The Vampire Prince And Her

Danica's blood was boiling, seeing a male and a female being intimate three tables away. They were unaware of her watching them. A man and a vampire. She forced herself to calm down; a hunter needed to be clear-headed.

Leaning against the back of the chair, she scrolled her smartphone screen as though she was relaxed and bored out of her mind, instead of planning how to take out the bitch. It should be tonight. The night was still young.

A partition half-covered their table, but the observant could see what they were doing, or rather what she was doing to him, to be specific. Was bloodsucking illegal? No. But what the vampire was going to do was illegal.

Her hands were so itchy with the urge to pull a pistol out of hostlers hidden beneath her shirt, and to send a bullet straight to 'her' heart. That would be pointless, not to mention Danica would be thrown into jail for assaulting an 'innocent' vampire. As much as she handcrafted these bullets with silver and wood, a single shot was nowhere near enough to kill one of them.

They separated. The vampire whispered something to his ear, and he nodded, his eyes dazed. The man was young and looked wealthy given his suit and the watch. 'She' gestured to a server, and he cleared the bill.

Quickly, Danica did the same. Damn, this cost a lot. She only ordered juice and salad, but what did she expect from a restaurant like this? When she arrived, they had grudgingly let her in, eyeing her clothes: a black shirt, jeans, and a long coat.

They rose from their seat. The man stumbled before he straightened up. It's clear that he's suffering from anemia, but the vampire giggled and said something like he was drunk and a few people from surrounding tables smiled understandingly. The vampire was sucking his blood as a delicacy, which was just a common thing. People were used to that, especially when the bloodsucker looked rich.

Keeping a healthy distance, she followed the elegantly dressed couple towards whom their server and the doorman treated with all smiles and respect unlike towards her, a badly dressed loner girl.

They headed to the parking lot, and she followed. She was one cruel vampiress despite her graceful looks. The strapless dress half-revealed a tattoo on her breast. Although it looked familiar, she could not put her finger on it. Where had she seen it before? It appeared to be a black semicircle surrounded by something red.

Pretending as though her SUV door was stuck-although it actually was sometimes-, she examined the area if this could be a blind spot from surveillance cameras. No chance. Even if there was, what was she going to do after her business? Stupid idea.

The vampire took the driver's seat while the man seemed to be in a dream world. Ten seconds later, she drove after the red sports car heading to the outskirts of Umbre City.

She hit the gas to catch up with her target that was speeding away fast, almost looked like it was trying to cut anyone off that could have been chasing them, or maybe it's purely bloodlust.

Miles covered, and finally, the red car parked under an oak tree beside a cornfield. They had left the urban area a good mile behind. The effort 'she' put into a meal; that's why the ORP (the Other-races Police) was deceived. Danica drove past them as though she was here coincidentally.

At the first corner, she pulled over. Her SUV was black and not obvious at night, which made no difference to night creatures. She took her coat off. After making sure the semi-automatic pistol and the revolver were loaded, she took a wooden dagger out of the glove compartment.

She had to be very careful in approaching them. Complete silence and staying out of sight were essential. Darkness alone was not enough for those glowing eyes. Still in the car, 'she' was already sucking him dry.

This vampire had killed half a dozen people that she was aware of. Always young handsome males. She had never been there on time.

Crouching behind the thorny bush, Danica aimed the area around 'her' neck, the most fragile place, with the revolver that was loaded with ordinary bullets. That would only break the window but it wouldn't matter. She had another plan ready in her other hand.

The environment was quiet, so quiet that she could hear the vampire's sucking noises. The man was no longer moving. If she had approached them recklessly, she would have been dead meat instead of saving him.

"BANG!" The glass shattered. The vampire swiveled around in her direction like a robot. 'She' was fast, too fast, as expected from one of their race. But Danica was not slow, even though she could not match her speed.

With her left hand, she fired the second shot with the pistol loaded with wooden bullets, which went straight to her neck. She then sprinted to their car while the monster was temporarily incapacitated, and opened the door. The pale hand stretched out. It rasped her shirt. This one could still move.

"I'm not your everyday vampire, little insect," the vampire uttered with her damaged vocal cords before slamming her against the open door. With the impact that nearly cracked her spine, the door broke apart from the car.

