#nbappreciationweek

"Nik, my mortal, how was the hunt?", the handsome bartender greeted him with his British-like accent.

Nik, the blonde-haired man took a seat next to two of his friends and replied. "Hey Garrus, I could use a drink right now. Had a difficult hunt tonight. The usual, please."

Garrus, the bartender started mixing Nik's order with magical ingredients. Yes, he's not human. Garrus is Nik's best friend and a fae coming from another realm. He has white skin, sapphire-blue eyes, and white hair that licked up in the front. The fae also has some stubbles on his face, and pointy ears, and is wearing a white button-up with a gray vest over the top. Garrus is a very kind person and always ready to help his friends. He's a passable dancer, dreadful musician, and excellent mixologist. His favorite drink is the Pixie Punch.

After preparing the order, Garrus walked towards Nik and placed it on the table infront of him. A snake-tequila. A drink with an extremly sour taste which made his eyes water a little, it looked like as if a dead snake was swimming inside of it. And the hunter needed that drink with that nasty taste, to calm down his nerves. Nik is a nighthunter who hunts evil supernatural creatures and protects the World of Night beeing discovered by the human eyes.

Nik's other two friends, Ivy and Krom were sitting on the opposite side of the booth, enjoying their own drinks. Krom loves his Cocoa Couldron while Ivy doesn't and prefers her Seasalt Slurry. And yes, they're not human either.

Krom is a stone-troll who weared a red shirt on his stone skin. Tiny fangs peaking outside of his mouth. His friend, Ivy describes him as being a big teddy bear, even though he looks mean on the outside. Generally, Krom is soft-spoken, sweet, kind, and polite, but has insecurities. He thinks he is a "nobody" and not even that strong for a troll. He doesn't think he is good at talking to people.

And Ivy is a zombie girl with long purple and pink ombre hair with bangs. She has red glowing eyes and gray skin. She wears a short black Victorian goth style blouse, black leather trousers and applied dark red lipstick on her lips. Even though Ivy is a goth, she has a much more cheerful and happy personality. She likes to think of herself as "mostly dead" and says her state is everything she ever wanted. Ivy finds her glowing eyes cool and likes her diverse social circle. She is intelligent, as Garrus refers to her as their lady of sterling intellect and Nik refers to her as their peerless creatureologist since she helps Nik to identify any supernatural creature he is dealing with.

"Hey Nik, why are you staring at the envelope? What's in it?", Krom asked worriedly the hunter who kept his eyes on it while sipping the snake-tequila.

"I don't know, Krom. I found this in my letterbox outside and it's pretty heavy if you ask me. I wonder what's inside."

"You'll never know without opening it, silly.", Ivy marveled and immediatly took it away from him to open it.

"Hey, that's mine!"

"Oooh, who do we have have here? A beautiful girl!!", Ivy excitedly cheered as she pulled a photo of a young woman outside of the envelope.

"Ivy, give that back or... Jesus, she's... she's hot. I mean...", Nik startled as Ivy finally showed him the picture of a pretty woman. He dropped his jaws and his cheeks turned into a soft shade of red.

It was a young and beautiful woman smiling on the picture who probably was in the same age like Nik. Her soft skin was glowing and her chocolate-brown eyes held a mysterious spark inside. But what the blonde admired about her the most, was the long, wavy silver hair which looked so natural.

"Is she even human? I mean, that's another level of beauty I never saw.", Ivy teased the nighthunter and held the picture a little more closer to his face. Her manicured finger pointed at the woman's red lips.

"Ivy, stop messing around with Nik. And look, there's something written at the back of the photo", the stone-troll stated. Krom took the photo away from Ivy and placed it on the wooden table with it's backside turned.

"Protect her" was written on it and also tomorrow's date, a time and a location in New Orleans.

"Ooooh, Nik has to protect the pretty girl."

"Not funny Miss Ivy, she's my client and she could be in danger. Guess, some anonymous benefactor wants me to protect her."

"The way you looked at her...", Ivy tried to tease him more, but immediatly got interrupted by him.

"Ivy, she's my client!! I'm a professional nighthunter who only does the job and who knows, maybe she's already in a relationship with someone. Besides, you all know that I don't do relationships anymore and I don't need one. Elijah taught me to become independent and not to trust anyone. This world we're all livin' is cruel, we all need to survive and try our best to protect everyone from evil. I hunt the evil."

Garrus, Krom and Ivy got silent after hearing the hunter's words. Nik is very professional when it comes to his job. However, he also appears to love money. From the beginning Elijah, his adoptive father taught him to move on without attachments, as that was the only way to make it in this world without letting it grind him down.

The fae's sapphire-blue eyes fell on the big envelope which was still filled with something. He took it in his hands and pulled out a lot of bank notes of money. Everyone gasped at the sight of the big amount of cash coming out from only one envelope.

"Ahh, that's more than a millio... Hmm, hmm, hmm,...", Krom immediatly placed a hand infront of Ivy's mouth before she could scream it all loud.

Garrus quickly stashed the big amount of money back inside the envelope and handed it back to Nik who immediatly stashed it inside his pockets to avoid beeing seen by strangers who might be interested. The whole gang confused, but acted like as if nothing happened. Nik quickly finished his drink, said goodbye to his three friends and left the bar. He only had to climb a few stairs up and reached his apartment. Entering the living room of his apartment, the hunter quickly locked the front door and headed to a nearby table to count the cash which Garrus found inside the envelope.