At least my timing is good. I’d rather deal with Ortiz than his petulant girlfriend.
And there are no other cars around. I’m assuming Edie has left, which is a relief.
I don’t know if vampires are capable of blushing, but I get the uncomfortable feeling I might if I was to see her again.
Brooke answers my ring. She must have just gotten out of the shower because her hair is wet and she’s dressed in sweats. She doesn’t say hello when she sees me, just turns on her bare feet and pads away with a curt, “He’s not here.”
I’ve accepted less cordial invitations. I let myself in and follow.
She’s trounced off to the dining room table. That she’s a student is reinforced by the open college chemistry text perched on a notebook next to a bowl of Cocoa Puffs.
She sits, thumbs a page of the text, takes a spoonful of cereal, ignores me.
I wait.
Another page, another mouthful of cereal.
Finally, I break the stalemate. “Where’s Ortiz?”
She doesn’t look up. “I told you he’s not here.”
“So. Where did he go?”
“He left for work. Ten minutes ago.”
“Who picked him up?”
Finally, a question that gets more than a bored monosyllabic reply. She turns and stares at me. “Why would anyone pick him up?”
I jerk a thumb toward the front. “Because the garage door is open and his car is inside—”
She jumps up and takes off for the door. Her reaction triggers my own alarm. When we get outside, she clasps both hands over her mouth and gasps.
“Oh god—I heard a noise, but I thought—”
I pull her hands down. “What noise?”
She’s crying. “A loud pop. Right after Mario left the house. I didn’t go look. I was still mad . . .”
She takes a step into the garage, but I’m there first. The car doors are closed but unlocked. I open the passenger side door and look in.
Ortiz’ folder, the one he had last night, is on the seat. It’s unzipped and open.
It’s also empty.
I get Brooke back inside and call Williams. He comes right over. We get Brooke calmed down and convince her that this is just some silly misunderstanding and one of Ortiz’ cop buddies did pick him up for work. When she tries his cell, it goes right to voice mail. Not necessarily a bad thing, since she says he often turns off his phone when he checks in for duty.
The tears are dried, her fears at least momentarily alleviated. We ask if she has classes today. She says yes. We convince her to go, that we’ll let her know as soon as we get through to Ortiz. She heads back to the bedroom to get ready.
Williams releases a long, pent-up breath. “Jesus. She got Ortiz.”
I feel like knocking my head against the wall. “I never should have taken that file. I should have made a copy. I’ve let Burke know we can connect her to Eternal Youth. Is she going to kill every one of those test subjects? Why? It can’t be simply to get even with me.”
Williams shakes his head. “Maybe we’ll know when we get an analysis of the product. I dropped it off on my way here. I put a rush in.
We should hear in three hours or so.”
“I can’t wait that long. I’m going to the warehouse. There were personnel files that should tell me where the receptionist lives.”
If she hasn’t gotten rid of those, too. I rub my eyes as if to rub away the thought and look up at Williams. “Where will you be? I’ll call as soon as I get to that receptionist.”
“I’ll be at the park. I’ll get the witches started on another locator spell.” He looks toward the house. “I’ll give Brooke my cell phone number, to let her know as soon as we reach Ortiz.”
His tone is lower, huskier than I’ve ever heard. His concern for Ortiz is genuine.
Maybe there’s hope for Williams yet.
CHAPTER 25
THIS SEEMS TO BE A MORNING FOR SURPRISES.
This time, I’m looking down at the warehouse from my perch on the frontage road and even the security car is gone.
Now, that doesn’t mean one of the guards didn’t drop the other off or go for coffee, but it does give me a window of opportunity.
One guard, with or without the mutt, is better than two.
I head for the back. It’s still deserted. Eerily different from my first visit yesterday when the parking lot was full and trucks came and went like ants at a picnic.
I launch myself upward. The windows on the first floor allow me a peek into the factory. I ’m looking for the security guard. No one in sight. It isn’t until I’ve allowed myself a scan of the area that I’m aware of what else I’m not seeing.
I’m not seeing anything on the conveyor belt.
The conveyor belt is completely empty.
About the same time that registers, the hair on the back of my neck rustles as if touched by the hand of god.
It’s the last thing I feel before I’m blown off the building and slammed into the ground.
CHAPTER 26
THE FORCE OF THE EXPLOSION BLOWS OUT EVERY window and covers me with shards of glass.
I lay on the ground a minute, taking mental and physical inventory. My skin burns, my ears ring. Don ’t see any blood. I’m lying on my side, twenty feet from the building. I try to roll on my back, straighten out. My left arm aches and I realize it’s twisted above the elbow in an unnatural angle. Probably broken, though no bone protrudes.
I sit up.
My back protests, but follows my mental command to move. That left arm is what’s really protesting. I pass fingers gingerly up the arm until I find the point at which bone pushes against the skin. Grasping the arm with my right hand, I give it a sharp tug.
Pain causes my vision to go black. There’s a popping sound and the bone shifts into place. It’s all I need to do. Accelerated vampire healing will take care of the rest.
Except for the pain.
It hurts like a son of a bitch.
