Chapter Ten: Hunting Party:

She’s on the move again.

The hounds have her scent and are ready to kill. Each of the fractions have sent out their best. It took days to come to their decision. Their team was together as a whole, but they worked separate. They each had her scent and a prize to chase after. Lauren’s head for all of the gold, property, and blood they wanted.

They began at sundown. The hunting party went in three different directions. One went north, the second went south, and the third went west. All of the fractions waited with bated breath. However, they still had other problems to deal with.

Human hunters started popping up more often. Such a pain for them. They didn’t even look that tough. The leaders complained, “At least give us a challenge.” Oh well, time to clean house. The worst part was the press. (Hey, vampires watch the news too.) Ah, the press. That’s how vampires in America got into this mess in the first place. It took one noisy journalist to ruin everything.

The party in the North began their search. Chances were that their target wasn’t alone. She must have reached for somebody to help her. Probably a man and a vampire. But what to do with him if they were right?

“They didn’t say we can’t kill him, right?” one of the members of the party asked.

“That’s correct,” the leader said. “So can we kill him? As long as we kill the target, everyone else is a target, right?”

“Now, I don’t want to kill a complete weakling,” a female hunter said. “That would be too boring. I say we measure him up first.”

“But wouldn’t she try to find somebody stronger than her for protection?” another female hunter asked.

“It could be a front,” the other woman hunter said. “He could pretend to be all strong to trick her, but he’s weak in reality.”

“But do we kill him or not?” the final hunter of the group asked.

“We will kill him if he gets in the way,” the leader said at last. The rest of his party couldn’t think of a counterargument. Meanwhile, the other two parties had the same idea. The fractions didn’t tell them they couldn’t. Probably because they were dealing with the persistent hunter problem on their hands. Some news stations drummed up the conflict for rates. Fox News did it the worst. The higher-ups of the fractions couldn’t remember when a TV wasn’t thrown across the room followed by screaming in rage.

Why watch TV at all? The news will only piss them off. They needed to keep tab of all of the humans hunting them, however. Looking at the endless cycle from the outside, it couldn’t be helped. They didn’t need the headaches. That in itself would be nice.

The hunting party in the west listened for stories of daytime killings in the area. Their target could hunt day and night. She was probably older than her behaviors suggested. How long before that changed? The hunters themselves could only move at night. They needed to devise tactics that tracked their target’s movements during the day. Enter their “dolls”.

They looked like people. They talked and acted like people too. But, their eyes are trained to spot who’s human and who’s not. If she was with a guardian at night, she would have to move around for feeding in the day. Their fraction approved of using this method. After all, they geared up to combat the hunters who also had a bounty on Lauren’s head. Her existence as a threat was the only thing that both sides could agree on.

The hunting party in the west had a lead already. Their target was last seen in Los Angeles. They followed the trail of bodies and kept an ear to the ground. Some of them had ties to the police. The cops proved to be much useful in their search. On top of that, they had people willing to talk out of fear in the street. Plus, the hunting party became armed with plenty of information they needed for their hunt. They could confirm that she wasn’t alone. The last place the target stopped was at a blood bank. (Easy to see the reasoning.) She and this new companion were seen heading to a seedy motel in the hunting party’s direction. So many to choose from too. The party all broke into pairs and waited around eight different motels. Nightfall would be coming soon and the night shift looked like it would slow and long. Only problem in the way was the noisy humans in the hotel. Nothing a little mind control couldn’t fix.

The leader looked at his silver pocket watch. If his hunch was correct, the target’s arrival time would be close to around nine or ten o’clock. Alright. He had the receptionist under his command. The leader himself sat in the lobby of the motel with his newspaper hiding his face.

Come out, come out, he thought. We know you are coming here. Just come out here and save us the time.

His ear twitched when he heard the glass door opening.