by C. L. Quinn
Plato looked at Evaleigh’s tattooed hand wrapped around his. She’d called him Playboy after their second mission together when a group of young women kept throwing themselves at him. He admitted he might be falling a little bit in love with the pale blonde who never failed to touch him when they were together. On the hand, on the knee, on the shoulder, the neck, usually brief, but it really worked on him. When he got better…
Forget it. That was going to be a long road. They were leaving him in a pristine white hospital room and going out into a warzone to kill the vampire who was after them. He was going to miss it all, and it just pissed him off.
Jack noticed Plato’s face before he took his hand.
“Just enjoy the vacation, bro. Wish I could lie around and watch vids all day.”
“That could never happen. You’re not built for it, and neither am I. Just…don’t have the legs for anything else right now.”
Nodding, Jack pushed from the bed. “Let’s go, team. Miles to go before we sleep.”
What he meant was, they’d better get undercover before daylight or two of them were going to be smoking hot, and not in a good way.
Sanquinetta guided their rented lift-car away from Oregon Medtech and back to the beach house where they would all rest until they found their vampire again.
Jack locked the house down after they arrived.
“We stay together now, at all times. No one on their own. That’s how he got us, he’s an opportunist who takes down the vulnerable. Never again. Girls, you can share the third bedroom.”
Saul lifted naughty eyebrows. “Unless either of you feels frisky.”
Evaleigh grabbed Sanquinetta’s arm. “No thanks. Office romance sucks, and we girls have other plans.”
She pushed a surprised Sanquinetta down the stairwell until the door below them closed with a bang.
“Um, that’s, uh, interesting. Are you imagining what I am?”
Jack twisted his neck, his hand working the tired muscles. “God no.” He turned to walk away, then looked back. “Yeah, maybe. I think I’ll go right to the shower.”
“Good choice. See you in the p.m.”
“Saul. Thanks for helping Plato. Helping me. I’m, uh, happy that you’re on our team.”
Surprised at the comment, Saul nodded and continued to his room, closing the door softly. Thankful, he went to his shower, dropping his clothing and stepped under the hard waterfall. He was really a part of the team now, fully vetted and vested. It felt good.
Once he began to soap up, the image of the two beautiful hunters in the bedroom below him kept forming, and particularly a specific vision of them together. His hand went to his cock, lonely since he’d been a hunter, and worked it until he felt the release he needed.
Thirteen
“I’ve got him!”
Evaleigh’s fingers flew over her keyboard, lighting up camera after camera in sequence.
“I’m pretty sure I know where he lives.”
Jack was behind her so fast it surprised even him. He’d yet to fully master air-displacement. “Seriously? And he would have no idea we’ve found him?”
Evaleigh turned her eyes on him, her head tilted.
“I don’t leave trails, buddy.”
“We’re flying out tonight. San, call Saul in.”
“Do you want to bring in one of the first bloods?”
“Fuck, yeah, San. Is one available?”
“Yes. I can redirect Kwano from Georgia.”
“Do it. We go in strong and we end this asshole forever. Then…”
“Then what, Jack?”
He shouldn’t have said that. He should have kept it to himself, but they’d find out sooner or later, might as well be sooner. “Then I’m going to find Ife.”
Sanquinetta nodded, struggling to form a smile.
“I don’t know what took you so long.”
“I don’t know either. Fear of the unknown. Fear she wouldn’t be happy to see me. Fear that the memory of me is much grander than the actual, you know, me in person.”
Another voice of reason, Evaleigh didn’t even look up from her manic keystrokes as she joined in the conversation. “Good God, I’ve never seen a hotter guy with such abandonment issues. She’ll eat you up, dude. Just fucking go to her.”
“Damn, didn’t know it was beat up on Jack night. No, stop, don’t apologize, you’re both one hundred percent right. I’m a coward in hunter’s clothing. But I will go after my woman when we get this done.”
