Blood Rider

The warehouse was covertly watched. The Hunt Guard and some of the local werewolf pack had taken the day watch, to make sure the prey didn’t get wind of them and flee to a new nest. They had reported daytime activity. Peculiar daytime activity. While vampires often employed other races for daylight business, they never allowed them near their resting place. Even a Master was vulnerable during daytime lethargy. Yet they had seen humans coming and going from the nest. Lee had been told they looked like they had been fed on. All disorientated, but then returning to the nest at dusk as though drawn back.

Sometimes humans became addicted to the feeding, especially if the vampire swamped a human mind too much. The part of the unsecured city known as the gutters was full of them. Lee didn’t think that was the case here. Too stupid to have humans roaming the resting place for one. Also didn’t fit the pattern of rabid feeders, which killed rather than swamped. Unfortunately, she was as limited as any vampire. She couldn’t watch the nest during the day herself. Besides, maybe it meant the Master was in fact there since maybe he was drawing in some food for his rabid little children. And now, it just meant other casualties when they attacked.

For this night raid, they had some Hunters who volunteered to hunt with Richard, Tia and some of the local pack werewolves. Fifteen of each, which should be plenty given they had marked only nine vampires and possibly five or so human addicts and with the wizard Tia had on her initial run estimating twenty. Richard handled most of the tactical details. Lee simply wanted to get some alive.

Anyone with enhanced senses couldn’t miss their approach. Not with Richard’s crackling energy, the werewolves sweet hot blood and her expansive aura. One of the wizards did cast a sound dampener and something he called a buffer which would hide the wizards energy aura. The scents and vampire auras though were not masked and all those werewolves should have been scented. Yet as they watched the human vagrants enter, nothing appeared out of sorts. It could be they were having a morning feeding. Lee expanded her senses and touched on the occupants, their feelings intense as a chaotic swirling storm. She was unable to distinguish one mind from another. Had to be feeding.

-They are wild, Lee. Like animals.-

Like demons?

-Not funny, these are crazed.-

Seemed more doped up to her, but she had seen them with prey and they had been brutal. Her kind could be, but they didn’t tend to leave corpses around, especially with their throats ripped out. Perhaps their non-interference seemed a bit uncaring, or at least from the victim’s point of view, but they had to track them to the nest. With their overt aggressiveness, there was no opportunity to save the victim without killing the predator. It had mostly been clean up. They had been harder to track than she would have thought from mindless bleeders. It seemed they tended to lose them near dawn when they should be seeking shelter and they didn’t always return to this nest, of that she was sure, having traced one until the rising sun had given herself quite the sunburn.

Tia had her pack associates scouring the parts of the city they had access to during the day and had discovered a disturbing amount of scent trails, unfortunately, this made it hard to locate just one. They had claimed the scent trail had been ruined by human tracks. It took some combination of work between the Hunter Guard, some pack runners and vampires to keep a constant eye of the ones they had located. A merry chase indeed. Even so, no sign, scent or traces of a Maker. An aged vampire could hide well, creating a sort of mirroring of their ancient auras, so her mind would sweep right past them. But they were hardly invisible. If she tried hard enough she could feel the presence of Eric. Or at the very least, the void their mental shields created. Lucien, for example, would create a void.

Cautiously they moved forward. At this point, her instincts were humming with the feeling they were being watched already. The crusted snow and ice didn’t help a bit; every crunch sounded incredibly loud to her hearing. Hunters positioned themselves to shoot anyone that came out. She jumped off the roof, landing in a crouch beside four werewolves. With a few hand gestures, they slid forward, clinging to the darkness and her aura rippling outward to blend them into the shadows.

Richard came from a different direction, but met with them, as he was the first line of attack. He held two spheres in his hand, perfect glass globes and within them was coiled metal. As he approached the door the globes began to glow a pale orange and made a low hissing noise. They watched, coiled and ready, as Richard opened the door. One after the other he tossed the spheres into the darkness, shut the door and stepped back rapidly. The flash bombs when off almost silently, but the intense light that made it through the gaps piercing the darkness, making her wince. She braced herself as a pulse of energy rippled outward.

