The Chase ends

　　Irena’s POV

　　After chasing Fabian and searching for Magnus and Alexey for days, going through scores of magically enhanced gangsters, stupid puzzles, and magically induced dreams and memories, I finally had a lead that seemed solid, and knowing that the next location on Fabian’s little fun map was in LA my home turf, I felt strange confidence that I was onto something, and I was most definitely going to ensure that this next location, would be the last.

　　“No more games Fabian, I’m coming for you,” I swore.

　　“What now Irena?” Monica inquired.

　　“Now, we will take a flight home,” I responded, my eyes full of conviction.

　　“Move out people!” I ordered my vampires to scramble towards their various vehicles.

　　On the way to the airport, the roads and streets seemed more and more desolate, like there was some sort of curfew put in place.

　　But I couldn't think about that, I had to focus on the task at hand.

　　Gotta focus on catching that snake Fabian Ruiz.

　　Complications didn’t seem to seize however as the airport was as barren as the streets, and what’s worse, there were no flights permitted to go in or out of the country, but you can’t say no to a bunch of Vampires.

　　It took some doing but my vampires and I managed to use our powers of persuasion on everyone there to get permission to leave the country. We also had to procure a plane and get ourselves a pair of pilots and a few stewardesses just for our little expedition.

　　That part was admittedly fun amidst all the annoying drama.

　　On the plane I dozed off once again;

　　I found myself back in the hallway full of paintings, but most of the paintings were gone, the witch burnings, Vlad the Impaler’s cruel treatment of his enemies, Adolf Hitler’s misguided actions of righteousness, none of these paintings remained.

　　The paintings that did remain seemed more modern, and very unfamiliar to me, almost like they hadn’t happened yet.

　　I continued to make my way through the halls, past paintings that depicted humans dying in their millions as fear and paranoia swept through entire nations causing war and unrest in the hearts of men.

　　To the innocents, the blame finger is pointed while the guilty are anointed as is always the case when a crisis grips the earth.

　　‘This world that men have built, it’s so fragile, so frail, it masks its simplicity with complex machines and its foolishness with advanced tools.

　　But ultimately it is weak, simply a surface drenched in gasoline, all it needs now is a match, you will be that match’

　　These words appeared on the walls in the blood leading me deeper down the halls and I followed.

　　“The world may be fragile, but I’ve lived a long time, I’ve seen things, people that have given me hope that the world could be better someday, and I’ll be around to see it, perks of immortality, so you’re wrong bloody wall, wrong and stupid” my voice sounded distorted as the words left my mouth as though my head was underwater, the words felt heavy and seemed to linger in the halls, sort of like an echo.

　　I had made my point though, and I was sticking with it, regardless of what a bloody wall has to say about it.

　　‘Well, you’ll have to see for yourself just how that hope of yours ends up’ the letters in blood ran out as I turned into a corner wall in the hallway to find a dead end with a massive painting hanging on the wall.

　　Its contents were unsettling, to say the least.

　　A world on fire and divided in a bloody war that seemed to have been going for decades, on one side an army of men united, standing atop a hill of their fallen comrades, the bodies seemed to pile as high up as the skyline.

　　On the other side, the vampire race is fighting against extinction at the hands of the greatest extinction driving force the world has ever known, men.

　　Ashes filled the air, the ashes of dead vampires, scores of them, dead and more dying.

　　This war would have no winner, it would rage on poisoning the earth and killing everything on it until all that would be left would be the stench of death.

　　This is our future?

　　This is our destiny?

　　This is the end.

　　My breath elevated and grew shorter, I couldn’t breathe, I could barely see, and it seemed like the world around me was cracking open, it shook and jerked as I tried to grasp at the air to brace myself.

　　I woke up to the sounds of panic and discomfort.

　　“What the fuck is going on?” I questioned yelling through the noise to be heard.

　　“The United States Air Force threatened us, and then shot us down after we ignored their warnings, the plane is crashing!” Monica explained in a frantic tone as the plane had seemingly burst into a panic.

　　One of our engines had caught fire and we were going down quickly, there was nothing we could do.

　　Carlos had headed up to the front of the plane to see what solutions he could conjure up, but it was fruitless.

　　This was a bad situation, some of us would die for sure.

　　There was no way around it.

　　“Listen here, you lot are the best people I’ve ever worked with, loyal, brave, and strong, I know there aren’t any bitches on this falling hunk of fire and metal,” I started to address them as I grabbed a drink “Some of us might not survive, but that’s fine, we’ve lived, we’ve loved, you are the best, look at the vampires next to you, if you die today, you die shoulder to shoulder with the best, know that,” I addressed them, the speech was so rousing that some of them were even moved to tears, “Here’s to you lot, and this piece of junk plummeting to the earth, I always knew, men weren’t meant to fly, otherwise they’d have been born with wings,” I toasted as I gulped down my entire drink in one go, very Magnus-like of me.

　　The panic and unrest in the crashing plane seized and suddenly vampires were drinking, laughing, jesting, and even fucking just before the plane finally hit the floor with a bang and burst into flames and a heaping mess of shrapnel and wreckage.

　　I opened my eyes slowly, regaining my sight as my eyes and all other parts of my body healed. I was glad to find that so many of my vampires survived the crash, including both Carlos and Monica.

　　“I’ve never been in a plane crash before,” Carlos quipped as his hand regenerated the last bit of tissue on his fingertips.

