At exactly 4am, the front door creaked open and Ahara Amaris trudged inside the house, sleepy and tired after pulling an all-nighter hunting Rogues.
"Ugh! I'm so freakin' tired," the last word rolled off her tongue as she flopped into one of the two large couches in their living room.
The leather squeaked in protest once it collided with her outfit—a body glove made from spider silk to withstand the pressure from her movements during fights. Closing her eyes and concentrating momentarily, Ahara retracted her fangs, returning her teeth to normal before doing the same to her blood red eyes. Finally, she channeled all her Aura to the cuts on her body, and one by one, they slowly recovered until even the black marks left after healing disappeared.
'If only I could do the same with the one on my back,' Ahara thought bitterly, remembering her encounter with Damien not too long ago.
His lie detection skills were still as sharp as ever and Ahara knew she had to come up with a more believable excuse sooner or else he'd start getting suspicious about her. Then she'd have to call Dion—her Wizard friend—and make him modify Damien's memories, again.
Her being a vampire hero who does late-night hunts was something she had to keep a secret from her brother at all costs. Never mind the ministry interjecting, it was bound to make Damien ask questions—questions she wasn't ready to answer yet.
How was she supposed to tell him that his parents didn't die in a car accident but at the hands of a fearsome Rogue Lord? That they had modified his memories to allow him to have a better life in the human realm? How was she supposed to tell him that he lost his Aura and vampiric traits on the same day his parents died? And how the hell was she supposed to tell him that he was partly at fault for their death?
Drawing in deep breaths, Ahara smacked her face as if to stop her mind from drifting back into the past. Then she stood. Jumping over the couches, Ahara narrowly missed the flower vase her admirer had gifted her months ago which was placed between the couches before gracefully landing right in front of Damien's bedroom door.
She wasn't surprised to find it open. He never locked it.
"Hmmm," Damien groaned when she entered his room, hugging himself as a cold whoosh of wind blew in Ahara's face.
Her eyes instinctively turned to the window, making a cold chill spider-crawl up her back when she saw that it was half open. Fortunately, she couldn't sense any lingering Aura in the room to indicate that a Rogue had tried to attack her brother. Still, it was too dangerous for him to sleep with his window open like that.
Shaking her head and giving the boy a rebuking eye, Ahara walked around his bed, heading for the window to close it.
CRUNCH!
Something cracked below her black boots the moment she reached the window area and she flinched, stealthily moving her feet away and looking down. Her eyes widened and she bit back a hiss.
'What the! Damien you little shit, why would you leave your phone on the floor!'
Ahara's hands glitched animatedly as she picked up the minced pieces, grimacing at the sight just when Damien groaned a second time.
"You're lucky I'm sweet," Ahara mumbled after watching him for a moment, a smile forming on her lips.
Deciding to give Damien an earful later in the day, she closed the window, slowly tucked him into his duvet, and tiptoed her way out of his room. He needed all the sleep he could get before the day began. After all, today was one of those days he dreaded so much at school—the parent-teacher conference.
Ahara understood why though.
Seeing his classmates with their parents probably reminded him that he was an orphan, and if Ahara was being a little bit honest with herself, it reminded her too. The ambush that happened at the Numen's quarters eleven years ago left the two of them parentless for the Numen and his wife who died that day were none other than her uncle and aunt—Damien's parents.
Ahara could've left Damien's well being in Gibbous Ministry's hands whilst she continued with her studies at Gibforge; hunts too since she'd already acquired her hero license by then. But she couldn't bring herself to leave her last living relative in the care of strangers no matter how noble they may be. Thus, she took responsibility for him and had to commute every day to school whilst leaving Damien in the hands of their staff back home.
However, that was before they learned that the boy had lost his Aura during the ambush.
Without his Aura, he'd have died of suffocation by being exposed to other Gibbits' Aura daily. Thankfully, the ministry allowed Ahara to leave with him for the human realm. Only, she was to continue her heroic missions when assigned to them despite the dire task of raising a child.
Of course, she agreed for Damien's sake. The ministry helped her complete her studies privately until graduation. As for the siblings' expenses, the Amaris family was royalty-level rich so spending was no problem. But her withdraw limit was ten aurics. (One being equivalent to 100 U.S. dollars).
Thankfully, the Numen had managed to scathe the Rogue Lord by using the undisputedly powerful Gem of Memento Mori. That attack alone managed to bring momentary peace to Gibbous, one that has lasted an entire decade now, and still counting. The ministry of Gibbous told citizens that the Rogue Lord died, but it was known among heroes that he didn't simply because Damien, a four-year-old then, managed to survive the attack.
Some heroes still believe that's how the boy lost his Aura, but the theory is yet to be proved. Nobody except Ahara's uncle, Henry Amaris, knew how to use the Gem. Not even the strongest Gibbit alive now—Gibforge Academy's Principal.
Shockingly so, it seemed the Rogues somehow found a way to make the Gem work in their favor. News from the Councils of Gibbous four Cardinals reached hero guilds last week about the Gem being stolen from the Museum of Bracadia. Every S rank hero was immediately assigned a larger territory to oversee as they not only had to save humans from Rogue claws, but they also had to find the Gem of Memento Mori and secure it.
"Fucking idiots! At least commit one crime at a time!" Ahara cursed as she stepped into her cold-water-filled bath.
She shivered a little but gritted her teeth, soaking the rest of her sore body in the tub. Her muscles needed the cold water treatment. After all, she was bound to fight the following night too.
Every night after putting Damien to sleep, she'd go out to hunt Rogues. It didn't help that she didn't know what kind of opponent she'd be facing every new day. From vampires like herself, wizards, dragon shifters, or werewolves, the opponents changed every day—and so did their ranks.
Lucky for her she was an S rank, the third highest rank up the ladder but debatably the strongest among heroes too. Becoming an X rank was no easy feat. Only 8 Gibbits in the entire Gibbous had acquired the rank. As for the Numen position, well, Uncle Henry took it with him to the grave and Gibbous was yet to find a good match for him.
In any case, heroes hunted Rogues because they feast on humankind and absorb the Aura stored in their bodies to level up the ranks faster—much like sportsmen using drugs to increase their performance. That alone made them scary opponents. Now to imagine if they did find a way to use the Gem of Memento Mori...
Ahara shuddered at the thought.
From the Rogues she'd managed to kill so far nor the ones killed by her teammates, none of them possessed the Gem. It was safe to assume it wasn't in the area she was responsible for overseeing, but that didn't stop her from getting worried. Everything about the Gem being stolen by Rogues felt off to her, as though an ominous presence was drawing near.
If only she had Damien's sense of judgement, then maybe she'd have concluded this dilemma by now.
Scoffing at her ridiculous thought, Ahara continued stroking her braids and sighed. "I hope we're not too late."
Finally coming out of the tub, she grabbed her towel and wrapped it around her naked body, wishing she were a witch instead. That way she'd have readied herself for bed with the flick of a wand but no, she got fangs and blood magic instead.
"Tsk."
After grumpily drying herself, applying lotion, and putting on her pajamas, Ahara finally flopped onto her bed and slowly closed her eyes before drifting into one uncomfortable sleep filled with nightmares about the day she witnessed her uncle and aunt getting killed right before her eyes—the same way her parents had too when she was only five.
All at the hands of the same merciless Rogue.
Thanatos.