Key to Justice

by Talia Gryphon

  “And what does this do?” Gillian asked.

  “It will call the Rephaim to us.”

  “How do you know that these devices are related?” She locked eyes with him.

  “What do you mean?” Another frown creased his perfect brow.

  “If I understand you correctly, these two devices were created thousands of years apart. What evidence do you have that one has anything to do with the other?” She was careful to keep her voice soft and level. She wanted answers, not a fight. At least not right now.

  “Gillian, I have spent centuries researching this. I have accessed and invaded the best scientific and religious minds of both Human and Paramortal. I assure you, while these artifacts were centuries removed from each other, they are indeed related. They were intended to be kept separate in order to prevent someone from doing exactly what I am going to attempt.”

  “Opening a proverbial stairway to Heaven?”

  “In the most basic of terms, yes.”

  This was so not a good idea. She watched as he carefully, almost lovingly, replaced the two relics back in their case.

  “Vlad . . .”

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “Do you think that your humanity might be more self-evident if you didn’t offer up a Human sacrifice? I hear the Gods in general really frown on that.”

  His laughter, as always, was light, musical and very enthralling. “We shall see what the Rephaim deem to be necessary.”

  “Fabulous.” She turned back toward the window. The sky was noticeably lighter.

  “It’s getting light out. Shouldn’t you be skulking off to your casket?”

  He seemed noticeably surprised. “Has your time with Rachlav and, I am assuming, Osiris not shown you that the ancients are immune to the effects of everything but the strongest sunlight?”

  “I’m usually asleep myself by then.”

  “That is very close to a lie, Gillian. I am certain you noticed. No matter. I shall retire in due time. I have those in my employ who will watch over you until dusk. While I am indisposed, I suggest you get some rest yourself. If you are hungry or thirsty, we do have food and drink for those who need it aboard the aircraft. You have only to ask.”

  “Aren’t you concerned that I might just try to escape while you and your fanged friends are asleep?” Gillian was dead serious. If she could get out, she would.

  “My dear . . . where would you go? We will be landing shortly in the middle of one of the most hostile desert environments on the planet. You may leave the plane, but if you run, you will not get far.” His grin was a little too smug for her liking.

  “So, you’d let me just wander off?”

  “Not hardly. If you wish to leave the plane to stretch your legs, that is your prerogative. You will be guarded at all times and no harm will come to you.”

  He rose, picked up the cases containing the relics, then came to stand next to her. In an uncharacteristic gesture, he took her head in his hands, bent down and kissed her lightly on the forehead.

  “Thank you,” he said softly.

  “For what?”

  “For not judging me.”

  After Vlad and the artifacts left her area of the plane, Gillian took the opportunity to pace and fume. Not judging him? She couldn’t level any judgment as his therapist, but she sure as hell could as his captive, prisoner, pawn, bargaining chip . . . or whatever the hell else she could be considered. Asshole Vampire. No wonder the son of a bitch got what he wanted most of the time. He was a pushy, egomaniacal know-it-all.

  She shot Aleksei a brief thought so he’d know she was still alive, but curtailed any ideas of an extended mental conversation. It was Vlad’s plane, Vlad’s rules. He could have any number of individuals on the aircraft who might intrude on her thoughts.

  Strange, though . . . She couldn’t feel any real animosity from him toward her. She could sense Vlad and Elizabeta, the cockpit crew and several other people aboard, but not the large entourage she assumed came with a Vampire Lord. Dionysus traveled light, but Osiris generally had a small herd of folks around him. Either Vlad was even more of a megalomaniac than she thought, or he knew there would be reinforcements when they arrived in Akabat.

  The pilot’s very Human voice came over the intercom with instructions to fasten seat belts and get ready for landing. Great, a thrall, Gill thought to herself. Conventional wisdom about Vampires was that most Masters had a Human or two who were loyal to the death. If they weren’t the Vampire’s lover or true servant, they were people who were enamored of the particular Vampire but who had little use outside of a very specific purpose or skill. A trusted Human pilot made sense. Easy to control, easy to seduce. Blech.

