I started to run.
"Stop!"
Presenting a moving target, at least I made things more difficult for them, especially at the speed I can move. Those to either side of me couldn't get a bead on me, and those in front were too busy getting out of my way to get a shot in. Those behind me were still a problem. Gun shots rang out and I weaved from side to side, making it difficult for them to aim, and forcing them to run the risk of hitting their own people.
Screams and cries from up ahead heralded what I had been expecting. The Rogue Squad was arriving; Lawkeepers specifically trained to take out rogue vamps, armed with wooden bullets and other vampire-killing paraphernalia. Time for me to leave this party.
The next drain cover arrived just in time and I pried it open. A bullet scored an angry path across my arm but I shrugged off the pain - I'd had worse. I dropped into the sewer, then pulled the cover back into place.
"After her!" was the last thing I heard before the cover cut off all sound.
With an effort, I yanked one of the metal ladder rungs out of the wall into which it was set, the crumbling masonry barely putting up a fight. I jammed it into the drain cover's fastenings, twisting the rung to lock it in place. They'd get it open, but by that time, I would be long gone.
As I dropped into the sewer and ran off as fast as I could, before they thought of going in through another drain cover, I smiled to myself. This part of the plan had gone pretty well. Now, I just had to worry about the other half of it.
Kael pulled the black bag off of the head of the man tied to a chair in the safe house, to reveal the scared face of a man in his early fifties, with greyed hair and wild, blue eyes.
"What do you want?! I..." The words died on his tongue when he recognized me.
"Looks like we can skip the introductions, Mr. Self, and I guess you know your best Lawkeepers, too."
Kael, Milo and Gage stood behind me, a wall of muscle.
"You're all traitors!" spat Self angrily.
Kael shook his head. "We all swore to uphold the principles on which the Lawkeepers were founded. I think you're the traitor, Chief Self."
"I don't know what you mean."
I bared my teeth. "It's about Layla Parish, and don't pretend you didn't know that already. You only get so many lies before you start paying for them."
Kael strode up to Self. "You know who and what she is, Mr. Self, and you know what we are. Even the three of us together would struggle to keep her from hurting you - and after what you've done, I'm not sure how hard we'll try. I'd say your best option is to tell us what you know."
Self's eyes passed between us, gauging his chances and not liking them. "You don't understand."
"Then explain," suggested Milo.
"You don't understand what it takes to keep the Lawkeepers running," Self snapped. "The money it takes, the political situation. I get death threats from Vampire Liberation groups who think we're too hard on vampires, alongside death threats from groups who think we're protecting them when we should be exterminating them." He shook his head. "Overall, we do a good - a fair - job in a difficult situation. But to be able to do that, certain concessions have to be made, certain palms need to be greased. What do a couple of individual vampire lives matter against keeping our organization intact?"
"If our organization isn't honest," growled Gage from behind me, "it isn't intact."
Self laughed hollowly. "Idealism. How ridiculous."
"What's any of this got to do with Layla?" I asked.
Again, Self's eyes travelled between us and about the room. He looked like a cornered rat, trying to find any way out. He was scared of someone else almost as much as us, and that was saying something, given his situation. How scary did a person have to be that Self was considering lying when he knew what I would do to him? How powerful did a person have to be that even the Lawkeeper Chief of Operations was scared of him?
"The people I'm talking about don't want money," Self finally continued. "They have money to last nine lifetimes. They want something else. There is a certain generous benefactor whose support we need, who has a..." Self paused to pick his words, "... penchant, for vampires."
"A vamp lover." That wasn't rare.
But Self shook his head. "I doubt very much that he loves them. He likes to have power over them. And the more powerful the vampire, the more he likes it, and the worse he treats them."
Usually, vamp lovers are the subs. I had heard of people who liked to control vampires, to be the dominant ones, and sometimes vamps like that - I had certainly enjoyed the guys going rough on me. But there is always, in the background, the knowledge that, really, it is the vamp in charge, and if the human forgets that, then they don't last long. Actual mistreatment of vampires by vamp lovers is rare for that reason.
"But Layla isn't powerful," I pointed out. Even for her relatively young age, Layla was a weak vampire.
Self laughed. "I'm sure the gentleman in question is enjoying having your friend as a fuck-toy but she is not..."
The sentence went unfinished as I slapped him across the face and he spat blood.
Kael stepped in. "Don't."
I met his gaze. "Don't, what? He had it coming. And considering that I could break his jaw between my finger and thumb, I think I went easy." I turned back to Self, who was looking properly cowed. "You were saying?"
"He doesn't want your friend. He wants you."
Suddenly, it made sense. Even with the might of Lawkeeper Central covering for him, picking me up off the street wouldn't have been easy. I would rather die than be taken prisoner, so all his blessed silver wouldn't help. But using Layla made me compromised. I had to stay alive for her, and he could use her as bait.
"Are you alright?" asked Gage.
I realized I was smiling. "He only had to ask."
"What?"
"I'd have traded myself for her in a second."
Self shook his head. "He likes the hunt."
