A week ago, a vampire found herself momentarily stuck in a coffin. The vampire tried again to push the lid off. It didn’t budge.

In the coffin’s darkness, the iris of her eyes glowed hot red. She balled her right hand into a fist and, despite the lack of space in the coffin, she thrust forward. She went through the splintered wood she had already created and hit something metallic again. Whatever was on top of the coffin she was in, she felt it move a little.

With a snarl that was tugging at the corners of her lips, she thrust one more time, but this time angled her fist to the right. She felt the metallic object lift up and away, crashing down onto the floor. Yellow light spilled through the coffin from an overhanging chandelier.

Her hand, now outside of the coffin, searched for the latch. She felt the familiar smooth grooves of hardwood that had been waxed so thoroughly that it became waterproof. After a few moments, she found something—a mix of metal and wood in the shape of a topless mermaid. This was the latch she remembered on the coffin before she stowed herself away in it to cross the Atlantic ocean.

She had only time to hold and twist the latch when she heard a door opening. With no time to think further, she retracted her arm and kicked instead. The coffin door flew away backward, slammed into the wall before crashing down.

“You’re lucky the music is so loud,” said someone from the door.

The vampire emerged from the coffin like she had been asleep in there for centuries, her wavy long white hair falling past her shoulders and her icy skin framed her still glowing red eyes as she locked onto the speaker standing by a slightly opened door. Multi colored light with shades of red, purple and yellow peaked out from behind the door in an array of overlaid triangles. In the air was a stream of muffled bass pounding music which told her that the dance floor was not far.

“I am a friendly,” assured the speaker. “Zea, I presume?”

Zea’s eyes changed to her normal light blue eyes. She nodded at the speaker but kept her sight on him. The speaker was a black-haired man, clean shaven, wearing a black hooded sweater and drop-crotch pants. He closed the door behind him before making a slight forward bow, though making sure to avoid eye contact.

“I’m Peter Gilbert. Your contact and point for you in London,” he said.

“Yes, I know that,” she said curtly. She looked down and saw a metal safe with a good dent at the side. “You were told to put me in a secure place not trap me.”

“You are. This is the nightclub, Eternity, where most non council members like to party.” He looked at the safe with a bit of wonder. His kind was strong but to make a dent into what looked like six inches of steel while trapped in a confined space such as a coffin was certainly impressive. Would this be the result of being re-blooded by Elizabeth? He had heard rumors that the rebel vampire ran the blood of a very powerful and ancient vampire. “Sorry about that. I had not expected the humans to put your equipment in a safe and on top of your coffin, but you didn’t seem to have a problem. Must be her blood,” he chuckled nervously.

Zea glared. “No, we don’t do that. We train,” she clarified.

“Oh,” said Peter quietly. He nodded. “Right. Training. Elizabeth says our value and strength is not the blood we run.”

Zea got out of the coffin. “Where is the EC informant?” she asked.

Peter's lips twitched nervously. “EC?”

“What we call the vampire council here.” Zea did not tone down the displeasure in her voice.

“Right, the European Council. Sorry. I wasn’t inducted that long and I am still getting use to this,” stuttered Peter.

“The informant?” demanded Zea.

Peter gulped. “The informant is here--”

“Here where? I was expecting them to be standing where you’re at," snapped Zea. She had no patience. She wanted to be done with the assignment and be back in the states as soon as she can. She went to the safe and yanked out the front like she was plucking out a tissue from a kleenex box.

“She wants to meet in the main,” his voice trailed off as she watched Zea retrieved her weapons and gear from the safe. He watched her strap a geometric black sword onto her back. “Um, you aren’t planning on shooting up this place?” he asked.

Zea loaded a tactical shotgun. “If it requires to,” she said. She finished putting on her equipment by strapping on some throwing knives and hand-grenades to the inner sides of her long leather coat and belt, respectively.

Peter eyed warily at the now fully armed Zea. He had heard that Elizabeth’s agents were as much decked out with anti-vampire weapons as the hunters. He hunched a little as he made the mistake of leveling his eyes with Zea’s.

Zea nostrils flared. Peter didn’t have any weapons. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Were you planning on visiting our EC informant unarmed?” she observed.

“Well—,” started Peter.

“Here!” barked Zea. She removed the shotgun she had over her shoulder and tossed it to Peter, who caught it. “I didn’t put the safety on. If some shit EC runs at you, pull the trigger. You don’t even have to aim accurately. Just in their direction, but be careful of the blowback. It will hurt you just as much as it will with them.”

Peter gulped and nodded. He understood the implication that the shotgun’s bullets were not regular ones, and he was sure they were probably filled with holy water or something far worse. He swung the shotgun over his shoulder.

“Take me to the informant,” said Zea.

Peter nodded.

He led Zea out of the room they were in and into a dark hallway that glowed in a shuffling colors of purple, red and yellow. The bass of the music thrummed throughout the walls and floors of the hallway. As they walked down on it, the bass of the music started to climb into their bodies to the point that even their bones felt it.

“The informant is also a servant of Prince Drake,” said Peter offhandedly. He sneaked a peak at Zea to see her reaction. She had none. “You have heard of Drake?”

“The Brat Prince. Yes,” said Zea. They arrived at another door. The sound behind it was reverberating with far more intensity than what they felt so far. “You do plan on taking us somewhere where we can hear each other?”

“Of course,” said Peter before opening the door.