She ended up on the ground along with the broken door. Before the vampire could make a lethal move, she fired another shot, which only hit her arm. Danica was a dead shot with handguns, but this had been a random shot while struggling for her life. She tried to get up.

The bullet slowed the vampire down, but not nearly enough as 'she' grabbed and pushed her to one wheel in her sitting position. The amount of stamina this one had, slightly surprised her. The vampiress was right; she was not an everyday vampire.

The pale hand reached out to strangle her neck. "Humans are like pests. I crush them every day. You'd just add plus one." The grip was choking her, and the back of her neck stung. The long nails. If not because of the two shots, this grip would have crushed her flesh and bone. She put her fingers between the cold flesh and her neck while her free hand doing something else.

"You–don't–impress–me. You–are–nothing." she squeaked out the words for distraction. That said, she slammed the wooden dagger into 'her' heart. It took a few seconds to take the effect. Then the vampire stopped moving and dropped to the ground.

Getting up with difficulty, Danica was wheezing, like a fish out of water. In the car, the man was dead when she checked his pulse. She dialed the emergency ORP number and reported what had occurred. Since there was a dead body and his blood coated the vampire inside out, this should take care of the evidence business.

Danica crouched down by the now grey body and slid down her dress slightly to see the tattoo. It had been bothering her for some reason. In its full picture, it appeared to be a rimmed black circle amid red stars. Now it looked even more familiar.

She took a picture. Although she wanted to look it up, there was no time to dilly-dally here unless she wanted to deal with the ORP when they arrived. They were jerks. Besides, she was starving. The salad was like a quick snack. Her line of job was energy-consuming.

At a quaint diner on the outskirts, she ordered pasta and garlic bread. The diner was small and was nearly empty. While waiting for her meal, she made an image search on the tattoo online. The results popped up. Just as she read the top result, she cursed out loud. "I'm screwed."

It was a royal emblem of the Eclipsis family, and it symbolized a solar eclipse and blood stars. A symbol that represented the family that ruled all vampire races: their monarch. This meant two things: either she was in trouble or she was not. Simple as that.

An ordinary vampire could have that tattoo because they liked it, or this vampiress could be distantly related to the family. Wait. Why should she care? No matter what, this was a serial killer. In her 23 years of life, she had never spared a monster just because of wealth or social status.

After dinner, she headed home. Past the skyscrapers, the neighborhood she lived in was dominated by red brick buildings. Her apartment was rather a shoe box than a studio apartment. From head to toe, she was smelly and dirty; she took a long bath and washed her hair, which was as red as a blaze, the opposite hue to forest green eyes.

After that, she spent three boring days. Not even a summon from the ORP. Apparently, she had been overthinking. Danica let go of her worries. On the fourth afternoon, a phone call from her closest acquaintance came in. What she heard was heavy breathing and mumbling words before the call ended.

A good hour later, she stood over a dead body in an unfamiliar apartment. Black liquid, blood, soaked the dirty carpet; some of them had splashed onto her face and her khaki coat.

"He's so hot, even in death," Marc said from her side. His name was Marcus, but everyone called him Marc.

"It's an incubus. Of course, it's good-looking. Stop talking like that about a dead body. Disgusting." Danica shut him up. Her coat stripped off, she wiped the smelly blood off of her face with it.

She was tall for a girl at 5 foot 7, while Marc was five foot eleven and full of muscles. He was gazing at the body of the evil creature, almost longingly, which had tried to suck his life force out just minutes earlier. The incubus was as handsome as they came. They were tricky businesses despite having no strength and speed like vampires. Otherwise, Marc could have handled him.

"Thank you, Dani. I thought I was a goner."

"You're welcome. With this, I've saved your ass twice."

"How about we go to Witch Bones? My treat."

She accepted his offer. First, they needed to take care of the body. Sometimes it was unavoidable.

"Where are we burning the body?"

"Definitely not in this apartment?"

"Oooh, I didn't know that."

"Haha, really funny. Who owns it, by the way? Did he?"

"No. The owner is probably somewhere, rotten already. I've been trailing him for weeks. I thought I could have resisted him. Apparently I was not. I'm not as cold-hearted as you are."

Marc was referring to her refusal to date anyone, and also her resistance to seductive creatures, more than ordinary humans.

"Did you drive here?" he added.

"No. I came running, from five miles away from my place."

Marc rolled his eyes, used to her usual bitchiness. As he had told her, he had chased the incubus here on foot from a cafe around the corner of this street, leaving his car behind.

