O'Donnell was lead to his former office, where Cooley offered him a cup of coffee and a pastry. He hadn't had much of these recently, but he couldn't say he really missed them. He sat on his old chair, sipping the (outstanding) coffee and eating the pastry, while he looked out the blast-resistant window. The city lights were on, and he could take on the beautiful scenery while he waited. He had just finished his snack when he perceived someone entering the office. He swiveled on the chair and faced the newcomer, whom he recognized to be Wesley Summers. He was wearing a two-piece suit with a sky-blue shirt and stripped tie, along with a preoccupied expression on his face. He should damn well be preoccupied.

"O'Donnell! Thank god you're here!"

"Yeah, so I've heard. Care to explain me why the company I left to your care is now in shambles?" O'Donnell tried really had not to snap at him. Summers could be just another victim in this senseless plot, but it seemed very unlikely to him. Still, he was going to give the man the benefit of doubt.

"I… I really have nothing to say in my defense. I did my best since day one, but some creepy guys in suit began bringing some weird paperwork some months ago. The papers said that if you weren't running the show yourself then they were in their right to call the shots themselves. They decided to rename the company, sell stock… well, you know the rest"

"So what, I have to come back? No way, not happening…"

"Listen, I know you left for a reason, but if you don't help me sort this out the company will fall, and as far as I can tell, that would be bad news for you. You risked too much building this, will you let some freaks in suits destroy it? Then with all due respect, you are not the man that hired me to run this show"

O'Donnell arched one of his eyebrows and glared at Summers. The manager was testing the boundaries of insubordination, but O'Donnell knew he was right. He just couldn't go and hope for the best. It was his company, and as such, it was his responsibility to set things right again.

"Fine. I'll stay for as long as it takes to sort things out. I don't know how much that will take, but by the looks of its gonna take a while. When am I meeting the freaks in suits? "

"Tonight. In ten minutes, in fact. Let's go to the meeting room to prepare the battleground"

"Yes, sergeant, sir!"

A lonely bat flew in the slightly-chilly night-wind, gazing down at the city below her. The blue eyes scanned the area, looking for a certain small building. She tried really hard to remember the address she had searched on the 'Internet' thing her husband was always talking about. At the same time, she did her best to remain inconspicuous. Her husband was a very perceptive person, more so with his… super-human abilities. She finally found her destination and stealthily perched herself on a building straight across the street. The small bat was enveloped by purple smoke and then turned into Mavis Dracula, who discreetly sat near the edge and watched the activity in the building. She focused her hearing, trying to find her husband, but she was being very optimistic. Sharper hearing didn't exactly mean she could find somebody if she wanted to, and there was a lot of junk noise to boot, so she gave up very soon and settled for watching as best as she could. While her husband had somewhat dismissed her worries, she couldn't shake the feeling that something would be happening that night, and thus decided that it would be better for her to do something about it, no matter how minor it seemed to be.

Now she just had to wait and see.

The meeting room was spot-less clean, probably just for the occasion. O'Donnell gazed out the window, trying to calm down. He had a funny feeling he was being watched, and he immediately looked for the source. He didn't have to look too much. Right across the building, on the rooftop of a small building, he could see an all-too-familiar shape trying to hide in the shadows. He strained his sight slightly and was able to see her clearly. She realized he had seen her and didn't know what to do, so she instead just stood there wide-eyed. O'Donnell just smiled and shook his head sideways. Mavy, Mavy, Mavy.

He kept his smile, until he felt someone behind him move quickly. The reflection on the window sent him into fighting mode…

Mavis watched her husband as he discovered her not-so-sneaky hiding place. How did he know?

She had learned not to be impressed by his seemingly-magic abilities, but sometimes she couldn't avoid it. She wanted to hide, not really willing to see if he was mad at her for following or trying to spy on him, but there was no point on it. She could clearly see him smile and shake his head, as if to acknowledge her worry and tell her that it was Ok. Mavis couldn't avoid smiling back, but her relief was short-lived when she saw a stranger trying to sneak up on her husband. All of the sudden, her nightmare played out, right in front of her eyes.

