Chapter Five
“IT WAS A TOUGH choice,” Cyn admitted to Kathryn. They sat in front of a roaring fire in one of the estate’s gaming rooms. There was a huge TV screen, every gaming console known to man, and subscriptions to every on-line movie or gaming service in the world. Typically, it would be occupied by several of Raphael’s vampires on break, but Cyn had commandeered it for the night, once it had become obvious that there would be no real shopping trip allowed. She took a long drink of wine and clicked some more laptop keys before continuing. “On the one hand, I hated the idea of the macho men sitting up there talking serious business, while us womenfolk were tucked away down here to do some shopping. Maybe buying something pretty to make our lovers’ dicks get hard.”
Kathryn nearly choked on the wine she’d sipped at the exact moment that Cyn said the words “dicks get hard.” Like that was ever a problem with their vampire lovers. She couldn’t speak for Raphael, but Lucas’s dick was always hard. Or at least, it was whenever she was around.
“Is that a problem for you and Raphael? The hard dick thing?” Kathryn asked innocently.
Elke laughed from where she sat behind Cyn, away from the fire. Vampires didn’t get cold. Cyn snorted. “Yeah, right. The only problem I have is us being shuffled off like imbeciles who can’t analyze a serious situation.”
“On the other hand . . .”
“Right. I’d rather go shopping.” Cyn started laughing, and Kathryn joined her, until they both had tears running down their cheeks.
“You guys are weird,” Elke muttered.
“I’m assuming Raphael will brief you on the details,” Kathryn said finally, rubbing away the tears.
“Naturally. Lucas?”
“He’ll have trouble waiting until we leave the house before he starts talking.”
“They’re adorable, aren’t they?”
“Good fighters, though,” Kathryn commented. “Nice guys to have on your side when everything goes to hell.”
Cyn started to agree, but then sat up, listening hard. Closing the laptop, she stood, walked over to the glass door, and opened it silently.
“Cyn?”
“Elke, dim the lights and get rid of the fire,” she said tightly, then stepped off the patio and walked away from the house to the very edge of the cliff, where she crouched low and stared down the coast, toward the city of Santa Monica. “There,” she said to Kathryn, who’d joined her. They both watched the lights of a helicopter as it cruised down the shoreline, its dark form just visible in the light of a nearly fully moon.
“What’s wrong?” Kathryn asked. “Are helicopters that unusual here?”
“That one’s hovering, then moving on, as if it’s looking for something. And it’s not . . . look at the silhouette,” she said, her eyes never leaving the helicopter, which was slowly coming closer. Too slowly. It should have passed them and been long gone by now, unless it had a reason to linger.
“Paparazzi?” Kathryn asked.
“Not in a gun ship,” Cyn replied grimly, abruptly understanding what was troubling her. She pulled up her cell phone and hit a speed dial number.
A woman’s voice said, “Raphael Enter—”
“This is Cyn. Give me Juro. Now.”
“Juro?” Kathryn asked, puzzlement in her voice, though she, too, was keeping an eye on the suspicious chopper.
“Raphael won’t answer if he’s in a meeting, but Juro will if it comes through the main desk.”
“Cynthia.” Kathryn recognized the huge bodyguard’s deep voice.
“There’s an armed helicopter a hundred yards out. It’s heading for the estate,” Cyn said tersely.
Juro fired off several commands, before saying, “Cyn, go inside and stick with Elke. You’ll be safer—”
“Fuck that. We’re on the bluff, moving north of the pool for better positioning. Let the guards know where we are.” Cyn hung up and started running away from the main house. The bluff slanted upward just north of the main building, and there were no lights. The darkness would give her cover, and the elevation would provide a better shot.
“I’m carrying my Glock 23, .40 caliber. Not much good against a helicopter,” Kathryn said tersely, her eyes scanning the moonlit horizon as they ran. “You?” She followed Cyn through the darkness, which was abruptly absolute as every light on the estate seemed to go off at once.
“9mm Hydra-Shok, and helicopters have pilots,” Cyn said, not even slowed by the absence of light. She knew every inch of the estate. She’d made a point of it, for occasions just like this.
