Davis yawned and strode down the ramp that connected their ship with the dock. At the bottom he stopped and looked back up, waving down the men behind him. Three of them carefully wheeled a large trolley before them, to which was attached a wooden crate with any number of warnings adhered to it in several different languages. At Davis’ eyeline, several holes had been drilled and when the crate was set on the dock next to him, the men hurriedly moving back up onboard the ship, he peered through them. He couldnt see anything inside; an unnatural darkness prevented it.
“Tsk,” he said sadly. “Youll need to trust me at some point. We still have to work together.”
As he finished speaking, an unholy noise issued from the crate and it shook slightly for a moment. The noise died down and he rolled his eyes.
“You dont scare me, Hitch. Even now. You cant do anything. We have your family, remember?”
There was no further sound from the crate, but when Davis peered back in, he could see two points of red staring back.
“Thats better,” he said. “I promised I would help you and thats what I intend to do.”
Davis walked around to the trolley and, with some effort, started wheeling it down the dock towards a large truck which was surrounded by a dozen armed soldiers, each covered head to toe in thick armour. In contrast, Davis wore a standard pair of jeans, with a black turtleneck and a large coat over the top.
He eyed the soldiers with distrust as he lowered the crate onto the lifting unit at the back of the truck. At once, a soldier dropped his weapon, which had been pointed at the crate and Davis as he approached, and hit a button in a box on the side of the vehicle. Immediately, the lifting unit rose into the air, carrying the crate and Davis until they were level with the trailer unit. Davis pushed the crate all the way to the far end of the trailer where two more people, two he recognised this time, helped him tie it down securely.
“Good trip?” one of them, a woman, asked. She was a field agent. While Davis had not actually met her before, he was aware of her reputation. She called herself Switch most of the time, but used her real name, Donna, other times.
“As good as travelling on a rickety boat with an angry vamp can be,” Davis shrugged.
“Viola isnt here, is she?” she asked. Her voice was both scared and excited.
Davis cocked his head at her. “No?” he replied. “Why would she come here?”
“Ignore her,” the other said. Davis knew him better than Switch. General had volunteered for this assignment. Davis had yet to figure out why; the man was not one to travel far from his usual territory. “She’s been asking about her since I arrived.”
“Shes a legend,” Switch said. “I met her once and it was incredible.”
“Sorry,” Davis said. “General’s in charge for this one.”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied. “Anyway, whats the plan now? We taking this one to be purified?”
“Excuse me?” Davis and General asked at once.
“Why else bring a vampire all this way? Especially a low level one. You should have brought her progenitor; that would have been amazing to see.”
“What are you talking about?” General said, looking over to the analyst to see his reaction.
“Purification,” Davis said, thinking slowly, “is the attempt to change a vampire. To remove whatever makes it a vampire to begin with. Ive never heard of it working though. Supposedly, each time, they die.”
“Theyre already dead,” Switch shrugged. “People still do it though. Hell, they do it to non-vampires as well.”
“Why?”
“Paranoia, revenge, fear. Pick one. It doesnt happen here, of course. The people here consider themselves above all that. At least now. But deeper into the continent, where vampires are still a problem, youll find Purifiers roaming the land. Usually they stick to actual vamps, but sometimes they dont.”
“Im glad we live where we do. Civilisation,” General said.
“Sure,” Davis nodded sarcastically. “Lets go with that. But, no,” he said to Switch. “We arent here to purify Hitch. Viola has other plans for her.”
“So why is she even here?” General asked.
“Violas orders,” Davis shrugged. “You wanna go back there and question her?”
“I do,” Switch said immediately.
“Lets just move on,” General said.
Switch and General rode in the back of the truck next to the crate while each side of the trailer was lined with a dozen soldiers each. Another truck drove ahead and behind them, each with more soldiers. There were no risks being taken. It had been many years since a vampire was on these lands, and they were taking zero chances with it.
They drove further and further inland, away from the large cities and towards a more rural, quieter setting. After three days of this, they arrived in a quiet, empty town. The trucks stopped and offloaded their soldiers. They all disappeared around the streets of the town, the only evidence that they were even there was regular reports on the radios they all carried.
Once the town had been secured, the field agents and their soldiers offloaded Hitch and re-secured her crate in the middle of a bar in the center of town. She was to be monitored by a dozen soldiers at all times, rotating out every few hours.
