concealed reverence. What was that about?

"Master, what can I do for you?" she asked with a slight accent, patiently waiting for an answer, hands clasped behind her back as a silver brooch on her chest, which in the center had a carved silhouette of a wolf howling at the moon, flared when the light fell on it and the wolf flashed brightly for a moment.

Giuseppe waived to his guests with a hand absently. "Do you want to drink something?"

Jonnatan was the first to answer, "No, but thanks."

Nicole but in before anyone else. "A glass of water, please." She felt parched.

"Which blood do you have?" Tucker asked.

"Whichever you want," Giuseppe told him, smiling smugly.

It was almost like stars began shining from Tucker's eyes when he licked his lips in a hungry gesture. "I'll have Contort Flieg."

"A fine choice," Giuseppe said and then shifted his eyes. "Adrian?"

Oh. Nicole was intrigued by what would follow. It seemed they shared past, so she carefully watched the scene unfold.

"I won't drink anything from you–"

"Don't be such a stick in the mud," Tucker interrupted Adrian. A serene expression on his face prompted a glower from Adrian.

After a few moments of glaring, Adrian sighed in exasperation, probably deciding to pick his battles. "Any kind of whiskey is fine."

Giuseppe just observed the banter, amusement reeking from him which made Jonnatan eye him warily. After Adrian finished ordering, he commanded the servant, "Maria, bring us refreshments, for me the usual, and disappear."

"Disappear?" Nicole asked, frowning after the woman who quite literally disappeared to get the drinks.

Giuseppe glanced at her, a dangerous look flickering in his eyes. "Yes, I don't want anyone listening in."

After they got their orders, sans Jonnatan, who didn't drink because that would be stupid, even Nicole knew that much, Adrian cleared his throat to get their attention.

"It's high time we started. And we should start with..." he paused for a long moment to glare at Tucker, who was softly whistling some annoying tune without any regards for the man speaking, "...me asking this idiot why the hell he has come here."

The whistling stopped as Tucker shrugged sheepishly. "I forgot to tell you something back then when you called."

"And you couldn't contact me in any other way?" Adrian deadpanned with an arched eyebrow.

"Well. That–"

Nicole interrupted before the two men could devolve into arguing, "There was a high chance you would ignore him, at least that's what Tucker told me, so he should just say his part."

She masterfully ignored the annoyed expression her boss was sporting and sipped her water as she already knew which buttons to push and which to avoid when it came to him.

But then again, the question festered in her mind as she tried to act normally: was it really okay to ignore the elephant in the room? After the revelation she had been quiet, speaking only to answer questions and it seemed others had been tiptoeing around her, trying not to upset her which was now that she came out of her weirded out state of mind quite unnecessary, but they still kept their actions in check.

Adrian settled deeper into the couch, sighed, and supplied a tired, "Go on."

Tucker lost the look of sheepishness, his face hardening as he guzzled down a mouthful of blood.

"A few days ago, Adrian called me to ask about one of my cases," he explained to others since Adrian glared at him before he'd even begun. "About the thief who could erase magic and therefore steal without alarms going off, similarly to the culprit behind abductions and his erasing ability. He is not your regular magic user, he is a fey, halfling or quarterling, I'm not sure anymore, but the ability is definitely of fey origin."

At that detail, both Adrian and Giuseppe frowned, opening their mouths to say something. However, Tucker blatantly ignored them.

"But what could be of uttermost importance is that he is not the only one with that power. That's actually the fact that he had been taught how to use it by someone else. Someone with the same ability as the thief, although, more powerful." He paused to sip some blood from the crystal glass he was given before scowling at the glass like it somehow offended him. Then opted to discard it to continue drinking directly from the bottle.

Finally satisfied with the arrangement or noticing that Adrian was giving him the look, Tucker continued, "At least that's what he admitted when we interrogated him. But he didn't know how the guy who taught him looks like or what species he belongs to, which is unfortunate for us now."

Nicole thought the frown on the two vampires' faces was a sight to behold, a new type of frown, darker and more pronounced than it had been just a minute before. She'd almost forgotten to think of Adrian as a vampire.

It was funny. Him. A vampire.

A hysterical laugh was violently smothered before it had a chance to fully bloom. Adrian was still Adrian, a grumpy boss who cared about his subordinates, though in a bit roundabout way, and with a weird fixation to caffeinated drinks. Just because she knew about his diet now, shouldn't change anything. With that thought settled in her mind another one arose.

Well, now that she thought about it, Giuseppe never acted unpleasantly toward her. He was self-assured and proud and daring and liked to tease her, but he had never been disrespectful. It was her own mind that deemed him dangerous just because he was a vampire. Oh, he was dangerous, all right. But never had he steered the more violent tendencies toward her, meaning she might owe him apology even if he wasn't aware that she needed to do so.

"Well, that sucks." Jonnatan sighed, reaching towards his head with the right hand and massaging the temple like he had a headache.

He might be right, though. This definitely sucked. All the evidence pointed to a powerful individual as their culprit. And yes, they have dealt with powerful criminals, but this was a different story.

Oh, I'm not thinking about that vampire bullshit anymore. Good, I need my head in the game, the case won't solve itself.

