by Zoe Allison
At that point he figured it would be best to split up, though for some reason the idea pained him. “I will go speak to the person on the desk. You check around here. See if you can spot any way to get under the building.”
Vic smiled, taking her arm out of his. He watched her walk toward some posters detailing the current performances then reluctantly dragged his eyes away.
He turned and walked over to the information desk, smiling at the female staff member behind it. “Hello.”
She smiled back. “How can I help you?”
He leaned on the counter. “My fiancée over there is a fan of Carmen. I believe it will be playing here soon?”
She handed him a leaflet. “Yes, the run will start in a few days’ time.”
“Are the performances fully booked?” he asked her, leafing through the pamphlet.
“Not yet,” she replied. “It’ll run for a month and there are still tickets available.”
He lifted his gaze and smiled at her. “Which is the most popular night? She likes a full crowd.”
The woman turned to her computer screen and scrolled through the pages. “It seems to be around two-thirds of the way through the run, a Saturday evening performance.”
“Thank you.” Vale leaned back. “You have been most helpful.”
The woman’s cheeks colored slightly. “You’re very welcome, sir.”
He walked away toward where Vic was examining an information board, coming to stand beside her.
She smiled. “Still working your magic, I see.”
“Magic?” he said, glancing sideways at her.
She grinned. “The desk lady was all flustered over you.”
He shook his head. “She was very professional.”
Vic laughed. “You have a way with women, Vale. Don’t be afraid to use it.” She gestured to the bank of elevators. “There are some stairs over there. We should be able to access the lower levels via them.” She walked away.
He paused for a moment then followed her. Not a way with this particular woman, clearly.
They took the door that led to the stairs and started making their way downward. Vale handed Vic a staff ID card. She looked at it as they descended. “Nice work. When did you swipe it?”
Vale attached his own stolen ID to his shirtfront. “When the lady on the desk was distracted by her computer screen.”
Vic smiled and glanced at him over her shoulder as she descended the stairs ahead of him. “That’s not all she was distracted by.”
He studied her from behind, trying not to let his gaze linger too long at the way her leggings clung to her curves and also suppressing the thought that she was his biggest distraction.
They continued until they found a door marked ‘staff only’ and went through it. The corridor contained staff changing areas, so the fact that they weren’t in uniform didn’t stick out.
“I think we need to get into the area below the main concert hall,” Vale said. “I have a feeling they will go for that vicinity during a sell-out performance.”
“Sounds about right,” Vic said.
They worked out which direction to head in then made their way along, greeting anyone who passed as if they belonged there.
“Here,” Vale eventually said, pointing to a doorway. “That should lead into the area that accesses the orchestra pit. We should start in there, but we need to ensure there are no humans.”
“We’re good,” Vic said. “I checked the schedules in the foyer, and there are no performances currently in the main hall, so there’s zero people traffic apart from the backstage tours and they’ve stopped running for the day.”
“Excellent,” Vale said, opening the door. It led into a small anteroom which in turn accessed the orchestra pit via another door.
Vale and Vic split up to look around, searching any boxes or storage areas and also examining the walls. Vic went into the orchestra pit itself and Vale stayed in the anteroom.
After half an hour they came back together.
“Anything?” Vale asked her.
“Nope,” she replied, appearing frustrated.
Vic sat on the floor and crossed her legs, surveying the room. Vale joined her. “We will find something,” he reassured her. “Do not worry.”
“I’m trying not to.” She glanced at him. “We need to stop this before anyone else gets hurt.”
“I know,” he said softly. “We will.” He watched her as she darted her eyes all around the space. “Vic…?”
“Yeah?” she said, not making eye contact.
“You seem on edge. I am finding it hard to get into your head.” He caught her bristling slightly, though she tried to cover it up.
“It’s just a big scale, is all,” she said, meeting his gaze briefly. “It worries me that he…that the malevolents are scaling up. I’m also still spooked by the whole dead body with a different guy’s face thing.”
“Me too,” Vale said. “Once we get back to the hotel, I can find out the results of the DNA test. There is no reception down here.”
“It sounds weird,” Vic said, “but I really think the result should be a match. I just have a feeling that body was Erik’s, even though it didn’t look like him.”
“I feel the same,” Vale said. Their thoughts and intuitions were always in tune, but he was trying not to think about the significance of that. He leaned back against the wall. “This is all my fault, you know.”
Vic frowned at him. “How can it be your fault?”
“He was under my watch when we captured him…the Glassmarsh sibling,” he said. “If he had not gotten away, all those people would still be alive.” He stared at the ceiling, guilt washing over him.
Vic leaned in. “Listen… I know a thing or two about feeling guilty and I’m telling you, none of it is your fault. He didn’t get away. He was broken free…by Angelique.”
“I know,” Vale said, bringing his gaze down to rest on her. “But I had my suspicions about her, so I should have been more careful.”
“You weren’t to know,” Vic told him.
