"Husband, Brides Celia, and Candace have been captured by the program." A feminine voice said as a man of middle height and stocky build, gazed out the window of a large building.
"Good. Our son cannot have his profain wenches running through the America's." The man said as he turned to his wife of hundreds of years.
"Jusztina, it pains me to have to wage war on our boy as it must pain you, but we cannot allow him to do these things. With this system in place our Vojvode would be hard pressed to remain hidden in spite of the hundreds of years of training in stealth." The man said hanging his head with a pained sigh.
Jusztina stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her seemingly weary husband.
"Vlad, we will get through this as we have everything else throughout the centuries. What if we reach out to the guild or even the leader of the program and offer assistance. It may be better for us to approach them, rather than a vojvode be captured and they learn of us themselves." She said looking at the man who was the true Dracula.
"You give wise council my love. I shall think on it and render a decision quickly. Who knows what information they will get from Mihnea's servants." Vlad said turning to sit down at the desk of one of his subordinate companies penthouse offices.
- Fury - 3 days later -
Todd paced back and forth trying to reason through the information he had recieved from the interagators and also from Kassie Ekart. It didn't make any sense.
"Vampires. What type of nerd shit is this?" He said to himself in his office.
There was a knock at the door and then it opened. "Grandmaster, the gentleman who reached out to us with information pertaining to the women and thralls we have been dealing with is here with his wife." The attendant said.
"Send em in." He said as he moved to the table and sofas in his office.
The door opened and two well dressed figures walked in. The woman was just over five feet tall and her seeming husband was around five and a half feet. She wore a black and purple dress and the man wore a suit and carried himself in a very powerful gait that didn't escape Todd. The man was extremely dangerous as he could also feel the aether and something more pour off the man.
"Welcome. Please have a seat, can I get you both anything? I keep whiskey in the office here as I do coffee. We can have water or tea brought in." Todd said motioning to the sofas.
"No thank you, it is appreciated Sir." The woman said.
The man smiled. "I always have enjoyed the alcohol created by the colonies and now the USA."
Todd paused a moment as his mind was catching up to what the man had said. Then went to his desk for a different bottle and a couple of glasses.
He grabbed them and headed over to his guests and had a seat.
"Well, this is one is my favorite. It's homemade moonshine my brother makes for the family." Todd said pouring a couple glasses.
"It's sipping whiskey. Before the system, it would put people down pretty quick, it still does but a little slower." He said with a laugh as he pushed the glass to the man.
"It is appreciated. It's been an age since I have had homemade moonshine. I have a few jugs of moonshine from the prohibition of your country." The man said causing Todd to raise his eyebrows.
"Well with that, I am Todd Robinson, grandmaster of the Bounty Hunter Program or the Program as most call it." He said.
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"I am Vlad Tepes. This is my wife Jusztina. You might know of me from my nicknames. Dracula or Vlad the Impaler." He said setting his glass down.
Todd's eyes went even higher.
"You're serious? That's going to take some explaining as this presents two questions one, being rather unpleasant." Todd said taking a larger sip from his glass.
"Yes, we wanted to reach out to you first as it would lead to the best potential outcome. If you found out about us by yourself, it would be on less friendly terms." Vlad said.
Todd ran his hand down his face over his beard in thought and agreed.
"I'm going to ask straight away and bluntly. Are you responsible for the attacks?" Todd said coldly.
"No. That would be our son, Mihnea. History knows him as Mihnea the Bad as he was very cruel and brutal. History would later know him as Jack the Ripper. There is an organization behind the scenes that I once worked with and will probably see me dead for saying this to you, but they released my son from his prison and let him loose in the USA for reasons unknown to us." Vlad explained.
Todd relaxed, digesting the information.
"We captured a couple females who refused to talk, but we got the information anyway, they call themselves "Brides."
Vlad nodded along.
"Yes they are concubines of my son, my wife and I kileld the others before his capture in 1888." He said.
Brides were from a book Bram Stoker wrote a called "Dracula." It wasn't based off me, but my son who had met with the man and mesmerized him to write. He was furious when the world called it fiction and silly even gruesome. Stoker worked on that book for years after I brought my son down and imprisoned him for the Numbered the organization calls themselves. He began murdering ladies of the night and not women like my wife who is a vampiress. I mean the other definition." Vlad said with a chuckle.
"Yeah I got that." Todd said thoroughly interested at this point before he asked a question of his own.
"How can you help us stop these thrall and your kid?"
Vlad set the now empty glass down on the table nodding to Todd in appreciation and thanks. Jusztina spoke this time.
"We offer the help of the vojvode. It's our equivalent of your hunters. They are a force that used to enforce the laws within our now long passed kingdom of Wallachia. When we dealt with the Ottoman empire these secret police watched for us and then in the night would slaughter any ottomans they could find."
"Where are these forces now?" Todd asked.
"Romania. In our traditional home. We keep them in secret locations throughout the country. Most of which are beneath the Poenari castle ruins." She replied.
"Not Transylvania?" Todd asked.
Vlad chuckled.
"No, that was a convenient fiction from Stoker that we just didn't correct. Transylvania is a region in the now Romania. Bran is the castle often associated with Dracula. You were a pre-system combat veteran Grandmaster, so I'm sure you can appreciate the use of deception to protect one's resources and troops." He said.
Todd nodded not breaking eye contact.
"The numbered? What more can you tell me?"
Vlad and Jusztina looked at eachother nervously.
"Not much honestly. They only refer to one another by numbers, I've only spoken with number 3 a single time for personnel removal as that is her job. For those of us that know of this group, the rumor is that these people have been around since the flood." Vlad explained
"Like...Noah great flood?" Todd asked.
"Thats the one. These people have done their best to obscure their existence by destroying libraries and archives that contain information on them. It is believed they orchestrated the burning of the library in Alexandria. They failed a couple times, but eventually succeeded." He replied.
"We are talking people pretty much from the Bible." Todd said with a shocked look.
"Yes. You will find most of the things in history people don't want to believe, are accurate. Like dragons. There are very powerful ones that are system empowered and then the non empowered ones, everyone now calls dinosaurs. What it comes down to is a matter of perspective. Such as the case with my destroyed reputation thanks to my son."
Todd slowly got to his feet and began to pace.
"Is this shadow organization the one the conspiracy theories always talk about?"
"Oh yes. They control it all. Number 2 is said to control all the world's currency and the organizations that control it. Number 3, I know controls the black markets and the underground. Number 1 controls almost everything. Nobody knows anything about whoever that is, but it's suggested that they are beyond ancient." Vlad said.
"I appreciate this information, I need to do some information checking and verify a few things. I cannot just accept things at face value as I'm sure you can understand." Todd said.
"Of course Grandmaster, we would expect no less. Here is my contact information and my location should you wish for more information or have made your decision. We will keep the vojvode in location until we have your consent."
Vlad and his wife rose from the sofa. "We appreciate your hospitality and look forward to working along side you to sort out this mess. We wish you health."
Todd showed them out and closed the door. He refilled his glass, but this time to the brim and drained it.
"What type of nerd shit is this?!"