Vampire Hunter: Corey Crowgarden's guide to killing vampires for fun and profit.

INTERLUDE

Corey sat in the corner facing towards the door. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness. He was fairly certain that he had been here for a few days. His head was still sore. He wondered exactly what had happened and where the rest of the team was, or if they were still alive.
Well, sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear get's you, he thought. They had slipped something similar to food through a slot at the bottom of the door. It was the only source of light into his cell.
When he first woke up he realized he was still wearing his clothes but his pockets were empty. He still had his boots and laces.
There was a small cot and some filthy blankets in one corner, there was two buckets in the far corner. He had paced it off, it was about six feet by ten feet. He was certain there was a camera watching him, but there wasn't really much to look at. Sitting beside the door, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He started a cycle of box breathing and visualizing, pulling power and light through his feet. This was something he did daily, even more frequently now since he had been here. He tried to stretch his consciousness beyond the door. He could feel the lights flickering  and tried to feel the cold of the tiles. He could hear voices. There are some people who think this is just imagination, and there is probably something to that, but a lot of this is connection. He remembered the layout of the building they got from the city and he had already guessed where he was.
The raid had been going according to plan. They had secured an entry high in the building and moved quickly from floor to floor. It was a fairly tall, abandoned hotel that had sat empty for more than a few years.
They had done the usual recons. A map recce from the building plans, a drone fly over and kept it at a distant camera surveillance. They saw the black holes in the video feed enter and exit during the night. They made a rough estimate of the amount of actual people in the building. They saw the tainted exit and enter during the day. Watching their protocols, which were fairly loose, and estimating the amount of tainted in the building  based on the actual food that was brought in. Zombie meat might be good enough for the victims and Zombies eat each other, well, until they're eaten by everyone else, but the tainted eat a little better.
Sold my soul for a big mac and an extra large coke, or something like that.
But Harry had been right, it seemed. It was too soon. There was something different and there was that guy, not a tainted but definitely not a fang, that would come in during the day and the night. The tainted treated him with deference, so he must've been important.
So Harry took his cell out of the Op, which sucked but it was his call.
Usually the Zombie's are no problem. They are at most a nuisance, a speed bump. The first few shots are enough to turn them but this time it was different. Something was definately different. They didn't scatter or stampede away. They were aggressive and started to come towards the team. It halted our momentum, that's for sure. They started coming out of everywhere and we knew it was time to redeploy. We set down a rain of covering fire and Nick-2 cell planted claymores and fired them.
That's about all he remembered.
He hoped they got out.
He wished he had his pendulum, but knew it was just a tool. He could overcome it, he just needed to concentrate.
He pushed his thoughts deeper, and let go of his emotions.
"Where is he?" He pushed this question to the top of his mind and then pushed his conscsiousness outward. He could feel his consciousness pulled down the hallway and then down into the darkness.
His mind was in the catacombs and down there he could feel it, even in it's slumber. There were others in the darkness, true, but there was nothing like the sensation of this vampire.
The vampire Lord.