The Heist (4 page)

Her profession paid well
enough for her to enjoy the finer things in life.  She was a
non-smoker and an occasional drinker which meant that she saved
most of her money, allowing her to treat herself once a year to a
lavish getaway.

She passed
out on the bed, the drool emitting from her mouth waking her up two
hours later. As she slowly pushed herself up from her lying
position, the room was dark. Nightfall had come.  She took her
time in the shower, letting the water pelt over her, her own olive
skin tone having bronzed with the Mexican sun.

As she stepped
out the shower, Alicia wrapped a towel around her wet body and
another securing her damp hair on top of her head. She allowed her
skin to dry naturally before applying her specially made cherry
body lotion. Only she and the creator knew the recipe. Alicia
Carberletti was unique and it was damn going to stay that
way.
Once the lotion had soaked in, she
slipped into a pink bra and boy-shorts followed by her signature
black skinny jeans. Of course in this heat the ones she was wearing
for this occasion were three quarter length ones.  A simple
black vest top shimmied over her head and shoulders as her feet
slipped with ease into her boots, and she placed her beloved purple
and pink Glocks into each boot. Her slender fingers tied the laces
half way up, leaving the other eight holes of the Doc Martens loose
and free.

A quick ruffle of her
hair and she was ready to go. Evenings were her time to go
sightseeing and tonight's destination was the beautiful mansions of
Mexico.

When the sun went down
and Xavier finally gave in and caught some sleep, Shuggie started
to reminisce about when he had first met Xavier Raige.  They
had both been handpicked for recruitment into a secret division of
Special Forces, and although both men knew of each other, they had
only started working together when they were selected for that high
level mission in Prague.  Shuggie was thirty eight years old
and Xavier was twenty five.

Prague,
1991

As usual the
brief was short and to the point. A spy had gone rogue and was
considered a real and present danger. It was both Shuggie and
Xavier’s mission to track down the rogue and ensure that he was
eliminated. A good old, clean ‘get in, get the job done, and get
out’ mission.

Xavier had
gathered more Intel from the contacts he had made before Shuggie
had even arrived in Prague, and had discovered the rogue had taken
out insurance to ensure he wouldn’t be caught and brought in.
 He had hired three Eastern European hit men. Xavier recounted
to Shuggie how he had dealings with them once before — a long
fucking time ago.  As though to emphasise the point Xavier ran
his hand over the scar on his left side as he told Shuggie just how
fucked up these pricks were.

“
I was
captured along with the rest of my Unit. Out of twelve men, only
three of us survived. They use torture as sport.” Xavier looked
away from Shuggie, and the two men sat and drank a bottle of Scotch
in silence.

The next day
Xavier and Shuggie started working on their strategy plans. They
were under no illusion — this was war and it was going to get
personal. Armed to the back teeth, Xavier and Shuggie drove to the
enemy camp using the information the contacts had obtained for
them. They dumped the truck miles from the location, not wanting
any scouts alerting them of their impending visit. The element of
surprise was the only chance they had of making it out alive when
taking on a gang of bloodthirsty seasoned soldiers.

According to the Intel,
there were three soldiers who were taking their orders directly
from the rogue.

Shuggie
smirked at Xavier, “That means that he trusts them completely and
that there would be definite lines of communication between
them.”

Smearing the
camouflage over their faces, Xavier and Shuggie lay on their
stomachs, using their elbows to crawl along the ground, keeping low
and movements undetectable. Xavier used his night vision
binoculars, and Shuggie monitored the surveillance equipment. There
were voices coming from the tents two miles ahead.  Waiting
until they were sure their targets had no idea they were there,
Shuggie launched two grenades either side of the camp and when the
targets ran to investigate, Xavier bolted straight into the camp,
rolling to avoid a volley of bullets, and dived into the main
tent.

Shuggie held back as
Xavier went out of his line of sight. There was something not quite
right about these soldiers.

Something not quite
human.

And Shuggie
should know — unknown to Xavier, or any of the men in their Unit
for that matter, he was a vampire.

Shuggie
waited ten minutes, but when that time elapsed and there was still
no sign of Xavier, he followed him into the main camp.  Hiding
in the shadows, he watched as Xavier went face to face with one of
the soldiers, and from the conversation he recognised him as the
one named Stefan. Xavier had told Shuggie that he had killed
Stefan’s brother in his last encounter and from the sounds of it
the scrawny prick still bore a grudge. Standing to his full
height, Xavier looked Stefan square in the eyes, his arms by his
side and palms out to show him he had no weapons to
hand.

“
Nice place
you got here Stef…” The thud as the back of Xavier’s skull caved in
gave Shuggie a split second warning that their plan wasn’t going
exactly to plan.

The Intel
that Xavier had been given was wrong. Shuggie only found that out
approximately ninety seconds after he had witnessed Xavier being
knocked out and falling unconscious to the floor.  The
particular piece of information that the contact had gotten wrong
turned out to be quite important, because the rogue had not hired
three soldiers. There were actually five.  Something that
Shuggie and Xavier hadn’t accounted for. Which was also the reason
why he hadn’t bothered to look behind him to ensure the coast was
clear as he got up to prepare to go in and save Xavier’s ass.
 If he had known of the other two soldiers, he could have
taken steps to ensure that they hadn’t crept up behind him, waited
until he wasn’t looking and trapped him under a steel webbed net —
which rendered him practically powerless, and unable to stop them
from taking him prisoner and delivering him to Stefan, where he was
to be chained back to back with the still unconscious
Xavier.

It was not, Shuggie
mused, their finest hour.

