“You know it really isn’t that complicated,” Joohyun said. “You run, we chase you. Your feeble human body tires out and then you die. If you’d like, I can give you a head start.”

She flashed her fangs at the gang leader, taking pride in the subtle quiver in his legs. He was trying to look tough in front of his boys, a sentiment she understood and respected. Leaders should never show weakness. Still, she and her hunters had spent the last several weeks planning this operation and it wouldn’t do to let him go. Her children still had to eat.

They’d tracked the gang to an abandoned industrial block on the south-east fringes of their territory. A few hundred feet from where they stood, Joohyun could hear the rushing of the Han River. Beyond that was the ‘wolves territory. Which meant she couldn’t allow them to get far.

“Still no? Maybe a weapon…?” Joohyun beckoned over two of her hunters, who carried a bulky metal crate between the two of them. They set It down in front of the gang leader and opened it up, revealing a small hoard of weapons. Joohyun had made sure to stock it with a healthy variety of guns, knives, baseball bats, hell she’d even thrown an antique mace in there in the hopes someone would choose it. “Please feel free to take whatever you’d like.”

She decided to leave out the whole We’ll just take them back when you die bit; after all, she liked giving her prey hope. It made their blood all the sweeter. There was a stifled giggle behind her and Joohyun made a sharp gesture to stop it. Fledglings, Joohyun sighed internally. It took a few years to break them of their behavior and mold them into the fighting forces her Family needed, but she wouldn’t dare let anyone else train them.

The two groups stood facing each other: twelve gang members on one side, Joohyun and her five hunters on the other. Invisible battle lines were drawn as everyone waited for their leader to make the first move. Joohyun yawned, stretching her arms and cracking the bones in her neck. She had nowhere else to be.

The gang leader eyed her warily, then moved his gaze to the pile of weapons in front of him. There was a moment of silence and then he leaped for the stockpile, pulling out a gun and pointing it at Joohyun’s head.

Two of the younger fledglings hissed instinctively but remained still, unwilling to incur the wrath of their Matriarch. Joohyun didn’t fault them, it would take them time to realize that mortal weapons could no longer hurt them.

She raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow at him as if to say, really? That would be another mark against her on the tally board she shared with her third-in-command Minji. They always went for the gun, no one had any creativity these days. Joohyun supposed it was thanks to Seoul’s strict gun laws, and Minji had made sure to put a very illegal firearm with an extended magazine in the stash.

His hand shook slightly as he put some distance between himself and Joohyun. She fixed him with a fierce gaze, letting her eyes shift from their normal brown to a shocking blue. Maybe that would be enough of a hint, at this point she was spelling it out for him.

“I don’t need a head start,” he growled, pulling the trigger.  

Joohyun saw it coming of course. Not that a bullet to the chest would have killed her. Nor would it have hurt, not really. The momentum might have blown her backwards a bit, embarrassing her in front of her fledglings, but the only wounded thing to come out of that situation would have been her pride.

Faster than the gang leader could even perceive, Joohyun jerked to the left, her body phasing into the shadows as the bullet whizzed past her ear. She cracked her neck as her form solidified again, though her smirk faded upon seeing that he’d managed to graze her leather jacket.

“You motherer,” Joohyun swore, shrugging off her jacket and poking a finger through the newly-created hole in the expensive leather. Objectively it wasn’t that big of a deal, she had plenty of money to replace things. But Sooyoung had given her this jacket for her last “birthday” and now this filthy human had gone and ruined it.

She dashed forward, a hiss on the tip of her tongue. She got right up in the gang leader’s face, enjoying the look of sheer terror on his face. It looked like he had an inkling of what was going on now, as he squeezed the trigger three more times. None of the wild shots hit their mark, of course. And this time Joohyun made sure her jacket didn’t get any more holes.

She grabbed him by the throat with one hand, easily lifting him up. Her other hand slowly pried the gun from his grip. “Your time starts now.”

And she threw him.

The gang leader flew backwards into a partially-demolished wall, scattering glass and small chunks of concrete everywhere. He scrambled to his feet a moment later, battered, bruised and frightened out of his wits. Joohyun could almost taste his fear as the humiliated man took off towards the door, leaving his cronies behind.

It was as if that single action galvanized the rest of the men, for there was suddenly a mad rush towards the exit.

“Are we going to—” Minji piped up as the last of the gang members fled into the night. “You know we’re not far from wolf territory.”