　　“Yeah, it was fun, we should do it again,” Monica jested, causing the entire field of regenerating vampires to burst into laughter.

　　My band of naked vampires and I made our way out of the plane wreckage and into the town we crashed near.

　　We grabbed clothes from lines, procured vehicles, and went on our way, completely ignoring the humans that peered at us with fear in their eyes from their windows.

　　“I’ve been able to pinpoint the location where this video was shot,” Carlos said as he fidgeted with the camcorder that was used to record the video of Magnus and Alexey.

　　“What do you mean?” I questioned eagerly as I peered towards the screen, nearly crashing the car.

　　“Well, I had been breaking down firewalls and trying to access the net database of the tape to find its origin, and I finally cracked it. I’m now looking at coordinates that, if I’m correct, should lead us straight to our targets,” he explained, further complicating the issue.

　　“That’s very fascinating Carlos, now say it in English, you know, the kind that doesn’t need an instruction manual,” I responded. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I understood enough that when I spoke there was hope in my tone.

　　“Right, sorry, I think I know where Magnus and Alexey are being held,” he stated plainly.

　　“You think, or you know?” I questioned, we had been on this mad chase crusade for almost a week without rest, we had visited so many locations and I can’t just pack up and go off chasing another one based on a hunch.

　　“I know!” He affirmed confidently.

　　“I trust you. Where are they?” I asked, Carlos was always a smart and useful young vampire and so was his sister Monica, not as smart but way tougher, I trusted them both fully.

　　“The coordinates are telling me that they’re over at the warehouse district of LA,” he said, timidly due to the implications of what that meant.

　　“They’ve been in LA this whole time?” I yelled in anger.

　　“Fabian had us flying all the way to South America, we had our plane shot down, we fought so many annoying super goons, I cracked a fucking fingernail, and throughout that entire ordeal he had them here in LA?” I was livid as I expressed my frustration, it was a good thing that there were no other cars on the roads apart from ours otherwise I’d have probably crashed into one, it is weird that there are no cars on these major roads.

　　“Right, well, you and your sister, take the rest of the vampires and go rescue Alexey and Magnus, I’ll go find Fabian Ruiz at the next location and give him a piece of my mind for every piece of his body I rip off!” I said full of rage as I parked the car to let them out, so they could join the others and go get Magnus and Alexey.

　　“Carlos, Monica, save them and then all four of you return to me in one piece,” I requested letting my emotions show just a little bit before zooming off in the car and turning my scowl back on in preparation for when I get my hands on Fabian Ruiz.

　　After so many days chasing shadows, I found myself at what seemed to be the last location.

　　A big creepy-looking house that stood on its own at the center of a large property.

　　“Yup, this seems like the spot for a final boss fight, if the final boss was a greasy-haired serpentine puppet of some bigger, uglier, skie slimy, big bad boy,” I muttered to myself as I approached the building and the doors seemed to open on their own.

　　“Wow, creepy doors opening on their own, very original, Fabian,” I yelled in a sarcastic tone as I proceeded into the building.

　　I made my way deeper into the building and found what I thought at first were red markings on the walls but as I drew closer it turned out that it was blood that lettered the walls saying ‘this way,’ the blood on the wall lettered out directions just like in my dream.

　　I followed as the instructions on the walls changed telling me I was getting closer or I was almost there.

　　I finally got to a door and the bloodletters formed the words ‘Welcome to hell, you won’t be leaving,’ before liquifying and flowing down to the floor.

　　I opened the doors to find Fabian Ruiz seated in some sort of throne, he was whispering gibberish to himself.

　　He seemed different though, his skin was pale white and his fingers were black, sorta like he had been exposed to frostbite.

　　He sat atop his throne and the floors around him were surrounded by dead bodies of humans, some ripped to shreds and all drained completely of every last drop of blood.

　　This wasn’t what I was expecting.

　　Someone did this to Fabian.

　　Gave him some sort of variant of vampirism.

　　I could tell just by looking at him that he would be tougher than anything I had ever fought before.

　　This strange-looking creature, with such mad and impulsive mannerisms, seemed to twitch at every slight sound.

　　I tried to read his thoughts but all I heard were screams that seemed distant, as though they were coming from the depths of his mind, it was quite obvious, the man Fabian Ruiz was gone, through some form of black arts, scraped out of his own body completely, whatever this thing was that sat in front of me now, it was a mindless monster in the husk that was once Fabian’s body.

　　It oozed sinister intent, craved death, desired blood, it drooled as it caught my scent and looked up snarled at me.

　　The creature was hungry.

　　Then suddenly in the blink of an eye, it lunged at me and before I could react, the creature had me in its clutches, it grabbed my arm with its pitch-black fingers and my skin burnt at the impact of its touch.

　　It was obvious what this was, a mystically enhanced vampiric creature designed for one purpose, to kill and set in my parts with the hope that it would do away with me.

　　Well, I say bring it on.

　　I head budded the creature sending it staggering backward with its hand on its nose.

　　It took off its hand to find and revealed its crooked nose, broken from the damage of my hit.

　　And then immediately healed, seemingly feeling no pain at all.

　　It fixed its eyes on me once again taking a stance like an animal about to attack its prey and let out piercing shrieks that nearly made my ears growl.

　　But I was undeterred, someone had to feel the wrath of my pent-up frustration, or in this case something.

　　So I readied myself for the creature’s next attack and quipped at it saying;

　　“Wanna dance or you wanna keep posing there like a supervillain trying to look cool?”