Zero Sum
Downtown Caldwell.
The music throbbed in the pit of the club, humans, and vampires danced with each other in a drug and alcohol-fueled crazed frenzy. The lights dulled the senses of both, turning on those with appetites for sex or trouble. Nights like this were common in this club, run tightly by the aristocratic vampire Rehvenge AKA the Rehverend. The Brothers frequented ZeroSum because Rehvenge stocked all that they needed, the Grey Goose, The Lagavulin, and most importantly – the Red smoke that Phury favored.
The three Brothers watched the night unfold from their booth, it was a weeknight, the crowd fun but not large. Vishous, Butch, and Phury had come in early today, before the usual midnight. Vishous was wound like a cannon waiting to go off, but the other two brothers knew that when it went off, it would be in a precise, calculated direction.
"What gives my man?" Butch asked, usually he could read V like a book. The goateed brother's shoulders were tense and he did not touch the Grey Goose he ordered.
The two of them were tight, and a lot could be said between them without needing words. Ever since V had met Doc Jane and Butch married Marissa, they didn't come here as much as they used to. They also didn't have a reason to come here as often. He knew Phury needed to make the trip on a regular basis to get his favorite Red Smoke and made the trip with Phury knowing what it felt like to need to numb your brain.
"We are waiting for someone," V told the other two, eyes scanning the room continuously. Butch understood that this someone was not someone they met before because if they had a scent, they didn't need to use their eyes to scan the room. "Give us some background. What do we need to know?" He asked V, he used to be a cop in the human world before he joined the Black Dagger Brotherhood as a vampire.
"I found something in my recon work I run on the internet. A Computational Biologist is cracking human DNA codes and predicting evolutionary models with a great accuracy. On the dark web, I found that this research of hers has the power to code the DNAs of all the species if she can get a preliminary sample."
"A scientist? Who researches evolution? What does that have to do with us?" Phury asked. He understood science and tried to keep up to date with the world around them, he was not as tech savvy as V but understood the basics of what the Brother was telling him.
"So, if she gets her hands on one vampire's DNA she can predict all of ours," V told him, eyes still scanning the club.
Phury looked up at him, surely, after centuries of being hidden, one lab scientist could not expose the secrets of their race so easily.
"Then, we wipe her mind, true?" Butch asked, thinking the same as Phury.
"We could, yes, in theory. But, her research is all uploaded to the cloud, she doesn't keep it on her. I tried to hack her systems a couple of days ago and got some of the information, but I need her to decrypt it. So, even if I wiped her mind, she still has her tools to reformulate later. I thought about killing her but then all these pieces of the puzzle are just floating around for someone else to put it together. And we need her to decrypt whatever she already found to destroy it. We need to find her, persuade her to lead me to the research, delete all her work and then wipe her mind."
"Is this all truly worth it? What are the chances that she would be looking for us?" Phury asked.
"She might not be looking but she could find us on accident or worse, someone who is looking for us can find her. I just don't like having loose ends" V replied.
Phury and Butch both understood that the fate of their race depended on the Brotherhood. Now, more than ever, with the Omega trying to find a way to beat Butch or acquire him. There would be no loose ends for the brothers.
So its pretty simple, Phury thought to himself. Find this scientist, get her alone, use her mind to unlock the key to her work, once they get the work, they would destroy it, wipe the human female's mind and this would all be over. He could go back to smoking his red smoke and ignoring his responsibilities of being the Primale for the entire race. That would be perfect.
He scanned the writhing and whirling shapes for a lady who could be the cause of all their problems tonight. His vampire senses honing in and picking up parts of the conversations. It would be much easier if they could just use Rehv's camera's and security team to keep their eye's out for this human, but he knew it was best to keep the Brotherhood's work under wraps to protect the civilian population. His body was itching for action, lately, he was just itching in general. He looked for a middle age female, who might look out of place in the drug and alcohol fueled frenzy that was ZeroSum.
He scanned the club further, peering into the darker corners from his vantage spot in the VIP section. A small redheaded human female walked into the section after flashing an AmEx Black card, she took a table right across theirs, and looked at their phone, she was young and dressed in tight and fashionable club clothes, and soon lost his interest. He kept his eyes on the lookout just like Butch and V. Suddenly V flashed them a look. He whispered keeping his voice low.
