“On paper,” Angelica finished. “But, in reality?”
“We’re all over the place,” Marcus answered, grimly. “We’re content to nibble around the edges. Pick off a few strays here and there. That would be fine – if we weren’t aiming for bigger fish.”
Angelica sighed. It was obvious she felt the same way. However, feeling the same way and doing something about it were two different things.
“So, how do we correct this?” she finally asked.
“That’s what I’m working on,” Marcus said. “You know my mind. When the gears turn, things happen.’
“Like smoke, creaking, and grinding,” Angelica quipped.
“Aha, so you do have a sense of humor,” Marcus shot back. “Anyway, we’ve got to do something new. Something with teeth. Sooner or later, our enemies are going to really pay attention to us. Even a pit bull will eventually respond to a Chihuahua nipping at its legs.”
“That about nails it,” Angelica responded. “Thanks for listening.”
“No problem,” Marcus said. “Except, that’s not the real reason you came in here. You’re really wondering, if you did the right thing bringing Cantrell into the group.”
Angelica started to defend herself but stopped. Her cheeks warmed as she realized how well she and Marcus knew each other. She wondered if her reservations were as noticeable to the others as they were to her friend.
“That obvious, eh, Papi?” she commented. “I thought I was doing a good thing when I sponsored him. He had a lot of experience and a lot of good ideas.”
Pushing his notes aside, Marcus turned to look his friend fully in the face. My God, he thought, even when she’s troubled she’s the most beautiful woman in the world. How did you ever earn her friendship?
“Remember the bulk of it was my sponsorship,” he reminded her. “Although you did second the motion, Jesus specifically said that my many years of mercenary work carried the day. If it turns out to be wrong, it’s all on me, love.”
Again, Angelica said nothing, just fretted a little.
“But, you want me to push for some kind of resolution about Ryker, right?” Marcus asked. “Fortunately, none of us has burned all of our bridges. Still, it might be a tough sell; to say Cantrell has an abrasive personality would be an understatement.”
“Really?” Angelica asked. “Didn’t you say he was in the Navy? Did he hate authority or something?”
“Quite the opposite, actually,” Marcus answered. “But, the reason is what’s plaguing us – Ryker doesn’t seem to respect a lack of authority. Confusing orders. Unclear objectives. Lack of common sense and situational awareness. We both know there are some days – hell, let’s be honest, there are many days – when it seems like all we do is sit around and talk about what we need to do. It’s hard for a man like Ryker, working under those conditions.”
“But, you have no problem.”
“Ah, yes, but I’m a mercenary,” Marcus said, coolly. “I’ve worked under good bosses and bad bosses – half-assed and wholly moronic. The Navy is a lot more structured, which is good. The ocean floors are littered with the wrecks of ships doomed by indecision, arrogance and incompetence.”
Marcus eyed Angelica while she mulled his information. He could only wonder how she stayed committed to the cause, in the midst of such a dysfunctional organization as the Hunters. Maybe it was her desire to make sure no one else suffered the fate of her favorite cousins. After turning into vampires, they converted several other cousins and nieces to the undead. It also might have been borne out of a competitive desire to always finish what she started.
“Okay,” he said, after a bit. “I’ll do more than just talk to Dolores and Jesus.”
“Thanks, Marcus,” Angelica said, planting a peck on his cheek. “I owe you.”
Marcus rubbed his hands together as if relishing something.
“What was that for?” Angelica asked.
“Just thinking of my reward.”
Eyeing her teammate, Angelica smirked.
“No need to wait for that,” she said, coyly.
She stepped back into the room. Switching off the light, she closed the door behind her.
Heidi heard the creak of the hinges long before the door to her prison opened. She looked to see an older man and stocky woman step into the doorway. She did not know the woman, but recognized the man as the one who had injected her while she was strapped to the lab table. She shivered and began to push herself back into the nearest corner.
“It’s okay, Heidi,” Dolores Montoya said, in a comforting voice. “We’re here to help you. This is Doctor Patel. He is the one who saved you.”