  The plane’s landing gear unfolded and the engine noise shifted to a protesting whine as the captain throttled back in preparation for landing. The back tires caught the ground first, then the nose dropped a split second after. It was all familiar to her, yet anticipation of what was to come made her stomach lurch.

  “Dr. Key?” An unexpected voice made her twitch.

  She turned to find an attractive Human woman, wearing desert combat fatigues and a helmet, and who was heavily armed. The M-16 rifle was pointed casually in Gill’s direction. Not exactly a threat, but almost.

  Gillian’s eyes narrowed. “You are . . . ?”

  “Lieutenant Bausch.” The woman’s sharp tone matched her features. Hazel eyes regarded Gillian suspiciously.

  “And?” Gill prompted her.

  “Lord Dracula has asked that you be monitored if you would like to leave the plane.”

  The cockpit door opened and, as she had surmised, a Human pilot and copilot stepped out, both dressed in fatigues similar to Lt. Bausch, and both with Ruger 9mm sidearms. The taller of the two men spoke. “Please don’t get overconfident, Dr. Key. We are under orders to let you walk around the immediate area and to keep you from harm.”

  “Does keeping me from harm include not shooting me?” Gillian was getting irritated.

  “We don’t have to shoot you to restrain you.” That was from Lt. Bausch.

  A chilly smile crept over Gillian’s mouth as she sized up her captors. Anyone with any sense would have run, but Bausch and the pilots weren’t up to speed on irritated ex-Marines. Bausch may actually be a real soldier, but these two guys were obviously civilians. Their guns were too low on their hips, and the holsters were not in position for a fast draw. She was betting the safeties were on.

  “Really.” Her response was flat, cold and matter-of-fact.

  The shorter pilot popped open the front exterior door. Through the hatch’s opening, Gillian could see an aircraft boarding bridge being rolled into place. The taller pilot moved to kneel and secure it at the gangway. She had a gun in her pants pocket, but it wasn’t as accessible as the three weapons currently in the cabin. Figuring it would take Lt. Bausch at least two to three seconds to orient the rifle on her in the enclosed space, she moved.

  Her first kick landed against the shorter pilot’s knee. There was an audible crack. He screamed and went down, and Gill had his sidearm. A second kick to the jaw of the kneeling taller man knocked him over. Gill grabbed his gun as he fell. She spun, weapons in both hands, to smack the rifle’s stock up and away from her, then planted her foot in Lt. Bausch’s midsection. As the other woman doubled over, Gillian yanked the M- 16 away from her and ran the few steps to the door.

  She didn’t bother with the stairs, just jumped the railing, rolling as she landed to absorb the twelve-foot drop. Coming to her feet, Gill slung the rifle over her shoulder, unlocked the ambidextrous safety on both of the handguns and glanced around for the first time since procuring her freedom.

  Oops was the only coherent thought she could come up with.

  The plane, the landing strip, the landscape and Gillian herself were literally surrounded with Beings of various species. The sun was up. The sky was slightly overcast due to the time of year. There were rock formations but no underbrush, no plants, no trees, not even a dry t
wig to hide the fact that there were thousands of people around her. This was Vlad’s army, or at least part of it. Humans, Shifters, Sidhe, magical Beings of all varieties. She was certain there were Vampires and other Nightwalkers around too, but they would be in the ground, secured away on the plane, as Vlad and his friends were, or hidden away nearby. She had run from the proverbial frying pan into the fire and was totally screwed.

  “Um . . . hi?” She tried for what she hoped was a friendly smile, despite holding two Ruger SR9 9mm pistols and an M-16 rifle on her back.

  “It’s her” and “Look . . . he brought her!” seemed to be the predominant whispers and mutterings echoing through the throng.

  Gillian frowned as the crowd pressed closer. There was no direct threat . . . yet. But she wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Okay, that’s close enough.” She didn’t exactly brandish the two pistols, but she did raise them just a little. The crowd obliged and moved back a notch.

  “Just back up and let me have some space. All I want to do is to look around at the area. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not going to shoot anybody unless I have to.” Her voice was clear, level and commanding as she looked as many of the frontrunners in the eyes as she could manage.

