by Tina Folsom
“We can’t change that now. I don’t blame you, you know that, honey, don’t you?”
“Oh Lilo, I don’t deserve you.”
Lilo ran her hand over Hannah’s auburn hair. “Blake will come for us.”
Hannah forced a smile. “He’s a good man.” She sniffled. “How did you even find out about Norwood and about Scanguards?”
“I went to your apartment, and Norwood broke in.”
“Oh my God! Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “Blake showed up just in time. He saved me, and Norwood ran. But he was looking for something. I suppose it was the USB stick you hid.”
Hannah sighed in relief. “You found it! I was hoping somebody would. I was afraid that Norwood would kill me, so I told him that I had evidence that showed what he was doing. I told him I had the formula for the drug. I knew he wanted it so he wouldn’t need Ronny anymore. And that if he killed me, the authorities would find it.”
“But there was nothing on the recording other than Norwood and Ronny turning into vampires. You can’t even tell what they’re talking about; there’s no audio. And we didn’t find the formula for the drug either.”
Hannah winked. “Because I don’t have it. But Norwood didn’t know that.”
“I still don’t understand. You couldn’t have known that you would be kidnapped when you hid the memory stick.”
“You’re right. But after I accidentally recorded Ronny and Norwood arguing, and Ronny told me he wanted out of what Norwood was doing, I had a strange feeling. So I hid the USB stick. I figured if something happened to me, at least somebody would know where to start. Scanguards would know.”
“But didn’t you realize that Norwood would go to your apartment, trying to find the evidence you told him you had? What if he’d found it before we did?”
Hannah shook her head. “I told him because I wanted him to go to my flat. I was hoping that by that time, Scanguards would realize that I was missing, and set up a watch on my flat. I was counting on Norwood going and hoping that he’d be caught by Scanguards.”
“You were right. Except that Norwood was able to escape.” She sighed. “Blake’s worried about you.”
“He’s a good friend.”
“He told me how you two met.”
Hannah dropped her lids. “You probably think that I’m impulsive and irresponsible, but even when he told me that he was a vampire, I couldn’t just let him die.”
Lilo smiled. She’d been in a similar situation. And she hadn’t had the heart either. “Thank you for saving him. If you hadn’t, I never would have met him.”
Hannah’s chin suddenly dropped. “Are you serious?” She shook her head. “You and Blake? How? I mean I don’t understand. You’re not the impulsive one. That’s me. You’re so... so reasonable... and you think everything through.”
“Sometimes things just happen. And there’s nothing I can do about it. And our captors somehow found out about me and Blake, and they used it against me. When you called to tell me that Blake was badly injured, I didn’t even stop to think for a split second. I just acted. You had his car. I had no reason to believe you weren’t telling the truth. I was so scared to lose him, Hannah.” Even now the thought clamped around her heart like a vice and squeezed.
“He’ll come for us,” Hannah said, her voice stronger now. “But now that you’re here, maybe we can figure out how to get out of here.”
For the first time, Lilo let her eyes wander around their prison. It was a large room with high ceilings, bare concrete walls, and a couple of windows high up. Both were painted black. Steel reinforcements, possibly an earthquake safety retrofit, criss-crossed two of the walls. It appeared that this was a room in a warehouse.
Lilo tapped her finger to her lips.
“What would Morgan West do in a situation like this?” Hannah asked, putting her arm around her shoulder.
“I’m not sure even Morgan West is clever enough to outsmart a bunch of vampires. We might have to put our money on Blake and Scanguards.”
~ ~ ~
“Everybody ready?”
Blake looked at his colleagues. They were all standing in a side street behind a large truck in the Potrero Hill neighborhood. Wedged between two freeways, the northern part of the district housed mainly businesses: predominantly warehouses and wholesalers. Farther up the hill to the south, the area was framed by a residential neighborhood.
