His voice was thin and distant. He was speaking at me, but he wasn't speaking to me. I was simply a sounding board for him, but I didn't mind.
"We knew there were rogues out there," he continued. "But they weren't overt or causing trouble, so we just let them be, unable to spare the manpower to hunt down and murder someone who was living peacefully. How could we have known what they were planning? The covens haven't gone unnoticed by the human population, either. There are reports in the news of strange happenings, and we have information on one small town that has been taken over completely."
He looked up, finally speaking directly to me, his voice growing loud and firm. "That's why we're bringing in the military. We have to take that town back before the plague spreads. We have to wipe that coven out, make them an example."
His fist slammed into the desk on the last word, making us both jump. Without another sound, I stood and nodded. He nodded back, determination settling in where weariness and fear had sat before. I agreed with him. This had to end, somehow. With a slight bow, I bid him a silent farewell and left his office.
FOUR
My entire team was standing in the garage when the trucks pulled in. One was a large military transport, covered with canvas and lined with benches for the soldiers to sit on. The other was a modified Hummer. Unlike traditional military vehicles, they were not painted in a camouflage pattern, but were solid black, so black they almost absorbed the light. A space along one wall had been cleared and set up for use by the infantry contingent.
Once the vehicles were parked, the flaps at the backs of the truck opened and the men spilled out, forming up in precise lines. From the back of the transport poured seven soldiers dressed in riot gear. They stood before us, stiff as over-starched undershirts, not acknowledging our presence. Two men exited the front of the vehicle and joined them, one of them eyeballing my team before falling into line. They waited, unmoving, while three others exited the Humvee One was a young man, barely out of school. He had been sitting in the back and carried a machine gun, his young face grim and stern. He raised an eyebrow at us, unimpressed with what he saw. The man exiting the passenger side of the vehicle cleared his throat and the kid joined the line.
I stood next to Felipe as the passenger and his driver walked up to us. The passenger, an older man with salt-and-pepper hair and a distinguished air, held out his hand to Felipe.
"I am Captain Adamo Albertini." His thick accent made him pronounce "captain" as "capitahn". It was sexy, sexier than Felipe's, and I leaned a littler closer to my boyfriend as I felt a small flutter in my stomach.
Felipe returned the handshake and introduced himself and the rest of the team. He saved me for last, and when he said my name, Albertini raised my hand and kissed my fingers in true gentleman style. I grinned like a schoolgirl and gave Felipe a why-don't-you-do-that look. He narrowed his eyes, but an amused smirk played at the corners of his lips as the captain introduced his own men, last name only. The young man with the machine gun was named Romano and I gave him a good, solid don't-mess-with-my-boys stare when I saw him look at us with disgust again. He frowned at me with an almost imperceptible downturn of his mouth, but I think he got the hint.
Once introductions were finished, the soldiers grabbed their packs from the trucks and followed us to their new barracks. All but two of them were male, so Felipe and the men took them to the human dormitory where a section had been set aside in the male quarters. Though the captain had protested, Bellini chose to station the women in two rooms available across from me--after years of being empty, my hall seemed to fill up rather quickly. Bellini used the public excuse that he wanted their behavior to rub off on Marta, but I knew he really wanted me to befriend them and have some allies on the infantry squad.
Once the women were separated from the men, they were as pleasant as I had hoped they'd be. They were both in their mid-twenties and unmarried. In fact, they informed me that the majority of the team was unmarried. Only the captain and his lieutenant were tied down. The rest had been hand-picked for the team, one of the reasons being that they were single.
Though I hadn't realized it, the team was specifically created to support the vampires' efforts to make the world a safer place for mortal races and, as such, it carried a fairly high mortality rate. Their training was brutal and their missions were worse. Rossi, the short-haired woman, informed me that she had been part of a team that was decimated while taking out a trio of werewolves who had holed up in the Alps. She pulled up her vest, showing me three identical scars slicing across her abdomen.
"They sliced through my stomach and uterus. I couldn't have children now even if I wanted to."
I frowned, working up an apology, but she just smiled and waved me off. "It doesn't matter. I plan on dying doing this. I love this job."
Her grin was a little too big and a little too wild, but she had heart and I could tell that she knew how to do her job. If I had to have any crazy solider lady by my side, I'd want it to be her. The other woman on the team was quiet little De Luca. She had a soft, polite smile that could disarm you in a moment, but I could tell from the scar peeking just above her collar that she was battle-hardened.
Unlike the boys, who had to bunk two to a room, the girls each got their own room. That was one of the benefits of being the minority gender in a typically male profession. And Annie, Marta, and I had gone out of our way to make sure the girls' rooms were as comfortable as they could possibly be. They each had armchairs that they could relax in and miniature coffee pots were placed on top of their dressers. Sadly, they would have no time to relax in their rooms at that time. We were due to meet the men in the debriefing room in ten minutes. By the time they had stashed their riot gear and rucksacks, we had to leave. But we still made it to the room before the boys. Who says women are always late?
