by Dannika Dark
“Aye. They’ll give you a mint before cutting off your head.”
“How you were able to charm that lady at border security, I’ll never know.”
I nudged Blue, but she was dead asleep. Blue had come prepared in thermal underwear beneath her jeans and tall boots with fur lining. The white puffy down jacket wasn’t her usual style, but she suggested that we might get stuck out in the snow in daylight.
Perish the thought.
Hopefully our journey would end at the airport, and we’d take down these black marketeers. Wyatt’s anonymous friend confirmed that the first exchange had taken place. The buyer had a routine where he’d send someone to collect the victim, transport them by car across the border, board a private plane, and head out from there. Since we’d gotten a head start, we had a good chance of running into them as long as the information we’d received was correct. As Wyatt had plainly put it, our mission was to head them off at the pass.
I shifted my weight, my leg tingling back to life. “Tell me more about the auction. Is our primary goal to save this girl or take down the operation?”
Viktor removed his aviator sunglasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We have no information on her identity, but the auction ad implied she’s the daughter of a prominent man. The Vampire elders do their best to oversee the selections for a purpose. Not only to control the population, but to prevent these kinds of… What is the word I seek?”
“Asinine decisions,” Blue offered, her eyes still closed.
“Most criminals are not foolish enough to choose celebrity figures.”
“I should have been an actress,” I quipped.
Viktor turned in his seat to look at me. “A celebrity presence in our world draws attention to us. The seller was captured, but we suspect that maybe the buyers are making bold requests, perhaps targeting specific people.” He faced forward and put his sunglasses back on. “Stay alert. We have no standing with the local Councils here, so follow my lead at all times.”
I glanced out the window at the landscape. Ice weighed down the trees, and snow covered the ground. “Maybe the airport’s closed because of bad weather.”
“Breed airports never close.” Viktor groomed his beard for a moment before retrieving his brown jacket from the floor.
Christian made a slow turn down a long road. The snowdrifts looked a few feet deep, but the rest of it must have been gradually melting away because of the above-freezing daytime temperatures. Along most of the flatland, dead grass poked out from the top of the snow.
Blue finally sat up and looked around when a small commuter plane flew directly over our head.
I peered through the back windshield to get a closer look. “Are you kidding me? I thought this was an airport with private jets. That’s a toy plane with a propeller.”
Viktor zipped up his coat. “I’m prepared to rent a plane if we have to travel from here. Can anyone fly?”
“I’ve flown a kite before,” Christian said.
Blue raised her hand. “I can fly!”
I yanked my trench coat out from beneath me. “You guys are a real comedy act.”
We entered a parking lot surrounded by several small one-story buildings.
Viktor collected a pair of gloves that Blue handed him. “Spasibo. I only tease, Raven. I know how to fly a plane.”
Viktor could barely operate a blender, so that concerned me. “Are you licensed?”
A chuckle rose in his throat as he got out of the car. When the door shut, Viktor tossed back his head and laughed.
It was one of those bright afternoons with lots of haze, as if the sun were still lying in bed with the covers half on. Both Viktor and Christian wore black knit hats, and Christian made sure to correct me when I called them beanies. Apparently in Canada, they’re tuques. He never missed an opportunity to educate me.
I walked behind Christian to shield myself from the biting wind. His unbuttoned trench coat opened, the tail flapping behind him. The landing strip must have been on the other side of the main building, because I could hear a plane engine sputtering. I spotted a few hangars, but Viktor had no interest in scouting the property.
Sheets of metal covered the main building—no windows that I could see. It looked more like a warehouse, and when we reached the glass door, we hustled inside.
“Wow. I wasn’t expecting this,” Blue muttered.
