Hope you guys liked the last chapter, because here's the next one!

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While we waited for Donald and Goofy to arrive, I filled Riku in on the case so far. By the time they arrived, I had gotten him up to speed, and, given his own deductive powers, I guessed we were thinking the same thing, as to what had happened to Hayner.

"Hey, guys," I said when Donald and Goofy arrived. "Look, before we start, I wanted to apologize in earnest for what I said last night. I wasn't myself, and I don't think you're worthless. I think you've proven yourselves to be some of the best partners I could ask for."

"Aw, thanks, Sora," said Goofy. "But we knew something was up with you last night. You don't need to feel bad about it."

"And I'm sorry for drinking," said Donald. "I shouldn't have done it; I was just tired by the day's work, and thought I'd get a quick drink, since I was in a bar and all. I carried it too far, and snapped at you."

"I can't say I blame you," I said. "I did work you pretty hard yesterday, and I was a jerk last night."

"Well, like Goofy said, it wasn't you."

I grinned. "Friends?"

"Of course."

Laughing, Goofy swept the two of us into a hug, and we soon found ourselves laughing, too, glad that our feud was behind us. "So, what have you found out?" asked Goofy.

I instantly changed my demeanor to serious. "It's not too good. Turns out this is a supernatural case, after all."

Goofy nodded. "Makes sense, what with what Iris did to you last night."

Donald sniffed. "Speaking of Iris, why are you wearing cologne?"

"For the exact reason that you'd think," I said. "I made plans to meet her today, at three, in Destiny Park, just like Hayner."

"Really? Why didn't you mention that before?" asked Goofy.

"She told me not to tell anyone. Wanted to keep it a secret."

"But how was she able to do that?" asked Donald. "What was it exactly that she did to you?"

"She hypnotized me," I said. "She's a vampire."

Both Donald and Goofy started. "A vampire? You sure?" said Donald.

I nodded. "It all adds up. Her eyes were blood red, her skin was pale, and she had fangs. That's why she wore sunglasses, a scarf, and a lot of makeup. But, like I said, she hypnotized me, so I didn't notice."

Goofy nodded. "And that's probably what she did to Hayner, too." He glanced over at Riku. "Did Sora tell you everything?"

"He did," said Riku. "From what it sounds like, this is a very dangerous and cunning foe you've got here."

"What do you mean?" asked Donald.

I answered. "Before she took off her sunglasses and hypnotized me, she asked me if I had any eye troubles. I didn't think much of it, but she was trying to find out if I wore contacts."

"Ohhh," said Goofy, nodding. "Since her hypnosis wouldn't have worked without direct eye contact."

"Right," I said. "So she knows what she's doing. She's not stupid, not at all. She goes to bars and waits for likely victims, finds out if they've got contacts, then hypnotizes them and gets them to meet her the following day."

"But what does she do then?" asked Donald.

"She's a vampire, Donald. She needs blood to sustain herself."

"Oh." He made a face. "That's unpleasant."

"Says the man who enjoys reading about them. Oh, wait, I'm sorry, don't a few of them shun human blood and drink animal blood?"

"This isn't literature, Sora," he said irately. "This is real life, and real people are in danger here."

"Right. Of course. Sorry."

"Wait…" Goofy looked worried. "What about Hayner? If she's had him for this long, would he still be…" He was hesitant to say "alive."

"Let's hope so," I said. "It's possible, but not guaranteed. Vampires can drink varying amounts of blood per day, but if she's planned this much out, I don't think she'd want to empty her victims too quickly, or people might notice the string of missing people."

"They might notice them anyway," said Donald.

I sighed. "I know. I just don't like to think that Hayner might be dead."

"Neither do I," said Riku, "but it is a possibility. If he is, then the best thing that we can do is to bring this woman to justice, so that she doesn't get the chance to harm anyone else."

"Right," I said. I glanced at my clock. "Well, we've got a little over two hours before I have to go meet her. What are we gonna plan for her?"

