“Wow!” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Joe.”
She took his calloused, firm grip in her own. His rough palm scratched her softer one and shot a tingle through her belly. His touch was so different from William’s. She jerked away at the thought.
The doors opened and she stepped out. Why the hell was she thinking about William?
She glanced around the enormous lobby, and her stomach growled at the smell of food.
“I’m going to get something to eat. You want to come with?” Joe asked.
“Uh… Thanks,” she said. “But I should probably go find my uncle first.”
He nodded. “Lou should be in the executive offices down in the basement.”
Evan stared at him for a minute. “The executive offices?”
Joe nodded. “Yeah, do you need me to show you where they are?”
“No. I remember.” Her mind reeled with questions. “So my uncle…”
“He’s the leader now.”
The news made her head swim. “What happened to Norman?”
“Went out on a raid, never came back. Like you.” He gave her a sad smile.
Her uncle Lou was in charge. The idea sent her gut plummeting to her toes. She loved her uncle; he was her adoptive father, but he wasn’t an easy man, and his rules weren’t meant to be broken.
She smiled at Joe. “You know what? I think maybe I will eat first.”
“Well, let’s go.”
Evan walked with Joe in silence as he pointed new things out to her. In the lobby, where before there had been huge sections of various ornamental plants, there were gardens. The skylights above let in ample light and the scent of vegetation permeated everything in the lobby.
In the center of the lobby, the check-in desk was now a security command. Guards sat at the counter talking and lounging. People tended to the garden as well as cleaned floors or talked or sat and read. It was almost like a real hotel.
“How long have the gardens been inside?” she asked.
“About two years. It gets so hot here in the summer that they decided to try growing stuff inside as well as outside. All the tennis courts were turned into green houses and housing for the animals.”
“What kinds of animals?” They walked toward the hotel restaurant. People looked up at her as they passed. Some waved, others smiled, but even more of them just stared. None of them she recognized.
“We have about a couple hundred chickens. So eggs are good. We have about a dozen pigs, a herd of goats and sheep. We currently have a decent grape production growing in one of the greenhouses. Citrus trees are producing. There are still all the orchards down in the old Orange County region south of Los Angeles, so we go down there and raid everything we can carry too. There’s some apple orchards left up near Bakersfield, so we go up there as well. Everything is brought back and eaten, canned, or dried. All together they keep us fed, but we have to be careful. Everyone is given ration chips for the week.”
“How many chips?”
“Three per day. And you can only turn in three per day. But if you have up to three chips left at the end of the week you can turn them into the commissary for canned goods or anything that’s in there.”
“Wow. Things sure are different.”
He nodded. “It works better now that we have close to a thousand people. Your uncle has really helped us streamline and keep the problems to a minimum.”
“A thousand people?” she mused. When she’d left they’d had maybe a hundred. “Where are they all?”
They entered the restaurant and headed to the long, buffet-style counter. Joe grabbed a tray for her and one for himself as well.
“Most are out working the farm. We all have a job and take shifts. Weeding, planting, feeding the animals, collecting, you name it. We have about sixty who clean and then about a hundred guards and a hundred or so out on raids at any given time.”
“Wow.” She shook her head.
He chuckled. “You keep saying that.”
“Yeah, well when I left here we had hardly any of this.” She laid her tray down on the buffet. There was a basket of apples and a basket of oranges. She grabbed an apple. There was a basket of hard-boiled eggs and she grabbed two, along with a couple pieces of bread, and a bowl of what looked like oatmeal. Lastly, she grabbed a packet of sugar and a glass of water. Joe grabbed about everything she did and then they slid to the end of the row where a cashier sat reading a book. He glanced over their trays.
“You can only have one egg and two bread or two eggs and one bread.” He pointed to her tray.
“Come on,” said Joe. “She just got here.”
The guy shrugged. “Sorry. You know the rules, Joe.”
“Fine.” Joe pulled a chain off his neck and unhooked it. “Here, take three chips for today then.”
“No,” said Evan. “You won’t get anything more to eat till tomorrow.”
He winked. “Trust me, I’ve had it worse.”
The cashier stared at them. “Fine with me.”
Joe went to hand him the three chips.
“No.” Evan slapped his hand away and glared at the cashier. “He’s not spending a whole chip for one egg. I’ve been here three days and this is my first meal, so as far as I’m concerned, I’m paid up.” She grabbed her tray and started to walk around the cashier.
He jumped from his seat and blocked her way. He was a couple inches taller but not too heavy. Evan could take him easy.
“No chip. No food,” he said.
“You better get out of my way.”
He reached for her and memories of the vampyr attacked flooded her. She tossed her tray onto the buffet, grabbed his arm in a flash, and twisted it behind him. She’d moved so fast that even Joe backed up. She slammed the cashier’s face into his chair.
“Don’t. Touch. Me.”
“Hey! Evan!” Tommy ran over and stood behind her. “Hey. What’s going on?”
“He tried to touch me.” She wrenched the guy’s arm higher on his back, and he groaned into his plastic seat.
“She was taking an extra egg,” the guy mumbled.
“Okay. Okay. Easy. Evan, let Chuck go.”
