It was getting close to sunrise, and the only people still in Syndrome were Claudia, Arthur, Claudia’s guards, and a few of Saints men. There was a lot of finger pointing and yelling at first, but the two men who got inside weren’t carrying weapons and had valid IDs, which meant that it was hard to find someone specific to blame. Arthur wasn’t actually a part of these talks, but could hear Claudia screaming at the bouncers a room away for about an hour. To their credit, a brawl had broken out in the middle of the floor that had most of the bouncers attention. Only later did it come to light that there was a third conspirator involved who had started the brawl in the first place. The most obvious conclusion was that these weren’t just thugs or morons, they were hired killers. At this stage, it was difficult to determine what their motivation was.

  The one who hadn’t been staked was still alive, despite his having his guts hanging out. Arthur was both disgusted by the sight and amazed anyone could survive something like that. He didn’t get a good long look though, because he was dragged to the basement of the club followed by a person Arthur hadn’t met before. She was a woman, apparently, though her face was twisted and contorted like she’d been in some horrible accident. Alongside long sharp ears, strange pock marks across her face, and skin that seemed stretched too tightly, the torturer’s appearance fit her role quite aptly. In fact, she reminded Arthur a lot of Benny. But Arthur wasn’t sure if Benny was also a vampire or just really unfortunate looking. Either way, she was quite grotesque and disappeared into the basement with Saint and the captive. The doors to the basement were large, and thick, but Arthur imagined there was probably screaming happening on the other side of it.

  At the same time, Claudia and her guards were going over the security footage in the camera monitoring room of the club, with Arthur nearby. She seemed mostly fine. Arthur wasn’t sure if fending off assassins was a regular night for her. On the other hand, any movement of Arthur’s left arm resulted in severe pain shooting up his upper arm and shoulder. He wasn’t sure how bad the damage really was. Unsurprisingly none of the vampires here were much to do in first aid seeing how they never needed it, so instead they just helped Arthur with a makeshift sling in the meantime.

  So when his phone rang, Arthur had to awkwardly reach around with his right arm to pull his phone out of his left pocket, which took some negotiating. He didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello Arthur,” Benny rasped from the other line. Arthur was wondering how Benny got the number, but also wondering how Benny was just happening to call at such a convenient time. That was until he realized Claudia was looking at him, motioning for him to hand over the phone. He realized only now that Claudia’s phone lay on the desk broken and shattered, which meant Saint must’ve let them use Arthur’s number instead. That answered one question, at least.

  Arthur handed his phone to Claudia now, who had changed from her dress into jeans and a big puffy jacket. She clicked the phone once and it went on speaker.

  “Hey Clauds, how ya doing?” Benny said in a weird, sing-songy voice through his strained vocal chords.

  She rolled her eyes and spoke into the phone, “Get on with it Benny, I’m not in the mood.”

  “Uh…you know each other?” Arthur asked.

  “I know everybody,” Benny said. “Like you, Arthur. Been a long time, pal. Thought you might’ve got knocked off. Anyways, I got an ID on two of your guys. The one who started the fight was a human, a nobody. Some guy they paid. But your two would be killer are both fanged. Ferals.”

  “Wait, wait, you’re…one of them too?” Arthur asked.

  Benny snickered over the phone, “Why, make me any more scary?”

  Claudia interrupted impatiently, “So what if they’re Feral? I could’ve told you that. Nobody else would be stupid enough to do something so brazen. And unprofessional.”

  “There’s more. They arrived in a car, but it peeled out immediately after it dropped them. Not before cams picked up their plates. I ran them through surveillance around Longley. They came in the same car, and they drove in from out of town. The car didn’t belong to them, though. It’s registered to one Aiden McIntyre.”

  Claudia and Arthur both looked at each other, expecting the other to recognize that name. Neither did.

  “Who’s that supposed to be?” Arthur asked.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell? Oh he’s just a little old someone who used to employ a mortal detective to run jobs for him until he was brutally gunned down by what the police determined was a cartel related incident. Unusual so far north of the border.”

  It only took Arthur a second to put it together, “Persephone.”

  “Yyyyup. Seems she has full access to his assets. Unfortunately, Mr. McIntyre’s records are pretty spotless. And no social media presence. I can’t even find an estate registered to the same name, so either he uses aliases, or he does everything off the books. But one thing is for certain, they drove in from the east side of town. So that at least narrows things down a bit.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Where’s the car now?” Claudia asked.

  “How the fuck am I supposed to know? I’m good but I don’t have access to every damn camera in the city. As far as you know.”

  “Hm. It’s still a lead. Thanks Benny. Also one day we’ll have to talk about how you’re involved in all this.” Arthur said.

  “Sure, sure. This was just a favor of sorts, helpin’ out an old friend. When’s the next time you got vampire night at the club, Clauds?”

  She rolled her eyes, “You ask me every time and I have the same answer every time. Not letting your ugly mug stink the place up.”

  “Shee-heesh. See how they treat me Arthur?” Benny rasped. “Anyways, if that’s it, then I’m out.”

  “Wait a second,” Arthur said, “Can you text me the plates you found? Might be able to run them through my databases.”

  “That’ll cost you, but can do.”

