Vincent woke up to the morning sun beaming into his eyes through his hotel window. His hand shot up to block the light as he groaned, struggling to turn away and get more sleep. However, as he turned, he suddenly realized that Lilith was no longer in the bed with him.
"Figures," he said with a smirk. "Makes it easier, anyway." He sat up out of the bedsheets and started to put his clothes back on. He drew his phone from his pocket and ran through his contacts. His finger caught Lilith's name. He jutted his jaw out to the side as he pondered over the idea of contacting her again. His confident expression faded. But soon, his finger instead flicked her name up, his contacts cascading through. Finally, he came to one contact, simply named "V." He selected the name and put his phone up to his ear. After a couple of dial tones, he hears an answer.
"She took it. She has it," he groggily asserted into the phone.
At the other end of the line, a woman stood in an alleyway in the city streets. She was a tall, dark-haired woman sporting fashionable shades. Her face had sharp, strong features, her grin was thin and wicked, applied with maliciously black lipstick. Her slender, trim figure was hidden beneath a large, black overcoat, complete with a wide-brim, equally-black sun hat.
"You picked quite a good time to call," she replied in a sarcastic tone. Her voice was sultry and low, yet chilling, causing even Vincent to be mildly discomforted.
"This... is, uh, spontaneous, you know. That kinda thing," he answered, still drunk with sleep.
"The trap is set then. Where can I find her?" she asked hastily.
Suddenly, from behind her, a police officer approached her from the mouth of the alleyway. His pistol was drawn with both hands, and he walked slowly towards her. His aim was shaking, his eyes were wide with fear.
"I-I- saw you... I saw what you d-did... to my partner," he managed to cough out the words as his jaw chattered, the terror overtaking him.
Vincent's voice continued through the phone. "She left the hotel about... " Vincent laid his hand against Lilith's side of the bed to feel its warmth. As he felt the faint heat, he sighed. "Two hours ago. She should be around the university. I gave her a dress- it's inlaid with wraith-cloth threading. She wore it; the scent should stick to her skin, even if she showers. Your sharp, sharp nose should be able to pick it up."
"Good enough," she replied back.
"Hey!" The officer coarsely roared at the woman, his confidence waning as his voice cracked.
"Give me a moment, I have to take care of a pest," she commented nonchalantly.
"What?" Vincent questioned.
The woman lowered the phone from her ear and slowly turned to the officer. "You saw what I did, huh? Very good." she condescended. "If you saw it, then you know why you should run along-" A loud bang echoed into the air and a sudden flash penetrated the darkness of the alley. A trail of thin, wispy smoke left the barrel of the officer's gun.
The woman stopped speaking abruptly. Her patronizing expression soon faded into one of grave sternness. She slowly reached into her left shoulder and pinched at the surface of her coat, at a small divet. From it, she produced a squashed bullet and presented it to the officer. His quaking distress intensified as he realized what had just happened. The gun's aim became even more unstable.
"That wasn't very nice," the woman snarled. She began to walk towards him. Two more shots rang into the air, but she was unphased. The bullets fell to the floor with a soft clink. They could hear the faint, distressed screaming of bystanders outside the alleyway as the gunshots reverberated into the street. The officer held his aim, ready for another shot, but now the woman was in arm's reach.
She swiftly grabbed the gun out of his hand without any resistance. The officer's entire body was stricken with dread as his expression melted into terror. The woman looked at the gun quizzingly, holding it up by the grip. "Such peculiar tools for weak, insignificant beings." She gripped the weapon, which signaled the officer to try and turn and run. However, her arm shot out and her hand was suddenly clasped around his neck. "Let me show you real power." She gripped the gun harder until the metal began to crack in her hand. Then, with a loud snap, the gun crumbled to the ground in shambled pieces.
"W-what the fuck... are you?" the officer managed to breathe out in a hushed tone through the powerful grip on his neck.