“Where are we going?” Kathryn asked.
“The best vantage will be on the bluff. There, you see?”
“See?” Kathryn muttered. “I can’t see a damn thing. What happened to the lights?”
“Protocol,” Elke said tersely, pacing herself to match their slow human pace. “The minute security ID’d the threat, every light on the estate was cut.”
“That’s great for them, not so great for us mere humans.”
Cyn grabbed Kathryn’s arm. She couldn’t expect Kathryn to be as familiar with the terrain as she was. “Almost there,” she said. “That little elevation, see it now?”
“Got it,” Kathryn confirmed, shaking off Cyn’s arm. Fifteen seconds later, they were lying on the ground, watching the lights of the chopper approach. “They’ve circled out over the ocean,” she said tightly. “Looks like they’re setting up a targeting run.”
“Of course, they are,” Cyn agreed. All three of them were stretched out on the ground, handguns aimed and following the chopper’s movements. She’d been right about pilots being hard to protect. The helicopter was vulnerable, too. A marksman could be effective at 100 yards with a 9 mm, same with Kathryn’s .40 caliber. They were all excellent shots, and Kathryn was a trained sniper. But Cyn still didn’t know how much damage they could do. No matter how good the marksman, targeting at this distance took much longer and delayed the shot, sometimes critically. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t try.
The helicopter’s lights lined up with the shore, growing bigger and brighter as they began their run. “Here they come,” Cyn muttered.
RAPHAEL WAS ON his feet the instant the lights went out, alerted to Cyn’s warning by Juro’s telepathic message.
“Lucas,” he snapped, shedding his jacket and tie as he headed for the glass doors off the conference room. The estate was completely dark, not so much as a stray candle lit the night. His vampires didn’t need light to function. They did better without it. If the attackers were vampires, they’d be the same, but they should be momentarily disoriented by the sudden blackout. Raphael counted on that, and on the fact that their enemies wouldn’t know the estate as well as his own people did. They’d have no way of knowing which of the many rooms Raphael was using for his meeting.
He walked out onto the balcony. Lucas was right beside him when he stepped up to the metal railing, and so was Quinn, which was something of a surprise. He’d expected Lucas. There was no threat that they wouldn’t face together. But Quinn had no dog in this fight, as the humans would say. He was here essentially to audition for the role of Lord of Ireland. He had no loyalty to Raphael.
“My lord,” Quinn said quietly, “what do you need?”
“Power,” Raphael said simply. “Lucas and I have worked together before, but you—”
“—will have to open my mind completely to you. I understand. Tell me when.”
“Now,” Raphael said and reached out, drawing Quinn into the connection he’d already forged with Lucas. Taking only a few seconds to be certain they would work smoothly together, he gathered his power and lashed out at the oncoming copter, which shuddered slightly under the blow. It was a testing strike, the only one he’d take.
“My lord?” Quinn asked, not yet understanding. But he would.
“Get ready,” Raphael muttered. The silver of his eyes flashed brighter than moonlight over the rocks below. He lifted his hand toward the helicopter as if in supplication, and the power flowed—his, Lucas’s, and Quinn’s. Raphael channeled their combined strength as he reached out and took hold of the helicopter. The engines’ growl became louder as the aircraft fought his hold, struggling to obey the pilot’s frantic efforts to break free, while Lucas used his unique gift to send waves of terror directly to the brains of the three vampires onboard the craft. Raphael gripped harder, putting every shred of power, every ounce of will he possessed, into ripping the copter out of the sky. This was the enemy, the same monsters who so recently had killed his people in their quest for vengeance, who’d come to his home tonight and threatened everyone he loved. Next to him, Lucas cursed, but it was a distant noise. Reality narrowed down to just him and his enemy.
The engine’s growl became a whine, like a wounded animal begging for its life. But Raphael was Vampire. There was no such thing as mercy in his world. Closing his fingers into a claw, he felt the thin metal of the helicopter against his skin, felt it collapse inward like a tin can in his fist. The vampires onboard howled, a sound heard in his mind, not his ears. He tightened his grip further and dragged the machine out of the sky. It hung there for a moment, clinging to flight, and then abruptly lost all power and smashed to earth.
