“Isn’t that where Candace is going?”
“No; she’s going to Santa Ana.”
“It’s crazy you’re all splitting up. Your ex is going to New York, right? I thought I overheard Alexis say something about that.”
“Yup; he’s gone in like a week,” I said, glad that Sean hadn’t gone through with his decision to stay for me. It simplified everything to have him move forward with his original plans, so I could more comfortably move ahead with my new ones—with the Society and Matthew.
“Where is your stormy new boyfriend?” Alexis asked, turning from the register.
“I dunno,” I said, which with all his Society-issued tasks was the truth. Though we hadn’t gotten to the point of calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend, it felt good to hear someone else label us as such. “It’s not like we keep tabs on each other twenty-four seven.”
“I just haven’t seen him around in a while. Eli mentioning Sean made me think of him.” Alexis took a sip of her iced tea, which she kept safely stowed beside the register.
“It seems we all have to live vicariously through you now,” Candace said, rounding the pastry case as the librarian lady made her way to the door with her iced latte of some kind.
“Hardly,” I said, a nervous laugh escaping my lips.
“I’m not asking for the details of your lovemaking,” Candace said and was about to say more when Eli cut her off.
“We’re not going to discuss this here. What you girls talk about in your own time is your business,” he said. “Look, more customers.”
The bell above the door chimed as a family of four strolled into the shop.
“Come on, Eli. Don’t act like you don’t want to know,” Candace said and sauntered back to her position by the bar.
“There is no lovemaking,” I said sourly under my breath as everyone turned away and got back to work. Matthew was still the perfect gentleman. Maybe he was afraid. Or maybe he just didn’t like me as much as he said he did, which in turn made me a little scared.
2
Matthew
We forced Damien Galt’s limo into an empty alleyway; it skidded, almost unable to make the turn without hitting the brick veneer of the building to the left. Once back in a straight line, the limo accelerated, trying to put some space between us. But we had the far end of the alley covered.
Like clockwork, another SUV turned into the alley, heading toward the limo, blocking its escape. Both vehicles slammed on the brakes, the SUV skidding lengthwise to provide the best barrier. The reverse lights of the limo shone but our SUV was quickly closing in, then skidding to a lengthwise halt as well.
I braced myself for impact, but the limo braked again, leaving not more than a foot of space between our vehicles.
“What did I tell you?” Syrithia said, jumping out of the driver’s seat. “Piece of cake.”
I climbed out through my window and used the rear of the limo as a step, hopping down to join the rest of the team.
Two angels emerged from the other SUV; they were Georges and Frances. Just Syrithia and I were in the trailing SUV. Two vampires, Kaden and Thaddeus, were positioned in the buildings making up either side of the alley, each one at a third-floor window, ready with their rifles.
Instead of waiting for anyone to exit the limo, the three angels simply opened fire, riddling the side panels of the limo with bullet holes and shattering all the blacked-out windows. I’d known that was the plan, but had a hard time shooting into a car without seeing the target. Syrithia and her crew seemed to have no such qualms.
The other members of the group had been supplied by the Vampire Order, officially headed up by Syrithia. We’d been tracking Damien Galt’s movements and making sense of his chaotic schedule over much of the summer. He traveled around the country for joint ventures and speaking engagements, but he also had offices and thus spent the majority of his time between New York and Los Angeles. He’d been back in LA nearly a week as we organized the strike, making sure to target both Galt and Clementine Biel together. Even though they weren’t married, she was as much his first lady as any president’s wife—a power couple at the head of their global enterprise. Even though we’d focused on Damien Galt over the years, Clementine was just as much of a silent threat.
Once the echoing of the gunshots died down, Syrithia stepped closer to the now jagged holes of where the back windows used to be. In a second, her attention shot to me, her expression dark and filled with concern. “Where are they?”
“What?” I asked and rushed over to get a look for myself.
Syrithia was already opening the driver’s door when I peered into the back of the empty limo. Glass and fragments of metal littered the extended interior of the car, but it was vacant of any people.
“There’s not even a driver!” Syrithia shouted, slamming the roof of the limo with the bottom of a clenched fist.
“How is this possible?” I asked, joining her by the open driver’s side door. Georges and Frances were now pacing around the limo, also trying to make sense of the situation.
“It’s self-driving,” Syrithia said.
“I can see that, but how is it even possible—since we saw them get in this limo. We were following them the entire time.”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t remember ever losing sight of the car to be able to perform a switch.”
“Me neither.” I leaned in to get a closer look at the instrument panel, consisting of a large touchscreen in the center and a diagnostics screen behind the steering wheel. The car was still running, cameras clearly showing the obstructions to the front and rear of the car.
“You know what this means, right?” Syrithia asked, stepping away from the car in frustration.
“That he’s onto us? Yeah; I guessed that,” I said, sardonically.
“We need to completely regroup now. The Order wants a status report. This is not what I had in mind.”
