by S. L. Eaves
Hailey starts down the street. When Zach doesn't budge, she gives his arm a tug and he relents. I recognize that look in his eyes. Catch used to give me the same look.
Crina hangs back. “Tell me you didn't send me to the clubs earlier to protect me from Striden.”
“Striden sipping whiskey at my place of employment was the last thing I expected to see tonight. I texted you the second I spotted him. I tried to keep him there talking till you arrived. When they showed up, he bolted.”
“Alright. What'd you two talk about?”
I consider just how much I should disclose. Maybe part of me does want to protect her.
“He mostly joked about tormenting me while he was in town. He mentioned one thing worth noting – that time was not on his side, he indicated he's not hanging around for long.”
“Hmmm...well he's right about that much, he's definitely running short on time. And just so we're on the same page – you're not calling up your buddies at the DEA?”
“DIA. And no. We didn't part on good terms. I'm pretty sure there's a handful of agents there that want to kill me.”
“Ah so you didn't just burn that bridge, you blew the thing to pieces.” She laughs dryly.
Last thing we need right now is another enemy.
Chapter 18
“This the spot?” Dade asks skeptically.
Rex looks at the map projected onto his hand. He points the device in front of them and it beeps. The screen reads: “Arrived.”
“Seems so.”
They gather in front of a small one-story adobe dwelling in the middle of a stretch of dessert surrounded by red rocks. Quinn and Xan emerge from the base of a rocky hill that obstructs their view of the nearest road, which is at least a mile out.
“Car's parked. We passed a couple vans and jeeps with tarps over them. Otherwise no sign of activity.” Quinn remarks, eyeing the house. “Is this the place?”
A collective shrug.
“Well then maybe there's just a couple of them holed up here? This could be easier than we thought.” Rex looks around for signs of movement. It's not long after sunset and the house looks dark and abandoned against the twilight backdrop.
Quinn shakes her head. “There's no way we're this lucky. The vamp last night indicated a bigger operation.”
“I'm registering a lot of electronic activity, there's way more power out here than this little house would need.” Xan slips the device he'd been holding into the pocket of his cargo shorts.
“Underground?” Rex suggests.
“Only one way to find out.” Quinn walks up to the door and knocks.
Nothing. Rex leans over her shoulder, pointing at a beige panel by the door. It blends in well with the clay siding. Quinn fiddles with it and eventually the cover pops off to reveal a display panel about six inches wide. The panel prompts them for a pin number.
“Hey, Dade, any numbers on that card aside from the coordinates?” she calls back to him.
“Uh maybe, there's a bunch of numbers on here.” He hands Xan the card.
“Try this,” he points to a series of five numbers scrawled on the corner.
Quinn punches them in order. The panel beeps green three times and a gruff male voice comes from an undisclosed intercom.
“Yeah?”
“Uh we were invited here by Nico. He's expecting us.”
“Okay, I'll buzz you in. Stairway is behind the bookcase.”
The comm clicks off, a buzzer sounds and the front door unlatches.
“This is an elaborate setup.” Rex's tone is wary.
“Alright Lori, what did you get us into?” Quinn pushes open the door and they enter the sparse little hut. A bookcase the size of a doorway rests on the far wall.
Dade walks over and gives it a shove. It slides over to reveal a dimly lit stairwell.
“I'm getting flashbacks to the Pureblood temple,” Xan whispers.
“Forget the temple, this reminds me of my time serving in Afghanistan. I'm starting to think coming unarmed was a mistake,” Rex says, shaking his head.
“Stop being such chickens. These are new vampires protecting themselves and having a little fun with their new status. Passwords, cards…it's like a secret society or clubhouse, we just gotta play along.”
Dade starts down the steps.
“Just like all those dead humans did?” Xan mutters. Quinn forces a smile and gestures for them to follow her as she joins Dade in the stairwell.
A few feet down, they stop.
“You guys hear that?” Quinn asks.
“Sounds like yelling and cheering,” Rex presses his ear against the wall.
Dade continues. When they reach the bottom a door opens and the man who'd given Dade the card greets them with a broad grin.
“Hey, guys, glad you made it. Dave right? And I see you've already brought us more recruits, nice work.”
“It's Dade,” he corrects. Looking over his shoulder to the others, he says, “Guys this is Nico.”
“Welcome,” he smiles, tips his cowboy hat. “Come on in, I'll show you around, give you the lowdown on our little operation.”
He leads them through a short wide hallway with double doors at the end. The doors are propped open and vampires are standing around them smoking, drinking and chatting. There's a lot of black clothing and piercings. New blood trying too hard to look the part.
It makes Nico's southwest rancher attire a refreshing sight. He stands out like a sore thumb and every vampire nods his direction as they pass.
When they enter the room they stop in their tracks. Before them is a large arena encased in wire, surrounded by bleachers. Behind the bleachers, a bar extends the length of the wall to their left, to their right a line reaches from what looks like a cashier or box office windows. Vampires behind glass exchange nondescript bags for slips of paper.
