The gravel rolled and crunched under our feet.
In the distance, the road came to an end at a three-story mansion that looked like a palace made out of smooth slabs of stone. The driveway led directly up to a row of four garage doors. On the far left there was a set of stairs leading to a balcony at each level. They were surrounded by tempered wind-blocking glass.
“Look at the size of this place,” I said.
Jared grunted. “Yes, Andre has done quite well for himself.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Do you know him or something?”
“I don’t just keep tabs on future recruits.”
Meaning he also kept tabs on future targets. Now I really had the creepy crawlies.
I nodded my head toward a window on the middle floor. “There’s a light on.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jared said. He led us under the porch beside the garage doors. “Etienne and Giselle live upstairs. There are three ways in. The garage, the door around back, and up to the porch. You can access their bedrooms from the upstairs porch.”
“How are we supposed to get in?” I asked. The agents poisoned my blood and then sent me into the field without practical skills like lock picking.
Jared sneered at me. What a jerk. If Valerie and I were such an annoyance, why bother bringing us? He looked like he did fine as a one-man show. “We’re on a small island. No one locks their doors. How do you think I got in earlier?”
I shrugged. “How would I know?” I’d never considered myself a city girl being from Alaska, but Anchorage was the last place you’d leave your doors unlocked. We ranked number five in the nation’s most dangerous metropolitan areas with Detroit four spots ahead of us at number one. Wonder if they had vampire problems in Motown?
Anchorage’s crime rate was one of those fun facts Dante liked to share with me. He seemed to find it encouraging for our line of work.
Valerie began moving toward the stairs. Jared stepped in front of her. “Knock the kids out quietly then wait with them until I get there. Make sure they don’t wake up.” He headed up the stairs ahead of us and didn’t make a sound as he crept up.
Valerie and I waited until Jared eased back a sliding door and slipped inside the house. I looked at Valerie, and she looked up at the third floor. I waited for her to go first, not wanting to make noise jostling for first place.
Every step we made produced sound against the composite wood porch, but we kept going as quietly as we could. As I passed the sliding door Jared had taken, I took a quick peek inside. A massive kitchen opened up on the other side. All the appliances looked brand new. The whole place had an open, modern feel to it, unlike Marcus’s palace.
Valerie reached the top deck four steps ahead of me. I was surprised she waited for me to catch up. When I did, Valerie crouched down. I did the same.
The awning had kept the porch dry along the house. I leaned against the outer wall of the house and pressed my forehead to the glass. The door led into a rec room. I looked at Valerie and she nodded.
I gripped the edge of the sliding door with my nails. My fingers slipped off the door on the first try. I used my finger pads instead to ease the door gently open. Once I had an inch of space between the door and frame, pushing an opening large enough to slip through was easy.
With my hands and legs, I lifted myself over the sliding door track and scooted into the room. It had thick carpeting. Finally. The chill from outside followed me in. Valerie came in behind me.
She gently closed the door. We listened. The upstairs was silent.
We got to our feet quietly and walked to the hallway.
“I’ll take the right, you take the left,” Valerie whispered. “Whoever you get, go for it. If your target wakes up before we get a chance to knock them out, entice them into biting you.”
Roger that, team leader two.
At the moment I didn’t care if Valerie wanted to get bossy. I was on edge, and I had a feeling she was too. She seemed calmer giving orders. Whatever it took to stop her rushing in, guns blazing, was fine by me.
For a moment I thought she was going to wish me luck, but that would be stretching her goodwill too far.
Valerie looked to the right, indicating she was going for it. I nodded and crouched as I took ginger steps down the hallway.
I didn’t look behind me to see if Valerie had made it to the bedroom on the right. My focus had switched to my personal mission.
Luckily, the bedroom door had been left cracked open. I crouched to the floor and pushed the door open further without pause. Better to do it in one motion than with tiny creaks. I crawled into the room then stopped to listen. If I weren’t so on edge I’d feel pretty ridiculous right about then on my hands and knees sneaking into someone’s bedroom.
At first I heard nothing, but then the sound of light breathing drifted over from the bed eight feet away.
I looked around the tidy room. There wasn’t much to see. The room had the usual furnishings and there were framed scenic photographs on the walls. This had to be the boy’s room. It had a musky masculine odor.
I scooted my way to the bed, right up to the side where a dark blue or black bedspread hung over the edge. I rested my back carefully against the bed and listened to Etienne breathe. Inhale. Exhale. It put me momentarily in a trance.
I dug the bottle and rag out of my coat pockets, squeezing one in each hand. Then I leaned to the side and quietly got to all fours. Slowly, I rose to my feet.
Etienne slept on his side, back facing me. I sucked in a breath. He looked so angelic with his eyes closed, chest softly rising and falling. He had beautiful thick brown hair. I wondered what color his eyes were. I’d be in trouble if I had occasion to find out.
I took a deep breath and held it—just in case—before unscrewing the cap on the travel-sized bottle of chloroform Jared had provided. I emptied the contents onto the rag.
If I stopped to think things through, I’d hesitate. And once I hesitated I might lose my nerve. So I replaced the cap and pocketed the bottle then dove forward.
