Chapter 4

"I told you whoever it is would become sloppy with their disposal methods." Cho said as he prepared the necessary apparatus to draw blood. Dante, who was sitting in the seat next to Cho, sighed.

"I hate it when you're right." Dante said as he rolled up his sleeve for Cho to draw his blood. Dante looked at the large needle Cho was handling and let out a exasperated groan, "Does the needle have to be so big?"

Cho chuckled, "Well, as a vampire you do have extremely thick skin, so yes, the needle needs to be quite thick to penetrate your skin." Dante groaned again and held out his arm. A sharp prick and forty seconds later, Cho drew the needle from Dante's arm with a smirk, "Would like a lollipop for being such a good boy?" After receiving a glare for Dante, Cho cleared his throat, "I suspect that the vampires are being made by using your blood so I'll compare you blood sample to mine and try to figure out if that's really the way the vampires are being made or not. It would be helpful if you could catch one of these vampires though, then I could get a sample of their blood as well and give my final conclusion."

"I'll see what I can do." Dante replied and Cho nodded leaving the room with the blood sample. Dante sat there is silence when he heard a knock at the door. The door opens and a head pops in. It's Nicole.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize that Doctor Cho had a patient," Nicole begins but stops when she recognizes the handsome face before her, "It's you. Dante." Nicole says pointing her finger at Dante, "I'm actually glad I ran into you," Dante stands and pulls on his jacket, making his way to the door but stops when Nicole gets in his way.

"You're standing in my way." Dante says.

"I know." Nicole gulps as she stares at the large figure in front of her, "I wanted to say something to you."

"What?" Dante asked getting irritated. Humans certainly were the worst sort of creatures ever to roam the earth. They've always been a nuisance to Dante, trying to show their superiority and dominace. Dante stared down at the woman in front of him with eyes that could pierce the soul.

"Thank you." Nicole said and nearly smiled when she saw how taken aback Dante was, "For saving me that night." Dante nodded, he had never been thanked before so the feeling he was getting in his chest was new to him. Dante walked around Nicole to get through the door but stopped when Nicole said, "There's something about you, I don't know what it is but I'm going to figure it out."

"Don't." Is all Dante said and left the room. Nicole released a lungful of air as she held her chest, her heart banging against her ribcage.

"What is going on with you Nicole? Get a grip! The guy is a total asshole, take his advice and forget about him. Forget that every time you see him, your heart flutters and brain begins to malfunction." Nicole groans and shakes out her arms, "How can I do that?"

Little did Nicole know, Dante was leaning against the door and heard every word Nicole said. With a small smile and a chuckle, Dante made his way out the hospital.

~~~

"So what we got?" Dante asked once he got back home. Alex was typing furiously on the keyboard as Dante leaned over his shoulder to look at the screen.

"Right, so I went through all the CCTV footage surrounding Helix enterprise and I think I found our guy." Alex says as he opens up the camera footage. He pauses when he sees a man wearing a light grey suit with a blue tie leaving the back entrance of the building. The man takes a handkerchief out of his inside jacket pocket and wipes his mouth, leaving a red stain on the piece of cloth. Dante and Alex watch as the man then leaves the frame.

"Where is he now?" Dante asks.

"I wrote a tracking algorithm to find him but it's gonna take a while." Alex replies. Alex, the ordinary looking secretary, has more skills than any other ordinary secretary. No one besides Dante knows that Alex was arrested when he was a junior for hacking into a multi-million dollar company on a dare. Some secrets should remain hidden in Alex's eyes, but that didn't stop him from writing several of Dante's company's programs, he even used his skill to extent of sniffing out other company's dirty secrets that would want to make deals with Dante.

"Okay," Dante said clapping Alex's shoulder, "Call me when you get a hit."

"Will do, boss."

~~~

Victor was making his way over to Dante's gym for a light workout, stretching as he walked, but he paused outside the gym's door when he heard the sound of punching coming from the other side. Victor chuckled before sliding opening the large glass door and saw Dante standing in one corner with a punching bag.

Dante's gym had a large black rubber mat in the center with several gyming aparatus surrounding it. Three treadmills lined the left side of the room, most of the weights and lifting aparatus was situated on the opposite wall of the entrance and to the right, was several punching bags.

"Why you up so early?" Victor asked as he walked over to the rack next to him to get a pair of padded gloves.

"I was thinking." Dante said as he held the punching bag arm length away, panting.

