Tonight
The long silver-haired man stood in the dark, gazing down at a leather-bound book. Pale mercury lamps cast their light here and there, but the broad leaves of the plane trees lining the street swallowed it whole, and the world around him lay wrapped in quiet darkness.
The roar of an engine cut through the night.
A bike was racing toward him. He'd known the kid would come, so he hadn't bothered calling — and here he was anyway, charging in as if his life were disposable. Glad he showed, though. Once Silvester had dismissed him as a greenhorn; now the man was a damn fine hunter. And that black sword of his — Noctis D. Spatha — was a cursed blade with power enough to swallow dozens of vampires if it came to that.
Tires shrieked.
The bike skidded to a halt.
"I didn't have much time, so the traps are pretty rough. Think they'll hold?"
"…I've got a few of my own set up. It'll be fine."
The silver-haired priest, Silvester, closed the book as he spoke. The man on the bike pulled off his helmet and eyed the volume.
"Bound in leather. Human skin, by any chance?"
The priest only nodded. The young man, Han Se-gun, raised his brows with genuine interest.
"One of those magic books, then? If it's made of human skin — is it the Necronomicon?"
"As if it could be anything that valuable. This is a kingdom's secret codex, written on the skin of a heretic. Not that a royal secret text is shoddy work — but next to the Necronomicon, it's trash. The Necronomicon hasn't been found yet, after all."
Silvester said this while looking toward the darkened Arjuna. Han Se-gun followed his gaze and murmured under his breath.
"Good thing we evacuated everyone."
"I make it a policy not to look at blood I don't need to see."
It was an odd thing for a vampire hunter who lived steeped in blood to say, but Silvester set the book down all the same. Se-gun looked at him and huffed a short laugh.
"You're sure it's tonight? If it isn't, we'll have to pull the bombs we planted."
"True enough. But this is a park — it's on the police patrol route. Magical traps work better here than the explosive kind."
"…Fair point. Should I go pull them now?"
"No. We just burn through them all tonight."
Silvester muttered it under his breath.
"Tonight?"
With the Finders pulled out, intel on Korea wasn't as detailed as it used to be — but the Finders themselves hadn't vanished. The underworld information network that tracked vampire movements was still there. Whether you pieced together the Finders' reports or analyzed the vampires' patterns, their patience wasn't going to hold much longer.