by Justin Sloan
He laughed. “Yeah, sure you are. Anyway, you don’t have to tell me what you’re up to, but try to stay out of the spotlight, okay? I’m putting my neck on the line for this coup as much as any of you.”
She nodded, considering the ramifications of what he had just said. There were others like her, vampires, she had to assume, on the other side of town. Brody had mentioned a previous invasion by Nosferatu and some Forsaken, and this had to be connected.
It seemed like some of the inner circle were working with these Forsaken to orchestrate a takeover, and this soldier was in on it.
He started walking away, but she reached out and took his arm. “Wait.”
“Yes?”
She wasn’t sure what she had intended to say, but simply blurted, “They have me on lookout. Watching this part of town to ensure there are no...surprises. Thing is, I don’t have a place to stay yet.”
“You… You’re asking if you can use my room as a hideout?” He ran a hand through his thick black hair, holding his army cap in the other hand. “Shit, that’s risky. I thought they trusted us. This doesn’t scream trust.”
She shrugged. “It’s getting closer and closer, right? Just want to make sure everything’s in place.”
He frowned. “I’d think two weeks is plenty of time, but if you insist. What can I say to that other than you betcha. Just… When it all goes down, remember your boss’s promises.”
She nodded, then gestured for him to lead the way.
“I have appearances to keep up, and the job’s not done.” He took out a keyring and tossed it to her. “Stay out of sight, don’t get caught, and if anyone asks, just say we’re sleeping together. Better to get hit with fraternization than, well, you know.”
A coup to overthrow the council? Yeah, she imagined fraternization carried lesser punishment than that.
“How do I find your place?” she asked.
He gave her directions, then told her not to worry about him, he had another key.
When he had gone, she looked at the key in her hand and smiled. Having two hubs would be useful, especially considering that his was on the other side of town from the room Brody had the others staying in.
Part of her wanted to return there, to check on Valerie and the crew, but she thought this reconnaissance was something she needed to do on her own. They could ask questions at the plant and she would check on them, but to be around them right now, especially Val, was only a distraction.
This man had an in with the military and the Forsaken, apparently, and that meant he could be extremely useful. In fact, he had already given her invaluable information. If she wanted to find her parents before the vampire attack came, she only had two weeks.
She would return to the house when she felt like it, but for now, she had to get back to work. She would learn what she could about this place in the meantime, but wouldn’t lose focus on the real goal—finding her parents.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
New York
Sandra was waiting in the lobby when Diego came down looking tired and worried.
“How’s the girl?” she asked.
“Not great, but she’ll recover.” He walked over and sat beside her, taking her hand and kissing her. “There’ll be scars, of course.”
“She’ll have bragging rights.”
He smiled.
“Listen, about back there—”
He held up a hand. “No, you were right. You told me it was nothing, and there’s no reason for me to think otherwise. Maybe this whole having-a-baby thing doesn’t just make the woman emotional?”
“Emotional?” She frowned. “Who the hell said I was getting emotional?”
“No, I didn’t mean that. I’m just saying—”
“Relax, if you can let me off the hook, I can do the same for you.” The two stood and nodded to the guards on their way out. “To let you know, since I don’t want you wondering, he just needed help with Loraine.”
“And he came to you?”
“I thought that was weird too.” She shrugged. “But it all worked out, didn’t it? So it must’ve been the right choice. But get this, the girls were supposed to go with some vampire to Toro, where he promised them they could become vampires.”
He turned to her, face losing color. “Can they point this vampire out?”
“It didn’t sound like they could, but yeah, that’s something we have to explore There might be others that he’s roped into this scheme.” She shook her head, thinking about this recruiter to the vampire or Nosferatu army out there. “Good news is, if Valerie’s up there, the army they’re trying to create won’t last very long.”
“The bad news?”
“That it exists at all, I guess.”
They continued walking. When they heard someone laughing, they turned to see Garcia and Felix stumbling back to HQ.
“Hey, there they are!” Felix called.
“Damn, you guys went back for more?” Diego asked. “I figured we closed that place.”
“It’ll wear off in a few minutes.” Felix laughed. “For me, anyway.”
“And I’m a big boy,” Garcia added.
“A big boy with an important day tomorrow,” Sandra noted. “I hope you two aren’t jeopardizing this mission. That would pretty much put our safety and our lives at risk.”
Garcia seemed to sober up instantly. “Way to kill a buzz, girl.”
“My woman has a point,” Diego barked, then pointed at Felix. “I charge you with taking care of this guy in an appropriate way and getting him lots of water before he goes to bed. Agreed?”
“Yes, sir!” Felix gave them a mock salute and the two stumbled off again.
“Wow,” Diego exclaimed, shaking his head. “I see why you get annoyed at us now.”
She laughed and squeezed his arm. “Trust me, you’re much more annoying when you drink.”
“Uh, thanks, dear.”