Etienne woke briefly. I felt his body jolt when I clamped the rag over his nose and mouth. His body went slack as suddenly as it had jerked. I felt a moment of exhilaration followed by a sickening sense of guilt.
I pulled the rag away. The boy looked the way he had before I knocked him out. I stared at the rag in my hand before setting it on Etienne’s bedspread.
Time to wait.
I walked around the room carefully, studying each framed photograph close up. I recognized the one of Saint Michael’s Cathedral in downtown Sitka. The other photos were of castles and cathedrals that looked vaguely familiar. The room was spotless. There wasn’t so much as a t-shirt tossed on the ground or on top of the furniture. The only object on the dresser was a set of keys on an electronic key fob with the Mini Cooper logo on it.
I passed by Etienne’s open door several times, glancing into the dark hallway. On the eighth pass, I stepped out and listened.
An unsettling silence gripped the house.
I looked to the right, curious if Valerie had chloroformed the girl. She’d probably beaten me to it. I wondered what she was doing now. I heard no sounds. Either way, Valerie would probably shoo me off and tell me to stand guard over my unconscious vampire.
A set of carpeted stairs descended to the left.
What was taking Jared so long? What if Andre or Henriette—or both— overpowered him? Jared might be a nasty brute but that didn’t change the fact that he was up against two vampires.
If anything happened to compromise Jared, Valerie and I were sitting ducks.
I listened at the top of the stairs. Hearing nothing, I took the first step down as though it would help me hear better.
Crashing glass and fighting were so familiar to me that the silence felt unnatural.
I stopped halfway down the stairs and reached around my back for my knife. Gripping the handle in my right hand, I continued down quietly.
The stairs ended at
a hardwood floor. This was as far as I should go. I needed to turn around and wait with Etienne like Jared had instructed. But I couldn’t bring myself to turn around. My fear had detached itself from my consciousness like a scab falling off an old wound.
I placed one foot and then another onto the hardwood floor. I looked right then left. A soft glow traced the outer edges of the wall on the left. I headed toward the light, each step placed carefully.
I stopped once I reached the curve at the end of the hall, listening again. This time I picked up faint chattering.
I crouched down and carefully looked around the corner. The hallway widened, and the light became brighter. I thought about turning back. I didn’t.
I walked heel first over the floor, slowly lowering each foot, heel to toe, before picking up again. I moved to a long oriental rug in the middle of the hallway. Much as I wanted to skirt along the wall, the rug would offer the more muffled approach. The hall led into the kitchen I’d seen from outside. The fridge hummed softly. I sheathed my knife, crouched to the floor, and made my way to the long counter in the middle of the room.
The kitchen connected to a large dining room, and the dining room opened into a vast living room. Right off the dining room, the faint glow brightened.
I crouched behind the kitchen counter. The voices continued, so at least no one seemed aware of my presence. Once my heart rate steadied, I strained to hear what was being said. It took me a moment to realize I couldn’t make out the words because they weren’t in English.
The voices were from a man and a woman. They spoke rapidly. The woman did most of the talking, and she sounded agitated.
I got on my hands and knees and crawled from behind the kitchen counter to the dining room. I ducked under the table. The woman was still talking when I stopped to calm my breathing. Once I felt I could control it, I looked at the living room furniture, trying to decide if I dared go any closer. I might be able to crouch behind the sofa. The voices were coming from the far corner of the gigantic living room. I’d like to get a look at their faces and see what was going on. Obviously Jared hadn’t made his move yet.
On second thought, I should crawl my way back to the kitchen and get my butt back upstairs. If Jared was hiding and I bumped into him I was dead meat.
I had just started turning on my knees when a familiar laugh stopped me cold.
The woman spoke again with urgency in her voice. “S'il vous plaît ne blessez pas les enfants.” I recognized the French now. Before they had been speaking too fast, but the woman’s last sentence had been simple enough to understand.
Please don’t hurt the children.
The next voice was Jared’s, and it was just as chilling in French as it was in English. “Ma pauvre Henriette. Vous avez l'air effrayée et cela pour de bonnes raisons.”
I crawled to the nearest sofa while they were talking and peered around. It didn’t do much good. All I saw were the legs of a coffee table, a large area rug, and a couple recliners.
The woman began speaking again, but I couldn’t make anything out. She spoke too quickly. Then her voice cried out, crystal clear. “We have money. We can pay you.”
Jared laughed. “Money doesn’t interest me,” he said, switching to English.
“You loved me once.”
“I never loved you, Henriette.”
The house fell silent. I wanted them to continue talking. Conversation was the only thing preventing violence. Suddenly steps began running toward me. I laid flat on the floor. As if that would do any good. But before the person could reach me I heard a cry of alarm, followed by a struggle. Something fell to the floor.
Ignoring the voice inside my head telling me to stay the hell down, I lifted my head just over the sofa’s back and caught a glimpse of Jared struggling to get a hold on the woman squirming in his hands.
“Andre!” she screamed.
Jared’s mouth opened so wide I thought he would bite her. His lips pulled back in an animalistic snarl.
