by Amie Gibbons
The yet hung on the air.
“What if that’s because they’re using them too?” I asked. “How do we do that thing where we check frequencies?”
“We need a computer to go through them,” Grant said. “Dan set these up beforehand so we could just grab and go. Don’t have the program here to check frequencies.”
Dammit, where was Dan when you needed him?
“So how do we know they’re not listening in?” I asked.
“We don’t,” Grant said. “No pertinent info over the coms.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “On our way. Going dark.”
I clicked mine off and Carvi did the same.
“Got to make sure they aren’t in the hall,” I said. “And they’ll be startin’ whatever it is they are… er, starting. You know.”
Carvi pinched his nose, a too human motion, and looked back at the women on the bed. “If they’re going into rooms…”
I nodded. “Any secret ways outta here? I don’t know if they’ll be hurting humans, but if they see these girls in your room like this, when you’re supposed to be dead, it might tip them off. Right now, the only advantage we have is we know they’re doing something now and we have you while they think you’re dead.”
He nodded, looking around the room, jaw working.
“Okay,” he said. “We need eyes and can’t risk sending you to the astral plane. And I agree, got to get these ladies out of here. So we’re going to lower them out the window.”
“What?” I hissed. “Are you crazy?”
He shook his head. “Magic. And I’m sorry, but I actually care about my people. I’m not letting them be caught in the crossfire. We get them out and we get a message to the other servers and workers. Security would be best. How many have they sent in?”
“I… I just know of the two,” I said. “Could be more.”
He nodded slowly. “Could be the first wave, here to get things ready. There’s nothing to make them suspicious if people are walking around, unless they see them coming out of my room. So we’re going to get down to the next floor, and my girls are going to walk down and out. No reason to think that’ll tip them off.”
“Probably not, but there’s no reason to think they’re not just killing humans, and vamps maybe, as they go.”
“You said it yourself, they’re planning something bigger. And I’m betting it has to be covert, otherwise why all the red herrings? We have to risk it and get my people out before this starts.”
“Wait.” I shook my head. “What if they could help? Most of the vamps here are old enough to be awake during the day, once we wake them, but some aren’t, and unless they’re really old, they’re gonna be groggy. Don’t we want people here who are awake and can… They don’t know how to fight, do they?”
He shook his head. “I know the Southern girl doesn’t get this, but not everyone grew up shooting guns or has training to deal with battle. Serious shit goes down, normal people freeze or they panic. They’ll be liabilities at worst, and people we’ll have to protect at best.”
“I’m not great in battle either. I’ve barely stopped freezing.” I drew in a deep breath. “I don’t like this. I don’t like not knowing like this.”
“Can’t risk it,” he said, probably not needing to read my mind. “We know they are looking for you on the astral plane. You go into a vision, they will snag you. They wanted you out of the way as much as me.”
“That’s been bugging me,” I said. “Why didn’t the Fae in the shadows kill me when it went after you. I was right there. Could’ve shot me as easy as anything. So why didn’t it?”
He paused. “I don’t know, lea. I really don’t.”
It could be important. Could be some key piece we were missing. Or could be the Fae doing the shooting didn’t know who I was and that I was a target too so it just didn’t bother with me.
“Balcony,” Carvi said, nodding to the door.
I hit the door and pulled it open as Carvi roused the women in the bed.
The one he’d been riding said something and Carvi jerked, looking between her and me. He said something in the language and she nodded, responding and finishing with “da.”
That word I knew.
So she was Russian?
She got dressed as Carvi took the towels out of the bathroom and out on the balcony. He tied them together and I just stared as he tied one end to the bottom of the balcony’s bars.
The blood woman grabbed the brunette and pulled her up, shoving a dress over her head like a child. The brunette said something in Russian and the blond barked an answer.
The brunette’s eyes closed and her head lolled back.
I ran forward, catching her shoulders and holding her sitting up as the blond pulled down the dress.
“Thank,” the blond said in a heavy accent.
I nodded and we each got under an arm and looped ours around her back, lifting the semi-conscious woman to her feet.
We walked her to the balcony and Carvi slung her over a shoulder.
“I go first with her, then Oksana, then Ariana,” he said to me, then something in Russian, probably the same thing.
Carvi crawled over the bars with the dexterity of a kid and like the woman draped over him was a doll along for the ride, and slid down the sheet the ten feet or so down to the next balcony. He hooked a leg over the rails, did a thrusting motion with his hips, and landed on the balcony.
Oksana went next, over with grace and down, and Carvi reached out and pulled her in.
Then me.
We’d forgotten one little thing.
I was still weighed down with about twenty pounds of gear.
And my arms were not that built.
“So, so gonna start lifting weights after this,” I grunted as I slung my leg over the bars.
I was shorter than both of them and I shook as I half lifted myself, half stepped over the bars.
They’d made it look so easy.
But standing with my bare toes lodged between the bars and hanging onto the outside of the bars, those ten feet or so looked like a mile.
Or maybe that was the distance to the ground.
