Chapter Six

News Reel: Front page headlines for the 15th of February 2004

"My revenge has just begun! I spread it over centuries and time is on my side."

- Count Dracula, an excerpt from Bram Stoker's Dracula

BRADY CASE GOES TO TRIAL TODAY

Monday, 15^th February 2004, Main City Criminal Courts – Timothy Brady entered court today showing little remorse for his charge. Facing a life sentence in court, Brady was charged with assault and special case murder of 21 year old Samantha Jefferson.

The two had been working together for almost two years, and had been friends for most of that time. On the 28^th of December 2003, Brady allegedly cornered Jefferson after a mutual friend’s gathering and forced himself on her. Unfit to take the stand today, Jefferson’s lawyer Robert Armstrong read out a statement from her that indicated she had trouble remembering the details of the attack as she passed out soon after he had bitten her on the neck. But the medical kit carried out by paramedics who arrived at the scene not long after confirmed that she had been the victim of a vampiric attack.

She was pronounced dead on the scene, but revived within the next 5 hours at hospital. Jefferson is now a patient at Wilkinson’s Psychiatric Hospital and receives regular care from her doctors in order to deal with her changed life. Her family and friends constantly grieve the loss of a once vivacious and fun-loving young woman. “It’s not fair that she’s been put through this, there’s no way she would have wanted this... it’s been so hard on her, and on all of us,” Samantha’s father, Raymond Jefferson said to reporters outside court, following Brady’s claims that Samantha had asked him to conduct the transformation. “She was beautiful, and such a happy girl, she trusted and believed in everyone- I guess that was where she went wrong,” Raymond Jefferson said.

Brady adamantly claimed that Samantha Jefferson had asked him to bite her, saying that she wanted to “live forever” and be with him. Apparently the two were planning to run away together, and evidence of this was given in plane tickets he had purchased for both of them just two days before the incident. Outlining the disturbing details of the transformation, Brady constantly insisted on his innocence, entering a not-guilty plea—

FANG CLUB RAIDS INJURE HUNDREDS

Monday, 15^th February 2004, Main City Night Club Boulevard – A police and armed forces raid on numerous Fang Clubs last night caused a stampede as civilians tried to escape the authorities.

This was a move by city officials who had received countless complaints about the clubs and their patrons who often intimidate other club patrons. These clubs have also disrupted the business of non-fang clubs in the area, and owners are furious.

Fang clubs are not only well-known for their dark culture of poaching hosts and conducting illegal transformations, but also for their underground drug rings. Fang clubs are often co-owned by lords of organized crime, and police had begun to suspect prostitution and arms dealings to have become a part of their criminal undertakings—

HYBRID GIRL BORN

Monday, 15^th February 2004, West End Public Hospital – The tenth hybrid child to be born in history left the Hospital early this morning. She was given the name Alicia, and is said to be healthy; showing no signs of the diseases common to hybrid children. Born with usually debilitated immune systems, hybrids rarely live beyond infancy; in fact only 2 of the previous 9 children born have survived to adulthood. Naturally, Alicia’s health was a high concern and priority for staff at West End.

Miraculously, however, she tested negative for Huntingtons, a range of common bone disorders and Cutner’s disease- one that is unique to hybrid children alone. Cutner’s disease, named after the very first Hybrid child born in 1962, is one that attacks the nervous system, causing high nerve degeneration, frequently ending in brain death. Development is also often interrupted, causing paralysing deformities.

Alicia is a medical marvel—

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