Ulysses Exposed (Blaire Thorne Book 1)

by N Gray

  “No, I did not know who you were when we picked you off the cement in the alley.” His voice sounded dry and sarcastic.

  “We didn’t know, Blaire.” Sebastian echoed Léon, but his words were calmer and sincere.

  “And what about Amenemhat?”

  “We have been trying to locate the container and its contents. We inserted a tracker inside the sarcophagus before it left Egypt, but the signal seems scrambled and we can’t locate it. We get a blip, and then it disappears again.”

  “Can you tell me the significance of Amenemhat?”

  “We have no interest in Amenemhat; it is the jewels that are of great value, Blaire. They are priceless to a vampire.”

  “Go on.”

  Léon stepped closer, but Sebastian held a hand out to stop him from coming too close. Was it for Léon’s safety—or mine? I frowned at Sebastian. Léon stood still, his arms straight against his sides.

  “Do you know anything about Egyptology?”

  “Strangely enough, I seem to remember quite a bit lately, but jog my memory and explain.”

  Ralph stood closer to the bed, so that if I needed him, he could jump over and help. With everyone blocking his path, over the bed was the easiest. It’s what I would have done.

  “Stories are told of Apep, the god of darkness, who created men just like him by infecting them with his bite. Apep caused so much chaos in the underworld that he needed to be stopped. His nemesis was Ra, the god of light who created the earth, the sky and the underworld. Every time Ra visited the underworld, he and Apep would fight. Eventually, Ra decided upon the creation of three jewels of immense power, with which he hoped to destroy Apep.

  “Centuries later, as the vampire population increased, some fed on powerful Egyptians. To stop the vampires, the Pharoahs had their scribes scour the scriptures until they came across the story of Ra’s creation, and they realized that these three jewels harnessed the power to control the vampires—or kill them. It would strip vampires of their powers and leave them at the mercy of the one who held the jewels—but all three jewels had to be held together for their power to be unleashed.

  “As my powers have grown, I have had many people try to destroy me. As you can see, all have failed, but I have heard of others searching for these jewels to use against me—to get me to obey. This I cannot allow, and so I found them first and had them brought here. But, somehow, someone knew and sought to steal them from me.”

  I let that sink in; I knew about the story of Apep and Ra, but I’d never heard mention of the jewels that could control vampires. If the government found out, they could use it as a weapon to control them all. A weapon that people would kill for; a weapon that would become very dangerous in the wrong hands.

  “I don’t recall any books documenting these jewels. Does the government know about them?”

  “No, I do not think so, and it is not the government who have taken them. They would have used better resources to find the jewels, and they would have used them against my kind already. Which is not the case, as I still have all my powers.” He raised his hands in front of him for me to see, as if to symbolize that there had been no change in him.

  Point taken.

  “So, do you think it’s a vampire who took them from you? It would make sense. The reason as to why the jewels haven’t been used yet—because doing so would stop their own powers.”

  “Precisely. No vampire—no sane vampire, that is—could use the jewels himself. The jewels would render the vampire mortal. It would have to be a human, or even a were-animal, who could use them, but we don’t know for sure. I wanted to bring the jewels here for testing in a controlled environment.”

  I considered what Léon had told me for a moment. Having been in his care and seeing firsthand how he conducted himself, I believed that what he said was true.

  “We will help you find these jewels,” I said, ”but I also want the person responsible for attacking me and killing Shane. Can we help each other?” It was a fair trade, in my eyes.

  “Sebastian can tell you all we know. He will go with you, but I need to stay here—we have out-of-town guests, and they must know none of this.” Léon reached for the door again and opened it. “Thank you, Blaire. You too, Ralph.”

  The two vampires left. The rest of us remained silent.

  “Shit.” The sound of my voice eventually pierced the quiet.

  Mel headed for the door. “Right then. I need to get out of here before the proverbial shit hits the fan. Sebastian, I am going home. Call me when I’m needed.”

  “Thanks, Mel,” Sebastian said. Turning to us, he said, “We have to go now before the security walls change and the vampires need to retire. The sun will be up in a couple of hours, and we have to be out of here.”

  Mel left first, but where she turned left, the three of us went right, with Sebastian leading us out the maze. Eventually we exited the building without bumping into any vampires, but the door we were left standing near was nowhere near Ralph’s car, which was parked on the far side of the building. We had to walk around the block to get there.

  It was still dark, but the silver sliver of dawn was piercing its way through the night sky, and I shivered—not from the cold, but from thinking too hard about everything. We all agreed that we would go to the shipyard one last time, but at least this time around, we had keys to the office and Sebastian would help us in any way he could.

  Léon was his brother—half-brother—and, despite Léon being a vampire, Sebastian loved him enough not to let him die or have any harm come to him. Despite being stronger than Léon because he was a were-leopard, he allowed his older brother to hold the throne. As long as his brother was Master of the City, he would stay the second-in-command.

