Blood Stone

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “I was counted amongst them.” Roman grimaced. “I had to start again after that one.”

  The man who had been Drysdale smiled a little. “So did I.” He turned to look at the dying sun. “This abduction business you mentioned in your message is nasty, too.” All trace of his British accent was abruptly gone.

  Roman turned and leaned against the balustrade beside him, working hard to make it look casual, while he struggled to contain his dismay. Was Drysdale bluffing? Did he really have no part in Garrett and Winter’s abduction? “I figured you would have more details than me,” he said carefully.

  Drysdale turned his head to look at Roman sharply. “You didn’t get me all the way up here for that, did you?”

  “Why did you think I called?”

  “You know damned well why. Don’t be coy, Roman. We’ve been patient beyond reason with you.” Drysdale straightened up. “I came here expecting an answer to our offer. I’d be very disappointed if I thought you’d brought me all this way for nothing.”

  “You rode five floors in an elevator, your Worship. It was hardly taxing for you.”

  Drysdale thumped the metal railing. “Do not do this!”

  Roman turned to face him properly. “Or what?” he asked softly.

  Drysdale studied his face for a minute. “I told them you wouldn’t bend.” He looked toward the Pacific. “Do you have it?”

  Roman laughed. “The stone? You really think I’m going to tell you?”

  Drysdale shook his head. “I was just curious. Personally curious. I keep hearing rumours… Never mind.” He looked at Roman once more. “I’ve got power and more to spare besides, but I’m a minnow compared to the ones standing behind me. They’ve turned me into their messenger boy. Think about that before you turn and walk away.”

  Roman studied him. “Drop the other shoe, Drysdale.”

  Drysdale smiled. “You’re being dramatic.”

  Roman shook his head. “Nial was right. You’re holding something back and it’s the kicker. Give it to me straight. What happens when I walk?”

  “When?” Drysdale sighed. “You’re a hot headed, brainless Greek and you always, always, always fired from the goddam hip, you stupid son of a bitch.”

  “I’m a Byzantine,” Roman said, letting his offence show. “Pick up a fucking history book, you ignoramus. Tell me what they’re going to try and use for leverage.”

  “Don’t pursue this matter with the girl and Garrett. Leave it alone, Roman. It’s not your concern. It’s not ours.”

  “The fuck it’s not,” Roman shot back.

  “You chase this one, you’ll end up with much more than a few angry Nazis on your tail,” Drysdale warned him. “This is not an ants’ nest you want to kick over, believe me.”

  “You know something? Something that could help me find them?”

  Drysdale shook his head. “You’re probably too late, anyway.”

  Roman grabbed Drysdale’s shirt front, which triggered the two guards, making them surged forward. Drysdale got his hand up in a ‘stop’ motion and stared up into Roman’s eyes. “Going to try and strangle me like you did that German officer that was summarily executing the Jews in your squad? You always did run five degrees hotter than any vampire I know.”

  “B. Goodwich. 1359C South Atlantic Boulevard,” Roman quoted. “Tell me what that means to you.”

  Drysdale pulled Roman’s hands away from his shirt and straightened himself up to his full height, which was an inch or so shorter than Roman. “You’ve got that far, then,” he said. “I’m impressed. Sebastian’s good. Very good.”

  “It’s an east L.A. address but it’s a nonsense address. There is no 1359C on South Atlantic Boulevard.”

  Drysdale shook his head. “I give you anything at all, Roman, they’ll crucify me.”

  “Then you know.”

  Drysdale gave a dry laugh. “Of course we know! We know everything! With our resources, we could find a lone sheep on the sub-Saharan continent at midnight inside thirty seconds. We’ve known where they were taken thirty minutes after they arrived there.”

  Roman closed his eyes. “Are they still alive?”

  “The last I heard, yes.”

  Something loosened inside him. “You know who Garrett is, don’t you?”

  For the first time, Drysdale hesitated. Roman looked at him directly.

  Drysdale grimaced. “You mean, besides being a financial genius who doubled my personal wealth in five years when I followed his advice?”

