Chapter Twenty-Four
Simone realized that her entire situation was an exercise in trust. She had to trust her people to have followed her well, to be prepared for any eventuality at any moment and to be ready to exploit any opportunity should it show itself. She had to trust in Marcus who would be engineering the entire thing. She knew she still had the GPS in her boot as well as the one in her coat. Both were sewn invisibly into the linings, but still she was surprised by their laxness in their search of her. It only showed how cocky they were. How stupid they were.
She was on her knees facing the lone chair under the limited light in the room. Light shone in a circle of about twenty feet in diameter, but the rest of the warehouse was pitch black obscuring just how many phants were in the room. She could sense them moving, and then consciously altered her vision so she was seeing in infrared. Immediately she picked out the fact that there were several dozen of them all together.
She felt her heart racing anxiously…but not with fear. With anticipation of the battle to come. Her senses were heightened. Raging. Ready to go. It didn’t matter that her hands were bound behind her back. Bonds could be broken. Or at the very least she could step over her own wrists and bring her bound hands to the front of her body. Thinking about all the things she would do when the moment came kept her at the ready. All she needed now was for Draz to show himself.
“Look at it,” a female phant sneered, coming in and touching Simone’s face against her cheek roughly. Simone gnashed her teeth at the woman and growled when she jerked away in surprise. The other phants laughed at her for her fear.
“Shut up!” she snarled in a shout. The phants subsided into lower voiced mocking. She was able to ignore this. She refocused her attention onto Simone. She whipped out a switchblade, snapping the blade out with the press of a button. She took the blade and pricked at Simone’s cheek with it.
“Such a pretty face,” the phant hissed. “How ‘bout I carve my initials in it?”
“I’d heal from it in a matter of hours, so what would be the point?” Simone asked, her tone bored and unimpressed. She realized she was baiting her enemy, but she was only returning a favor. Two could play at this game.
“The point is I would get to see your smirking face dripping with blood and marked as mine!” she spat into Simone’s face, coming so close she could feel her breath and spittle against her lips. The woman was furious, vengeful and angry. Simone didn’t know what she had done to deserve such ichor directed at her, but there it was nonetheless.
“Need anger management much?” Simone asked dryly.
“Fuck you bitch!” the phant snarled, surging forward and tackling Simone to the ground. Simone landed awkwardly on her back with her bound hand painfully beneath her. She fought off her attacker immediately. She used her legs to wrap her up and wrenched around until she was smacking the girl’s face into the ground. It wasn't enough to keep the blade from stabbing into her flesh, however. Simone felt the blade jab into her belly like someone had lit a match and held it against her skin. The burn was an incredible pain…but one she could tolerate. As long as the blade didn’t hit anything vital she would remain conscious and strong. She would heal. As long as the blade came nowhere near her neck, she was safe from death.
“Enough!”
The barked order was enough to get both women's attention, but not before Simone was able to pin the woman down onto her face, putting neck breaking pressure onto her. The command came and Simone notice a new player had come into the light.
Draz. She recognized him in and instant. She had studied pictures of him long enough and hard enough to know him on sight. She couldn’t believe she was in the same room with him at last. Face to face. Leader to leader. She laughed disrespectfully, trying to goad him.
“Why should I? She started it. I got a knife in my gut for my trouble. I’m going to break her scrawny neck.” She raised her hips, increasing the pressure on the phant’s neck. The knife also dug deeper into her belly for her trouble. Panicking because she was trapped in a painful and harmful position, the phant withdrew the blade and struggled to get into a better reach in order the stab at a more vital target.
“I said enough!” Draz hissed, stepping forward and grabbing the female phant by her hair and yanking her free of Simone’s vise-like legs. Simone was thrown over onto her face by the action and she struggled to get back up onto her knees. She did it quickly, refusing to leave her back exposed to Draz. She tried to do herself one better by getting to her feet, but the two male sycophants that bracketed her shoved her back down onto her knees with firm hands on her shoulders. She shook them off as best she could, facing Draz and glaring at him as he got the animal woman under control.
Once he had her by her hair and free if Simone, the female became completely different in attitude. She rolled onto her hands and knees and kissed Draz’s boot subserviently. This modified Draz’s temper with her but he continued to hold her by her hair. As he straightened to his full height, he dragged her up onto her feet.
“Now, now, Pet…what are you doing? Did I say you could play with my new toy?” he asked in dulcet tones.
“You said I could make her ready for you,” she said tremulously.
“I did not mean you should make a pin cushion of her!” he said, his tone starting out soft and loving but ending up savage and screaming. Then he seemed to regain control of himself and after shoving her away he approached Simone and began to walk a circle around her.