Xavier kept
his eyes closed as he came around, not wanting to let the pricks
know that he was awake, and listened carefully to the soldiers as
they talked in hushed tones about what the fuck they were going to
do with the prisoners.  Prisoners? Plural?
What the fuck
! Xavier’s hands were
bound behind his back and his fingers felt the rope, and then
someone else’s hands.  
That fucker
Shuggie just went and got himself captured as well. Well wasn’t
that just dandy?

Shuggie’s
forced slumber was rudely interrupted when he felt the steel rope
tying his wrists behind his back tightening as someone was pulling
at it.  He knew that he was sitting on a chair, and his ankles
were bound in the same manner. He deduced that the boys had a
little kick around while he was out for the count, because his
mouth tasted metallic and stale.  He could hear Xavier’s
shallow breathing behind him, so he knew that at least he was still
alive and awake.

Xavier
twisted his wrist enough to flex his fingers, nails digging into
his palm as he started to meticulously pick at the stitches that he
had put there earlier in the day, wincing slightly as the wound
that he had made opened. He managed to slowly extract the thin
steel spike, doing the same with his other hand, and hoping that
the smell of fresh blood from the sliced palms would mingle with
that from his earlier beating.

Xavier had
omitted to tell Shuggie one important fact about his previous
dealings with Stefan and his goons, primarily because he thought
Shuggie would think he was a lunatic and refuse to work with him.
After all, what rational thinking person would believe him if he
told Shuggie that the soldiers they were going up against were
actually vampires? Shuggie would have had him sectioned and
institutionalised.  Any of the men that he served with would.
 So, he had taken his own precautions as best he could to
prepare for the mission, and had hoped he could deal with them
himself, so that Shuggie didn’t need to get involved.
 
Well
,
Xavier thought to himself,
that plan went
down the shitter now that both of them were
captured
.

“
Dae ye huv a
plan?” Shuggie hissed quietly to Xavier, keeping a check that the
soldiers didn’t realise they were both awake.

Xavier was
almost tempted to open his eyes when he heard Shuggie address him,
but he kept his body hunched over to keep up the pretence he was
still watching tweety birds circling around his head.

“
I thought we
could invite them for a game of naked twister, what do you fucking
think? And how the fuck did you get caught as well. In fact, no, I
really don’t want to know.” Xavier was whispering but his tone was
still harsh.  He knew that he had no choice but to tell
Shuggie what they were both up against, and he really wasn’t
relishing the task — doubting even more that Shuggie would believe
him.

“
We kin huv a
domestic later, but fer noo we huv bigger fish to fry.” Shuggie
needed to tell Xavier that the soldiers were vampires. He knew that
the big man would either laugh it off as a side effect of
concussion, or think he was stark raving bonkers.  Regardless,
he needed to tell him, because as sure as shit he would be finding
out the hard way soon enough once the soldiers realised they were
awake.

“
There’s
summit ye need tae know an there’s no a good way o’saying it, so
you jist need to trust me Xavier - the soldiers aren’t human,
they’re vampires.”

“
Just shut up
and listen to me Shug, I know you’ll think I’m talking out my ass
but I am deadly serious - Stefan and his bitches aren’t like us,
they’re vampires.”

Both Shuggie and Xavier
had spoken at the same time, and both men were equally stunned that
the other knew what they had been dreading telling each
other.

“
How the fuck
did you know?”

“
Ye a’ready
ken aboot vampires?”

Again they
were talking over each other, but the shock of the revelations —
not that they were facing a group of bloodsucking vampires, but
that it didn’t faze the other man one little bit — was in danger of
giving the game away to their captors.

“
Shut yer
geggie, an jist listen tae me. Ah know because...” This was the
first time that Shuggie had ever told anyone about what and who he
really was, but in that one moment he trusted the other man with
his life, “…because I’m a vampire an all.”

Xavier sat in
silence as Shuggie’s confession sank in.  Even though his
voice was barely above a whisper, he could hear the emotion in his
voice and knew how difficult it had been for him to tell him. That
kind of information in the wrong hands could be a signed death
warrant. Luckily for Shuggie he had put his trust in entirely the
right man.

“
Not gonna
say I’m not surprised, cos I fucking am, but it explains a helluva
lot Shug, yeah?”

“
How so?”
Shuggie could feel Xavier wriggling and trying to manoeuvre himself
behind him and he was trying to figure out what he was up
to.

“
Cos you
never fucking tan, and I’ve caught you salivating over my fucking
handsome throat when you thought I wasn’t looking.” In a normal
circumstance Xavier would have laughed after his own smartass
comments, but he kept his voice low as he ensured the steel spike
was kept away from Shuggie’s hands so as not to add to his friend’s
pain.  

“
Ye seem awful
calm aboot finding oot that vampires exist, Xavier - you’re no one
an all are ye?” Shuggie’s curiosity at what Xavier was up to was
starting to get the better of him.

“
Me, a
vampire? Shut the fuck up Shug!” Xavier went quiet as he quarrelled
with himself whether he should tell him the truth or not.
 Finally, he decided he had nothing to lose. For one thing,
Shuggie had trusted him with his secret so he knew he could trust
him, and for another it was likely that Stefan would be having them
both killed before the day was through, so he might as well tell
someone his story. It might be his one and only chance.

“
I’m not a
vampire, but my dad and my brothers are werewolves.”  Xavier
continued to whisper to Shuggie when he heard the other man ask him
to go on. “I have never been able to shift. I was called the ‘runt’
of the family, basically reviled for my faulty DNA. I hit
puberty and couldn’t shift and that was an embarrassment to my
father, so he publicly disowned me in front of the whole pack and
sold me to a clan of succubi for them to use as a
slave.”

The shame of
this last confession still hit Xavier deep, and he knew that
Shuggie would comprehend the exact nature of what his duties would
have entailed with the succubus bitches. Suddenly Xavier clammed
up, unable to go on.