Before I had any chance to answer, I spun to the sound of a ringing phone. The other two angels shrugged, so I leaned into the front seat of the limo, realizing the ringing was coming from the car’s speakers. On the center touchscreen was an icon for an incoming call—caller unknown.
Wondering if I’d get a chance to talk with Damien Galt himself, I tapped the green call button on the screen. When there wasn’t an immediate greeting, I said, “Damien.”
The sound of someone breathing on the other end of the line was amplified by the luxury speaker system. Then an unfamiliar male voice said, “Your cover’s been blown.”
Before I had a chance to respond, the line went dead. I turned back to Syrithia, ready to ask what she thought that was all about when I was hit with an explosion.
There was no reaction time; my body rocketed forward, crashing into Syrithia as we soared through the air, toward the brick wall. I wrapped my arms around her so we became a single projectile. I felt a searing pain in my back from the metal and glass striking me and careening out in every direction.
I slammed into the brick with one shoulder, then dropped to the ground, all the while doing what I could to shield Syrithia from the brunt of the blast. For a few moments, all I could hear was a deafening ringing, before my ears could start healing and my hearing begin returning to normal.
“Are you all right?” I asked, slowly climbing off Syrithia and dusting myself off.
She was bloody, covered in dust and ash. But she sat up without too much difficulty and shook her head. “This is not how I planned our morning to go,” she said, dryly, then cleared her throat.
I stood up and scanned the surroundings for the other members of our team on the ground. As soon as I saw one of the bodies lying on the ground, I noticed two figures drop out of the sky—our vampire snipers were jumping from their third-floor perches.
“Over here,” one of them said, rushing to the other side of the car, away from the body I’d seen.
Syrithia was already heading to the visible body on the ground, so I followed the
sniper around the car, finding him already kneeling beside a battered and unconscious Frances.
“Is she alive?” I asked, hesitantly.
The vampire shook his head. “She’s already gone.”
“Dammit!” Syrithia yelled from the other side of the limo, and I guessed Georges had met the same fate.
I headed back in her direction, giving the still burning car a good berth. Then I realized the condition of our vehicles, which weren’t as bad as the limo, but certainly no longer drivable. Behind the SUVs, there were already people gathering to gawk at the destruction—talking amongst themselves and snapping pictures.
“This isn’t good,” I said. “We need to get out of here—fast.” I could already hear emergency sirens in the distance.
“Kaden, Thaddeus—take care of our onlookers,” Syrithia commanded, and in a flash, they were each headed to either end of the alley.
“We can’t kill them all!” I exclaimed.
“They’re not going to kill them, just push them back,” Syrithia said. “Now help me with these bodies.”
She picked up the dead body of Georges and heaved him into the belly of the burning car, so I followed suit and did the same with Frances.
One of the SUVs was already on fire due to the blast from the limo, but the other was not. Syrithia ripped off a piece of her shirt and set one end ablaze, then quickly snaked it into the SUV’s gas tank. She didn’t wait for that vehicle to also blow before grabbing me by the arms and flying me up to the third story window one of the snipers had been stationed.
I scanned the alley and saw the other vampires running back toward the wreckage, then leaping up onto a fire escape one floor up. They bounded from one floor to the next until they’d reached our window and safely climbed in.
Within seconds, first responders skidded to a stop at one end of the alley, sirens still blaring. I closed the window and backed away.
I turned to Syrithia. Now that she’d had a moment to process what had happened, she looked terribly shaken. “I’m sorry about your friends,” I said.
“I didn’t see that coming,” she said, shaking her head in despair. After a moment of reflection, she raised her gaze to mine. “But thank you for saving my life.”
3
Fiona
It had taken a few months of convincing, but my father finally agreed to allow me to transcribe for him—at least on a trial basis. He allowed me to do it two times a week, while Kelly would keep his job for the rest of the time. Besides Matthew petitioning for me, Kelly seemed to be putting in a good word as well.
It was obvious my father didn’t like change. His routine was exact, right down to the minute. Any deviation seemed to throw him into a spiral of nonsense and delusions.
I’d been to the Nevada facility multiple times throughout the summer, just for short visits. He was starting to recognize me for me, not Abigail—well, as Fiona the new True North Society initiate, not Fiona his daughter. That was never going to stick. It was too ingrained in his head that I never existed, and I simply had to accept that.
The other big step was being allowed to travel through the transport portal on my own, though I’d only used the one leading to Nevada so far, taking me to the construction of Sector Seven. Eleven other portals were leading to eleven secret destinations all scattered around the country.
A few of the techs were starting to recognize me, so I didn’t have to flash my compass tattoo every time. However, I kept it visible while in the Society compounds, per the Assembly’s direction. I certainly didn’t see everyone following that directive, but I could only complain so much as a newbie.
I knocked on the door when I reached my father’s room, not high enough in rank to get my own keycard. A few seconds later, Kelly answered, a bright smile on his face as he held the door wide to allow me to enter.
“You’re late, Miss Winter,” my father scolded, already seated at his desk. He pointed to his child’s wristwatch with its cartoonish tyrannosaurus face.
