The Chronicles of the Immortal Council: The complete 10-book collection

by D C Young

  The operation had instantly gotten bigger than I could manage. It had gone from a kitten pouncing a moth to a pride of lionesses bringing down an elephant.

  “We’re doing the right thing Sam, or at least, we will be once we figure out where we’re going to hit.”

  “Yeah, well...”

  “We’re going to rescue a girl… In fact, Jesus knows how many girls and probably a ton of boys too. Even children like Analisa.”

  The moment he brought up the child’s name, it dawned on me that what happened with Analisa likely had no connection to what happened to Jasmine and Taylor, apart from the involvement of Oscar Valencia and William… I felt my gut turn over as I thought of William and what I had happened to him.

  Not now, Sam, I told myself, forcing the thought out of my mind.

  “This doesn’t really connect to Analisa, Sledge,” I said in a quiet tone, understanding that he had a much more personal stake in what we were doing than I did.

  Sledge stood up and started toward the door. He growled as he went. “It connects.”

  I followed him to the door. “Where you going?”

  “I gotta lot of bikers to rally. As soon as you hear from your friends, you meet us at the Golden Bear parking lot.”

  I stood in silence as I watched the massive biker with the big red patch and white fist on the back of his leather jacket lumbering toward his Harley.

  “We hit ‘em hard enough and the whole damned thing will crumble,” he announced, right before the deep-throated rumble of the bike accented his words.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Took you long enough,” Sledge growled.

  “Yeah,” I grinned. “I almost didn’t make it at all.”

  It was the truth. After Veronica and Bjorn showed up to let me know of three places where it was possible Aaron Coventry, or someone connected to him, was keeping Taylor, it was clear our intel wasn’t good enough.

  There was no guarantee which of those spots would have any legitimate tie to Aaron. There was no way of knowing, for sure, that we would do anything but ruin the lives of a whole bunch of people while they snatched Taylor and other abducted children away into a deeper cover where we couldn’t reach, or even… I pushed the next thought out of my mind, but it was the final motivation to make me go and join the gathering of bikers at the parking lot of Golden Bear as the sun was breaking over the horizon. We had our chance and we had to take it while our quarry was exposed.

  “I might not be a psychic or a vampire or any other kind of paranormal,” Sledge rumbled. “But we’re going to nail these bastards, Sam, the old fashioned way. We’re going to take them down hard and the whole ring is going to crumble. And all I’ve got to go on is the feeling in my gut.”

  “Let’s hope your gut is right,” I said, pushing aside my doubts and taking out my “tactical map,” which was nothing more than several pages from a street guide to L.A. and the metro area that I’d marked off with a pink highlighter. I started to point out the locations and talk about what we expected to find at each one. I was making quite a bit of it up, but I sure hoped it was correct.

  “We’ve secured a warrant for all of Aaron Coventry’s known properties and those of known associates,” one of the men looking over my shoulder commented. “We’re going to let you and BACA take the lead on these three, but we’re going to be right there with you and working the other angles at the same time.”

  I stared at the man for several, long seconds as I attempted to process what he had just said.

  “This is Lieutenant Carter from the LAPD,” Sledge growled. “He’s one of my contacts.”

  “How did you get warrants based on what little bit of bad evidence we have?”

  “You’re not the only one who has suspicions about Aaron Coventry, ma’am. Not long after Sledge alerted us to what you were looking into, we got a call from a federal, district judge issuing the warrants. It seems that someone with quite a bit of clout wanted us to take a good long look into Aaron Coventry and those associated with him.”

  Julia Agrippina. This just got really real, Sam. You had better be right about this, because you’re going to pay big time if you’re wrong. I let out a deep breath as I worked at regaining my composure.

  “Okay, Lieutenant. I hope I didn’t stick my neck out too far on this one.”

  “Goes with the territory, ma’am, but where there’s smoke there’s fire, right?”

  I didn’t respond to the question. We were going to do this and I needed to get things focused. “How many guys you got, Sledge?”

