Fu Syndicate was not far from the Chinatown area, and was very easy to spot even at night—an advanced bio-tech company located in a fancy office building. Though it was emptied at this time, the front door automatically opened when Leona and Mercurio arrived at it, then after they entered the great hall on the ground floor, an elevator hidden in the wall came out from behind, lighted up with the sign of going down, and the voice of Doctor Lu was broadcasted out of the blue:
"Enter the elevator."
They paused and stopped, then he just repeated again: "Enter the elevator."
"You know this spells trap, right?" Carrying his machine guns, Mercurio totally felt bad about this place, "Like I'm sure it will be Tomb-Raider stuff down there waiting for us…"
So Leona Auspexed what lied beneath the building, and though because the physical obstruction of the ground depth, she couldn't sense everything in detail, but she was sure that there was only one supernatural presence down there, and it was Velvet Velour—she was paralyzed, probably with a stake to the heart.
If they were all just humans…then it shouldn't be too much trouble.
"Enter the elevator."
Doctor Lu demanded so for the third time, so they did what he wanted. The lift went down for a significantly long time, and the scariest thing in the process was that they could hear two people reporting about…various statistics of them on the radio at the same time, as if they were the mice in cage used for experiments:
"Test subject female, Chinese, appears in early twenties, true age unknown, body temperature in room temperature, no heartbeat…"
"Test subject male, Italian, appears in late twenties, true age unknown, body temperature 36.8 centigrade, heartbeat 55 bpm…"
When the elevator door opened, what they saw was a huge corridor with ceilings 5 meters high above the floor, and there were windows made of bullet-proof glass at the tops of the walls on both sides, behind which there were people in white robes dressed up like scientists, watching them from above.
And what lies before them was a series of…eerie testing devices: first it was ultraviolet light, then Christian cross, shower heads spraying holy water, garlic, symbols and runes, chanting of some Latin scripts being played, mechanically operated blades, auto-firing guns and flamethrowers…Looking at this horrifying sight, a conspicuous notion came to Leona's mind:
"They are…experimenting on Kindred?" She whispered, looking at Doctor Lu in shock, who was standing behind the last window at the end of this corridor.
"I've heard from Miss Velour that you are both very capable in your kind…though this mister here isn't your kind—the term is ghoul, I believe." Doctor Lu stated, "So I have high hopes about your performance…"
Before he could finish his sentence, Leona wielded her blood blades and smashed all the glass in an instant, let Mercurio jumped out of the corridor borrowing the strength of her waving arms first, then swept down anyone who was startled and frozen by the windows with her wing, into the traps of knives and flames they designed themselves.
When she climbed up the wall, Doctor Lu had already called his security team—a group of heavy-armed mercenaries wearing helmets, uniforms and vests, something in human ideas that could count as insurance enough against most situations of common sense.
But unfortunately, they were up against a non-human.
Leona gave Mercurio a look, beckoning him to go after Doctor Lu first and leave these big guys to her, in case Lu would take the chance to escape, and hurt Velvet or hold her hostage. She spread the blood armor on her skin—after months of practice she could finally master this skill now—and in the frightened gazes of these experienced fighters, she approached them like a blood-made, human-shape ghost, threw them back down into the corridor, too…but in the harmless area.
This difference of treatment between the security team and the researchers was…well, Leona being "judgy", to put it simple. She had to do lots of killings since she took the job, and that got to her for a period. Elder Kindred taught her several times to "balance the humanity and the beast", and if she went too careless about taking lives, the beast would take over her mind and drove her out of self-control.
But the principles and standards got too vague in practice: the zombies she bombarded were innocent humans who never wanted a part in this, many outlaws who were forced in her way didn't really have a choice but to follow orders…and though she really hated to face it, some part of she enjoyed this silent powerfulness she felt, when those researchers were burnt alive or cut into parts.
"So just be judgy then, be judgy about the people you need to get rid of, that's exactly what humans always do." That's Jack's advice, "Set up a quick standard about who should die and who shouldn't, and don't overthink it—everything is wrong when you overthink it. Just be judgy like a shallow, stupid little human, and you get to keep your humanity."
