Something was wrong – Taemi knew it the moment she saw Neris’ house as she climbed out of the car she’d borrowed from her mother.

Taemi had felt bad about ditching Neris because of her family and wanted to make up for it by taking her friend out for shopping and food. But that plan was quickly dashed when she saw Neris’ front door wide open.

She hurried inside, calling out for her friend but received no response. She cautiously walked further into the house, venturing into the kitchen as she followed the only noise in the house. A plate of food had been left out and Neris’ phone was on the floor, ringing loudly.

“Hello?” Taemi answered the call, recognizing the name on the caller ID.

“Finally, you’ve answered,” Himchan breathed on the other end of the call, “I’ve called so – wait, you’re not Neris.”

“No, it’s Taemi,” she replied, wondering how to break the news to Neris’ not-quite-boyfriend.

Himchan chuckled on the other end. “Are you the reason she’s not answering her phone? She must’ve been so lonely after I left that she called you for a sleepover; silly girl. Can you pass the phone over to her?”

“No, I can’t,” she began shakily. “Neris isn’t here.”

“What?” The humor had vanished from his voice. “What are you talking about? Where is she?”

“You know, you promised hyung that you’d be careful,” a voice came from the front door. “Leaving your door wide open isn’t exactly being careful.”

“Who is that?” Himchan asked.

“I don’t know yet?” Taemi asked, fearfully rooted to the spot – relaxing only slightly when she saw the owner of the voice. “It’s one of the Sinseonghan Gyocha boys.”

“One of the ones who hang around outside our school,” Himchan question. Hearing Taemi’s affirmation, he quickly instructed the confused girl to pass the phone over.

“This is Yoseob, what do you want?” The hunter answered the call curtly.

“You know about the recent disappearances, right?” Himchan asked quickly. “And why my pack is currently out of town?”

Yoseob scoffed. “Of course.”

Taemi stood awkwardly in the kitchen, hearing only one side of the phone call. Her best friend was gone and Himchan’s panicked voice didn’t ease her nerves. She looked around, trying to give herself something to do, when she noticed something that wasn’t there the last time she’d been to Neris’ house. Something that didn’t fit with the rest of the décor in the Sangster house.

“Your leader was right,” Himchan reluctantly admitted, “the disappearances are connected. The runaway girl didn’t run away after all; she was taken. Neris has to know, but now she’s…look, Taemi only knows what Neris is – she knows nothing about the rest of us – so you can’t do anything that’ll alert her to the severity of the situation.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Yoseob accused. “But how to you know that the girl didn’t run off?”

“We found her body about an hour ago. She’d been forced to transform. Her head was taken, her tail cut off and her claws ripped out.”

“Jesus,” Yoseob breathed. “Is this guy taking trophies or something?”

“That’s what we think. Look, get Taemi out of there and get your group to start looking for Neris. We’ll get there as soon as we can. I think the killer took Neris.”

“Yeah, we’ll get on that. I thought something was weird when I felt the wards were gone.”

“Wards?”

“Do you two not talk? There are wards on the house preventing someone from entering if they have any intent to harm the inhabitants. Or, there were. We can feel their power; I had assumed she would’ve told you.”

“Dammit,” Himchan hissed. “We have to find her fast.”

“Agreed.” Yoseob ended that call, looking around for Taemi.

He finally found her in the living room, staring at a stone and metal statue of a snake.

“Hey, you should probably head home. My friends and I are going to look for Neris; you’d just slow us down.”

“This is wrong,” Taemi muttered, not turning to him.

“Look, I know you’re her friend but – ”

“She’d never have this statue in her house.” Taemi interrupted, catching Yoseob off guard. “At least, she wouldn’t buy something like this herself.”

Yoseob rolled his eyes and walked up to the girl, fully intent on dragging her out of the house. “Questioning your friend’s taste isn’t what you should be do – ”

She was right. There was something wrong about the statue. Just as he could feel the power from the now vanished wards on the house, he could feel power rolling off the statue.

“Is that blood?” Taemi wondered, gesturing to the tail of the statue.

Sure enough, there was. It was small enough not to be noticed right away, but it was enough for…

“Blood magic,” Yoseob muttered, belatedly realizing he had spoken aloud.

“Blood magic?!” Taemi repeated in a half-shriek.

“,” he mumbled, raking a hand through his hair. “Listen, you have no idea what’s going on and you should probably go home before you get hurt.”

“You think I care about that right now?” She scoffed incredulously. “I’m not deaf; I could hear you talking with Himchan. You weren’t exactly being quiet, either. And you’d have to be an idiot not to connect his recent weird behavior to the full moon. Himchan’s a werewolf; I know those exist. And apparently you’re something too, but I couldn’t care about that right now. Neris is gone and probably taken by someone who knows blood magic and takes trophies of his victims. If you try to block me from helping find her, I don’t care what you are or that I’m human – I’ll rip you apart from the inside out.”

Yoseob blinked himself out of his stupor, not able to fully believe the words that he just heard. “How…how do you plan to help? What can you do?”

She huffed, a small sense of victory bolstering her confidence. “After Neris told me about the existence of werewolves and sirens and all that, I started doing some research on mythology of different cultures.” She pointed to the carvings on the base of the statue, “these hieroglyphics represent Apep, the snake deity of chaos that was the enemy of the sun god Ra. He was also called the Devourer of Souls. The trophies that were taken, were they somehow intrinsic to the identity of the deceased?”

“Yeah, they were. At least, the ones we know about.” He nodded. “So, are you saying that this snake god is the killer?”

“No, I think it’s someone who’s using his image.” She disagreed.  “I heard you talking about protection wards, and I think the blood magic on this thing must’ve been what broke it.”

“I’m inclined to agree. You think it’s his calling card?”

Taemi nodded, “Though I don’t know how that’s going to help us find her.”

“It might,” a thought struck him. “You remember that research department set up for herpetology, the one that closed down years ago?”

“Yeah, my dad was one of the committee directors that wanted to turn it into a hospital before funding fell through. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Herpetology,” Yoseob repeated. “The study of reptiles. Snakes.”

“And it’s abandoned.” Taemi caught on. “You think he’s holding her there?”

“It’s just a hunch. The body of the second kidnapped creature was found by the temple of Eopsin.” He informed her. “The wealth goddess who often appeared…”

“…as a snake.”

“Once is an incident, twice is a coincidence...” He repeated the words he was told Neris used once before.

“Three is a pattern.” Taemi finished.

Yoseob pulled out Neris’ phone and dialed Himchan’s number, hoping for more information. 

“Have you found her yet?” Himchan answered immediately.

“Not yet, but we have an idea where she is. Tell me, the wolf girl’s body, were did you find it?”

“By a defunct spring, why? Does that have something to do with Neris’ disappearance?”

Yoseob sighed. “No, there’s nothing to do with snakes.”

 “Snakes?” Himchan repeated. “Wait, there’s a legend that says the spring dried up because of the snake that was once killed there. They think it was the guardian of the spring.”

“Pattern,” Yoseob breathed. “We know where she is. The old herpetology research building. We’ll get there first, you guys come as fast as you can.”

He hung up and grabbed Taemi’s wrist, pulling her along behind him.

“We have to make a quick detour to get my team and some weapons. I can’t guarantee they’ll let you come with us to find Neris.”

“I’d like to see them try to stop me.”