“The young man,” said the bartender, “said he had a room at the Renaissance.”
Danny tried to process that information. So many things all at once. First, the Renaissance. Where they found Jeremy. Second, that her little Adalia had gone with a strange man to a hotel room.
He is only strange to us. We do not have his scent.
She wished she knew where mother ended and creature of the Night began.
She is Pack of our Pack. Blood of our blood.
“You’re right,” said Danny. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m sorry?” said the bartender, but she was already turning to leave.
• • •
Danny (12:10): She’s at the Renaissance.
Val (12:11): Autocarrot?
Danny (12:12): No
Val (12:12): !
Danny (12:15): In a cab.
Val (12:16): Meet you there.
Danny (12:20): ily2
• • •
Danny stalked along the corridor of the Renaissance. It hadn’t changed in the couple days since she’d last been here. Dark panels. Mood lighting. Closed doors. She wished she had planted a TrackR on Adalia, but Adalia wasn’t a child anymore.
But she was fragile. So fragile, and so precious.
She wasn’t sure she was on the right floor, or wouldn’t have been without her daughter’s scent. The air held a faint memory of it, clean and pure. The air told her other things, like there was a smoker somewhere on this floor — in a smoke-free hotel, no less, there’d be an extra charge in that person’s future — and, perhaps more importantly, no smell of blood. It would be tricky to strangle — Danny shuddered at the thought — Adalia without her turning the Universe against her attacker. Any other means of killing her would have to be quick, and almost certainly bloody.
We will find her. She will not be dead.
There was another scent in the air, familiar and strange at the same time. Like something she’d forgotten once, a long time ago. A memory on the very edge of memory. Someone she knew? Someone she’d met? She shook her head. You need to stop stalking people through hotels. It’s becoming a habit. At least this hotel wasn’t full of zombies and vodou monsters.
Adalia’s scent was strongest here, outside this door. Danny rested a hand against the door, thought about tearing it open, knocked instead. And waited.
Nothing.
Danny knocked again. She heard Adalia’s voice — alive! — from inside. “Just a second.” There were footsteps, and then the door opened. Her daughter stood there, white hotel robe on, hotel slippers on, green hair tousled. “Mom?”
Danny crushed her in a hug. “I was so worried.”
“Mom? What are you … what are you doing here?”
“There’s been a thing. The Emergency. Get your things.” Danny frowned. “Why are you in the Renaissance? Never mind. We can talk about that on the way.”
The elevator pinged from up the corridor, and Danny saw Val step out. Her face broke into a smile when she saw—
Pack mate.
—him walk towards her. She turned back to Adalia, and felt the smile fall from her face as she saw who was behind her.
No.
That other scent. The one she should have known.
This one is dead.
The one who she’d killed.
NO.
She bared her teeth, pulled Adalia out of the way, into the hall with her, and sank into a crouch. “You’re dead.”
“Nyet,” said the man. “Pochti ves' put'. But not all the way.”
“Mom?” said Adalia. “What’s going on?”
Val was at her shoulder, standing—
Pack of our Pack.
—side by side with her. He looked at who was in the room, stiffened, and then shook his head. “Hello, father.”
“What’s going on?!” wailed Adalia.
This cannot be.
But here he was, the snake in the grass. The great deceiver. The source of all of their pain. This time, Danny would make sure he was dead.
Volk.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO
“You know how much I like road trips,” said Carlisle from the back seat, “but riding in the kiddie seat is my favorite.”
The big Hummer rumbled along. Rex thought it sounded like it was fueled by the spirits of the dead the way it roared when you put your foot down, but Jessie said it was just dead dinosaurs. It was optioned from the shop floor, leather seats, tinted windows, hardpoints — whatever those were — and a twelve-speaker sound system. Hell, it even had little TV screens in the back seats. Apparently this wasn’t military issue, but Jessie still insisted on calling it a Humvee. “Well, you keep trying to backseat drive,” he said.
“So you put me in the back seat?”
