Blake slowly closed his cell phone. He turned, gradually, to Simon. “Yeah,” Blake said, “it’s all true.”

“Whazzitnow?” Simon replied.

“Seven separate incidents,” Blake continued. “Over sixty dead already. And nobody’s been able to contain it.”

“Frak me,” Simon muttered. “What’s going on here?”

“I think dead girl’s infection theory is real,” Blake replied. “The politicos are doing the usual peddling, containing the flow of the information stream, keeping it from getting out.”

“Time to suit up?” Simon asked, a hesitant smile upon his face.

Blake snickered. “Yeah, kid,” he replied. “Between us we took down an archangel and a succubus. I don’t think a little case of the sniffles going around will stop us.”

“Well, to be fair,” Simon laughed, “this does sound a tad worse than sniffles. And when you give our résumé, don’t forget the gorram vampire we scared off.”

“Yeah,” Blake started. He became suddenly serious. “The vamp that was at ground zero.”

“Yeah,” Simon replied.

“Let’s find patient zero.”