He’d never turned anyone actually, only hatching the idea after Rutherford seemed so successful at it. Crichton really hadn’t had any use for the newly turned vampires and didn’t respect them either. They didn’t have the same world view of the ones changed so long ago. He thought of them as more like hipster vampires and they believed they knew everything when they didn’t know a tenth of what he knew because of living for so many centuries.
He walked inside the steak restaurant and saw too many couples. Then he saw a group of men dressed in suits. He thought they might be somebody important and too easily missed. Not that the other men might not be either. But he couldn’t afford to turn someone who was too influential in town. He left the restaurant and returned to the pub. Two police officers were talking to a waiter. That gave him real pause.
“Okay, so you say three men went with this guy, and then he stopped at another table and the four men there went with him?” the officer asked.
The waiter ran his hands through his hair and nodded. “Yes, sir. He…I think he was a vampire.”
Another waiter joined him and agreed with him. “I took the orders for the three men and then when I brought the meals to their tables, they were gone. They didn’t pay or anything.” He sounded highly annoyed.
“The other four had their meals and drinks and ate only a small amount and then they left without paying. They didn’t finish their beers and these guys have been in here before and they’ve had two or three beers apiece,” the other guy said. “And they’re big tippers. They wouldn’t have just left like that.”
Hell, Crichton really hadn’t planned to get the police involved. He vanished and returned to his condo and paced across his living room.
Then he got a telepathic message from Whitefoot. “What are you doing? Creating an army of your own? Why do you think Rutherford made a real effort to take people from all over? One pub? Seven missing men? Really? Two of Rutherford’s vamps were inside eating when the police arrived and warned me about it.”
They warned Whitefoot and not Crichton? That irritated Crichton all the more.
“They’re circulating photos of you all over already. You were caught on video, Crichton! If you don’t believe me, just watch TV. And if they realize you’re truly a vampire, the police will hire hunter assassins who go after specific rogues. The police were leaving us alone because we weren’t bothering with the local citizens. Don’t you get it? If I were you, I would leave the area, for your own sake. Hell, you’re a dead man if the hunters come in droves to terminate you.”
No way was Crichton leaving. He had come here to do a job and his job had changed a little bit, but he wasn’t going to be chased off now. “We needed more vampires. Our own are vanishing. I need some control over the situation.”
“This is the way you take control of the situation?” Whitefoot ended the conversation.
Okay, so Crichton had to admit, to himself only, that things hadn’t actually gone according to plan. He now believed all the vampires would be watching him and some of them might try to take him down. More of a reason to have his own vampires watching his back. Then he had a thought. He could release his newly turned vampires and let them return home, or to the restaurant, pay their bills, and then do whatever, and he’d call them when he needed them. Then the whole issue would be mute. The men weren’t harmed, and they finished their meals or whatever.
He called out to the vampires in his condo, “You will return to the pub, order meals, and pay your bills, then go about your business until I call on you.”
The seven men filed out of the bedrooms, nodded a greeting to him, and left the condo. He thought of vanishing and reappearing next to the pub, but he was afraid he’d be seen, though he was dying to know how it turned out. He considered reappearing at the building across the street, a drugstore, and he could watch from the shadows, but he wanted to be inside the pub to hear what was being said. Too bad he couldn’t reappear in the pub and make himself invisible while he listened and watched what was going on. But vampires couldn’t do that feat.
Chapter 18
Adonis was driving the SUV back to the houses they were staying at when Pasha thought they were being followed. "Does it seem like that SUV behind us has been following us since the last street we turned onto?"
Adonis had been careful to make several side-street trips, avoiding going back in a straight line to the first of the houses the hunters had taken over, just in case anyone had the notion they were hunters and wanted to see where they were staying.
That could prove disastrous if the vampires planned retaliation once the hunters split up and went on their way to the other homes. The other places where Carissa had told them vampires were staying turned out to be a bust. They figured once the vampires were killed there, the others wouldn’t return there.
"I've been watching the vehicle. We're going to take several more detours to lose them."
"If they're vampires, won't they assume we're going to our homes?" Pasha asked. They could just arrive there ahead of them and lie in wait.
"The hunters there are keeping an eye out on things. If they see any activity, they'll alert us. If the vampires appear inside the homes we're hunkered down in, they'll inform us there's a fight going on. So we should be covered either way," Adonis said.
Still, things could go wrong. She continued to watch the black vehicle behind them and so did the other hunters.
"They're turning down another street," Michael said.
"Yeah, I see it. I'll follow them then, if I can catch up to them." Adonis went down the next street and turned back one, everyone watching for signs of the vehicle. No one saw any sign of it.
She hoped they weren't going to have any trouble tonight, but if they could finish this off and none of their people were killed or hurt, she was ready for it.
Zachary was on his phone, calling up the various hunter groups to make sure everyone was fine. When he was done, he said, "No one's having any trouble. Laura and Jeremy killed another vampire when they saw the lights turn on in their home, but otherwise, it's been quiet. Even though we all can see in the dark, the vampires still like turning on lights."
"Good thing for us when we're watching for them." Pasha was glad everything was quiet still. But nighttime was when the vampires got active, so she figured they'd soon be having some sightings.
"Hey"—Zachary was still looking at his phone—"apparently one of the vampires is turning people."
"Crichton did it, I bet," Pasha said. "Now we're in for more trouble."
"The police are talking about it, saying they're going to hire vampire assassins to clean up the city," Zachary said.
"Now they say so." Pasha was irritated with them for not doing so when the hunters had fallen in the area.
"Yeah. Now that their people are being targeted, they have to do something," Adonis said.
"As long as hunters show up who aren’t trouble for us," Pasha said.
"You mean Gregory and his friends?" Adonis asked.
"Yeah, now that he's banished from Dallas, he'll have to find work elsewhere."