“I called shotgun,” said Jessie, in the passenger seat and looking smug behind her aviators, “and you hate driving in Manhattan traffic.”
“I hate Manhattan traffic too,” said Rex, “but I’m not currently carrying a firearm, so that makes it safer for me to be in charge of the wheel of this thing.”
“Chrissakes,” said Carlisle, but subsided.
“Does everyone get a gun who wants one?” said Sam, from beside her.
“No,” said Carlisle.
“Why?”
“It’s against the law,” said Carlisle, “but more important than that, I do not want to be shot by some rookie on our own team.”
Rex could see Sam’s disappointed look in the rear view mirror, but the man took it with good grace. “Well, at least I can get us in.”
“We hope,” said Jessie. “It’s in the plan.”
“You’re sure he’s … what did Jeremy call it?” said Sam.
“‘Vampire High Command,’” said Jessie.
“You sure the kid’s not going to be at Vampire High Command?” said Sam. “You know, in the Garden.”
“Not the MO,” said Carlisle. “It’s where they take people to turn them into blood suckers. Charlie’s a little young. You don’t want the head of Biomne to be a thirteen-year-old kid. Forever.”
“So you figure he’ll be here. At my apartment.”
“Well,” said Carlisle, “it’s a little unorthodox for a kidnapper to take the kidnapped back to their own home, I’ll admit. But if the kid’s bait — no offense — then you need a trap. The best trap is your house. But it’s a little moot.”
“How so?” said Sam.
“Because they said so in the messages on my phone.” Rex caught the turn of her head as she looked out the window.
“What?!”
“What she’s trying to say,” said Jessie, “is that they know who we are, and that you’re with us. Remember. They just got a bunch of intelligence. They’re trying to draw us out any way they can.”
“I … but I—”
“You’ve had a lot on your mind,” said Carlisle, her voice distracted. “Jesus, you’ve got a nice place.” She wasn’t wrong, Rex’s phone guiding them up alongside a 5th Avenue apartment, a doorman out the front wearing a red jacket and an implacable expression. Next to him was a burly man, jacket bulky enough to be hiding all kinds of mischief, tattoos down one side of his face.
“Hang on,” said Sam. “We’re going into an actual trap set by actual vampires? And who’s that guy out the front?”
“Which guy?” said Carlisle. “The PMC asshole or Pee-Wee Herman?”
“Pee-Wee Herman is Bruce,” said Sam. “He’s my doorman.”
Rex put the brake on and turned to face the back seat. “Son,” he said. “Do you want Charlie back or not?”
“More than anything,” said Sam. “But—”
“Son,” said Rex, “we’re going to get your Charlie. We’re going into that building, we’re going to get your kid, and we’re going to bring him to you.”
“I see,” said Sam.
“It’s not entirely selfless,” said Jessie. “You’re conflicted. You’re thinking about whether you can make a deal with
them.”
“I—”
“Or maybe you’re not,” she said, “but we’re … we’re just going to snip that problem off. Nip it in the bud.” She started connecting things to a large rifle — her Light Fifty.
“Christ, Pearce,” said Carlisle. “These aren’t vampires. They’re people.”
“PMC assholes,” said Jessie. “PMC assholes who’ve taken a kid.”
Carlisle thought about that, then nodded. “I get your math. But it’s a little loud.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Jessie, “but I brought a solution.” She pulled out a tube about as long and as thick as Rex’s forearm. “Quick detach suppressor. Subsonic ammunition. You’ll know about it if you’re next to me, but it won’t interrupt the Netflix show in the apartment next door.”
“My apartment’s a whole floor,” said Sam.
“Or the Netflix in the apartment above.”
“Penthouse,” said Sam.
“Or,” she said, teeth gritted, “below.”
“Okay,” said Carlisle. “Let’s go. You want the guy next to Bruce?”
“Bruce is Pee-Wee?”
“Correct.”
