"This is our army," Tina said to me, "we’re about 150 strong."

"That’s not nearly enough," Bette said, "from my days in the mob or whatever the fuck they are, I know that they have at least triple that amount of people. Sorry to say most creatures like us are evil."

"I know that," Tina said grimacing, "that’s why we have to work smart."

"And how do we do that?" I said.

"They are not an organized army, just a bunch of wild creatures fighting out of pure instinct," Tina said, "if we get organized their numbers won’t even be a factor."

I smiled, that was quite brilliant. "So we train and organize then take them out?"

"The army may not be smart, but Jodi is," Tina said, "we have to do more than that. We have to take out smaller groups of the army with ambushes, and destroy them from the inside out."

"The ambushes will do a lot of damage," I said.

"And from the inside we will do even more damage, but in the sense of mutiny."

I grinned. "If Jodi has no control over her army, when we do the frontal attack they will be completely obliterated."

"Then all that is left is for you to kill Jodi," Tina said.

"Not only Jodi," I said shaking my head, "look I know the system. If I kill Jodi someone else will just take over."

"Not if everyone who’s next in line is dead too," a strong new voice said.

Everyone turned to look at the source of the new voice standing at the entrance of the cave. I gasped and immediately went down on my knees and bowed. I sensed the other vampires in the cave doing the same and everyone else was looking at us in confusion.

I felt her Greatness touch my shoulder gently and her voice say, "stand up please all of you. In times of war there’s no time for reverence."

I shot up off the floor as did the other vampires.

She smiled kindly at me and spoke again, "I was going to visit my favorite fledging when I heard this young woman speaking to you. Did you really think you couldn’t ask for my help with this situation?"