Initiative

by A. L. Kessler

He kept his voice even. What he wanted to do was to tell her to stay far away from it. "Is it your case?"

  "I don't think there will be much of a case. Nick and I didn't find any bodies. That means it's not a murder. We did kill all three vampires, and one woman was bitten. But it shouldn't be a case. Not unless more come up. They might double us up since Nick and I are a team of two."

  "If it's not your case then you solve it our way. You start at square one, move from there. If it's someone in our territory, we take care of it." He meant killing them if she ran into them again. He would take care of the rest if he needed to. "And if it's not in our territory then I'll handle it."

  "Okay. I'll see what I can dig up."

  "If it turns into your case, you solve it officially and let me know what is going on. Partner be damned. Thank you, Abigail." He disconnected the phone and closed his eyes.

  Mario chuckled. "You should have told her that you would handle it yourself."

  "She would have pried more. If more showed up, she'd question me on how I was handling it."

  "And to think you could solve all of this if she knew who and what she was." Mario shook his head. "She could be under guard and safe and not have to wonder about things."

  Levi rolled his eyes. "Don't you have things to do?"

  Mario shrugged. "I'm trying to stick around witnesses, so I have alibis if another body shows up."

  Levi looked back at the television. "I have a feeling there will be a lot more bodies showing up."

  "The body Grayson found wasn't from a blood-starved."

  "No, but Ira's in town, and he knows about your past. He may be trying to draw you out or get you locked up to leave me distracted."

  Mario clapped Levi on the shoulder. "Then it's a good thing you have centuries of experience with those tactics."

  It was true. It was a lesson well drilled into his head. "Yes, it is." Levi stood and turned off the television.

  "Where are you going?"

  "I'm going to check on Jaimie and then spend some time in the library with Tobias' research."

  Mario raised a brow. "And what do you expect to find? Answers?"

  "Yes. Tobias and Elizabeth worked with Ira. There might be something in his notes about locations, something we can use to take the number of blood-starved and experiments down." He hated digging up the past, but it needed to be done at this point.

  Tobias and Elizabeth made him swear those secrets would stay buried, which was why he made sure take all of his research from the house and keep it out of Abigail's hands. He wanted her to believe her mother was innocent and kind. Not a woman who walked the lines of grey magic and sometimes jumped head first into black.

  Levi walked down to the basement and knocked on the door. "Jaimie?"

  She opened it an peeked out at him. "What?"

  "I wanted to see if you were back from your hunt."

  She glared at him. "Obviously."

  "Do you need anything?"

  She shook her head. "No, I was able to hunt. I'll leave it at that." She slammed the door in his face.

  He stood there for a moment debating on knocking again, but there was no point. She wanted to keep things private, and he needed to respect that. If she was able to hunt, it meant that her wounds weren't hindering her. So she wasn't in need of any more immediate help.

  He walked away and let her be. He had other things to attend to for now.

  Levi walked into the library to find Mario already pulling out books. "You don't have to join me tonight."

  Mario shook his head. "I'll only be helping until dawn, then I plan on sleeping. As you should be too. I'm here to make sure you don't get stuck down memory lane."

  "I'll be fine. I'm looking at research."

  Mario gave him a look. "I know better. You miss her. You would spend all night looking at pictures and letters from her if I wasn't here."

  Levi remained quiet. There had been many days that he stayed awake to do just that. Even after twenty years, he still longed for Elizabeth. Longed for the family they should have had and not the broken, confused one he had now.

  "You know that I am right." Mario handed him a notebook. "So you go through Tobias' notes, and I will look at Elizabeth's."

  He nodded and took the notebook. "Thank you." He sat down in his chair and started flipping through the hand-scribbled notes and drawings that Tobias had left behind.

  Mario did the same with one of Elizabeth's notebooks. "What are we looking for exactly?"

  "Anything that might give us an idea where Ira is conducting these experiments. Some…master base where we can take most of it out and set him back until we can figure out how to deal with him without invoking his maker's wrath."

  Mario nodded. "Because he will tear the entire society apart if you kill his prize fledgling. Because he's just that insane." He looked at Levi over the notebook. "And his insanity passed to Ira."

  He'd felt a touch of it before too. Luckily for him, he had been able to pull back from the edge. "We could bring down the full vampire society and humanity if we play our hands wrong. Now, if PIB could go after him and keep Abigail away from it, we might have a chance."

  "Because he's such a stickler for the law."

  Levi shook his head. "No, because then he could not connect it directly to me."

  They both sat in silence for a moment, looking down at the notebooks. Levi wasn't really paying attention to the notes. Mario's phone went off, and he pulled it out of his pocket.

  "Grayson has another body and wants to know where I am."

  "Tell him you're with me and I can vouch for you."

  Mario tapped away on the phone and then set it down on the end table by his own chair. "Find anything interesting?"

  "No, not yet. Tobias kept details about almost everything, but his notebook starts about the time I met him. It's missing the time before that." He flipped back to the first page. "Listen to this."

