by Lizzy Ford
Movement across the street caught her attention, and she shifted her weight so it was more balanced, preparing for a confrontation.
“Now, Shane.”
“I don’t think so.” Something in his voice made her face his direction. His smile was gone, his eyes hard.
Here I was worried about him … He’d led her into some kind of trap. “What’re you doing, Shane?” she asked. “You don’t know what these things are.”
“I do. They’re going to turn me into one of them in exchange for helping them trap you.”
I definitely have a type. Her initial instinct was right. Her choice of guys was fatally flawed. Ashley glared at him. The vamps were closing in. Several emerged from the shadows, armed to the teeth with weapons, their red eyes glowing.
Jonny must’ve gotten tired of her picking on his vamps. How he found her, though, she had no idea. She was protected by Brandon’s Natural ability or so she thought. What had she done wrong? Left her student identification at a fight? Failed to notice one of the vamps tagging her with a GPS locator? Or did Jonny’s power as the Black God grant him the ability to bypass Brandon’s gift?
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She and Brandon had a code developed when they were still kids and molded by Xander’s paranoid influence in their lives. She unlocked the phone and rested her thumb on the app he had created for emergencies. Shoving the phone back in her pocket, she prepared herself to fight.
“All right. Step up,” she told the vamps, her heart pounding hard despite the bravado of her words. “I’ve already beaten a ton of you. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Ten of them closed in on her. She had the urge to run, nowhere near confident enough to face so many. Her one solace: if they wanted her dead, they’d have shot her by now. She didn’t know what Jonny was doing, but Xander would always find her. How he’d react when he discovered what she’d been doing was less encouraging. She’d rather face her fate when she got to it than die before that moment.
“Let’s get this started,” she said and drew a deep breath.
Chapter Five
“I need good news. Tasha. Stu.” Jonny watched over the shoulder of the hacker named Stuart at his workstation in the operations center in the basement of his Oregon headquarters. The vamp’s shoulders were hunched, a sign of his discomfort at having the Black God and his charged energy so close, and his fingers flew over the keyboard.
“I might have some,” replied the female vamp, his third in command.
Easing back, Jonny went to Tasha’s adjacent workstation. “The talisman is working?” he asked. The slender, stone like tool they’d recovered from the phone Brandon had sat on top of her laptop.
“Sort of,” replied the blonde vamp.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s working. But it’s not.”
“We need a dataset to focus it,” Stuart supplied. “It can’t just find anyone. It has to have a point of reference. Some sort of historical data or individual signature for it to track.”
“It’s a simple form of artificial intelligence. Or I guess, magic,” Tasha added. “But in order to learn, it has to have a starting point.”
Jonny listened. It wasn’t the greatest news ever, but it was better than nothing.
“Did it work?” Charles asked from behind him. The vamp smelled of fire and blood from his long night and day in Idaho and had returned to Jonny’s side immediately upon returning, as usual. The Traveler with him winked out of existence, leaving a singed Charles.
“I’m not sure yet,” Jonny replied.
“We followed his instructions exactly.”
Jonny nodded, waiting patiently to see if their gamble paid off. Stuart had instructed Charles how to access the trunk and now was testing their ability to link into the White God’s system.
“We’re in,” the hacker reported. “Testing out our ability to access the Guardian records system.” Before he completed the sentence, the screen filled with an alphabetical index of Guardians.
Jonny watched the names with interest, wishing he had the ability to exploit the information rather than use it defensively. Perhaps, once he’d fixed his rogue vamp problem, he could. For now, he needed the names of every Tracker he could get. “Find the ones not yet pulled into the organization,” he told Stu. “We need to quietly grab the people least likely to be noticed.”
Charles moved away from them while Jonny watched his hacker work. Jonny half-listened as his second spoke on the phone.
“There are about a fifty spread out all over the world,” the hacker reported. “Their ages range from five years to seventy.”
“Narrow it down to ages eighteen to forty or so,” Jonny instructed. “Healthy enough to survive being vamped.”
“Fourteen.”
“Send me and Charles the list.”
“Got it. There’s a chance they’ll notice we’re in the database, depending on their security measures,” the hacker said. “You want me to mirror the database?”
“Yeah. And anyone we identify, can you take them out of the database or mark them as dead or similar?”
Stuart was quiet for a moment. “Anything I alter is a potential red flag,” he said. “Let me play around with it and see if there’s something I can do to alter files without leaving a trail.”
“Good.” Jonny leaned back.
“If you ever … uh … want to vamp another hacker, it’d be useful,” Stuart added.
“I’ve got a recruitment requirement out for one,” Jonny reported. “We’re having problems keeping recruits right now. Tasha’s working on it.”
“Yep. I have two identified,” Tasha added. “We’re approaching them soon.”
“Yeah. I know.” The hacker sounded disappointed. “Someone with network security skills would be good.”
“Noted,” said Tasha.
“Ikir,” Charles said quietly.
“Yeah.”
Charles indicated the hallway outside the ops center. “Minor problem.” He held out the phone to Jonny.