The ringing in my ears subsides to a dull roar, and I shake my head to clear it.
At first, I think what I hear next is a result of the blast. Some shift in decibel or tone that sounds less like percussion -induced noise and more like—
Screaming.
Screaming?
I’m on my feet and racing back toward the flames.
It’s not my imagination. It’s in my head.
In my head.
Vampires. Inside. Trapped.
The building is fully engulfed. Flames shoot out of the windows. Smoke and heat don’t scare me. Flames do. Burning is one of the ways a vampire can be killed.
I race to the front. Maybe I can get in through the door. It hangs open on an explosion -warped frame. No flames here, not yet. But there’s no one here, either. Not in the reception area, not in the office area in back.
I send out a mental probe. Where are you?
An answer comes back from a chorus of frantic voices. The basement. We’re in the basement.
Basement?
The corridor at the end of where I’m standing leads only to the factory floor. I know. I traveled it last night.
I don’t know where that is. Tell me.
An anguished cry, from a female voice: We don’t know. We were drugged when we were brought here. Please. Help us.
Frustration and panic claw at my heart. I can’t go back down those stairs into the factory. The flames are too intense. I feel the heat through the soles of my shoes.
Maybe there’s another way.
Outside, I race around the building, circling, looking for anything that might be another entrance. I tell the female vamp to keep talking, hoping her voice can guide me.
She babbles, crying, begging me to find her.
I can’t.
There is no other way in that I can find.
Nothing. I find nothing.
The vamp’s voice becomes shrill with fear.
I beat my fists against the loading dock. Why can’t you
free yourselves? Exasperation fuels my feeling of helplessness and it comes out in an angry wail.
We can’t. The collars.
There is such despair in her reply, it floods me with remorse and determination. I start again. At the front, circling, searching, running my fingers along the base of the bays in the loading dock, ignoring the white-hot metal that singes my fingers.
Until I find it.
A seam in the metal of the middle bay.
There is no latch, no hinge, no keyhole. I pound at the metal with my fist.
Yes! A chorus of frenzied voices. We hear you!
I beat at the metal until it caves. Then I tear a great rip in the metal and bend it back. It ’s dark inside and smoke pours out like a genie released from a bottle. When I step inside, and my eyes have adjusted to the smoke and light, I follow the screaming voices filling my head.
Follow them to a scene straight from hell.
CHAPTER 27
THERE ARE TWELVE OF THEM. YOUNG, FEMALE. They are naked, hanging upside down, hands bound behind their backs with silver chains. When I break into the room, I’m hit with their relief. It’s so tangible, it fills me with panic.
Panic because they think I can save them. Their expectation and gratitude swamp my senses.
But I don’t know if I can save them.
I don’t know how.
I shut down my thoughts while I move from one to the other. My own senses are recoiling so violently, it takes all my strength to shield them. I force the revulsion down. Look at them, Anna. Figure out how to set them free.
Each vampire has a metal collar around her neck. Each collar is a small trough with a spiked spigot. The spike has been driven into the vampire’s jugular, piercing it. From the spigot hangs a tube. Blood drips from the tube into collection bags. Or, in the case of the two vampires on the end, a stain where the last drops fell onto the floor. For those two, there’s no help. They have been drained lifeless.
I squeeze my eyes shut. For a moment, I’ve forgotten the reason I’m here. Forgotten the heat that grows more intense, ignore the cries of the vampires that the flames grow closer. All I can think is, Why would Belinda Burke do this?
Does she hate vampires so much, she came up with this elaborate, horrifying way to kill them? Did she plan to bring me here after she finished her revenge against Culebra and Frey? The thought fills me with horror.
So what changed her mind? Why did she decide to destroy her demonic torture chamber now and let the vamps trapped here either bleed to death or be destroyed by the flames?
The flames.
The anguished voice of one of the vampire’s brings me back. I push the fear and hatred to the back of my mind. How can I save these women?
I do the only thing I can think of. With shaking hands, I go from one to the other, turn the spigots until the blood flow stops. I avoid looking in their eyes. I’m afraid of what I’ll see.
I unhook the tubes and chains and lower each gently and carefully to the floor. I don ’t touch the collars. I have no idea what might happen if I try to take them off, but the fact that just touching them brings shudders of agony numbs me. I unbind their hands. The four nearest the front get to their feet on their own. The ones behind are shakier and I help them to stand. Slowly, clumsily, we start to make our way outside. The stronger of the injured help the weaker.
We step outside under an apocalyptic sky. Smoke and ash turn day into evening. We cling to each other as we make our way to the shelter of some trees at the edge of the parking lot.
Only when we are away from the building does one of the women grasp my arm.
“There is another,” she says.
I look back toward the building. Smoke is thicker now, pouring out the entrance to the underground torture chamber. The draft caused by my breaking in draws the flames downward.
“Another?”
“Brought in just before the explosion. Unconscious.”
“I don’t think I can go back.”
She nods sadly. “I doubt he’ll know what happens.”
My heart jumps. “He?”
“A young male vampire. In a policeman’s uniform.”