"Shit, she is here, at the table across. She looks just like she did in my vision"
Phury was surprised, V had a vision about a human female? What was it and why was this the first time he was hearing about that part? How did she slip past him? A scientist human female should have been easy to spot. Phury looked in the direction that V pointed in out of the corner of his eye.
The female he noticed before was now joined by another female, this new friend was the opposite of the redhead who had been at the table. Long tan legs folded as she sat down, her ass covered by a swatch of shining tight material that wrapped around her curvaceous hips. She was tall for a human female, maybe 5'9" or 5'10", her heels giving her another two or three inches. Her torso was long and lean, Phury's eyes traveled further up, the long waist clad in a black silk shirt that contrasted the tight skirt by being loose ended at the nape of her neck, slim and dainty, the face though that was the killer. The skin was dark, Phury could not place her ethnicity but she had mocha skin, a bow-shaped mouth that was the color of dark red wine pulled into an easy smile, a small button nose gave her a youthful look, but the bottle green eyes were quick and observant. Her thick black hair was up in a bun and pulled back from her face. She wore no jewelry and carried a small purse and a phone.
Phury never truly cared for females. He was a celibate, but for the first time in a long time, he felt the hunger for a female in his body. Only Bella made him feel this way, he thought guiltily as he fidgeted with the glass in front of him. Only Bella, his twin's Shellan, the expecting mother of Zsadist's young was the only one he found attractive. Cormia popped into his mind right after that, the Chosen who would be his first mate, walking the hallways of the Brotherhood's mansion like an ephemeral dream. Both the women who were in his life and on his mind couldn't keep him from looking again at the human across the tables from him with curiosity.
He glanced again, this time eyes straining for more, she was young, in her late twenties maybe? Her body was fit, and her hands, with long delicate fingers, were gripping the table as she leaned forward to talk with her friend. She looked tense, shoulders and back straight and kept her long feet crossed at the ankles of her black strappy boots.
"Are you sure? She doesn't look like what we discussed" Butch asked mirroring Phury's thoughts.
"That's her, Lilah. Went to some of the most leading Ivy League schools, now a doctoral candidate at U Chicago. Famous, elusive, computational biologist. She is on the 30 under 30 list." None of this mattered to Phury but he knew the Cop understood all of these human details.
They got quiet as Lilah opened her mouth again, she kept her voice quiet, using the music to quickly talk with her friend. Phury understood why she had chosen this place, whatever or whoever she was stressed about would not think about her coming to a massive nightclub in Caldwell, even if they were here, they couldn't hear what she was saying over the music. ZeroSum was camouflage.
"Where is Matt?" Lilah asked her other friend, the other girl was attractive too, shocking red hair cut close to her scalp, with big blue eyes and a round face. All of that paled in Lilah's golden glory.
"He is on his way, texted and said it might take a while. You need to relax a little bit." She quickly signaled to the waitress and asked for a round of Kamikaze shots.
"Jesus Jen, what about quick and discreet meant Kamikaze shots to you?" Lilah asked her friend.
"Don't be a buzzkill, Lilah, if everything you told me already is true then this is going to be a shit show and I don't know if I can deal with all of this without some alcohol?" Jen told Lilah laughing.
The brothers could hear every word they were saying, Phury knew that V and the Cop could hear them too. He wondered they meant when they said that this was going to be a shit show.
Lilah groaned and rolled her eyes at her friend.
"Fine, whatever, let's do shots but I need you to listen to this carefully, in case I don't get to meet Matt tonight, I need you to know everything."
They both leaned closer. Phury got the feeling that they knew each other's secrets. What was the human term? Best friends?
"Okay, so three days ago for the first time, my server was hacked, not once but twice, it was a brute force attack, whoever did it knew what they were doing and opened a quick gateway for someone else to get into it as well. Two separate sources stole 40% of the data but it's all encrypted and only Henry can decrypt it. They would need Henry to get to the actual information. I tried to trace back the two parties who stole my stuff, both are here in Caldwell, that is why I came here. I needed to find out more. The first hacker, the one who actually cracked my code, I couldn't get into his system, no matter how much I try I cannot figure who and why but the second one, I could get backdoor entry into that system, it was some freaky organization, looked like it's a private group of some sort. I have a bad feeling that they are linked to my old friend, Kirsch."
"Fuck" was all Jen replied with.
Lilah threw her head back and groaned more, Phury's eyes locked on her long neck, angled back, skin looked so smooth and soft.