  CHAPTER 19

  ONE QUESTION STILL burned within me. Had Sebastian known that Ulysses had been hired to kill Léon and had me attacked to make sure that I couldn’t finish the job? I stared at the back of his head in the front seat as Ralph drove us to the shipyard. After everything Sebastian had done for me, could I bring myself to kill him? I was supposed to be an assassin, after all—but since the attack, that life no longer meant anything to me. If Sebastian answered truthfully that he had been behind the attack, could I grab Ralph’s gun and shoot him?

  Sebastian must have felt my stare because he turned around, twisting his body in the front seat as far as the seat belt would allow.

  I glared at him.

  “What’s wrong?” he said.

  “Was it you?”

  “Was what me?”

  “Was it you who had me attacked?”

  His eyes went big, their green coloring paling against the white, his mouth parting slightly. He shook his head. “No, I did not. I swear.” His expression softened. “I want to know who is behind all this just as much as you do. We have compromised people working for us, and I need to know who they are, so we can be rid of them.”

  I relaxed slightly. There was a breach somewhere, and I felt reassured by his reaction that it wasn’t Sebastian. He was right; they needed to flush the culprit out. This person knew about the shipment and when to steal it, and they achieved this right under their noses. Could Léon not tell when someone lied to his face? Could he not sense the guilt? Unless whoever was responsible was powerful enough to mask it.

  “Who do you know that could use their power to conceal their involvement?”

  Sebastian considered this for a moment. “Few,” he said. “Roland and Jean-René are as old as Léon, but they are nowhere near as powerful. Charlotte is powerful, but she loves Léon. She would do anything to protect him; she would do nothing like this.”

  “What about those two from the club? Ian and Esther?”

  “No, never. We would know if it was them.”

  “Any were-animal Léon is attached to or that he loved and hurt?”

  That made Sebastian grin. “No, Léon just likes their blood. He isn’t attached to any of them.”

  I didn’t know why he was grin
ning at me.

  “Besides the latest vamps who arrived, did anyone else arrive in the last two weeks or month that you think could be culpable?”

  “No, there has been no new arrivals. The vampire guests only arrived today, or rather last night.”

  The car stopped with a jolt, and I almost slammed into Sebastian’s head.

  “Geez, Ralph! What’s with the stop?”

  “Look, there are people there and I don’t know if they would allow us to go any further without being riddled with bullet holes.”

  Sebastian turned around in the front seat to look at our surroundings, and so did I. The shipyard was ahead of us, and between us and its perimeter fence were men dressed in black, all armed with machine guns and pointing them at us.

  “Stay here,” Sebastian said, and he climbed out of the car with his hands up. He walked to the front of the gate and spoke to the guards.

  Sebastian motioned for us to come forward, so Ralph drove on and we stopped right in front of the boom gate. All the guns were pointing to the sky, and Sebastian was laughing with one of the guards. My shoulders relaxed, and the knot in my stomach eased. I would live for another day.

  We climbed out of the car and joined Sebastian, and the three of us walked the rest of the way into the shipyard with four guards at our backs. Their presence was making me nervous, but at least their guns weren’t pointing at us anymore. Just knowing that we needed so many guards made me realize that there were people out there who wanted us dead. I wished my memory would come back so that I could, once again, be the big bad assassin I was supposed to be.

  I still didn’t want to touch a gun, though.

  We entered the first office. Sebastian explained that this was where Gaspard and Edgar kept the records. We started going through all the cabinets and folders when I remembered the container number from the photo— ‘369182’. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the envelope that had been hidden between my mattress and the base of the bed. As I unfolded the envelope, I once more read the name of Léon’s shipping company, ‘F.C. Armateurs’, written on it. I realized that we had never looked inside the envelope, but I did now and pulled out a piece of paper. On it was an address, and it was written in what looked to be my handwriting.

  I asked Sebastian for the address of the shipping company, and he gave it to me, but it didn’t match the one on the paper. There was a map on one wall of Sterling Meadow, and I went to it and traced my finger across the map, looking for the address from the paper. There were a few addresses marked on the map, but none of them looked familiar. Both men came to stand on either side of me to see what I was doing.

  “It was inside the envelope I found at my house, Ralph. None of us saw it.”

  Ralph took the note from me and began to help with searching for the address on the map. When Ralph handed Sebastian the note and he saw the address, he paled.

  “I know where that is.”

  Ralph and I turned to him at the same time.

  “It’s another of Léon’s warehouses. It’s a depository for storing priceless items. Only a handful of people know of its location.”

  When Sebastian showed us where it was on the map, it was not one of the addresses that had been circled.

  “But because this warehouse is secret, there is no red circle,” I stated.

  “Exactly. Only a handful of us know about it.”

  “That narrows down the suspects.”

  “What do the circles mean?”

  “It’s all of Léon’s properties.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes, all of them; he has quite the portfolio.”

  I guess you can’t be a vampire and not gain businesses throughout the years, but there were over fifty circles dotted across the large map.

  “How far are we from the warehouse?”

  “It’s about a twenty-to-thirty-minute drive.”

  “What are we waiting for, then?”

  We climbed back in the car. Sebastian had organized for two of the bodyguards to escort us. They looked like they came from the same cookie cutter; both had strong jaws and muscles bulging in places that I didn’t know there could be muscles. Both wore black tactical pants, black shirts and military-grade cross-draw vests with assorted accessories and all the bells and whistles they required for their guns and knives. One was dark like cocoa and had a head so closely shaven that it shone, while the other had an olive tan and a buzz cut.

