After a short trip down the hall, he used the other key on a set of double doors. He opened them and stepped aside. She couldn’t stop the smile that spread over her face. Leave it to Thomas to take her simple request and put his own particular spin on it. “A ballroom?”
“It’s the smaller of the two in the hotel. It’s often used for conferences and the like.” He stepped into the room and to an inconspicuous box along the back wall. With a flick of a switch, a screen lowered along one wall. “I’ve taken the liberty of having a projector brought up already. What else might you require?”
She glanced around the spacious room, suddenly grateful she wouldn’t be cramped in a little space with people she barely knew. There was enough area here for them to spread out and view all the evidence at once if they chose. The only thing in the room she was certain they wouldn’t require was the disco ball suspended from the ceiling. “We’ll need four long tables with ten to fifteen chairs. Several moveable whiteboards if you have any, the more the better. If not, don’t worry about it, I can have some sent here. And coffee, lots of it.”
Nicholas nodded and handed her the key for the room along with the stack of key cards. “Rooms 401 through 404 have been reserved for your use. They are directly above here. I would appreciate it if no one but you maintains the key for this room as we normally don’t allow anyone but staff to possess it.”
“I understand.” She paused and then added, “It seems odd that the ballroom and four rooms in row directly above it would all be open and not in use.” She knew very well the man must have put forth a great deal of effort to make it so.
“That would be a most unusual circumstance indeed, Ms. Norris. Luckily I specialize in unusual circumstances.”
She smiled. “What a coincidence. So do I. Thank you, Nicholas. For whatever you had to do to secure this for us.”
He nodded once and turned to go.
“One more thing,” she said, stopping him. “Once everyone gets here and we start working, no one comes in this room but me and my men.”
He opened his mouth as if to argue and she held up a hand.
“I understand what I’m asking and I understand it goes against everything ingrained in you if for no other reason that you’ll want to see to our needs. But it’s for the well-being of your staff.” She took a deep breath. “You’ve heard of the Thief?”
His brow furrowed and he nodded.
“We won’t have actual evidence or anything like that here because we’re not in a secure facility, but we will have copies of things, and photographs. Lots of photographs. No one here needs to see that. There will be someone stationed in the room at all times to make sure nothing is disturbed, but I need your assurance for my own piece of mind. I don’t need that on my conscience.”
He hesitated but a moment. “Anything you need just pick up the phone and dial the front desk. All staff will be instructed to knock and leave anything you request at the door. If you’d be so kind as to call when we can retrieve dishes and the like, I believe all is in order.”
She gave him a small smile. “Thank you, Nicholas. I’m running back upstairs for a moment. If you’d please notify me when someone arrives.”
“Of course, Ms. Norris.”
Chapter Six
The unctuous aroma of fear and desperation tainted the air in Raoul DeSoto’s rooms. It mixed rather horribly with the scent of unwashed vampire. Everything around them was coated in a layer of filth that went beyond a simple lack of care or attention to detail. Bugs skittered around on nearly every surface at home in the squalor. Whatever else their prey was, he was filthy and unhygienic. He also wasn’t here.
Thomas scowled at his second in command as he clenched his teeth, his jaw aching from the strain. “Certain he’s here, are you? No way he could have gotten away?”
Michael kicked a box across the room. “I told you, we all saw him come in and no one saw him leave. We put a dampening spell on the building so he couldn’t have used a portal. There are only so many ways out of here. We had them all covered.”
“Evidently someone fell asleep at their post.” And the gods help them when Thomas found out who they were.
The men in question were ripping the rooms apart around them, desperate to prove they weren’t at fault for their quarry’s escape. Michael walked over to a dilapidated dresser, the top of which overflowed with books of every size, shape and color. He flipped through a few pages of a couple, then picked one up and turned to Thomas. “These are all spell books.”
Thomas frowned and took the volume from Michael’s hand. A quick scan of several pages showed that it was indeed a spell book. “To what purpose does he have these? He can’t do magic anymore.” Once, Raoul had been a rather powerful mage. The turning, or process of making someone a vampire, had the side effect of stripping magic from the person.
Michael shrugged. “Maybe that’s how he melted his face. You know the kind of shit that happens to people who play with magic that’s too powerful for them.”
Thomas pursed his lips. “Box these up. Send them to James.” James was Thomas’s brother-in-law. He also happened to be the head mage in their region. He would know if the books had any value or not. Perhaps he’d even want to add them to his library. Regardless, it would be better than leaving them lying around for whoever happened to wander by.
“In here,” one of the men searching called.
Thomas and Michael exchanged a look and then made their way to the back bedroom that the cry had come from. A twin bed sat cockeyed on the floor, its mattress askew. In the corner, a gaping hole yawned on the floor.
“A tunnel? Seriously?” Michael said, giving voice to Thomas’s thoughts.
“What do you suppose the odds are he didn’t portal away as soon as he got out from under the dampening spell?” Thomas asked, bitterness coloring his words.
