Awakening the Fire

by Ally Shields

  None of them struck her as candidates for the role of traitor. But she hadn’t expected anyone to stand out. If it had been that easy, the vampires wouldn’t need her.

  When the poker game ended, Ari declined an invitation to join Benny and Russell in a game of gin rummy. She intended to check out the rest of the security area. In the adjoining room, she found Lilith refilling her coffee mug in a small kitchenette. At the other end of the room, Mike and Maleban huddled over an impressive array of computer equipment.

  If there was an entrance to Daron’s chambers somewhere, it was well hidden. Another thing she’d ask Andreas.

  Despite calls to update Ryan, Claris, and the president of the Magic Council on her current activities, by noon Ari was thoroughly bored. Protection detail wasn’t exciting unless something went wrong, but this amount of inactivity was bound to lead to dulled perceptions, slow reaction times. She finally brought it up over lunch.

  “How do you do this every day?” she asked when the plate of sandwiches Mike had made was almost empty. He’d had kitchen duty for today. As far as Ari could tell, duties like that took up most of the guards’ time.

  “Depends on what you mean?” Benny gave her a wink, which she ignored.

  “It’s so damned boring.”

  In the sudden silence, Benny laughed. “Yeah, it’s a cushy job without much action. But usually we’re not here every day. Not all of us. Until the attack on Daron, we came in two at a time.”

  “But what are your duties? Besides fixing coffee and lunch and waiting for the bad guys to attack you?” She looked at five blank faces.

  “That’s about it,” Russell admitted, his manner a little cooler than before, a little defensive. He shoved his chair back and rested one foot on his knee. “A daily report. We keep a log of visitors.” He looked at the others and shrugged.

  “Did you know the vampires have had four recent breaches of security? Not all here, but each one involved the inner court members.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “The assassination attempt, an attack on Carmella, Frederick’s death, and a bribery attempt to get a map of this compound.” Their eyes were focused on her now. Mike’s heavy brows shot up when she mentioned the map. “The vampire leaders have become targets, and the enemy’s growing bolder. How do we stop him? What’s the next attack look like?” Ari’s gaze lingered on each face, pressing for an answer.

  Benny chugged his soda. “Is that a serious question? The vamps figure that stuff out then tell us what to do. We don’t plan strategy.”

  “Why not?” Ari gave him a sharp look. “Aren’t you the prince’s security experts? His personal secret service?”

  “Never thought of it like that,” Benny mumbled.

  “Well, that’s a kicker,” Lilith said, getting to her feet to dump her paper and plastic into the trash. “But, damn, I think she’s right.” She sat down again. “If we aren’t anticipating the next threat, what kind of security are we?”

  “I never liked all this sitting around,” Mike growled. “We’ve kinda been rent-a-cops, but it’s not what we trained for. If we’re gonna keep the prince alive, we gotta be smarter than waiting for something to happen.” It was a long speech for Mike.

  “But the vamps protect the prince,” Maleban argued. “We warn off nosey strangers. No one expects us to stop a serious assault.”

  “Well, things have changed,” Ari said. “Frederick’s killer wasn’t another vamp. It was someone who struck during the day, when the vampires can’t protect themselves. It’s up to us to fill that hole. Are you telling me you can’t or won’t do that?”

  Lilith put an end to the chorus of angry protests by asking the obvious question. “What do you expect us to do?”

  “Be ready for everything.”

  * * *

  It didn’t take long to go over the current set up or for Ari to realize the vampires had depended on their reputations to protect them. The only security was the complexity of the tunnels and a simple screening process.

  “We have a lot to do,” she said. “For starters, a warning system and additional weaponry. What else? Mike, how would you go about killing the prince?”

  The werewolf blinked his eyes. Finally he said in that soft Texas drawl, “I’d blow up the building and torch what was left.”

  A snort of laughter. Even Ari was surprised. This guy didn’t mess around, but he had a valid point. A bomb or sudden fire would be a real threat. The warehouse would go up like a tinder box.