Evan towered over Chuck for a minute more and then released him. The guy sucked in a deep breath, and Evan stepped away from him.
Chuck got to his feet, his face beet red and fire flying from his eyes. “She assaulted me. I want to file a complaint.”
“Now that won’t be necessary.” Tommy’s voice came out calm and diplomatic. “Evan’s new and doesn’t get all the rules.”
She glared at Tommy. “Where is the rule that he can try to accost me for taking an egg?”
“Okay. Let’s all calm down.” Tommy, ever the peacemaker.
“I want to file a complaint,” said Chuck. “She almost broke my arm.”
“Trust me, if I’d wanted to break your arm I would have.”
Tommy blew out a heavy breath and shrugged. “Okay. If you want to, you can go to my dad and file a complaint against my sister. That’s fine.”
Chuck’s anger flew out of him faster than a bird from a cat. “Your sister?”
Tommy threw his arm over Evan’s shoulders and kissed her hair. “She just got back. She was captured by slavers a few years ago.”
Chuck blanched and his shoulders slumped. “Wow. I’m sorry.”
Evan picked up her tray and put everything back on it. Joe gave her a weak, embarrassed smile.
“Here.” Tommy put a chip on the counter. “That’s for her food.”
Chuck nodded but didn’t say anything.
Evan headed to the far end of the restaurant and sat at a corner booth overlooking the entrance of the hotel. She dropped her tray to the table and took several deep breaths. She needed to keep it together.
“Uh… I got you a spoon.” Joe held a spoon and napkin out to her.
She took them and sat them on her tray. “Thanks.”
Tommy walked up peeling an orange. “Scoot.”
She moved over and both he and Joe sat down. She stirred the sugar into her soupy grain mix, realizing it wasn’t in fact oatmeal.
“What is this stuff?” she asked, lifting some and letting it drop back in.
“I think that’s quinoa,” said Joe.
“What the heck is quinoa?”
“A grain,” said Tommy. “We went up to Utah and found a ton of old warehouses outside of Salt Lake full of bags and bags of wheat, oats, and other grains. We learned how to sprout and grow some stuff out on the golf course.”
She chuckled. “You’re serious?”
“Yup.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t imagine Tommy out in the fields tilling the ground and stuff.
“So what are you up to today?” Tommy asked Joe.
“I’m out helping maintain the moat for a few hours and then I’m on guard tonight till midnight.” He peeled his egg and then popped it in his mouth.
Evan ate her grain cereal and wished she’d added more sugar.
“Pop wants to see you,” Tommy said.
Evan nodded. He’d want to debrief her as soon as possible. “So what will my job be around here?” she asked. “I’m sure he has something in mind already.”
“He wants you to take it easy for a couple days, and then I think he has something special planned.”
She snorted. “The last time Lou said he had something ‘special’ for us, we ended up taking military training classes.”
“Well this will hopefully be easier.”
Chapter 10
Evan said goodbye to Joe and followed Tommy down to the basement of the hotel where the offices as well as tons of storage areas were housed. There were few people down in the area except for those she could only assume were in charge somehow. They nodded to her and Tommy as they passed and then hurried along their way.
Tommy stopped at a large wooden door and knocked before opening it. Inside Lou sat behind a modest wooden desk in a nice leather chair. The office was moderate in size but functional. Lou never had been one for frills and excess.
“Evan.” He stood from his chair, his heavy frame dwarfing his desk, and moved toward her. He took her in his beefy arms and pulled her against his chest in a bear hug.
He held her for several minutes, and she was transported back to right after her parents’ deaths when he’d shown up at her house and whisked her into his truck with her cousins and taken off. She’d never been so happy to see someone in her life up to that point.
Finally he let go, sniffled twice and swiped at his eyes. “It’s good to see you, baby girl.”
Evan swallowed the lump in her throat. “You too, Pop.”
He motioned for her to sit down. She picked one of the tan upholstered chairs and sat on it, careful of her leg. She rubbed her thigh gently, massaging the muscles.
They stared at each other for a minute across the desk piled high with forms and papers and photos. The old computer in the corner beeped and chirped. Three monitors behind him rotated various views of security cameras around the hotel.
“How long have you been in charge?” she asked.
“About a year and a half. Norman disappeared on a raiding trip to New Mexico.”
“Why did he go?”
Lou shook his head. “We’d lost a lot of people up to that point. Supplies were low. He insisted on going himself. You know how he was.”
She nodded.
“You want to tell me what happened?” asked Lou.
Evan looked down at her hands. “Did anyone from my raid make it back?”
“No.”
She swallowed hard. Her gut clenched with remembering. “That means four are dead.”
“That many?”
Her uncle’s face held anger.
“We’d gone out toward Vegas. Rick wanted to get as close as possible to raid. He decided on Henderson.”
“He wasn’t supposed to go out there,” said Tommy.
