by C. L. Quinn
Watching Jack try to outrun him, a first blood, Felix smiled as he flashed around the next aisle he anticipated Jack would race toward, where they had seen the female earlier, poor idiot Jack thinking to protect her. He intercepted him easily, and they stood, Jack with his weapon drawn, Felix used air displacement to close the distance. Jack’s desperate attempt to find his girl had placed him in a bad spot, locked in this small space with a superior force. Felix, because the element of surprise gave an incredible advantage, had the weapon on the floor thirty feet away, and, using first blood strength, smashed Jack onto the floor, unconscious and bleeding.
Easiest way, Felix thought.
When that wretched Peele called out for him across the busy market, he rolled his eyes. What a sad excuse for a vampire that one made. When this was finished, he would continue the Four Horsemen, he liked the name and what it stood for, but he would create a new group with new members handpicked by himself.
At least Peele had performed his duty in securing the female.
Lifting Jack over his shoulder, Felix moved him out of the building, and across the parking lot, when he saw Peele starting to leave the lift-car they’d commandeered earlier tonight.
“Stay, Peele,” he demanded, as he got the unconscious Jack to the entrance to the car. Felix quickly set him down, grabbed Jack’s face, and held it toward his own. Moments later, Jack began to come around, and when he did, he opened his eyes and looked directly in front of him, straight into Felix’s eyes.
“Got ya. Stay. Don’t speak. Get into the car next to the woman and strap in. From here on out, you will do only what I command you to do. You will follow orders given by my lieutenants. Peele here, is one of my lieutenants.”
Still fuzzy from the hard blow to his head, Jack crawled into the lift-car and did as requested.
Outside, waiting for Peele, Felix looked up at the sky, still visible in spite of the parking lot lighting. Dark up there, the stars trapped behind black clouds tonight. Sadness invaded at the loss of the closeness he’d shared with Quattro. It wasn’t a relationship he wanted to end, but Quattro had been changing, and had no idea why he was.
Felix did though.
At his core, Quattro had never been the killer he believed himself to be, and Felix had always known that one day, they would come to this.
Quattro believed in the sanctity of life. Felix believed that the short lifespans of humans made them negligible in the full scheme of the world, made them little higher than the beasts of burden that had fed the world for all of its history. Just like mayflies. Brief with limited purpose. They were food, sex, and service to him.
“Two down,” Felix commented as he joined Peele in the cockpit of the car. “Take us back to the Pit.”
“To the Pit, boss.”
Flying over landscape too dark to see details, Peele brought them in close over what looked like a low hill, guiding the car to the back side and bringing it down to a soft landing.
“Secure them. Send Monsta to me. And the two new vamps.”
“Booger and Broomhandle.”
“What? No. No stupid nicknames. I specifically chose enormous men to convert because I need a formidable army. You’re ridiculous, Peele. Just fucking send them to me.”
Scolded, Peele watched Felix disappear into the odd circular bunker they’d found between Seattle and Carmel. At one time, it had likely been built as a fallout shelter for the possibility of nuclear threat, but that had long ago been eliminated. It was, however, almost impossible to find, below ground and light tight.
“Come with me.”
Evaleigh looked at Jack. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? I got caught too, Eva. We’re not at fault, we’re just unlucky. How the hell did they know where to find us?”
“I don’t know. Probably some hidden tech. New shit is always coming out, and my security scans could miss it. Goddamit, Jack. I’m sorry. I should have kept us safe.”
“All we have to worry about now is how to get out of this. At least they didn’t kill us instantly.”
“Yeah, well, you know what that means for me.”
As they jumped out of the car, Jack knew what it meant. She would become a sex slave for Felix and his crew. The woman was beautiful, her breasts full, and that long blonde hair enticing. Had he not been with Ife, she would have been hard for him to keep his hands off. Felix and the others wouldn’t.
“There’s no way to warn the others.”
