The Reapers had been driving around Nova City for about thirty minutes now. It was a Sunday so traffic was light and they were able to cover a fair length from their apartment hideout. Michael was in the driver's seat and Caine was watching from the passenger side. Leon was in the back. All three men were wearing long dark jackets to cover the fact that they were toting concealed weapons and body armor. It was only a week until Christmas Eve, so Michael had the van's radio tuned to the Nova City holiday music channel.
"Can you turn that off? Holiday music bugs me." Leon called out from the back of the van. He was comfortably sprawled out on one of the benches monitoring the xenoform tracker. The complex device was small enough to fit in one hand but only had a fifty-meter range, meaning roving surveillance was a necessity for Reaper operatives who didn't know who exactly they were hunting.
"No can do, Leon." Michael said with a smile. He had known the German for more than a year now and he'd said the exact same thing when they worked an op together last Christmas. "Maybe if you want to drive next time you can pick the music."
Leon muttered something in German and turned back to his tracker.
"How about you, Caine? Do you like the holidays?" Michael asked the young Briton.
"I don't mind them much, sir. The music gets a little grating thought." Caine said.
"Bah! I'm in a van full of Grinches!" Michael exclaimed.
Leon laughed and sounded like he was about to say something but he suddenly shot up, staring intently at the tracker. "I've got contact! Single target, In the monorail station to our left."
Michael pulled the van into a parking spot and cut the engine. All three men jumped out, moving quickly and carefully to not arouse suspicion. Their target was on the platform above them and they made their way up the staircase, stopping only to swipe themselves through the gate with the monorail passes the British government had provided them with. The rail platform was clean and well-lit, host to about a dozen people who were all moving towards the open doors of a high tech tram. They followed them in, making it just in time before the doors hissed shut.
With a smooth jolt the tram slid out of the station towards the commerce district. Michael glanced at all the people in the car with him. They were young and old, men and women, a blend of every different ethnicity. None of them stood out obviously as a supernatural. That was always the problem with these blind hunts. No one ever looks like a monster until they're standing over you with their fangs bared. And while the xenoform tracker was useful for finding monsters it was much harder to pinpoint individuals in a crowd like this without drawing suspicion. So they waited.
Thirty minutes passed. The tram had moved from the dull apartment buildings of the residential area into the sleek chrome high rise skyscrapers of the commerce district. Traffic was much busier in this part of the city and Michael could see cars zipping by down below. Suddenly the tram began to slow before coming to a stop at another platform and the doors slid open again. Most of the passengers began to file off.
"Commerce district, station number 37." An automated female voice said.
"Our target's off the train." Leon whispered to Michael.
"Do you know who it is yet?" Michael said as they stepped out on to the station.
"I compared the tracker's signal to the movement of the crowd and I'm pretty sure it's that guy." Leon said, nodding his head at an imposingly large, dark skinned man with a bald head. Most notably, his right eye was knotted over with a mass of scar tissue.
"Follow him. Spread out but stay in contact over the throat mikes. No matter what you do don't lose him." Michael ordered.
The three operatives spread out amongst the crowd, each one keeping an eye on their target. It wasn't hard. His bald dome stuck out above most of the common rabble. They followed him for a few blocks until he suddenly crossed a street and entered a restaurant. Michael watched as a server lead him to a table by the window. A few minutes later a delicious looking steak arrived. He was evidently dining alone and his gaze barely strayed from the closest skyscraper across from him, the one Michael and his team were standing in front of. After several minutes his gaze dropped down and Michael swore that he was looking at him. But the target simply started eating his meal.
As he finished his meal the garage door of the skyscraper's underground parking complex slid open and a luxurious limo drove out. The target's size belied his speed as he exited the restaurant without paying and moved across the street, managing to slip under the garage door before it closed again. Michael and Caine were close enough that they could follow him under but it clanged shut before Leon could make it.
"Shit, fucking son of a bitch." Leon swore over the radio. "I'll try and see if I can find another way in."
"Copy that. Try to be a little inconspicuous. I'm sure this building has security and I don't want to deal with them and our target." Michael said.
"Will do. And another thing. When that limo went by my tracker picked up another contact. I got the license plate number but it was going too fast to see inside."
"Nice work Leon. Now good luck and be careful." Michael said.
"Wilco." The line cut out.
Michael didn't need to speak a word to Caine as they moved through the underground parking garage. Their target had entered a stairwell on the far side of the structure and they followed, moving quietly and keeping a distance. The stairs continued on for some time, but as the two operatives neared the top they heard a short scuffle and a grunt of pain. Both exchanged glances and moved a little quicker. The stairs ended through a pair of double doors, opening up into office space. Laying on the floor in front of the door was the source of the scuffle. A guard was facedown in a growing puddle of blood, or at least he would be facedown had his head not been rotated 180 degrees to face the ceiling. The tab of cloth where the guard's security card would've been was torn off. With a deft hand signal, Michael gave a simple order: Weapons free.
