John sat in his car keeping one eye on the warehouse and the other on his copy of Maxim that sat on the steering wheel. John heard footsteps nearing the rear of the car, took them long enough he thought. John casually pulled his Beretta close and readied to pop the first face that appeared in the window. " Morning" came Malcolm's voice as he appeared.
" You know they invented cell phones for a reason" said John.
" I know but it wouldn't have kept you on your toes" said Malcolm, " so what's up?"
" Couple of cars arrived in the middle of the night" said John, " people came, people left. I think we've stumbled on a farm in the works."
" Well once I get the okay from the old man we can take it out" said Malcolm, " hopefully before it takes in too many wayward souls."
" Interesting way of looking at it" said John, " well I want some sleep, this car might be my baby, but damn I need new seats."
" Oh, Az called" said Malcolm, " I think you're sleep is going to be a little late."
" Really, well in that case, you'll know where to find me" said John with a smile.
He hoped out of the car and hurried into Malcolm's Mustang.

John parked the Mustang deep in Los Angeles' Chinatown in the parking lot behind the Bright Lotus Herbalist Shop which also had a very extensive Hong Kong film collection for sale. John walked through the front door and the girl behind the counter gave him a big smile. " Hey you" said Azuza Yeng.
Azuza was a member of the Chosen's Chinatown group. Chinatown had a large concentration of supernatural forces and it took its own unit to combat them. John picked up the slender Azuza and smiled at her, " So how is business?" asked John.
" Shop talk later, first we need to take care of some other business" said Azuza.
John slung Azuza over his big shoulder making her happily shriek. " Not so loud" grumbled Lo Yeng, the owner of the Bright Lotus and also the finest herbalist in the west coast, " I'm old not deaf."
Lo watched as John carried his great grand daughter upstairs and smirked.

The pair lay in bed watching a Shaw Brother's film, Azuza slowly running her finger around her tattoo on John's arm. " Its been so quiet lately" said Azuza, " I don't dare to us the B-word but it so almost spooky it is so quiet."
" Maybe it is a holiday?" suggested John, " we Hispanics like our holidays every couple of weeks."
" Maybe, but I think something is up" said Azuza.
" I think you worry too much" said John, " we have so many better things to do than worry."

Jenna parked the department issued Crown Victoria in front of the Sun Valley Home of former LAPD detective Milton Cole. Melinda was shaking her head, she had almost the entire drive, " Come on" said Jenna.
Melinda nodded, " This will be interesting if nothing else" she remarked.
The pair crossed the yellowed and dead lawn and climbed up the steps to the porch. Jenna pressed the doorbell and didn't hear a thing. Jenna pulled the screen door back and knocked. They stood on the porch listening to the silence of the neighborhood. Jenna knocked again and looked over at Melinda. They were about to leave when a low scrapping noise came from the door. The locks slowly unlocked and the door slowly slid back. The sun beaten face of Milton appeared, " Who are you?" asked Milton.
" I'm Detective Jenna Wilcox and this is my partner Detective Esperanza" said Jenna.
" You here about my neighbor?" he asked, his eyes bloodshot like he had been up all night drinking cheap booze and watching Nick At Nite, " I knew those bastards were mixing up meth in there."
" No we're not narcotics" said Jenna, " we're here because we are interested in your investigations into the vigilantes."
Milton's bloodshot eyes seemed to come alive, " Really?" he asked, " this is for an official investigation?"
" No, it is just for personal interest" said Jenna.
" Oh well" said Milton, " it is good to talk anyways, please come in."
The pair entered the small one level rambler. The little house was filled with books and papers; books with all sorts of strange titles: Atlantis: Devil's Doorway, 1999: The Year of the Big One, UFOs: Then and Now. " Please have a seat" said Milton, busily cleaning two chairs at the very messy kitchen table.
Jenna and Melinda both took a seat, " Now what would you like to know?" asked Milton.
" When did you first begin to believe in these so-called Vigilantes" said Jenna.
" Shortly after I became a detective" said Milton, leaning back, " it was fifteen years ago now, my partner and I were called to a home invasion turned homicide in Compton. In those days every homicide detective took two or three of those a month, we had our group of usual suspects and most of the time we were right. But this was different, we came to a house; mother and two daughters had been killed but it wasn't the usual. The mother had been killed much earlier, her body was torn apart. The two daughters were worse, I can't even to begin to understand why they did what they did two those girls. But they had all been dead several days, the four men inside were the ones we had been called to. All four had been shot with large caliber bullets at close range. We determined the four had tortured and killed the family but we had no idea who killed them. It wasn't until a uniformed pointed out that it looked a lot like a case he saw two years ago in Watts.
" So I began to look into it, I found several cases that all looked exactly the same. People implicated in other crimes were found dead from burning, large caliber gunshot wounds, and occasionally wooden objects jammed through their chests. I began calling them Vigilantes and ran it past my captain to investigate them. At first I got support, but the further I dug I kept running into official roadblocks and dead ends. Finally I knew I was onto something. Then I was told to leave it alone and go to other investigations. Then they got to my partner, he kept trying to me to leave it alone, I knew they were everywhere. I played along for a couple of years, trying to figure out where they got their power from. Finally I thought I had stumbled on the answer in the form of a mysterious man I knew only as Mr. Jones. He told me these Vigilantes were part of a secret society that was protected by the Catholic Church, these Vigilantes fight vampires."
Jenna and Melinda were still trying to process the twisted world of conspiracy theories that Milton lived in but when they heard the word 'vampire' they knew this was going into Twilight Zone territory. " Vampires?" asked Melinda.
" Yes, but not in the Dracula sense" said Milton, " the people that have tracked the movement of these vampires have no other name for them. They are in fact beings from another planet that use our planet as a farm of sorts. We are food for them, they need to nourish themselves on our plasma because their bodies have difficult producing the antigens to keep them alive."
" Really?" asked Jenna.
" Yes, terrifying but true" said Milton, " I would love to stay and chat but I go on shift at 3."
Milton pulled on his gun belt and ushered the pair out the door. " I am so sorry" said Jenna, as they walked back to the car.
" No, I feel much better about my own mental state now" said Melinda, " after that I'm a little afraid that Universal gives him a gun."
" I'm scared that they gave him a flashlight" said Jenna, " space alien vampires that are at war with the Catholic Church. That is beyond bizarre."
The pair climbed into the car and drove away as fast as reasonable speed would allow.

