Luma fell asleep in the morning just as the rest of the headquarters’ residents started to get up and the first sounds of everyday hustle and bustle reached us from the corridor. When I walked into the living room all Order members, including Bessie and Fleming, were already standing huddled around a big table in the middle of our control room.
"Morning. What's going on here?" I asked.
"Morning. You are just in time. So, are we ready to share our first results?" Mike asked the other members.
Stoker answered first.
"We've examined everything we found in the house and identified twenty-seven nighttimers."
"What do we have on them?" asked Mike.
Geek joined the conversation.
"Ten of them had a criminal record but nothing striking – car theft, insurance fraud, one rape. The remaining fourteen were reported missing. The most interesting thing we've found out is that all of them came from different places – 22 towns in 4 states. Time of disappearance also varies – from two days to two months ago."
"My tests support these findings,” added Fleming. “All twenty-seven nighttimers were converted recently but at different times. Of the remaining five unidentified people, two were also converted but had already gone through the entire transformation cycle, and three were originals."
"So tell me, people, how on Earth did we miss such a freaking load of vampires? How?! How could twenty-seven cases slip through the cracks?" Mike was fuming.
Stoker spoke again.
"They were really careful. We've found about a hundred empty bags of donor blood. My guess is these guys weren't hunting that much. No body, no crime."
"So what about that blood? Weren't there any reports of it having been stolen from a hospital? Where would they get so much donor blood?"
"I looked into that. All bags have Blood Inc. labels on them," replied Lee.
"Maybe they robbed this Blood Inc. and the company had swept everything under the rug to avoid bad press," I chimed in.
"Unlikely. Blood Inc. is the world’s biggest commercial supplier of donor blood. Provided you have the necessary papers, buying their blood is no big deal. We do that ourselves, through our friends in clinics. If someone had orchestrated such a massive operation and managed to convert thirty people without us noticing, I think they went the extra mile of buying the blood legally to avoid the risk of coming up in police reports."
"Why do we buy blood?" I asked another stupid question.
"Human blood is the most powerful and practically the only available medicine for vampires. We always have a stock of it in case someone gets heavily wounded," replied uncle Mike and turned to the rest of the group again. "Did you find out anything else?"
For the first time since I'd joined the meeting Rettle spoke.
"The three originals were trained fighters. They were the only ones with decent equipment. SIG-Sauer P228, KM2000 army knives. The serial numbers have been filed off, so the weapons are impossible to track. And they moved like pros, too."
"…for five seconds before I cut the hell out of them," I finished the sentence for the coach in my mind.
"Okay. Professional fighters, you say. These guys were hired guns. I doubt they could have come up with such a complex operation on their own. Plus the doctor they used to buy blood. And abductions took place throughout four states. All of that requires transport and financial means," Uncle scratched his chin pensively. "There's someone behind all this. Someone smart, someone who knows how to cover up his tracks, someone who has resources to spare and a goal which is not yet clear to me."
"Could it be the Brotherhood of the Dark trying to take over the world?" suggested Stoker.
Mike shrugged.
"Well then…" Uncle stretched the syllables. "This is all bad news. Geek, Lee, I'm afraid you're gonna have to look for a kidney stone in a flee hidden in a haystack stored in the world’s biggest hay warehouse. Nonetheless, dig up everything you can on the converts. Maybe they have something in common. Surely, there was some logic to selecting them. Also, try to get hold of all the footage with our subjects on it. There might be some interesting details. By the way, did you find a car next to the house? I mean, they had to get there somehow."
"We did. But it was stolen two days ago, so it's a dead end," replied Lumberjack.
"That's a shame…" Mike stretched the syllables again. "I think I'll try to hack into Blood Inc. and track down the purchaser of that batch of blood. And if we find the doctor, he might also give us some leads."
Uncle looked around the gathering.
"Suggestions? Recommendations? Nothing? Okay then, get down to work."
Mike rubbed his chin again, turned around and headed for the exit. I grabbed him by the elbow.
"I'd like to learn more about primes and the Brotherhood of the Dark. Do you have some kind of encyclopedia about that?"
"I think there was a hand-written translation of an old manuscript made by your grandfather. Ask Bessie. She'll give it to you."
"Okay, thanks."
I turned around, but my uncle stopped me.
"By the way, Sam," he frowned. "I've got something on Luma. Such an unusual name is easy to track down. Her family house burned down early last month. Her father used to rebuild old cars, so the garage was full of gas tanks, acetylene torches and similar stuff. They blew up and turned the house into a pile of smoldering bits. All firefighters could find was a bunch of body fragments, so the entire family was presumed dead, including Luma."
"They were murdered. She told me that. They were all killed right in front of her," I said.
"And then a fire was started to tie up loose ends. Well, it makes sense. How is she doing?"
"What do you think? Shitty. Very, very shitty. But at least she started talking."
"You know, we have several shrinks among our people. Should I send someone in? Naturally, they've never handled a case like that, mostly treating housewives from depression, but I'm sure they were taught something useful in college."
"Thanks, but I want to give it a try myself. I think she'll be more at ease with someone her age who's also a recently turned vampire."
"I guess you are right."
"Can I… Is it okay if I stay here for a while? I don't want to leave her alone."
"Sure. Stay. And I can finally go back to hosting my epic Friday orgies. The Wolf of Wall Street style, you know – prostitutes, orchestras, and midget-tossing."
I smiled at my uncle's joke. He winked at me and hurried off. And I had Bessie give me some papers on primes and the Brotherhood of the Dark – that was the only source of knowledge about them we had. According to Bessie, the Order used to own a lot of books and manuscripts on the subject, but in the years of the Great War with nighttimers, our extensive library was lost. Basically, everything was lost at that time, including the bodies of the First Guardian and his twelve loyal warriors called apostles who were killed in that war. To this day no one managed to discover the burial site of our great founding fathers.
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