“You look like you want to kill me.” Those were the first words from Gerry’s mouth once I walked through the door.

“Good. I was worried you wouldn’t notice.” I smirk at him. He snorts and gestures to one of the empty seats. I salute him and walk to one of the chairs.

“You don’t need to salute. We’re not the army.” I wanted to say something snarky as a response, but I held it in and simply responded with a “Yes Sir”. I look to the empty seats around me and wonder if I was the only new recruit at the moment.

“Am I the only new recruit?” I ask Gerry.

“No, you’re just here twenty minutes early. There other two will be here soon.”

“I was taught that if I was on time, I was late.” Gerry, smiles at my statement.

“I’m not fond of brown noses.” I mentally flip him off.

“That few recruits?”

“Finding recruits like you isn’t easy. I am sure Edge already told you not everyone is built for this life.”

“I can’t say that I see why. If I had to be honest, I would have preferred to never know this world.” Gerry’s eyes open wide. “Why are you shocked?” I ask him.

“This is an amazing world, Ainsley.”

“It can’t be all sunshine and rainbows, you hired me to kill some of it.”

“True and if we had enough time to train you today I would be teaching you the in’s and out today.”

“The hell does that mean?” I ask with an edge of worry.

“What part of that didn’t you understand?” He responds condescendingly.

“You can’t go sending three new recruits out into the field. We don’t know what we’re dealing with.” My voice was slowly rising.

“Forgive me, I was under the impression you knew how to use that big gun of yours.” My nostrils flared.

“Of course I can, but that’s not the –”

“Then I don’t see what you’re problem is. You point the part that kills at anything dangerous and don’t stop shooting.” He uses a pistol hand gestures to illustrate his point and to aggravate me more he makes a gunshot sound.

“You’re going to get us all killed!”

“I can only hope. I get new vampires that way.” He smiles with thin lips. I grit my teeth.

“What kind of commander are you?”

“The kind that really doesn’t like being told what to do.” How childish is this freak? “And as far as I am concerned with you Ainsley sadly you can’t be mesmerized by any vampire or I would have told Edge to wipe you.” He gets closer to my face. “So I am stuck with you. And if you decide to be an idiot and say anything you shouldn’t or get your ass killed on your first mission I am ok with either of those because all that means is that I get another vampire. And as my vampire you would obey.” My eyes dart over his features looking for any signs that he was joking…but he wasn’t.

I could feel beads of sweat travelling down my back. I had misjudged this man I had assumed he was all talk, but I could feel pure killing intent coming off his right now. I could see by his unwavering eyes that he meant every word he was saying.

“You’re a piece of shit.” I spit at him and his eyebrows rise in humor.

“Such rude language for a lady.” He tuts and walks back to his desk. “Humans are such a pain.” He mumbles under his breath.

“What about you Gerry? You’re a human too.” He reached down to his desk to pick something up and halted. That certainly got his your attention.

Gerry cracks his knuckles on the surface of his desk and takes a deep breath. “Do you know what’s most likely going to get us all killed?” He asks me.

“Global warming. But my money is on being enslaved by aliens.”

“Funny. No, it’s going to be the underworld and whatever creatures it spits out. How useful do you think you useless human soldiers and your guns are going to be against a superior being that can heal itself and use speed and strength that can out power any man made machine?” His voice becomes dangerously dark.

“You’re not wrong, but you’re one of us pathetic humans too, or do you forget that being around all these immortal creatures every day?”

“Watch it.” Gerry warns. I should have listened, but honestly, I was pissed at him.

“Didn’t you sign one of those nifty contracts too? Put a bullet in your head, Gerry. You can be one of them too.”

His eyes were bulging and he was snarling at me. “You are out line!” He barks at me. I opened my mouth to tell him where he could shove his anger, but a few people walked into the classroom. Now, I could have carried on this conversation, but I wasn’t about to question the line of command in front of the other new recruits.

“Take a seat!” He barks at the other recruits and me.

He begins to write on the board once he was finished glaring up a storm at me. I watch his hand write on the white board and I was already confused.

