by Terry Spear
She didn't say anything but watched the man to make sure he didn't try to leave either. Then Danai and Adonis switched their focus to the last two men. Man, was that a handy ability to have. She was so glad the vampires couldn't use that on hunters or what if Adonis or Zachary wanted to have their way in something and just insisted the huntress go along with it through their vampiric persuasion? The same with Danai with Michael or some other hunter.
"So tell us about Rutherford," Adonis said to the five men, speaking so that the hosts and hunters could hear him.
"He's in charge, except Crichton killed him," one of the hosts said.
"We don't know that he killed him. Some of the men he turned said he's been talking to them. So I think he's alive. Injured badly. Rutherford won't say where he is though or the vampires would go to him," another host said.
"Why not kill Crichton?" Adonis asked.
"The vampires weren't given orders to do that. The ancients are waiting to see how it all plays out," the first man said. "If it were me, I'd snap his neck. But it isn't up to me."
"How many of them are there?" Adonis asked.
"We don't know. We see maybe fifteen at a bash. They feed off us, they get what they need, and we never see all of them. It's a mix of turned vampires and ancients. Fewer ancients."
"Has there been any word about what's happened to some of the vampires?" Adonis asked.
One of the men looked at the others, then nodded. "Yeah. There's a hunter going around killing them. They want us to look for him."
"And?"
"Tell them about him when they wake. We're not to kill him. We wouldn't be successful and then the hunter would know we were onto him."
"Do you work for the same vampires each time when they call on you?" Adonis asked.
"Different ones, but some of that is because some of them have gone missing."
"How many?" Adonis asked.
The one man glanced at the others again, then turned to speak to Adonis. "At least twenty that we counted. We were at a bash with fifteen when a hunter broke into the party, but there were vampires fighting the vampires too. We didn't know what to think and we didn't want to end up getting killed in the battle, so we quickly left. We're not supposed to fight anyone, so that worked out well for us."
"Did you tell them that vampires were fighting the vampires too?” Adonis asked.
“No.” The man shrugged. “We didn’t know who he was, and vampires can get really perverse. You know the old saying: kill the messenger. We figured it was their problem to sort out.”
“Good. You will tell none of the vampires or humans or hosts what you've said to us. You won't remember talking to us. We don't exist," Adonis said.
"You don't exist."
Then Adonis said, "Go, enjoy your pizza," as if he were part of the management and wanted them to have a great meal here. Then the hosts went to a table and the hunters all left the restaurant.
"We've killed around forty," Zachary said. "If the other vampire was right, there aren’t that many left. But I suspect the vampire was wrong, or he was lying."
"Rogues are notorious for lying," Danai agreed.
The rest of the hunters agreed.
They got into the car, and then Adonis drove them to the first of the apartment complexes where Carissa had targeted the vampires outside the building. The building was new with lots of glass windows looking toward the Gulf. Very pretty. Pasha wondered if there were more vampires living in the complex. Discovering the truth could be a job.
But then she had an idea again about the security videos. Inside, they found the manager in a rental office and all went inside to speak with him.
Adonis asked him, "What do you know about the vampires living in this complex?"
The man's blue eyes widened. "Are you hunters?"
Adonis went quiet and Pasha suspected he was trying to control the man's mind.
"Okay, so as I asked, do you know about vampires living here?" Adonis repeated.
"Yeah, five of them. Well, more have come and gone, but five were actually living here."
"Where?"
"I haven't seen them coming and going all the time. Then again, I guess they can"—the man clicked his fingers—"vanish at will and reappear the same way. So they might not be coming in the front entrance past my office anymore. That's the trouble with vampires."
"Did you hear about two vampires being killed by a hunter outside the complex a few nights ago?" Adonis asked.
The man’s mouth curved up, then he lost the smile. "Uh, yeah, it was in the news. The vampires never commented on the news. Their hosts, whoever they are, never did either. So we all assumed, when we heard about it, that they were rogues."
"Did you hear about the massacre of the hunters in their beach homes?" Adonis asked.
"Uh, yeah. We knew the vampires were rogues then. There's never been any trouble like that here before. Crichton has been here in the past, but for the most part, he and Dennison live in another city a few miles from here, and we were afraid they planned to “recruit” some vampires, but from what the news said, some other vampire brought in a whole lot of vamps to kill the hunters. They would have killed the kids too, but two of the families managed to get away, so the kids were spared. Even though the humans were up in arms about it, we don’t have the power to fight the vampires, so we talk about it to our friends, family, and coworkers, but we don’t go public about it. Good way to end up being one of their minions. Crying shame about the rest of the hunters who died. They were all hard-working citizens. Never caused any trouble. Kept the vampires from out-of-town from causing trouble when they visited."
"Can you tell us which apartment the vampires are in?" Adonis asked.
The man wrote it on a slip of paper and folded it, then handed it to Adonis. "Don't tell anyone I told you so. And here are the keys."
"We won't." Adonis was about to lead them out of the manager’s office, but Pasha wanted to see the security video.
They watched the days leading up to when Carissa had killed the vampires, to the days after that.