  Lt. Bausch came scrambling down the gangway at that point, apparently recovered enough to move and speak. “Give me my weapon back, Dr. Key.”

  “No.”

  Bausch started toward her. Gill casually pointed a gun at the woman’s midsection and Bausch stopped short. “I don’t think so, Lieutenant. Now, piss off and go find something to do, like taking care of the pilots.”

  “I’m supposed to watch you,” Bausch hissed back.

  “I don’t care. I can watch myself, and these folks aren’t going to let me run off and get bitten by a cobra. Don’t force me to make an example out of you.” Gill’s eyes became very green and very chilly.

  To her credit, the lieutenant appeared to have some reasonable self-preservation skills. Her face whitened, but she backed up and then retreated to the stairs.

  Definitely not regular Army, Gillian thought to herself. A real soldier would have at least tried for the weapon.

  Tentatively she reached out her empathy and consciousness. The mood around her wasn’t overtly hostile, but it wasn’t exactly friendly either. Since everyone appeared to be watching her, she yelled to anyone listening: “I have permission to be outside the plane. I am not going to run off into the desert, nor am I going to harm myself or any of you unless someone tries to hurt me first. We have a long time before darkness falls and Vlad wakes up . . .”

  “Lord Dracula!” Emphasis on the self- proclaimed title came from a smattering of voices in the crowd around her. They sounded pissed off. Oh well.

  “You call him what you like. He asked me to call him Vlad, so that’s what I’m going to do.” Her comment was met with shocked silence.

  “Now, Vlad does not want me to leave, and he does not want me to get hurt. So everyone just give me space, let me move around and look the area over, and I promise I will be here when he wakes up. I don’t want to have to tell him that I spent all day hunkered down by the plane and afraid for my life.” There was a little edge of sarcasm in her tone, but her point was taken. Everyone moved farther back.

  She kept her senses cranked up on high and took a moment to look at the landscape. Naturally formed squat obelisks of reddish orange stone dotted the otherwise flat, tan-colored ground. It wasn’t so much sand as it was packed, solid earth. White patches of gypsum painted frost-like patterns over the ground and the monuments. There were black geometrically shaped stones scattered randomly around, which Gillian supposed were pyrite. There was nothing as far as she could see in any direction but the white-dusted earth and rock formations. It was starkly beautiful, but at the moment, vastly outnumbered and probably outgunned, she couldn’t take the time to appreciate it. This sucked.

  Aleksei. An empty void greeted her probing thoughts. If he’d maintained any amount of consciousness, he would have responded to her feelings of defeat. She wanted to reach out to him; let him know she was still alive. But he was hours from waking. Then again, so was Vlad. Great.

  Gingerly she moved away from the group. They mirrored her and moved a little farther back. Lowering the guns to her sides, she continued to move, putting space between herself, the plane and the people. Nobody was behind her; she would have felt them. She didn’t want to trigger a mob scene if she fled, so she kept her movements deliberate, assured and confident.

  One of the monuments close to her was roughly seven or eight feet tall, and had a circumference of about twenty feet. The surface was ringed and eroded enough to make climbing easy. Jamming the guns in her pockets, she scrambled up to the top of it like a squirrel. From her higher vantage point, she could ascertain that there was indeed Jack Shit in the way of shelter or civilization in any direction. Fabulous.

  The rock was fairly flat and level. Gill unslung the rifle from her back and laid it down. Every movement was deliberate and slow, not to be misinterpreted. She retrieved the guns from her pockets, shoving one into the front waistband of her cargo pants, the other in the small of her back. Her own gun she laid next to the rifle, and sat down in full view of the throng.

  She reached back into her pocket to feel around. The cargo pants were a little loose and the pockets were deep. Her cell phone was there, down at the bottom. She was pretty sure no one was going to willingly let her make a call, at least not an obvious call. Praying silently to whatever Gods were listening that she had all the beeps and bells turned off, she slid the cover open. Kimber’s number was hot keyed to the number two on the keypad.

