by Mary Abshire
Anna ignored his comment. “We’re waiting on five UoJ agents. They should be here at any minute. We’ll probably have to go in multiple vehicles to the first location on the list Gordon sent to Aziel.”
“We can take my car. I’m sure the werewolves would prefer to use their own too,” Victor said.
“I want the three of you to use extreme caution,” Aziel said. “Let the wolves sniff around. You’ll cover more ground by letting them go in first and spread out. And if you find them, contact me immediately for back up.
Aziel’s phone buzzed from his pocket. While he hurried to fish it out, Anna grabbed her leather coat from the nearby bench.
“This is strange.” Aziel held the cell up for her to view it. The screen showed a text with her number from the old phone the demons had taken from her while they’d held her captive.
Do you know this man?
“Obviously I didn’t send the message since I’m standing right here,” Anna said.
Rachel’s cell made a soft jingle. She withdrew it from her coat pocket. After glancing at the screen, she lifted her head. “I have the same message from Anna.”
Anna met Aziel’s gaze. “They’re sending the text to all my contacts.”
Another message arrived on Aziel’s phone. This one had a picture. He tapped the screen to enlarge it.
Anna’s eyes widened as she stared at a picture of Zale. He sat naked on the floor by a small puddle of blood. The dark fluid coated his abdomen, arms, and thighs. One eyelid was half shut. His locks stuck to his puffy face. The demons had beaten him and wanted her to know it.
“Oh my God,” Rachel said after her cell chimed again.
Anna swallowed hard. “Is it Zale?”
Rachel nodded.
Victor stood next to Rachel and gazed at her phone. “I doubt he’s talking.”
Anna’s concern for Zale skyrocketed. She wanted to rush out now and start searching for him. The blood on the floor had to be his. He looked fearless staring at the camera. She prayed he’d hold on long enough for her or one of the other agents to find him.
Aziel lowered his cell. “Let’s meet in the small conference room. I want to send these to Gordon and get him on the line. Once the UoJ agents arrive, we should examine the picture.” His phone buzzed again. “Victor, will you wait for the agents near the entrance, please?”
Victor left without saying a word.
Rachel’s cell jingled too. She glanced at the screen. “It’s another photo of Zale.”
“Let’s go to the conference room,” Aziel said.
Anna slid her arms through her jacket as she followed Rachel and Aziel out of the armory. Her thoughts continued to race while her trepidation climbed. She silently prayed for Zale.
Reaching a point where the hall branched into two directions, Aziel stopped. “I’ll meet you there. I’m going to grab my laptop.”
Anna gave a nod and then continued in the opposite direction.
“How are you feeling?” Rachel asked, walking beside her.
“Angry and desperate to find Zale.”
“He knows the location of our office. Do you think he’ll tell them?”
“No. I think he’d rather die.”
“Do you think they will try to possess him?”
“I would be surprised if they didn’t.”
She lowered her head. The thought of a demon possessing him filled her heart with too much grief. She could exorcise the demon, but Zale would carry the memories of it with him. He’d said he’d rather die than live with evil thoughts. She couldn’t kill him. He was too noble and loving. Perhaps if she worked with him she could help keep him sane. Still, she feared he would struggle like the others before him and suffer the same fate. She pushed such morose thoughts aside to focus on finding him.
Anna strode into the conference room and flipped on the lights. Fourteen chairs faced a long oblong table. Rachel followed her to the end, not far from a white dry-erase board on the wall.
She pulled out a chair near the head of the table. “Can I see your phone?”
Rachel removed the cell from her pocket. She handed it to Anna before taking a seat beside her.
Anna tapped the screen to view the pictures. Both were similar. One had Zale off centered and showed part of a door next to him. Two fingers stuck out from under the crack. She drew her brows together.
“Did you notice these fingers?” Anna showed the screen to Rachel.
“Who is that?”
“It has to be either Trevor or Derek, but why only two fingers?”
“Could it be part of an address? Maybe the other fingers were cut off.”
Anna couldn’t see any blood under the door or near the person’s fingers. The use of two seemed strange. They had to have some meaning.
Aziel strode in carrying a laptop at his side. He passed behind them and then set the computer at the end of the table.
“I’m guessing he’s in a room without windows,” Anna said as she continued staring at the concrete blocks in the pictures.
“We’re going to look at the photos together and see if it will help you narrow down your search,” Aziel said as he worked to hook up the wires from under the dry-erase board to his laptop.
The sound of five heartbeats captured Anna and Rachel’s attention. They stared at the open door, waiting for the UoJ agents to arrive. Anna set the phone on the table as she rose.
Victor walked into the room. Five large men followed him. Only one had a clean-shaven face. Another had almond shaped eyes with black hair. He was shorter than the others too. Anna guessed he came from Asian descent.
She approached the men. “Welcome to the Divine Syndicate. I’m Anna.” She stopped a few feet from them and then gestured toward Rachel, standing beside her. “This is Rachel, our director, Aziel, and Victor. Thank you for joining us. We just received new information that might help us.”
