Strategy
Owen and Lucy observed a live feed from their offices in Langley. Navy Seals were picking through the rubble in Volterra. Owen was not impressed.
"They don't seem that tough," he noted. "Not as tough as Marcus claimed, anyway."
"We caught them by surprise in an enclosed space," Lucy said. "We had inside help. We can't expect such favorable circumstances in the future. And if what Marcus said is true, we have no hope of surprising the Olympia coven."
"Granted." Owen paused to consider his partner, wondering, as always, if this would be the day she decided to eat him. "What do you think, killing so many of your kind?"
Lucy folded her arms. "You call me undead," she accused, "but there is blood in my veins. They are the monsters. Creatures of stone. I despise them."
"Hm," Owen murmured. "I wonder if the feeling is mutual." He stood from his desk and approached a digital projection of the world, possible locations of vampires highlighted in red. "The discovery of a new class is disturbing," he said. "I think of myself as an outside-the-box thinker. But Marcus blindsided me."
"Maybe I really will live forever," Lucy gloated.
Owen frowned. He had promised not to kill Lucy until she was the last vampire on earth. That essentially meant never, of course, for how could he ever be certain that she was the only one left? But if there were covens of another class scattered across the planet, then there was no way to imagine an end to the mission. The worst of it was that if there were two types, why not three? Ten? A hundred? How could he possibly hunt them all?
"Their powers seem excessive," Owen noted. "Not even vampires, really. More like superheroes on a restricted diet."
"They're not alive," Lucy protested, the disgust in her voice obvious.
"Are you? Their powers are excessive," Owen persisted. "It's more than they need to hunt their prey. What is the purpose of such strength? It has to be for fighting each other. Perhaps their only significant predator is other vampires. Maybe that's why they don't overwhelm the food supply: they're too busy killing each other. The question then," Owen mused, "is how to hunt them without becoming one myself."
"We need to capture one," Lucy said.
"Obviously." But how? Assuming the intel from Marcus was accurate, only a combat robot armed with laser weaponry could defeat the speed and agility of this bizarre class of stone vampires. Those machines were at least ten years from prototype, however. Owen had no intention of waiting that long.
"There's only one option, really," Owen concluded. "We have to get one to join us voluntarily."