Drawing Down the Mist

by Sheri Lewis Wohl

  She couldn’t stick around here because she couldn’t think. Particularly if Rodney was bringing in a couple of strangers. Her eyes drifted to the monitors. It was actually a little odd, given that he was a confirmed hermit. Today it seemed like the few he did allow into his shadowy world were all showing up at the same time. A little tight for her comfort, and she would solve the claustrophobia problem by leaving. She would go home and make a few battle plans. By this time tomorrow, she’d have her own mess cleaned up, and hopefully by then, the Consortium would tip their hand so she could stop what she thought of as the spread of the red tide.

  While it was true she’d been preparing for this confrontation for a long time, she still had a lingering fear that she hadn’t done enough. Rodney’s faith that they were well prepared for the encounters to come was encouraging. Then again, he hadn’t dealt with these creatures as long as she had, and his success at living off the grid made him overly optimistic. What she needed was some quiet time to think it all through.

  As the door slid open on its silent glides, she moved toward it, stopping before she made it more than a couple of feet. Rodney came through the door first, followed by two women: one petite beauty with a mass of long red hair and eyes so green they looked like emeralds and one tall, with dark, spiky hair and intense eyes. From her ears, tiny red stones dangled and caught the light. Her gaze flicked over the redhead and lingered on the second woman, who was captivating and vaguely familiar. It took her a moment to figure out why. Then it hit her—the writer from Spokane who was making millions of dollars on a series of books. Those photographs on the back of her novels or in the newspapers didn’t do her justice. She was stunning in person, and as their eyes met, a thrill raced through her. As intent as she’d been about leaving a minute ago, her drive to get going had suddenly dropped to somewhere around zero.

  Good lord, how shallow was she? A pretty face and she backslid at a time like this? Wasn’t that part of what had gotten her in this mess to begin with? She’d fallen for another dark-haired beauty, and it had cost her everything. It would serve her well to remember that fact. Doing a full-out skid now because a woman was beautiful and fascinating? No. She refused to trip herself up again.

  She began once more to walk toward the door. “I have to go.” She knew she sounded abrupt. Couldn’t help it. She was pissed at herself for falling back on timeworn ways, even only for a second. As the saying went, she was old enough to know better.

  “Okay.” Rodney wasn’t the kind who would stop to dissect a decision or take it personally. Undoubtedly, he would have preferred she stay for a while so they could talk strategy. His excitement at the coming war was easy to see, even though he tried to come off as cool and calm. She saw through him just as he knew her well enough to realize that what he’d told her would spur her into immediate action.

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Copy that.” Rodney closed the steel door behind her, and as he did the small lights along the steps appeared. She ran up them and out into the night, rain hitting her in the face.

  She crossed the woods in half the time it would take her human counterparts. Darkness has been her friend for so long now, it was a welcome respite from the intensity of her confab with Rodney and the jolt she’d felt when looking into the woman’s dark eyes. The light rain felt cool on her skin, and the fresh air energized her. Every nerve in her body buzzed, gearing her up to take action and keeping the vision of a beautiful face in her mind.

  At the car, she stood and stared into the cloud-covered sky, so dark it was a giant black abyss. “Shake it off,” she whispered as she shook out her hands and her arms. Better. She was focused again. Good to go. She got in, turned the key, and was on the highway headed toward town, mulling over everything Rodney had shared with her. All thoughts of the beautiful writer were pushed to the far recesses.

  After she pondered the undeniable truth that she’d been betrayed, Sasha was more than hot by the time she arrived back at her office. It had been decades since she’d longed to feel blood slide over her teeth, and tonight she wanted more than blood. She wanted souls, two in particular, and by the time daylight came calling, she’d have them. Some things could be forgiven. Some things couldn’t. She was amped up with emotion, making her slam the car door, the sound echoing in the night.

  When she first got back to her apartment, she changed her clothes. She’d left for Rodney’s in what for years had been her normal attire. By design she strove to maintain a neutral appearance, catch no one’s attention by standing out. It was easier to move in the world undetected that way. She was an attractive woman, had been since she was a child. How often had her parents described her as the angel of the family? Father worried she was too good, and on those rare occasions when she acted out, he’d celebrated. During those long-ago days she’d dreamed of being nothing more than a wife and a mother. She’d have a marriage arranged by her parents with a prince that she would learn to accept though knew she would never, could never, love. Even as a child, she’d realized she was different, but duty meant that her truth would always be her secret. In the end, none of it mattered. All of what could have been had been denied her, and in the subsequent years, her desire for love, marriage, and motherhood had waned and then vanished. She wasn’t an angel anymore.

  She was a survivor and, more important, a warrior. When she’d realized what had happened to her, she could think of nothing but destroying the one who had denied her the only thing that would reunite her with her family: death. Her desire for revenge had made her stronger than even the superior powers her preternatural status granted her.

