THE VAMPIRE HUNTERS

Following my lucky sense of direction, I picked my way through the woods, also skirting around the winding trail after EJ.

To be honest, I didn't really have a plan or anything (as usual). I just wanted to make sure nothing bad happened, not that I had any idea what that might be, but my guess was that it would involve blood, and I felt quite sure that anything that involved blood on school grounds would be a bad idea.

Well except for a blood drive.

Wait, wth was I thinking about? Focus, Sam!

EJ's wolf was really pro at this scouting thing. He didn't even leave any visible signs in passing, so all I had to go on was wisps of his scent which was quickly displaced by the passing spring breezes. It was always breezy up on Winderhill, which was good if you were hiding your tracks, bad if you were trying to track.

I had to focus on guessing the way EJ actually went based on the scent left behind and the wind direction. EJs path led us to flank whatever trap ahead with the wind in our favor.

I also had to NOT leave tracks behind. This was tricky because it was spring and there was quite a bit of undergrowth to navigate around once off the winding trail.

Let's hope Fluffy and backup were great trackers, or I doubt they'd find us.

Eventually, I spied EJ up ahead. He turned the moment I stepped into sight. I flared. I was so sure I was being super quiet too!

"Who's there?" A woman's voice called out.

Uh oh.

EJ held out his hand to me and then pointed for me to move further down.

I looked around, what could've given us away?

"Show yourself!" The woman's voice called out again.

It was at this point that I smelled magic in the air. I was very faint, I had to be right in front of it to smell it. I stopped my steps and then I waved for EJ to come over to where I was.

EJ looked puzzled and then he waved back and stepped out of the cover of the trees towards the woman's voice!

WHAT? No! Arughhh... I meant "come here", not "bye bye"! Gah! I should have signaled warrior style not highschool girl style. Omo. EJ!!!!

"It's a wolf." A man's voice said, "Looks like a student."

Oh, thank goddess for our school uniform!

"Put him in the cage with the others?" Another man asked.

Wait, what? Like they had students in a cage?

"No. This one belongs to a pack. It'll get messy." A third man said.

Wow, that was a lot of people my wolf radar wasn't picking up!

I sniffed around... Must be some kind of spell.

{Weak spell.} Boo informed me.

A spell is a spell, my stupid wolf. And I wasn't going to nilly willy walk into it if I could help it.

But suddenly I heard a shot. It wasn't exactly a gunshot... Tranquilizer gun! It sounded like the gun Delta Oran had shot Link with! Okay... So he had meant to hit EJ back then.

"S***." Yet another man said.

"Hellsing!" the woman shouted, "Don't shoot him!"

Too late woman, your reaction was way too slow.

The voice that said s*** now said, "Fine, Tess. I won't."

And then EJ's voice laughed, "Just because you missed, doesn't mean you didn't, Vamp."

"I'm not a vamp!" The s*** guy said. This was immediately followed by scuffling sounds.

"Hellsing! Stop!" The woman shouted... too slow again.

"Everyone stop. We're going to alert our target if you keep yelling." One of the men in the group yelled.

"S***!" the s*** guy said.

"S***ty vamp." EJ said back, but as far as I could tell, no blood shed... yet.

This was followed by a hard thump and then a thudding sound.

"Hellsing!" The woman sounded alarmed.

"You did tell him to stop." EJ pointed out, "How are you controlling the vamp?"

Wait what?

Grrrr... Like there's something seriously cool happening was happening out there, and I was hanging on the fringes because of a stupid weak spell.

"Look," the woman clearly wanted to settle things peaceably, "Boy, why don't you be on your way? Maybe pretend you didn't see us?"

"Too late, Tess. He's probably already mindlinked his pack by now." One of the men said.

"That's why I said pack wolves were troublesome." Another man grumbled.

"Look, " Tess tried to reason with the brutes around her, "He's obviously a delinquent. He's probably just playing truant. If we don't tell on him, he won't tell on us, right?"

"That depends on what you give me, lady." EJ said. I almost thought he was back to being EJ again, except he still hadn't made any cute noises.

"Grrrr....back off boy." The s*** guy growled. It was an inhuman sound.

"Shut up, you s***ty vamp." EJ answered, "I'm talking to the lady."

"Back off!" One of the men warned, "Do not step any closer."

