Legendary Vampire in the Apocalypse

"First thing’s first," Anton said, gesturing for the group of them to move a little more away from the people who were either sleeping or watching them silently, listening, "this is Dion, who killed a gnoll for us. And Dion, this is Yara and Marcus."

They all shuffled that bit more away into a somewhat more private hallway.

"Hi," Marcus had said first as they settled, only giving a faint nod, though he had raised his brow a little towards Irvin, who looked to be in a less-than-pleasant mood.

Yara hadn’t returned the greeting immediately. She gave a heavy sigh, scratching the back of her head a little.

Then she smiled at Dion, who had chosen for the most part to remain silent. For now, he should really just let Anton handle his introduction to everyone.

He was still trying to mentally figure out how he could in the first place, begin to explain to them about the rain. And doing his best to ignore the much stronger scent on this floor.

Seriously, it was affecting him so much that even though hers smelled better, whoever this blood belonged to had a type that was damned respectable against Anastasia’s.

Then, Yara smiled at him, stretching her hand out.

"Hello, handsome. If anything, I guess it’s good enough that they brought back someone else that’s able to help out."

Dion gave her back a smile and shook her hand with the one that had been clean—he was holding the shotgun in his blood-stained hand.

"The relief is all mine. Nice to meet you all."

Yara’s smile grew a little as they released each other’s hands, and she looked over to Marcus and the others briefly.

"He’s a lot more pleasant than the rest of you are. None of the gloomy energy-draining dullness at all like you boys. You should learn a little."

"If you think my diligence is gloomy and dull, then woe is you. There isn’t a moment we can’t afford to be taking seriously when things are like this."

Yara only shrugged at that. "So how did he do it? We always needed at least two of us there to fight one of those properly. How did he do it alone?"

"A sleazy surprise attack that used me as a distraction," Irvin muttered beneath his breath as he leaned against the wall, crossing his arms.

"Oh?" Her brow raised, glancing between the two. "I noticed it before... but I smell... drama."

"There isn’t any drama going on." Anton had said.

’How is the assassin the one complaining about a surprise attack?’ Dion muttered to himself, though remaining silent.

For a few moments then, Yara’s attention bounced between Dion, Irvin, and finally landed on Basil and Madeline.

Whatever expression had been on the shy girl’s face, from what Dion could hear of her heartbeat, had been the reason Yara gave a cheeky smile, laughing to herself a little.

But she didn’t linger on the topic.

She looked back at Anton and asked:

"So what do we do? We can’t move sixty people to the mall with just the five of us covering them, not when everything out there is..." she trailed off as Anton raised a hand.

"We’re going to head out for food first, and anything else, we can work out after. Maybe even pick up anything else that can be used as a weapon along the way back."

Marcus gave a short nod at that; spending time to figure out what to do from the plan that had already fallen through rather than acting on what they already knew was on the immediate agenda to do next was what he had in mind as well.

"Alright then, Marcus and I are ready to go. Madeline is staying behind with Basil to watch over everyone like we agreed, yeah?"

Anton nodded, "There’s no change to the ones staying."

Then he looked over to Dion.

"Although, I should ask if you think you’re still in a good enough state to go back out with us? The extra hand would help."

Everyone’s attention had then fallen onto Dion.

’Well... I’ll just wing it then. There’s really no way for me to explain this easily.

"Before you plan anything else," he said, and the slightly difficult expression on his face urged their curiosity, "there’s something I need to tell all of you. Somewhere the rest of the floor won’t hear."

For a few moments, they hadn’t responded, then Anton led them down a floor to a corner office that still had its door.

Marcus pulled it shut behind them, and the sound of the floor above went muffled through the ceiling.

The office had been stripped of most of its furniture. A desk sat shoved against the far wall, and two chairs had been left at angles. Through the window behind the desk, the sky was clear, stars visible between the buildings, and the moon hung where it always did.

Dion stood near the centre of the room. The others had spread themselves around the edges, leaning against walls or standing with their arms folded, and none of them looked like they expected good news.

"It’s going to rain," Dion said. "Hard. And I think you should cancel the food run until it passes."

Anton looked at the window. The sky behind it was as clear as it had been all night. He looked back at Dion.

"Based on what?"

"I think it will be even more difficult for you to believe me if I told you how I knew."

Nobody said anything to that for a moment.

Irvin let out a breath through his nose, as if he had held back a laugh, the corners of his lips rising into an amused disbelief.

Yara glanced sideways at Anton as if checking whether he was actually entertaining this.

"You’re asking me to keep sixty people hungry on the word of someone I met less than an hour ago," Anton said. "And you won’t even tell us why you think it’s going to rain when there isn’t a cloud out there."

"I know how it sounds."

"Do you? Because from where I’m standing, it sounds like you’re either guessing or you’re hiding something, and neither of those is a good reason to let people go another night without eating."