Padraigh reacted quickly, trusting in both his minimal training and extensive life experience. The knife screamed for his blood, and he wasn't about to give any to it. The curved blade was everything he needed to know about his attacker: Karambit knife, lethal in very close-quarters combat and designed to stab rather than slice. Nasty and effective. He needed some distance from the attacker.

"I knew you weren't to trust, bloody bastard"

Summers had changed. In less than half-a-minute the appointed manager of Flintridge Logistics had aged at least twenty years.

"Don't take it personal, boy. This has nothing to do with you, but with that freak you are married with."

O'Donnell's blood boiled in his veins, and he had a sudden anger outburst, blocking one of Summers' stabs with his arm and delivering quick, vicious blows to his opponent's stomach. His enemy reacted as soon as he could, head-butting him swiftly and then pushing him away. His enemy was now outside the effective reach of his blade, giving him room to wield his own one. With no respite, he shortened the distance between him and his target, now in full combat mode.

Mavis watched in horror as the man attacked her husband, noticing the glint of something that couldn't be described as anything but a knife. Her hands went to her face, and she immediately transformed back into her bat form.

Please, Paddy, get out of there!

O'Donnell was at advantage, his blade was longer, but he was rusty, while his opponent was strangely fit for a man of his age. Summers, or whatever his name was, lunged at him, an obvious attempt at deception, since his bade wasn't double edged. O'Donnell called the bluff, and by dumb luck struck the blade on the dull side and breaking the attack rhythm. He followed with a swift open-handed strike to the opponent's nose, which barely connected and only stunned the target for fractions of seconds. Summers retaliated, attempting to stab him with a punching strike, barely missing and instead slashing the stark-white shirt and dark vest and producing a small gash on the coat. O'Donnell was able to lock the attacking arm out of sheer, dumb luck, spun around his heel and struck the attacker with his free elbow twice. There was a metallic clatter, and then he realized the Karambit was no longer a threat. But Summers was.

Mavis' heart was beating fast, faster than ever in her life. She was seeing everything from outside, but she couldn't do much other than just watch as the battle unfolded. She tried breaking the window to get in. Maybe she could help him, at the very least get him out of there. But the glass was incredibly strong, and she realized it was also very thick, thicker than any other glass she had seen. She bumped time and time again, not knowing she was drawing attention to herself.

Just break, dammit!

Padraigh could hear a thumping sound, but he wanted to believe it was his increased heart-rate. Please, Mavy, don't let it be you. Get away! His heart fell on his chest when he saw a small, blue-eyed bat trying to break the glass. He mule-kicked the stunned enemy and ran for the glass, waving Mavis away.

"Go away! Mavy, go!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

Mavis heard him through the glass, thanks to her hearing, and was about to fly away when she saw it.

O'Donnell only had time to process what had happened. A sharp pain assaulted him, a familiar one, a hot pain that was accompanied by the feeling of broken skin and tissue. An unholy scream escaped from his mouth as the blade was driven deeper into his lower torso.

Mavis screamed, frozen in midair as she watched O'Donnell get wounded. The man, the evil man, was now talking, but it was obvious he wasn't talking to the man he was trying to kill.

"…his was unnecessary, darling. He didn't have to die or get hurt at all. But you had to trick him, make him think you loved him. Poor kid, really, his only crime was to believe the deception of a demon like you, an offense to the Lord, daughter of evil. You monsters surely go to great lengths to try and remain hidden, but we will always find you, wherever you hide."

The words were meaningless to her, but clearly showed that, whoever this person was, he was out of his mind, and worse still, a fanatical psychopath.

