Nick glanced at Lauren, took a breath, and told Mizuno about the incident on his side. "I wasn't able to save anyone except for their daughter."

Nick heard Mizuno mutter something to himself in what Nick guessed was j.a.panese before Mizuno asked whether he killed the charlatan or not.

"I-I...No, I didn't."

There was a pause before Mizuno continued, "There's a warehouse full of shipping crates in Seattle where I have a hideout of sorts set up; take the girl with you and meet us here."

Nick got out of his seat, found one of the complementary pads of paper and a pen the hotel left in the room and jotted down the address Mizuno rattled off to him. Nick wanted to ask how he was supposed to get there, but Mizuno hung up before he could get an answer.

Lauren watched as he sighed, put his phone away, tore out the address, and quietly asked her to get ready to leave. "I-I don't know if you want to shower or anything, but we need to leave soon."

"Where are we going?"

Nick folded the sheet of paper in half and stowed it in his right back pocket of his jeans before he said they were headed for Seattle. "Mizuno," he stopped and corrected himself, "The guy in charge wants us to meet there."

"Why?"

Nick said he wasn't sure. "Probably t-to a.s.sess the situation and talk about what to do with you."

Lauren looked away from him and asked what she could do. "The only family I have left is in Canada and I hardly know them."

"Would they take you in?"

She shrugged and said she didn't want to live with them. "What am I supposed to do?"

Nick admitted that he didn't have any ideas. "You could go back to Paris and"

"Where are you from?" Lauren stopped him. She looked him in the eye for the first time in hours and said, "Earlier, you asked me where I was from, so where are you from?"

He said he lived where they were. "My family, my mom and brother died a few months ago." Nick told her that his mother died in a car accident and that his brother was killed by the same person who killed her parents. "I've tried to find him since my brother's death, but I haven't been very successful."

"Why didn't you kill him yesterday?"

Nick flinched at the suggestion and quickly told her he wasn't a killer.

Lauren quieted herself and let the subject drop. She finally got up from the corner she slept in, (as she didn't trust Nick enough to sleep in either of the beds), and walked into the bathroom and turned the sink faucet on. She told him she'd be ready to leave in a few minutes and shut the door.

8:30 AM.

Both.e.l.l, Washington Rachel's alarm sounded and abruptly woke her. However Pyotr's presence startled her far more than the suddenness of her alarm. She would have screamed but Pyotr negated the audible cry and spared them the unnecessary step of explaining everything to her aunt.

He sat at the foot of her bed quietly and only told her to meet Vladimir and himself at Stipek Park as soon as she finished her breakfast. "Bring a coat as well," he told her briefly before a light surrounded him. "It's going to rain."

She blinked and he was gone.

Her aunt wasn't pleased that Rachel elected to skip church, but it didn't impede Rachel at all. It was always a choice that Rachel usually agreed to simply to appease her aunt. However her angelic acquaintance seemed to know what he was doing when he told her to meet him at the park.

She arrived and found it to be desolate, aside from Pyotr and Vladimir. Vladimir wore his regular attire while Pyotr sported shorts and a gray tee-shirt with a vertical red stripe that crossed over a star over his heart. Vladimir sat brooding on the bench she first met him at while Pyotr stood and greeted her.

"I take it your aunt wasn't happy that you could not make it to church with her?"

"She'll be fine." Rachel skipped the small talk and asked why he wanted to talk with them.

"I simply wanted to finish our talk from the night before."

"Why didn't you?" she asked. "If you stopped time and could take as long as you wanted to tell us everything, why didn't you?"

Pyotr looked out at the road near the park and watched a car pa.s.s by. "You may not have realized it, but talking, having a conversation when time stands still is a very bothersome thing. Sounds are emptier, emotions seem to echo, and it is physically uncomfortable."

"So you're finishing it now?"

"In a matter of speaking." Pyotr crossed his arms and paced for a moment before he admitted that he could not stay long enough to truly reveal everything they both wanted to know.

