"Shewioushwy? I can't ewen tawk pwopehwy."

Samantha lasted about two seconds then doubled over in a fit of giggles.

"Wehwy funny," I rolled my eyes as I let my fangs retract. Vampires or not we still looked like humans, and the human mouth and lips weren't designed to function with inch-and-a-half-long razor-sharp fangs sticking out.

It was another half minute before my Dame finished getting all the laughter out of her system.

"Sorry Tara," she grinned. "I couldn't help myself."

It was Sunday evening, October thirty-first. Halloween. And she'd tried to convince me we could go around with our fangs out all night long because people would think we were just in costume.

Our fangs weren't meant for that though, they retracted for a reason. We only needed them to make the initial bite or incision, the rest of the time they were all but hidden. Once retracted they looked only slightly longer than normal. They were definitely sharper, but they only stuck out when we needed them.

With Sam's prank out of the way we both finished getting ready, then set out on patrol together.

She was in her 'trouble' outfit as usual, torn black jeans and denim jacket and another of her tie-dyed t-shirts. And of course her favourite ankle boots were on her feet. I was basically the same lately. I had my shot-up jean jacket on over a little top and blue jeans, and my Doc Martens on my feet.

I kind of felt tough, even if I didn't actually look it. Sam had a point though, that I may as well just get the outfit worn-in. And I didn't want to have to keep buying new clothes every time something got damaged.

Almost two weeks passed since we drank that magic sludge and I was still noticing little changes. First my senses got really sharp. Like vision, hearing, sense of smell, all got a lot better. And as a vamp my senses were already way better than a human. Then earlier this week I began feeling stronger.

Sam noticed it too, and our patrols started to include little tests and stuff, like running, jumping, evaluating our speed and strength and agility and all that.

It was pretty wild. From what she said, we were gaining the power and advantages of an ancient vamp but it was happening in days instead of decades or centuries.

We could even cast auras now, and we learned to control it. That was wild. I could practically make grown men piss themselves with fear just by giving them The Look™. It almost made up for being a five-foot-nothing busty pipsqueak. Sam warned me not to do the aura thing too often though. And especially not with any other vamps around.

It made sense. I could see other vampires being either jealous or nervous if they knew the two black sheep of the family were suddenly turning into super-vamps.

Sam had been on edge ever since she got that mystery letter and the other stuff. She still hadn't told me any details, either of the letter or the two books. I wasn't going to complain though. She shared the money and the magic blood. I had a feeling she was going to share the rest of it with me eventually. I figured she wanted to make sure I had more confidence and training first.

The good news was two weeks had passed without anybody else dying. We had a lot of unanswered questions about Carlos's murder, and Sam was still acting like we were in serious danger most of the time, but there hadn't even been much pressure from Cynthia or Isabelle for the past week or so. It was as if our bosses just wanted to forget about it and move on.

The bad news was me and Sam were still dealing with increased hunger. Sometimes it was difficult to concentrate on things when we were out patrolling. It was hard to watch for trouble when all you could hear was the heartbeat of someone walking alone ahead of you on a dark street, and all you could think about was how much warm wonderful blood they had bottled up inside.

Fortunately we were both able to keep things under control so far, and we were keeping each other in check.

Once me and Sam were out on the street neither of us talked much at first. We walked up Church to Bloor then over to Yonge, then we walked south to King Street. It was a nice walk, the air was crisp and more or less clear. Yonge was busy as usual, it was only half past seven when we set out so it was still pretty early.

We walked east along King and wound up back at St. James' Park again. We'd only covered about four kilometres but it took us close to two hours since we weren't in a hurry, just walking at a relaxed leisurely pace. The park was busy too, there were lots of people hanging around. Some of them were in costume, most weren't.

The two of us snagged a bench near the gazebo and sat down for a little break. My arm slipped around her waist as I leaned against her, while her arm wrapped around my shoulders. We'd been cuddling a lot lately, or just sharing physical contact any chance we had.

I wasn't sure if there was any particular reason why, but it felt good and I definitely wasn't going to complain about it.

"I was thinking about joining a gym or something," Samantha commented. "Like temporarily, so we could test our strength and stuff on their equipment. To get some actual numbers?"

After a moment of thought I nodded, "Yeah that'd be neat. There's lots of twenty-four hour gyms around, so we could go in the middle of the night when it was quiet."

"We'd have to," she replied. "That's the thing that worries me, is other people seeing what we're up to? I mean if you and me were picking up hundred-pound barbells like they were nothing, people would notice that."

"Right," I sighed. "We'd almost need a private gym or something."

Sam was about to say something else when her phone buzzed. She fished it out of her pocket and checked the screen. Her eyes widened for a moment then her expression hardened. She stuffed her phone back into her jacket as she got to her feet.

"We gotta move," she stated. "Try and keep up with me!"

With that she turned and took off running, and she was putting on some unnatural speed.

"Crap!" I said as I leapt up and launched myself after her.

I followed as Sam ran south on Jarvis all the way to the Lake Shore. We followed that east to Parliament Street, then we turned south-east and started jumping over two-meter fences as we cut across a couple parking-lots. We turned south again across the Keating Channel via the Cherry Street bridge, then turned east as we followed the south side of the channel for about a block before we finally stopped.