Celestine got out of her car and looked at the shiny glass office building. Six blocks south of the City Hall on Olympic stood a six story steel and glass office building with the unusual name of Vault Services Incorporated. Celestine walked to the door and slipped her keycard in. The door slid back and she entered the building. It had the look a typical office building, dull and lifeless modern architecture and lots of fake plants. Celestine headed straight for the door across the foyer and opened it. Here lay the secret of the building, the Vault, the second largest vampiric archive outside of Europe. " Welcome Celestine" came a low British accent.
Celestine let her eyes adjust to the darkness of the massive library and then saw Pennington, the keeper of the archive. Pennington slipped through the shadows towards Celestine, the shadows followed him across the library.
If there ever was a real life example of a Hollywood vampire Pennington was it. No one was exactly sure how old he was, not even Devlin. Devlin was the only vampire that lived in Los Angeles longer. Pennington was a master of shadows as well as master of the Vault. Celestine knew he was once a mage before he became. " How may I help you?" he asked.
" I need information" said Celestine.
" I know, that is why I'm here" he said.
" Interfeci ab intemptesta nox" said Celestine.
" Murder By The Dead of Night" said Pennington.
" It was found in a document from the Lord of San Francisco" said Celestine.
" It rings a bell, excuse me" said Pennington.
He disappeared into the shadows leaving Celestine standing by the door. She looked around at the bookshelves that filled all six stories. Celestine wondered how long it would take, she really didn't want to spend all day standing here. Celestine looked down at her watch, it had been ten minutes, but then again it probably took that long just to move about this giant place, " I have found something" said Pennington.
Celestine repressed a shiver, he really needed to make more noise. " And?" asked Celestine.
" I cross referenced the words with San Francisco" he said, he was smiling like a cat just caught the juiciest fattest mouse ever, " and I found something very interesting."
" And that is?" asked Celestine, trying to play nice.
" During the 19th century there were a series of murders within the vampire community of San Francisco. With each body were found the words; Interfeci ab intemptesta nox. The murders were never solved, I will have to research this more but in my humble opinion it has the ear marks of a power game. Somebody is sending a message."
" Look into it" said Celestine.
" I intend to" said Pennington, " I love a mystery."

Charity closed the door of her new apartment; luckily she was able to salvage most of the stuff from her old apartment, the neighbors were probably too afraid to try after they saw the giant hole in the door. Charity stopped and smiled, hearing nothing but silence, which was until her cell phone started to ring. Charity picked it up off the counter and answered it. " Charity" said Malcolm on the other end, " we need you to obtain some records for us."
" No problem" said Charity, " tell me what they are and I'll have them in a couple of hours."
" We need the electrical grid for the area of North Burke Avenue, and any blueprints you can find of the warehouse" said Malcolm.
" Easy stuff" said Charity, " I'll be at Jack's in an hour."
Charity sat down in front of her laptop and began to work.