  Claudia was staring at Arthur, a mixture of confusion, and suspicion. It only took Arthur a moment to realize that his and Saint’s manhunt for Persephone wasn’t actually public knowledge. Claudia was more or less just a bystander in this after all. Except…Arthur thought, if that’s true, why did they go after her? Arthur looked back at her, trying to read her expression. She knew something. But, her attention over the conversation faded as one of her guards was grabbing it to show her the camera feed again, having spotted something interesting. Arthur turned back to the phone.

  “Benny, before you go. Is it possible that I could…use your services in the future?”

  “Of course,” Benny rasped. “Believe it or not I actually kind of like you Arthur, and now that you’re in the know I don’t have to be all antsy around you. I’ll shoot you my contact info if you’re ever in need of some…information procurement.”

  “Great. Hey, by the way. There’s this person who works for Saint. She’s a…information specialist as well. But she looks…well she looks kind of like you.”

  Arthur heard the clicking of a keyboard before Benny responded. “Oh yeah. Not personally familiar, but I’ve heard about her. Why?”

  “Oh,” Arthur said, surprised. “I thought you might be related.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, uh. You know. You look alike. Your faces…and that. You know…”

  The line was quiet for a moment and Arthur thought he’d offended Benny, but Benny laughed. “Hah! No, no. Well we are, but not in the way you’re thinking. We’re not like brother and sister or anything like that but we got the same bloodline.”

  “What? Doesn’t that mean that you are related?”

  “Damn, they haven’t told you shit, huh? Every single vampire ever has a unique bloodline. It affects them in different ways. Sometimes it lets them do crazy stuff. Sometimes it fucks their brain up, makes them crazy instead. Sometimes when we get turned it has a bad reaction and we end up looking like I do. I guess we are related in a way. But nobody really looks at it like that beyond some surface level shit. At least not here. I hear in other countries it’s taken a little more serious. Like a family or whatever.”

  “So like…different pedigree. Some of you are closer to brothers, some more like cousins.”

  “Sort of,” Benny agreed. “And just like incestuous inbreeding between families, eventually those lineages got a little muddled. Supposedly, at some point the bloodlines got a little wonky. Guess the longer it went on, the more problems it caused.”

  “Are you telling me there’s like…purebloods?”

  “Eh, sort of. I’ve only met a few really old guys and gals. Most of them can do some pretty wild shit. But I’ve also seen some younger ones who can do equally, if not more crazy shit.”

  “Huh. So what’s your bloodline, you just end up looking like that?” Arthur asked.

  “Hey, come on. Appearances aren’t everything. I might be ugly as sin but I can also do some pretty crazy shit if I want to. And don’t ask, because I ain’t revealin’ my secrets.”

  “I think I know what you’re talking about actually. Not once, but twice now I’ve seen some vampires do some insane things. Jump way higher than any human, hit as hard as a truck. Survive after being…gutted.”

  Benny snickered again over the phone. “That ain’t even the half of it, that’s just basic shit.”

  “What about being able to…mesmerize someone?”

  “Ooh. Maybe you have seen some of the cooler stuff. But still, that’s just scratching the surface. You don’t want to know the type of shit some of these old bastards can pull off.”

  “Like what?"

  Benny made a clucking sound with his tongue, “Ah-ah, I don’t give away any information for free. Plus, my advice Arthur; keep your nose out of it. I get you’re working with some people here in Longley now, but you don’t want to get involved in all this shit. It’s just one big mess. Like you saw tonight.”

  “Yeah, that’s fair. I just like to know what I’m up against. Thanks Benny. Hope to be in touch soon.”

  “Any time.” The line went dead.

  Arthur made his way to the panel of screens that Claudia and her guards were looking at. They were no longer going over the recordings from the night before, but instead looking at a single feed. It was the basement of the club. A single light swung over what was now the corpse of the assassin. Even with his guts hanging out, it was obvious they had done even more work on him based on the state of his limbs, and the amount of blood on the floor. Arthur grimaced, turning away. He’d had enough of that for one night.

  “Turn it up,” Claudia ordered.

  “Arthur,” the chained up man groaned, “Only Arthur…”. He was almost sobbing.

  “How does he know your name?” Claudia asked slowly.

  Arthur raised an eyebrow, “How does he even know I’m here?”

  Claudia shrugged. “Take Arthur down there,” the order directed at her guards. “We need to hear what he has to say.”

  Arthur swore silently, not relishing having to get close to the gutted man again. One of the guards obliged anyway. The basement stairs were sealed by a huge metal door on the floor in the back of the kitchen area of the club. It was dark, dreary, and had no air conditioning, although Arthur wasn’t sure if vampires even had body temperature. They didn’t seem to react, but he was already beginning to sweat by the time they got to the bottom. At the bottom, the torturer lurked in the shadows near a steel doctor’s tray of saws, tongs, and pointy devices, many of which were bloody. Arthur grimaced as he looked at the man. It was incredible the vampire was still alive. They’d stapled his guts back into his stomach but the rest of him looked equally torn up now. Arthur didn’t even know how the man was conscious. Saint was in the room as well, and nodded to Arthur as he came in.

  “You have something to say?” Arthur asked, doing his best to avert his gaze.

  “You Arthur?”

  “I am.”

  The vampire, somehow, grinned. “She wanted me to pass on a message.”

  “Persephone?”

  He chuckled, blood gurgling in his mouth. “She wanted me to tell you…tell you something.”

  Arthur just stood, and waited.

  “She’s coming for you.”