Crossing to her backpack, she pulled out her subcompact 9mm Glock. It didn’t look like much compared to the big Glocks, but it was enough to stop a human, and since the sun was high in the sky, that was all she’d have to worry about. After dark, Aden didn’t need her little firepower. He was more than capable of defending himself.
Shoving her shirt up and her jeans down, she wrapped the bellyband around her waist, then pulled everything back into place. She’d originally chosen the bellyband holster because she didn’t want to advertise the fact that she was armed. With the lower edge of the bellyband tucked beneath the waistband of her pants, and her usual fleece hoodie adding another layer of concealment, no one would know she was carrying unless they took the time to pat her down. And if someone had enough control over her that they were patting her down, the fight was probably already over.
Checking the ten-round magazine, she slammed it home, then worked the slide, chambering a round. Going hot was what her firearms instructor had called it. It saved a few seconds on the first round, and a few seconds, he’d emphasized, might be all she had.
Sliding the Glock into the elastic, and putting her spare mag into its own special pocket, she pulled her long-sleeved T-shirt over it, but left her hoodie unzipped for now. Feeling slightly gunfighterish, she paced back to the hallway and down to the elevator, where she spent a few minutes staring up at the floor display, until the steadily lit number “1” began to flicker in her sight. She blinked rapidly and decided it wasn’t going to change. No one was storming the battlements, at least not while she stood there waiting. And besides, she was getting hungry again, and she’d left her pitiful allotment of energy bars on the coffee table in the lounge area.
Grabbing a fresh bottle of the water from the fridge, she settled back on the big leather couch and squirmed around a bit, before finally finding a position where the gun didn’t dig into her belly or scrape against her hip bone. She unwrapped the first energy bar, flipped on the TV, and felt her eyes begin to droop almost immediately. She hadn’t gotten more than an hour’s sleep last night. Setting aside the tasteless energy bar, she settled into the thick pillows and let sleep take her.
Sid came awake with a jolt, her heart racing as she stared at the unfamiliar room, taking in the giant TV screen which currently showed a bunch of hyperactive game show contestants celebrating mutely. Aden’s office, she remembered. She was in Aden’s office, and something had woken her. She sat up and checked the time on her cell phone. It was barely noon. Long hours stretched ahead of her, and she was beginning to hate the isolation of being locked in here.
She was reaching for her bottle of water, her fingers not yet touching the plastic, when she heard the very last sound she’d expected to hear. The elevator dinged faintly, as if the car was on its way up and she was hearing its progress through the lower floors. Was that what had woken her? It was so quiet in here that the smallest noise would seem loud.
She stood, listening. And heard it again. Maybe the elevator was simply moving up and down between the lower floors. Maybe she’d misunderstood what Aden had said about the car being locked down. Or maybe Earl Hamilton was coming up for some reason. Yes, that was probably it. Maybe he knew she was here and was checking on her.
Smoothing her T-shirt down and patting the gun for reassurance, she walked softly through the receptionist area and back to the hallway, where she paused. Sticking just her head through the doorway, she peeked down at the elevator and waited.
Nothing. Not even the earlier dinging she’d heard. That was good, right?
Feeling somewhat cowardly hanging back in the office, she ventured out into the corridor. Sticking close to the wall with the elevator on it, one hand running along the smooth surface, she approached the elevator cautiously. She could hear the hum of the car’s movement, the rumbling slide of the thick cables.
Standing there next to the elevator, she cursed herself for an idiot. She should have called Hamilton from the office. He was probably on speed dial, or if not, she had his number stored in her cell from the other morning.
She was just turning to head back for the office when the thunk of an arriving car froze her in her tracks. She backed away, staring, afraid to breathe as she watched the elevator doors slide almost soundlessly open.
Men poured out of the elevator, their faces and clothes bloodied, guns much bigger than hers already in their hands. She screamed, her hand going to the flat bulge of her gun, but it was too little, too late. One of them swung a closed fist, striking her hard enough that she spun around and slammed face-first into the wall just outside the elevator. She tasted blood in the back of her throat and felt her nose swelling shut from the force of the blow. Behind her, someone grabbed her by the hair and yanked, torqueing her neck as he pulled her back to her feet and held her upright. Someone else wrenched her hands behind her back and zipped a plastic tie around her wrists, jerking it so tight that the plastic band cut into her skin. She barely had a chance to cry out before a wet cloth was pressed against her mouth. Unable to breathe through her swollen nose, Sid sucked in a breath through her mouth and nearly choked on the sharp, acrid taste, fighting not to throw up. Primitive instinct had her drawing a second breath, and stars dotted the blackness behind her eyelids.
Her last thought was that they wanted her alive, and that was a good thing. But she couldn’t remember why.
Chapter Seventeen
ADEN WOKE TO a rare fury. His eyes opened, and he leapt from the bed, swallowing his howl of rage as he scanned the empty room, searching for whatever danger had his fangs splitting his gums, his fingers curling into claws. Nothing. The room was dark and silent. Searching farther, he sought out and found all four of his offspring, each just beginning to wake as the sun dropped deeper below the horizon.
