VAMPIRE STALKER

Chapter 10: Hunting Vampires 1

Author's Note: Complete rewrite to incorporate a different plan of action by Razor and Feral.

When the sun had sunk completely below the horizon, Feral and Razor woke up. Their eyes glowed eerily in the darkened bedroom. Nearly at the same time, the pair made for the tiny fridge.

Snarling at each other, they grabbed the bags and moved to different parts of the room to greedily gulp down their dinner.

“That didn’t help at all,” Razor hissed angrily, tossing his bags in the trash.

“Can’t be helped,” Feral rumbled tautly. “Felina should have more for us at the lab so let’s go!”

They wasted no more time and left the room they had shared and hurried to the main tower, hunger goading them. They made sure no one was in the elevator when they made for the lab, they didn’t need accidents now.

They moved in tandem down the hall and hissed at anyone that got too close to them, scaring enforcers and civilians alike.

Felina was striding up the hall to the lab, over her arm a bag filled with blood plasma when the two hungry half vamps came up behind her and growled nearly making her jump out of her fur. She looked to one side and winced at the sight of her uncle’s predatory gleam as he stared at her bag and sniffed the air loudly.

She stopped immediately and handed out a bag a piece to the pair then started walking again for the lab. The two altered Kats sucked down the blood then hurried after her. In the lab, T-Bone was surprised when the doors burst open followed by Felina's rather nervous form clutching a bag. He soon learned why when his partner and Feral appeared right on her heels. Concerned, he quickly rushed to her side.

Just as he got close to her, the Lieutenant halted in her tracks and turned around quickly to hand out a blood bag to each of the hungry pair. Peering over her shoulder into the bag, T-Bone noted there were four left. He reached around her and took two bags then waved them before his partner's face drawing him away from the she-kat while Felina did the same with her uncle.

Dr. Konway and his assistant were walking toward them as the two half vamps hungrily slurped down the blood. The assistant, Dr. Resdon, paled visibly at the sight but managed to keep his dinner down as he and his superior halted before the group. He watched as the Lieutenant collected the empty bags and threw them away in a nearby biological hazard's trash bin.

The lead scientist used that moment to speak to the Commander, “Sir, we have the antidote made, however, we haven’t had time to make it in a more dispersable form. That, unfortunately, will take many more hours to accomplish."

“What do you mean?” Feral said, finally able to focus on something other than his hunger.

“For the purpose of your hunt tonight we could only get an injectable form of it done. Given more time, we hope to have a gaseous form developed so that the city could be saturated,” Konway explained.

“Injectable?” Feral blurted, eyes widening in consternation.

“Easy, Commander. It’s not a really great way to do this but I can make a weapon that can shoot out multiple darts in one go. Just give me an hour to convert the four glovatrixes to do it. Though, I’ll have to use your R&D section to get it done,” Razor said calmly, his mind already making alterations to something he had on his glovatrix that could do the trick.

“A delay we didn’t need but there’s no help for it,” Feral grunted in annoyance.

“Uh, there’s something else I need to tell you, sir,” Konway broke in, a little more nervous this time.

Feral frowned but paused and inclined his head questioningly.

“The antidote will work on a fully altered Kat but we aren’t certain what it will do to you two who are only half altered. Furthermore, tests indicate that if you stay in this form another forty-eight hours, you might never be able to return to normal,” Konway said worriedly.

Razor and Feral froze at that bit of news. T-Bone and Felina looked sick with concern.

Feral led out a sigh. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about that. We are the only ones who can safely ferret out the vamps before there are far too many of them to stamp out. Even if we don’t manage to find all of them tonight, at least we will have insured there aren’t too many more new ones being made and those should be taken out with the dispersable cure.”

“Razor....” T-Bone asked, hesitatingly.

“He’s right, buddy. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try. We’ll worry about the cure later. Right now, it’s important that I alter one of my weapons to shoot darts. While I’m doing that, you need to go reload and refuel the jet,” the smaller SWAT Kat said with resignation and finality.

Not happy with his partner’s decision, T-Bone nonetheless, backed off.

Feral, however, had more to say, "okay, listen up, here's the plan; as the city is large and there's no way we can cover it in one night on the bike, Razor and I have decided to be in the Turbokat, that way we can cover more ground. Along with my troops we will start our search pattern from where the first concentration of vampires appeared and spread out from there. As soon as you and Felina find our vamps, Razor and I will drop down and take them out. It does mean a lot of up and down for us but I simply don't see another way of getting this done in one night."

T-Bone frowned but was forced to nod in agreement. "Yeah, you've got a point. There really isn't a faster way to do this, also, with you aboard, if your troops find a target, we can get there faster aboard the Turbokat."

"Exactly!" Feral grunted.

"So where is the supposed starting point," T-Bone asked.

“On 5th St. and Baily Ave," Feral said referring to the report he was holding.

“Are you sure this is the best way to find them? Seems more hit and miss to me,” T-Bone asked skeptically.

Feral shrugged, "it's the best guess we have and we're also going by how the vampires act. Being half-vamps has given us sorta of a unique insight on how they are reacting. They don't really have any brain to think with."

“Yeah, the only thing on their minds is hunger so they will simply keep moving forward until they find a warm body then hide from the dawn." Razor chimed in. "We’ve sorta dried up their supply so they have to move further and further outward. They might even turn on each other as they become more desperate to find food. It may be hit and miss, but it's all we've got to start with right now.”

