by I. T. Lucas
But maybe Wendy’s mom was still alive, and he could call Roni and ask him to search the internet for her. She might have changed her name, but if they got ahold of an old picture of her, maybe they could find her using William’s face-recognition software.
Except, he had a feeling that they wouldn’t find anything because the woman was dead.
Should he share his suspicions with Wendy?
On the one hand, it would shatter any hopes she might still harbor of her mother resurfacing. But on the other hand, she would no longer think that her mother had abandoned her.
When he finally had his fangs under control, Vlad slowed down and walked up to Wendy. While he’d run in circles like a madman, she’d sat down on a boulder and waited for him.
“Sorry about that.” He crouched next to her. “I was so angry, and I needed to calm down.”
She lifted a pair of teary eyes to him. “I thought that you were disgusted with me.”
“Why the hell would I be? I was disgusted with your father, and I wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands, but my anger was never directed at you.”
When she still seemed doubtful, he took her hand and placed it over his heart. “What do you feel?”
She closed her eyes. “You are still angry, but not at me. You are also afraid.” She opened them and looked at him. “Why?”
He was afraid that his damn fangs would elongate again, but he couldn’t tell her that.
“I’m afraid for you.”
She frowned. “Why? He can’t find me. And anyway, I’m an adult now. If he gets near me, I can call the police or get a restraining order.”
“I have a bad feeling that your mother didn’t leave voluntarily. I think he killed her.”
Wendy’s eyes widened. “What makes you think that?”
“It’s a gut feeling. Someone who abuses a child is capable of murder. I’ll ask a friend of mine to investigate. You don’t happen to have her picture, do you?”
Perhaps he could also talk to Eva. Maybe the former private detective would be willing to do some digging for Wendy’s mother as well.
Wendy shook her head. “He destroyed all of them. There was nothing of her left. No albums, no home videos, nothing. He wouldn’t even tell me her name. But Director Simmons told me. Her name was Margaret.” Wendy took a deep breath. “There is one more thing that I need to tell you. Director Simmons is my uncle, my mother’s brother.” She cringed. “Do you hate me now?”
“Hate you? No, I don’t hate you. But it makes things much clearer. How come he didn’t help you when you needed him?”
“He and my mother were estranged. He didn’t know about me, and he didn’t know my mother had left my father.”
“How convenient for him. Are you sure he is really your uncle? Maybe he just said he was so you would come with him?”
Wendy frowned. “Maybe he did that so my father would let me go. But with half my pay going to him, he would have allowed it anyway. Besides, I’m an adult. I didn’t need his permission.”
“Did your father know about him?”
“No.”
“So, you have no way of knowing whether he told you the truth.”
Wendy closed her eyes. “Yes, I do. He lusted after me, I could feel it, but he never made a move because I was his niece.” She shivered. “He’s old enough to be my grandfather, and getting that vibe from him grossed me out. He’s a disgusting man to have such thoughts about someone my age and even more so a relative. And he’s married.”
Vlad gaped at her. “And you wanted to go back to that?”
Wendy shrugged. “As I said, he never made a move, and improper thoughts are not a crime.” Her tone was far from convincing. “He offered me a safe haven and a future that I couldn’t even dream of before.”
“Do you still want to go back?”
She shook her head. “No, I really don’t. I want the bright future that you, Jin, and Vanessa dangled in front of me.” She lifted her eyes to him. “Am I making a mistake?”
“You are not.” Vlad wrapped his arms around Wendy, lifted her off the boulder, and sat on the ground with her on his lap. “You’ve just made the best decision of your life.” He dipped his head and kissed her.
61
Kalugal
“Aren’t we late?” Jacki stepped out of the car and adjusted her wig.
“Kian told us yesterday that today the summit will start at ten, remember?”
“That’s right. I forgot.”
He took her hand. “Which was good since I had things that I needed to do this morning.”
She smiled. “Stock market?”
“Among other things.”
The market had been volatile lately, but Kalugal knew how to navigate his investments even without the help of insider information. After so many years, he could feel the market’s ebb and tide in his bones, and making money had become nearly effortless. It didn’t matter if the trend was down or up, there were always opportunities to make money.
He opened the door to the conference room and motioned for Jacki to go ahead.
“Good morning, everyone.” She took the chair Lokan pulled out for her.
For some reason, Kian had a big grin on his face when Kalugal opened the door, but it turned into a frown when he saw Jacki.
What was the deal with that?
Then when Kian and Turner exchanged glances, Kalugal knew for sure that something was going on.
“Syssi was hoping that you would come up to the suite,” Kian told Jacki.
“We need Jacki here.” Kalugal pulled out a chair for himself. “I want to finalize the plan today, and we can do that faster with her here. She can supply details that we might otherwise overlook.”
Turner nodded. “I agree.”
“It’s probably a good idea,” Kian conceded. “But before we begin, I want to thank Kalugal for being a good sport and showing his goodwill time and again.”
Finally, his cousin was starting to show appreciation for all the concessions he’d been making.
