Tracking the group of vampires was an easy thing, but on the trail Calla managed to find that vampires were by no means rare in Sostine. There were groups of them, perhaps friends and families?

Clans. The whispers told her. Calla walked by what she thought were three clans and a number of strays. The way to tell them apart was how their scents mingled together. Clan vampires seemed to be stained with one another's smell. None of them noticed the young woman in a black hoodie other than a waft of chemicals which made her unappealing to further sniffing.

When she found the man's apartment she was able to tell by the scents that eight vampires resided there. There were several floors and each floor had no more than two strong scents.

'So he did have more? I know from the way they followed him that the five with him last night were newborns. But the two that remained here...I can't tell if they are newborns or Childe vampires.' she frowned as she stared up at the building. She crept along the wall, so silently that the vampires would be unable to hear her. She stilled and waited and planned.

'I could light the whole building up?' she thought before shaking away the idea. It was too destructive and would bring unwanted attention. If these vampires were a clan then they probably had connections to other vampires, possibly friends or allies.

As her mind ran through different scenarios she knew she needed to get the individuals separate from one another, and take them out one at a time. She didn't have a plan, but she didn't need one tonight. As if the gods had heard her, she saw the five newborns from before storm out the house and frantically split apart. She followed one and noticed from his movements that he was constantly scanning and sniffing the area. He didn't even pay attention to the disgusting smell of chemical dye that seemed to be spread around the area.

'Searching for something?' her mind took a few seconds to click. 'For me...my scent, Lisa and the twins' scent. I left it all over that apartment. It's why the whispers warned me to fight...they knew I'd made a mistake. But why didn't they say anything at the time? They didn't know a vampire knew her...so the scent didn't matter, but once that Childe questioned me, the deep recesses of my mind knew. I remember....after he spoke to me, I made the decision to kill him.'

The whispers hissed in approval and it echoed around her mind granting her a shiver of pleasure. Calla's mind began to break down the barriers between her and the whispers and they gradually quietened. She didn't know what was happening but the world seemed to become a little bit clearer, and her thoughts came to her with more clarity.

She continued to follow the newborn, closing the gap between them. She moved slightly faster than him but did so so silently that he was unable to pick up her position. He didn't know anything was wrong until he felt himself tackled to the alleyway pavement and his face met concrete. He was slightly dizzy but before he could lift his head he felt a sharp pain in his neck and tried to scream.

But a hand on the back of his head grabbed his hair and began to thrust his head repeatedly into the solid ground.The screams became soft moans very quickly as he struggled to maintain consciousness.

Meanwhile Calla found the taste of the newborn almost divine after having that cream in her mouth for the past several hours. She surprised herself with the ease that she took him down and incapacitated him. He felt weak to her, and she reckoned it was because she had already consumed a Childe vampire. She didn't feel like she'd changed into a Childe, but she knew she was definitely stronger than a newborn.

She deposited him in a nearby garbage bin and shut it, crawling underneath and waited. It was only four o'clock and she figured they'd continue to pursue her for another hour or so. The days were definitely starting to get darker so maybe a little more than that.

To her absolute delight another vampire happened upon the garbage tip and had a look inside. It wasn't one of the one's who was hunting her. She'd set a trap and she hadn't even realised it, and the whispers hissed in approval at her next actions.

She grabbed at the vampire's legs and she tumbled to the ground. As she reacted and struck out under the bin, Calla dodged and clutched the woman vampires throat. She used all the leeway the bin afforded her, smashing the female vampire's head into the ground.

The woman vampire groaned as Calla scurried out from under the bin and straddled the vampire's back, quickly feasting upon her. She did as she had with the other newborn, repeatedly slamming her head into the ground to keep her quiet.

The alleyway was littered with blood and flesh with two mangled corpses sitting in a garbage bin. Calla stripped them both off and waited for day to come, and once it had, she cast their nude bodies into the light and watched them scatter to ash.

Strength. Consume. Devour.The whispers constantly ran round her head that day and she felt giddy inside. She didn't get any pleasure in the act of drinking, but she seemed to have a delayed high.

'Might have drank too much. Hehe.' she giggled to herself silently as she curled up under the garbage bin. 'Tonight, if I catch one...I can lure the others out with it.' then she frowned to herself as she looked herself over. 'I'll need to freshen up again...my scent isn't spreading but having the smell of two different vampires on me might single me out. I also don't know if the female one had connections.'

Maybe she'd been too hasty in her second kill, but she couldn't risk being discovered. She didn't know how vampires acted when they found one of their own drained dry.

'I don't know enough about these communities...Once I've dealt with the Childe I'll need to find a way to integrate myself. From what I saw last night, vampires are quite lust filled and blood driven.' she scrunched her face in disgust at the thought of any of them trying to touch her and the whispers turned murderous. 'I need information....maybe I can force it out of one of my meals?'

The whispers gave a chorus of approval at the action. Seek. Torture. Discover. Feed. Grow strong. It came to Calla like a to do list in her mind. She needed information and strength, and the actions stated by the whispers would give her both.