It was seconds later that she heard the screams and the vampires burst free from the building lit up like torches. Holding steady she pulled free her sword; a gift from Richard, thin, sharp and glowing a pale yellow. Her fine blade, Sunshine, cut through vampires like butter. Lee was transfixed for a moment by the flailing forms, but it was because she heard their screaming in her skull, full of blind rage and agony. Charlie echoed a howl that vibrated through her.

She danced forward with an arcing swing as one vampire lunged at her. She sliced him from the side of the neck into the chest with one smooth motion, the blade sizzling and cauterizing as she did. He fell forward as she pulled Sunshine free and before he could even attempt to heal the wound she stabbed him in the heart and twisted. She felt like she was slaughtering him, or putting him out of his misery. It wasn’t a good feeling. It wasn’t the spawn that was to blame for their state, but the Master who created them.

She knew they were in trouble when she began to filter in details. Pretty obvious details when she was knocked to the ground and grappled with one of the rogues. Rage contorted his face, began to literally contort, as his rider warped his physical form. Forcing such an immediate change had to be painful and had to drain a lot of his stolen vital essence. The skin was stretched across his face, his jaw unhinged and his mouth open like a jackal. His canines were growing as she shoved a palm against his forehead and tried to keep him away from her. His flesh was an unhealthy looking grey and felt rougher than it should. Face to face she grappled with him, his eyes full of raw hunger and rage.

“Fuck me,” she gasped, just trying to keep the thing away.

Her fangs came out from feeling the heat of battle and bloodlust. Reaching down she pulled free her fighting knife she stabbed him in the neck. Always aim for major arteries, even that slows a vampire down. Blood gushed, but he seemed not to care. Crazy vampire perhaps too stupid to know he was bleeding out.

His fingertips shifted into sharp claws, even as the wound on his neck began to seal around her knife. She wiggled the blade, reopening the wound. He grappled her arm from his face while stabbing those claws into her side. She twisted the knife again, but he still forced himself down and ripped into her shoulder. She let out a hiss of pain, twisted the knife and slicing across his neck. He was getting weak and as he tried to get up she pushed him back a bit. She threw herself forward, grabbed Sunshine and slashed into his chest, pulled back and then hit his neck almost decapitating him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she spat, getting to her feet and holding her shoulder. She felt it stitch together but still hurt like a bitch. She was drenched in his blood and her own.

She assessed the situation quickly. More vampires were coming out, not at all caught by Richard’s spelled bomb. There must have been an underground lair in there. A massive one. Somehow they had masked their presence. And there was a great deal more than anticipated. Or perhaps it was their assault that was anticipated.

She watched Tia, her massive wolf form knock a man down as she clamped onto his jugular. The coppery scent of blood made her rider surge within her, moving quickly into killing mode. She dispatched two more of them just as Richard used his lightning gun to guard her back. Shots from the Hunter picked off any they could. There was too many, way more than they had thought. She didn’t like it at all, going into it blindly, when clearly they didn’t know how established they were.

“Pull out!” Lee shouted, “Tag some.”

She whirled around to face another, just as his jaw unhinged and she reacted instinctively. She cut a low swing, severing one of his hands as she moved in close. Twisting his arm behind him, her other hand gripping that snarling face, and bit into his shoulder. The rush of vampire blood spilled into her, intoxicating and filled her with the instinct to kill. Even the taste was off, not the flavour of a vampire. Oh so rich though.

-Feed. Kill.-

For a moment she was consumed by that desire. Then she pulled back before the moment of death and began to drag her victim away. She watched one of Tia’s associates, a large black wolf, begin to drag a fallen vampire by the throat. They were not letting them retreat, these crazed vampires with rider warping and riding them. They had the scent of blood and were wild. Richard resorted to his shard bombs, several, tossed into the raging mob, they burst sending out thousands of silver shards. And they pulled back faster. Richard covered them as best he could with his lightning gun as they pulled their prey away. The hunters came into the fray shooting their modified guns, taking the attention from them.

