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

by D C Young

  Chapter Sixteen

  The four of us slipped back into the shadows on either side of the door. I could hear the sound of feet padding forward in the street outside the warehouse. Things were about to get “extremely real,” as Tammy or Anthony might have said.

  Priority one is to protect those kids, I told the others.

  That would mean no stray bullets, Bjorn pointed out.

  Then we can’t wait for them to come inside. We have to take them down outside.

  You’re going to ruin that low profile, Sam.

  Yeah. That’s the breaks I guess.

  The first pair of gunmen had moved up on either side of the door and were peeping around carefully and quietly through the opening when Bjorn and I attacked. Our movements were little more than a flash as we kicked their guns out of their hands and then sent them sprawling with a second kick. Veronica sprinted forward through the door and ran straight up the wall of the warehouse across the street. Her action drew all eyes and all of the assault rifles in her direction, though none of them had a chance to fire at her before she disappeared.

  By the time they turned their attention back to Bjorn and I, we were already working our way along the line of their scrawny assault team kicking guns out of hands and driving heads down into the concrete drive. Veronica reappeared a few seconds later and took out the two gunmen who hung back on the right to watch the assault team’s backside while Bjorn finished off his line and was moving in on the two backups on the left. It was all over with in only a few seconds and the assault team was laid out flat with their guns scattered.

  “Let’s gather up the guns and make a pile over there, inside the warehouse door,” I ordered. “Veronica and Bjorn, let’s gather these guys up and find something to tie them with and then line them up against that wall over there.”

  Veronica and Bjorn moved out to do as I’d directed and I turned to Allison.

  “Allison, start trying to figure out where these kids come from and how to get them home. Don’t let them out yet,” I said. “Keeping them separated like they are will help Carter and his team to process them easier.”

  As Veronica and Bjorn lined the unconscious and barely conscious men against the wall, I started lifting their heads, not too gently, mind you, and checking them out. I wanted to see if Justine’s abductor was among them.

  Mom? What happened? Tammy’s voice cut in.

  We’re fine. Not even a scratch, I responded. I could use your help though.

  Sure, what you need?

  First, tell Sledge we’re fine. No good guys are hurt and we’ve got the bad guys tied and lined up against the wall for Carter.

  There was a pause while Tammy relayed my message.

  He says that was pretty damned quick. You’re sure you’re okay. I’ll be better once I find the bastard who kidnapped Justine. Can you identify him if I can get you connected… I started to ask.

  My cell phone rang, interrupting me.

  “Duh! Mom,” Tammy’s voice said over the phone. “You can just send me pictures.”

  She was right, of course. I went along the line of men taking pictures of each one. After I had sent her about six pictures, she sent me a text message which read, that’s the guy.

  As I’d taken the picture, I’d thought that he was probably the one, after all, I’d hear his description repeated twice, but I wanted solid proof.

  I pulled his head up toward me and looked into his half focused eyes.

  “You the one that kidnapped Justine Edwards?”

  “Who’s Justine Edwards?” he asked.

  “Daughter of Senator Edwards, you took her from Corona Del Mar Prep?”

  A quick smile crossed his face before he attempted to tell me no.

  I kicked him in the face, hearing his jaw snap as his head slumped forward on his chest.

  Cavalry is here, Allison’s voice said inside my head.

  “Veronica and Bjorn, you better scram,” I said. “Thanks again, guys.”

  “No problem,” they answered before vanishing.

  When Carter and his team came creeping down the drive between the warehouses, I was the only one in sight.

  “My friend Allison is in there with the children,” I said, pointing into the open door of the warehouse.

  “Jesus, Sam,” Lt. Carter said as he approached. “What the hell did you get yourself into?”

  “I got into another child trafficking ring or something, is my guess.”

  He turned and gave orders to his team. “Set a perimeter. The lady inside is a friendly. There are kids, so somebody get a hold of social services to come help us process this.”

  He turned back around and joined a couple of his men who were examining the men lined up against the wall.

  “Did you do this?” he asked. Confusion was all over his face as he studied me.

  “Mostly, they gave up willingly,” I replied. “I had to hit a couple of them.”

  “You hit several of them pretty damned hard,” he said.

  He continued examining the men until he came to the unconscious man I’d just kicked before he arrived. “You hit this one really hard. He’s still unconscious and it looks like you broke his jaw.”

  “That one, I had to kick. I think he’s the ringleader.”

  He studied me really hard for a few long seconds.

  “Where’d you learn to hit and kick like that?”

  “I’ve been taking some self-defense classes,” I responded. You blew it, Sam. You’ll have everyone suspicious about you and you’ll never get another case. Wait a sec… I inserted a mental suggestion into Lt. Carter’s head as one of his men moved up to examine the man I’d kicked.

  “Dammit, Reeves!” he bellowed. “You can’t go hitting the perps like that! You’re going on report! Now move back to the squad, unload your weapon and disarm!”