“There’s a chance he didn’t.” Michael frowned down at the hole with his hands on his hips. “Since you’ve put the word out that you’re after him, I’m sure he’s having a harder time finding people to help him. Portal mages are a scarce lot. It would be easy enough for you to track who helped him. They may not be willing to take the risk.”
His second was right. In fact, he was irritated the thought hadn’t occurred to him first. “Good point, but you know what that means.”
“We’re going down the hole, aren’t we?” Michael couldn’t have sounded more annoyed if he tried.
Thomas chuckled and gestured for his friend to lead the way. Sometimes being the boss had its advantages.
Juliana went back to Thomas’s rooms to put her stuff away. The bag of clothes would be easy to square away, so she grabbed it up and headed into the guest room. She filled the drawers of the dresser and put her toiletries in the bathroom. Her bag got tossed into the corner out of the way.
Her weapons would be harder for her to unpack. She couldn’t just leave them out on display. While Thomas’s home was secure, there were still people who had access to it. And knowing her luck, they’d want to examine the pretty sword and end up chopping a body part off. That would be messy and cause her to have to fill out more paperwork than she had a mind to.
She left the rest of her stuff where it was and headed to a door on the other side of the living room. If she remembered correctly, this was Thomas’s office. She punched her code in the keypad by the door, uncertain if it would work. The door clicked open. With one finger, she pushed it the rest of the way open, then stepped into the dark room. She felt along the wall and flipped the switch. Soft light flooded the room.
Thomas’s desk still sat toward the back of the room facing the door just as she remembered. To her left was a wall of bookshelves filled with a variety of reading material. To her right, where a loveseat used to sit, there was a large weapons cabinet. Beside it on the wall were mounting brackets for her sword. Unless Thomas had acquired a lot more weaponry than he used to have, he’d remodeled with her in mind. She walked to the cabinet and punched in her code. It opened to reveal three guns, some ammo and lots of empty space.
She turned to get her bag and her eye snagged on a photo on Thomas’s desk. She walked over and picked up the delicate silver frame. In it was a picture of her and Thomas she’d never seen before. They had their arms wrapped around each other’s waists and they were laughing, their foreheads touching. It had to have been taken right before he left. They looked so happy. Sorrow plucked at her heart that they had lost that. She wondered if they’d ever get there again.
Irritated with herself for her morose thoughts, she sat the picture back on the desk harder than necessary and strode out of the room to get her weapons. It didn’t take her long to fill the cabinet with an arsenal unlike anything it had ever seen before. It wasn’t so much the volume as the variety—grenades, guns, knives, ammo and holy water all had a place on the shelves. She placed her sword in the brackets next to the cabinet then locked it.
She turned the lights out and shut the office door behind her. The phone rang in the kitchen and Juliana wandered over and picked it up. “Hello?”
“It’s Nicholas. A man called Agent Grace is asking for you. He has several officers and lots of boxes with him.”
“Very good. Have them shown to the ballroom. I’ll meet them there.”
Jeremiah and four officers awaited her in the hall when she got off the service elevator. She unlocked the doors and opened them with a grand gesture. “Welcome to Command Central.”
Jeremiah whistled through his teeth as he stepped into the room. He looked over his shoulder at her, a question in his eyes.
She shrugged. “He likes to take care of me. This is his way of doing that.”
He arched a nonexistent brow but didn’t say anything. The four uniformed officers followed him into the room wheeling a pallet of boxes between them. Directly behind them came an army of hotel employees armed with tables, chairs and the whiteboards she had requested. They had the room set up in record time, including a full coffee bar to one side of the room. Nicholas watched it all, gave her a bow when they finished and followed them out.
“Well, that was something,” one of the uniforms said, breaking the silence.
Juliana agreed but instead of saying so, looked at Jeremiah. “Are they ours or are you just using them for manual labor?”
He smiled. “They’re ours.” His smile grew until she could see all his teeth. “Phipps picked them himself.” He would find that funny. To her it was just something else to have to deal with.
Her lips pursed in displeasure. They were all white males and she flashed her gift on long enough to see they were all human as well. If Phipps picked them that likely meant they were also lazy, rude or just plain spies. He was hardly going to send over his best officers. The easiest way to find out was to ask Taft. Where in the hell was he anyway? She pulled out her phone and dialed his number.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Norris. Where are you?”
“I’m about done. I’ll be there in a bit. What’s up?”
“Hold on.” She handed the phone the Jeremiah. “Give him the names.”
“James Nielson, Sam Henery, Kevin Grove and William Windsor,” he dutifully recited and handed her back the phone.
“What was that?” Taft asked.
“That was the list of uniforms Phipps gave us.” Juliana looked them over. It was evident none of them were thrilled she was checking up on them. Except one, Windsor according to his nameplate. His lips were twitching. He evidently found it amusing.
“Shit,” Taft said. There was silence for a moment while she let him think. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Right, then.” She slipped her phone back into her pocket and rubbed her hands together. “Let’s get to it, shall we?”