Vale could smell her scent now that she was leaning in more closely and it was making his head spin a little. He took a deep breath and rubbed his neck, then dropped his hand again when he caught her watching him. She appeared as if she was going to say more, but then she looked away.
Something occurred to him. “Is this the first time you’ve been back here since you joined The Organization?”
Vic seemed to catch her breath. “Yeah…it is actually.” She ran a hand through her hair. “How did you know?”
He watched her, imagining it was his fingers brushing through her hair. “I just remember you saying you had not been back since you joined up.”
She smiled. “You really pay attention to all the details.”
“I try,” he said. “Except, according to you, for the details of signals that you think I get from women.”
She laughed. “Yeah, you’re pretty dense when it comes to that.”
Vale smiled, admiring the way her face lit up and wishing he could keep it that way. He hated seeing her troubled. He shifted his weight away from the wall and felt a slight give in the floorboards underneath him, so he moved to the side and started examining the floor with his fingertips.
“What is it?” Vic asked.
“I think the flooring lifts up somewhere,” he said.
Vic’s eyes widened. “I’ll check over here.”
They explored the boards at that end of the room and eventually Vale found a slight indentation and was able to lift up a plank. He handed it to Vic and lifted a couple more then stuck his head underneath. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized there was a small potential space under the entire section. It seemed that it had been hollowed out. “There’s a crawl space down here,” he said. He lifted his head. “Maybe this is where they’re hiding the explosives?”
Vic seemed excited. “I’ll go under to check,” she said. “I’m smaller than you.”
&
nbsp; They lifted a couple more boards and she stepped in then crawled under the flooring. Vale waited, listening to the noises emitted as she moved around.
“Anything?” he asked. There was a pause and his heart rate increased. Please let us find something. We need a breakthrough.
“Yes!” Vic exclaimed, her voice getting nearer. “I’ve found it! It’s quite far out. They’ve cleared an area under the middle of the hall and there’s some suspicious looking equipment. I think they’re slowly assembling the explosives over time.”
She made her way back out and Vale took her hand to lift her onto his level, deliberately ignoring the fact that holding her hand made his pulse pound in his ears.
Vic was grinning widely. “Thank God! I was worried it’d be a dead end and be all my fault.” She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. For a second he couldn’t react. Blood was whooshing in his ears and he was paralyzed at the sensation of her pressed against him. He lifted his arms to circle her waist. “Thank you for trusting my intuition,” she said, pulling back to look at him.
His eyes locked with her blue-green gaze, and it was as if the world paused. An irresistible urge to trace her lips with his fingers overcame him. He started to lift his hand, then came to his senses. He’d made that mistake before, back at her flat, and would have fallen foul of his impulses if Priyanka hadn’t messaged when she had. He cleared his throat and pulled away, styling out the lift of his hand by running it through his hair. His throat felt dry. “Great job, Vic. I never doubted you.
Luckily she hadn’t seemed to notice his discomfort. She rubbed her hands together. “Right. Let’s catch these bastards. I reckon we hide out in that orchestra pit. I think they must come here after hours once all the staff are gone and bring in their equipment under the cover of darkness. Vampires can move quick enough to go under the radar and clear out the little number under the floorboards in no time.”
Vale let out a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s hide out through there, and when they come to lift the boards, we can confront them.”
“Should we call for backup now?” Vic asked.
Vale shook his head. “No signal. I would rather not leave to send out word either, because it might be more troublesome to get back in the second time. The current performance in the other hall will be ending soon.”
“Okay,” Vic said. “There can’t be that many of them anyway. The space is too small. We can call it in once we get them outside.”
They moved into the orchestra pit and shut the door into the anteroom behind them. Figuring it was best to stay low, they sat by the door and waited.
Vale studied the vast ceiling above them. “Have you been in here before?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s weird how you can live near some big sights but never properly explore them.”
He smiled. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah,” Vic said quietly.
Vale glanced at her. “Do you miss it here?”
“No,” she said.
He examined her expression, trying to interpret her emotions. “Why not? It is a gorgeous place.”
She screwed her face up. “Bad memories.”
Vale watched as she fiddled with her hair. “Your family?”
“How did you guess?” Vic said, smiling weakly.
He smiled back. “Same for a lot of people, I figure.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “Do you think we’re making the world a better place? That we’re…making up for past wrongs?”
He hesitated. What wrong could Vic have done in the past? She was so brave and selfless. “I think we are good people doing the best we can.”
A look of relief passed over her face. “You’ll be pleased once this is over. You can go see Amber and Hayden.”
The sound of their names lifted his heart, and it must have registered on his face because she was studying his expression. “I must admit I am keen to see them again,” he said.
“You will,” Vic replied. “We’re gonna get this mess sorted, then you guys can take a break.”
A break? He couldn’t do that. Once the mission was over, there would be another, and another… He was the only one who couldn’t take a break.