“I’m glad you noticed.”
“I have, and it was also pointed out to me by several people.” Kian pulled the cuff out of his pocket. “That’s why I suggest that you put it on and then all of us will remove our earpieces. I think that’s good enough as a safety measure. Besides, I’m sick of hearing the damn computer voice in my ears instead of all of your voices.”
That wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. And anyway, Kalugal would have had to put it on later to escort Jacki to see her friends. “Very well.” He reached for the cuff, put it on his wrist, and snapped it closed. “Proceed.”
Kian pulled out his earpieces. “That’s much better.” He shook his head as if he was trying to pop his ears.
Then his and Lokan’s bodyguards did the same.
Turner and Lokan hadn’t had any to start with.
“Thank you.” Kalugal dipped his head. “This signals a new stage in our relationship. I’m glad that you are finally willing to trust me.” Not really, he still had the damn cuff on his wrist, but it was all part of the dance he and Kian were doing.
“To an extent,” Kian said.
“Shouldn’t we drink to that?” Anandur asked.
“Maybe later.” Kian poured water into his glass instead of whiskey. “It’s already late in the day, and I want to get down to business.”
“I concur.” Kalugal reached for the pitcher and poured water into his and Jacki’s glasses.
Kian waited until he was done. “We ended our last meeting talking about infecting the program’s computers with a virus. I talked with my hacker last night, and he has an idea. He can design the bug, but instead of launching it himself, he can have a hacker from another country do it. He likes the idea of sending it from China. To make sure that our involvement is not discovered, you will compel that hacker remotely into silence.”
“I can do that,” Lokan said.
“I know.” Kian cast him an apologetic smile. “But your brother is more p
owerful, and in this case, I would like to use the best weapon I have for the task.”
“How soon can this be done?” Kalugal asked.
“It will take months to develop a bug that will corrupt only the data pertinent to us. As I said before, I don’t want to cause damage that might weaken this wonderful country we live in. I’m very fond of the United States of America, and I want it to continue to thrive.”
“We don’t have months,” Kalugal said. “We need to get the trainees out now.”
“What’s the rush?” Turner asked. “Everyone is busy with the damn virus. No one is searching for immortals.”
“Which makes it the perfect time to strike.” Kalugal tapped his fingers on the conference table. “Perhaps we could tamper with the power? Cause a blackout? The bio scanners need electricity to work. And since everything is controlled by computers, we can use your Chinese hacker idea to take the power down. That’s a very specific system, and it will not affect anything else. I need one hour tops to get the trainees out.”
Kian regarded him with a smile curving his lips. “Maybe we don’t need to take the power out. We can bring our secret weapon. Sylvia.”
“Who is Sylvia? Or rather what can she do?” Kalugal asked.
“Sylvia has a unique talent. She can cause electronic equipment to malfunction.”
“Is she a Guardian?”
“Sylvia is a civilian, but she helped us on missions before. I’m not sure she can handle something as sophisticated as bio scanners, though. We will have to run some tests first.”
The clan seemed to have an assortment of talented people, and Kalugal wondered whether immortals with interesting special abilities like that had been born to the Brotherhood since he had left.
Lokan should know.
He turned to his brother. “Does Navuh have anyone like Sylvia?”
Lokan shook his head. “I think our father’s discrimination against females is biting him in the ass. It seems to me that the clan’s females lead in the special talent department.”
62
Jacki
Jacki stifled the urge to pump her fist in the air. As the only female in this group of all males, she felt it was her job to represent her entire gender and show the guys that they were not the only ones who could come up with strategy plans.
“I think that it would be best to utilize an old-fashioned power outage and Sylvia’s talent.” With all eyes on her, Jacki felt a little uneasy. “The complex has backup in case the main generator goes out, and we will have to take out both. But there is a chance that the bio scanners and surveillance cameras also have battery backup, and if that’s the case, we will need Sylvia to do her thing.”
“Good thinking,” Kian said. “I can have Roni start working on infecting the power generation software and redirect it through a hacker in a foreign country.”
“Once the power is down, I will go in shrouded as either Simmons or Roberts or even the recruiter,” Kalugal said. “Do you have pictures of her?”
Kian chuckled. “We do, but you are too tall to pull it off.”
“Why? Is she short?”
“No, but she is at least four inches shorter than you, and when you talk, your voice will seem to originate from the top of your head.”
Kalugal glanced at Jacki. “How tall is Simmons?”
“About Marisol’s height.”
“Roberts?”
“Even shorter.”
Kalugal shrugged. “I’ll just have to slouch.”
“This is not the right time to do it,” Turner said. “I bet the entire base is quarantined because of the virus, and there is limited traffic going in or out. They have many projects going on in there that they don’t want to get interrupted because people are getting sick.”
“Is there a way to check?” Jacki asked.
“I can make a few phone calls to old friends who are still part of the system and ask them how things are going.” Turner scribbled something on his yellow pad.
“Do you have someone you know in that facility?” Kian asked.
“No, but the military is pragmatic and systematic. A decision is made, and the same procedures are implemented across the board.”