They made it down the block and watched. She sent out a broad mental call to retreat.

The werewolf, now a naked man, protected his prey. Snarling at her.

“Hey. We’ve never met,” she said dryly. “I’m Lee.”

He gave her a feral grin. “I know of you, Council vamp.”

-A horde-

Lee wasn’t sure if that meant more than she was saying or it was a comment on how damn many there had been.

“So we scouted nine of these rogues,” she said. “That was a piss poor job on our part, wasn’t it?”

“Damn poor,” the were-kin said. Lee ignored the fact he didn’t give her his name. The pack may like to hunt with Tia, but they were an isolated breed. In fact, Tia was the only werewolf who could stand being around Lee longer than an hour without trying to pounce. Oddly enough, when Lee hunted in the country, she never had such a problem with were-coyotes.

Richard trotted up to them. His spiky locks clotted with blood and his clothes mostly splotched with splatter. A good wizard stays back and lets others get all cozy with the enemy. Not him. His grin, creased his hollowed cheeks, making it look easy and broad, but given the situation was a little manic and disturbing. “We gotta go, sweets. These vamps don’t know the meaning of retreat.”

She waved a hand broadly. “Then provide some cover, a shield, an invisibility hat or something, wizard.”

He pulled one of his amulets out, little-contained spells, this one looked steel. He rubbed a finger over the engraved pattern and spoke a few words. Lee felt everything dampen and dim. Her hearing was muffled and everything was in tones of gray. “A Blending will do.”

“I am, as always, unimpressed with your spells. No flare at all. No sparkles or nothing.”

“The bombs are flare enough,” he replied, laughter in his eyes. Only Richard could laugh and kill and laugh after. Definitely on the manic side, at least when it came to combat.

They took their prisoners back through the city into vampire grounds. Essentially this was a vampire problem and she figured that meant Eric could store these. She wasn’t bringing home two mad rogues; the noise and blood may stir the neighbours. Although they would be contained more within the Council isolation chambers, she couldn’t give over them until she knew more. They had to knock them unconscious, as hefting them over their shoulders was better than having to fight them every step.

They began to converge together, the Hunters covering their backs. She saw Tia running alongside another brown wolf. Both of them had lolling dog grins of satisfaction, from the joy of battle. Blood matted fur.

All the blood, on people’s skin, seeping from wounds and splattered on clothing was driving Lee to distraction. It was always the end of a battle that was hardest on the thirst. The thirst which made a vampire get into a battle lust and stay there. Hard to rein in after such a little scuffle.

She heard a howl and at the signal the werewolves shifted, mid-motion and turned about, as Lee crossed the unseen border between human sub-quarter to the Vampire Quarter. Richard remained by her side, but the werewolf released his burden to a vamp, shifted and left.

Tia would likely run to ground any more rogues they could track through the night and hopefully at least one would track back to the maker. The Hunters, on the other hand, would contain the area until they knew what needed to be done. Humans would have to be evacuated, the area cleared. It would only take a dozen skilled Hunters to burn the nest to the ground in the daylight. Fledglings had little defence during daylight. There were at least ten, that she knew of, predominant gangs within the human area, who would have to be informed. Eric would earn some respect points by his willingness to cooperate with others and informing the humans of the situation. The city may be fragmented, but when it came down to mutual threats they made alliances quickly, but of course, they betrayed as easily. Richard should be in control of the clearing process, but he wouldn’t just let Lee do her thing. He wouldn’t release rogues to the Clan unless he knew what was going on. So he could then tattle to her Handler.

