Dog Fights

Chapter 23; Service Exchange

"Ezra! I'm so glad I'm hearing from you. I assume this means you have an answer to my proposal?"

Ezra hums, leaning his elbows on the desk of his new dorm room. Gabe had decided to take him into his already small room, trading his single wireframe bed for a bunk bed so the vampire had somewhere to sleep. He hasn't really used it yet, but rather spent his free time sitting at Gabe's small desk and wasting time with his thoughts. The werewolf has a lot more to do around the base and city than he does.

"I'll help," Ezra says, "as long as you keep your side of the trade. I want them safe."

"Of course," the man says, "it wouldn't be a trade if I didn't. So, I'll need you by eight tomorrow night. We'll set rolls and routes, then begin the transfer at midnight. I doubt anything eventful will happen, but I've assembled a good few people, including you, as back up just in case. No one in their right mind will come after us if they know what's good for them."

"Who are we transferring?" Ezra asks into the phone, carful not to press the shattered screen into his cheek. Calling on the phone was the last way he expected to get in contact with another gang, but the other male must have had a way to keep the line private. He didn't question.

"Both a who, and what," the man says, making Ezra furrow his eyebrows. "This, person, if anyone still calls him that, was a drug dealer until we caught him. Forget marijuana, cocaine, heroine, any of that weak shit. This son of a bitch was busted with a few pints of flare."

"Vampire blood," Ezra says quietly, making a face. "How did he get so much of it?"

"We suspect he buys the reject vampires from traffickers and conductors," he explains, "or the problems and the rebels. He probably sedates them before caging them up, draining them of their blood, before killing them off and leaving the owner with a wad of cash and the body.

"On top of that," he continues, "those were just the containers we found in his car. We don't know where his full stash is. We do plan on hunting it down though, taking the cash, and dropping him and his belongings off at our other base point. We would just dump him at the police station, but he paid them off before it got public the last time he was captured. Those fancy uniforms don't make them fair people. That's why groups like ours exist."

Ezra sits in silence, running the explanation through his head a hundred times over. "So you just want me to act as another guard to make sure you don't get attacked during the transfer between bases?"

"Yup," he confirms, "that's all you have to do."

"And for that you'll protect my claim and his family?" Ezra asks. He still doesn't like calling Leon his claim, but it had started to grow acceptable again with those around him using it in a more positive tone. Back in the rings, claims didn't last much longer than the fighters did.

"They'll have protection over the house, but I can't send people to follow their family around the city. I'm sure you understand that."

"It was expected," Ezra agrees.

"Good," the man says, a sense of approval in his voice, "but with that, you also must know that this can't last forever. If we are to do this you have to try and fix the problem."

Ezra hesitates. "Fix the problem?"

"We will assist you, but you have to address the threat," he says, quieter than before. "You have a month to kill your conductor."

Ezra doesn't respond. He had expected the day would come where he would have to take care of Orgon, but neglected thinking about it. The idea had begun to scare him, and he rather stepped away from the idea instead of building on it.