I sat by the fire, eyes squeezed shut, struggling to get my lust under control. Since Francesco joined our little group, I'd been fighting the urge to throw myself upon the handsome bandit. I had to find a safe place for Tomek first. I inhaled, only to take in the intoxicating scent, a mixture of sunbathed pines and distant rain. Fleck, this wasn't helping.

I tried concentrating on the sounds of the night instead. A small stone shifted in the shadows just beyond the circle of light from our fire. I decided to investigate. I needed a distraction.

"I think we need to talk, huntress," Lily murmured, but there was urgency in her voice.

Razing bloodsucker. Of course, I knew we had to talk. Since last night, I'd felt something important was coming with her. A headache had been building in my temples the whole day. Not everything is sugar and spice when you're the seeing one. I nodded.

"He's special," she said, pointing to Tomek. "He doesn't awaken your lust."

"What's it to you?" I snapped.

"He might be... very useful," she ventured, studying my face. "We have laboratories," her voice held traces of sadness, which struck me as out of context.

"I'm not into riddles," I barked.

Anger boiled in me at the thought of scientists experimenting on Tomek. Why? I'd volunteered myself in the first lab when they were engineering the parasite to combat its deadly relatives.

"We have scientists. Doctor Milena Affelt works on finding a cure." The famous bitch who'd created the parasite. After the outburst, while the media still worked, she swore she had tried to invent a cure for drug-resistant epilepsy. Tomek jumped at the mention of her name.

"She's already failed once. What's different now?" I asked.

"Milena is alive? What did you do to her?" the lad exclaimed, rushing up to us with sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks. I pulled him back a bit, so he wouldn't break the protective circle.

"Interesting," Lily mused, checking the lad from head to toe.

"Just answer, bloodsucker," Tomek got all riled up. "What did you do to her?"

"Easy now. She said they were working with her," I tried to calm him down, putting my hand on his shoulder. He flinched.

"Why are you so worked up about her anyway?" Lily asked, cocking her head to the side.

"She's my sister. I thought she was dead!"

Ah, that was new. Was it going to complicate things, or make them easier?

"I can take you to her," Lily offered, ignoring my scowl.

My head hurt as the vision, or rather feeling, unfolded before me. Tomek was the key to the whole parasite mess. He had to stay alive. And he wouldn't without my help. Raze, sometimes being the seeing one sucked.

"You mean you can take us to her," I stated before Tomek could protest.

"What?" he babbled, his eyes wide with astonishment.

Lily was taken aback as well, but a glimmer of joy appeared in her red, glowing eyes.

"We can't travel at night," I said.

"I'm not like others of my kind. I've been... experimented on," Lily muttered, casting her eyes down.

Poor kid. I'd done what I knew was necessary, fully aware what monster I would become. But she'd probably just been forced by her matriarch.

"I am weak during the day, but I don't die," the bloodsucker explained.

I nodded in agreement.

"So, we meet in the morning. We need to get some rest," I tried to cut the conversation.

"I won't make it in the morning. I haven't fed for days," Lily whispered, avoiding my gaze.

"You can drink from me," Tomek blurted, stepping too close to the circle.

I held him back again.

"I cannot taint your blood. You are too important," the bloodsucker refused sternly. "And I can't drink from the infected either", she added, looking at me.

As if I were going to offer my blood to her anyway. I grimaced.

"Come here," I ordered Franceso.

He blanched and approached the barrier, his eyes wide with terror. I stood behind him, putting my hand on his shoulder. His breathing went short.

"No funny business or I'll detach that pretty head of yours from your body", I threatened Lily.

"No funny business. Promise," she chirped. "He'll be of more use to us alive than dead."

My handsome prisoner trembled. He feared vampires more than anything. The rumor had it that his whole family had been killed by the bloodsuckers, and he survived by accident. The thrill of forcing him into obedience ran through my body.

The bastard got what he deserved. His gang had wiped out whole settlements. He'd used to be the head of security in the First Lab but had gone rogue when Iris closed down its facility after the parasite outbreak spiraled out of control. He was no less of a monster than I was. My visions were clear about the scumbag. And my visions never lied.

"Let the girl have a drink," I whispered into his ear, savoring his fear. Trembling, my helpless victim extended his left arm over the barrier. I steadied him when Lily snatched his hand. His face contorted with pain and disgust as the vamp bit his wrist and started sucking. I glanced at Tomek. The inexperienced lad was like a bird mesmerized by a snake, watching wide-eyed the pretty walking corpse feed. Lily had a svelte figure and fluid motions of a ballerina, but she was still a corpse.

Francesco faltered, and I had to support him to stop him from falling.

"Enough," I barked at the leech.