A red haze was overcoming him, but O'Donnell refused to give up without a fight. With the strength he had left on his wounded body he trusted his head up, catching Summers off-guard and sending him flying backwards. He complimented the attack with a sucker punch to the face, buying enough time to get out of the room. Every step he took seemed eternal, a struggle to maintain his balance and consciousness. He barreled into an office and jammed the door closed. It would not stop anyone for long, but if this was it, five minutes was all he needed. He managed to open the window before collapsing in a heap bellow it.

Mavis saw the open window and dashed inside. If it was a trap or not she didn't cared. She wanted to save him, she wanted to hold her husband and be sure he was Ok. What she found instead was something she had tried to avoid at all costs.

"Oh my ghoul. Paddy!" the man was slumped by the window's foot, a dark shade of red coming out of his wounded torso. Mavis was no doctor, but even someone as oblivious to injury as her could tell that his chances of surviving were practically none. She was mad, at him, at herself, at the murderous psychopath who had done this to him, but it made no difference now.

"I'm sorry, Mavy… I…"

"It's Ok, Paddy, it's Ok, you'll be alright!"

"You… are a bad liar!" he muttered under his breath, a hoarse laugh following it, but the pain did not allowed him to pretend much longer. He yelled in pain as she wrapped her arms around him, sinking her head in his shoulder. Her eyes were welled with tears, tears of impotence and anger. She had refused to turn him right after the wedding, she had insisted they come to this trip together, and she hadn't stopped him from coming to this meeting. Was this her fault? Did I Killed you, Paddy? That very prospect caused her to cry harder.

"I'm sorry… Ma-vy…. Tell little Nate…. That I'll keep an eye on him… Tell him daddy loves him…"

"Don't! Don't talk like that! Please! You won't die!"

"You… know that's… not true. Mavy… go… he's here for y-ou. Don't let him win. Protect… little Nate."

"No, no! I can't leave you here! And why are you giving up?! Aren't you angry? I did this! I killed you!"

O'Donnell's pulse was very low, he had trouble breathing, and he could feel the pooled blood where he was laying. And still, he wasn't afraid. He wasn't afraid of dying, he wasn't afraid of the man that had killed him, and he wasn't afraid of the intense pain he was feeling. He had nothing to regret, despite having lived a life of dubious moral quality.

"I am angry… b-ut- I don't… want hate and a-anger to be the…last things I fe-el…"

Mavis felt his lips pressing against hers. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing time to stop, and just let her live in this moment forever. But reality sank in as their last kiss was broken and she felt him die in her arms.

"I…l-love… y-ou… bab-e…"

He went limp, his eyes closed, and the thin, subtle hint of a smile was the only emotion in his face. The newly-made widow was beyond shock, her face dug in his corpse's shoulder. She didn't want to let go. It was unfair, that he had died because of her, because of a crazy person that thought of her as a freak just because she wasn't born a human. But she had no time for grieving as the door swung open.

Johnathan moved along the hallway, his newly-acquired Five-seveN at the high-ready. The building had gone into lockdown for some reason, and they had heard a distress call broadcasted on the security comms. Soon, every security guard was armed, Johnathan included, and streaming towards the source of the call. He scanned forward, taking in on the abnormal silence.

"What do you see?" a rookie guard insisted, while getting a grip on a situation he never even expected to live through. Johnathan signaled a terse reply: "Can it!"

The rustling of clothing against the floor was now audible, and the four-man group moved forward slowly, Johnathan leading the inexperienced group. The door to the meeting room was wide open, and Johnathan didn't wait for his tail to be ready. He busted into the room, his training coming back to him. A slumped of a heavily-beaten man was on the floor, still alive and conscious.

"Mr. Summers! Are you alright, can you hear me?"

"I'm fine! That… crazy woman! She took O'Donnell!"

"What crazy woman?" Johnathan asked, pumped full of adrenaline.

"I don't know! But she's crazy! You have to find them both"

"I hear voices on the next office!" a guard whispered, in a fit of common sense.

