Eternal Service (30 page)

He had fallen hard.

He sat alone in his bedroom and reached into his small refrigerator to retrieved his breakfast. He stretched out on the bed while his breakfast sat in the warmer and his thoughts went to Alex, which didn’t help the current flagpole situation where his manhood was concerned.

He fed himself the blood and enjoyed the warmth of it as it entered and surged in his body. This morning however, when he closed his eyes and allowed himself to get carried away with the bliss of the blood, his thoughts were of Alex, the way she felt, and her scent. It was her name he growled as he came.

*******

Visions of Alex consumed Raymond’s thoughts, and he found it difficult to sit idle just missing her. He busied himself with work in an effort to keep his mind occupied. With the team separated, he volunteered to work a double shift and spent the day with William and Ben at the White House. The three hid away from prying human eyes by sitting in the Cave. Ben sat at the small table, the other two on the hideous green couch. The large panel screen on the wall buzzed with nine monitor feedbacks in what looked like a White House Hollywood Squares.

The video feed the Colony received split off from the monitors the human team viewed. The human team watched the visitors down in the W16 security room and relied on facial recognition programs to detect potential threats. The vampire team filtered their incoming images with an infrared scanner. Today the team performed two tasks—their daily task of checking for vampires trying to infiltrate the White House, and also monitoring for the woman whose picture was on one of the forged security pass they had retrieved only days earlier.

Raymond and William sat side–by–side, dwarfing the small couch and causing its springs to buckle in the middle. Each worked on a laptop and typed away on their keyboards as Ben sat at the desk viewing bank and phone records for Verna Foiles. Raymond had just signed into a secure vampire database, one in which he was allowed to access as a member of the North American Vampire Council, and searched for a woman matching the picture from the security pass. The computer slowly did its magic as it scanned all the database entries. Again he found himself sitting idle, and again he thought of Alex.

Waiting for any response, and doing his best to keep his head in the game, Raymond looked up at the video tick–tack–toe board showing him the nine different views of rooms within the White House. The images were a light green hue, standard for infrared sensors. “Has the intern, Verna Foiles, come in for work today?” he asked.

William stopped typing on his keyboard. “Woman isn’t supposed to be here today, not according to the schedule anyhow. Lady’s been out the last few days though. She missed her last two shifts. If she’s a vamp, she’s dust by now. Else she’s swimming with the fishes somewhere. That’s my guess.”

“No.” Raymond shook his head. “Her image was on one of the passes. I’m betting she’s still alive. With the President out of residence today it’s a good time for whatever they may have in mind.”

Ben glanced over at the two, “She should cover her tracks better. Not calling in about her missing work just sent flags up to the humans. They’ll be on alert the second she logs in for work.”

The changing screen on Raymond’s laptop caught his attention. He looked down and saw the results of his search. No female vampire matched the facial recognition from the ID pass on any vampire database he searched – which included the family line database, the eligible bachelorette vampire database, and the known missing rogue database. Of course, she could be an independent and not registered anywhere, or perhaps she was registered in the European, Asian, or other vampire databases. Unfortunately, he had limited access to those databases.

William noticed a message on his computer. He clicked a button and focused on the computer display. “Wait up. The badge reader just signed her in.” William adjusted the image on his computer and shot it up to the big display on the wall so Raymond and Ben could see. “This is the feed from the kitchen entrance. She’s not coming in through her normal door.”

Raymond stared at the image. “No infrared heat signature. She’s no longer human.” Newly turned — it confirmed the lack of results he got from the vampire databases.

Ben added, “She also got a bleach job to disguise herself. Which department does she normally work in?”

William pulled up a second window to the large screen to view the work schedule. He scanned back and showed the schedule for the last three months, her name highlighted in the roster. “Speech writing, some work with the environmental groups — grunt work mostly.” He brought the camera images to the forefront of the computer screen. “Woman is heading towards the Oval Office.”

“Let me guess, she’s never worked in that wing of the White House before,” Raymond asked.

“Nope. And I don’t think she’s there to work today,” William said.

Ben had been overseeing the human team’s activity on his personal laptop. “Human guards are on the move,” he said standing up. “I’ll get them first. She may be newly turned, but she can still wipe them out easily enough.” He ran out of the room at vampire speed, the papers on the small desk he was using picked up in the breeze.

The display on the wall monitor was of the cameras in the West Wing. “I have her passing the Oval Office,” William said into the com unit. “I think she’s heading to the Situation Room downstairs.”

“Stay here and monitor her.” Raymond adjusted his earpiece. “Ben, I’m heading to the Situation Room right now.”

William texted all Colony members the status.

*******

Raymond received a text from Sterling indicating he was minutes away from joining the party. Raymond texted back, “solo fem vamp blond in Sit Rm. W8 4 me. No hostility so far.” He sped down to the basement of the West Wing to catch Verna, taking three to four steps at a time at super speed. He caught the scent of another predator once he neared the Oval Office and pulled out his silver flex whip and his SBC Launcher, also known as a silver bolt cannon. Through his earpiece Ben said that another set of human guards were already in the Situation Room and were now in jeopardy.

Sterling started receiving the audio signals on his secure com link once he breached the White House perimeter. “I’m outside on the grounds,” Sterling announced. “I tripped the underground sensors. It should keep some of the guards busy. William, make it look like an equipment error in a few minutes.”

“No problem,” William replied in the com link.

Raymond descended the stairs to the basement. A group of human guards lay unconscious on the floor in the hallway just before the Situation Room. He knelt next to one of them and noticed they were still alive, only asleep. He breathed a sigh of relief as he looked into the President’s personal command center, or Sit Room, as it was often called. Verna wasn’t in the main conference room area, but the glass to the Director’s Office was fogged, signaling the motion sensor had been triggered. “She’s in the President’s private office,” he said into his earpiece in a whispered voice. He watched as she left the small room and entered the main conference room, with no knowledge that Raymond lay in wait for her.