"Settle down, please." Captain Albertini's voice rang out loud and clear as he stood at the front of the room, flanked by his second and Father Bellini. More chairs had been brought in to accommodate the tripled group size and the table had been shoved to one side. We all fit in where we could, the three of us girls choosing a corner out of the way. Felipe took a seat in the front row after throwing me a small smile, and I noticed that Romano seemed to have attached himself to Felipe's hip.
Good, I thought. It would do the young man some good to learn a few manners from someone with Felipe's class.
"I have something for you all to watch. James, please start it." Albertini pulled down the projector screen and signaled to a man in the back before moving to the side to take a seat with the others.
I sat there next to the girls as the film started to roll. It was a home video, taken sometime recently. We could see soldiers moving in from the sides and the screen was bouncing like the cameraman was running. The video was grainy, but it was easy to tell that we were watching a squad assault a warehouse. When the group burst through the door, the screen went green and black, a feature of night-vision.
We watched as seated bodies rose from the center of the building and moved toward the rapidly approaching soldiers. They collided with fierce aggression and I could hear screams and shouts from the weak microphone. I watched with horror as a soldier was ripped to pieces, his arms literally torn from his body. The vampire responsible for the demise of that soldier turned toward the camera, a snarling smile breaking across his face.
As he approached the camera, I froze. I'd seen that face before and it still haunted my nightmares. My gaze shot toward a chair in the front. I could see Felipe, his shoulders tense, hands clenching the arms of the chair so hard the wood was starting to splinter. A faint growl echoed across the room and the soldiers nearest to him shied away, their eyes anchored to my boyfriend.
He rose, the chair still clenched in one hand, and stalked toward the projector, pressing his face right up against it. Conrad had reached the camera by that time and his facade took up the entire screen, a snarling, sneering, green monstrosity.
I stood up and m
ade my way as quickly as possible around the mass of bodies. I reached him just as his hand shot out toward that vile face. I grabbed his wrist to prevent him from tearing the screen from the wall. He turned on me, his face a mask of hatred and pain. His eyes were bloodshot and his teeth were fully extended. I could hear his heart thumping in his chest, angrily trying to beat through his rib cage. Despite the risk of losing my hand or a large amount of blood, I reached for Felipe's face, stroking his cheek with a finger.
"We're going to get him. He can't run forever." I kept my voice soft and even, speaking to him as if I were talking to an aggressive dog, or trying to talk some suicidal office worker down off a ledge.
Felipe's nostrils flared as he bared his teeth and he growled once more, but the color was fading from his eyes and his teeth were receding. As his breathing and heart rate slowed, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me from the room. I followed, not daring to fight as he dragged me down the hall. He stopped after we rounded a corner and he jerked me to him, wrapping his arms around me so tightly I thought he might crack a rib.
His face was buried in my shoulder and I was focusing so hard on breathing that it took me a moment to realize he was sobbing. I'd known Felipe almost a year by that point, and I'd never once seen him shed a tear or even well up. This was a new development, and I didn't like it. I put my arms around him and together we slid to the floor. Stroking his hair, I tried desperately to think of something to say that was comforting and filled with wisdom that would make him go "ah ha!", but my mind was a complete blank. All that existed in the world at that time was me, Felipe, and his tears.
Though it seemed like we sat there for an eternity, it was probably only a few minutes. His shudders lessened and I heard his breathing start to regulate. I pressed my face to his neck and kissed his skin, tasting the salty, coppery tears that had streamed down his cheeks.
"I love you, Jane. You know that, right?" His head was still buried in my shirt, so his words came out muffled, but I had no trouble hearing him and it brought a huge grin to my face despite the tragic situation.
He pulled back and cupped my face in both of his hands, peering into my eyes. Faint streaks of blood stained his cheeks and nose and trailed around the corners of his mouth to drop below his chin. His eyes were puffy and still slightly bloodshot. I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his.
"I love you, too, baby."
He smiled and I knew that, despite everything, we would be ok. He sighed and put his arms around me again and we sat there for a few more minutes. Eventually, he stood up and pulled me to my feet. His face was a mess and my shirt was stained with pink tears, so he headed to the bathroom while I went to my room to get changed--there's a reason I wear cheap t-shirts most of the time. It's hard to get bloodstains out of dry clean-only attire. After he had composed himself, we headed back to the conference room to figure out how to kill the man who was causing us so much misery.
FIVE
By the time we got back to the room, the projector had been shut off and the chairs and tables had been rearranged. Felipe kept his eyes on the floor and led me to a couple of empty chairs near the wall. Father Bellini and Captain Albertini were handing out packets of information stuffed into those yellow folders with the tie clasp on the end. Bellini gave Felipe and I meaning stares as he handed us our folders. I smiled at him, a big fake thing that told him that everything would be ok, somehow. He just raised his eyebrows a little and moved on to the next person.
I pulled the information from the packet. It was a lot like what we normally received for an assignment, but much more detailed. That in itself surprised me, because our team of information gatherers was very thorough. Apparently, the military had us beat in that regard. Or maybe the combining of resources led to a lot more research. Either way, it took us hours to get through it all, and that was before we even began discussing it.
