Irena's POV

　　I felt bad leaving Alexey the way I did but this was too important and I couldn't put it off for even a split second, he looked so cute when he realized that he wouldn't get to finish, it'll make the next time I see him even more fun, but that's for then, for now, I have a war to end.

　　I mobilized my forces with Magnus by my side as we converged on one of the three possible locations that our resident genius Carlos had triangulated to determine Maximus' most likely hiding place.

　　He had achieved this by tracking spikes in unfortunate events in the area, increased accidents, miscarriages, building catching fire, that kind of stuff.

　　This just goes to show, where the dark arts go, misfortune follows.

　　I could've split my force up and attacked all the suspected areas simultaneously but with trust so hard to come by I couldn't afford the manpower nor was I willing to risk sending my people after Maximus The Mad by themselves.

　　Besides, if anyone was going to do away with that one-handed mad man, it would be me, to settle the scores that were formed thousands of years ago and rid this world of that cretin once and for all, and today, I would do just that.

　　"This is the building!" Carlos announced over the radio as all our vehicles stopped in front of an apartment building.

　　"This building had had, eight miscarriages, five fires, and four tenants fall down the stairs dead, all within a month," it definitely has signs that suggest that it's housing some sort of evil presence.

　　"Wowwwww, scary stuff, what if it's ghosts Irena, I can fight a thousand-year-old wizard, but I draw the line at ghosts," Magnus said, clutching at my shoulder and peeking his head from behind me as we made our way into the building.

　　"Split up and search, we'll be faster that way, report anything out of the ordinary to me, and if you find Maximus, do not engage, keep him in your sights until I arrive, but do not engage, understood?!" I commanded and received a resounding;

　　"Yes Ma'am!" It echoed through the Halls before all my vampires dispersed in teams to scour the Halls of the large apartment building and so I carried out my own with Magnus by my side as it had always been, as it always will be.

　　We searched through the building, going from room to room finding families and having to use our powers of persuasion to convince them to forget our encounter.

　　"Excuse me,"

　　"Pardon me, this will only take a moment,"

　　"I want you to forget you ever saw me,"

　　"Forget we were ever here,"

　　"Look into my eyes, this never happened,"

　　As we went on I kept thinking of all the things I would do to Maximus when I finally have him in my clutches, the enticing thoughts that I would settle the old score that has remained alive for all of these years not to mention the new score he had opened with his most recent transgressions, he would pay for it all.

　　"You're thinking of what you'll do when you get your hand on him aren't you?" Magnus interrupted my train of thought as we made ours into an apartment whose owner was apparently not around.

　　"Huhn?" I was confused and a bit flustered.

　　"You have that face you had when someone's pissed you off and you're thinking of what you'll do to them," he explained as he gave me a dry look.

　　"I have no such face!" I expressed it with a pout.

　　"Oh but you do, and in right, I can tell, we don't all need the ability to read minds to know what someone's thinking," he had a playful smile on, the bastard was completely right, sometimes he's so wise, a sudden sound jolted our attention back the room we were searching we turned around to find that a vase had been knocked over.

　　"Oh no, it's a ghost, I was right!" But most times he's just dumb.

　　"Get off me Magnus, you've been alive for over a thousand years, don't you think if there was such a thing as ghosts you would've come across one by now?" I shoved him off me.

　　"No, that's why they're ghosts!" He asserted as the room suddenly began to fill up with smoke. This was no mere smoke, this was the dark arts, but it was not Maximus, he's way more powerful than whoever this is.

　　This is some hack of a sorcerer who practices his black magic out of this hole causing the innocent tenants of this building so much pain and misery, I know I'm on a tight schedule and I need to find Maximus but a monster like this couldn't possibly be left unchecked, unpunished, free to roam, free to destroy, they must be stopped.

　　"Wait so it's not a ghost?" Magnus inquired looking around the room, "alright then, let's go kick his ass!" He concluded as we tracked the source of the dark arts to the maintenance room of the building.

　　We kicked open the door to find the maintenance man surrounded by multiple vulgar artifacts enthralled in some sort of ritual.

　　"How did you find me? How did you make it through my smoke?" He questioned in a panicked tone which caused him to let out a deep throaty cough that was followed by blood.

　　He was dying, some sort of cancer and he turned to the dark arts for an answer, sacrificing all of those lives to preserve his.

　　"What gave you that right?" I was outraged, revealing all my vampiric features as I slowly and menacingly drew closer to him; he trembled in fear.

　　"Uh-oh," Magnus made that sound and followed it up with a whistle at the sight of my tearing the maintenance man, the would-be shaman limb from bloody limb.

　　I came out feeling slightly satisfied that the world was that little bit better than it was when that monster was still running around.

　　This building had been rid of its source of misfortune but Maximus was still out there and there were two more locations left to check out so while a few of my vampires stayed behind to clean up the mess, the rest of us headed out to continue on our hunt for Maximus the Mad.

　　The next location was a hospital that had recorded the country's all time mortality rate in the past month alone.

　　"They've lost, old people, young people, infants and their mothers, they've seen patients come in with just a headache that end up dead anyway, in the last three months only one patient has been discharged from this hospital and he was killed in a car accident on his way home that same day," Carlos briefed the team as we prepared to move in just then I noticed Magnus raise his hand as though this was a classroom and he was a student with a question.

　　"Magnus put your hand back down if this is about ghosts!" And sure enough he did just that and so we proceeded into the hospital.

　　"There's definitely ghosts here," Magnus murmured to himself as he passed through the door.

　　Once again I gave my speech and instructions riling my vampires up and preparing them for what laid ahead and once again I received a resounding;

　　"Yes Ma'am!"

