The pattern

"Because of this. Do you recognize them?" He asked as he passed her photos of a few people.

"Hey, isn't this the people who went missing a few months ago?" Zinbad, who was peeking at it with interest, asked. Zinbad usually stays quiet in these situations unless he deems it absolutely necessary. Why make a fool out of himself, eh?

"Well, Tanya might know them for another reason," Addison replied.

"These—I have seen them before. They were the ones who surrounded me and my sister that night, trying to prevent us from escaping. Like I'm certain there were a few of these people there that night.But how did you know that?" She asked with doubt in her mind. Who knew if Addison could be trusted or not?

"You see, this part—I randomly guessed it. I felt like these people might be connected since you told me that there were quite a number of people that night. So, I took a chance on this part." Addison laughed.

"Quite a big gamble," Tanya said as she glanced at Addison with a bit more of the suspicion.

"But, it worked. I tried to look upon similar cases that happened throughout history—you know, people disappearing from a clustered area. These were the results." Addison handed over his investigation note that he scribbled on a piece of paper the day before, to Tanya.

"So, how are they connected?" She asked since there were so many random numbers and she couldn't concentrate.

"Let's see, the last reported mass kidnapping was from 1478. And before that, it was in 789 AD. There were several rumors of such events that happened before too, but those were not recorded as these were." Addison explained.

"But, these dates—they don't have any sort of connection! So again, what made you think that these are connected?" Tanya asked.

"Yeah sure, this would've been impossible to connect in any normal scenario, but we're talking about a vampire here. So, this made perfect sense. Listen to this. The mass kidnapping of 789 AD had thirty-nine missing people from the same vicinity and the one from 1478 had one hundred and seventeen people missing, again from around a concentrated area.." Addison listed.

"Whoa man, those are some weird numbers! What's up with that?" Zinbad laughed at which there was no response. Addison cleared his throat and continued.

"Tanya, can you just tell me about the number of people that went missing in about the last five- five and a half months?" Addison indicated at the police report that was near Tanya and asked her to read it.

"Four hundred and sixty-eight people from around five districts. Oh my!" Tanya exclaimed.

"Ah, you got what I meant, it seems," Addison replied.

"What happened? Will someone please explain everything to me? I'm bad at math." Poor Zinbad was clueless about everything that happened around him.

"These are all multiples! That means the one missing case that was not recorded in history…" Tanya said before Addison interfered again.

"Probably has to be thirteen." He said.

"Exactly! Wait, wouldn't that mean that the guy got the people he wanted?" Tanya asked.

"In normal circumstances, yes. But think about his last victim—your sister. She died." He took a pause since it was Tanya's sister whom they were mentioning.

"Wait, does that mean he changed his final target to be me? Didn't you say that I wasn't in any trouble before?" Tanya broke the silence and asked.

"No, no, you actually weren't in any trouble. He wasn't going to kill or kidnap you. If he was, he'd have done it back then. Again, you are a special commodity to him. And thus he wanted you to live and fulfill his wishes, I guess? I don't know about that part. But the thing is, you are not part of this particular equation." Addison explained.

"Ah, you haven't answered my main question yet," Tanya repeated her statement like a looped song.

"Yes, the one-week deadline. After looking up those previous events, I found out that these missing cases are confined to that year and that year only. Never has it once gone to 790 or 1479. Now, which month is it?" He asked.

Suddenly, Tanya's face lit up, "December! So, he just had this month to do the stuff. But why this week?" She asked.

"Ah, he did that because I proclaimed it. The moment I said that he'd have no choice but to come this week, he sensed that I caught up on his predicament. Since I did, he was interested in how I knew it. That's why he came." Addison looked embarrassed as he felt like he was self-praising for quite a moment here.

"But what if he didn't get baited. That might have proved you wrong and we'd have demanded an explanation." She raised her concern even though the said concern did not exist in that timeline. She was just curious about how Addison would've reacted in an alternate one.

"Well then, I'd just extend the time limit by one week at a time. Anyways, even if I didn't bait him, he'd have come." He smiled.

"I see. Now talk about Ambrogio." Tanya got serious in a jiff.

"Right. As I was searching the past, you know, before 789 and stuff, I came across an interesting piece of work called Scriptures of Delphi. It talked about a young Italian man who came to Delphi for work. He fell in love with some girl and for some odd reason pissed off Apollo, the Sun God. In order to get help against Apollo, he went to Hades. Hades agreed to help if he was willing to give away his soul. He did and became a vampire. In order to please Hades, he gave him sacrificial offerings every once in a while." Addison explained for the umpteenth time. He hoped for this explaining session to be over as soon as possible.

But Tanya looked like she was in no mood to end it. "Wait, by sacrificial offering, you mean?" She looked at him with shock in her face.

"Yea. Anyway, after their partnership ended for some reason, maybe since Apollo was chasing him no more. But Hades was satisfied with Ambrogio and gave back his soul and no longer had to do Hades' dirty work." Addison spoke, which brought up a complicated expression in Tanya's face..

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