There was so much information in the packet, I knew I wouldn't be able to make head nor tail of it sitting in that uncomfortable chair, so I plopped myself on the floor in an open space and spread the papers before me. Felipe, seeing what a genius I was, came to join me and together we arranged the information in a way that made it much easier to digest. What we found shocked us and I sat there staring at the piles for several minutes before I could fully comprehend what was happening.
The first paper in the folder was the most important. It was a map of a town on the far side of Sardinia. Not large by any means, it housed about 5,000 citizens and was considered a "sleeper community", the residence of those who worked in the larger city nearby. According to the map, it had a grocer, a school, a gas station, and two churches, one of which held a sanctuary beneath it. When I saw the symbol for the sanctuary, I paused and nudged Felipe.
"What is a sanctuary doing in such a small town?"
"The city next to it is a very popular vacation spot. There is a sanctuary there, too, but one was built in the town to aid with the influx of visitors." He laughed as my eyebrows crept upward. "Sanctuaries aren't just for those vampires who live there. They provide housing for travelers as well. While most vampires are better off financially than a lot of humans, many are still not rich. The sanctuaries provide an affordable place to stay for those who need a vacation."
"Have you ever taken a vacation?" I let my doubt bleed into my voice. Felipe didn't seem like the type to just lounge on the beach for a week.
"No. Too much to do."
I turned my head so that I could look at him full in the face. "When this is all said and done, we're taking a vacation. You need a break from the hectic life of a finely honed killing machine."
He smiled and it looked beautiful on his face after all we'd been through. "Alright, as long as it's just the two of us. And we're not staying in the sanctuary. We'll get a beach house or something."
"You got a deal." I leaned over and kissed his cheek and we went back to analyzing the information in front of us.
The map of the little town was important because it showed the suspected locations of the vampire covens located there. As I started to examine it further, my mouth fell open and my heart sank. Red dots marked the areas of infestation, and every section of town had at least one. In this sleepy village of 5,000, at least a third of the houses were used by vampires. Digging further into the papers, I discovered that some of the homes still held families and those families were under the control of the rogues.
Captain Albertini stepped up to the front, pointing to a large map of the area that he had taped to the wall. "As you can see, this village has been infested with these vile creatures."
Ronin cleared his throat, giving Albertini a narrowed stare. The captain smiled in return, an expression that made my skin crawl. He seemed like the type of man who knew exactly what he was saying and meant every word of it. Briefly, I wondered if he really felt that way about vampires, and if so, why he was working with them, but he continued speaking so I didn't have time to ponder that.
"Nearly half the population is under their control. They live side-by-side with families and the mayor himself is housing Conrad." Albertini slapped the map with a pointer he pulled from his pocket, indicating a larger house on the edge of town. It was surrounded by a thick, white wall. "The sanctuary has been overrun, as well. The priest and vampire stationed there have been murdered, along with a young couple who was vacationing at the town when Conrad and his crew arrived. This is our target, and Conrad is officially enemy number one."
Next to me, I felt Felipe tense during Albertini's speech and I reached a hand over to grip his. He relaxed noticeably and smiled at me--a weak smile, but still a smile. Albertini talked at us for another hour or so, explaining the situation in detail, going over possible solutions--one of which involved destroying the town completely. That was shot down immediately by Father Bellini and the rest of the vampires. We were not above killing when necessary, but wiping out an entire town full of families was simply not an option.
By the time Albertini reached the end, the
humans were starting to fidget. Bellini convinced him to dismiss us for a meal and ordered us to meet back there in a hour. We led our guests to the dining room and laughed as they gaped at the elaborate menu. Several ordered lobster or other typically high-priced items--all free at the sanctuary--then proceeded to stuff themselves until they were sick. The two women, both of whom sat near Felipe and I, laughed at their male counterparts and ordered sensible steaks with side salads and baked potatoes.
Some of the men were quite entertaining, a complete change from our initial encounter, and despite the stress of the meeting, even Felipe was able to relax. His little friend with the machine gun sat on the other side of him.
"Jane, this is Robby. He's nineteen."
The boy gave me a shy smile and kept his eyes trained on his plate. It was a huge change from the rude kid I saw in the garage.
"Nineteen? How'd you end up in this group?"
He shrugged and inhaled sharply. As if trying to decide where to start, he opened his mouth and shut it a couple times. He looked so much like a fish, I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing.
"When I was in the academy, my family was attacked by vampires. At first, the police didn't tell me it was vampires. But they were all dead. My mama, papa, and little sister. I have a couple friends at the station and they showed me the pictures. I wasn't supposed to see them, and now I wish I never did. They were... Since then, I've been in several battles. Nothing compares to the carnage I saw. I couldn't even tell who they were."
He stopped talking, his voice breaking. Tears welled in his baby-blue eyes and I reached behind Felipe to put a hand on the young man's shoulder. He shied away at first, shooting a suspicious glance my way before letting my fingers touch him. I gave a quick, gentle squeeze and released. He visibly relaxed once I stopped touching him, but the mood at the table had grown solemn.
Redemption (Jane #4) Page 3