Instead, he settled for a careful scan of Andy’s thoughts, looking for any evidence of deceit. But Andy was an open book. If Lucifer had to guess, he’d say this was the first time Andy had ever done anything even remotely illegal. He’d bet that wasn’t true of his twin brother, Jack, though. You didn’t end up as a human guard for a criminal vampire enterprise by obeying the rules.
“What’s down there?” Lucifer asked quietly. He couldn’t see anything.
Andy gave him a surprised look. “The door to the place where they’re staying.”
“You mean where they’re holding our man prisoner,” Lucifer said bluntly, forcing the human to confront what he was involved with.
“I don’t know anything about—”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re completely innocent. What exactly is between here and there?”
“We should go back to the closet to talk,” Andy said sullenly. Apparently he didn’t like being reminded of his complicity in the kidnap and torture of another human being. “Sound carries down here.”
That made sense to Lucifer, and, frankly, he didn’t need the human anymore, so they trooped back the way they’d come, and then huddled in the closet to talk.
Once the door was closed, Andy handed him a piece of paper with the 16-digit door code. Lucifer didn’t need it; he’d memorized the code when the human had punched it in earlier. But he glanced at the numbers on the paper, just to make sure they were the same as he’d memorized. They were, so he simply folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket.
“All right, so what’s down that hall?”
“I’ve drawn a diagram for you.” Andy handed over another, larger, piece of paper.
“Why don’t you text or e-mail that to—” He broke off when Andy shook his head.
“None of this is on any computer. It’s not safe.”
The man had a point. Oddly enough, if you really wanted to keep something secret these days, you wrote it down on paper and hid it really well. Better yet, you memorized it, and then burned the paper. Although, granted, not everyone had Lucifer’s nearly perfect recall for everything he read. Or at least those things he wanted to remember.
“All right,” he said, then bent his head to study the diagram. “So there’s actually two doors after that last turn?” he asked, wanting to be sure he was reading the diagram correctly.
Andy nodded. “They’re about ten meters—um, thirty-three feet—apart. The doors are wood, thick and heavy, but no locks. I don’t know about the guards, though. I was only down here once, during construction. It was before they brought . . .” His words faded out as he realized he’d been about to admit that he’d known about Murphy’s capture and imprisonment. “I didn’t know what they were going to do,” he muttered.
Lucifer wanted to ask if he’d tried to find out, or if it would have made a difference. But it sure as hell didn’t matter now, and so he ignored it. “Did you see any guards at all?”
“No one was on the first door, but there were two guards when we opened the second door, plus two more, farther inside. But like I said, that was before they . . . did what they did. There wasn’t anyone locked up in there yet, plus it was daytime, so—”
“So there might be more guards at night when the vamps are awake,” Lucifer said, finishing his thought. “Did Jack say anything about the big bosses coming to visit? Darren Yamanaka and maybe one other vampire?”
Andy pursed his lips, looking like he’d just bitten off something bitter. The man obviously knew more than he wanted to admit, but he had no secrets from Lucifer. Not anymore.
“Jack said the big bosses, like Yamanaka, only come by once or twice a week, mostly to—” His jaw clenched and he drew a calming breath. “—to ask questions. The rest of the time, it’s just the prisoner—I don’t know his name—and his guards. That’s Jack and his buddies during the day, and vampires at night.”
Lucifer took a moment to absorb all of this, and to pat himself on the back for getting it right. “What’s the layout inside?” he asked finally.
“It’s semi-finished, like the tunnels, but it has two more rooms, with doors and locks, this time. One has a window and a sliding bolt, but the other one has a digital lock, just like the one here. I don’t know what the code is for that one. I was never close enough to scan it.”
“Did you wonder what they were doing all of this for?” Eleanor demanded.
Andy flushed with embarrassment, or maybe it was guilt.
Lucifer didn’t know which. And he didn’t care either. “What about the lock on the windowed door?” he asked, no longer interested in Andy’s rationalizations for getting involved in a criminal activity.
