Vincent (Vampires in America Book 8)

by D. B. Reynolds

  It took her the better part of four hours to climb the hill and make her way down the other side and around to a position where she could see into the compound. She moved slowly, careful to avoid standing out against the hill, thankful for the sun which was rising behind the hill and casting her into shadow. When she found a good position, she settled down to watch. Surveillance work was both tedious and exhausting. Sitting in one place, staring at the same thing for hours, might seem easy, but the boredom got to you after a while, eating into your concentration, making your body stiffen up as muscles demanded movement.

  There was a lot of activity in the compound, despite Fidelia Reyes’s insistence that most of the guards were gone. Lana identified the shack easily enough, although, since it was constructed of concrete block, she wouldn’t have called it that. To her a shack was something rickety and made of wood.

  But the single armed guard was right where he was supposed to be, sitting on a chair only a few feet from the “shack’s” only door. A patio-style umbrella in a metal stand gave him a circle of protection from the sun, but angled the way it was, it would cut into his line of sight, too. She wondered why they had a guard at all, since the vampires weren’t going anywhere during the day. But then, she assumed it was force of habit. If there was a prisoner, there must be a guard, even if that prisoner was a vampire and thus completely immobilized by sunshine.

  Either that or the guard was designed to keep possible allies, like Lana, out, rather than keep the vampires in.

  In any event, at least that much of Reyes’s intel was accurate. Lana used her binocs to zoom in on the details of the shack, including those damn shutters. As far as she could see, the slats were all closed down tight, so Vincent’s captors hadn’t decided to torture him yet. Maybe they hoped to persuade him to their way of thinking. Or maybe they really didn’t understand the difference between their current vampire slave and a vampire powerful enough to be second-in-command of an entire territory. She had a feeling they were going to find out before this was over.

  Satisfied that the shutters were no threat, she focused on the door, or, more importantly, its lock. Among the many illicit skills she’d been taught by her father’s hunters over the years was lock picking. The guys had treated her like a clever pet, or, more charitably, a mascot, teaching her all sorts of tricks. Most locks were easy enough for a reasonably smart child to get through, but she was better than that. Way better. Her dad thought her skill at lock picking came from the fact that she was a woman, that her fingers were more delicate, and also more sensitive. She didn’t know whether that was true, but she did know she could open a lock faster than any of the guys in her dad’s office.

  The trick in this case would be getting inside the shack without anyone realizing she had done so. If it was a padlock, she was out of luck. It might be easy to get through, but it would be impossible to make the lock appear engaged from inside the shack. She scooted several feet to her left, trying to get a better angle on the locking mechanism. She was still moving, in a bent-over half-crouch when there was a sudden flurry of activity down below. Dropping where she stood, she watched as three SUVs appeared from around one of the out-buildings and pulled up to the entrance of the main building. The wrought-iron gate clanged open and two children came rushing out of the house, followed at a more sedate pace by a couple who were obviously dressed for church. The woman’s skirt fell a modest two inches below her knee, and she wore a lacy cardigan that covered her bare arms, while a black lace mantilla covered half of her long, dark hair. The man wore a pale suit with a tie, and the children, both boys, wore miniature versions of the same thing.

  Lana frowned, trying to remember what day of the week it was. Traveling all night and sleeping all day confused her calendar, but she’d arrived at Vincent’s office on Sunday, which made this . . . Wednesday. Maybe the day was a religious holiday. Mexico was mostly Catholic, but despite both of her parents being nominally of the same faith, Lana hadn’t been raised with any religion.

  Whatever was happening down below, however, was good for her. The man about to go off with his family was obviously someone important, maybe even the big boss, because he was taking a whole bunch of guards with him. Two went in the SUV that the family climbed into, and another six piled into the remaining vehicles. The guard manning the shack had risen to his feet as soon as the family had appeared, and he stayed that way, standing stiff and straight as if at attention, until the SUVs had exited the compound and sped down the dirt road, leaving a plume of dust behind them. Almost immediately, the guard slumped back into his chair, looking more bored than ever.

  Lana’s heart sped up as she contemplated what the boss’s departure meant for her. This could be her best chance to get inside the shack. With the big man gone, everyone would relax, especially the guy guarding the shack, who hadn’t appeared that alert to begin with. He had to know there was no chance of anyone trying to escape. But even more importantly, there were now eight fewer armed guards in the compound.

  She switched her focus to the surrounding wall. It was at least ten feet tall and was constructed with the same kind of blocks used to build the shack. Except that the shack walls had been left bare, while the perimeter wall had been painted a suitably pleasing shade of pale yellow. There were plenty of foot and handholds between the blocks, if one knew how to make use of them. But while Lana was a passable climber, scaling the wall wasn’t her first choice. She started looking for a shortcut, something that would give her a step up onto the wall, so she wouldn’t have to climb the whole thing. It didn’t look good. The best she could hope for was a pile of mossy rocks that never saw the sun. They would be slippery as hell, but they were close enough to the wall at one point that she could use them as a starting point. Unfortunately, she’d still have to climb the rest of the way.