Wesley’s idea to use the blood inside the human they’d caught at Fort Mason had worked like a charm. The human had led them to a large warehouse in Potrero Hill as if he were a homing pigeon. While a Scanguards employee escorted him back to HQ where he would be debriefed—or rather, where they’d wipe his memory—Blake and his men got ready for their rescue mission.
Thanks to their contacts with the city, Thomas had already sent the blueprint of the warehouse to a computer in one of the vans they’d arrived in. But what had really helped in strategizing their approach was Lilo’s blood.
Blake pulled in a fortifying breath. Because he’d bitten Lilo only a few hours ago, her blood was still strong inside him, and as soon as they’d gotten within a block of the warehouse and out of the van, he’d smelled her. He’d been able to identify where in the building she was being kept.
Blake now looked at his colleagues, who were putting on their goggles. They weren’t for night vision; the vampires didn’t need that. Instead, they functioned as thermal imaging devices. Blake shouldered a rope with a hook at its end, as well as some climbing gear. His backpack held several stakes, small-caliber handguns and enough ammunition to take out half an army. He wasn’t leaving anything to chance.
“You know what to do,” he said and turned his back to his colleagues.
“You sure you wanna do this alone?” John asked.
Blake looked over his shoulder. “I have to. If we go in guns blazing, they’ll have enough time to kill Lilo and Hannah. Wait for my text.”
Not waiting for John’s response, Blake turned into the next street and walked around the block until he reached the street behind the warehouse Norwood and his cronies were holed up in. He knew he didn’t have much time. In less than an hour the sun would rise, and any rescue attempt would have to be delayed.
It was easy to find the building that stood directly behind the warehouse. It was a plumbing supplier, and the building was two stories high, whereas the warehouse had three levels.
Blake assessed the building on both sides. No fire escape. He’d have to do it the hard way. Blake lifted the rope off his shoulder and got ready. Luckily this had been one of the many things he’d been taught during his training at Scanguards many years ago: how to swing a rope onto a roof and hook it on the ledge so he could climb up.
It wasn’t quite as easy as it looked in all the cat burglar movies, but on his second attempt, the four-pronged hook found purchase. He pulled on the rope to make sure it held and ascended. His vampire strength made the climb easy. Once on the roof, he unhooked the rope and crossed the flat surface until he reached the edge. There were no windows on this side of the red brick building, but there was a gap of about two yards. Easy to jump, if the buildings were of the same height, but not even he could jump up twelve or fourteen feet to the roof of the warehouse.
He made sure the rope was properly rolled up, before he swung it again, aiming the hook at the ledge of the warehouse’s roof as if he were swinging a lasso at a calf. This time he succeeded on the first try. Again he pulled at the rope to make sure it didn’t loosen.
Then he wrapped part of the rope around his right hand, held onto it a little higher with the left and stepped back a few feet. He ran and jumped toward the red brick wall feet first. When the soles of his feet hit the wall, he bent his knees, absorbing the impact, and steadied himself.
He took a breath and listened. Had somebody heard the bang against the wall? He waited another few seconds, but heard nothing in response, so he climbed the rope and reached the roof. Not even taking a second�
��s rest, he rolled up the rope and crossed the roof, being careful not to tread too heavily for fear the occupants would hear him.
When he reached the ledge, he inhaled deeply, letting the scent permeate his body. Lilo was somewhere below him. He laid flat on the ground and edged forward, looking down. There were several windows along this wall, one about six to eight feet below him. He slid back and rose, reaching into his backpack to retrieve his thermal imaging goggles. He put them on. Then he fastened the rope to an old chimney a few feet away.
Blake tied the rope around his waist, giving himself enough length to reach the window, then started to lower himself over the edge. He gripped the rope tightly and released more and more of it, until his feet touched the window ledge. He looked through the window, but it was painted black. Luckily, this was no obstacle for his goggles.
Inside the room he perceived two bodies, though he couldn’t tell whether they were vampire or human, because the heat signature of either species was the same. However, Lilo’s scent was strong here. It was seeping through the single-paned window. Blake made a quick assessment of the window and its mechanism. It was latched in the middle, meant to be opened at the top and tilted inward, rather than opened to the side. A little inconvenient to enter through such a tight space, but not entirely impossible. He’d worry about that after he’d managed to open it.