  “Besides that,” Roman agreed.

  Drysdale nodded. “I know who he is. What he is to you.”

  “Why won’t you help?”

  Anger infused Drysdale’s features. “You don’t get it, do you? You – Nathaniel and his little team – you threaten our very future, the existence of vampires themselves, with this ill-conceived scheme to dump the facts upon humanity en masse. Why on earth would we help, when by not helping, we can passively resist your program?”

  “Spoken like a true politician,” Roman said bitterly. “Sabotage, and not a finger gets dirty in the process.”

  “It’s a win-win for us.”

  “You speak the party line well, Drysdale. Congratulations.”

  Drysdale’s face flushed red. “That’s what I get paid to do,” he said flatly.

  “Paid, or are they coercing you in some way, too?” Roman stepped away from the balustrade.

  “We’re not ready to come out. It’s not time and perhaps it will never be the right time. These things must be managed properly, not hacked at like Nathaniel is going at it. He hasn’t bothered to consult anyone on this. He is holding an entire species to ransom with his cavalier ways. Well…he must pay the consequences for his thoughtlessness.”

  Roman headed for the slim security door that gave access to the roof. “It’s not Nathaniel who is holding you ransom, your Worship. It’s humans and their technology.” He slid past the guard, grabbed the door handle and pulled the heavy door open. “I’m going to give you a tip in exchange for the one you won’t give me. Read up about Bluetooth 4 technology. If you have any clue about technology and network connectivity at all, it should scare the crap out of you and your friends. If you don’t, get hold of someone who does and ask them to interpret for you. A vampire someone – a futurist, not someone with their head stuck up history’s ass like you.”

  He stepped through.

  “Roman!”

  Drysdale was gripping the rail with a grip that was making his knuckles whiten – which was no small feat for a vampire with very little blood circulating in the first place. Something was punching his buttons for him.

  “This is just like Cuvilly during the war, Roman. You need to remember that and make adjustments.”

  Shock slithered through him. Roman kept his face schooled and neutral, though. “Fuck off, Drysdale,” he shot back with a growl. “You guys have tried my patience enough.” It was an answer designed purely for the guards – Drysdale’s watchdogs, who would report back to the Libertatis that the last comment had no significance at all.

  None whatsoever.

  His head reeling with the ideas exploding through it, Roman slipped through the darkening corridors of City Hall and out into the streets of L.A., in a panic to reach Nial and help.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  As he reached the sidewalk, his Maserati rolled up to the curb and the passenger door swung open.

  “Hurry. I just shook off the tail that has been on us for the last thirty minutes,” Nial said from the driver’s seat.

  Roman got in and shut the door. Kate was settling into the back seat as he pulled on his seat belt. She gave him a strained smile.

  “The Pro Libertatis don’t have Winter and Garrett,” Roman said as Nial pulled away again, accelerating hard but smoothly through the gears.

  “Then who does?” Sebastian’s voice issued from the overhead phone speaker.

  “Leave that for now,” Nial said sharply. “Time is running out. We�
��re on hour twenty-two for Winter and ten for Garrett. We need to move, not theorize. Roman, spill it.”

  Roman jumped. “How did you know?”

  “Your heart.”

  Roman grabbed at his chest, becoming aware only then that his heart was galloping like a mad thing, independent of any will of his own. “They tried their leverage. They brought out a big gun.”

  “The mayor?” Nial guessed.

  “Good guess. Except he and I knew each other from before. The Great War.”

  Nial turned on to the on ramp for the El Camino Parkway and accelerated again. “They have leverage over him?”

  “I think so. He denied it – he spouted Libertatis policy with utter conviction, but right at the end he reminded me about Cuvilly during the war.”

  “Translation?” Kate asked from the back seat.

  “Tiny village near Somme,” Sebastian said, his voice very clear.

  Roman nodded.

  “You were in that battle?” Nial asked.

