Hard Days Night (The Firsts Book 8) (29 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“Send me the
feed. Stay out of camera range when he gets here in a few minutes, and make sure nothing in the image tells where you are.”

“Already done, sir.”

“Good. Remember, you are not to reveal your location, no matter what I ask or say. I’ll contact you when it’s done.”

Cheeto sat on the bed after Claude ended the call and just stared at
his
big career break
.  He’d ended a woman’s life so that he could get a promotion. 
What was wrong with him that he would do something like that?

Going to his knees on the carpet in front of her, he touched her on the arm and an overwhelming sense of sorrow infused him so deeply, he began to cry.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, and repeated himself.

He fell forward and rested his head on her lap.

He didn’t know that, although the woman he held was dead, a tiny life stirred inside and touched him as he sprawled on the floor and wondered how he could fix this.

IN LONDON

Taggert grinned.  “I’ve made friends with nearly every security officer in the facility.  We’ll pass without problem until Claude or Lamont sees us.  By then, it will be too late for them to stop us.  So all we have to worry about are the security forces assigned to Lamont.  Claude doesn’t have any on him.  Also, and you’re going to like this, you don’t have to worry about the vampire serum that renders you unconscious.  I haven’t just stood around here for weeks with my thumbs up my ass.”

Eillia tilted her head.  “And where have those thumbs been, then?”

“Dabbling in the ordnance supplies.  Those tubes filled with the serum?  They now have apple jelly in them.”

Koen
smiled.  “Apple jelly?”

“Closest I could find to the pale amber color of the serum.  The most it’ll do is give you elevated sugar levels.  No one guards the stock room, go figure.”

Koen landed a heavy hand on Taggert’s shoulder, and admired the fact that he took the weight well.  “Taggert, you’ve been indispensable.  You have a job with me for the rest of your life, if you’d like it.”

In response, Taggert just nodded, and led them through the main entrance
of the building.

“This facility has four floors above ground, three below.
  Right now, there are only ten supernatural subjects held on sub-level two.  None are vampire, although one of them, yeah, no one seems to know what he is.  Either way, we’ll spring them before we close this place down.  Lamont’s office is on this level, and although video surveillance covers nearly every inch of this place, unless someone has a reason to, no one disturbs him with details.  We should pass unnoticed until we get to him.  If he’s here, anyway.”

“Let’s pray.”  Eillia was beyond ready to get back to their carefree lives.

Although limited by Taggert’s human pace, they traveled quickly through the corridors to the back of the building where Lamont had his offices.

Finishing up another bottle of wine, Lamont
pushed away from his desk, as he waited for the vampires to come.  He needed another bottle of wine.

As he stood, he saw his door open again, and a fuzzy Claude came back through it.

“I thought you were gone, asshole.” he yelled to Claude.

“Sit the fuck down before you fall down, you old goat.  They’re coming soon, but I finally have the computer image of his girlfriend.”

Claude pushed his laptop onto Lamont’s desk and turned it to face the doorway.

“When they come,
I’ll do all of the talking.”

Lamont did not like this turn of events…Claude, telling
him
what to do.  Then again, it was what he’d hired him to do, to handle things.

“Certainly.
  You’re sure this will do it?”

“No.  I’m sure this is our only chance.  If the vampire has no attachment to the female,
if he doesn’t care about her fate, then we’re fucked anyway.  God, Lamont, sit down before you fall down.”

“I’ve only had two bottles of wine.”

“In fifteen minutes.  You’re standing still and you’re weaving.  It’s sick.  Sit the fuck down.”

Lamont prepared to blast C
laude, but it seemed like too much trouble.  He dropped back into his chair, which spun around some and made him feel even dizzier.

“Don’t let the vampires eat me, Claude,
” he said, sleepily.

Claude glared at him.  What the fuck was going on?  Lamont had to be on something else, because he was punch-drunk, and the wine wouldn’t have done that to him with his current constitution.

“I’m on my own with these motherfuckers,” Claude mumbled out loud and watched the camera monitor on Lamont’s desk.  Moments later, he saw them, coming down the hallways before they arrived at this heavily guarded and locked section of the building.  They’d be through in moments.

“Show time,” he announced, out loud.

“Here,” Taggert said, after his companions disabled the security protocols on a metal door that protected this hidden part of the building and helped the staff go to sleep.

“This is Lamont’s office area.  Behind this door, there will be at least 8 to 10 armed guards.  They’ll be firing bullets
and
the useless serum.”

“Step back,” Eillia told him and Taggert complied.

Koen, Ahmose, and Xavier entered, with David and Eillia behind. 

Taggert listened as repeated gunfire erupted, and almost as quickly, silence
d.   He waited a few more seconds, then stuck his head through the doorway, and walked on in when he saw all of the guards immobilized, frozen.  Koen was holding his left bicep, and Ahmose was bleeding from his right leg, but he knew the injuries were minor for the huge vampires.

“The next room is the money-shot.  That’s where Lamont is if he’s here.”

Eillia nodded and pushed the door in.  The five men were right behind her, stopping just inside, as Eillia perused the room.  Claude sat on top of a huge cherry office desk and Lamont lounged behind it.

“Wow, you really
are
full of yourself,” Eillia said, aware that both men had to know they were going to kill them and yet they sat there as if they wore signs that said
Go ahead
.

Koen had already speeded forward and had Lamont’s neck in his hand.