“Oh, they’ll know. As soon as we don’t come back, they’ll know why. We just have to try to survive until they can rescue us.”
“Sure. I’ll do whatever I have to do.”
Down a damp hallway and down several more steps made of concrete, long metal stairs took them deep underground.
“Where are we?” Jack asked, praying Peele was just dumb enough to answer.
“Fallout shelter. Your guys’ll never find it. Or you. Don’t even waste your time hoping.”
“Why haven’t you killed us?”
Blunt, Jack had no reason not to ask.
“Felix has his reasons.” Peele stopped moving to shove a hand under Evaleigh’s shirt, squeezing a nipple.
“And I have mine.”
He continued to lead them down the stairs, Evaleigh so furious, she was shaking. Could there be a way to defeat compulsion? Now, with her body feeling so strange, she wanted to investigate that idea. If it was possible, and she could pull it off, she would smash that fucking smug-ass bug in front of her.
Jack followed from the rear, in recon mode, and committed everything he could to memory. Getting out of this alive was going to take some serious motherfucking skill and luck.
At Buddy’s house
“Yeah, Kwano, something’s wrong. Fuck, I need Eva to hack into the market’s security feed. Let’s just get there and see what’s happened to them. Now, people!”
Sanquinetta barked orders to her team and within ten minutes, they were packed and ready to go. Jack and Eva were missing and they couldn’t be reached by fone.
Buddy watched the four remaining members of the hunting team load into his borrowed lift-car. “Good luck. I’ll see if my friend K.C. can come and help. He’s also a genius with computers.”
Pitching a bag of extra ammo into the car, Saul turned to his friend.
“Thanks, but Buddy, if they found Jack and Eva, they know where we are, and if they do, they’re likely to come here, so you need to clear out for a while. Any chance this K.C. can let you stay with him until we see what’s going on?”
“Sure. He’s a big partier and used to overnight guests. I’ll head over right now.”
“Good. We’ll keep in touch.”
Saul climbed into the car, taking a seat next to Dani, and pulled the door closed as Sanquinetta lifted off, spun and climbed into the air so fast, even if Saul had taken the time to put on his seat belt, he’d have been flung against the door.
He glanced at Dani, rigid, belted into her seat, worried, and ran his fingers over her arm. “We’ll find them, just as we did with you.”
She shook her head. “It’s not the same. Saul, you recognized my kidnapper. You had a good idea where to find them. With Felix, we don’t know where he’d take them. How could he have known where we were?”
“That I don’t know, but we’ll find out. First, we need those security feeds to verify what we think we already know. And we need to know if they…”
Saul trailed off, but Sanquinetta, brutally honest, finished for him. “If they killed them. It’s possible, based on what Quattro says. God. On that point, we need to find out what he knows about this.”
Dani leaned toward the front seats. “He can’t be guilty. We didn’t let him know where we were going. But he might know where we can find Felix. I’ll call him now.”
“You have a number to reach Quattro by?”
Laying a hand on his cheek, Dani tilted her head and smiled. “Yes, Saul, I do. This is a good thing.”
Punching up the numbe
r, Dani waited and nearly jumped when Quattro’s graveled voice came through the speaker.
“Quattro. It’s Dani. We have a problem. Jack and Eva went to the market today in Carmel, and they’ve disappeared. We are on our way there, but I need to know if you have any idea where Felix is.”
“I’m sorry, Dani, I don’t. I went back to the hotel we had been staying in last night, and they’ve cleared out. Fuck. Please, let me help search for them.”
Kwano suddenly looked at Dani. “He knows Felix’s life signal. He’s known him for a long time. Tell him to search for it.”
“What?”
“Hand me your fone. Quattro, first bloods have the ability to search and find certain life signal’s over long distances. Do you know how to do it?”
“No. I didn’t know that was a skill we had. Felix and I learned everything we know about first bloods piecemeal over the past centuries after we discovered what we were.”
