Blood Mercenary

*Chapter Eighteen*

*Chapter Eighteen*

According to Raine, she’d researched Xavier while Rylan and Vivien were not in the palace. Xavier practiced dark magic. Even without Rylan and Vivien’s interference, he wouldn’t live long. He had exchanged his lifespan for power and the so called immortality.

“The time when Hope and Raine had a strange visitor and Raine’s blasted curiosity made her follow him?” Raine repeated what Vivien said a second ago. Vivien nodded. “You want Raine to describe what the stranger looked like?”

“Yes.”

“Well, every inch of him was covered in cloth, so Raine isn’t sure…. Even his voice sounds weird, like it’s coming from everywhere. Raine could only tell it was a he.”

Cross, the stranger was Cross no doubt. What was he doing in a small kingdom experimenting on abducted human children? At that time, Vivien still followed Cross like a puppy, a concept which disgusted Vivien to no end at present. Vivien kept her thoughts to herself and gestured for Raine to continue.

“Raine remembers a very pretty lady had gone into a room. Raine has never seen a human that pretty, so Raine followed her down a few corridors. Raine then saw the stranger from earlier that way. Hope said he is suspicious.”

“Suspicious?” Rylan asked.

“Ah, forgot to mention. Hope has the ability to sense a person’s pain and ease the pain with a voice that reaches directly into one’s soul. She must have later learnt to send her own memories into another.” Raine shot Vivien a glance. Vivien had explained to Raine her encounter with Hope. “In a crowded lab like the one we stayed in, she had it way worse than Raine. Oh no, Raine went off topic! Where was Raine?”

“The stranger is suspicious,” Vivien said.

“Yup, Hope said she could not sense anything from the stranger.”

“All right, continue with what happened after you followed them.”

“Something’s wrong,” Vivien said, crossing one leg over the other and leaning forward. “This is Cross we are talking about. He knows when he is being followed.”

“He is not perfect. He probably thought a test subject running around possessed no threat to him.”

Raine pouted. Rylan hurriedly followed with an explanation, but Vivien was not listening. In the years she’d known Cross, he had never made a mistake. His speculations were eerily accurate. He would never let a threat live.

“Continue,” Rylan said.

“Well, those two went into a room…. Um, the stranger’s mouth was on pretty lady’s then--Rylan, what is with that look? Did you forget Raine is the same age as Vivien despite Raine’s appearance?

“Of course not.”

Both the girls in the room gave Rylan a blank stare. He answered way too quickly.

“This might be hard to believe, but when the stranger pulled back, something traveled from pretty lady’s lip to his. It was something silvery and… and transparent.”

Just when Vivien thought things could not get worse, things did.

Because simply the gate of Hell being unlocked was not enough.

“I never saw pretty lady again,” Raine finished.

Silvery and transparent.

No, it couldn’t be.

Cross was a Mercenary for Hades’ sake. He couldn’t be…

…A demon.

Vivien glanced up.