Authors: Tina Folsom
Several of his colleagues grunted in displeasure, and in the midst of it all, his cell phone vibrated. He pulled it from his pocket and looked at the display.
Pressing the answer key, he said, “Thomas?”
“Can you talk?”
“Yeah, they didn’t show. They sent a drugged human instead. No sign of Hannah.”
“I wish I could say I was surprised, but I just got alerted that Hannah’s access card was swiped to enter the garage.”
“You mean somebody took her access card and managed to get inside Scanguards? How is that even possible?” There were more levels of security than just the access card. “They would have had to have her fingerprint, too.”
“I know. That’s why I pulled the video feeds from the levels accessed with Hannah’s card. Hold on.” He paused for a second. “Thanks, Eddie. Blake, you’re not gonna believe this: Hannah entered the garage. It’s her, without a doubt. She went to the main parking level and accessed the emergency key hold.”
This made no sense. “If she escaped somehow, then why wouldn’t she just go upstairs to the staff office and report back?”
“Blake, I don’t think she escaped. There’s something about her… Eddie, zoom in on her face again… There! Blake, I think she’s drugged.”
“Oh shit! Where did she go?”
“That’s just it, she took one of the keys, then went to parking level B2. Eddie, go to the recording for level B2… There, she comes out of the elevator, heads for the cars. Oh no.”
“What?” Blake barked into the phone.
“She took your car. Let’s see…”
What was she planning to do with his car?
“She left with it. I don’t know where to, but she drove out of the garage about twenty minutes ago.”
“It makes no sense. Why would Norwood make her steal my car? They must realize that we can trace it with its built-in locator chip. Something isn’t right.”
“I’ll go through all the footage again to see if we’re missing anything, or if she let anybody else in, but so far I see nothing.”
“Blake!” Ronny suddenly called out, holding his cell phone in the air. “It’s Norwood. He wants to talk to you.”
“Stay on the line, Thomas,” Blake ordered and took Ronny’s phone with his other hand, already barking into it. “Norwood, you little shit! What’re you up to?”
“Is that a way to greet the man who’s in possession of the one thing most precious to you?” Norwood drawled.
“I know you drugged Hannah,” he started, but Norwood cut him off.
“But I’m not talking about Hannah. I’m talking about Lilo.”
Blake’s heart stopped.
“Such a beautiful woman. A little limp right now, but,” Norwood continued, “she’ll wake up eventually.”
“You really think I’m gonna believe you have her?” He pressed the mute button, then switched to his own cell phone. “Thomas, run to my office and check on Lilo. Now!”
“On my way.”
He pressed unmute on Ronny’s phone and concentrated on Norwood’s words, continuing to listen with one ear to his own cell phone.
“I’d like to trade her and Hannah for Ronny and the drugs. And this time, no games,” Norwood warned.
Meanwhile, Thomas’s voice came through the other phone. “She’s gone, Blake. Disappeared.”
Blake’s fangs descended and his hands turned into claws. “I’m going to rip your throat out when I find you!”
“Such idle threats,” Norwood said coolly. “Guess you believe me now. So let’s see how much she’s worth to you.”
~ ~ ~
Blake slammed his fist into the wall of his office, leaving a dent in the drywall. “How could this happen?” He’d failed Lilo. He hadn’t kept her safe. She was in the hands of a madman. “Why didn’t I see this coming?”
John stood in silence next to Ronny, who appeared to be crushed by this setback.
Wes put a hand on his shoulder, but Blake shrugged it off. “Nobody saw this coming. They must have drugged Hannah to somehow get her to trick Lilo into meeting her. The guard said Lilo went rushing out the door, but he didn’t see where she was heading.”
Blake nodded to himself. “Lilo is smart. She wouldn’t have fallen for it if Hannah hadn’t been convincing.”
“Maybe that’s why Hannah stole your car,” Wes mused. “What if she needed it to convince Lilo that
you
sent her?”
For a moment, he contemplated the question. “However they convinced her, we need to find where they’ve taken her. Quickly.”
“We’ve already located your car. I’ve sent a team there, but I’m pretty sure they just dumped it. Hannah knows the car is equipped with a GPS tracker. She would have ditched it as soon as she didn’t need it anymore,” John said.
Blake turned to Wes. “Can you scry for Lilo?”
