Damage Control

by Eric Alan Williams

  The four detectives convened in the hallway as newer cadets and droids attempted to secure the area. Ezra's face looked drained of color. "Anything Hannibal?"

  "No Detective Huxley, nano-ants had already scrubbed the area clean where they brought in the body."

  "The Commander is going to have our asses on this." Marine huffed.

  Grace was more upbeat about the issue. "I don't want to sound insensitive, but he was a runaway with likely no means of knowing about the information being put out by Interpol warning the LGBT Sensitive community we put out a couple hours ago."

  Hannibal was along the same lines in thought. "We just announced Ezra."

  Ezra sighed. "What else do we know about our victim?"

  Grace chimed in. "He was one of three teens that didn't report in with his new housing assignment."

  "All three LGBT?" Marine asked.

  Grace nodded. "Yes, a Toliver Roads, and a Darleen Bar. All three failed to report to

  Andre Charles Halfway House for LGBT Teens. Caseworker Linda Donaldson reported it along with a counselor named Rory…"

  Ezra finished that sentence for her. "Winstead, right?"

  "How did you know?" She asked.

  "Don't worry about it. I guess we need to file the report, and go by and see if Darleen or Toliver ever reported back in. Maybe we will get lucky."" Ezra said lowly.

  _____

  Rory had been in a session with Reese for almost four hours now. He had read through the entire booklet and even went over some essential words with Reese. Starting first thing tomorrow, Reese was to attend a reading class that Rory had arranged. The fourteen-year old's demeanor had changed a little. Someone was taking the time to help him and more than that, he felt accepted for the first time in a while.

  Rory finally wrapped things up with Reese at the same time he was paged overhead by Linda Donaldson, his superior and the current Administrator for the complex. He escorted Reese to his room, 602, and then took the elevator down. While looking through the window, he saw many of the kids playing in the swimming pool. He hoped Reese would make friends and feel more confident and be one of the ones having fun, and just all around having a chance to be a kid for a change. If Rory wasn't living with his grandmother to be her caretaker, Rory had often considered adopting an LGBT youth so they would finally have a place to call home. Reese really hit his heart in that respect. There was a house for sale next door to his grandmother's home. He could check on her daily being next door. It was giving him some food for thought.

  On the bottom floor, he walked down a hallway lit up with the same yellow solatex panels along the walls, new floral decor, and a few other office spaces that had been recently added. He made it to room 101, knocked and heard an older woman's voice. "Come in."

  Opening the door, Rory expected to see Linda sitting behind her desk going over expense reports, new admits, or policies and procedure updates. Instead, he saw Ezra, Marine, and two other Interpol agents he wasn't too familiar with.

  Linda was an older social worker, she should have retired years ago, but her love of helping kids kept her going. It also helped that she had a robotic heart and some neural implants that kept the eight seven-year-old going strong. She motioned him inside. "Mr. Winstead, I believe you already know Detectives Huxley and Evans, yes?"

  Rory's color was draining the further he got into the room. Seeing both of them, he knew something terrible had happened. "Yeah, I do, and if you don't mind, can we cut to the fat of the problem quickly?" he looked at Ezra. "Last time I saw these two, the news was less than pleasing."

  Linda lowered her head as she looked up at Detective Huxley. "I guess I will leave you to it then."

  Rory was insistent. "Should I be sitting?"

  Ezra didn't know what to say. Marine noticed and being Marine, took charge. "Look, we found one of your runaways, Gregory Lindsay and the news is grim."

  Rory sat down on the couch, facing the detectives and his superior. He gulped, ran his tongue across his teeth, and sighed. "What about his friends Toliver and Darleen?"

  Grace stepped forward and quickly interrupted Marine. "We were hoping they had checked in, but your administrator has informed us that they have yet to do so."

  "What happened to Gregory?" He asked.

  Linda's face, it was her turn to grow pale from the news. Grace Tomlin again jumped ahead. "He's dead, Mr. Winstead." Her voice was apathetic.

  "How did it happen, Ezra." He made sure to direct his question at Detective Huxley given the way the new Detective was coming across.

  Tomlin again tried to interrupt. This time Rory showed his teeth. "Listen, I asked him, not you. Not trying to be rude but Gregory was one of my kids, and the way you're speaking of him, just seems a bit too cold for me." He returned his gaze to Ezra. "Well, Ezra?"

  Ezra sighed. "The cause of death is likely tied to a situation involving someone else we know."

  Rory nodded. "So, the same people that attacked Xairin then?"

  "It would appear that way, yes."

  "Please tell me you finally have some new information into this shit show?"

  Linda was surprised. "Rory?"

  "Linda my best friend was basically dead if it wasn't for coming back as a vampire thanks to a bat bite and as far as anyone knows, he was the only witness to basically a group of gay serial killers. Or has anything else developed?"

  Linda had heard a few things about gay men being targeted but had no idea Rory knew someone directly affected, nor someone that was a witness for that matter. She excused the language and fixed her gaze on the Detectives. Grace looked at Rory. "We went public a few hours ago, Mr. Winstead, we know that the individuals are targeting not just gay men, but gay sensitives."

