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.
Once the man had bitten into Crichton’s arm, he said, “Now you will do as I say. Go to one of the bedrooms on the right and lie down for now. I’ll call you when I need you.”
He needed to do this in an organized way, or he could lose control of those he hadn’t turned already. He sure didn’t need anyone running to the police, warning them a rogue was turning people into vampires in the city.
So far, they hadn’t had to deal with the police concerning the rogue vampires eliminating the hunters. He suspected they were afraid to get involved, though calling on other hunters to take out the vampire threat could become a reality if they discovered he was turning humans. But he didn’t have the luxury to leave and find a new bunch of humans to turn in another city or state even, that would help to eliminate their concern. Rutherford, as much as Crichton despised the self-righteous aristocrat, at least had done that right, taking humans from different locations, regions, and bringing them here already turned. But the problem was they weren't friends and often that could cause more trouble than not. Bickering and rival newly turned vampires could be a pain.