“With what? It was hard enough finding something with Hannah’s DNA in her flat. And the little I found didn’t get me a reading on her. It’s even harder with Lilo. So unless you have a vial of her blood, I’m afraid, we’re out of luck. A couple of hairs won’t be powerful enough to make the crystal work.” Wes gave an apologetic shrug.
Ronny suddenly lifted his head. “You said with blood you could locate somebody?”
“Yeah, I can.”
“Maybe you can find Norwood or one of his associates. The drug they put into that human with the motorboat has blood from one of them in it.”
Wes approached him. “What do you mean?”
“But you can’t scry for vampires, it doesn’t work,” Blake interrupted. “You weren’t at Ronny’s interrogation. He already told us about the other vampires’ blood.”
Wes lifted his hand. “Let me hear him out. How is it done?”
“Well, I give them the raw drug, but if we don’t individualize it, it won’t work over long distances. We might as well use mind control. So if the vampire wants to control the human over long distances and make sure nobody else can control him, he has to mix some of his own blood with the drug. Like a bond, so to speak. So the human will respond to his master, and only to him.” Ronny looked at Wes, as if to verify that he understood.
“I get it.” Wes paused and started pacing. “Hmm. Like a homing pigeon. Clever.” A spark appeared in his eyes. “I think I have an idea.”
Blake’s heart beat excitedly. “What kind of idea? Please tell me you know how to find them.”
Wes nodded. “I might. But I’ll need Ronny’s help in the lab. Where’s your recipe book? I didn’t find it in the cabin.”
“Recipe book?”
“The formula for the drug.”
Ronny tipped his finger to his temple. “That’s the only place it’s safe from Norwood. That’s why I’m still alive.
Wes nodded. “Good. Blake, keep that drugged human we picked up tonight ready for me. I think there might be a way of using the bond to his master as a way to turn him into a homing device. If I can isolate the vampire’s blood from the drug and alter the composition a little, I think I can do it.”
Blake’s chest swelled with hope. “Wes, if you can do this and find them, you know I’ll owe you big.”
“And this time I might just cash in on all the favors you owe me.”
Blake met Wesley’s look and nodded. To get Lilo back, he’d do whatever was necessary.
40
Lilo felt groggy, her limbs were stiff, and her head ached. She was coming out of a daze, somebody shaking her with both hands on her shoulders. With difficulty she managed to open her eyes. At first, she had trouble focusing.
“Lilo! Oh God, Lilo!”
The voice brought her back to reality. In an instant she remembered everything. Her eyes flew open.
It was Hannah shaking her awake. Lilo shot up on the uncomfortable cot.
“Hannah?”
“What did they do to you? How did they get you? What are you even doing in San Francisco?” The questions were fairly spewing from Hannah’s mouth. She looked distressed, close to tears. At the same time she looked different from earlier. More lively. More animated. Real.
“You don’t know, do you?” Lilo asked, grabbing Hannah’s hands and squeezing them.
“Know what?”
“Hannah, you called me at Scanguards and told me to come down because Blake was hurt. You said he was dying, and you needed my help.”
She shook her head. “Lilo, I’ve been in here, locked up for I don’t know how many days.”
“Honey, they drugged you. The men who took you, they made you set a trap for me, and I marched right into it.”
Tears rose to Hannah’s eyes. “Oh, no, Lilo! I’m so sorry!”
Lilo threw her arms around her friend and pulled her into an embrace. “No, I’m sorry. If I’d been there for you when you needed me, this might not have happened.”
Hannah sobbed. Lilo took her by the shoulders and eased her back to look at her. “Don’t cry. Please. I’m here now.”
“You shouldn’t have come to San Francisco. Now we’re both in trouble. And it’s my fault. I should have listened to Ronny and left with him.”
“Ronny told us everything.”
“You saw Ronny?” Her eyes widened. “How?”
“Blake and his men captured him.”
Hannah slammed her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God!” Then Hannah cast her a cautious look. “How much do you know?”
Lilo sighed. “Everything. Or almost everything. I know about Scanguards, I know about the vampires, the drug Ronny is producing for Norwood, the danger we’re all in.”
Hannah shook her head. “I’m so sorry I dragged you into this. I never wanted you to have to deal with this.”
