Chapter 2: The Blue Traveler

"HAHAHA!! Ye gimme a wee bit 'a gold and I giv 'e a bucket 'a shimmering water, she 'ays, whatta joke!"

"AHAHAHA" Raucous laughter thundered through the room.

The inn was bustling with the filthy stench of Terrans, Radu thought to himself. What a rowdy bunch. Smelly drunkards. He pulled his cloak over his hair, concealing himself from everyone present for a good evening's drink. Scowling had never felt more natural.

The Inn of the Lost Voices, he snorted to himself. "Doesn't seem like a name these filths are capable of coming up with. It doesn't even fit the inn!" He breathed out the smoke from his lungs and took a sip of the ale on his table. "Why did that fool of a Terran send me here…" Radu tightened his grip on his mug, having been thinking about all the humiliation he received from that superior of his throughout his involvement in the Orden. A mere Terran insulting a Methuselah, how… despicable! He exhaled another round of smoke as he pressed his cigarette head on the top of the table.

He was only waiting for the right time to carry out his order- to kill the Nightingale family. His disgust towards Terrans - those whose existence he deemed far inferior to his species- would never have allowed him to step into the inn if it is not compelled by the Orden. Information received during the short but excruciating briefing with Dietrich the night before stay ignited in his memory. The said family seems to be operating with this inn as a cover to hide their main functioning base. According to Dietrich's sources - God knows where that man obtains his sources - most of the important members of the family have been out of town for weeks and will only be returning tonight. He smirked as he relishes himself on the thought of giving them a warm welcome home.

"Hey, where's the chick?" His cruel thoughts on what he plans to do later this night was interrupted as he heard a drunken man enquiring loudly from the innkeeper about a woman he has been waiting to see. Radu's heightened ability of hearing made him able to eavesdrop on various conversations in the inn. Coincidentally, pieces of fragmented conversations regarding a songstress with the voice of nightingales have also made their way into his range of hearing - not once or twice – quite enough to kindle a little interest in his inquisitive mind. A Terran with a voice of nightingales… hah!

"She isn't feeling so well tonight, she hasn't been well for the past few days in fact," the innkeeper replied. He wore a smile on his face but any fool could see he has lesser amount of affection towards the drunken man. Radu helped himself to more cigarettes, lighting them with his blue flames whenever no prying eyes were on him.

"Days I've waited to see her~ and not a glimpse I caught!" The drunken man swirled his mug around the top of his head, speaking loudly to himself. "My heart is aching~ I want a song…" The rest of his words were drowned out by the steady gulping of beer.

Radu looked on with much contempt in his eyes. Only a few more minutes now… not long until they walk through that door. "My patient's wearing off…"

"HEY!! That be mine!! Ahahaha, I stolen it off one of them rich bastards, thought they could oppress us eh!? I say no!!" A loud and stout man with a beastly face appeared from the back of the inn and grabbed hold of something another equally big-sized man was trying to leave the inn with. It was a rare item of some sort, Radu observed, pleasing to the eyes.

Just then, the door to the inn opened with such a force it slammed right into the poor man who was just about to leave the inn, causing him to fall spread-eagled and unconscious on the floor. His friends stared at their fallen friend, aghast. A man, tall and lanky, dressed in a long coat with an inner white top half-opened, revealing a huge scar spanning across the top left of his chest to the bottom right, elaborately designed pants, and waistline decorated with accessories of all sorts walked in. His hair was unkempt, red and wavy. The inn fell into an awkward silence. As he stepped into the inn, the shadows made behind him before he stepped into the inn began to take forms of humans, no doubt his followers.

There they are. Radu stared at them from under his hood, expression calm and composed, narrowing his eyes as he breathes out more smoke from his lungs, feeling the smoke slipping though his teeth. Garda Nightingale, a brute of a man with a mismatched name. Radu watched the red-haired man as he walked through the inn, his five followers trailing close behind, towards the other end of the inn. The only thing odd being everyone keeping busy with their own activities, as if nothing has just happened, even though their vastly differing attires and lordly demeanor would have stood out obviously. The man known as Garda stopped in front of what could only be perceived as a door, hidden well in the shadows, fumbling for his keys. It is time.

Radu, took another sip of his ale and left his still-lit cigarette on the table. He got up and slowly walked towards the back, to where the man was trying to unlock the door, having just found his keys. Everything is easier than he expected it to be. The people should really pay attention to what is happening around them. The door must have opened as the man disappears into the shadows along with the other five, their movement swift and stealth. Before the last man's attire completely vanishes into the shadows, Radu held out his hand held out his hand in the dark to prevent the door from shutting, leaving him with an entry to the base of the Nightingales. The degree to which they overlook their entrance's security is absurd, he thought to himself as he listened intently for the man's footsteps to indicate whether he has reached the top of the floor.

After being certain the man was already on the floor above, Radu opened the door and slipped into the doorway, noticing that not one soul had their eyes on him. No one in the inn, not even the innkeeper, paid attention to the six men who disappeared into the shadows at the corner let alone a hooded unobtrusive stranger. None, except for a pair of eyes belonging to a feline which was stretching itself under a corner table.

Radu walked up the stairs, leaving no trace of sound without even making an effort to conceal. His face changed from an expression of mere irritation to a mild grin as he fixed his eyes to the square of nightlight pouring in from the window that will greet him upon his reaching of the stairs' end. He began to feel the tiny tinges of ecstasy crawling up his skin from beneath.

He could hear voices, human voices. The voices of the Terrans. His grin widened, slightly revealing his fangs.