Harlow cut him off. “Are you sure he killed himself? It could have been an inside job.”
Tony shook his head. “Not according to the camera footage. But, as I was saying, we found out they don’t kill them outright. They…put them through what they call a purification process that eventually leads to their death. According to the priest, what they do ensures that the vampire’s soul will go to heaven.”
Harlow growled. “What a load of crap. The fuckers are torturing people to death and patting themselves on the back about it. So where are they?”
“We don’t have a location for where they are doing these purifications. Not to mention, there is probably more than one location, as this is happening all over the country.”
“So, then what is the fucking plan, Tony? Because my plan of burning down all the churches is sounding pretty relevant at the moment.”
Tony rolled his eyes and picked up a long rolled up piece of paper off the floor. Spreading it out, it turned out to be a map of the USA. There were ten large X marks, tons of smaller ones, and a whole shit ton of lines connecting them.
Harlow drew closer, and finally pulled out a chair to sit, eyeing the map.
“Based on the calls we have found coming in and out, the large X’s, we believe, are points of major operations for the group. They are all monasteries. On the day you sent that priest to jail, we found multiple calls to all the monasteries from this location.” He pointed to one of the large X’s. It was near the hospital they’d been at. “While we don’t know what was said, Father Donovan did go missing soon after the bulk of the calls. Father Donovan was found dead, by the way.”
Harlow snorted. “Good.”
“That brings us to the plan.” Tony pointed towards a large X that looked to be in their area. “This is the Hand of Peace Monastery. It’s about an hour from us. The priest that killed himself, along with a few others we know are involved, have not only been in and out of our local hospital, but are connected to this place. After a few deaths around the country, the other Guild Directors and I came to the conclusion that we would risk tipping them off if we kept going after individuals. The plan now is to attack each of these ten locations at once.”
“When do we go in then?”
“In a few hours. It’s why I told you to come in. We are in the midst of coordinating the operation. And before you ask why we aren’t already prepared, the raid originally wasn’t supposed to take place until after Christmas. But an unusual spike in activity at a few locations, along with an increased number of disappearances reported over the last week, forced us to move up our timetable.”
Harlow attempted to try to staunch his annoyance that they weren’t moving now. “Who knows about all this? Because that priest didn’t just walk out of that police station.”
Tony grimaced. “The only people aware are the Guild Directors, a few high up individuals in the government, and the hunters and witches involved in the investigation. We moved to exclude all local police departments in the investigation, when it became clear that the organization had likely been infested.”
“Then explain the leaks here?”
His boss gritted his teeth. “There are none that we know of. Everyone has been thoroughly vetted.” He held his hand up. “I know someone leaked something involving your latest case. But if they knew what we were doing, do you think they would be busy setting a trap for one lone vampire?”
Harlow glared, and was about to say something snarky when his phone went off. He just smiled as Tony began to glare when he answered.
“Harlow speaking.”
“It’s Santiago. Sorry to say, we lost track of Foxx’s scent quickly, but we already knew we would, considering vampires don’t tend to leave much of a scent trail to begin with. At least, not to us. Most directions didn’t pan out, but with one, while the scent faded some distance away, it was a few miles away from a monastery. And we picked up the scent again as we neared it, along with quite a few of the others. Dead and alive. There seemed to be a lot of activity going on for it being so early in the morning. So we didn’t approach.”
“Was it the Hand of Peace Monastery?”
Tony stiffened.
“Yes.”
Harlow grinned viciously. “Perfect. We are about to attack that one. Come to the Houndside Hazard Hunters Guild. When the time comes, you can help us decide who to torture.”
“Harlow,” Tony snapped, eyes wide.
The werewolf chuckled on the other line. “It’ll be our pleasure, until then.” He hung up.
“You did not just tell some rando over the phone that we are about to attack a monastery.”
He calmly set his phone down on the desk. “Relax, it was just the pack leader of the werewolves near West Gally. He owes Foxx and I a favor. I had him try to track down the scents from the ambush scene. They lost Foxx’s scent. But they followed one until it disappeared a few miles away from the monastery.”
Tony glared. “You are involving outsiders in our cases, Harlow.”
“I don’t give a fuck. They will be able to tell who was involved in taking Foxx, and that is all I care about. And I trust them a hell of a lot more than anyone here right now.”
The man sighed. “None of us betrayed you, Harlow. Someone in the police station did, as they were the only ones who investigated the case you were sent on tonight.”
