“I know. Most Dresdan are aware of the rogue problem. Sounds like it’s being taken care of from all angles.”
“But everyone has an agenda in mind these days, LadyBug,” he said. “One could only hope that agenda includes not harming anyone at all.”
Elaina smiled. “I’m proud of you, Dad. You were always adamant about helping others.”
“I wish I had done something sooner,” he said. “I guess all I was concerned about as a District bounty hunter was making ends meet. Except for my short stint in the military, it was the only job I ever had.”
“No regrets. Let’s move forward from here, okay?”
He nodded.
“Where did you lay my mom to rest?”
“A cemetery in Texas. I’ll give you the coordinates.”
“Thanks.”
“Elaina, I’m so sorry about everything.”
“Don’t be. You offered me a life I never would’ve had if I had stayed with my birth mom in the labs. I only wish you had told me sooner.”
“I wish things were different, too.”
“But had I not gone back to the District, I probably wouldn’t have known what I know now. I can’t let this rest. D5 Holdings, District 5, or whatever other names they hide behind will pay.”
“Are you planning something, Elaina?” He looked troubled.
“Yes. Since the moment I left, I’ve been planning to shut District operations down. No matter how long it takes. I’ll make them pay.”
Chapter 12
Elaina flipped through the suitcase that her dad had given to her back at the bed & breakfast. Dozens of pictures from Elaina’s childhood memories were stored inside. He’d even kept some of the poems she and her mother had written together. He’d also left the file that someone had managed to confiscate from District records about her birth mother. She was now mourning the death of not one, but two parents.
She sat cross-legged on the bed, holding the picture of the woman she never knew. One photo wouldn’t tell her the whole story, and she knew there was more. Why would a mother give up her child? Why didn’t she want Elaina?
Vicq walked into their bedroom, bringing a cold draft inside with him. They’d only spoken a few times since they’d left the bed & breakfast, and ever since, Elaina had been in the room trying to fit most of the puzzle pieces together. It was difficult to paint a complete picture when many of the bits were still missing.
Vicq approached the bedside and leaned down to kiss her forehead.
“I would take the pain away if I had the ability,” he said.
“I’m fine. I’ve dealt with death before,” she said.
“Of course you have, Elaina, but this time, it’s different. Hunting rogue vampires to death isn’t the same as this.”
She sighed deeply and ran her palm over her forehead. “You’re right, but was I doomed from birth all along?”
“Doomed, no. Chosen by fate because you’re strong enough, yes.” He stroked the side of her face. “But I like to think that you and I were meant to be together. Is that selfish of me to think that?”
“No. Meeting you was worth every moment. The bad ones and the good ones. If I hadn’t met you when I did, would I still be at the District dreading my decision? Would I have known what had happened to my birth mother?”
“Maybe. We’ll figure this all out. I promise.”
Elaina watched as he undressed completely and then came to join her on the bed.
“You’ve been up all morning, Elaina. And you haven’t fed,” he said, lying on his back next to her.
“I don’t feel like feeding right now,” she said, pulling her robe tightly around her body and then snuggling up next to him.
She handed Vicq the picture of Chrishauna Arakelian. His eyes narrowed and then widened as he took in the image of the woman.
“You look like her. Exactly like her. She looks very…” Vicq frowned.
“Young?”
Vicq nodded.
“That’s because she is. Much younger. According to the birth certificate, she was only fifteen years old when she gave birth to me.”
“God…”
“I wanted to be angry at her for abandoning me, but then I realized I didn’t know the whole story. How could I blame her?”
“This likely means that they’ve been using humans in their experiments for years. Men, women…innocent children. All the evidence is there.”
“The further I dig, the more I want to know. About my mother. About District 5. About everything. I’d do anything to discover and expose the truth. And I will.”
“And I’m with you.”
Chapter 13
The details about that day when Vicq rescued three adolescent boys from their kidnappers stayed with him in the months following the incident. The North Heights Health Clinic had been burned to the ground by his own hand, but the building sign still remained erected like a painful reminder of District 5’s misdoings. Just as he had the night he’d helped the boys escape, he drove south down the interstate until he reached the church where he’d left them. He figured someone would be there on this Sunday, but when he arrived, the churchyard was empty. It was only a quarter after six in the evening, but still, he was too late.
Vicq kept driving, following his instincts. His Maker had always told him that the people who he cared about the most would always hold a special place in his heart. Even though blood connections were strongest, Dresdan also had the ability to connect with a person’s soul. He knew the woman couldn’t live that far from the church, and about a half hour into driving, he spotted the same old Buick with the pink bumper sticker that said: Jesus Saves parked in front of a small brick house surrounded by a white picket fence.
He parked at the adjacent corner of the cul-de-sac and observed in awe as three young boys ran around on the front lawn, kicking a soccer ball. He rolled the tinted windows of his Aston Martin down, not caring if the sun burned him to a crisp. He couldn’t believe it. The woman had kept the boys after all this time.
