A normal person would've taken that as a surprise, but John had actually thought that Brad might've been a vampire since he first saw him. When you work for a paranormal investigation company, you see vampires come and go a lot.
"What're they, then?" John ask without even pausing, gesturing to the others in the van. Brad was a bit taken aback by John's lack of surprise, but he only showed it for a few seconds.
"Hat's a vamp, too," he said, pointing to her, "Fang's a werewolf. Donna and Kain are just human. Kain changed his name, but that's why he's here. According to all records, he doesn't exist because of a glitch in the registering system. He's quite sneaky, but no exceptional powers. Donna, his sister, is telekenetic."
"It's black, not pink," Donna said quickly to Fang, trying to illustrate Brad's point, "Fang, if you keep thinking about things like that, I'll make your brain implode." Fang let out a little laugh.
"So, where are we going right now?" John asked.
"You ask an awful lot questions, doctor," Fang said with an ominous grin, which was quickly swept off his face as Hat punched his arm.
"Stop scaring him," she said, obviously a bit agitated, "We're going to a checkpoint on the highway. You, Fang, and Donna are going to check out some areas they closed off yesterday. See what you can make of them." She gave him a little smile as the vehicle ground to a halt. Fang was the first one up. He flung open the doors and gestured to Donna and John to follow him. The air around Donna shimmered for a minute, and she disappeared. John jumped a little, but got up and followed Fang out the door. As they stood in the sweltering heat, the van roared and took off again.
"C'mon, we don't have all day," Fang said gruffly, starting to walk out into the desert. He stopped after a few yard and sniffed. He knelt down and began using his hands to dig through the sand in front of him. John followed him and watched from a few feet away to avoid the airborne sand.
"Found anything?" Donna said, suddenly standing next to John. He jumped back and calmed himself.
"Not yet, he's just digging right now," John replied.
"HURRY UP!" she yelled at Fang. The sand stopped flying and settled to the ground. Fang stood there with sand in his hair, all over his face. He held a skull with a pentagram on the top and the number 666 carved on the forehead.
"Got something for ya'," he said, tossing the skull to Donna. She placed a hand on either side of it and closed her eyes. After a few seconds, she dropped it with a sharp yelp.
"What is it?!" Fang asked, trying to seem more concerned than excited. Donna put her hand to her head for a few seconds before steadying herself.
"I think that we might have problem," she said. Even as she spoke, a growl came from behind some rocks. Before any of them could react, a dog, or at least something that looked like a dog leaped at Donna. It resembled a doberman, but its coat had a redish hue and its eyes were a shining yellow. The creature slammed into her and hit her full in the throat. Blood shot everywhere as she fell to the ground. Fang roared as his body expanded. Claws grew and hair covered him as his features became more wolfish. He leapt at the hellhound, not caring that it was too late to save Donna. The creature smashed against a large rock and yipped in pain. As fang ran at it, two more rushed out from burrows that would've formerly belonged to badgers at him. John pulled his gun out of his pocket and quickly loaded it. He took a shot at the dog closest to Fang and caught it in the head. With a growl, another one leapt at John from behind. It knocked him over, but kept on going straight at Fang. Fang grabbed the one he had injured and used it like a bat to keep the others back. He began to run on all fours, the dogs chasing after him. John stood alone next to Donna's corpse, his shirt now soak in blood from the combination of the creature's claws across his chest and Donna's blood, still squirting out from her neck. He walked over to her body and picked up the skull with the strange markings on it. 'What the hell is going on here?' he thought to himself.
John sat by the road hours later, the skull lying next to him. He guessed that the dogs must've been pretty fixated on Fang if they hadn't came back for him yet. While he was glad of that, he wondered how the werewolf was faring right then. It had certainly been awhile. A roaring sound rumbled somewhere down the road. He looked up to see a bright light coming alongside the road. A red motorcycle pulled up next to him and Hat stepped off it.
"What happened?" she asked, noticing Donna's corpse and the skull.
"Things, things like dogs came at us. Fang led them off, but they got her, first," John said, looking up at her, "I don't know what this is, but Donna had a bad reaction to it before she got killed. Fang dug it up."
"At least we have something out of this," she said with a sigh, picking up the skull. She put it in a bag strapped to her bike. "Are you okay? There's blood all over you."
"Uh, yeah, most of it's her's," he said nervously. He knew that Hat was a vampire and didn't know how she'd react to all the blood. Hat noticed the nervous manner to his voice.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to bite you," she said, taking out a little flask and drinking from it, "I haven't bitten anyone in a long time, I'm not going to start now."
"Why? I mean, it's not like I want you to bite me, but why?" John asked.
"It's a long story," she said.
"I've got time." Hat sighed and sat down next to him.