Raphael leapt from the second-floor balcony to the grassy bluff below the house, aware of Lucas and Quinn striding next to him as he walked to the cliff edge. He took a moment to study the downed craft, searching for survivors who might try to escape on foot. Or, at least, that’s what he told himself. The helicopter was little more than a ball of scrap metal, barely recognizable as the attack craft it had once been. The vampires who’d been on board were dead, all of them old enough to have dusted when they died. He’d known that before he walked out to study the wreckage. He wasn’t looking for signs of life. He was wondering how the hell he’d managed to destroy the thing so completely, even with Lucas and Quinn’s help. Raphael didn’t suffer from false modesty. He knew he was one of the great powers in the paranormal world, a force little understood by the humans whose sheer numbers dominated the planet. But even he had never pulled a helicopter from the sky and crushed it like a tin can. He hadn’t thought before he’d done it, he’d simply acted on instinct. His home and people were threatened, and he’d dealt with the threat, knowing he had Lucas’s strength to back him up. Quinn had been a bonus, a boost of power that had made Raphael’s task easier.
Still, it was his power, his magic, his fucking will, that had made it possible. He wondered what Cyn would think about this new demonstration of his abilities. He wondered what his enemies would think.
“Tristan Fabrice?” Lucas asked quietly.
“Definitely, and two others,” Raphael agreed.
“Fits with the three attacks earlier.”
“And the reports from up North.”
“What’d you think of our boy?” Lucas asked, even more softly.
Raphael glanced over at Quinn, who was staring at the wreckage, but not seeing it. He’d probably never opened his mind to anyone the way he had with Raphael just now. Vampires simply didn’t take those kind of risks, especially not vampires with enough power to rule. It might take Quinn a few minutes to recover.
Oddly enough, the attack had solidified his opinion of Quinn. He’d measured the vampire’s power while he’d been deep in his mind, far too deep for deception. Quinn was more than powerful enough to be a lord. But there was more to it than that. The North American lords were an alliance. They might bicker, but when it came down to it, they would stand at each other’s backs. The vampire Raphael chose for Ireland would have to fit into that alliance when they began their European invasion.
Having seen Quinn’s power and person from the inside out, Raphael knew.
He looked at Lucas. “I think Quinn Kavanagh will be the next Lord of Ireland.”
CYN STARED AT the burning pile of wreckage, relief warring with disappointment. She’d been all geared up for a fight and then pfft. Nothing.
“What the hell just happened?” Kathryn muttered.
“My guess? Raphael with a touch of Lucas,” Elke said, jumping to her feet, as if the threat was gone. Which it obviously was. Damn it.
“I’ve seen some serious vamp power, but that takes the cake,” Kathryn said, as she climbed to her feet much more carefully, holstering the weapon she’d never had a chance to use.
“We should get back to the house.” Cyn needed to see for herself that Raphael was all right. Because Kathryn had a point. Even with Lucas’s help, Raphael would have expended one hell of a lot of power to take down a damn helicopter. He’d be feeling it, even though he’d never let it show. Except to her.
The estate lights came on at half power, illuminating the way back to the house.
“Let’s go,” she said, and started running.
RAPHAEL TURNED away from the wreckage and strode back inside, taking the side stairs to the conference room. His muscles ached as if he’d spent hours sparring with Juro instead of a few minutes taking down an enemy. He caught the big vampire’s eye as he entered the room. “You’ll have to handle the police,” Raphael told him. “Make up a story. A drone gone bad or something.”
“That’s a big fucking drone,” Lucas muttered.
“They won’t care,” Juro said, his tone lacking any of the usual animosity he showed toward Lucas. In a crisis, there was no room for personal feelings. It was something both vampires understood. “There were no humans aboard, and there are no bodies in the wreckage,” Juro continued. “The human authorities will only care about having a plausible story for the news outlets. A crashed drone will do.”
