I am finding it difficult to digest what Ms Pink just said. “What do you mean?”

But Ms Pink is not listening to me. She is already on her phone, calling Seo. “Send me a list of names of the oldest ancients related to the sun. Right now.”

“Does this have something to do with something?”

“I have a feeling my father left me a clue that I missed out.”

“In his log books?”

Ms Pink nods. “I have not found any new clues that make sense. ‘Person A’ is the only clue I have found thus far. There must be more.”

“What if that is all your father knew?”

Ms Pink shakes her head. “There is more. Come with me.” She takes my hand and we speed off to her study. “There must be a hidden name in one of these log books. The answer is in here somewhere.” Ms Pink’s phone alerts her to a new message and she reads it quickly.

“Let me have a look too,” I say.

Ms Pink shares her view of her phone with me and together, we scan the long list of names compiled from the entire history known to mankind. It is a long, long list, to say the least, but one in particular catches my attention.

“God of the sun and creator.”

“Pra, god of the sun and creator, also known as Re,” Ms Pink reads out loud. Our eyes meet and our minds click like clockwork finding the groove. “Mystical ancient super-vampire formed by the anti-power of the sun during a solar eclipse.”

“Kings of the 4th dynasty had the title ‘Son of Re’,” I read straight from the summary included below. “Oh my God. That’s almost all the letters in ‘Person A’.”

“All the letters.” Ms Pink holds my gaze with her flickering pink eyes. “So ne Pra.”

“Huh?”

“Ancient language.”

“What does it mean?”

“Young of the sun god.” Ms Pink’s eyes flicker pink again. “A king.”

“A king? Wasn’t your father a king?”

“Not a human king. Young of a god. A super king.”

“Now I am confused.”

“My father’s one clue connects all of them together. It makes sense now.”

“It does?”

“This is where the information from Madam Hyo comes into importance.”

“Why?”

Ms Pink inserts her phone into a jack built into her desk. She taps on it and a 3-D projection of a family tree complete with portraits appears before our eyes. My jaw drops. The technology Ms Pink commands at her finger tips is mind blowing even after all this time.

“Tatua and Malvico—vicis of Ttrowtos, vici of Pra. And this is—”

“That’s you,” I interrupt, finger pointing at Ms Pink’s piercing stare. “Right under Helene.”

“Olympias is listed as a vici of Pra as well. That is unexpected. And the triplets are her vicis.” Ms Pink falls silent for a moment before speaking again. “I have been investigating like a short-sighted human all this while.”

Looking at the family tree, I can see what Ms Pink means. The triplets’ names all begin with Pra. How glaring a clue. “But back then, you weren’t looking for this. You didn’t know about your caepicta yet so there was no reason for you to investigate any further.”

Ms Pink frowns. “Helene is a vici of Pra too. She has never told me about that.”

“Wouldn’t it be common knowledge?”

Ms Pink shakes her head. “Information about supers is hard to come by. Among the ancients, they keep many secrets. Even this record is not to be trusted entirely.”

“How are we ever going to find out the truth then?”

“It has taken me almost three hundred years and I am still looking. But nothing is going to stop me.”

Drawing to my full height, I pat my chest and smile at my beloved princess vampire. “I will help you.”

Ms Pink smiles. “Stupid human.”

X

“If Helene, Osiris, Olympias and Ttrowtos are all prime vicis of Pra, they are likely to be rivals too.”

I nod in agreement with Seo who has returned to Ms Pink’s castle after another nine hours to conduct more tests on me.

“What about the caepicta?” asks Ms Pink who has not stopped working on this mystery since nine hours ago. “Does Helene have the power to remove it?”

Seo nods. “It is said that prime vicis of Pra have essences strong enough to do and undo a caepicta.”

“Which means either Helene doesn’t know about your caepicta, or she’s the one who did it,” I deduce.

“Or she knows but chose to leave it alone,” Seo adds.

“If she knows about my caepicta, it may explain why she rescued me from Malvico and raised me all those years.”

“If that’s the case, Helene isn’t the one who did it,” Seo reasons.

“Then who else could’ve done it?” I ask out loud, not really expecting an answer.

“I will find out who put the caepicta on my back,” says Ms Pink. “And the bastard will pay.”

I put an arm around Ms Pink and give her one-arm hug immediately, knowing how her heart bleeds as she says that. It is the reason why