John opened the junction box and looked over at Malcolm. He simply nodded and John cut the wire.

Salvatore hated this, he was one of the best procurers in the entire city and now he was reduced to babysitting a warehouse. Salvatore knew this was because Dante was after his woman. That pompous ass could have any starlet in Hollywood but instead he starts going after his surfer girl. Salvatore reached for his copy of Juggs when the lights suddenly flickered and went out. Salvatore slipped off his chair and crashed hard on the ground. He heard the men in the main room shouting at each other. Salvatore stumbled around groping for the flashlight he thought was someplace in the desk. He stumbled about until he was able to find the Maglight in the bottom drawer. He flipped it on and rushed into the hall. " Everybody stay calm!" he shouted, " three of you watch the entrances, the rest watch the cattle."
The vampires began to move about, everybody was now really on edge. Salvatore walked to the windows in the office and looked around. The streetlights were out, maybe it was just a brown out or another of those fucking rolling blackouts. Salvatore didn't want to fuck this job up or he would end up being fed to the ghouls. Salvatore turned to check on the cattle when he heard a small crack.
Blood began to run from Salvatore's nose as he dropped on his knees and then fell face first on the concrete. Across the street Jack slowly scanned the warehouse looking for more targets of opportunity, everybody else should be inside by now. He saw another vamp, sticking his head out the door looking into the alley. Jack put one his special bullets into the vampire's ear dropping him to the ground without a single noise. Suddenly a blinding flash and low thump echoed through the entire warehouse.
Malcolm, John and Ophelia rushed into the warehouse following the flash bang, all the vamps were screaming and firing blindly. Vampires have sensitive eyes which allow them easier movement through dark places, flash bangs are terribly painful to them. The three quickly dispatched seven vampires and started for the doorway. John stuck his head out and saw something insane. In the main room, surrounded by sixty to seventy gurneys was a 7 foot tall vampire, built like a bodybuilder howling like mad. John watched as he leveled an M-60 and let off a loud battle cry of " DIE MOTHER-FUCKING-FUCKERS!!" and opened fire.
" DOWN!" shouted John.
All three hit the floor as bullets began to rip through the thin sheetrock walls. The shower of bullets tore the entire room apart throwing chunks of debris down on the three and creating a suffocating cloud of dust. Ophelia fired a force blast through the bottom of the wall allowing them to crawl into the next room. " Jack" shouted Malcolm into his radio as the three laid on the floor.
" What?" asked Jack.
" Can you see the big bastard in the main room?" asked Malcolm.
" No, there are no windows that look into the main room, he doing all that firing?" asked Jack.
" He has us pinned down" said Malcolm.
" Wait for a reload, that guy can't be carrying infinite ammo" said Jack.
Malcolm clicked the radio off just in time to see three vampires burst into the room. Ophelia hit one with a fireball, he quickly burst into flames and raced into the hall only to be shot to pieces by the giant in the main room. The second leapt on Ophelia and hit her hard in the face with the butt of his shotgun. Malcolm shot him in the face, splattering Ophelia with his blackish blood. John grabbed the third and threw him through the wall which made the wall groan and then begin to collapse. The three dove into the corner as the wall fell down which ripped a hole in the ceiling.
" Ha" laughed Jack as the main room came into view, " fuck that is a big guy."
Jack fired, the bullet ripped into the giant but he was by now in blood rage and one bullet wasn't going to bother a guy that big. Jack fired again, and again, but the bullets had no effect. " Guys, you are going to have deal with him yourselves" said Jack, " my bullets have no effect on him."
" Great" said Malcolm, " okay, let's split up and make three targets for him. Ophelia, you okay to go?"
" I think I'll be okay, mom always told me I had a hard head" said Ophelia, " just don't ask me to do math right now." The three split up and ran in three directions making the giant spray the entire area and miss all three. Ophelia dove behind several crates, Malcolm got behind a metal case, and John slipped into one of the rooms. Ophelia charge a energy ball and looked over at Malcolm. He nodded and started shooting at the giant to get his attention. The giant looked towards Malcolm. Ophelia stepped out and threw the basketball sized crackling ball of blue energy. To everyone's horror the ball dissipated before it reached the giant but succeeded in getting his attention, the hit to the head had affected her more than she expected. He turned and squeezed the trigger. The large M-60 jammed, the giant began to hit the gun trying to dislodge the jam. Ophelia charged and even bigger energy ball and threw it has hard as her little frame could.
