Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 37136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
It was still his job to manage vampiric activity in the city on behalf of government black sites. He still had access to Candy’s team, though they were no longer Candy’s team. A lot of the people who had previously been part of that team had retired upon the news of Candy and her family’s passing. The danger of their roles had become far too real, and though many of them would have been content to have their own lives on the line, they were not as cavalier with the lives of their family.
To call the six officers who now made up his team a ragtag bunch of outcasts was generous. These were officers in name only, six men with the kind of personality defects that made them almost entirely unsuitable for police work. Maddox was barely interested in them as people, but he had to assess them far enough to trust them with the tasks they needed to undertake.
Henry and Lorien had offered their help on the hunt as well, but Henry was also worried about the repercussions for his pack. Gideon had everybody terrified and had eroded Maddox’s resources to quite a serious degree.
Henk, a heavyset man in his thirties with a buzzcut and the kind of beady little eyes that either indicate great cunning or a complete lack of intellect. Maddox hoped it was the former, though the words out of the man’s mouth did not encourage that impression.
“So what are we doing? Hunting some kinda freak?”
It was going to be difficult for Maddox not to straight up murder his team.
“I have assembled this team because each of you has a special and rare set of circumstances which makes you perfect for this position.” Everybody looked rather pleased about that, at least until Maddox continued. “Each of you has been chosen by a local precinct as someone who is, in my words, disposable. You have no family, no friends, and no reason to live.”
“Hell of a motivational speech,” a skinny guy in the back said. He had a bright blue plume of hair at the top of his head, but no other hair. He looked very punk rock. Very anti-authoritarian. His name was Wesley, and he had joined the police to take them down from the inside, only to discover they’d seen him coming a mile away.
Maddox mentally ran through the rest of them. They were all quite distinct characters, which would help him keep them distinct in his mind. Cooper had been caught stealing dope from the evidence room, Tess was a cute twenty-something who had blackmailed her superiors, Sherlock was middle aged, a very intelligent man who only had one significant drawback, and that was that he seemed to believe he was literally Sherlock Holmes. Lastly, Annabelle was a forty-seven year old woman in a hand-knitted cardigan who had an air of such incredible menace about her Maddox had actually considered being intimidated upon meeting her.
“I get the hot flashes,” she said when his dark vampiric gaze landed upon the bright pink and yellow threads. “That’s why I wear the cardigan. I can take it off if I get too hawt, you know?”
“Indeed,” Maddox said.
“I just need AC and my computers,” she says. “I don’t ask for much. Just some chawclate when I get my cramps.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t eat sugar,” Tess chimed in, tossing her lovely red hair with a smug air and glancing around at everybody to see if they were suitably impressed with her dietary restrictions.
“I’m bored,” Henk declared.
“We are on the hunt for a fugitive of supernatural…”
“Are you really a vampire? Can I touch you?” Tess cut in with the question. Maddox did not deign to acknowledge the interruption, much less answer the question.
“You are a team,” he said. “I expect you to act as a team, understand? That means you stay silvered up, you keep holy water on your persons at all times, and there are never, and I do mean never, less than three of you together when you are on the hunt. You will no longer live in your homes. Instead, you will occupy mine.”
“I need a room with a bawthroom,” Annabelle said.
“Yes, Annabelle, of course, Annabelle.”
Annabelle could have whatever the hell she wanted as long as she did her job. Her references indicated she was an excellent digital sleuth, able to turn a Facebook post into a family history. Maddox doubted Will was using social media, but others in the greater circle of Gideon’s coven were, and keeping tabs on them was almost as important as finding William.
It was good to have the house inhabited again, even if the inhabitants were a group of variously unhinged misfits. Tess and Cooper had already become an item, and then broken up, and then become an item again. Maddox assigned Wesley, Tess, Henk, and Cooper to follow some of the leads associated with Will. Sherlock and Annabelle stayed home, Annabelle collecting information, Sherlock deducting with an impressive talent.