Very, very far down.
“Why didn’t you tie this to the rail?” I half whispered down as Carvi’s head peeked out over the bars below.
“Because if they come into my room later, they’re less likely to notice the towel rope if it’s tied to the bottom and not the top,” Carvi said. “If they’re just looking for people, they’ll mostly glance at the balcony, and miss something tied around the bottom of the bars.”
“Fine.” My legs shook so hard my knees knocked together as I slowly lowered myself, gripping the bars so hard they bit into my hands.
I didn’t care.
“Weights,” I said under my breath as I grabbed the towel with one hand, the other firmly on the bar and my butt sticking way out over the world.
What would the people milling below think if they saw this?
“Weights,” I said, “and ropes courses… in full gear.”
I held onto the towel rope and paused.
How did I get my feet off the balcony and me into midair now?
How did Carvi and Oksana do it?
They’d made it look so easy.
“Ariana?” Carvi said from below.
“Any way you can magic me down?” I asked.
“If I have to, but I think I’m going to need my magic.”
“Don’t know how to do this part,” I said, legs aching from the squat.
“Just grab the towel a little lower and push off,” Carvi said. “There’s so little slack, you won’t fall far.”
I grabbed the bars harder.
Nope, nope, nope.
So much nope.
“I can’t,” I said. “The towels can’t take that kinda pressure.”
“Yes, they can,” Carvi said. “They’re spelled. Those knots aren’t breaking for anything less than a bomb, and maybe not even then. The fattest woman on
earth, weighed down with two hundred pounds of equipment, could jump off with that, and as long as she held on, she’d be fine.”
I took a deep breath and inched one leg out, resting my knee on the concrete in its place, and grabbed the towel near the top with my other hand. I inched my other foot off and down the shin till my knee was resting on the balcony’s lip too.
The concrete bit into my bare knees and I wished I’d thought to change into something more fighty than a sundress.
I held onto the towel as I inched back and grabbed onto the bars with my hand again.
This would’ve been so much easier with the towel tied to the top. Then I could’ve just grabbed on and kinda rappelled my way down.
This way, if I wasn’t careful, I’d grab the towel and I’d have a drop.
Then again, Carvi said that wasn’t a problem for this.
I took a deep breath.
They’d both used it, and Carvi and his friend certainly weighed more than me, probably twice as much.
“Ariana,” Carvi said, “get the towel further down, hold on tight, and hop backwards. You’re making this too hard. I swear, I will not let you fall. If you go down, I’ll grab you. Worst that will happen is I’ll have to heal some scrapes from you swinging into the balcony bars or bottom. Okay?”
I nodded, but couldn’t move.
“Lea, do you trust me?” whispered through my mind. “Trust me to keep you alive, if only for my own selfish reasons?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Grab the towel further down.”
I inched the towel up and grabbed tight to a spot maybe four feet down.
“Good girl,” he said. “Hop back. I swear, you’ll be fine. Just hop back.”
I took a deep breath and pushed back off the balcony.
And dropped.
“Ah!” barely escaped my throat before I jerked to a stop in midair.
Air burst outta my lungs and I sucked it in like I was in the middle of an asthma attack.
Strong arms grabbed my hips and I slid down the towel rope as Carvi pulled me in.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, shaking and tryin’ not to cry as my feet touched smooth concrete.
Say what you will about humans. We have a strong sense of self preservation.
Don’t believe me, go to a ropes course and get all strapped in, safer than a pug in a rug, and jump off a platform. Doesn’t matter if you have no fear of heights to speak of. If you are lookin’ down and telling yourself to walk off the edge of something and freefall till the rope catches you, you’re gonna pause.
I let him go and looked up into his eyes.
He smiled and nodded.
Then let me go.
He said something in a tongue that sounded tortured and sick to my ears and the door clicked and Carvi slid it open.
We tiptoed in and looked around the bedroom.
Either no one was in this room or they were human and up and about.
Whatever.
We hurried to the door, the brunette back over Carvi’s shoulder, and I cracked it open, peeking out.
I didn’t hear or see anything after a few seconds so I opened the door, looking further out so I could see up and down the halls.
Still nothing.
Good.
I nodded and pulled my gun, keeping it down but at the ready as we ran down the hall.
Carvi went ahead and I dropped to the back. He opened the stair doors and paused, holding a hand up behind him. After a moment, he nodded and we went in, crashing down the stairs with the subtlety of a buncha rhinos.
Hopefully those guys were already in a room on the top floor.
Then again, if they were, it meant they were doin’ whatever. And we didn’t want them to do whatever.
I was pretty sure.
“Carvi,” I huffed as we ran down.
“Yeah?” he said.
“What could be the reasoning for this?” I gasped air. Yep, asthma definitely acting up. “What could they do here that’d affect stuff outside of this?” I sucked in another breath.
Was I gettin’ dizzy or just panicking?
“I mean, gotta be something they can do here, that’ll go get more vamps, right?” I said with another deep gasp as we rounded a corner to yet another set of steps. I don’t know how many that made.