“This place was an underground testing facility. Area 51 type shit. Long abandoned. We've taken it over and transformed it into a place for vampires to gather, socialize, seek refuge and buy supplies. We are not a hotel, per say, we don’t have enough rooms to rent out. But you can earn yourself a room and food. Maybe a bed & breakfast would be more appropriate.” He laughs. “Basically we provide entertainment and refuge, in return we require vampires to contribute. Blood, money, supplies, even recruits such as yourselves...contributions help us run the place and grow.” Nico explains with a matter-of-fact tone as he gestures around.
“Entertainment? Is that where the arena comes into play?” Quinn asks.
“Yep.”
“Let me guess – you have a human fight club, fight to the death kinda thing going on? Winner gets turned? Loser gets drained?” Rex tries to hide his disgust.
Nico smirks. “Not quite, but I like how you think. The arena is for vampires. That's the earning part. You have to earn the right to be here. By either fighting yourself or bringing in newly turned vampires to duke it out on your behalf. Winner gets room and board, food included. Loser gest dusted. Weeds out the weak ones.”
He continues as if he gives this tour nightly. “The bar only serves alcohol. Moonshine and some other potent cocktails that'll warm your insides.” He leans towards Dade. “There's a few specialty drinks if you're looking to treat your girl. Ask for a blood orange.”
Nico points across the room. “You can place bets on the fighters and cash in your winnings for a variety of offerings depending on what we have in stock. You win big you can maybe get blood if we have it to ration, otherwise we'll give you credits for the bar, for a room, or cold hard cash if you prefer. One of my associates just brought in a supply of rohypnol. So drugs too depending on availability.”
“To drug humans?”
“Exactly. See if you bring us live ones we'll give you a room or cash, but most take a room. Gives vampires a sun-free sanctuary to stay. It’s second only to blood as far as demands go. As you can imagine blood is difficult to come by, especially with our numbers growing.”
Nico's watch beeps. H
e reads the screen and rolls his eyes.
“I got to step away for a few. Have a look around. Another fight is scheduled at the top of the hour. And Dade I'm assuming you're good to go tonight. Though if you want to nominate one of your recruits here to go in your place that works, too. Might need at least two of you to go anyways, I'll have to check the lineup.”
“In my place?”
“You got to fight to stay. Like I said, you gotta earn the right to be here. Our hospitality only extends to vampires contributing to our cause. First step is to prove your worth. Big guy like you, should be a breeze. Anyways, hang out, grab a drink, I'll circle back in a bit.”
With that Nico disappears.
“Well shit,” Xan exclaims.
“We're leaving right? This place is revolting.” Rex eyes the giant hexagonal shaped cage of wire and steel before them. There's a vampire inside vacuuming up ashes from the last fight.
“And he was so nonchalant about everything. He glossed over the bringing in humans part...” Xan scans the patrons with distain. “Can we really leave without learning more?”
Dade shakes his head. “We're not. We came this far, not going back now. If all it takes to be ‘in’ with them is fighting some newbie vampire, it's no brainer. Piece of cake.” Dade smiles, his eyes glowing with anticipation.
Quinn groans and starts for the bar, “I need a drink.”
“How many vampires are down here?” Rex leans into Xan’s ear.
“Hard to say. Forty? Fifty? And that's just that what we can see. You got to figure some are out hunting and others are scattered throughout this place. How many rooms you figure they’ve got? We need a more extensive tour in order to get a feel for the size of their operations.”
Rex nods in agreement.
“And we need to get Crina and Lori here. Pronto.”
Chapter 19
“A parking garage? You sure this is the place?” Abrams stares up at a seven-story auto park that takes up roughly half the block. The agent next to him nods while looking at static image of a thermal projection on his tablet of a figure emerging from the stairwell registering the same temperature as the objects in the frame.
“Affirmative. Satellite picked up her image on its roof eighteen minutes ago.”
“Alright then, I'm going to go have a look around.” He turns to the two men flanking him, “Take positions nearby with good vantage points. Keep your eyes peeled. Remember you get eyes on the target, you do not engage. Just call me, got it?”
They nod in unison. He walks up the entrance ramp, stepping cautiously into the shadows of the garage, scanning between parked cars for movement. He spots a shadowy figure by the stairwell.
“Lori?” he asks quietly as he moves towards the stairs.
Suddenly he’s grabbed from behind, spun around, and thrown into a pillar. Crina picks him up by his neck and pins him against the concrete column.
“Who are you? How do you know that name?” she hisses, clutching his throat.
Abrams gasps. “Abrams,” he says, his voice cracking, “I worked with Lori.”
Crina loosens her grip slightly, looks Abrams over. She slides her free hand into his suit jacket and removes his gun from its holster, tosses it. Finds his ID badge. Flips it open and sees he's DIA.
“What if she doesn’t want to be found?” Crina glowers while lifting him off his feet.
***
“Abrams?” I spot Crina holding him up between two cars as I enter the garage.
Crina looks over her shoulder. “I thought you weren't going to involve the DIA?”
She's in assault mode and she practically spits the words at me as she hisses them out through her fangs.
“I'm not. I didn't contact him.”
I scoop up his gun from under a car as I walk up to join them. “You don't think the recent activities in this city might have caught their attention?”
“He said your name. He's looking for you.”