Johnathan ordered them to stand down and give him room, stacking up by the door. He tried the doorknob, to find the door locked. A swift mule kick broke the lock and flung the door opened, while he repeated the breaching process he had gone through many times before. He froze mid-way through it, recognizing the figure kneeling by the window.

You?

Time stopped, and for the first time she wasn't completely afraid. It was just like when she was one hundred and eighteen years old, when an unruly and adventurous kid had stumbled upon one of monster-world's best kept secrets. But not anymore. That kid was a grown man now, and that girl a mother of one child; and married, just five seconds ago.

He couldn't pull the trigger, much less move at all. She didn't move either, her tears frozen in place for a moment. But there was no time to remain there, taking in on each other, as the room flooded with armed men intent on finishing what Summers had started. She was surrounded, and knew that they would kill her… had she been a human. The last thing every men in that room saw was a purple mist leaving through the open window. And they didn't know what to do, beyond just standing there and mourn the death of a man they knew, whether personally or just by reputation. But Johnathan's thought had slipped away from the room the same way the love of his life had just done.

"Johnathan, what the hell just happened?" the redhead had somehow arrived back to the lobby, were his brother had been waiting, escorted by two of the company's guards.

"O'Donnell… he's dead"

The mood on the lobby died away instantly, and the arrival of a stretcher through an elevator didn't do any favors. The senior staff had actually shed some tears, a silent testament to the integrity of their former employer, while the newer breed just kept their mouths shut out of respect. The paramedics rolled the body away, not even pretending to try and do something to save the already dead man. The elevator's doors opened again, and this time Summers was the one going through. Hasty bandaged were rigged to his frame were needed, and the man was covered in some blood, but he was otherwise Ok. The man was quick to call attention to himself, and Johnathan knew what was coming.

"Attention, please. Employees of Flintridge Logistics. It is with a heavy heart that I, Wesley Summers, confirm he rumor you've just heard. Padraigh O'Donnell, founder and first president of this company, has been murdered on our premises. Police has been notified and is now on its way to begin investigation. That will, sadly, not return a great man to us. In honor of O'Donnell's memory, I will task the legal department of the company to do everything in our power to return this company to its original name and glory. Padraigh O'Donnell might have been clutched away from us tonight, but his memory will live on for as long as we allow it"

A silent applause accompanied the speech, but Johnathan wasn't having any of it. That Summers guy had something that made Johnathan's intuition tick, and he had displayed EVERY single one of the clues of a chronic liar. He instantly disliked the guy, and Daniel could tell.

"Johnny, let's get out of here. This is not looking good"

Johnathan remained silent until dinner again.

Sean was ready to call it a night. The waitresses had already left, and the restaurant was ready to be tucked in. That is, until a heavy knock came on the door.

"Who the hell wants dinner at this hour? Me, of course…"

He expected a late-night drink partner, or one of his few acquaintances. What he found instead nearly broke his heart.

"Mavis!?"

The vampiress was bloody, eye-swollen and in a state of complete shock. She sobbed softly every now and then, and the tears welled in her eyes threatened to flow freely at any moment.

"What happened to you?!" Sean asked, getting her inside and sat up in a chair. The girl was now choking up with every sob, her gaze fixed on the floor. Sean had never seen someone in such a bad state.

"Mavis…"

"It's Paddy… he's dead, Sean…"

Hope it was worth the wait, guys. It's getting kindda late, and I have to be up early for airsofting, so...

Please, leave your input in the reviews section, I always appreciate hearing your opinion on my job. Besides, its rude to enjoy others work without stopping by to even say hi! Nah, I'm joking.

Two quick announcements; I decided to go ahead with the Martin Mystery fic (even though no one told me if they wanted to read it, so I'll just pretend you did), and next week I'll be publishing a new Hotel Transylvania fic. It will not affect the update rate of this fic, so do not worry about it. See ya later.