Chapter 21 : BAIT AND SWITCH — PART 1
Bozeman spread across the valley like a stain.
I'd arrived at sunset, driving a rental car that couldn't be traced to the coalition. The warehouse Catherine had identified sat on the industrial edge of town—a three-story brick building that had been a textile factory fifty years ago. Now it housed something considerably more dangerous than looms.
[LOCATION SCAN: WAREHOUSE DISTRICT] [VAMPIRE SIGNATURES: 8 CONFIRMED] [ACTIVITY PATTERN: NOCTURNAL, CONCENTRATED IN BASEMENT LEVELS] [HUMAN CASUALTIES (ESTIMATED): 5-7 IN PAST 30 DAYS] [THREAT LEVEL: HIGH FOR CIVILIAN POPULATION]
Eight vampires. Young, stupid, reckless. Catherine had called them too violent to join her organization. Watching them through binoculars from a rooftop three blocks away, I understood why.
The nest operated without discipline. Vampires came and went openly, barely bothering to conceal their unnatural speed. Two of them returned around midnight with a victim between them—a young woman, still alive but barely conscious. They dragged her into the warehouse without checking for witnesses.
Sloppy. Arrogant. Exactly what I need.
The next phase required delicacy.
Creating an evidence trail was an art form. Too obvious, and even Gordon would smell a trap. Too subtle, and he might not find it in time. I needed breadcrumbs that would lead a skilled hunter to this nest while appearing to be accidents—oversights by careless predators rather than deliberate plants.
I started with the bodies.
The nest had been dumping their kills in a drainage ditch three miles outside town. Four corpses so far, badly concealed, already attracting animal attention. I moved one body closer to a hiking trail—not directly on it, but visible from the path if you knew where to look. A hiker would find it within days. Police would investigate. And police investigations inevitably attracted hunter attention.
Next: the wallet.
One of the victims had been a transient whose disappearance hadn't been reported. I found his wallet in the nest's dump site—overlooked, probably dropped during the disposal. I planted it in a public parking lot near the warehouse, positioned where it would be found and turned in. The address on his ID would lead to his last known location. From there, a competent investigator could trace his movements to this neighborhood.
Finally: the scent trails.
Vampires left distinct traces that hunters had learned to identify. I harvested trace evidence from the warehouse perimeter—hair, fabric fibers, biological material—and distributed it along a route that connected the dump site to the building. Any hunter who found the bodies and followed the evidence would end up here.
[REDIRECT PROTOCOL: 67% COMPLETE] [ESTIMATED DISCOVERY TIME: 72-96 HOURS] [GORDON WALKER ESTIMATED ARRIVAL: 48-72 HOURS] [TIMING: OPTIMAL IF NO COMPLICATIONS]
I was repositioning the third marker when the complication found me.
The vampire came out of nowhere—young, fast, and suspicious. He'd been circling the perimeter while I worked, probably on some crude form of security patrol. Our paths crossed at the worst possible moment.
"Who the hell are you?"
Human glamour was still active. He was seeing Sebastian Morrow's face—businessman, investor, nothing supernatural. But he was also seeing someone poking around his nest's territory at 3 AM.
"Lost," I said, projecting confusion. "Looking for highway access."
"In an industrial district. At three in the morning." The vampire moved closer. His fangs were showing—either poor control or deliberate intimidation. "Try again."
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: HOSTILE CONTACT] [OPTIONS: NEUTRALIZE (HIGH RISK) / ESCAPE (MODERATE RISK) / DECEPTION (LOW SUCCESS PROBABILITY)]
I bolted.
The vampire was fast, but I knew Bozeman's layout from aerial reconnaissance. I ducked into an alley, vaulted a fence, and shifted the moment I was out of his line of sight. Hawk form carried me up and away while the vampire searched the ground-level shadows.
He'd seen my face. My glamour face, but still—a loose end.
[SECURITY CONCERN: WITNESS TO SURVEILLANCE] [IDENTITY COMPROMISED: SEBASTIAN MORROW (GLAMOUR)] [RECOMMENDATION: ELIMINATE WITNESS OR ACCELERATE TIMELINE]
I perched on a water tower half a mile away, watching the vampire abandon his search. He headed back toward the warehouse, probably to report the intrusion to his nest-mates.
The good news: they didn't know what I was. The glamour had held. To them, I was just some human who'd been snooping around.
The bad news: they now knew someone was watching. If they investigated too aggressively—if they traced the evidence trail before Gordon arrived—the redirect would fail.
I need Gordon to move faster.
Anonymous tips were risky. Hunters distrusted information from unknown sources, especially information that felt too convenient. But there were ways to package intelligence that made it seem organic. Hunter message boards. Information brokers who traded in supernatural leads. Networks that Gordon already used.
The System had unlocked Hunter Intel Network for a reason. Time to use it.
I found an internet café that stayed open until 4 AM. Paid cash. Used a terminal in the back corner where the security cameras couldn't capture my screen. The login credentials I needed had been part of the System's data dump—access to hunter communication channels that most monsters didn't know existed.
The message I crafted was simple: Unusual vampire activity in Bozeman. Multiple homeless disappearances. Police investigating. Someone should look at this.
Posted to a forum that Gordon's contacts were known to monitor. No name attached. No identifying information. Just a concerned citizen pointing out a potential problem.
[ANONYMOUS TIP: DEPLOYED] [ESTIMATED REACH: GORDON'S NETWORK WITHIN 24 HOURS] [TIMELINE ACCELERATION: MODERATE PROBABILITY]
Back at the water tower, I resumed surveillance.
The warehouse had gone quiet. The vampire who'd spotted me had apparently decided not to pursue. Maybe he'd convinced himself I was just a lost traveler. Maybe he was too stupid to recognize a threat.
Either way, the breadcrumbs were planted. Gordon would get the message. The nest would continue leaving bodies. And within a week, eight careless vampires would become ash and bone while the coalition remained hidden.
It should have felt like victory. Strategic problem solved. Hunter threat redirected. Coalition protected.
Instead, I watched the warehouse and thought about the woman they'd dragged inside. Still alive, probably. Not for long.
This is what leadership requires.
The justification came automatically now. Those vampires were killers. They preyed on innocents. Gordon would have found them eventually regardless. I was just accelerating a timeline that benefited everyone—except the eight monsters who would die screaming when a hunter kicked down their door.
My old self would have been troubled by that math. The person I'd been before transmigration—before Marcus Webb's body, before the System, before two years of learning to survive in a world that ate the unprepared.
That person was dead.
The monster who remained watched the warehouse until dawn, then drove back to the coalition with blood on his conscience that no longer seemed to weigh anything at all.
Jenny met me at the territory boundary. The bond had been carrying my mood for hours—she knew something had shifted.
"How did it go?"
"Redirect is in place. Gordon should find them within the week."
"And the complication I felt?"
"Handled." I walked past her toward the Haven. "One of the nest vampires saw my glamour face. It won't matter once Gordon eliminates them."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure they'll be dead." I stopped. Turned. Met her eyes. "The rest is probability. We work with what we have."
She studied me for a long moment. The bond carried concern, questions she wasn't asking, support she offered without words.
"You did what had to be done," she said finally.
"That's what I keep telling myself."
I continued toward the Haven. Behind me, Jenny watched the sunrise paint the mountains gold.
Somewhere in Bozeman, eight vampires were waking up to their final nights.
And somewhere on a highway heading west, Gordon Walker was getting a message that would change everything.
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