In the end, they had five captives and an escort of twenty Clan vampires. Lee saw at least one clanless Council vampire, Dayton, had joined the fun. His murky blue eyes flashing with hunger and the pure joy of the fight. He saw her looking his way and slowed until he was at her side. He carried one of the rogues and he slapped the rogue’s thigh. “What the hell are these things? Cause I have never seen anything like them before.”

“Me neither, brutha,” she said. “Could it be a new species of rider? A mutation of sorts.”

“Not hardly. The rider needs a host. A rider would never consume his host like that.”

Lee wondered about that. Why would they not want a host that was just a form to hold, with complete control to do as they wished?

“Well then, fuck if I know,” she said. “I don’t like not knowing. They are multiplying quickly.”

Finally, they arrived at the vampire jail. Eric had to have a strong hold on his line and any deviation needed to be punished. All she cared about is that it had secure rooms for their rogues. Eric met them on the steps of a stone building. One of the buildings within the core of the Vampire Quarter that was constructed by them. Like most it was stone and mortar, but solid and secure. She hoped he knew what these were. He looked over their hostages without even a flicker to his expression. “I’ll show where we can hold them.”

There was a moment when Eric stared Richard down. He knew all about Richard and his close Council ties. He wouldn’t have been permitted to step onto vampire claimed land without Lee at his side. From the flat look Richard returned, the feeling was mutual. Lee crossed her arms and waited for the moment to pass, or for them to try and kill each other. She smirked. That would be a sight. Eric smiled at her, maybe thinking the same thing and then gestured them in. He wouldn’t leave a metallurgist wizard at his back, but at the same time didn’t feel the need to disarm him either. Maybe because Richard had been a significant help with the nest, or because Eric didn’t feel he was a threat and wanted Richard to know that. Leyline magic wise, Richard was no threat to a Master. Magical toys that shot shards of silver at the head were definitely something to worry about.

Inside there was a front desk woman, but she waved them through with nary a change to her expression. Beyond that, there were several desks and vampires, likely working on cases. All of them looked up, nostril flaring and the scent of blood at least grabbed their attention even if the captives didn’t.

-Poor fledglings, death by paperwork. Tragic.-

He led them through the back, but only Richard and her. They released three of the prisoners to Eric’s Law Vampires, to be taken to secure holding cells. While he took the last into a room in the back they barred the door and went to the room next door. Inside was a huge glass one-way mirror, where they could watch the show. Lee touched the glass lightly, feeling a sizzle of energy brush against her aura. Spelled glass. She wondered who the Clan hired for their spell work. For certainly the vampires made use of magic, if only as a power source, and not many freelance wizards would be willing to work for vampires openly.

“How did the battle go?”

“There were more than nine,” Richard said dryly.

“And?”

“A lot more,” Lee emphasized. “We couldn’t rout them out, but it was a good riot. We had to retreat before we were overwhelmed. I’ve some associates working on following some, in hopes they’ll trace to their Master. And these presents for you as well.” The numbers were so unexpected, she kept getting the feeling they had been expected, maneuvered and tested. “We only scented out nine. I didn’t sense their numbers within the nest. They have been masking their presence exceptionally well, considering their nature. I strongly suspect they knew we were coming. Led us to that location, which likely is not their true nest, and drew us in.”

They turned to the mirror when two vampires entered and tied the rogue in a straightjacket and then strapped him to a chair. Then they began an interrogation and it did not go well. They asked about who his Master was, who had turned him and why. Were there other lairs and where they were. Were they trying to start a clan war or was this a young Master trying to gain territory. They simply got no response.

Eric ordered refreshments and hot water to wash off. Her clothes stuck to her skin in an uncomfortable way, but at least she cleared the majority of blood and grime from her arms and face.

The captive struggled to free himself, trying to lunge out of his bounds at the interrogators. He looked crazed and rabid. If not for the distortions to his features she would take him to be starved. No vampire over a hundred had not experienced starvation and knew what it felt like to be consumed by the hunger. This one was, but the amount of energy taken to warp their physical bodies had to take quite a bit of the death energy they had stolen. It made sense. Use more energy, take more energy. Maybe a rider didn’t get the delusional craziness a human mind did when taking a death kill. Though the host didn’t fare so well.

