Chapter 6: Interview

An hour later, we were back in the office, each of us staring tiredly at our computers. We'd been on the case for nearly sixteen hours and the lack of sleep the night before was starting to catch up with us. I was mindlessly scrolling through the forensics reports that were beginning to come in and seriously considering my life choices.

My life hadn't been easy to this point; far from it, if I was willing to be honest. When your parents are murdered when you're just three years old, life isn't going to be a walk in the park. Then being placed with Bobby and his absolute hatred for vampires and, by proxy, me. He'd never been outright abusive, but there was no love to be found in his house.

That's what made what happened in the hall with the vampire so shocking. From one of my first memories with Bobby and on, I was raised to hate vampires and everything that they were. They were evil. Creatures to be wary of at all times. Even if they looked and acted human, there were no redeeming qualities to a vampire. I couldn't even begin to count the number of times Bobby went through his vampire rant when I was growing up.

And he never let me forget that because of my bloodline, I was the same as them. Evil with no redeeming qualities. He took me in to keep an eye on me and to train me to be a weapon against the plague on society. I was good for little else than that.

One of Bobby's biggest fears was me falling in with a group of vampires and adopting their ways until eventually, I became one myself. I always thought his paranoia was getting the best of him when he voiced his concerns. I mean, I worked for the government taking out vampires. When in the world would I have the inclination to get close enough to a vampire to become one?

That is, until this afternoon. This afternoon had made me question everything. What in the world had gotten into me? The vampire was the first one I'd ever let put hands on me without getting a fist to the face. I'd had my stakes within reach. It would have been too easy to take him out. And yet, the thought hadn't even entered my mind.

The way he'd made me feel… It had been intoxicating. How had he managed to do that within thirty seconds of meeting me? That had never happened. I wondered briefly if it was one of his special gifts that came with age. I'd never heard of that sort of gift manifesting, but I wasn't a vampire, so what did I know?

I shook myself out of my musings. There was nothing to do about it but avoid that vampire like the plague that he was. He may have been the most handsome vampire I had ever seen in my life, but that didn't make him any less dangerous. Especially considering whatever sort of thrall he was able to put me in. He was enemy number one as far as I was concerned, and I would do well to remember that.

Properly chastised, I looked at the computer and tried to focus on what I was supposed to be doing. I clicked open the file containing Amos's financial records. We'd hit gold when we found the transfer to Marcus's bank. Maybe we could find something in these records that could indicate just where Amos had run off to.

Twenty minutes later, I remembered just how much I hated digging through financial records. It was mindlessly boring looking through a vampire's transactions. A large transaction at Night Shift, the local vampire owned bar. It was a favorite haunt among both the humans and the not-so humans.

"I wish we could just go in and shut Night Shift down. You know, get the humans out and go crazy on all the vamps in there," I said, breaking the silence in the office for the first time since we sat down.

"Where did that come from?" Duncan asked, staring at me from over the top of his computer screen.

"I was just looking at Amos's financial records. He spent a lot of time there and it just got me thinking how much easier our lives would be if we could just kill a majority of the vampires."

Andrew chuckled. "It would make our lives easier, but you know how the agency feels about it. If we took out the so-called 'innocent' vampires, we'd start a war. A war that we would no doubt lose."

"I'm sure Bobby wouldn't mind," Duncan said with a snort.

"No, probably not," I sighed. Bobby wouldn't mind the war if it meant that vampires were eradicated. He would probably see it as a win if it took me out as well.

I kept scrolling through the dozens of transactions until I saw one that made me freeze. A deposit of $10,000 from none other than Damien Merrick, king of vampires.

"Holy crap," I said, eyes wide on the screen. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Merrick had never been so sloppy before. Not since I started working at the agency. He was meticulous at ensuring that we never came knocking on his door.

"What? What is it?" Duncan asked, jumping up from his chair to stand behind me. He leaned over my shoulder to see my screen and let out a curse. "You're kidding me. I don't believe it!"

Andrew looked up curiously from his computer, never one to get into the middle of things unless asked.

"Amos has a money transfer for $10,000 from Damien Merrick," I said, answering his silent question. Andrew's eyes widened in surprise before he leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtful. He knew as well as I did that the transfer had to be a calculated move on Merrick's part. He never seemed to do anything that wasn't.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Duncan asked me excitedly.

I smiled grimly. I knew exactly what this meant. We'd been salivating for a chance of getting Merrick. But he was insanely powerful within the city. He was the king, after all. He was nearly impossible to get to. We'd tried a thousand times before, to no avail. We finally had an excuse to at the very least meet with him and ask him some questions.

I was positively excited at the prospect. There was no actual information on the mysterious vampire king, not even in our fancy government files. He had an inexplicable way of keeping information out of our hands. No one even knew what he looked like, which was saying something in this day in age with cameras on every street corner. And that's not even including social media.

"I know exactly what this means," I said, grinning at Duncan. "It's time for a meeting with the vampire king."