  Reeves whirled around to defend himself. “I didn’t hi…”

  Another mental suggestion was delivered.

  “I’m sorry, sir, yes sir.”

  I’ll fix that before we leave, I told myself. I didn’t want Reeves to take a false rap on my behalf.

  That was just wrong, Sam, Allison commented inside my mind.

  Yeah, well, did you have a better idea?

  Come to think of it, no.

  Well, then, how about that was great, Sam, you’re a genius, Sam.

  Fine. That was a great idea, Sam.

  “We count thirty kids in there, LT,” one of his team reported as he came up to us.

  “Thirty kids? From where?” Carter asked.

  “From all over, LT,” he replied. “The lady in there, Allison, has been talking to them and getting their information. Williams is writing it all down.”

  “What the hell is this all about?” Carter asked. I could see that he was more than a bit flustered. “Avery! See if you can find someone in that lineup who is willing to talk.”

  “What about Miranda, LT?”

  “Yeah. Do that first and then see if they want to talk.”

  Not surprisingly, nobody in the lineup wanted to talk without being able to cut some sort of deal with the DA.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I was sitting at my kitchen table with Sledge several hours after the take down. The kids had gone straight to bed after a very long day at the lake. I had put on a pot of coffee for Sledge and we were waiting for the nondescript black car of Benson’s to pull up in the street out front. When it did, I was hopeful that he would be able to give us some clue of what the abduction ring had been about. I met him at the door and ushered him into the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee and sitting it in front of him.

  There were plenty of unanswered questions in the case, but I was eager to hear the answers to the ones that Benson was going to be able to provide. He took a long sip of his coffee, sighed, and then started his report.

  “What you’ve accomplished,” he began. “Is the taking down of a multi-billion dollar child abduction ring. This ring has been abducting chi
ldren, demanding ransom, and in 99 percent of their attempts has been successful in collecting it. They’ve played it smart, if you could say such a thing about a bunch like this, and have focused on quantity rather than quality. By that, I mean that they have abducted lots of children and have asked for small ransom amounts which have been eagerly paid, sometimes without law enforcement ever being contacted.

  “The ransom is paid, the children are returned to their parents and the deal is done. They’ve turned it into something like the old Montgomery Ward catalog business. They’ve been extremely selective with their targets, have been very slick when it comes to snatching their targets, and they’ve been getting away with it for quite some time. They haven’t limited themselves to the local area, other than, warehousing the children here, for lack of a better term. That has added to their ability to remain pretty well invisible up until now.”

  He stopped, took another long sip of coffee and studied me for a moment.

  “I don’t know what you did, Miss Moon, but you did one hell of a job. My people have been closing out cases all night.”

  “Allison and I just followed leads and they led us to the warehouse, Lt. Carter did the rest,” I replied. Several well constructed mental suggestions had helped Lt. Carter in filling out his official reports, which listed Allison and I as providing anonymous tips.

  “What about Justine’s case?” I asked. “Do we know who paid her ransom?”

  “We haven’t gotten anyone to talk about that case, but believe me, we have plenty of pressure to find out who it was. You got any ideas?”

  I had plenty of ideas, but sharing them would have required that I reveal some things about myself and Allison that I didn’t want Benson to know about. I shook my head slowly.

  He shrugged and reached for the coffee mug again. As he took another long sip from it, his cell phone started ringing. He flipped it open. I could hardly believe that he was using a flip phone. Nobody had used a flip phone in the most recent decade.

  “Benson,” he grumbled. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll be right there.”

  He disconnected the call, replaced his phone in the holster on his belt, and chugged down the rest of the coffee as he stood up from the chair.

  “I gotta get back to the office,” he said. “Hell of a job, Miss Moon.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’d shake your hand, but you don’t go for that sort of thing I’m told.” He glanced at Sledge.

  “No, I don’t, thank you.”

  “I’ve never been that fond of it myself.” He nodded, allowing part of a smile to break over the corner of his mouth. “Damn good job and thank you. You’ve damned sure earned that bonus.”

  “Bonus?”

  “Sledge,” he said. “You fill her in. I gotta get going.”

  “Bonus?” I asked as I came back into the kitchen after showing Benson out.

  “I meant to bring that up,” he growled, allowing a rare grin to spread over his face.

  “We’ve been sitting here for two hours,” I protested. “You had plenty of time to tell me about it.”

  “I intended to surprise you with it.”

  “Well, I’m surprised, so out with it.”

  “There were a lot of rewards for all of those missing children. Some pretty hefty ones too. We decided to combine them all into one big fat bonus to go along with our agreed upon fee.”

  “What sort of fat are you talking?” I asked.

  “Enough that you won’t have to do any more detective work for a while,” he grinned.

  “I’ll have to split it with Allison,” I responded.

  “I know,” he said. “And you’ll still have enough to stay home with your kids.”

  “Are you hinting at something, Sledge?”