I was about to check my phone when Kelly rebutted his claim. “That’s not the right time. Your watch no longer works, remember?”
“I was just using it as a prop,” my father argued. “Of course, I know it no longer works. I can see the alarm clock on the nightstand.”
The clock on the nightstand read 2:02, while my phone showed 1:57. His clock was five minutes fast, but I wasn’t about to argue that fact, especially on my first day.
“I’m sorry, Assemblyman Damascus,” I said. “I’ll be more punctual in the future.”
“These kids today. No respect,” my father said to Kelly, who was pulling up a third chair to the desk. “We have important work to do and she just waltzes in here whenever she feels like it. I don’t think this is going to work.”
“She’s only two minutes late and she promised never to let it happen again.” Kelly looked over and gave me a weak smile. “Give her a chance. She comes highly recommended.”
“By whom? Fiennes? He’s probably just trying to sabotage me again. I still don’t understand why you need help with the transcriptions.”
“I’m just doing what I’m told by the Assembly,” Kelly said, sitting down in the middle chair and gesturing for me to take the far one on the left.
“I have a vote. No one cleared that with me,” my father said, sounding like a petulant child.
“Sometimes, President Bolt needs to make an executive decision.”
“I’ll do everything you ask,” I said. “I promise. And I’ll be sure to be ten minutes early next time.”
“Ten minutes early! I won’t be ready at that time. I just want you here on time. Get a watch; you should be wearing a watch. Kelly, see to it that she gets a watch. There should be enough in the budget for one.”
“That’s a great idea. I’ll secure one for her.”
“I have a ph—I have one at home; I think,” I said, being able to picture one that Mom had given to me as a gift many years ago, but not remembering where it was now.
“Very good,” my father said, turning his attention to the open notebook before him.
I leaned closer to Kelly to try and see what was written on the open pages. Notations and scribbled diagrams sat interspersed with lines of sloppy text. Evidently, nothing was clear when it came to the notebook’s odd writings, which seemed to be where Kelly and I came in. At that point, I didn’t even know how I was going to help, afraid my father would rattle off obscure sentences filled with scientific terms I wouldn’t even know how to transcribe.
“Before we get into new content,” Kelly began, navigating through the laptop. “Let me show you the file structure and how you’ll be formatting the notes to remain consistent with what I’ve been doing for the last—God, I don’t even know how many years it’s been now.”
“Eleven,” my father said confidently, but the look on Kelly’s face made me doubt that was true.
“I may have been working with you for that long,” Kelly said. “But not in this capacity. I was one of the Assemblyman’s junior project engineers when he was still designing. This work… it’s probably been half that.”
“I’ve always been able to count on you. There were only a few times early on that I had to correct your mistakes.”
“And you’ll never let me live them down,” Kelly said, still sounding bitter at the memories my father was referring to.
“I sure wish I could have been around to see that,” I said, then clarified my statement. “The design work being done, not your mistakes, Kelly.”
“Thanks.” Kelly gave me a shy smile before turning his attention back to the computer screen.
“You would have been just a young girl,” my father said. “Not that you’re not a young girl now. But you would have been nearly a baby.”
I know, I thought. That’s kinda the point. It would have been nice to know my father while I was still young, to know him when he still had all his mental faculties lined up and firing correctly. Now he was all over the place, living
in several worlds at once, which, as Matthew had said, was a major side effect of spending too much time in an alternate timeline.
“Here we go,” Kelly said. “I’ve set up a fresh document. Notice the nomenclature. And we’ll store it in this folder—” He pointed to the screen. “—while it’s on this computer. Then, once we’re back at North Building, we’ll copy the information across to the main server.”
“A heavily encrypted fortress of a server,” my father chimed in. “We wouldn’t want this information falling into the wrong hands.” He always seemed to say that.
“Yes; a secure server,” Kelly agreed, patronizingly, then pushed the laptop over to me. “I’ll let you take the reins. Want to switch seats?”
“She’s fine where she is,” my father said without looking up from the pages he was studying. “Oh, yes. This is about the dynamics of the airlocks between station sectors. Very important. Anything compromising the airlock system could rip through the affecting sector or sectors in moments, sucking anyone within the vacuum’s grasp into deep space. Not a pretty sight—or a comfortable feeling for that matter. Pretty nasty stuff. I don’t think this is appropriate for a young girl. Kelly, perhaps you should take this one.”
“Fiona is entirely capable, sir,” Kelly said. “Let’s get this information logged. It sounds very important.”
“The most important!” my father exclaimed. “Let me see…” My father scanned his notations, then began rattling off figures and equations; I began typing, struggling to keep up with what he was saying.
Once he was in the zone, my father seemed entirely focused, almost transported to the world where the information came from. He was back on the station, out there in the vastness of space, relearning everything about the futuristic technology he’d again learned in another life. It almost seemed like the game of telephone, leading to more of a breakdown each time—each timeline with fewer specifics than the one before.
Angeles Betrayal Page 2