The manager pointed out the ones who were vampires and the ones who had been killed.
“Thanks,” Adonis said, watched him for a few minutes, then the manager nodded to his secret communication. Then Adonis led the hunters to the elevator, and they rode it up to the fourth floor. "They have two separate apartments. One on this floor, one on the fifth."
"Should we split forces and hit them both at the same time?" Michael asked.
"They might have a big group there, so no, we need to stick together."
Pasha was glad Adonis said so. Even though she didn't want this group of vampires—if there was one in the apartment—to warn the others, should they surprise them and begin to fight. But it could be a disaster if there were two big groups of vampires, and the hunters were way outnumbered if they split up to tackle both. Not that the vampires in this apartment couldn't call on the others to come aid them. They very well could. But at least the hunters would have the advantage of surprise in the beginning.
When they reached the door, Adonis and the others took a deep breath, readying themselves for a fight. All the hunters had their swords out when Adonis unlocked the door with a click. If the vampires were there, they probably would be sleeping soundly. Since it was a nice sunny day in the city, and the apartments had nice big windows, Pasha had every intention of opening the drapes and letting the sun shine in.
They opened the door and immediately were met by a couple of hosts who looked shocked to see them. Adonis showed them his fangs. Zachary and Danai followed suit, the three of them letting the hosts know they were part of the vampire contingent. The hosts nodded and let them in. Adonis looked at both men who nodded and left the apartment.
If hosts were there, vampires probably were too. They found a man sleeping on the sofa. Danai and Rachael stayed with him, watching him while the others checked out the two bedrooms. A man and woman were in a bed together, and another m
an was sleeping in a bed in another room. Zachary had his sword poised to take care of one of the vampires when Pasha motioned to the window and indicated with hand motions, she wanted to open the drapes first. He nodded. She went to the window and slowly pulled aside the floor to ceiling drapes, letting the sun spill into the bedroom where the couple were. The sun touched their skin and they cried out, trying to scramble away from the sunlight—unsuccessfully—before they turned into ash. Zachary and Pasha hurried into the other bedroom, but Michael or Adonis had taken care of the single man.
"He hissed at me when I woke him," Adonis said, proof the guy had been a vampire, not a human.
When they returned to the living room, Rachael motioned to the ashes and clothes left on the sofa. "Ancient."
They didn't hesitate to leave and headed for the door and the other apartment before the vampires learned hunters were on their way, hoping none of these had telepathically warned them already.
They took the stairs this time, and when Adonis unlocked the door on the next floor, a man backed away from it. Adonis showed his teeth, the others repeating what they'd done earlier, to prove they were vampires, part of the rest of them. Adonis spoke telepathically to him and the man said, "Five, no other hosts."
"Good. Leave. Don't remember us or that we were here," Adonis said.
Some might think that fighting vampires like this when they were sleeping wasn't fair, but fairness had nothing to do with it. If it did, killing hunters just for the sake of taking over their territory wasn't fair either. Or that hunters could only have the numbers they did by procreation. Being able to turn hundreds of people into vampires wasn't fair. Not to the newly turned or to the hunters.
Too bad they couldn't hire humans to serve as hunters, but the vampires and hunters were stronger than humans and could see in the dark, so the humans were at a disadvantage and Pasha thought that wouldn't be fair to humans either.
The hunters in this group did the same as before, this apartment having three bedrooms, and once the host left the apartment, the hunters went to find the vampires. Two of the three rooms were empty.
Adonis frowned.
"He said there were five vampires," Pasha said, frowning, but she quickly opened the drapes in each of the bedrooms. Only in two did the sunlight stretch across the room. In the other, it didn't because of the time of day and the way it faced.
Danai peeked under the bed and nodded.
Adonis and Michael lifted the bed, exposing the vampire sleeping there to the sun’s rays while Danai leaped at the vampire and stabbed him in the heart before he could vanish. Adonis hurried into the other sun-brightened room to join Zachary and Pasha and when she looked under the bed, she said, "One."
Adonis and Zachary lifted the bed, exposing the vampire to the sunlight, killing it right away.
Danai and Rachael were in the other room where the sunlight didn’t reach the bed. Two male vampires were sleeping in it together. Pasha loved that vampires were usually sound sleepers in the middle of the day.
Suddenly, both men threw aside the covers, ready to kill whoever had disturbed their sleep, fangs exposed, but then they looked puzzled, frowning. Pasha suspected Adonis or Zachary, maybe even Danai was talking to them telepathically. Even though Pasha didn’t want to be a vampire for anything, she sure wished she could hear what was being said. And she thought it was cool that they could protect the hunters by convincing hosts that they hadn’t seen the hunters in action or otherwise.
Chapter 17
Zachary repeated his telepathic question to the half-asleep vampire in the apartment. "We're here about the hunters who are decimating our numbers."
"What?" the one asked telepathically back. Neither of them seemed to notice anyone but the vampire who was addressing them. "I thought I heard...something."