"About?" Victor asked, encouraging Dante to speak his mind. Dante sighed as he watched Victor pulls on his gloves before gesturing Dante to join him on the mat.

"How everything is my fault." Dante said and dodged a punch Victor threw at him. The two men circled around each other wih raised fists.

"You do enjoy taking blame Dante." Victor said before throwing another punch which Dante grabbed and twisted, holding Victor in the position where he was holding his wrist in one hand while the other hand pressed down on Victor's shoulder, locking him there.

Victor groaned before quickly twisting his body under Dante, using his force to throw Dante on the mat, freed from Dante's grip.

"So you want to blow off some steam?" Victor said as he stepped back, allowing Dante to flip himself up, "Let's blow off some steam."

Dante punched his fist together twice before rolling out his shoulders. Dante punched with his right which Victor dodge by turning his body to the left and delivered a punch to Dante's right side. Dante groaned and the two men circled each other again, a smile on Victor's lips.

Victor punches with his right, which Dante catches and he pulls Victor towards him then steps forward and elbows Victor in the face. Victor stumbles backward from the impact and quickly recovers to catch the kick Dante sends to his chest. Victor grabs Dante's leg and twists it over his body causing Dante to falls towards the floor and land on his stomach. Dante groans as his leg is in a lock behind him.

"Tapping out?" Victor asks but is caught off gaurd when Dante pulls his locked leg towards his chest, twirls and knocks Victor on the ground, placing him in a neck lock with his legs whilst holding Victors outstretched arm. It was Victor's turn to groan from the pain he was feeling in his shoulder and the air that failed to enter his throat. So Victor did the cowardly thing and bit Dante's leg. Dante cries out,

"Hey, that's my job." Dante jokes before he and Victor stand upright again, facing each other.

"Shall we take it up a notch?" Dante asks, to which Victor grins and nods.

Dante wastes no time and sends a bunch of bats flying from his left arm to distract Victor while he kicks Victor in the side and twirls around again to kick Victor in the chest. Victor falls to the ground, the winds knocked out of him and watches as Dante moves with speed to deliver a punch to his face. Luckily Victor reacted fast enough to roll to the side, tunring into black smoke and wisps around to Dante's back before turning back to human form, kicking a turned Dante in the chest, making Dante do a backwards roll from the force he received. Dante got up was about to throw a punch but stopped mid-air when Alex rushed into the room saying he just got the location of their rogue vamp.

Dante and Victor followed Alex towards the study where camera footage was being played. The footage was in front of a florist shop.

"Our man entered there about three minutes ago." Alex said taking a seat in front of the computer screen.

"We're on our way." Dante said as he nodded to Victor who followed him out the room.

~~~

A cloud of black smoke later, Dante and Victor stood in the alley next to the floral shop waiting for their prey to exit. The doorway that leads to the alley from the floral shop opened and Andy Browen exited, blood staining his collar. He turned and noticed the two men who were now staring at him and immediately recognized Dante. He turned to run but was stopped by bats who turned into Dante. A look of fury on his face. Dante had made it very clear to the vampires he created not to feed on humans. Obviously whoever created this vampire, forgot to give him the memo, and he was going to pay for it. Dante punched Andy in the face causing him to stumble backwards where Victor caught him and turned into smoke to take him back to the house.

Dante stared at the ground in anger before shaking his head to get himself under control, he then looked up and saw Nicole standing there in the alley, her hand covering her mouth in horror.

"Nicole." Dante said, realizing that she probably saw the whole thing. Nicole turned to run away but was stopped by Dante who appeared in front of her, startling her. She was about to scream but Dante placed his hand over her mouth and

pushed her against the wall. Nicole stared up at Dante in fear which struck a different type of hurt in Dante's heart, one he didn't know existed.

"Nicole, I can explain if you'll let me." Dante began but Nicole made no move to respond, Dante sighed, "I'm going to take my hand away so promise me you won't scream." Nicole nodded slowly and Dante hesitantly removed his hand.

"Are you going to kill me?" Nicole asked softly. Dante smiled lightly before shaking his head. For some or other reason Nicole believed him and her tense shoulders relaxed.

"I promise to explain everything later, right now I have something to deal with." Dante said. His eyes softened when Nicole nodded, "Meet me at Merçenas Restaurant in two hours. If you want." Dante added before turning away and transforming into bats, leaving Nicole standing there by herself. Dante wasn't worried about Nicole telling anyone about what she saw, he trusted her to keep his secret, at least until they meet up at the small restaurant near her house later.