Later that afternoon...

CGB Spender hung his coat on the hook and dropped a new packet of Morleys onto the table in the annex of his office. He strode purposefully across the small room and into his office, closing the door with a resounding thump,. He flicked through the stack of memos and letters he had just been handed as he made his way to the large desk in the centre of the room and sat down gratefully in his leather chair, happy to have the weight off his feet. The name "Scanlon" jumped out at him from the stack of papers and he pulled that sheet to the top of the pile and sat with his brow furrowed, reading through it. The death of Dr Scanlon concerned him greatly; not that he felt anything for the man - although the manner of his death was unnecessarily messy. What concerned him was that this had caught him by suprise, and that was unacceptable. Spender was used to being aware of all the ins and outs of the Syndicate's business especially since he had rebuilt it from the ruins of El Rico. Scanlon had immediately made him aware of the note he had received and Spender had set his best men to discovering its source but so far they had drawn a blank; now the others were nervous, causing them to breathe even harder down his neck than usual.

He re-read the description of Scanlon's death once more. Naturally he was aware of the presence of several vampire groups in the DC region, however this would be a bold move from any of them. They were all capable of such an attack of course, however to do so in such an obvious way, and against someone with well-known top level government connections at that, was out of character. The vampire population was secretive and had reached an unspoken agreement with those who knew of their existence, they would keep out of the sight and mind of the public in exchange for being left alone. Why break form now?

There was a chance that this was a random attack, a rogue vampire just out for the kill, it had happened plenty of times before; but something didn't fit with that assessment. Usually such cases were not restricted to an individual, an entire building would often be attacked, the bodyguards in the corridor at least would have been fair game being so close to the kill site. Also the note ruled such a possibility out in his mind, rogues never pre-meditated their kills in that way, they were instinctive.

What then? It might not be a vampire attack at all, but all the clues suggested that it was. The only entry to the room that wasn't covered by the CCTV cameras was the balcony, but at 23 stories up and with no fire escapes that weren't on camera, entry by a human would be nigh on impossible. A new group then, one who didn't know or choose to play by the rules - either that or they had recently decided to stop and try out a new tactic. If that was true then Spender was faced with a dangerous situation. Impervious to blades and bullets, exceptionally strong and fast, you'd be lucky to get close enough to a vampire to try anything before they killed you. Then of course there was the vampire's bite; they could choose to impart a small quantity of venom that would cause their victim indescribable pain, enough to shut down all your senses and prevent any hope of fighting back. Spender suppressed a shudder at the thought, few things scared him these days, but he had heard the tales of the pain caused by vampire venom during an attack and had no wish to discover it for himself.

Spender pulled himself out of his chair and strolled back into the entrance annex of his office in search of the fresh pack of Morley's he had left on the desk there. He was unlikely to reach any important conclusions so close to the day's end, he may as well quit and head home for the night, perhaps some stroke of genius would strike in the morning.

He reached the desk and froze as he spotted the note lying upon it, it had definitely not been there earlier when he had dropped the cigarettes there. Picking it up, he read it carefully, knowing what it would say.

Death is coming