  “I was in a lot of them,” Roman replied. “But I nearly didn’t make the Somme. My brigade were all but wiped out because we were hiding out in Cuvilly in the days leading up to the battle, recovering and regaining strength. One of the villagers who wanted to make good with the local Nazis turned us in.”

  “Who?” Nial pressed.

  “The name doesn’t matter. It’s not relevant.” Roman pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, trying to contain the growing sense of doom and fury building in him. “It was the local lawyer,” he said.

  “MacDonald,” Kate breathed.

  “Sebastian!” Nial said shortly.

  “I can be there inside fifteen minutes,” Sebastian replied.

  “He won’t use his hotel. It’ll be something more private that gives him more control.”

  “They’ve been in L.A. for weeks,” Kate said. “He could have rented anything by now.”

  “Not without a paper trail,” Sebastian said.

  “We’ll be in the hills in twenty minutes,” Nial warned.

  “It could be Van Iuys or East L.A. or bloody Tacoma,” Roman said.

  “It’s not going to be East L.A., because the cut-off led there. It’ll be away from there,” Kate pointed out. “And MacDonald will keep them in the city because he has to look like he’s doing business as usual. He can’t leave town the minute Garrett disappears. It will connect him to the disappearance. So they’re here somewhere.” Her hand curled over Roman’s shoulder and squeezed. Roman gripped her fingers.

  “This is taking too long. Sebastian, get ready. Kate, do you have your cellphone?” Nial asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Phone MacDonald and ask him…if you can have a copy of the original contract you signed with Garrett. Say some inconsistencies have been questioned. Something. Anything.”

  “You want to trace his cellphone?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can do better than that.”

  “I need fifty seconds,” Sebastian warned.

  There was a single electronic warble as Kate dialled.

  “Mr. MacDonald, it’s Kate Lindenstream. Yes, good evening to you, too. No, no I’m not looking for Garrett at all. He’s the last person on earth I’d want to talk to right now.” The disgust and anger in her tone made Roman turn in his seat to look at her.

  Kate was focused on a spot on the back on his seat, listening hard to MacDonald.

  “Because I found out this morning that he got me into bed to find out about some stupid stone thing I might have picked up in Turkey last year, is why,” she said, fury dripping from every stiff word. “Which is why I’m calling you?”

  Roman could hear the alarm in MacDonald’s voice even from his seat. He would be counselling now about client attorney privilege and that Kate needed to hang up now and get her own lawyer…

  “I don’t care about that crap,” Kate said furiously. “I just want my pound of flesh from that arrogant asshole. I have a lawyer. I have a very good lawyer. And now I have a meeting. Tomorrow at nine a.m. at The Standard. He is going to pay. Restitutuion, damages, and punitive damages. He has made me the laughing stock of Hollywood and no one gets away with that.”

  Another pause.

  “Ten o’clock then.”

  Another pause.

  “Then when, MacDonald? I can meet you anytime. State your time and location, and we will be there.”

  More squawking from the phone. Roman felt the fifty seconds tick off on his mental clock and reached back to tap her knee. Kate nodded.

  “Thank you, MacDonald. I’ll see you.” She hung up.

  “Sebastian?” Nial said into the phone pick-up.

  “Got it,” he said, sounding very smug.

  * * * * *

  The cramped 1915 bungalow in Redondo Beach squatted amongst its more stately neighbours, looking downtrodden, but the rental on the prime location beach house was scary.

  Yet the sad exterior and dried up lawn let the house go unnoticed among the glitzy do-overs towering around it, which must have appealed to MacDonald’s need for privacy.

  Nial parked the Maserati four houses away, in front of a three story condo block where it didn’t look at all out of place between an antique Aston Martin and a Tessler.

  “You should stay in the car,” Roman told Kate.

  “Fuck that.” She climbed out.

  Sebastian eased over the front fence of the house in front of them. “I got here five minutes ago and scouted around. I think we may have a minor problem.”

  Nial raised a brow in query.

  “I think the guys guarding the house are SEALs or ex-SEALS and there are at least ten of them.”