He straightened from his defensive crouch, his heartbeat slowing to normal and his breathing evening out as the adrenaline drained away. He glanced over at the empty bed and thought of Sidonie. Reaching out again, he exerted his power in a search of the offices beyond the safety of his rooms, seeking the frail beat of her human heart.
She wasn’t there. Or she wasn’t alive.
Grabbing a pair of sweats on the fly, he ran for the door and input the release code, pulling the pants on as the shutters retracted slowly, as the bolts slid into the wall with the heavy thunk of solid steel. He didn’t wait, but ducked under the still-moving shutters as soon as the bolts were clear and the door could open.
The smell of blood hit him like a cudgel, knocking him back half a step before he raced down the hall and slammed through the security doors, following a scent he knew well. He’d taken Sidonie’s blood. It flowed through his veins, it pulsed in his heart. Her scent drew him not to the office as he expected but all the way to the end of the hallway, to the closed doors of the elevator and the smear of her blood on the wall.
The phone started ringing as he crouched down. Sidonie’s blood was in the carpet, too, and it wasn’t alone. There was other blood there. Human blood, and more than one person. But the scent was too faint to tell him who or even how many, as if they’d carried the blood on their clothes and lost only trace amounts when they struggled . . . with Sidonie.
He closed his eyes and tried to reconstruct what had happened, using only what his nose could tell him.
The phone stopped ringing. He heard an authoritative voice leaving a message, but didn’t bother to listen to the words. Nearly silent footsteps and the unique awareness of his offspring informed him that Bastien was awake and functioning and now stood in the office doorway, listening to the message.
That same awareness told him a moment later that his lieutenant had come into the hallway and was waiting.
“What is it, Bastien?” Aden asked quietly, as he dipped his fingers in Sidonie’s blood.
“That was the police, Sire. The caller didn’t say so, but the lobby doorman is dead. I heard someone else discussing it in the background. They’re interviewing tenants and are very unhappy
that they cannot access our two penthouse floors.”
“Where’s Hamilton?” Kage asked, loping down the hall in time to hear Bastien’s statement.
That was the question, Aden thought to himself. Where was his daylight security chief, and why wasn’t he the one who’d called to report instead of the police?
“The invaders were here,” Aden said, standing and eyeing the blood smeared on his fingers. “They took Sidonie.”
He turned to face his people, all four of whom now stood in the hallway, watching him with identical expressions—puzzlement and anger, but no fear, he was proud to see. They had confidence in him, in his ability to protect them and to kill whoever had dared orchestrate this brazen attack. Vampires didn’t send minions to attack in daylight. It was one of their few taboos. And to do it during a territorial competition was unheard of.
“We need to check on Hamilton and the others,” he told them.
“And the police?” Bastien asked.
“For all they know, we haven’t risen yet. Let them wait. Let’s go.”
They took the stairs down the single flight to the floor where Aden’s daylight security people bunked when on duty. Travis went through the door first, shoving it open hard enough to crash into the wall and rushing through in a burst of vampire speed. The one thing that was certain was that the invaders had been human. If any had still been lurking, waiting to catch Aden and his people unawares, they would have been unable to track Travis’s movement.
But there was no one there. Aden knew that as soon as the door opened. The scent of blood had grown stronger with every step he took. And now, he was nearly blown back by the stench. It was more than blood. It was a smell he hadn’t experienced in more than a hundred years, the reek of a human battlefield—sweat and blood, and over it all the stink of bowels gutted or released in death.
“Spread out,” Aden ordered. “Save anyone you can, and don’t forget to wipe their memories after. Yell if you need me. And find Hamilton.”
He followed his own orders, going from man to man, rendering aid, slicing his wrist and dripping blood into their mouths to accelerate healing where possible. Closing their eyes and offering a word to whatever gods were listening when it was too late for anything else.
“My lord!” Kage called. “I’ve got Hamilton.”
Aden strode down the hallway to the control room, where video feeds showed him the lobby and every door in the building. Earl Hamilton lay on the floor against the far wall. Kage stood, making room for Aden at the injured man’s side. It was obvious that Hamilton had taken the brunt of the attackers’ rage. He’d been the only one with access to the sixth floor during daylight—the elevator and stairs having separate but equally complex codes—and the invaders had tortured him to get it. Every finger was broken, the joints swollen and bloodied where they’d used something like a hammer to do the breaking. Hamilton’s face was so badly beaten, he was barely recognizable, and they’d stabbed him multiple times, as if they’d tried to kill him once they had what they wanted.
“Earl,” Aden said, stroking a hand over the human’s forehead and using his power over human minds to ease the man’s agony. It took all of Aden’s considerable control to kneel there, sending waves of reassurance and calm, while a part of him kept imagining Sidonie’s pale skin and delicate bones, her lovely face. Kept imagining her at the mercy of men who were capable of this kind of brutality.
He wanted to rage to the heavens, to hunt down whoever had done this and to do to them a hundredfold what they’d done to Hamilton and the others. And he desperately wanted to find Sidonie and bring her back to safety.
