Silence

I let out a gush of air and looked at the police car. Reese nodded to the officer at the car, gave final instructions, and then turned to me.

When he looked at me with that slightly disgruntled expression on his lips, I couldn't help but smile. I had known him for more than three years now and he hadn't changed a bit during that time. Sometimes I believed that he was the only hold that still ensured that I didn't just collapse today.

The past was over, but it continued to accompany the present like a shadow.

Reese came to a stop right in front of me and looked at me as if trying to figure out what my smile meant since I was actually still mad at him.

"Do you actually know that I love you?" I asked him quietly.

He raised an eyebrow a little. "You just wanted to strangle me, or did I misunderstand something?"

"One doesn't exclude the other." I wrapped my arms around him and leaned my head against his chest. Even through the coat I could hear his heart beating.

Reese wrapped his arms around me too and laid his chin on my head.

Yes, this is where I belong. As it was, it was spot on.

"Didn't we actually have an urgent appointment?"

"Just a moment longer." I closed my eyes and just enjoyed the warmth that emanated from him, while the emergency services on the street took care of the rear-end collision and kept the Candir's corpse in their eyes as if they feared he might simply to rise again from the dead and pounce on them any moment. But unfortunately my cell phone started to ring again and made it clear to me that my break was over here and now.

Sighing, I let go of him and pulled out my cell phone one more time. My display announced that my best friend Evangeline was demanding my attention. "Eve," I said briefly and held the cell phone to my ear. "Hey Eve."

"Oh god, oh god Grace, you won't believe it! I can't believe it myself, but it's really true! ”She screamed in my ear.

I motioned for Reese to make our way to our car and stepped across the street onto the sidewalk on the other side. "Yes," I said. "That sounds really implausible."

"Is not it?! But he really did it and I ... ahhh! "

When she screamed into the cell phone with joy, I held it away from my ear as a precaution. Because I liked my eardrums.

Reese gave me a questioning look. Even he heard it.

I just shrugged my shoulders. "If you screech in my ear again, I'll just hang up."

“Yes, but what should I do? I'm so happy. I mean, I didn't think he'd do that, but he did and ... "

"Eve, take a breath."

Through the phone I heard her take a deep breath.

"So. And since I would like to understand what it's about, what did he do? And above all, who is he? "

"Well Mace!" She squealed happily into the receiver. "He proposed to me and I said yes!"

That made me stop there. "What?"

"Yes! We chased an arbor and it hit him. It bit its cheek. I pulled the cattle off of him and hit his head against the tree until it stopped moving and then ... I don't know either. I looked at Mace's face and then he kissed me and asked if I wanted to be his wife! "

"This is fantastic."

Evangeline didn't hear the hesitant tone in my voice. She just kept squeaking in my ear and enjoying her life.

I slowly started moving again. It wasn't that I didn't give her that happiness, but it had taken Mace and Evangeline almost two years to get together at all. That was about a year ago. That wasn't a long time for a relationship. But the really questionable thing was the two themselves. It was like a mountain and valley ride. Either they made idolatry or they fought to the death.

Eve had already appeared on my doorstep weeping in the middle of the night more than once to complain about her misery, only to be back on cloud nine with Mace the next day.

That proposal ... I just thought it was a bit rash.

“Now there is so much to plan and ... and ... you have to be my bridesmaid. We have to choose a dress and… ”She fell silent when a voice rang out in the background. Eve answered something. The line crackled. "Grace, watch out, I just got an order and have to go."

"OK."

"But I'll get back to you. You have to help me plan, yes? "

"I do what I can."

"Okay, see you then. Bye. ”As a farewell she squeaked joyfully in my ear again.

"Bye." I took the phone down and stared at the display for the second time in the last twenty minutes before hiding it inside my jacket. "Eve and Mace want to get married."

Reese raised an eyebrow but abstained from comment. On the other hand ... actually his silence was comment enough.