“Has she been searched?” he asked.
“We ditched her purse and her phone, both of which had GPS tracking. We found the tracker in the lining of her bag.
Simone smiled a little. She hadn’t known about the tracker in her bag. Of course. They had to find something or they wouldn’t be satisfied. Once they found one or two, like the phone and the GPS tracker in her bag, they would stop.
“Were you followed?” Draz asked.
“We made certain we weren’t Besides, the detail following her wouldn’t have had opportunity to mobilize any other help on such short notice. We killed two outright and the rest ran for their lives. She may as well have been walking by herself.
“Was one of them Marcus?” Draz wanted to know.
“Must have been,” the phant said. “She doesn’t go anywhere without him.”
“I want to see the body camera video.”
Simone felt a chill walk down her spine as anxiety climbed. She hadn’t realized they had been wearing body cameras, taping the entire encounter. What would Draz make of the fact that Marcus had not been with her?
“They killed my men,” she growled. “Isn’t that enough? Are you really so sadistic you need to watch it on film?”
“Yes,” he said with a wicked chuckle. “Sissa, prepare the video on my laptop. I’ll watch it in a bit. I want to relish it. Just like I’m going to relish these next hours with you.”
He tapped his chest and for the first time she was aware he was wearing a black, square on his chest with an obvious lens in the middle. He was planning on filming whatever torture he had planned for her. Well, he would only be filming his own demise. By then Marcus will have confirmed that Draz was on the premises. It was only a matter of time before the cavalry came. She was ready for it. Tense. Prepared. Waiting. In the meantime, she needed to buy time. Perhaps try and gain information about some of his criminal enterprises. These phants lived rich by engaging in the drug trade and human trafficking and a half dozen other illegal enterprises. Perhaps if she could learn something about them she could dismantle them, cutting off their financial ability and making it more difficult for another phant to simply step into Draz’s shoes once he was dead.
“Search her again,” he commanded his minions. “Be thorough. I won’t have a cadre of self-righteous vampires knocking down my doors.”
Two male phants came up to her and yanked her to her feet by her arms. They unbound her hand from behind her back and yanked her jacket off. One minion began to feel all around in the jacket while the second began to feel all over her body.
“Hey!” she spat in protest when he cupped both her breasts in his hands unnecessarily. She shoved at him, but he grabbed her by her arm and gave her a violent shake.
“Take off your boots,” he commanded her.
She felt a moment of panic. What if they found and destroyed both trackers? What if Marcus wasn't right behind them? What if they had successfully lost all of the vampires that had been tailing her?
No. It was impossible for them to have lost all of them. With the amount of men they had had at the ready, there had to be vampires everywhere. Enough to fool the phants into thinking no one vehicle was following them. That had been the plan…to act as a relay team. It had to have worked. She prayed it had worked as they suddenly discovered the tracker in the lining of her jacket, ripping the fabric.
“Boss!” the phant who held her jacket cried as he held up the tracker.
“You fools! You’ll lead them right to us! Destroy it immediately! Put her back in the van and let’s get out of here in case they have tracked her close by. I doubt they had enough time to mobilize and find her. After all, that was the plan. But you ought to have searched her more thoroughly. This Marcus is clever. He knew we wouldn’t search for more than two trackers…that you would be lazy and incompetent!”
“Put them back on,” the phant snapped, throwing the boots against her chest without doing anything more than turning them upside down and shaking them out and checking the heels for any sign of a tracker. Simone had to hide a relieved and sly smile. Marcus had been right. The GPS in her boot had been the right thing to do. She felt enormous relief that they would be able to track her even if they had lost her for a little while. Marcus would be there. He would back her up.
“Afraid to go one on one with my vampires?” she asked her snidely as they began to herd her back toward the van.
“On the contrary,” he said arrogantly. “I want them to come and try to rescue you…but on my terms and in my time. Also, in the place of my choosing.”
“Yes,” she said condescendingly, “god forbid you should meet your ignominious end in an obscure warehouse in the middle of nowhere.”
“That is why we are leaving. We will join up with my army of sycophants and you, my dear, will wish you had never been born,” he snarled, getting up into her face. It was just the opportunity she was looking for. They had neglected to rebind her hands and neglected to take her belt from her, their arrogance and stupidity working strongly against them.
“Boy,” she taunted, “for a criminal mastermind, you sure are stupid.”
