In all of human history, vampires had rarely ever been hunted, and never successfully. Knowing this made a man jittery, and knowing that things had changed didn't make a difference versus the learned instincts. Dan, like so much of the team, had suffered a maiming at the hands of the Eternal, Lords of the Night, the Kings of Dark, etc etc. They had many grandiose titles for themselves.
In controlled experiment conditions, they'd charted their abilities and compared them to observed vampires and knew that their capabilities were at least on par.
That didn't change the visceral reaction that came naturally to someone who these fuckers had ripped apart in a fit of pique.
They spent a week of watching, through drone surveillance and other means, watching Richard Mullen and his chosen prey, a pretty girl named Louisa Svensen. Mullen was an experienced Humbert, the type of vampire that liked to pick the girls up young. Once turned into a blood doll, he lost interest fast, and disposed of them quickly once the thrill of the hunt palled. Then he went back out to another town and another school. His coven had means, and this was part of their entertainment.
Mike Mullen was actually Carlo Rivaldi who was a rare breed among older vampires; he Americanized when they emigrated over from the old country, apparently sometime in the 1950's and learned to move and groove within suburban America while putting on the appearance of normalcy. Sometime in the 1920's, he made Richard, and in 1952, they'd taken one Anna Smith in Salt Lake City, but instead of simply discarding her like the others, they made her a vampire as well. The family was a tremendous camouflage, but much of their entertainment had to do with hunting swingers and others who stuck out in American suburbia; the inevitably desperate people that couldn't quite reconcile themselves with the conformity of the culture they found themselves in.
Turned out, it was a rich hunting ground. They all three were dangerous hunters, and all three were targets, but Richard was the important one.
That was an owed debt.
For Dan, listening to the surveillance, hearing him say things like, "I wanted to destroy those ogres right then and there," his voice throbbing with rage and driving fast, seemed like a very solid acting job -- he remembered Mullen personally, and knew that he was fully capable of doing it. Except they also had the sound and video of him paying off the men to mug the girl in the first place, to set her up for a staged rescue where he could swoop in. In the past, he sometimes killed them simply because he was looking for the thrill.
New Prague, Minnesota. It was just one of a succession of places with a blood trail attached to it, but the murders had never been too firmly linked together -- the FBI was discouraged from doing that and local law enforcement, if they ever got too close, were discouraged. It was the sort of place the Mullen family liked to use; old fashioned 1950's buildings and a very small town America outlook. In the 2120's, the facade hadn't changed even if the culture had, somewhat, changed. And yet Richard Mullen was good at finding the girls that represented a challenge for even his sort of charms, a way to while away the times.
Tonight was prom night, and Mullen was a bit of a traditionalist, or at least a creature of habit. He liked the pomp and circumstance of proms and homecomings for the 'special' feedings. The high school had Mystic Lake Casino's property rented out for this; lots of lawn, but also lots of woods. Lots of privacy, lots of camouflage. No doubt that Richard's parents had very graciously helped fundraise the donations for that -- they had a sense of humor about getting parents to help pay for their execution of their own daughters. Anna particularly seemed to find that corruption amusing. She was the one that decided to write the novels, to pass the time and soften up the prey a bit with notions of romantic rescue by blood-thirsty fiends. She'd found it oh-so-excruciatingly hilarious when the series, written as as a sick joke, took off to bestseller status and movies. It was a feat that made them celebrities among vampires. If there'd been a vampire of the year award, she would have won it for helping domesticate the cattle even further.
Mullen had thralls, or it was safe to say that his 'mother' Anna fed some men blood and turned them into thralls, and they were around to loosely stop interruptions of the entire affair. What they expected were other kids and people to turn away, because Richard hated having people interrupt his little romantic play. He was giving Louisa a speech about his love and devotion, which was uncommon and so different from the other boys. His HUD outlined these sentries easily even in the darkness, despite their attempts to hide. Thralls were the first thing they'd tested themselves against, because they were human but faster and more dangerous, less inhibited, because of the blood they imbibed and were addicted to. They were the willing servants of the vampires, their daytime bagmen and otherwise servants.
Sometimes, they were 'promoted' and that was why so many were happy servants. Even if they weren't, they were high and benefited in all sorts of ways.
It was knifework. They didn't want to chase Mullen down. Kozlov's training came in handy, in that his knife sheared right through what little resistance there was, through a suit jacket and dress shirt and into the man's heart. He was lowered carefully and silently to the ground, never the wiser. Others were doing the same as they made the approach.
