Way of the Wolf: Shifter Legacies 1 (59 page)

The android smiled. “I’m sorry, Detective; he is not accepting appointments or receiving visitors this evening. May I make an appointment for you to see him tomorrow?”

David grinned as Chris growled something unpleasant that she would like to do to the dumb machine.

The android blinked very realistically and the smile disappeared. “Vandalism of this unit will result in legal action and your removal from the building by security.”

Chris presented her badge. “Scan it and override security.”

The android checked the badge and the smile was back. “Security override confirmed.”

“Take us to Wilson.”

“If you will follow me, Detective?”

David chuckled, and Chris glared at him. “That was entertaining.”

The android led the way to an office door. It knocked and waited, still smiling. There was no answer. It knocked again and waited. David got the impression it would continue all night, stuck in a loop. Chris didn’t have the patience to find out. She ignored the android’s protests and opened the door.

“Well... hell,” Chris muttered.

David peered into the office over the cop’s shoulder at Wilson’s corpse sitting behind his desk with a hole in his head and a matching pair in his chest. “Damn. I guess he felt so guilty that he shot himself.”

“Yessss” Chris drawled. “That’s it. You’ve solved the mystery. He shot himself in the heart twice, but felt so guilty about his part in AML’s campaign that he shot himself in the head for good measure.”

He smirked. “Not.”

“Not, and you better take off. I have to call this in.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

“I have to. Building security will have us all nicely recorded arriving in the lot and coming up here. I have to stay to guide things in the right direction. I can keep you out of it.”

“I could stay to give a statement.”

“You already did.”

“I did?”

“You gave it to me.”

“Oh yeah, I remember now.” He smiled at her. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Really. Don’t. Not to anyone.”

“Understood. See you back at the club?”

“Maybe,” she muttered and took another look at Wilson. “I’ll call first.”

He nodded and left her to make her call.

“Baxter I need you,” Chris began. “
Get your brain out of the gutter!
Goddess damn it all, how does Mary Pat put up with you? Listen, I have a corpse here for you... no I’m not kidding...”

David grinned, shaking his head in disbelief as he made his way back to the elevators.

* * *

34 ~ Fear No Evil

Despite her exhaustion, Marie couldn’t sleep. If she closed her eyes even for a few seconds to ease them and cool their burning, she saw that horrible moment again when Terry came into the office. He had swaggered into the room followed by his new vampire friends, and Andrew had reacted instantly. He was so fast! His weapon was out and aimed almost in time to blow Terry’s head off. Almost, but vampires are fast too. One of them blurred across the room and struck Andrew down even as he fired. His fully automatic pistol emptied itself into the walls and bookcases as he fell. The lethal flechettes ripped at the air as they screamed across the room to destroy the bookcases and priceless first editions that her dad had collected over the years.

Even as Andrew was falling, Terry was murdering Jon. Poor Jon. He didn’t even have time to scream or use his weapon. He was slower to react than Andrew was, and died almost without a sound when Terry latched onto his throat. Marie had screamed then; she couldn’t help it. The horror of seeing someone she knew so well murdered right before her eyes was too much. Her dad though was going for his desk and the gun he kept in its top drawer. He didn’t make it. One of the vampires grabbed him, and another took charge of her. She had the bruises on her arms to prove his careless strength. Terrible as seeing Jon murdered was, what happened next was worse and would haunt her until the end of her days.

Her dad gasped and clutched his chest. He grimaced in pain, and he would have fallen if not for the monster holding him up. She had screamed again, trying to go to him, but her captor wouldn’t allow it. Her dad gasped one last time and his face went grey as a massive heart attack killed him. His eyes had found hers one last time, his love for her shining desperately from them, but then they rolled in his head and he was gone. The vampire holding him cursed and let him fall, and all Marie could do was scream, and scream, and scream...

“Miss Stirling?”

Marie came back to herself and her situation. The cage hadn’t changed, nor the basement where it had been installed along with the other similar cages. Her eyes sought out Stephen, but he was still asleep. Dead to the world. She could almost hear him describing it that way, and her lips twitched a little as if about to smile, but there was nothing funny about it. He was helpless, more even than she and Andrew were right now. A short while ago their captors had carried a vampire away while he slept. The same could happen to poor Stephen at any time, and there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

“Miss Stirling!” Andrew said again.

She sighed. “What is it, Andrew?”

“Where is your father?”

She closed her eyes in pain at the question and the reminder. “He’s dead... his heart.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. How are you feeling? When you didn’t stir, I thought you might die too. You’ve been unconscious all day.”

Andrew gently touched his head and the wound that had bled so profusely. His fingers came away with fresh blood on them. “I’ve had worse than a bump on the head. Don’t worry about me, Miss Stirling.”

“Don’t you think it’s time that you called me Marie? I’ve known you for years and years. I was ten and still in pigtails when you came to work for dad. You used to drive me to school and tend my scraped knees, remember?”

“How could I ever forget that? You’re sure about your father, completely sure?”

Tears leaked from her puffy eyes running freely over her cheeks as she saw her father’s dying face again. “Yes, I’m certain.”

“Then I don’t think they’ll hurt you. They’ll want ransom money or something like that. I expect they planned to force your father to pay by threatening you, but now they can’t do that.”

“They could threaten to hurt you or Stephen.”

“Never mind us. Just promise to pay them whatever they want. Getting you out of here safely is all that matters. Don’t worry about the money; you can afford it. Besides, I’ll track it down and deal with it after we’re safe.”