“Ah. It’s simple, but it takes practice. You may need a conduit to help at first, and Dani would be capable. Quattro, can you come to us?”
“Sure. Let me know where to meet you.”
“At the Seaside Market in Carmel. I’ll send you details. Hurry, though. We have to find Jack and Eva as soon as possible or it may be too late.”
“I’m on my way.”
Kwano handed Dani’s fone back. “You heard what I told him. A first blood who is familiar with another first blood’s life signal can track it. Younger vampires usually have yet to learn the skill, but Dani, I think you can help him magnify and find Felix.”
“Tell me what I need to know. Anything for Jack and Eva.”
Saul sat quietly in his seat, prepared to do anything to find and protect his friends, too, but not thrilled that it involved close contact between Dani and Quattro again.
He felt her hand on his and looked into her eyes.
“I’m right here, Saul, always. Right beside you. You understand?”
When she had crawled into his bed this morning, he’d felt more at peace than at any other time in his life. Like he was walking down the right path and that finally, he wouldn’t have to walk that path alone. Dani’s hand on his reminded him that Quattro was no threat.
“I’m fine, beautiful. I’m actually amazingly fine.”
“So am I, Saul. Tonight, if we have reason to celebrate, I’ll show you how fine I am.”
For so many reasons, the right ones and the crazy ones, he needed this to go well. He loved Jack like a brother and felt a special bond with Evaleigh.
“We won’t lose them.”
Dani intertwined her fingers with Saul’s. “We won’t.”
Eight
Too tall, too sexy, too confident, and far too fucking close to Dani, Quattro had already pissed Saul off. It seemed that in spite of his promise to himself to quit obsessing on the asshole, he continued to fail.
Topping off his ire was the moment Quattro leaned over and lightly kissed Dani’s hand.
“Thank you for helping me use this new talent.”
Fuck that! Saul thought, and, keeping his mouth closed, stepped back as Kwano stepped forward.
“So, we’ve checked the footage at the market, and it was Felix and one of your flunkies who kidnapped Jack and Eva. This guy.”
Quattro looked at the image on Kwano’s tablet.
“Peele. He’s not the brightest guy in the world, but he’s powerful.”
“Sure. Well, here’s how this works. You’ll go into sort of a trance with Dani, and while you reach for Felix in your memory, you should be able to find his life signal, she can amplify your reach and help your own lifeforce search for Felix’s. Once you learn to do it, it isn’t hard, but it is one of the more advanced first blood talents. I cannot find him because I have no extended contact with Felix and couldn’t recognize it. You can, Quattro. Please, focus, relax, and try. We need to find them.”
“I know you do. Felix is a brutal son of a bitch. It’s why he pushed me out. We’ve known for some time that our hearts and philosophies are different. Well, time’s flying. Dani, let’s do this.”
Sanquinetta moved beside Saul. “I’ll keep an eye on you.”
“You don’t have to. I’m okay. I trust Dani.”
“Yes you can. That woman kind of likes you. I saw that last night.”
“I kind of like her too.”
Facing each other, Quattro’s hands clasped in Dani’s, the two searching for Felix went silent, eyes closed, and didn’t move a muscle for several minutes. As suddenly as they’d begun, Quattro slowly opened his eyes, still holding on to Dani, until hers opened too.
“I found him. You’re right, it’s easy. He’s just north of us by about twenty minutes or so. We’d never have found him otherwise.”
Quattro pulled his hands from Dani’s and stood, but decided not to help her up when he noticed Saul on top of them, reaching for her.
“Would you like me to go with you?”
Everyone was silent. The question was valid…could Quattro be trusted?
Dani started to speak up when Sanquinetta beat her to it. “Yeah, I think it’s a good idea. But Quattro, if you betray this team, I swear to you, we’ll hunt you down and make sure you wish you never had. You got me?”
“I’d say I do. You won’t have to worry. The truth is, Felix needs to be stopped. He needs to be permanently stopped, if you understand me.”
