Post by JAMES SIMONS DALTON JR on Sept 13, 2013 10:37:01 GMT -6
At this point, James had burned through so many cases that he was getting 3 hours of sleep a night and 2 shots of absinthe after his daily morning training.
Reading a newspaper outside a nightclub was out of place, but that was exactly what he was going for. He'd never really been into the party life -- if anything, he preferred drinking over dancing, though he didn't actually like both -- but it looked like vampires loved it. One particular vampire loved it so much, in fact, that it was drawing a trail of dead bodies for every nightclub it visited, one per night. He only needed to follow the trail and anticipate where it was going to end up next.
Of course, it didn't take a genius to figure out there was a pattern. It was painfully obvious, sloppy, and strangely suspicious. Vampires just didn't drink from one human per night, and not certainly at a regular interval. Unless this was some kind of freelance vampire that was stupid beyond belief, this had to be some kind of trap, or sign of a dark spell. Either way, it was bad news.
He'd already seen a few hunters enter, and some were watching the situation from their cars. He was out there to signal any new incoming hunters that the area was already saturated -- too many hunters going in, and there needed to be some limit or else they might scare away their prey.
Under the newspaper, James was watching closely. Over the past few months, he'd switched the kinds of hunts he was following. There were few cases in the last few years in which many hunters conglomerated to stake out the same prey. Hunters worked alone or in small groups, after all. But weird stuff had been happening lately, and now there was a case like this at least every other month.
They were rarely busts: a few months ago, what seemed like a small cult dabbling carelessly in the dark arts turned out to be a massive demon summoning, with at least twenty hunters on the case. There was that one time when a Shapeshifter was actually just a decoy to witches smuggling old relics for some sort of undead creation spell. Almost a year ago, there were at least thirty hunters watching Lia's husband due to his mysterious resurrection, but that was never solved. It wasn't a bust -- it was something supernatural. It was just that they never found anything harmful other than a dead man coming back to life.
James had chosen these cases not because they tended to be urgent or high-risk, though. He chose these because the more hunters that got together in one place, the greater his chances were of finding Jake. They hadn't talked to each other in over a year. They hadn't seen each other for that period of time. He missed his older brother.
He knew Jake was out there, though. The hunters' grapevine told him Jake was solving cases even more quickly now he was alone. James took that to mean he and Lia had only ever been weights to him, and it didn't sit well with James that his older brother hated him or thought he was dead weight.
The booming of the music raged on, and at this point, James started folding his newspaper to leave. There didn't seem to be anything happening inside, which made the likelihood that this was a bust all the greater. That was up until a hunter he knew left with a teenage girl in his arms and dead man's blood on her lips, passing right in front of him. She would be executed later, privately. At that point, James confirmed for himself that it really was just one stupid vampire who didn't have a pack yet.
He sighed as he silently walked to his car. He wondered if that really was all there was to it.
Reading a newspaper outside a nightclub was out of place, but that was exactly what he was going for. He'd never really been into the party life -- if anything, he preferred drinking over dancing, though he didn't actually like both -- but it looked like vampires loved it. One particular vampire loved it so much, in fact, that it was drawing a trail of dead bodies for every nightclub it visited, one per night. He only needed to follow the trail and anticipate where it was going to end up next.
Of course, it didn't take a genius to figure out there was a pattern. It was painfully obvious, sloppy, and strangely suspicious. Vampires just didn't drink from one human per night, and not certainly at a regular interval. Unless this was some kind of freelance vampire that was stupid beyond belief, this had to be some kind of trap, or sign of a dark spell. Either way, it was bad news.
He'd already seen a few hunters enter, and some were watching the situation from their cars. He was out there to signal any new incoming hunters that the area was already saturated -- too many hunters going in, and there needed to be some limit or else they might scare away their prey.
Under the newspaper, James was watching closely. Over the past few months, he'd switched the kinds of hunts he was following. There were few cases in the last few years in which many hunters conglomerated to stake out the same prey. Hunters worked alone or in small groups, after all. But weird stuff had been happening lately, and now there was a case like this at least every other month.
They were rarely busts: a few months ago, what seemed like a small cult dabbling carelessly in the dark arts turned out to be a massive demon summoning, with at least twenty hunters on the case. There was that one time when a Shapeshifter was actually just a decoy to witches smuggling old relics for some sort of undead creation spell. Almost a year ago, there were at least thirty hunters watching Lia's husband due to his mysterious resurrection, but that was never solved. It wasn't a bust -- it was something supernatural. It was just that they never found anything harmful other than a dead man coming back to life.
James had chosen these cases not because they tended to be urgent or high-risk, though. He chose these because the more hunters that got together in one place, the greater his chances were of finding Jake. They hadn't talked to each other in over a year. They hadn't seen each other for that period of time. He missed his older brother.
He knew Jake was out there, though. The hunters' grapevine told him Jake was solving cases even more quickly now he was alone. James took that to mean he and Lia had only ever been weights to him, and it didn't sit well with James that his older brother hated him or thought he was dead weight.
The booming of the music raged on, and at this point, James started folding his newspaper to leave. There didn't seem to be anything happening inside, which made the likelihood that this was a bust all the greater. That was up until a hunter he knew left with a teenage girl in his arms and dead man's blood on her lips, passing right in front of him. She would be executed later, privately. At that point, James confirmed for himself that it really was just one stupid vampire who didn't have a pack yet.
He sighed as he silently walked to his car. He wondered if that really was all there was to it.