“It’s a fairly heavy sliding bolt, with an eye latch for a padlock. But they hadn’t added one yet, when I was there.”
Lucifer looked over and met Eleanor’s even stare. “That’s probably changed by now,” he told her. “But it shouldn’t be a problem as long as the doors are wood.”
“They’re definitely wood,” Andy chimed in. “They’re thick, though. You can’t expect to kick them in or—”
“You can’t,” Lucifer corrected. “But Eleanor here has a mean side kick. She’s tougher than she looks.”
Eleanor looked at the human and nodded solemnly. Lucifer wanted to grin, but that would have ruined the moment, so he made a mental note to kiss her later. Because she was so damn adorable. Not that he’d tell her that. Not if he valued his balls.
“Okay, let’s get out of here,” he said, gesturing for Eleanor to proceed through the crowded closet and back to the legitimate part of the McGill tunnels.
The human gave him a startled look—as if he’d expected Lucifer to kill him and bury his body in the tunnel—but he shuffled after Eleanor quickly enough, and soon all three of them were back in the well-lit tunnels that everyone knew about.
“You should go home and forget about all this,” he told Andy as they started for the exit back up to street level. His tone was conversational, but as he spoke, he was pushing a new set of facts into the man’s very receptive brain. The closet was just a closet, the 16-digit code a meaningless number.
By the time they were out of the tunnels, and Andy was hurrying down the street toward his car, the biggest problem he had was a strong breeze that was stirring the lush foliage along the sidewalk, and carrying with it the scent of an unseasonal thunderstorm.
Eleanor stood next to Lucifer, watching the man walk away. “That’s it?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“What’d you think I was going to do, Elle? Kill him and Muriel both?”
“Of course, not,” she replied quickly, but he could hear the hesitation beneath her words.
He tried not to be insulted, or, even worse, wounded by her doubt. “Let’s go,” he said almost tiredly.
She gripped his forearm, half apology and half reassurance. “Are we going back in there tonight?”
Lucifer turned to study the exit. He nodded. “I need to get close enough for a quick scan first. It’d be good to know—” He stopped abruptly, then grabbed Eleanor and pulled her into the shadowed doorway of the closest building, wrapping them both in his toughest shields. “Someone’s coming from inside,” he sub-vocalized, right up against her ear. “Someone powerful.”
She turned to look at him, her big eyes wide, her pulse racing with adrenaline. “Who?” she mouthed silently.
Lucifer shook his head, and concentrated on answering that question without giving away their presence. Whoever was coming had power, but he apparently didn’t suspect anyone was around, because he wasn’t bothering to conceal his strength or his presence.
Moving slowly, Lucifer turned Eleanor in his arms, so that they both could see the approaching vampire as soon as he became visible. Lucifer’s gaze was riveted on the man-shaped form just detectable through
the glass windows of the building’s door. The shape grew larger until the door pushed open . . . and Darren Yamanaka was briefly illuminated by the weak light above the exit. The door closed, and he continued down the walk, heading their way.
Darren Yamanaka. And all alone. If Lucifer hadn’t had Eleanor to protect, if he’d been on his own, he’d have—Shit, what was he thinking? Eleanor didn’t need him to protect her. She had plenty of power of her own, and was more than capable of defending herself. Hell, with Yamanaka broadcasting his power like that, Lucifer could already tell that he had a good chance against the other vampire. Add in Eleanor fighting by his side, and it was no contest.
Lucifer placed a hand along Eleanor’s jaw, and gently turned her to face him. Meeting her gaze, he “knocked” carefully on her thoughts, asking for entry. Vampire hearing was too acute to risk Yamanaka overhearing. He might look like he wasn’t paying attention, but Lucifer didn’t believe it. This was the master of three cities, including Montreal. He was undoubtedly an asshole, but he hadn’t gotten this far by being careless.
Lucifer hadn’t needed to “knock” for Eleanor’s permission. He was a powerful enough telepath to have broken through whatever shields she had in place. But this was his Eleanor. He wanted her trust, and that meant treating her with the respect she deserved.