TYPE A

TYPE B

TYPE C

Ok, what the hell did that mean? Gerry turns around to us and throws the marker on the desk. He takes in the other two people beside me. I look at the two new recruits and I was surprised to see another woman among them. So far, I hadn’t seen many women here. Maybe one, but I wasn’t sure if she was human.

The man next to me was the oldest of the three of us. His black hair was starting to gray, but he didn’t look frail. The way his body was built and how he was sitting, ram rod straight with his hands in front of him, made me believe he was also in the army. I would have assumed they would have hired young cadets that had just removed their training wheels. However, this man was a wearing a frayed uniform and a name was sawn into his chest pocket. R. Banks. He must feel me staring and turns my way. He arches an eyebrow and I wink at him. He smiles at winks back. Nice, he seemed approachable.

The other recruit to my right was a woman. She had long hair, like passed her ass long. It was red and wavy. She was pretty and had sweet brown eyes. She didn’t look as intimidating as the guy to my left, but looks can be deceiving. Unfortunately, unlike the man she wasn’t wearing a uniform or any form of identification that could give me any hints about her.

“Are you done staring?” Gerry snaps me out of my trance. I look at him and shrug.

“Typically, the first day of school Sargent Asshat is introductions. And you’re not supposed to send us home with homework.” The other two recruits cough trying to suppress their laughter. Now Gerry wasn’t a vampire, but if he was his eyes would be bright purple from rage.

“I can see you’re going to be a little hellfire, aren’t you?” Banks says and I smile proudly.

“I don’t think I am physically capable of keeping my mouth shut.” I explain and the woman laughs.

“I can see that.” She agrees.

“After this you are going to run laps until your feet bleed.” He says calmly, but darkly.

“Worth every blister.” I smirk. “If you let me flip you off I’ll do pushups too.” The two next to me grumble and laugh into their hands.

“Introduce yourselves.” Gerry orders. The man takes the floor first.

“Names, Ray Banks. I was recruited from the Marines.” I shake his hand and so does the woman.

“I’m Ainsley Chávez. I was recruited from the British military.” The woman goes last.

“Pleasure. I am Danni Regalia.”

“Cool name.” Ray says and I agree.

“I wasn’t in the army. I just finished the police academy.”

“I don’t want to be the one to point fingers, but don’t you think this job might be a tad too ambitious for you, being a newbie and all?” Ray says. She smiles and nods her head.

“Yeah, but I am nothing if adventurous.” We chat politely for a few more seconds and Gerry interrupts us.

“Now you all know each other. I expect you all to get along or don’t who gives a fuck.” Inspiring. “There will also be a fourth new recruits in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, they were tied up in a previous contract and can’t join us now.”

“Can’t you have one of your vampires use their specials eyes for that?” Ray asks and Gerry doesn’t answer.

He walks to the white board and he point to the first sentence he wrote. Type A. “At this point you are all already familiar with a vampire’s basic abilities. Strength, hearing, speed, self-healing and hypnosis. All three of you have passed your tests so I don’t have to tell you to stay away from their teeth or how their eyes work.” He specifically looked my way. “Like I was just saying to Ainsley, we don’t have time to brief you on anything more right now. Since you are all new there is a vetting period before we let you in on how to kill a vampire. No offence, but you are in a building with precious creatures and I don’t want to be handing out killing methods before we know anything about you.” Precious. That entire sentence made too much sense to be coming out of his mouth.

“You are to be deployed on mini missions within the hour to see how you perform under pressure. Let’s get down to basics fast. There are three types of documented vampires.” He began, but my attention was currently elsewhere.

“Hold up. An hour?”

“Yes, keep up.” He dismissed me.

“Ignoring that, there are three types of vampires? That’s news to me. There were only two the last time I checked.” Danni said. She already knew about vampires? Although, now that I think about it Edge had mentioned that there were civilians who knew about the supernatural. Clearly I had some catching up to do.