In her mind, she calculated quickly what she had in the trunk. Nothing but a spare tire, a lug wrench, cables, and duct tapes. Nothing to cover a dead body as she had used up all the tarpaulin sheets.

She was not one of those hunters who carried loads of weapons around the town. Call her egoistic, but she was fully confident in herself; a couple of guns, a crossbow, and a dagger had always been more than enough for her, although she had more in her apartment, including a gorgeous katana which she was dying to use.

"Let's find something to pack the body," she suggested, putting her revolver back in the holster.

After rolling the body up with plastic sheets–which they had luckily found in the apartment–beneath bedsheets, they carried the body to her SUV. They could not take the elevator unless they wanted to get caught. Along the stairs and the corridors, they had to occasionally hide in corners, till the coast was clear.

"Did you hear anything new from vampires?" she asked, splashing gasoline into the grave they had dug.

"As in new ones visiting town?"

"No. As in something strange happening in their territory."

"I don't think so. I haven't been keeping tabs for the last few days though."

"Maybe there's no news."

"Is there something specific you want to know?" Marc stroke a match and dropped it down. The flames roared.

"Probably. It's still too soon."

After filling the dirt over the ashes, they exited the Western Umbre Graveyard, which was occasionally filled with ghouls even though it was illegal to dig old graves and eat the bodies.

Witch Bones was decorated like a medieval cavern: gloomy atmosphere, wooden tables, and tall stools. On the walls were animal skulls and horns. Honestly, she often wondered how they had never been sued for that controversial name. Witches were very sensitive, for God's sake.

"That guy over there is checking you out since we sat down here. And a few others," Marc blurted out while she was getting into the third glass of Whiskey Sour.

"Really?" she responded uninterested, mainly because she was fed up with relationships. Currently, her eyes were on the bickering succubus and incubus couple a few tables away. These were ordinary law-abiding ones, different from the killer they had buried.

"Duh, you are so clueless about this. Do you realize how gorgeous you're?"

Coming from Marc, this was not him hitting on her. He was not interested in women.

"I'm not clueless. I just don't care," she answered half-jokingly.

"So high and mighty. You're gonna die a virgin."

"I am not a virgin. I had a boyfriend, you know that."

Marc laughed. "Where's he now?"

"Who knows? I know what he could be doing though. Sleeping around," she said it too bitterly that he stopped laughing.

"He hurt you, huh?"

"Not anymore. Thank you for the drinks, Marc. You still owe me though," she smiled wryly before getting up.

"Of course, honey. Anytime you need, call me."

It was quite late. Danica passed a few faes and a couple of werewolves on the sidewalks. Like most of the other races, the difference in appearance between them and humans was slight, but it was obvious to observant eyes. For instance, faes were taller usually.

She drove into the parking lot in front of her apartment building. It was dark. The nearby lamp had worked fine just yesterday, but now it was broken. As she turned into the only empty spot, she saw a shadow run past in her peripheral vision. Immediately, she searched every single inch but found nothing. Mind you, she had keen eyes, and excellent observation, according to Marc, a few other hunters, and finally her late parents.

After a quarter-hour, she decided to leave it at that. It could have been her imagination.

In her apartment, she picked up the remote control from the settee table and switched on the TV. She let a random channel play in the background while checking her armory-which was a closet beside her wardrobe-as she did twice a week or so. It took time and patience. While doing so, she caught bits and pieces of the running programs.

"It's Saturday 1:00 AM. My name is Sophie Alexander, and I will be presenting this early morning news. A breaking news just came in and I would like to..."

Breaking news? Normally, there was pretty much nothing.

The newscaster continued, "... start with the news of Reign Eclipsis, the crown prince of vampires, gone missing."

What?

"According to our source, who doesn't want to be named, the enigmatic prince has been in his chambers till early this evening. Nobody knows how he might suddenly leave the palace or where he might go to."

She had heard of him. Because who hadn't? The prince no one knew what he looked like. Well, technically, not no one. No human would be more accurate, because it was not possible that his people had not seen his face, was it? They had their territories across the world, just like the rest of 'the other-races', where anyone except for a vampire needed a special passport to enter.

And boy, vampires were loaded. They owned diamond mines alongside the soil where rare magical plants grow.

