Blessed by Night

Chapter 157  Secret Facility

"You are so mean to me!"

While the pair of them were arguing, Bianca began to feel like she'd seen this woman somewhere before. Finally, she started to remember. It was much darker back then, but there was no mistaking that it was her. She almost didn't recognize her due to her different clothes, but now she was absolutely sure of it. "You're that vampire from the gate!"

"My name's Nadine, pleased to meet you, dearie."

As soon as Serana heard the word 'vampire' she quickly ran to the fridge and opened it. Rustling through it's contents, she pulled out a plastic bag containing leftover chicken wings from the night before and immediately unzipped it. "Team Jacob, bitch!!"

"What?!"

With the accuracy of an MLB level pitcher, Serana started hurling garlic parmesan wings at Nadine like she was trying to take her head off. Unfortunately for her, she vastly underestimated the speed of Nadine's reflexes, and the vampire easily plucked the morsels out of the air and looked at them curiously. "What is this?" she asked as she held it up to Malachi. Even he was a bit surprised that she was completely fine after touching these foods covered in garlic but it seemed as though his back up plan had just gone out the window. "You don't feel like you're burning or anything?"

"No, they're cold."

"No, I mean... never mind." he muttered. "Why is she here??" Anna asked pointedly. Malachi explained to the girls the story of how he and Nadine's fates became entangled and he unsurprisingly received some very poor reactions. Flames began to flicker along Bianca's forearms and Aisha reflexively pulled out one of her swords. Before any of the girls could destroy his living room in a fight they weren't going to win, Malachi held up his hand to diffuse the tension. "Don't bother. If Morgan couldn't torch her then I'm pretty sure you guys couldn't do it either. She's harmless anyways and she was actually able to give us some information about what's coming."

"I did?"

"You did."

"Oh, well then can I be rewarded then? If you give me the same treatment as what you gave that woman earlier, I could be-"

Ding dong!

Nadine had no idea just how close she came to joining her ex husband in the afterlife before she was saved by a guest at the door. A moment later, a mature woman of Korean descent and wearing a pantsuit entered into the apartment, looking around with a sense of urgency. "Mom?" Anna asked. "A-Ah, hello dear. I'm sorry for dropping by so suddenly but I had to come talk to Luna... who's the blonde in a hockey jersey?"

Malachi prepared to introduce Nadine when he finally realized she had on different clothes than when she first arrived here. Instead of her ancient purple dress that matched her eyes, she now had on a famous hockey jersey with black jean shorts and even a pair of sneakers. "Nadine... where the hell did you get those clothes?" Malachi asked, already fearing the answer. "Do you like them? Are you fucking with it?"

"The hell? Who the fuck taught you how to talk like that??"

"Ah, well when I went exploring lat night I ran into a young woman who taught me this world's dialect and she also told me that my fit was... what was the word...? 'Cheeks' as he said."

"Christ." n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"It was only after conversing with her for a tiny bit longer that I realized that she was making fun of me! So since you said I wasn't allowed to harm or compel anyone-"

"Definitely not."

"I asked her how to correct the problem with my attire instead, and she pointed me in the direction of her favorite apparel shop."

By now not only Malachi, but Sei and the rest of the girls were also confused. "Nadine... it was around midnight when we separated so everything should have been closed, how did you get inside of a store?"

"And where did you get the money from??" Luna questioned. Nadine held up her hands as if she was completely innocent. "Malachi said that I couldn't compel or hurt anyone, he never said that I couldn't steal or break into places."

The silence that settled into the room was nearly deafening. But eventually, Aubrey and Anna lost their ability to keep themselves composed and they fell over each other laughing. "What's funny?" Nadine asked. "I had to make it do what it do!"

"No!" Finally, Malachi clasped his hand over the vampire's mouth as he tried to calm his raging headache. Suddenly he felt like he understood what Aisha must have gone through when he taught her mother modern slang. While it was funny back then, he now felt like he owed his best friend an apology. "Ummm...do I even want to know what's going on?" Joanne asked. """"No.""""

She ran her hands through her hair and decided it was best to listen to them and focus on the reason she'd even come here in the first place. Walking up to Luna calmly, she let out a sigh containing all of the exhaustion her job seemed to cause her. "I heard you were having a few grievances and I've been sent to try to resolve them as amicably as possible."

"Ha! There are no grievances to resolve, Joanne. I've decided to disband my guild for my own personal reasons and none other."

""What?!"" Sei and Malachi cried in unison. Luna shrugged her shoulders at the both of them and sat down onto the couch lazily. "I was planning on telling you both but it just got away from me."

"Why so suddenly?" Mal asked. "I wanna be lazy." She lied. "Luna, please be rational about this." Joanne was on the verge of begging at this point but she was really trying not to show it. The president was so frantic when he called her on the phone that she knew he would never stop bugging her if she didn't sort this all out. The only reason why he didn't come himself was because Luna specifically told him to leave her alone. You don't exactly disobey someone who can remove your head from your body with a flick of their fingers. So that meant that he had to send someone whom she couldn't do that to in order get through to her. But judging by the way things were going now, Joanne would not fare any better than he would have. The mature beauty sighed and sat down next to Luna in the hopes of getting through to her. "I understand that it was the principal of the situation, but the government is trying to make amends here and I need to know how to repair things as quickly as possible so I can go home and day drink." "Fuck, you really are my mom..." Anna muttered. Ignoring her, Luna sat up and stared at Joanne hard before deciding to speak. "Joanne, am I speaking to the mother of someone dear to me or an agent of the United States government?"

The sudden question threw Joanne almost completely off guard and she stared at her daughter out of the corner of her eye. She had already lost so much time with her by putting her job higher on her list of priorities for ten whole years, and she wouldn't do it again. From now on, she would always be Anna's mother first and anything else second. "As the mother of someone dear to you... why do you ask?"

Luna seemed to find her answer satisfactory and she held out her hand for Malachi. "Darling, can you come here a moment?"

Slightly surprised, Malachi released Nadine and gave her a 'behave' look before sitting next to Luna. The group watched as she whispered surprising information into his ear and his brow rose in surprise. "What's out there?"

"Just take us, darling."

"Alright..."

Before anyone knew what was happening, the shadows within the room swallowed up everyone present and pulled them into the floor. -

At an undisclosed location, the group appeared on what appeared to be a large cliff overshadowed by a powerful waterfall. "This the right place?" Malachi asked. "It is indeed. Thank you, my darling."

The group watched as Luna went towards a large boulder nearby and placed her hand on the rocky surface.

ACCESS GRANTED : 001 - EMI INUI

A robotic voice rang out and a sliding door appeared from within the boulder. Luna turned back to the group of stunned companions and held out her hand like she was inviting them to enter. "Don't dawdle now, you all. I'm really proud of this place."