Nicole realized she was over it for now and was almost positive there was no danger of a panic attack, so she kept more concentration on the flowing conversation. A conversation that included three vampires, but who was counting.

She was.

Though mostly as a fact, not as a bad thing.

She supposed.

"Ok, a fey could be behind it," Adrian summarized, ignoring her dilemma. She was sure she unintentionally flared her magic for a few seconds there, but he stepped over it like it didn't happen.

Ah. Good old Adrian. Everyone could count on him ignoring the cause of tension, though she was sure he noticed it like any investigator worth their salt would.

"A powerful fey. I don't like that," Giuseppe added, face contorting in an interesting display of different emotions: an annoyance she'd already seen aimed at Adrian, displeasure which was again something she'd seen before when he directed it at Adrian, and something akin to anger but she wasn't sure because she'd never seen it on his face. He obviously didn't like fey species that much, as far as Nicole could tell.

"What about Dariuss?" Jonnatan asked.

The only really powerful fey in the town was Dariuss, a former Seelie court dweller, but had been banished from there a long time ago.

"Nah, he is strong for sure, but his power lies in elemental magic, not illusions and more intricate patterns, so erasing magic and presence is not his forte," Giuseppe casually remarked, and everyone turned their heads to him, varying states of surprise and suspicion written on their faces.

"What?" he asked through a smirk. "I had some dealings with Dariuss and paid attention to his powers. I'm not stupid enough to do business with him without any knowledge of what he could do if we end up on opposite sides."

He gave them his best I-have-no-idea-what's-going-on look making Adrian snort loudly before he continued, "Besides, he became more influential in the past few years, and it never hurts to scout out the opposition."

"This Dariuss guy might know more," Tucker said and then he leaned his elbows on his knees, the change of pose bringing him closer to the brown table.

"I doubt it," Jonnatan argued. "Though, it won't hurt if we check it out."

"Adrian, do you know anyone in SIB who might know more about fey?" Nicole didn't know much about fey species; they were relatively reclusive society and didn't visit their world much.

"There are a few investigators with fey blood, but mostly third or fourth generation, so they don't know much of their culture, bar the common knowledge," he answered. "It might not be beneficial to reveal anything about our progress in this investigation since, as you've all already thought of it, there might be a mole in the Bureau feeding info to the culprit."

There was a pause as Giuseppe said, "That actually isn't so farfetched. I heard SIB gives out data if they deem you strong enough to deal with their 'problems'."

He was slowly sipping a drink between his words; there was even a rainbow straw sticking from his glass. Nicole would find it considerably funny if the drink wasn't comprised of blood and whatever the hell was used to make a pink cocktail for vampires.

"True," Tucker agreed with a loud slurp from the bottle. Unlike Giuseppe, he was drinking pure blood from the bottle. And yes, bottled blood was a thing here unlike the other countries, so many vampires preferred it that way when having a night out, and Tucker was obviously one of them.

"Every time I assisted them; they would just give out all the evidence of the case I worked on with them without even a basic checkup. And I know that for a fact because I had been rather surprised, they had just handed me over a dossier on my last job. And sniffing around their business was almost easier than solving that case." Tucker finished the sentence with a sarcastic chuckle, prompting gnashing of teeth from Adrian that clearly showed what he thought of that revelation.

Nicole knew that her boss hated the unprofessional handling of other investigators, so she wasn't surprised when he strayed from their subject for a moment.

"You'll tell me what branch was that later," Adrian told Tucker before regarding the rest of them with a serious expression. "For now, we can't do anything about it, but I'll try to gather more data about fey criminals from some secure channels."

"And while you do that I'll scout through the underworld." Giuseppe flicked one manicured finger in the blonde vampire's direction and was met with a frown.

"Do you think you can find out anything without ruffling anyone's feathers?"

Giuseppe's smile in response to Adrian's incredulous tone seemed quite chilling to Nicole, and yet Adrian acted like it was a normal occurrence, bar his nearly constant frown ever since he had to start hanging around the hazel-eyed vampire.

"Ah, there are some who owe me big time," Giuseppe supplied easily.

"And they won't snitch on you?" Adrian countered with suspicion.

"I sincerely doubt so." An eyebrow twitching on Giuseppe's face indicated how annoying he found Adrian questioning his capability to investigate this. "I may seem harmless to you, but not everyone thinks so. And they'll keep their mouth shut... if they want to live."

"Well, aren't you quite a law-abiding citizen?" Adrian sneered, scowling at him and rising the glass of whiskey toward his mouth.

"Sometimes, one has to play dirty to bring victory to their side."

The glare Adrian fixed him with was hot enough to easily survive the surface of the sun and come back kicking.

The two vampires glowered at each other, making Nicole think she would need to step in, or at least make Jonnatan step in - he could evade any indignant retribution dished out. However, Giuseppe soon abandoned that activity for a different one, ignoring Adrian's indignant "Hey!"

"Now that we got it out of the way, I'm quite eager to ask." He turned to regard Nicole with his eyes flashing amusement and hunger. She could see that he was going to say something she didn't want to hear or ask something she didn't want to answer.

"Why are you so afraid of vampires?"

The question rang loudly in the house of a vampire.