SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (189 page)

Evelyn laughed, but then tried to cover it with a cough. Jesse glanced over at her, then he scooted out of his chair. “Honey, I’m going to find a restroom. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Sure,” Lauren said. “I’ll be right here.”
It’s about time. Either there’s spirit activity here or we should head home. All this socializing is giving me a headache.

Tell me about it. I thought being an IB investigator would be a little more exciting than this.

Oh, it can be. But if you really like action, maybe you should try for a Sentinel position.

Evelyn visualized rolling her eyes, projecting that image to Lauren.
Clark already thinks I’m a dangerous weapon. Think he’d give me a gun?

When Anne made a joke, Evelyn laughed politely, and then Lauren took the next shift, nodding in agreement with a neighbor’s assessment of the current state of poverty and crime in the inner cities.

Lauren nudged Evelyn’s mind.
Can I ask you something?

If you don’t, I’ll hear you thinking it anyway.

Why are you giving up so easy, Evelyn?

Why? Because according to Jesse, Clark used the term cryo-freeze and me in the same sentence. If he’s that serious about getting rid of me, I’m better off gone.

I meant…giving up on Jesse. He loves you, you know.

And I love him. Which is why I won’t drag him down with me. He was meant to be a Sentinel. I don’t want him giving up his calling for me.

I respect that. Hell, I even agree with it. But I think the damage is done.

Immortal Possession: Chapter Sixteen

Jesse walked down the hall, looking for the bathroom. When he found it, he went inside and locked the door behind him. Since most of the nicer houses had indoor surveillance these days, he couldn’t simply walk down the hall pointing the spectral gauge here and there, looking at the readings.

He touched his ear and spoke quietly. “Ops control. I’m about to power up the spectral gauge, and I’ll need you to relay the readings to me remotely. Who is taking the lead on this?”

“It’s Doug, Commander.”

Jesse took the gauge from his pocket and flipped it on. It was about the size of a deck of cards, and his pants were loose enough that it hopefully didn’t look too suspicious. “The device is active. Read me back the levels if they change. I’m going to stay away from the patio because my team will give us a false positive.”

“Sounds good. I’m getting the readings on my end, and so far I’m getting a very weak positive signal. I can’t tell if that’s from Sentinel Jacobs or not.”

“Well, let’s find out.”

Jesse turned on the bathroom fan and walked out of the bathroom, locking the door so the restroom would seem occupied. He strolled into the hallway and acted like he was admiring a painting on the wall, giving himself time to ensure no one saw him walking in the opposite direction of the party.

When all was quiet, he walked quickly and quietly down the hall and came upon a living room. He stepped inside and visualized the plans for the home. The architectural blueprints told him there should be another large room next to this one, and off that room should be the stairs to the basement. “Anything?” he asked Doug.

“Just that same low-level signal. But I’m not surprised,” the controller replied. “We’ve canvased this street with infrared scans, and they don’t show anything. If they constructed something in the basement, it’s been well hidden with the latest spectral shroud technology.”

That sort of technology was just as expensive as it was illegal, but as well funded as the traffickers probably were, they could afford it. Not detecting them from afar didn’t mean crap. “You have my coordinates and those of Dr. Vale. As we get further away from her, monitor the intensity of the spectral scale.”

“Yes, sir. I am. No changes so far.”

Jesse walked on silent feet from the living room into the study and went to the corner of the room where the stairs to the basement should have been. There wasn’t a door, just a bunch of shelves with books and curios. “Hey…look up the house plans again. Do you see my body’s heat signature from the drone? I turned left down the hallway from the bathroom, went through the living room with the double doors, and ended up in what I’m calling the study. I don’t see a door or a staircase anywhere. How are the readings?”

“Yes, I see you, and there’s been no change in the readings. In the plans, they should have constructed a staircase on the northwest corner of the room. Try that.”

Jesse shook his head. “If they did, they covered it well. I don’t want to mess around with the shelf and accidentally trigger an alarm if they have one. And if they invested a lot of money into a spectral shroud, then you can bet they have an alarm.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“Here’s the thing, I don’t need to get down there right now. I just need to get proof that there’s undocumented spirit activity in this house. That should be enough for the commissioner to get us a search warrant, then we’ll bring in the Blue Unit and tear this place apart. Any ideas?”