Once he was happy that she would be fine where she was, Davis turned to the field agents. “I guess its time for what we have actually come here for,” he said.
“There’s a castle up the road a bit,” Switch said. Her voice had lost its playfulness from earlier and was all business. “It was the lords residence in feudal times, and its been in that same family since. One of the oldest on the continent. But theres nothing special about them. Theyre just richer than god, own a shit ton of land and have connections to almost every royal family you can think of.”
“Ok?” General replied. He didnt relax, but he did let his hand drop off the gun at his hip. “Why are we here? Why did they send an analyst and a field agent from the States when this is your issue?”
“You think they tell me that shit?” she replied. “I just got told to meet you here and to bring you up to speed on what Im doing here.”
“So what are you doing here?” Davis asked. He had retrieved a small tablet from his bag and was writing down everything Switch said.
“This town used to have a thriving population. It was a normal town about a year ago.”
“Theyre not gone because of her?” Davis asked, throwing a thumb towards the bar.
“No,” Switch said. “Certainly makes things more convenient, but the town was evacuated a few months back. There were murders and disappearances that couldnt be explained or solved. We were brought in when someone found a connection.”
Davis sighed. “Full moon.”
“How?” Switch asked.
“Hes an analyst,” General sighed.
“We dont get werewolves back home. They were predated by larger creatures before they could establish themselves. But we still have records of them, and we see reports from all the way out here too.”
“As if that explains anything,” Switch said, rolling her eyes.
It was Davis’ turn to sigh now. “Process of elimination. Its not a unicorn, because the town was able to evac’d. Not a vamp because Hitch isnt going insane. It could be a few other options, but most of them are likely to leave something that gives them away. Werewolves are typically solitary creatures. They hide. They dont like to be found. So they dont really leave any direct evidence. The usual groups couldnt figure anything out, but someone, and Ill need to talk to whoever it was, spotted the connection. And you were brought in immediately. Arent many things that match the conditions. Plus, and this is just me, we stopped hearing the nightly wolves as we arrived. Werewolves will chase away regular wolves. They are territorial as fuck.”
“Then we might have a problem,” General said.
“You dont have any silver?” Davis asked.
“No one said it was a werewolf.”
“Doesnt matter anyway, silver is only partially effective. It works, but only like garlic works on vamps. Youve seen Hitch change, right? Become used to garlic? Like it stopped working?”
“So what do we use instead of silver?”
“We purify whoevers changing,” Davis shrugged.
“Excuse me?” Switch said.
“Vamps and werewolves are two branches of the same family,” Davis said. “They split from each other god knows how long ago, but they share a lot of the same trigger mechanisms. Modern individuals arent going to be affected by historical purification, which is why its used for other reasons, but if we can update the purification methods, we can draw out the thing inside that makes the werewolf change.”
“Thats why we brought you along,” Switch said.
“I could have sent you an email,” Davis said pointedly.
“No you couldnt,” General replied, sitting down on the edge of the fountain.
“Whats that?” Davis said.
“Do you know how to purify a werewolf?” he asked Switch. “Because I dont. I bet you anything you like these soldiers dont either.”
“Well, neither do I,” Davis said. “And even if Hitch knew, I find it hard to believe she would be willing to share it.”
“Right, so we need one of those Purifiers, dont we?”
“Ah,” Switch said.
“Ok, get one,” Davis shrugged. “How hard could that be?”
“Not hard,” Switch said. “But expensive.”
“Someone will pay,” Davis said. “Do it.”
“Alrighty,” she said and walked off to find the communications building.
“What about the rest?” General asked.
“What rest?” Davis said.
“Youre the one who said it,” the field agent replied. “Modern werewolves wont be affected by historical treatments. How do we modernise this purification thing? I can catch us the werewolf, sure. Switch and I have worked together before, shes good and it wont be a problem. But then what?”
“Shit,” Davis said. “Thats why Im here, isnt it?”
“Figure it out,” General said. “Ill be with Switch when you have something.”
Night fell over the empty town. A few buildings still had lights on, mostly in the middle of town. Above them, high in the sky, the clouds parted and the moon shone down. It was large, but not quite full.
A few miles up the road was the only other light to be seen was from a massive castle that stood atop a small rise in the land. Between in and the town was a thick forest. In the light of the moon, three motorbikes left the castle walls and headed off into the trees.