Charity walked into the backdoor of Smiling Jack's with ten minutes to spare. In the workshop a small arsenal of weaponry and strange objects were setup on the table. Each member was looking after their own weapons, it looked like something straight out of a war movie where the commandos were getting ready to hit the German Chateau. Charity had to remind herself that they were their own version of a strange vampire war movie, and these were commandos, but instead of a Chateau, it was a tan stucco warehouse in Glendale. " So what's up?" asked Charity.
" I just got the clearance to strike the warehouse" said Malcolm, " did you get the materials?"
" Yes, the electrical grid and wiring layout to the warehouse are very straight forward" said Charity, laying several print-outs before them, " there had been some modifications done some years ago but you should probably be able to spike it. The building blueprints were another matter entirely."
Charity laid several prints-outs before them, " This thing has been more than a couple of things in its life. Before it was a warehouse it appeared it was once a factory" said Charity, " it won't be one big room with an office, from what I found except several rooms in the back as well as the large front."
" How recent where the blueprints?" asked Jack.
" Last remodeling, in 1970" said Charity, " after that the place stopped existing."
" Vamps" said John, " they love leaving no traces."
" Okay worse case scenario we will have twenty vamps to deal with" said Malcolm, " I hope there will only be five to ten when we strike."
" Middle of the night?" asked Jack.
" That is when they will least expect it" said Malcolm.
" I still can't get over the fact that vampires can go out in sunlight" said Charity, " isn't that one of the key rules to vampires?"
" Vampires are just like all other nocturnal animals, they don't burst into flames when sunlight touches them, they are just a little groggy, like normal humans who are awake in the middle of the night" said Jack.
" That is why hitting them in the middle of the night is perfect" said John, " they are so arrogant that they think we will never hit when they are at their fullest."
" Now don't forget there will be a lot of blood there" said Malcolm, " these vamps will probably go into blood rage the minute we kick the door in, so don't be shy with the ammo, Jack?"
" I've got a couple of new tricks I want to try, Beth found an old Czech alchemist book and we spent the afternoon translating some of the recipes" said Jack, " one is this."
Jack held up purple ooze in a bottle, " I've laced all my bullets with this stuff, I think that even a wounding with this will kill a vamp" he said, " it is a blood poison, harmless to us because we can reproduce our plasma, but this will be lethal to a vamp unless he refreshes his blood supply."
" What is the deal with vamps and the blood?" asked Charity, " I really haven't had the time to read through the vampire encyclopedia."
" Vampires are incapable of making new blood, they have no spleens" said Ophelia, sounding like Mr Wizard, " so the blood goes through them once and poof it is gone. So at least once a week they need to replenish their blood, namely by borrowing it from a norm. Vampires have evolved very sophisticated anesthetic that is excreted from their fangs, when they bite it feels like they are tickling or nibbling at your neck. Once the fangs are removed the excretion from the fangs rapidly heals the wounds, the person will be a little off their game for a day and think they just need to sleep more, but other than that they suffer no ill effects."
" You hear Ricers talk about it, being bit is the most erotic feeling ever" said John, " but then again those people aren't normal to begin with, why people want to dye their skin so they look like the dead is beyond me."
" It takes all kinds" said Malcolm, " besides some people here might be a little jealous."
" What that I could never dye my ass white if I wanted to?" joked John, " man I am a bronze god, you're just jealous that all you do is burn in the sun. But I am jealous that you wear your age so well."
" How old are you?" asked Charity, " you can't be two days over 25."
" Actually I'm 44" said Malcolm.
Charity's jaw dropped, " No fucking way" said Charity, " what is your secret?"
" Being a mage" said Malcolm, " even one as weak as me, when our powers awaken we age extremely slowly."
" Man, I need to figure out how to bottle that" said Charity, " screw fighting vampires I would be a millionaire."
" Good luck, people have been trying for centuries" said Jack, " my ancestors have tried numerous times and failed."
" What I am I supposed to do until you guys get back?" asked Charity.
" Mind the store, and keep the doors locked" said Malcolm, " we've had trouble in the past with vamps waiting for us when we get home from a job like this."
" If they show?" asked Charity, " I'm not exactly Jackie Chan."
" You ever play Doom?" asked Jack.
" Use to be my religion" said Charity.
" In the next room I have several shotguns, just point and shoot" he said, " unfortunately I haven't gotten around to inventing a BFG yet."
" Okay, its almost time" said Malcolm.
The team packed up their weaponry and climbed into John's Cadillac. Charity watched as the car pulled out of the alley and into traffic. She hoped they were back soon, she didn't want to have to hold the fort against a mob of pissed off vampires.