After taking a few days off, the vampyress was back on the grind. She had not been expecting any letters from either of her clients actually, because it was a Sunday, but there was no rest for the wicked. She woke up quite early that day, half prepared to do work, but also half lazy as a result of having been unproductive for the past few days. Of course she would feel the need to be keeping herself busy from time to time. That was a result of being something like a workaholic. She did way too much work sometimes but it was a habit now and habits were hard to change, especially for Joan. When she did something over and over, it stuck into her routine. Now taking requests was something like that. It was not necessarily a bad habit since she was not doing it for free. Not only did she earn money from taking request, but she was also able to find out what was going on with a town and all the important people from that town. The latter was something that she needed for a side mission she was on. It was all for Adelaide, even though Joan was not aware that Adelaide was not even the vampyress’ real name. The pureblood vampyress liked to use different identities for situations that involved people she was reluctant to trust – and that was most people. You could say that she had trust issues, but that wasn’t it.

The pureblood was simply looking out for herself. After a very long time living, she knew better than to trust everyone she met blindly. She learnt that trust had to be earned and especially for people like her who were involved in illegal business deals, it was important to know who should be trusted, and who not. Even with contracts and things like that, you could never trust these kinds of people. After all, working with criminals had its risks and so did working with the pureblood vampyress. If you took one wrong step in this world, no one would know if you were going to end up having your body dumped somewhere no one could discover, or even have your body in one piece after you were dealt with. It was not hard for the pureblood to understand about these things since her family was involved in shit like this and she was brought into it as she grew up. So whether she liked it or not, she really had no choice. What Joan was, was just the tip of the iceberg compared to what the pureblood was. Not to forget, Joan was brought into this world much later than the pureblood vampyress was. So it was no surprise that the younger vampyress had a lot to learn before she understood the ways. After making herself some coffee, she crawled onto the chair near her window and sat peeked through the gap between the curtains to the world outside.

It was still light outside, a lazy afternoon that was perfect for a long nap, but she had a one too many of those. It was time for a break – from naps. Joan stretched her legs, placing them on the window sill as she drank her coffee slowly. A sigh escaped her lips as she turned to check the journal she kept on the bedside table. The action triggered a series of thoughts that troubled her mind. Was it enough? No one could give her the answer to that. She had to decide on her own, whether or not it was enough. To be completely honest, she was a tad nervous about the whole thing. Everything she did seemed right until the last minute. Would Adelaide believe her? All the doubts came to her like an unexpected storm causing her head to feel extremely heavy. She chugged more coffee like that was going to help, but it did, temporarily, or at least that was what she thought. Getting up from the chair abruptly, the vampyress headed into the bathroom, leaving her coffee on the hand rest of the chair. She stripped herself naked and filled the tub with ice cold water before submerging her entire body in it. The sudden numbness seemed to take away all of it for a while. But as she broke the surface everything came rushing back and now she was sure she could do nothing to make them go away, at least not right now.

Joan sat in the tub idly as she stared at the nothingness in front of her. Sometimes her mind went blank, and sometimes that helped – like in the current situation. After a few minutes, the vampyress carried her lifeless body out of the tub and dragged herself out of the bathroom, finding a towel and wrapping herself in it before curling up on the edge of her bed, soaking the sheets and the carpet underneath while doing so. It took a while for her to collect herself and bring herself to get dry and dressed. She dried her hair with her towel and tossed it into the laundry basket before heading over to the window once again, picking up her coffee and finishing what was left of it. It was perfect timing for her to receive a letter. She did not care who it was from, but when she heard the sound of the letter being slipped under her door. Springing out of the chair with a sudden rush of enthusiasm, Joan reached for the letter and tore open the envelope, quickly unfolding the piece of paper with Adarian’s handwriting all over it. As she read the letter, she realized how urgent this request was. She hurried over to the wardrobe and picked out her clothes. Afterwards, she brushed her hair to make sure she looked presentable and not like the train wreck she was just a few minutes ago. Once she felt ready, she headed out of the inn.