The breaking news was over within seconds. There was no other information.

Still, that was interesting, she thought, checking the magazines filled with iron bullets. Maybe he had gone eloping with his secret lover or something. Danica laughed at her own joke. Perhaps there was some sense to that joke. The prince that had never gone out of the palace. His life must be very boring.

She closed the door. Everything was in place. She yawned, stretching her limbs. A few steps taken to her bed, her phone vibrated.

She went to check the caller and found it named to be 'jerkass'. Unbelievable that he would still call her after everything he had done. He was her first love and her only ex-boyfriend. All because of him, she was fed up with relationships.

Danica ignored it and kept walking to the bed. The phone kept ringing. She stomped back in anger and turned it into the silent mode.

Dead tired after wrestling with an incubus and drunk, she fell fast asleep like a log as soon as her head touched the pillow. Her night, however, was long and still had a surprise for her. It might have been a minute or an hour when something woke her up. She jumped up from the bed and took the pistol beneath her pillow.

Damn, it was the buzzer, loud and insistent. Was it morning yet? She lifted the curtain at the bedside. No. Who the hell was it at this hour?

Normally, she'd wake up with the slightest sound. That's why alcohol and hunters did not go well, but man did they drink.

The earlier phone calls popped into her mind. Was it Dave? Did he show up at her door because she was not answering her phone? They had broken up for like, what, three years? Unbelievable.

After their relationship ended, for months he had constantly called her and had annoyed the entire building by buzzing every door until she let him in. No. It was not because he loved her. His ego just couldn't take the fact that she dumped him.

Danica had known better then. It had been the second breakup. After the first break-up, she had accepted him back out of pity, but what did he do? He cheated on her again, with multiple women. She had fallen hard for a playboy without an ounce of loyalty. Dave had broken her heart repeatedly.

In pajamas, she went to the intercom and Dave answered as expected. His tone was just like when they were dating.

"What're you doing here? It's...," she checked the clock on the wall. "...3:00 in the morning."

"Open the door, Dani." His tone was harsh, just like in her memory.

He must have a death wish with that attitude.

"Go back to wherever you came from, Dave. I don't have time for you."

"You haven't called me for a month. Who are you sleeping with, Dani? That guy Luther? That's why you can't trust women!"

What the hell? That response was familiar, in fact too familiar that she opened the building door. Dave Rackley had been a cheater and also a gaslighter. He would blame and accuse her of things she had never said or done, the things he habitually did.

A couple of minutes later, he knocked on her door. She slid the security chain and opened the door ajar. There stood Dave, in a leather jacket regardless of the weather. Six feet tall, with wavy blonde hair. He was a classic definition of handsome. Once she had swooned over him, had ignored the red flags.

"Hi Dave, what're you doing here?" she asked curtly.

"Were you going to shoot me, Dani? I'm your boyfriend. Open the fucking door. I don't want to talk to you like this."

Oh right. In her hand was a gun. That was a habit. But wait, what did he just say? He was her 'boyfriend'? It would be an understatement to say that she was surprised.

"You're my EX-boyfriend. We've broken up three years ago. Remember?"

He blinked, looking confused. Was he high? He shook his head as though to clear his mind. "What are you talking about? You didn't pick up my phone calls. That's why I'm here."

"Oh, cut the crap. I thought this was all ended. What exactly are you here for at this hour?"

"We haven't met for a month. How good is Luther that you forgot about me? That's why I'm here."

All she could say was, "Huh?"

He's playing an idiot.

After swallowing her annoyance, she replied, controlling her tone. "Listen. I don't have time for this. We are over since ages ago. Now go back to whoever you're sleeping with and never come here again."

She slammed the door shut to his face.

"You are such a bitch, you know that?! Lying, cheating bitch. That's why I had to find someone kind and pure unlike..."

He kept shouting nonsense, and she ignored him. After a while, the silence again. Thank goodness. He must have given up.

A couple of minutes later, there came another knocking. Woah, he really was going to be dead. She swung open the door this time, ready to shout, but what she found was the old lady from next door. She said she and her husband couldn't sleep because of the noise. Danica apologized to her, cursing Dave inwardly.

She couldn't shut her eyes afterward. Only at dawn, her apartment faded out, but an hour later, the phone alarm startled her from her sleep. Blood pounded in her head. The conversation with Dave came back to her and she couldn't help thinking it was strange. She could not think why her ex-boyfriend would suddenly show up and make trouble after years.