All three boys appeared to be around the same age, but Vicq couldn’t tell right away if they were related or just happened to be held at the same clinic for whatever reason. It didn’t matter. They couldn’t go back there. What kind of company would do something like this to children?
Vicq left his car running and got out of the vehicle. The sun wasn’t a threat anymore as it began to fade behind the tree-dense horizon. He waited by the gate until one of the boys noticed him.
“Hey! You need something?” the blond boy asked him.
“Yes, kind of. I have a package for your…mother,” Vicq said, holding a suitcase filled with money across the fence.
“We don’t have a mother, sir.” The second boy nudged forward. He was the tallest, and maybe the oldest.
“You don’t live here alone, do you?” Vicq asked, his eyes shifting from the Buick to the boys.
“No. We’re adopted. Our nanna is inside cooking dinner. Wait here. We’ll go get her.”
“No,” Vicq exclaimed. “I just need you to give her this for me.”
The second boy narrowed his gaze and looked up questioningly. “You look familiar.”
“I do?”
“Yes, kind of like the guy from my dreams.” The boy glanced behind Vicq at his car. “Is that your car?”
Vicq nodded.
He smiled. “Cool.”
At that moment, the old woman called out to the boys from inside the house. “Taylor! Aaron. Jacob. Dinner’s ready.”
Vicq handed the suitcase to the boy. “Will you give this to your nanna for me?”
The boy frowned. “How do I know it’s not a bomb or something?”
“Very good. You should always question everything. What’s your name?”
“Taylor.”
“Taylor? I’ll stand here while you open it.”
“Boys! You’ve got school tomorrow. Come inside!”
They huddled around the suitcase together, while Taylor popped
the latch and opened the case. Their eyes widened like kids on Christmas morning.
“Sir…?” Taylor exclaimed. “That is a lot of money.”
“I have to go now. I’ll be back soon. In the meantime, be good men to your nanna.” He spun around and headed back toward his car.
“Wait! Who are you? What’s your name?”
“Vicq,” he replied without turning around.
Back in the car, he watched as they raced inside the house with the suitcase and closed the door. Not even a minute had passed before an old woman appeared in the doorway. Her gaze honed in on the Aston Martin immediately, but Vicq had already rolled up the windows. Recognition clouded the woman’s face, and she stood there in the doorway with her jaw lowered in astonishment. The suitcase hung by her side, clutched in one hand.
Vicq was certain she had a million questions. He could always go back and answer them, but the words eluded him right now. His fingers were on the handle of the car door. He wanted to explain, but would the answers change anything? Would knowing how close the boys had come to death at the hands of a grimy organization make anything different? Would knowing that he was a vampire scare them?
The old woman made it easy for him. She backed up inside the home and closed the door.
Vicq breathed a sigh of relief and pulled off.
Chapter 14
Elaina was hunched over a map and a diagram when Vicq returned. She pushed off the table and spun around as he walked through the doors of the basement.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey back,” Vicq said.
She slid her fingers gently around his neck and lifted her lips to his. They kissed briefly, enjoying the silence and serenity in the small area. She hadn’t seen him all day, but she figured it was because he wanted to give her some time to herself.
“Looks like you’ve been working.” He glanced down at the maps spread out on the tall metal table.
“Most of the day. My dad sent me some maps of the District facility where I worked. These are mostly drawn up from memory by a handful of former employees, but from what I can remember, it’s fairly accurate.” She pointed to one of the diagrams. “This is the underground level where they keep the vampires. I’ve never been down there, but I’ve heard about it.”
“Interesting,” he said, tracing the lines. “These look like cells.”
“They probably are. Do you notice how the main corridor is in the shape of the five? At all times, there are two security guards manning each entrance. There are five ways to get into the building, and only one access point is available to the visiting public, but even that one is secured by District personnel. Like I said, the lowest level is where they keep all vampires, and you can only enter if you’ve been given preauthorized access.”
“A key card or something?”
“More than that. A facial recognition scanner.”
“So we need a key and a face.”
Elaina nodded. “Easier said than done. But of course, nothing about this will be easy. The labs are a private access area where they produce the postponement injections and other drugs. Most of the nurses have access to this area. Employees, like trackers, bounty hunters, and volunteer test subjects aren’t allowed beyond that point. All physical, checkups, and drug administration are performed in another unit made up of nursing stations. I had two nurses assigned to me throughout my entire employment period, but only because the first one went on a maternity leave. Unless they had significant turnover within the last few months, which I doubt, I should be able to identify most of those nurses. They’re given very little information and only follow protocol. The only thing they are good for during our raid is getting us into the labs.”
“So there shouldn’t be any violent resistance at this level then?” Vicq inquired.
“Not likely.”
“How do we know who to leave alive?”
“That’s where it gets a little tricky. My dad’s team knows more about who the top-level authorities are. If we accept his offer and take a small team of his best men with us during the raid, they’ll be able to lead us straight to the executive offices. Plus, they’ll be able to get through any barriers made to keep vampires out.”
