by R. E. Carr
“Still recovering and hiding out of state. I learned that apparently my son has a thing with a goth chick from Pomona and that he can swear fluently in Canadian French.”
“Edwin? You do realize that he’s actually from Canada, and if you get him drunk, he can put sailors to shame,” Steve said with a sigh.
“Well, do you know what Ayoye Tabarnak means?”
Steve snickered a bit. Jonathan just rolled his eyes. “He was getting splinters ripped out of him, so I’m guessing it’s pretty damn bad. Mina is . . . heartbroken, to say the least. She wants me to figure myself out too so that I can find a way to stop all this mess.”
“So, you aren’t here to drag me back to Mom and generally make our lives miserable?”
“The first part, no; the second . . . well . . .”
He fumbled with the screen again. After a bit of awkward fast-forwarding, another image of Paige greeted them. “Arthur and Merlin started this mess. I can forgive a lot, but he shot my mom. As long as he is out there, I’ll never feel safe. I don’t know, but if there is one thing this destiny bullshit has taught me, is that you have to face him if you are ever going to figure out who you are. I’ll always love you Lorcan, but—” He pressed the power button quickly and shuffled the tablet away. “The rest is just for me.”
“You’re . . . what? Going after Arthur?” Gail asked incredulously.
“I’ll help,” Steve said, without skipping a beat.
“You see, the laws we have—the secrecy and the unbreakable oaths and all that—they are what is protecting Arthur.”
“Especially that first law,” Steve grumbled.
“I guess what I’m asking is, are you willing to go all the way to stop him? I’m kinda guessing by your little scene here that you are fed up too, Bro.”
“I said, I’d help.”
“But—”
“He killed the goddamn love of my life. Stop doubting me!”
Both Steve and Jonathan turned and looked expectantly at Gail. “Look, I promised Ren a long time ago that I’d help him stop the vampires . . . I guess I should say the bad vampires now. I owe it to Reiko and Rikuto as well. Either we save him, or we have to stop him. The sheriff hates me already. Javier’s dead, and for all I know, Arthur ordered his death too, so I guess there’s revenge for me as well. Hell, I’m screwed no matter what . . . so I might as well go all-out and embrace the insanity.”
“Works for me. Shall we get going?” Jonathan said, a tinge of Lorcan creeping into his voice.
“I suppose I need to pucker up and get started on our escape then?” Steve sighed, pulling some lip balm out of his pocket. He then rubbed his throat.
Jonathan smiled mysteriously. “Actually—”
28
“Why are we here again?” Gail hissed as Steve adjusted his tie. She looked over at the placard just inside the commanding building on State Street in Boston’s financial district.
“Bring back a few memories?” he asked snidely, practicing a not-too-terrible British accent. Gail took a deep breath and finished fixing his tie, then brushed a few jet-black strands of hair off his forehead. He winked at her, his eyes fading from rich brown to a lighter green.
“It’s still there,” she whispered. “Lambley, DeMarco, and Young, LLC.”
“That’s new, though,” Steve said, as he pointed to the pair of armed guards by the elevator. “Just tell me, how do I look, Pumpkin?”
“Like a hot asshole instead of your regular asshole self,” Gail deadpanned. She double-checked his cufflinks and shoes, taking extra care that every detail was in place. “I’m still worried about me though. My face . . .”
“It’s surprisingly good, considering we got it done at the makeup counter at Macy’s.”
“No—I mean my face is a little recognizable after the whole Nashville incident,” she said, cringing.
“Pumpkin, your own mother wouldn’t recognize you. Now use those Serbian sweet-cheeks to your advantage, put on your best bitch face and act like everyone is beneath you.”
Gail rolled her shoulders back, tugged at her neckline, and admired the wonders a padded push-up bra could do under the skin-tight zebra print dress she had squeezed into, with the help of contoured underwear and a lot of tape. Her ridiculous red stilettos dug into the pavement and she groaned audibly as she indeed slipped on sunglasses at night. Bleached blonde hair fell straight and long over her bare shoulders.
“Oh, this is so wrong,” Steve said, giving her a long, low whistle.