  “So who does the building checks, inside and out?”

  Russell’s mouth dropped open. “Shit, Ari. No one.”

  “Then that’s our priority. Starting now, we patrol the exterior. We’ll secure the interior with a room-by-room check. Every box, every bag, check all the original doors into the warehouse and make sure they’re secured. Check everything. I want to know this building hasn’t already been compromised.”

  They dispersed, and within an hour they’d swept the building for unfortified entrances or dangerous objects, including explosives. Several items were removed, including two battered gas cans, and two doors required additional bracing. Nothing looked deliberate or suspicious and the building was cleared, except for the locked storage next to the security office. Ari was tempted to break down the door but decided it would be prudent to wait for Andreas and the key.

  Russell volunteered for the perimeter checks. He slipped out for a circuit of the building every hour the rest of the day. They kept planning, tossing around possible scenarios and solutions, so caught up in their work that Andreas’s arrival surprised everyone. In fact, they’d just been discussing how the vampires might react to the changes when he strolled in the door. Ari figured they all looked guilty as hell.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A slight smile played at the corners of Andreas’s mouth as he watched the team scatter. Whatever had put him in such a good mood, Ari hoped it would make him open-minded to the changes she wanted.

  No one on the team said a word about their plans as they passed him on the way out. They trusted her to deal with Andreas, and she hoped she could pass this first hurdle. If she couldn’t, they’d never respect her as team leader.

  “They cleared out in a hurry,” Andreas said when the door closed behind the last of them.

  “Guess they had plans.” She knew exactly what those plans were. They were scaring up more firearms. She’d asked them to bring whatever they were comfortable using, and extra ammo. Natural abilities were great; weapons added another dimension.

  “Any problems I should know about?”

  “No, everything went smoothly. Got some ideas for improvements.”

  “Would those have anything to do with Russell being outside the building so often?”

  “Who told you?” Ari demanded. “You’ve got someone spying on us?”

  He gave her a smug look. “No one told me. I saw him.”

  “You couldn’t have. You were asleep.”

  “I still saw him.” Andreas’s eyes crinkled with humor. “Come, I’ll show you.” He led her into the hallway and stopped in front of the locked storage room, producing a key.

  When he swung the door inward, her mouth dropped open. “Wow, what is all this?”

  The center of the room was filled with shiny equipment. A set of large screens covering all four walls displayed multiple views inside and outside the building. Andreas pushed a button and a picture of Russell walking up the alley appeared on one of the screens. The time and date displayed at the bottom. A different screen picked up Russell’s image each time he turned a corner.

  Andreas grinned at Ari’s reaction and pushed more buttons. Hallway scenes began playing of the earlier building search.

  “There are cameras all over the place.”

  “They automatically record hallway and exterior activity each day. I often review the recordings by remote, like today.”

  “And your security team knows nothing about this?” She frowned at him. Ari was incredulous—
and indignant.

  His mouth quirked. “They are now called the security team?” Not waiting for a response, he went on. “The camera system is new. Installed after the attack on the prince. By that time, we did not trust anyone. Only Daron, Lucien, Carmella, and I know about it.”

  “So you were spying on the guards.”

  Andreas shrugged. “I was being careful,” he said. “Of everyone who came near or into the building.”

  “Can’t believe we didn’t notice the cameras.” As a matter of fact, Ari was more than a little embarrassed. True, they’d been looking for explosives hidden inside the rooms, not surveillance equipment in the hallways, but it was a bad start.

  “You seem upset,” Andreas said. “I would be disappointed if you had found them. The cameras were designed and installed by surveillance experts with the latest equipment. The system was intended to be invisible.”

  “Still…” Ari shook it off. “We can put this stuff to better use. The team should take over running it. And there’s other technology to consider, some that works for you, some that we need to guard against.”

  She talked about cell phones, motion sensors—he’d already arranged to have them installed that night—and the need to secure landlines and the computer network, which she discovered had also been done. When she described the team’s brainstorming on new procedures and additional weaponry, Andreas appeared satisfied with their progress.

