When you were out in the world, there was one golden rule: never back down.
If you showed weakness, people would walk all over you.
Since Deacon Frost had already laid out his cards, if Locke refused to play along, the vampire would probably think he was running scared.
As a Senior Agent of the Sentinel Secret Service, how could he possibly fear a vampire who couldn’t even face the light of day?
*Ha.*
*What a joke.*
After speaking, Locke immediately pulled out his phone and dialed the number on the business card.
Let’s do this.
Face-to-face.
Whoever chickened out was a coward.
The call went through almost instantly.
“Hello.”
A low, slightly raspy voice echoed from the other end.
It was the kind of voice that made the speaker sound like a young…
villain.
Locke, who had the call on speakerphone, exchanged a look with Brown.
He spoke in a calm, measured tone.
“Deacon Frost.”
“…Who is this?”
“Heh.” Locke twirled the business card in his hand.
“You left your card in four different places, and you still have to ask who I am?”
On the other end of the line, Deacon Frost realized who it was.
Inside a high-rise building in Manhattan, the sinister-looking villain, dressed in a gray silk bathrobe, pushed away two female vampire servants—one Black, one white—who were draped over him.
Grasping his phone with a hand adorned with a silver ring, he stepped out of his bedroom and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the main hall.
The next second, the heavy drapes parted to both sides, and brilliant sunlight flooded the penthouse terrace.
And yet…
Bathing in the direct sunlight, Deacon Frost remained completely unharmed.
Narrowing his cold, sanpaku eyes, Frost switched the phone to his other hand while casually spinning the ring on his finger.
“Mr.
Locke Underwood of the Sentinel Secret Service?”
The corner of Locke’s mouth turned up.
“Indeed.
I assume you didn’t leave your card in all those places just to verify my identity, Mr.
Frost?”
Deacon Frost burst into laughter.
“Of course not.”
“Oh?”
“I would like to make friends with you, Mr.
Underwood.” This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“Heh.” Locke merely smiled and remained silent.
Frost didn’t mind the silence and got straight to the point.
“Since you are aware of the extraordinary world, Mr.
Underwood, you must also be familiar with the covenant established between the extraordinary world and the mortal world.”
Locke raised an eyebrow.
The Extraordinary-Mortal Covenant!
Natasha had mentioned this when they exchanged intelligence.
This covenant hadn’t been signed by SHIELD.
Rather, it was a treaty signed after World War II between the Five Major Powers and the entire extraordinary world.
However, the person who had driven the creation of this treaty was one of SHIELD’s founders: Lady Peggy Carter.
After all, back then, Captain America, Steve Rogers, possessed immense prestige even within the extraordinary world.
A true hero was respected wherever he went.
Because of their respect for Steve Rogers, the law-abiding factions of the extraordinary world also showed a great deal of respect to Peggy Carter.
The terms of the covenant were quite simple.
The extraordinary world recognized that the Earth belonged to the Big Five, and the Big Five recognized that extraordinary beings had the right to live on Earth, promising not to actively disrupt this balance.
In return, the extraordinary beings had to refrain from interfering in the affairs of the mortal world.
For a period after the covenant was signed, it was actually upheld very well.
However, once Peggy Carter retired and the old bonds of camaraderie between SHIELD and the Howling Commandos completely faded, the agreement began to fracture.
This was especially true after the Mutant Freedom Act was passed in 1973.
Did mutants count as extraordinary beings?
They did, and they didn’t.
But certain factions within the extraordinary world that didn’t belong to the law-abiding camp believed the Mutant Freedom Act was a test run by the mortal world against all extraordinary species.
To put it simply: if the mortal world dared to oppress mutants today, they would dare to oppress other extraordinary species tomorrow.
No one would be safe if the foundation crumbled.
Since the mortal world had essentially torn up the treaty first, the extraordinary beings felt they were no longer bound by it.
Thus, since then, the covenant had existed in name only.
The extraordinary world was growing restless.
SHIELD was feeling the pressure.
And the Sentinel Secret Service was also itching to act.
This was precisely why Locke and Brown had been allowed to hunt down vampires instead of capturing mutants without facing any disciplinary action from their superiors.
The explanation was simple.
When the high-ranking brass at the Sentinel Secret Service headquarters in Washington, D.C.
caught wind of this, they saw it as a golden opportunity.
An opportunity to reclaim the Sentinel Secret Service’s full law enforcement jurisdiction.
In fact, when the Sentinel Secret Service was first established, it wasn’t meant to target only mutants. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
It had been designed to counter the entire extraordinary world.
But SHIELD was technically an extra-governmental agency.
Regardless of whether SHIELD had been jointly established by the Big Five, on US soil, any agency that had not been officially approved by Congress was legally dubious.
Therefore, it was only logical and reasonable that the Sentinel Secret Service wanted to claim jurisdiction over the entire extraordinary world.
Simply put, any extraordinary being living on US soil should be subject to the control of the Sentinel Secret Service, just like mutants.
However, SHIELD had refused to back down at the time because such a move would have directly conflicted with their authority.
As for why the Sentinel Secret Service hadn’t won that turf war back then, the reason was simple: SHIELD had coaxed the retired Peggy Carter out of her quiet life to intervene.
But that was 1974.
It was now 2011.
With this latest incident, the leadership of the Sentinel Secret Service was once again eager to expand their operations.
After all these years, SHIELD had become so incompetent that they couldn’t even handle a bunch of vampires?
Perfect.
If SHIELD was useless, the Sentinel Secret Service was more than happy to step up.
Using this incident, the Sentinel Secret Service could once again propose expanding their operational scope to Congress.
This was also why, over the past month, even when mutant-related cases popped up, the agency hadn’t assigned them to Locke and Brown.
They wanted Locke and Brown to go out and stir up trouble.
The bigger the waves, the pricier the fish.
And look at that!
The fish had taken the bait.
Hearing Deacon Frost bring up the Extraordinary-Mortal Covenant, Locke recalled the conversation he’d had a few days ago with his supervisor, Walter Hermann.
He smiled.
Coming back to the present, Locke spoke in a tone that remained entirely unflappable.
“Of course I know about the covenant.
But your people started this.
Our agent is dead.”
That was the key.
No matter how one looked at the situation, it was the SSS agents who had died first.
What?
The vampire had acted in self-defense?
*Ha.*
*What a joke.*
They were a legitimate law enforcement agency, armed with federal search warrants.
When they came knocking to investigate, a suspect’s only job was to cooperate.
Resisting?
If you got killed for it, you had it coming!
Did these bloodsuckers have any idea what the weight of a federal badge actually meant?
*Ha!*