Her focus remained on her task at hand, or she would have noticed another predator so close by. She walked to a painting which hung on the wall, and place what looked like a bug within its large wooden frame. She did the same with the other two smaller paintings in the room before looking closer at the heavy wooden desk which took up most of the space in the room. Its dark red varnish was reflective, and Raymond could see her look of concentration even though her back was to him. Next she pulled out one of the black leather chairs and began to inspect it for what Raymond thought would be another place to hide a bug.

Overall, her plan was ridiculous. This room had built-in sensors to detect bugs. Of course, the general population wasn’t privy to such information. Hiding the bugs on picture frames? Raymond didn’t even want to think of how obvious that was.

Sterling appeared at the bottom of the stairs with Ben, just a few feet away from the unconscious guards and the entrance to the Sit Room. They approached the room with caution, but they must have affected Verna’s senses because her eyes darted towards the door. Her focus was no longer on the bugs she planted, but probably on escaping and perhaps hurting one of the team members on her way out. She looked towards the door away from where Raymond hid. He had a good shot of her and took it. He discharged a silver bolt from his SBC Launcher and the bolt passed through her body without harming her. She dodged behind a chair on the far side of the large conference room table and pulled out a gun, taking two shots at Raymond.

Raymond ducked into the Director’s Office for shelter, and the now clear glass fogged once more. “She’s armed,” he announced even though the team members would have heard the shots and, by now, smelled the gunshot residue. He felt confusion and apprehension from her thought patterns. She wasn’t expecting vampires to be protecting the White House, and she wasn’t sure what to do next — which was why the Colony and their mission were always kept secret.

When Raymond heard another bullet whiz by the door, he knew that even through her confusion she was willing to kill to get what she wanted. She had spared the human guards’ lives, but obviously she came prepared to use force.

Raymond surveyed the small office for any strategic advantage against his opponent. The room was a basic office, although with sound resistant padding and expensive furniture. It had a wooden desk, comfortable brown leather chair, and computer equipment – and everything was stamped with the presidential seal. There was nothing out of the ordinary. The room had exactly one exit, and that was not to his advantage. He needed to make sure the confrontation with her did not capture him in this small area.

He walked to the President’s desk and tugged at the first drawer, which broke the lock. Pens, cell phone chargers, and what looked like a generous number of letter openers lay inside. Raymond also noticed an ornate box, so he opened it. He was surprised to find a small dagger inside, but wasn’t going to question the perfect timing of the find. He touched the hilt to remove it from the box. His fingertip sizzled when his hand contacted with the silver. Dropping the box back into the drawer he let out a slight curse. He then collected the sharp metal, non–silver, letter openers to use as projectile weapons if necessary.

Ben lurched his body into the room and took refuge behind a conference room chair. He inched closer to where Verna hid. When she rose to take another shot at Raymond, Ben fired a silver bolt directly at her back. The bolt burst through her clothing and splattered her purplish–red blood on the conference room desk and the wall. She yelled in pain as she dove towards the plush carpeted floor. Turning her attention towards Ben, she fired two rounds in his direction, one of which hit him in the shoulder. Ben let out a grunt as his purple blood spilled out onto his shirt, and he ducked down out of the way of fire.

Raymond saw the action and flung five letter openers through the air. Verna’s cries as she ducked for cover told him that they hit their target.

Sterling seized the opportunity and jumped up on the conference room table, soiling its fine varnished finish. From Raymond’s vantage point, he could see Verna pulling the daggers from her quickly aging body. Her long, now white hair, was being stained with deep purple blood as she fought with the letter openers. Sterling whipped his Flex Whip. As the weapon sliced through the air, the leather unveiled itself and revealed the silver flex strips. The whip coiled itself around the woman’s body, burning her where it touched her flesh. Her remaining golden locks turned to gray as she visibly changed from mid forties to her late fifties. Her life–sustaining blood stained the plush rug below her and she moaned in agony. The whip restricted her movements, and she fell backwards onto the silver bolt that still ratcheted itself deeper and deeper into her flesh.

Raymond approached her first, with Sterling jumping off the table directly beside him. Her gun had fallen from her hand and out of reach. Raymond stood above her in the tight corner of the room. Ben slid the conference room table out of the way so he too could join the team.

She resembled the young woman Raymond had viewed on the monitor only moments ago, but now she was aged. Her appearance exceeded the age of 60. Her blood spilled onto him, soiling his clothes. She was going to bleed out before the team could get their answers. She was completely immobilized, so he began questioning her.

“I’ve got her.” Raymond said as he held the now frail body to the ground. “Sterling, start scanning. Ben, check for humans.”

Blood covered Ben’s shirt, but his shoulder was healing itself already. He searched the hallways to check for humans and William assured him that none were around according to the monitors. William sent stilled pictures to the guard stations and had disabled the motion sensors before Verna even crossed the hallway to the Oval Office.

Raymond focused his attention on Verna and compelled her to answer all of his questions. “What did you plan to do here today?”

Her face flinched in pain. “Bugs. I was planting bugs.”

“For what purpose?” he pressed.

She licked her lips and murmured through the pain, “Presidential decision on Supreme Court nomination to replace Justice McCade.”

“Justice McCade isn’t retiring.” Sterling said as he removed his gloves and began touching the woman’s clothes. Her body flinched in pain the second he touched her. Her eyes shut as a moan escaped her lips. “Shit,” Sterling cursed as he read images from her jewelry. “He isn’t retiring. He’s being murdered.”