  “Ninety.”

  “I thought you said fifty.”

  “Yeah, well, who can ever predict what bikers will do? We’re sort of an independent thinking species.”

  “Species?” I laughed.

  Sledge shrugged. “How you want to break this up, boss?”

  “Break up into three groups, I guess, I want to go with the group that goes to Gold Coast Industries, but…” I paused a minute, because I wasn’t sure how to direct what was going to take place at each of the three locations. “I don’t know how we want this to go down yet.”

  “Sam,” Sledge chuckled. “This isn’t our first rodeo, we know how to do this. It’s about exposure and attention, and creating a distraction while the authorities bust in and do the dirty work behind the scenes.”

  “It’s like turning on the light and moving the refrigerator,” Lieutenant Carter broke in. “The cockroaches start scurrying around and that’s when they get stupid. We come in and squish them.”

  “Alright.” Sledge started to call out orders. “Rat, you take a group and hit here at this pretty, pink circle. Flathead, you take a group and hit this lovely, pink square. My group will go with Sam and Carter to do what we do at this gorgeous, pink triangle.”

  I blushed a little as I listened to Sledge’s comments about my choice of color and my coding by shape, but watched as he and Lieutenant Carter started to take over and move their respective commands into place.

  “You ready, Sam?” he asked.

  “I want to go in with the raiding team,” I replied.

  “Way ahead of you, Sam,” Sledge grinned. That was twice in less than 24 hours. “We’re not going with the bikers.”

  “But I thought…”

  What I intended to say before close to a hundred Harley’s started to rumble to life in succession, drowning out all sound, was that I thought Sledge never went anywhere without his bike, but I decided it really didn’t matter.

  I began to feel a sense of strength, power and solidarity as the rumbling continued all over the parking lot and bikes began to accelerate to pull away. I was beginning to believe what Sledge had said about hitting them hard enough so that the whole thing crumbled. I was being escorted into the black SUV along with Sledge and Lieutenant Carter while the BACA motorcycle club was moving out. Once inside with the doors closed and the bikes rumbling away, I worked at focusing myself.

  What if it was Tammy?

  I drew all of the force within me into that question. I knew I’d walk through hell kicking over the devil’s furniture to rescue Tammy, even if she wasn’t there. We had a shot at taking down a child abduction ring. Whether we were successful or not, they were going to be exposed and people were going to pay better attention to what their children were getting into.

  “Let’s do this!”

  Chapter Twenty

  I carefully followed the orders the tactical, strike team gave me and stayed back in the pack as we infiltrated the building. In reality, I was able to do a crap load more than any one of them with their assault rifles, but to do that, I’d have to expose myself. Continuing as an undercover vampire was still too important to let any of that slip.

  Sledge and I were briefed in the SUV. LAPD had used aging software to recreate what Taylor would look like at age 18 from photos that were taken when she was 8. We were assured that their model was more than 95% accurate and we would recognize her the moment we saw her. She would be a k
ey in proving Aaron’s connection to the abduction and trafficking ring, so we really needed to get our hands on her. I hoped their technology was as good as their bragging about it was. I also hoped we were arriving in time to save her from what was surely about to happen.

  Initially, it appeared we were raiding a legitimate warehouse and my doubts, as well as instant regret concerning the slender little neck I’d stuck, began to descend over me. But a call from one corner of it revealed a secret door, leading into an extravagant living area. All who were inside the facility, children and adults included were wide eyed and obviously terrified by the arrival of the LAPD assault team suddenly interrupting their lives.

  Though it was far from over, I breathed a sigh of relief in the knowledge that I had, at least, been right about what Aaron Coventry had been up to. I moved up to the nearest little girl I could find and tried to calm myself and squatted beside her as I spoke to her.

  “Are you okay, sweetheart?” I smiled.

  “I’m scared. What’s going on? Why are there men with guns?”