And so, we spent the next two hours coming up with ideas for how to catch this vampire. As we needed to catch her in the act, I volunteered to go along with her, and pretend I was still hypnotized. The problem with that, though, was preventing further hypnotization. "Even if I'm on my guard, she could still get me," I said.

"What about contacts?" suggested Donald.

"I don't have any."

"Then get some."

"It's not that easy. You need—"

Riku interrupted. "Actually, it's fairly easy to get a pair of colored contacts. You could get some that match your eyes closely, and they might do the trick. Though, you'll have to refresh my memory: do vampires have particularly heightened sight?"

"Some might," I said, referring to the "Supernatural Beings of the Natural World" document that I had pulled up on my computer. "Yeah, slightly heightened senses in general. Depending on the vampire, some senses might be better than others. I'm hoping hers isn't that good, since she asked me if I had contacts in the nightclub, and didn't just look for herself."

"Hm…" said Riku. "Well, we may have to go with that."

And so, at 2:45, I paced around Destiny Park nervously, with blue contacts in my eyes. I was nervous because of our plan, but hoped that I could make it come across as nervousness about meeting "Iris" again. In order to pull this off, I would need to act like I was still hypnotized, which meant continuing a fascination with her. Given what I now knew about her, this would be difficult, but not impossible.

Also, duplicating what we did for the Clayton case, I carried my phone in my front pocket, which was in the middle of a call to Donald, transmitting everything that was going on. It also served as a tracking device, that the others could use to follow my position at all times. I had my gun strapped to my left ankle, and, in case she somehow managed to hypnotize me again, I had a piece of paper with the word "Kingdom" written on it in my pocket, so that if I put my hand in, I would feel it, take it out, and look at it. I had done everything we could think of, and I was as ready as I was going to be.

Finally, just a couple of minutes before three, I saw the familiar figure of "Iris" walking my way. Since the sun was out, she did not need her disguise—sunlight, while it did weaken vampires, also hid their vampire physical characteristics, so she would look rather normal in the sun.

As soon as I saw her, it was time to act. Right, I thought, what would hypnotized Sora do?

Putting on a face of eagerness, I ran up to her, smiling nervously. "Hey!" I said.

She smiled at me, and, even through my contacts, I felt her hypnotic powers working their charms. "Hi," she said sweetly, though now that I was not hypnotized, I could detect the fakery in her voice.

"Good to see you again."

"You, too."

Okay, so far so good; she hadn't caught on. "Ready to go on our secret adventure?" I said, hoping that would sound in character.

Apparently, it did. "I am," she said. "You didn't tell anyone, right?"

I shook my head, almost bouncing with fake anticipation. "Nope. No one."

She smiled broadly. "Good."

Good indeed, I thought. Now you think you can make me disappear, and no one will have any idea where I went.

"So, do you know where Hayner is?" I asked.

"I may have an idea," she said. "Here, let's try to recreate the scene."

"Okay. So, what happened?"

"Well, we met in the park, we chatted briefly, and I invited him back to my place."

"So, should we go to your place now, then?" I was trying to be submissive; I was supposed to go along with whatever she said.

"Sure, let's do that."

"Okay," I said readily.

She smiled at me again, sending another wave of hypnosis my way, and walked off. I followed her, knowing that Riku, Donald and Goofy would be following my position through the cell phone. We had also agreed that I would, from time to time, try to work the word "kingdom" into my speech, so they would know I wasn't hypnotized.

She led me to the street and hailed a taxi. One pulled over, and she got in, motioned for me to do the same, and gave the driver an address. I hoped the others had caught that; if that was, in fact, where she lived, then it was incredibly valuable information. They could even go there themselves, without having to track me.

I had some questions I wanted to ask her, but I kept silent, knowing that if I took too much initiative with the conversation, she might get suspicious. So I sat facing forward, but kept looking over at her, as if I still had a fascination with her.