“So,” she said after a time. “What the hell is this rogue? Hmm? Have you ever seen something like that before? Their jaws widen enough to not merely bite your neck but ravish it. Why would the rider make such changes?”

Eric shook his head. “I don’t know. I have never seen it. In our histories many thousands of years ago it was said there were hordes. They refer to them as vampires with weak blood, as a partial or incomplete turning. They were exterminated by the Clans that made them. I don’t know if this is what they were and I certainly don’t know how they were created. Lucien is right. You must speak to our Lord Master, even as he is, he must have seen this or know more in his time.”

She thinned her lips; having dealt with one mad former bleeder she was reluctant to try another. However, it was clear they needed all the information they could get, and Lucian had told her his Master would be able to give her the information she desired as well.

She began to wonder why this was her problem. A Clan war, no matter the methods, had little to do with her. She was only contracted to handle broken Council laws and while there was plenty of that, with a nest of bleeders, the Council would not mind if the vampires clashed it out before they swept in to clean up the mess. Yet this threat did affect the delicate balance they maintained in the city. “Let me go in there and see if I can get anything from him.”

“They are feral, Lee. And bleeders. We will get nothing from them,” Eric said.

She knew that Eric would torture them, try to override their rider in order to find their creator. She had no problems with that. They needed the information and the Clans were the best to handle these situations, especially when it was their territory being invaded. He may use her to try and find the source, but she knew he would be more than willing to handle clean up.

“Nevertheless, I want to. And given, I have granted these captives to you, rather than the Council, the least you can do for this gift is give me a moment with one before you try other methods.”

He inclined his head. “Very well. I bargained for your assistance with this matter and you have met your end of the bargain thus far. While I do not bow to Council authority, I have bargained with you.”

“And Richard,” she added. Lee had no idea what a wizard could see or sense that would help, but perhaps he could perceive something a vampire couldn’t. Plus it would make the wizard feel involved. And irk Eric, which was simply a bonus.

Eric raised a brow. “You try my patience. Go.”

Grinning she left the room with Richard and knocked on the other door.

“It isn’t likely I’ll sense anything,” Richard remarked.

“Perhaps not, but you’re food,” Lee said, looking him over. Most of the blood was at the tacky stage. She flared her nostrils and breathed in the heavy sweet blood. “So you might rile the beast up.”

The door swung open just as Richard cursed her. The two vampire interrogators stepped out and gave her a slight nod. Richard stepped in the room first and the howling silenced. Lee followed him and saw the rogue staring at him, his mouth open wide in a stretched pulling back of the lips way, exposing his canines, which were killing length. Then his eyes turned to her and he jerked back and hissed. It’s well known, in vampire lore, that the beast within us is a serpent and sometimes she could see where that came from.

What she didn’t like was that it seemed to recognize her. Had they been watched even as they stalked their prey? It implied organization and could be an indication someone was readying for a territory claim. He had blood red iris’ that seemed to bleed into his whites. She grimaced in distaste. So overtly demon, that marking. Combined with the unhealthy grey skin he looked like the monsters humans saw vampires as.

She moved further into the room, getting a closer look at his rider altered form. “Hungry?” she asked. “Or should I say, always hungry? Someone must be getting the overflow of energy from you. Poor starved beastie. Who is it that steals your strength so you must kill more than one prey a night?”

He said nothing. Unless snarling counted.

“Obviously you’re not bonded to him completely. He lets you feed and kill your prey. Yet you grant him some of your strength. Does he have some sort of hold on you? Did he promise protection? I think he failed on that account.”

“He covets you,” the rogue hissed and then grinned widely, too widely. “Your bloodline has been perfected.”

Lee laughed mockingly. “My bloodline? I have no Clan, no master, to claim such a bloodline.”