  Rory looked at Linda. "Gregory Lindsay was a level three sensitive." He then looked at Ezra and Marine. "Toliver and Darleen are sensitives also."

  Ezra and his crew looked at each other, then at Rory. "Is there anywhere they might go, anyplace you can think of?"

  Rory shrugged. "Before they renamed the zones to wards, P2 was where Gregory and Toliver liked to hang out. They liked using their psychic abilities to swindle men out of whatever they could get. I can give you an address to an apartment building there that I know they used to frequent. As for Darleen, she was new to the group."

  Rory stood up. He looked beaten emotionally. Gregory was nearing the point to where he thought he could be alright emotionally. He had come so far, now, Rory blamed himself. He felt like he could have pushed harder, been more encouraging. "Gregory was a good kid, sure he had his problems, but no one deserves to die especially if they did to him what they tried to with Xairin, no one deserves that, nobody…"

  Chapter 11

  It wasn't long until the Grand Adjudicator Lulia Dolenigan was receiving her first reports of an outpost near Sector 907, formerly known as Scandinavia. The report entailed a nest of gargoyles that had been dispatched residing under a hospital there. The secret base served as an information hub along with food from the hospital's morgue to help feed a clutch of hatchlings.

  She had also received a report from her sister Helena. The Thylacine had been captured with no casualties to her team, only injuries. In the latter half of the report, it was written in code, a code that the sisters had made up when they were little when they were human. Lulia looked up after reading that report with a shiver going down her spine. What their maker had suspected had been confirmed along with a witness to Xairin performing above caste abilities which had been reported to Helena by Irena Kinski. Helena had issued specific orders to keep the werecat and those involved from repeating his actions. She attempted to play it off as Xairin being an original vampire coming into his own, which was half right.

  Lulia was sitting behind a lavish black marble desk in a grand study. She was surrounded by dusty tomes and high bookshelves requiring a ladder to reach the more obscure additions. The chamber itself contained most of human history, along with Aeonian and Immortium lore. There was a fant
asy section here and there, but the majority was of factual relevance. Four guards, wearing the red uniforms stood by her at all times, while seven others always guarded each entrance, today's guard detail required a full twenty-one at her beck and call to keep her safe.

  The woman's hauntingly beautiful white hair draped over her shoulders as she sat there, reading. Swiping her clawed finger across her tablet. The pictures she was seeing was the steaming remains of green puddles, scales, and human remains of thralls that had been gunned down. She was waiting on Captain Violet Brava to arrive.

  Violet Brava entered the study taking her helmet off and handing it off to one of the guards. Violet was young in the face and had hair to match her name, a light shade of purple, a mutation, purely natural at the time of her turning. Her shoulder length hair danced as the woman adjusted it into place now that her helmet was in the hands of the guard.

  Violet was one of the youngest Captains of any of the Sentinel teams when comparing how long she had been an immortal. She had been bitten by the same albino bat that had infected Xairin. Violet was formerly an Interpol agent, which made ascending the ranks with her vampiric abilities easy. Now she was responsible for a strike team that doubled over as reckon.

  Lulia looked at the captain, put down the tablet, and glared intently. "Nineteen, gargoyles, and sixty-two thralls. Not bad, but not exactly giving us anything other than a body count."

  Lulia stood up, her white robe glistened. "Tell me. What Intel did you gain if any?"

  Captain Brava bowed. That only prompted Lulia to scoff. "Stand up. Now... What did you learn?"

  "Grand Adjudicator." She said while crossing her arms behind her back. "My team, 218, the body count is as you stated. We downloaded all we could before a system overload disabled our connection from downloading more."

  "I handed over the tablets containing the downloads to division seven."

  Lulia glared at her with coal black eyes. "Division seven. Smart move, following protocol I suppose. However, Division seven reports directly to the council, I want that intel brought directly to me first, understood."

  "But the council?" Brava asked.

  Lulia Dolenigan paced slowly. "Brava, I want that intel brought directly to me, not the council."

  Violet looked at her in disbelief, she wasn't the type to break protocol or go against council orders. She stood her ground. Her arms slowly came to her side. "Grand Adjudicator, that is against policy and procedures not to mention being in defiance of the council."

  Lulia slowly turned her head, her head then cocked to the side, studying the captain. Her canines elongated gradually as if to intimidate. "Captain Brava. I respect your resolve, but let me ask you something?"

  Brava seemed put off but did reply. "Yes, Grand Adjudicator?"

  Lulia moved slowly, dragging her claws along the black marble desk, dogging knickknacks, ornaments, and papers, while keeping eye contact. "Our Queen and Lord Dracul met in private. A place where few even knew where to look for them. The only ones that knew where to look for them were Council members, Captain Brava…"

  Brava's eyes bulged at that thought. She caught on quickly as to what the white-haired woman was getting at. "Are you trying to tell me?"