Eleanor met his gaze directly, and nodded.
“Hey, baby,” he said playfully, coating the simple greeting in layers of affection.
She smiled and rolled her eyes.
“I’m going to challenge Yamanaka,” he ‘pathed, going from playful to deadly serious in an instant. “He’s wide open and alone. This might be our best chance.”
“What if he has guards?” she asked.
Lucifer considered it, but shook his head. “It’s late, and he’s sneaking around out here all by himself. I’m betting no one will look for him before tomorrow night, and maybe not even then, if I’m careful. According to Andy, most nights it’s just Colin Murphy alone with his guards. If we take Yamanaka tonight, we can go in and get Murphy first thing tomorrow night, and not have to worry about him showing up to stop us. And by the time anyone misses him, we’ll already have Murphy under our protection.”
It was Eleanor’s turn to think it over, which she did briefly, and then gave him a single sharp nod. “How?”
Lucifer paused, then pulled Eleanor even closer, as it became clear that Yamanaka was going to walk right past them. Lucifer locked his power down, not wanting Yamanaka to sense anything, adding an extra layer of shadow to their concealment. Together, they watched Darren stroll past no more than fifteen feet away from them.
“Let’s follow,” Eleanor suggested. “The streets get darker down that way, more trees, fewer lights, and no people this late at night.”
Lucifer nodded and loosened his hold on her. “I’ll take the lead,” he told her plainly. This was going to be a serious challenge. There was no room for egos or delicate feelings. Eleanor had considerable power, but Lucifer had one hell of a lot more, and he was the one who’d be issuing the challenge to Yamanaka.
Eleanor nodded her understanding, but then touched his arm to get his attention. Once she had it, she placed her hand above her heart, then pressed that same hand to his heart, and slowly curled her fingers into a fist, as her expression turned fierce.
Lucifer nodded. He understood. Eleanor was offering her strength to him in the coming battle. Offering herself as a reservoir of power for him to draw on, if necessary. His eyes closed on the barrage of emotions that tightened his chest in that moment. Love for his Eleanor—a love that had survived more than twenty years of believing her dead. Admiration for her courage, gratitude for her generosity. And simple fucking relief that she was alive and standing there next to him.
“Let’s do this,” he said.
They moved swiftly out of the shadows, trailing Yamanaka down the tree-covered street. The other vampire seemed unconcerned about his surroundings. He didn’t glance around even once, and was actually whistling in a breathy, tuneless way. He seemed quite cheerful, in fact, which made Lucifer wonder what he’d been up to with Murphy, and if Sophia was going to receive another gruesome video from tonight’s work.
Not that it would matter. By the time Lucifer was finished, Yamanaka would be no more, and Sophia would be receiving an entirely different kind of message from Montreal.
Yamanaka slowed, as he approached a black Mercedes and stepped off the curb. Certain now that the city master was all alone, Lucifer touched Eleanor’s arm in warning, and then dropped the concealing shadows that surrounded them, and stepped into a patch of moonlight between the trees.
“Darren Yamanaka,” Lucifer said quietly.
Yamanaka spun, plainly shocked and surprised. He searched Lucifer’s face, as if trying to place him. They’d never met, but Lucifer was certain the vampire had spies inside Sophia’s camp at least, and maybe even Aden’s, though that was less likely. Aden hadn’t brought that many people with him to Canada, and no one who hadn’t been in Toronto would know about Lucifer.
“I don’t know you,” Yamanaka said finally. His gaze shifted suddenly to look over Lucifer’s shoulder, and it was everything Lucifer could do not to turn around to be sure that Eleanor was safe. But it could just as easily have been a feint on Yamanaka’s part, an attempt to distract Lucifer long enough for him to launch a surprise attack. Besides, Eleanor could take care of herself.
Yamanaka’s attention swung back to Lucifer. “My name is Lucifer Scuderi,” he supplied. His mouth lifted in a half smile, as he waited for the other vampire’s response, his power held carefully in check.
“What the fuck do I care who you are?” Darren demanded.