"Why not?"

"He is quite busy Rachel," Vladimir told her.

"Doing what?"

Pyotr smiled and reminded her that he was an angel. "I serve the Lord and he requires much from me that occupies the majority of my time. The fact that I even have such a moment to be here to speak with you is quite gracious."

"Alright," Rachel wasn't entirely sure what he meant but asked him to continue.

"If you remember from our conversation last night, our primary goal is to eliminate Constantine, though he has eluded us for a very long time," Pyotr started. "He continues to hide and the best way to locate him is through his allies, one of whom is named Cipriana. I've come to know that Cipriana is in Seattle"

"How?" Vladimir interrupted him. "You and I have searched for her for years and you have just now found her?"

"Yes."

"Why haven't you killed her then?"

"Because I haven't the time and I do not know where she is within the greater Seattle area. I am charging you both with the task of tracking her down and killing her."

"Who is she?"

Pyotr apologized and said that Vladimir would need to explain everything to her. Pyotr then told them he would contact them again as soon as he had another opportunity to do so. Afterwards he said his goodbyes and walked out of the park only to vanish in a ray of light upon leaving the grounds.

Rachel waited until the light faded to ask Vladimir what he did. "I mean, what does an angel do exactly?"

"What we are going to do, but to a much larger and wider extent."

"What are you talking about?"

"He is an angel of death Rachel," Vladimir flatly told her. "He ushers the dead and dying to the next world or life or whatever it is."

Rachel paled slightly and asked if he was serious.

"I am. Now"

"He's the grim reaper?"

Vladimir let out a breath and told her there was no such thing as the grim reaper. "There are only angels who traffic the dead, or as he would say it, 'servants of the Lord doing His work.'"

"Okay...so who is Cipriana?"

Vladimir told her she was an old friend, "She originally sought a means for immortality to lengthen her life enough to kill Constantine, as that was all of our intentions at the start. But she had loved him, unbeknownst to us, and her only true intent was to be with him no matter what his aspirations were. And she did find a means to immortality in eighteen-sixty-seven, through reincarnation."

"What's"

"This will be a far less irritating process if you allow me to say what I need to and then ask questions once I have finished Rachel," he stopped her. "Now, Cipriana found a ritual from the Middle East, although I am not entirely sure where it originated exactly, but the ritual allowed her to reincarnate herself as many times as she pleased. Basically she would find a woman who was with child, have her willingly or unknowingly ingest her blood, and once Cipriana's spell was cast she would kill herself with a bronze dagger and her spirit would manifest as the infant of the mother who ingested the blood previously mentioned."

"That's horrible."

Vladimir agreed. "Cipriana would retain all of her knowledge from her past life when she was reborn later. Because of this, finding her has been nearly impossible, seeing as she is no longer, to my knowledge, of her original ethnicity, which was Italian."

"What do you think she is now?"

Vladimir said he could only guess. "Before we lost complete track of her around the First World War she was German. Before that she was Spanish and Indian before that." He told her to take a seat as he was unsure how long it would take him to explain everything to her. Rachel only told him she was fine with standing and asked him to continue. "I will not hurt you, you know that, right?"

"How can I be so sure?"

"It is actually rather simple. I have no desire to harm you, as such I will not." He smirked, "It is the same with all people."

"But you're not like everyone else."

"Because I am a vampire?"

"Yes."

He chuckled quietly and told her she misunderstood the situation. "Vampirism is not a changing of species Rachel. It is nothing more than a disease that grants, or curses, one with immortality, enhanced speed, strength, vision, senses, and flight, all while cursing the bearer with an insatiable hunger for human blood, carnal pleasures, and death." Vladimir then stopped her before she could say a word and simply told her Pyotr helped him master the pain that accompanied the hunger. "Those who carry the vampiric virus can succ.u.mb to starvation if they are not adequately fed. In fact," he frowned, "I think the longest duration a vampire can last before starvation is around forty days."

