by C. M. Cevis
MAX SAT BACK IN HIS chair and kept his mouth shut. This was Owen’s show, and he had no intention of stealing his son’s thunder on this one. Instead, he simply listened as Owen relayed what happened to Janice and Ernest.
“The meeting wasn’t that big, but it was large enough to cause some concern, especially if this wasn’t the entirety of the followers. The woman who spoke seemed to be there to encourage people to doubt in my father’s guidance and gave them examples of things that made her someone who actively doubts. Roger and I sat in the back and listened for a bit, before moving towards the front of the room with the intention of making an example of the woman speaking.”
“And did you? Make a sufficient example of her, I mean?” Janice asked.
“I believe that we did. Roger removed her heart, and I almost tore her head off. Words spoken when drenched in fresh blood are often potent, even when the audience is vampiric.”
“Excellent,” Ernest said with a smile. Max smirked at the two who had initially doubted his son but kept his snarky comments to himself.
“I told them that my father is one of the most considerate Suzerains in the country, that they should be thankful, but that he won’t tolerate what they’re doing. Then Roger and I left them there to think about what they’d done.”
“Good. Force, while unfortunate at times, is often necessary.” Janice said. Max wasn’t so sure that he agreed with that thought quite as often as she brought it up but now wasn’t the moment to say so.
“Unfortunately, Roger couldn’t be here to tell what happened from his point of view, since he is not allowed in high-level meetings,” Owen added.
“I see no reason that he shouldn’t be allowed. We asked that he return to Baltimore to help us with high-level situations, correct?” Max asked the room.
“Yes, of course, he should be allowed to attend. Please, bring him along next time.” Ernest said. Max and Owen exchanged a look, and Owen smiled, nodding.
“Of course. I’ll make sure to let him know that he’s to attend with me next time.” Owen bowed slightly and moved to take a seat on the love seat at the side of the room, where he normally settled for these meetings.
“Is there anything that we can do to follow up on those left behind at the meeting? Make sure that they aren’t continuing to cause problems in the future?” Janice asked.
“Owen, could you and Roger return to the meeting site, see if you can find any clues about who else may have been involved in this?” Max asked.
Owen nodded from the couch and took a sip of whatever drink he’d grabbed when he’d arrived. “Of course. I’ll call Roger when we’re done here and have him meet me there.”
Max smiled to himself, proud of the work that his son had gotten done. Spoiled brat his undead ass. Owen might have been a bit spoiled, but he was still an exceptional vampire, and he wouldn’t have anyone speak of his son the way that they had been. Owen was a predator, and the world would respect him as such, even if they were watching him on stage while they did it.
“Wonderful. Let me know what you find.”
~*~
THE ROOM WHERE THE MEETING had been held was completely abandoned. The pretty woman who had been on her way out when the two of them arrived had been nice enough to allow them to see the records of who had rented the room that night, before realizing that there were none. Whoever had rented the room hadn’t left anything behind, but she allowed them into the room saying that no one had cleaned up yet.
The room was littered with random bits of trash and overturned chairs. Someone had had the presence of mind to clean up the body that would have raised some serious flags had it been left behind. Owen had been pretty sure that they wouldn’t leave it there, though part of him wondered what they did with it. No matter, that wasn’t what they were there for.
“I guess we need to sift through what’s left behind. You start over there, and I’ll start over here,” Owen said, motioning for Roger to start of the far side of the room.
It was slow going as the two of them worked their way across the room, picking up this and that, reading parts of handwritten notes and bits of the flyer that had brought them there. They laughed and talked the entire time, giving each other shit about things that had happened years ago in an effort not to hate every minute that they spent picking up trash. It was a full forty-five minutes before either of them found anything worthwhile.
“O, isn’t this a key to your dad’s place?” Roger said, holding up a gold key attached to a leather diamond engraved with a rather fancy script “H.T.” Owen walked closed and took the key, looking it over.
“Same building.” He said. The initials stood for HarborView Towers, the fancy condo building that Max had moved into when Owen had gotten his own place. “Might not be his unit though, there are a lot of condos there.”
“Only one way to find out,” Roger said. Owen slipped the key into his pocket and nodded.
“Right. Let’s finish going through the rest of this shit and then we’ll go try it.”
Thirty minutes later, Owen stood in the hallway outside of his father’s apartment with the key in his hand. There hadn’t been anything else useful in the meeting room, so he and Roger had headed over there with the intention of trying the key and then calling Max. They them exchanged a nervous look and Owen slipped the key into the lock and turned. The door unlocked with a smooth click, and Owen breathed out roughly.
“Shit.” This was not good news.
“Hey Max, we’ve got something here,” Roger said into the phone. Owen hadn’t wanted to make that call, so it worked for him. Roger put the call on speaker before he said anything else.
“What is it?” Max said through the speaker.
“We’re at your place with a key that we found on the floor of the meeting place from the other night,” Owen said.
“Why my place?”
“The key was attached to one of the keychains that they have here. We were hoping that it was just to some random condo here, but we couldn’t just walk away from this without trying the obvious door,” Roger said.
