My phone started to ring, vibrating and making a loud rattling from the metal bouncing against the glass. Seeing the name on the caller ID activated a kind of autopilot in my brain that made me just pick the phone up and answer.

“Hey man, it's Rich.” Rich was one of my colleagues at work. Probably the only guy I consistently got along with. “You coming in? Bernard's going off on one about you again.”

Bernard, the manager of that hole. A raging narcissist who would only care if the building burned down if he wasn't the one who lit the match.

“No, I'm done. Just tell Bernard that you couldn't get through to me.”
“Fair play, man. You got a plan?”
“Yeah, something like that. Got a new job doing, uh.” I tried to think of a word that would make this not sound suspect. “Security.”
“Oh, nice. How's the pay?”
“It's pretty good. Some great benefits, too.” I couldn't help but glance over at the Tony Montana table.
“Oh yeah?” Rich was starting to sound interested. “Think you could get in a good word for me?” No way, I couldn't do that to Rich.
“I dunno. Jason basically got me this job so I don't think my word would count for much.”
“Aw.” I could almost hear Rich rolling his eyes and pouting. Somewhere in the background, a shouting match erupted between what sounded like Bernard and a customer. “Crap. I'd better sort this. See you around, Mac.”
“Yeah, see ya.” The phone cut off with a very climactic stop. That was it, the last line of connection between me and my old life was gone. There was no way I could go back to it all now. Not with what I knew, or what I had done.

Being alone with your thoughts is a dangerous thing. People inherently want answers if they have a question. But if there's no answer, and it's only you around, you start to make stuff up. I got lucky this time. By the time I got around to the really problematic questions like “what do I do?” the sun had finally decided to dip enough behind the building on the opposite side of the road that I could approach the balcony without risk of ending up looking like charcoal.

I never really appreciated the sundown before. Luminous orange against the dull grey clouds made it look like something clear out of an oil painting. Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to take it all in, my phone buzzed with a message saying that the driver was back and waiting for me at the door.

Sure enough, the van was there waiting for me at the door, the same driver as last night sitting in the driver's seat, drumming his hands along to the tones of Mark Knopfler I knew from my dads' old vinyl records.

I hopped into the passenger's side, same as last time and the driver simply grunted in acknowledgement. He lurched the van into gear and pulled away.

This guy was a real arse, barely responding to a word I said during the travel and simply scowling forward at the road.

The warehouse was basically the same too, another group of gangsters loading stuff into the back of the van while I headed up to watch at the gate.

Of course, that was the plan. In the amount of time it took me to walk from the van to the guardhouse An argument had broken out at the front between one of the enforcers and...my dad?

I hid in a small alcove within earshot of the gatehouse, something wasn't right so I'd need to pick my moment carefully.

And there he was, my dad. He was dressed a lot more casually than the guard, instead of the fancy black-and-red Knight uniform and instead had a luminous blue t-shirt that read 'Vampires Suck' in neon pink letters styled like an 80's synth album cover.

My dad isn't a tall man but he's heavily built. Thanks to a lifetime of jobs that involved lifting a lot of heavy boxes. But with a very slim face and angular features, as well as dark brown hair he spent hours every morning agonising over crafting into a slicked-back thing that made him look like a beefed-up used car salesman.

“Warning you, Cowell. Piss off.” The guard at the gate flexed in an attempt to intimidate him.
“Nice to meet you too, Dave.” Dad scoffed. “What are you doing here? I thought you were still working for the Bishops.” Dad looked right at me when he said that. I locked eyes with him and started moving my way closer.

As if on cue, the driver called over two more gangsters and started hurling threats around. Dad just smirked at him, which seemed to only make him angrier. I could see from here that his face was turning red.

“You won't mind if I fight back, will you?” Dad looked my way again, signalling me.
“What? You think you can manage it?” One of the gangsters taunted, stepping forward and almost pressing his chest up against Dads'.

Dad shrugged with another confident smirk. I was now within lunging distance of the three.

“Might want to worry about him, though.” Dad pointed to me and I took that as my cue, grabbing the gangster I was nearest and heaving him into the gatehouse, driving his forehead into the thin, prefab wall with an echoing crash. Left a nice indent in the plasterboard and the mans' face.

He wasn't unconscious but his senses were scrambled enough that he would be out of action for a good few minutes.

Dad had toppled the first gangster and had his boot planted on his neck, wrestling a knife away from the second one. All I had to do was jam my claws into his shoulder-blade and kick him in the back of the knee, forcing him down and wrenching his arm the wrong way. My phone buzzed in my jacket pocket and Dad snagged it up to answer.