The team arrived in Kansas City with only half an hour to spare. Kwano had secured a vampire safe suite in a tower across the street from the building Evaleigh had determined to be their target’s dwelling.
Jack addressed the group after they arrived.
“It’s going to be a matter of timing and luck when facing the unknown here. We can assume he’s used surveillance too, he seems to know each and every one of us. Except Kwano, of course.”
Seated on his bed checking his weapons, Saul nodded his agreement. “Yes, this has been personal from the beginning when he tried to kill you. It’s pretty fucking personal to us too.”
Evaleigh nodded as well. “I’ll find him, you guys smoke him. It’ll be quite simple.”
“Simple? Maybe. Easy? Doubt it. Kwano, thank you for joining us. You’re the missing link to success on this mission.”
“Happy to help. This guy is just nothing but bad news.”
“Plato would agree.”
Saul, now flat on his bed, sighed. “Lights out, guys. If we’re going to chase our ghost tonight, we need rest.”
Sanquinetta dropped onto her bed, checking its firmness, pleased. “He isn’t wrong. Ablutions, then lights out.”
Although it couldn’t be seen from inside the room, darkness arrived hours later pushing Jack, rubbing his eyes, from his bed. He noticed Evaleigh already working, her computer screen filled with moving images; eight separate vid feeds surrounding the tower across the street and continuing in both directions.
Holding his shirt in his hand, he walked over behind her, leaning down to study what she was so intent on.
“See him yet?”
Looking up, Evaleigh’s eyes moved over the shirtless chest nearly touching her. She felt tongue-tied and distracted by Jack’s ripped body inches from her, his heat against her elbow.
Sexy as hell, his scent overwhelming her, she stole a glance at the smooth tan skin, her fingers twisting against the keyboard. She had never been with a vampire and she was certain Jack would ruin her for anyone else. Besides, he was in love with another vampire. Damn’t.
Focus girl, focus and pray he puts on that fucking shirt!
“Uh, no. As soon as he does, I’ll track his movements, and when he returns, you’ll know and you can go in and take him. He doesn’t know Kwano, so I’d like to use him to put up some vidcams in the lobby of the building focused on the elevators, the stairwells, and the subfloor access.”
Kwano, coming from the bathroom, drying his kinky hair, running a towel along chocolate muscles even bigger than Jack’s, heard her idea. “Sure, I will run them over right now.”
More sexy muscles, Evaleigh noticed, and made herself stare at the computer. This kind of distraction she did not need right now.
After showing him what he needed to do, she gave him the tiny almost imperceptible cams, which he secured in a jacket pocket.
The combination of well-engineered devices and Kwano’s vampire skills placed all the vidcams where Evaleigh needed them with ease and he returned victorious with two bags that smelled incredible.
“Stopped at the diner and picked up first meal.”
Saul actually walked up to him and hugged him.
“You’re hired,” he commented, before he opened the bags and set out the choices, grabbing a plate and fork.
Well fed, the team was ready to go, but it wasn’t the fighting team that was calling the mission right now, it was Evaleigh. Until she had sights on their target, they were all idled.
An hour passed, the hunters bored, so they started a card game. It got lively, Kwano and Jack engaged in a loud argument about spaceflight, when Evaleigh’s voice cut in.
“Got him! He just left the building. He’s moving to the left, past the Merc Tower. God, I wish I could tag him.”
“Why can’t we?” Sanquinetta asked.
“He knows all of us. He’d recognize us if we got close. Kwano’s vampire lifeforce would let him know a vampire was near and possibly alert him. We can’t risk he’ll go to ground.”
“So we need a human he won’t suspect. Someone who would just blend in with the public.”
“Yes, Saul, and we don’t have one.”
Saul disappeared out the door to return moments later with a short slimly built man, perhaps thirty years old, simply dressed. “Here’s your invisible human.”
“Saul!”
“San, we do what we have to do. This is Joel. I’ve compelled him to comply with all of Evaleigh’s orders. Tell him what you need him to do, Eva.