They went home and although Sandra still felt quite awake, when she returned from the bathroom Diego had passed out on the bed. She smiled at the peacefulness on his face; such a contrast to the real-world situations they often found themselves in. Pushing his hair back, she kissed him on the forehead and then laid down as well, closing her eyes and trying to ignore her sudden craving for a baguette and cheese.
***
To Sandra’s surprise, Garcia looked as healthy as ever the next day at formation. If he had the slightest hangover, it didn’t show. She watched him go through the ranks before sunrise, so that the vampires could be there too. Diego stood at her side, smiling. She knew that as much as he insisted that he just wanted to relax with her, he was itching for more action. She didn’t buy his line for a minute.
They had just finished and Garcia had joined them when a voice interrupted them.
“Now there’s a face I haven’t seen in some time.” Sandra turned to see Captain Bronson standing there with three children. He made the introductions.
After a quick hug for each of them, Sandra asked, “What brings you here?”
He stepped aside to reveal a young woman and an older one, mother and daughter by the look of them. “The younger one, actually,” he replied. “Her name is Clara.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Clara,” Sandra offered. “How can I help you?”
“Cammie sent me,” she commenced telling Sandra all about the network of indies popping up. “They’ll eventually make a move on the city. You can count on that.”
“Oh, I will!” Diego declared. Sandra had nearly forgotten he was there.
“Clara, this is Diego. And Sergeant Garcia here has been helping to train our army.” Sandra waited with a smile as the two shook hands with Clara. “We’re partnering with a group based out of the Chicago region. One that is building up a force that, we’d be willing to bet, puts this little group of indie communities to shame.”
“When Cammie told me about you all, she didn’t mention the hubris,” Clara said.
“Clara!” her mother chided. “Sorry
about my daughter.”
Sandra shook her head. “No worries, truly. She makes a good point. No enemy should be dismissed until they are, well, dismissed.”
“Tell her the rest,” Bronson advised the girl.
Clara bit her lip. “I think there might be more spies in your midst. Or terrorists, or whatever you want to call them.”
She explained the rest of it, and how she knew about Esmerelda and Presley. Sandra nodded, feeling a lump in her throat at the thought of what those two had done and the pain they had caused.
“Too many people died that day,” Sandra stated. “None of them had to.”
“Well, that’s what we’re here to prevent.”
“No time like the present.” Garcia motioned them to the door.
As they walked down the hallway to the elevator, Garcia questioned Clara to find out what more he could. Bronson fell in beside Sandra and gave her protruding belly a curious glance.
“You and…?”
“Diego,” she told him with a chuckle.
“The Werecat guy?” He laughed. “I never would have thought it. You two didn’t seem close when you started a war on my ship.”
“To be fair, that was caused by pirates, and yeah, when all that was over, he kinda stole my heart.”
“Oh, yes, actually I think I sensed something when we next met. I nearly forgot.”
“Those were crazy times,” she replied. “I was about to say crazier, but I don’t know. Harder without Val, for sure.”
“Crazier times for me, to be sure.” He gestured at the kids behind him. “I try to keep these little ones out of trouble as much as possible.”
“Which makes life quite boring,” the littlest one noted, earning him a shove from his brother while their older sister rolled her eyes.
Sandra laughed, then had an idea. “Hey, would you kids like to try my famous chocolate croissants?”
“They won me over,” Garcia called, interrupting his conversation with Clara to impart that apparently vital piece of information.
“And your gut will start betraying that fact if you keep it up,” Sandra chided with a smirk. She turned to Bronson and added, “If he hasn’t eaten my whole store by now, I’ll cook some for the kids.”
“They’ll love that,” he replied.
When they reached the elevator the kids laughed, pushing each other in and then moving up tight to the walls. At a questioning glance from Sandra, Bronson explained that they hadn’t had many chances to ride elevators before.
“Damn,” she replied. “One forgets about the rest of the world when tied up in here all day.”
He nodded with a knowing look. “Give me the freedom of the skies any day, once the pirates are completely gone, anyway.”
“Aren’t they?”
“Not quite. Most of them over here are gone, but if you cross the water, head over to Europe and then north, they’re a force to be reckoned with. They don’t call themselves pirates out that way, but it’s the same basic idea.”
“That so?” Garcia said, his expression going grim. He considered them, then turned to Sandra. “If we have people going back Valerie’s way, I might have something worth sharing. A way of communicating with them.”
“And you’re just telling me this…?”
He nodded. “I only have the two, one for backup. The main one I’ve been ordered to keep around for comms with Colonel Walton, when needed. But if there’s a chance we need to make a move across the ocean, this will come in handy.”
“Damn, Sergeant. You’re full of surprises.”
They kept talking, catching up on the doings of the world, and soon were in the lobby. Clara froze.
“I thought this was going to be pointless,” she whispered, then turned to face Sandra. “The one there, over my left shoulder, by the front door.”
Sandra glanced over, then back to Garcia. “Know him?”
Garcia scratched his head, trying to make an excuse to look but doing a horrible job. He shook his head.
“I… I should say I’m not positive,” Clara corrected herself. “He looks familiar though, and if he looks familiar, I can’t imagine why else it would be.”
