by Logan Byrne
“We’ll go through with it tonight. Be ready by eight, Xelia wants to go over the plan and then we’ll move into action. Wear black,” I said, before getting up and going back to the office. There was a lot to plan, and I intended to take these losers down.
11
“Are we all clear on the plan?” Xelia asked as the five of us stood outside waiting to make a move on the club.
“We should all be ready. Lexa, Britta, are you sure you’re up for the challenge of going in alone?” Blake asked.
“They’ll be fine, I know Lexa’s power and I have trust in her,” Charlie said, backing me up.
“We’ll be fine, Blake, but thank you for your concern. We have each other’s backs,” Britta said, nudging me and smiling.
“We can be gooey and dramatic afterwards. For now, we need to get into position. Charlie and I are going to get in close before taking out the guards. Blake, we need you to patrol the entrance to this alleyway in case anybody tries to get in. That could be people, trucks, shipments, anything. Just make sure nobody, especially any mortals, comes down here,” Xelia said, pulling on black leather gloves.
“Got it,” he said.
“Let’s go,” Xelia said, a small smile on her face.
Britta and I hid within sight of the alleyway, behind a dumpster with cracked and faded green paint, as Charlie shifted into his jaguar form and prowled closer and closer to the back door to the club. There were two large men, but neither of them looked like they possessed much of anything in terms of intelligence. I noticed Xelia bouncing between the shadows. The men in the back didn’t look vampiric, which was going to be a plus for her.
They were talking, their deep voices echoing down the alleyway, until they went silent. Charlie was on top of one of them, his massive paw on the back of the man’s head, his drool escaping and pooling on the concrete, while Xelia had the other in a sleeper hold before letting him drop to the ground.
“Are they dead?” I asked when Britta and I walked up.
“No, just knocked out. Here’s his key card. You might need it,” she said, ripping it off the man’s jacket and handing it to me.
“Ready?” I asked, looking at Britta.
“As ready as I can be,” she replied, before raising the tip of her wand to her nose. I swiped the card, the little red light turning green, and we cracked open the door just enough for us to slip inside.
“Obscurio,” we both incanted, and a shroud of invisibility appeared and hovered around us. We could see one another, a bonus to the spell, but nobody else could see us. A bright fluorescent light flickered above us, a small puddle of water in the cold hallway rippling as we walked through it even though nobody was in sight to cause it.
I turned the corner first, seeing a man sitting on a metal folding chair right in front of me. I panicked at first, but stayed calm, shuffling past him with concentrated footsteps so as not to kick anything or make any noise to alert him. He didn’t notice us, his face buried in an adult magazine, so we continued on.
The bass from the club inside was pounding, making my organs feel just as jostled back here as they did when we were inside the club. Britta put her hand on my back, and I looked back to make sure she was okay. She nodded that she was, and nobody was behind her, which was what frightened me. Finding these incubation rooms was proving to be harder than expected. I remembered some of this, the back of the club, from the vampire’s memories, but I couldn’t make sense of it all. I guess I only saw fragments of it from that guy, so everything else was foreign.
“It’s your turn to watch the kids tonight,” one man said from around a corner ten feet ahead on our left.
“Hey, fine with me. They don’t talk back and I don’t have to worry about them getting up and running off,” the other voice said, laughing. We turned the corner stealthily, seeing two obvious vampires talking. One turned his head, looking straight at us, before sniffing the air.
“Do you smell that?” he asked the other guy.
He looked our way, my heart racing, as Britta tightened her grip on my shoulder. We couldn’t be found out already, and there was no way they were able to see us. “I think they turned on the fog machines. I love that smell,” the first man said.
I let out a silent sigh, my pulse going back to normal, before the men started to walk away. “Well, have fun with your patrol,” the first man said.
“On it now,” the second one said, before they parted at an intersection in the hallways. That was it—he was our guy to follow. Britta realized the same thing, both of us picking up speed down the empty hallway, turning the corner just in time to see him go up a flight of stairs.
Luckily the stairs leading up to the second floor didn’t have a door. The man in front of us, about six feet tall with slicked blond hair, was like a homing beacon we knew we could trust to follow. The only problem I saw was what we’d do when he led us to the babies. Not only because we would have to take care of him, but how was I going to leave all those babies, knowing what they would soon become?
“You’re relieved. My turn for the night,” the man said to another vampire who was already sitting there guarding the room.
“About time. Good luck,” the sitting man said, standing up and walking right past us.
“Ugh,” the man said, plopping down in the chair, not taking out a phone, a magazine, or anything. I looked back at Britta, both of us at a loss, before we gained a little distance and were able to see inside the room. The man was sitting between two rooms, and there was enough space on each side for us to sneak up, but there was no way to open the doors without him noticing. We had to take him out.
“You do it,” I whispered as softly as I could, my mouth to Britta’s ear.
“Dormio,” she whispered, a small bolt hitting the man. He was instantly fast asleep.
