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.
“Food. And decent food, not that hotel FP stuff. Will one of you vampires come with me to get something palatable?”
Gently pushing past her, Jack went to the front of the room. “You aren’t going out, San. I’ll go, with Kwano. We can expect an attack from any front. Although, I doubt we’re safe in here either.”
“Yes, we are,” Kwano said. “I’ve spelled the room. Only a first blood would know we are here.”
“Oh, shit, you gotta stay with us, Kwano. Any chance Xavier would let us keep you?”
Kwano laughed, his deep voice attractive in a full laugh. “No. But I am here until this hunter and rogue vampire situation is resolved, and it looks like it may be a while. Working directly with this team seems like a wise idea. I will take it to Xavier.”
Jack pumped him on the back. “Thanks, man. I guess we’d better go.”
Saul called out from the bathroom, “All right. Get plenty.”
Back out on the street, the crowds winding down some now, both Jack and Kwano searched for the face they wouldn’t soon forget. Nothing, nowhere.
“What a messed up night, Kwano. I really didn’t think he’d know we were on to him.”
“Survival makes a man clever. He’s probably been around a long time. I didn’t get enough of a read on his lifeforce to tell his age.”
“You can tell a vampire’s age?”
“Not quite, but you can get a sense of years. If a vamp is very young, you’ll be able to tell.”
“Naiveté?”
“Somewhat, but mostly in their lifeforce. It’s not an easy thing to teach, but you’ll get it.”
“I hope so. Life as a vampire is so different than human. And it’s far beyond the no daylight rule. My connection these days to the human race is less than it is with you guys. Is that normal?”
“It is. It’s your body and mind telling you that you must move on. It’ll be all right, Jack.”
“I appreciate the sentiment. I hope it’s true in the end.”
Leaning over a stand on the end of the street, Jack looked up into a shiny glass window that spanned the bottom of a retail building made mirror by the darkness and opposing light. Surprised to his core at what he saw, he did everything possible to remain easygoing as he touched Kwano on the arm.
“Don’t look around, but the target is behind us. About fifty paces. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t seen me yet.”
“Stay still, Jack, keep that smile. I’m going to turn and freeze him if I can across this distance and sea of humanity.”
“Do it, Kwano, before he realizes we’re here.”
Jack kept his gaze on the glass, watching the man who’d killed him advancing toward the eatery. His ultimate joy would be to punch him in the face so hard his eyeballs would fall out, but this opportunity would not come again.
It all happened at once. Jack continued to watch the vampire slayer weave his way through the crowds, scanning faces with barely concealed interest. Jack caught Kwano’s gaze, and knew he saw it too.
The vampire was hunting. Time to stop him forever.
At that same moment, he lifted his head abruptly, still scanning, but alarmed, his motion frantic. It was apparent that his vampire sense was aware that there were other vampires near. He made the mistake of staying to try to identify who it was instead of escaping at his quickest pace.
Kwano had him.
Frozen, locked in place, he was left conscious with only eye movement possible.
As Kwano and Jack approached the immobilized vampire, wide searching eyes let them know he was terrified.
Jack got right in his face. “You should be.”
Kwano moved behind him. “I’m taking him back to the hotel using hyper speed. We’ll move so fast, we’ll be unnoticed by the shoppers. Get back as quickly as you can.” Kwano grasped Jack’s forearm. “Watch your 360. Odds are, he isn’t alone.”
Kwano and Jack’s would-be murderer were gone, and while he was careful to do as Kwano suggested, and watch for anyone beyond the ordinary, to seek any sense of vampire presence, during the entire walk, at normal human pace, he felt calmer than he had for months.
He paused outside the door of the suite before he entered as a true smile struck him. Pushing through the door moments later, he closed it and rested his weight against it.
There, in the center of the room, still unable to move, was the man, vampire, who had tried to kill him, who had changed his life forever. A vile creature who thought himself like a god that he had the right to decide who gets to live or die. He would leave this world tonight. Justice would be done.
Saul glanced at him. “Jack, come in. We’ve begun interrogation. Kwano has compelled him.”
“Get anything yet?”
“We wanted to wait for you. Figured you’d want to see this.”
“Yeah.” Jack pushed away from the door and approached the dark-haired, dark-eyed vampire, handsome like most, but there was something in his expression. If you looked close enough, it gave him away. He really did think that his vampire nature made him lord over all lowly humans who walked this earth. One of what Xavier called a rogue.
“His name is Buck,” Kwano supplied.
“Buck. What a nice common human name.”
Buck was compelled to answer any of Kwano’s questions, but he was still aware of who he was and where he was. “Nothing common about me. Certainly nothing human.”
“Arrogant bigshot. You’re nothing but common, but I agree with you on the second point, there isn’t any humanity left in you. And I’ve learned recently that vampire doesn’t mean you lose it. Being undeserving and alive on this planet, does.”
Jack moved closer. “We’re gonna fix that tonight.”
Then he stepped back to let Kwano do his job.
“Why did you attack Jack? Then Plato? Why have you targeted this group?”
Buck spat at Kwano, but missed. “They showed up here to fuck with a hunter’s group that killed two of my boys. And my favorite make. Those hunters were mine. I had slicing and dicing planned for them, but these assholes got in the way. So when you dickheads left them, I killed all five you came into town to help, whatever the fuck that was about. Yeah, assholes, they’re all dead. Epic fail on your part. So now you’re giving me four more pissin’ and moanin’ hunters to kill. Wasn’t about to leave any of you alive either.”
Sick at his stomach, Jack nearly lost it. Buck had killed all five hunters here in Kansas City that they’d purged and built new lives for? He started to reach for a nearby machete to take Buck’s head off right then, but a hand on his arm stopped him. He looked down to see Sanquinetta’s ringed fingers wrapped around his wrist.
“No. We’ve got him, he’ll die tonight. Let Kwano finish.”
After swallowing hard, grateful for her touch, he stepped back.
“Who is working with you?” Kwano demanded.
“No one.”
“You didn’t do all that by yourself.”
Buck spat again and sneered. “I was motivated.”
“I ask you again, and you must answer, were you or are you working with anyone to hurt hunters?”
“No. I had the two guys and Marissa that those hunters killed. They were my posse, man. I didn’t have anyone else after they were decapitated.”
Kwano looked at the Jack. “He can’t lie. He had to be alone. Guys, San is right, we have him. Let’s carry him out and smoke him. You know where the oven is they used around here?”
“Yeah, we do. Let’s just get this done. I want to get home.”
Realizing he was frozen, unable to defend himself, and that they were going to kill him soon, Buck started screaming.
“Goddamit, you’re just like me! Why are you doing this? We could have so much fun…come on, motherfuckers…”
“Sleep.” Kwano grinned. “That’s my favorite command.”
When it came time to move Buck later, Kwano once again used compulsion, which Buck tried and failed to overcome, and made him walk out of the hotel, get in a car, and ride silently to his death.
Waiting across the street in a sidewalk café with full view of the hotel exit, Buck’s recently hired four horsemen watched, keeping safe distance lest someone read their vampire lifeforces. They watched the hunters carry out the man who had brought them to Kansas City to eliminate a threat to “vampire life.”
Fingering a tall glass of a fine wine, Quattro couldn’t take his eyes off his quarry.
“So they got him. Well, they’re good. It was wise to use compulsion to make sure that Buck kept our existence to himself. Still, we have a job to do. It will be a pleasure to play with them. Worthy opponents for monsters of legend like us.”
He lifted his glass high in a mock toast.
“Hello, my friends, we shall meet on the battlefield soon.”