"Harry, if I'm going into this I need you fucking explain what Overseer is!" he declared as put his foot down and stared Harry down.

  "Don't say it like that and please don't be so loud..."

  "Like what, Overseer?"

  Harry whinced once more even though he had lowered his tone. Was there something in how he was pronouncing it or was it the fact he was emphasizing the word? Why was the way he pronounced or emphasized a word in a sentence such a big deal?

  The three of them were standing in the empty club on the first floor. Everything had been shut down for the night since Bernard had called a meeting with his associates. One that only he was invited to by virtue of his half vampire nature. Gabriella looked just as confused and awkward as before whilst Harry was being unusually evasive in his speech.

  "Look we never say the word overseer like they're big deal even if they are one," Harry muttered under his breath, "Not only does it rile up their members something fierce when you do, but it's also better to act like they're just a fact of life and nothing more."

  "What even are they, Harry?" Gabriella asked Harry as he picked up the hat laying on the floor.

  "It's way before my time, but overseer apparently ended up becoming one of the largest organizations of mages and the de jure ruling body of magic back in the fifties."

  "Like magical law enforcement or something?"

  "No, Ken, they're magical everything," Harry said in a tone more serious than he had believed the man was even capable of, "The organization is run by one of the oldest mages around and they are quite literally the ones that oversee all of the accords that us emerged have struck in the last century."

  He had assumed they were called overseer because they oversaw the actions of other mages, but to think a singular organization was working to make sure that others upheld every agreement made in the last century on a global scale was baffling. It made it sound like a secret society on steroids. Almost like the apex predator of conspiracies.

  Harry's words earliers and the discussion with Bernard had made it sound like they were powerful and unbelievably dangerous, but this was on a whole other level. No group should ever have that much power and yet overseer apparently did. Their leader surely had to be either an egomaniac seeking to take over the world or an utterly enigmatic entity beyond mundane comprehension.

  "If they're so big and bad then why aren't you just dropping this investigation instead of going behind their back and actively making an enemy out of them?" Gabriella asked him with worry in her eyes.

  "Lapland, nineteen eighty," Harry said with a deep sigh.

  He quirked an eyebrow at that before speaking up, "What the hell happened in Scandinavia in the eighties?"

  "The awakening of Fafnir and the only level six subjugation in the last thirty years," Harry said as he leaned his back against the bar counter, "The workers at the Kiruna iron mine dug too deep and awakened an ancient dragon of myth, which sparked a disaster that ended up claiming over fifty thousand lives both mage and ordinaire in the span of a day."

  The idea of a dragon waking up only to immediately go on a rampage didn't seem all that unlikely seeing as vampires and mages were real, but the way Harry had said it made it sound like a disaster beyond comprehension. There was no way overseer didn't step in to deal with it if they were as powerful as they seemed, and yet maybe it was them stepping in that had made it such a disaster. Harry had said that the presence of an ancient would make overseer go nuclear, but some part of him had thought Harry was just overreacting in some way or the other.

  "That can't possibly be real! Someone should have noticed the deaths of over fifty thousand people!" Gabriella exclaimed.

  Harry sighed deeply as he rubbed his temples, "No, all it took was a bit of overseer intervention and suddenly no one dared to even question what had become of to their missing family members."

  "I refuse to believe that some shadowy organization gets to choose what I believe and if I live or die!"

  "Oh they do, Gabriella, I looked into their prey registry before I hired you," Harry said as he looked at her with eyes cold as ice, "You were numbered and it was just a matter of time before some monstrosity finally drew yours."

  "Numbered?" she stuttered as Harry's gaze caused her nerves to spike, "I'm not some animal!"

  "You have almost no friends, an aging mother displaying early signs of dementia, and no long term employment of any sort, so they deemed you as acceptable prey to throw to one of the many monstrosities waiting for a legal meal."

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  "It's a horrible thing really and turning you into nothing more than food is truly a waste of your talents," Harry continued, "But that's just the world we live in..."

  He didn't want to believe what he was hearing, but he doubted Harry was lying. The man spoke honestly and rarely hid his intentions during conversation. Harry would certainly omit certain things, yet he only seemed to do it if speaking the truth was to the detriment of those around him.

  "Harry, are you saying they would end up giving her name to someone like me the moment they got a bit hungry?"

  "It's better than factory farming, Ken, mage and monster alike have revelled in their shared superiority over the common ordinaire for millennia," Harry stated matter of factly, "Under the current system ordinaires have some rights at least."

  "You're saying they would just let someone kill me?" Gabriella asked Harry weakly.