A scream in terror from the vampires exposed to sunlight? Probably. Thankfully, the hunters turned didn't have that trouble. "We killed a hunter who had gotten into the apartment. We've tried to find Rutherford. He must be hurt, weak, and need blood. We'll get some hosts to locate him and give him blood."
"He won't tell anyone where he is. He's afraid more ancients are out to get him," the one vampire said. Then he narrowed his black eyes. "You must be an ancient. What if you want to find him to do what Crichton failed to do?"
These two had to be Rutherford's minions. "Why would we? We all came here for a piece of the pie."
"The slices would be bigger if Rutherford was dead and more of the ancients were too."
"We need to know how many of us that are left to fight. There's got to be more than one hunter. Maybe two," Zachary said.
"Only Rutherford knew how many men he'd changed. Not even those who he turned know about all the rest. And though he changed all of us, not all of us get along," the other vampire said. "Are the others still asleep?"
Permanently.
"Yes," Zachary said, then he flew to kill the vampire while Adonis took care of the other.
They heard the door open to the apartment and Zachary and Adonis vanished from the bedroom and appeared in the living room to meet the unexpected guest. Danai quickly joined them.
It was one of the hosts returning to the apartment. “Leave and don’t come back,” Zachary telepathically said to the host. “Don’t tell anyone you’ve been working for the vampires. Don’t tell anyone we were here, or that the other vampires were here. You know nothing.”
“Yes sir.” The host turned around and left the apartment.
When the door shut on the host’s exodus, Adonis called the police officer in charge of vampire cleanups. “We’ve got more deceased vampires for you, these at Sunshine Apartments, number 402 and 506. We won’t be here when you get here.”
Then Adonis and the other hunters left the apartment and returned to speak with the manager. He repeated their orders not to let anyone know they’d been here, but also told him not to let anyone know the police were coming to pick up the bodies. It would be done well before dusk and it was best if Crichton didn’t know if the vampires were just out partying somewhere else that night and hadn’t told him anything about it.
Before nightfall, the hunters contacted the other hunters and made sure they were all okay. Once they were reassured they were, they had dinner, and then returned to the house to switch off with the ones who had been sleeping, who were now on watch.
When the sun had faded from the sky, Crichton woke and was still groggy from sleep. He didn’t need coffee. He needed blood. At least he’d brought home a man last night to satisfy his needs who was sleeping on his sofa in the living area. Crichton dressed and walked into the living room and woke the host. The man looked up at him as if he had forgotten why he was here, then glanced around the room, undoubtedly wondering where he was.
“You will feed me.”
The host nodded. Crichton sat beside him, and took his arm, then bit it and sucked the host’s blood until he was satisfied. “Sleep. I will need you for more later.” Crichton stood and the host laid back down on the couch and closed his eyes.
Now it was time to turn some humans into his own army of vampires.
He left the apartment complex and searched the streets nearby where several pubs and restaurants were located. He didn’t want a bunch of drunken vampires serving him because they would be useless in the beginning, not to mention drinking their blood could make him lightheaded, but he found a lot of men eating and drinking at the pub, so he figured he’d have to make do. He avoided those who were with women. He wanted single men between the ages of twenty-five and forty who would be in prime fighting spirit. Not that younger or older men wouldn’t be a help, and in truth, they often confused hunters, believing they wouldn’t be useful to an ancient.
Women could be just as deadly when turned, but he didn’t want any matchmaking going on or fights between vampires over a woman. He’d seen it too often, both between ancients and the newly turned, so he was going just for the single males.
He approached three
men sitting at a table, all of them just now ordering beers and sandwiches. Good. They hadn’t started drinking, here anyway. The waiter left with their meal order.
It didn’t matter to Crichton that the men would never eat or pay for their meals.
“Come with me,” he said, reaching the three at the same time with his mind persuasion.
The men rose from their chairs like mindless zombies, the way he liked them until he turned them, and they were completely under his control. He glanced around the room and looked for some others who he could take with him at the same time. He might as well so he could get a good jumpstart on his vampire army.
Four men were already drinking at another table. Such was the problem with the fact it was already night and if they came to drink at the pub, they’d already have a start on it. But having seven men serve him appealed.
He walked up to the table and the four men were so busy talking, it took them a moment to look up and see Crichton standing next to the table with three other men in tow.
“Yeah?” the one guy said, sounding annoyed for the interruption in their good times.
Crichton smiled. “You will come with me.”
The men obediently rose from the table and went with him to the door and he led them outside on a walk back to his condo. The location had a view of the pubs and restaurants, not the beach like some of the vampires were interested in. Go figure. They couldn’t sunbathe on the beach. He wanted a location that was where all the humans congregated at night.
Once he led them up to his condo and let them inside, he had them all sit on the various chairs and the sofa the host wasn’t sleeping on. “All of you will sleep until I’m ready for you.”
And then once the men fell asleep, he took the first of the men who hadn’t been drinking and woke him. “Now you are mine.” He bit into his neck and tasted his blood, coppery, no alcohol, luckily.
“Your turn.” Crichton offered his wrist. It was safer that way for him if the vampire tried to feed too much at one time.