Heidi glanced around, nervously.
“What’s wrong, Heidi?” Dolores asked. “Are you ill?”
Heidi shook her head, but kept darting her eyes about the room.
“Where is he?’ Heidi finally asked, while pushing herself, unsteadily, to her feet. “The one called Ryker.”
“He’s not here right now,” Patel answered. “But, he is the one who saved you at the bridge. You can thank him later.”
“He can go to hell,” Heidi spat. “If you saving me, means being anywhere near that bastard, you might as well kill me now.”
“Come, my dear,” Dolores said. “We have a lot to talk about.”
Heidi stepped forward with uncertainty. She really had no choice – she needed answers and these looked to be the people to give them to her.
She let Dolores put her arms around her and guide her out of the room.
On any other bright sunny morning, a sedan with dark tinted windows driving down a farm road would only have attracted the attention of the most bored police officer. What set this dark-colored sedan apart from most vehicles, was its driver. By all rights, he should have been safely ensconced someplace dark and cool, not squeezed behind the wheel.
Duke turned off the farm road, leading to Springtown, onto an even narrower road. Looking over to the scraggily-bearded man, slouching in the passenger seat, he shook his head. His cousin Avery wore dark sunglasses, though it was from too much drug use that the sun hurt his eyes. He looked up into his rearview mirror, examining the two spaced out female junkies. Avery had procured them for their little day trip, both were obviously not original blondes, but Duke didn’t care.
“Glad you came out today, Cuz?” Avery asked, his speech slurred. “Doing a public service and supplying the needs of a grateful population at the same time. By the way, why the hell, did you have to stop at the hospital first before picking me up?”
“Ah, I had to drop off some jerk named Anderson,” Duke replied. “Diane gave him to me for fun, but, apparently, the big boss got pissed.”
“Well, let’s just sell these chemicals and go party with the cash,” Avery said. “And these chicks – they’ll last longer than any present from a half-dead.”
“Maybe you’re right, Cuz,” Duke admitted. “Crack-tainted blood is the ultimate high. Of course, being human, you wouldn’t appreciate that.”
“If you’re trying to get me to turn – forget it.”
“Your choice,” Duke said. “Now, where the hell is the turn-off for that trailer park?”
“It’s right up here on the left,” Avery replied.
“Can we hurry this up?” one of the girls in back moaned. “I need a fix. I’m getting a shooting pain from withdrawal.”
Laughing, Avery looked at Duke. “Wait ‘til you girls see what I got waiting for ya’. That’ll be some shooting pain. Hope you girls like to give head.”
Duke would have laughed, had the windshield not exploded. Something sprayed into his eyes, as he swerved off the road. Half-blind, with the two girls screaming bloody murder, Duke fought to get the vehicle back on the road. Finally, after finding pavement, he slammed on the brakes.
Cursing loudly, he wiped his eyes. Something smelled coppery and set off his appetite. He realized what it had to be. Looking down, he saw his hand covered in blood. On the edge of panic, he rak
ed his hand across the side of his face and found more blood. It was then that he also noticed the little bits of bone and some gray matter on his wrist and forearm.
Suppressing the urge to gag, he finally looked over at Avery. Despite his bulk, not to mention his menacing reputation, he nearly puked. The front seat of the passenger side was painted red with blood and the source was obvious.
Avery’s head was gone!
“Oh, my God!”
Duke didn’t have time to correct the blasphemy from the back seat. Needing to take action, he ignored what remained of Avery and threw his vehicle into reverse. Whoever was shooting, was in front of the car.
“Shut up Bitches!” he yelled and the girls stopped.
The engine blew up with the next shot. After a loud whump, the hood flipped up. As the engine died, the car slid backwards into the culvert between the opposing lanes.
Duke struggled to keep from hyperventilating. He felt an intense heat on his back, looking into the rear view mirror, and saw both girls had bolted the car, leaving the doors open for the deadly sunlight to flood in.
