Raven's Blood Read online

Chapter Nineteen

  Graham couldn’t believe the stupidity of his underlings. He was glad Roger and Miles weren’t here to listen to this latest update. “How hard can it be to catch them when they’re away from the settlement? I understand getting inside their gated area might be difficult, but he has to take the nymph out or she’ll die.” Then Graham wondered if the nymph was already dead. Maybe the blood brat had drained her. That was really hard to do with a wood nymph because their blood regenerated rapidly. Still, if he wasn’t taking her out enough, it would weaken her. He could be sharing her with other blood brats, too. They were little more than animals. “Have they been spotted at all?”

  “Yes,” The man standing before him responded. This time he’d showered before coming to Graham. Even clean, the man had a dirty look to him. His dark hair was cut unevenly, and his face was unshaven. His clothes were the typical handmade styles most wore, probably the same ones he’d worn before showering, if the smell was any indication. At least, he was clean enough that Graham didn’t feel like throwing up this time.

  Graham tapped his fingers on the table, waiting for more than a one word answer. He finally let out a deep sigh. He was surrounded by idiots most days. “Details?” he prodded.

  “She’s been out to the wooded area closest to the vampire settlement twice. The blood brat named Connor is always with her. We haven’t gotten close enough to hear them, but the turned vampires who saw him before confirmed it was him.”

  “Why aren’t you getting closer?” Graham asked, making no attempt to keep the annoyance from his voice.

  “They’re always surrounded by heavily armed vampires and a wolf,” the man explained.

  Great, he was back to the wolf nonsense.

  Graham was going to assign someone else to this team; someone more aggressive. “I’m sending more vampires out. There should be no excuse for failing to catch her the next time she’s in the woods. I still don’t see why you didn’t just attack when you saw them. So what if the guards were armed? You had the element of surprise on your side.”

  The man shifted uncomfortably. “There have been some attacks on vehicles on the roads. They’ve made the blood brats more cautious.”

  Graham cursed under his breath. “I assume these attacks occurred because you thought the nymph was in one of the vehicles?”

  The man shook his head wildly. “The attacks had nothing to do with us. There was an outbreak of the Moon virus in the settlement at the old Oakland Army base. It was pretty bad. I’m not sure if any of the uninfected humans survived. From the number of newly turned vampires we’ve seen, I would guess the people who didn’t turn were torn to pieces.”

  “Damn!” Graham shouted. This was a real tragedy. He could have infected all those people so they could’ve joined his army. What a fucking waste. Even worse, they were probably responsible for the tightened security that was making it harder to get his hands on the wood nymph. He silently cursed his bad luck.

  “I guess the ones who didn’t turn could have gone to another settlement for help,” the idiot mused.

  Graham glared at the idiot, wondering if he was just now realizing this was a possibility. Most humans had sunk to the level of the poor from before the virus, but they were smart enough to know they didn’t want to be around when the newly turned vampires woke up. They weren’t going to sit there for three days waiting for the new vampires to rise. The smart thing would have been to burn the entire settlement down or cut off the heads of the vampires before they rose, but few people had the balls to desecrate the bodies of their loved ones. Most people were sentimental morons.

  Graham must have been caught up in his own musings too long because the idiot was speaking again.

  “Maybe you should send out a hunting team to kill off some of those newly turned vampires before we try to capture the nymph. If things settle down, they should let up on the security, so it’ll be easier to grab her.”

  Graham really was done with this idiot. “So, I should send one of my teams out when they might end up killing my vampires by mistake? I don’t really have time to wait. Go out and bring back the teams we’ve sent out. I’m going to send some newer vampires with you as extra guards. After you bring everyone back, I’ll explain the plan for attacking the blood whore settlement. We should be ready to attack in a week. After that, I want you to bring them all back here and hole up for a couple weeks. The blood brats will clean out the turned vampires after that. They won’t tolerate an attack on their own home.”

  This might be a suicide mission for most of the humans involved. The newly turned vampires from the army base would tear through anything in their path. That was why he decided to leave the idiot in place for now. He’d worry about sending out a less expendable replacement after the blood brats cleaned out the woods.