Looking at her full lips, her thoughts returned to Jared. Her eyelids drifted downward as she brushed her fingertips over her moth. Stopping short, she snapped her eyes open, silently chastising herself yet again for the indulgence.
For fuck’s sake; get a grip, Cami. He’s just a man; like every other man, so forget him and stop acting like an idiot.
She leaned in close and stared into her own eyes as she said aloud, “I have to find my brother; that’s all that matters.”
Standing up a bit straighter, feeling resolved and a little more clear-headed, Cami yanked open the drawer beneath the sink with more force than intended, sending its contents scattering across the tile floor. Ignoring the mess, she grabbed a brush and pulled it roughly through her mane of curly hair as she tried to formulate a plan to persuade the commander to send her out with the next security patrol.
She returned everything to the drawer and stepped out into her bedroom. The space was much like her; functional, efficient, and relatively cold. The walls were somewhat bare, the only decor in the form of strategically-placed racks and hooks which housed her collection of ancient weapons. Against one wall stood a cabinet filled with the weapons she armed herself with daily. In the closet, there was an array of black combat fatigues and accessories.
Cami dressed quickly in her usual ensemble, carefully sheathing a set of short swords across her back and securing matching Glocks at each of her hips. As she reached for the digital panel beside her door, a familiar tone sounded, pulling her eyes to the flashing light above the door; the commander’s signal summoning all The Elite on the grounds to the pit.
✧
Seated at the long table in the central meeting room, Cami glanced around at her fellow soldiers, avoiding eye contact with Dante; though she could feel the heat of his gaze boring into her. The air was full of anticipation as they awaited the commander’s appearance.
The wait was a short one; the imposing vampire stepping in moments after Cami arrived, his presence seeming to suck up most of the air in the soundproof room when he closed the door.
He leaned down and placed his mammoth hands on the table as he glanced around. “I’ve just received word from one of our sources at Boston PD; a human female was found with severe injuries to the neck. He thinks it was one of our kind and, whoever it was, wasn’t trying to hide it.”
He leveled his stare at Cami and she met his eyes without hesitation. It hadn’t always been that way. Back when she’d first joined The Elite, the man had absolutely terrified her. After growing up with the kind, gentle manners of her father, it took her quite a while to adjust to the hardness of Commander Claesson. If the rumors were true, the guy had once been an actual Viking, so tact and subtlety weren’t always his strongest skills; though it seemed the birth of his only daughter had softened him up a bit over the last few decades.
“Thompson has kept the crime scene quiet for now; no reporters have been tipped off as far as he can tell, but that won’t keep long given the location. The body was dumped in the parking garage at Copley Place Mall. I already sent Martinez out on containment; but Cami, I want you onsite with your team to handle the rest before the shit hits the fan and the story is plastered all over the news. You know the drill. I’ve already spoken with the High Commander and persuaded him to release you from lockdown temporarily for this. Don’t make me regret it.”
Cami nodded affirmatively before he continued. “Jester, I want you on monitoring. You catch even a whiff about this on any sites, I want you to take them down.”
“I’m on it, Boss,” Jester replied as he pushed his wide-framed black glasses up his nose and ran a hand through his curly brown hair. The glasses were a bit of a mystery, considering vision impairment didn’t exist amongst mature vampires who, on average, saw about ten times better than a human with perfect vision. Jester opened the laptop he never let out of his sight and got to work. The guy was a technical genius, even if his fashion sense was a bit out of whack.
Thank God for Jester and Martinez, Cami thought to herself. Martinez was the vampire whose ability had inspired the camouflaging protective spell which protected the grounds. Within seconds of his arrival, the scene would be covered with a heavy mist, concealing it from sight and giving any human who got too close a sudden urge to turn in the opposite direction.
As for Jester, he’d disappear into his magical little room, get a lock on every cell phone, tablet, and computer within a mile of the scene and monitor every text, email, and phone call. If he picked up anything remotely suspect, he’d have the device so bogged down with viruses, that the owner would be lucky to ever power the thing up again. On the off chance something slipped by, he’d written a handy software program he liked to call “The Bloodhound” which was always running in the background, tracking local Internet traffic. The program flagged each occurrence of a specific list of key words and analyzed them for potential security threats.
Once Cami’s team arrived, it would be less than an hour before everything disappeared as if nothing ever happened. Unfortunately, for the human and her family, the situation would end up being another unsolved missing person’s case. That part never sat well with Cami. She hated to think of a family spending years hoping for the impossible, never getting any type of closure; but they couldn’t risk the body of a vampire victim being discovered. Not like the old days when supernatural murders were easily masked by a well-placed explosion or house fire. With the advances in modern crime scene technology, cover-ups raised too many questions and required a lot more manpower to monitor potential breaches.