  She sighed, staring down the hill and pursing her lips in irritation. Damn Vincent. Why couldn’t he have been an asshole, someone she could leave behind without a thought? She began repacking her gear, securing it for a quick descent, followed by a damn wall climb. She was so fucked. She was probably going to end up the prisoner of a Mexican drug cartel. If she was lucky, they’d ransom her back to her father. If not . . . well, she didn’t want to think about that. Not when she was about to launch what was probably the riskiest venture of her entire life.

  Damn Vincent.

  LANA’S CLIMB DOWN to the edge of the compound was unexpectedly easy. She moved slowly, checking every foothold, because she couldn’t afford to let something as avoidable as a twisted ankle ruin everything. But between the uneven terrain, the morning shadows, and the rough scrub growing between the rocks, there was enough cover that she was never in danger of being tracked unless someone was specifically watching her location. But it didn’t seem as if anyone was. There were guards, but their focus was clearly on the main gate and the open desert and road beyond it.

  In no time at all, Lana found herself balancing on the very slick and uneven surface of the rocks she’d identified from above. They were even shorter than she’d hoped, giving her maybe two feet of a start on the ten foot wall. Stretching her arms straight up, she could touch the flat top of the wall, but just barely. She’d need to climb at least another two feet in order to lever herself up and over, and once there, she’d have to move quickly. The guards might not be paying much attention, but they were far more likely to notice her sitting on top of the wall than they had been when she was creeping down the hillside.

  Zipping her various pockets closed, she flexed her fingers and started up. Her first effort was unsuccessful, succeeding only in sending her slamming back down to crack her knee painfully on the slick rocks. She hunched down, rubbing her knee and telling herself she could do this. That she had to because Vincent was in there and as unlikely as it seemed, he needed her. She stretched her leg out, putting her foot on the ground and bending the knee experimentally. It hurt like hell, and the
feeling of tightness told her it was probably swelling, but it still worked. So she stood, balanced herself on the rocks, and tried again.

  She dug her fingers into the cracks, her boots sliding over the smooth, painted surface. Eventually, she managed to throw one forearm over the top. It wasn’t enough to pull herself over, but she hung on, muscles straining as she used the little bit of leverage she had to lessen the weight on her legs. Finally, with a maneuver that was both awkward and painful, she got both arms over the top of the wall, and there she hung for several minutes, waiting to be discovered, listening for the shouts and gunfire that would end her life.

  But the outcry didn’t come. She’d worried that there might be guards she hadn’t spotted, someone taking a break among the heavy greenery of the garden or sitting behind one of the chimneys on the roof. When no one reacted, she swallowed a grunt of effort and dragged the top half of her body all the way over, quickly forcing her legs to follow, and then half-fell, half-dropped down to the dusty ground where she froze. No one sounded an alarm, but she remained still for several minutes, checking out her surroundings. There was an iron gate to her right, and she could see the gardens on the back of the house through its weathered bars. To her left was a windowless building that she thought was a garage. The SUVs she’d seen earlier had come from this direction, and it matched the mental map she’d made of the place after studying the image on her iPad. It was pure, good fortune, but she’d stumbled on an excellent spot. The forecourt where she needed to go was just around the corner, with the shack about thirty feet beyond that. She could hug the shadows between the garage and the main house until she reached the courtyard, then use the landscaping close to the house itself for several more yards as she came up behind the lone guard.

  Working as silently as possible, she rearranged her gear, unzipping the pockets holding her backup mag and morphine, and checking everything else to be sure it was secure. She drew her 9mm, retrieved the silencer from her pocket, and threaded it on. She didn’t plan on shooting anyone, but if it came to that, she didn’t want to alert the entire compound.

  With the Sig in one hand, she stood and began making her way along the garage wall to the forecourt. Once she got there, a quick peek showed it was as quiet as it had been ever since the SUVs took off. The guard was slumped in his chair, his submachine gun resting on an ample belly, a hat pulled low over his brow. If Lana were an optimist, she might have thought he was asleep. If she could have counted on that, she’d have skipped the skulking around, walked directly up behind him, and slapped him with the morphine auto-injector. But she wasn’t much on optimism. It was too much like wishful thinking, and that could get a hunter killed.

  So, she stuck to her original plan, sneaking along the wall of the main house, ducking beneath windows with their decorative iron bars, slipping behind bushes, stepping over cacti, until she was nerve-rackingly close to the guard. He was sitting roughly fifteen feet to her left and no more than six feet ahead of her.

  This was it. She pulled the auto-injector out of her pocket, holding it in her left hand as she removed the plastic cap with her teeth, feeling a ridiculous twinge of guilt when she let the cap fall to the ground. With the 9mm in her right hand and the auto-injector in her left, she steeled herself and stepped away from the house. There was no time for doubt, no room for hesitation. Feeling like there was a target on her forehead the whole time, she strode directly up behind the guard and shoved the auto-injector against his bare neck. He made a funny, whistling kind of a grunt, jerked once as if trying to straighten from his slouch, and then slumped forward.