“We argued about that, but he wouldn’t listen. We got there and headed into a subdivision. It seemed deserted but it wasn’t. We cut it too close to sundown. The Vampires were on us before we could get away. Rick and Fiona went down first. Drained dry. Josh, Sarah, John, Gordon, and I were cornered. There was an argument about whether to call the slavers or drain us. Josh and Sarah made a break for it. They got to the truck. I thought they got away. Apparently not. The rest of us were tied up and sold at the slave auctions but Josh and Sarah never arrived.”
“And you ended up as a slave?” asked Lou.
Goosebumps piled up on her skin and memories bombarded her. A large wooden bed, the scent of spicy aftershave, the sound of her name on his lips.
“Evan?”
Her head snapped up. “What?”
Lou’s face softened. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter. You’re home now. Can you tell me how you got here though?”
Damn. What did she say? Closest to the truth would be best, she assumed.
“I bounced around from house to house in the Chicago area trying to fulfill my mission and get the other slaves to rise up or run. I escaped a week or so ago when they were going to transfer me again. I drove till I got almost here, and then I was attacked and stabbed by some slavers. After that it gets a bit fuzzy.” Leaving William out of the equation was best for now, she decided. At least until she got a hold of him.
“So you don’t remember arriving here?”
“Vaguely. I remember walking toward the gate. And you carrying me… And a doctor.”
“What about the guy that brought you in?” asked Tommy.
She swallowed hard. So they had seen William. A trickle of fear skated down her spine and the desire to run back to her room and call him again almost had her lurch from her chair. “Just… He was tallish and maybe…dark hair?”
Her uncle studied her. “So you didn’t know him?”
She really wished she’d thought this through better and even talked to William about what to say. But the state she was in when he’d dropped her off hadn’t lent itself to much conversation. She remembered the look in his eyes as he’d carried her to the gate and set her on her feet. The desire that flooded his features when she’d kissed his cheek. How in that fleeting moment she’d almost told him she didn’t want him to go. She’d almost asked him to stay with her. To tell him she was scared.
“I don’t really remember, sorry. Was he a member of the enclave?” She massaged her temple, pushing away the memories of being in his strong cool arms.
“No.” Lou studied her and she purposely held still and held his gaze.
“So, Tommy said you had something special for me to do.” She tried to change the subject.
“I think maybe you should wait a couple days. Get readjusted,” said Lou.
“I don’t know that I could sit around for a few days not doing anything.” Though going back to bed was exactly what she wanted to do, if she didn’t act normal they’d know something was amiss.
Lou chewed the inside of his cheek. “I heard there was a problem in the restaurant.”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she said. “Look, there’s no need to readjust me. I’m fine. I want to get back to work. If you need me to go out there and get supplies or try to find more humans—”
Lou held up his hand. “That’s not really what we’re trying to do here anymore.”
“It isn’t?”
He looked between her and Tommy and then smiled. “I think maybe I should show you. You of all people will understand, I’m sure.”
“Pop, maybe we should wait. She’s been through a lot,” Tommy offered.
Lou gave him a hard stare and Tommy shut his mouth. “Your sister is tougher than you’ll ever be.”
Evan had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from coming to Tommy’s defense. It would only shame him further.
Lou turned his gaze to her. “Come see what we’ve been up to.”
Lou and Evan walked down the hallway and turned a corner to the adjoining corridor. Tommy walked b
ehind them, hands in his pockets, eyes on the floor.
A barred door stood in the middle of the hallway, new and out of place. On either side of it waited an armed guard.
“What is this?” she asked.
“You’ll see. Come on.” Lou motioned her forward.
The guard nodded to them.
“This is my daughter, Evan,” said Lou. “She is to be given access to every part of this facility.”
The guard stepped aside and held out his hand to her as she passed. “Nice to meet you. I’m Seth.”
Evan shook his hand but said nothing. He wasn’t much taller than she was, but he was twice as wide with muscles bulging in every direction. Seth unlocked the door and they stepped through. The hallway was exactly the same as the rest. Cream walls, beige carpet, twenty or so doors.
Lou led her past several rooms and then stopped. “This is where we keep the prisoners.”
“Prisoners? Like, enclave members who don’t follow the rules?” They’d never had prisoners before.
“No.” Lou unlocked the door and pushed it open. The smell of urine and blood tickled Evan’s nose. Inside the carpeting had been ripped up revealing bare cement. On the far side, a small set of window with bars over them shed light on the dark space. The painted walls were faded and peeling and a single dead light bulb hung from the ceiling. In the corner, shackled to the wall, a man curled into a ball. His clothes and beard denoted that he’d been there for months. Possibly longer.
He turned his head and she was met by bright blue eyes and pale skin. A vampyr.
Her skin crawled as if a million ants were having a dance party on her arms. “I don’t understand.” She backed out of the room.
“We’ve been working on something for a while now. A vaccine.” Lou closed the door and then continued down the hallway.
“Like the one I was given?”
“No. This one is different. It’s a vaccine for the vamps.”
“The vamps?” She didn’t understand.
Her uncle turned and his eyes held sadness. “If we can cure the vamps, they’ll be human again.”
Like Lou’s wife, her aunt Candice. If the vamps became human again, they’d be able to outnumber the Vampires. It made sense. Why try to free several thousand slaves when you could free millions?
Vengeance of the Demons Page 8