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

Chapter 20: Good Day for Hunting

It was later that morning that Blade, Max, King, and Abby, newly suited up for war, left Headquarters. It was as they moved towards Dex's Land Cruiser that Blade decided it was time to set down the ground rules of hunting Familiars. Max already knew them, but, like him, she had made the mistake of killing one. He didn't want that again, not with King and Abby. They simply couldn't afford it, not with the new information he had on Drake.

"Time to apply some pressure," he told them seriously. "The weak link in the vampire chain of command has always been their Familiars. Vampires can't go out in the day, so they get humans to do their dirty work for them. Blood-running, safe house maintenance, whatever." It was here that the girls climbed in back of the van while Blade sat in the passenger side and King drove. "We bleed the wanna-be vampires, they'll lead us to the real thing."

As King nodded and started the van, Blade looked back at Max and Abby. Max was loading and cocking her guns with the Sun Dogs. As usual, she was so focused on the task at hand that she didn't notice Blade's eyes on her. Abby was exactly the same way. She had her laptop on her knees, and was in complete focus and concentration as she assembling an MP3 playlist for her iPod. King saw this, and decided to fill the big guy in.

"She's making playlists. She likes to listen to MP3s when she hunts," he explained as both girls continued to ignore them. "It's like her own internal soundtrack, you know? Dark-core, trip hop, whatever kids these days are listening to these days. Me? I'm more of a David Hasselhoff fan, you know?"

"Don't lie, King," Max said from the back. "You know you love Alanis Morissette."

Finished, Abby slipped her earplugs into her ears, turned on her iPod. As her music raced through her ears, King drove off into the city. The group of hunters cruised the city that afternoon. In Max's opinion, Blade, when King wasn't driving, seemed to enjoy Dex's ride a little too much. He was making the Land Cruiser jump curbs and screeching to a stop in front of scuzzy bars. He missed his Charger, and that was obvious to only her. Amidst the various walls covered with graffiti and flyers that they had seen, they could also see the vampire glyphs.

Whenever they would get to a new location, things would start with Blade kicking the front door open. A couple of lowlives would then take notice of the intruders. Blade would move around, opening refrigerators to usually find packs of blood inside. One of the lowlives would then take off running, back past the bathroom, shouldering a door at the rear only to stumble right into Abigail's arms. She would trip him up, swinging him around, and pin an arm behind him. She would then check him and find a glyph. The familiars would always be squealing, struggling to get away while begging not to be hit again or hurt anymore.

It went that way all day in various vampire safe houses. The group must have gone into half a dozen underworld dives that included a pool hall, an Internet café, and an electronics repair shop.

All were fronts for vampire operations, featuring back rooms with refrigerated blood and high-tech coffin-like beds where the vampires could safely sleep through the day, unmolested and under the somewhat comforting protection of their Familiars. In each new location, Blade, Max, King, and Abby resorted to old-fashioned strong-arm tactics: head butting, punching, kicking, and death threats. If things went as far as having to smash their heads against walls, car hoods, pool tables, into windows, and garbage cans then that's what they would do.

The bullying moves came faster, until they finally had a hit.

Blade tossed a skinny familiar, Hoop, off a four-story roof. He was screaming, but jerked to a sudden stop about twenty feet down, dangling upside down. Hoop had a rope tied around one of his ankles, courtesy of Blade, who was clutching the other end of the rope. He hauled Hoop back up, but still kept him dangling upside down. On either side of the Daywalker, Max, King, and Abby looked on.

"Eventually, you know your head's gonna pop off," Blade informed Hoop annoyingly. They had dropped the Familiar about four or five times.

"FUCK! Oh, Jesus, please, please –"

"Who's your handler?" Blade questioned furiously.

"I don't know my fucking handler, I swear I –"

Having had enough, Blade looked over at Max before preparing to drop Hoop again. She looked just as annoyed as he did. Just as Hoop was about to fall, a cell phone suddenly rang out. Blade looked over at Abby, who shrugged. His eyes turned to Max, but she shook her head. He should've guessed that, and turned to King. It had to be him, but he just shook his head and shrugged, looking back over the edge. There was only one person left: Hoop.

"Oh, it's you!" Blade commented over the ledge with mock sweetness. "I'll take that. Let's go, come on. Give it here," he ordered, and Hoop started to fish through his pockets. "Come on, come on! Hurry up! Hand it over!"

As soon as the phone was in Blade's hands, he read the caller ID and saw that Edgar Vance, number 555-5631 was calling. Dr. Vance was the psychiatrist who gave Blade the mental evaluation at the police station. He was a familiar as well. This only angered Blade even more as he answered the phone and heard the good doctor's voice.

"Hello. Hello? Hello? This is Dr. Vance, you paged me?"

"It's for you," he called down to Hoop, who looked up in confusion as Blade started to pass the phone down to him. "Yeah, go ahead." When Hoop held the phone to his ear, Blade let dropped him. The Familiar lunged four stories, screaming his head off until he landed dead center in a Goodwill box below. Before Hoop even hit the ground, the foursome was already walking away towards the Land Cruiser.

"You know, one of these days, you might want to consider sitting down with someone. You know, have a little share time? Kick back, get in touch with your inner child, that sort of thing? Also, jut a thought, you just might want to consider blinking once in a while," King told Blade, who stopped walking and slowly turned to look at him. Abby and Max did the same thing, although Max was more amused by the situation. "I'm sorry. I, uh, I had a lot of sugar today."

"Don't apologize, babe. He's always like that. Besides, I like you on sugar," she told him, kissing him sweetly on his lips.

"Hmm, now that is the kind of sugar I like," he mused, a smile playing on his lips. "Can I get more if I'm a good boy?"

"And if you're a bad boy, too," she replied, walking off faster. Max looked over her shoulder at King, who smirked before chasing after her playfully.

"They always like that?" Blade asked, watching Max and King poke and kiss one another playfully as they walked towards the van, King's arms wrapped around his girlfriend's waist.

"Yeah, pretty much," she replied with a smile. "You get used to it after awhile," she assure him.

"He's changed her," he stated seriously.

"What do you mean?" she asked confusedly, looking over at him.

"She's gone soft," he clarified solemnly, shaking his head as he started walking again.

P.S.: Three pages total.