Then she released the catch on her belt, whipped it around her body and into her hands, wrapping it around her palms and yanking the garrote wire tight even as she snagged it around Draz’s neck and throat in on violent instant of explosive movement. She had moved so swiftly and violently that she was behind his back an instant before he could react. She looped the belt a second wrap around his throat, placed her knee in his back and pulled with all her might against the counterforce.
Immediately the sycophants in the room swarmed toward her, moving in threateningly. She pulled tighter.
“Come any closer and I’ll decapitate this fucker…and don’t think I don’t have the strength for it because I do. And you better put those guns down while you’re at it. You’d have to be a pretty damn good shot to do any real damage.”
She listened to Draz gag and choke, shrugged him off as he tried to claw at her and his throat alternately. She heard a ruckus rising up outside and knew her backup had come. This was it. The end of Draz’s reign. She had done it. And she was going to take out all of his top lieutenants while she was at it. She wouldn’t kill him right away though. She needed to squeeze him for information on his illegal enterprises. She would dismantle them one by one. She would use the force of her authoritarians in order to finally control the sycophants on the Eastern Seaboard.
A shot rang out and she felt a bullet whiz by her ear. One of the phants had decided they were going to take a chance on killing her with a shot through her throat that would sever her brainstem. Simone ducked down, lessening her target profile, placing Draz in between any flying bullets and herself. The next bullet struck Draz in the face. She wondered for a dreadful moment if it was Draz they were trying to kill. They were going to sacrifice him in order to protect their resources and enterprises.
So much for the loyalty of his followers.
The warehouse was infiltrated by a swarm of her vampire people. Unlike the untrained sycophants, her soldiers had the ability to shoot through necks at a distance. Phants began to drop like flies, even as a hail of gunfire was traded. Not wanting Draz to get hit she yanked him down to the ground. This however altered her leverage. She had to roll him onto his belly and sit on his back, her back exposed to the room of fighting soldiers. Draz wasn't going quietly either. He was doing everything in his power to buck her off of himself, to rob her of her leverage.
“Settle down!” she shouted in his ear. “I will kill you. I won’t hesitate. The only reason you’re still alive, in fact, is because you have some value as a captive. However, I think I can get the information from others if necessary.”
Draz choked and gagged, spittle flying from his lips as his skin turned purple from lack of oxygen. Blood seeped from the garrote wire where it dug into his flesh. Eventually he lapsed into unconsciousness.
Simone was not so stupid as to relax her grip. He could be faking blacking out. She did, however, look away from him, letting her attention shift to the room. The fighting was bloody and violent. Her people were outnumbered at first, the first twenty soldiers and Halo and Marcus facing down an unknown swarm of sycophants. There had been no telling how many of them were lying in wait in the shadows. She did know that Draz would not protect himself with anything less than sheer numbers of the best phants in his purview. Even so, her soldiers fought valiantly, fought to protect her and bring down this violent threat.
Marcus was the first to break away from the melee and hurry toward her. He replaced Simone on Draz’s back, wrenching his arms none to gently behind him and slipping on a pair of flex cuffs. Only then did she unwrap the garrote from around his neck.
The second wave of twenty vampires hit the warehouse only moments later. Upon seeing this fresh swarm of enemies, the phants began to flee. Vampires gave chase.
“I don’t want a single one of these bastards escaping!” she shouted into the noisy melee of fighting. Her words seemed to reinvigorate her cause and bodies began to accumulate on the ground of the warehouse floor.
In the end they won the bloody battle. Simone had leapt into the fray and gotten her hands as dirty as her soldiers. She could feel their respect as they congratulated each other with high fives and slaps on the back.
“Not bad for a hoity-toity queen,” Halo drawled, a grin on his face.
“Not bad for a raging asshole,” she returned with an equal grin.
Halo chuckled. “That’s right. And I just shit all over these bastards.”
“Ew. Nice visual,” she said dryly.
“You started the analogy.”
“So I did,” she said with a chuckle. She felt Marcus come up beside her, felt his hand curve possessively over her hip as he used the grip to pull her body back against the hard strength of his.
“It’s over. It’s done,” he said on a soft voice into her ear through her hair. Her hair had come free of the braid she had put it in, untwisting and settling wildly about her shoulders. Now he nuzzled her through it gently and she couldn’t help the sigh that escaped her. The affectionate gesture settled her, slowed her racing heart. Her adrenaline leveled out.
She gazed around the room, seeing her small army of soldiers standing proudly over their kills and their prisoners. The dead phants would disappear within minutes. The living ones were dragged away for questioning. Simone watched as Draz was held between two of her men, still unconscious, and hauled across the floor with his feet dragging through the dust and dirt of the warehouse floor.
