|
It is midnight in the City of Angels and the night crew at the docks are preparing for a late arrival.
As the freighter approaches the dock workers realize that it is not slowing down. They panic and run as the freighter
slams into the docks.
The morning finds Dana at the city morgue, called there by Patrick's former partner, Frank Brigham.
Before heading out of town Patrick had left Dana's number with Frank with instructions to call her if he came across
anything unusual. In this case Frank's decision to call Dana was the correct one; as she takes a look at the bodies of
the freighter crew one thing becomes obvious, they were all drained of their blood. Frank tells Dana that the ship left
the Philippines two weeks earlier, bound for Los Angeles, and that for the time being the authorities are blaming
pirates despite the fact that the ship's cargo was untouched.
Back at the house Dana briefs the others. Frank is later able to fax over the coroner's reports on the
dead crew and Ethan and Dana come to believe there were at least four vampires aboard, and that they steadily fed on the
crew to sustain themselves for the trip over, not killing them until the ship reached LA. Later that night Jalen sneaks
past the police cordon and examines the ship. He finds the vampires' nest where they kept the crew imprisoned for
feeding and evidence that confirms Ethan and Dana's estimation on the number of vampires involved. The only question
is why would these vampires take such a risk to get to Los Angeles.
While Jalen goes patrolling hoping to find a trace of the vampires, Ethan hits the street looking for
information. While Jalen finds nothing, Ethan learns that homeless people have been disappearing over the last week or
so, since before the ship from the Philippines arrived. With Patrick not around to hit the demon bars for information
Dana and Lauren decide to do it themselves. Ordering a pair of chocolate martinis the girls strike up a conversation
with a trio of demons, though only two of the three seem to have anything useful to say (the third's vocabulary seems to
be limited to the sentence "I like sports."). The two demons tell the girls they don't know anything about any
new vampires in town. In fact, they can't recall having seen any vampires at all around for the last week or two. Dana and
Lauren leave but the two demons begin following them. They call Jalen for help but by the time he arrives the girls have
already taken care of the demons, with Lauren having telekinetically tossed a large dumpster on top of the lecherous duo.
The next day Ethan checks in with Anne Steele at the teen shelter to see if she knows anything about the
disappearances. Anne tells Ethan that she has seen a drop in the number of runaways at the shelter and is worried something
bad is happening. Back at the house the group decides to try and find out what has been happening to the homeless people and
runaways and Jalen prepares to go out as bait.
Later that night a young woman is cutting through a dark alley when two strangers appear. The strangers
immediately attack and reveal that they are vampires. Just then a third man appears, clad in a dark trench coat. The man takes
a stake and dusts the two vampires. He introduces himself as Alexander and the woman thanks him, asking him if he knows what
her attackers were. Alexander simply responds, "They were weak." before revealing that he too is a vampire and
begins feeding on the screaming woman.
|