When they took a step in through the door, bodies on the dancefloor were cloaked in darkness, despite the dazzling colored lights. The bodies were too busy dancing to the rhythm of the heavy bass music that they did not notice the two armed figures among them.

Peter hoped Zea would be able to follow him as he weaved in and around chunks of bodies towards the other side of the dancefloor. At one point he didn’t even feel her presence, but when he looked back, he was surprised that she was there ever so intensely. He made no effort to ask her if she was alright. It would have been stupid. Plus, there was the music.

Peter and Zea arrived at the other side of the dance floor the moment the floor sunk to a lower level. Before them was an enclave of booths. The booths were purple plush, tall backs and all facing away from the dancefloor.

Noticeably, the music faded into the background.

“This area is built to have the sound move away. For conversation.” Peter cleared his throat. “To better answer your previous question.”

“Your first answer was sufficient,” said Zea monotonously. She had sensed two beings were behind them. However, she didn’t relay this to Peter. The man was already skittish with just her alone.

“Of course. I apologize,” said Peter as he pulled on his collar.

Two shadows swooped around them as they made their way to one of the booths. Glowing eyes watched them when they approached a particular booth with a young curly haired brunette haired woman. She had bulging eyes that seemed too big for her head.

“Guns, Peter? Really? Do you not trust me?” said the young woman.

Peter was about to answer, but Zea beat him to it. “All of your people are armed. How could we not?” she said.

The young woman tilted her head amusingly to Zea and said, “Ah, the agent of Elizabeth. Zea.”

“And you are?” said Zea as she crossed her arms.

The vampire pursed her lips. “Nova Sinclair of House Drake.” She waved a hand and two armed men in black suits dissipated out of the shadows that had passed by Zea and Peter moments ago. They stood on either side of the pair with guns in their hands. “One can’t be too carefree in such a time. A few months ago, an ordained wiped out House Decour. Those filthy hunters.”

Peter cleared his throat. “Um, Lady Sinclair, you wished to discuss something with us?”

Nova kept her eye on Zea as she addressed Peter’s question. “Yes, of course. Please take a seat,” she said.

Only Peter sat down on the other side of the booth. Zea just stood in place as well as the black suited vampires.

“Truly.” Nova jutted her chin at Zea. “I much prefer you sit as you are my guest.”

“No, I’m good,” said Zea.

“She’s a charming one,” smiled Nova.

“Elizabeth’s best, as I was told,” said Peter. His eyes nervously looked back and forth between Nova and Zea.

“Well, I would much prefer if Elizabeth was here personally but I guess it can’t be helped to be the Council’s number four on their hit list.”

“Only four?” scoffed Zea.

“And she has a humor!” chuckled Nova. She leaned back and smiled in such a way to show her fangs. “On the list of things concerning the Vampire Council: Number one are the Witches; Two Hunters; Werewolves a distant three; and your master is number four.”

“Fourth out of four?” said Zea.

“I know that’s disappointing. Tell her to make the explosions bigger,” laughed Nova.

Zea expression remained neutral.

“And her humor continues,” smiled Nova. She then leaned forward and clasped her hands together. “Now, shall we go into what I wanted to discuss?”

Zea nodded.

“The Council had gotten information that one of Abaris scrolls is to be auctioned at the Barclay’s bank on Sutton soon,” said Nova.

Peter lifted an eyebrow, but before he could speak, Zea cut in again.

“So what?” said Zea.

Nova shook her head. “I don’t think I would risk my life just to tell an agent of Elizabeth about old rolled up parchment. Now may I explain?” she said.

Zea flared her nostrils. “Continue.”

“Abaris was an Apollonian priest in ancient Greece. He was renowned for his knowledge and medicine. However, what it is not often spoken about, was that he was an occultist with an obsession with immortality,” explained Nova. “Apparently, he came upon one of the pages of the Sisters of Dawn’s grimoire.”

“So was what in the Sisters of Dawn’s grimoire gave him the immortality that he wanted?” asked Peter.

“That’s not the point.” Zea said through gritted teeth.

Peter sucked into his shoulders.

Nova empathetically smiled at Peter. “Perhaps he did, but the Council is very much interested in the scroll for other reasons. They hope that this is an authentic piece from the Sisters of Dawn’s grimoire,” she said.

“What is in the scroll?” asked Zea.

Nova wagged a finger. “We are on the same wavelength, Agent Zea. Unfortunately, I don’t know, but I do know it must be something big. Big enough to catch Prince Drake’s attention as well.” Her voice dropped even lower. “All I know is that he intends to use it against the Council.”

“So why not the EC just take out Drake?” said Zea.

“Because he's still their prince,” snapped Nova. “I was hoping that Elizabeth would take the scroll instead.”

“Destruction of the EC is one of our goals. So no,” said Zea.

“Not if it killed all the vampires in the world?” sneered Nova.

“I thought you said you didn’t know,” said Zea.

“I lied," said Nova.

In two quick flashes, the two black-suited men’s heads were on the floor. Zea now stood with her geometric sword, stained with their blood, in the hand of her outstretched arm. Without turning, she spoke at Peter. “Get up.”

Peter shot up and pulled his shotgun forward. Faces and fangs emerged. A chorus of growling can be heard over the backdrop of the music.

Nova licked her lips. “You’re surrounded,” she growled.

Zea grinned. “And that’s a bad thing?” She pulled out a grenade from her coat with her free hand and tossed it into the air.

Nova’s and Peter’s eyes went wide.