Something about the rider was making Charlie agitated. The fact that there was no human riding this body was making Lee agitated as well. She was talking to a rider, which meant there had to be a division between Host and Rider. Or at least there could be such a division if the host was weak. Yet it made her feel a bit better to have her beliefs confirmed. If a rider could so take a host, then surely there was a defined division and she could talk to her rider.

“Your mother was a witch and her mother before her. A long line of witchy bitches. Your father was a werewolf, turned vampire. A dog to the Clan.”

“Lies,” she spat out. How would this creature know anything of her past, when she didn‘t?

It laughed and grinning that large mouth wickedly. She wondered if that is what Charlie truly looked like, this demonic beast that contorted the flesh of its host.

-This thing has no resemblance to us.-

Well, not me, anyway.

“No lies, pretty mistress. You’re a prize. Such good breeding.”

“So this show is for me is it?” she asked, mocking. It was taunting her, trying to distract her. She found the tactic odd, when he had been ranting and raving nonsense with the other interrogators.

What the hell is up with ‘good breeding’?

-Old stories. Even the Clans forget so very much. Stories of those with witch blood, abilities before the Changed ones were born, and those with shape-shifter blood were to mate, their child could be born vampire. Twin cursed.-

Don’t think there is any validity to that. But nonetheless interesting that he knows of these old myths and seems to believe them. Passing odd that is.

“No,” the rogue said. “A pretty prize, but not the game.”

-Be wary, Lee. If you have been marked by your bloodline, you must watch yourself-

He fucking lies, Charlie. My mother wasn’t a witch. She was a fucking accountant for fuck sakes. When I merged with you, she sent me away. A witch would know I wasn’t crazy. And my father wasn’t a vampire. He died in the last plague that began Creation.

-Lee, my lovely, Lee. You don’t remember. You speak what you have been told. It is true your mother was a witch and your father a vampire. I said you made a good host. A perfect host.-

She was shocked for a moment. Not of her parents, that just raised questions, many questions. It made the Clans interest in her on a new level. It made the Council’s interest in her suspicious. She could absorb the significance of that later. She was shocked Charlie confirmed it when she had never spoken of such things before. She felt her body still, her expression freeze for a moment. Her head throbbed and she shook her head to clear it.

“You’re claiming territory then?” she asked weakly. If he was willing to chat with her, maybe she would get something out of him.

“Not I, not I. Humans carve up land, what do I care for it?”

He lied, but while his desires raged, he still wasn’t claiming land. Leaving corpses around the city, taunting the humans, but making no claims. Why all the other urges and appetites and not the territorial one?

“Then who?”

“I cannot speak of it, he is my Master and he controls my existence.”

Lee grunted and glanced at Richard, who just raised a brow at her. “Didn’t teach you much about self-control did he?”

The rogue laughed and it sounded choked and guttural. “What do I need of self-control? I just need.”

“Preaching to the choir, brutha,” she said with a smirk. She cocked her head at him but the new angle added no insight. “But I know satisfaction as well,” she muttered, seeing that this creature didn’t. Yet if someone was indeed sucking the energy he gathered so ruthlessly, then how could it be done without the sire-fledgling bond? These creatures were connected somehow to their Maker, or there would be no control over them. He said the Maker controlled his existence.

What the hell is this, Charlie? It is just the rider here; I don’t think there is a merging at all. I think this is how the rider would make his host look to be the ultimate predator. With no intent on camouflage. The human is submerged in there. If the human is even in there at all.

-Lee, you’re right. This isn’t a bonding. This is possession. The rider has been forced on a human, but they have no melding. All ragged edges. The rider takes over when it is required, and likely retreats later, so they mimic humans again, and he re-exerts his force on them again. Again this is from old myths, you know what causes this. If so, these humans wouldn’t be vulnerable to sunlight, as they are not true vampires. Could explain why they are in the human sub-quarter. Explain the grouping. Explain even how the werewolves had trouble tracking so many if they had no place of rest to track to and a scent that shifted from human to vampire. They could be right underfoot and no one would now till nightfall.-

She stepped away from the rogue as the realization hit her. In the old myths, it was said wizards could control the vampires. The Council had looked into that one quite a bit. No wizard had come up with a way to do so, but that didn’t mean they stopped trying. “Your master isn’t a vampire at all. He’s a wizard.”

