Discovery of Death Read Online Free Page B

vampire community also seemed to have a code about age. They seemed to slaughter children and drain them of so much blood that turning wasn’t possible. Those about thirteen or fourteen and up seemed to be the ones they didn’t drain completely. Part of it, Marcus suspected, was teenagers were old enough to make sense of the power they’d inherit and, with guidance, be able to control it much more quickly. Kids and their impulses . . . how many would long for their families and make a spectacle of themselves, flying about the city, climbing up walls, moving at superspeed—it was too much of a risk for the vampires. Right now, their survival depended on their secrecy and operating in the shadows.
    In a way, sadly, the slayers were part of the problem despite so desperately trying to be the solution. With the frequency of vampire feedings or turnings, many people went missing as a result. Fortunately, the slayers had people in the hospitals, morgues, government, media, and emergency services. With the right cover story or direct handling of the body, much of what went on never reached the public ear.
    Likewise, the undead had certain people in their employ to help provide blood for them, recently deceased corpses, and those with the ability to fudge the details of certain “discrepancies” when it came to the dead.
    If it was needed, relatives of the deceased were bought off for their silence. However, the undead, like the slayers, had to be careful with who they dealt with.
    If the vampires knew one thing all too well, it was that almost anyone could be a slayer. Not that slayers were common, but having been the protectors of the city since its inception, the slayers were able to have at least one of their team in every major industry, never mind freelancers on the side. Everyone from a mom in the playground all the way to a police officer could be deadly.
    Marcus set his mug down. “Time to check inventory.”
    Shelly nodded, finished her coffee, and the two headed down the stairs, past the family room and to the basement door. Shelly pulled a key from the coiled band around her wrist and stuck it in the lock of the knob. Once open, they went down the flight of stairs and hit the power switch at the bottom. The room lit up, revealing an arsenal of weaponry for their occupation.
    Crossbows lined the wall across from them, and below those was a long rack loaded with silver stakes. Silver-bladed swords and machetes lined the wall adjacent, and beneath those, a bin of garlic-laced steam grenades.
    There was a door against another wall, locked and chained. If anything, it was their trophy room, a place to store any vampires that didn’t disintegrate upon receiving a stake to the heart.
    That was the problem with turning: it could be unpredictable and not everyone transformed the same.
    In the middle of the room were bullet- and slash-proof his-and-her body armor, worker jumpsuits both light and dark, as well as a rack with hanging utility belts.
    Good thing we invested wisely, Marcus thought. Most of the stuff in the room was reasonably affordable. It was all the silver they had to buy that kept the cost up. Usually either him or Shelly would make trips to goldsmiths and jewelry stores and buy the purest silver items they could find. They’d take them back to the secret house and, at the tool station further back in the basement, use their own homemade smelting operation to create the weapons as required. Most of the stuff was reusable, as when a vampire disintegrated on impact, the silver stake would remain behind. However, there were the occasional run-ins that forced them to leave their weapons behind, or if a vampire was stabbed in the leg or arm, the creature would sometimes take off with the weapon. The kicker was, though ordinary wooden stakes would do, the vampire still had a chance to heal if the stake was removed quickly enough. A silver one, however, would poison the bloodstream and the bloodsucker would die