Max sighed audibly through the phone. “Let me guess: It unlocks my door, doesn’t it?”
“Yep,” Owen said.
“Do me a favor. Pull apart the two pieces of leather that make up the keychain and let me know if there’s anything on the inside of it.”
Roger and Owen exchanged slightly puzzled looks, but Owen did as he was asked. “There’s what looks like a letter ‘B’.”
“That explains a lot,” Max said, though it was clear that he was speaking more to himself than to Owen and Roger.
“Explains what?” Roger asked.
“Bring me the key. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Right we’re on our way,” Owen said just as Roger ended the call.
“Well ain’t this a bitch,” Roger breathed.
“That is the understatement of the century,” Owen said, making sure to lock his father’s condo door again. “Come on, let’s get going.”
11
MAX MADE THE CALL AS soon as he hung up with Owen and Roger. Bannon had been acting strangely for a few days now and had almost seemed to panic when Max asked him to run past the condo for something that he’d forgotten. Now he understood why: Bannon had lost his key and didn’t want to admit to it. But there was more going on here. His bodyguard, the man that the Directorate had sent to protect Max from the world around him seemed to be a part of the very group that meant him harm.
“Mr. Arnold’s office,” the gentle voice said upon answering the phone.
“This is Maxim Blyth. My bodyguard has been compromised.”
“Just a moment.” There was a click as the call was put it on hold and then transferred to Mister Dracon Arnold, the international head of security.
Click. “Max, good to hear from you.” Dracon said, the smile clear in his voice. He and Max were old friends, but they hadn’t had time to catch up in years.
“You as well, old friend. I wish it was un
der better circumstances though.”
“Luna tells me that your guard has been compromised, what happened?”
Max gave Dracon the short version of the happenings in Baltimore over the past few months, ending the story with Roger and Owen discovering the key and trying it on his condo’s door. Dracon’s sigh was heavy.
“I’ll be honest with you, Max. There have been a few things about Bannon recently that have raised some flags, but without any evidence, we were content to simply watch him a bit closer than we watch the others.”
“You suspected that he was up to something, but didn’t tell me?” Max asked, pouring himself a drink.
“That wasn’t my decision. The others were afraid that you may not be able to keep enough of a game face to keep Bannon comfortable. You and I have known each other long enough for me not to doubt, but I was out-voted.”
Max sighed softly. “Right, I remember how things work around there.” He paused and took a sip of the expensive scotch that he kept around for annoying situations. “He’s not here now, and he doesn’t know that the boys have his key.”
“Don’t worry about that. Keep your key when they bring it to you. I’ve already sent a few men to pick him up. And I’ve got another man in mind to take his place. He’ll be on the train within the hour.”
“Train? He’s close?” Max asked. The Directorate office that Dracon worked out of was in Las Vegas. He hoped he wasn’t putting the poor man on a train all the way from Nevada to Maryland.
“He’s in Massachusetts and prefers trains to flying when the distance isn’t too bad. I know that you’ll be safe with him beside you, which gives you more time to worry about what’s going on there and fewer worries about those close to you,” Dracon said with a chuckle.
“That’s high praise coming from you. Who is this amazing man?”
Dracon laughed in response. “You’ll find out when he gets there. Now I’ve got to run, I’d like to have accommodation set up for him before he arrives.”
~*~
SAMSON SAT IN A CORNER booth of the dining car with a book in his hands that only had 10% of his attention. That was normal for him, as he was always more aware of his surroundings than most. It had nothing to do with the fact that he didn’t particularly care for most people or the fact that he was a vampire. More that he was simply always ready to defend himself. That was one of the reasons that he made an excellent bodyguard. That, and he did much better one on one than he did in crowds.
Samson had settled in Massachusetts about six months ago, after being asked to look into the Baltimore Suzerain’s bodyguard. He’d originally intended to settle in Philadelphia, or perhaps DC, but Bannon had powerful friends that had gotten a bit too close for comfort to his investigation. He’d reported into Dracon and relocated far enough for people to stop poking around. He’d found a few things that raised some red flags, but nothing solid enough for the Directorate to feel comfortable pulling the bodyguard from circulation yet. He was actually on his way back from a lead that he’d come across, but that hadn’t panned out.
Samson’s pocket began to vibrate, and he pulled his phone out, his eyes still traveling across the pages of his book.
“Yes sir,” he said. No one else called him other than Dracon. He had a tendency to intimidate people without meaning to, or that’s what he’d been told. It wasn’t his fault that most had such weak dispositions.
“I’m not interrupting you, am I?” Dracon asked. He always asked that.
“No, sir. I’m on my way back to my place.”
“Good. I need you to go to Baltimore and take up the recently vacated bodyguard spot beside Maxim Blyth.” Samson’s eyes stopped moving, and he put his book down.
“What happened to Bannon?”
“Max’s son found his lost key at a meeting of… disgruntled vampires, let’s say.” Samson frowned slightly.
“I see. Is this what he was involved in?”