“Hello, Jason.” He greeted with a nasty grin fixed on the gangster on whose neck he was standing. “Yeah, he's right here with me.” There was a short pause. The gangster I was holding onto struggled to get free. I twisted his arm further the wrong way until he stopped trying. “We've got a couple of Bishop's boys here. Eager to meet you.” Dad chuckled. “Great stuff. See you soon.” He shut the phone down and ground the heel of his boot on his victim's jaw.

It didn't take long to get the Bishops under control. Whoever ran this warehouse during the day was dumb enough to leave the keys to the gatehouse in the security desk. We just left the gangsters in there and locked the door. It took about fifteen minutes before backup arrived, plenty of time for the gangsters to sit around and look sullen while Dad explained himself.

“Old connections are still good.” He shrugged, leaning his weight on the thin plastic barrier that blocked the road. “I just asked how things were going when I got to town and I heard the Bishops were making a play. I tracked down where you'd be and wanted to make sure that nothing happened to you.” He looked around at the gatehouse and gave me a nudge in the side. “Looks like you did just fine!” He laughed and the gangsters sneered at us through the glass.
“This is normal for you?” I frowned at him. He paused, clearly turning the question over in his head.
“Yeah, I guess so.” He said that like he hadn't considered gang-warfare to not be normal.

Another car finally arrived, another one of the tinted-window saloons and Jason jumped out with a frustrated expression and a large metal spike in his hand. He was dressed up way fancier than I had ever seen him before, wearing a similar kind of red-and-black suit as his father when I had first met him. The gangsters locked in the gatehouse immediately shrank back when Jason glared their way.

“What's the damage?” Jason asked, straight to business.
“None. Dad caught these guys out before they could make off with anything. All the stuff should still be in the warehouse.”
“Good. We can load these idiots into the back of the van, then.” Jason made a gesture over his shoulder and three more gangsters emerged from the car, they quickly set about doing the job properly, even finding the driver of the van sporting a nasty scowl and a dent in the back of his head.

A new driver brought the van around and the Bishop gangsters were handcuffed and frog-marched into the back.

“Good stuff.” Dad turned away from the road and pat me on the shoulder.
“Dad, I want to ask.” I stopped him walking off towards the warehouses. “Why not tell me about all this?” He stared at me a second, this was a conversation that he had clearly dreaded for a long time.
“I wanted you to have a choice.” He said after a long silence. “The people Diane, your mum, runs with...” He looked over his shoulder, even though everyone was either out of earshot or indoors where they couldn't hear us Dad's voice still trailed off like he was trying to hide something.
“What does Mum have to do with this?”
“The group she's with. She's...” He struggled with the words. “They were just gonna turn you into a weapon.” I was tempted to call him out on how ridiculous that sounded, but it was pretty obvious my idea of normal didn't count for much anymore.

“What the hell does that even mean?” Dad was starting to look frantic, constantly looking over his shoulders.
“She wanted to give you to her boss, somebody she called the Queen. I wasn't gonna have them steal my son. So I took you and ran.”

And suddenly it all clicked for me. The shithole house, the probing questions at school, the alleged skin conditions, the constant fights with strangers in the middle of the street. Even dad's perpetual night-shifts. It all came together in a single moment.

“There was a guy, yesterday.” The realisations kept coming. “He was hanging around and snooping. Definitely not a gangster.”
Dad nodded. “Yeah, you're probably on their radar again.”
“And what about the Society?” Dad frowned in uncertainty.
“Might be useful to get on their good side.” He conceded after a second. “Dunno how much help they'll be, though.”
“So what do I do?” That was the key question.
“Whatever you feel like.” Dad suddenly brightened up. “I'd say you got pretty lucky, being this close with the heir to the Knight family.”

I frowned at him. He was avoiding the issue. “I mean about the Dragons.” He sighed and scrunched his eyes closed.
“I don't know.” He relented. “All I can really say is to stay away from them.”
“What about you?”
“I'll try and get through to your mother. Maybe I can bring her around.” I hadn't talked to mum in years. I don't know what I would say to her if I saw her now.
“Please be careful, Dad.”
“I will.”

Jason had finished ordering the other gangsters around and met back up with us at the gatehouse. “Hello, Andy.”
“Hello, Jason. I was just heading off. Say hi to Trev for me.”
“Will do.” Jason nodded and Dad just wandered off, whistling a tune like nothing was wrong.
“Pretty short, for a day's work.” I joked to try and break the awkward silence. Jason didn't laugh.
“Trust me, it's gonna get busy when my dad hears about it.”

I looked over at Jason and he stared back at me, a few seconds passed before he realised that he actually explain what he was talking about.
“Vampire politics have been in a kind of stalemate for ages. But some of us like it that way.”
“Clearly the Bishops don't.”
“Exactly. That's why we gotta stop this before it starts. Gang wars on this scale aren't pretty.”