Simon moved like water through the would-be assailants. His long slender sword flashed in the dim light thrown out by the overhead street lamp. These four had tried to roll the wrong guy. He had been simply standing on the street corner minding his own business, and staking out his groups next target.

  That’s when these clowns had walked up and around him. They were a motley group of idiots, nothing terribly special about them. Their clothes and attitudes reeked of American entitlement and confidence. These thugs wouldn’t have lasted two minutes in any other continent, especially not the one they claimed to have come from so brazenly.

  They tried to be cool, if not polite, and demanded his wallet from him, the ‘gay fuck’ they called him. He simply told them to move on, find another mark, one more suitable to their level. This of course was answered with four guns of varying calibers, none above a nine-millimeter though, being shoved into his face and a cloud of alcohol ridden breath as they demanded his wallet and money again.

  It was then that he had had enough and letting his legs go limp beneath him, he drew his sword and swiped the legs out from under one thug, with the dull edge of the blade. This caused him to fall backwards and grab the nearest thing to him, pulling another thug to the ground with him. Simon brought the hilt of his sword up into the chin of another and his elbow flared out catching the fourth in a similar blow, sending them both reeling to the ground.

  He started to walk away when he heard more yelling from the lead tough as he struggled to his feet. His House Ghatti ability allowed him to hear the click of the gun that was obviously pointed in his direction and he was able to dodge out of the way from the poorly aimed weapon. Had the wannabe been a better shot, well, it still wouldn’t have helped him.

  He turned around and with his inhuman speed he ripped through the center of the four. Using his sword and fist he disarmed the four thugs then proceeded to level educated blows on the back of the neck, temples, and chins of the four thugs. Four strikes later and the four were out cold lying in the pool of yellow light from the street light.

  He softly slid his sword back under his long duster jacket. He shook his head, now he had to find another place to stake out the building across the way. This place offered a good view of the place but not so good that would attract attention to him. He would miss this spot. He began walking in search of another location.

  He didn’t like having to be so careful, it reminded him too much of when he was human. But he wasn’t going up against humans. It was just him and the six other members of his team, seven vampires against an entire House; seven extremely well trained and disciplined vampires, but seven was still a very small number. The only advantage they had was that House Dukart didn’t know where they were, or how many of them there were. He would have been a fool to think that Kenneth thought he was dead. They hadn’t recovered his body, which means they had to know he must have gone somewhere.

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  Simon had been planning raids carefully since that night. They hadn’t done anything as brazen as blown up anything. No, the ‘shock and awe’ blitzkrieg approach had only been feasible because he had had the support of House Dukart behind him and he wasn’t planning on sticking around for an extended period of time. The death of Alessandro had changed all that.

  The last raid was a good one. They had gotten the information they needed. He had been focusing on transports and watching Kenneth’s money and tracing where it was going. Kenneth was very cautious and knew his way around a computer system though. This was evidenced because Sofia hadn’t been able to find anything concrete connecting anyone from city hall back to Kenneth. Simon wasn’t that worried though, Kenneth would slip up sooner or later no one could keep their books squeaky clean forever.

  Simon was getting restless, all these years he had been a vampire must have dulled his sense of patience. He wanted to strike now, he wanted to do something, but he also knew that kind of thinking would end up in his and his team’s death. He couldn’t avenge his friend being dead.

  House Dukart had not been idle with its time either. He saw the effects of Kenneth’s leadership grow daily it seemed. His house was becoming more brazen with its attempts to take territory away from the thinly stretched House Brandt. Kenneth had recruited more and more, with his limited surveillance and having only seven members to rotate through the city he could only guess, but there were at least twelve new vampires that they hadn’t profiled in the past few months. This was a ridiculous number. If Kenneth kept this up the Counsel of Houses would come down on him with their full power. No House had ever survived when that happened.

  A large truck turned a corner, and started moving towards him. Recognizing the license plate instantly he turned onto a side street away from the truck. He reached into his pocket and silently threw a magnetic tracker that attached itself to the truck as it passed.

  “Sofia? I just sent you a present, did you get it?” Simon said quietly after flicking on his ear bud.

  The answer was almost immediate, “Yup, it just came up. Huh, yeah, these guys are really uncreative. What was the license plate number?”

  “9A88875,” he replied smoothly.

  There was a pause as Sofia did something with her computer, “Yeah, he’s on one of the routes that he’s used before. He is going back to the warehouse. Maybe it’s time we stop this guy and find out what exactly he’s hauling twice a week to the same spot?”

  As tempting as that was Simon shook his head, “We’re not ready. If it turns out to be nothing, we would have stuck our necks out for zero gain. No, we have to wait.”

  “Well maybe I’m sick of waiting,” Sofia retorted.

  “Would you rather be dead? Or have to start over from scratch?” Simon replied evenly.

  “No, but maybe Silvia could at least go and have a word with one of those new recruits that I’ve been reading so much about.”