Jesse looked at the bookshelf along the northwest side of the room, but he didn’t touch anything.

“Unless they have a generator or a major emergency battery, we should be able to disrupt the electricity long enough for the spectral shroud to drop and for you to get a good reading. If we do that and you don’t get anything, then there’s no spirit activity in that house.”

“Let’s do it. Remotely cut the power and I’ll get a reading, then I’ll have to hightail it back to the party.”

“Okay, hold on. I’m reconfiguring the drone. It should give you about a five-second window when the power goes out. You think you can watch the gauge while I’m doing this?”

Jesse looked toward the doorway and pulled out the gauge. “You see any heat signatures coming my way?”

“No, sir, that’s a negative.”

“Good. I have the gauge ready. Cut it.”

A second later, the room went dark and Jesse heard gasps in the distance coming from the party, but his attention didn’t waver from the spectral gauge. It went from a low yellow-green light all the way up to orange in an instant, and the bookshelf popped open along the lower cabinet, revealing an opening into the ground, illuminated only by the light of the gauge. When the room flashed back into bright relief, the opening remained breeched.

“Shit. Get Clark on the phone with the Commissioner now, and I want Blue Unit ready to come down hard when I give the signal. We have a shitload of spirit activity below this house, and the power outage disengaged the magnetic lock over the stairs. If it triggered the alarm, we need to be ready to do this now.”

“Understood,” Doug replied. “I’m notifying the steward now.”

Jesse was so tempted to go down those stairs and get visual confirmation of just who and what was down there. But with Evelyn and Lauren still sitting with those body-trafficking bastards, he couldn’t take the risk he might be discovered and not have time to go back and warn them. He switched the gauge off and shoved it into his pocket.

“Tell me when Blue Unit is in position. I’ll go back to my team until they get here. I’m hoping more neighbors start to leave, but once the unit is in position, we do this either way.”

“Commander—you have two heat signatures coming your way fast.”

Jesse pulled the faux cupboard closed over the staircase and quickly rolled behind the leather sofa. He pulled the gun from his waistband and held it pointed toward the door.

“Just check to make sure no one is in there snooping around,” a voice said, but it didn’t sound like Henry.

The two men entered the room, and Jesse saw their shoes under the bottom of the sofa. “No, no one is in here. The next door neighbor must still be in the bathroom.”

For a second, Jesse thought he might just get lucky until the man in the lead walked closer in his direction. They were going to see him, and he couldn’t lose the advantage of surprise. He coiled his leg muscles and pounced over the sofa with all of his strength, catching the first man across the temple with his gun so hard that the man went over backward with the force of Jesse hitting him, and he didn’t get back up.

“Hey!” the second man shouted. They were the two men who had been manning the barbeque and the food table. How many people did the Fosters have working for them?

When the barbeque guy went for his gun, Jesse rolled from the first man and sprung to his feet. It would have taken one second to put a bullet in the man’s brain, but Jesse wanted to try the quiet way before it got to that. He kicked his foot out, delivering a roundhouse kick to the man’s head that knocked him back. Then Jesse was on him, delivering a blow to his throat that cut off his scream before he could even push the air from his lungs to make a sound.

The man clutched at his throat, gasping for air, but that wasn’t good enough. Jesse needed him out until after the other Sentinels arrived. “This is going to hurt,” he said, then he clocked him in the temple with his gun, and the man’s eyes rolled back in his head.

“What’s the status of the unit?” Jesse asked Doug, then he grabbed the first man’s ankles and dragged him behind the couch.

“They are five minutes out but will be in position shortly, Commander.”

“They have the blueprints, but make sure they know to access the basement through the magnetic lock in the cupboard under the bookshelf.” Of course, if Red Beard was on the victim recovery team, he’d probably just tear the wall unit from the wall completely and not bother with the lock.

“Copy that.”

