When he was outside the main lounge area he gripped the waiter on his shoulder, “I know the way. You may go.” The waiter didn’t argue. He turned on his heel and went back to his duties.

  Kenneth walked around the back area of the Cobalt Club. Down into the service entry way where food and other deliveries were being made. The Cobalt Club was well within House Dukart’s boundaries. The owners were friends to his House, not associates. It wasn’t a front, per se, but it was a good place to meet and conduct some business when the need arose.

  He walked back toward the walk-in freezers and the loading bay. He saw a rather unremarkable woman standing over by the freezers. The way she dressed was more appropriate for the trance section of the club. She wore heavy eye makeup and showed plenty of skin. She was flat chested with limp, stringy blonde hair. She had been drinking, but not alcohol.

  “What do you want?” Kenneth demanded coldly as he stepped over to the girl.

  The girl smirked, “It’s not what I want, but what I can give you.”

  Kenneth heaved a heavy sigh and almost walked away from her. This had happened a few times to him in the past. One of House Dukart’s lowlings trying to climb the social ladder with promises of goods, services, or information that wasn’t nearly as valuable as the would-be social climber would like to have thought.

  Kenneth crossed his arms and gazed hard at the woman in front of him. He could just dominate her and be done with it. But, she was of House Dukart, it would take a while for that to work.

  Instead, he asked again, “What do you want?”

  The girl stared hard at him through her layers of dark eye makeup, “You killed Stewart, didn’t you?” She looked up and down the short service tunnel looking for anyone who may overhear what they had to say. Kenneth had already done that with his sense of smell and hearing. The younger ones relied too much on their eyes. Who was teaching these younglings now a days?

  Kenneth replied, “Yes.”

  The girl’s eyes flashed in rage but she didn’t move. Kenneth had half expected her to lunge at him with a weapon or pull a gun on him. But the girl simply stood there. She glared at her Head of House, “I want his farm.”

  Kenneth wasn’t surprised by this either. The girl was either a girlfriend, or a one-time squeeze, or drug and fuck buddy of Stewart, or some other such thing. Now she saw an opportunity to move in and get some for herself. He understood that and admired her for her audacity, at the very least.

  “And why should I give it to you? I have much higher members of our House in line to snatch up that farm as part of their fiefdoms around our territory.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The girl smiled for the first time, “Because I know why you killed Stew. And I also know what he was doing.”

  This caught his attention, “Okay, let’s say for the time being that I believe a single word of what you’re selling me. I give you the farm, you give me this information you have?”

  The girl smiled and nodded, “That’s about it, yeah.”

  Kenneth moved with vampire speed around the girl and even before her vampire eyes could follow him, he had her in a vise like grip with his silver knife at her throat.

  “I don’t make deals with little druggy bitches, and I sure as hell don’t get blackmailed by them. You have three seconds left to live, unless you tell me what you know. After that, I’ll decide whether or not to kill right here.”

  The girl was terrified and shocked to the point of not being able to move. She shed a few tears as she surrendered to him, and went limp. She sobbed quietly as he shoved her up against the wall, with his hand to her throat, “What do you know, bitch?”

  The girl sobbed and closed her eyes, “I… I want that farm. I need it, please!”

  “Okay, fine,” He gripped her neck and pierced her skin with his blade. He began drawing a slow line along her neck, slitting her throat slowly.

  She struggled against his grip as blood began freely flowing from the wound, “pleeashe, i..I know he was selling bloood.. to someone..over seass…some Arab…pleeashhe”

  Kenneth pulled the knife away from her neck. He squeezed the girl’s flesh together to help it heal. In a few moments she wasn’t bleeding anymore, but her clothes were a bloody mess. She looked up at him, her eyes were glassy and he knew that she couldn’t focus. This girl was on something and whatever it was it had thinned her blood. She might die from the blood loss if she didn’t feed soon. Luckily, he knew were there was a small supply of blood very close by.

  “I’m not going to ask again, and next time I don’t stop till you’re dead. What Arab, and why was this Arab buying blood, and for what?”

  The girl blinked hard as she tried to focus. Her head rolled along the wall; she was having a hard time staying conscious. “I…I don’t know. I just know that the..gguyy…bought blood, no questions assked.”

  “Where did Stewart sell this guy the blood?” Kenneth asked. He needed to know more before this girl passed out.

  The girl drunkenly smiled and closed her eyes, “Nnot..tellllling…” The girl slid slowly down the wall as her strength gave out and she passed out.

  DAMNIT! Kenneth swore silently. He yanked open the freezer door and stepped into the walk in. He went to the back of the freezer and unclicked a small hidden panel. The small section of the freezer wall, opened with a bit of a hiss as the warmer air from the refrigerated hidden section of the freezer, met the freezing temperature of the walk in. He reached in and grabbed a neatly hanging blood bag. He checked the date when it was harvested. Still good, he closed the panel, and walked back outside.

  He gripped the girl’s neck and titled her head back, pouring some of the contents of the blood bag down her throat.

  The girl coughed and sputtered a bit but she opened her eyes as her throat reflexively drank the thick liquid as he slowly poured it down her throat. He gave her a few moments as she breathed and her eyes gained a little more focus.

  “All right, what do I need to do to find out where this Arab is?” he felt stupid going along with this whole thing. Really? An Arab? Was he five years old? Next thing she might tell him is that the Arab was using the blood to keep his wife eternally youthful or some other such crap.