“Simmons and Roberts are old,” Jacki said. “And they are not actually part of the military. They might have gone home to ride this thing out.”
“We need to check that.” Turner scribbled another note. “If they are, it would make things easier. It wouldn’t look suspicious if one of them decided to show up for work.”
It suddenly occurred to Jacki that they were overcomplicating things and that there might be a much simpler solution.
“I have an idea.” She looked at Kalugal. “But it will have to wait for after this freaking virus is over. We can get to Roberts when he’s at home, you can compel him to tell us when and where the next trainee outing is going to be, and then you can thrall him to forget that he told anyone about it.”
“What if the outings were canceled after your escape?” Kian asked.
“I’m sure they are not going to keep the trainees cooped up in the facility indefinitely. Both Simmons and Roberts kept talking about how important the outings were for morale, and they were right. Without those mall excursions, we would have felt like prisoners. The outings gave us an illusion of normalcy.”
“Are you sure that Roberts is not immune?” Turner asked.
“He never said that he was, but he never subjected himself to our talents either. But if he is immune, you can torture the information out of him and then use the same drugs you used on Marisol to make him forget.”
“I like it,” Kian said. “Good thinking, Jacki.”
Under the table, Kalugal took her hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. “I don’t like to wait, but it seems like Jacki’s idea is the least complicated and therefore has the most chance of success.”
“True,” Turner said. “But I thought that your main objective was to shut the program down. I’m not sure that stealing the trainees will be enough. We need to get rid of Simmons and Roberts. That should buy us enough time to work on the virus.”
Jacki cringed. “Kian said that no one is getting offed.”
Kalugal lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. “I can compel Roberts to give Simmons a one-way ride to hell. That doesn’t count as offing.”
“Do you mean, have him drive off a cliff?”
“Something to that effect, yes.”
“It’s still murder.”
“Let’s solve one problem at a time,” Kian interjected. “Perhaps stealing the trainees will be enough to get those two fired or retired.”
63
Kian
Kian raked his fingers through his hair. “When I originally decided against taking the other trainees, I had good reasons for it, and not much has changed since then. Some might not be happy about losing the income, and we would have to take them against their will, and some are minors who need to be returned to their families. The only justification for doing it is the potential threat they pose to our secret existence, and I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason.”
“What about the compulsion and the breeding program?” Jacki asked. “That’s immoral, and I doubt any of them would have signed up for it if they knew. Once we tell them about it, they will be happy we rescued them.”
“I hope so.”
“It’s not much different from rescuing victims of trafficking,” Anandur said. “Some of the victims are terrified of us when we get them out, and we often need to thrall them to calm down before we can transport them to the sanctuary. The traffickers manipulate the victims, threatening that if they don’t cooperate, their families will pay the price. Then they promise them that a portion of the money they will earn from prostitution will be sent to support their loved ones. Because of that, some of the victims are not happy about getting rescued, but we do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.”
Jacki nodded. “I agree with Anandur. The trainees
are just promised good pay, and they are compelled to believe that they are hooking up with their classmates out of their own free will.”
Kian had had the same thoughts, but doubt had chipped away at his conviction. He was well aware of his tendency to think with his heart first and his brain second, and to get all riled up over what he believed was unjust and unfair. Usually, Turner was the voice of reason who put things in proper perspective, but it was good to hear the same sentiment from Jacki, who’d been part of the program, and from Anandur, who’d made a valid argument that the program was nearly as morally abhorrent as trafficking.
“Then it’s settled. We are doing it the way Jacki suggested, and if that doesn’t work for some reason, we will use the power outage as plan B. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the trainees once we get them out.”
“What did you do with the other two you picked up?” Kalugal asked.
“We're keeping them at a secret location with Guardians to watch over them. We introduced a fine young man to Wendy, and if he decides that she is the one for him, he will tell her about her potential dormancy, and they’ll take it from there. Richard is also a work in progress. We are still trying to match him with someone.”
“Poor Richard,” Jacki said. “He’s not that bad. I don’t know why he’s so unlucky in love.”
Kalugal smiled at her lovingly. “He just hasn’t met the right female yet.” He turned to Kian. “If he and the girl are not immune, you should’ve brought them into your community and exposed them to more of your people. The Fates you believe in will have a much easier job matching them with the right person.”
“I didn’t do that because I suspected one or more might be a mole, and I was right.”
“And yet you are giving the girl a second chance. How come?”
Kalugal seemed genuinely puzzled rather than critical of Kian’s decision.
“Potential Dormants are not easy to come by, and I didn’t want to lose Wendy if there was a chance of redemption for her. The clan’s therapist convinced me that there was. Wendy is only nineteen, and her betrayal was fueled by fear, but that doesn’t mean that I’m a hundred percent sure that I made the right decision. It might still bite me in the ass even if she turns. In fact, she would be more dangerous to us then. While she’s still human, we can thrall her to forget about us, or have Lokan compel her if too much time has elapsed. Once she turns immortal, she will become immune to thralling.”