Blake reached for a knife in one of his many pockets and wedged it in the gap between window frame and lintel, sliding it to the latch in the middle. When he felt the lock, he wiggled the knife until he heard a click. He kept the knife there. Checking that his rope was holding, he let go of it with his other hand and then reached for the window, pushing it inward slowly and silently, until it had tilted to a forty-five degree angle on its bottom hinges.
He took off his goggles and hooked them onto his belt. It was dark in the room, but even without his night vision he would have known who was inside: Lilo’s scent was strongest here.
“Lilo,” he whispered.
He heard somebody stir, then he saw her and Hannah appear in his field of vision, looking up at the window.
“Blake!” Lilo said.
“Shhhh,” he cautioned, and put his finger to his lips and motioned Lilo and Hannah to approach. He took off his backpack and reached it through the opening, before he let go of it to drop it into Lilo’s waiting hands.
Checking out the window’s opening once more, he held onto the window frame and balanced himself on the ledge, releasing the rope. Once he was without the safety of the rope he reached inside the room, gripping the metal frame of the window that was anchored to the inside wall. He pulled up his knees and swung his legs through the opening, catapulting his body forward into the middle of the room, where he landed. The impact was hard, but he rolled off instantly.
Immediately, he listened for sounds from within the warehouse, but nobody seemed to have heard him.
Lilo and Hannah rushed to him. Lilo wrapped her arms around him, and he pressed her to him for a brief moment. “You’re alive.” He pressed a kiss into her hair, then reached for Hannah’s shoulder and squeezed it.
“We don’t have much time,” he murmured.
Lilo raised her eyes to the window. “How’re we gonna get up there?”
“We’re not,” he said. He snatched his backpack and opened it. He pulled two guns from it and handed one to Lilo and one to Hannah. “Have you fired a gun before?”
Lilo nodded. She’d attended the writer’s police academy several times to help her write realistic crime fiction.
Hannah shook her head, so he quickly showed her how to handle the gun.
Satisfied, Blake reached into the backpack again and pulled out a heavy silver chain. Even through the thick, double-layered leather gloves he could feel the silver, though it didn’t burn him. He laid it on the floor and pulled out his cell phone, sent a pre-typed text message to John, and put the phone back.
Then he looked at Lilo and Hannah. “Listen carefully. In a few minutes Norwood and his people will storm in here and try to use you as shields. I want you to go to that corner of the room.” He pointed to the corner, which, once the door was thrown open, would be in the entering person’s blind spot. “Keep your guns ready. Only shoot if one of them comes at you and I can’t take him out. Understand?”
Both nodded. Then he took the chain from the floor and walked toward the door. Next to it, he saw steel beams criss-crossing the wall. Perfect.
He climbed halfway up the wall, chain in his hands, ready to pounce.
Suddenly, his vampire hearing picked up the sounds of commotion from downstairs. Scanguards had just kicked in the door. Norwood and his men were finally aware that they were being ambushed.
Moments later, he heard approaching footsteps, then a key turned in the lock and the door flew open. A vampire rushed in.
Blake jumped, looping the silver chain around the hostile’s neck on his descent. The vampire released a choked cry, loud enough to alert his associates, and tried to pry the chain away from his neck. But Blake was already knotting the chain and wrapping it around the asshole’s neck a second time, before kicking him in the back to push him to the ground and hogtie him with the silver chain. The vampire struggled, kicking and screaming. He turned his head to flash his fangs, thus giving Blake a good view. It wasn’t Norwood, but one of his associates. Ronny had been able to give Scanguards most of the names of Norwood’s men and several of them had been in the database. The vampire currently hogtied on the floor was one of them.
Blake heard the commotion downstairs. Yelling. Grunting. Loud thuds. His colleagues were hard at work. He glanced at Lilo and Hannah. Both had come out of the corner.
