Disclaimer: I don't own Blade or any of its characters. I do Max, Xavier, Rev, and Cam, so no stealing!

Chapter 17: Clash of the Hunters

The Land Cruiser rocketed away, disappearing into the night. Dex expertly, and safely, moved them across the abandoned lot towards the weed-choked ruins of Luna Park, the old amusement park. Blade looked out as they passed by the skeletal remains of a roller coaster, a tilt-a-whirl, and the vandalized and wood-rotted remnants of a carousel. Finally, the Land Cruiser turned towards a motorized loading door in the side of a large warehouse and disappears inside.

Inside the warehouse, as the door grinds closed, the Land Cruiser pulled to a steady stop. Max, King, and Abby led Blade through the darkness, each one not looking at him or saying a word. In the gloom, Blade could clearly see half a dozen vehicles in various stages of being retrofitted with armored panels and weaponry. Not to mention the surveillance cameras that were mounted above to track the progress, and anyone who entered the chop shop.

"I thought the vampires killed Whistler's family," Blade stated, deciding to open the conversation with the question that had been burning in his mind since that hallway at the police station: Who the hell is this girl?

"They did," she replied, turning back to look at him. "I was born later out of wedlock. After the murders happened, he kept me hidden. He wanted me safe, away from all of this," she explained, gesturing around the headquarters. "But I guess hunting just runs in our blood."

As King, Abby, and Max led the Daywalker towards a stairway, Blade caught sight of five-year old Zoë, peering down at him from atop one of the rafters. As soon as he spotted her though, she ducked away into the safety of the shadows. The quartet soon reached the stairway, and the automated guns mounted on swivel arms locked on them with infrared targeting beams.

"When I came of age," she continued, "I tracked my Dad down; told him I wanted in. Been doing it ever since," she finished, shrugging as if it weren't a big deal. But, to Abby and anyone else that knew her in the Nightstalkers, it wasn't.

Blade simply nodded and followed them to enter a sprawling industrial facility that was equal as part mechanics shop, firing range, and laboratory. That was just what Max had seen when she first arrived, and she knew that this was just one level of the headquarters. She looked back at Blade and caught him eyeing the virtual arsenal of new weaponry and medical equipment, including Sommerfield's DNA sequencers, microphages, and electrophoreses. The new equipment was fighting for space alongside the old.

"Welcome to the Honeycomb Hideout," King told Blade and, while he was joking, he didn't even crack a smile. He was too tired right now.

"How do you bankroll this operation?" Blade asked as he looked around, semi-impressed with what he was seeing.

"I date a lot of older men. Internet porn. See, we're using cock suckers to pay for the blood-suckers," King replied, and Blade stopped walking to look at him in annoyance. "Come on, man! I'm joking! This isn't some piddly little hoopty-ass operation, Blade. We take our jobs very seriously," he said off of Blade's look and they began walking again.

Somehow, Blade found that hard to believe.

Up ahead, Hedges and Sommerfield paused in their work as King and Max approached and Dex fell in behind them. As the two technical geniuses of the Nightstalkers saw that Blade was with them, one paled and the other simply smiled. Blade looked them over and concluded that Hedges was the engineer of the group, probably always lost in his own world, like Cam had been. The frail looking woman he knew right away was blind due to her glasses and the computers with the Braille keyboard behind her. The computers, in fact, as Max learned later on in the beginning of her work with the Nightstalkers, actually operated via a voice-synthesis program. It helped her to realize that he

"You met Dex. This is Hedges and Sommerfield," Max introduced, gesturing to them in turn. Blade saw that they were all refugees in one way or another, sharing a common guardedness, their lives having been shattered by the vampires in some way. He understood then why Max was working with them behind his back. She identified with them.

"The runt you saw earlier is Sommerfield's daughter, Zoë," King added, nodding behind Blade, where he turned ever so slightly to see the girl in the shadows. "We call ourselves the Nightstalkers."

"Sounds like rejects from a Saturday morning cartoon," Blade replied, and Max lowered her head with a shake, disappointed. But, then again, what the hell had she been expecting? Hell, she'd said the same thing!

"Well, we were gonna call ourselves the Care Bears, but that was taken," King retorted calmly, crossing his arms as Abby walked past. She was ridding herself of her weapons – bow, arrows, silver stakes, and knives – and handed her compound bow to Hedges.

"Tiller needs adjustment," she told him.

"I'll run it through the bow press," he replied with a nod, and walked away to do just that. As he did so, Hedges was trying very hard to ignore Blade's examination of some of the equipment he'd been developing with Sommerfield.

"How many of you are there?" he asked.

"Enough," King replied. "We operate in sleeper cells. When one goes down, a new cell activates to pick up the slack."

"Consider us your reinforcements," Dex told him with a proud smile, arms crossed as he stood lazily next to Hedges.

"Sorry, never been much of a team player."

"Ain't that the truth," Max muttered, but Blade heard her and sent a look her way. She backed off, arms raised in defense.

"I don't think you understand, Blade," Sommerfield told him seriously. "Whistler meant for us to help you. When he died, he activated an emergency protocol. All his knowledge," she explained, gesturing to the computer equipment around her, "was transferred to our servers here."

"What, you amateurs are supposed to be helping me? You? Look at you. You're kids. You're not ready to roll with this! I mean, look at the way you dress," he added, pointing to the nametag on King's combat vest. "What is that? "Fuck You"? That's supposed to be tactical? What the fuck is wrong with y'all? You think this is a fucking joke? You think this is a fucking sitcom?"

"Okay, first off, that's just rude. Second, I'm pretty sure we saved your ass back there," King told him patiently.

"You saved me?" Blade questioned him before wrapping his hands around his throat and pretending to be choked, just like King had been at the station when he saved him. "Hmm, I'm impressed."

"Look, Blade," Abby began, "my father meant for us to help you. Like it or not, we are all you got."

"What the hell makes you think you know anything about killing vampires?" he asked, looking to Max for a concrete answer. Max just turned away from Blade and looked at King as he stood straighter. She knew what was coming.

"Well, for starters," he said, pulling the rim down lower on his hipbone to show his glyph. "I used to be one." Blade looked over at Max, but she just looked at the floor from her place beside King. "Do I pass the audition?" he asked in a mocking, sinister tone, his eyes never leaving Blade's.

"Rookies," was all Blade said.

P.S.: Three pages total.