“They would be counting on you doing something like that,” Bryce said, thoughtful. “The Bureau doesn’t monitor apartments for privacy reasons. However, due to the defections, they’ll have so much security set up at the Sloane quarters that they’d know if a fly found its way in there.”
I mulled this over, picking at a scab on my wrist, knowing Bryce likely knew best how the Bureau would respond to our defection. We would have to explore other options. Still, I desperately hoped my parents were secretly safe at home.
“I don’t know.” Louise’s hushed voice traveled from the redbills.
“Come on. Let’s tell them,” Sike pressed.
I raised a curious brow, craning my neck to see around Bryce. Their hushed whispers dissipated as they approached us.
“We have some ideas,” Sike said loudly and nudged Louise forward into the huddle. “Actually, Louise has excellent ones.”
“We’re open to hearing anything at this point.” I surveyed her expression carefully.
She seemed torn, trying to decide on something. She had always been more reserved than Roxy and me when it came to pushing herself to the front of the pack. Her strengths had always been in technical support and surveillance.
“It’s a long shot,” Louise said with a touch of excitement. “I know that, historically, humans don’t have the best reactions to vampires. By now though, the Bureau hasn’t just hurt vampires in its quest to destroy them. They’ve committed major crimes against their own members. Furthermore, they are endangering civilians by trying to use monsters from the Immortal Plane as weapons and, in the long term, by preventing vampires from hunting the darkness. That will eventually kill us all if all the beasts coming through the tear don’t get us first.” She sucked in a deep breath, gathering her confidence. “My idea could help us fight them, but it may help public safety even more.”
“Go on, lass,” Bryce urged. “Spit it out! We like what we’re hearing.”
“The public needs to know what the Bureau is doing,” Louise said firmly. “If no government agency in the country will listen to us, then we can make a public record of what happens to prove our story. We can’t become another gas leak coverup, never to be heard of again. If we fail, the Bureau could retaliate against our families.” She paused, hesitating for a moment.
“Keep going,” Sike urged in a whisper.
Dorian looked very serious, but his eyes took on an amused glint at Sike’s cheerleading role in this brainstorming session.
“I have some experience with the Occult Bureau’s cybersecurity systems,” Louise revealed.
I raised a surprised eyebrow at that. I’d never heard her talk about this before.
Emboldened by our pleased reactions, she continued. “I was recruited out of college by the specialist security company the Occult Bureau uses as its public face. Apparently, I caught their eye as a rising star in the cybersecurity world. It was always part of my long-term life plan to join the FBI, so I thought a few years working for the Occult Bureau would look really good on a resume.”
“So how did you end up hunting redbills with us grunts?” Zach asked. “Wouldn’t they have just tucked you away with all the tech nerds?”
Louise shrugged. “The basic training is mandatory if you want to work in more than just an administrative capacity. And I figured some real-world experience and combat training would improve my chances of getting hired as an FBI agent.” She fell quiet. “This was meant to be my last year of live missions. I had applied to be transferred to the Washington HQ to take up a cybersecurity and tech support role.” She flashed a tight smile, tinged with sadness. “But I guess I get to stay as one of the grunts for a while longer now.”
I crossed my arms and nodded, impressed. That’s why she’d kept this close to the chest—the Bureau tended not to appreciate hearing that you planned to switch agencies within a few years. “What does a cybersecurity whiz kid have to offer our team?”
“If I can access a phone and some data, I can download specific apps that will allow us to record footage and upload it to activist sites, maybe even livestream the board’s discussions. We can use that footage to tell the public what’s going on.”
Bryce dug into his pocket with a cocky grin. He waggled the group’s single burner phone in the air. Louise let out a laugh.
“It could help,” she said. “If I can manage to download what I need.”
Sike beamed with pride. “It might look better for us bloodsucking vampires in the end, if it turns out the Bureau’s board is full of even worse monsters. What with the scheming and the murdering and all,” he said with a dark laugh.
I huffed a chuckle, but a pang of sadness struck me. He’s right. The monstrous behavior coming from within might be worse than anything the vampires had done to the Bureau or, indeed, to humans in general. The awkward moment passed as the air turned solemn around us.
The consequences of failing in this mission were incredibly deep. Dissenting soldiers could be tried for the highest level of treason, assuming we were even given a trial. If the Bureau was willing to torture soldiers, they were certainly willing to fabricate anything that meant we faced the severest punishment possible… if they didn’t make us disappear first.
“The vampires have more friends among humans than they realize, anyway,” Bryce said, waving off the joke.
I snapped back to attention.
“Speaking of friends,” Gina said, jumping on that point, “this is a huge undertaking, and our timeframe is super tight. I don’t know if it’s realistic to try to pull it off alone. Do we have any allies we could call for help?”
I tapped my chin. “A surprising number of higher-ups in the Bureau seemed open to the idea of working with vampires… well, on the surface. Even Director Sloane appeared engaged and look at how that turned out.”
As much as I hated to admit it, I didn’t trust my perception in this case. Maybe Bryce would know more about potential Bureau sources.
“What about Clemmins?” Zach asked. “He was friendly enough.”