  "Elizabeth came to me today, she was much happier than I've seen her in the last decade. She'd been out during the night, and had I not been with Ira working, I would have assumed it was him that filled her with that much joy. When I asked her about it, she refused to answer and hurried off to her craft."

  Mario chuckled. "That was when you and Elizabeth made things official."

  "Yes, we'd managed to keep it secret for so long. Until Ira pulled me into things, and we all know how that happened." He sighed and shut the notebook and looked down at the spine and the dates written on it. "Is there another one before this?"

  Mario stood and went back to the shelf and looked through the journals there. "No."

  He sighed and tossed the book onto the table. Rubbing his eyes, he hung his head. "I don't want to have to dig up the entire past to find Ira's weakness."

  Mario snorted. "I'm pretty sure his one weakness is dead."

  Elizabeth. Levi just nodded.

  Mario handed Levi another book off the shelf. "Another journal, there are no dates, but maybe you can put it together."

  Levi took it from him. "I'll see what I can find." He looked at his watch and then glanced at his phone.

  "Abigail is fine. She's probably home in bed, recovering from her night."

  "I'm more waiting for Grayson to call me about his case and tell me he'll be taking on this one as well."

  "I don't think that will happen, but as long as it's not Abigail and Nick, what does it matter?"

  Levi sighed. "It matters because we can't control everyone in PIB."

  Mario made a noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh, but Levi ignored him.

  Mario walked to the door. "Don't stay up all day researching. You need rest, just like us younger vampires." He left and shut the door of the library behind him.

  Levi sat Tobias' notebook down and reached for the one that Mario had left. Elizabeth's. His fingers brushed the top of the cover, and
he wished to hear her voice again instead of just read her words. He wanted to hold her one more time. He sighed and let his hand fall away from the notebook.

  He sat in his chair and closed his eyes. Elizabeth. His love. He could see her now, her curly dark hair a perfect mix between brown and black, and her dark brown eyes set in her heart-shaped face. Her innocent smile that was well beyond deceiving.

  The first time he'd met her, she was covered in blood. The memory made him pause.

  Elizabeth stepped away from the wolf she'd slaughtered just a moment before he arrived. Her chest heaved with the effort of her strike, blood dripped from her blade and soaked her dress. It was splattered over her face, almost like a mask. He'd heard a scream and came immediately outside, looking for the source. He'd expected to find one of Ira's servants trying to escape, but this woman was no servant.

  She wiped the blade off on her jeans and met his gaze. "Can I help you?"

  He shook his head. "No, I came to help you, but I see you have it handled." He motioned to the wolf behind her that changed into a man as the life left him. "A solid kill."

  "He was trying to run. He thought I was human and bit my arm." She held out her other arm showing the gash. "He planned on infecting me, thinking Ira would turn on me." She looked him up and down, and he had to hand it to her. She showed very little signs of pain despite her arm sporting a good-sized wound.

  His tongue darted between his lips, tracing his fangs. Her blood smelled sweat, magical. She must have been the witch Ira had been bragging about. "Are you Elizabeth?"

  She narrowed her gaze at him, and he didn't miss her hand dropping to her side. Free to summon magic, he assumed. "Perhaps."

  "I'm Leviticus, Ira's brother."

  That gave her pause, and she looked him up and down. "You look nothing alike."

  He shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you. But as I see you do not need my assistance, I shall continue on to find him."

  She sheathed her blade. "I'll take you to him."

  Levi nodded, and she moved to lead the way to the huge house. She opened the door and motioned for him to enter. "He normally checks on the…patients at this time, so he'll be back in his office soon." She started up the flight of stairs that took up the span of the entry room. He followed her, his hand brushing over the marble railing. "How long have you been with him?"

  "Three years."

  She seemed so young. Twenty-one at the most. And he wanted her. "Where are you from, Elizabeth?"

  She shook her head. "Nowhere and everywhere all at once. I traveled a lot." She glanced over her shoulder. "Why so interested?"

  "Just trying to make small talk."

  She stopped in front of a room. "Here's his office. Wait here." She finally met his gaze. "He's never mentioned his brother."

  Levi shrugged. "I've been out building my own territory, but he sent me a letter calling for my help with his vision."

  She started to say something but paused and looked over his shoulder. Her face lit up a little as a smile crossed her lips. "Ira, how are the patients?"

  "They are dying. One by one. I was hoping Levi might have the answers to what we need. Glad to see you finally showed up." Ira's black hair hung in his face, giving him a crazed look. He sniffed the air in an animal fashion. "Elizabeth, why are you bleeding?"

  "The escaped wolf got a bit out of hand. It doesn't matter. I'll get it taken care of."

  Levi didn't miss the flash of red in Ira's eyes. Blood-starved. Ira pushed Levi out of the way. "Down the hall to the left, brother, you'll find a room. Elizabeth and I have some…personal things to take care of."

  He saw Elizabeth pale a little bit around the edges. "Elizabeth?" he asked.

  She nodded. "It's fine. He just needs to feed."

  He knew his brother though. He always pushed feeding to the last moment. It'd been their way before they left their maker's watchful eyes. "If you are sure."