But while I was processing the news about Layla, Kael had clearly been thinking about something else. "You said 'people'. When you talked about greasing palms. For how many 'generous benefactors' are you procuring vampires as their personal playthings?"
Self didn't look happy to be asked the question. "Ten or so. But they bore easily and the vampires don't always last, so the turnover is... the demand is more or less constant."
"The vampires don't always last?" Gage's voice was filled with disgust.
"They seem so hard to kill," said Self. "And yet, have such simple weaknesses. Chain one up with blessed silver and use a mirror to direct sunlight onto various parts of their body and you can make the toughest vampire shriek. If you want to," he added, as if he hadn't seen that very thing happening. "He won't be doing that to your friend. She's not powerful enough to interest him."
"You're running a sex slave ring," said Milo. It was not so much said with horror as with disbelief. The group to which he had dedicated his life was corrupt in a way that made his skin crawl.
"They're just vampires."
I could have killed him, but I was too sickened at that moment to even take pleasure from it.
"Now, Chief Self," I leaned in close, "I think you know which part of the conversation we've reached. You are going to give me the name of the man who has Layla, and you are going to tell me where I can find her. That is going to happen. Everyone has their breaking point, and it would save me time and you pain if we don't have to locate yours."
There was terror in Self's eyes, but I wasn't sure it was because of me. "You don't know what he's capable of."
"You don't know what I'm capable of. I can kill you slowly, inch by inch, over long hours. That is the easy way - you don't want to know the hard."
But Self met the threat with eyes wide open. "It won't matter. There's nothing you can do to save her. He's too powerful."
"I'm pretty powerful, too."
"You don't know the meaning of the word."
Whatever darkness there is in me, I don'
t like torturing people, even those who have wronged me and hurt those I love. That said, I would have tortured Self if I had thought it would work. Torture isn't always an effective way of getting at the truth because people tell you what they think you want to hear rather than the truth, but it wasn't that that stopped me, it was Self's eyes. As I looked into them, I saw a man who wasn't for breaking. Fortunately, when you're a vampire, there is another way.
"Sonja!" Kael called out to stop me, but it was too late. I bit into Marin Self's throat and felt the hot blood pour into my mouth. Self clutched at the arms of the chair to which he was tied as I drank deep. It's impossible to accurately describe to a human what feeding feels like to a vampire. It's more than just nourishment, it's like taking on life, and it can be hard to stop, especially for young, inexperienced vampires, or for those who haven't fed for a while. Like me. The taste of Self's blood was like liquid euphoria, and I could feel it coursing through me. I could taste his fear in the blood, which just made it more piquant.
"Sonja."
I think I would have stopped anyway, even if I hadn't heard Kael's voice. I think I would have stopped before I drained him. But I was still glad that Kael had stepped in just then to pull me back from the brink.
I let go and wiped my mouth. Self looked upwards, the movement looking like an effort. His face was ashen, his eyes heavy-lidded.
"You shouldn't have done that," breathed Gage, shocked.
"Get him something to eat and drink," I said. "He'll be fine. Now," I looked down at Self. "Tell me what I want to know."
If I had turned him - and no way did I want Marin Self added to the ranks of the vampire - then he would have answered immediately, such was the power of that relationship. As it was, I simply had a hold over him and it would fade fast. Even so, and weakened as he was, he struggled against himself to keep his mouth shut.
But the power of blood is hard to deny. "His name is Cosgrove Lafferty."
"The tech giant," Milo muttered.
"He is keeping Layla at his private mansion outside the city."
I flicked a look at Milo, who nodded - he knew where the place was.
"Thank you, Mr. Self." I smiled. "You've done well."
"He'll kill you," Self murmured. "At least, he'll kill you." He indicated the guys. "You," back to me, "you'll wish he'd killed you. He's been trying to find a way to add you to his collection for years. He has plans." Self's head drooped with exhaustion and he shook it to himself. "I was there once. I'll never forget the screams. I've never felt so sorry for vampires."
"But you still handed them over to him," I snarled.
Self looked up, pathetically. "Of course, I did. I didn't want those screams to be mine."
Gage untied Self and locked him in a room where Milo brought him food and water. He was soon asleep. He would recuperate, regain his lost blood, and regret everything he had done.
I sat silent. Was Layla enduring the tortures Lafferty inflicted on the more powerful vampires he encountered? Now, I was remembering Olga Akinova, a vamp nearly as powerful as me, who had vanished mysteriously - everyone had thought I'd killed her. There was the one who called himself the Leopard, too, and Kieran Knight. Now, I thought about it, there were more than a few powerful vamps who had left the city unexpectedly over the past few years. How many had met their end in the dungeons of Cosgrove Lafferty?
And Layla? I steeled my mind against the thought. She wasn't powerful enough to be of any interest. Her weakness would protect her. Perhaps she wasn't in the best place, but she wasn't being tortured. She was fine. Fine. Fine.
Repeating the mantra in my head, I looked across at the guys, and found them all as introspective as me. They had just found out that everything they had believed in, everything they had spent their adult lives working for, was a lie. They had, in their own way, been cogs in an organization that advocated kidnap, torture and sexual slavery.
At that moment, I wasn't sure who had more to deal with; them or me.