“Not sure how to contact him,” Bryce replied with a regretful sigh. “Who knows? He might secretly be on the side of the vampire-haters, like Finley. Or at least unwilling to stick his neck out for us.”
“We need someone whose position is clear,” I mused aloud. Who could we trust to be honest about their open-minded stance on vampires and be willing to work with dissenting soldiers?
Bryce’s eyes sparked with a sudden idea. “Fenton.” He smacked a fist into his palm. “Your parents mentioned he was recently ousted by the board for vampire sympathies. He was the only board member who met the vampires during the trial period, and they didn’t react badly to him. The old board obviously chose him to represent them for that reason. Seems clear cut to me.”
“But how would we get hold of him?” I asked, confused. If he was ousted from the board, then his help might be limited. Worse, he might be on the board’s watchlist.
Bryce rolled his eyes. “Oh, I think I know. That trust fund kid bought a bloody historic mansion outside Chicago.” He took in our puzzled stares. “Come on. Don’t any of you read the news? It was before we went on the run!”
How much did a historic mansion outside the city cost? Alan, though a high-ranking board member, always seemed modest in his living quarters in the Chicago Bureau building. He made a good living, more than my parents, but it wasn’t mansion good.
“Fenton is rich?” Zach asked. “No way.”
“His mother is a well-respected congresswoman known for soliciting impressive campaign donations.” Bryce scoffed. “The rich favor the rich. How else does a guy ten years younger than me get promoted to the Bureau board?” He quickly typed something into the burner phone and brandished the screen for all of us to see. “There! See?”
Indeed, an article on Fenton’s evidently famous home appeared. It wouldn’t be hard to find the address, though the article didn’t list it for privacy reasons.
“Will he even
be home?” I wondered aloud. “And what are the chances he would speak to us?”
“Exactly,” Gina said, nodding in agreement. “If he really is that rich, he might be taking a vacation after his forced departure from the Bureau. What could Fenton help us with anyway?”
“He has certain resources, I’m sure. It’s worth a shot,” Bryce assured us, looking around at our skeptical faces. “It will only be a short flight to his estate, thanks to Redbill Airlines. Besides, Fenton was fired from the Bureau for openly supporting vampires.”
Zach scratched his stubble in thought. “I guess having rich friends is never a bad idea.”
I tapped my foot, considering it. If we could get help from Fenton, it might be in the form of resources. Supplies and weapons could be useful for stopping Team War and taking the board members hostage. Not to mention saving my parents if they were in danger.
Dorian watched me closely as I puzzled it over but kept quiet. His expertise wasn’t in human matters. He, Bravi, and Sike would have to trust us to make the best decision.
“Fine. We’ll find a way to talk to Fenton, but we need to address our main problem,” I said. We’d all been dancing around the issue, afraid to approach something so large, nebulous, and deadly. I shot Dorian a pleading look. I needed another strong voice to guide the planning. “With limited supplies and weapons, our human side might have to depend on what the vampires can offer the mission with their supernatural abilities.”
“We need to get to the board meeting before Team War does to protect them from the explosion Vonn is planning. Our plan also needs to ensure that the board members can’t escape, so we can capture them and use them as hostages,” Dorian said. “We need a distraction.”
“What kind of distraction would be big enough for the board to pay attention but not get spooked?” Gina pondered. “We need them in the building for our plan to even have a chance of working.”
“Something that gets the board out of the meeting room but keeps them in the area,” I muttered.
Dorian’s gaze flickered with a new thought. “Lyra, you mentioned going into the window of your family’s apartment. It might not be the worst plan, after all.”
Bryce gave him a skeptical look. “Did you miss the part where I pointed out the surveillance on that apartment will be so intense, they’d be able to hear a mouse fart three doors down?”
Dorian gave a slight smirk and shared a look with Bravi. “Even in our current ragged state, we can still be faster and quieter than you humans could possibly understand.”
There was a pulse of warmth in my belly as I soaked in his cocky grin. I rapidly tamped the feeling down with a cold dash of logic. “You might be, but if my parents are there, they won’t be able to move that quickly or silently.”
“Assuming they would go with you at all,” Zach added, his tone grim. “We’re working with the belief that they would come with us willingly. Faced with two strange vampires who, I’d like to remind you, they think are manipulating their children, I don’t see Mom or Dad merrily skipping along to join the rebellion.”
The last part he directed at me, and I nodded begrudgingly. “Even if Zach and I were the ones to come for them, they’d likely raise the alarm.”
Dorian frowned for a moment, then gave Zach and me an apologetic look. “I know this is going to sound awful, but… why don’t we just take them then? Not try to convince them. Just kidnap them, then you two and the other humans do the convincing without worrying about the Bureau breaking the door down.”
My eyes widened as I understood his meaning. “That way we would know the board couldn’t do anything to them, and we could even present it to the Bureau that my parents were now our hostages. We use my parents as a targeted distraction for the board meeting.”
“What are the chances that Alan would even care, though?” Zach countered. “If he was willing to threaten Mom and Dad, then I doubt he’d be too concerned about us capturing them when he knows for sure we wouldn’t hurt them. In fact, it would give him ammo against us. Imagine how he would use that to gain more supporters in the ranks of the Bureau. To them, it would prove his story about how the vampires have manipulated and brainwashed us.”