Still shocked that Saul had stolen a man out of the hallway, she handed a tiny crystal clear flexible dot to the man Saul had pulled from his life. “Um, okay. Well, he’ll need a coms unit so I can let him know where the target is. So, uh, Joel, you need to get this tracer on this man.”
She pointed to a good still shot of their target taken from the vids. “Anywhere on him that he wouldn’t easily find it. And he can’t realize that you’ve tagged him. Just try not to be noticed, then get close behind him, place it, and come back here.”
Saul kept eye contact with Joel. “Do exactly as she told you. She’ll guide you to him using this.” Saul took a few moments to show Joel the unit, then installed it in his ear.
Evaleigh spoke into a thin microphone. “Can you hear me, Joel?”
“Yes,” he said at once.
“Excellent. Go ahead, Joel. Listen to Eva’s voice through the communication device in your ear.”
Saul pushed him out of the room and closed the door.
After he left, Evaleigh began to speak with him, guiding him to where he needed to go. “Okay, Joel that’s right, you’re just half a block away. Okay, now he’s stopped at one of the organic stalls. He’s looking at fruit. Joel, there are people all around him, this is a perfect time. Move in, tag him, and come back.”
Breath held, Evaleigh couldn’t believe this ill-begotten idea was working so well. Joel, totally unnoticed, had pressed the tracer against their target’s shirt and peeled off away from him like a professional.
She looked up at Saul, standing behind her. “Son of a…he was awesome.”
Saul nodded. “Sometimes you just have to take the leap. The boy will be fine. I’ll release him from the compulsion, scrub his memory, and give him a little something for his trouble.”
It went as smooth as hoped, Joel returned, Saul purged his memory of the event, and Joel left with a pocketful of credit chips that he would have no idea how he came by.
Jack had thankfully put his shirt on, so Evaleigh was more comfortable when he leaned over her once more.
“Brilliant, Saul. So, Eva, can we go get him soon?”
“You’ll be safer if you wait until he goes home. More control over the environment or possible ancillaries getting hurt.”
“You make sense. I’m just impatient. I need to be done with this.”
Jack kept thinking about Plato and the long recovery he had ahead of him. Looking at those in the room, two powerful vampires and an extraordinary one, two humans he would defend with his life, here to stop a vicious man from hurting anyone else, he wondered if he could walk away from this. He finally felt like he was truly the soldier for justice he always thought he had been.
And yet, he now also thought that he would give up anything for her. For Ife.
He shook his head to clear the deep thoughts that would wreck his concentration on the task at hand. Right now, he had to keep his attention on the coming battle.
“He’s picked up a lot of food.” Evaleigh sounded excited. Moments passed, then she shouted, “And Eureka! He’s heading home to eat. Hunters prepare to hunt.”
Finally. Everyone had already been prepared, but now the serious weapons went on.
After clipping his handgun to his belt, Saul looked at his small assault team. “He’s always been alone in the past, but that doesn’t mean that he’s the only one in his residence. We stay sharp every second. If this goes well, we’ll all be out with him in minutes. Let’s hope it goes well, then.”
“Amen to that,” Sanquinetta agreed.
Evaleigh hit some buttons on her tablet, which created a singing sound of victory. “I may be new to the band and only on keyboards, but kick some vampire ass for me.”
“Sweetie, I am going to train you as soon as we get back.”
“Thanks, San. I plan to be a remarkable student.”
Saul stepped to the doorway. “Everyone weaponized?”
Affirmatives all around, all dressed in black, the team followed Saul from the building, the darkness kind enough to cover their approach.
Entering the building their target had just come back to, they spread out to lessen the visual footprint, Kwano in front of Saul. They would depend on his freezing ability to make this capture easy, but they all knew about the misadventures of best-laid plans.
Eva’s calm voice carried through to everyone’s coms.