Jesse had been on hundreds of missions during his time with Immortal Bounty, but he’d never been so scared to have his partner out of his sight. He wouldn’t survive it if something happened to Evelyn, so he comforted himself with the thought that she had a top-notch Sentinel inside her. She would be okay.

He dragged the second man behind the sofa then walked to the window. He lowered the blinds and then gripped the cord from between the wooden slats and yanked, first one then the other. Rolling the men onto their stomachs, he tied their hands behind their backs with the cord. When the first man began to stir, Jesse tucked his gun back into his pants and hauled back and kicked the man in the head with the toe of his dress shoe. Food-table man didn’t move again after that.

Jesse quickly readjusted his clothing and smoothed back his hair, then he carefully made his way into the hall. “Heat signatures, Doug?”

“They’re all clustered in one spot…looks like the patio. You should be clear.”

Jesse walked back to the bathroom, took a tiny screwdriver from the knife dangling from his house keys, unlocked the bathroom door, and switched off the light and the fan. “How are we looking now?”

“The steward has the search warrant from the Commissioner. You’re clear to use any and all force necessary if they resist.”

“Copy that,” Jesse said.

He made his way back toward the party, careful to walk slowly and seemingly without a care when what he wanted to do was run to Evelyn. He could see now that being on an assignment with her would be a problem because when she was in danger, no bounty in the world mattered, no correct procedures to hold up in court, no protocol. Only her.

He almost breathed an audible sigh of relief when he rounded the corner and saw them still sitting at the patio table, talking with the suspect. Anne was a beautiful woman, but she wasn’t going to look quite as pretty after she was convicted of body trafficking and frozen solid for the next hundred years.

“Hey, there you are,” Henry said. “I was getting a little worried.”

“Just had to use the restroom. The bathroom light went out while I was sitting there.” He laughed. “That was interesting, to say the least. Did it go off out here, too?”

“Sure did.”

Henry was starting to get rings of perspiration under his arms, even though the sun had already set and the weather was perfect. He looked worried, and he should be. In about two minutes, his whole life was going to get turned upside down. Jesse wasn’t sure if he wanted the bastard to resist arrest so he could personally teach him a lesson, or if he just wanted to get this over with fast so he could get Evelyn back home.

Reality hit him like a bat to the head. After this, the house next door wouldn’t be their home any more.

Jesse smiled. “Excuse me, I’m going to go check on Laura.”

“Of course.” The look in Henry’s eyes was polite but assessing. He wasn’t sure what to make of Jesse and his absence, but he would only get more curious in a minute when his men didn’t return. For now, Jesse had to keep Henry from following after them.

Jesse clapped his hand on Henry’s shoulder. “Looks like our wives are getting along great. I’m so glad you invited us.”

“My pleasure.” He looked in the direction he’d sent the men. “Please, enjoy the party. I’ll be right back.”

Jesse put his arm around Henry’s shoulder. “Come sit down with us. You’re working too hard. I’ve barely got to talk to you.”

Henry’s jaw clenched and anger rose in his eyes, but he allowed Jesse to lead him back to the table. A few people had gone home in the time Jesse was gone, but a few couples remained. They would have to get down and stay down when the cavalry arrived. There was no other way to do this.

The women at the table seemed to have remained engaged in conversation while he was gone, but they looked up now.

“Honey!” Lauren exclaimed. “There you are. Did you see the power go out?”

He chuckled, acting slightly embarrassed, and came to stand behind Evelyn’s chair. “I was in the restroom and it went pitch black. At least it was only a few seconds. I hope that doesn’t happen a lot around here.”

“No,” Anne answered. “We haven’t had one problem since we moved in.”

“Weird,” Lauren replied. “Well, I think we should report it and make sure they look into it. With these new communities, you have to stay on top of things with the builder. I remember when I was young, we use to have to reset all the clocks every time the power went out.”

Jesse placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed tight. Lauren, or perhaps Evelyn, reached up and squeezed his hand twice in response. When he squeezed twice back, her body tensed slightly. That was the sign for trouble. One squeeze was that they’d found spectral energy, two squeezes was spectral energy with complications. Those two complications were likely still passed out on the floor of the study, but then again, they could be mutants for all he knew, even now changing form and slithering out of their binds.