“Do we make a move based on that?” Sandra asked.
Garcia inhaled deeply. “Your call, but I’d say no. Put a tail on him if we can, and make sure we know what he’s up to. If he slips up, we make a move. If she’s wrong about him, we’ll know.”
“Get on it,” Sandra confirmed, then motioned for Clara and her mother to follow. “I’m going to get a room for you two right by mine. I want guards with you at all times, got it?”
They nodded and the mom said, “Thank you. We… All of this. You don’t know how much it means to us.”
Sandra hugged her. “I was there once myself. You’ll be one of us in no time.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Prince Edward Island
No matter how hard she tried, for the whole next day and into the evening Cammie couldn’t get that image of the man on the mainland out of her head. The thought of some stranger out there plotting against them, if that’s what it was, had an unsettling effect. More than ever, she wanted to get over there and find him and whatever group he belonged to. When she did, she’d be sure to find out what he wanted.
She pushed herself up the stairs to her house, opened the door, and entered to find that Royland and Kristof had setup a game which involved each of them putting apples or oranges in a line, trying to get three before the other cancelled them out with the other fruit.
“You guys made up a game?” she asked, taking a seat at the table.
“He showed me how,” Royland replied, blocking a line of two apples with his orange.
“We played it back home,” Kristof replied. “Something from the old days. Ticky-toe, I think it’s called.”
“Ticky-toe?” She leaned back, watching, and couldn’t help smiling at the image of them just relaxing as if this were a world without problems.
“You been up long?” she asked Royland.
He gave her a “you have no idea look” and watched as the boy blocked one of his lines. He paused when he picked up his next orange, then set it back down.
“Well, we know one thing about you, Kristof,” he declared. “You cheat.”
Kristof laughed, pointing to the two lines he had crafted so that Royland would lose no matter what his next play was. “I set you up, old man. No cheating about it, though. I’m just good at this.”
“Better than a…” Cammie turned to Royland with a furrowed brow. “I was going to say a hundred-year-old vampire, but I have no idea how old you really are.”
The boy looked away at the word “vampire.” He clearly hadn’t grown accustomed to it yet, but Cammie hoped that would come in time. Or they would get him back home, one of the two.
“Don’t you know it’s impolite to ask a vampire his age?” Royland took one of the apples and bit into it, then rolled another to the boy. “Eat up. You gotta keep up your energy.”
“You don’t know us very well, Kristof,” Cammie said, putting on her friendliest smile, “but could you tell us more about where you come from? We’d like to help you get home.”
He instantly perked up, though he looked to Royland for a nod of approval before opening his mouth to speak. At least one of them had earned the boy’s trust, Cammie thought, trying not to be bothered by the fact that it hadn’t been her.
“My father was mayor,” Kristof started. “The town is somewhere across the ocean. He was rebuilding it when raiders came. Not these ones, but the old ones. Wearing furry caps with horns and all that. They took me, then sold me to those bad men you killed.”
“Can you do your best to remember the name of your town?” Cammie asked.
Kristof leaned back, looking at the ceiling, then shook his head. “Father always said it was good to stay near the center of it all, near the big city but not too close in case there was trouble.”
“Near the water?” Royland asked.
>
The boy nodded, then his face lit up. “The large city nearby…it was called Trondheim, I think. We were close, along a fjord.”
“Wait, fjord? And you said furry caps with horns?” Royland considered this with a frown, but then an amused smile crept across his face. “You don’t mean Vikings?”
The boy beamed. “That’s what they called themselves! Yes! We just called them pirates or raiders, but they insisted they were bringing back the old ways. That they were Vikings.”
“Well, shit,” Royland said, chuckling. “What has this world come to?”
“Language,” Cammie scolded.
He gave her a look that said, “Really? From you?”
“What the hell’s a fjord anyway?” she snapped.
“A body of water,” he replied. “One of the old Forsaken I used to run with was from that area of the world originally. A land once known as Norway, though he was from another city, one he said had been mostly destroyed during the great collapse. Oslo.”
“Could you find the general area?” Cammie asked.
“By myself?” He scoffed. “Not a chance. I was told the general location, or direction, rather, but that’s it. However, I’d be willing to bet that at least one of these former pirate captains has had dealings in Europe, or at least knows where we can find someone over there who knows.”
The boy looked up at them with wide eyes. “You two…you’re serious? You could get me home?”
Cammie smiled. “We’re damn sure going to try.”
“Honestly,” Royland added, “we have no idea what’s out there, and we have a duty right now to see this island reformed. But when Valerie returns, yes, we will do our best.”
He leaped up and hugged first Royland, and then Cammie. “Thank you, thank you so much!”
“Run along now,” Cammie told him, awkwardly returning the hug. “Grab some more food while we chat.”
Kristof gave them one more heartbreakingly hopeful smile and took a bread roll and some dried beef into the other room.
When he was gone, Cammie sighed. “Okay, for real now. You think this is possible?”
“If Valerie even lets us go—”