“Isn’t he worried for the safety of his men? We can take bullets, but if we take a human, and they get shot down during this raid, they’re dead. If humans were able to take District 5 down, they would have done so long ago.”
“He’s aware, but his men have been training for this for more than a year. Like us, they needed more men and more information. Now that we’ve got all that, let’s hope we all get in, succeed, and come out alive in the end. By the time we get done with that place, nothing will be operational. We get the innocents out, grab the rest of the evidence, and burn the place to the ground.”
“What about the vampires held against their will down in the underground level?” he asked.
“We’ll get them out, too, but…”
“I know what you’re thinking. Will they be in their right mind or murderous? Should they be set free after spending so much time in isolation? I’ll take care of ensuring that any Dresdan we release are held until they’ve been screened. If District 5 managed to capture any rogue vampires, they probably wouldn’t have survived prolonged experimentation, so it’s very likely only the strongest, and those who’ve fully ascended through the blood, have survived captivity.”
“It makes sense now. My dad told me that during his last days as a bounty hunter, before they adopted me, one of the missions involved finding the man who invented the vampire trapping vault.”
“The one that replicates UV rays and stabs us to death?”
“Yes, that one. If the UV replication works to weaken the vampire, he or she is then hauled back to District facilities in a vault. However, when completely activated, it will drain a vampire completely of blood,” she said. “The inventor of this vault had gone into hiding for whatever reason, but a bounty hunting team managed to track him down. There was only one vault for a very long time until a vampire who escaped District capture destroyed it. Our training manuals say that this original inventor agreed willingly, but they could have very well forced or bribed him to give up the method for making the trapping vaults. Why else would he have gone into hiding in the first place? District 5 needed that device, because the only way they would be able to produce postponement drugs is if they had access to a fully ascended Dresdan. It’s why they keep killing off the rogues either immediately or after lab use. The vampire agent must only be useful to them if it comes from a Dresdan…an older one—like you,” she said.
“You’ve been doing your research, Elaina.”
“I’ve had a long time to think about it. And now that I know this much, I’m getting impatient,” she said.
“You were always impatient,” he added.
“I won’t deny that,” she said. “If we take the source out of the equation, we can take the whole operation down. And then the ball is back in the Dresdan Court to take care of our own problems—the rogues.”
“By source…you mean Dresdan? Because if you’re thinking what I’m thinking, it’s highly likely that they have an ancient in their possession.”
She nodded. “My thoughts exactly. Do you know if any of your fellow men are missing?”
“No, it’s virtually impossible for vampires to keep tabs on each other. Vampires only form covens when trust and respect are mutual, and when there is a common goal. Our situation here isn’t common practice,” Vicq replied.
“You told me that. It’s actually against the rules of the Court to form a coven without sanction, right?”
“Right. We can congregate, but covens have been banned for centuries. But that doesn’t mean it’s not done, yet if you’re like me and have renounced all ties to the Court and have ulterior motives—like taking down a slummy organization—you form a coven. So, in answer to your question, just because I haven’t seen a fellow man in decades doesn’t mean that he’s in tro
uble. There can only be one Master of the Dresdan Court, so once a Dresdan reaches a certain state of his existence, he either lives in solitude, finds a mate to walk with him through eternity or wills himself into a prolonged slumber. We don’t keep track of each other. Beyond the duties of the Court, it’s every vampire for himself.”
“I see…but I don’t understand why anyone would want to live a life of solitude,” she said. “You and this coven mean everything to me. I consider you family.”
“I feel the same way. Here, we take care of each other as well as ourselves. Covens can disband and regroup all in the same century if there is good reason for it. We’re not like humans or animals where we need to live in packs one hundred percent of the time to feel safe. What does hold true is that when we love, we love eternally. We’ll choose our mate over anything or anyone, but when that person is gone from us, what else is left besides solitude?”
“That sounds like a rhetorical question. Are you only generally speaking about a vampire’s needs?”
He smiled. “This is something that has been proven century after century, and it’s how I feel about you too.”
“You don’t have anything to worry about, Vicq.” She smiled and closed the distance between them. “I’ll never let you go. I’ll track you to the ends of this Earth.”
“And that’s why I choose you…always.”
“By the way, where were you today?” she asked, sliding her hands under his trench coat and helping him out of it.
“I’ll show you everything you want to know once you feed,” he said, unbuttoning the top three buttons of his shirt.
At the mention of feeding, Elaina’s gaze honed in on his jugular, then dropped lower to the hardened bulge pushing against his fly.
She led him to take a seat in a nearby chair. “I can’t tell anymore if you’re trying to fatten me up or wear me out.”
“Hmmm.” He propped both arms up on the chair and observed her. “Both. I’m a little hungry myself, and plus, you stay out of trouble after I give you a good workout.”
Renegade (Shadow Realms): An Urban Fantasy Dragon Shifter Romance Page 35