“Not sure,” Carvi said.
“You gotta…” gasp, “brainstorm cuz I,” gasp, “don’t know the magic stuff enough.”
“Lea, your breathing feels shallow,” he said.
“Asthma. Go. Just start thinkin’.”
I wasn’t gonna pass out, was I?
I couldn’t.
“I will, but you need to focus on breathing, lea,” Carvi said.
We ran in silence, our steps loud as gunshots bouncing off the solid, industrial standard walls of the stairway.
We hit the bottom and burst out the side door into the sunlight blazing down on a burning hot and humid day.
How could it be sunny and beautiful with supernatural forces doin’ who knew what inside?
This sorta thing should’ve only been happening in the middle of the night… with rain… and in the middle of nowhere.
Who’d be attacking a fancy hotel in the middle of a stretch of ‘em near Miami beach with dozens of people on the street in front and hundreds more just around the corner and on the beach?
I pulled out my phone.
Still no bars or WI-FI showing up.
“Whatever they’re doin’,” I gasped, “they’re goin’ for subtlety.”
Carvi nodded and lowered the brunette to the ground, holding her up against him. He said something to Oksana and she snapped in return.
Whoa.
He pointed down the street and I didn’t have to speak Russian to know he was sayin’ the same thing to her he’d said to me before.
Do what I say. I’m the boss. I know what’s best.
She snapped back, crossing her arms and walking to me.
She uncrossed and pointed at my belt. “More?”
“Neit,” Carvi said.
Oh yeah, that one I knew too. Yes, no, good bye, and please were pretty much the only Russian words I knew.
She looked over her shoulder and said something in a tone that made me flinch then turned back to me and pointed again.
Took me a second to realize she was pointing to the gun in my hands, not my belt.
“More?” she asked.
“More?” I said. “More guns? You want a gun?”
She looked confused and reached forward, slowly, probably so I wouldn’t think she was trying something, and tapped my gun. “I. Have?”
I looked at Carvi.
“She wants a gun?”
He had an expression close to Grant’s lemon look. “She wants to stay and fight. I told her we need someone on the outside to get help.”
“What help?” I asked. “Who do we call here?”
“That’s what she asked. I told her to take my phone and start calling contacts and that’s when she started arguing. She speaks very little English so she doesn’t think they’ll understand her. I told her to get Opi here to a safe location and get some food and water in her and she could translate. She only needs a few minutes to rebound a bit more.”
Oksana said something and Carvi growled back.
It clicked.
She was doing what I’d do. She wasn’t leaving him. She was going to stay to fight for him.
She cared about him.
As a friend, if nothing more.
“Carvi,” I said, interrupting his tirade, “I get it. She wants to fight for you.”
“Yeah, got that,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I have to let her. She’s an ex-ballerina who’s now a model and salesgirl, not a fighter.”
“Can you translate?” I asked.
He snorted but nodded.
“Oksana,” I said, looking her in the eyes, “I get it. I do. But the best thing you can do right now is get us help. We have to go back in the
re and try to stop whatever this is. We don’t know what they’re doing, how many there are, or what kind of magic and weapons they came in with. We need backup. And our phones aren’t working even out here. That means someone needs to get away from here, either far enough to get their phone to work, or borrow someone’s. That’s gotta be you two. Someone has to watch out for her.” I nodded at the limp girl. “And get reinforcements. Carvi said you know who to call, right?”
I waited for Carvi’s translation to catch up and she nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Do that. They went to a lot of trouble to try to take Carvi out, and he’s the only sun walker. That means whatever they’re doing, they don’t want anyone outside of the hotel to come in and do anything about it, probably figured without a vamp awake, no human would figure out they were doing anything bad. We need help. We need all the help. But um…” I looked between her and him. “But it has to be you.”
She said something and Carvi tossed his hands up.
“What?” I asked.
“She wants to know why not you,” he said.
“Because I’m trained,” I said, waving down at my gear. “You’re not”
She said something and a tear sparkled in one beautiful blue eye. She threw her arms around Carvi on one side since the other girl was still tucked up against him by one arm, hugging him tight.
He looked at me over her shoulder and if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was surprised.
She let him go and got under her friend’s shoulder, holding her up now that the girl found her feet a bit.
She said something to Carvi with raised eyebrows and he smiled, nodding and saying something back.
She shuffled away.
“What’d she say?” I asked.
“If I died, she’d kill me,” he said. “Little more colorful, because Russian, but yeah.”
“She cares about you,” I said.
“We just met the other night,” he said. “I called her for the boost since I thought my people would need their strength. Why… how…”
“Sex,” I said. “Sex creates feelings, Carvi. How could you have lived so long and not get that? How could you literally harness energy from sex and not respect its power?”
I turned and walked back in.
We had Carvi, now we needed Grant.
And anyone else we could wake up.
“It’ll be faster if I run and grab Grant,” Carvi said. “And the faster I can do this, the less chance of getting caught.”