  "I am."

  He walked down the hall without looking back. He should have offered to stay, but he was sure that his brother's feeding habits hadn't changed over the centuries.

  Levi opened his eyes after he went through the memories. It wasn't long after that he and Elizabeth had gotten together with Ira's blessing, keeping that hidden from everyone else. Then she started to drift away from Ira, finding a hope in Levi the other vampire hadn't given her, and that hope is what had changed their lives and their views.

  Chapter Four

  Levi had spent his night sorting through notes that made no sense to him. Old text he'd found from Tobias, letters from Elizabeth, anything he could get his hands on to try and figure out where Ira may have been setting up his labs. Nothing gave him a hint. Which meant that it might be time to call in the wizard and start tracking with magic. It wasn't the best idea, but it was the only way they were going to make any progress. He retired close to sunset, took a shower, and prepared himself for the night to come.

  As was his usual way, he flipped on the news while he dressed.

  "An explosion in the PIB parking lot brought first responders to the scene. No one was hurt, but authorities are still conducting an investigation."

  The image flickered on the screen from earlier that day, and Levi saw Abigail standing there staring at the fire. He didn't fail to notice how it seemed more contained than it should have been. An effect of her ability to control fire no doubt. He rubbed his eyes and reached for his phone to call Abby. It went to voicemail after a few rings, and he tried not to worry. He had seen her on camera, she was alive, but he knew it was her car that had blown up.

  Because her cars were always blowing up lately.

  It was only a moment later when she called him back. He slid the icon over to answer even before the phone could finish ringing.

  "Your car blew up," he said without hesitation, but there was a bit of exasperation in his tone as well.

  "Yeah. I need to borrow the Hummer while I get it taken care of. I might have to buy a new car since it was an actual bomb."

  A bomb, not magic, nothing paranormal. A simple human-made device had taken her car out. He wasn't sure if he should be relieved or not. "A bomb rules out most supernatural creatures."

  "Yes, it does. Don't worry. I'm fine. I have a thing with Simon tonight, but afterward, we'll come up and grab the Hummer."

  That perked his interest a little bit. A thing could mean anything. He tried not to get his hopes up that it was a date, to make up for the one he'd interrupted. "A thing?" Levi asked, but couldn't help himself from adding to this train of thought, "What are your chances of being eaten or blown up?"

  "Very slim. It's some fancy meeting with other pack leaders. It's in public, Simon will be there, and if Greg wants me to find his missing person, he'll make sure to protect me." She was so matter-of-fact about it.

  "Be careful. I'll see you later tonight. Would you like me to bring the Hummer down to you?"

  "That would be wonderful. And of course, I'll be careful. I'll text you when I get back."

  It would also give him a chance to make sure she was really okay from the car being blown up. He disconnected the call and then finished putting on his button-up shirt. He was reaching for his tie when someone knocked at the door.

  "Come in."

  Grayson walked in, the slight tightness in his face and the shallow dark circles under his eyes were signs that the vampire didn't sleep during the day either. "What is going on? It's a bit early for you to be calling on me, isn't it?"

  "Abigail's car blew up this morning." Grayson walked in and leaned against the wall. "There have been police and internal affairs wandering all over. But there's one thing they all missed. And that was that Agent Tomes and Agent Grace came to visit Abby today. Tomes was still on campus when it happened."

/>   "And how do you know this?" Levi raised a brow. "What were you doing at the office during sunlight hours?"

  He snorted. "I was working on my case. I have two vampire victims with their throats torn out and it looks just like Mario's old work. The only thing keeping him from being brought in is you're his alibi. Right now, I'm working on that, day and night. I have the security footage rerouted to my office so I can keep an eye on things, and I saw Tomes walk out with Abby. He disappeared in the chaos though, so clearly, he didn't want anyone to question what he was doing there.

  Levi wrapped the tie around his neck. "I wasn't aware that he was going to come down and visit. I thought we had handled all that. I wonder why he felt the need to talk to Abby."

  "Do you think that it has to do with her current case?"

  Levi nodded. "I know it does because one of the victims from our last case showed up in her case. Don't worry about it though, work on your case and make sure Mario's name stays clear."

  "And if the case gets any closer to our previous case?" Grayson asked and met Levi's gaze. "It's only a matter of time before she learns about Ira, Levi."

  "And we'll keep putting it off. And when she does learn about him, we'll keep all information about him to the very bare minimum." He tried to keep the anger out of his voice. We've protected her from this for the last twenty plus years; we can continue."

  Grayson bowed his head. "As you wish. Now, if you'd excuse me. I actually need to speak with Mario and see if he happens to know anyone who might want to frame him."

  Levi was sure that was going to be a hell of a list. Mario had made a number of enemies over the years.

  Grayson left, and Levi shut the door after him and tied his tie. He checked his appearance in the mirror as he tucked the shirt into his dress pants.

  Levi found Mario in the office looking over papers. "Find something interesting?"

  Mario looked up and shook his head. "No, Grayson left some notes on the bodies, and I was looking them over to see if there was something I might be able to decipher differently for him."