The vampire is hardier than it looks, and Ryoga's first shot doesn't kill it immediately.
It continues to rampage, despite the bloody hole in its forehead and the remains of its brain dripping out of the back of its skull. He scowls; the really feral ones are always annoying.
Shooting it more isn't going to do anything. He grabs his lance and goes in for the kill.
It's not much of a fight once the vampire is blind, and missing an arm. Ryoga does the requisite cut through the spine, then decapitates it. The squad moves in with accelerant, and they pile up the ghouls and the fledglings. Then they stand around waiting while the bodies burn.
He taps his earpiece twice to dial Rio.
"We're done."
"Get back here," she snaps. She doesn't insult him by asking if he's hurt. "He's unbearable when you're gone."
"We found a chip!" One of the squad - Fernwood, Ryoga recalls, new but eager - holds up the bloody bit of circuitry. Over the phone, Rio swears angrily.
"See if you can find something," she says before she hangs up.
Ryoga looks around the dilapidated house, the crumbling roof and rotting floor and peeling paint, everything splattered with gore. The blood on his uniform isn't even dry, and he's already got more work to do. He digs around in his belt for the bug detector.
"Start sweeping. Alpha team in basement, Gamma on the second floor. Radio in if you find anything."
"What are we looking for, boss?"
The truth is, he has no idea what they're looking for. He's picked through too many places like this, searching for some meaning behind the outbreak of freaks pouring into the country. So far, they've turned up nothing.
But he can't tell them he thinks the task is hopeless.
"Anything that looks suspicious."
"Like what?"
"Use your fucking brain," Ryoga snaps.
That satisfies everyone, and the squad splits into two and gets to work. That leaves Ryoga alone, on the ground floor, with the box full of ashes marked for disposal and the battle-wrecked furniture. He wipes down the sharp end of the lance.
His search turns up no bugs, no electronics, no safes or papers. There are some clothes in the dresser that might have belonged to the fledglings; they're the right size for two little boys. Ryoga dutifully goes through all the pockets. There's one photograph wedged under a loose floorboard, of a happy family.
Ryoga touches the fang around his neck. It's steel, coated in silver, the point dangerously sharp. It's a weapon of last resort.
His parents gave it to him, back when they were alive and training him to hunt monsters. Probably there were moments in his childhood when he looked like these two tiny smiling children. He can't remember any.
He tucks the photograph into his pocket.
There's nothing else of interest in the room. They'll have to run facial recognition on the footage from their body cams and hope they can identify the vampire and its victims. Maybe that will turn up a clue, although so far all the targets have been homeless people and difficult foster children. People who were expected to vanish. People who no one would report if they went missing or ran away.
"Nothing downstairs, boss," The leader of Alpha squad, Akari, tells him. A strand of her hair is poking out of her helmet. It's soaked in blood. "Looks like the fledglings were sleeping down there. There's a box…"
She trails off. She has kids, maybe, Ryoga thinks.
"We found something upstairs." Gamma squad is led by Mizael, Ryoga's second. He's carrying an experimental anti-vampire taser; Ryoga considers mocking him for it. He knows Mizael only gets to do the weapons testing because he's basically living out of Durbe's quarters. But he doesn't.
Ryoga isn't always an asshole.
"What is it?"
One of Mizael's men holds out a bundle, which Mizael accepts gingerly in exchange for a laptop he's got under his arm. A bloody blanket, with long green hair poking out of the top of it. A blanket that is moving.
"She was in the closet upstairs."
"Mizael -"
"She hasn't fed yet."
"Christ."
The blanket falls a little. She's a tiny thing, with big wide eyes that glow eerily in the dark. There's blood on her dress, on her neck, on her arms, but around her mouth. She's got tiny little fangs.
She's sniffling, but she says nothing. Ryoga can imagine her terror, though, and he realizes that he's thinking of her as "she". Not "it".
She's cute. She looks sort of like Rio used to. Fuck.
"Move out," he says.
"Boss -"
"Mizael, get her into the basement, she'll fall asleep when the sun comes up. I'll handle the rest of it. Uh...hey. Kid."