  "They would direct a monstrosity towards you to devour you or worse, and then overseer would help dispose of your body once they're done with you."

  Harry's words reminded him of what he had done to Mary. Valentine had displayed a good amount of sympathy, but Liz had been just as cold and distant as overseer itself if Harry's words were to be believed. If not for the fact she had somehow managed to stick around, albeit as a blood amalgamation, then she would have just ceased to be by all accounts all because of him and the intervention of overseer.

  "The only reason I even considered working with them was because the current lead investigator in the city has a heart, but I doubt she will for much longer if she stays in that organization."

  "You make it sound like overseer is pure evil, Harry."

  "They're not evil, Ken, they're so monolithic that we can't apply common everyday morality to their actions," Harry said with shrug, "They've simply got bigger concerns than the wellbeing of any given individual."

  No different from any political body really, but it didn't make it any better in his mind. With all that power they could have surely solved most problems plaguing the world, and yet they let countless everyday atrocities occur without so much as a thinking about it. World hunger and all the many ills of the human condition could be resolved if their power was great as it seemed. But instead they just let all of those terrible things keep happening.

  "Fuck it, Harry, I'm with you all the way."

  He had made up his mind. If they could just find the ancient and get rid of it somehow they might just be able to prevent overseer from turning it all into a numbers game. Others had been there for him all his life and the countless doctors that had treated him when he was younger had worked night and day to find some way to manage his condition. There were so many people he owed his life and he couldn't fail them even if it meant losing his life.

  "We might die, but two lives mean nothing compared to tens of thousands," Harry said with determination burning in his eyes.

  "Are you two just going to throw your lives away?!" Gabriella cried out in frustration.

  "Hardly, I'll exhaust every possibility until I find the path to success."

  "Gabriella, it's a matter of preserving human life," he said just as Harry finished speaking, "If Harry thinks we've got a shot of preventing massive loss of life then I'm in regardless of the risk to my own life."

  "Why are you two like this?!" she exclaimed with fists clenched, "How can you two just accept it all at face value and willingly throw your lives away without any chance of even being rewarded for your actions!"

  "How do you wake up every morning knowing you might die at any second without being able to do a thing about it?" Harry said as he walked closer to her, "Common sense tells us that we most likely won't, but the truth is that we encounter far more fatal lines of probability than beneficial ones."

  "Shut up!" she screamed at the verge of tears.

  "Death is a fact of life, but the loss of life is always a tragedy and if giving up mine means preventing death on a massive scale then I'd do it in a heartbeat," Harry said without a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

  Despite Harry's eccentricity and willingness to inflict violence on others to get his way, it seemed he was still an altruist through and through. There truly was nothing to be gained and yet the man was willing to give his own life to preserve the lives of the many. Yet it didn't seem like he had made the choice for a purely emotional reason. Perhaps Harry believed it was only logical and rational to be like him even if acting that altruistically was all but impossible for a normal person.

  "He's not forcing you, Gabriella, you know damn well he would have told you from the start if he had any reason to do so," he said as Harry turned around and walked off into the night.

  "Why the hell are you just accepting everything he says as fact, Ken!"

  He sighed as he began heading for the door, "Because I don't think he's capable of saying something he doesn't truly believe unless that is the only rational choice available to him."

  "Goodbye, Gabriella, do what you will and know that I won't judge you if you choose to run," he said to her as he pushed the doors open, "By the way, I can sense the way you pity his existence and frankly it sickens."

  For some reason the way she had looked at Harry had irked him all night, but after having had plenty of time to watch her it had become clear why. Something in the back of his head could seemingly sense her mood and intention. Presumably it was an adaption vampires had developed to allow them to sense if they could safely feed on their prey, but so far it had only worked on her.

  Every time Harry had seemed awkward or had experienced any sort of setback he had felt a spike of positive emotion in her. Clearly she had some sort of inferiority complex she was feeding by painting herself as superior to Harry who was eccentric and clearly had quite a few difficulties navigating life. It didn't mean she was a bad person by any means, but it disgusted him nonetheless.

  The walk back home took him many hours, and by the time he reached the front door he could see the light on the horizon. Dawn was approaching and he could feel his energy dropping. By the time the sun crossed the horizon and climbed up into the sky he would no doubt be sleeping.

  It felt like he had forgotten something as he climbed into his bed. A warm sensation filled his body as he felt something move within his circulatory system. Mary was still there, but she had made no attempt to communicate with him since she had entered his body. Perhaps what remained of her mind needed only his presence to be satisfied or maybe that prolonged period of inactivity was her way of resting.

  "Ken..."