　　Only this time after our investigation it turned out that all the deaths can be traced to a lack of funding and proper equipment and the patient who lost his life in a car crash must've just been unlucky.

　　Magnus found that funny for some reason and it wasn't right but as he started to laugh I unwillingly and helplessly joined in as well and so did the rest of the crew.

　　I pledged a healthy sum of money to the hospital to make it better and then we compelled everyone there to forget about our existence and just like that we were on our way to the last location.

　　"Roman Standard High School, reported an increase in lab accidents leading to the deaths of ten students and crippling injuries of twenty others, kidnapping of at least twelve young girls on or around the school premises and lastly they recently caught and imprisoned a female teacher who would lure young male students in and molest them, the problem is she had no such convictions prior to these recent incidents," Carlos once again briefed the squad.

　　"All of this happened this past week!"

　　"This past week?"

　　"Damn, this is serious,"

　　"Whoa, this has to be the place,"

　　Everyone seemed more concerned about the gravity of the situation everyone except Magnus who asked;

　　"If all of this crazy shit happened in a week, then don't you think this would have been the best place to start Carlos?" He inquired, causing a slew of whispers to start to build up in agreement, "you're supposed to be a genius man," Magnus finished once again bringing laughter to the other vampires including Carlos and completely dissolving the tension that hung heavy on all our shoulders.

　　What would I ever do without you?

　　As we entered the school I prepared myself to give my speech and instructions once again but was immediately greeted by the very familiar and unwelcome stench of the dark arts, powerful and old arts had been practiced here, it laid thick in the air we could all feel it we were all bothered by it, well almost all of us.

　　"You'd think they'd have shut this school down by now, what the fuck is wrong with humans?" Magnus quipped yet again proving that no matter what situation you're in a little light-heartedness could go a long way.

　　I gave my instructions and my vampires began tracking from classroom to classroom lab to hall.

　　We searched for a good period of time and even questioned students and staff.

　　"Have you seen anything weird?"

　　"Not anything that isn't normally weird,"

　　"Noticed any strange activities?"

　　"It's a high school there's strange activities happening everywhere,"

　　"Any weird men around?"

　　"My mom says all men are weird,"

　　"Can You show me where the bathroom is?"

　　"Magnus, that is not our objective!" I scolded.

　　"But I gotta go," he insisted.

　　Then a scream of agony came from the basement level of the school, the boiler room. That wasn't just a scream of agony, that was someone's dying shriek; one of my vampires had been killed.

　　I rushed down to the basement with Magnus close behind where we found Maximus the Mad holding the heart of one of my vampires as her body laid dead on the ground.

　　He appeared to have reverted to his age and was almost completely back to how he looked when I first met him so many centuries ago.

　　"How is this possible?" Magnus demanded in a serious tone for the first time all-day

　　"It's amazing what the agony of the innocent can do for your skin, I had hoped to complete the process and be fully rejuvenated in time for our last dance but I guess this will do nicely," he threatened menacingly as his eyes lit up a green glow.

　　"Magnus?" I called out for my most trusted and most formidable partner throughout all of history as I had done so many times before and like he had done so many times before he answered with a joke.

　　"So long as it's not a ghost, let's kick his ass!" He said with conviction in his eyes.

　　As we lunged at Maximus the Mad to do battle one last time.

　　It was a heated exchange of blows and spells. We cut him so many times but he simply healed and attacked us once more.

　　Magnus and I were in sync, like we had been on more than one occasion before fighting side by side like an elegant dance routine, a routine that we had completely mastered at this point, after fighting together for so many years.

　　We dodged spell after spell thrown at us, curses and hexes powerful, old and oh so smelly but we were just too fast for them, the other vampires could simply watch in wonder as we danced our way through Maximus' defenses getting in blow after blow after blow but it never seemed enough he had acquired too much power.

　　But just then Maximus began to slow and tire, his spells no longer carried as much weight and he began to visibly age, the injuries he sustained took longer to heal until they could no longer heal.

　　He knelt before us, aged back to his true self and smiled through bloody teeth.

　　"If only I had completed the ritual, I would've had you!" He spat at my feet as I hovered above him for a moment replaying all the things he had done, I contemplated keeping him alive to torture but after seeing the kind of power he could acquire if left alive and unchecked I decided against it.

　　I looked him in the eyes and said;

　　"You've had this coming for centuries Maximus, and I'll enjoy delivering it to you,"

　　I only plunged my thumbs into his eyes as they burst with blood flowing out of his eye sockets, his screams of agony were deafening and melodic, I'll ensure to play them in my head the next time I masturbate.

　　I applied pressure to his head squeezing until his skull cracked between my palms, I squeezed even tighter and his head popped like a pimple between my hands as his blood and brains spewed all over the floor.

　　It brought a smile to my face.

　　"You did it, Irena, you won, it's over!" Magnus remarked as he locked me in the tight embrace of his hug.

　　"It's so hard to believe, but it finally is," I replied laughing and hugging him back.

　　But he suddenly took long strides away from me, when he noticed that his shirt was stained with brain matter on my hands.

　　"Ewwwwww" he drawled, with absolute disgust on his face and I started laughing.

　　I rushed out of the room leaving cleanup duties in the capable hands of Magnus.

　　"Where are you going?!" Magnus shouted after me.

　　"There's something I have to do!" I replied already out of the door.

　　I made my way to Alexey. I had completely forgotten that I was covered in blood and brains.

　　"Alexey!" I called out to him

　　"I love you too," I announced before planting a passionate kiss on his lips it lasted for a few moment before we stopped and Alexey asked;

　　"Uhmmm, Irena, completely over the moon about the fact that you love me too and all, but why are you covered in blood?"