Infinitas 1 - Warriors of Faith (18 page)

»Hey Philippe, how’s it going?« It was Sunny. »Oh God, I think I’m dying.
What did you do to me?« he moaned.
»I’ve given you eternal life.
You should be thankful.
The pain will go away.
Here’s a blood bag.
You’ll feel better as soon as you drink.« He looked at the red bag in Sunny’s hand in disgust.

»You’ve lost your mind if you think that I’m going to drink that.
I’m not crazy.« Sunny shrugged her shoulders indifferently.
»It’s for the pain. No one is forcing you.
I just wanted to make it easier for you.« She tossed the blood bag onto the bed and left the room without making another comment.
The dark red blood bag seemed to sneer back at Philippe.
He felt like he could already taste the sweet metallic flavor on his lips and saliva began to collect in his mouth.
He could hardly bear the pain he was feeling in his body.
He sat up and reached for the bag reluctantly.
He ripped it open with his teeth as soon as it was in his hands and greedily let the red liquid run into his mouth.
He did it so rampantly that some of the blood dripped from his chin onto his shirt. The bag was empty in practically one gulp and he squeezed out the rest with his fist.
He hungered for more, gladly three or four more bags.
He fell back down onto the bed exhausted, and the pain slowly began to disappear from his body.
Only then did he realize what he had just done.
He looked at the empty blood bag in disgust, which minutes earlier had been full of dark red liquid.
Oh God, what had he done?
He’d swallowed it as if it had been orange juice.
No, that couldn’t be.
What had happened to him? What had they done to him?
Given him the gift of
Eternal life,
whatever that was supposed to mean. It wasn’t what he wanted.
But he had the uneasy feeling that he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

Channing crept slowly towards the back door of the
Empire
with
Maroush covering him.

In the early morning haze, the club was quiet and deserted. When Maroush saw the large old oak tree he’d been sitting on earlier that morning, he recalled the young woman who nearly ran him over coming out of the back office.
»Sunny,« he stated softly.
Channing looked up in surprise.
»Who’s Sunny?« Maroush shrugged his shoulders.
»I don’t know exactly.
I ran into her here last night.
She wasn’t a really friendly person, but she seemed to belong to the club somehow.
There was a young man with her, a mortal.« »A vampire with short black hair?« Maroush nodded. »That was Philippe she had with her.
He followed Sara from Paris. Do you know where they went?« Maroush shook his head.
»I have no idea.
He wanted to get his backpack he’d left inside the club, but she was in a hurry.
The sun was beginning to come up.«

All the doors at the club were locked in back, so entry wouldn’t be possible without breaking in.
Maroush tried to pick up Aragón’s scent, but there was no sign of his presence.
»If Aragón is being held against his will, how long can he last without blood?« thought Channing out loud.

»It depends on when he fed last.
A week max, if he fed last night.
But we can’t be sure of that.« Maroush looked over at Channing worried.
»We’re not half bloods so we need blood more often than you do,« he explained looking at his cell phone.
Still no call from Sara.
She’d stayed at home just in case Aragón came back, possibly injured.
Jôrek and Ruben were checking out the area surrounding the club looking for clues.
Maroush pulled his sword from its sheath letting it glisten in the pale morning light.
»What do you think? Should we go in a see if he’s in there?« Channing pulled his weapon and released the safety. »Since we’re already here, it would be a shame not to take a look at the club during daylight hours.«

»I agree with you completely.«

The cleaning service had done an excellent job.
There wasn’t the slightest sign that the club had been open and full of guests until the early morning hours.
Everything was spotlessly clean.

Thanks to his telepathic powers, Maroush was able to open the back door.
He was an old vampire and his powers were above and beyond what was considered normal. Over the centuries, he hadn’t only improved his physical strength, but also spiritual as well.

Channing followed him with admiration, but without a lot of hope that he would someday reach such a status.
The club didn’t have an alarm system, which was a sign of the owner’s arrogance.
They glided through the easily accessible rooms silently.
After a couple of minutes they reached the back office.
Maroush picked up the fine scent of cinnamon that he’d smelled on Sunny the night before.
Either she had a very intensive, lingering scent or she’d just been here.
»I can smell Aragón, « whispered Channing. »The scent is weak, but I’m sure that he was here.« Maroush nodded in agreement.
»It’s amazing how quickly you’ve learned to pick up different scents.
That usually takes years.
It’s extraordinary.«

Suddenly, a car motor and voices could be heard outside.
»Damn it! Someone’s coming.« Maroush scoped out an open door just in case they had to flee.
»It’s Shia.
I can feel him.
There are two people with him and one of them is Eva,« said Channing.

»So you can do that already, too. That’s really remarkable.« As to not attract any attention, the two of them made themselves comfortable in the closet where the cleaning materials were usually stored.
They’d wait there until Shia and the others had left.
They would be putting Shia and Eva in a difficult position, if they were found.
Channing had a moment to observe Maroush’s tight body.

»How old are you?« he asked.
A slight smile appeared on Maroush’s lips. »Well, I’m almost as old as the world, it seems.
I was born in about 670 A.D. and have always been a warrior.« They were surrounded by darkness, but Channing could see Maroush’s pride as he spoke, his eyes fixed on a point that seemed to be on the other end of the world.

