Over in the corner, Frank was furiously writing in a dialect that time had forgotten.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Miami, FL - USA & Central America
Adrian had been easy to inject. The syringe with Bethany Anne’s blood was ready at 5:30 PM, but after she had talked with Stephen and explained Adrian’s physical damages, Stephen had said he should sleep for at least one to two days. They waited an extra six hours to make sure the nanocytes were fully activated and injected Adrian. He didn’t even flinch.
They had rented a crappy hotel room near the Miami International airport. John, Dan and Bethany Anne had stayed with the vampire who was laid out on the bed. Bethany Anne was sitting at the foot of the bed in a chair. John and Dan were standing beside her, one on each side. Adrian might be fast, but both men had their protective vests on. While Bethany Anne was confident that Adrian was a significantly weaker vampire than she, he could still overpower the humans. Plus, they had earplugs in case he tried that same trick to control the men that he had tried with Bethany Anne.
She hadn’t felt any compulsion when he commanded her earlier, so it didn’t register on her radar. However; he had certainly expected something to happen, so they wouldn’t take any risks.
She pantomimed putting earplugs in their ears. When they had finished, she calmly spoke towards Adrian’s inanimate body. “If you choose to remain among both the living and pain free, you will cease faking your asleep. However, If I’m wrong that you aren’t faking, I’ll apologize for your broken legs later.”
Adrian opened his eyes. He trusted that she would break his legs again. He felt both arms working. These people had allowed him to heal. He was shirtless which was practical since his last shirt and jacket had its arm blown off. These people didn’t fuck around. He chose to move very slowly. At the foot of the bed were three people. He recognized the vampire and the large man to her right. The older man to her left was new. Neither looked as if they were particularly concerned with being in the room with him. He looked around. He was in a pretty crappy hotel room. The scents from the bed disgusted him. The two cattle didn’t concern him. Although he wouldn’t put it past the big guy to put up a fight. However; the female vampire was a different matter altogether.
That she hadn’t just killed him was a good indication she wanted something. Whether he lived beyond that was completely open.
“I’m awake. Do I have to stay lying on this bed, or can I get up like a civilized being?”
“If you were truly civilized, I wouldn’t be having a conversation with you at this time. Civilized beings don’t go around creating Nosferatu and killing people.”
Adrian’s glib response popped out of his mouth, “They were only cattle, it doesn’t matter.”
Her voice got icy cold, “One of those ‘cattle’ was very important to me. So that certainly made Martin matter. That you are alive for the time being can quickly change if you mouth off your Forsaken bullshit around me.”
Adrian decided that being quiet would allow him to live longer.
“You may sit up. Dan, would you throw him a t-shirt?”
Adrian felt a t-shirt hit him as he leaned forward to sit up on the bed. He eyed the three watching him as he pulled the t-shirt on. They all looked at him as if he were a bug they wanted to clean off of their shoes. He was getting upset but dared not say anything more for fear of Bethany Anne’s anger. She certainly could back up anything she cared to do and there wasn’t a damn thing Adrian could do about it. That she was so young and yet so powerful was pretty damn disturbing. She started the questioning.
“What is the name of your parent?”
“What is in it for me to tell you this?”
“A trip to Mexico City leaving at 8:30 PM.” Bethany Anne reached down on the floor and pulled up an envelope and tossed it to him.
He opened the envelope and inside was his license, passport and a one-way ticket to Mexico City. He could hear the jets taking off, so the airport was close by. It could be a ruse, it certainly would have been a ruse if she were Forsaken, but with humans around her it was obvious she wasn’t one.
“Forgive me for not making the ticket a round-trip. But if I ever see you again, I will assume you are doing something I disagree with and will kill you on sight. That includes when I come to South America.”
Adrian looked up at this. Michael and his group didn’t go into Central or South America very often. Only on major outbreaks when the Forsaken screwed up and couldn’t handle their own internal troubles. Most of the time they held an uneasy truce, working together to contain the problem.
Forsaken didn’t appreciate uncontrolled explosions of Nosferatu . When it did happen, underlings with delusions of rising above their station by assassination often came out of the dank holes they were hiding in. While Michael’s team would take care of the Nosferatu trouble, the Forsaken would be pruning the tree, so to speak.
“Why would you be coming to Central or South America?”
“Why, to discuss with your parent my unhappiness with his latest effort here in the United States, of course. I’m sure that he had assumed you would just die in the process and left you as a cut-out. With you dead, no one would be alive to let me trace back the trouble and assign the blame.”
“She.”
“Come again?”
Adrian considered everything Bethany Anne had just said. It now seemed obvious that he must have been used by Clarita, his maker. She had been very insistent on the power he would wield when this project was done. That was very unlike any vampire and he had bought it. She had always claimed that he was her favorite child. His anger at his own stupidity was rising. Clarita must be concerned Adrian would rise up against her, so had attacked him first. The conniving bitch.
“My maker is a female, not a male. Her name is Clarita, or at least that is what she has answered to these last couple of centuries.”
“Does she have a home?”