Not that it mattered. Whoever was attacking him wasn’t taking pot shots at random. These shots were precise. He hadn’t even heard them. And, he had hearing on the level as good as any predator.
He fumbled through his vest pockets until he found his cell phone. Hurriedly, he dialed a number. He was outside of Tarrant County, beyond the jurisdiction of the crooked cops on Riordan’s payroll; and he knew the girls would either call the police or would attract the kind of attention from locals, who would notify the sheriff. He needed help badly.
He heard a shot hit the trunk. A second shattered his driver’s side window. Screaming in pain as the sunlight burned his elbow, he dropped his phone. Ignoring it, he scooted to a point over the gear shift, trapped between sunlight to his left and light coming in from the hole in the windshield. He was in full panic mode now. He grabbed his cousin’s bloody corpse and tried to shove it onto the dashboard to block out the deadly rays.
He cursed himself for his greed. He didn’t need to help his cousin deliver ingredients to cook meth or make crack. He had just liked the money. He knew he’d gotten careless, thinking that his status as Lin Tang’s security man gave him some kind of immunity.
He found himself shaking and, try as he might, he couldn’t stop himself. He was glad no one was around to see his fear. Oh, how often he had inflicted that same fear on his prey, like that Anderson kid. Now, he was on the receiving end and, the worst part was, that he had no idea who was behind the attack. He could think of no one foolish enough to attack anyone connected to Louis Riordan.
Of course, he thought, with a shudder, maybe the attack specifically targeted him or, possibly Avery, because of the drug connection. If so, he was in deep trouble. He looked left and saw a large copse of trees next to the northbound lanes. He seriously began to wonder if it might be better to risk the sunshine and bolt for those trees.
Perhaps if he could run fast enough, he might not get more than a few third degree burns. Then, once he made it back to Fort Worth, he could recuperate with fresh blood. Leaning over, he looked ahead, past the wrecked hood, nearly missing the hump in the grass of the culvert. A drainage pipe.
Yes. And it was not more than fifty feet away. He saw, further down the road, some indistinguishable figures out on the highway. Some were walking quickly toward the car. They must have heard the commotion.
He had to make his move fast. Not only did he not want them to know that he was a vampire, but he also realized he had drug materials in the car. The sheriff’s deputies – he could make out the faint sound of sirens – would have to arrest him. He would resist to avoid the sunlight and all hell would break loose.
Another bullet hit the trunk. There was more than one attacker, he thought. He shivered. Who could be trying to kill him? That’s when it hit him.
The meth chemicals were in the trunk!
For the first time in his life, Duke Archimedes felt the same kind of extreme terror he’d meted out to many victims.
Sunlight be damned, he put his first foot outside of the car just as a third bullet drove itself into the trunk. He was halfway out of the car when he burned for a different reason. He never saw the fireball that tore through the back seat, until it fully engulfed him. The concussive force of the blast virtually disintegrated him even as it ripped his car apart.
In the copse of trees ahead of the burning car, the forest floor moved. A figure in a military-style ghillie camouflage suit rose to one knee. The gun in its hands was dark, and odd looking, because of a box attached to its right side to catch the brass from spent bullet casings.
“Mission accomplished,” Marcus said into his communications mouthpiece. “Scratch one vampire.”
One hundred feet away, at a point where the trunk of Duke’s car was in view, two ghillie-covered silhouettes moved deeper into the tree line. The taller of the two pulled back an assault rifle fitted with a silencer and a brass catcher. The shorter figure propped itself on its elbows, while holding a spotting scope in one hand.
“And one drug dealer, too,” Cantrell Ryker added. “Two birds with one stone. Let’s scrub the area.”
“I hear sirens,” Angelica announced, as she moved a leafed branch over the area where she and Ryker had lain during the attack. “I sure hope this escalation is worth it.”
Ryker shrugged.
“Are you okay?” he inquired.