She looks directly at him.
"Yeah, you. What's your name?"
Her response is so soft he can't make it out. Ryoga leans it, and does his best to be reassuring, or as reassuring as someone wearing gore-spattered body armor can be.
"Come on, kid, speak up."
"Iris," she whispers. "Where's my mom and dad?"
They're dead. He knows they're dead. But she looks sad enough, and they can't risk a fledgling vampire losing it here, and Ryoga hates making little kids cry, no matter what the soldiers say behind his back.
"I'll...I'll find out for you." He pats her head. Her eyes are huge and liquid and hopeful. "We're gonna take you to a safe place, okay?"
"Okay," she says, and she pulls the blanket over her head. Mizael cradles her against his chest. He's not great with kids, either, but Ryoga trusts him not to hurt her just because she's a vampire.
"Move out," he says again, and this time everyone does.
He shoulders his lance. Someone grabs the ashes. He doesn't look back; the sound of boots clomping tells him they're all following.
He stands by while they get into the vans, though. Ryoga never gets in until he's counted them all, until he's sure he's bringing everyone back alive.
Rio is in the barracks when they unload; she dismisses everyone, even Mizael when he tries to give his report. She's obviously just come from a meeting; she's still in her suit and heels, tiny sapphires glinting in each ear. She looks furious.
Ryoga goes straight to her; somewhere behind him, Mizael ducks back into the van to smuggle Iris away. He'll tell Rio, soon. Later.
"He flooded the basement. Again."
Ryoga laughs.
Rio punches him.
"What?"
"Next time, just take him with you."
"I didn't need him!"
"Yes, but if you leave for longer than a week, he gets bored." Rio rips out her hair tie so hard it snaps. Hair falls into her eyes as she falls into step beside him. She is as tall as he was now; her growth was stunted while she was in the coma. She used to be shorter.
But she has no scars. No marks. No lingering injuries. If her coma hadn't been so traumatic for him, Ryoga could even forget it happened.
"He listens to you."
"But he likes you." Rio stops to key in the passcode to get into her office. The door slides shut automatically behind them as they enter.
It's a stark, bare room: desk, chair, huge, pin-studded map on the far wall. They go over to it together. Ryoga picks up a pin and stabs into the vampire nest he spent all evening destroying.
There are pins everywhere on the map. Red for single vampires. Green for ghouls. Yellow if there were fledglings. Black if all three were present. White if there was more than one vampire.
"You found a computer?"
"Mizael said he found it hidden upstairs."
"We'll see what Durbe finds, then."
He needs to give her his report. What is he going to say, though? He found another artificial vampire that had no idea what it was doing? A house of ghouls probably made from squatters trying to get out of the cold? Two little kids turned into vampires and executed for nothing?
He brought home a little vampire girl, and now he's attached to her?
He's given her twenty reports just like this one (mostly like this one). She can read Mizael's report when he files it.
"...were there children?"
He freezes.
"I can tell from your expression."
He pulls out the picture of the dead boys and hands it to her.
She holds it up to the light. It's faded, worn, creased where it's been folded. The boys in it look like they're the same age. Maybe they're twins.
"Poor things," Rio whispers. "They never even knew what happened to them. They died for nothing."
"They cried." Ryoga's voice sounds like it's coming from far away. "Before I shot them."
She puts the picture under the map, pins it with a white pin. She puts her hand on his arm.
"...you should go downstairs. Pacify Shark Drake."
"Yeah."
She hugs him. Ryoga almost flinches as she squeezes him; Rio isn't usually this touchy. He must look terrible.
"And while you're down there, you can find out the name of the fledgling you and Mizael brought home."
Ryoga chokes.
"What, you thought I didn't know? Idiot. Go."
"...Iris."
"What?"
"Her name is Iris."
Rio sighs. She looks pinched and tired, but she smiles at him. "At least you didn't bring home any cats."
He takes that for what it is - forgiveness - and steps out of the office. He'll come back later, after everyone else is asleep, to bully Rio into bed.
Right now, he should go tell Shark Drake to knock it off.