“I’m Justin,” said the tall man with brown locks standing closest to her. “This is Sean, Brent, Paul, and Stanley.” He pointed to each.
Sean had Asian eyes and wore black pants. The other four men had dressed in khakis. Brent’s thick beard was the longest. Paul’s locks were the lightest, but not quite blonde. Stanley’s lack of facial hair made him stand out. None of their t-shirts matched.
“Welcome to the Divine Syndicate,” Rachel said.
“Would one of you mind calling Gordon and putting him on speaker phone please?” Aziel asked, sitting at the head of the table with his laptop open in front of him. Behind him on the clean board, a projected image showed him accessing his email.
Justin reached behind him. “I’ll do it.”
“Have a seat, gentlemen,” Anna said before she and Rachel headed back to their chairs.
Victor sat on Aziel’s other side. Justin, Brent and Paul took seats across the table too. Sean and Stanley came to sit next to Rachel.
Justin set his phone in the center of the table while the ring sounded through the speaker.
“Yes, Justin?” Gordon said.
The werewolf’s mouth hung open while he met Aziel’s gaze.
“Gordon, I have your agents and mine in a conference room. We just received photos from the demons. I’m sending them to you now. I wanted you to be aware and look at them with us to see if there’s anything that can help us locate the three agents,” Aziel said.
He placed the two messages side by side. Like the others in the room, Anna stared at the enlarged photos projected on the board.
“Gordon, it’s Anna. Can you see two fingers under the door in the picture on the right?”
“Hang on,” Gordon said.
Two of the werewolves across the table grumbled.
“On the picture on the left, there’s part of a shadow of the person taking the picture,” Sean said, his voice soft and calm.
“He’s right,” Rachel said, nodding.
“The lights are the bright florescent kind and
the room must be somewhat small to get that kind of shadow,” Stanley said, peering around Sean and leaning on the table.
“The walls are concrete blocks. Most buildings have drywall. So he’s in an unfinished room or area,” Paul said.
Brent stroked his long beard. “But look at the door. It’s steel. I’ve seen doors like that in old buildings like banks or government offices and they were usually in basements.”
“Brent has been with the agency a century and a half. I tend to believe him,” Gordon said. “As for the fingers, I believe they belong to Trevor. Derek has dark skin.”
Anna recalled briefly meeting the two. Gordon was right.
“Why only two?” Anna asked. “And how many buildings under construction have basements? How many are banks?”
“Maybe two for an address. Two blocks. Two levels. Second floor. Two in the morning…” Paul said, staring at the board.
“As you already know, the number of buildings under renovations is high,” Gordon said. “How many have basements? I couldn’t tell you and it would take too long to research. Time we don’t have. Zale needs to shift or get medical attention soon. If the demons try to possess him, he’ll have a difficult time fighting them.”
“We’re leaving within the next ten minutes,” Anna said.
“I’m about to brief my agents here and send them out. Any updates on the vans?” Gordon asked.
“No, my team is still reviewing the feeds,” Aziel said.
“Then we stick to the plan. I’ll have my guys start west and north,” Gordon said.
“I’ll call you the minute I receive news about the vans,” Aziel said.
“Thank you. Good luck to us all,” Gordon said.
Anna rose and moved closer to the board. She scanned over each picture, looking for more clues. The assessment of a basement made sense. The concrete walls hadn’t been painted at all. The door appeared dull. The handle could’ve been brass, but appeared brown, rusted maybe. She peered closer to the top of the photo with the door.
“Is that a pipe?” she asked and pointed.
Aziel enlarged the top of the picture. Sure enough, part of a pipe hung from the ceiling.
“He’s in a basement,” Anna said with confidence as she spun to face the group.
Several men nodded.
“The question is where?” Justin asked.
“I’d start with banks in the area,” Brent said.
Anna paced in the space between the board and Rachel. “We know the vans turned west from the hotel. So we start west. We have a list of buildings being renovated. But do they have basements? And are any of them banks?”
Aziel’s keyboard clicked while he typed. Behind him, the projected images changed to reflect a map. Anna put her hands on her hips as she moved closer to the board.
“If memory serves me correctly, most of the land west of the hotel has been turned into lots and new apartments. There are businesses, but they’ve been there a long time. I don’t think any are under construction,” Aziel said. “The old jail still stands. Parking garages from the last forty years are still there. The City-County building and Market haven’t changed. I can pull the list up—“
“The City-County building,” Anna said. “It’s government.”
“There are tunnels and they have a sub-basement older than the one under the Capital,” Aziel said.
“Second level,” Sean said. “Two down.”
Anna recalled when she’d been living with Christopher. He’d worked as a public defender in the court system part time in the afternoons. Some of his cases had been in a court in the basement. Back then, the building didn’t have twenty plus floors like it did today. It only had three, if she remembered correctly. He’d once told her he’d taken a tunnel from the basement to the Market to avoid the snow and cold weather. He’d also told her he’d seen the catacombs under the Market.
“Is there anything in the lower levels of the City-County building?” Sean asked.