“Stay here,” he ordered the women and motioned to the vampire on the ground. “He can’t get free.”
Lilo’s eyes suddenly widened and she raised her weapon, pointing it in Blake’s direction. “Nooooo!” she screamed and pulled the trigger.
Blake dove away and rolled, jumping up a second later, but Lilo kept shooting—not at the spot where he was now, but where he had been. Blake looked over his shoulder.
“Oh shit!”
Lilo was emptying her clip into a vampire that had tumbled to the floor, a stake rolling out of his hand. Norwood. Blood was oozing from multiple wounds. Finally, one shot hit him in the head, and within seconds, Norwood had disintegrated into dust, the silver bullet in his brain eating him alive.
Blake jumped up and rushed to Lilo, taking the empty gun from her shaking hands and pulling her into his embrace. She’d saved his life a second time.
But he had no time to thank her, because another sound coming from the door made him whirl around, push Lilo behind him, and rip the gun from Hannah’s hands, aiming at the vampire entering.
“Hold your horses,” John said.
Blake blew out a breath and lowered his weapon.
“We got four. You?”
Blake pointed to the hogtied vampire, who was whimpering with pain. “Two. This one and Norwood.” He tilted his head to where the dust had settled.
“Then we’ve got them all.”
“Anybody hurt?” Blake asked.
John smiled and shook his head. “Those amateurs were no match for us. Piece of cake.”
Blake turned to Lilo and Hannah. “It’s over. Let’s go home.”
Lilo flew into his arms, and he reached out one arm to pull Hannah into the hug.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” Hannah murmured.
“Don’t thank me. Thank Lilo. She did all the hard work.”
Lilo lifted her head from his chest. “I was scared.”
“But you did it anyway. That’s what being brave means.”
And he’d never met a braver woman than Lilo.
41
Blake tossed a look over his shoulder to glance at where Lilo was standing talking to Hannah and Delilah. Samson’s house was packed to the rafters with Scanguards employees and their families, all celebrating the successful rescue of
Lilo and Hannah, and the elimination of Norwood’s crew.
“And I got sent on patrol while all this was happening?” Grayson groused when John had finished recounting the events.
Blake turned to his charge, though considering Grayson’s age, he really should relinquish his duties where they concerned Samson’s hotheaded second-born. “You wanted your own patrol. You got it.”
“Yeah, a patrol where nothing happened. Tell me the truth: my father had you assign me to the safest neighborhood, didn’t he?”
Blake lifted his hands. “I had nothing to do with your assignment.” And he wasn’t going to throw either Samson or Quinn, who handled the patrol schedule, under the bus.
Grayson huffed. “You’re a big help.” He turned and marched away.
Blake exchanged a look with John, who simply shrugged. “He’s still got a lot to learn.”
“He’s crazy if he thinks I’d let him join a mission to save my w... uh Lilo’s life.”
John nodded, the smirk on his face suddenly gone. “You were lucky this time. Not everybody has that kind of luck.”
Blake dropped his head, nodding. “I know that. I wish you’d had better luck.” He didn’t have to ask whether John still thought of his blood-bonded mate every day.
“Excuse me. I should have a word with Amaury,” John said, in a clear attempt to escape the conversation.
Blake didn’t stop him. If he lost the woman he loved, he wouldn’t want to talk about it either. The only reason Blake knew about John’s loss was because Cain had informed the Scanguards management team about the tragedy at the time of John’s transfer four years ago.
Suddenly standing amidst the crowd by himself, Blake turned and searched for Lilo.
But before he found her, Wesley and Samson came toward him. Samson nodded to him, then jerked his thumb at Wes. “Wes said you’re supporting him in this cockamamie idea of going after these Stealth Guardians, of whom we really know nothing at all.”
Blake nodded. He’d made a deal with Wes and he would keep up his end of the bargain. “If anybody can find them and possibly hammer out an alliance, then it’s Wes. I have confidence in him. We need to do this.”