All T-Bone could do was sigh and throw his paws out. Taking that as an end to the questions, Feral gestured for Razor to follow him and the two made for the R&D Lab carrying all four Glovatrixes with them.

At their exit, Konway turned away and issued orders to his techs to finish up making darts as quick as they could, a great many were going to be needed before the night was over.

Telling her he'd be back in about thirty minutes, T-Bone did as Razor instructed and left for their hangar to reload his armaments. When he returned, Felina insured he was able to refuel from enforcer supplies without interference.

While Razor worked on modifying the glovatrixes, Feral contacted his squadron leaders and insured the crews were ready to launch on his command in about an hour. They would leave in one group and head for the target destination then disperse from that point. He truly hoped they managed to win this thing by tomorrow night. He wasn't that hopeful they would succeed tonight since there were too many places for the creatures to hide. However, after the gaseous form of the cure was made he hoped more would be returned to normal. He grimaced to himself as he thought about how he and Razor would have to stay as they were to search all the dark places for those who didn't come out where the gas could reach them. He just knew his niece and Razor's partner were not going to like that at all. He sighed, there was no help for it so he pushed that concern to the back of his mind for later.

While he'd been thinking and planning, Razor was just finishing his work. He nudged Feral and had him take two of the glovetrixes as they headed back up to the lab. There they handed the glovatrixes to T-Bone and Felina and loaded them up with hypos. T-Bone also reloaded his and Felina's with more slicer and spider chain missiles.

"Alright, there's one more than we have to do before we leave and that's deal with the poor souls in the vaults. Hope none of the have started to cannabilize one another," Feral grunted unhappily as he finished loading his own glovatrix. "How many of these things have you made, Konway?"

"Over three thousand, sir. My techs are continuing to make more as we speak. Each of these boxes," Konway said putting a paw on one of four boxes on the table beside him, ".....holds one thousand darts each."

“Good work," Feral said then turned to the three beside him, "let's get this done and get out to hunt."

T-Bone, Razor, and Felina nodded grimly and following him as Feral headed out of the lab and made for the elevator. Within minutes they were down at the armory and walking to where the two special vaults stood with guards before each of them.

Feral halted before the first one. He turned his head to look at Felina and T-Bone. “You two stay back and that includes you two,” he indicated the two guards. “We’ll stand before the door as it opens so all we need you to do is keep the door from opening any further than a crack,” he ordered.

The two guards, Felina, and T-Bone moved to stand behind the door. Feral reached for the locking mechanism and entered his code.

“Ready?” He barked, holding up his weapon.

“Ready!” Came multiple responses.

Feral reached for the long heavy lever on the thick door and shoved it down then carefully pulled it open. The four behind the door quickly put their shoulders against it when it began to move by itself.

Through the crack, Feral and Razor could only see multiple glowing eyes and gleaming fangs, many paws with extended claws tried to swipe at the pair, the many bodies trying to force the door open further to get to the smell of food.

Methodically, Feral and Razor began shooting. Razor had dropped to a crouch while Feral fired above him. The machine pistols made soft phutttting......sounds as darts flew into the mass of bodies. Screams filled the air as the vamps were driven from the door. Within minutes, Razor and Feral had managed to get all those that had been reaching out.

“We need a light.....” Feral muttered staring into the pitch dark of the room. His eyes could make out a little of what was inside but not enough to know if they’d hit all the occupants.

Razor and Feral put on protective lenses before the smaller SWAT Kat switched on his powerful flash and pointed it into the room where screams were emanating, whether from the darts or the light, he couldn't tell at first.

“Well, will you look at that!” Razor exclaimed.

Feral just shook his head. “Well, I’ll give Dr. Konway credit, this stuff sure works fast,” he commented.

Inside the room, bodies were writhing and shrieking in pain but as the pain passed a normal Kat was left laying on the floor panting and confused. Studying all the bodies carefully, they found a few still unaltered and fired a dart quickly at them.

“Okay, that’s one down and the second to do,” Feral said with satisfaction. “You can let go of the door now and open it the rest of the way. We’ll call a medical team down once we finish with the second vault.”

They repeated the procedures on the second vault. Thirty minutes later, both vaults now had living Kats in them with only the loss of a few Kats due to side effects of the cure or from being attacked by the others before they were returned to normal.

Feral summoned medical help then he and Razor followed by T-Bone and Felina returned to the lab to reload. As the group walked into the lab, Dr. Konway was waiting, giving them an anxious look of inquiry.

“Worked like a charm, doc,” Razor said, pleased.

Konway’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Thank god! That’s the best news I've heard in a long while,” he said then nodded at the four boxes waiting on a table nearby. “Okay, these have been refilled and here’s a fifth box we’ve managed to fill with five hundred more.”

“Great,” Feral grunted, taking one box as the others took one a piece as well. “Time to take off,” he said leading the way to the elevators. Everyone piled into the first available elevator and went up to the flight line.

Moments later, they were hurrying to the Turbokat parked on the end of the flight line. Razor signaled the cargo door to open and he and Feral ran up the ramp while Felina and T-Bone leaped into the now open cockpit. After securing his harness, Feral took a moment to use his radio to order all squadrons to launch while Razor closed the cargo door. The thrum of the jet engines poured through his body as he finished his call and put his radio away.

Smoothly, T-Bone raised the jet on VTOL and moved off the deck before switching to forward motion and heading for their destination. Around him, choppers were taking off and just behind them, the jets prepared to launch. The mission had begun.