Page 15 of Last Hope
“Tell me everything you know.”
“We know that thousands of years ago, one of the oldest vampires in history, Caesareon, set an Egyptian village on fire and turned Isis into a vampire. From our interviews with her, she was under the impression that, when she woke up, she had killed her brother. She was forced to go with Caesareon, who turned her into the ‘perfect’ soldier and forced her to kill humans. Fortunately, for her, she was able to escape his wrath one day by stabbing him in the chest while he slept. She got away and hid within the Santiago coven.
“We also know that two hundred years after her escape, Caesareon found her again, threatened the lives of her friends and, seeing no other options, she went with him. This prick made an attempt at starting a full out supernatural-human war that only ended in his death and the death of his minions.
“Now, a few weeks after this, we recovered a screenshot from the inside of our prison cells the day of the breakout and discover that the one who broke them out is Isis’s brother. Yet, she wasn’t aware that he was alive, and now even more minions are after her with a vengeance all because she killed their master.”
Teddy O’Conner nodded as Victoria recounted the events. When she finished he ran a hand over his face and sighed loudly. “But none of the prisoners will tell you where their new master dwells, is this correct?”
“Yes.”
O’Conner let out a string of curses. This was something he did often, Victoria knew, so there was no point in telling him to relax. Soon, he’d get it all out of his system. “And why hasn’t Terrance interviewed any of them? He can get the truth out of them easily.”
Victoria sighed loudly and looked over to Terrance, who was watching the events unfold with a blank expression on his face. “Because, Teddy,” Victoria said, “no one will give him permission to interview them and use his…abilities on them.”
Teddy let out another string of curses and banged his fist down on the table. Victoria sighed with exasperation. O’Conner had called her and the rest of the team into the meeting room to discuss the Caesareon case, since they appeared to be getting nowhere and Teddy had grown annoyed.
“Can’t he just do it without permission?” Savvy asked. He was sitting to Victoria’s left, his arms crossed against his chest and a pout on his face. He looked like a child in the time-out chair.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Teddy snapped at the kid. “To use his powers on suspects and victims alike is against the law! You know this, Burns!”
“Well I’m just saying,” Savvy mumbled. “It was a suggestion…” He slumped in his chair.
“It was a stupid suggestion on your part, Savvy. You know the rules and we can’t afford to get in trouble. The FBSI is already on the verge of getting shut down. If we break the rules now then our alliance with humans will be as fragile as ever,” Victoria lectured. The FBSIwasa legal government group but it hadn’t always been that way. It had taken some persuasion and a whole hell of a lot of fighting to be able to form it. Of course, they were only allowed to work the supernatural cases and only supernaturals were allowed in the FBSI. It was just the way it was…
“Racist jerks,” Savvy mumbled again. “I still think it’d be easier if Crawford just pulled the truth from their brains and left ’em all crazy. It’s what they deserve for trying to kill everyone.”
“How would you feel,” Terrance spoke up for the first time, his voice calm, collected, almost hypnotizing. “If the most sensitive nerves in your brain, everything you’ve ever known, the memories, lies and the truth, were scrambled together to the point where nothing made sense anymore? I can leave a man with nothing. I can leave a man an empty shell. I can leave a man in a corner, screaming and swatting at empty air like a schizophrenic. It is not a fate most people deserve, Joshua Burns.”
Sweat trickled down Savvy’s forehead at the words. He swallowed the little lump in his throat and shrugged as if it mattered little to him then turned his head to the side, as if he were done with the subject.
“Don’t scare him, Terrance,” Victoria lectured. “But let’s stay on topic. Okay, let’s go back to the events at the mall, what evidence was collected there?”
Terrance reached for a folder on the table, opened it and pulled out some papers. He scanned them quickly before tossing them over to her. She looked over them as well. They were pictures of bagged evidence that was recovered from the scene.
“All of the evidence here is directly linked to Caesareon, correct?”
Terrance nodded.
“So we’ve got a bunch of syringes filled with vampire venom that he used to change a bunch of humans in the Rotten Banana.”
“Wait,” Savvy piped up in a questioning tone. “Syringes filled with vampire venom? Why?”
Victoria rolled her eyes. “I told you; so that he could create his army of vampire slaves.”
“Yes, yes.” Savvy waved her off, annoyed and reached for the pictures in her hands. He snatched them from her and scanned the pages with his bright green eyes through his rectangular spectacles. “I get that part, but why does a vampire need to change humans using a syringe? Why not use his fangs instead? I mean, after all, that’s what fangs are for, right?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. Vampires are kind of weird, especially this guy. Maybe he just didn’t want to get his mouth dirty with human sweat.”
“No, no, I think it’s probably more than that…” Savvy’s eyebrows scrunched together as he stared at the page. Then he stood up quickly, his chair creaking across the floor. “Follow me, guys.” And he practically power walked to his office with all of his pretty little tech gear. Victoria, Terrance and Teddy followed. Savvy was already in his cushioned chair, clicking away at his keyboard at a rapid pace.
“Mind telling us what the hell it is you’re looking for?” Victoria asked, leaning over his shoulder and staring at the webpage.
“Look at this.” He pressed the ENTER button and a page popped up.
Victoria read it out loud. “V.S.L.? The Vampire Studies Laboratory homepage? What does that have to do with anything?”
“I have this friend, Jefferson Romano, who hacked into these guys’ computers, merely out of curiosity,” he added when he caught Teddy’s disapproving eye. “What do you guys know about the V.S.L.?”