“Plus,” Gina added, looking at Bravi and Dorian, “even if you’re fast enough to avoid the cameras or surveillance traps set in the apartment, they’ll be monitoring for vampire frequencies entering the apartment. Maybe even the building. You wouldn’t even have a chance to get close.”
“Maybe we don’t try to avoid that,” Louise said slowly. “Maybe our distraction could actually be twofold.”
“How so?” I asked, not quite sure what she was proposing.
“We go through with Dorian’s plan to do a smash-and-grab extraction of your parents,” she said, the thoughts clicking together as she spoke. “We aim to get in and out as fast as possible.” She held up a hand as she saw several of us beginning to form protests. “But we’ll have an advantage. I can scramble the scanner that’s searching for vampire frequencies. The tech is sensitive, but it has its problems, as we know from being able to hide from the scanners using rock.” She pointed to the phone Bryce was still holding. “I could mess with them enough using the phone to get the vampires in. If I went with them and I got the opportunity to access a computer, I could start hacking into the system of the whole building. Cameras, locked doors, alert systems, everything.”
Zach shook his head, impressed. “It’s always the quiet ones that are the most dangerous.”
“My dad uses a high-powered laptop to take his research home,” I said. “I can tell you where it is in the apartment.”
I glanced around our group, hope blooming inside me. It was the start of something. There were plenty of dangers, though, my logical side butted in.
“There’s an appalling number of opportunities for this to go bad. So, so many chances,” Gina said, clearly thinking the same thing. “The main one being that most of this plan hinges on a burner phone being used to hack some of the Bureau’s most sophisticated equipment.”
“True,” Zach said, his elation dimming somewhat.
A sudden breeze whipped off the water once more, making me shudder. Gina, noticing, moved a little closer to my side, sharing her warmth.
“What if our old team members turn against us when we try to stop Team War?” Zach asked, talking half to himself. “We never thought the vampires would turn on Dorian, but they did.” He paused, screwing up his face into an awkward wince. “Uh, sorry, Dorian.”
Dorian sighed wearily. “I’m worried about the same thing in my own group. The other vampires left us easily enough. There’s an equal chance they’ll use force against us to move their plan forward, even if I show up with accusations against Vonn.”
“As much as I would like to imagine my parents having our backs, as we’ve already mentioned, there’s a strong possibility they’ll choose the Bureau,” I admitted. “As far as I know, they still trust everything Alan is saying about vampires and the dissenters.” I glanced at Zach. “We’re second-generation operatives. My parents have invested even more of their lives in the Bureau than Zach and I have. I really don’t know how long it will take them to accept the truth we’re offering. If they ever do.”
“Let’s not lose the battle for ourselves before we’ve even started by getting all mopey,” Bryce said, tossing up the burner phone and snatching it from the air. “We can also try to get backup for the actual fight. Somebody who isn’t involved in American oversight organizations. American organizations in general, actually.” He started thumbing in a number, wandering off as the phone started to ring. “And I think I know someone just crazy enough to wade into this.”
It seemed our captain still had surprises up his sleeve.
“We still haven’t decided the most important thing,” Zach said in Bryce’s absence.
“What’s that?” I asked with a raised brow. We’d covered everything as much as we could.
“Our team name,” Zach said. �
�I vote for Team Ninja. Are there any other nominations? We have to do something cooler than Team War.”
“I don’t know what ‘ninja’ means, but I like the sound of it,” Sike said with a half-smile.
My brother was doing what he did best: lightening the mood. The past several hours had been incredibly tense. Now, strained faces cracked with smiles at Zach’s suggestions. In the light of the sunset, we looked like warriors returning from a long battle.
Too bad we’re headed into one instead.
In less than ten minutes, Bryce returned with dogged resolve. “I’ve called for more firepower,” he said. A cheerfully manic smile crossed his face. “So, feel the fire and dig deep for a last hurrah, squad.”
I felt my spine straighten almost involuntarily and saw Zach, Gina, and Louise do the same. We had heard those words countless times on missions and training exercises and competitions with other squads. Feel the fire and dig deep.
Even the vampires seemed to catch on to the shift in mood, their faces becoming determined, eyes sparkling in the dying light.
Bryce turned toward me. “Now, about that distraction…”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Several hours later, I sucked in the cool night air, feeling glad for the extra layer of my giant adopted coat over my still damp, but slightly cleaner, uniform. We had planned as much as we could, and now we began to put our plan to stop the Bureau and Team War into action. Chicago twinkled in the distance across the water, oblivious to the events that would soon be taking place, as everyone prepared to leave our little island haven.
I was hungry and exhausted, but there was still work to be done. I turned my attention to the vampires, the hungriest of whom were supposed to be heading out on a small mission of their own. They didn’t need as much sleep as we did, but I had raised concerns about their energy levels. They needed to feed in order to restrain themselves with the board members. If they didn’t, they might murder the dark board members on the spot. We would be as bad as Team War.
Darklight 2: Darkthirst Page 42