  “Show me how the cameras work,” Ari said. “I’ll put Mike and Maleban on the system tomorrow. They seem to like tech toys. Mike’s pretty quiet. A hard man to know. What’s his background?”

  Andreas’s answer was brief. “Ex-military, special forces. The rest is Mike’s story to tell or not. I should warn you that he hates werewolves.”

  “But he is a werewolf. Oh, not natural-born, I guess.”

  “Indeed.” Andreas busied himself with more dials, clearly closing the topic.

  Before Ari finished learning the cameras’ operations, the crew arrived to install the motion sensors, and she got to play with those controls too. By eight o’clock everything was done and ready for tomorrow. She only needed one last piece of information before they left.

  “So where’s the entrance to the prince’s tunnel?”

  Andreas stilled, and for a moment, he said nothing. “I should have anticipated that question.” He slowly nodded. “Of course, you need to know.”

  He led her into the main security room, where the poker game had been, and stopped before the west wall, one of two paneled in a dark knotty pine. Ari followed his pointing finger and saw what looked like a small nail head. It turned out to be a tiny latch hidden inside a dark knot. Andreas pulled it up with his fingernail. Ari heard a definite click, and a section of the paneling silently opened inward to a dark tunnel. He pushed the latch back in place and it closed. Simple but effective.

  “Clever camouflage.” Ari wanted a peek inside, but the quick closing of the entrance reminded her the secret chambers were off limits to non-vampires, including witches.

  * * *

  Satisfied with her first day on the job, Ari was eager to get on with her hunt for the wolves. Maybe they could find and kill the enemy before they had a chance to attack the compound. She and Andreas stepped out of the warehouse, moving quickly down the street. A brief stop at Club Dintero, then they’d cruise through the bar district.

  Victor appeared the moment they walked into the door and pulled Andreas aside to confer on some management crisis. Ari slipped into an empty booth, ordering a sandwich while she waited. Andreas returned with a bottle of wine just as her sandwich was served.

  “We have plenty of time. It is early yet for the bar crowd,” he explained. “Do you recognize our waiter?”

  Ari studied the silent young man. “Lorenzo?”

  He gave her a boyish grin. “Hello, Ms. Calin. I hope you enjoy your dinner.” He blushed and left.

  Ari laughed at his formal speech. “Such a change. So that’s what caused the big grins when we left the caves. I suppose Reno works here too.”

  Andreas smiled and poured two glasses of wine. “He does. I wanted to ensure they suffered no harm from our visit. Have you decided where we should start our search?”

  “The strip, for sure.” She listed several vampire hangouts, including the Second Chance and the Bloody Stake, and threw in a couple of wolf clubs. “And Goshen Park. The wolves are bound to run sometime.”

  “There are other woods.”

  “Yeah, but we can’t hit them all. At least not tonight.”

  Victor reappeared with another question for Andreas, and the two men left with their heads together. This time it was something about missing receipts.

  Ari leaned back in the booth, rested her head against the cushioned surface, trying to relax. It had been a tense day. The club’s dim lighting, the soft music, began to have an effect. The events of the last days floated in her head like remembered scraps of a dream. And for a moment she almost grabbed onto something important to the case. Something Andreas had said. But she couldn’t hang onto the thread. They had discussed so much.

  “Sleeping or day dreaming?” Andreas said without warning.

  Ari sat up with a jerk. “Do you have to do that?”

  “Do what?” He slid into the booth, retrieving his wineglass.

  “Creep up on me like that.”

  “I am a vampire, Arianna. What would you have me do? Wear a bell?”

  “Might not be a bad idea. Do I detect sarcasm?” she teased. “I thought you said vampires had no humor.”

  “I said some vampires would not understand your brand of humor.” His smile was contagious, and Ari found herself grinning back. The moment was broken by the ring of her phone. Ryan. Considering the ongoing interruptions, Ari figured they’d never finish the wine.

