by Tina Folsom
John lost sight of him for a moment, then Ryder appeared between the pallets and a dumpster and aimed. Despite the silencer, John’s sensitive hearing picked up the sound of the shot. The camera lens shattered and pieces of it rained to the ground, but John doubted that anybody inside the building would have heard anything. Cranes operating in the vicinity provided sufficient background noise to drown out the breaking lens.
John pressed his earpiece, through which he was connected to all members of his team. “Ryder took out the camera. Team one is going in. Team two, stand by. We’ll get you access through the gate. Team one, we’re on the move.”
He motioned to the two hybrids in the van and slid the side door open, then jumped out, Benjamin and Grayson behind him. Using the pallets and the dumpster for cover as much as possible, John approached the door. Ryder had waited for his sign and was now trying the handle. The door was locked.
It wasn’t a big hurdle, not for a hybrid trained in all manners of breaking and entering. It took Ryder only twenty seconds to pick the lock. Then he nodded.
“Lock is open,” John whispered into his mic. “Grayson, what do you see on the thermal images?”
“Nothing in the front of the building. You’re good to go in.”
“And farther back?”
“Can’t reach that far. Too blurry. There’s something, but it could be just a heater. Not sure yet. I’m going in with you.”
“Wait! Benjamin, I want you to go around the building, see if you can penetrate the walls with your thermal goggles from the other side. We need to be sure.”
“I’m on it.”
The wait seemed to last forever, though it probably only took thirty seconds, until Benjamin reported back. “Only a few heat signatures in the back of the building. Northeast corner. Either two or three. Most likely adults. Can’t get a reading on the kids, though it looks like there might be another wall I can’t get through.”
“Thanks, Benjamin. Any other exits back there?”
“One door, but it looks bolted.”
“Good. Come back.”
John made a sign to Ryder. “On my mark, Grayson and I will go in. Ryder, you’ll open the gate for team two, and Benjamin will cover us.”
Ryder nodded.
“We’re going in.”
Ryder swung the door open, and John slid into the interior as soundlessly as possible, his gun ready. Grayson did the same, weapon drawn.
The warehouse was only half full with pallets of boxes and crates. Despite that fact, John couldn’t see all the way to the back of the building. But that fact also gave him an advantage: he could use the crates as cover while moving toward the area where Benjamin had detected people.
John motioned to the two hybrids, and alternately, they covered each other as they made their way toward the back of the building. When they reached the end of the crates, John peered past them. There were several doors, two to the right of him, one in the northeast corner of the building. The door there was next to a window, which allowed him a clear view into the room beyond. It appeared to be an office. He heard faint voices coming from it.
“Only heat signatures I’m getting are from that office,” Grayson whispered via the mic.
“Nothing behind the other two doors,” Benjamin confirmed to John’s right.
“Okay, I’m going into the office. Stay behind me,” John ordered and charged forward.
It was only a few steps to the door. He kicked it open with his foot, his gun aimed at the men inside. There were only two. Both jumped up from their chairs where they’d been lounging with bottles of beer in their hands. The bottles now clattered to the floor and shattered.
“Fuck!” one man yelled.
“Shit!” the other grunted and lunged for a gun that lay on the desk.
He didn’t reach it. John was faster, and in a second the nozzle of his semi-automatic was pressed into the man’s forehead. “One move, and I’ll splatter your brains all over the floor.”
The thug froze. The other man didn’t make a move either. Grayson had his gun pointed at the man’s head. From the front of the building, John heard the van enter, then the sound of the gate lowering again.
John turned his head toward the door. “We got two guys in the office,” he told his colleagues over the mic. “Check the rooms next to this one.”
He heard somebody acknowledge the order, then looked back at the two men. “Where are the girls?”
Both men’s eyes widened.
“Talk. One of you,” John ordered, his jaw clenched. When neither of the two opened their mouths, he pressed the nozzle of his gun harder against the forehead of his victim. “I’m not the police. So I don’t have to adhere to any laws regarding use of lethal force against a suspect. I could kill one of you, maybe then the other one will talk. Shall we try that?”
“Don’t shoot,” his victim begged. “I’ll talk.”
“I’ll talk, too,” the other said quickly, probably afraid that he’d be killed if he didn’t.
“Good.” John eased up on the pressure on his gun. Behind him, he heard more of Scanguards’ men enter.
“The rooms are empty,” Zane announced. “Tons of mattresses, bedding, and the like. I can still smell them.”
“Thanks, Zane.” John glared at the thug in front of him. “Where are the girls?”
“They’re long gone.”
“Explain. Where are they?”
“On a container ship. On their way to Russia.”
“Fuck!” John cursed. “Who is behind this?”
“I don’t know,” the man claimed.
John whipped him across the face with his gun, making blood splash from his mouth, while he grunted in pain. “Who?”
“I’ve never met him.”
John glanced over to the other man who was held at gunpoint by Grayson.
“I haven’t met him either. He sends us text messages. Tells us where to snatch the girls, which ones to grab. He gives us all the details. Which ship to put them on.”