Inside, absolute luxury. It reminded me a little of a casino, only not garishly decorated. The outside of the building was deceptively dull, and I’d expected the inside to look like the waiting room at the DMV. The greyish carpet beneath our feet had circular patterns, and it appeared to cover the entire room. Straight ahead on the far side were tall windows that spanned the entire wall and gave a view of the planes taxiing from the runway. On our immediate left, two men were typing away on computers at an S-shaped counter. Maps covered the wall behind them, and a flat-screen television had the local news on. They gave us a cursory glance, so Viktor and Christian went to have a chat with them.
I scoped out my surroundings—a survival instinct I’d picked up long ago. The building was rectangular and all open. The only area well lit was the eatery on the right side. There were leather couches and chairs in the center, but it looked like the left side was where people liked to hang out. It had a bar, but not the kind you sit at. People just took their drinks back to the tables. The lighting was also dim, and there was a jukebox and the television for entertainment. I always found it amusing how jukeboxes were standard in most Breed places. It was an attraction that set them apart.
Blue and I strode to the windows ahead. A flush of heat prickled my skin, so I unzipped my jacket, my gloves still tucked in my coat pockets.
I counted fourteen heads, excluding workers. Everyone was gathered in small groups, coats strewn over the backs of chairs, gloves on the tables, and drinks in hand. A few of them gave us stony looks, leaving me to wonder if they were locals who came in for the drinks or passengers waiting on a ride.
Hopefully none of them were the pilots. Especially the big fellow in the red flannel shirt, who was trying to entertain the crowd by blowing on empty bottles.
We reached the windows and admired the view of the airfield. I watched a little white plane speed along the runway, going left to right until it lifted off.
I turned around, my back to the glass, and scoped out the room once more for Vampires. “Do you think they’d risk bringing a woman here with all these people?” I asked quietly.
Blue tucked her hands into her coat pockets. “I bet they come at night. Probably load her right onto the plane.”
“So the plan is to rent a plane and sit around? I wonder if that won’t draw attention.”
“Jaysus wept!” Christian said, his voice rippling through the quiet room. He glided toward us and gave Blue a sour look. “I’ve been driving for hours, and I’m thirsty, lass. Where’s my drink?”
She narrowed her eyes. “File a complaint.”
“That’s not very nice,” he said, talking loudly so everyone could hear him. “We have time to kill, and your father’s worked himself up an appetite.”
Her eyes slanted over to Viktor, who was still at the counter. “Is that so?”
“Why don’t you be a dear and fetch him something to warm his belly. I don’t need a hungry man flying our plane. I’d like to get to our destination in one piece, if you don’t mind.”
She strode off toward the café, playing the role he’d just laid out.
“You’re awful spirited,” I remarked, noticing his altered demeanor. It was almost… pleasant.
He smiled warmly and swaggered off to one of the round tables by the café.
A brawny male—who could have been a lumberjack with his bushy beard and twinkling eyes—appeared next to me. “I haven’t seen you in here before.” His eyes slid up and down my body like a thirsty tongue. “What’s your Breed?”
I grinned at him. “That’s kind of personal.”
He puf
fed out his chest. “I’m a grizzly.”
“I just bet.”
He jerked his chin toward the café. “So what are you doing with the likes of a Vamp?”
I glanced at Christian, who was sitting at the table, pretending to be enthralled by a ketchup bottle. “He’s my personal driver.” I angled toward my lumberjack. “Found him working at a bus station, poor thing. Seemed like a waste of talent.”
“So you’re an important lady, huh?” He brushed his finger down the sleeve of my coat. “I’m Diesel. Is your pretty little friend over there a Shifter?”
“I didn’t know mating season was open.”
He gave a boisterous laugh. “It never closes around these parts. Can I buy you a drink?”
“Maybe later. I’m going to sit with my crew for a while. We’ve been on a long drive and need to stretch our legs and eat.”
“Your name?”
“You’ll have to find out later.”
He lifted my hand and kissed the top, his eyes flashing up. “You can count on it, mystery lady.”
When I turned away, I wiped the back of my hand on my sleeve and pulled out a chair in front of Christian.
