Prologue
Lira eyed the scene before her and couldn’t hide her sneer. Not one of them knew they were in her little lion’s den and that was the right of it. That was as it should be. Yet despite all the little worker bees swarming thinking they were queen bees in her club, something rotten was brewing in her city. Someone was fucking things up, and that was bad for business. There were less little worker bees in her club then there should be, less wannabe lions she had in the crook of her finger. If this kept up, if she kept losing ground against whatever was trying to push out, it would take a war to get it back. War is bad for business.
She tapped the glass, staring out at the crowd. Dancers pressed close, heads tipped back, throats bared. Too careless. Too trusting. The smell of sweat and alcohol hung heavy in the air, but beneath it... something else. Something off. Something wrong. The headline on her phone flashed behind her eyes; The fifth victim, found cold in the street. She needed answers before the scent of rot filled her club, too.
Lira’s fingers tapped the glass, the thin bars between Lira and her prey. Her eyes found her two enforcers, the one’s most loyal to her and her progenies. She could feel them respond to the little thread between their minds. They knew they were summoned.
“Ash. Ila. Tell me, why the fuck neither of you have stopped this madness?” Lira said, voice barely a whisper as she tossed her phone on the table with a news article open.
Ash had the decency to look abashed, though Ila only kept her sharp toothed smile. She was the kind that would revel in the chaos, and would enjoy the bloodbath that would follow when she caught up to whomever was threatening exposure. She grimaced, staring at the headline.
– “Vampire Killer strikes again, fifth victim found dead in Ironridge, exsanguinated with slashed throat” –
“We’ll all be fucked if this isn’t shut down. I don’t just mean the older ones showing up from wherever they fuck off to… I mean the full weight of human government warfare against us. Once Pandora’s box is open, it can’t be shut.” Lira growled.
Ash flicked through his own phone, scanning the news with a scowl on his face.
“It’s all too sloppy for anyone to truly believe that we are doing this… Why frame our kind?” Ash mused.
“Who cares?” Ila cut in, “We just need to find them and gut them. Maybe they will hide in plain sight? I do love a good game of cat and mouse.”
“The problem is that at least two of these corpses have ties here with us. We all know they weren’t going anywhere. As if any that pines for our blessing is ever worthy to walk among us, but it could mean we have a rat… I don’t keep rats at Seraphine.”
“Someone inside you think?” Ash asked.
“It reeks of it. The chances of even one having ties here are impossible by coincidence alone. Find them, skin them and paint the walls in their blood. Nobody fucks with Seraphine. Nobody fucks with me.”