Raphael pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his jacket which hung on a chair where he’d left it. He needed to call Cyn. But she hadn’t waited. Before he could do more than turn on the phone, she ran into the conference room, followed by Kathryn and Elke.
“Are you all okay?”
CYN ASKED THE question as she entered the second-floor conference room, but she barely listened to the answer. Her attention was all for Raphael, as she went directly into his arms and held on tight. She’d been so terrified when she’d seen that damn helicopter heading for the estate. She’d known what it could do with the right weapons. Their enemy could’ve torn the house apart and dropped it into the ocean along with half the bluff and all the vampires inside it. Including Raphael. She didn’t even know if he could swim. Fuck that, he’d never have survived long enough to worry about it.
“We’re fine,” Raphael said, surveying her for damage, before pulling her close once again.
“Anyone know where Tristan Fabrice is right now?” she asked darkly.
“Dusted. All three onboard were vampires, including Tristan. I caught a glimpse of his mind at the auction the other night, when he was occupied with your father. I’m quite certain he’s among the dead. I didn’t recognize the others, but there were three attackers, three vampires who entered the country up north, and three vampires on that helicopter. Juro,” he said, breaking off to address his security chief. “I’ll want a team—”
“Already on their way, Sire.”
“Why don’t we retire to my office?” Raphael said. “It’s far more comfortable.”
“And it has a fireplace,” Lucas added, holding his Kathryn tightly, as he urged her toward the door. “You’re freezing, Katie mine.”
“We were in kind of a hurry when we ran outside,” she said. “I didn’t grab my jacket.”
Raphael didn’t make a move to leave the room. He lingered, holding on to Cyn, seeming unwilling to let her go. She didn’t know if that was for her sake, or his. And she really didn’t care.
“You’re all right?” he asked quietly.
She nodded. “I was more worried about you. I wasn’t sure which room you all were meeting in, if it was at the main house, or under the garage. I saw those damn guns—”
Raphael tightened his hold on her. “They never got off a shot. We made sure of it.”
“We? Even the new guy?” she asked, eyeing Quinn who was standing near the door, wearing a bored, I’m too sexy for my shirt, sort of look, while he waited for Lucas and the others to clear the doorway. He was a good-looking guy, but that was nothing new. The powerful vampires always were. He looked her way, and she realized he’d probably heard her question.
“Quinn and Lucas joined their powers with mine to take down the invaders,” Raphael said, probably as much for Quinn’s ears as her own. Maybe more, she figured. New allies and all that. Later, when she and Raphael were alone, and he could be completely honest with her, she’d get the full scoop of what had happened, and what the hell he’d done to stop it.
Kathryn, who was much better at dealing with people than Cyn, corralled Quinn into leaving the room with her and Lucas, giving him an easy smile that he returned the same way. What was it Raphael had said about the vamp? Oh, yeah. He’d been a lawyer in his previous life. Hell, he probably still was. And Kathryn was an FBI agent. It was a friendship made in heaven. Or, you know, hell, depending on how you looked at it.
For a few minutes, she and Raphael were alone in the conference room, though it wouldn’t last. He was the host of this little home invasion and would need to join the others. But she took advantage of the moment to wrap her arms around him and simply hold on. She worried every day about losing him. The only time she’d felt completely safe in the past was when they’d been home in their well-guarded estate. And now some asshole in a fucking helicopter had ruined that for her, too.
Raphael held her just as tightly as she was holding him, his face buried in her hair. It occurred to her that he’d been worried, too.
“I’m okay,” she murmured. “Kath and Elke and I watched the whole thing, like a fireworks show on 4th of July.”
He smiled briefly as he pulled back to see her face. “How would you like to visit Paris?”
She gave him a narrow-eyed stare. “That again? What? Is there another lame-ass auction I have to attend?”
His smile broadened, but he shook his head. “Not this time. It’s the real thing. Promise.”
“Then I say, hell, yeah, when do we leave?”
“There’s a bit more to it than that, but soon. Come, we’ll discuss it with Lucas and our new ally.”
She scowled. “What do they have to do with . . . Oh, damn, we’re going to be target practice, aren’t we?”