Wolf of the Blood Moon: A Blood Magic

Scarlet

Some of the tension seems to leave the man’s body while at the same time the two teens finally stop focusing on my ears.

“Thank you, miss Scarlet!” the man seems overjoyed, but despite that he still has himself well composed. Unlike the other two next to him, one of whom seems to be from across the ocean to the east judging by appearance and how he’s bowing towards me, whereas the other one is just staring up at the ceiling with quiet tears flowing down her face.

Rather odd.

And he’s still calling me miss Scarlet. But I guess there’s no breaking that. The guy looks like he has some sort of disciplinary training, like the military or the police or something.

As if reading my mind, the man suddenly introduces himself, “My name is John Winslow, and I’m a police officer who was here in order to meet with the CEO. But then everything else happened, and that kind of went out the wayside.” He reaches his hand towards me with a polite smile on his face and adds, “It’s nice to meet you, miss Scarlet.”

I shake his hand, feeling like this is a bit more normal. Much better than the awkwardness of our initial greeting.

“Now, according to my compatriot here,” the man pauses as he waves at the woman next to him, who simply waves at me in response, “the generator for this floor’s bunker is located in the bunker directly beneath us, and considering that it’s not on, something bad must have happened down there. So we sent down my partner and one of the security officers on this floor, each armed with some of Cipher’s patented pulse rifles, to investigate.”

“And they never came back,” I finish for him before crossing my arms and glancing at the other man of the three who are standing up front. The guy just waves at me and smiles at my look though, so I turn back to Officer Winslow, who is nodding his head in confirmation of my words.

“Correct,” he says before glancing behind him at a few of the men who are wearing security officer uniforms, “we only have one pulse rifle remaining, but these three have pistols with them as well.” He turns back to me with a hopeful look. “Will you consider helping them get down to the twenty-sixth floor?”

I look between the men for a few seconds before considering the help that a pulse rifle could give me in hunting demons. Which is a lot of help.

“Sure,” I answer with a shrug. “Was headed down there anyways.”

A wave of relief passes through everyone in the room. Except the kid. Even the teens look relieved at my answer.

I blink in surprise at that, only to shrug it off a second later before turning around and walking towards the door.

“Well, I’ll be at the stairs when you’re ready,” I tell them, waving my hand over my shoulder. Eager to get away from the group of people.

The people in the room – many of them being the ones who hadn’t said a word throughout that whole exchange – practically smother me in thanks and appreciative words until I close the door behind me with a sigh of relief. And not even a second later, I hear the tanuki start talking.

“You really don’t like dealing with people, do you?”

It’s that obvious?

“Yes, it is.”

Stupid furball. That was a rhetorical question.

“Yes. That it was.”

My eye twitches as I walk through the hall towards the stairs.

The stupid furball is becoming sassy. Didn’t know a ‘spirit’, or rather a fae could do that.

It only takes me three minutes to make it to the stairs this time, since I had already made it through the maze of a floor once. And only another two minutes before the others arrive to join me.

Unsurprisingly, one of the people is the police officer, whereas the other two are security guards, leaving one of the guards behind likely as a protective measure for the other people on the floor. Meanwhile, the one holding the pulse rifle, which I recognize from tv, is one of the security guards. Not sure if it’s because they didn’t trust an outsider with the tech, or if this security guard is just better at using it. Either way, it doesn’t really matter to me.

Not really sure what the point of telling me they had three pistols was if they were only bringing two though.

“Scarlet,” Officer Winslow says with a nod. “Shall we be off?”

I nod back and begin walking down the stairs.

We shall.

The three of us walk until the mid-point on the stairs, where I stop and close my eyes, just listening to the sounds on the floor.

“Scarl-” I cut him off by raising a finger.

After listening for a few seconds, a frown develops on my face, and I open my eyes.

“Sounds like there aren’t any spawn on the floor. Just hounds and bipedal demons,” I tell the three, a slight fear building at the back of my mind at the thought. But I quench that fear just as quickly as it comes. Because if we have a pulse rifle, then they can take care of the huntsmen. And if it’s a knight, then we can just run. They’re pure defenders who assign themselves to guard something or someone, and never leave that charge. “That means we could be dealing with either huntsmen, or knights.”

I immediately see the three tensing up at the word knights. And I can’t blame them.

The things are terrifying from what I’ve read. But they aren’t all that hard to escape, otherwise there would be a lot more casualties in Class I Fractures.

Although it’s possible they could be in a place blocking the others from passing. I don’t know the building’s layout after all.

In which case I’ll figure out what to do when the time comes.

“You,” I point at the guy with the pulse rifle – a rather large man with a thick beard and long brown hair – making him open his mouth in surprise before pointing at himself. “Yes, you. I want you right next to me with that pulse rifle of yours.”

He nods, not saying a word in response.

Likely because I show a hint of confusion at that, the officer explains, “Sorry, Carl is mute.”

Oh.

Okay.

Carl walks up next to me and nods again, but this time with a slightly sad look on his face.

Poor Carl.

“You two, just stay behind us and try not to get hurt,” I tell them, albeit maybe a bit more callously than I meant to.

I turn around again and continue walking down the stairs.

“Let’s go.”