“Oh, um, I had a little bit of a workout before I came out here today,” Angelica stammered. “Marcus and I. A lot of pumping…with weights.”
“I meant with this operation,” Ryker corrected.
“Oh, yes, of course,” Angelica answered, looking away. “Yes, I am okay with it. I…I thought you meant…Marcus and I have been good friends – really, really good friends for a long time. But, you didn’t ask that. Sorry. We’d better go.”
“Why do they keep telling me these things?” Ryker muttered under his breath. “And they wonder why I don’t listen to anybody.”
He followed Angelica deeper into the shadows.
If Duke found traveling in daylight hours to be worth the risk, Louis Riordan hoped for much more. He was betting the bank, that his decision to hold the first meetings with the visiting clan leaders in daylight, would demonstrate his leadership potential. Sitting in his office, he peered out through the heavily tinted windows, taking a deep breath because he felt a little weak. Of course, he would never let on that the sun bothered him.
“Allison, would you ask Mr. Giancarlo and Ms. Waterston to come in here?” he said into his desk intercom.
A moment later, a pale white man, in a sharp three-piece suit, and a short, stocky black woman, in jeans and a plaid shirt, walked into his office. He bade them sit down and they took chairs in front of his desk. He spun around to face them and studied each one carefully.
“Tesino, mon ami,” Riordan said, leaning forward to shake the man’s proffered hand. “How is life in the New York-New Jersey area? And Jewel, straight from Seattle.”
Giancarlo did not look amused, checking his Italian suit for invisible dirt. He then ran fingers through his jet black hair. His rugged good looks were marred by a nose that had obviously been broken several times. It only made his discomfort more pronounced.
“I presume there was a reason that we have to meet in the daylight,” he said, uneasily.
“Yeah, all this sun is bad for my skin,” Jewel added, though her manner was much rougher. “I don’t need a sun tan.”
Riordan smiled, noting Jewel’s dark skin.
“I will admit, mes amis, that this is an unusual time to meet,” Riordan explained, leaning back in his chair. “But, it is important. You see, we – each of us, the others included – have so much power and yet we are afraid.”
“Maybe you’re afraid,” Jewel huffed. “Living in this glass tower. But, I ain’t afraid of anything.”
“Aren’t you?” Riordan countered. “Then, why d
o we never meet in the daytime? Because – we fear the daylight. Even the most powerful organized crime families, that we have modeled our organizations after, have fears. To have real power, we must conquer those fears.”
“Okay, I am listening,” Giancarlo said, seeming to relax a bit. “You have graced us with deluxe accommodations, so we can, at least, show some gratitude by listening to your point of view.”
Riordan scowled inwardly at Giancarlo’s conceited air, but, on the outside, through decades of practice, he smiled warmly.
“You two are among the most powerful clan leaders on this continent,” Riordan continued. “If we are to truly be strong, we need to overcome our fears. We must work together. And, what better way than to give a big F-U to our most dangerous foe?”
At that, Giancarlo finally relaxed and slouched a little in his chair. Next to him, Jewel leaned back and crossed her ankles.
“I think the man might have something,” she said. “So, let’s get this party started.”
Riordan smiled and leaned forward. The die had been cast and it had been favorable to him. The next few days would be very tricky, but he felt in control. If all went well, the awakening would unite the clans, and he would be the top master.
If nothing interfered, he suddenly thought. But, with Lin Tang as his enforcer – and with her hidden power – nothing would.
Riordan could only wonder why, with everything seeming to fall into place for him, he could not shake a nagging doubt in the back of his mind.
“Bloody Marys anyone?” he offered to hide that ill feeling.
Chapter 5
Lin Tang was unusually restless. She’d returned from her meeting with Riordan to find Alex Dupree on duty at the front door. Duke, apparently, had not returned from whatever errands he’d been running. It was nearly two in the afternoon and he hadn’t even given a message as to his whereabouts. It wasn’t like him.
Maybe Riordan took him from you as punishment.
Dark Tidings: Volumes I & II Page 14