“So far, we can only confirm two, but I am certain there is a third type out there as well. The only reason I bring this up today is to keep you informed about that possibility. Type B’s are among the rarest and these vampires are in a league all of their own. They’re stronger in every way than a Type A, but what makes them more dangerous is that in some rare cases, they have special powers. Some of them have abilities like shapeshifting, sonic screams, elemental powers you name it. In these situations it’s capture not kill.”

“Holy shit.” I mumble and Gerry liked my reaction.

“Starting to feel the seriousness of this situation now?”

“You caught these vampires?” Danni interjects.

“Yes, with how rare they are we catch them in hopes of rehabilitating them. You should know that, since your new partner was one of those.” I turn sharply to Danni who looks as worried as I was.

“If these vampires are so dangerous why are they in this building?” Ray points out very logically. “I didn’t sign up to be in a prison with a monster.”

“Trust me, if he went wild and tried to kill us all, we would all be dead. As it stands, he is the strongest vampire in this building.” That didn’t make me feel any safer, it made me feel unsafe. If this thing woke up one morning on the wrong side of the bed and went on a killing spree there would be no way to stop it.

My eyes glance to the last type on the board, Type C. Judging by how this list was escalating from bad to worse, Type C was the worst. How were they any worse? Did they blow up like a nuke?

“Type C, aren’t worth mentioning.” He says casually.

“Why the hell not!” I exclaim.

Gerry picks up an eraser and removes it from the board. “We don’t know anything about this type of vampire, just that there is a possibility they exist. We don’t know what makes them different. We have only seen one such case and that was 80 years ago.”

Knowing that there aren’t many gives me some relief. “We never managed to capture him and we aren’t even sure he survived. The only piece of information we can give you about them is that they are easily recognizable by their eyes.” Gerry paused for dramatic effect which I didn’t appreciate. “Their eyes glow silver, instead of purple.”

“Why?” I ask like a broken record.

“I repeat we don’t know. Use those ears of yours. It could have been a fluke in his genetics or maybe there was something wrong with how he was changed. They only thing you need to be aware of is this, anything that isn’t a Type B and C, you kill.”

“Yes sir.” We all parroted like fools.

Trust the Americans, to capture the unknown and experiment on them.

Gerry, had kept one stink eye on me during his lecture and the other on the white board as he wrote down all the weird and false assumptions about vampires.

“One more thing. Sometimes vampires will be accompanied by something a lot more dangerous. Demons.” My pen falls from my hand and I stare blankly at Gerry.

“Yes, demons exist.” My stomach hits the floor. Vampires and witches were one thing. Holy shit, where ghosts real too? Oh no, I could deal with the rest of this weird world, but ghosts where the one thing I couldn’t stand. Too many murdered souls that can come back and haunt me.

Gerry, could see I was visibly pale and he loved it. “Hold your cross close in that case.” I suppress the urge to do just that.

“The majority of the time, you three will act as look outs for your vampires. We are customizing your weapons now with silver since you all seem to be attached to your own equipment. Trust your vampires and you will not engage targets unless instructed to.” That seems fair.

“Come in, boys!” Gerry calls. I didn’t know what to expect, but Edge walking in the door followed by three more vampires was not one of them. I didn’t recognize the other two vampires, but the fourth one was Tokyo. I guess he was lined up for a new partner as well.

The second one, was a girl. I haven’t seen any female vampires so far, but dear Lord she was pretty. She walked in the room with her shoulders slumped. She had long brown hair that fell passed her shoulders. Her features were extremely sweet. She wasn’t blessed in the height department, but I realized why almost instantly. She looked like she was barely eighteen years old. Her eyes which were for some reason turned on and pointed at us seemed dull. Damn, this poor sod had clearly died young.

The other vampire was a man and he definitely looked older. He must have died in his late thirties, possibly forties, but the man wore his age well. He had minor wrinkles, almost invisible, but his hair wasn’t graying in the least. He had bright blond hair. It must be a requirement for these vampires, because the same as Edge, Highlander and Tokyo, he was tall and endowed in the muscle area. I feel like they’re all starting to look similar. That’s kind of boring.