Pulling out her phone, Cami sent a quick text to her father letting him know she was going out on a mission. Tucking the cell back into her fatigues, she stood and followed the flow of bodies through the door before she flashed down the corridor to her team’s rendezvous point near the elevator.
“It’ll be good to get out of here for a while,” Cami said as she leaned against the wall next to Rachel Lehman, one of her team’s memory manipulation specialists. While every vampire could erase short-term memories, Rachel and her twin brother, Jackson, could go back a lot further and even possessed the ability to fill the gaps with replacement memories.
“Yeah; I’d go fucking nuts on lockdown,” Rachel responded as they waited for the rest of the team to join them. “Guess it’s a good thing you only drink from the bag. The commander would lose his shit if someone brought a human onto the grounds.”
“Good thing it doesn’t apply to you, then,” Cami responded, referring to Rachel’s inability to drink stored blood. Most of their kind tolerated it fine, as long as they could get used to the stale aftertaste; but there were the rare few, like Rachel, who just couldn’t keep it down.
“You must be keeping busy, though; I’ve barely seen you since you got back, though I did hear a little rumor about you earlier,” Rachel added, her eyebrows raised in an unspoken question.
Cami gave her a look that could have frozen an ocean.
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger; just thought you would want to know,” Rachel said lifting her hands in surrender. “Seriously though, is it true?” she asked, not being more specific knowing there were too many pairs of supernatural ears within range.
“I’m guessing whatever you heard was an embellished version of the truth. I assume you came by this information through Martinez,” Cami replied, her tone laced with irritation.
Rachel nodded in response, giving Cami an amused smile. “Damn! I figured it was total bullshit, considering the source. That was your first time, right?” she asked cautiously.
“Technically, but in my opinion, it doesn’t even count; it was nothing. He just caught me off guard; and trust me, it will not be happening again,” Cami whispered, thankful it seemed that Dante had left out the part about Jared when he shared the story with Rachel’s beau.
“All right, I got it. Won’t mention it again. So other than that, how are you doing, really?” Rachel said with an edge of concern to her voice.<
br />
“I’m good; just needed time alone, you know?” Cami responded, hoping Rachel didn’t press further. If there was anyone she could open up to about Jared, it was Rachel, but she just didn’t want to get into it. The two women became friends shortly after Rachel and her brother joined the Elite in the winter of 1910 and, though the relationship wasn’t a very close one, she was the only other soldier Cami considered a friend.
“Yeah; I know how hard all of this must be for your and your family. If you ever need anything or if you want to talk, you know I’m here,” Rachel said, placing a hand on her arm.
“Thanks, but I’m already feeling better now that the Commander is letting me get back to work.”
“So, are we ready to get this show on the road?” Jackson said sidling up to his sister with Layla Jones following close behind.
When Cami turned her eyes toward him, she had to stop herself from cringing. Dante was standing a few feet behind the new arrivals and he was staring at her. He flashed a cocky smile and moved to walk over, but stopped when his gaze fell on Layla’s back. Without looking at Cami again, he turned and disappeared in the opposite direction. Cami was instantly flooded with relief, and though she’d never understood Layla and Dante’s relationship, it had gotten him to leave her alone and she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Where are the others?” Cami asked, feeling eager to get moving. As with most clean-up missions, time was of the essence.
“This is it; Beckett and Jasmine are meeting us upstairs,” Jackson responded.
“All right, then; let’s move out,” Cami said a millisecond before disappearing down the hallway.
✧
Ten minutes later, Cami was staring out the window of one of The Elite’s many black Escalades. Even with highly-evolved night vision, it was difficult to see through the layer of heavy UV prevention tinting. The feature had been added recently to allow for daytime transport of infected prisoners, just in case they were ever lucky enough to catch one alive.
The bodies recovered at Alexa’s home in Fishers hadn’t lasted the short drive back to the Indianapolis compound. Upon arrival, the body bags were unzipped, revealing messes of unidentifiable black goo. Even with the aid of witches and some of the world’s best scientists, they couldn’t obtain any viable samples for testing.
“So, Cami; what’s going on with you and Dante?” Layla asked from the middle row of seats.
While she attempted to keep her tone light, there was a slight shake in her voice as she spoke. Layla and Dante had been close friends for as long as Cami had known them and it seemed obvious to everyone, with perhaps the exception of Dante, that Layla was interested in more than friendship. Their relationship was quite a mystery with Dante slaking his thirst and his desire with a slew of random strangers, while Layla, a gorgeous blonde with green eyes and ivory skin like to porcelain, waited in the wings. Of course, being well over one hundred years old, she was no innocent virgin; so while Dante remained her heart’s desire, her body found comfort in those who were willing.
“Absolutely nothing is up,” Cami replied cooly, keeping her gaze forward. Fucking Dante.