Still in our Obscurio, we walked up to the door and slipped inside, the room dark with only dim orange lights illuminating small areas.
“We’re inside,” Britta whispered into a radio she pulled from her pocket.
“Good, we were getting worried. Get the evidence and then get out of there. We can’t hold these guys down forever. They already radioed once and Charlie had to act like them,” Xelia said.
I took out a camera, taking photographs of all the babies inside. They were drugged, or just asleep, but they had IVs in their arms. It was weird, seeing cute babies, but knowing that within a couple months they would be as large as small children, and beyond that, they’d be ruthless killers who would do whatever it took to make sure Kiren took over the world. How could something so sweet, and so precious, do the things they were being bred to do? Was it nature, nurture, a bit of both?
I took my pictures, showing the babies and their conditions, as well as some papers that hung from clipboards on the front of the cribs. “We should find the women they’re harvesting,” I said to Britta.
“Lexa, we don’t have time for that,” she said, wrapping up her photos.
“Won’t it help our case, to have that kind of proof? A judge would surely grant us a warrant in a snap of a finger,” I said.
“Lexa, he’ll do it with just this evidence alone. I don’t think we should rock the boat. We also need to think about the guys outside. You heard Xelia, they’re being pressed,” she said.
“Fine, you’re right. Let’s just get out of here and get the warrant,” I said, letting go of my ambition to get more. I knew she was right, though, she always was. Xelia and Charlie were having problems outside, and they were my partners. I couldn’t leave them high and dry and risk our entire operation and us being exposed just because of a hunch. The photos we had were enough.
“Obscurio,” we said, our shroud enveloping us again. The guard was still asleep as we crept out of the room, a string of drool dripping from his mouth and pooling on his black shirt. I shook my head, before we turned to go back the way we came.
Suddenly I heard footsteps ahead of us. “Why is he asleep?” one man asked another, as th
ey walked towards us.
“Lexa,” Britta whispered, panicked. They were large, both walking side by side and taking up most of the hallway that we needed to go down.
“Other way, go the other way,” I whispered hastily.
“But we don’t—”
“Britta!” I said, as softly as I could while still letting her know to move her butt before we were caught.
She obliged, both of us scurrying down the hallway towards the opposite end. There were no stairs, only another hallway that looked like it went down forever without stopping. We walked down it until we saw a window that we could get out of if we sucked it in.
“What if it triggers an alarm?” Britta asked.
“It’s either this, blow up the side of the building, or go back to the three men in the hallway that we can’t get around. I think we have to take the chance,” I said, knowing full well the risks this method carried. I didn’t see another way, though, and going back the way we came was no longer an option.
With the Obscurio still active, we slid open the rusty weathered window, trying to make sure it didn’t creak as it went up. There was a thin ledge outside. We were only two stories up. I think we were both glad we hadn’t eaten dinner and didn’t have full stomachs because I wasn’t sure tonight’s mashed potatoes would’ve made it out with us. Britta closed the window and erased any trace of our passing, as the two of us stood on the ledge, holding on to small bricks that had just enough finger room in the cracked mortar.
“Levio,” Britta said, before jumping off the side of the building.
“Britta!” I said, unable to believe my eyes. She didn’t fall to her doom, instead floating down like a feather. Her feet touched the pavement and she looked up, seeing I hadn’t committed yet.
“Lexa, come on, we have to go,” she said, taking out her radio. “We exited another way. Get out of there and rendezvous with us back at our original location.”
“Levio,” I said, before hopping off. I didn’t come down as slowly as Britta, my feet slamming the pavement, and I scraped my hand on the concrete.
“If you incant it without confidence, it won’t work as well. Come on, we have to go,” she said, picking me up, the two of us running away.
“What happened? Why didn’t you come back the way you were supposed to?” Xelia asked as we picked back up with them.
“There were too many guards inside. The hallways aren’t very wide, and we didn’t have a way to get by without them noticing us,” I said, out of breath.
“Did you get it? The evidence?” Blake asked.
“Yeah, we both got pictures of everything we could inside the baby room. I think there were more baby rooms, but this should do,” I said.
“Great, we’ll get this put together and give it to the judge as soon as possible. Let’s get out of here before we’re seen,” Xelia said.
“This mission isn’t going to be fun, nor is it going to be easy,” Mirian said, with a small crowd gathered around him. He was speaking in front of thirty or so of us, all ready for the raid on the club, with the sole purpose of getting the babies out of there. We’d told the judge we suspected they were also farming mortal women, turning them, and that was where the babies were coming from. He urged us to rescue them, and anything else illegal we found was under our jurisdiction with the warrant. “We need to cover all our bases. There are three main entrances and exits into the building. The front, the back, and one entrance on the west side of the building. We need three officers on each entrance, maybe four if we can spare it, and we need the rest of you inside searching.”
“What are we searching for, exactly?” an officer asked from the crowd.