"So here is the plan, you and Matt try to learn more about the second hacker, I will email all the details I have, don't approach, don't leave traces, I just need to know one thing, are they linked to Edmond Kirsch? I will try to get into the first hacker's systems. I will also work on securing my server more, I hate that someone got into it in spite of all my security. That is not good for me or Henry."
They both got quiet as the waitress came back with two rounds of shots.
"Compliments of the gentlemen at the bar." she told them. Lilah quickly glanced at the guy the waitress pointed to, he was human as well, the brothers could smell it. He looked like Rhage, all Hollywood handsome and great clothes. His face dropped momentarily when he noticed that Lilah didn't smile or acknowledge him in any way.
"Okay, now that you have spilled your guts, can you please relax? Matt and I got this, you know we do and if it is Ed or his guys, this time we will be careful. They won't know what hit them. Can we please relax and have one fun night before we go AWOL? I know we probably won't see each other again for a while or even hear each other's voices" Jen begged her friend.
"You're right." Lilah sighed, letting her shoulders drop down for the first time. "I am going to disappear for a few weeks until I figure all of this out. We should have fun"
"So, don't look right now but the table across with the three insanely good-looking dudes is def into you," Jen informed her.
Phury felt V and Butch stiffen up next to him. He didn't realize that Jen had noticed them, he was too busy watching Lilah.
"JEN! No guys! I thought you meant dancing."
"Sure! Let's dance! You can dance with a guy!" Jen retorted. This was obviously not the first time they were arguing about this.
V met my eye. "Okay, now that they know we were watching, let's go over there and try to get Lilah alone. It'll be too messy if try to do this with both the humans." Before Butch and Phury could stop him, he slid out of our booth and slowly approached the bar for drinks. Phury understood his MO, V was going to get drinks for everyone, walk over to Lilah's table and make small talk, once she was pliable enough, V or Butch would pretend to go home with her and get her alone. Poor Lilah would never know what hit her.
An irritational anger pang shot up in Phury's head. Argh, did she really deserve this? Her hard work would be lost and V was not going to be gentle with her. Body or mind. He shook his head, trying to shake off the feeling. He shouldn't care about how V deals with her he told himself even as he felt tormented by how her quiet and easy beauty would be subjected to V's cruel and harsh ways. V would be easy on her, after all, she was a female, a human female. Phury tried to comfort himself.
"I think they are headed here! All three of them. Quick pick one" Jen whispered to Lilah.
Lilah refused to look up from her phone, "NONE" she told her friend sternly.
"Okay Lee, I feel like you are not understanding this situation. Three extremely sexy guys are walking towards us, you are going to pick one and you are going to dance with him, if you like him, you can dust the cobwebs around your hoo-ha and take him home because you can forget human contact or comfort for the next two or three months. Now look hard and pick one, Look the tall one has a goatee, imagine how that would tickle" Jen whispered excitedly.
Phury knew females found them attractive, coming to ZeroSum often meant that they were all subjected to listening to females unassumingly say something about the brothers but Jen's words struck Phury oddly. What if Lilah did pick V?
Lilah shook her head, "He has face tattoos, no thanks"
"Fine, the other one looks like a Catalogue Model for Nordstrom. Just the way you like it classy and chill."
"No, he looks too serious and he has a wedding band"
Butch snorted into his drink he just picked up. "I don't look too serious".
The cop did wear a human wedding band, old habits Phury guessed. None of this stopped V from walking over to their table with the brothers in tow.
"Hello Ladies, we brought over some drinks" he announced, drawing his words, obviously laying it on thick. Jen immediately jumped into action. She quickly introduced herself, Lilah, and moved to the center of the table to make space for us.
V introduced himself as just V, and Butch as Brian and then he looked around and his eyes had an odd glow as they landed on Phury.
"Lilah, have you met Phil?" God V! Did I look like a Phil? Phury wondered.
Slowly, Lilah turned her head to look at him as Phury eased onto the bench right next to her. Green eyes locked with his, she tilted her head up as though she was laughing at a private joke in her head, and she smiled at him but didn't offer her hand, unlike her friend.
He knew he was smiling back even though he had no idea why. As he watched her laugh and move with slow and lazy ease, he had an irrational urge to touch her, to trace the skin on the back of her hands, the black silk came down to her wrists. He looked up at her and saw that she was watching him stare at her. Dammnit.