“Bus driver?” he ground out.
I shucked off my coat and let it drape over the back of my chair. “I’m just being friendly. Guys don’t like to be rejected. If I said no, his buddies would move in for a shot. Now he’s got dibs, and you know how Shifters are all territorial and shit. How long do you think this’ll take? Maybe they beat us here.”
Christian leaned in and lowered his voice. “I charmed one of the men at the front desk. They run this airport and book all the flights and rentals. Asked him if he ever gets any pretty young girls around here, especially Vampires. He said occasionally, but couldn’t give me specifics.”
“Smooth. Won’t it look suspicious if we’re here all night?”
Christian chuckled and tucked his chin in the palm of his hand. “Look around, Raven. This is what they do for recreation out in the wild. Open twenty-four hours a day, and they have slot machines in the adjoining room by the bar. If you want to sleep here for the night, there’s a building next door where they offer up to three bedrooms. The occasional blizzard requires it.”
“Do they work the desk all hours?”
“Are you langered? They’re not Vampires. They have set working hours and then have a nighttime assistant who serves drinks. I think it’s one of their daughters. The café closes at ten, so there’s not much for her to do except book any flights that come in.”
Blue returned with a large tray. She set three bowls of chili in the center of the table along with packaged saltines. “I’ll be back with the drinks.”
“Where’s mine?” Christian smiled at her before pushing a bowl in front of me. “You should eat something.”
I reluctantly took the steaming bowl of chili and ate several bites. Though I wasn’t hungry, Christian was right. I needed my strength in case we had an incredibly insane showdown on the wing of a toy plane. “This is pretty good for airport food. Tastes homemade.”
Viktor tossed his hat on the table and folded his coat over the back of his chair. Then he stretched his arms dramatically before taking a seat. Blue appeared with another tray and unloaded the cups of coffee and the tall silver coffeepot.
“Spasibo.” Viktor slurped his without adding cream or sugar. His hair wasn’t styled back like usual. It made him look less formal and almost sexy the way the silver and grey locks fell loose around his head. He must have been handsome in his youth, and I wondered why a wolf like him had never settled down.
Blue sat down to my left and shook a packet of sugar. “Free refills, but it only lasts two hours, and then you have to pay again.”
Christian slouched in his chair and nibbled on a saltine. “I’ll sit for a while and then take a walk around the property. I want to listen to the conversations in here first, so don’t ask me any questions that’ll break my concentration.”
Viktor took a handful of crackers and crushed them in his hands before sprinkling the crumbs onto his steaming chili. After dusting off his palms, he mixed it all together and gobbled up a few spoonfuls.
“We have a couple of interested parties back there,” I warned Blue. “The guy who looks like a lumberjack is a grizzly.”
She sipped her coffee and discreetly glanced across the room behind me. “I should have worn my earrings. Grizzlies aren’t into falcons. They prefer larger predators.”
“He might have a fetish. He looked interested.”
The flush in her cheeks began fading as she leaned over her chili bowl, the steam warming her face. “Yeah, you’re probably right. The smaller the population, the less picky they are. You can bet he’ll be over when we’re done eating, so take your time.” Blue sighed and stabbed her chili with her spoon. “It’s going to be a long night.”
“Do not go off alone with anyone,” Viktor said.
A few of the men in the building looked leery of our presence, but most were titillated by the sight of Blue and me. Well, mostly Blue. Men couldn’t resist her silky hair and sapphire eyes. Or maybe it was her long legs and distinct features, which hovered between feminine and masculine. Whatever it was, Blue had that certain something that drew people’s attention. Viktor probably hadn’t planned for this kind of reception.
“Maybe we should tell them we’re a lesbian couple,” Blue suggested with a straight face.
Viktor choked on his coffee. Drops splashed on his grey pullover sweater and the table. Once the coughing subsided, he proceeded to rant in Russian while cleaning himself up with a paper napkin. “Let them believe that Blue is my child. They won’t disrespect her father by coming at her from all directions.”
