By Blood Sworn

by Jones, Janice

  Alex and her team hadn’t even had breakfast yet. In t-shirts and various styles of sweatpants, they looked like college kids home for the holidays. Beyond the plaster walls of the meeting room, day had broken and the sun had begun to melt last night’s snow.

  “Good morning,” he said with a nod. “My condolences, Commander Stone. The President sends his regards to the entire Tracker team. We will wait for your return to make arrangements. He will, of course, have full military honors and burial at Arlington.”

  A lump formed in her throat as she nodded at the general. She hadn’t fully wrapped her brain around the fact that Ben was gone. No one had.

  “Thank you, sir,” Xavier replied for the group. “We will wrap things up here by tomorrow night. Our plane is scheduled to depart at zero hundred hours, sir.”

  “Understood,” General Diaz answered. “An escort will be waiting at Nellis when you touch down. Sorry, but you’ll have to catch some shuteye on the way to Andrews.”

  “Yes, sir,” they all answered except Alex.

  “General,” she cleared her throat. “I’d like us to be read in on Campbell. He’s the key to all of this. I think we deserve to know why he still hasn’t been brought in for questioning.”

  Diaz cut his eyes away then back. He raised his chin and the brightness of his eyes dulled just a bit. Everyone saw the same image on their screens. As the team Commander, Diaz addressed her directly.

  “We need to keep him in play,” he said.

  “In play,” Alex repeated. “He’s an operative?”

  “Civilian contractor,” he replied. “He’s been passing us intel for about five years.”

  “On what?”

  There was that glance again. As if Dr. Carlisle approved or rejected his answers before he gave them.

  “He was hired by a woman named Giselle Marafioti,” he answered. “Her family migrated to the States from Romania when she was fifteen. She is said to have the second sight and was billed as such in her family’s travelling circus.”

  “So she’s a fortuneteller,” Kai sniffed. “Big deal.”

  “She’s more than that, son,” Diaz frowned. “Tristan knows talent when he sees it.”

  “Meaning what?” Alex interrupted.

  “Meaning she can translate most any language or write code that will translate the ones she can’t. She has some magical skills as well. Mostly spellcasting.”

  “So what did she hire Campbell for?” Xavier asked with a hint of frustration.

  “He has set up various off-shore accounts that we monitor. He has also purchased several parcels of real estate,” he replied. “That warehouse was one of the holdings.”

  “I thought he was a cheesy entertainment lawyer,” Alex asked the obvious question. “How’d he get into off-shore accounts and real estate?”

  “Let’s just say, he hasn’t always worked in show business. He used to put trash back on the streets instead of on the big screen,” Diaz said.

  “Defense lawyer,” Alex shook her head.

  He didn’t respond or change his expression at all.

  “Wait,” David spoke up. “This has been going on for five years? Why did we only learn about Tristan a few months ago?”

  “That’s not something I’m prepared to read you in on right now.”

  Alex trusted her instincts, and right now they screamed set up. David was right. The Trackers should have been brought in the moment Tristan escaped. As Strategic’s top team, the assignment was theirs, automatically Alex should have been notified the moment after that. That still didn’t explain why he wasn’t in custody though.

  “He’s way off the reservation,” Alex stated. “You can’t bring him in, can you?”

  “No. Not without jeopardizing several other operations,” Diaz stated. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Right now, we need you to finish this assignment. We will keep tabs on Campbell.”

  After a few seconds, he stood and Dr. Carlisle sat down again.

  “Any other questions?”

  “Just one,” Alex said. “Who’s Campbell’s handler?”

  “Ramsey. Why?”

  “Just curious,” she grinned at him. “We have work to do. Keep me posted?”

  “Of course,” he grinned back. “Stay safe.”

  She disconnected before anyone else. On her feet, she gathered up her tablet and phone and left the meeting room without a word. The others caught up to her at the elevator.

  Once they were inside and moving up, she stayed quiet even as the others stared at her in hopes of some sort of explanation. She didn’t have one. She couldn’t tell them why they’d been left out of all the details, why they should have known Campbell was in play as a contractor. But they weren’t and that should have bothered them. Somehow, she could tell it didn’t.

  They filed out of the elevator one by one. In pairs, they entered their respective rooms with the understanding that they should be showered, dressed, and back downstairs in thirty minutes. No exceptions.

  Alex entered her room, stripped as she walked through, and stepped under the shower spray as it heated up. For a few seconds, the water was ice cold. It helped wake her fully. It also helped to clear her clouded mind, which was why she stepped in before it was hot and ready.

  Ben was dead. Coop was here, and she wasn’t any closer to finding out what was really going on. To top it all off, one of the six people under her command was a traitor. She was sure of that now. Tristan did not escape the DPG alone. Coop was turned for a reason. Becker now belonged to some other outfit. And no one had even bothered to ask the one question that haunted her from the moment she agreed to this assignment. What the hell was wrong with this picture?

  Chapter 23

  They weren’t just pictures on his wall anymore. Each one was an obstacle in his way. If he wanted back in, he’d have to prove these “kids” were flawed.