Mullen, Svensen, a flower-garlanded wooden gazebo with moonlight in a Minnesota May; it was all a little too perfectly planned, but that was his modus; he liked to overwhelm the girls and break down their resistance. The system flushed a small dose of calm drugs into his system to counteract the anxiety effect of seeing Mullen, even at a distance in nightvision and at magnification on HUD as he moved silently over the manicured grass of the country club lawn. He was remembering Rebecca at this moment, how she'd had her entire life ahead of her and so much to give, and was snuffed out, along with the rest of his family, because this particular coven wanted to show off their total superiority and immunity, to let slip the mask a bit to reveal a big, sneering grin at society and its laws and humanity at large.
He was just wrapping up his little act with, "I wanted it to be perfect, my darling..."
"...but sometimes the unexpected happens."
That produced a snarl on that 'perfect ivory' face that looked like a boyish Greek God a moment ago; the Eternal did not like being interrupted, and Mullens particularly did not like being interrupted when he put on his little stage production.
5'10, slender and wearing a tuxedo way too comfortably for a seventeen to eighteen year old, Richard Mullens was a beautiful boy, indeed, with the ivory mask and the obnoxiously wavy bronze hair and the beautiful, soulful eyes and the pouting lips. He came off as a poetry writing tragic romantic with that oh-so-irresistable dark side.
"Who are YOU!" he hissed, suddenly showing more of that dark side than he wanted; Louisa started to back away, suddenly horrified at a display of more than a little of that danger.
Dan was impassive; he probably looked a little too creepy himself, the dark, leatherlike predator coat that the Vigil issued its agents -- the camouflage worked pretty well, because they'd made that approach all too easily, and Mullens was now focusing his senses on something besides the prey and seemed to realize that Dan wasn't the only one here. Dan wasn't recognizable anymore; it had been years and his face was still his face, but older. The body? Well, they'd tried to approximate the limbs to fit proportionally to his torso, along with all the other refits, but he never had the chance to know what he would have been like when puberty was over. Even his eyes were new models, and they gleamed subtly in the night -- he hadn't bothered with the glasses.
The circuitry reflected back the soft light.
"Oh ho, so the prey wants to play once again? How many times has this happened?"
"Plenty," Albert replied, "But you made a mistake."
"Really? I'm not sure you understand how this works, mortal. You're the ones that make the mistake every time you raise a hand against us. I will..."
"Tear me apart limb from limb, pluck out my eyes, remove my tongue so that all I can do is moan without a voice, like the animal I am. You will take away everything from me and condemn me to an agonizing eternal existence of reliving my failures over and over in my mind. My life was over as soon as you decided it was," Dan repeated in a monotone, taking the script away from Richard.
That produced shocked silence. The reason why he'd done even that, instead of just killing Mullen right there was simple; he wanted Mullen to minutely slip his hand into the tuxedo and send off the alarm signal. That'd bring the other two vampires into the trap. That's what his associates were for. Keep Louisa in place, for her own safety, neutralize Richard and use him as the bait.
And then Mullen flew at him. He let Mullen get in a punch, which was stopped by the armor and the bone lacing -- it should have shattered things, but instead merely left a bruise, like the punch of a kid in a high school lockerroom fight. When Dan stomped on Richard's foot, quickly and in response, a blade shot out of it, pinning the vampire to the ground. A palm-heel to the gut seemed harmless, but then the shotgun blast tore through his gut, and it was like popping a blister. So much blood came out -- because that's where they kept their reserves -- that it soaked the entire gazebo in a display that reminded him vaguely of Jackson Pollock's abstract expressionist painting. That was a vampire that'd been starving himself so he could gorge on his favorite vintage of teenage girl. He'd been at about half a tank there.
The girl was screaming, but Dan ignored it, even as Mullen lashed out with another fist, this punch bouncing off the shoulder. He'd never trained intensively in hand-to-hand combat, and against something that had a similar ability to absorb damage and dish it, he didn't have that much of a punch. The response was to grab him and throw him down, hard, against the wood floor of the gazebo; hard, thick oak splintered like plywood and a ripped-to-shreds vampire was on the ground in the middle.
"You..." he gasped, "...will pay."
Ignoring the vampire's many threats, the cries of the girl, who was mostly terrified for her own safety at this point, Albert grabbed a stake out of his jacket and was on Mullen in a flash, pounding the thing into the concrete beneath and strapping him into the wires, which started to run their current through the vampire, keeping him disabled with the artificially induced convulsions -- the technology was designed to capture vampires, but in this case, keeping Richard alive served another purpose.
"Stick around, you fuck," Albert told him, standing above him, as he unslung his sniper rifle. "Now you get to watch your family die."
Bait.
He texted the others.