“Oh god, you don’t actually—”
“I’m having some very conflicted feelings, yes. Damn, you are hot when you dress like your mom, Pumpkin.”
“Who you thought was your sister for most of your life,” Gail hissed. “Look, if we don’t do this now before the drunk hooker blood wears off, I am never going to get through this. You talked me into this, soldier, so let’s get it done.”
“You know, if you had said that to me in a ridiculous German accent, even Arthur would be fooled.”
Gail sighed. She summoned her best runway walk and stormed into the lobby, a far cry from the timid girl who had wandered in here looking for a job some years ago. The guard at the desk gulped as he saw Gail in her costume. His jaw dropped openly as one Steven J. DeMarco strode into the building wearing a perfect copy of Arthur’s face.
“I wasn’t made aware you were coming, your majesty—um, highness—um, sir,” the guard stammered as he looked at the papers and screens on his desk.
“Is that a problem?” Steve asked dryly, enough sarcasm dripping from his voice to leave a puddle on the floor.
“Of course not. It’s just that usually you send Mr. Dog, and he’s, you know, down in the basement.” The guard eyed Gail with concern.
Steve yawned. “Just a little business. Won’t be long.”
He smiled at the guards. His smile faded as he saw a keypad in the elevator. “That’s new,” Gail muttered under her breath. Steve just smiled and tapped one of the guards on the shoulder.
“You,” he eyed the badge, “Bob, I want you to come with us.”
“Yes, sir.” The moment the doors closed, Steve touched his fingers to the back of Bob’s hand.
“Now, I want you to take us to the penthouse offices. You have clearance to do that, right Bob?”
“Right away, sir.”
“I hate touching those things. You never know what sort of common people have been fondling them and what germs they have,” Steve said, accent still holding strong. “Now be a dear and wait right here for us.”
Bob planted his feet and waited patiently by the elevator. Steve smiled smugly at Gail as they took in the glorious view of the lights of Boston. An old-school mahogany desk sat in the middle of the sleek office. Gail ran her fingers along it. “This looks just like the one from the office downstairs. Just like—”
“Vampires love irony, and they tend to be sentimental,” Steve said as he flipped on the computer. “It’s probably the same desk.”
“But why are we here?” Gail asked. “You’re not a hacking genius, Honey Bunny.”
“I don’t have to be,” Steve said as he popped open the desk drawer. “This also used to be my desk. I made Ren polish it every damn week. He hated doing it too because I made him take everything off and put it back just the way I left it. It has all these neat secret compartments as well.”
“Sounds like you were an asshole boss.”
“Yup,” Steve said as he started flipping through the papers hidden in the secret drawer. Gail tried to read over his shoulder but was stymied by page upon page of kanji characters. “This is weird,” Steve mumbled to himself as he continued to scan. “This is from years ago. Why would Arthur hide all these account numbers and accounting mumbo-jumbo? It must be way out of date.”
Gail reached into the drawer and snagged a piece of glossy paper. She pulled out a photo that made Steve drop the papers he was rifling through. “I don’t think this is Arthur’s secret stash, Steve.”
He sna
tched the picture out of Gail’s hand and slowly traced his finger along each feature—big blue eyes, a ski-slope nose, and a pixie cut of dark blonde hair. Georgia Sutherland made a silly duck face in the photo, posing to show off her short shorts and a faded UCLA top tied to make a crop-top.
“He printed a selfie,” Gail said, raising a brow. “And hid away bank account info in this desk.” She reached in again and found a key. “This looks like it’s for a safety deposit box.”
Steve took pictures of the front and backs of the ledgers with his phone, then shoved them back into their hiding place. The photo, however, he tucked into his pocket. Gail dropped the key into her bra. They continued to rifle through the drawers, finding mostly office supplies and a bottle of bourbon.
“Must have been your desk,” Gail said with a smile. She tried logging in but was instantly thwarted by the need for a password. “I miss Kayleigh and her computer magic.”
“Vampires are old school, so we’re doing old school reconnaissance,” Steve reassured her as he started making his way to the bookshelves to check for anything else out of the ordinary.