Jonny accepted it quizzically and placed it to his ear. “What is it?”
“What do you mean, what is it?” came the infuriated voice of Brandon. “You know why I’m calling.”
Jonny glanced at Charles, who shrugged. “No idea how he got my number,” Charles said quietly.
Jonny motioned him away and waited until certain no one was within hearing distance. The last thing he needed was someone else thinking he’d gone soft by sparing the vigilantes.
“I’m afraid I don’t,” he replied coolly. “What do you want?”
“I want my sister back!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sorry.” Jonny started to lower the phone, determined to hang up on him, when Brandon’s next words stopped him.
“Vamps grabbed her last night.”
Jonny debated hanging up. No other missions were authorized last night in California, aside from his own trip to visit Brandon. His people were too tapped out to sneak away and disobey him, which left one possibility. “Go on,” he said.
“You just couldn’t leave her alone! She didn’t kill any of your vamps. She just wanted to help people and practice her skills. What did you do with her? Kill her? Vamp her?” Brandon was panicking. “How the hell –”
“Brandon, listen. I –”
“No, you listen! I’m going to –”
“Stop!” Jonny’s sharp tone silenced the young man close to his age on the other side of the call. “I don’t have her. I wouldn’t risk Xander’s anger.”
“It’s quite a coincidence you showed up in the middle of our apartment and then she disappears.”
It is, he agreed silently. But chances were, she’d crossed Valon’s rogue vamps one time too many and they tracked her down to stop her from interfering again. “There’s a lot going on you don’t know about. If you want to find her, go get Xan –”
“I know where she is.” Brandon was calming. “Xan
der will kill us if he finds out.”
“And I won’t?”
“No offense, but I’m more afraid of him than you.”
Jonny rolled his eyes.
“Swear you don’t have her.”
“I don’t. None of my guys do, either.”
“It was your guys that grabbed her!”
“Look, Brandon, I’ve got a tiny rogue element in my organization I’m looking to crush,” Jonny said with tried patience. “My guess is Ashley crossed the wrong damn vamp last night, and this is the result. It’s stupid as shit to be out doing what she’s doing. If she got in over her head, it’s not my fucking problem.”
There was a long moment of silence. He could almost see Brandon thinking.
“Where is she? I can prove they aren’t mine,” Jonny added.
“Monterey wharf.”
Jonny took a quick picture of the location of his mid-California vamps and texted it to the number Brandon was calling from. “Those are mine,” he said. As he said the words, he studied the photo. He had no one between San Francisco and Los Angeles – but there was an old ops center used long before his reign in the Monterey area. The rogue vamps would know about it. Were they stupid enough to make it their headquarters or simply using it to stash Ashley?
“You can manipulate that shit,” Brandon said finally.
“Good bye, Brandon.” Jonny hung up and handed the cell back to Charles. “Send a scout to the old warehouses my predecessor used to use in the Monterey area. I have a feeling some of our rogues are there. Tell them to watch only. I want to know who’s there and how many. And …” He debated. “… I don’t understand exactly what Stu and Tasha need for the talisman to work. Send Tasha with the recon team to determine if there’s something there she can use.”
Charles nodded. “May I ask what that was about?”
“No,” Jonny snapped.
Charles didn’t push and moved back to the ops center to issue orders for a scout to do some reconnaissance. Jonny remained in the hallway, thoughts on Ashley once more. It truly was the stupidest thing ever for her to start taking out vamps without the White God’s knowledge or support. What possessed her to take such risks? She had to know if he didn’t put a stop to what she was doing, someone else – probably Xander – would.
His phone vibrated and he glanced down. Brandon had texted him an address in Monterey and nothing else. Jonny shoved the phone into his pocket.
He owed the siblings nothing. Any involvement with them was tantamount to challenging Xander, and Jonny wasn’t in any position to do something so crazy.
Hours later, he was still telling himself this when he strolled onto the Monterey wharf packed with tourists and the evening dinner crowd. The air smelled of clam chowder and the ocean. The occasional bark of a harbor seal broke up the chatter of humanity.
He sensed the gathered vamps long before reaching the wharf and treaded carefully. Whatever they were doing here, they hadn’t thought to put up wards around the area. They wouldn’t sense him until he was in their midst.
Jonny paused in front of a boarded up restaurant, one of the largest buildings on the wharf. He counted … seventeen vamp signatures inside. It was a larger number than he was accustomed to finding gathered in one spot though nowhere near the several hundred that had defected. Still, they weren’t recruits either, which meant one of them was going to know where the others were.
He followed a sign pointing to a spot from which to view the bay and stopped behind the building. No one else was present. The tour boats were docked and dark, and a pallet filled with harbor seals swayed from the movement of waves and animals. He was able to sense Ashley, too. She read as a Natural, and he began to suspect Brandon was able to do more than move in stealth mode. He had covered Ashley’s signature the night before. Without him present, Ashley was exposed.