  Lulia stopped moving and leaned against the desk slowly. Her eyes fixated on the purple haired vamp. "I am saying, that only a handful knew where Lillian and Damien were in route to meet. Those that did were council members. When you hand over any intel you find, you bring it to me first, and once a team has landed at any places of interest that your intel has revealed, only then will the council be informed, understood?"

  Brava crossed her arms. She wasn't used to breaking the rules, but the white-haired woman had a solid point. What Lulia said next made it easier to swallow. "Consider it a delayed report then…"

  The woman left her to her reading.

  Lulia typed up a coded letter in the same alphabet she and her two sisters used to write in all the time to keep secrets from their families. She instructed Helena to keep Xairin safe. Regardless of who he was, to Lulia and to Helena, he was the great-grandson of their sire. They felt loyalty in this endeavor.

  Lulia, Helena, and Evette each knew that Dracula had always suspected his daughter may still be alive. His new quest for the truth was confided in Lulia, which she shared with both Evette when she woke her to rule House Dracul while she was overseeing The Society, and then that day on the beach with Helena. If Xairin's identity was revealed too soon, Lulia knew she would have to enlist House Ninlil to help keep the heir of both powerful clans safe. Till then, Lulia hoped she could find the one likely strong enough to survive a challenge should the other immortals not accept Ninlil's heir, Xairin. She had to find Xairin's grandmother Sara.

  _____

  Ethan Holiday was doing mental gymnastics in his mind when it came to the subject of keeping Xairin safe. His ex-lover was of little help. That left him with going to Trevor Graves for aid which was something he really didn't want to do.

  To make matters worse for Ethan, he hadn't heard any updates from either of his bite siblings nor his own progeny Griffin. He knew Griffin and Xairin were on their first mission together, which made him especially nervous given the blackout in communication. Taking it all into account, going to Trevor seemed like the only option left to secure a meeting with Lulia Dolenigan.

  Trevor was aboard a small transport shuttle, flying through the slipstream. His eyes were glued to the yellow and orange bands of energy swirling around the oval-shaped craft as it glided effortlessly through the slip. The destination was Ganymede's lunar space station. Oddly enough, Trevor Graves was there following up on terraforming progress of the moon. If he was going to approach Trevor, it was now.

  Ethan sat in his seat, strapped by a metal band coming across his right shoulder, and fitting into a console to his left, keeping him in place. Normally Ethan would pilot himself, but not this time, this time a new pilot had that honor.

  "How much longer will we be in the slip?" He asked.

  The woman piloting didn't turn around to see him and the other two passengers sitting in a neat row. She just replied gruffly. "Two minutes."

  The front of the silvery oval-shaped craft began emitting a red beam from the front of the hull. Ethan could see the reaction of the tachyon particles sparking, forming the opening to the slip.

  A green whirling ball of energy opened up that turned yellow right as the craft exited the slip. Ethan turned his head for but a moment to see it close up, vanishing like a tornado that ran out of oomph.

  He hadn't been in space for a while. The lunar space station had grown in size, looking like three black snowflakes interconnected now, with three main hubs. "Looks like the droids have been busy," he mumbled.

  Knowing Trevor, Ethan was confident in his assumption that the droids had been put into overdrive, in expanding the base. He could even see the recently added atmospheric processor resembling a robust black nuclear power plant, tossing massive amounts of green vapors into space, forming the barely visible dome around the ice-covered moon as they passed through it.

  "Looks like Trevor's been wasting no time in getting that up and running." He mumbled again. "I wonder if he is doing the same with mars?" He thought.

  The shuttle docked with a tube that expanded and connected to the left side. The port opened in a spiraling fashion once no air breaches were detected. Ethan and the two passengers didn't dolly and left the craft as fast as it had connected. Once inside, a white gas entered the receiving chamber, sanitizing them. They entered the next room; this one required the removal of garments. Like the first, once exposed, a laser light flashed, sanitizing their bodies while their clothing went through a conveyor belt taking the apparel through a tube performing the same action.

  Once Ethan was thoroughly cleansed. He put on a white uniform, put on his GA issued badge, and began walking the halls.

  His mind was heavily burdened. When it came right down to it, he hated Trevor Graves. There was s
omething about him that made his skin crawl, but now, he had no other choice. He had to approach him, inform him of secrets that had been withheld and hope for the best.

  Ethan stood outside Trevor's office for almost an hour. He kept wondering who it was that Sara didn't trust among House Ninlil, if it were Trevor, he would be signing Xairin's death certificate. If it wasn't Trevor, then he had an ally. This was the only way to get an audience with Lulia Dolenigan that he could think of at the moment.

  He finally pressed the handprint identification module, willed his fingerprints to the surface, submitted to the retinal scanner and watched the door raise into the ceiling as if it were in slow motion.

  Trevor was sitting behind a white desk looking at his computer screen. The old vampire was bored, to tell the truth. He had gone over the schematics for the expansion of the base fifty times now, and another hundred times with the schematics for the Mars station. Meanwhile, his bite sister, Cathubodua sat across from him reading a tablet.