Time stops. I dig my cell phone out of my pocket, hit speed dial, and thrust it at her. “When a man named Williams answers, tell him where we are and what happened. Tell him Ortiz is here at Burke’s warehouse.”
I don’t wait for a response or to see if Williams picks up. I’m running full speed back to the warehouse.
The smoke can’t hurt Ortiz, the heat, either.
But the flames licking at the back of the chamber can.
“Ortiz!” I’m screaming it at the top of my lungs. He’s got to hear me, got to let me know where he is.
There’s no response—no verbal or mental path for me to follow.
He must still be unconscious. I push back beyond the two dead vampires still hanging like broken dolls from the ceiling. I didn’t look any farther into the chamber than this before. I didn’t think I needed to.
Vampires don’t breathe. The smoke and heat are an annoyance, they blur my vision, dull my senses. I have to keep wiping my streaming eyes, focusing on the dark beyond the corpses.
Where could he be?
There’s a flash and a roar. The draft from the broken loading bay door finally succeeds in drawing the flame to its source. Fire races down the back stairs and across the floor as if following an invisible trail.
I can’t stay here much longer.
“Ortiz, where are you?” I scream it until my throat is raw.
Over and over. Then, I stop, listen.
Tell me where you are. Please.
The only sound that fills my ears is the crackle of the flame. The only thing I see is the hell of fire bearing down.
Then—
A muffled cry.
Tell me where you are. I scream it again like a crazy person.
There’s no answer. In the corner, near the stairs, a figure suddenly rises.
Ortiz pulls himself up, shaking his head, confused, immobile. He looks across the room.
Here, I’m yelling. Over here.
I take a step toward him but there’s a wall of flame between us. I can’t jump it and I can’t go through it.
Ortiz—can you find a way around?
He is looking right at me now. He sees me. He understands.
His eyes sweep the room. He’s surrounded by flame.
I don’t know what to do.
Ortiz’ eyes seek mine. There’s a rush of conflicting emotion—fear, regret, acceptance. He holds up a hand. Be sure Brooke is all right.
Tell her I loved her.
No. You can’t give up. Look around.
His gaze remains on me. Help Williams. He’ll need you now.
No. Find a way out. Look.
But as I speak the words, the flames erupt around him in a tornado of wind and noise. In one moment, he’s there, watching me, smiling.
In the next, his body bursts into flame. It ignites in a single, sparkling burst and is suspended a moment in the air, like an exploding star.
I don’t want to watch.
I can’t look away.
Ortiz dissolves into flickering embers and pinpricks of white light that rain down like the tears of an avenging angel.
And Ortiz is gone.
CHAPTER 28
“NO— ” I’M STILL YELLING EVEN THOUGH IT’S USELESS. Ortiz is gone.
I’m powerless to move. I can’t drag my eyes off the spot where a moment ago, Ortiz stood looking at me. All that ’s left is a wisp of vapor and a quick, bright discharge of light. Like a dying sparkler.
No.
Anna, are you in there?
A voice from outside. A voice that keeps calling my name. Urgently. Unrelentingly.
Anna, where are you?
It breaks through the miasma of my despair and brings me back.
The heat on my skin, the roar of the flames, the acrid smell of—what? My shoes. I look down and realize wha
t I’m smelling is the soles of my shoes. If I don’t get out, I’ll be joining Ortiz in whatever afterlife awaits the vampire.
I’m not ready to find out what that is.
The flames have traveled on a straight path from the stairs to the gaping hole I tore in the bay.
Have I waited too long?
Panic raises bile in my throat.
A sound.
To the left.
Someone is pounding against the metal of the adjoining bay. Doing what I did just a little while ago to get inside this one.
I race over. Use my fists to pound, too, until the metal gives way. There ’s no seam here, I gouge into the metal with my fingers, using nails and finally teeth to tear a hole. With my hands, I yank at the hole, enlarge it, make it big enough to gain purchase with my hands. At last, I can rip back the steel fabric. It’s not easy. Blood from lacerated palms makes my grip slip. I ignore it and the pain. Keep working until strong hands grab mine and pull me outside.
The hands drag me away from the building, across the parking lot.
I don’t realize my eyes are squeezed shut until they open and I’m staring up at sky.
A face peers down.
Are you all right?
My savior is a woman with a kindly middle-aged face.
I attempt to sit up. When my palms press against the asphalt, pain in lightning sharp daggers races up my arms. I look down to see great jagged cuts like macabre lifelines scoring the flesh. My nails are torn to the quick.
My back hurts from being dragged, my left arm throbs, my eyes still stream from the smoke.
I glance back at the building, fully engulfed, smoke blocks the sun, staining the sky like angry storm clouds.
I see Ortiz—standing in front of me one moment, gone the next. His face, calm, accepting, will haunt me for a long time.
The cool night air on my skin, the smell of asphalt and burned rubber, the roar of the flames.
I’m alive.
Suddenly, I’ve never felt better.
CHAPTER 29
THE WOMAN WHO DRAGGED ME OUT IS KNEELING beside me, her face level with mine. She has long hair, drawn back from her face, light brown dusted with gray. Her eyes are deep blue and sparkle with an inner radiance. She projects great kindness.
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