She pushed herself away from her prey, hissing like an angry cat. Pale like fresh milk, Francesco was leaning on me, too weak to stand. The strong man turned into a trembling mess. I led him away from the circle, and Tomek helped him sit down near the fire. The goodhearted lad poured a cup of hot, sweet tea and put it to his mouth.

"Sweet. I hope he's as good for you as he is for me," Lily purred.

She still had drops of stolen blood in the corners of her mouth. Not a sloppy drinker. She licked the precious liquid slowly, looking me straight in the eyes. I didn't look away. The parasite made me immune to the hypnotic powers of her kind.

"If the need arises," I retorted, pushing away the thought of taking Francesco right then and there. Even so broken, he still awoke my lust. Maybe even more so. Fleck.

"Good night", I said to the leech and returned to the fire, without looking back at her.

We would have to renew the conversation in the morning, but there were still a few hours of darkness remaining, and I needed to rest. I hadn't slept since last night, and the exhaustion was catching up with me.

"At least allow him to speak. Please," I heard Tomek, his words distant and muffled by my tired brain.

"All right, you can talk to your heart's content," I mumbled as I melted into oblivion.

* * *

The sun was high above the horizon when I woke up. The men were cooking tea on the fire. For a long moment, I watched them with envy. I missed the time when my most important duty was to prepare meals for the school kids. In the cold morning air, I quickly shook off the fuzziness of sleep. I felt much better, though the premonitions were still nagging at me.

"She's razing dangerous. You should keep away from her," I overheard Francesco's whisper. I wondered if he was warning Tomek about Lily or me. We both fit the description.

I was drinking my cup of tea when the vamp appeared. It was strange seeing one of the leeches in the sunlight. Her long hair was matted, eyes no longer red, but rather hazel and dimmed, skin ashen and dry. She hadn't been joking when she said she was weak during the day. Francesco would have to be her daily supply if she were going to be our guide.

With the bloodsucker in bad shape, we didn't risk much by dismantling the barrier. I gathered all the garlic back into my backpack. There was nothing to be done about the spilled salt.

"Where are we heading?" I asked, trying to sound lighthearted.

"To Warsaw," Lily replied.

Francesco caught his breath, and Tomek gasped. Poor guys weren't thrilled to get to the epicenter of the razing apocalypse.

I wasn't happy either. After all, the first wave hit the hardest in the buzzing city. A foolish scientist from the First Lab had brought the parasite to the conference in the capital. The infection started silently. With its three phases, it hadn't been noticed until it was too late.

The first phase is kind of nice. The parasite makes you alluring as hell, your pheromones making all potential partners lose their minds for you. The lust sets in, and in time, all you want to do is mate. I know this too well. The razing side effect they'd been unable to remove while they were modifying my worm. The difference is, my parasite can't infect anybody when we get intimate.

The second phase is worse, but still, you seem just human enough. The lust gives way to irritation, anger, and finally rage. It hits werewolves the hardest as they have problems controlling their fury without the flecking worm. Muscles and bones get stronger as the control weakens. Every bite carries the disease. My parasite gives me the strength, replacing the mindless rage with conscious cruelty.

The third phase is the last. All traces of humanity are lost, and all that remains is the ever-hungry beast, craving for meat, human or animal, alive or dead. That's why they don't mind devouring the walking corpses.

When the epidemic started, most of the patients were in the first or the second phase. The media called them emotionally unstable persons, and people nicknamed them emojis for short. When the third phase set on, half the population of the capital was already infected. They'd carried the parasite all over the world.

With it being transferred unnoticed during sex and the first phase being the longest, lasting even two months, the worm was everywhere in no time. Presidents, monarchs, generals, and gurus were all infected and becoming mad, flesh-eating monsters. Governments dissolved, and society crumbled like a crashed meringue.

Power plants went down because half of the personnel had been eaten by the other half. Some blew up, others just shut down. No electricity meant the end of the world for a big part of the population. You know, those who got lost on the way to the bathroom without a GPS in their phone.

It had been only two years, but we started to live in a post-apocalyptic B-class movie. People fighting for resources, no law, no order, only the strongest and most ruthless survived. As the human world was falling apart, the supernaturals came out from hiding. Not that they had much choice.

Infected werewolves could no longer control their transformations and shifted in public. Vamps, devoured in their nests by emojis, particularly by the werewolf ones, started hunting openly. Always feigning sophistication, keen on presenting themselves as the peak of creation, the vampires enjoyed blending in with the nobles and the rich. Without the high society and culture, many of them reverted to what they truly were. The vile undead monsters, plagued with unquenchable thirst.

Yup, Warsaw wasn't the nicest place for a trip. But it made sense, there would still be large enough vampire covens to set up their own labs, trying to find a cure to the infection that had destroyed their world as well as ours. They would never admit it, but they needed human society to play aristocrats. So, we were going straight into the cauldron. Razing perfect.