As we left the base and scaled the cliff face, the city was a ways off but I could not run as fast as Diach. We were forced to walk through the night before getting to the outskirts of the city. The woods outside the city were full of life as usual but all the wild life was a turn off. After feeding on deer the first time, I never wanted to go through that again. It was like gorging on water.
"We really need to teach you how to run like a vampire. I am getting so sick of walking to this damned city." Diach said impatiently. I could feel his eyes boring into me from behind. As I did not want to turn around and look at him, I waved at him and sped up some. We arrived an hour before dawn but it was too late to do anything so we checked into the same hotel from before in the same room.
"How do we keep getting the same room?" I asked Diach wondering about the circumstances. Getting the same exact room twice in a row at completely different times was very unlikely.
"We own this hotel. This is a vampire hotel owned and operated by us. One of the few places among the humans that we are known. We have businesses set up all over but we run most of them through the humans. This hotel is one of the few that is not." Diach said like it was common knowledge. I assumed by the base's size and construction that vampire kind was well off but I had no idea how well off.
"Wow. So what I am hearing is that we are loaded. That is very good." I said thinking of all the ventures I could take with the vampires. It was a loaded business opportunity. Being that I was a lowly soldier, I could not see them being willing to share their riches with me so I would have to make my own fortune. But the princes did say I was one of their most important pawns so they would likely do anything they needed to keep me.
"Just do not go crazy about money. We have enough of it for sure but we try not to dabble in too much among the humans. Keep that in mind along with whatever you are thinking." Diach said after he stopped whistling while we sat around. I took the bed nearest the window while Diach took the one closest to the door. As the sun came up, we slept.
When we awoke the next night, there were quite a lot of footsteps outside the door. Diach was doing his thing like normal but I flung myself out of bed at the sound on guard. It sounded like the whole floor was shuffling around outside our door. I grabbed the dagger from on the dresser between our beds ready for battle. That made Diach look at me with a crazy face.
"You do not even know how to efficiently use a dagger. Put it down and relax. The humans are going to a party further down the boulevard. It is a yearly event." Diach said after he stopped wiping the dried blood from his teeth. He must have been feeding before I woke up. Thinking about it now, I had no idea how to use that weapon and it would not do well in a fight.
"You are probably right." I said tossing the knife on the bed before getting in the shower. After we went to feed, we had to start on our mission. It was going to be a long few days trying to gather intel.
We left the hotel after readying ourselves to head back towards the school. In my human life, Motoro had a reputation for hanging around the school at night and I could not imagine that changed much in the short time I was away. When we jumped on top of the building and looked towards the field, Motoro and his group were sitting on the bleachers talking as expected. If we got any closer they would smell us even upwind. The hours passed by as we waited for them to leave until finally around 2 am, they got up.
They walked towards us into the building instead of away like we were thinking they were. As they walked across the grass in the middle of the track, the wind starting blowing from them towards us carrying our scent away but not enough. The instant they stepped on the track, I heard a deep breath.
"Do you smell that?" Motoro whispered to one of his friends. Another deep breath from his friend before a slight grunt. But they kept walking like they did not notice. We followed them towards a hotel on the other side of town from ours but as we got near it, Diach stopped me.
"There are quite a lot of the dogs in the building. We should back off for the night. I am not confident in our chances if we go into that building." Diach said holding his arm on my chest to stop me. Bloodlust was clouding my judgement.
"I want to kill them. We have to kill them." I said running on anger. They forced me into this. They would pay for taking my family away from me.
"We will have a chance at a later date. We are only assigned recon. We have to go." Diach said trying to push me back. All I could see was Motoro. He was taunting me to go and I knew it but I still could not stop myself from wanting to kill him. As more and more Moonwalkers came walking out the front door, I realized how slim our chances were. There was no other choice but to let him go for the night.
"That was their base then. Now we know where it is and we can go back." I said heart broken. As enticing as it was, I could not risk going into a building full of Moonwalkers to kill one.
"That is not their base. It was too small and there were not enough of them for it to be their base. Think about our hotel. It has quite a few vampires in it but not nearly as much as our base has at any one time." Diach said as we crossed buildings. He was not wrong about the base and our hotel. But since I did not have any clue about the Moonwalkers total numbers I just assumed that was near all of them. Thinking about it, we were stronger than they are and there was only one building. It was pretty sizeable but not nearly enough that the Moonwalkers in there would have a chance against even 1/4 of our total numbers.
"How long has this blood feud been going on between the vampires and Moonwalkers?" I asked Diach. He never talked about the war between the two races. Or our relationship with the humans or anything pertaining to us and another race really, living or non living.
"A few thousand years from my understanding. It has been going on at least since Cleo's time." Diach said stopping to think about it. He just said Cleo like it was a first name relationship.
"Did you just say Cleo? Like the ancient pharaoh Cleopatra?" I asked in disbelief. It was astounding that he knew that name as well as he seemed to.
"Yes. My little sister Cleopatra." Diach said matter of factly. He just said Queen Cleopatra was his little sister!