Anyway, Danica had no time to ponder on that. She had to go to ORLE-Other-races Law Enforcement, to receive a bounty reward.

Last week, she had taken out an infamous ghoul that tricked ten people to their death; waited till their corpses were rotten; and then feasted on them. She was supposed to receive a decent reward for that, as the ghoul's head had been bountied. That's how she made her living, hunting down bounty heads.

As a licensed hunter, she was allowed to arm within premises of multiple establishments and she could kill dangerous other-races but the evidence was essential in any case and the risk for the jail time was always there.

Her destination was downtown. During the rush hour, it'd take at least half an hour to cover the distance, if she was lucky.

As she stood by her car, she saw her reflection in the window. Her favorite maroon shirt and jeans. She had not looked in the mirror before she left the apartment. Her red hair was down, her eyes were hollow. She looked horrible.

Her car moved slowly along the heavily trafficked roads. Umbre City was famous for many things, but the most significant three would be: its size as one of the biggest cities in America; having multiple magic races and cultures more than any city in the world; and its traffic jams.

She ruffled her hair in impatience. If she was born rich and did not need rewards for a living, Danica would have never gone to ORLE's Bounty Affairs Office. Aside from the traffic, the staff were very condescending. They treated the bounty hunters like the latter were beneath them.

While she was waiting for the millionth red light to turn green, she turned on her phone screen on the dashboard. She had a notification.

"How's your hunt lately, Artemis? Long time no see." a comment said under her last post which was from two months ago.

'Artemis.' Mia was good at flattering people, but she meant it well. Danica smiled, loving her little comment. Her friend was not a hunter and was in a happy relationship, unlike her. And she was one of the few friends she still had. Two of them had betrayed her by sleeping with Dave. How hurtful that had been. She hadn't gotten over it for months.

"Same old, same old, my darling Aphrodite," Danica typed quickly. The lights turned green and she finally was freed from the traffic jam. She tapped on the steering wheel, contemplating a plan to meet up with her friend. She'd probably call her this evening.

Everything went online these days, but not the bounty office. You'd have to go in person, provide the proof, and fill in a bounty request form. Despite its outdated system, it would be an abomination to step into theirs sparkling floors by holding a bloody head. No, you'd have to pack it well, put it in a box, like a gift parcel. You'd be fined a thousand dollars, otherwise.

'This was a civil society,' they'd say.

It was a busy day. She stood before the only vacant counter.

"Can I have a Form B? I filled Form A last week."

"What's your name?"

"Danica Gallant."

"Occupation?"

Geez, there was only one type of people who would come here to fill these forms. "Hunter," she answered.

"What's your business?"

"Look, can I not just fill in the form?"

The woman did not reply. Her name tag read Maddison. She was in her forties with narrow eyes. Instead of handing her the form that she was supposed to fill out to get the bounty, she greeted the colleague who was supposedly coming here late and made small talks. That's the reason she did not like coming here, but that's fine.

Finally, Maddison handed her the form, muttering something inaudible. Danica swung her leg over a bench in the middle of the room and placed the paper on the table.

"... very funny, haha. We just met yesterday, remember?"

"No, we met last week, not yesterday. I even remember the date February..."

Danica gave a sidelong glance at the speakers, at the other side of the table. Two guys, one was tall, another was bulky. The hunters, because everyone here was either a hunter or an employee of this office.

Apparently, the tall guy remembered it wrong because he described last week as February when this was June.

"Check the date on your phone. It's June 15th now," said his companion.

The tall one went silent, his brows furrowed. "Yeah. You're right. It's June. I don't know why I thought this was February."

So was he just confused? He looked dazed. "But we met last week," he continued insisting. "At the Grand Central, you were..."

"Excuse me."

Both looked around.

"Sorry, but I couldn't help overhearing your conversation. What happened?"

"George is just being stubborn. He is so forgettable."

"I'm not forgettable! You know that, Mark."

As the three of them went further into their conversation, the one called Mark, and she came to realize that George had developed a memory lapse overnight. That sounded familiar, but that was the end of the information. George was still so confused.

Danica took her money. That would last her about a couple of months, which wasn't much, considering she nearly died facing that ghoul.

She decided to contact Dave. There were similarities between him and the hunter George.