»Once I was a commander and also the Chief Magistrate of Tangiers.
I served under Musa ibn Nusayr, the Governor of Ifriqiya, which is Tunisia and eastern Algeria today.
Together with my men, we conquered the Visigoth kingdom and defeated King Roderick.
My name is Tariq, son of Ziyad and I officially died in the year 720 AD.«
Channing looked at him in amazement.
He was sitting here with a man who had managed to keep his head on his shoulders for more than one thousand, three hundred years, no matter what battle he’d been pulled into.
He couldn’t even wrap his mind around that.
»Why were you declared dead? Sorry, excuse my curiosity, but this world which has opened up to me is so fascinating that I just can’t seem to get enough information.
I feel like I’m paging through an ancient book.« Maroush nodded in agreement.

»I can understand your curiosity, my friend.
I fell out of favor, so it was better to not lose my head so I just disappeared.« His Arabic accent gave his words a hint of mystery and his facial muscles tensed up.
Channing thought it’d be better not to ask too many more questions.
»Your maxim, what is it?« he asked, changing the subject. »The maxim of my existence is
Ultima Ratio
–
The last resort
!«

After Shia and the others had checked out the area around the
Empire
without success and driven back to the police department, Channing and Maroush had another look around the club.
But their search ended without finding anything new.
Behind the club they found a small clue that seemed to point to the fact that Aragón had been loaded into a car.
Besides a few tire tracks, they had nothing to go on.

There was a lot of activity in the department due to a shooting at a wedding, which resulted in three casualties.
Two hostile groups were in a shouting match about who had started shooting first.
The arguing was getting on Eva’s nerves and she expressed her displeasure loudly.
After that everything quieted down a bit only to start up again a few minutes later.

»This doesn’t happen in California, does it? You’re more cultivated down there!« shouted Esposito at Shia over the noise who responded only with a quick shrug.

»Hey Shia, what a coincidence that your sister’s house in the Eva’s neighborhood.« Esposito tried to start a conversation.
»How do you think Eva managed to find a house there?« Shia asked back, steering the conversation away from himself.

Eva slammed her cell phone down on the table making it rattle slightly.
»I can’t stand anymore of this noise!«
She screamed and pulled on her jacket.
»Cruz, I’m gonna follow up on a few leads. Let’s see if we can find out who owns the club.
You stay here.
I’ll take Shia with me!« Eva left Esposito standing there baffled. »Hey, is he your new partner or what?« he called out after her angrily, but because of the noise, she never heard it.

Unsmiling Esposito watched them leave and then looked down at the Breitling on his wrist.
Something wasn’t right here.
He wasn’t sure what, but he’d figure it out.
Unerring, he grabbed the phone and asked to be connected to the Homicide Department in L.A.
A few seconds later he was connected.
»Lieutenant Keane, please.
This is Detective Esposito from the Seattle Police Department ... Are you sure? ... There’s no Lieutenant Keane, Shia Keane? And a Detective Keane? Okay, thank you for the information!« He hung up the phone laughing.

»That was close. Esposito’s beginning to ask some uncomfortable questions, so if you don’t want to have to give him your car, I wouldn’t show up any more in the department, if I were you!« snapped Eva.
She assumed that Shia would drive home, but she was wrong.
He was driving south in the complete opposite direction.
He was heading for North Beacon Hill.
He pulled the car into a Bank of America parking lot. Eva looked out at the ugly one-story building.
»What are we doing here?« She was still incredibly angry, although she wasn’t really sure whom she was exactly mad at.
»You’ll see.« Shia walked around the car and opened the door for Eva.
She followed him into the bank reluctantly.
One of the tellers approached them smiling.
»Mr. Keane, nice to see you here today.« Shia nodded at the man wearing a gray suit. »Is she here?«
Without waiting for an answer, he took Eva by the hand and walked towards the stairs leading to the basement.
»Of course, Mr. Keane, where else would she be?«

Phoebe Edwards was sitting in a very comfortable, modern looking office chair in front of an even more modern looking computer keyboard watching Shia and Eva enter on an oversized computer screen, which appeared as a hologram on the desk in front of her.
But before they had even opened the bulletproof steel door, she hollered »Come in! And don’t bring any sunlight in with you!« Shia held the door open for Eva and after both had entered, he closed it before the bank employee could follow them in.
He’d understood Phoebe’s signal and knew then that she didn’t actually mean sunlight, but rather Pete Brown, the somewhat boring, yet pushy bank employee.
The hologram showed the disapproving expression on his face as he turned away from the closed door and went back up the stairs to his office.

»He’s been acting like that for days.
It’s about time we bit him in the neck again to put him in his place ... Shia, I’m so happy to see you again!« she screeched euphorically and then hugged him excitedly.
Shia returned her hug and kissed the top of her head.
»Thanks so much for getting me the Breitling so fast.
You were really able to help us out.« »Like with the GT?« She laughed.

Eva stood aloof taking in the scene.
She was in a sparsely furnished, square room in the basement of the bank.
There weren’t any windows, only plain gray walls.
The light in the room came from two indirect sources shining directly at the desk, otherwise the room was dark.
The friendly, intimate welcome between the two made Eva suddenly jealous.
She felt a sharp pang of jealousy line her stomach with fire.

Shia noticed the change in her mood immediately, but didn’t say anything; rather he pushed it to the limit by putting his arms around Phoebe. Eva took in the younger woman’s every detail.
As far as appearance, she couldn’t have been older than Shia, maybe early twenties and she was beautiful.
She had straight, shoulder length, walnut brown hair, mysterious dark blue eyes and smooth features.
She turned around curiously then towards Eva, revealing a deep, ugly scar, which ran from behind her ear down to her shoulder, a scalding red disfigurement on an otherwise flawless body that would be immediately noticed by anyone.
Eva felt an immediate sense of compassion and guilt because of the jealousy she’d felt.
As if he could see directly into her soul, Shia sensed her feelings and looked her lovingly in the eye.