Jonny hung back by the railing, gaze on the two-story restaurant. The upper level had been an open air club, and some table and chairs remained. Instinct told him to step aside and allow Charles to handle the vamps. However, something else urged him to act on his own. He wanted to think it was a sense of duty and not emotion, but he wasn’t certain. Having learned to be patient and cautious under pressure, he had the urge to be reckless for once, to barge into the vamp hideout and wipe everyone out before releasing Ashley back to her brother.
Jonny debated another second then strode towards a door hidden under a stairwell beneath the upper deck of the abandoned building. He eased it open and slid inside, senses alert. The interior was dark and dusty.
He walked silently in the direction of the grouped vamps, veering off course only to confront the solitary guard they’d left near the back entrance of the building. It took a thought and a touch for him to paralyze then kill the creature. He had learned many ways to kill over the years with Charles’ help. His power, when concentrated and channeled in a single direction, managed to short out someone from the inside out. He was able to sever the spinal cord or boil someone’s blood just as easily without being more than a foot or two from someone. He could also hold them mesmerized, incapable of movement or independent thought, and physically beat them to death or stab them or whatever else he wanted to do. His favorite method, though, was to tear out their throats. Messy, simple and always sent a message that even vamps understood.
Tonight, he chose instant death where he’d usually want the messiest death possible to leave as a warning to others.
He lowered the dead vamp to the ground. He could wipe out the wharf and everyone on it, too, but he had learned a thing or two about how discretion kept him off Damian’s radar. Right now, he needed every moment of quiet he could get.
The plethora of skills available to a god were still emerging, and channeling all his focus took effort. He paused before the door leading to where the other vamps were gathered. They had infrared sight in the dark, unlike his full on ability to see everything in gray scale around him. His eyes went to the sources of electricity he could sense within the walls.
Jonny crossed to a point where the subtle thrum was loudest and rested his hand against the wall. He pushed his magic towards the wiring of the building. A surge of power electrified the air around him before the circuits fried and shorted out.
Grumbling and cursing originated from the room full of vamps. He stepped away, wanting to draw out as many as he could before outright unleashing his magic and attacking.
Two left the room. Invisible to the creatures he was charged with controlling, he waited until the door closed behind them before lifting both hands to cripple them. Seconds later, both crumbled, dead, to the ground.
Three down, fourteen to go. If they were somewhere more isolated, he wouldn’t have a problem rolling out his power and letting it crush the traitors. Jonny approached the door to the restaurant floor and opened it. Ashley was against the far wall.
The vamps didn’t notice his entrance. He approached the one nearest and killed him with a touch then moved to the second closest. He had made it through five before one of those falling smashed into something glass as he collapsed.
The others fell silent. Jonny held his breath and wove through them, towards Ashley, while the vamps searched the area nearest the door for signs of an intruder.
She was hooded and tied, and his stomach rumbled when he smelled human blood on her. He rested a hand on her arm, assessing her body. She was bruised and cut in a few places, but there was no major damage to her. He couldn’t be entirely certain without biting her, which gave him more access to someone’s body, but he assessed she’d be able to fight. He was counting on it. What was better, as a Natural warrior, she shouldn’t need light to fight either. She’d be driven by instinct rather than sight.
Jonny said nothing as he quickly untied her. He doubted she’d bother thanking him. He pulled the hood off her next then pressed a knife into the palm of one of her hands. She was breathing steadily and seemed alert. He didn’t have time to evaluate her completely. The vamps were heade
d his way.
“You need to leave. Fast,” he whispered. He then stood, moving away.
There was a pause before he heard her stand behind him. His attention returned forward.
A flashlight blinded him briefly. Jonny’s arm shot up to block the sudden light. More than one gasp of surprise came from the startled vamps.
“How …” one vamp started and then stopped.
“One chance,” Jonny said. “You all have one chance to beg for mercy.”
No one moved, least of all Ashley. He didn’t need to see her to know she was probably more shocked than anyone.
“Kill him,” one of the vamps said.
“Wrong answer,” Jonny growled in a low voice. His magic worked best when he was patient and calculating. It was going to be difficult to remain calm when he was about to be attacked by half a dozen vamps.
The first two attacked from his left. Before he had the chance to react, Ashley was there. She moved too quickly for even him to track, and he found himself watching a heartbeat too long. He missed blocking the first punch from the vamp that launched at him next. The creature’s fist smashed into his cheek, and Jonny was driven back a step. He lashed out without thinking. Black fire smashed into his attacker and sent the vamp crashing through the pane of glass of the front window. Jonny witnessed the shocked expressions of the evening crowd briefly before his attention returned to the hostile vamps.
Ashley knocked out her two and confronted a third.
Jonny killed one dead before it had the chance to strike then snapped the neck of the second. He smashed into the third with both fists and power, and the vamp dropped dead.
Ashley was done and breathing hard.
Cries for help came from outside the restaurant, and he saw the unmistakable blue uniform of police.
First things first. He couldn’t leave any vamps alive.
“You have something against killing?” he demanded and bent down to touch one of the vamps she’d knocked unconscious.
“Yeah. I don’t do it!” Ashley snapped back.