When night came, Calla did as she had the night before. Cleaning herself up and disguising her scent. Meanwhile Benedict was fuming that one of his newborns had either gone missing or turned rogue.

"Why isn't he answering!?" he yelled to one of his nearby newborn who flinched away despite his much larger size. Benedict quite slender with blonde hair and blue eyes, normally sporting a gentle appearance with his five foot ten height. To an outsider it would look funny seeing the six and a half foot newborn acting so scared.

"We don't know sir. We all tried phoning him but Jake's always been a bit of a loose cannon." one of the other's answered, trying to spare his friend Benedict's wrath.

"Fine." Benedict spat out through gritted teeth. "If you find Jake or that bitch, bring them to me alive. Now go!" And like that, the four remaining newborns were off again.

'I've still got the two newly turned.' Benedict thought as he bit his thumb nail. 'No, I can't risk exposure. The others would come down hard on me if I revealed anything to the humans.' He shook away his thoughts and tried to calm himself. Soon he'd capture the newborn woman and tear her to pieces, repeatedly, before slowly burning her as tribute to his niece.

Benedict wished he could search for her himself but he'd already used a couple of days to try and find his niece in Lillypud. Now he was back in Sostine he had business to attend to, and his counterparts would not care about the death of a small human. Despite his love for his niece he didn't let it completely cloud his mind, he still thought rationally when he needed to, only occasionally indulging in the fantasies of violence he would inflict upon Calla.

The second night of the search was more complicated for Calla. She easily kept tack of her tracers but they moved in pairs tonight.

'Maybe they know something happened to the other one?' she thought as she watched them from a high up window ledge. They mostly stayed above the rooftops, moving faster than typical humans and remaining silent. She saw as they followed the scent of the one she killed yesterday and how it came to an end in the alleyway.

Calla crept closer to them, blocking out her surroundings as her hearing zoomed in on them. She was a good fifty meters away yet she could hear them clearly.

"Think he's gone ash?" the burly one asked the little one beside him.

"Well he was always pretty stupid." the small one responded with a sigh. "A scent can't just disappear, unless the fucker was idiot enough to get rayed."

"Looks that way." the big one chortled. "Think Benedict will punish us?" he asked with a tinge of fear in his voice.

'Benedict much be the Childe.' Calla smiled. She could now put a name to a face.

"Nah, s'not our fault Jake kicked it. Gimme your phone." the little one said, and the big one gave him the phone. He tapped on the screen a few times before putting the phone to his gear. "Sire." he said respectfully.

'Oh. Maybe they aren't a clan then?' Calla mused, suddenly feeling much lighter.

"Jake's scent came to a dead end." He closed his mouth and listened silently and Calla supposed Benedict was speaking.

"We don't know, but there's nothing here. We think he was fool enough to get himself rayed." He nodded a couple of times and then spoke again. "Yes, there's a second scent here."

'Shit.' Calla thought to herself. 'Did I mess up?' The little guy was quiet for a bit more before speaking.

"No Sire. Definitely not the bitch you're looking for. I remember this scent from the Red Light. Georgina or some chick vampire, likes to play with her food." Calla breathed out a sigh of relief. "Think she dusted him?"

Frustrated at being able to hear half the conversation Calla rubbed her temples. If she were closer she could hear but the whispers and her instincts warned her against it.

"Dunno if she's dead too. We'd have to follow her scent and that's deep Swarmer territory."

"......"

"I'd need to request a meeting, and even then they might not care."

"......"

"As you will Sire." he said as he put away the phone.

"Well?" the large one enquired.

"Wants us to try meet the Swarmers and find out what happened." the little one replied with a click of his tongue.

"And the woman we're looking for?"

"He says there's a priority list. If something's going on with the territory that takes precedence. We've already ceded control of the western buildings to the forest dogs to keep the peace."

The big one gave a grunt of agreement and the pair went on. Calla didn't track them straight away, if they were meeting these 'Swarmers' she would probably be put in danger.

'Swarmers and forest dogs?' she chuckled to herself. 'Don't know what they are, but things could get interesting. There seems to be a lot of animosity in this city...guess the groupings are no different than gangs or street thugs. All vying for their share of the pie.'

Calla didn't pursue them the rest of the night, instead she chose to arm herself in what ever ways she could. Supermarkets stocked a lot of good equipment and there was even an all night DIY shop. She'd spent a lot of time cleaning out the abandoned warehouse and it was where she'd base her operations, where she'd get the information she wanted.

As she move back and forth with different things through the night, cement mix, a sledge hammer, lengths of rope, knives to hide on her person, she reflected on her vampiric life.

'Only one week as a vampire and I've killed four humans and four vampires. Shame I don't remember how my Sire's head cracked like an egg.' Calla sighed. The thought that she accidentally overcame her Sire was delightful, unfortunately it was whilst she was human and in great pain. She couldn't savour it like she had done her later kills. Remembering all of her meals made her smile. 'Only one week as a vampire, and it's the most fun I've ever had.'