  “No, Sam,” he responded. “I’m not going to hint at it. I’m going to come right out and say it. You need to back off from this detective stuff and hang out with those kids of yours. It’s none of my business, but that’s my advice.”

  He rose up from his chair and turned toward the door.

  “Just like that, then, Sledge? You’re going to drop that on me and then leave?”

  “For God’s sake, Sam, it’s two o’clock in the morning, I’ve had a long assed day and I’m ready to go home and go to bed, if that’s okay with you?”

  I started laughing and followed him to the front door.

  “Thanks, Sledge. I’ll consider your advice.”

  “Good.”

  “And thanks for taking my kids for a day of unwinding.”

  “Watching those kids was thanks enough for me, Sam. They’re great kids. Think real hard about what I said.”

  “I will.”

  I watched Sledge go down the sidewalk, mount his bike and heard the deep rumble of the tuned pipes come to life. I waved at him as he backed out and then roared up the street away from the house before I turned off the porch light and closed the door.

  Sledge was right about taking some time off to spend with my kids. I wanted to. I really did, but there were still a lot of unanswered questions swimming around in my mind about what had happened with Justine and I wasn’t quite ready to close the case.

  I wanted to know more about the Knights Templar, who were responsible for taking her life. I wanted to know who had delivered the ransom money and taken her to meet the woman in the camper. I wanted to know who that woman was and how she was connected to the Knights. I wanted to know the purpose behind the sacrifice and why it had been Justine Edwards. I wanted to know how Stolas had gotten involved. In essence, though I’d solved the mortal portion of the case, I believed that there was a very, very deep immortal portion that posed way too many questions to ignore.

  I took out my cell phone and pressed the speed dial button for Allison.

  “Seriously, Sam?” Allison said, answering the call. “The cell phone?”

  “I want to set up a meeting with the Council,” I said, ignoring her question.

  “That will have to be run past Julia,” she responded in a grave tone.

  “Then get me a meeting with Julia,” I ordered. “I’m going to get to the bottom of who or what the hell really happened to Justine.”

  The End

  ~~~~~

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  by D.C. Young

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  1. ECONOMIC DOWNTURN

  Oh, for crying out loud!

  A few months ago, I would have peed my pants for the opportunity to work from home. A telecommuting job would have been on the top of my dream job list… easy. But there’s a huge difference when something happens that’s not your luck of the draw or by your own choice.

  I guess I should be grateful I have a job at all right now; even though I more or less created it for myself.

  Before The Downturn had hit really hard, I worked in a hotel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. As the Events Sales Manager, I basically booked and coordinated every ballroom event on the property. I use the term ‘ballroom’ very loosely because it didn’t matter if it was a suite booked for a small corporate meeting of ten people or a three hundred guest wedding in the Grand Ballroom… it was my responsibility.

  It wasn’t the kind of job you could just phone in… not even once. One off day for me could cost the hotel thousands of dollars and my commission check would feel the pain of it.

  The job had its upsides, though. I met and rubbed elbows with almost every political secretary, corporate planner, wedding planner and business owner in the Low Country. I had a digital Rolodesk with thousands of influential people’s telephone numbers and emails in it. They always say in business it’s not who you know but who knows you, and sitting behind that desk at the Astoria Myrtle Beach made me someone people wanted to know.

&n
bsp; But when the economy took a hit, everything changed.

  Businesses closed. Those that stayed open had to cut staff and figure out a new way of operating… economically. Society had become rooted in running businesses that catered to the whims and fancy of anyone who would indulge themselves, now they found that so many were being made to choose between the essential and the frivolous. The segregation between ‘essential’ and ‘non-essential’ became the order of the day and suddenly we were all being told to choose between what we could do without and what we needed for survival.

  Gas stations, grocery stores, utility companies… certainly essential, but even those providers found ways to make us choose. Quite a few fueling stations closed their convenience stores and turned into automated self serve gas facilities, grocery stores cut back their hours of operations, some retailers closed the doors entirely deciding that clothing and shoes could just as simply be bought online.

  Everyone, except the security personnel, at the hotel were sent home for two weeks while construction crews converted the hotel rooms into one, two and three bedroom condominium style suites. Telephone operators and website handlers worked remotely from home to keep the business alive, but the rest of us… those whose departments had been made redundant were sent home with layoff letters and applications for unemployment benefits.

  The services of the Events Sales department would no longer be required at the Astoria Myrtle Beach resort since all the meeting rooms and ballroom spaces were being repurposed and redesigned to become long term living spaces or other things such as movie theaters, game arcades and specialty restaurants. To imagine I was probably losing the tools of my work to Mortal Kombat and sushi.

  I almost died that first week.

  Managers, like me, were kept on virtually until the end of the sales cycle to ensure our salaries and bonuses, which was a damn joke. I spent eight hours a day, shackled to a company issued laptop doing ‘Go to Meeting’ conferences with clients cancelling their reservations and bookings; essentially exterminating my bonus for the month.