He smiled, “Yes, of course. She has dozens of homes From Guatemala to the border of Panama. She is the lead of Central America. I cannot give you more information than that.”
“Well, had I known I might have sent you back a little more South. However; Mexico City seemed a good point for your departure.”
“Why let me go at all?”
Bethany Anne leaned forward, her eyes starting to glow red and even Adrian’s mouth was getting dry. He could feel her anger, her power, from the bed. “You will tell those you meet that I will not allow any to come to these lands. Clarita has now signed her death warrant by sending you. I will take my anger out on her and her whole family. Those that stay in all of Central America have been warned. If I find any from Guatemala to Panama, they have forfeited their life. I would suggest you find another place to stay after you deliver my message.”
“Why would I do that? Clarita could well kill me when I speak to her.”
“Not my problem. If I can’t persuade you your life depends on doing this after you leave me, then how powerful could I be?” She leaned back in her chair.
Adrian felt as if he was in a throne room, with her advisors on either side of her instead of a crappy cheap hotel. She had regally pointed with her head to the door. He was expected to leave. He considered for a moment to try and take control of the two humans but dropped it. She could kill them too easily and then his life was forfeit. He doubted she would be so lenient a second time. She had a name, now. He might as well take his exit cue. He turned and put his legs down. He stood up to the side of the bed closest to the door.
“Take the bag with you.”
He noticed a small carryon bag by the door. He walked over and picked it up looking inside. It had a hundred dollars American, a bottle of Evian water and a Snickers. He picked up the snickers and then looked back at the strange vampire.
“It is a suggestion to try and eat something that might agree with you more than blood now. Do try and change your asshole ways, Adrian. It is a very strong suggestion.”
He smirked at her and dropped the Snickers back in the bag. He would have the Snickers as a dessert to the first human meal he would procure once he got back to Central America. He wouldn’t hunt in Mexico. The vampire that held that territory wasn’t very forgiving of those who took supper without permission. He had enough will power to make it to Guatemala City.
He closed the door behind him. It was just after sunset. As he had thought, the airport wasn’t that far away. He walked towards the street that led to the airport. He was considering how to consolidate his power in Central America after Bethany Anne and Clarita had their discussion. He knew one would die and the other might be very weak. If it was Bethany Anne who was weak, then he might get America as a consolation prize.
Although he would have to find a vampire willing to accept the cold. He hated his time in Washington D.C.
It took him a week to end up in front of Clarita. His ear had already fallen off and half of his hair was gone. Originally, he had not intended to tell her anything. He had felt a little ill, which never happened to him, when he got to Mexico City. It was everything he could do to not grab the first meal right then. He took a room in a basement and got on another flight to Guatemala City the next morning.
By then, he remembered Bethany Anne’s statement about making sure he would pass along the message. After his feeding which he believed would help him, he only got worse. In a panic, he called and found out where Clarita was staying. He lost his ear on the way there.
They wouldn’t let him enter the house. She had a balcony and she came out on it, looking down at her child who was wasting away in front of her eyes.
“What is happening to you, Adrian?” She was concerned. Adrian was sent to America and she had plans once he took over the country to make it her home and leave Central America for him to run. He looked like he was being eaten by bugs. All of her security stayed ten feet away from him.
“You! You happened to me! This Bethany Anne has done this to me for killing her human friend. She told me she would make sure I would deliver a message and I am happy to do it!” Clarita was shocked to see the anger and hatred coming from her favorite child.
“What could one human do to you, child?”
“Not a human, mother.” He practically spat the name at her. “She is a vampire and commanded me to tell you that you have signed your death warrant. All that stay in Central America will die, their lives forfeit. If any touch foot in America again, she will kill them as well.”
Clarita was getting angry, there is only so much insolence she would take, even from a child she had loved and who was obviously dying. “Watch your tongue, Adrian! Whatever is taking you can be made worse!” Her eyes were aflame in red.
Adrian scoffed, “What? You think your anger worries me now? I have seen true death walking and you are not in her league. I’ve been stabbed, mutilated, my arm shot completely off. Your tortures mean nothing to me. I thought you cared and I have been ashamed to find out that there is no love among the Forsaken!” With that said, Adrian reached under his coat and pulled a pin on a grenade. Three of the security vampires jumped him and two died in the blast with Adrian. Clarita had just flinched at the explosion, watching her child die in anger and violence, hating her.
Clarita turned around and walked back into her office, closing the balcony doors behind her. Whoever this Bethany Anne was, she had made an impression on Adrian and had killed him thousands of miles away right in front of her. Bethany Anne had turned her child against her and Clarita mourned Adrian’s loss, her heart aching with the pain of his words and the betrayal she felt in his eyes.
Clarita had killed Bethany Anne’s friend through Adrian. If there were two things Clarita understood as a vampire, it was revenge and the art of making statements. Bethany Anne had killed her son for both of those reasons. She mourned love lost when Adrian had died. Further, she couldn’t stop the rumors this night would create. She had made a mistake trusting her maker and his fight against Michael. She was going to pay the price with her own life, most likely.