The ball hit the giant square in the chest and blew out the back of him and continued to travel until it hit the opposite wall, fifty yards away. The giant looked at the large hole in his chest, it was big enough that Ophelia could have crawled through. The gun fell to the ground and the giant collapsed in a pile on the floor. Ophelia let off a long breath and turned to look for Malcolm. She found the fist of the last vampire in the building. He punched her square in the face and made a mad dash for the door that was behind Ophelia. He kicked the door open and threw one his fallen comrades out first.
Jack promptly shot the first vampire but was unable to stop the second vampire who quickly raced into an adjoining alley. " Everybody okay in there?" asked Jack.
" More or less" said Malcolm, helping Ophelia up, " you get him?"
" No, sucker ran like Jesse Owens" said Jack.
" Get down here, we have a lot to clean up" said Malcolm.
Inside the wreckage of the warehouse were numerous bodies strapped to gurney's. They were mostly men, and judging by the smell of them, homeless men. IVs were attached to their arms which led to large bags which were collecting their blood. It was a Blood Farm, a vampire technique first pioneered in London in the 1880s. Vampires would gather up large numbers of homeless and transient people and slowly drain their blood. This way they got much, much more than 8 pints, they allowed the victims to regain some blood and then drained more.
Jack walked in and looked at the mess, and the giant dead vampire's gun. " Think he'll miss that?" asked Jack.
" No more than the two foot hole in his chest" said Malcolm.
Jack picked the M-60 up and deftly cleared the jam, " What about these poor bastards?" asked John, " that giant shot half of them, the rest are blissfully asleep."
" Let's unhook the living ones, the dead, hell I don't know" said Malcolm, " can't have the cops finding these so soon after the Van Nuys incident. Call the old man we'll have to clean them up."
John took his cell phone out and dialed Ebenezer's private number, " Boss, Rodriguez, we just cleaned out the warehouse and have some collateral damage, we need a clean up team" said John.
John's head nodded a couple of times, " We won't go anywhere" he said.
John hung up, " They'll be here in twenty minutes" said John, " Ophelia, could you grab the body outside before somebody sees him?"
Ophelia nodded and headed for the side door. She pushed it open and started walking towards the body. Ophelia bent over to grab the guy by his belt when something caught her eye. Ophelia slowly turned her head and looked up at the roof across from her. Standing on the edge was a figure in a long black cloak, a hood over his head, and a blank white mask on his face. As soon as Ophelia caught sight of him he began to move off realizing he had been seen. Ophelia immediately used her magic to leap up on the roof, she saw that he was already on the next roof. Ophelia started to chase the mysterious figure, she really wanted to know how he moved so fast. Ophelia pursued the figure across the second roof, he didn't seem to run, more like a strange floating movement. He disappeared off the side of the roof and started across the street towards a strip mall. Ophelia hurried down the fire escape and dashed across the street. The figure was sliding through the shadowy alley between the strip mall and an empty building that once housed a restaurant. Ophelia sprinted hard, burning all her energy in one chance to get a hold of him. But he always seemed one step ahead of her and quickly floated down a drainage ditch and was on the other side before Ophelia could get to the end of the alley. Ophelia watched as the mysterious figure dissolved into the darkness across the drainage ditch. Ophelia sat down on the edge of the ditch and tried to catch her breath. Ophelia heard footsteps running towards her, she carefully gripped two of her throwing knives and looked over her shoulder. It was Jack and Malcolm, " What happened?" asked Jack.
" Somebody was watching us" said Ophelia, " black cloak, hood, and a blank white mask."
" Blank? You mean no expression?" asked Jack.
" No I mean blank, no eye holes, no mouth, just white" said Ophelia, " is this something they never taught me about in school?"
" It's new to me" said Jack, " Mal?"
" Got me" said Malcolm, " we should tell the old man, maybe he knows something about it."
" Let's head back" said Jack, " I doubt John wants to haul all those bodies himself."
The trio turned and started back to the warehouse where a white delivery truck was parked in the alley and John and two other men were loading the bodies into the back. " So what happens to them?" asked Ophelia.
" They are taken care of" said Malcolm, " we have a few friendly mortuaries around here, they cremate the bodies and pour the remains someplace."
" Probably Ebenezer's rose garden" said Jack, " that's how he keeps those things so big."
" And the living ones?" asked Ophelia.
" They'll wake up in an alley not far from here" said Malcolm, " they'll be woozy for a couple of days but they will be fine."
