Mr. Bartlett looked down at Mr. Tentin lying in the back seat of the limo.  He shut the door, silencing the moans of the injured man. “Mr. Scott, take him to the hospital.  Make sure he gets the best care.” 

Mr. Scott nodded.  He held his injured shoulder, which was wrapped tightly in bandages, and entered the driver’s side of the car.

Mr. Bartlett turned to the sound of Sam’s voice.  

“I can’t find Agent Flaurence, Andrelle, or Red anywhere. Hopefully they got out safe.  If the vamps got Starr, who know what they’ll do to her?”   

Mr. Bartlett watched as Sam walked from the entrance of the former five star restaurant.  Sam stepped up to Mr. Bartlett’s side, she joined him gazing upon the destruction of the restaurant.  Whatever had been driving the garbage truck was long gone, leaving a gaping hole in the front door.  Trash lay scattered about the ground, along with glass, metal, and wood.  Sam stepped on a newspaper with a story about the man running for president.  Reynolds Tehporp. There were several of the newspapers littered all about the front of the restaurant.

Sam looked back at Bartlett’s face.  “It’s a pity.  Was a nice place too.  I never got my date there either.”  She put her hand on the man’s shoulder.  “Maybe one day we can come back here when we aren’t getting shot at.”  Sam smiled, hoping she could lighten the man’s mood.  It was all she could do really.

He looked into her eyes, “It’s fine.  I can rebuild it anytime.  But, Starr, we must see if she is okay.”  He grabbed his cane and waved to one of the guards still on duty, “Did you find the car in B3?” 

The guard slowly approached Mr. Bartlett, “No, it was gone.  And from the security feed, we saw Joseph enter with the girl and drive off.” 

Sam spoke up, “What about Red and Andrelle?  They should have been with him.” 

The guard turned to the blood stained woman in front of him.  Her brown hair was covered in ash and dirt. “We saw them enter the elevator together, but besides that, we haven’t got a clue what happened to them.  We don’t have any cameras covering the elevator in the garage. Although we watched two more cars leave the garage after Joseph.  Maybe one of the cars was them?” 

Sam turned back to Mr. Bartlett, “So Joseph and Starr are safe, but anything could have happened to Andrelle and Red.”  Sam slumped to the ground, “What do we do now.”  She felt relief when she heard Starr had escaped along with Joseph, but without Red or Andrelle, how safe could one man keep the mysterious girl.

Mr. Bartlett knelt down to Sam’s level.  He could see the distress on her face, along with the exhaustion from the night’s events.  She hadn’t had time to relax since the docks and it was starting to show. “What do we know so far?” 

Sam pushed some hair from her face, “Well, we know that everyone under the sun wants Starr.” 

Mr. Bartlett stood up and looked into the night sky, “And we know that the vampires will do anything to get her.  Horus must be up to something big to start a war with me.” 

Sam stood and joined Mr. Bartlett, “Who is this Horus guy anyway?” 

Mr. Bartlett smiled.  He had got her mind off of her friends.  She was now focused on the mission at hand.  “He is the head of the vampire clan Horus, just one of the ancient vampire clans in Egypt.  They usually keep their heads in Egypt, not straying from their domain, but several of the clans have gotten tired of sitting around forever.  He recently showed up here and set up operations, but I haven’t a clue where he does so.  I didn’t think it’d be important to find out, until now.  With this attack, Horus must be planning something to put vampires back on top again.” 

Sam’s brow furrowed, “Again?  I’ve never heard of the vampires being on top.  I mean, we hunt them down and keep them in the dark, and not just the Institute, but the hundreds of vampire hunters around the world.” 

Mr. Bartlett turned and faced Sam, “That’s true, but it wasn’t always that way, which is why we need to figure out why they need this girl.  Horus is notorious for vampire domination, and if they have some plan, we need to know what they are doing.  Is there anything you aren’t telling me?  Anything about Starr?” 

Sam averted her eyes from Mr. Bartlett’s, “Um, she did do something strange down at the docks.” 

Bartlett’s good eyebrow rose, “What happened.”  Any detail he could use would help them out greatly.

Sam rubbed her arm slightly not knowing whether or not she should tell him, “The mutants down at the dock had us outnumbered, and blocked off our escape.  Starr put her hand out, and a bright light flashed out.  None of us could see what happened until the light faded.  The mutants were charred where they were standing, the unlucky ones were blinded.   None of us were sure what happened, we just got the hell out, and never spoke of it since.”  Sam quickly looked back at Mr. Bartlett.  “We would have told you but we weren’t sure we could trust you.  This whole mission seems botched.  Nothing is right.”

Mr. Bartlett started rubbing his chin, “Strange, very strange.  It confirms my suspicions about there being a mole in the Institute.”  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone, “I have someone who might know something about this.  Don’t worry, we can trust him. In the meantime, I need you to get some rest.  You look like you’ve been through hell.  When you get some sleep, we can focus on getting Joseph and the girl back here safely.” 

Sam reached down and grabbed her large duffle bag, “And what about Andrelle and Red?” 

Mr. Bartlett started to walk through the gaping hole in his restaurant, “I’ll have my men find out where they got to.  They’re adults.  They can take care of themselves.” 

Sam started to walk after Bartlett when something in the sky caught her eye.  She squinted just to see a small flash fly off into the night.  “Hmmm,” she stood for a second on the sidewalk.  She turned back to Bartlett who was already inside, “Hey wait up, B!”

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