"Are you going to shoot me?" EJ jeered, "Go ahead. But my pack won't like it..."

"S***." Shit guy said.

"Tess, we should go." One of the men said, "Pack wolves are a messy deal."

"But we're so close!" Tess argued, "And if we don't stop it now, who know what it'll do to the students in the school?"

"Tess... If we don't go, we'd lose our license to hunt at all." The man tried to reason, "If we take the bait and change the location, we might still be able to trap our target."

"But there are humans in that school!" Tess burst out. And then she sighed, "But you're right. Change of plans. Maybe we can still nab that rogue vamp yet."

{Vampire is near.}

Probably rogue.

Opps, too late again human Tess.

But it's not like I was going to let some random rogue vamp attack Winderhill just because some vamp hunting plan went haywire.

I reached out to touch the air in front of me. I remembered how River had told me that he could see magic-like threads... And while at the Warlock's land, he could see knots of magic where they smelled the strongest. I couldn't see these threads, but I imagined a weak spell like the faint-smelling one would be like the loosely spun threads.

I just needed to trigger one...

I actually took two steps into the spell area without anything happening.

On my third step, one of the men sounded alarmed, "Tess, your staff!"

"Who's there?" Tess called out again, "Show yourself."

Like seriously?

"Is it the target?" One of the men asked.

"Boy, get behind us." Tess ordered, " Stay in my shield. We'll protect you."

I heard the sounds of guns being readied. I really didn't like guns.

"What if he turns on us?" One of the men asked.

"The vamp might use him against us." Another one worried.

"As long as he stays in my sheild, it should be fine." Tess sounded confident.

I took the chance to step out. I even put on my best girl face... I mean, let's not get myself shot at the intro. That would be lame, or worse, silver bullet. Human hunters used a lot of those.

I could catch a normal bullet in half shift, but a silver one? Not not too keen to test it.

"Hi, EJ!" I waved the moment I stepped into sight, "Whatcha doing?"

Don't shoot me.

"Oh, great. His girlfriend is here." One man grumbled as he lowered his gun.

"Hoi, hoi, pretty alpha! I'm so glad you're here! These guys are so scary!" For some reason, I expected EJ to bounce over to my side.

EJ's wolf only glanced over and nodded with the enthusiasm of a proper highschool delinquent, but over the mindlink, he greeted, {Alpha, your orders?}

I'm not sure what he expected me to say, "Kill them!"

Yeah, he was probably waiting for that.

Tess looked frustrated, "You kids need to go play truant somewhere else. It's dangerous here."

But I was more interested in the two rogue wolves in a large cage... They were the brother and sister who studied at Winderhill - Daisy's cousins.

The girl had been crying. They had both taken off their jackets and were squatting on top of them, which was weird, and then it clicked.

"Is the cage silver?" I asked, "That would really burn if you touched it."

It would certainly explain why they were crouched in the middle of the cage. The girl pleaded, "Please help us!"

"Wow. The girlfriend's a real Einstein huh?" One of the men laughed.

"That's the Alpha Princess." One of them recognized then.

"S***." The s*** guy growled, "Nothing's been going right this hunt."

EJ growled warning back.

"It's okay, EJ. They're not the enemy." I decided, "The vamp's coming. Somebody let these two out."

And then I turned to the other thing of interest in the group. A magic artefact in Tess' hand, "What's that? A magic stick?"

And finally the last thing of interest, the s*** guy, "And this vamp's so weird... He's got no flame."

I gave the group my friendliest smile, "I've never met hunters before. You guys are so interesting."

By now they were bewildered enough to let down their guard so that I could causally stroll up to Tess. I plucked a loose strand of magic from her staff and cast, "Tell me the story about Tess."

Because my lucky direction was very sure this entire group, the magic stick, and even the flameless vamp were all connected by this one woman.

{Vamp is near.} Boo kindly reminded me.

Oh, right, "And you might want to just tell the story really quickly, cos your target's getting closer."

Tess clutched her staff till her knuckle turned white. I don't think she wanted to tell stories right now, but ancient Lycans taught rather powerful spells to their little ones - all in the name of education, of course.

Boo smiled, "Don't worry. If I like your story, I might even help you catch your prey."

They did seem like they needed a bit of luck.