“We can’t change that now. I don’t blame you, you know that, honey, don’t you?”
“Oh Lilo, I don’t deserve you.”
Lilo ran her hand over Hannah’s auburn hair. “Blake will come for us.”
Hannah forced a smile. “He’s a good man.” She sniffled. “How did you even find out about Norwood and about Scanguards?”
“I went to your apartment, and Norwood broke in.”
“Oh my God! Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “Blake showed up just in time. He saved me, and Norwood ran. But he was looking for something. I suppose it was the USB stick you hid.”
Hannah sighed in relief. “You found it! I was hoping somebody would. I was afraid that Norwood would kill me, so I told him that I had evidence that showed what he was doing. I told him I had the formula for the drug. I knew he wanted it so he wouldn’t need Ronny anymore. And that if he killed me, the authorities would find it.”
“But there was nothing on the recording other than Norwood and Ronny turning into vampires. You can’t even tell what they’re talking about; there’s no audio. And we didn’t find the formula for the drug either.”
Hannah winked. “Because I don’t have it. But Norwood didn’t know that.”
“I still don’t understand. You couldn’t have known that you would be kidnapped when you hid the memory stick.”
“You’re right. But after I accidentally recorded Ronny and Norwood arguing, and Ronny told me he wanted out of what Norwood was doing, I had a strange feeling. So I hid the USB stick. I figured if something happened to me, at least somebody would know where to start. Scanguards would know.”
“But didn’t you realize that Norwood would go to your apartment, trying to find the evidence you told him you had? What if he’d found it before we did?”
Hannah shook her head. “I told him because I wanted him to go to my flat. I was hoping that by that time, Scanguards would realize that I was missing, and set up a watch on my flat. I was counting on Norwood going and hoping that he’d be caught by Scanguards.”
“You were right. Except that Norwood was able to escape.” She sighed. “Blake’s worried about you.”
“He’s a good friend.”
“He told me how you two met.”
Hannah dropped her lids. “You probably think that I’m impulsive and irresponsible, but even when he told me that he was a vampire, I couldn’t just let him die.”
Lilo smiled. She’d been in a similar situation. And she hadn’t had the heart either. “Thank you for saving him. If you hadn’t, I never would have met him.”
Hannah’s chin suddenly dropped. “Are you serious?” She shook her head. “You and Blake? How? I mean I don’t understand. You’re not the impulsive one. That’s me. You’re so... so reasonable... and you think everything through.”
“Sometimes things just happen. And there’s nothing I can do about it. And our captors somehow found out about me and Blake, and they used it against me. When you called to tell me that Blake was badly injured, I didn’t even stop to think for a split second. I just acted. You had his car. I had no reason to believe you weren’t telling the truth. I was so scared to lose him, Hannah.” Even now the thought clamped around her heart like a vice and squeezed.
“He’ll come for us,” Hannah said, her voice stronger now. “But now that you’re here, maybe we can figure out how to get out of here.”
For the first time, Lilo let her eyes wander around their prison. It was a large room with high ceilings, bare concrete walls, and a couple of windows high up. Both were painted black. Steel reinforcements, possibly an earthquake safety retrofit, criss-crossed two of the walls. It appeared that this was a room in a warehouse.
Lilo tapped her finger to her lips.
“What would Morgan West do in a situation like this?” Hannah asked, putting her arm around her shoulder.
“I’m not sure even Morgan West is clever enough to outsmart a bunch of vampires. We might have to put our money on Blake and Scanguards.”
~ ~ ~
“Everybody ready?”
Blake looked at his colleagues. They were all standing in a side street behind a large truck in the Potrero Hill neighborhood. Wedged between two freeways, the northern part of the district housed mainly businesses: predominantly warehouses and wholesalers. Farther up the hill to the south, the area was framed by a residential neighborhood.
Wesley’s idea to use the blood inside the human they’d caught at Fort Mason had worked like a charm. The human had led them to a large warehouse in Potrero Hill as if he were a homing pigeon. While a Scanguards employee escorted him back to HQ where he would be debriefed—or rather, where they’d wipe his memory—Blake and his men got ready for their rescue mission.
Thanks to their contacts with the city, Thomas had already sent the blueprint of the warehouse to a computer in one of the vans they’d arrived in. But what had really helped in strategizing their approach was Lilo’s blood.