  Lana had considered what would happen once the guard woke from his drugged sleep. Would he remember someone hitting him from behind? Or would he simply assume he’d fallen asleep and be grateful that no one had noticed? She had no idea how long the effects of the morphine would last. But either way, she’d be trapped inside the shack with Vincent by then, and it would be far too late to change her plan. Hopefully, if the guard did raise an alarm, no one would think or even want to look inside the vampires’ prison.

  All of these thoughts raced through her head as she hurried over to the shack and crouched down to get her first good look at the lock. Except that there wasn’t one. She wasted a full minute staring in disbelief, then scanned every inch of the door, looking for traps. When she didn’t find any, she realized it made sense. There was no need for a lock during the day because the vamps were asleep, and at night, even an ordinary vampire would be strong enough to rip the door off its hinges, so a lock would be useless. Add to that Fidelia Reyes’s claim that the narcos kept their pet vamp weak and well-trained, and he’d probably been so conditioned to obedience that he’d never considered trying to escape.

  Vincent, on the other hand, was an entirely different category of vampire, as his captors were about to discover.

  She opened the door slowly, worried about letting sunlight inside, but as it turned out, it didn’t matter. Vincent was at the far end of the shack—far being a relative term—lying beneath the largest of the shuttered windows. His height made him too long to stretch out completely, so he was resting on his side, rolled into an uncomfortable-looking fetal position. The other vampire was literally huddled in a corner, sitting with his legs bent and tucked against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees and his head resting on his arms. It looked even more uncomfortable than Vincent’s fetal curl.

  Lana pulled the door quietly closed. It was hot and dusty inside the small building. Not an ounce of fresh air circulated and the floor was nothing but bare dirt. She couldn’t believe the other vamp had lived this way for who knew how many years. Lana knelt next to Vincent, her heart pounding, her lungs straining for air in the intense heat, sweat already beginning to soak her shirt beneath the jacket.

  He was wearing the same bloody clothes he’d had on last night, and his hair was matted and sweaty. She brushed the heavy strands off his forehead and froze, thinking there was blood in his hair, but then realized his sweat itself was slightly pink. One of the side effects of consuming nothing but blood, apparently. He was breathing slowly, but easily, and considering the severity of his injuries last night, he looked damned good. She’d seen what the Reyes woman had done to him, seen the blood gushing out of his veins in a river of red. The wounds were still there on his neck, but they were healing already. If he’d fed properly, they might have been gone completely by now. She stroked her fingers gently over the dark pink scar tissue, then pulled her hand back, feeling abruptly uncomfortable. She and Vincent were friends, not lovers. She didn’t have the right to touch him like that.

  Judging the distance to the door, she repositioned him slightly, so that his legs had more room. If anyone opened the door, she could always move him. But then, if anyone opened the door, they’d both be in a world of hurt.

  Taking off her jacket, she removed the various pieces of gear from the pockets, setting them on the ground where she could get to them in a hurry. The jacket itself she folded and placed under Vincent’s head. He might not be aware of what was going on, but she couldn’t bear the sight of him lying in the dirt.

  She touched him one more time—resting her hand on his chest, feeling the slow steady beat of his heart—then positioned herself between Vincent and the door and leaned back against the concrete wall with a sigh. Now that she was in here, she had hours with nothing to do but wait. She’d never planned on sneaking in this early. It was supposed to have been during the afternoon siesta, not right after breakfast. But the boss’s excursion into town had been an opportunity she couldn’t pass up. She looked around and saw nothing but dirt and block walls. And this was what the other vampire came “home” to every morning. Lana eyed him curiously. It was difficult to judge, with him curled into the corner like that, but he definitely seemed smaller than Vincent. Of course, Vincent was bigger than most men, vampire or not, so it probably wasn’t a fair comparison. This
other vamp looked like he was about her height and weight, which made him slender for a man. And he looked young. Vampires all looked young, for the most part, but since their appearance reflected the age at which they were turned, there were definite variations. This guy didn’t look any older than eighteen or twenty.

  And then there was the fact that he was huddled into a corner like a scared mouse instead of a vampire who could snap a man’s spine with ease. That alone told her more than she wanted to know about his life and how he was treated. She didn’t want to feel sorry for him. After all, he’d set up Vincent to be captured and enslaved by the same people who tormented him daily. But the very fact that he had been tortured, even if only by his imprisonment in this box, made her question his guilt. Had he ever known anything else? Were vampires like ducks? Did they imprint on whatever parent figure found them first? And if that person was someone who would lock you in a dirty prison every day, did that shape who you became?

  She wondered if any calculation of the other vamp’s guilt was going to matter to Vincent. He didn’t strike her as a forgiving kind of guy. Her warning to Fidelia Reyes hadn’t been said in jest. She had no doubt that Vincent would go after the woman just as soon as he’d dealt with his current captors, which would be in . . . she checked the time on her sports watch and nearly groaned out loud. She still had at least six hours to go before the sun went down. Six hours of sitting on a dirt floor in the stifling heat after a night of no sleep with nothing to do. She didn’t fool herself into believing she wouldn’t doze off. Maybe if it hadn’t been so hot, she could have managed. But between the heat, the boredom, and the lack of sleep . . . she had to assume logically that her eyes would close eventually.