  I suddenly realized how things looked from her perspective. There were no bad guys among them, well, maybe a staff member or two who was in charge and told to keep watch over whatever happened. But ultimately, nobody was going to come out with guns blazing and the assault team had really outlived its usefulness.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart, they thought some bad guys came in here. They won’t hurt anyone, they’re good guys.”

  “They’re like the SWAT team in an action movie, right?” the little girl beamed.

  “Yeah. Sure, just like in a movie,” I nodded, stood and looked toward Lieutenant Carter. “Can we get these guys to stand down?”

  “Let them sweep the area first,” he said. “We don’t need any surprises.”

  “It not likely there’s any threats here,” I protested.

  “You don’t know that, ma’am. It’s procedure. Better safe than sorry. I’ll pull them the second we’ve secured the place,” he responded.

  An idea suddenly popped into my head, thanks to the little girl.

  “Just let me know whenever you’re about to call them off, okay? I want to do it.”

  A grin spread over his face as he tried to figure out why I’d made the request. “Whatever turns you on, ma’am.”

  A few moments later, the last of the team had returned and reported to the Lieutenant.

  “You can go ahead and call them off now, ma’am,” Carter grinned.

  “Cut!” I called out. “And that’s a wrap! Good job, people. Very realistic! Very good job. What do you think, huh? Just like a real SWAT team, right.”

  There was a momentary pause as the notion that it had all been a show hit them and then everyone in the living area started clapping and cheering.

  “What the hell?” Carter asked in a hushed voice.

  “They were terrified, Lieutenant,” I replied softly. “I had to make it seem normal and unfortunately, Hollywood and the movies is what they know as normal.”

  “Ah, okay, I gotcha.” He turned and started barking out orders. “Assault team move on to our next objective. Get the investiga… Get the survey crew in here. Let’s get the reaction of these people.”

  I winked at Carter as he led his team out of the room and I turned back to the little girl. “What’s your name?”

  “Lindsey,” the little girl beamed.

  “Lindsey, I’m Sam. There’s a friend of mine staying at the school. Her name is Taylor, do you know her?”

  “I don’t know anyone named Taylor,” she replied.

  I stood up and let out a long sigh.

  “What’s up?” Sledge asked moving up beside me.

  “She’s never heard of someone named Taylor. Maybe we’ve come to the wrong place. Maybe they have another…”

  “Sam,” he muttered. “They probably changed her name.”

  “Of course!” I said. I scrambled for my cell phone and pulled up the photo of the aged Taylor we’d downloaded in the SUV. “I hope this works.”

  “That sort of looks like a girl here. Yeah, that’s her, I think.” She turned to another little girl nearby. “Danielle, come look at this picture.”

  Danielle shouldered her way in next to Lindsey. “Hey, that looks like Stacy.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Lindsey agreed. “Well, mostly, Stacy is prettier than that, but her eyes are the same.”

  “Is she here?” I asked.

  “She was, but someone came and got her,” Lindsey announced.

  My heart sank. We were too late. She was already out there somewhere ‘practicing for auditions’.

  “I think they said that she was going to spend the weekend with her parents,” Danielle volunteered.

  “Her parents?” I asked. My mind instantly jumped to Caroline and Taz, but then what Jasmine had told us about having parents assigned to them came into my head. Sledge was a step ahead of me.

  “Who are her parents?”

  “Duh? Everybody knows her parents,” Lindsey laughed. “She’s Stacy Sullivan, her dad is…”

  “Sean Sullivan,” I said aloud. He was a very well known star with plenty of clout and one of the names on my list. She wasn’t ‘auditioning’, which was a relief, but if we didn’t act fast, she would certainly disappear from our grasp. “Rennie!”

  “What?” Sledge asked as he watched me whip out my cell phone and press the speed dial for Rennie Telfair.

  “Where are you?” I asked the moment I heard his voice.

  “I’m in Beverly Hills, darling,” he responded. “I’m hanging out with Jasmine and another mutual friend of ours…”

  “Rennie, Taylor is at Sean Sullivan’s mansion. Can you and Jasmine get over there and keep her busy until we can get there?”

