It was barely a few bucks for regular work.
This, though, was extra.
Extra money on top of salary. Extra income layered onto official operations. The kind of opportunity that didn't knock twice.
Brown and the team were in high spirits. Sleeves rolled up. Movements sharp. Motivation fully reignited.
One vampire meant at least five thousand dollars in fang value. After division, conservative estimates still put individual shares around five hundred per kill. Four per day meant two thousand in gross value. Multiply that across a month and the numbers climbed fast.
Six figures fast.
Brown had run the math twice.
The best time to harvest vampires was daylight. They were predictable then—resting, boxed, vulnerable.
Time was money.
Move.
As long as they weren't killed, they could grind this operation indefinitely.
Locke slid back into the Audi beside Brown. Debbie pulled up the roster they had compiled—addresses cross-referenced through surveillance, tips, and information squeezed out of terrified lower-tier vampires.
They hit the nearest target.
Unfortunately, by noon, they had nothing to show for it.
The reason was simple.
The vampires weren't home.
Three locations in a row. Empty coffins. Abandoned dens. Living rooms that looked as if someone had torn through them in a rush.
The first one that morning had yielded a kill. Every address after that had been cleared out before they arrived.
Brown stood in the middle of the fourth empty apartment, staring at the coffin in front of him. The lid lay open, interior cold.
"Not here again?"
His tone carried frustration now.
He glanced around at the wrecked furniture. It wasn't damage from a fight. It was deliberate evacuation.
"They've reacted," Brown muttered.
Locke didn't answer immediately.
He had walked toward the bar counter along the far wall. Something had caught his attention.
A business card.
It was placed deliberately in the center of the polished surface.
Waiting.
He picked it up.
Debbie stepped closer. "Dicken Frost," she read, blinking. "Boss… this is the third one."
Locke flipped the card over.
On the back was a string of numbers.
The same number they had found at the previous empty locations.
Identical.
Intentional.
This wasn't coincidence.
The card had been left for them.
More specifically—for him.
It had been a month.
Vampires weren't idiots. Three to four disappearing every day from the Satan Bar crowd? Word would spread. Patterns would emerge. Leadership would take notice.
Locke held the card between his fingers, thoughtful.
Brown walked up beside him and glanced at the name.
"Him again?"
"Yeah."
"What does he want?"
Locke gave a faint smile. "To talk."
Brown frowned deeper. "This Deacon Frost… he's the leader in New York, right?"
Locke nodded.
Over the past month, between interrogations and Natasha's indirect assistance through Blade, they had pieced together a clearer picture of the vampire ecosystem.
New York wasn't dealing with scattered predators.
It was dealing with a population.
A large one.
Conservative estimates suggested the vampire count in the city rivaled certain undocumented immigrant populations. They were embedded. Layered. Organized.
At the top stood what was referred to as the Vampire Family.
Thirteen pure-blood vampires.
Born vampires—not converted. Ancient. Powerful. Each with centuries behind them. Blood aristocracy in the truest sense.
They ruled collectively, like a council.
Beneath them sat a single figure elevated by that council.
Dicken Frost.
If the thirteen were a parliament, Frost was their appointed executive.
He operated below the pure-bloods but above the entire converted population.
And Frost himself was not weak.
Based on every description Locke had gathered, Frost was at least A-level. Possibly higher.
Converted personally by a pure-blood.
That mattered.
Low-tier vampires—those below C-level—were grotesque. Twisted. Barely functional outside of feeding. Most of them couldn't even convert humans. They existed as labor, fodder, servants.
Disposable.
Frost was the opposite.
Powerful. Controlled. Intelligent.
One low-tier vampire had once said during interrogation that even if every bottom-level vampire in New York attacked Frost together, they might not land a single bite.
The hierarchy gap was that extreme.
Brown crossed his arms. "You thinking what I think you're thinking?"
Locke's eyes stayed on the card.
Internally, his calculations ran differently.
Vampire strength, once transformed, was fixed.
If Frost was A-level, he would remain A-level.
Locke wasn't fixed.
He could upgrade.
With enough extraordinary points, he could climb beyond A-level. Beyond S-level. The system had no visible ceiling.
Growth favored patience.
Brown broke the silence. "Call him?"
"No," he answered his own question immediately. "Absolutely not."
Locke looked up.
Brown continued, voice firm. "We've already killed over a hundred. The guys we lost have been avenged. And I didn't join Sentinel Special Service to negotiate with bloodsuckers."
His jaw tightened. "I joined to wipe out mutants. To make them pay."
Locke understood that part of him well.
Brown's vendetta wasn't against vampires. It was against mutants. His wife had died pregnant during a mutant-related catastrophe. His unborn child had died with her.
That wound had never closed.
Vampires were a profitable detour.
But they weren't his primary war.
Locke, however, saw angles.
"I think we talk," he said calmly.
Brown stared at him. "Why?"
Debbie shifted slightly beside them, clearly unsure where she stood.
Locke slid the business card into his palm and pulled his phone from his jacket.
His tone remained light, almost casual.
"We're soldiers."
He glanced at Brown.
"He's a thief."
He rotated the phone once in his hand.
"Since ancient times, thieves fear soldiers. Soldiers don't fear thieves."
His thumb hovered over the keypad.
"Let's talk to him."
...
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