A few minutes later, the driver dropped us off in front of an apartment building. The area looked a little more run-down than the rest of the city, and I knew from its geography that we were near an area with a lot of abandoned buildings. Perfect place for a vampire to live. We got out, and she paid the driver. "You live here?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No. I didn't want to tell the driver the exact address." She smiled. "This is our secret adventure, remember?"

"Yeah," I said eagerly, concealing my disappointment. So we didn't know where she lived, after all. Well, that was fine; we would soon enough.

She led me down an alley, right towards the area with all the abandoned buildings, prompting a slew of thoughts in my mind. Did she live here? Maybe she didn't actually live in a house or apartment, but took refuge inside one of these places. That would make sense; Lea had said there was no record of anyone with her description in the area, but if she lived in an unlisted location, there wouldn't be.

We drew near an abandoned warehouse. "This is it," said "Iris." "What do you think? It's a nice little place, isn't it?"

"It's great," I said, knowing that her hypnosis would make me see something different. "It's like I've just stepped into a royal kingdom." The comparison was shaky, but at least Riku, Donald and Goofy would know I was still myself.

"Why, thank you, Sora," said the vampire. "Come, let's go inside."

I followed her in. The place was dark, dank, and generally unpleasant—but of course, I couldn't show that I thought that. I looked around appreciatively, as if admiring the décor, all the while taking in the details. A few windows let some sunlight in, in the corners of the room. "You like it?" said "Iris."

"Yeah, of course!"

"Good. So, did you want to know where Hayner went?"

"Oh…oh yeah!" I said, as if distracted.

She smiled. "Well, I brought him here, then led him down to my basement. We had a good time down there."

"Really? What's in your basement?"

"Well, I'll show you."

We had to be getting close now. I followed her to a staircase, not obviously placed, to an underground portion of the warehouse. My heart increased its pace as we went along, and I felt myself begin to sweat. That wasn't good; it was physical evidence of my nervousness, and if the vampire got a close enough look, she might think something was up. I couldn't chalk it up to heat, since it was getting pretty chilly. The weight of my gun up against my ankle was reassuring, but I was still going into the belly of the beast.

We reached the bottom of the staircase, where a single door stood, looking quite foreboding. "Iris" opened it and went inside, and I followed. "What's down here?" I asked.

"You'll see."

Upon entering, it appeared to be an old storage room; there was a lot of open space, and some old shelves and boxes were stacked up against the right wall. And there appeared to be some at the far end of the room, too…

I stopped dead in my tracks, forgetting my act. There were what appeared to be three tall wooden boxes propped up against the far wall. But they were open, and their contents were available for anyone to see, though I would have preferred they gone unseen.

Three bodies. Three men, from what I could tell, all asleep, and all pale. I felt my face go white, as well. These must be her victims. Was Hayner one of them? Were any of them still alive?

She saw me looking at them. "Those are nothing to worry about," she said. "Look at me; they are nothing to worry about."

I blinked, and remembered that I was still supposed to be hypnotized. "Right, nothing to worry about," I repeated. I noticed that, since we were now out of the sunlight, she had reverted to her natural pale, red-eyed, fanged form.

"They're just people that I keep down here."

"Uh-huh."

"In fact…" She made her way over to one of the boxes, and I followed. "I need to get rid of one of them, and I'll need someone to take his place." She turned to me. "How would you like to?"

"S-sure."

She smiled. "Excellent," she said softly. She went to the rightmost coffin and pulled the body out. "Now," she said, turning back to me, "just get in there and go to sleep. A nice, relaxing sleep. In fact, you don't ever have to wake up."

I felt myself getting drowsy; she must really be using the full extent of her hypnotic powers. Well, then. It was time to end this before they became too much for me, and I ended up like one of the men in front of me.