"What on earth? Queen Cleopatra was your little sister? Why have I never heard of this? How do I not know I know a celebrity?" I said shocked. This vampire was centuries old and I had no idea.
"Yeah. It was a past life so there is no use in bringing it up. Cleo was a celebrity among the humans, not the vampires. She was just a blood bag to the vampires." Diach said uncaring. He was a strange vampire but I understood where he was coming from. Besides the few humans I left behind and cared about, they were little more than walking meat suits.
"I just cannot believe you were related to the Queen Cleopatra! She was one of the most important figures in all of earth's history. I do not remember ever hearing she had a brother, though." I said trying to remember any history lesson they mentioned she had a sibling.
"She was chosen among us to be pharaoh as she had a better body then I so my parents basically disowned me. I lived separately and ate separately from her. She was the golden child and I was not." Diach said frustrated with his family. He was harboring ill will for them.
"I am sure they still loved you. You just have to look past their misgivings." I said trying to comfort him. It did not seem to do much.
"I tried but they treated me very harshly. That is why I destroyed them all when given the chance. The day the vampires came and recruited me is the day my life truly began. But I could not risk the ancient people finding out about us so I forced the Greeks to take credit. They did so after some convincing. I guess watching one man take down an empire really changed their minds about defying me. Either way they ended up dead so I do not care." Diach said clenching his fist in front of him. I figured it best to change the subject then.
"So what is the plan then? Do we stay here and keep tabs on the group or go back to the base?" I asked praying he said we stayed here. I did not want to go back on a failed mission or leave Motoro breathing. There were plenty of reasons to stay and no reasons not to.
"We stay here for surveillance. But the Moonwalkers know we are on to them so we will have to figure something else out. They will not go back to that same spot and if they do it will be to challenge you. They know you are a different kind of vampire and their main task is probably to put you down." Diach said thinking about our situation carefully. He had not yet steered me wrong so I took what he said at face value. We got back to the hotel a few minutes later but instead of going back up to our room, Diach went to the counter with me in tow.
"Call all our soldiers down. We may have a mission to take care of." Diach said seriously to the desk clerk. The clerk looked at him seriously before getting on the intercom system and relaying a message in our language.
"Come down to the lobby." I heard in my mind. It made me jump in fright at the sudden voice playing. Diach laughed at me when he saw me suddenly jump up.
"It is just your mind translating our language into your native language." Diach said still laughing. More vampires started pouring into the lobby when he stopped laughing. I took a seat near the waiting area as did most others. There were a few dozen of us sitting together in the lobby. The clerk put a sign on the desk that said he would be back in fifteen minutes.
"We have found a Moonwalker controlled hotel. There are at least a hundred of them in it but there are possibly more. I could smell a hundred or so as soon as we got near. We need to take that building and kill whoever runs it." Diach said to the group. The others looked between themselves before one stood up and talked for the group.
"What is the plan, boss?" He asked. They all looked to Diach for plans and preparations.
"Well with the numbers we currently have, I estimate each of us could take four or five each but seeing as we do not know exactly how many there are we will need to lure some out. King, Joanna, you will be the lure. You two should be enough to lure at least a few dozen out. We will have to make due with that and get through the rest on our own. Keep them busy for eight minutes before making your way back. That should give us enough time to kill some off and bring the numbers back in our favor. We have to stop more from coming down. One of you will have to guard the stairs and another the elevator to keep more from coming down. This will be a tactical operation. If you are not confident in your ability to kill four or five at once, stay behind." Diach said as he laid out the operation for us all. He looked at me as he finished talking.
"What about me?" I asked knowing I did not have the training to fight off five of them. He must have known that as well.
"You stay with me. We can kill off what we need together." Diach said without hesitation. He was sure of the plan as the rest seemed to be.
"We move tomorrow at 2 am when they are at their weakest." The desk clerk said confidently. The others shook their head and went back up to their rooms. We would have to feed before going to act on a task this large. Some would die for sure but it was a sacrifice we were willing to make. Diach and I were the most important and the other vampires would move to protect us if the need should arise. It was almost 4 am by that point and the sun was less than an hour out so I had to go find someone to feed from quickly. Luckily there was a family walking down the street as I came out.
"Do not worry, son, we will be home soon. You can eat when we get there." The mother said. The son was in pristine clothes but both of the parents were in tattered clothes with holes in their pants.
"But we are going to pass the burger place on the way. We can stop there. We have been portioning our money good this month. I know we can afford it this time." The young kid said. They were struggling financially from the looks of it. Before the mother could respond I was on them. I killed the kid and mother first to stop them from screaming. The father was in shock watching his family be butchered in front of him. The child would have sweet blood full of iron so I had to kill the father before all his blood spilled. But to my surprise, the father just fell to his knees in sadness and did not struggle as I forced my claw through his chest.
"I will save you from this hardship." I whispered to the child on his last few dying breaths. I bit deep into his neck and drained him dry. The mother and father were of no concern as I dumped their bodies in an alleyway next to the hotel. The hotel vampires would clean the bodies up in the morning.
After gorging myself on blood from the child, I went up to the room to go sleep. It was going to be a hard fight the next night so I needed rest if we were to be successful.