Bad could mean a number of things. “Tell me.”
She gave a helpless look at the others. “Okay, here’s the thing. The Fellowship of the Earthborn Brethren staged an attack—using the Freedom’s Angels as their front men—on one of the vampire apartment complexes today.” At my reaction, she hurried to add, “Not the Shrouded Grove Suites, where Wade lives. It’s a new complex. One called DarkTower Gardens.”
I waited. Whatever happened, it had obviously affected her. Sometimes Nerissa’s job could be rough. She was a victim’s aid counselor, and she dealt with more than her share of grief and despair. Considering the Fellowship of the Earthborn Brethren were involved, it meant something bad had gone down. They were a hate group and they actively campaigned for violence against anyone other than human. They used the Freedom’s Angels—a militant activist group—as their primary weapon.
After a pause, she continued. “They tried to burn the building down, and when they couldn’t, they used C-4 to blow up the bottom two floors. We know there were at least twenty-three vampires living on those floors, but there might be others who were killed. Chase is still at work because they couldn’t take a head count of who survived until after sunset. Then we start sorting through the labyrinth that always happens when vampires disappear.”
I nodded very slowly, trying to maintain my temper, which was usually the first thing to go when I received really bad news. I had friends and acquaintances who lived in that complex, but right now, I needed to keep my cool.
Nerissa was right. It would be a labyrinth. It was never easy to tell if a vampire had merely moved on or been killed. The only thing that remained when a vamp died the final death was a pile of dust—and it didn’t sparkle, shimmer, or anything else to indicate it was anything other than regular dirt or ash. Their clothes would be caught in the destruction, as well.
So if somebody dropped out of sight for a while and nobody knew about it, we did our best to track them down and count them among those who survived.
“Did they catch the people who did it?” I tried to keep my voice from cracking. Even if the cops caught them in the act, it still wasn’t illegal to destroy a vampire. Property? Yes. Vampires? Had no standing or protection under the law, even though the government expected them to pay taxes. Vampire rights were caught in a quagmire of legislation hell. The laws were deep-sixed time and again by a flood of terrified voters. Given our predator nature, I kind of understood. But truth was, anybody who went out and bought a gun was actually more dangerous than we were. Hell, because of the current legal situation, any freak could come along and dust me and the courts wouldn’t blink an eye. Anybody could kidnap me and lock me in a room for a hundred years, leaving me to starve and go mad, and not one jury in the land would convict them.
She shrugged. “A couple. Two of them managed to catch themselves in the blast. They’re hurt but alive. The rest vanished. The men will be charged with destruction of property and domestic terrorism. The group came prepared, I’ll tell you that. The security cameras caught the action on film—at least until one of the guys shot the camera down. They left a scattering of pamphlets, which directly ties their actions to the Seattle Tattler headline.”
Twenty-three dead. At least, twenty-three that we knew of. “What happened to the rest of the vampires living in the complex?”
Nerissa shook her head. “Don’t know yet. Their apartments escaped damage, we think. The building is still standing, thanks to the earthquake retrofitting—it was the one thing that held up the structure after the explosion. But it won’t be for long. Nobody can get in there. It’s too dangerous because the metal is so twisted that a structural engineer says it could come down at any time. So any rescue workers have been held up.”
Wearily reaching for another cookie, she rubbed her temples, squinting. “Man, I need the sugar. I am so tired, and so stressed. But I have to go back in an hour or so, now that sunset’s here. We’ve been waiting for the vamps to wake up and manage to find a way out. We figure that most can escape out of the building via the hallway windows. The majority of apartments don’t have windows because of the sunlight—which is why it’s a vampire-only complex. It wouldn’t be legal for anyone still living to rent there due to the lack of egress.”