  Freelance work paid the bills, but now that the program had real money behind it, everyone associated with Strategic was riding high. Everyone but him. K.C. Becker regretted the ultimatum he had given Dr. Carlisle all those years ago.

  With Alex on the bench, it only seemed logical, right? Matt had gone back home and Ben had been reassigned to DC. Why couldn’t he be lead on the next assignment? Coop, that stooge, didn’t know a vampire from a kick in the head. He had barely made it through boot camp. The new team should have been Becker’s. He’d put in more time than Coop at that point.

  Becker felt the irritation, even now, as he remembered those days. No love was lost between him and Coop during that time either. What qualified a chump like him to lead the rookies?

  “He’s doing much better on the supplements than you are, Becker,” Dr. Carlisle had said. “I’m still working through your results. It just seems strange that you are breaking down without any warning like this.”

  Truth be told, Becker had noticed it right off: night sweats, muscle fatigue, nausea. He didn’t tell Ben because he knew his report would go straight to the doctor and he’d be off SandBox.

  Dr. Carlisle shook his head as he looked over the file. “Every time we increase the dosage, your vitals go off the charts. I need to be able to keep you stable at those levels, Becker. I won’t clear you for field duty until I can.”

  That sounded final and it was. Coop took over the new team and Becker was stuck at 51 like a rat in a cage.

  “Doc,” Becker remembered the plea clearly, “please. I’ll be fine. I’m all you got left of the originals anyway.”

  Dr. Carlisle was quiet for a few minutes as he flipped the pages back and forth. Becker thought he’d convinced the doctor to give him a chance. Then Dr. Carlisle sighed.

  “We’ll keep you under observation for one more week,” Dr. Carlisle stated. “If you hold steady at this level, we’ll revisit letting you lead the next mission.”

 
; Becker tried to hide his disappointment as Dr. Carlisle gave him a quick pat to his sore shoulder.

  “Doc! Come on,” Becker harped.

  “Trust me,” he said with another pat then he left him on the exam table.

  For the first three days, Becker felt like his old self again. Power, stamina, all of it was in check. On day four, he found out Alex wouldn’t be back. In fact, she went MIA after she was released from the loony bin. He couldn’t, for the life of him, understand why. And no one offered any kind of explanation—not even Ben.

  “Becker,” he heard Ben say over the small conference room speaker. “She’s just taking some time, you know. That assignment was pretty rough, on all of us.”

  “Yeah, but she’s disappeared,” Becker replied. “The doc’s freaking out, man. What’s up?”

  He remembered a strange feeling touched his skin at Ben’s silence. Ben was never silent and had never lied to them until that day.

  “Nothing,” he chuckled. “She’s a girl, right? Teenage rebellion and whatnot. Just let it go, Becker.”

  Later that night, Becker increased his dosage without permission. He told Ben he’d let it go, but he wanted to find Alex on his own—bring her back and prove his worth to the organization. He felt great for most of the evening. During the exam around midnight, the doctor bumped his meds too. He looked pleased at the progress he thought Becker had made. Becker didn’t say a word because he wanted off the base, soon. By the time his test results came back, he’d be so fantastically fit that they’d have to release him to active duty again.

  Early on day five, the sweating started. At first, he thought the AC had quit. It was set to sixty degrees when he checked around four in the morning. On his way to breakfast, everyone else wore sweats and jackets because it was so cold. Becker was in shorts and a t-shirt and he was still hot.

  By noon, the smell of sweat overtook the oxygen in his room. All the way up the elevator to the main level, Becker coughed and sticky sweat poured from his body. Once he was outside, he threw up his breakfast burrito then passed out on the concrete outside the hanger.

  When he opened his eyes, Dr. Carlisle, a nurse, and Ben stood over him. Every word seemed to be on the lowest setting. The only sound that hurt his ears was the sound of his own heart as it raced in his aching chest.

  He had missed his window of opportunity to take over the new team. Afterward, he split from Area 51 and roamed around for a while. A chance meeting brought him to his current outfit. It was not as well funded as Strategic or as well equipped. But the pretty doctor that headed the facility fixed the damage the supplements had done to him, albeit temporarily. She was able to keep him stable while the genius Dr. Carlisle could not.

  Money wasn’t a problem for Becker. Strategic had paid well for his silence. The jobs were shit and the pay was worse with this outfit though. The good part was he got to lead his own team finally. Mostly washouts from other high profile programs, his team learned fast, took direction without question, and cleaned a scene with near precision.

  Strays and rogue elements had been the targets until now. Now they were on the trail of a traitor and an escapee from DPG. He didn’t know who paid for the hunt and, to be honest, he didn’t really care. He just knew the take was bigger than any other job and everybody needed the fix—especially him.

  As he stared at the photos again, he wondered which was the traitor. They all seemed like regular kids—if you considered a vampire, a witch, a computer genius, a couple of bombmaking twins, and a former rookie SWAT member regular. Maybe that was the point, he told himself. Who would suspect evil in those innocent faces?

  He laughed out loud. “Anybody who’s ever seen a horror movie.”

  Tomas knocked then came in through the connecting door. He was dressed for this morning’s meeting at the Palace. Becker still couldn’t get over how different he looked without the collar.

