{18}

Youngjae stared blankly at the group before him. From the moment that they set foot into the room, Daehyun had stationed himself by the window. He merely stood there, staring out of the window wordlessly. 

Himchan, Yongguk, Caleb and JongUp were slouched against different arm chairs in the room. They too, seemed to have lost their ability of speech. 

A sigh escaped from Youngjae's lips subconsciously, he brought up a hand and dragged it down the side of his face. 

He had the urge to start smashing things if the silence in the room dragged on. The silence was killing him. 

And thankfully, Yongguk finally spoke up.

"We need to reorganize everything. Start right from the beginning and map out every single thing. I don't believe that we won't be able to find them." 

Youngjae exhaled, pushing himself up from the chair he sat on, and made his way over to the chalkboard that hung on the wall. 

He grabbed a piece of chalk and scrawled the word 'Devil' in large print in the middle of the board. 

He swiveled back and saw that all eyes were on him but none of them were moving. 

His brows knitted together and he held out his hand, gesturing towards the board. 

"Well, let's get started then? We don't have much time to waste." 

With that, it was as though someone hit a magical button. The three of them who were lounging restlessly on their armchairs stood up instantly, moving towards the stack of case files that were piled up haphazardly on the study table. 

Even Daehyun, who appeared to be so far away from the current world, tore himself away from where he stood and moved towards them.

••• 

"So it's really possible for the Vampires who are sired by Daehyun to break the bond?" Jongup glanced at them with the tip of his pencil pressed against a case file. 

Yongguk nodded, his lips set in a thin line. "It requires an ancient witch to perform a ritual on them. In that ritual, a symbol will be carved on their skin, with a knife." Yongguk explained while flipping through the pages of a book on rituals and symbols. 

"Here, this is the one." Yongguk stopped, tapping his finger on the symbol that was staring right at them. 

"Wait, wait, wait." Jongup muttered absentmindedly while tapping on his phone anxiously. 

The rest of the group had their eyes on him, waiting for him to present his finding. 

"Isn't that symbol, this symbol?" Jongup pointed out, turning the screen of his phone towards them. 

5 pairs of eyes studied the screen intently, silence engulfing the room once again. 

"The Devil wants her." Caleb said slowly, his eyes still transfixed on Jongup's phone. 

Jongup showed them a news article regarding the demon attacks on Daehyun's residence and the police found a large symbol scrawled across the floor in his living room. And that symbol happens to be exactly as the same as the one Yongguk was showing them. 

"And why would he want her?" 

"Because he needs her."

All 6 of them swiveled around towards the new presence in the room. 

"You are...?" Youngjae trailed off, his brows furrowed. 

"She's her Mum." Daehyun answered, his eyes fixed on her. 

The smallest of smile graced her lips. "So I finally have the chance to meet my daughter's Soulmate. I wish we had the time to sit down and have a proper chat over a cup of tea. But sadly, we don't." 

She strode into the room confidently, placing a stack of documents and files on the messy table. 

"My name's Angeline and well, I'm Soah's mother, like what you've heard from Daehyun." 

She grabbed one of the files she had set down previously and flipped it open before putting it down for the rest of them to see. 

The 6 guys stood round the table, their eyes studying the piece of document that Angeline had laid out for them. 

"Y-you're a witch?" Caleb stared at her incredulously. 

It was a breakdown of Soah's entire family tree, leading back to several generations before her. Under their names, their respective identities were printed out in neat black prints. 

Angeline nodded in response.

"So that means Soah-" 

"Is a witch too." Angeline finished Caleb's before he could. 

"But how is that possible?" Youngjae gestured to the piece of document. He was beyond confused. 

Angeline shrugged. "I know that it's not possible too but when she was a kid, she was attracted to my spell books and my potions. At first I brushed it off, labeling it as a mere curiosity of a kid. But on the night after she turned 16, I was in the kitchen making dinner and she was in the living room where all my spell books were. I heard a sound and the heavy smell of smog that you'd smell after a spell has been casted. I went into the room and she had casted a spell on her stuffed toy. She turned it into a real living puppy." 

Daehyun couldn't quite put the look that Angeline had in her eyes into words. Recalling that memory was painful for her, Daehyun could at least read that. But painful wasn't quite enough to describe it. 

"That's one of the hardest spell for a witch to master, right?" 

"Yes. It takes hundreds of years for a witch to master that spell and even i, don't have the confidence to cast the spell without it going wrong somewhere. But Soah, who merely read through the spell book once, mastered it."

"Then why didn't her identity as a Witch surface when we brought her in to The Prophet?" 

Daehyun suppressed a shudder when memories of that night flash through his mind. Images of Sam flinging Soah across the room, images of Daehyun's fate with Soah being broadcasted for everyone else to see. 

"Ever since that night, I casted a spell on her every year to suppress her identity as a Witch, so that it remains undetected and so that I can assure her safety." 

"But the devil knows everything. Spirits roam freely in our world, he can have eyes and ears everywhere if he would like to." Angeline added on shortly after. 

"That's why he needs her. Without the help of a witch to create a portal, his army of death would lose their forms and simply dissolve into ashes when they cross the border between the UnderWorld and the OtherWorld." 

Angeline's lips thinned, an affirmation that Himchan was right. 

"S-so how do we get her back?" Daehyun glanced at Angeline, his eyes sad. 

The expression on Angeline's face was grim as she gazed into Daehyun's brown orbs. 

"I don't know if we can get her back. The things that he would do to her to draw out her abilities as a witch, it's..." Angeline trailed off, her hand clamped over . 

Daehyun tore his eyes away from her, his eyes landing on a photograph of Soah that was attached to one of the case files. 

He had just met his Soulmate, they were supposed to spend an eternity together. He wasn't ready to part ways with her yet. No, scratch that. He refused to part ways with her. 

"I'm going to save her, even if that means facing off with the Devil himself." Daehyun said, his voice laced with determination.