“I seriously doubt that it was this simple, but regardless we can’t leave him there for observation. Not anymore. I’ve sent others to pick him up and informed Max that I’m sending a replacement that I trust.”
“Thank you for that vote of confidence,” Samson said, smiling. He liked Dracon.
“You and Max will get along wonderfully, trust me. He won’t be intimidated by you, and neither will his son, though Owen might give you shit from time to time.”
Samson chuckled. “I can take occasional shit.”
“They’re good people, Samson. Good friends.”
“I’ll keep them safe, don’t worry.”
“Keep yourself safe as well. We still don’t fully know what’s going on, and you know how much I hate not knowing.”
“I won’t stop investigating the city,” Samson said. “I’ll see what I can find out. I might have a better go at it, now that I’ll be there.”
“Alright. I’ve found you a place to live. A better place than the one that you have now, which I know was out of necessity. I remember how particular you are.” Dracon punctuated his sentence with a laugh, and Samson grinned.
“I can rough it if needed,” he said.
“You don’t need to anymore. We’ve got you a condo in the same building that Max lives in. It’s not as large as his is, but I know you don’t really like a lot of extra space. It’s a few floors below him and is only a one bedroom with a den.”
Samson could have done without the den even, but it was fine. He liked nice, but small most of the time. “Alright. Text me the address for the building and who I need to talk to when I arrive, please.”
“Of course. Good luck, Samson.”
“You as well.”
Samson ended the call and calmly went back to reading his book with fifty percent of his attention. Now part of his attention was keeping track of his surroundings, and the other part was thinking of the most efficient way to pack his things when he arrived back at his small apartment.
12
IT HAD TAKEN SAMSON A few days to get things handled farther north, but he’d gotten it done. He’d been assured that Max could handle himself and that a few days without a guard for his body was fine. Apparently, Maxim was a badass and had a guard of his own mainly for show. Part of Samson was impressed by that since that wasn’t normally the case. But he’d draw his own conclusions when he arrived and got to see what he was working with.
Dracon had sent Samson pictures of the condo that the Directorate had secured for him, and he’d approved, even if it was more space than he needed. It was a beautiful space, and a building that gave him many amenities that he’d thought weren’t available to him. Some had been added to the building’s offerings recently, most likely because they had the most famous vampire on the east coast living there.
Max played very well in the public eye. It was something that Samson had been watching for months now, trying to determine whether Max liked the spotlight, or the spotlight liked him. He’d decided that the answer was the latter and that he was a boon to the vampire cause to co-exist without having to hide. Most others agreed, though there were still some that thought he ought to simply retire to his bat cave and quietly do what he was told. Most of those naysayers were old and stuck in their ways, so most people paid them no mind.
Samson gathered his things carefully as the train pulled into the station. Everything he owned was in two duffel bags currently, but the Directorate had provided him with a rather healthy bit of money to furnish his new place. He had money in his account, quite a bit of it since he didn’t really spend money often, but they insisted that they pay for it since he was on a job at their bidding. The Directorate puzzled him sometimes.
He stepped off of the train with what seemed like hundreds of other people and followed the surging masses up and out of the train station. He didn’t stop moving until he’d exited the building and was able to take a deep breath of car exhaust and people air. He found an unoccupied bench at a bus stop a block from the building and stopped to readjust his bags. Tha
t was when everything went to shit.
It was just after full dark, and maybe the lack of daytime light and foot traffic had emboldened the men that surrounded him. That was a mistake on their part, thinking that he was some sort of easy mark.
“Hey, fangy,” one of the men snarled. Samson could feel the hot, living energy that surrounded the three shifters that had pulled their hoods low over their faces and approached him from behind. He’d seen them coming and wasn’t caught off guard in any way. A healthy dose of paranoia was always a good thing in his book.
“You’re one to talk,” Samson said softly. Several of them started laughing.
“We’ve got ourselves a smartass, guys. We already intended on teaching his dead ass a lesson, but I guess we’ve got more than one reason now,” a second voice said.
“I have no idea who you all are, so there is no way you have any sort of beef with me,” Samson said, though he did set down his bags, anticipating being ignored and needing to fight.
“Your kind framed us for murders that we didn’t commit. You’ve set this entire city against us, and someone somewhere ought to pay for what we’ve had to go through since that case broke national news.” That was voice number one again.
“I seem to remember it being proven that it wasn’t vampires that murdered those people,” Samson pointed out. The three men began to circle, not seeming to care that their logic for approaching was flawed.
“This is a mistake, gentlemen,” Samson said, unbuttoning the cuffs of his pressed, button-down shirt and rolling the sleeves up a few inches.
“Hey, if you’re going to make the mistake of trying to take on all three of us instead of just taking your beating like a good little fanger, we’re not going to stop you from making a fool of yourself.” Ah, there was the third voice.
Samson rolled his head around a bit as the three circled, jeering and tossing insults that he didn’t really hear. That was amateurish, and he wasn’t that type of fighter. If they wanted to throw hands, he was more than willing to show them who he really was. He hadn’t had a good fight in at least a week anyway.