John looked back at his captive. “Is that true?”
The man motioned to the cell phone on the desk. “You can check for yourself. But there’s no number. We can’t call him, he can only call us.”
“How do you get paid?”
“Cash. He tells us where he leaves it, and we pick it up. Always a different place.”
John looked over his shoulder to Benjamin. “Check the phone.”
Benjamin did as he was told, while Oliver joined him and rummaged through the paperwork on the desk.
“He’s telling the truth,” Benjamin said after a few moments of silence.
John nodded. “And the girls, what happens to them once the ship arrives in Russia? Who takes them from there?”
Both thugs shook their heads.
“We only put them on the ship,” Grayson’s captive said. “Once they’re loaded and the ship’s gone, we’re done.”
John narrowed his eyes and growled.
“You have to believe me,” the thug closest to him pleaded. “All we know is that the girls are special orders for some hot shots in Russia. They pick them specially. We just have to make sure they get on the ship. I don’t know for sure, but I assume the boss has a crew on the other side to distribute them to whoever ordered them.”
“Oh fuck,” Oliver suddenly let out.
John whirled his head to him and saw him holding up a sheet of paper. “What?”
Oliver addressed the thugs, “Is this the manifest for the ship the girls are on?”
Both nodded.
Oliver cursed. “John, if I’ve figured out the time difference correctly, the ship with the girls will be arriving in Vladivostok in less than four hours.”
“Shit!” John’s heart sank into his knees.
“There’s no way for us to get there before they dock,” Oliver confirmed. “And once the ship docks, our chances of finding the girls are basically zero.”
John squeezed his eyes shut. No, he couldn’
t give up. He could never face Savannah again if he couldn’t bring her little girl home. It would break her heart. And he realized then that it would break his too. Over the last few days, Buffy had become part of his life, although he didn’t know how it had happened. There had to be another way to getting to Buffy. A faster way.
“Then we just need to call in some help,” Ryder said from behind him.
John turned to him and locked eyes with him, when he suddenly realized what Ryder was referring to. “You’re right. Make the call.” Then he holstered his gun. “Zane, lock these bastards up in our cells. We’ll hand them over to Donnelly once the girls are safe and we’ve got their boss.”
“Pleasure,” Zane said, and from his facial expression John could tell that Zane was looking forward to inflicting a little pain on the bastards while transporting them back to HQ.
Fine by John.
29
John arrived back at Scanguards a little over half an hour later. Savannah was waiting for him in his office. When he reached the door, he stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. The news he had for her wasn’t what they’d both hoped for. On top of it, he knew it was time to come clean, because the solution he and his colleagues had come up with in order to get to Vladivostok and save the girls before they were scattered all over Russia, was one that involved supernatural powers.
He felt his heart thundering in his chest. The moment of truth was here. And he had no idea how Savannah would react.
He knocked to announce himself, then opened the door and entered. Savannah spun around. She’d been looking out of the window where day was turning to night. Just like in his own home, the windows at Scanguards were coated with a special UV-impenetrable film that made it possible for a vampire to stand in front of it without being burned.
Still dressed in his Kevlar suit, he placed his helmet and gloves on the desk.
“You’re back. Where is she?” Savannah looked past him. “Where is Buffy?”
He let the door snap shut behind him and walked toward her. “I’m sorry, Savannah, the girls weren’t at the docks anymore. They’ve already been transported away.”
Tears shot into Savannah’s eyes and a sob tore from her throat. “Noooooo!”
He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. “Shhhh! Don’t cry. Not all is lost. We got the two guys who kidnapped them, and they talked. We know where they are. We know where Buffy is.”
She lifted her head and looked at him with eyes filled with fear and just a smidgen of hope. “Where? Where’s my baby?”
“On a ship headed for a Russian port.”
“Oh God!”
He could see in her eyes what was going through her mind: the ordeal her daughter was going through, the despair she must be feeling, thinking that nobody was coming to rescue her. The loneliness, the hopelessness.
“We know which ship they’re on, and we know when they’re arriving, and where. We’ll be waiting for them.” He hesitated.
She studied his face now. “Something else is wrong, isn’t it?”
He wasn’t surprised anymore that she could read him so easily. Maybe it would help in the end. Help her understand that he wouldn’t hurt her, help her understand that he wasn’t a monster, despite what he had to tell her now.
“There’s something you need to know.”
“Oh God, they touched her, didn’t they? They touched my baby!”
He quickly shook his head and gripped Savannah’s shoulders. “No, they didn’t. It’s not that. But there is something.” He paused, not knowing how to start.
“You’re scaring me, John. Please, what is it?”
“The ship Buffy and the other girls are on will dock in Vladivostok in three hours.”
“Three hours?” As the words left her lips, an expression of horror and despair darkened her face. “No, no, no!”
“Listen to me. There is a way for me and my team to get there in time.”
She let out a shrill laugh. “How? It must take what, eight hours, ten hours to fly there? You’ll be too late.”
“No. We’ll be waiting for the ship to dock. We’ll be there before them. Because we have something they don’t. We have allies who can take us there. They’ll transport us.”