“Fortunate, since that is what we do, when it has to be done. With you, we have three first bloods. That’s quite a lot. Shouldn’t this be a piece of cake? Can’t you three just go in, freeze everyone, and then we go get our guys?”
“Freeze?” Quattro asked, confused.
Kwano shook his head. “Saul is still learning how to use that skill and it looks like Quattro doesn’t know about that either. Quattro, do you know how to freeze?”
“Nope. Freeze? Like ice?”
“Thought so. I’m surprised you don’t know, and no, it has nothing to do with ice.”
“Like I said, we never had any first bloods to guide us.”
“Makes sense, then. Freezing can become addictive, it’s such a cool skill. Using your mind in a similar way to compulsion, you can freeze someone or an entire room in place, unable to move. Once you learn to control it, you can freeze humans and made vampires. Leave their head free so they can talk, leave their upper body free, whatever you want. That’s not where we are right now. Saul did it when we first got back together, but it was only after an extreme emotional outburst.”
“San, let’s move and I’ll go over this inflight.”
“Okay. Planning and strategy are nice, but in this case, we don’t have that luxury. This will be dirty and quick. Basically, we storm in, take out anyone in our way. Felix, being first blood, has to be handled by our three first bloods. So, Dani, you and I focus on getting to Eva and Jack, freeing them, and getting them out of there. Simple. Got it? Good. Let’s fly.”
On the way to the lift-car, Quattro turned to Dani.
“She’s bossy, isn’t she?”
“She is, because she’s the boss.”
“Ah.”
Outside Felix’s underground lair
“Can you still feel him?” Saul asked.
“Not right now, but this is definitely where I found him with Dani’s help. Hey, why don’t you let me go down first? I can scope it out.”
“Do you believe he thinks of you as the enemy now?”
“Yeah, I think he does.”
“Then you are likely in as much danger as we are. Right now, we have the elements of surprise and superior forces. It should be enough. Let’s go in strong. Dani, San, come in behind us. We’re much more durable than you are.”
“No arguments, mister.”
Sanquinetta put herself in front of Dani, who pushed around her.
“If this is based on durability, I’m over a hundred years old, my friend.”
Sanquinetta bowed. “Proceed.”
As they moved with great steal
th toward what looked like nothing more than a hole in the ground, she thought about how wild her life had turned out. Working with vampires and humans who were far more than human...it was crazy. And she loved it. Lifting her shock gun, she prepared to fight for her life.
Underneath the ground, Jack sat on a bed with a thin filthy mattress, so pissed he could barely breathe. He was fucking vampire! No one should be able to use compulsion on him anymore. God, this sucked! Glancing to the other side of the wall where Eva had succumbed to lying on the shitty bed, his worry was for her. He could handle anything they threw at him, and mostly, she could too, but he didn’t want to imagine her being assaulted by these creatures. It was a foregone conclusion that the one who’d captured her would rape her. The asshole hadn’t stopped drooling over her since they brought her in here.
“Eva, are you thirsty or anything?”
“No.” Her voice was quiet, expressionless, which was unusual for her. She was the most optimistic person he’d ever met. Sullen and guarded when she first joined them, the young woman had become their ray of sunshine even on the darkest night.
“They’re looking for us right now.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Eva, don’t close down.”
“I’m not. I’m just finding a way to adjust to this new reality. If they don’t find us, I’m going to become a big sex doll for that goofy goon that caught me. Jack, I’m fine, I just need to build a wall that I can step behind if that becomes real.”
“You’re managing expectations.”
“Right. So don’t worry about me. It’s you that I’m worried about. If they don’t want you to feed or fuck, are they going to kill you?”
“Nah, Jack Remington will live forever. Trust me, I know how it works for the Remingtons. We should all have been dead thirty times over. Cut us, do we not bleed? Yeah, but we heal and go on to fight again. It’s just the Remington way.”
He heard a little laugh, and was grateful for it.