Although, this man’s eyes weren’t the same. His green eyes took one look at us and he snuffed us.

“Each of you by this point are familiar with your new partners. For those who don’t know each other allow me to introduce you.” Gerry points to Edge first and I give him a small wave, but he doesn’t return it. He remains stoically standing still, but I see a small smile trying to break through.

“This is Zack, but you will know him as Edge. He will be Ainsley’s partner.” He then points to Tokyo. “Next is Clark, but he prefers to be called Tokyo. He will be paired with Ray.” He looks across the room acknowledging his partner. “This is Liliana, her partner has yet to arrive, so she is just here to observe. Unlike the rest of them, this is Liliana’s first pair up. She was just changed in the last month.”

I jump out of my seat and Liliana looked away from us. “Are you kidding me? She looks like she can even legally drink yet.” I growl. “Where did even you find her?”

“Zip it!” Edge appears in front of me with his purple eyes pointed at me. “But, Edge, she’s just a child.” I say mournfully. He must sense my sorrow and in that instant I wanted to retract it, because I knew she would sense my pity as well.

He rests his hand on my shoulder and his eyes turn back to their natural black. “I know.” He mouths and I take a deep breath. I stand tall and salute Gerry, disgusted with myself. “I am sorry for overstepping, sirs! Ma’am!” I turn to Liliana and salute her too. She looks away embarrassed at how I addressed her, but she deserved that much respect.

“And you were worried she would be hard to train.” The blond man said. He had a deep accent of some kind. It was hard to place and it grated on my nerve endings.

“I don’t know Valentine, by the sounds of what Gerald just told us you were easily trained too.” Danni spoke up. Both Edge and I coughed out a laugh. I turn and high five the woman. I didn’t know she had that in her.

“Impudent human!” Valentine’s eyes glow to their predatory purple and Danni scoffs visibly relaxed at his tantrum. Right now, I wish I knew if she was rattled, because if she was she wasn’t showing even a drop of it. I could learn a thing or two from this girl.

“Next time any of you interrupt me, I will make you run drills all day.” We nod and I allow Edge to push me down into my seat. He gives me a light reassuring squeeze.

The blond one appears in front of me and Edge stands between us. He sees his protective movement and he laughs. “You feel protective of it?”

I raise my eyes to his and I clench my fist. This undead fucking blond shithead just called me an “it”.

“Zack, they’re just a meal to us. You always become too attached to your meals. They’re animals. Observe.” His eyes change to their predatory version, but I don’t flinch when he stares at me. “Bark like a dog.”

“Sorry, doggy role play isn’t my thing.” I stare at him for a while and I begin to feel that same weird pressure in my mind which tells me he was trying to compel me. He waits expectantly for a few seconds and when I don’t respond he repeats his order. Rather than tell him to stuff it I turn my head away to stifle a laugh.

“What’s the matter Valentine you can’t perform?” Edge taunts.

“That’s not possible.” Valentine mutters. Ech, what a dumb name. “This has to be a trick. No human can resist compulsion.”

“She can.” Edge says proudly. I glance up to him and I feel my cheeks heat up slightly. Edge must have heard the change in my heart beat and he looked down where I was sat. I look away and I crossed my legs to seem like I was unfazed.

“Well what do you know the big bad vampire isn’t such a threat now is he?” Danni taunts. Valentine growls at her like an animal.

“My God Ainsley, you create problems just by existing, don’t you?” That comment from Gerry stung a bit. I took a deep breath to regulate my heart beat. “Let’s continue, the blond is Valentine and he will be paired with Danni.”

My eyes snap back to the blond twat. He was the Type B vampire? My shoulders slump slightly and now I feel intimidated.

“That’s right. You should fear me.” Valentine’s glowing eyes smile and he revealed that his fangs were out.

After a few more seconds of letting Valentine look at me like he was going to make a gourmet meal out of my blood Gerry clapped his hands to get our attention.

“Get your asses down to the armory and pick up your gear. Camilla is waiting with your mission dossier. Try to die on your first mission. Make my Christmas.”