“I have eyes on all of you from my cameras Kwano installed, but once you move past the lobby, I won’t. The tracer shows him subfloor, so look for a stairwell dropping down to the lower levels. I think this building has two. My guess is he’s tricked out one of the levels for vampire life. Just, be careful. You know that he has to have surveillance, which means he’ll see you coming. I wish it hadn’t been dangerous to have taken him off the streets.”
His fone out as cover, Jack said, “You can let us know exactly where he is, though, right?”
“Right. So find the stairwell entrance, it’ll be locked but you vamps won’t have any problem with that.”
Slowly, still apart, investigating beyond the lobby for the hidden stairway common to these tower buildings that led below ground floors, the team searched right and left of the main elevator in the center of the building. Ten minutes later, Saul whispered aloud. “I’ve found the access. On the left side of the elevator column down the central corridor and to the extreme left clear to the back. I have eyes on and no activity for now.”
“Perfect. All converge and join Saul. You should go down together and I’ll guide you to him.”
“You have no way to tell if anyone else is with him?”
“No, Jack. My surveillance won’t work on those underground chambers.”
“Just asking. Off we go.”
After another ten minutes, Saul nodded and they descended, as quietly as possible, on concrete steps to an extraordinarily dark space. Freaked out by the darkness, Sanquinetta lit her fone, which instantly provided warmth and light, but too much, so Jack popped the glaring light against his chest, almost completely muting it.
“It’s too bright, San,” he hissed.
“Sorry, I just panicked a little. I’ll turn it off.”
Once she had, their eyes adjusted to a distant glow.
“Eva, there’s a glow of light ahead of us.”
“Good. He’s about 200 feet in front of you. Again, I don’t know if he’s alone, so be extra cautious.”
“Extra caution in place, thanks. Kwano, you take point. Freeze anything that moves from here on out.”
“Easy. Stay behind me.”
Kwano slid in front of Saul and moved carefully, aware as they all were that the element of surprise was their friend. As dark as the corridor was, any vid monitor would have to be infrared. It would still kill their surprise entrance.
Once they reached closed doors from where the light glow originated, they paused, weapons ready, prepared for any possibility.
“We’ll follow on your heels,” Saul
whispered to Kwano and saw the shape of his head move. “On 3.”
All four silently spoke the numbers, 1, 2, 3…and Kwano tore the doors wide, scanned the light-filled room, and froze what looked like three figures in the far corner of the room. After a moment to digest what they’d found, he realized they were decoys.
“There’s no vampire life signal in this room,” he called out. Seconds later, he saw the small detonation devices, one on each side of the door. Using his air-displacement skill, he removed himself from the blast seconds before it blew with Sanquinetta in his arms. His ears ringing from the percussion, he looked up at columns of smoke pouring from the open doorway, and, fortunately, the prone, unconscious figures of Saul and Jack. They’d cleared the area too, later than Kwano, but soon enough to avoid serious injury or death.
“Eva, are you still there?” he asked, well aware that their coms were likely compromised.
Sanquinetta, sort of shell-shocked, blinked her eyes, her hands twisting at her ears. “What the hell was that?”
“Welcoming committee from your vampire. Bombs, twins. Your guy was gone.”
“But Eva’s tracer showed…oh. He must have found it and set us up. Goddam that rat. He’s good at what he does. I’m going to kill him to death when we find him just for shits and giggles. Our other vamps okay?”
As if in answer, Jack groaned and lifted himself from the floor. “Bomb?”
Kwano nodded. “Two.”
Jack looked up to see Sanquinetta standing, healthy, in one piece beside Kwano. He knew what the man had done. “Thanks for that.” Getting that slimy piece of garbage wasn’t worth losing San.
Looking down at Saul, Jack smiled when he let out an extended groan. “There will be much whisky tonight. So, we didn’t get him, I assume.”
“He was gone before we entered. He’s clever and quite well versed in surveillance. He’s got his own back.”
“So we need to be more clever. Okay, then. Back to the beginning. And fuck, yeah, lots of whisky, wine, and sugar.”
The mission a bust, Evaleigh continued searching for the vampire they were here to capture with no sign of him.