As if in a trance, I moved towards the box, and right as I passed by her, I made my move. Swinging myself around, I brought my fist up to her face, where it collided satisfactorily. "Get in here, guys," I said loudly. "Time for her kingdom to fall." Dropping to my ankle, I used my left arm to raise my pant leg, and my right arm to grab the gun and point it at the vampire. "Game's up," I said.

She looked bewildered and furious at the same time. "What? How did you…"

"I have my methods," I said coolly. "And don't try anything with me. I know exactly what you are and what you are capable of. And I've dealt with your kind before." I pointed my gun at her head. "And while you can sustain injuries much better than we humans, I've discovered that blowing one's brains out works for all species. So, let's not let this get out of hand. How much—"

But she was not willing to stand by in defeat. She hissed at me, opening her mouth widely and baring her fangs. It was a little unsettling, and I flinched slightly. Seeing that my concentration had been broken, she made her move, and dashed for the open door. "Hey!" I yelled, and fired several rounds. I saw one of them hit her in the back, and she stumbled, but did not stop. Determined not to let her go, I gave chase, running through the door and up the staircase after her. I emerged just in time to see her leap through one of the windows. "Son of a bitch," I muttered; due to her supernatural resistances, she could handle that much better than I could.

"Sora!"

I turned to see Riku, Donald and Goofy running at me. "Was that her?" asked Riku.

"No, it was Mario."

"Not the time for sarcasm, Sora. She's getting away."

"Think I don't know that?" I glanced at the window and scowled. "Ah, hell. I can't let her get away." To the others, I said, "Check downstairs. She's got a few bodies down there; I don't know if any of them are still alive."

With that, I ran at the window and leapt through. I didn't have to break much glass, but still cut my shirt on a jagged shard, and landed painfully on a hard ground littered with glass bits. Getting to my feet, I looked around, and saw my quarry running into the alley we had come through. I sprinted after her, trying to get a good shot, but to no avail. She got to the end of the alley much quicker than I had, and dashed around the corner. By the time I caught up, she was nowhere to be seen. I looked around frantically, but there was any amount of directions she could have gone in, and not enough passersby to have seen her.

"Sora!" I turned to see Riku run up to me. "Where'd she go?"

My shoulders slumped. "I'm not sure."

He did a quick scan of the area, but did not see anything, either. "Damn," he said. "Now she'll be on the alert."

I scowled. "Yeah. We might not be able to catch her."

"We'll go to the police. We'll have to, anyway."

"Probably. Did you find out the status of any of her victims?"

He shook his head. "I came after you. Donald and Goofy went to check on them."

I bit my lip. "Well, let's get back and hope for the best."

We made our way back to the warehouse, and found Goofy just getting off the phone. "What's up?" I asked.

He sighed. "Well, two of them are dead; they've lost too much blood."

I had suspected as much. "What about the third?"

"He's alive, but he's lost a good deal of blood. I just called the hospital."

I breathed a sigh of relief. At least we had managed to save one person.

"Was he the person you're looking for?" asked Riku.

"I think he might be," said Goofy. "He looks like he'd be in college."

I perked up. "You mean we might have saved Hayner?"

"I hope so," said Goofy.

I got out my cell phone. "Then let's find out." I went down to the basement as I called Pence. After a couple of rings, he answered. "Hello?"

"Pence? This is Sora Parker."

"M-mister Parker! W-what is it?"

I got to the basement and went over to the three bodies. "Do you think you could give me a detailed description of what Hayner looks like?" Donald was there, and I covered the phone and asked, "Which one is still alive?"

He pointed to the leftmost body. I looked at it; the sleeping man did look rather young.

"Well," said Pence, and I returned to listening, "he has dirty blond hair that sticks up. He usually combs it back."

"Uh-huh." Well, the guy's hair looked uncombed, but, then again, he had been stuck in a box for the past several days.

"He's about five foot eight, kinda thin, but with some muscles on his arms."

I peered at the sleeping figure in front of me. He matched the description nearly perfectly. "Do you remember what he was wearing the day he disappeared?"