The woman simply responded with a dreadful grimace. She held her arm up and made a claw with her hand. Her red-polished nails began to grow long, into sharp, talon-like curves. The officer's eyes widened even more as he witnessed his grim fate. Her palm straightened out, and she rocketed her hand into the officer's chest as he could do nothing but hiss in pain as his throat was compressed by her mighty hand. Her talons punctured through his skin like it was paper, the bones in his chest crackling and snapping as her sharp nails soon met a bloody heart, and her hand had ripped through the muscles and sinew and was now out the other side. Blood spurted forth from either end of the hole she had voraciously torn into him. The man forcefully gurgled in pain as she continued to press on his neck, blood making its way through his mouth and dribbling down his chin as the internal bleeding began to geyser out through his body. The deep red blood splashed to the floor hard as it continued to pour from his fatal wound, and soon his gurgling subsided as his eyes stopped moving and his body stopped writhing. However, she continued to grip his throat harder, and soon a loud crack resounded through the alleyway.
She withdrew her arm from the man and a torrent of red followed. She dropped the body to the floor with a loud splash, causing the pool below to erupt into the walls of the alleyway. The woman looked at her arms, which were now drenched in deep crimson. Soon, all the thick liquid in the ground and on the wall began to lightly sizzle. Small wisps of scarlet gas rose up from the bloody mess and directed themselves towards the woman. She closed her eyes and held out her hands as the blood on her arms also began to absorb into her pores, soon disappearing completely. The pools of the alley soon evaporated into a red mist that flowed into the woman's hands. A more intensely crimson vein of mist flowed from the officer's corpse, with the mangled husk slowly decreasing in size, his dead skin turning deathly grey and wrinkled. The pools eventually disappeared, as if they were never there, leaving only a crumpled and twisted bag of skin and bones that was once the officer.
"A light snack to start the day," she joked to herself. She brought the phone back up to her ear. "You were saying?"
Vincent, at the other end, had heard only tidbits of the assault. His face turned from one of aloof carelessness to one of stern calmness. "You'll find her at the university. She'll lead you right to him."
"Excellent," she hissed with a grimace. The grey, wrinkled sack of skin on the ground soon turned into dust in the wind out of the alleyway.
Many hours later, during the cusp of nightfall, Lilith wandered around the streets outside the various academic buildings on campus, making her way to an inner courtyard, filled with lush grass, cut freshly from that evening, filling the air with a pure, loamy scent. Lecture halls and learning centers were scattered along the outside of the pavement that bordered the large green lawn, with gothic-style lamp posts dotted along the walking paths, providing a slight yet warm illumination to the slowly emerging dark of the night.
The scenery would usually provide Lilith with a calm sense of peace. It was quiet and students were sparsely traveling around to their late classes. Some were relaxing on benches, reading books, enjoying the serenity that came with a warm summer night. Others rested under the various trees that were scattered about the courtyard. Lilith could only hear the rare chattering of passerby, along with their lightly echoing footsteps. However, she struggled to find that inner peace, as she tightly gripped her newly built instrument in one hand. She paced back and forth along the walking path, sheathing the gnarled, fanged wand underneath her zip-up hoodie, checking it every so often, away from the eyes of the public. Between the tips of the two fangs, a small wisp of blue light emitted faintly, much to Lilith's frustration. She reassured herself that her awkward stance while walking would feign as her attempt at reading her bright phone screen in the inner pocket of her sweater.
"It should be working, I don't get it," she grumbled to herself. "I constructed it from the coven's finest materials...Damn it!" She proceeded to attempt to banish it with her violet flames as she did with her vials. However, the sparks of fire simply surged up the surface of the wand and quickly fizzled out, unaffecting it. "Great," she groaned.
"Excuse me, you lost?" A large man approached Lilith from behind, jogging in place and taking his headphones out of his ears. He was glistening with sweat and took a swig out of a water bottle as he looked at Lilith. "I jog here often, you need directions?"
"No," Lilith asserted, turning her attention back to the wand.
"I can show you where you need to go on your phone there," the man flashed a friendly smile. Lilith could sense his eyes wander to her cleavage as she was pulling her sweater out to observe the blue light of the wand, revealing a tight low-cut tank top. She hastily covered up.
"I said I don't need help," she replied sternly.