But first he owed a debt to Earl Hamilton. Using his fangs, he sliced his wrist open and put it against Hamilton’s mouth, urging the man to drink his fill.
“My lord,” Bastien cautioned. “Let me give him my blood. If Silas is behind this, she may use the confusion to challenge—”
Aden gave him a cold look. “Every one of these men offered his life in my defense. If I can help them, my blood is theirs.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“See to the others, Bastien. No one else dies.”
“And those who are already dead?”
Aden closed his eyes against the unexpected pain. He’d employed guards for decades, but he’d always considered daylight security to be more for appearances than necessity. He’d trusted his electronic locks and his vault doors to keep him safe. He’d never considered the possibility that any of his daylight guards would need to die on his behalf.
“We treat them with honor. Call the funeral home, you know which one. And notify their families. We’ll cover all expenses—”
“Their employment contracts cover that, my lord, as well as compensation to the families.”
“For all the good it will do them,” Aden muttered.
“Forgive me, my lord, but you need to speak to the police.”
Aden gazed down at Hamilton. The healing benefits of Aden’s blood were already obvious. It would take days for the man to heal, but he was breathing more easily, and his color was improving. If Aden had been willing to give him even more blood, he would have healed in hours rather than days. But Bastien was right. Whoever had done this wasn’t finished. And if the perpetrator was Silas, she could be planning to challenge him while he was weak or distracted.
Aden stood. Silas didn’t know him very well, if she thought this was enough to weaken him.
“Bastien, you’re with me. We’ll talk to the police.” They walked out into the main room. “The rest of you, clean this up. I’ll make sure the police remain downstairs”—another way of saying he’d nudge the human investigators’ minds in the right direction—“but I want these men moved to their bunks to recover. The bodies can be put in one of the side rooms for now, until the funeral home picks them up. And, Trav, get the appropriate cleaning crew in here. Make sure they arrive after the police are gone. And someone start checking the video feed of the lobby.”
He looked down at the sweatpants which was all he had on. They were covered in blood and wholly unsuitable.
“I need to change clothes.” He glanced at Bastien who was similarly half-dressed. “You, too. We need to make an impression. We will assure them that our security was never breached, and that we will, of course, cooperate fully.”
Aden raced up the stairs with Bastien in his wake, forcing himself to focus on the details of what needed to be done right now in order to protect himself and his vampires. Entering his suite, he shoved aside the rage that was eating him alive, ignored the images of Sidonie’s fair skin covered in blood, her face filled with terror. It wouldn’t do her any good for him to storm all over the city in a fruitless search. He’d taken enough of her blood that if he got close enough, he could track her.
But Chicago was a big city, and her abductors could be hiding her anywhere. She might not even be in the city any longer. He didn’t know when the attack had occurred, didn’t know how many hours they’d had to spirit her away, to torment her . . .
He picked up a heavy brass sculpture and threw it at the wall with such force that it hung there embedded in the plaster. He stared, not seeing it, his fists clenched with the need to hit something, someone. When he found whoever was behind this, their life would become nothing but pain. They would live a very long time, and every moment of it would be spent learning what it meant to defy a vampire lord, to take from him the only woman in his entire long life that he’d ever cared for. The only woman who’d ever honestly cared for him.
Turning away from the destroyed wall, he dressed quickly, pausing only to eye his reflection in the mirror, to straighten his tie and button the double-breasted jacket. The police were expecting a vampire, fangs and all. He’d give them a solid citizen, a businessman who was shocked at the intrusion of violence into his ordered life.
And if they didn’t believe that, he’d wipe their minds until they couldn’t remember what they’d had for breakfast. He didn’t have time for thi
s shit. Someone had broken every rule of vampire society, someone had taken his Sidonie, and they would pay before the sun rose in the morning.
SIDONIE TWISTED and yanked at the plastic ties binding her wrists until her skin was slick with blood, but she couldn’t get them off. Maybe if she’d had something sharp to cut them with, some edge she could use, but there was nothing. They’d tossed her into the trunk of a car, closed the lid, and taken off. The trunk was airless and reeked of exhaust fumes and something dead. The smell was nauseating, and she was fighting a constant battle against the urge to vomit, which could be fatal since her mouth was taped over, and she’d watched enough crime shows to know she would choke to death.
She didn’t know how long she’d been stuck in this damn trunk. She’d faded out more than once, maybe from the fumes, or maybe from the blow to her head when they’d first taken her. But it left her unsure as to how long they’d been traveling. She only knew it was long enough for her to wonder where she’d gone wrong, how she’d found herself tied up and in the trunk of a car.
She sighed. It would be easy to blame Aden, but it wasn’t his fault. Her current predicament was the multiplied effect of so many choices made over the years, beginning with her decision to forego the usual hometown stories of pancake breakfasts and basketball heroes in favor of pursuing what she considered serious journalism. Stories that could make a difference. She’d made a difference all right. Janey was dead, and she was probably going to join her before the night was over.
Aden (Vampires in America) Page 21