  Nial snorted. “Overkill.”

  “Who are these people?” Roman demanded.

  “Doesn’t matter for now,” Nial said sharply. “For now, our aim is simple. Find Garrett and Winter. Kate—”

  “Don’t even think about it,” she said.

  “They’re SEALs.”

  “Don’t care. I’ll hang back behind Roman, if that will make you happy, but I’m not sitting here in the car and letting my imagination go into nuclear meltdown.”

  “You understand that you’re the only one vulnerable to bullets and blades in there?” he replied.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Very well.”

  “Shit, Nial,” Roman said. “You cave too easily.”

  “I’ve been married longer than you.” He gave a small smile. “I know when it’s a lost cause. Besides, Winter would take one of my testicles, if she found out I stopped Kate from coming in and that is a judge and jury I have no intention of facing.” He rolled up the sleeves of the shirt he was wearing. “Everyone ready?”

  Sebastian handed Nial a long knife in a scabbard, which he took and held down at his side so that passers-by wouldn’t notice it so easily.

  “Let’s go.”

  * * * * *

  Kate hung back as she had promised she would do, a step or two behind Roman, as he split apart from everyone else and eased around the back of the neighbourhood block, looking for the back entrance to the house. They jog-trotted down the lane at the back of the houses, looking for a gate or drive leading to the backyard of their house.

  A hundred yards down the dark lane, a shadow rose up as Roman ran past and grabbed him from behind.

  Roman staggered back, his arms reaching up toward his neck. Kate realized the figure had a choke hold on him. She jumped on the man’s back. It wasn’t an impossible leap and adrenaline made the jump even easier. She landed high and wrapped her legs around him. It was ridiculously easy to whip her own arm under the guy’s chin, jam it against his throat until she felt the adam’s apple give way, then lock her wrist with her other hand and haul on it. She let her body weight fall backwards, which put even more pressure on her arm.

  The guy instantly began to choke and gasp. He let Roman go and scrabbled at her arms, trying to wrench her loose. But she had locked herself in tight and the more
he swung about and staggered, the more pressure he put on his own windpipe.

  He ran backwards and at the last second, she realized he was going to ram himself into a fence to try and dislodge her. She straightened up her back, taking the impact across her whole back and ass. It didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would. And it didn’t dislodge her.

  It was the guy’s last effort. He slowly sank down to the ground as his strength ran out.

  “Stay on him,” Roman murmured. “He could be faking it.”

  “Yep,” she replied. She tightened her grip, waiting it out. “Test him.”

  Roman pulled out his knife, picked up the guy’s hand and drove the point into his thumb. It wasn’t a hard jab, but hard enough that he should have twitched.

  He didn’t move.

  “You can let him go now.”

  She unlocked her arms and Roman helped her to her feet. She pushed at the comatose man. “The bastard!” she hissed. “We could have been two kids out sneaking a cigarette! He didn’t even try to identify us!”

  Roman pulled her around to face him. “Where in hell did you learn how to put a choke hold on a grown man?”

  She blinked. “On TV.”

  Roman scrubbed at his hair. “We’re running out of time. C’mon.”

  “Shouldn’t we take away his stuff?” Kate asked. “So he can’t warn the others?”

  Roman hesitated, then leaned over the sleeping guard. “I suppose you learned that out of a book?”

  “Red Zone,” she replied. “Spy thriller. My third movie.”

  “Of course,” he sighed, patting down the guard. He yanked a wire from under the guard’s nylon windbreaker and unhooked it from his ear.

  Kate squatted down next to the guard and dug through his pockets.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Take his weapons.”

  “We’re doing this silently. Last thing Nial wants is a neighbourhood shoot out on Redondo Beach.”

  “Last thing we want is a pissed off ex SEAL with a headache coming up behind us with his guns blazing.” She shrugged. “You know guns. You can disable them and toss them as we go.” She handed over a stubby gun she found in an ankle holster and a knife in a flat holster that had been tucked into the man’s trousers. “That one, you can keep.”