Anna suddenly remembered Reggie had told her he’d had someone search the records room in the basement for properties she’d owned. Now, she believed more than ever that the evil bastard had taken Zale to the sub-basement of the government building.
“Yes, there are offices in the basement. We’re going to check the City-County building first,” Anna said, fueled with excitement. “They could use the tunnels to travel back and forth to places.”
“I can check to see if there are any banks in the area,” Aziel said. “The old jail has a basement and a tunnel to the City-County building.”
“The jail will be our second stop. Hopefully you’ll have a list of banks by then,” Anna said.
“I suggest we park on the side of the building instead of near the main entrances,” Victor said.
“What about security?” Justin asked. “There are usually a couple guards at the north side entrance.”
“I have a state issued badge. If there’s any trouble, they can call the number and speak to one of our agents here,” Anna said.
“Or we can slip into their minds to get past them,” Victor said.
Although Anna preferred not to use telepathy, it would come in handy given the circumstances. She gave a nod.
Justin nodded as he glanced at his peers. “All right. We’ll follow you.”
“Great. Let’s go,” Anna said before she headed for the door.
Overwhelmed with excitement, she trembled. She held high confidence they’d find Zale and the other two agents within the hour.
“Anna, hold up,” Aziel said.
She reached the door and stopped. Rachel stood beside her. The others paused too.
Aziel held his phone as he stared at it. “The technicians searched all the footage within a half mile and from every street. The vans never showed up on any of them.” He lifted his head. “Vans don’t disappear.”
“They could’ve parked in a garage,” Victor said.
“The City-County building has an underground one,” Anna said as a smile formed on her face.
“Be careful,” Aziel said.
Eager to save her man, she spun and walked out of the room.
Chapter Forty
Laying on his side, Zale spit the coppery liquid filling his mouth and it spilled into his beard. He didn’t have the strength to force the fluid further. His entire body burned and throbbed with intense pain. He struggled to see from one eye. The other had swollen shut. He had so many broken bones. Each breath cost him more agony. But he kept thinking of Anna. Her kisses and love kept him from succumbing to the darkness again.
“I don’t think he’s going to tell us anything,” Rodney said. “Werewolves can be difficult.”
“I can break him,” Reggie said. “Give me more time.”
The two masters stood a few feet in front of Zale. One of the demons had left. Stan leaned against the wall near the door with a bloody bat near his leg. Reggie held the other soiled bat.
“You’ve broken enough bones. He needs to stay conscious so I can bring a demon over and then he’ll need to shift. If he doesn’t shift, we risk losing him like the other. We need this one,” Rodney said in a lower voice.
Zale wondered what Rodney meant about losing the other. Could he have been referring to Derek?
Pound, pound, pound.
“Hey fuckers, why don’t you come over here,” Trevor said from the next room.
Rodney chuckled. “How nice. He’s trying to help his buddy.”
“This one knows something,” Reggie said. “Let me work with him a little more. I bet if I crush his balls or cut off his dick he’ll talk.”
Panic swept through Zale. He could heal from broken bones, stabs, a bullet or two if they didn’t hit major organs or arteries, but severing his manhood would kill him emotionally. He’d welcome death.
“We need him whole and intact so we can use him,” Rodney said. “Imagine if he’s possessed and manages to get inside the Divi
ne Syndicate with a bomb. He could destroy many vampires and take out the building. It would set them back months while we grow in numbers.”
“So I won’t cut off his balls,” Reggie said. “I can still crush them.”
The steel door closest to Zale rattled following a loud pound. Zale flinched from the sudden noise.
“Come and get me, fuckers!” Trevor yelled.
“We will. Now shut the fuck up!” Reggie barked.
Another smack sounded from the door.
“What are you waiting for?” Trevor said.
While Zale appreciated his friend’s efforts, he wished Trevor would zip his mouth. He didn’t want Trevor to experience the horrible pain he felt.
“We’ve wasted enough time with this one. The DS and UoJ will start to look for the three soon,” Rodney said.
“We’re dumping the one body on the west side of town. They’ll find it and focus their search in that area. We have time to play around with these two,” Reggie said. “Come on, man.”
His words confirmed what Zale had feared. They’d killed Derek.
“I understand your animosity toward him, but I want to return him at least an hour before dawn. If he blows up the DS close to sunrise, they will have to leave all their high-tech equipment and weapons behind. They won’t have time to move anything,” Rodney said. “We might be able to take out their data system too, unless they keep their servers in another location. Can you imagine how blind they’ll be?”
Reggie tapped the soiled bat on the floor. “Fine. Let me perform the ritual.”
“No, I’ll take care of it. Start on the werewolf next door. He’s irritating me,” Rodney said.
“Fine,” Reggie said in a disgruntled tone. He headed for the door.
“Stan, have the chair brought in. I need you to sit him on it and hold him while I perform the ritual,” Rodney said.
Zale closed his broken jaw. He’d rather die than be possessed. If he held his breath, maybe he’d get his wish.
Reggie and Stan disappeared from the room.
“You’re going to make a fine soldier for us,” Rodney said.
Stan returned with a metal folding chair. He set it against the wall.