  In the intervening years, more than a desire for revenge had come to drive her. Justice also came into play. When she was strong enough to truly survive on her own, she’d come to understand the undercurrent that rippled through society. There were others like her, and they wanted to rule everyone. That could not be allowed to happen. They didn’t want simple dominance but absolute power. She had seen what that kind of drive brought, and she would not allow it to happen as long as she walked this earth. Her entire family had been destroyed all in the name of power, and it had been human power. Multiply that by one hundred, and that’s what those of the night desired. What vampires could do could never be allowed. On the surface, she played their game. Behind the façade, she prepared to stop them. She had been powerless to save her family. Things had changed, and she was far from that now.

  Her apartment was on the top floor above the business, and a back entrance allowed her to come and go discreetly. In every location where she’d brought the business, she’d set it up the same way. Few saw her, which was the way it had to be. Her face could not be a public image. Like now, she could enter and leave without anyone seeing her. In her bedroom, she discarded neutrality and instead pulled on black leather pants, a figure-hugging black shirt, and her custom-made leather coat. Inside the hidden pockets were the tools of another trade but one she’d been waiting to embrace for decades: everything she needed to kill another vampire. She was ready to face the traitors.

  A private elevator took her down to the executive level, where she could finish preparing for the battle to come. She didn’t expect a great deal of action once she arrived, as her human staff worked normal daytime hours. But with a large vampire staff, she expected activity in some of the office. Here she was not afraid to show her face, for like her, most had seen many decades, if not centuries, of existence. Until tonight, she’d thought she had nothing to fear from any of them.

  The dead silence when she stepped in the reception area made her nerves tingle. One of her company’s greatest strengths, which had allowed her to crush so many competitors through the years, was the ability to function twenty-four seven. She and her crew were at the ready whenever they needed to be, any day and any hour. Tonight it was as if the building had been abandoned. That was not just unusual; it was unheard of and unacceptable. If the Consortium had gotten their hands on Weldon’s company, she was going t
o have to work double time to keep her edge.

  No lights shone out of open doors or from beneath closed ones. Slowly she walked toward her own office at the end of the corridor, looking into offices as she went. Crystal and Rory should have been inside two of the windowless eight-by-ten workspaces. They were the two she’d come down here to destroy, but they weren’t here. No one was here. Not just anger boiled within her. Fear gripped her. Something was very wrong here.

  As she stepped into the doorway to her office, her hand faltered before she could turn on the overhead light. She didn’t need light to see what hadn’t been there when she’d left earlier. A digital reader in the middle of her desk, its lights glowing ominously red, was counting down. Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Two minutes and thirty-six seconds. She cut her gaze to the shelf where earlier she’d set the egg. Without stopping to think about it, she grabbed it without regard to its delicate antique nature and shoved it into the messenger bag she’d picked up from a side chair and slung across her shoulders. Then she ran for the stairs. She made it down three flights of stairs in less than two minutes. She was almost to her car when the blast hit her in the back.

  ***

  “I’m waiting to be dazzled.” Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Dee was already impressed with the cleverly concealed entrance to this place as well as what she was seeing now that she’d been invited in. It was amazing, way beyond what her imagination could come up with, and this was real. What was the old saying? Truth was stranger than fiction. Case in point.

  After seeing the beautiful woman on her way, Rodney returned and, at Dee’s words, smiled. “I don’t dazzle,” he said with a bow. “I blow your mind.” His earlier reluctance to invite her in seemed to have faded away. She had the sense that he trusted Prima.

  “He’s already done it too,” Prima declared as she looked at Dee with a smug expression. Her smile was as broad as Rodney’s. Prima did know her well, didn’t she?

  Dee went ahead and made a concession. She waved a hand as if to encompass the entire space. “Yes, mind officially blown. This place is incredible. I can’t believe what you’ve done here. That hidden entrance outside is brilliant.”

  Prima shook her head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s not this place that’s done the impossible.”

  No, that wasn’t right. It was this bunker that had her reeling. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The smile wasn’t fading in wattage from Prima’s face. “Let me enlighten you. It’s your belief that vampires are simply folklore that has been blown heavenward.” Prima and Rodney exchanged knowing smiles.

  Dee turned her gaze to Rodney. He was big and solid, and, more important, healthy looking. No pointy teeth dripping with blood. Prima was just messing with her now. “You’re a vampire?” She couldn’t keep the skepticism out of her words.

  This time Rodney laughed hard, and his cheeks turned a pale pink. “Oh God, no. I may live underground and forgo the pleasures of daylight most of the time, but it’s not because I’m a night creature. I have other reasons for all this.” He waved his hand to encompass the bunker. “Don’t need Big Brother watching me while I work.”

  “Then I don’t understand. If you’re not a vampire, then nothing’s been blown. I mean, I’m not one and neither are you.” She looked at Prima.

  Prima smiled and raised a single eyebrow. “Au contraire, my friend. You came face-to-face with one. You just didn’t realize it.”

