He started on the next human until he'd gotten through all the ones he'd brought to the condo. He had a slight buzz from the guys who had been drinking beers, but not enough to incapacitate him.
The newly turned vampires could fight in a few hours, less time, if necessary, like if they suddenly had a hunter threat. He wanted to hold off showing anyone his cards until he had at least another ten turned. He thought fifteen to twenty was a good number to begin with to help him eliminate the hunter threat and even take out some of Rutherford's vampires. After all, if Rutherford hadn't died and he finally was healed up enough to take Crichton to task, he could easily give his vampires the order to terminate him. Hell, once Crichton had enough of his own vampires, they could take out them, and the hunters.
Crichton was beginning to think there had to be a lot more than one hunter.
Once all his blood bonds were sleeping, he went out again. He saw a couple of Rutherford's vampires milling around on the sidewalk near his complex and that gave him pause. What were they doing here? He'd been careful not to be seen, not to allow anyone to know exactly where he was staying. He could have just vanished and reappeared where he wanted to be if he was going somewhere far away, but he couldn't do that if he was stalking humans to turn into his minions, and like a pied piper, taking them to his condo to change them. He didn’t want to get caught doing that on the street.
He was about to vanish when one of the vampires turned and saw him. Too late now, but at least they didn't see him leave the building. "Have you seen Whitefoot or any of the other ancients?" he asked, as if he cared. All he cared about was Rutherford's whereabouts.
"No. We've been watching for any sign of the hunter who's killing vampires though," the one man said.
"Do you know of any of the vampires who have gone missing for sure?" Crichton asked. It felt like a black void out there where it seemed the vampires were but hidden from his sight.
"Alex. He said he was going to check the Camerons’ house and he never came back, and I can't get hold of him. I didn't know him from before, but we just hit it off. He reminded me of a friend back home, funny, serious, just fun. He said you sent him to Camerons’ house looking for Dennison. But no one's seen Dennison either. Sorry, I know we're just supposed to be looking for hunters, but it just seems there's more than one out there."
The other man nodded. "I was with him when Alex said he was going to check out the house. We wanted to go with him, but he said it was his job and there shouldn't be any trouble."
"Hell, we need to check out the houses where the vampires were supposed to be staying to monitor the hunters’ homes from across the street," Crichton said.
"Rutherford said we were supposed to get out on the street and look for hunters."
Crichton's jaw dropped and then he quickly recovered. Maybe Rutherford had been so badly injured that he thought only the hunter had targeted and nearly killed him and maybe another had tried also. Maybe he didn't realize Crichton was the one who had nearly killed him. "So he sent you a message...a new order recently?"
"No, it's the same one as before."
"Okay, look," Crichton said, glad that Rutherford still wasn't communicating with his blood bonds, yet still not sure what to think, and annoyed that Rutherford’s vampires wouldn't do what Crichton told them to without hesitation. He'd rather send them into danger, if the houses were now overrun with hunters, though he couldn't imagine such a thing, than send his newly turned vampires out to do the task and get them killed. Then he’d have to start all over again. "Rutherford gave you the standing order to kill hunters. If there are any hunters at the houses across the street from the hunters' homes, kill them. Then you're still fulfilling Rutherford's orders and taking care of the threat. If you can get hold of some of the others he turned, go in a group, the bigger the better." He wasn't going to waste his breath on trying to convince anyone else to go with them. He was certain they'd do a better job at it than him.
“Well?” Crichton didn’t like it that he couldn’t just order them to get it done. Alex, for whatever reason, went ahead and did it, but these vampires seemed to have more of a mind of their own.
“Did you want to come with us?” the one vampire asked.
Like he was their buddy or something like that? “No, I’ve got to find Whitefoot. But if you can get some other ancients to go with you, the more the better.” If some of them went with the newly turned vampires, maybe they could get rid of some hunters. Or alternately, the hunters could get rid of them and he’d have fewer vampires to deal with. He couldn’t believe it had come to this where he was more concerned about eliminating the vampire threat—to him.
“Okay, we’ll find some more of the others and check it out.”
“Let me know if you find anything.”
“Then you’ll join us?” one of the men asked, his brow raised. He was being impertinent Crichton thought and he didn’t like it one bit.
He was the first on Crichton’s list to go. The vampires vanished and Crichton continued his prowl to search for more potential vampire converts.
He was about to go into a restaurant when he saw Whitefoot headed his way. “I owe you an apology,” Whitefoot said, surprising the hell out of Crichton.
“Two of Rutherford’s vampires told me that you tried to save him from a second hunter’s sword. If you hadn’t, he wouldn’t have lived.”
Now that was a shock! “Where is he? Why not thank me himself?”
Whitefoot shrugged. “Only the vampires he’s turned are allowed to see him, I suspect. I haven’t met any that have actually gone to meet up with him.”
“I just spoke with some. They haven’t heard from him,” Crichton said.
“I’m sure, in his weakened condition, he’s only speaking to a couple of them.”
“I had the notion that a hunter or two might have taken over the homes across the street from the hunters’ homes,” Crichton said, hoping to convince Whitefoot he should go take care of it.
“You should check that out. I’ll see you later.” Whitefoot vanished before Crichton could respond.
Crichton didn’t believe Whitefoot. Or didn’t believe that Rutherford, if he really told Whitefoot that, thought two hunters were trying to kill him at once and Crichton had intervened to save his ass.
As unsettled as Crichton was over Whitefoot’s comments, he continued on with his mission, even more determined to create his own army of vampires to take down Rutherford and his own vampires. Of course Whitefoot would have to be a casualty too.
Crichton hadn’t exactly formulated the plan to get rid of Rutherford during a battle with the hunters until he had gotten fed up with Rutherford’s highhandedness about being royalty and Crichton being nobody before the Black Death changed them forever. To Crichton, it had evened out the playing field. But the vampire aristocrats didn’t feel that way. Once an aristocrat-born, always an aristocrat.
Once Crichton had established his own vampire clan way back then, he’d been used to being in charge and liked to keep it that way. The others had been turned at the same time as he had, so they weren’t his converts, but they’d listened to him just the same. Until all the backbiting had begun and he hadn’t been able to control any of it.