Henriette’s shoulders sagged after shouting Andre’s name. Jared wrapped his arms around her neck.
My breath caught.
I didn’t close my eyes in time.
In one swift motion, Jared twisted Henriette’s neck as though it were no more than a plastic cap on a bottle of Dr. Pepper, but instead of the phish sound, it was followed by a snap.
13
The Shining
The Mexican food from earlier rose up in my throat. I clamped a hand over my mouth and hit the ground behind the sofa.
I was too sick to worry about the sound I made. Besides, Jared couldn’t hear me over the thump of Henriette’s body landing on the floor. Once she’d fallen, I heard footsteps hurrying to the living room from across the room.
“What is going on?” a man cried. Andre, presumably. “Xavier,” he said next, pronouncing the name as though seeing a ghost. I expected them to pick back up in French, but they didn’t.
“Hello, brother.”
“How can this be, Xavier? I thought you’d been hanged.”
Jared began laughing then stopped abruptly. “While you sat back and did nothing to help me.”
“What could I have possibly done? Stormed the La Force? Don’t look at me like I’m to blame. You got yourself in that mess, Xavier. How many times did I warn you to be more cautious?”
“You know what I think?” Jared said. “I think you all couldn’t wait to be rid of me.”
“How did you find us?”
“I have connections now.”
In the silence that followed, I realized I hadn’t breathed in a long time. I held it until the talking resumed.
“What have you done to Henriette?”
“I delivered the same fate she left to me.”
“You should not have done that, Xavier. Henriette wasn’t responsible for your actions. None of us were. You have no one to blame for your capture but yourself.”
“Ah, but you see, I didn’t remain in captivity, and where were all of you when I got out?” When Andre didn’t answer, Jared said, “Have you enjoyed fucking my wife over the last two centuries?”
“She thought you were dead. We all did.”
Oh fuck, I thought. Jared’s a vampire.
Their conversation faded from my mind.
What was a vampire doing working for a vampire hunting unit of the government? Melcher hated vampires. Did he know? He had to know! How could he not know? Which brought me back to my first question. Why was a vampire working with the government?
Laughter interrupted my thoughts. It was male, but not Jared’s.
“Arrogant as always. You really believe you can take me on, Xavier? I should remind you I’ve been around much longer than anyone in this family.”
“Which means you should die before me,” Jared said.
My body finally sprang into action. I scuttled on hands and knees back to the dining table as the first fist smacked skin. The living room erupted into a chorus of angry shouts and loud thumps.
I’ve never crawled so fast in my life. I was like a crab making tracks across the scorching sand. Once I’d passed under the table, I didn’t care about stealth. I jumped to my feet and ran for the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Valerie stood at the top. “What the hell is going on down there?” she demanded.
“Jared!” I gasped, barely able to get enough air in my lungs to speak. “He’s a vampire.”
“What?”
“He’s a fucking vampire! This is a personal vendetta. He already killed the woman. Now he’s fighting with the man.”
“Fuck!” Valerie said. “What do we do?”
I looked down the hall. “Did you knock out the girl?”
“Of course I did!”
“Okay, okay.” I shook my hands in front of me trying to think. “We have to get the kids out of here.”
Valerie dropped her arms. “Are you crazy?”
“If we don’t, Jared will kill them.”
“So not my proble
m.”
“Valerie…”
“How the hell are we supposed to get two full-grown teenagers out of this house…from the top story, no less?”
Valerie was right. There was no way we could do it in time. It would take two of us per body. We had to at least try.
“We hide the boy and get the girl.” Valerie’s mouth opened to protest. I didn’t let her. “We carry the girl down the way we came. You take her legs. I’ll take her arms. Then we come back for the boy. Once they’re both out front I’ll enter the garage through the side door, find Etienne’s car, and get the doors open. Once I open the garage door we need to get them inside the vehicle fast. After that we blast out of here.”
“And go where? We’re on a fucking island!”
“Can we please concentrate on getting out of this house alive and then worry about that?” I felt ready to snap. There wasn’t any time to argue.
“What if Jared gets up here before we have time to get them out?” Valerie demanded.
“We’ll just have to hope Andre keeps him preoccupied long enough.” Or better yet, wins the fight. I wasn’t willing to wait and find out.
Valerie followed me into Etienne’s room without another word. While I flipped his bed cover aside, she opened the closet door. “Too obvious,” she said.
I crouched on my knees to get a look under the bed, but it was barely half a foot off the ground.
“There’s a bathroom over here,” Valerie said.
“We’ll put him in the tub, just in case.”
Valerie grabbed Etienne by the shoulders. I took his feet and led the way to the bathroom. We laid him in the tub and pulled the shower curtain closed.
I pocketed Etienne’s car keys as we passed his dresser on the way out. Valerie led the way to Giselle’s room at the far end of the hall.
We entered a room with pink walls. Unlike Etienne’s room, every available surface had been put to use. The dresser had an army of fairies holding wands, sitting on flowers, and dangling in flight from stands. Stuffed animals filled an entire shelf above the fairies.
Northern Bites (Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter, Vol. 2) Page 12