The vampire hissed. “I cannot speak of it. I’m unable to speak of it. You’ll know soon enough.”

“Crap, crap, crap on a fucking stick,” she cursed. They found the nest, but no master vampire, and there was none. A wizard was somehow thrusting the rider into victims, with no host bond, no proper merging. And using them as his minions to accomplish his task. Whatever that task was. There had never been a wizard faction of the city, never a wizard that was trying this hard to claim territory. He may not even be going after Eric, it could be any territory. It could even be the whole city.

“Well, this is unexpected,” Richard said. “I’ve never hunted a wizard.”

He didn’t sound particularly surprised. Perhaps it was because in the wizard community there were sharp factions; the White Wizard council who tended to side with the Changed, the grey-liners who did as they pleased but often worked for the Council and the lone blacks who tended to be recluses looking to advance their powers. Lee hadn’t been aware of any blacks in the city. They tended to avoid crowded areas but had been known to take over small towns or run their own territories of wilderness.

“And how would be interesting to know. How bout’ you hit the Archives on this.” She didn’t willingly go into University City. And Richard was a wizard and even a metallurgist wizard was more bookish than her. Besides, if the Council had still been working on spells to control vampires, they wouldn’t tell her about it. Either this was their mess and Richard wouldn’t tell her so, or they would tell Richard more than they would tell her. Either way, it kept him off her back.

“And you?”

“Will be doing research as well. With a madman. I’m sure you will have more success. Might as well make a report while you’re there, you’re so much better with such things. And tell Tia they’re looking for possible moving targets in the daylight. Who will look human, possibly smell demonic. We will need to track them in daylight to truly find this Maker. Now that we know it’s a wizard, we can hopefully get wizard assistance to narrow down this one‘s location. This sort of thing has to leave a magical trace. A trail of ley line magic at the very least.”

How the hell was she going to track down a wizard in control of a growing collection of half-vampires? She could contain the growth of vampires but he could just keep producing more. Spells were not her forte.

“Better figure it out quick too,” Lee muttered to him flicking a look at the two way mirror. “Eric isn’t going to be pleased. When humans start looking at his people for these rabid feeders he’s going to start hunting down wizards to solve the problem himself, if he doesn’t start doing it to begin with. He has his own spell casters, as you well know. He’ll begin his own trace workings, starting on these guys here. Let’s try and find the wizard ourselves. Take care of our own mess and then clear out the rest of these bleeders, shall we? Before the city becomes another war zone.”

She damn well knew Eric could hear her and she knew he wasn’t going to sit back and just let her take lead knowing a wizard was behind it all. If it were just a matter of resolving the problem then he might, but it was the fact a wizard had learned how to create and control a vampire. That was beyond tolerable. It also meant it was possible he might know how to control an existing vampire and Eric couldn’t allow that. It was no longer only a matter of controlling the rabid bleeders before people turned on each other or the bleeders got out of control, but to Eric, a matter of finding the wizard and ensuring his knowledge was permanently lost.

Lee actually agreed on that front. The Council would love to own that piece of spell work, thinking if the tweaked it they could have some nice functioning vampire flunkies and Lee would never allow that to happen. How they tried to control her actions, the actions of Tia and any other supernatural race disturbed her on some level. She always worried how far they would go with it or how far they had already gone that she didn’t know about. She wasn’t about to hand over ammunition and pretend she wasn’t fully aware of where that would lead. She would find the wizard, prevent him from creating more of his abominations and then she would methodically destroy the evidence herself. The wizard would have to die during capture, but she hardly expected such a man to go down without a fight.