Joohyun turned to her Third, “I told them they’d get a head start. What kind of leader would I be if I just broke my word like that?”

The taller woman snorted. “You’re cruel.”

“They taste better scared.”

Joohyun hiked up her sleeve and took a look at the watch on her left hand. Her fledglings were getting impatient, but she commended them for obeying her orders and managing to keep their bloodlust in check. They’d be happy soon enough.

She waited another thirty seconds before turning to her team. “Alright little ones. Go get them. The leader is mine, though.”

Excited hissing broke out among the fledglings as they dispersed at once, melting into the shadows and beginning to hunt. Joohyun watched them go with a fond smile.

“They grow up so fast.”

Minji followed her gaze. “You know, I never took you for the caring type, unnie. But I have to admit, you’ve really taken charge the last century or so. Why the sudden change?”

Joohyun tilted her head, considering the question. She supposed it all started after she’d turned Sooyoung and took the fledgling under her wing. Looking after the younger girl had given her a sense of purpose, something she didn’t know she had been lacking until then. Vampires couldn’t have children in the way many of the other supernatural species did, they relied on turning others to replenish their ranks.

“I guess I find motherhood rewarding,” she replied with a smirk as the first of the screams began to echo throughout the area.

Minji dropped her shoulders, “You say that until one of the fledglings goes blood-crazy and almost murders his girlfriend in werewolf territory. My god, what a political nightmare. The amount of money we had to give the witches to wipe her memory…”

“Which is why you and Sooyoung are the ones that deal with it,” Joohyun patted her Third on the back.

“Thanks,” the taller girl replied dryly.

Joohyun chuckled, checking her watch once more before turning to face the door. “Make sure the little ones don’t gorge themselves too much, we have to bring at least half of them back to the rest of the Family. I’m going hunting.”

“Yes ma’am,” Minji began packing up the crate of weapons as Joohyun phased up to the window on the second floor of the abandoned warehouse and looked out at the city before her. Her fledglings had made quick work of two of the thugs—their bodies littered the street, nothing more than empty husks completely drained of blood. Judging from the screams to her left, a third was about to meet the same fate.

She trusted that Minji would corral the fledglings after they’d had a little fun. Her people were rarely able to hunt these days, all the advancements in technology made tracking targets easy but it also made cleaning up their kills nigh impossible. Hell, Joohyun even had to turn a young woman named Mina who specialized in IT in order to modernize her Family’s hunting methods.

Mina had spent weeks organizing this hunt, and Joohyun would be damned if she didn’t get to toy with her dinner before eating. She looked in the direction where the gang leader had fled towards, then took off.

She leapt cleanly from the second floor onto the roof of the building next door. Peering over the side she noticed a pair of boot tracks that led in the direction of the Han River. Little bastard is trying to run, she scowled and began following the tracks, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, occasionally throwing in an acrobatic leap for fun as she chased him through the urban playground.

Joohyun missed this feeling, the wind flowing through her hair as she hunted her prey. She had no need to breathe, obviously, but she found herself inhaling deeply, tasting the crisp night air. It was odd, until tonight the idea of having to hunt for her Family left her bored and uninterested.

She hadn’t been able to hunt with her fledglings for several months now; the administrative duties that came with being Matriarch afforded her little time to indulge in her favorite pastime. But she figured since the next few weeks would likely be consumed by the murder investigation she might as well have a little bit of fun.

There wasn’t enough real danger in the world anymore, she thought to herself as she ran. Seoul had lived under Council rule for as long as anyone could remember, and while there were occasionally inter-species scuffles and pesky war declarations, by and large the city was a safe place for supernatural beings. The mystery behind Junho’s murder was Joohyun’s first taste of curiosity in ages.

Her mind kept flashing back to the pretty Alpha as well, to feeling the werewolf’s breath against her hand as they touched. An innocent action, so why was she focusing so much on that single moment? She didn’t even know the other woman’s real name. Maybe she’d ask Chuu when she got back to the manor.  

She froze, hearing the almost inaudible crunching of gravel ahead of her. All thoughts of Kang flew out of her head as she focused back in on the hunt. Someone was trying their hardest to remain undetected. But nothing could beat her enhanced senses. She smiled, feeling her canines lengthening even further as her body prepared to go into feeding mode. They indented her lower lip, giving her a stereotypically “vampiric” look. The movies hadn’t gotten everything wrong. Joohyun leaped fearlessly off the roof, landing on the road right in front of her prey.

“Why hello there.”