“We have verified intelligence that the vampires running the club are kidnapping mortals, mainly women, and transforming them before impregnating them and making them give birth to vampire babies, which we all know can be very powerful and dangerous. They’re incubating both the women and babies, and we need to mount a full-scale rescue mission. Obviously we also need to take every single vampire or other being or creature inside that building into custody. The current club patrons will be in the club portion, and nobody will be allowed to enter or leave unless they’re somebody who’s currently in this room right now. Are we all clear?” Mirian asked.
“Yes,” we all said in unison. I looked around, never expecting this many officers to be a part of this mission, but I was glad they were. I knew word had to be traveling to Kiren soon, if it hadn’t already, and time was of the essence. Mirian knew that as well, which was probably why he was trying to hurry us along.
We had portals ready to take us outside the club on all sides, with officers keeping guard being teleported around the building so nobody could escape if they called out we were there. “Ready?” I asked Charlie, just before we went through the portal.
“Let’s do it, partner,” he said, running through.
I jumped through, being shot outside the rear entrance of the club where Britta and I had gone in before. Our other officers were already engaging, some of the vampires running out and trying to cause problems, while two others were in cuffs on the ground. “We need backup!” an officer said.
“Arma Maximus,” I said, waving my wand, covering him as a vampire charged him. He bounced into the barrier, falling backwards, his speed not quite matched to my spell.
“Rigormorio,” I said, freezing him in place. I thought the more powerful of the immobilization spells was necessary for fully-fledged vampires. They were powerful—Xelia had made me realize that much—and we couldn’t afford any of them breaking free and getting word out about our arrival.
“You guys go inside, we have it out here,” an officer said to Charlie and me, as well as four other officers who were with us.
The hallway was as I left it—cold, desolate, and without remorse. It looked like the type of place you went to die in a nightmare, though none of us had any desire to do that tonight. There were officers running around, shifting, throwing spells, and doing whatever they could to gain an upper hand on the vampires inside. The vampires yelled to one another about the product, instructing each other to keep us away at all costs. They knew what we were after, and they’d do whatever they could to protect it.
I started to wonder if they considered how we knew what we were coming after. Maybe they didn’t know we were aware of the babies and women’ maybe they thought we were after their drugs or whatever else illegal they had going on in here. Maybe they were panicked, thinking that we would find them out and they would get in so much more trouble than they would be in for their drug operation.
With my wand out, I walked into the fray, Charlie shifting with a cat-like hiss escaping his throat, before he ran up the stairs. I covered him, throwing bolts from my wand at any vampires who dared go near my partner. We were in perfect sync, like two souls dancing together as one. I had his back, and I knew he had mine. We were yin and yang, and our goal was just around the corner.
Charlie pinned down a vampire, another officer running up with special tungsten handcuffs that vampires couldn’t escape from. “Rigormorio!” I shouted, zapping a vampire who tried to jump above the kneeling officer.
“Thanks for that. You guys go on ahead, we have this,” the officer said, as some backup came to help him subdue the suspects.
“It’s right up here,” I said to Charlie as we neared the doorway Britta and I had gone through.
“Hey! Put them down, you’re under arrest under the authority of M.A.G.I.C.” Charlie hissed as men inside the room were packing up the babies for transport.
“We said to freeze!” I yelled, my wand pointed straight at them. They smiled for a second, before I felt myself get smacked over the back of the head. I fell down, my wand escaping my grasp and rolling a few inches away, my vision shaky and the room spinning.
All I heard was Charlie shriek, the same way a cat would, as my hand scoured the floor looking for my wand. The men ran past us, the babies in tow, as I heard things blow up o
utside. “Charlie,” I said softly.
He was whimpering, still in his jaguar form, when Britta ran in the room. “Guys! We need assistance! Two officers are down!” she yelled down the hall.
“They just ran out with the babies. Go…go after them,” I said, sitting up against the wall.
“Other officers will take care of it, Lexa. We need to get you out of here,” she said.
“No, I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving this mission so don’t even suggest it. I’ll be fine, just give me a couple minutes, please,” I said, as two officers came into the room.
“They said they aren’t leaving. I think they just got knocked down. I’ll take care of them, you two go try to secure the men who ran off with some of the babies,” Britta said.
The officers ran off the way Britta pointed, taking her order. “Why did you do that?” I asked.
“Just shut up and take it. Here, this might hurt a little. Costa Cranius,” she said, her wand pointed at my head.
“Ow! Damnit, Britta!” I yelled, the surge of the spell stinging at first before I felt the pressure in my skull relieving.
“Costa Instaurabo,” she said to Charlie, who whimpered some more before I heard his ribs crack back into their rightful places. He stood up on all fours, shaking his head.
“Thank you, Britta. You’re the best,” he said, rubbing up against her side like a house cat.
“I’m staying with you two, there’s no way I’m letting you guys run off on your own tonight. It looks like you need me,” she said, smiling, knowing we totally owed her for saving us.
“There has to be some kind of office here or something. Maybe they have something we can use,” I said, dusting myself off, before we ran out of the room.