It was time to move.
Hassan trotted ahead of him, a suppressed MP5 submachine gun held at the ready. Ava wasn't supposed to have much in the way of security, but that didn't stop Shiraz from expecting the worst. Experience had taught him that if things could go wrong during an operation, they inevitably would.
At the main door of the house, two more of Shiraz's men got to work on the lock. In seconds they had the door open. Such a better option than blowing it off its hinges, Shiraz observed. Although, they could have catered for that eventuality as well, given the backpack that Hassan wore.
Inside the foyer the house was quiet. Shiraz frowned. Shouldn't there be someone here? A butler perhaps? After all, would a woman like Ava live alone in all of this incredible space? It didn't make sense.
"Search the house," he said quietly.
"As you wish," said Hassan. He nodded at the two other men to break off and start checking rooms. Within ten minutes they were both back with nothing to report.
"Interesting," said Shiraz. "Well, let's get to work, then. Leave one of your men up here to keep watch. If anything comes down that drive, I want to know about it immediately."
"Of course," said Hassan.
Shiraz walked toward the huge chef's kitchen and found the door leading down to the basement. The carpeted stairs muffled his footsteps as he descended, his vampiric eyesight helping him see without the need for a flashlight. Deeper down, though, he would need to use one to find the secret entrance he suspected existed here somewhere.
Hassan appeared at his side. "Now what?"
"Give me a moment and let me get a feel for the place," said Shiraz. His eyes roamed over the walls, sectionals, and chairs. An enormous wide-screen television that would have looked more at home inside a movie theater hung on the wall. On the opposite side, Shiraz saw a popcorn stand and a bar. He wondered if Ava had blood on tap for herself and her guests while they watched the latest Hollywood blockbuster.
He looked at Hassan. "How long until the power comes back?"
"Thirty seconds. But are you sure we want it back on?"
Shiraz nodded. "We cut it so that we could get in and take control of the place before she had a chance to raise an alarm. But since she is not here, there's no sense not having any lights on. Plus, if she happens to come home, she'll be expecting to see lights."
"Very well," said Hassan. He spoke into his phone and almost immediately the lights came back on.
Shiraz blinked and looked at the basement in the light. He was right: Ava had had the place decorated to resemble a movie theater. Heavy curtains hung on the walls to better insulate the sound. And judging by the look of the projector mounted on a shelf coming out of the ceiling, she must have spent a good deal of money on it.
Shiraz ran his hand along the curtained walls, ruffling the heavy maroon material. Somewhere here there had to be another door.
He found it on the second time around, a vague outline that slowly revealed the shape of a thin door as he pressed in on it. "Here," he said more to himself than to Hassan.
Hassan heard him anyway, as expected. "You found it."
Shiraz nodded. "Get it open."
Hassan bent and examined the lock. "Simple." Within seconds, Shiraz heard the click. The door opened with a soft hiss of escaping air and slid back into a recessed portion of the wall. Hassan stepped back and allowed Shiraz to take a look.
The door revealed a cold concrete corridor sloping down at an angle. "It would appear this is the way we go from here."
He stepped through the doorway and glanced around. The high-quality recessed lighting of the proper basement gave way to a string of simple bulbs whose light led the way downward. He and Hassan walked in single file. The corridor broke left at a strange angle and they followed that for perhaps another twenty feet, still descending. At the end, another door--this one much older--stood in front of them.
Shiraz ran his hand over the surface, feeling the weight of the wood before him. The door had obviously been carved long ago. It could have been hundreds of years old for all he knew. But the door itself didn't matter nearly as much as what lay beyond it.
He glanced at Hassan. "What do you think?"
Hassan eyed the door and the keyhole. He shrugged. "I can pick it, but it will take time."
Shiraz glanced at his watch. Time was the one thing they did not have. If Ava came home and found them here, then they would have to deal with a huge liability. "We don't have much time."
Hassan nodded. "The other option is to breach."
"How loud will the explosion be?"
Hassan glanced around. "Down here? Hardly anything. Between the walls and the makeup of the basement above us, the noise should be pretty much muffled. You might hear a vague whomp upstairs, but even that will be negligible."
Shiraz smiled. "Excellent. Get to it, please."
Hassan removed the backpack and started assembling the door charge and placed it around the frame. When that was done, he connected the det cord to a small detonator and then turned to Shiraz. "We'll need to move back since there's no place to stack on either side of the door."
Shiraz nodded. "Very well."
Shiraz moved back to the basement door and Hassan followed, trailing out the cord that led to the charge.
Back in the home theater area, Hassan looked at Shiraz and nodded. "We're ready."
"Do it."
The blast was quick and Shiraz felt the concussive wave rush up into the basement. But most of it had been directed into the door. Hassan's skill with explosives placed him well above the level of just another demolitions man. He could penetrate a steel bunker given enough time and the right resources.
Shiraz walked back down the corridor to survey the damage. Smoke and debris littered the ground and he coughed once as he tasted the air.
But remarkably, the door still stood.
Intact.
"Hassan."
