Paint cans were launched at the barrier of riot police who were hitting their batons menacingly against their shields. Baby blue paint showered over the riot police and the angry crowd roared in celebration. A senior police officer cowered in his car speaking loudly down the radio for back up. The mob he said had appeared from nowhere at sunset and started a full scale protest right outside the docks. Angry punks filled the outside of Portsmouth docks vandalizing and graffiting cars, shop fronts and houses. I stood on the roof top looking down at the chaos. Skull had driven us here in a beat up old van with an entourage of vampire punks and humans. He had dropped us off nearby and we had snuck into the docks.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Keira said proudly.

“Is it?” I asked.

“I thought a little bit of anarchy would provide a useful distraction.”

“How do you know these people?” I asked in disbelief.

“The Renegades as we call them and they like to be known as- are the only vampires in the world that live their lives outside a coven. Squatting in abandoned pubs they come and go as they please. Skull is their leader and we have history together.”

“What sort of history?” I asked.

Keira turned abruptly away avoiding the question, “Come on, the boat is docked over there.” She said jumping over the roof ledge and disappearing from view.

 “Sheldon has hacked the CCTV systems and unlocked the main door. We have thirty seconds before that guard comes back.”

I nodded.

“Okay, over the roof, hit the ground and run.” Keira said.

I took a breath in and jumped. We hit the ground and felt my ankle breaking. Keira rebounded up like a cat while I limped along a few strides until the bone in my foot had mended. We sped across towards the ship, in the distance the sound of rioting filled the air. I swore at one point I heard Skull voice screaming across the grounds. Keira was agile and graceful to the point of ninja-isque, she jumped onto the gang plank- which was more like a stair case and climbed to the top, while I sort of clambered on and plodded up the stairs. The deck of the ship was clear so we went straight to the main doors and opened them without any problem. It was hard to believe that so much had happened since I had last walked out from these doors. I found myself staring towards the bow of ship reminiscing about Michael. I remembered how he sat outside with me in the frozen cold and rain so I didn’t feel sick. My heart warmed at the thought which was ironic given the nature of the circumstances.

We descended through the darkened decks into the bowels of the ship. Keria slowed her pace and lifted her fingers to her lips. I stilled. For the second time this evening I could hear the high pitch squeals of a woman in pleasure. Both Keira and I exchanged puzzled looks. This wasn’t right. Last time I was on the ship there were no women and I had a feeling there was a no hooker government policy on the boat. I closed my eyes and tried to think… Michael had taken me down here once before, he had taken me to see a man. The image of a fat balding man watching two chicks making out on his laptop came flooded back to me. Shit- Graham the weird balding pervert who happened to be the guardian of the sacred folders. He was sat watching porn on his laptop in the room that I needed to be in. Great how were we going to get him out?

I looked at Keira and whispered, “Can you distract the guy in there?”

Keira rolled her eyes and indicated for me to hide in the shadows and mouthed, “You’ve got two minutes.”

Keira then went up to the cabin door and banged loudly on the door. I froze. There was shuffling and a loud groan, “Bob, this better be good!” Graham yelled.

Keira took off her banaclava and unzipped the front of her black jumpsuit. Graham opened the door and his jaw hit the ground. Keira smiled,

“Bob sent me to show you a good time.” She smiled wrapping her arms around Graham.

“Are you the birthday present he was talking about?” Graham spluttered. He couldn’t believe his luck as Keira nodded and kissed him. I tried to suppress a wretch and watched Keira in horror as she dragged him away from the door and indicated for me to slip into the room. Carefully I tip toed behind Graham in to the file room.

The room was as I remembered it with one major draw back- the files had gone. I spun round the room lifted up the mattress and peered into all the cupboard. There was absolutely nothing. I wanted to scream out in frustration back the best I could do was kick a waste paper bin over. Miserable I slumped onto the chair and stared at the paused image of two girls kissing. Shit- I had risked so much for nothing.  The bastard Slayers had relocated the files. Why had they done that? The computer suddenly made a soft ping noise, curiously I shrunk the porn and saw an IM alert.

‘Hey big G, message from Paddy. Michael has been assigned to Operation 286, can you send the details through to Barry?’

Operation 286?

Curiously I opened find a document dialogue box and typed in ‘Operation 286’. A single notepad doc appeared. Opening it I read:

“OPERATION 286-

LOCATION- BATTERSEA POWERSTATION

TIME- THURSDAY 2100

DETAIL- ASSASINATION

TARGET- MICAH ROBERTS”

I almost screamed. Michael was going to kill my Micah, this Thursday! I closed the programme and returned the laptop back to normal. Slipping out the room I saw Graham slumped against Keira bleeding from the neck.

“We need to go.” I snapped.

Keira dropped Graham like a ragdoll, “What did you find?”

“They’ve taken the files but I found out where Micah is going to be this Thursday evening and who is going to be killing him.”