“Well at the moment he can't say anything. Let him breathe.”
She may be helping me. I'm not sure this is a friendly visit, but killing him isn't going to do us any favors. Crina lowers him to the ground and releases her grip on his neck. He collects himself, brushes off his suit jacket. I hand him his gun.
“Thanks and hi, by the way, good to see you,” he manages once he catches his breath.
“Not sure I can say the same. What are you doing here?”
Crina steps back, ready to pounce.
“Looking for you, as luck would have it,” he says, forcing a nervous smile. Abrams gestures inside his jacket. “If I may?”
When we don't protest he takes out a tiny tablet, queues up a video and hands it to me. I watch as a clip plays of Zach and I engaging with the vampire from the club. The camera captures me clearly staking the vampire.
Last time we worked together I was falsely accused of killing my own kind. This time the footage isn't altered.
“Damn. You guys have eyes everywhere don't you.” I hand it back to him. Crina, who'd glimpsed it over my shoulder, looks less than pleased.
“We are investigating a string of deaths in the city that have ties to your kind. After this hit my desk I thought maybe we could help each other out. At least get on the same page. The DIA is deploying agents out here and I don't want them going after the wrong vampires.”
Crina grunts, “This is exactly what I was hoping to avoid.”
“Tell your men to stand down. Give us a chance to contain the situation. It's our kind, it's our problem to solve. Humans don't need to get involved.”
“Humans are dying, it's not just a vampire problem.” He pauses. “You think we could go somewhere to talk?”
I pull Crina aside, whispering, “Give us a few? Let me see what we can work out before this escalates any further.”
She suppresses the urge to argue, “You're not worried this is some sort of trap? You indicated you weren't on best of terms with these guys.”
“That's on the top of my list of things to sort out.”
“Okay. Fine, but you make it clear they come after us we'll retaliate appropriately.”
She's speaking loud enough for Abrams to hear.
I nod, “Mind checking in on our new friends? They haven't emerged from the club yet, I'm not sure if that's a good or bad sign.”
“I can't believe what you've gotten me into. They better have found something for me to kill.”
“Thanks,” I offer as she storms off.
Abrams is fiddling with an ear piece when I rejoin him. I have an idea why it's not working. He looks up as I approach then glances around when he realizes I'm alone.
“Your friend has got one hell of a grip on her,” he rubs the claw marks on his neck.
“Yeah, I know. Just be glad she didn’t draw blood.”
Abrams is, or was when I worked with him, a Director at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Last time I walked out of a DIA office I did so knowing a fair number of agents believed I’d killed one of their men. And they were right. About the killing part. He wasn’t one of their own. He was a mole, a double agent working for a corrupt private military agency. But that information wasn’t public knowledge at the time.
To say I was pissed at Abrams for trying to cover his own ass is an understatement. He’d been responsible for bringing in the dirty agent. He’d granted him access to valuable intelligence that resulted in the deaths of multiple agents. Or at least contributed to; their deaths weren’t just on his hands.
It was an honest mistake. But I'm sure that doesn't help him sleep at night. Rather than admit it, in trying to cover up the truth, he left me looking like I’d gone rogue and taken out one of the good guys. So needless to say, our last encounter was pretty tense. The question will be how do we move forward from that.
A car comes up the ramp and we both stiffen at its approach. We watch it pass and I turn back to him, continuing, “At the risk of starting this off on the wrong foot, given how the DIA feels about vampi
res – let’s just say I may have overreacted when I spotted two men in cheap oversized suits lurking on the sidewalk.”
“Oh God, you didn’t—”
I shake my head. “No, just knocked them out. They’re propped against the wall over there, gesturing towards an unlit corner near the entrance ramp. I didn’t know they were with you, though can’t say I would’ve reacted differently if I had.”
I hand Abrams their ID badges and cell phones.
“They might want these back when they wake up.”
“Right…”
“It's like Crina said, if they refuse to stand down we’ll rip their throats out. Just so we’re clear.”
“We are,” Abrams nods. “They are not here for you. The agency wouldn’t let me come alone.”
“They’re your protection?” I laugh.
“You can tell how much they value my livelihood.” He forces a grin. “I’m sorry to track you down like this. It’s just that well – I knew bringing you in would not be the best approach.”
“Appreciated.”
I remember the first time we met. Lots of restraints were involved. And not the fun kind.
“Buy you a drink?”
We walk for two blocks in silence.
“You look well,” I say to cut the tension. While his once dark-brown locks had turned gray, he’d also gained some much-needed pounds to fill out the suit and finally lost those dark bags under his eyes.
“Thanks, I see immortality is preserving you nicely.”
“One of the few perks I suppose.”
Abrams stops at the entrance to a pub on the corner and holds the door as I descend the steps. It turns out to be the prefect type of dive bar for the occasion.
There are two men at the bar talking, a sports show recapping the night’s games is muted on the television set above their heads. Otherwise it is empty. I nod at the bartender and point to the table in the back corner. There’s a line of wooden booths along the left wall and I slide into the farthest bench, back against the wall, in full view of the door. Abrams stops by the bar and joins me at the table with a dusty bottle of scotch and two glasses.