She sighed. She had things to take care of and three other children to see to safety. Adrian had been the most adamant supporter of the Forsaken creed. Clarita followed because her maker pushed the creed. Her other three children were truly ambivalent. Maybe she could get them to see other options and decide on a course of action that would not destroy her line forever.
She sat down at her desk and pulled open her laptop and started writing emails.
Thousands of miles away, in a house in Key Biscayne, Florida an old man smiled as his GPS signal suddenly stopped sending its signal.
‘Gotcha!’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Key Biscayne, FL - USA
Bethany Anne was sitting on her outside balcony, enjoying the evening. She was watching a boat travel down the water course between her house and the one across the way. There was a bridge it could go under, or around behind her other house and then through the larger waterway out to the keys.
Nathan had finally capitulated on the price of his businesses. Bethany Anne had told Ecaterina to get everything she could, then back up one to two million. Men needed to feel some sense of success and if Ecaterina raked Nathan over the coals like Ivan had, she was concerned that it might affect his attitude long term. She knew that for the two of them the negotiations were business and wouldn’t affect their personal relationship.
Not that she could act that way. If her partner was breaking her over the negotiations table, she would harbor a huge resentment in the future. That it didn’t work that way for them was fortuitous for her and she used it, but she didn’t understand how it worked.
Now, she could get Nathan focused on the future. She would get her father and Nathan working together on the businesses Michael had given her. She didn’t doubt that there were some problems in the companies she now owned. So their first task was to get a handle on what was obvious and in need of attention, her dad, and what wasn’t obvious and in need of attention, Nathan.
Pete was doing well. He had been doing extra work and seeking out suggestions from John from time to time. Bethany Anne had made a call to Jonathan and had asked if he wanted to see his son, that she felt he could handle a ‘parental visit’ without backsliding. They talked for a while and agreed that the changes were just short of amazing, but the risk was still too much.
As much Jonathan’s problem as Pete’s. Jonathan had just about broken down in the car back at the airport when he left Pete in New York. He was afraid he would act like a too-caring father again when his son needed the structure and challenge of living on his own in a potentially hostile environment.
The respect Pete would have for himself would be better than the easy life his father would provide him.
John had agreed that everything was going well and frankly liked the kid. Pete had helped on the operations and John figured he had a shot at joining a team they would make up. Dan agreed during a meeting and said he would start having Pete shadow him as he continued to setup the organization structure Bethany Anne had considered.
Bethany Anne had surprised Pete one evening. She tracked him down over at the team’s house and asked him how strong he was in Spanish. He just looked at her and said, “Tacos? Burrito? Muy loco laca en cabeza?”
She told him he would signup for Spanish speaking classes. Since the team all had some knowledge, they hired a tutor to come over three times a week. The first hour was directly working with Pete and then the whole team would come in and jointly they would work for the next hour.
Bethany Anne had some capability, but with her adjusted memory abilities, she only needed to really go through a lesson one time to pick most of it up. She still dropped in on the team a couple of times during the week to get the flow of the language and any nuances the teacher provided. Their teacher, Adriana Garcia, was very good, very pretty and very single.
Adriana obviously enjoyed the attention of six males who were competitive in everything, including trying to see
who could flirt with her the most. However; she became rather meek when Bethany Anne would come join the teaching sessions. Almost like she recognized an alpha woman in beauty and shrunk in on herself.
Adriana should have noticed that none of the guys gave Bethany Anne any second glances. If that didn’t tip her off that something was strange when a woman of this beauty came around and the guys didn’t flirt? Nothing else could.
None of the guys were disrespectful of the teacher. Killian was the mildest with his compliments in either language and the guys could tell. He was a changed man and it showed in his speech.
Dan had both homes completely wired for security and wired the neighbors houses as well. He talked with Bethany Anne about it and she told him to talk with Nathan.
Nathan told Dan to form a Home Security company and offer to setup the neighbors for free. They used the Teams home as the example and they all agreed to a complimentary one year trial, which included hardwiring.
Dan was very surprised at how easy it was to get his cameras and security equipment into the homes legally. His brain almost rebooted from trying to understand he wasn’t going to have to sneak onto the properties. Nathan just smiled and told him there was always a way to accomplish something if you considered how it might benefit the other person.
Bobcat and William flew in with Shelly two days back.
Bethany Anne, John and Pete had been waiting for them to touch down across the waterway. They had used one of the SUV’s and just driven around to the park entrance and used one of the roads to get to where Bobcat had originally landed before Bethany Anne bought the first home. Once the guys had checked out the landing location, she got out and stretched her legs. She still thought the whole process of letting them go first was silly, but Dan and her father had finally convinced her it was completely necessary.
John was talking with Pete by the SUV and from their faces, it looked like a serious discussion. Pete was listening intently. When Pete looked John in his eyes and nodded his head once, John walked around the back of the SUV and hit the button to pull the back doors open. He reached in the back and pulled out a ceramic protection vest in Pete’s size which had the team emblem on it. He gave Pete a small bag which Bethany Anne knew to be the false teeth and red contact lenses her team carried on ops.
Love Lost Page 9