Chapter 16
"First things first," said Kael as they sat down to dinner and I sat down to watch. "What do we do with Self?"
"I can kill him, if you like?" I suggested, mostly joking.
"Not sure that would solve anything," said Milo, with a smile.
"The problem is," said Kael, "someone will notice that he's gone. Will already have noticed, in fact. You can't kidnap the head of the Lawkeepers without people noticing. After your diversion today, Sonja, they'll have guessed your involvement, and the fact that we vanished shortly after turning up for work also suggests ours."
"Do we have to do anything with him?" asked Gage. "We're heading for Lafferty's mansion soon. If that goes well, then we should have proof that Self is crooked and it won't matter we kidnapped him. If it goes badly, then nothing matters."
"Just leave him here?"
"That's what I'm saying. He's not going anyplace."
Kael nodded. "I don't see any other obvious alternative."
But Milo was still frowning. "Maybe we're looking at this all wrong by seeing it as a problem."
"What do you mean?"
Milo shrugged. "Maybe it's an advantage. Our bigger problem right now is getting into the mansion of one of the richest men in the country. A mansion defended by his own private army and by an artillery of technical security systems that he developed himself. We can't just kick the door in. Not even Sonja can just kick the door in. Well, we now have a man who has been there before and who is a known friend of Lafferty, locked up in our spare room. Seems to me we might be able to use that."
It sounded pretty good to me, but Kael was still unsure. "It's a risk. If Lafferty knows that Self has gone missing, then us turning up with him just looks suspicious."
The disappearance of the Lawkeepers’ Head of Operations was not being reported by the media, it was being kept a secret for the time being. But might a man like Lafferty have means of finding out? Might he have contacts in the Lawkeepers besides Self?
"Seems to me like a risk worth taking," said Milo.
"I don't know about that," admitted Gage. "But I can't think of any other way to get in. Lafferty's place is a damn fortress."
Kael turned to me. "Could you get him to call Lafferty and fix a meeting?"
I shook my head. "He's out of my influence now. And I won't be able to drink from him again for days yet. At least, not without killing him."
"It's a risk," Kael repeated. "And we don't know what Self might do once we're in the gates."
"But we know he betrayed Lafferty." A thought had occurred to me. "And we know that he's terrified of the man."
Kael's eyes gleamed. "Damn it, the vampire's right. If he gives us away to Lafferty, then Lafferty's going to ask: how did they know I had the girl? There's no way he can betray us without betraying himself, too."
I nodded. "If we make that damn clear to him before we go in, then I think we can count on the bastard to play ball."
Milo looked at his watch. "It's not late, yet. Can we go tonight?"
Every part of me wanted to say: yes, let's get Layla out of there. But this was our only chance, it had to work, and doing it now came with a major issue. "Self can barely stand and he looks like shit. We'll have to wait until tomorrow evening, let him get enough of his strength back that he looks presentable, and not like he's just been drained."
Kael nodded and looked at me with a sympathetic expression. "It's just one more day. I know that every day of waiting must be agony for you with Layla out there, but... Better to wait and do it right than rush in and fail."
I wanted to snap back at him, to tell him that I knew that and to stop stating the obvious. But it actually felt good to have someone acknowledging how hard this was on me. It felt nice to have someone understand that a vampire has feelings. These guys...
I still couldn't get over them. We were sitting here planning how to rescue my sister. I knew why I was doing it, but I didn't have the first idea why they were. Not so very long ago, I would have
assumed malign motives, but I was well past that now. I trusted them implicitly. They were helping me because they liked me, because they wanted to, because it was the right thing to do. None of which were motives I associated with humans. Humans helping vampires didn't happen. Humans laying their life on the line for vampires? That was a fucking fantasy. And yet, here they were.
But then again, that's what they all were; fantasies. The three of them together were my fantasy guy. I had never thought in those terms before, never allowed myself to dream of love because it seemed so impossible. I wasn't the type to get a happily ever after. Now...
I suppressed the hopes as they pushed their way up, breaking through the toughened years of engrained disappointment that filled me. This was what it felt like to be loved. Not in an involuntary way as Layla and Max loved me, not in an overblown Hollywood way - all flowery language and huge declarations - but in a very everyday way. True, they were about to do something extraordinary for me, but they were doing it for the most ordinary of reasons; because they liked me. The mundanity of it was what I cherished the most. If I had asked one of them why they were doing this, then they would not even have understood the question. They liked me, so of course they were willing to risk their lives for me. It was almost matter of fact. That was what real love was, and I found myself hoping that I could be worthy of it because, for the first time in my long life, I had found a man – technically, three men, but who's counting? - who I wanted to be there for a long time.
"Next problem," said Kael. "You."
I nodded. How the hell did we get me into the mansion? If Self was telling the truth, and I was pretty sure he was, then this Cosgrove Lafferty had been obsessed with me for years - he knew what I looked like. We could try disguises or hiding me in the trunk of a car, but I had a hunch that Lafferty's clever security tech would see right through that kind of deception.
"Any chance that once we're in, we can just open the back door?" asked Milo, trying to raise the mood, which had slipped back into somber.
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