  “I’ll try to get this meeting done as quickly as I can,” he said as he poured a cup of fresh coffee. “I’d like to have more time to speak with Alex.”

  Becker grinned at him. “You’re not going to convince her to join us; you know that, right?”

  “Why not? I think if we present our case, she’s intelligent enough to understand how dangerous it is for a creature that is half vampire and half human to walk among us,” Tomas replied.

  Becker couldn’t help his boisterous laughter. Even he had a hard time with the information they’d stolen from the lab at 51. How could such a creature exist? And how come no one had told them it was even possible for vampires and humans to mate and conceive?

  “Yeah! Tell her a vampire and a human had a kid and see if she believes you.”

  “We have proof,” he replied with a scowl.

  “We have a bunch of scattered notes,” Becker corrected him. “Carlisle is kind of an evil genius. So if he was able to create a hybrid and hide it in the world, she’s gonna want to help us find it. But we have to have more than the diary of a mad supergenius before she’ll come over to our cause.”

  Tomas laughed. “She will listen. She’s a reasonable person.”

  “She’ll listen because she knows monsters exist,” Becker said. “This hybrid thing . . . She may have to see it to believe it.”

  They finished their coffee as they discussed things besides the cause.

  Chapter 24

  “As you can see,” Jason said as Morgan and Esmeralda looked over the ten-page agreement, “this truce will stay in effect until the threat has been neutralized. Your personal holdings, the plantation in New Orleans, and the island in the West Indies are off limits.”

  Esmeralda nodded as Morgan continued to review the small print. Alex could see his brow furrow at each new line. He tapped the page and Esmeralda looked down.

  “What about line 15, section D?” he asked as he looked up at Jason. “You’re asking us to allow agents of your choosing access to our new training house. Why?”

  Jason sat back in his chair. “Our agents will need a base of operations soon. The training house is fortified and protected by the most powerful witch in world,” he smiled at Esmeralda. “If there’s trouble, they’ll need as much help as possible.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Morgan asked.

  “We have reason to believe Hellclaw has reestablished a house somewhere in Washington DC.”

  “So?” Morgan frowned.

  “Your recent purchase of an entire brownstone in Georgetown will be perfect. The renovations have just been completed and it is ready for its new occupants,” Jason grinned.

  Morgan didn’t mask his surprise very well. Alex had the distinct impression they wanted to keep that a secret. Somehow, Jason found out and Morgan was not happy about it.

  “What’s your point?” he replied as Esmeralda laid her hand over his fist.

  “We’d like to put our team in that brownstone,” he answered.

  “For how long?” Esmeralda asked.

  “Until we can secure a place of our own,” Jason replied. “We know we’re behind the curve on this and we were hoping you’d assist us—just for a few weeks, a month tops.”

  Morgan’s jaw immediately set tight. His eyes narrowed on Jason as he sat comfortable and smug a few feet away. If not for Esmeralda, he would have already jumped the table to get at Jason.

  “No,” Morgan huffed. “We’ll not let you use our training house for this hunt.” He pushed the paper away, unsigned.

  “I understand your hesitation,” Jason continued to grin. “But you agreed to join this alliance. In doing so, you also agreed to certain terms—one of which is the use of any property not deemed personal, for use by designated agents of the Council of Pure Blood Vampires. We’re only asking for a few weeks. If we start moving people in now, they could get suspicious. You were there first. Another round of moving trucks could send up a red flag.”

 
“Your mistakes are your own. I didn’t agree to be used by you or the Council,” he growled. “Hellclaw exists because your kind didn’t have the stones to have them eradicated completely.”

  When he stood, so did Jason. His personal bodyguards moved in from the perimeter of the room and so did Alex. Jason raised his hand and they stopped.

  “You were foolish to think, with Tristan gone, they would just abandon all that he had taught them to survive,” Esmeralda joined in. “He wanted them to infiltrate the other houses, learn their weaknesses, and, when Tristan returned, use all of that information to bring down your Council.”

  “We’ll find him and the rest of his followers,” Jason replied. “But make no mistake. He sees every group that signed the covenant as an enemy. Do you think you’re strong enough to take him on alone?”

  “Maybe not,” Morgan sneered. “But allowing our property to be destroyed, on the off chance your team can find his, seems like an awful lot to ask.”

  “Morgan, I can assure you that your property will be taken care of,” Jason stated. “Any damages will be fully covered by the Council. We’ll do our best to be out before anything bad happens to the facility. And we’ll do our best not to break anything while we’re there.”

  Morgan chuckled as he stared at Alex over Jason’s shoulder.

  “How nice of you, Jason. You have a deal under one condition. We get to add a stipulation before we sign,” he smiled broadly at Jason.

  “Which is?”

  “The team must be led by Alex Stone,” he announced.

  “I can’t speak for Alex,” Jason began, only to have his mouth waved shut by Morgan.

  “She leads the team or no deal.”

  “She’s a contractor, Morgan,” Jason sniffed. “We can’t make her do this. We can extend the contract for the others, easily. But she doesn’t belong to Strategic—not really.”