They knew the message went off as well as he did, so he didn't mention it -- their tech was monitoring the signal, the computers in their brains that was. He'd kept silent commo through this little confrontation, but his end was done.
That's how revenge worked.
In controlled experiment conditions, they'd charted their abilities and compared them to observed vampires and knew that their capabilities were at least on par.
That didn't change the visceral reaction that came naturally to someone who these fuckers had ripped apart in a fit of pique.
They spent a week of watching, through drone surveillance and other means, watching Richard Mullen and his chosen prey, a pretty girl named Louisa Svensen. Mullen was an experienced Humbert, the type of vampire that liked to pick the girls up young. Once turned into a blood doll, he lost interest fast, and disposed of them quickly once the thrill of the hunt palled. Then he went back out to another town and another school. His coven had means, and this was part of their entertainment.
Mike Mullen was actually Carlo Rivaldi who was a rare breed among older vampires; he Americanized when they emigrated over from the old country, apparently sometime in the 1950's and learned to move and groove within suburban America while putting on the appearance of normalcy. Sometime in the 1920's, he made Richard, and in 1952, they'd taken one Anna Smith in Salt Lake City, but instead of simply discarding her like the others, they made her a vampire as well. The family was a tremendous camouflage, but much of their entertainment had to do with hunting swingers and others who stuck out in American suburbia; the inevitably desperate people that couldn't quite reconcile themselves with the conformity of the culture they found themselves in.
Turned out, it was a rich hunting ground. They all three were dangerous hunters, and all three were targets, but Richard was the important one.
That was an owed debt.
For Dan, listening to the surveillance, hearing him say things like, "I wanted to destroy those ogres right then and there," his voice throbbing with rage and driving fast, seemed like a very solid acting job -- he remembered Mullen personally, and knew that he was fully capable of doing it. Except they also had the sound and video of him paying off the men to mug the girl in the first place, to set her up for a staged rescue where he could swoop in. In the past, he sometimes killed them simply because he was looking for the thrill.
New Prague, Minnesota. It was just one of a succession of places with a blood trail attached to it, but the murders had never been too firmly linked together -- the FBI was discouraged from doing that and local law enforcement, if they ever got too close, were discouraged. It was the sort of place the Mullen family liked to use; old fashioned 1950's buildings and a very small town America outlook. In the 2120's, the facade hadn't changed even if the culture had, somewhat, changed. And yet Richard Mullen was good at finding the girls that represented a challenge for even his sort of charms, a way to while away the times.
Tonight was prom night, and Mullen was a bit of a traditionalist, or at least a creature of habit. He liked the pomp and circumstance of proms and homecomings for the 'special' feedings. The high school had Mystic Lake Casino's property rented out for this; lots of lawn, but also lots of woods. Lots of privacy, lots of camouflage. No doubt that Richard's parents had very graciously helped fundraise the donations for that -- they had a sense of humor about getting parents to help pay for their execution of their own daughters. Anna particularly seemed to find that corruption amusing. She was the one that decided to write the novels, to pass the time and soften up the prey a bit with notions of romantic rescue by blood-thirsty fiends. She'd found it oh-so-excruciatingly hilarious when the series, written as as a sick joke, took off to bestseller status and movies. It was a feat that made them celebrities among vampires. If there'd been a vampire of the year award, she would have won it for helping domesticate the cattle even further.
Mullen had thralls, or it was safe to say that his 'mother' Anna fed some men blood and turned them into thralls, and they were around to loosely stop interruptions of the entire affair. What they expected were other kids and people to turn away, because Richard hated having people interrupt his little romantic play. He was giving Louisa a speech about his love and devotion, which was uncommon and so different from the other boys. His HUD outlined these sentries easily even in the darkness, despite their attempts to hide. Thralls were the first thing they'd tested themselves against, because they were human but faster and more dangerous, less inhibited, because of the blood they imbibed and were addicted to. They were the willing servants of the vampires, their daytime bagmen and otherwise servants.
Sometimes, they were 'promoted' and that was why so many were happy servants. Even if they weren't, they were high and benefited in all sorts of ways.
It was knifework. They didn't want to chase Mullen down. Kozlov's training came in handy, in that his knife sheared right through what little resistance there was, through a suit jacket and dress shirt and into the man's heart. He was lowered carefully and silently to the ground, never the wiser. Others were doing the same as they made the approach.