“Mr. Dog is in the basement,” Gail mused. “Why would the guard make sure to tell you that? Do you know anyone named Mr. Dog?”
“I know there was a vampire who married his dog once, maybe he took the pooch’s name.”
“Seriously though—someone that Arthur knows is in the basement. If the secret information isn’t in the swanky penthouse—”
“Then it’s got to be in the underground lair,” Steve finished. “Look, if I can get my hands on one of Arthur’s lackies—”
“Then we can find out more about what he’s up to!”
She checked her phone. “According to Jonathan, the real Arthur and Minerva are still at the Intercontinental, Claudia is on damage control in Washington, and Vlad the Impaler is doing PR in New York. Wow, those are words I never thought I’d say.”
“No sign of Gingersnaps?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Well let’s go see this Mr. Dog. It can’t be any more awkward than a Mr. Sugar, right?”
Bob readily took them to sub-level 2. All of them tapped their feet to the song playing through the speakers. Gail paused as she recognized the riff, even in Muzak. “It’s ‘The Final Countdown’ playing.”
“No, it isn’t,” he scoffed, but he paled the more he listened. The door opened with a ding onto a sterile hallway. Both vampires did their best to keep it together as they read ominous labels such as “Experiment Containment One” on the doors lining the hall.
“Mr. Dog is—” Steve prompted Bob.
“In his usual haunt, sir, cold storage. Should I wait for you?”
“Be a good man and wait here. Lady Jaeger and I can handle this next part.”
Gail and Steve tried to walk confidently down the starkly lit corridor. The lights flickered with every step Gail took. “Can you put a lid on it, Sparky?” he hissed in her ear.
“I didn’t give you any crap when you couldn’t figure out how to shift shape, did I?” she whispered back furiously.
Steve stared at her, dumbstruck—the effect particularly comical on Arthur’s ever so serious face. “OK, bad example,” she admitted as they rounded the corner to see the storerooms. “Now, let’s figure out why Arthur has goons hanging out in cold storage. Do you think it’s a euphemism?”
“Probably, Pumpkin, probably.”
“Damn it,” Gail said as she saw a keycard reader next to the door. Steve flashed his most irritating grin and whipped out a white hunk of plastic.
“Courtesy of Bob,” he said as the little light turned green and the door buzzed. “Now let’s meet this—”
Steve stopped cold. Gail did her best, “Vat is zee matter, schatzi?” She froze as well as she saw that cold storage was no euphemism. A chill hung in the air as one of the refrigerated drawers had been pulled open to reveal a frozen body under a plastic sheet. A giant of a man sat as still as the body, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans. The casual clothing clashed with the thick metal bracelets welded around his wrists, and the plated steel and leather collar locked around his throat. A tag in front read “Good Boy”.
“Abercrombie,” Steve whispered in horror as he recognized the dark blond hair. The man gave him a hollow, dead-eyed stare. “What has he done to you, Morgan?”
“Is it time to fight again, Master?” Morgan asked, pointing towards Gail. He sniffed the air and snarled. “Something is wrong. You’re not the master.”
“Morgan, I’m here to help you, big guy—”
Morgan balled his hands into fists and began hitting his thigh. Fur bristled and grew on his arm. He lunged at Steve and shoved him against the wall. “You said there is no Morgan when you are here, only Dog!”
“Oh my god,” Gail cried as she dove between them and managed to shove Morgan back. In the tussle, Morgan clawed at the slab and pulled away the plastic to reveal exactly which body was being carefully stored in the bowels of a vampire lair. Both Morgan and Steve stopped cold.
“No,” Steve gasped. “No!”
Morgan dropped to his knees. One of the lifeless hands had flopped over the side. He picked it up and lovingly set it back on the sheet that spared the lower half of the body the indignity of exposure.
“Is that . . .?” Gail gasped as she saw tinges of blue mixed with blonde hair. The face was mauled and stitched together, but the swollen, distorted pieces that remained all fell in line with a familiar visage.
“I don’t believe it,” Steve said, his Brooklyn accent completely back. He lifted the edge of the sheet and choked up with tears as he saw the outline of a bunny just above the hip bone.
