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People are getting escorted out of their rooms as the police do their best to keep them from looking at the massacre that happened in the hallway.

From here, I can see blood splattered up the walls just past a screen to keep people from looking at the bodies.

It doesn’t help that it appears like a lot of the fighting happened right outside of their rooms. There are three bodies out in the hall.

One that is currently being examined is missing their head and another seems to have had their heart torn out of their chest.

We put our protective gear on so we don’t disturb the crime scene before Brooks leads us into the bedroom where two more lie dead.

The bed is rumpled, and the sheets are thrown to the foot of the bed, like someone tried to flee out of it and toward the window. There’s a large pool of blood on the floor and fingerprints smeared across the ground, as though someone was trying to crawl away.

“This is blood splatter from a gun,” Marcus says as he notes the splatter on the wall.

“Oh shit, do you think someone shot Mads with that special ammunition?” I ask. “Is he even old enough to live through that?”

Alexei steps closer to get a better look. “He appeared young to me, but it can often be hard to tell. Marcus?”

“I do think he’s younger, but I couldn’t quite tell how young. He seemed fine walking around in the daylight and carried no protective gear with him.”

“I noticed that too,” Claude says. “I don’t know that he’s super old, but his ability to walk freely in the daylight tells me he’s older than we think…

but to survive one of those bullets… I’m not quite certain he’s that old.

He’d have to be a true vampire to live through that, and I sure didn’t get that impression from him. ”

“But if he didn’t survive, where is the body? Why would they take his body?” I ask.

“I… could be totally wrong, but I’m under the impression that Mads didn’t kill these people,” Marcus says as he waves to the bodies. “They died quickly and with a practiced hand. This level of finesse…” He trails off and I’m not sure why until I see members from the council standing in the doorway.

“You know who did this?” Leona asks.

“No, I haven’t removed any of their masks, but it appears as though their target was Mads. We will remove them once we’ve documented everything,” Marcus says. “You all are staying in the same hotel?”

“We are,” Ha-joon replies. “But I’m ten floors up. I didn’t hear a thing until I heard the sirens.”

“What floors are the rest of you on?” Marcus asks.

“Seventh floor for me,” Leona says.

“Callum?” I ask.

He grimaces. “I was only one floor up… I apologize that I didn’t hear anything or react sooner.

I… struggle to sleep in hotels with all of the noise so I keep headphones on with music playing.

Why would someone attack Mads? I mean… yes, he’s a part of the council, but he’s new and has very little pull.

Was he involved in something I wasn’t aware of? ”

“We will hopefully know more shortly,” I say as Marcus looks at the others, likely wanting to know if they heard anything.

“I didn’t hear anything,” a woman with a Kenyan accent says.

“You think Mads did all of this?” Leona asks. “I didn’t take him for a fighter.”

“We will know more shortly,” Marcus says, voice stern as he repeats what I said.

Brooks tries to usher them away, but a man whose name I don’t know shakes his head. “If someone is killing off people from the council, we should know. We have risked our lives to come here, and apparently one of us is already dead. Did this Ender guy do this?”

“Ender works alone,” I say.

Marcus is getting irritated from having to deal with them. “Get out and let us do our jobs.”

“How do we know you’re not hiding something?” he asks. “I don’t know you. I just know that someone from the council is now dead and that one of us could be next.”

I decide that I really need to do something about this before Marcus gets pissed. “What was your name?”

“Afonso.”

“Afonso, I really understand your concern, but at this point, we need to make sure none of the evidence gets disturbed. So please, give us some time and we will inform all of you what we’ve found.”

Quite a few of them aren’t pleased with this, but they do allow Brooks to escort them out, leaving us to the crime scene.

“Before they interrupted, you were going to say that the only person who fights this well against this many people is Ender, weren’t you?” I ask.

“It does line up with what he’s done in the past,” Alexei says. “But why would he protect Mads?”

“I can’t imagine that he would protect anyone but Rylee and maybe Finn,” Claude muses. “Everyone wants to protect Finn.”

“You… don’t think it was Ender they shot… do you?” I ask. “I know vampires can heal, but whoever lost this blood lost a lot of it.” I stare at the spot on the floor before looking up at the blood splatter. “I guess they could have gotten shot and then bled quite a bit here.”

“Why, though?” Marcus asks. “If you’ve shot someone, they’re going to die. Why would you bother attacking them?”

“Let me call Orin. Just… see if Ender is there or not,” I say.

I step back and call, but it takes a few rings before Orin answers. “A bit early to be hearing from you,” he comments.

“Is Ender there?”

“He is not. He stepped out, oh… an hour or so ago… why?”

“We have reason to believe he was at our current crime scene.”

Orin grows quiet.

“Orin?”

“Should I refuse to let him back in? Did he do something wrong?”

“I don’t think… he was the one doing the crime,” I admit.

“We’re considering the possibility that maybe Mads was the target of a group of vampires and Ender stepped in to protect him?

That sure doesn’t sound right. Maybe he just stepped in for the hell of it.

Or maybe the vampires who attacked Mads are the ones he’s been looking for.

I honestly don’t know. Hopefully we’ll know more shortly. ”

“You don’t know where Mads or Ender are now?” Orin asks.

“No… we’re afraid one of them got shot.”

“You mean with that ammunition.”

“Yes. We’re not quite sure whether either could live through it. Maybe Ender could? He’s certainly different in some way… unusually strong and fast. But if Mads was… I have a hard time believing he’d live through it.”

“I’ll let you know the moment I hear from Ender. He hasn’t been leaving Rylee for long. I would hope he’s here soon.”

“Thank you,” I say. But I know that he’ll only be there soon if nothing has happened to him.