  “Sean Sullivan? Why, he’s the guy who starred in…”

  “Rennie, you gotta move. Can Jasmine get you guys in to see her?”

  “Let me ask her…”

  The wait while Rennie spoke in the background nearly gave me heart failure. I was ecstatic when Jasmine’s voice came over the phone.

  “Jazzy,” I said. “Taylor is spending the weekend with her parents, Sean Sullivan and his wife.”

  “Sean Sullivan is Taylor’s…” She didn’t complete the question as realization hit her. “Not a problem. We’ll get over there right now.”

  “Thank you, Jazzy,” I said, disconnecting the call. I turned to Sledge. “We gotta get out of here, where’s Carter?”

  “Outside. Where we going?”

  “Beverly Hills,” I called over my shoulder as I hurried out into the warehouse.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “So, in the end, it all worked out fine,” Julia smiled.

  I’d been invited to Elysium House to speak to her, not long after I’d helped reunite Taylor with Caroline, Taz and Jackson. Rennie and Jasmine had gotten to Sean Sullivan’s mansion and kept the star, his wife, their staff and Stacy/Taylor busy until Sledge, Carter and I could get there. Rennie and Jasmine had played it off so well that the Sullivan family was quite “startled” to see us. What came after that was an extremely difficult scene to watch.

  “I don’t know what I would have done if we hadn’t had Jasmine there to help us,” I said as I finished up my brief with Julia. “It would have been impossible without her help, however, by the time we got to her, ten years if brainwashing had Taylor truly believing that she was Stacy Sullivan. She had little to no recognition or memory of her brother or her parents and she caused quite a scene as she was being torn away from Sean Sullivan and his wife.”

  “Oh my,” Julia gasped, placing her hand on her chest. “How tragic.”

  “Jasmine promised to help her understand and make the transition. Of course, that’s about the time that Allison showed up.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

  “After hearing Rennie’s account of your interview with Jasmine, I anticipated that there was going to be a transitio
nal problem. Allison and another fine couple, with whom the two of us, and also Taylor, are acquainted, graciously agreed to help with this transition.”

  “There are going to be a lot of other transitions to be made,” I replied in a melancholy tone.

  “Yes, there are,” Julia said, reassuring me. “But they are already in progress thanks to you.”

  There was a long pause. It was during that pause that I considered the fact that I had probably gone way beyond my scope of authority when I involved Bjorn and Veronica without first speaking with Julia. That was likely the main reason I had been invited to see her. I voiced my concerns with a single word. “But…”

  “Yes, Samantha, there is a but.” Her face became stern. “Though I understand that you were working on time sensitive material at the end and acted on instinct, very good instinct at that, we all would have been better served if you had let us know a little bit more about what was going on, say… prior to your interview with William Forrester?”

  The moment she mentioned the name, my heart sunk. I’d tried to push what had happened with William Forrester out of my head; unsuccessfully. I’d had no one to talk to about it and no one to confide in. I really needed to let it off my chest and attempt to get rid of the burden of guilt I felt. I decided that there really was no one who might give me sounder advice than the woman who was sitting in front of me. It would also be a chance to transform the castigating I was about to receive into a counseling session.

  “I don’t know how to deal with what I brought on William Forrester. It happened so suddenly, that’s not who I am. I don’t purposely;y put people in harm’s way. That’s not what I do. There was no way for me to know that Veronica would have done what she did.”

  “That’s exactly it, Samantha. I could have told you. Veronica, thought she is an excellent combatant, is a renegade and a vicious vampire. What she did to William Forrester is exactly who she is. It might not be who you want to be or be involved in, but when you call on certain resources, there will always be blow-back. I would suggest that as long as you are working as an investigating agent, it would be better that you don’t provoke that behavior in your associates. Choose more wisely next time and consult with me first. Luckily, you were in a remote location and it is likely that William Forrester’s disappearance will go unnoticed; it practically already has.”