General Michael Mills of the United States Army looked out through the window as the helicopter descended towards the military base below. He’d been stationed at Saint-Étienne before, two decades and several ranks ago. That had been before the Asano Clan went into hiding and the vampires had claimed full dominion over mainland Europe.Michael had heard the stories of Asano reclaiming his territory. Many didn’t believe them, for they sounded like the stuff of nightmares, but Michael knew better. He had seen with his own eyes the power of the vampire lords and the land of horrors they had made of the continent. He couldn’t imagine what it would take to make the vampires fear, the way they dreaded Jason Asano.Now it was time to finish the job. To eliminate the last strongholds of vampiric power, after years of clawing back territory. It would be the largest single military action in the history of planet Earth. A war in a day, simultaneously hitting vampire strongholds from Portugal to Pakistan. Participating would be every major magical faction, and the full military might of no fewer than forty-seven nations.Jason Asano had been pushing the Earth Defence Joint Initiative, the EDJI, for a decade. Michael had never thought it would happen, a level of integration that none of the major nations would accept. He’d been there for the negotiations, as China and Russia demanded more influence. His own United States had almost derailed the whole thing by demanding that defence be spelled in accordance with American English.The United States had not gotten their way, but it had been agreed to change the original name from Earth Joint Defence Initiative to Earth Defence Joint Initiative. This face-saving shift, designed to placate the need for the USA to look influential, also had an unintended side-effect. The EDJI was increasingly being pronounced in media and by the troops as ‘edgy,’ and Michael did not approve.It was the threat of military (...)