Lucifer’s smile turned into a grin. “You should know the name of the vampire who took you down.”
Yamanaka stiffened to attention, his expression intent and probing as he studied Lucifer anew, becoming smug at what he found there. “Turn around and go home, boy. You have ten seconds, and I’ll let you live.”
Lucifer loosened the tight hold he’d maintained on his power, freeing it completely for the first time in longer than he could remember. He wanted to laugh with the joy of it, as if he’d been wrapped in a straightjacket for years, decades even, and now he could breathe again.
“I’d make you the same offer,” he crooned. “But you need to die.”
Lucifer was strong, but so was Yamanaka, with age and experience on his side. He struck first, a powerful blast of concentrated energy designed to knock Lucifer off his feet. The attack assumed Lucifer was untried and unskilled. But you know what they said about assumptions.
Lucifer smirked as Darren’s blast of energy warped around him, briefly adding to his own shields before dissipating completely. He might not have fought that many challenges, but Bastien was his best friend, and a masterful fighter. He’d drilled Lucifer to exhaustion, insisting he had to be ready for whatever the war might bring him.
And that was why Lucifer’s smirk didn’t linger. Bastien had taught him many things, the most important of which was never to count your enemy out until he was dead and dusted. He gathered his own magic for a counterattack, not wasting energy on a blunt force strike like Yamanaka’s, but rather narrowing it into a spear tip of concentrated power that he sent flying directly at his enemy’s heart.
Yamanaka saw it coming and shifted his shields at the last minute, but not fast enough. The spear penetrated to stab deep into his chest, but he’d managed at the last moment to deflect enough of its force to prevent it from doing any more than barely touching his heart. It shocked him though, both physically and mentally, and he seemed to recognize his danger for the first time that night.
But it didn’t kill him, and Lucifer cursed his failure. Now was not the time for recriminations, however. He changed up his strategy, hardening his shields as he strode closer to
his enemy, studying Yamanaka’s energy pattern, looking for weakness. He needed a way in, a way to utilize his most powerful weapon—his telepathy. Every vampire lord had a unique weapon that was his alone. It was part of what marked them as different, as capable of ruling a territory and binding its vampires to his life force. Lucifer’s ability to wield his telepathy as a weapon against other vampires in the midst of battle gave him a tremendous advantage, not only against weaker, shopkeeper vampires, but powerful masters like Darren Yamanaka, and maybe, someday, the territorial lord who would fall to Lucifer’s challenge.
But tonight it was Yamanaka who was bringing all of his considerable power to bear, and drawing on the power of his city to fortify his strength against Lucifer. He wasn’t a vampire lord, and the power he could pull from Montreal’s vamps wasn’t even close to what Sophia would have been able to draw, but it was enough to make Lucifer stand up and notice. Enough to let him know that he had to win this fight sooner, not later.
Redoubling his efforts, Lucifer launched another bolt of energy at Yamanaka’s chest, changing trajectory at the last minute to dig the weapon into his gut instead. The vampire groaned in pain, but launched a blistering counterattack with a snarled oath, pounding Lucifer’s shields with razor-sharp stars, like Japanese shuriken, but formed of pure energy. They chipped away at Lucifer’s protection, their numbers and persistence a distraction, demanding his attention and energy to shore up the damage they were doing to his shields, while at the same time, he was trying to concentrate on his next attack.
Lucifer howled his anger, and Yamanaka bared his teeth in a victorious grin, mistaking the howl for frustration and surrender. He took two quick steps closer to Lucifer, arm outstretched as if intending to reach through Lucifer’s shields and crush his heart. But it wasn’t surrender that Lucifer was howling, it was impatience. Enough with the bullshit parrying back and forth, with the weapons crafted of energy instead of steel. Narrowing his focus down to the one thing he did best, he pierced Yamanaka’s shields with a finely crafted needle of energy, and created a pinhole of an opening, just enough to forge a connection with his enemy’s awareness.
Lucifer (Vampires in America: The Vampire Wars Book 11) Page 19