  Ryan had the report on Dubrey’s flash drive. The data was damaged beyond full recovery. Only a few e-mail headings and spotty words or phrases had been recaptured.

  “But they counted more than forty e-mails between Dubrey and Molyneux.”

  Another link confirmed, Ari thought.

  “The word ‘doses’ appears twice in the text,” Ryan said. “And references to ‘the deliveries’ and ‘the vampire.’ Sorry, it’s not much.”

  “Except for the confirmed contact between the two men,” she amended. “That’s a biggie.” Ari repeated the conversation to Andreas and then returned to the phone. “It’s more than we had. Thanks, I know you put a rush on it. Um, Ryan,” she said, watching Andreas, “there’s something else. The vampires have had more trouble than we knew. Other attacks. And they seem pretty sure Sebastian’s behind it. The drugs, the violence. All part of a scheme for him to take control of the Riverdale vampires.”

  “Where’d you hear this?”

  “From the vampires. They’re expecting another attack. Not Sebastian directly, but from the wolves working for him.”

  “And knowing this, Andreas let you go to Canada alone?” Ryan’s voice was loud enough that Andreas heard him.

  The vampire held out his hand for the phone. Ari shook her head. She wasn’t about to let them start another argument.

  “He didn’t know for sure until I got back,” she told the indignant cop. “Sebastian’s contact with me was what raised their suspicions.”

  Ryan didn’t speak for several heartbeats. “It would have been nice if Andreas had shared this earlier.”

  “Yeah, well, we know now. Our job doesn’t change. We find the wolves, stop the drugs. And leave Sebastian to Prince Daron.”

  When she disconnected Andreas sat with his arms crossed, staring at the table. His face was unreadable except for the tight jaw line.

  “You’re not mad about what Ryan said, are you?”

  “No.” He unfolded his arms. “I was thinking about Sebastian. How he and the wolves have used my people, his people. Tortured them.” Andreas finished his wine and stood. “Shall we be on our way?”

  His calm exterior di
dn’t fool her. Ari felt his energy vibrate with anger. Andreas wanted someone to pay. She and the vampire agreed on that. She hoped she got to Sheila before he did. Otherwise, there might not be much left for Ari to kill.

  * * *

  Later that night, after unsuccessful hours of searching, Ari slipped out to the woods where Yana was buried. She felt more peaceful there, more in control of the pain. She wanted Yana to know she was hunting her killers. That she wouldn’t give up until they were found. It would be a week tomorrow, and Ari missed her.

  It was a long time before she made her way home.

  Chapter Thirty

  “And no one told us.” Lilith stared at the tracking screens and voiced what the group was thinking. “They’ve watched us every day.” The accusation was plain in her voice.

  “Since the assassination attempt. Before you get too bent out of shape, think about it,” Ari said. “Someone had just attacked the prince. They were seeing the enemy everywhere. So they took precautions. Haven’t we talked about the need for more surveillance? Well, here it is. I don’t like the secrecy either, but at least they told us now.”

  “Hey, Mike, look at this.” Maleban grinned as he turned dials and poked buttons; Mike’s eyes lit up. Techies and their obsessions. In this case, it was a good thing. Drawn in by their companions’ excitement, the rest of the team crowded around, and resentment was set aside.

  The next two days flew by. During daylight, Ari worked with the security team, established the new procedures, trained on the use of equipment, sharpened defensive skills with sparring and mock attacks. In the evenings, Andreas and Ari continued to comb the Otherworld bars and clubs, patrolling the streets and Goshen Park, watching and listening for some word that would lead them to the Canadian wolves.

  Ari was surprised how well they got along. Andreas was a charming companion with a dry sense of humor. As he chatted with many of the bar owners, Ari gained an appreciation of his business skills. No wonder Club Dintero was so successful. Andreas’s keen eye noted every dirty counter as well as the friendly service or the sparkling set of glasses. Ari almost forgot they were looking for killers.