And that was exactly what Leona did. She determined that researchers hurt Velvet and had intentions, while the security team was just paid to do the job, so the formers died and the latters didn't. Most importantly, as a result, they were both now out of the way, so Leona could finish the job and followed up his partner's trail.
She walked down through the aisle, in the direction she remembered Doctor Lu and Mercurio ran away, stumbled into a half-opened door, and found a dungeon where Mercurio was trying to bend the iron bars of a cage, which was keeping Velvet Velour inside. The Toreador woman was famous for her charm and beauty, but now her face was burnt and she was missing one leg…even for a vampire, this kind of serious injury would take a week of fine nurture to recover.
"What's the matter with this Doctor?" So Leona hurried up to help Mercurio, glanced at the body of Doctor Lu and asked: Lu didn't seem to die of gunshot or melee fight, but of some kind of poison, so it was not Mercurio's doing—he never liked chemical killing.
"I caught up with him, and the guy just sort of swallowed some pills and killed himself…So no hope of getting info from him." Mercurio sighed, "But at least we saved the girl, and took down a freaky vampire laboratory."
But still, they would need the data Dr. Frankenstein had collected—to figure out who was behind them and what was their purpose, so they carried Velvet all the way out of the dungeon, searching in this basement for any room that contained massive computers, but before they could further explore the place, someone set up a fire and blocked their way.
That wasn't a normal fire though, it was…cold, azure flames with a hint of jade green in its color, and though Leona couldn't feel the heat, it was still burning down the wall like any ordinary fire, somewhat similar to the process of the Cremation.
And behind that ghostly fire, there was a strange male figure standing, watching Leona and Mercurio from a distance. It was a young Chinese man, but dressed in a really authentic swordsman robe of Tang dynasty, which was made of dark blue silk embroidered with patterns of ravens, even his long, black hair was knotted at the top of his head with a ebony hairpin just like what men did in those ancient times. He wore a black, muslin cape, with a sword wrapped tightly in cloth tied to his belt, and looked at Leona in an expression calm like a waveless lake.
The moment this mystery man showed up, Leona could sense he wasn't human…but nothing she had ever encountered before, somehow similar to Kindred yet of completely different origin.
"Tonight is not the time we fight." Noticing Leona was about to draw out the her katana, the man spoke, using a surprisingly good English, "Still…it's good to see our people survive so well, even on the other side."
Then he dissipated into a cloud of crows and feathers and disappeared into the darkness, leaving them no choice but to get out of the laboratory first—the fire was spreading fast. Since the electricity had stopped once the burning started, they had to carry Velvet all the way, climbed out of the lift tunnel, and when they got back to the ground, left the Fu Syndicate and drove Velvet back into a special Kindred clinic, it was already close to sunrise. In summer days, nights are always so…fleeting.
Leona entered the Chantry, thinking she could greet everyone in the living room and finally go back to her haven for some rest, but just when she put up her friendly, relaxed smile and approached, no one in the Chantry seemed to even notice her coming. Everyone, including Strauss, was standing in front of the huge television hanged on the wall, watching the news silently. Leona had never seen the Regent appearing so serious and alarmed.
On the TV screen, as the pictures and videos of some excavation scene of one ancient site were displayed, the reporter was saying:
"The Ankara Sarcophagus, which is considered to be one of the greatest discovery of archaeology in the 21st century, has just been rumoured to be purchased by an anonymous private buyer and transported away from the local museum, despite the researchers of the original project strongly opposed…"
Just when Leona was puzzled and about to ask what was going on, she received a phone call from Veronica, telling her to go to the LaCroix Group Tower first thing tomorrow night, and when she hanged up, Strauss was already in front of her, asking:
"Was it from the Prince?"
Leona nodded, and so Regent Strauss let out a sigh, as if something bad on his mind was coming true: "Then it must be about the sarcophagus…come, I have something important to tell you."