Hassan stood behind him. "What the--?" He moved forward and checked over the door. But from where Shiraz stood, he could see that the breaching charge had done no damage to the door itself. He frowned. Hassan was not the type to screw something up.
Even still, his right-hand man looked back at him with fear in his eyes, as if scared Shiraz would punish him for his failure. Shiraz waved his hand.
"It happens. Prepare another charge."
Hassan nodded and got to work. He took his time and placed significantly more explosives around the frame. When he was done, Shiraz noticed a line of sweat breaking out along Hassan's hairline.
"All set?"
Hassan faced him. "I do not know what happened the first time, but I swear this time it will blow open."
Shiraz smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. "As I said, it happens. Now let us see what your next charge will do."
They moved back to the basement and Hassan initiated the charge. This time, the boom was significantly louder and the room around them shook. More smoke clouded the hallway and Shiraz heard a shower of debris fall. He nodded to himself. This time the door was certainly destroyed.
Except, it wasn't.
And when the smoke cleared, Hassan let out an audible gasp. "It cannot be."
He started to move closer to the door, but Shiraz stayed him with a hand to his shoulder. "Wait. Let me go forward."
Hassan stood aside as Shiraz passed him.
As he approached the door, he could see that the second explosion had done nothing more to the door than the first. It was unscathed. Shiraz frowned. How could this be? Hassan was as reliable as they came with his explosives.
But this.
This was . . . unnatural.
"Magic," he breathed. The door had to be protected by something. Some arcane ritual was at work so that no one could pass without the proper authority.
That was the only possible answer.
But what sort of magic? He knew the vampire race had experts on the old rituals. Invokers could conjure the spirits of dead vampires. And ther
e were others he'd heard whispers of . . . those who could work with magic as easily as they drew a breath.
Indeed, the relic Shiraz sought was rumored to be magical. And full of the sort of power that he so desperately wanted for himself.
But he hadn't expected to run into a magical barrier keeping him from his quest.
He turned back to Hassan and shook his head. "Unless you happen to know any magic, I think we are not going to be able to retrieve anything tonight."
Hassan bowed his head. "The explosives . . . perhaps they were less potent than we required."
"It's not your fault," said Shiraz. "I underestimated this woman. I thought her impetuous enough to keep the relic hidden behind a simple door. The fault is mine alone. Now the only problem we have before us is finding out who we can get to help us through the door."
"But who?" asked Hassan. "Who can we get to help us?"
"An Enchanter," said Shiraz. "I've heard rumors of their existence. But I never thought they might be actively employed by the Council to help protect things like this."
"They won't agree to help us, though, will they?"
Shiraz smiled. "Everyone has a price. Everyone has something they are willing to die for. It's simply a matter of finding out what that something is and then using it to gain leverage over them."
"First we need to find one of these Enchanters," said Hassan. "Do you even know where to look?"
Shiraz nodded. "I would assume right here in Boston would be a safe bet. After all, if this was protected using magic, then the person who cast the spell must be nearby."
"Why so?"
Shiraz cocked his head. "From what I've heard, the spells are stronger if they are cast by someone local to the area. Something about drawing power from the geography of the environment. But then again, I am not well versed in magic. I'm much more at ease dealing with people using a gun."
"Same," said Hassan. "What do you want me to do?"
"Get the men together. We're leaving. I don't want to be anywhere around when Ava returns. She'll know someone was here."
Hassan nodded and turned to head back to the basement before he realized Shiraz wasn't following and stopped. "Are you coming?"
Shiraz waved him off. "I want another minute with the door. Go. I will catch up with you upstairs."
"Very well."
Shiraz turned back to the door and ran his hands over its surface. The wood felt solid. Old. And there, near the top, in script so small he hadn't noticed it earlier, Shiraz saw the Taluk inscriptions.
He tried reading them, but couldn't even make out what the first word was. Taluk was such an ancient language that it had a myriad of variations that no one but the Elders of the vampire society could hope to read.
Shiraz smiled. This only confirmed what he had suspected: that the relic was a truly powerful weapon in the right hands.
Shiraz's hands.
He patted the door once more. "Very soon you will give up what I seek and you will belong to me forever."
Just then the lights went out.
He frowned and turned. He'd given Hassan no such order to kill the power. Unless one of the other men had done it. The fools. He sighed and started back up the corridor toward the basement, stopping to take one final glance at the door with wistful eyes.
"Soon."
He stepped into the basement and then froze.
Something was wrong.
He drew his pistol and slid the safety off.
Blood.
His nostrils flared at the scent that tinged the air. Not close, though. Upstairs? If it had been close, the scent would be more cloying. Heavy.
Tangible.
Shiraz moved into the basement and stopped close to the stairs leading up to the kitchen. He heard the muffled pops and then a loud thud as something dropped to the floor. He resisted the urge to call out for Hassan.
He moved smoothly up the stairs, his senses primed as he brought the pistol up and then swung around the corner of the door into the kitchen.
One of the men he had left here lay on the floor, a smear of blood already staining the tile. He was dead.
Shiraz sank to his knees as he approached another doorway. He'd learned from his brothers that you never stood at normal height and looked around a corner. You always got smaller. And if you could lie down on the floor and do it, all the better. No sense risking getting your head blown off.