She didn’t care about the money. If this was just about money, she would happily pay whatever they wanted if it meant freedom for the three of them, but Andrew was assuming a lot. What if she paid them, and they didn’t let them go? What then? What would she do if they threatened to kill Andrew or Stephen, or both of them?
Anything!
She would pay anything;
do
anything, to save them. Her father was dead, and Andrew was the closest thing to family she had left. It felt as if he had always been there and always would be, but then, she had felt that way about her dad too. He was gone, and Andrew could leave her just as easily.

And Stephen?

She was confused about her feelings for him. He was her friend, but he felt like more than that. He wasn’t human, not that she cared really, but she shouldn’t allow herself to be attracted to him. Her father had taught her to be tolerant of differences, but not
that
tolerant! Her friends would be ever so shocked if they knew how she felt about Stephen. In the social circles that she navigated daily, mixing with non-humans wasn’t at all the done thing. Everyone heard stories of course, titillating and shocking stories about girls who did mix with the monsters and let them do...
things
. The thought of letting Stephen do some of them to her was strangely intriguing and exciting.

“Marie?”

She focused upon Andrew’s concerned face. “I know what to do.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I’ll get us out of here. AML are always doing this—extorting money I mean. I’ve heard the stories. I’ll buy our way out.”

“Just get yourself out. Don’t push them on anything beyond that.”

She wasn’t leaving him and Stephen behind, but saying that would only result in a tiresome lecture. Everyone treated her like a child. She frowned. Stephen never had, and perhaps that was part of the attraction she felt. Whatever the case, she wasn’t leaving them behind, and if AML were true to form, she wouldn’t have to. There were hundreds of kidnapping stories successfully concluded from a victim’s point of view by the liberal application of money. If there was one thing she had plenty of, it was money.

What worried her the most was Stephen. As one of the monsters AML hated, why hadn’t they simply killed him? And while she was asking impossible questions, why were AML working with monsters at all? Terry and his friends were all vamps. She had never heard anything like this happening before, but perhaps it meant that she really could buy Stephen’s safety along with her own and Andrew’s as well. She hoped so.

“When will Stephen wake? Shouldn’t he be up now? They did take those hideous cuffs off him.”

Andrew shrugged. “Sunset isn’t far away. He’ll wake around then depending upon how powerful he is.”

“What do you mean? I thought vampires couldn’t abide the sun.”

“They can’t, not direct sunlight at least, but the more powerful ones awake earlier and can stay up longer as long as they stay out of the light. Down here? He could probably stay up half the day if he forced himself.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve made it my business to know, Miss Stirling—”

“Marie.”

He smiled. “Marie then. I’ve made it my business to study the threats I might have to face one day. It didn’t do me or your father a great deal of good.”

He sounded bitter about that, and probably should. Her father, his patron, was dead because he had failed in his duty. She didn’t blame him, but he obviously blamed himself. He had lost his entire team back at the house, and like poor Jonathon, he had known them all for years. They had been his friends as well as his colleagues.

Stephen had yet to wake when they came for her. She tried to be brave, but Andrew’s fear for her was obvious in his expression. The relieved glances passed among the other prisoners when it was her cage they unlocked made the fear worse, because they had obviously been here longer and maybe knew what was in store for her. She didn’t resist when the armed men waved her out and up the steps ahead of them. What would be the point? They would only drag her and that would be degrading as well as painful. She had to at least pretend to be unafraid and in some semblance of control of the situation. Perhaps if her acting skills were good enough to fool them, she might fool herself into believing her own act.

They marched her up the steps, through the industrial-sized kitchen, and into the house. It was a big place. She could tell just by the feel that the estate must be much bigger than her home, and she wondered where in the valley they were. They were less than an hour from home. She had tried to keep track of the trip by counting time and noting things like the turns they took. She had seen movies where kidnap victims did that. It seemed silly now. What could she do with the information? Nothing now, but if she did manage to get away she might be able to lead the police back here. It was a hopeful thought that she tried to believe in.

Her captors led her into a room and left her alone. She watched them file out the door and close it. The moment she heard the lock click, she was across the room and checking windows. They had alarms. She glared at the little magic eye thingies, and tried to think of something to do about the damn things, but she was no super geek or cat burglar. There was nothing she could think of and her shoulders slumped in defeat. She turned on the spot inventorying the room, and hoping for inspiration.

The room was open and sparsely furnished, not meant for sitting or entertaining, but for displaying someone’s collection. The contents were visible despite the room being unlit. The display cases ranged along the walls had their own lighting. Her eyes widened when she realised what they contained.

Weapons!

She ran to the nearest and opened it. The guns were the really old-fashioned ones. The ones with hammers holding a flint to make them work, not the modern magnetically or air-propelled types. She looked for a cabinet containing something more modern, and found one that held old-fashioned slug throwing revolvers of all kinds. She picked one up. It was heavier than it looked. She made the cylinder slide out hoping to find bullets already in place, but it wasn’t loaded. She started hunting for the ammunition. There were drawers below the cabinets, but nothing she found would fit the gun.

Oh! Why keep guns without keeping the right ammunition close by? It's not fair!

She discarded the revolver and looked for any ammunition that she could find and match to a weapon.

“You will not find what you are looking for, Miss Stirling.”

Marie gasped and spun to face the door. A vampire stood in the open doorway watching her with a small smile upon his lips. A mixed group of more vampires and humans attended him, standing silently at his back. Terry was one of them and he smirked at her. Rage ignited at the sight of him. He had betrayed her to the monsters not once but twice now, but more outrageous to her was his double-cross of Stephen. Stephen had dealt fairly with him, and yet despite that, he had betrayed his master just as he had betrayed her that first time.