" What about all the blood?" asked Ophelia.
" It will find its way into the system" said Malcolm, " we work in mysterious ways."

Celestine sat on the hood of her car, Devlin was late. She looked at her watch for the sixth time, and wondered what he was up to. Celestine had spent the entire day letting Pennington eye her up while they went through page upon page of documents, liberated from a San Francisco vault forty years ago looking for any evidence about the strange Latin words. What they had found was very interesting, and Celestine wanted to tell him all about it. As Celestine was about to climb into her car and go home she heard, " Sorry, Dante is having another fit."
Devlin looked tired, being around Dante often did that to him. " You found something?" asked Devlin.
" Possibly something" said Celestine, " Pennington and I uncovered a link between the phrase on the back of the photo and a series of murders in San Francisco in the 1890s. Many were among the vampire population the lived in San Francisco's Chinatown. At firs they were small timers or neophytes and most took it as just the normal violence the area was filled with. After ten they began to think something was wrong, they began to investigate the crimes. They found almost no evidence, nobody saw the attacks, or the attackers, but their method of killing was very particular. Each victim had his soul torn from him."
" Soul snatchers?" asked Devlin.
" Possibly" said Celestine, " the final murder was of Julian Lo, the boss of the Chinese vampires under Prince Bradford. Afterwards there is no mention of it anywhere, it is like they wanted it all to go away."
Devlin frowned, " It didn't" he said, " I remember those days, and I remember hearing about those murders. In those days San Francisco, LA where very friendly to one another, there was talk that something had come with the Chinese from their homeland, some kind of demon or other hellish beast. I never really put any stock in it, I've been a vampire for a couple of centuries and have never seen one, but it is possible that our mysterious night prowler is one of them."
" A Soul Taker?" asked Celestine, " why?"
" Maybe he is the eyes of an new power or a very old one" said Devlin.
" Do we take it to Dante?" asked Celestine.
" No" said Devlin, " he doesn't need anything else to make him paranoid."

Dante slowly paced back and forth, the bruised and bloodied vampire stood in front of him. " So you're telling me that four individuals raided our blood farm in Van Nuys, and killed both Salvatore and Big Manuel?"
" Yes" the man said.
" And how did you escape?" asked Dante.
" After they killed Big Manuel I ran for it" said the man, " you should have seen the girl they with them, she threw his giant ball of blue light and it blew a hole clean through him."
" Chosen" said Dante, " thank you for this information."
Dante tapped the control under his desk and the trap door opened dropping the man into his basement. " But you failed in protecting my property" he commented.

The man slowly got to his feet and found himself in a foul smelling room that was pitch black. He fumbled for his lighter and slowly flicked the small red Bic lighter. He saw something move just at the edge of his light, he leapt back in surprise and bumped into something cold and dry. At first he thought it was just the wall but then it moved. He spun and looked up at it, towering above him was one of Dante's Ghouls, all eight feet of thick light grey skin. He let off a scream as the ghoul bit into him.
Dante stood over his trapdoor relishing in the screams of the man as he was devoured. Cassandra happened to walk in and heard the noise. She shivered and started to leave, " Wait" said Dante, " I thought we could enjoy ourselves tonight?"
" No" said Cassandra, " hearing that has made me lose any interest in sex."
Cassandra left the room, and across the mansion. She walked into her private section of the mansion, " Devlin" said Cassandra.
" I'm here" said Devlin, " we've found some information."
" Good" said Cassandra, " remember Dante can not know."
" He is too busy loosing control of the city to notice" said Devlin, " but be careful, you may have lineage, age over him, but I doubt he would think twice to feed you to the ghouls if he finds out."
" Devlin" said Cassandra, " you sound concerned."
" I don't want my most powerful ally losing her head at the hands of a paranoid thug like Dante" said Devlin, " you know you can never overthrow him."
" I know" said Cassandra, " but I want to keep my opinions open, when the moment is right I want to be in the right place."
" Tread lightly" said Devlin, " I starting to worry about this mysterious visitor, I don't believe he is just some spy for San Francisco."
" Don't you start getting paranoid" said Cassandra, " you'll end up like Dante."
" My job is to be paranoid" said Devlin, " I am just able to keep it under control."
Devlin stood, " Stay close" said Cassandra, " Dante is going to have a fit and he'll want all of us."
Devlin nodded and slowly slipped out the window, Cassandra smirked, she would soon be able to throw Dante off his precious seat of power and feed him to his ghouls.