Mullen, Svensen, a flower-garlanded wooden gazebo with moonlight in a Minnesota May; it was all a little too perfectly planned, but that was his modus; he liked to overwhelm the girls and break down their resistance. The system flushed a small dose of calm drugs into his system to counteract the anxiety effect of seeing Mullen, even at a distance in nightvision and at magnification on HUD as he moved silently over the manicured grass of the country club lawn. He was remembering Rebecca at this moment, how she'd had her entire life ahead of her and so much to give, and was snuffed out, along with the rest of his family, because this particular coven wanted to show off their total superiority and immunity, to let slip the mask a bit to reveal a big, sneering grin at society and its laws and humanity at large.
He was just wrapping up his little act with, "I wanted it to be perfect, my darling..."
"...but sometimes the unexpected happens."
That produced a snarl on that 'perfect ivory' face that looked like a boyish Greek God a moment ago; the Eternal did not like being interrupted, and Mullens particularly did not like being interrupted when he put on his little stage production.
5'10, slender and wearing a tuxedo way too comfortably for a seventeen to eighteen year old, Richard Mullens was a beautiful boy, indeed, with the ivory mask and the obnoxiously wavy bronze hair and the beautiful, soulful eyes and the pouting lips. He came off as a poetry writing tragic romantic with that oh-so-irresistable dark side.
"Who are YOU!" he hissed, suddenly showing more of that dark side than he wanted; Louisa started to back away, suddenly horrified at a display of more than a little of that danger.
Dan was impassive; he probably looked a little too creepy himself, the dark, leatherlike predator coat that the Vigil issued its agents -- the camouflage worked pretty well, because they'd made that approach all too easily, and Mullens was now focusing his senses on something besides the prey and seemed to realize that Dan wasn't the only one here. Dan wasn't recognizable anymore; it had been years and his face was still his face, but older. The body? Well, they'd tried to approximate the limbs to fit proportionally to his torso, along with all the other refits, but he never had the chance to know what he would have been like when puberty was over. Even his eyes were new models, and they gleamed subtly in the night -- he hadn't bothered with the glasses.
The circuitry reflected back the soft light.
"Oh ho, so the prey wants to play once again? How many times has this happened?"
"Plenty," Albert replied, "But you made a mistake."
"Really? I'm not sure you understand how this works, mortal. You're the ones that make the mistake every time you raise a hand against us. I will..."
"Tear me apart limb from limb, pluck out my eyes, remove my tongue so that all I can do is moan without a voice, like the animal I am. You will take away everything from me and condemn me to an agonizing eternal existence of reliving my failures over and over in my mind. My life was over as soon as you decided it was," Dan repeated in a monotone, taking the script away from Richard.
That produced shocked silence. The reason why he'd done even that, instead of just killing Mullen right there was simple; he wanted Mullen to minutely slip his hand into the tuxedo and send off the alarm signal. That'd bring the other two vampires into the trap. That's what his associates were for. Keep Louisa in place, for her own safety, neutralize Richard and use him as the bait.
And then Mullen flew at him. He let Mullen get in a punch, which was stopped by the armor and the bone lacing -- it should have shattered things, but instead merely left a bruise, like the punch of a kid in a high school lockerroom fight. When Dan stomped on Richard's foot, quickly and in response, a blade shot out of it, pinning the vampire to the ground. A palm-heel to the gut seemed harmless, but then the shotgun blast tore through his gut, and it was like popping a blister. So much blood came out -- because that's where they kept their reserves -- that it soaked the entire gazebo in a display that reminded him vaguely of Jackson Pollock's abstract expressionist painting. That was a vampire that'd been starving himself so he could gorge on his favorite vintage of teenage girl. He'd been at about half a tank there.
The girl was screaming, but Dan ignored it, even as Mullen lashed out with another fist, this punch bouncing off the shoulder. He'd never trained intensively in hand-to-hand combat, and against something that had a similar ability to absorb damage and dish it, he didn't have that much of a punch. The response was to grab him and throw him down, hard, against the wood floor of the gazebo; hard, thick oak splintered like plywood and a ripped-to-shreds vampire was on the ground in the middle.
"You..." he gasped, "...will pay."
Ignoring the vampire's many threats, the cries of the girl, who was mostly terrified for her own safety at this point, Albert grabbed a stake out of his jacket and was on Mullen in a flash, pounding the thing into the concrete beneath and strapping him into the wires, which started to run their current through the vampire, keeping him disabled with the artificially induced convulsions -- the technology was designed to capture vampires, but in this case, keeping Richard alive served another purpose.
"Stick around, you fuck," Albert told him, standing above him, as he unslung his sniper rifle. "Now you get to watch your family die."
Bait.
He texted the others.
Mullen is taken care of.
They knew the message went off as well as he did, so he didn't mention it -- their tech was monitoring the signal, the computers in their brains that was. He'd kept silent commo through this little confrontation, but his end was done.
That's how revenge worked.
