New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

There was barely a sound in the room as both men tried to spot the other, making sure to stay hidden.

David had a better understanding of his powers, and was using mana to track the hitman, but it wasn't as easy as he thought. Something was strange about his movements.

It was like the hitman was teleporting in some way. But he shouldn't have that ability.

In David's recollection, Gregory was a master of stealth and long-range assassination, not a wielder of magic. This revelation only deepened the mystery.

Yet his presence kept jumping around the room, and it wasn't in steady paths, either. He could tell the presence was vanishing and reappearing.

But, for the hitman, things were looking grim as well.

He couldn't even get a beat on where his assailant was. He could only feel the threatening presence all around him, like an all-encompassing ball of killing intent.

"Do you intend just to hide, after threatening my life, boy?" Gregory mocked, trying to taunt his assailant out of hiding.

His voice reverberated all around the room, as he was moving all over the place in rapid succession.

"I don't see you being the bigger man and showing yourself either," David mocked back.

David's voice seemed to come from everywhere all at once, making the hitman curse under his breath. He had hoped to pinpoint the man's spot from his voice, but it was futile.

"Did you expect to barge into a master assassin's room and have a fair fight? How stupid can a person get?"

David laughed at this, his laughter echoing in a creepy fashion.

"For a master assassin, you sure are hiding a lot, you pussy. How about you accept your fate and stop bitching so we can end this farce?" David taunted back.

"What did you just call me?!" Gregory snapped.

But he couldn't go out of stealth. If he did, there was no telling from what angle the attack on him would come.

"Come out of your shadows, so I can fucking kill you, asshole!" Gregory shouted, his movements slowing as he tried raising his awareness.

But this only made his life harder, as David started using some of the undead in his shadow to grab at the presence's ankles. The skeletal and zombified hands weren't able to catch him well, but he could tell they were touching him.

But all this expenditure of mana wasn't going to go unnoticed.

Already, from across the street, as certain someone was looking in their direction, his eyes predatorial.

Alexander had been woken up again by the surges of mana near his location. He was standing on his master bedroom balcony, looking at the hotel across the street.

He could tell one of the suite rooms on the upper floors was host to a battle between awakened people and could even recognize the essence of one of them.

"What is David doing over there, and who is fighting against him?" he wondered, noticing the inside of the room was much darker than the outside, as the city lights seemed to shed no light into that area.

He knew the trick David was using, as he had used one similar back when he invaded the Bianchi manor. But David's was a little less airtight.

After all, his shadow wasn't meant to be used in this way.

Back inside the hotel room, Gregory noticed someone was eyeing them from across the street, and he grinned.

'If I can't get this fucker off me, then I guess I'll make him get off. If he's here, I can only assume he is protecting the one I have marked. Let's see what he does when I suddenly have his protégé in my sights,' Gregory mentally grinned.

His first mistake was thinking David was here to protect Alex.

Alexander didn't need his protection from a lowlife like this. Hell, David was sure he'd hunted people more dangerous.

Especially since he had caught wind of someone kidnapping Constantine Levesque just the day before, after she had someone pick her up in her private plane halfway up in James Bay.

He didn't know many people who could grab that woman and teleport away with her so easily. So he already knew who did it, even if she wasn't willing to admit it.

The second mistake Gregory made was thinking that this mark was easy.

If the hitman had done his due diligence on the man before trying to track him down, he would have found clues as to who he was trying to track down. How many encounters had Alexander Leduc survived against armed people?

How stupid did one have to be to think his gun would make a difference?

'This level of stupid,' David guessed, as he felt the hitman's presence suddenly stop bouncing around and vanish.

'Is he really going to take a shot at him? Does he realize I'll find him the second he does?' David wondered.

Across the street, Alex suddenly felt killing intent brush against him, and he snickered.

"Do your worst," he mouthed, looking at the suite across the street.

Gregory, who had focused all his skill on completely concealing his presence, was lying down next to his sofa. Marlene was propped on the backrest to angle her muzzle upwards.

He was looking in his scope, aimed at the mark's head, when he read his lips.

'Do your worst? Does he know I'm here? No… It can't be…' Gregory thought, as he hesitated to take the shot.

But his hesitation was his downfall.

Across the street, feeling the killing intent waver, Alex clicked his tongue in annoyance.

He melded with Asmodeus, and teleported into the hotel room, surprising both David and Gregory, as he appeared in the lounging area, grabbing at the air.

But he wasn't grabbing at nothing. He could sense exactly where the hitman was, and he had just grabbed at his collar.

"You had your chance, chump. Since you didn't have the balls to take it, I'll just assume you are second rate and save us the trouble of hunting you down," Alex said, as he snapped the man's neck.

There was a resounding crunch, as the man's head spun a hundred and eighty degrees on itself, before the man went limp, and his rifle fell to the ground.

David reappeared next to Alex, his face in a disappointed grimace.

"I had him, you know?"

Alex turned his head to him and laughed.

"I know. But I got impatient. Do you know who he works for?"

David nodded.

"Damien sent him. This man usually works for the guy's dad. I'm surprised he even had the funds to hire him, even if it was just for a tracking task."

Alex frowned.

"I would ask you how you know all this, but I think I don't want to know."

David only grinned in response.

"I was hoping to get him to tell me when his client was arriving. There is no way Damien hired him just to know where you live. I'm sure he was plotting something."

It was Alex's turn to nod.

"For sure. Did he tell you?"

David shook his head no.

"He was too eager to see if he could take me out before we started a little game of hidden tag. He lost, obviously," David mocked, pointing at the dead man in Alex's grasp.

"Obviously," Alex chuckled.

"A shame I couldn't get him to talk," David said.

"I would have loved to talk to that bastard myself. Try to beat some sense into him, maybe," he added.

But Alex grinned.

"I can get him to talk," he declared, looking at the dead man.

"How? Some high-level undead retain their memories once they are turned, which could work for me, but I doubt he would make one. At best, this clown makes a half-decent skeleton sniper. What other trick did you have in mind?"

Alex turned his head to David.

"Did you need his soul to raise him?"

David chuckled, shaking his head.

"Most undead have been dead for so long that their souls have long since rejoined the cycle. Why do you ask?"

Alex didn't bother asking, as he pressed his left hand on the dead hitman's chest, before making a pulling motion.

David looked in horror, as the soul pulled out of the body, a pristine white flame, flickering in the night's lack of light.

"That… is mildly terrifying…" David admitted, shivering a bit.

Alex chuckled a bit before he twisted his hand, and the soul vanished.

"I'll get you answers soon enough. You can have his body; I don't need it. In the meantime, I will head back home and eat a bite. I'm starving," Alex said, throwing the dead man to the floor.

David watched him teleport back across the street, like nothing had happened, and he hadn't taken a life just a minute ago, as easily as toasting bread.

"I guess it's a good thing he is still on our side…" he mumbled, crouching near the body.

He shook his head to wash away the negative thought.

"As for you, Gregory Lingerman, you will make a fine addition to my backline collection if you retain even half your gunning skills," he muttered, smiling at the body.

Anyone watching this would find the scene perplexing, as if David were a psychopath. But it wasn't death that David enjoyed.

It was the benefits he gained from it. After all, a body was just a new soldier waiting to be raised under his command.

And there could never be enough soldiers under him.