“My fault,” Morgan moaned as he paced around the room. “All my fault. If I didn’t fight over the bunny, we would have left. We would have left, and she wouldn’t have died. My fault . . .”
“Georgia,” Steve whispered. “There wasn’t supposed to be a body, Gail.”
His eyes drained from green to brown the longer he stared at her. Tears welled up even as he shook his head violently. “There wasn’t supposed to be a goddamn body.”
Gail gently tilted the corpse’s head to examine her neck. Puncture wounds and lacerations had torn her throat open clear to the spine. “This was ugly.” She leaned in to get a sniff, but she could only pick up embalming fluid and antiseptic.
“All my fault,” Morgan moaned again. Steve, meanwhile, had collapsed against Georgia’s body, shaking and crying as he took it all in. Gail slid her phone out and gulped as she saw there was no signal whatsoever down.
“Steve, my gut is telling me this is a trap. Steve!”
“Steve?” Morgan asked softly, faint recognition in his eyes. Steve looked up from the body with his own face. His hair curled as Gail and the awestruck werewolf watched.
“It’s me, Abercrombie—and I’m just as broken up to see her like this as you are. We’re here to stop the monster that did this to her, so you have to help me, Big Guy. You have to tell me what Arthur, what your master is up to.”
Morgan roared. He took a swing at Steve, but Gail managed to grab his fist in time. “You’re strong,” he said. He then turned back to Steve. “She was my sister! She was all I had left!”
“She was my wife!” Steve barked back.
“What?”
“You missed that part with all the vampire blood and them trying to turn you into Lorcan. I married your sister, and I loved her, OK? So yeah, I’m upset too, damn it!”
Morgan swung again. This time Gail didn’t stop the punch. Instead, she ran for the door and tested the latch. “Guys, we are stuck in here.”
Steve and Morgan moved to opposite sides of Georgia’s body. Morgan slapped his face a few times. “So hard to think with the master’s voice . . . so loud.”
“You can resist it, Morgan,” Steve said, surprisingly earnest. “I know it’s hard, but you have to fight that voice in your head. Arthur is evil—”
“The master is good. If
I follow him, I get the reward,” Morgan said, his eyes glazing over. “One day, I’ll get to kill the monster that killed my family, but I have to beat her first.”
“Her, who?” Gail dared to ask.
Morgan looked her up and down. “The one who looks like you but is not you. If I can kill her, I get to kill the monster. I get my name at last.”
“No, Morgan, you’re a bean counter, not a killer.”
“It’s all I have left. I tried it the hard way. I got so close. I almost had it all, but now that doesn’t matter. He killed her too, and I must kill him. It’s all I have left. All . . . I have . . . left.”
“Paige is still alive,” Steve said. Gail began to struggle with the door. When even her strength proved insufficient, she started checking the drawers for any other possible means of escape.
“Paige is alive?” he asked weakly. “Is she . . . did she…?”
“She had a little boy. His name is Lincoln, so I guess you might have something to live for after all, Morgan.”
“Lincoln,” Morgan said softly. “It was our dad’s name. Is the kid . . . is he . . .?”
“He’s an adorable human-vampire-werewolf-hybrid, just like his aunt was,” Steve said with a pathetic smile. “He doesn’t look that much like you—”
“So, he’s handsome then?” Morgan said, chuckling sadly. He pulled the plastic lovingly back over Georgia’s body. “I’m allowed one hour a day here. This is my only time to be Morgan. Time is almost up.”
Gail’s ears perked up at the sound of distant footsteps. She retreated to a corner and waved urgently at Steve, then held still. In his grief, Steve only seemed capable of flickering in and out of view. “Steve!” she hissed as the lock clicked. She just managed to vanish before the door swung all the way open.
“Of all the men in all the world to have the audacity to break into my fortress . . . I would never in a million years have thought that you would be the one with the bollocks to get this far, Mr. DeMarco. Then again, you are desperate—and I possess the one treasure with which you seem most obsessed,” Arthur Pendragon said as he strode into the room.