Both operatives pulled their weapons from the concealing folds of their jackets and carefully scanned every inch of the room as they crept forward, wary to the fact that their target could be hiding. Suddenly they heard a ding and realized it came from the elevator at the back of the office space. An LED panel above the elevator door informed them that it was now at the very top floor of the skyscraper. Caine summoned the elevator again and after a moment it arrived.
"Fuck, it looks like this thing will only take us up to the 30th floor if we don't have a keycard." Michael said as he examined the control panel.
"You up for a little climbing then, sir?" Caine said as he rapped the elevator's ceiling hatch with his knuckles.
The elevator moved quickly. When they stopped at the 30th floor Michael pushed the ceiling hatch open and boosted Caine through. Caine then reached down and helped pull Michael up. A service ladder stretched up the remaining ten floors (play
this). Scaling it as quickly as they could, the operatives eventually reached the door at the very top.
"Be ready for anything." Michael warned Caine before he pulled the manual latch that would open the penthouse doors and crawled through.
Inside was the penthouse, bathed with darkness. Michael’s enhanced eyes easily pierced the gloom as if it were bright as day. He silently thanked the group of scientists that had developed his ocular implants as he scanned the room. He saw a lot of expensive furniture, some columns, and a set of stairs at the back of the grandiose foyer but not their target. Caine crawled up behind him and put on his IR goggles.
A deep, imposing voice reverberated from somewhere within the room. "Who are you and why are you following me? Are you with the Guild?" it said.
“We’re not with any guild. Just concerned private citizens.” Michael said, trying to figure out the source of the voice. He ascertained that it was coming from somewhere on the second floor, but that was all. With a few hand motions he ordered Caine to stay low and start fanning out as the two operatives crept further into the penthouse.
"If you are private citizens, perhaps you should mind your own business and turn back while you still can. However, if you are Guild agents as I suspect, then you would be wise to stick around. Someone of great interest to you will be returning later this night. It'll be... an interesting meeting." The voice said.
Michael paused. “Does it have anything to do with the supernatural lifeform we detected in the limousine leaving this building?” he said
The voice laughs slowly. "So you are hunters... perhaps not Guild though, perhaps something else. Do you have any idea precisely where you are standing?"
He glanced at Caine and Caine shrugged. Neither of them actually knew what building they were in.
"I'll take your pause as a no. This is the top floor of the Cartwright tower, yes, the same company that's been on the news for helping to create this... wonder city. Our little playboy millionaire is a vampire; a vampire I intend to kill. The question is whether or not you are going to get in my way?" the voice continued.
“Monsters hunting monsters. Funny how that works out. But to answer your question, no. If you plan on killing a vampire I’m not going to stop you.” Of course the rich playboy was a vampire. If he had a dollar for every time the rich playboys turned out to be vampires he’d be as rich as they were.
Another laugh. "Somehow I get the impression you would happily see me dead afterwards anyway. That's the real question, isn't it - can you hunters tolerate me beyond doing your dirty work for you?"
“I’m perfectly happy to let both of us walk out of here and the end of the night. We’ll meet again some other day I’m sure.”
"It would be better that we never meet again, don't you think? It would be far simpler to resolve this here and now. However... I will give you one chance to turn around and leave in that elevator. One chance, and one chance only."
He only needed a moment to think about the situation. “Pull back to the elevator.” he ordered grudgingly.
As he moved back towards the elevator he decided to ask one last question. “Before I leave can I at least get your name?”
"Ten. Nine. Eight..." came the voice.
“Figured as much.”
"... Seven, six..."
Michael stepped into the elevator and the doors slid shut.
“Why did we pull back?” Caine asked. “We outnumbered him!”
“Kid, you just survived your first encounter with a werewolf so be happy for that. And outnumbering him doesn’t mean jack shit. In an environment like that he would’ve ripped us apart in an instant.” Michael said sternly. “A lone vamp, maybe we would’ve stood a better chance. But I’ve watched wounded werewolves tear through brick walls and flip over cars in their bloodlust. I don’t like backing down from those freaks any more than you do but we have a mission to complete and we can’t do that by taking unnecessary risks and getting killed.”
“Of course, sir. But how do you know it’s a werewolf?”
“Just a hunch. Vampires don’t eat the way the way he did, plus how he killed that guard. I’m 90% sure he’s not a vamp. Learn to trust your hunches, Caine, because more often than not they’re right. In any, the info we got tonight is worth just as much as a tagged and bagged monster.”
As they reached the office floor the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.
“Now we just need to get out of this building and figure out what we do next.”