“Oh; I just thought I heard him mention something, but I guess I misunderstood. You know he really likes you, right?” Layla added wistfully.
Hearing the sadness in her voice, Cami leaned around her seat. “Listen, Layla; the only thing I’m interested in right now is getting through this mission. But trust me when I tell you, there’s really nothing between me and Dante.”
Layla nodded, her mouth turned up in an unconvincing half-smile. They passed the remainder of the ride to Copley Place in relative silence.
✧
As Cami’s team rolled into the parking garage, she tapped the touchscreen on the dash and locked on to the GPS in Martinez’s phone. Without it they wouldn’t be able to locate the crime scene through his layer of mist which not only fooled humans, but was also impervious to vampire eyes. Luckily, the mental persuasion didn’t affect them or they would be driving around for hours feeling the urge to turn away every time they neared the scene. It was a damn handy trick, but it was going to be a long night for any humans who had parked in the vicinity.
“All right, Beckett; looks like were just a few yards out,” Cami said to the group’s newest addition, drawing his attention to the digital display.
Jacob Beckett confidently swung the vehicle into an available parking space. One of the youngest and newest members of The Elite, he’d been discovered by Jasmine Black, a fellow team member, dominating the NASCAR circuit. Given that Jasmine’s special ability was persuasion coupled with the fact that she was very easy on the eyes, inducing the somewhat arrogant vampire to join their cause hadn’t posed much of a challenge.
The six vampires stepped out of the vehicle and continued to the scene on foot. Seeing the telltale distortion in the air, Cami stopped just short of the invisible barrier and glanced around. The others followed suit, focusing their senses on the surrounding area. The last thing they needed was for some unsuspecting shopper to witness six people disappearing into thin air.
Satisfied that it was clear, one by one they stepped through the camouflage. Coming out on the other side, they were met by the curious stares of several uninformed officers. Martinez’s mist functioned like one-way glass, allowing those inside to see and hear what was going on outside, so the new arrivals, who were clad in combat gear and armed to the teeth, stopping and looking around without acknowledging all of the activity right in front of them had to seem odd.
Detective Thompson, the civilian vampire who called in the body, had already fed the other officers a story regarding a special government task force joining the investigation in pursuit of a suspected serial killer, or terrorist, or something along those lines. It didn’t really matter; they wouldn’t remember any of it for very long.
Cami quickly surveyed the crime scene, noting the covered body lying in the middle of the lane.
Oh, yeah; whoever dumped her definitely wanted her to be found. As the thought crossed her mind, she got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, but brushed it aside. It wasn’t like she should feel good while cleaning up a murder.
Noting Martinez sitting alone in his car, she started walking towards Detective Thompson. Maintaining the mist required a lot of concentration, so she knew better than to disturb him until they were ready to lift the veil.
“Hey there, Cami. It’s been a while,” Thompson said with a smile as he pulled her into a light embrace. He wasn’t as tall as most of the men she knew, but at around six feet with broad shoulders, thick dirty blonde hair, and kind brown eyes, he was still an impressive man. Cami was always surprised by his warmth and kindness, given his line of work. As a homicide detective, he saw more than his fair share of evil and depravity.
“Damn it, Thompson; you know I hate your touchy-feely shit,” she replied, only half-serious.
While it was true that she wasn’t typically a fan of displays of affection, she’d grown fond of the civilian vampire over the years. He had been an invaluable source to The Elite and was something like a friend to Cami. It was unfortunate that he hadn’t been born of a stronger bloodline; even having all the drive and dedication of an Elite soldier, he lacked the genetic makeup to back it up in battle, so instead he had become one of the thousands of civilians employed by The Elite to help protect the secret of their kind’s existence.
“All right; so what have we got?” Cami asked getting down to business. Not that she was in any hurry to return to lockdown, but they needed to get the situation taken care of a quickly as possible.
“The husband and wife who found our victim are in my car waiting to be interviewed further. We got lucky; they waited here for the patrol car thanks to Glenda in dispatch advising them to wait in their car. Gotta love that woman; told them they would risk contaminating the crime scene and whoever did this might get off because of it.”
“Jackson, you go have a little chat with
our witnesses. Rachel, round up the other officers for debriefing. Make it clean; this was just a false alarm, some bored kids making crank calls. They all went home sick with food poisoning from some bad Chinese they grabbed after clearing the scene.” Cami instructed making up the new memories on the fly. “Beckett, pull transport in to load her up. Layla and Jasmine, go with him and sweep the level again. Oh, and get coordinates on the nearest crematorium; I think it’s Benson’s, but double check me. I’m overdue for a feeding so I’m in no mood to ride very far smelling dead blood.”
Redemption of Fate (Fate Series Book 2) Page 11