She had the men line the whiteboards up on one side of the room and had Jeremiah start dividing the contents of the boxes up by child on the tables. She sat her laptop up on the table in the back of the room next to the projector. Then she poured herself a cup of coffee.
A knock sounded at the door and she wandered over and opened it. A petite Hispanic policewoman stood on the other side. Behind her stood another policeman. He was only slightly taller, but his build was much stockier so he took up twice as much space. “Can I help you?”
“Officers Delgado and Franco,” the policewoman said, indicating herself and the man behind her in turn. “We’re here to relieve Henery and Grove.”
Juliana stepped back and let the officers into the room.
“Are you kidding me?” one of the others asked.
“Out, Henery,” Franco said, gesturing toward the door with his thumb. “Phipps said he’d talk to you when you got back to the station.”
“This is bullshit. Let’s go, Grove.” Juliana watched the two of them storm out the door. She moved to swing it shut behind them and a hand slapping on the wood stopped her.
She peered through the crack to find Taft smiling at her. He held up a duffel bag. “Orders followed, boss.”
She shook her head and let him in before shutting and locking the door. She turned to face everyone in the room. “Well, that was fun. I’m Walker Norris. I’m the lead on this investigation. This is Agent Grace and I’m sure you all know Detective Taft. There’s another Walker named Leo I’ll be introducing you to when he gets here, though he’s pretty hard to miss.” She put the key cards on the table. “We have the four rooms directly above us. You’re going to have to share, so try not to be pigs.”
“You all know what we’re doing here—who we’re after. The hotel staff has been instructed not to enter this room. They don’t need to see this shit. If you run out of coffee, or need it refreshed, wheel the cart out into the hall and call downstairs. Same for food. No one comes in this room unless they are on the team. Understood?” She waited for them all to acknowledge they heard her.
“I want two uniforms on duty, two off. That doesn’t mean you both have to be in the room, but you have to be available. I want one uniform on that door. The other can do whatever, but they have to be available to relieve their partner. I don’t really care about the schedule as long as it’s fair. You guys can work that out.”
“So we’re just here on guard duty?” Windsor asked.
She looked him over for a moment. “You’re here in whatever capacity you wish to be here, officer. Yes, I need someone on that door when we aren’t in the room working. Beyond that, if you want do some real police work, be my guest.”
“Fair enough.” He unbuttoned the sleeves of his shirt and rolled them up.
Juliana smiled. “We need to finish getting all the evidence sorted by child and then up on the boards. That part I want to do myself. I mean, I’ll need help, but I need to see what’s going up in what order.”
Delgado put her hand on Juliana’s arm. “You aren’t going to offend us if you tell us you want to do something yourself. Just tell us what to do. All we want to do is help stop him. If we were back at the station, we’d be hearing about it on the news with everyone else. Here we might actually make a difference.”
Juliana closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The woman was right. She opened her eyes and gave her a grateful smile. “Get stuff sorted and then we’ll worry about the next step.”
* * *
“Does the man ever bathe?” Michael grumbled in front of him as they forged through the jungle.
Thomas’s lips twitched but he managed to refrain from laughing. They’d been following DeSoto’s stench since they emerged from the tunnel. On the plus side, it meant he hadn’t taken a portal as soon as he cleared the dampening field. But Michael was correct; the ripe smell of the man’s fear was growing rather tiresome. “Surely, we should be catching up to him.”
“I think we are,” Michael said in a low tone. “The aroma’s been getting stronger for the last half hour or so. I think he stopped somewhere up ahead.”
Michael had a better nose than Thomas did, so he took his friend’s word for it and slowed his pace, certain Raoul would have some nasty surprise waiting for them. Not that it would do him any good. The man had been running for far too long. It was past time he paid for his indiscretions and Thomas was here to make certain he did. In the worst, most painful way possible.
His second held up a hand and tilted his head to the side. Thomas did the same, listening. Then he heard the panted breaths that captured Michael’s attention. Thomas motioned with a flick of his hand for Michael to go around and approach from a different direction. Thomas took a few steps forward and leaned against the trunk of a tree. Fairly certain of his prey’s location, he knew the other foliage would give him adequate shelter. “Hello, Raoul. It’s been a long time. Why don’t you come out so we can go home?”
There was no response, but the breathing grew more panicked. Thomas sighed. He was so tired. Tired of chasing this man, tired of him going unpunished, tired of being away from his mate. “It’s over, Raoul. Finished.”
“Not yet, Thomas. I have evaded your dog and your bitch for far too long to allow you to take me now.” The muscles in Thomas’s neck tightened at the insult to his bride. Raoul’s voice had a wet quality to it, as if his vocal cords had been damaged and not repaired themselves properly. Again, Thomas wondered what the hell had happened to the man. Their kind was able to heal most any wound. Yet, here his adversary was, scarred almost beyond recognition.
Thomas stepped out from the beneath the shadow of the tree. Raoul snarled. “You know there is no escape. My men are surrounding us.” Thomas did his best not to focus on Michael as he approached from the other side of the clearing.