With one eye, Shiraz peeked around the corner.
The living room that led back to the foyer was dark. But a shape lay on the Persian carpet. And Shiraz knew that it was the other man they had brought with them.
With two of his men killed and Hassan nowhere to be seen, Shiraz wished he had known these men. They'd served him well. The least he could do was know their names.
Perhaps another time, he thought.
He slid into the living room, keeping the pistol ready to bring up if a target presented itself. He thought he heard a noise behind him and pivoted easily, raising the gun and taking aim.
He very nearly fired, too. But then froze.
No.
Not there.
They'd made the noise to make him think that was where the threat was going to come from. But no--
He pivoted again and squeezed off a single round.
And watched as it punched directly into the sternum of Hassan.
"No!"
Hassan's face showed shock as he dropped to his knees. He looked down at his chest. The wood-tipped bullet had torn his heart open and the wooden fragments in his blood were already killing him.
Hassan might well have cried out in pain.
But he couldn't.
His mouth was secured with duct tape. He stayed upright on his knees for another moment before falling forward on his face. Shiraz saw now that Hassan's hands had been bound behind his back using more of the same tape.
Shiraz blinked. What had just happened?
A small object bounced into the room directly between him and Hassan and even as Shiraz started to bring his gun up to fire again, the object exploded in a brilliant flash of light and sound.
The effect was instantaneous. Shiraz lost his eyesight and hearing. His head swam. He tried to breathe. Tried to blink. Tried to get his head right.
But to no avail.
And then he felt his weapon being fleeced away, his wrist turned back in as a painful joint lock pinned him down on the ground. His vision started to clear but even as it did, he saw a large object coming straight for his head.
It impacted with such force that Shiraz felt his teeth rattle.
And then everything went black.
"Welcome back."
Everything was still black. There was a blindfold around his eyes. He quickly took stock of himself. His head thundered from a serious bruise to his skull. He tasted copper in his mouth, which meant that he'd been bleeding. His arms were pinned behind him and he sat in some sort of chair. He couldn't move his feet, either. He guessed that he'd been immobilized with the same duct tape that they used on Hassan.
Bastards.
Shiraz frowned and resolved to kill whoever had done this.
"Would you like some water? Perhaps it will help clear out that bad taste in your mouth. After all, it can't feel very good to be where you are right now."
A woman's voice. Shiraz cleared his throat, tasting the blood and sputum, and then swallowed hard. "Who are you?"
"I'm the person who got the drop on you. And I'm the person who killed your men. Rather easily, I might add."
"How did you know we would be here?"
Laughter echoed across the room. "Do you think you are really so much a genius that a preschooler couldn't figure out what your plans would be? After Syria, it was rather obvious you'd be coming for Lawson. And for the relic."
"What do you know of the relic?"
"I know plenty. And I know that you are not going to get your hands on it. Ever."
"Big words from someone who doesn't even have the courage to l
ook me in the eye when she talks to me."
There was a pause and then without warning, the blindfold was ripped off. Shiraz blinked in the bright light that greeted him and made his head throb all the more.
A woman.
And he knew then who she was without even needing to think about it.
"Ava."
She smiled, revealing her gleaming white teeth. She was dressed from head to toe in some sort of black coverall that was taut enough to show off her curves. Shiraz estimated that she would have been somewhere around fifty to fifty-five in human years. But she looked very good for her age.
Very good, indeed.
"Why did you kill my men?"
"Because they were in the way," said Ava. "And frankly, I can't have a bunch of rogue vampires bumbling around and threatening to upset my grand plans. Can't have that at all. No chance."
"Grand plans?"
Ava bent forward and looked Shiraz in the eyes. "My plans." She leaned back and laughed lightly. "That's the problem with men. One of the problems. You always think so small. You're all shortsighted. I can imagine that you only thought it through to the point where you got your hands on the relic. It would only be later that you would think about what to do with it. And by then, you would have drawn so much heat from the Council that it would be suicide to show your face anywhere."
Shiraz frowned. "And I suppose you've thought things through?"
"Well, far more than you did," said Ava. "That's one of the benefits to being underestimated. People leave you alone. They don't ever think that you're capable of doing things, planning things. They think they can manipulate you, without ever seeing that you're the one who's been controlling their actions from the get-go. You allow them to think they've won, when in fact all they're doing is simply playing into your hands. Most people are tragically susceptible to manipulation. It's an art form, and one that I happen to be a master of. Much to the consternation of those I've destroyed over the course of my years in the service of my people."
Shiraz swallowed again. "So why keep me alive? You could easily kill me and be done with it."
Ava sighed and then pulled up another chair, settling herself on it before considering Shiraz for several moments. Then she folded her arms across her lap and pursed her lips. "Yes, well, that is the million-dollar question, isn't it? Why did I choose to keep you alive? Why on earth would I risk exposing myself like this?"
"Indeed," said Shiraz. "From a security standpoint, it might not be your wisest move. After all, I'm fairly certain you are going against the Council by doing whatever it is that you are doing."
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