“What about me?” I asked.
“It won’t take long before they realize you’re not a Shifter. The fewer lies you tell, the better. You’re a Mage, end of story. They might lose interest. I’ve rented a plane, and the mechanics are giving it a thorough inspection. I told them we’re waiting on our contact to let us know when to leave. Otherwise, we won’t have a ride from the airport, and our landing point is remote. This will give us all the time we need to wait on our suspects.”
“Do we even know who we’re looking for besides a newly made Vampire girl scared out of her wits?”
“Perhaps she goes willingly. Maybe they only do business with sellers who choose volunteers.”
I thought about what Houdini had told me—that all his victims were willing. That likely made the whole exchange and transport a lot easier. Some probably freaked out, but maybe not all of them did.
“Christian will alert us of any suspicious activity outside or if anyone is avoiding the main office,” Viktor continued. “We’ll stay inside.”
I set down my spoon. “Maybe I should mingle and get some intel.”
Christian gave me a scolding glance. “Don’t listen to her. She’s away with the fairies.”
“Nyet. It would only bring trouble.”
I pushed my bowl forward until it clicked against the coffeepot. “Most of these guys look like locals. If they come in here often, they probably see a lot of people coming and going. And if there are any Vampires coming back, these jugheads are going to be the ones who know about it. I’ve got experience working a room. I know how to get what I want.”
“She’s got a point,” Blue said. “We need to split up after a while and talk to some of these guys. Blend in. If people see us huddling for too long, they’ll get suspicious.”
I stood up and pushed in my chair. “No time like the present.”
Christian gave me a peculiar stare as I fluffed my hair and adjusted my bra. “I think you’d best be sitting in that chair before I strap you to it.”
“Jealous I might get information before you do?”
He tapped his ear. “Won’t happen.”
I flattened my hands on the table. “Why don’t we make it interesting? Winner gets whatever he or she wants.”
Christ
ian leaned back in his chair, arms folded. “That’s rather ambitious. I don’t wager what I can’t know.”
“Loser drives home,” Blue suggested.
Christian pursed his lips. “The only thing Raven can drive is a man insane.”
“Loser rides home in the trunk,” I said. “If you lose, I’ll let Viktor drive your sweet ride.”
Viktor sipped his coffee, oblivious to the chatter.
Christian stood up. “You’re on.”
I pivoted on my heel and sauntered toward the men across the room. If there was one thing I had, it was years of experience working a room for either food or information. And this bet would be totally worth winning with Viktor driving below the speed limit and me getting the entire back seat to myself.
I approached Diesel and waggled my brows. “Where’s that drink, mountain man?”
Chapter 29
After sundown, some of the patrons at the New Brunswick Breed Airport had left, while one or two others wandered in. The airstrip stayed busy, but not everyone who debarked came inside. One of the boys in Diesel’s three-man group cranked on some music and livened things up. I’d gone to the bar once, moseyed over to the bathroom twice, and made idle talk. Most were either waiting to pick someone up from a flight or just passing through.
I didn’t want anyone intimidated by my being a Mage, so I dropped a few hints that I was a Relic. Seemed like an innocuous choice that wouldn’t make anyone suspicious as to why I was hanging out with a Vampire and two Shifters. Relics often worked with other Breeds, and as long as I concealed my energy, no one would be the wiser.
Viktor chatted with the manager on duty, who was puffing on a pipe and laughing at what I’m sure was one of Viktor’s tall tales. Blue had her head on the café table, pretending to nap.
Or maybe she wasn’t pretending. Conserving energy was probably a good idea if this went on all night.
“Why don’t you invite your pretty friend to sit with us?” Diesel suggested, one of his stout buddies looking hopeful.
I raised my shot glass and smiled. “Because her old man is overprotective of his little girl. He’s one of those old traditional Shifters that’ll kick your ass if you so much as wink at his daughter.”