In the end, she felt it was all anticlimactic. They had been so stressed about this one man for so long, and all it had taken was his hubris and his own ego to bring him down. He had underestimated her. He had not been half the enemy he had thought he was. He had simply been another run of the mill sociopath with borderline psychopathic tendencies.
She was glad he was finally captured to say the least. She was pleased with how things had turned out and doubly pleased with the performance of her men…including Marcus. She knew it had not been easy for him to let her be captured and to trust she could take care of herself. She had been so alone…anything could have happened. She had gambled on her profile of Draz’s character. She had gambled he would want to gloat over her rather than just kill her outright.
She had not anticipated him being so careless as to leave her unbound for as long as he had, giving her the time and opportunity she needed to attack him. She had, however, anticipated Marcus being there for her. Backing her up. She was content that she could depend on him, whatever the stakes involved. She trusted him, and that went far deeper than just her ability to love him.
Marcus took her hand and led her out of the warehouse and to the truck where they had surveilled her from. He helped her step up into it then guided her into a chair. It wasn't until she was sitting that she realized her legs were trembling. She crossed them to hide the fact and smiled at Marcus who squatted down in front of her.
“Let me see,” he said.
He reached for her hands and turned them palms up. For the first time she noticed where the garrote wire had cut into her own flesh from the force she had used to throttle Draz. Her hands were bleeding and, for the first time, sore and painful. It was amazing what adrenaline could do when it came to feeling pain or recognizing injury. The wound to her belly was also painful now and she was aware her outfit had a distinct hole in it and a fair amount of blood soaking it.
Marcus took all this in with a grim silence. He took out a first aid kit and cleaned up her hands, wrapping them in gauze. Then he lifted her shirt and examined the stab wound to her belly. There was nothing he could do about it…and really it wasn't necessary to do anything. She would heal rapidly.
“How are your energy levels?” he asked her. “Did you have to use your pulse ability?”
For the first time she remembered she could have used her pulse ability to defend herself. She had certainly had enough energy, and enough reason to use it. Draz had not used his, his concentration no doubt disrupted too quickly for him to act. He was weakened and losing consciousness before he could even think of using it against her. Good thing too. She disliked the idea of being bathed in such tainted energy. It made her queasy and ill.
But she did wonder why the other phants had depended on their guns rather than their ability to attack with the violence of a pulse. They had used it on her soldiers when they had been fighting for their own lives, but they had not used it to save the life of their leader.
“No loyalty among thieves,” she murmured.
“What?” Marcus asked, grabbing hold of her fading attention.
“Oh, nothing. I was just remarking on the fact that these phants made very little effort to rescue their boss.”
“Avarice no doubt. I’m sure they were waiting in the wings for an opportunity to dethrone him and take his place. However they were too cowardly to do it themselves. Now answer my question. Energy level?”
“I’m fine…although I’ll have to send my friend my regrets for standing him up. In fact I should call him.”
“Tell him you were in a minor car accident,” he said, handing her a phone. He had cloned her phone before sending her out, anticipating the original’s destruction. All of her contacts and messages were exactly as she’d left them…except her companion for the evening had been blowing up her phone with texts and calls wondering where she was. “It will also explain why you can’t make up the date right away, giving you time to heal from these injuries.”
“I won’t need that much time. I’d rather restrict myself to a simpler lie. Besides, I still need to hunt. It’s been a while since I operated at max capacity.”
“If you insist. But you will still be heavily guarded,” he pressed. “Just because Draz is gone doesn’t mean—“
“Yes it does! I will accept my usual guard. Nothing more. If this proves anything, its that I am capable of taking care of myself.”
He frowned, thinking about it and clearly not happy at her reasonable logic. He was being overprotective. She didn’t blame him. But the immediate threat was neutralized and she was anxious to get back to her normal life.
“Very well,” he acceded. “But only because you are my queen and I must obey you.”
She laughed at the ridiculous notion of him ever giving way to her had he not wanted to. He grinned as well and leaned forward to kiss her. The very public display of affection surprised and warmed her. She broke off the kiss and, blushing uncharacteristically, she looked around at the others in the truck.
“Come on,” she said to him. “Let’s go home.”
He nodded to her. “You heard the lady,” he said to those standing about.
Shortly after, the truck started and lurched forward. Marcus sat down in one of the chairs and, using a hand to pull her, he drew her into his lap. It was another public display of affection and she went with it willingly. They both knew what it meant for him to announce his place in her life. It told her he was ready for the next step in their relationship.
By accepting his affection, she was telling him that she was too.