 ......

Via the entrance to the underground car park, Reese and I entered the guild building. The old low-rise building in the rather quiet part of town had become the focus of my life in recent years - well, if you disregard Reese. The wood paneling on the walls had become just as familiar to me as the worn parquet floor.

The babble of voices and the ringing of telephones could be heard even here in the narrow corridor. The smell of stale coffee added its own twist to this busy atmosphere.

Aziz, a Turkish hunter with a dragon tattoo on his right upper arm and Seth, the blonde asshole from duty, laughed and met us and disappeared down the stairs to the training rooms.

There was only one door to the right from the corridor. It led into the guild's open plan office, which was separated from the visitor area by a long, scratched counter.

There were half a dozen doors on the left. Conference rooms, small offices and Suzanne's realm. Suzanne was the heart of our guild, the woman who patched us all back up when we came back from a hunt and always gave us a lollipop as a reward. Well what should I say, she thought we were all her children. And if we didn't hear, we got an injection. It was a real shame that she was about to take her well-deserved retirement. I would definitely miss her.

But our destination was the office at the end of the corridor. A sign by the door said: Jilin Halco, Master Venator.

As always, our boss sat behind her desk and bent over some papers. Yes, the hunt for proles could be paperwork.

I knocked on the door frame to draw attention to us.

She only looked up briefly and did not even remove her pen from the paper. "Come in. And close the door. "

Should we close the door? I looked at Reese in amazement, but he just frowned. Jilin's office door was always open - always. In the whole time that I already knew her I hadn't seen this door in any other corner than the present one. Not even the day I was suspended on suspicion of involvement and participation in illegal proles struggles.

Somehow I didn't like it.

"Do you need an extra invitation?" She asked.

No, I didn't like that at all. Still, I stepped into the office behind Reese and shot the door with a quiet click. Then I stood in front of the desk and crossed my arms over my chest because otherwise I didn't really know what to do with it.

Jilin didn't let that push her. She wrote the whole line in full before putting the pen to one side and leaning back in her executive chair.

Our boss was a woman in her late thirties. A few strands of silver had crept into her black hair and gave her something dignified. Her eyes spoke of Asian descent, but the color of her skin was somewhere between a latte macchiato and a black coffee. And even though she had been tied to this desk for years after her leg was torn off by a spuma on an operation, she still had the sharp eyes of a huntress.

“Get chairs and sit down. It makes me nervous when you stand there. ”She began to rummage through her pile of files while Reese got two chairs from the wall and put them in front of the desk. "And take your hand out of your jacket if you don't want to lose it," said Jilin. "You know that there is no smoking in here."

He just snorted, but obeyed and plopped down on the left chair.

I sat down a little more elegantly, but there was no question of relaxation. First she called us away from work, then we were supposed to close the door and now we had to sit down too. No wonder Reese felt the need to reach for his cigarettes. "You wanted to speak to us?"

"Patience." She pulled out a folder and placed it on the table in front of her. The envelope only had a case number, which unfortunately didn't mean anything to me. She let her gaze linger a moment before turning it to me and studying me carefully. "You look like you want to run away."

"What could be the reason," Reese mumbled, put an elbow on the table and put his chin on his hand. "Finally spit it out, what are we supposed to do here?"

She ignored him, just clasped her hands on the table and looked at me. “Yesterday I got a call from the guild in Potsdam. A few days ago three proles were caught there and must be brought to Historia. "

Historia was a research laboratory devoted solely to researching the proles.

"What kind of proles?" I wanted to know.

"Three Iuba."

"Iuba?" Reese frowned. "What does Historia want with three Iubas?"

Jilin glanced at him briefly, but then focused on me again. “Originally there were four Iubas, a family pack it seems. One of them was eliminated, and just because one of the Venators was a little overzealous, the carcass was examined before they went on the hunt for the other three. They found a tattoo number in the ear. "

What? "A tattoo number?"