  On Osiris’s jet, everyone was either locked securely away from the daylight or napping. Osiris, his mate, Isis, their son, Tehuti, Sekhmet and Anubis had a private sealed chamber directly behind the main cabin. Dionysus and his Vampires, Hades, Thetis, Nyx and Persephone, were safely ensconced in the opulent cargo hold. The Lions, Wolves, Cheetahs and Humans were all together in the main cabin. There was a larger group of Osiris’s Vampires who were standing by, waiting for sunset and word on where to meet them. Daed had his platoon of Marines in Akabat already doing recon work, trying to determine exactly where Gillian had been taken.

  Since there wasn’t much to do except wait until they arrived in Akabat, Kimber had snuggled up with Pavel on one of the couches in the lounge. She was beginning to think life as a Vampire might not suck too badly after all. Castles, private jets and, from Gillian’s description of Osiris’s underground palace, pretty stylish living conditions.

  Her phone vibrated and she jumped. Pavel’s blue eyes fluttered open as she dug in her jeans for the phone. Gillian. Holy shit. Helmut was dozing across from her and Pavel. She kicked him in the leg to wake him up. “Gill’s on the phone. Don’t say anything; just be quiet.”

  Years of knowing her friend, serving with her friend, and she instinctively knew to do nothing but flip open the cover and engage the call. All the Shifters, Daed and Helmut gathered around her. Putting it on speaker, she waited.

  Silence.

  Back in Akabat, Gillian mentally calculated the time it would take Kimber to get the phone out of her pants or pack and answer. When she judged it to be sufficient, she stood up again.

  “How many of you are here?” Gillian called out to those closest to her.

  “Thousands,” came a voice from the group.

  “Thousands?” Gillian repeated, hoping like hell Kimber could hear her through her pants material and the wind that was whistling through the desert.

  “Enough to make our Lord’s plans come true.” That was from a closer male voice.

  Gillian spun around, drew the front Ruger and leveled it at the group flanking her on the right. “I said get back away from me, and I meant it. Any closer and he’s gonna have one less follower.”

  The man in front registered as a Shifter on her radar. He smiled a very unfriendly smile, which spoiled the effect of his handsome f
ace, but he motioned the rest of them back.

  She returned his smile, just as coldly. “You’ll be first, slick. You may heal up, but I’ll just shoot you again. Understand?”

  That time he moved back with the group. The look he shot her wasn’t pleasant, but he did move.

  “What’s your name?” Gillian asked him.

  Dark eyes glittered up at her. “Samir.”

  “Okay, Samir, all we’re going to do today is leave me alone and wait for nightfall. I’ve already explained Vlad’s wishes, and I don’t intend to keep repeating myself. I will shoot the next person who is stupid enough to threaten me. I am absolutely serious that your Lord will be extremely pissed off if you so much as tweak a hair on my head.”

  “Understood.” He wasn’t pleased about her bravado, but he motioned the others away and followed them.

  When they were far enough away, she palmed the cell phone and brought it out of her pocket. It slid a little back into her sleeve, allowing her to raise her arm as if to look over the horizon, and whisper to Kimber.

  “Kimmy, I don’t know how you’re going to get me out of this. There is no cover except rock obelisks, no shelter except the plane. We’re so far out in the desert the Gila monsters have set up a lemonade stand. If you guys need to call it a day, no hard feelings and I understand.”

  She couldn’t hold the phone to her ear or her mouth, so she might have imaged it, but Kimber’s indistinct voice seemed to say, “No one gets left behind.”

  Gill chewed on her lower lip and returned the phone to her pocket. She slid the cover shut, cutting the connection. Bless Daed if he could pull a GPS tracker out of his ass to lead them directly to her.

  Kimber relayed everything she had heard and what Pavel’s preternatural hearing had picked up to those who were awake. Gill was in a world of shit; that was a given. She didn’t want them to attempt a rescue if it was too dangerous; that was also a given. Any of them in the same situation would have said the same thing. The response would have been exactly the same. No one was left behind. There was nothing to do but wait until Egypt; until nightfall.