“What?” She looked at him, confused.
“Savannah, our allies, the people who’ll help us save Buffy and the other girls, they’re not human.” He swallowed hard. “And neither am I.”
She pulled free of him and took a step back. He let it happen. “That’s crazy.”
“It might sound crazy. But it’s real. I’m real. My friends are called Stealth Guardians. They’re an ancient race able to teleport to anywhere in the world via their portals. They can get us to Russia in a few minutes.”
She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. In her shoes, he would have thought the same, because mankind’s age-old dream of teleportation was just that, a dream scientists hadn’t yet been able to turn into reality.
“They are a benevolent race who’s made it their mission to protect the innocent. Just like we have, my colleagues and I here at Scanguards. We’re not just simple bodyguards and security guys. We’re not human, though we once were.” He watched her intently now. “We were human before we were turned.” He waited. Saw her contemplating his words, noticed her shake her head, witnessed the glimmer of emerging knowledge in her eyes. “I’m a vampire, Savannah.”
~ ~ ~
At first, she thought she’d heard wrong. Vampire. She associated the word with fiction, with movies, TV shows, with the female TV heroine she’d named Buffy after. It wasn’t real, she knew that, had never once believed that there was any truth to the centuries-old lore about creatures of the night who lived on the blood of humans. But John wouldn’t joke about something like that, wouldn’t choose this moment of all moments, where she was losing hope of ever seeing Buffy again, to dish up a lie. Not after all they’d been through together. Not after the things they’d told each other, the promise they’d made to each other that they’d be there to support each other, to be there for one another.
She looked at him. John stood there in utter silence, motionless and rigid. As if waiting for the axe to fall. And in that silence, every moment they’d spent in each other’s company came rushing back to her. Details suddenly emerged that she’d dismissed: the fact that he hadn’t eaten when she had, the lack of a mirror in his home, the claim that he’d run out of coffee, the blood on his chin.
But there were other things that contradicted his claim that he was a vampire. She glanced at the window. The sun was setting now, but earlier, during daylight, John had been in this office, with the sun shining into the room. And he’d driven his car during daylight, moved around his house freely as if the sun didn’t bother him.
Slowly, Savannah shook her head. “But the sun… it didn’t burn you. We were outside together. You can’t be what you say you are.” She couldn’t say the word, though she was surprised at herself that she was so calm. Maybe nothing could scare or upset her anymore. Because the worst thing that could happen had already happened to her: Buffy was gone, and her hope of getting her back was fading fast.
“Search your memory, and you’ll remember that I was never outside. Always in a room, or the car, my house, this building. Never outside while the sun was up.”
“But the sun comes through the windows.”
“Special UV-coating. We use it everywhere in this building, in our homes, our cars. So we can move freely during daylight hours. Because the sun does burn us, kill us if we’re exposed for too long.”
She accepted the explanation, but did that mean he was telling the truth? Could she take his word at face value? “I want to believe you, John. I want to believe that everything you’re saying is the truth, that the guardians you speak of are real and that teleportation is real. That there is a way to get Buffy back. I want to believe it, but I… I don’t know how. I have no hope left. And I fear that what you’re telling me is in my imagi
nation, that this conversation isn’t even taking place, it’s just in my mind, because I so desperately want to save Buffy.”
“You need proof.”
Savannah nodded.
“I can show you who I really am. I just want you to be prepared for what you’ll see. Most people are frightened when a vampire shows his true face. But I want you to remember that I would never hurt you. I may have piercing fangs and sharp claws, red eyes and the strength of a hundred men, but you have nothing to fear from me. I will always protect you. And Buffy. Will you believe me?”
“I will,” she said, without hesitation. She knew with certainty that John didn’t mean her any harm. She’d always felt that, felt it from the first moment she’d met him. That belief had grown stronger over the last few days.
“Then look at me,” he demanded softly.
He lifted his arms and drew her gaze upon them. His beautiful strong hands suddenly changed, his fingers growing long sharp barbs where his fingernails were. Savannah drew in a quick breath and lifted her eyes to his face, while her heart started beating frantically.
“Don’t be afraid,” John begged. His lips parted and slowly two teeth started to lengthen, one to each side of his incisors, until they were fully formed piercing sharp fangs where his canines had been.
“Oh my God.”
She pressed her hand to her chest, willing her heart to slow, when she noticed John’s eyes change color. First, the chocolate brown irises turned golden, then red. She’d seen the golden color before, had noticed it when they’d made love and thought that it had been a play of light. Now she knew. She’d seen a part of his vampire side, a part that had slipped through in the throes of passion.
There was no doubt now. He was a vampire. A creature who fed on the blood of humans.
She reached her hand out to him, took a step or two toward him.
“Don’t,” he demanded. “Please, Savannah, don’t touch me now.”
Her breath hitched. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.” Or had that been a lie?
“I won’t.” He swallowed. “But when I’m in my vampire form, I’m not as civilized as usual. I have a harder time controlling my desire for you. If you touch me in my current form, I’ll try to kiss you, and you won’t be able to stop me.”