moment she’s captivated by his crystal blue eyes. He raises an eyebrow staring at her and her eyes are drawn to his perfect strawberry-blond hair. “You might want to keep your eyes on the road.” He says to her offhandedly.

“Huh?” She looks back at the road and immediately stomps on the break as a group of young workers crossing the street come into view. “Shit.” she mutters quietly.

“You’re going to ruin the break pads driving like that.”

“Sure,” She mutters quietly. “that’s what we’re worried about.” She gently lets off the break and accelerate as the men finish crossing.

“Something else I should be worried about?”

“Oh, I don’t know, hit and run is kinda bad.” Sophie offers.

“Auto-breaks would have engaged with or without you.”

Sophie lets out a loud sigh, “Right. Yup, auto-breaks are a thing.” She sighs again.

“You’re a bit of a scatter-brained aren’t you?”

“What!?” She jerks her head over to look at him. “I’m not a scatter-brain!” She glares for a second before remembering to keep looking at the road.

“Whatever.” he says with his gaze fixed firmly back out the passenger window. “…You know you passed our turn right?”

~

Sophie is in fact a scatter brain. But she is also smart and dedicated to her job so when she and Caleb walk onto the crime scene she tries her best to ignore the dark stares aimed at her and her new partner. Sophie had been advised to transfer a new precinct after she had accused a fellow officer of sexually assaulting a female suspect. When the charges had gotten disputed a

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large following of officers had turned on her so the looks she’s receiving now are nothing foreign to her.

“So which squishy mortal bit the dust this time?” Caleb asks as he comes up to the dead body.

There are venomous stares at his callousness, “A pregnant woman, we haven’t id’d her yet.” An officer by the name of Mathew tells him with a heavy scowl.

Mathew is one of the few officers in the precinct who is allowed to carry a weapon with live ammo tucked into the holster on his utility belt. Under the vampires’ insistence the government had stepped in and dictated that police officers would no longer be allowed to carry lethal weaponry unless they have ten years of experience or manage to get three recommendations from the higher ups in the police force. Mathew comes from a family of police officers so it had been relatively easy for him to get recommendations despite being young and relatively new.

“Uh-huh,” Caleb examines the body and frowns, “where’s the bite mark?” Usually death by vampire equals a bite mark on the jugular because that’s where humans bleed out the easiest. The woman is laying on her back wearing worn gray sweats and a pale blue t-shirt covered in blood but the blood is all from a single bullet wound. There isn’t a single bite mark to be found.

“That’s a great question.” Lieutenant Andrew elbows his way past the crime scene techs and scoots officer Mathew out of the way. “There’s a single bullet wound to the chest, but if you notice we’re not standing in a puddle of blood so clearly it was taken somehow, maybe through the bullet wound…” Andrew Motley is a young officer who had quickly risen through the ranks

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to be lieutenant of the vampire division. Despite his age however he is a very serious man with a permanent frown on his face who always dresses in a crisp, clean white shirt and black slacks.

“Right…” Caleb stares down at the body thinking about how stupid it would be to try and take blood through a bullet wound. It would taste disgusting, like gunpowder and metal.

“And you are?” Andrew looks up and down at Sophie trying to gauge her character.

“Oh, I”m Sophie Free. I just transferred to your precinct and I’m Caleb’s new partner.”

“Hah, sucks to be you.” Mathew sneers, glad that it’s not him.

“Hey, Mathew,” Caleb gives him a kind smile, but coupled with his suddenly black eyes the look is sinister, “why don’t you shut up and go stand in a corner.”

Officer Mathew blinks and slowly walks away to go find a corner. The warehouse is a large and open space, most of the old equipment it used to house has either been taken away or is laying stripped in piles on the concrete floor. The walls are made up of cheap and now rusting sheet metal with cut out squares where glass widows used to live. The body is lying in mostly the center area of the warehouse so Mathew’s walk to the corner of the building is a long one that is followed by the confused stares of his coworkers.

“And you wonder why he hates you?” Lieutenant Andrew stares blandly at Caleb.

“Oh, that was never a mystery to me.” Caleb says still smiling before he looks down to examine the body again.

Caleb’s eyes have two types of vision, he can see things as a human does or he can use heat vision. The way he views the world can be distinguished by whether or not his pupils have fully dilated to encompass his entire eyes giving them a demonic look. His ability to manipulate

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people is actually irrelevant to which state his eyes are in, but Caleb is in the firm belief that doing it while they are solid black has a more exaggerated affect on the victim.

Caleb purses his lips as he stares down at the woman, specifically her large stomach, “What was the estimated time of death?”

“Rough estimate is five hours, we’ll know more specifically when the coroner gets her hands on the body.”

“Huh, that’s interesting…” He kneels and gently prods the stomach, “you have a knife right?” looks back up at Andrew.

“Yeah, why?”

“Obviously because I want to use it.”

Andrew just sighs and pulls out his pocket knife, a heavy folded blade made of silver metal.

“Now, if you would be so kind as to have everyone vacate the premises.”

“Why?” Andrew asks again this time with more force to try and get a real answer out of Caleb.

“Because secret vampire business that humans are not privy to.” Andrew’s hard stare and crossed arms lead Caleb to adding on, “You’ll just have your memory wiped if you stay.”

Andrew rolls his eyes, but turns and starts telling the other officers, crime scene techs, and photographers to step outside momentarily.

“What secret vampire business?” Sophie kneels down next to him.

Caleb raises and eyebrow, “Guess you missed the part where I said ‘humans are not privy to.’”