  She opened her mouth to argue and then stopped. “Wait…you’re saying that woman who raced out of here is a vampire?”

  This time Prima nodded, and her smile grew even more smug. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Five minutes ago you met Sasha Rudin, and she’s very much one of those folklores you’re so very certain don’t exist.”

  “Bullshit.” She didn’t believe them. The one who’d just left was very much a flesh-and-blood woman. She’d know the difference, right? And she wouldn’t be thinking about how beautiful she was if she was a vampire. No one in their right mind could be attracted to the undead. The whole idea was creepy.

  “Oh, Dee, Dee, Dee. How wrong you are.” Prima slung an arm around Rodney’s shoulders. “Show her, my friend.”

  “You’re sure?” As happy as he’d appeared a minute earlier about enlightening her to the so-called vampire meeting, he seemed hesitant to take it any further. His fingers tapped the sides of his legs.

  She hugged him a little tighter. “Very. I told you, she’s trustworthy.”

  “All right then. I’m going to trust you know what you’re doing.” He kissed the side of Prima’s head. “Come on.” He turned away from her and walked to a bank of monitors, where he sat in a well-worn rolling task chair. Immediately, his hands began to fly over the keyboard, and images popped up on the screens.

  To Dee’s eyes they all seemed random and disconnected. At first anyway. After a minute a pattern began to emerge. Dee’s knees got weak, and she gratefully sank into the chair Prima had pulled close for her. Everything she believed about the world she lived in had just gone up in flames.

  “Holy crap,” she muttered. “How in the fucking world?”

  ***

  Their plane was nearing the airport when Katrina saw the first explosion. It lit up the night sky in a way she found quite pleasurable. She glanced over at Eli, who smiled and shrugged. “The handiwork of the boys, I presume.”

  He glanced at his laptop and then nodded. “Imperial Investigations. They wired it and gave themselves plenty of time to be gone before it blew. Their report to me was that our spies were out of there when it happened, and those who happened to be around when the boys first went in…” He shrugged again.

  “Was she there?” As much as she enjoyed the light show, it had to be done right. If those boys blew her up too, she’d rip them apart.

  “No.”

  “Do they know where she is?” They better have a location.

  “No.”

  “Find her,” she snapped. She was pleased to know she was still alive. Her dismay that the boys didn’t know her whereabouts was deep.

  “I’ve sent in the best.”

  “You better hope. So far the boys aren’t getting it done, and my patience with them is gone.”

  “They’re good at what they do and can follow directions like none I’ve ever worked with before. But their work with her is over, and now I have better trackers. They’re on it. I’m expecting their report shortly.”

  “Excellent. What about the writer? Have they taken care of her yet?”

  “The boys have orchestrated a doubleheader for your entertainment tonight. Their second stop was the writer’s house.” He glanced down at the Blancpain on his wrist. “It’s set to blow in another fifteen minutes. I give them kudos, as they’ve done an admirable job of timing everything to keep the emergency services scrambling. When the boys are on a roll with their C-4, they can create quite a show. We’ll get Arkin before she can cause any lasting damage.”

  “So they have the writer?” At least they could stop one pain in the ass.

  His gaze slid away. “Well, no, but they’re going to force her to stop. She’ll heed this message.”

  “You’re telling me they haven’t found her or the writer?” Her moment of serenity fled as anger flashed through her.

  “No one was in the Imperial building, including Sasha Rudin, when they left. Or more accurately, no one was alive in the Imperial building. The way that thing went up, they’ll spend years trying to identify what’s left of the bodies. The writer’s house was empty. The boys said that it was clear she lives alone. The surprise they left for her was the only occupant of the house.”

  “How do we know she’ll return in time to go up in the explosion?”

  “We don’t.”

  “Then what good is all this?” God, it was like talking to a child. What was wrong with Eli? He knew these were horrible results. She demanded more from him. From all her soldiers. This was a poor t
ime to be producing sloppy work.

  He was nonplussed by her rising agitation. “Even if we don’t get her, think about it. We destroy whatever information she’s compiled. It’s worth something, and these events will flush both of them out. We will have them both, and soon.”

  His plan had some validity, even if it wasn’t at all what she wanted to hear. “We better.”

  Her attention rolled back to the name Eli had tossed out a moment before. Sasha Rudin. The unlikely name made her want to laugh. She knew exactly why she’d taken on that persona. It irritated her to realize she hadn’t caught on sooner. That name held meaning for both of them, and it was like a red cape being waved in front of a bull’s angry face. All these years and that’s exactly what she’d been doing to Katrina. Taunting her and daring her. If her intent had been to send the bull into hoof-stomping fury, well done, Sasha.

  She turned her gaze back out to the night and the city lights that spread out below them as they began their descent into the airport. “Talk to the pilot and have him circle until it’s time. I don’t want to miss the show. I do love how the boys embrace a flair for the dramatic.”