Since it was still light outside, Joan figured that she would probably have to have a meeting first with Adarian and the execution part would come later when it was dark. She was stronger during the night anyway, so she had better chances of accomplishing her tasks. The meeting spot for this job was right in front of the cemetery. She had not met Adarian there for some time, so the nature of this request was definitely different from the previous ones she had been handling. From the letter, all she could really make out was the fact that Adarian was quite pissed about a mistake that either his cult or he himself had made in their zombie army creation plan. What could have gone wrong? Joan knew that she was not at fault here because if Adarian knew that Joan could not accomplish the previous tasks, he probably would not have called for her help. He was not that kind of person to have hope in her to right her wrongs or some shit like that. The vampyress shoved her hands into the pockets of her pants. She was wearing a pair of comfy pants that she would normally wear in her inn room. Since she was only meeting him to discuss the details of the request, she did not need to worry about being dressed inappropriately. She was dressed quite appropriately for a meeting with a client. That was what she thought anyway. Plus, Adarian wouldn’t even care.

As she arrived at the cemetery, she found a mad Adarian pacing in front of the gate of the cemetery with his arms folded. None of his cult friends were around, unless they were hiding. The vampyress walked faster, hastily fishing out his letter and as soon as he spotted her, she raised the letter for him to see and told him that she had received his letter. Adarian stopped pacing and his hands would fall to his sides, which showed that he was quite relieved and pleased to see that she was here. He would not even allow her to speak any more as she began to rant about his disappointments and how he was frustrated with his cult friends who did not think carefully before doing what they did. Joan knew that something was really wrong now, and she waited for him to finish his little rant because she did not want to push him. She noticed how upset he was, so she allowed him to let off some steam. Eventually he would get to the point and start talking about the mission. Joan realized that the difficulty of this request was a bit higher than the previous ones, and expected him to pay even more if she succeeded. Adarian seemed as though Joan was the best person for this job. He trusted that she would do it right, and Joan was confident in herself as well. After giving her the details of the request, he dismissed her.

The vampyress returned to her inn to prepare for what was about to happen. She could not take on some powerful dead creature if she did not have some kind of weapon. After being told that he was a sword wielder, she was sure of this. She needed to bring something with her. Even a kitchen knife would help. So she headed into the small kitchen area of her inn room and picked up a kitchen knife, gliding her hands across the smooth flat surface before testing its sharpness by sliding the tip of her index finger across the sharp end. She winced from the sting before she brought her finger to her mouth to suck the blood. It was definitely going to be useful. She was too lazy to look for a better weapon, but she also knew that it was better to have something than just her bare hands. She could not really tell just how strong her opponent was going to be, even though Adarian gave her a rough idea. What did he know? He was not there when his cult friends were killed by this monster. It turned out it was the fault of his stupid cult members who thought they could handle resurrecting someone like that. Joan was basically there to clean up their mess that would not have been made in the first place if they used their brains. After hearing Adarian’s little rant, she could not help but feel slightly pissed as well.

What if she could not take him? Even though she was confident in herself, she knew better than to underestimate her enemy, which resulted in the ‘what if’ questions floating around in her head. She was not exactly pessimistic, she was more of a realist, although she did lean towards being a pessimist sometimes. That did not happen most of the time, fortunately. She walked around her bed to the window and looked through the gap between the blinds. She would have to wait a bit for the sun to set before she started doing anything. Now she was the one pacing around her bed. A few minutes later, she took a seat at the edge of her bed and stared at a spot on her carpet. She was in this alone, and the fact that failing this mission also meant that she was dying, slightly frightened her. Taking a deep breath, she stood up and went over to the window again. The sun was slowly starting to touch the horizon. It was almost time. As she watched, the sun began to dip, and before she knew it, it had completely disappeared from the sky. She twirled the kitchen knife in her hands and gripped the hilt firmly. She pulled the curtains to close the gap before making a makeshift holder for the knife, putting it a cross body bag that she was not very fond of. She dressed appropriately for the job and then headed out of the inn.