We'd probably just covered two and a half kilometres in about five minutes. I doubted anyone could have done that quicker by car, especially when you took traffic lights into consideration.

Now that we were here I could smell death and decay in the air, along with the scent of someone undead. I recognized it as Jessica's scent, a moment before she stepped into view.

"You two got here fast," she commented. Then she gestured, "Over here."

We were in behind some sort of industrial building, with the channel to our left and the building to our right. There were some vans and a couple pick-up trucks parked at the back of the building, and some trees and bushes at one end of the lot. An old barge was moored against the side of the channel.

Jess led us closer to the barge and the water, and the smell of death got stronger. That was the downside to our super-senses, gross stuff was amplified as much as nice stuff. Then I spotted the body on the side of the channel next to the barge.

It was a woman but I wasn't sure who, there was no head. The body was already decaying and the clothes were wet, like she'd just been pulled out of the channel. One of those emergency rescue hook things was on the ground nearby, I figured Jessica used it to get the body out of the water.

Samantha sighed as she approached for a closer look. As she crouched down she asked Jess, "You saw the wound I take it?"

"Yeah," Jessica replied quietly. "Same as Carlos, three-bladed broad-head through the chest. I think it missed her heart but it wouldn't have mattered. I saw the silver burns, before the rot set in."

I hung back a few paces. The smell was bad enough, I didn't need a closer look.

"Who was she?" I asked.

Sam replied, "It's Sally. Her patrol borders ours, north side of Bloor."

"Crap," I sighed. I knew who she was, another peacekeeper. She was there two weeks ago when we got the news about Carlos. She wasn't a friend, she was one of the ones who low-key hated Sam and me. Still, it wasn't a good thing.

"How'd you find her?" Samantha asked as she stood up again.

Jessica replied, "I was going east on Queen, and I caught the scents of undeath and decay as I crossed the river. The scent led south, basically along the river. I followed it here."

Sam looked east up the channel, which only stretched about six hundred meters to where it made a ninety-degree turn and became the mouth of the Don River.

"I wonder if they're using the river?" she asked. "Like using it somehow to hunt us up and down the river? Or are they using it to dump the bodies when they're done..."

"Are they using a boat?" I asked. "I don't think I've ever seen boats on the Don."

Jessica shook her head, "It's not a navigable river. Too many low bridges, and I'm sure it's too shallow in places."

"Maybe it's a coincidence," Samantha sighed. "Here's another coincidence. The creek that runs along the very back of the property behind the mansion is a tributary. You can get from the mansion to here by following the river."

Jess frowned, "What's that got to do with this?"

"Nothing," Sam shrugged. "Just sharing some random trivia."

After a few seconds of silence, she glanced at Jessica and asked "Have you called it in?"

Jess shook her head, "I wanted you to see it first."

My Dame rubbed her forehead and sighed, "This is bad, but we have to call it in. And someone's probably going to have to search the river for her head."

I tried not to make dry-heave noises as I moved a few paces away. "That won't be us will it? Please tell me it won't be us."

"No," Sam stated. "We'll be patrolling along the river though. The scent should still be good, we can follow it back to wherever it started."

She looked at Jessica and added, "If you picked it up at Queen and followed it here, the body had to have started north of there. I'm not convinced the body was dumped much further north. It feels like there's not enough current in the river, especially this time of year? Not to move a body very quickly. And from the look of her, Sally hasn't been dead more than an hour or two."

Jess checked the time on her phone, "It was just over a half hour ago when I first picked up the scent? So she had to have died within an hour of then."

I gestured to the water near the barge, "There's trash and stuff just floating there, it's not going anywhere. If she was in the river, she wouldn't have moved very far."

Samantha frowned as she stared at the water, "Tara's right. Sally wasn't dumped upriver and floated down here. Not in the span of an hour or two. She was dumped right here."

"Then how'd I pick up the scent from Queen?" Jessica asked.

Sam turned around and stared at the handful of vehicles parked nearby.

"That one's engine is warm," she said as she started walking towards one of the pick-ups.

Jess frowned, "How can you tell from here?"

I could see it too now that I was looking for it. Sam and I could see body heat in humans, it made sense we could see other sources of heat as well.

Sam ignored the question as she walked over to the vehicle. She looked in the back then reached in and lifted a tarp.

"Found the head."

"Shit," Jessica sighed. "So they had her in the back of a pick-up? They were probably coming south down the highway and I happened to catch the scent as they drove by."

I didn't want to be anywhere near the head or the body, but I didn't like being too far from Samantha. Especially not with what was going on right now. I started slowly walking towards her as she used her elbow to smash the window on the driver's side of the pick-up.

"Now what are you doing?" Jess demanded as she followed me over to see what Samantha was up to. "You should leave all this for Cynthia, or whoever she sends to deal with it."

Sam nodded, "Call it in Jess. Until they get here though, I'm going to try and learn all I can."

The tall redhead sighed but tapped the number on her phone.

I approached my Dame and asked, "What have you found?"

Sam motioned me closer to the pickup as she replied quietly, "The driver was a vampire. I don't recognize the scent, but it's someone from the Family."

My eyes widened and she nodded, "I think we're being hunted by one of our own."

PurpleCatGirl

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