"Yeah. Uh, a black shirt, a green vest and camo baggy pants."

That was enough for me. "Pence, I've found him."

There was a pause. "Wh-what?"

"Your description matches a person we've discovered. I can't be absolutely certain without a positive identification, but I think it may be him."

"Y-you've found him? Is he…"

"If he is the person I think he is, he's alive. He's unconscious, though, and he's lost a good deal of blood. We've called the hospital, and they're on their way." I smiled. "He'll probably have to spend some time there, but I think he's gonna make it."

Another pause followed. Then Pence spoke again, sounding weak. "Th-thank you, Mr. Parker. I-I was afraid I wouldn't see him again."

"Well, you can stop worrying now. Do you want to come see him at the hospital?"

"S-sure."

"Great. We called Twilight Hospital; you know where that is?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. We'll see you there, then."

"Yeah. Thank you, thank you so much."

"You're welcome. I'm glad we were able to find him."

As I hung up, Riku came downstairs. "Goofy's waiting up there for them," he said. "Meanwhile, we need to get our story straight."

"You mean, what we're gonna tell everyone?"

"Precisely. We can't say that a vampire captured these three and drank their blood."

"But they've still clearly lost blood, and they have puncture wounds on their necks," said Donald. "So whatever story we come up with will have to go along with that."

"Could we just say that she was draining their blood to sell on the black market?" I suggested.

"We could," said Riku. "But what about the puncture wounds?"

"That's where she stuck the needles."

Riku frowned and stepped forward to take a closer look at the bodies. "Those wounds look a bit big for needles."

"Maybe she used something else. We'll say she took her equipment with her."

"Just like that? We have to make sure that this is a credible story."

"Yes, but we can't take too much time, either."

Eventually, we managed to decide that we had not actually laid eyes on her blood extraction tools, and that when she had fled, she had taken them with her. Where was the blood? Well, she must have sold all she had right beforehand. Before we could continue to come up with a fabricated story, however, Goofy called down, "They're here!"

"We'll have to finish this later," said Riku. "Anyways, I doubt the EMTs will interrogate us on the details."

"No, that'll be Leon's job." I mentioned the chief of police.

He nodded grimly. "Right."

A few seconds later, a pair of men, wearing black outfits, descended the stairs carrying a stretcher. "Where is he?" asked one of them, all business. I pointed, and they brought the stretcher over and lifted Hayner onto it. Just then, Hayner stirred, very slightly, and a small sound escaped from his mouth. I perked up; it seemed as though Hayner was coming out the hypnosis-induced trance. I must have weakened the vampire when I shot her and drove her away, I thought. That's why her hypnosis is wearing off.

"Jesus, what happened to him?" asked the second paramedic.

"He's lost a lot of blood," I said. "It was taken from him by what we suspect to be someone collecting and selling blood illegally."

"Christ," said the man. "Well, let's get this guy out of here."

He and his partner lifted the stretcher and, as quickly as they could, carried Hayner out and to a waiting ambulance. I went with them, while the other three agreed to meet up with us later, at the hospital. "How do you think it looks?" I asked as the ambulance raced along, siren blaring.

The second paramedic shrugged. "I've seen worse," he said. "If we get him a blood transfusion quickly enough, he'll probably pull through."

That was a relief. But we weren't quite out of the woods yet. Hayner's condition could worsen, for one. And we would have to find some way of covering up the supernatural element of the case, both for the authorities and for people like Pence and Hayner (depending on what the latter remembered).

But the thing that worried me the most was neither of those. It was that the mysterious vampire had gotten away, and that meant one of two things. One, she would move to a different area and begin luring more people to their doom. Or two, she would put those plans on hold for a little while while she undertook a different task: revenge.

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So, Sora has defeated the mysterious vampire...but I don't think that's the last we've seen of her...

How are you liking the story? Don't hesitate to tell me!