Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12






JEFFERSON held his finger while he curse in silence. 'Damn, it hurts.' He didn't expect the window to be filled with debris of a broken glass. It looks like someone had quite a tantrum after killing his or her victim.

Cedric scented his blood that had filled the air. His eyes narrowed into slits. He padded his way to him with a frightening expression. "You will ruin the crime scene with your excessive twitching. How about you wait outside?"

"Does my presence annoy you this much? You're depriving me of my right to finally experience witnessing a case like this." Jeffrey pressed on his wound to prevent it from bleeding more.

Cedric shuffled his feet. He went silent for a moment before scratching his brow lightly. "You can just read the reports made by your colleagues when we get back. Get out."

Jeffrey noticed the stare of his fellow officemates. He swallowed the shame and showed himself out.

Jeff tried to breathe in the cold air. It didn't calm his raging insides. His ears reddened. He couldn't believe how was it so casual for Cedric to throw him out in front of his colleagues.

It was... like he believe that Jeffrey is not capable of giving his own insight about the case.

A young woman died inside an empty apartment building in the outskirts of the city. Her case was brought to the coven because of one peculiar note in the crime scene. The smell her blood screamed 'diluted'.

When a human gets feed on for a long time by a powerful vampire, they become obsessed. Eventually, these people would end up crazy and totally incoherent.

This is an important matter because only those vampires who's like his Uncle Max can have this result of overfeeding. Someone out there was capable of doing this. Which means there's a vampire somewhere in this city that's with the same level of his Uncle Max.

If this happened only once then the matter could be easily brushed off under the mat. As long as the other side doesn't want to compete with Uncle Max, then there would be no problem with a one time incident.

The problem is, this case had reached a total of seven victims in six months.

That's why Jefferson would like to participate with this. He doesn't want the recognition and Cedric's approval of him. All he wanted was to put a stop to this monster. That vampire can be a problem to his Uncle Max in the future. He couldn't let that happen!

"Ah..." Farrah, a co-worker of his, breathed heavily to the night. "You should be grateful that you're here outside."

Jefferson put his hands in the pockets of his pants. "Why? I came here and did nothing. I'm not sure why did the boss allowed me to come if he's just going to use me as a mascot outside this building."

She coughed. "Well, the smell of that woman's corpse has gone really bad. It was only 24 hours since her death, why did she smell like she's been there for a couple of weeks already?"

Jeff's eye twinkled. "Maybe there's something inside her that made the decomposition of her body faster?"

"Bingo." Farrah smiled at him. "That vampire's saliva has eaten most of her internal organs. Like a parasite—or an acid. The worst thing is that, the smell could be toxic to the lungs."

"The culprit has planned this for a long time."

"Clearly. What does that vampire want? With this blatant disrespect to us, he or she is intentionally picking a fight."

Jeff's stomach tightened with tension.

Farrah clapped his back. "The boss is a stupid man... but seeing you here sulking, I think you're a lot— a whole lot of an idiot than him."

He frowned. "What?"

Now even Farrah is making fun of him.

"Must be nice having someone..." she murmured while moving away from Jeff.

"I can't hear you properly!"

"What are you shouting about?" Cedric's voice came from above. Jeff raised his head to look. He saw him watching over the window. "You can't stay quiet for a minute, hmn?"

"Shut up..." Jeff mumbled before asking, "How was the smell inside?"

Cedric's face dimmed. "Bad. Really bad."

Jeff found his reaction ridiculous. He laughed. "You ordered me to get out so I benefited from your snark. Think of that, boss."

Tiny drops of water made Jeff blink rapidly. Before he can understand what's happening, a shower of rain poured heavily. "Oh, shit!"

Cedric blinked. "You can have the umbrella in the car."

"You want me to get it now?"

"No." He squinted. "You'll get wet."

Jeffrey found his character very much tolerable than earlier. "Are you done there?"

"No." Cedric stared at him fiercely before he ordered, "Stay in the front door and don't get wet!"

'He's afraid of my Uncle Max.' Jeffrey pursed his lips and smiled falsely. "Yes, sir! Roger that!"

"Little shit..." He heard Cedric said before going back inside. Jeffrey rolled his eyes.

It's not a secret that he's still half a human. 'You don't want me to get sick. Uncle Max will be mad.' Jeffrey wondered, 'But he's not afraid that I will tell on uncle how he chooses to make me stand in front of the rain instead of helping inside.'

"Hey..." Jeffrey answered his phone without looking at the caller's ID. "What's up?"

"Nothing's up, stupid kid."

'Speaking of the devil!' Jeff figured that it's too late to cancel the call. He bit his lips and greeted with apprehension. "Uncle Max! My great uncle, good evening. Haha!"

"Yeah, that's one hell of a lame laugh, nephew."

Jeffrey smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry. It looks like you're not angry anymore though?"

"Not angry?" Max tsk-ed. "We'll talk about this another time."

With a relieved sigh, Jeffrey asked, "What's the matter, sir?"

"I've read the reports awhile ago. Tell Cedric that I sent him a paper. The information inside is confidential. Expect it when Yeon-hee gets back. She's with a rogue wolf named Fin Hardaway. You're tasked to go with Cedric to validate something for me."

"Why do I need to go with the boss?" Jeffrey rambled, "I-I will mess things up. You rarely ask something, and whenever you do, it meant very important. How about we send another person instead of me?"

Max went silent. After a few second, he asked Jeffrey with a menacing tone, "What are you doing inside that office? Why does it looks like you're not learning anything valuable?"

Jeffrey lowered his head. "I'm sorry. I misspoke. I said, I'm going to inform the boss right away."

"Good."

"Now that Fin is out of your hair, you should enjoy your stay, sir."

Max didn't bother to respond and quickly hang up the call. Jeffrey blink rapidly. "Ah, he's still mad at me."

'Something so important…' He shuffled his feet. 'I wonder what could it be.'