She was watching him again. Lifting her fingers from where she was leaning on the floor, she brushed the tips over the back of his hand. A slow burning sensation travelled up his arm.
“Vale, the weight of the world is always on your shoulders.”
Panicked, he looked at her. What did she mean by that? Had she guessed?
“You always feel like everything is your responsibility, when it isn’t,” she continued.
He relaxed a little. “I think I have always been that way.”
“Yeah, I got the feeling you had.”
He rested his head back, trying to keep his hand still so that the contact of her fingers on his skin wasn’t broken. “Sometimes I wish I was a more relaxed person and that I could let go a little, not take everything so seriously.”
Vic rested her head back also, turning it toward him. “I wouldn’t change you.”
He turned to her. “No? You do not prefer more informal, easy-going people?” He paused. “Like Gareth?”
She moved her hand away and he immediately regretted saying that.
“What’s he got to do with anything?” she asked, frowning.
“You two seemed to get closer in Berlin,” Vale said. What was he doing? These were all the wrong things to say and none of his concern. Why couldn’t he help himself?
She seemed thrown for a moment, opening her mouth then closing it again, clearly at a loss for how to answer. He didn’t blame her, his digging for information about her relationship with Gareth was inappropriate. Vale berated himself. He normally took pride in his self-restraint, so why did he feel out of control right now?
A noise came from the adjacent area, signaling somebody’s entrance, and they both stayed silent.
Vale tuned his hearing through the wall and heard low voices. There were two men speaking. He lifted his gaze to meet Vic’s and she signaled two at him. The noise of the floorboards being lifted became apparent. They waited until it sounded as though the two people had climbed under the flooring.
Vale gestured toward the orchestra pit door. He wanted to go through and wait for them to emerge from the floor space, using the element of surprise to attack.
They crept toward the door and Vale cracked it open. The boards were lifted. The sound of the two men under the flooring carried into the room.
Vale and Vic entered the backstage area. They crouched, facing in the direction that meant the backs of the men would be toward them when they climbed out.
A few minutes passed. They listened to various noises coming from under the concert hall as the men adjusted the equipment.
Vale took out a slim spear from his ankle holster and indicated to Vic that he was going to take out the first guy with it. She nodded and readied her own weapon.
Eventually the sound of one of them coming became apparent and Vale and Vic stayed low in wait. The back of a man’s head appeared in the floor space. He started to come to stand, still facing away from them. Vale moved quickly, slamming his spear into the left side of the man’s back, through his heart. The man started to fall, and Vale grabbed him, hoisting him over his shoulder and placing him on the floor. Vale studied his features, but it was no one that he recognized.
Vale glanced over at where Vic was lying in wait for the second malevolent. He listened for the sound of them coming, but the noises under the flooring had gone silent.
Suddenly the second man leapt out from the floor space toward Vic. Vale made to speed forward, but Vic had already reacted and thrown the guy. The malevolent got up and Vic circled him. His canines were extended and fists raised.
Vic gripped her spear. “There’re two of us and one of you,” she snarled at him. “You can’t win, so you may as well surrender and come with us for questioning.”
Vale shifted to sta
nd behind her for backup. The man darted his eyes over to his prone colleague, and back to Vic again. Vic took a step toward him.
He darted to the side, toward the prone man.
“He’s going to unstake him!” Vic shouted to Vale as she lunged for the malevolent to stop him. Vale threw himself back across in the direction of the incapacitated body. The removal of the spear would mean regeneration of the malevolent. Then they would have to fight two off instead of one.
Vic managed to grab the man’s leg, causing him to fall just short of the body. Vale landed in a crouch nearby. He stared into the man’s dull eyes. “You can’t revive him,” Vale said. “He’s ours now. You may as well surrender.”
Suddenly the man lifted his arm and slammed something into his ally’s chest.
“Stop!” Vic shouted, hauling him away by his feet and climbing on top of him. She pinned him, glaring at his face. “Re-stake him, Vale, before he revives!”
The body in front of Vale started to turn black and decompose. “Vic…he did not take out the stake.”
Vic glanced over from where she was pinning the second man, although he was making no attempt to escape her grasp. “What?”
“He staked him again with a tainted spear,” Vale said, staring at the decomposing body. “He killed him.”
They watched as dead rot spread through the man, helpless to stop it because once a tainted spear had touched heart tissue, the process couldn’t be halted. The substance on the spear was able to cause decomposition of the heart while it was in suspended animation from tissue disruption caused by the weapon, and the effect was irreversible.
The decay spread up to the man’s face, but before it rotted through something unprecedented occurred. His features melted away to reveal different ones underneath. It was as if he had been wearing a mask, a mask made from someone else’s face. Then it disappeared and only dust was left.
Vale turned to Vic. “Did you see that?”
‘Yes,” she said, frozen in shock. Then she came to and turned to the man she was pinning. “What the hell was that?” she asked him. “Why did you kill him? How did his face change?”
He remained still, refusing to look at her.
