He stood in a single fluid motion and tossed the gavel on his assistant’s desk. “Adjourned and done. I’m resigning the title and job of primator and getting out of Washington, D.C. Good luck with my successor.”

Before the poor man could form a single word, Daniel leapt into the air and flew through the room and out the doors—right into the waiting ambush. Four ready to hurt him. None ready to help.

The pundits were right. D.C. was a dangerous town.

“Are you ready to die, master?”

It was South Carolina again. Daniel didn’t recognize the trio of flunkies with him. Hired muscle, maybe, or members of South Carolina’s blood pride. Didn’t matter.

They wouldn’t be around long.

“Actually, I am ready to die,” Daniel said, enjoying the look of shock that widened the other vampire’s eyes. “But not at your hand.”

He hit the first two flunkies with a flying kick so powerful it crushed the first one’s head and left the other unconscious on the ground. The third he dispatched with a blow from his dagger that removed its head from its body, both of which began to disintegrate into the characteristic acidic slime of decomposing vampire.

Then Daniel turned to South Carolina, who was backing away from him.

“I’m sorry. They made me do it,” he cried out, trembling and whimpering like the coward he was.

“Then die with them,” Daniel replied, realizing he didn’t care enough to even ask who “they” were. He caught South Carolina’s head between his hands and, with one powerful twist of his arms, wrenched it off the vampire’s neck. The body fell to the ground, already decaying before Daniel realized he still held the head. He flung it away in disgust and scrubbed his hands against his pants.

The voice from behind him was uncharacteristically serious. “You didn’t get anything on your hands.”