“I’d prefer not to fire this thing outside.” She sighed. “It’s quiet, but it’s almost as long as I am tall. The less time it sees sunlight—”
“Got you,” said Carlisle. She pulled out her sidearm, attaching her own silencer. “Everyone seems to think you want to shoot people when you order a silencer,” she said. “I get the weirdest looks.”
“I know, right?” said Jessie.
Carlisle holstered the gun and then she slipping out the back door, moving fast and smooth towards the door to the apartment. The PMC guy had time to put out a hand, started to say something that was probably you can’t be here before Carlisle was on him. She grabbed his outstretched arm and twisted her whole body, the man’s elbow snapping the wrong way. He was starting to scream as she twisted back the other way, catching him under the jaw with the heel of her palm. He went down like a sack of flour, if sacks of flour came in at 250 pounds, just kind of stretched out on the sidewalk. Carlisle was already talking to Pee-Wee — Bruce, dammit, they’ve got me doing it too — pointing down the street. Bruce took off at a run.
Carlisle slipped inside, Sam’s card opening the door with a click, Jessie already out of the passenger seat and moving behind her. The two of them vanished inside.
“Uh,” said Sam, “shouldn’t we follow them?”
“We are,” said Rex. He didn’t move. There was a scream from inside, cut short. You know, they were right: you really couldn’t hear the guns.
“But we’re still out here.”
“Son,” said Rex. “We’ve got two people in there with various forms of weapons, mostly high caliber. You and I? We’re what you’d call enthusiastic amateurs. They, well, they are the pros. They are going to punch a hole.”
“Two people,” said Sam. “Against how many?”
“Not sure,” said Rex. There was a shower of glass from above them and a man in a full combat vest fell screaming to the sidewalk. He landed hard, then tried to move. The movements were weak, like his brain hadn’t got the message from his body that it wasn’t okay to stand. “Hang on,” said Rex. He got out, walked over to the man. “Hey,” said Rex, “what happened?”
“Two women,” said the man, eyes not focusing, “they were fast. One of them had a … I think it was a fifty cal. So I just ran, you know?”
“Okay,” said Rex.
“The other one caught me on the way past and then I was falling,” said the man.
“Sounds good,” said Rex, and hit him hard, in the face. The man slumped back onto the sidewalk. Rex winced, shaking his hand.
There was a crack of masonry and Rex looked up. One of the walls had puckered out, brickwork raining down. A second hole appeared next to it, then a third. Silence. Rex pointed up for Sam’s benefit, the man having joined him on the sidewalk. “Jessie doesn’t usually miss twice.”
“How can you tell it was Jessie?”
“Her gun’s more likely to punch through brick and drywall and people all at the same time,” he said. “C’mon. Time to head up.”
“Uh,” said Sam. “Shouldn’t we give them more time?”
There was a hard punch of sound, maybe a shotgun. It fired twice more, then silence. “No,” said Rex, “I think we’re getting towards the likely end of the journey here. We need you up there. For Charlie.”
“Right,” said Sam. He seemed in shock. “Why?”
“Well,” said Rex, “let’s say you were a thirteen-year-old kid. Let’s say you were in a house with a bunch of soldiers, and your father was missing. And then these two crazy people came in and started shooting everyone.”
“Okay,” said Sam.
“What I’m saying is, do you have a safe room?” Rex sighed. “I think you have a safe room. Where Charlie probably is, with a couple of holdout soldiers. We need you to get that room open.”
“Okay,” said Sam. He didn’t move.
Rex sighed. His earpiece crackled, then Jessie’s voice came over it. “I think we’re clear.”
“Safe room?” said Rex.
“Yep,” she said. “Standard biometric lock with a PIN on this side.”
“We’re coming up,” said Rex.
• • •
They walked through the foyer leading to the elevators. Rex eyed the stairway, a big open-air affair taking up a ridiculous amount of space for a place in Manhattan. The kind of thing Howard Hughes would have put in, and with the age of this place it might just have been he.
Sam was walking towards the elevator. “Are we going up?”
“Yeah,” said Rex, “but not that way.” He was still staring up at the magnificent stairway.
