The Crime in Callahan's Morrow - being rewritten

Chapter 15: The aftermath

"The world won't wait for you to get your shit together." 
Daizee Allesium, the First Sergeant of the Battle Witch Forces

XV.

"There you go."

Nicole wiped off the sweat from her forehead after depositing another crate of blood to the floor. The small bottles were the only ones Panther had and if it hadn't actually been deep-red blood in those bottles, Nicole would have thought Giuseppe to be an alcoholic. However, deeper wounds tended to require replenishing more blood for healing than what should be a regular daily intake. Or so she'd been told.

Despite still being weak as a newborn pup, Giuseppe had managed to haul himself to a sitting position as he grinned at her without the usual careful concealment of fangs. It seemed more like a full-blown smile. "Thank you, kitten."

His complexion seemed better now after about three liters of blood had passed inside his mouth, though, still, somewhat pale in cheeks. But that might just be how he usually looked like, being a vampire that didn't dwell on sunlight and all that.

Nicole frowned, recognizing playfulness as a sign of restored health. This meant she could be annoyed with him as much as she pleased. "Don't call me that."

Quiet laughter erupted from his mouth, but then he flinched and settled his hand on the wound on his chest and turned still as a stone. It really must have been that bad if it was still bothering him. Considering the fact that if the conditions were right, vampires could heal almost anything and at such rate, it seemed like an illusion.

The light hadn't been all that bright when they'd arrived here in the first place, but now it was downright dark in here with three out of five ceiling-lights broken and one of the still functioning ones flickering in and out in a rhythmic pattern. Shadows kept making it all seem gloomy.

Looking around, Nicole noticed that Adrian was still poking and prodding the magic circle on the marble floor. Or, at least, what was left of it. The black lines that intertwined with floor's blue strips on top of the gray layer seemed to be vanishing faster with every passing second and soon there would be nothing left to examine.

If she was to judge Adrian's expression, Nicole would say he was puzzled. However, she was aware that the boss looked puzzled only when he was also shocked. The shock wasn't something to be seen on Adrian's face, at any rate, not by Nicole.

It was almost eleven in the evening; the club should be filled and the party at full swing. Tonight it wasn't.

After they had managed to stabilize the critically wounded – Dariuss procuring enough blood to feed a small vampire army and getting some top-notch healers to deal with Feargus blood loss – they found out that there had been a spell cast on the area of the club which ensnared the mind of everyone weak to magic. Its purpose was to get all the interference far away. In this case, make the partygoers think they wanted to leave.

Usually, there was about fifty percent of the people who could resist such suggestive spells. Unfortunately, Dariuss' magic-dampening technique kind of backfired on them – people had just gone away at one point in the evening as they had been unable to resist the hypnosis – and it, ultimately, was what saved their lives since, because of everyone going away, none of the civilians had gotten tangled up in the shitstorm happening here.

Dariuss seemed to be doing well. His pose once again regal, face devoid of all emotions – annoyance excluded – he commanded his people to clean up the mess left behind by the attack quite efficiently. However, Nicole saw the cracks in his mask, the one he wore as an illusion of perfection.