Mascarade

Blind Faith

"Not so cocky now, huh?!"

To Zhao Yunlan's ears that sounded more like a wishful thinking. A desperate call for their own courage. Especially, since the vampire's voice almost cracked in the middle. Quite pitiful. The expression of SID's Chief was void of fear, his sightless eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. He supressed the urge of his right mouth corner twitching and instead an eyebrow emerged from behind the upper rim of the glasses. "Let me, at least, keep the decorum befitting my position." He wasn't a good actor in the face of his own pride, but if he wanted to come out as unscathed as possible, he ought to play into the feelings of superiority of his captors.

Under normal circumstances, anyone would be able to tell, Chief Zhao is as full of bullshit as the Alpen meadows. However, these were not normal circumstances. This was a kidnapping case and the villains in question were monsters used to killing innocent people, not battle-trained special unit chiefs with nerves of steel and a mind-set of a sociopath... That made them more than nervous.

Not like there were many of them left in total. The vampires themselves had no idea, how many survived last week's brutal strike that almost managed to annihilate them completely. Be it not for their Lord's intervention and collapsing the mansion, not even the few that got out might have not made it out alive.

Given the nature of inter-vampiric relashions and "unfriendliness" amongst themselves, there was practically no way of them organizing any sort of strike back at vampire hunters. Even if some tried to reach out and reclaim bonds long lost, the problems that arose were mostly centuries old disputes and demands of revenge/compensation, too ambitious, too foolish.

So the biggest group of vampires to gather would mostly be one family branch. In this case three brothers. Of course, getting ambushed and kidnapped was a carefully organised action by both the perpetrator and the victim. That was one of the reasons why Zhao Yunlan felt calm still. It was funny, how these three fell for the "defenseless and blind Chief of SID" going on an errand absolutely alone and even though half of his basic training had been done in aboslute darkness (because yeah, his job was to kill beasts that prowl through the night and have better eye-sight than humans), he was suddenly unable to defend himself... Had he had any compassion for these creatures left, he might pity their stupidity...

From what Zhao Yunlan managed to gather about his surroundings while blind, he was brought into a house, fairly far from nearest dwellings. The house itself might be a big one but he was almost immediately locked in a smaller room underground. The air was stale, but he could still feel a whiff of wind around his left ear, sensing a small window behind himself, opposing the doors through which they all came here. The ambush was done by Chen's family's brothers. Nothing spectacular, pretty much middle-class level considering their combat abilities. Of course, no matter, how strong, three vampires at once was too much for Zhao Yublan right now, even when healthy his chances wouldn't be big. And maybe he should be concerned since the brothers had searched him on the way here quite thoroughly and came upon the tracker Lin Jing had installed under his skin before the mission. This new tracking devise was quite a new secret devise and Zhao Yunlan had a guess who could have given these three such a precious advice that could have cost him his head...

He listened to how the brothers planned his death as an exemplary case. In what gory fashion should the brothers present his remnants? It must ooze horror and scream REVENGE! However, he felt calm. The person approaching... that was who interested him the most.

"There he is! Come on, you're late!" One of the brothers exclaimed. Zhao Yunlan could hear unhurried steps down the stairs, then entering the room and a deep calm voice answered. "I am sorry, I was delayed on my way. Had to take care of something first."

The oldest brother started to grumpily scold the newcomer. Something about dedication and that the deal was different and so on and on and on...

And then they finally left, letting this person guard Zhao Yunlan.

"I am pleasantly surprised. But quite caught off guard..." Zhao Yunlan turned his head in the direction of his now lone captor.

"You were expecting my brother." Shen Wei felt a wave of inexplicable uneasiness at his own statement, not really knowing why, though. He crouched down and started to undo the bindings on Zhao Yunlan's wrists.

The vampire hunter raised his eyebrows, feeling the cold gentle hands against his own skin behind his back. "And you keep surprising me... But aren't you going to ask me how I knew it was you?"

Shen Wei shook his head before realizing he has to vocalize it. "The same as how I knew you would be here..."

"Yeah, I just KNEW. Fascinating." That was just like the SID Chief. Getting fascinated even in a life-threatening situation. "What happened to your brother's schemes? And don't try to hide it. It's obvious he helped these morons and was most likely supposed to come but... you came instead."

Shen Wei frowned. He didn't want to explain. He wasn't sure why he acted like this either. Why would he betray his own brother for a vampire hunter? He didn't know why, just that he had to. And he certainly didn't feel like approaching the subject facing a curious and intelligent hunter. "A debt... for the blood," he mumbled and straightened up, pulling Zhao Yunlan back to his feet.

"But you paid off your debt when you helped us back at the mansion... or do you mean me becoming blind?" Zhao Yunlan speculated while Shen Wei gently led him out of the room.

"Uhn... yeah... that..." trying to focus on their surroundings, Shen Wei nodded.

"But that certainly has nothing to do with you. You know, I understand your brother wanting to get rid of me. Seeing his familiars at the ball and hearing his pompuous speech about how he knows loads of stuff about SID, it was easy to find and dispose of the mole. He should be less obvious with his taste." Zhao Yunlan kept on talking.

"You shouldn't have killed Angelica. She was bewitched by Ye Zun." Shen Wei tightened his hold on Yunlan as they walked up the stairs as quietly as possible.

"Oh, we didn't kill her. We were going to interrogate her for sure but - as you said - she was bewitched and before we managed that, she killed herself. Your brother's doing, not ours." The justification would suffice if only vampire hunters weren't famous for their terrible ways of "interrogating".

Shen Wei sighed. "Let's disscuss this later?"

Smirking, Zhao Yunlan pressed closer to his vampiric knight in shining armour, putting on a fake princess-like tone. "Sure, sir Shen Wei, please rescue me first! I'm positive my father will give you my hand in marriage and a half of SID!"

Hearing two sets of steps approaching swiftly, Shen Wei sighed again pulling the other male behind his back. "Aren't you an orphan, Zhao Yunlan?"