“The stairs?” said Sam. “I mean—”
“Son,” said Rex, “if I was the head asshole of a PMC holding this building I’d have put a bunch of surprises in the elevator. It’s what, ten floors up?”
“Fourteen,” said Sam, looking uncomfortable.
“Fourteen,” said Rex. “Look at it this way. You’ll be getting your step count up.”
“I don’t use a FitBit,” said Sam.
“’Course not,” said Rex. “Steps still go up.”
They started to climb, passing a body on the stairs. Woman, forties, scar on her face, hole punched right through her armor jacket. Rex stepped over her, looked back at Sam, who was pale but not green. Good. It’d be bad to have him throwing up by the time they made his kid.
Their first problem came at them with a scream and a knife on the fifth floor. Rex had time to notice trim beard, nice lines, I have to go to a barber to get that kind of thing going on before the man was on him. The knife was huge, almost a short sword, but Rex was too damn tired and over these stairs already, and just kind of helped the guy a little by stepping sideways. The man tumbled over the railing, scrabbling at the edge before falling down. Rex looked over, saw the man at the bottom, neck at an unnatural angle, and tapped his earpiece. “You missed one.”
“On five?” Carlisle sighed. “He locked himself behind the stairwell door. I figured he was making a run for it.”
“Any more?”
“There’s one on eight. You want that I come and get you?”
Rex rubbed a hand over his face. “No. Just, I don’t know. What do you kids do? Text me or something.”
“Right,” she said. “Sorry. Like I said—”
“You thought he was making a run for it.”
“Right, right.”
Sam was watching Rex’s half of this conversation. “Trouble?”
“There’s another one on eight. Maybe.” Rex frowned. “Could be more. I mean, how many people live here?”
“You know,” said Sam, ignoring the question, “I’d have expected more. I’d have expected the police to turn up by now, to be honest.”
“Pretty sure they own the police,” said Rex. “Not in a bought-and-paid fo
r kind of way. In the all-the-guys-in-charge-are-vampires kind of way.”
“Figures,” said Sam. “Wouldn’t they come and try and arrest us then?”
“YouTube,” said Rex, looking up at the staircase and then blowing air out. “Son? Let’s go. Charlie’s waiting.”
They passed a barricade on six made of sandbags and boxes and pieces of furniture. It looked like it had been chewed by a large dog, ripped wood and fragments of material scattered among the bodies. ‘Light’ Fifty my ass, thought Rex. “We’re getting warmer.”
Sam was close behind, almost too close. Nervous. I get it. “Uh, how come these … what are they, military?”
“PMC,” said Rex, then, “Private Military Company.”
“Right, there’s a lot of them,” said Sam. “And just two of us.”
“Four,” said Rex, then, “or, uh, three. Son, I don’t mean to be unkind, but—”
“No, it’s fine,” said Sam. “Last time I saw a PMC was when Elsie Morgan was in charge of Biomne. Some real serious dudes.”
“Were they,” said Rex, “trained by werewolves?”
“Not that I know of,” said Sam.
“Only eight floors to go,” said Rex, as if that settled everything.
• • •
“Son,” said Rex, “son, you need to open this door.” He released the press-to-talk button on the outside of the panic room. As far as panic rooms went it looked impressive, at least from the outside. Big black door, made of some kind of metal, probably steel or kryptonite or some such thing. Joins so fine you couldn’t fit a pin in them. Anti-duress system so it couldn’t be opened from the outside if someone had locked themselves inside. All brushed to a polish, blurry reflections of Rex, Sam, Jessie, and Carlisle in the dark metal.
“We’ve got re-enforcements inbound,” said the speaker.
“Son,” said Rex, pressing the button, “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, so I’m going to break this down for you.” He looked over his shoulder; Jessie nodded encouragement. “We don’t really care.”
“You might not care,” said the speaker, “but you ain’t coming in. It’ll be dark soon, and then you’ll care.”
The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy Page 94