  The bodyguards sat on either side of me in the rear, with their broad shoulders squashing me in the middle and their legs spread, keeping me pinned. I pressed against their legs with mine to force them to give me some space. They picked up on my discomfort and eased up on their manly posture. I patted their legs like the good dogs they were and said, “Thanks.”

  We weaved through the light morning traffic and reached the warehouse that Sebastian had mentioned. It was in a rundown part of the city where no one would venture alone. No streetlights worked. Some buildings were in various stages of decay, while others were empty shells. This warehouse was in great condition, and so I surmised that someone had to live inside it to keep it that way.

  I was right. As we reached the side door, it opened, and a man greeted us. There must have been alarms that triggered our arrival; I doubted that he slept on the floor near the door. His sandy blond/brown hair was ruffled from sleep, and despite being relatively short on top, it still hung over his ears and almost in his eyes; it was in definite need of a trim. He had pretty green eyes with long black eyelashes that made him appear a little feminine, but the square jaw and stubble made you think otherwise. He was wearing silk boxers and had no shirt to cover his swimmer's physique. He was a little taller than me.

  “Sebastian, you should have let me know you were coming. I would have made proper arrangements.” His grin held mischief.

  “Don’t sweat it, Lee.” Sebastian pushed the door wider and Lee stepped out of his way, bowing his head as Sebastian walked past. “Lee is part of my leap and stays here to look after the place.”

  I remembered the term leap. It’s what people called a group of leopards, so that would make Lee a were-leopard. From Lee’s posture, I could only assume that Sebastian was the leader of their leap or higher up in the ranks than he was. We all followed Sebastian while Lee closed the door behind us and came running up to the front to speak with Sebastian. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but their heads nodded, and Lee allowed Sebastian to walk in front. Lee walked beside me, giving me sideways glances as if to get a good look. I felt like pushing him away from me, but I didn’t know him, and I didn’t feel like pissing anyone off just yet.

  The hallway opened into a large room filled with various boxes and containers. Other rooms branched off to either side. It was so spacious that you could easily store a commercial airplane in there.

  “It’s this side, Sebastian,” Lee said, as he broke away from the line we were walking in and moved to the far right-hand side. Sebastian remained at the head of the group, and we all followed him.

  We stopped in front of a row of six containers with various numbers on them.

  “When did the consignment come in?” Sebastian asked.

  “All six came in about six days ago.”

  Hmm—all on the same night that I was attacked.

  “Which one has the number ‘369182’ on it?” I asked as we walked to the end of the row.

  We stopped short of the second-to-last one, and Lee pointed to one that had rust on the sides and its doors held in place by an old lock—an ancient lock, perhaps something from the 1700s.

  There was a noise behind us. It sounded like someone running in sneakers, and they squeaked against the floor with each step. The two bodyguards lifted their guns and aimed at the approaching man, who stopped abruptly and lifted his hands.

  “Don’t shoot! This is Kai.” Sebastian touched the first guard's gun and lowered it to the ground.

  Kai was as tall as Lee, but with a lot more muscle. His
hair was shaved on the second shortest setting, and he had deep-set brown eyes. His aquiline nose, cheekbones and chiseled jaw reminded me of a Roman soldier. He wore silk boxers and sneakers with no socks.

  “Sebastian”—Kai did the same bow—“I wish you had warned us. I would have dressed appropriately.”

  “No formalities tonight, Kai. We just need to get inside this container. Do you have the key?”

  Kai looked at the container and its lock and shook his head. “It arrived that way. We don’t have the keys for any of them.”

  “Who brought them here?” I asked.

  Lee and Kai both looked at Sebastian, as though asking him for permission to answer my question. He nodded at them.

  “One of the young vamps brought them from the shipping company. He said that Léon wants these here and that we are not to touch them—period.” Kai had answered, but his eyes nervously said something else. Were there other warnings?

  I stepped closer to the lock and held it in my hands. It looked as though it was made of strong metal—it wasn’t a lock that could be picked or cut through. As I held the lock in my hands, my mind wandered to my pocket. I wasn’t sure that it would work, but I pulled the key chain out of my pocket that held the three ancient keys and tried the first. Nothing. The second key made a clicking sound, but I couldn’t turn it all the way. The third key clicked and turned all the way, and the lock opened. I stared at the open lock, and my mouth fell open.

  Sebastian hovered over me and asked, “Are those the same keys I found in the alley?” His left arm came around me and took the lock from my hands.

  I turned around in the circle of his body. He was too close to me; I moved away, and my back hit the container. “Yes, you found them in the alley. But I don’t know how they are connected?”

  Maybe the were-animals who attacked me dropped the keys, and I said as much.

  Sebastian thought about that, and his shoulders relaxed. “We will have to speak to Danny, but let’s see what’s inside first.”

  I grabbed one side of the door while Sebastian took the other, and we opened the container at the same time. The gust of air that escaped from the container was rancid, and it blew some strands of my hair as the vacuum created by the container being closed was finally released.