"Then you have killed people before?"

Vladimir offered a reply he felt answered her curiosity, "Pyotr's angelic abilities allow me to continue to exist without the risk of starving to death. However the pangs of hunger continued to ail me for years before he taught me how to endure and manage the pain."

"How is that?"

"It is not important." He returned to the primary subject even though Rachel did not wish to leave the previous subject alone, "Cipriana met up with Constantine in nineteen-thirty-six shortly before we lost contact with her."

"Okay, then who else is on Constantine's side?"

"Over the years he has had numerous allies, but of those who were once close friends of ours were only four. They are Raphael, Cecil, Joshua, and Cipriana, though recently Pyotr and I seem to have had a spot of luck, as we finally located and killed Cecil."

Rachel took a moment to mull over what Vladimir told her. "You were friends with each of them?"

He nodded, "And we were all very close at one time."

"How many people were in your group of friends?"

"Twelve." Vladimir rubbed his forehead and continued, "I would tell you everything about every one of them, but the tale would comprise its own volume and there is no time for that now. All you need to know is that Cipriana is our target and that we are going to kill her."

"But how are we supposed to find her if neither one of us knows what she looks like?"

Vladimir told her it was irrelevant and promptly walked away from the bench and toward the exit. She ran to catch up with him and asked if he had a plan. He said he didn't but imagined something would come up. "I do not know what at this time, but if we fail to make any progress I am sure Pyotr will play his part and reveal some clue to us, should he find one before we do."

"But she'll know who you are before you know who she is, so how are you supposed to hide and find her at the same time?"

He told her he and Pyotr played that game for centuries and knew how to find seemingly invisible people. "We will find her. It is nothing more than a matter of time."

Rachel nodded and walked with him for a brief moment before she asked how old he was. Vladimir told her he didn't want to speak about his past and prompted her to hurry along.

9:35 AM.

Seattle, Washington The bus Nick and Lauren rode to Seattle hardly concealed the roar of the engine and the collective cacophony from the traffic to and from the Emerald City. Nick felt somewhat relieved at the level of noise, simply because it eliminated any possibility of a conversation with Lauren. He felt his heart shake his entire being as it slammed into his chest and he worked to stave off tears as best he could. Lauren only stared vacantly out the window and paid him no mind.

Nick thought he needed to say something to her, some sort of apology, or at the very least a reminder that he wanted to support her as best as he could, but every word clung to his throat. Lauren hadn't looked at him, said a word, looked at her cell phone, or cried since they left the apartment. She remained in a catatonic state until they arrived at their stop.

Bruce met them and after a brief greeting and introduction he walked with them the four blocks to the warehouse Mizuno told Nick to meet him at. The warehouse stored dozens of industrial shipping crates, one of which upon opening revealed a narrow staircase that led into a small safe house.

The room was only as big as the cla.s.sroom Mizuno taught in during his time moonlighting as a teacher. The ceiling only stood nine feet high and made Nick feel claustrophobic. A few ceiling lights were erected and dangled on little more than a chain and a power cord. Two tables stood at the entrance to the hideout with boxes of pa.s.sports, multiple forms of identification, credit cards of every color, cell phones, and stacks of currency from the Euro to the South African rand. And four cots stood in a row against the wall on the opposite side of the entrance.

Kyle sat at the end of one of the cots, his arm in a sling, while he tried his best to type as furiously as he could with one hand. Strom reclined in the furthest bed from Kyle but Nick couldn't tell if he was awake. The remainder of the group stood or sat waiting for Mizuno's direction. However Mizuno was not with the group.

Nick frowned and asked Bruce where Mizuno was, but before Bruce replied, Lauren recognized David and called out to him, ""David walked over to her and took her by the hand when he gave her his condolences. """"He shook his head, ""Lauren wiped a few tears from her eyes and asked why he was there. ""David scratched the back of his head and told her about the group. """"""She nodded, ""David apologized for keeping his abilities from her, ""