near the buildings outside of the alley. They pulled out their weapons and used the thermal scopes to scan the area for ambushers and prowlers. Two more riders drove into the alley past the burning vehicle and looters. They watched for movement like their counterparts near the alley's entrance. The last two riders parked near their fallen comrades. One of them examined the bodies of the dead officers. Duvall had been beaten to death. Green was dead, pinned to a telephone pole. When the officer saw the puncture wounds in Flanagan's throat, he shook his head. He took a digital photo of Flanagan's badge and the holes in his neck, and then incinerated his body. The other rider threw a halon gas bomb in the van to smother the fire. When he inspected the flattened tires, he found the spike balls and collected them. He held one of them in front of the camera mounted in the front of his bike so headquarters could have a look.

A video stream of the steel ball with the needle sharp points spun around on the large monitor in the conference room. The image on the screen changed to Hanson Whitley. Not only did he finance the Vampire Annihilation Methods Project, but he was also the only person that Eric and Victor Steiger had to answer to. Hanson saw the anguish and anger on Eric's face.

"That expression doesn't look good. Let's take a second to review. We've got the aura generators in place. You're locating vampires all over the city, the teams have killed several of them on test runs this afternoon and the raids

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