Joan had been feeding regularly, so she did not feel the need to stop for a snack. The thought of feeding on the undead warrior crossed her mind even though she was not going to do that. It was disgusting – but it crossed her mind. She walked to the mausoleum since it was not very far and she knew the way to it. As the light faded from the sky, the town was once again shrouded in darkness. The street lamps flickered to life as she walked past several of them before crossing a road. The mausoleum came into sight and she placed a hand on her bag as if someone was going to snatch it along the way. There was no one in sight though, so she hurried towards the structure before anyone could spot her. Before entering, she took out her knife and dropped the bag as well as the makeshift holder she made and proceeded into the mausoleum. She made sure not to step on anything to make a noise and alert her enemy. It was pretty silly to go against a sword wielder with a kitchen knife, now that she thought about it, but there was no turning back now. This was the only weapon she brought, and she was going to make full use of it. Being a vampyre meant that she was naturally silent in her actions, so all she had to do was keep away from stepping on anything that would make noise.

The mausoleum was a strange structure. It descended rapidly underground and soon she found herself standing at the edge of what looked like a large circular crypt that was about ten meters in diameter. She was greeted by the sight of a large creature thing that was most likely her enemy. He was standing in the center of the crypt, surrounded by a bunch of dead bodies that Joan believed were the bodies of the cult members of Red Hades. The enemy noticed her immediately as he stood there sharpening a blade – that was probably his weapon. Once he saw her, he readied himself for battle and when Joan noticed this, she did the same. He seemed amused by her choice of weapon, but the expression on Joan’s face meant business so Savyn’s expression of amusement also lasted for mere seconds. The vampyress did not utter a word to state her business here or whatever. It was clear that her enemy already understood why she was here, so the fight began in no time. The undead warrior swung his large sword at her, but he was a bit slow, probably because of his sword – it looked pretty heavy. Joan had a feeling that she would probably have trouble swinging a heavy sword like that if she had been dead for a really long time and just got back into swinging swords after being resurrected. She dodged most of his attacks, looking for an opening. She stayed at a safe distance.

After a few more swings, she had an idea of his pattern of attacks. He definitely was not a beginner at this, but his skills were probably rusty compared to when he was alive. The vampyress had a firm grip on the hilt of her kitchen knife. It seemed as though she was dancing, to be honest, twirling and dodging his attacks following a pattern now. She kept her senses keen in case he switched it up. After a few more swings, Joan found an opening, and acted immediately. It was the point where instead of holding the sword with both hands, he moved it to his right hand. She curved away from the blade, at the same time getting closer to him and used her free hand to attempt to knock out the sword from his hand while aiming at his heart with her kitchen knife. It was hard and took a lot of courage to risk getting her head chopped off like that, but in the end it worked and that was all that mattered. The sword flew out of his hand the moment her kitchen knife was plunged into the area of her chest where his heart would be. Once the knife was connected to his chest, Joan jumped backwards to a safe distance. If this did not work, she was screwed, because she did not pick up the sword that was now closer to him than to her. She was too sure that this would work.

Luckily for the vampyress, it worked and the undead warrior laid dead on the floor of the crypt with his sword lying about a meter from him. He croaked something that was inaudible, so Joan decided it was safe to get closer to him now. She was prepared if he was trying to trick him, but it turned out he just wanted to thank her for freeing him from his dead body. Joan was unable to say anything before his body faded into the darkness. Since her job was basically done now, she exhaled deeply before leaving the mausoleum, to return to her client. When she reached the meeting point, Adarian seemed both shocked and extremely relieved. He probably could not believe that Joan was able to defeat Savyn, and this was no surprising reaction to Joan. He was pretty strong. But he was careless, and she was able to take advantage of that. Adarian expressed his thanks and praised her combat ability before giving her the reward for the job. She was pretty satisfied with the reward and as she left, she wanted to know where Adarian was headed to next and he told her he was going back to the mausoleum to resurrect more dead people for his undead army. Joan rolled her eyes as soon as he left and returned to her inn. She needed an ice bath again, so she prepared one and took some time in the tub to relax before she went to bed.