“Do it,” Lamont squeaked out.  “Drink your fill.”

Koen laughed, anger barely concealed. 
“As if I’d drink your filthy blood.  No, you’ll die intact with every ounce of the corrupted shit in your veins.”

Claude hadn’t moved. He sat on the desktop, his legs swinging, and grinned.  He looked directly at Ahmose suddenly.  “My guy tried to end you in California.  I guess he didn’t get a chance
to finish the job.”

“It was you who ordered him to kill me.  Good information.  It makes killing you now much easier.”

“Yeah, well, you might want to look at this computer screen first.”  His fingers tapped against the laptop displayed on the desk.

Claude nodded, pursing his lips, and flippantly turned the screen towards Ahmose and the rest of the vampire group.
  “Just look.”

Ahmose had had very little experience with humans outside of his village, and this arrogant one who made demands on first blood vampires surprised and upset him. 

“This one is mine,” he told his companions.

Claude smiled as if someone gave him an ice cream cone on a hot day, and pushed the play button.

The dark screen came up, and the vampires watching saw the pretty young woman tied to a chair.   They did not know her.  What was Claude up to with this?

Then Eillia saw Ahmose, his jaw set, his eyes focused intently on the screen, every muscle in his body tightened in rage.

“Ahmose, who is she?”

He tore his eyes from the screen and looked into Eillia’s.  “She is a detective in Los Angeles.”

“You know her?”

Claude laughed out loud until he felt strong fingers crushing his windpipe.  Ahmose had moved to pull him off of the desk, and he hung suspended from his hand.

“Stop…or she dies,” he managed to croak out through the compression that threatened to crush his vocal cords.

Eillia walked up to Ahmose, a hand on his arm.  “Put him down, Ahmose.  We need to hear what he has to say.”

Ahmose held him still, his fingers flexing,
the desire to snap his neck almost overwhelming.  But then he looked back at Mal tied up and unconscious and he opened his hand.  He threw the man up against the wall with force and stepped back.

“Thank you,” Eillia said, and then turned to Claude.

“What are you doing?  The same thing that you did with Tamesine that didn’t work.”

“Hostage,” Claude finally managed to say. 
“Yeah. Like Tamesine.  Only she gave up on hers.  This guy, he knows her all right.  If he wants to see her die, then go ahead, kill me.”

Eillia turned back to Ahmose, and although she already knew the answer to her question, based on his body language, she asked anyway.  “Does she mean something to you?  We don’t want
anyone
to die, but we can’t let these men go either, Ahmose.  They’re just too dangerous.”

Ahmose didn’t speak, he just watched Mal.  She wasn’t moving at all.  Had someone beaten her?  Was she all right?   Once again, he processed what Eillia had said to him and nodded.  “She means something to me.”  He paused before he spoke again.

“I would have her live.  Whatever I have to do, I need her to stay alive.”  He turned to Claude.

“What do you want?”

Claude picked himself up off the floor, rubbing his throat. 

“Convert me.  That’s all.  Just convert
me, I don’t give a fuck what happens to the lush over here.”

Lamont had watched everything as it unfolded.  “What?  We’re in this together, bastard.”

“Not by a longshot.  You’re a waste of breath.”

Lamont shot forward to grab Claude, and Xavier caught him almost in mid-air.

“Down, laddie,” he said.

Ahmose turned on Claude.

“If she dies, you do, and painfully.  I can compel you to find out where you hold her.”

Claude laughed.  “How stupid do you guys think I am?  I did the same thing I did with your insane friend.  Compulsion won’t help because I don’t know where she is.  My associate has been told not to reveal their whereabouts no matter what.  You can kill me, and he’ll just kill her.  The only way out of this, is you,” he pointed to Ahmose, “Convert me, and then I will arrange for her release.  That’s the deal.  Take it, or let her go.  I’ll give you a moment.”

Koen walked behind the desk and stared at Lamont.

“You’re not part of the deal,” he said.
  He looked at Claude. “So I can kill him?”

Claude waved an arm out to his side.  “Be my guest.”

Lamont realized his danger and, using the last of his stolen vampire powers to displace air, disappeared down the hallway, Koen and Xavier instantly on his trail.

“Well?”

Claude was pushing Ahmose, and Eillia could see that Ahmose was almost to a breaking point.  This woman meant a great deal more to him than he allowed himself to admit.  This might go very, very badly.

“We can’t convert him,” she said quietly.

Ahmose said nothing again then looked down into the petite woman’s eyes.  “I cannot let her die.”

Suddenly, a thin wiry man pushed into the screen in front of Mal.  Ahmose recognized him immediately as the man who had shot him at the beach house.

The thin man was very distraught and dropped onto his knees to hold Mal’s unsupported head in his hands.  He looked back at the screen.

“She’s gone.  Whoever you are, this beautiful woman is dead.  I did it.
I did it
. I’m
so
sorry.
It’s my fault!
”

He was
crying openly now.

Eillia looked at Ahmose, still as stone, staring at the woman in the chair that he now realized would never move again.

His eyes shot to Claude, who had also disappeared.  He scanned the area and blew out into the corridor, searching with desperation, rage, pain.  No matter where he looked, he couldn’t find him.  He couldn’t think…all he wanted to do was return to the office, to see Mal.

Mal was dead?
 
That beautiful woman he had made love to and hadn’t been able to forget…couldn’t be gone.