As soon as the fight was over, a new vampire showed up, but he immediately held up his hands when he saw the four hunters. "I'm not here to fight anyone," he said. "My name is Alex Matheson and Rutherford turned me, trying to force me to kill the hunters, but I didn't. I hid every time they were battling it out. I know it sounds cowardly, but I didn't want to kill anyone. I didn't want to be turned. Many of the others did. They were offered power and the abilities that would make them feared and somebody that people obeyed. But they didn't realize how much they'd be owned and operated by Rutherford like they were his puppets. Still, we were turned by him and we can't fight his orders.
"Until now. He's too weak. If I knew where he was, I'd tell you."
"Why are you here?" Boniface asked, his hunter wariness at an all-time high.
"I wanted to warn you that Crichton, one of the ancients in on this, has started turning vampires. He wanted me to go to the hunters' homes to search them to see if any of you were there."
"By yourself?" Pasha asked.
"Yeah. Since we were all turned, I’ve made friends with the others. We ended up here as part of Rutherford and the other ancients' big plan to destroy the hunters. I knew we'd be massacred. The ancients don't care. They just figure they'll make more of us as if were some kind of clone army for them to have at their disposal."
"So you came here to...?" Zachary asked.
"I don't want to fight you or the vampires. I can't fight the ancients. I definitely can't fight Rutherford since he made me. But I wanted to see if you knew a way out for us. For all of us who were turned against our will and don’t want to fight for the vampires. I know that vampires live peaceably with everyone else in other communities. I want to learn to live with what I am now, since there’s nothing much else I can do about it. But I don't want to die for something I had no control over," Alex said.
"You say you didn't kill anyone," Pasha said. "Can you prove it?"
"I can tell you the closet I hid in when the killing went on. I wanted to help the hunter family because they were the underdogs."
Pasha raised her brow at him.
"I mean, they were living peaceably there and didn't know what hit them. I couldn't even join the army because I didn't want to ever fight anyone. I just can't."
"It's in your blood now," Zachary said.
"Only as far as Rutherford controlling me, but I've been getting by without him knowing any better," Alex said.
"Believe me, he'd know," Zachary said. "You won't have blood staining your teeth, blood on your clothes from sword fighting, if you were fighting that way."
"I did have blood on me. I smeared some of a vampire's blood on me, figured it was less sacrilegious since the vampires were the ones at fault for killing the hunters. Crichton keeps trying to get hold of me, to learn what I've discovered with respect to the hunters in the homes, but I just 'vanished' and wouldn't respond."
"So why are you here after a wave of your brethren attacked us?"
"That wasn't my doing. I didn't want them to go with me. I told you so. I guess either Rutherford told them to, or Crichton did."
"Is Rutherford dead?"
"Half dead. I thought I was a coward, but he won't even call on any of us to come to his aid."
"Because?" Pasha asked.
"He thinks we'll be followed, and Crichton will kill him."
"Okay, so why come to us? We can't trust you. You could be here with this story and it's just that. A story. It could be you're just counting hunter heads," Zachary said.
Boniface and Victor agreed.
"I could be. But I can tell you that we had seventy-six newly turned vampires and we're down to around forty." Alex glanced around the room. "Minus five more."
"Six," Pasha said. "There's a big one in the bedroom."
"Okay, so we suspected you've got more than just one or two hunters killing us. I want both Crichton and Rutherford dead. The word is out Crichton is turning people so he can take out both us and Rutherford and then he'll be in charge. So why should we fight for the vampires and kill hunters? When vampires are out to get us too?"
“What was the motivation for them coming here in the first place?” Zachary asked. “Just by chance? Or for some deeper reason?”
“A couple of the older hunters here killed Rutherford’s brother, Loren. He’d gotten angry in a pub because a hunter saw Loren trying to get out of paying the bill by using his vampiric persuasion and he called Loren on it. Another ancient was there and attacked the hunter—”
“My Uncle Patton,” Pasha said.
“Uh, he didn’t know the name, but two older hunters were there too—”
“My Grandma and Grandpa, and the three of them killed the two vampires. Loren had attacked my Uncle Patton too. The vampires didn’t think the older hunters could fight. They were mistaken.”
“Right. So when Rutherford heard of it, he wanted revenge. Not that he was close to his brother and he didn’t know his friend. But Crichton did. He was a friend of Hopkins. So Crichton was agreeable to come here and get rid of the hunters also.”
"Not just the ones who terminated the two vampires. And they did kill four humans who got in their way. Where is Crichton?" Pasha asked.
"He's in a condo. Some of the other vampires saw him coming out of it. And I spoke to him right in the same area. It's just a walk down to the pub where he grabbed those men and turned them. He had to have done it at his condo. I'm sure if anyone saw the security videos, they'd see just where he went," Alex said.
"What about the vampires he's controlled?" Pasha asked.
"They'll be free to make their own choices and if we take him down now before they kill anyone and forever have that on their conscience, and have earned a death warrant, he won't be able to turn any more people. The other ancients aren't doing that."
"You'll take us to his condo," Zachary said.
"Sure. I will. Because I want this. He's sending men to kill me, so I don't feel anything but the need to make sure he doesn't, and he doesn't do that to anyone else. If we can kill him—"
"We?" Pasha asked. "I thought you didn't want to kill anyone."
"It's just a matter of speech. If you can kill him, then those men might be able to have a life. The ancients won't bother them. Not with all the notoriety this case has gotten. Not only that, but you might have heard the police are hiring hunter assassins to take out Crichton. Next, they'll go after the rest of us. And I didn't do anything. I don't want to pay for a crime with my life that I didn't commit."
"All right, we go together. If you warn him we're coming, you're dead," Boniface said.
"If we don't leave anyone here, we won't be able to keep the place secure," Zachary said.
"We'll clean it out when we return," Victor said.
Zachary nodded and squeezed Pasha's hand. "Let's get dressed."
As soon as they were fully dressed, they headed out to the car and Zachary contacted Adonis. "We're with a newly turned vampire who's taking us to Crichton's lair. We're leaving the house vacant. We don't know what we'll find, but he seems sincere in saying he hadn't killed any hunters and he wants no part of any of this."