Authors: AE Jones
Dalton pulled his pants off the floor and fumbled for his phone in his pocket.
“Dalton, here…yeah, Jean Luc, hold on.” He held up the phone to me. “It’s for you.”
I groaned in frustration before responding. “Hello?”
“I am sorry to interrupt you two.”
“Interrupt? Jesus, Jean Luc, are you sensing my emotions right now?”
“Yes. Nothing specific, but it does not require a rocket scientist to figure it out.”
I shook my head. “What’s up?”
“I have been watching the warehouse for several hours, and it is finally empty. The last vampire left fifteen minutes ago, and no one else has arrived. I think this would be a good time to go in.”
“We’ll be there in twenty.” I handed Dalton the phone. “Remember where we were when we were so rudely interrupted, because right now we need to meet Jean Luc at the warehouse for a little B&E.”
He kissed me on the nose and sat up. “Don’t forget you’re talking to a cop right now.”
“You can arrest me later. I like role-playing with handcuffs.”
It was his turn to groan in frustration.
Chapter 38
Call me crazy, but it occurred to me breaking into a vamp warehouse was probably not a good idea.
Dalton and I parked a block away and walked through a back alley to the set of scarred bay doors where Jean Luc waited for us. It didn’t take long for him to get the door unlocked, and we slipped inside. The inside was spacious, but relatively empty, with the exception of packing peanuts scattered all over the floor. Up toward the front of the building was a set of offices. We headed there and split up, each through separate doors.
I ended up in the main office area. In the middle of the room sat a chair with arm and leg manacles. Where did you even find a chair like that? Dungeons R’ Us? I stepped closer. Rust-colored stains spotted the seat and arms. Even without Jean Luc’s nose, I knew it was blood.
The sight made me sick. Had Father Cowell died here? I skirted around the chair through a door on the right that opened into a storage space with shelves and a half dozen boxes. I opened the first box and found newspaper and some metal statues. They didn’t look valuable, just stuff you would sell in a tourist trap. The second and third boxes held much the same junk.
There were two boxes on a separate shelf. I picked up the first and opened it. Nothing important. The next box was heavier. I picked it up carefully. As I pulled back the flaps, Jean Luc walked into the room and said “no,” but it was too late.
I stared down into the face of one Charles Hampton, vampire.
I dropped the box—who wouldn’t have?—and it landed on its side. The head fell out and rolled until his nose touched the floor. Hampton’s head rolled back the way it came and settled, continuing to rock slightly back and forth as if he was shaking his head.
What. The. Hell.
I held my breath to keep from gagging. “Why would they keep his head in the closet?” I asked. It was a ridiculous question, but it fit the ridiculous situation.
Before Jean Luc could answer, Dalton’s voice called out. “Jean Luc, I could use some help in here.”
“Bring the head, Kyle.” Jean Luc flashed out of the room.
Come
on
! I was not getting paid enough money for this, really I wasn’t.
I snatched some newspaper out of another box, using it as a barrier between my hands and the head, then picked it up and wrapped the paper around it. Stuffing the head back into the box, I carried it in the direction of Dalton’s voice. I hurried down a hallway and found him and Jean Luc standing in front of a safe.
Before I could say a word, Jean Luc held up his hand to shush me. He leaned close to the safe, turning the dial and listening to the tumblers. I set down the cardboard box. It was amazing how heavy a head could be. A minute later the latch clicked and Jean Luc pushed down the handle, opening the safe.
A stack of papers and a small wooden box sat inside. “I think we have the key.” Jean Luc examined the box and frowned. “This box is solid. I thought Jason said Father Cowell had opened it.”
I thought back to the conversation with Jason. “No, he said that Cowell said it was empty. He didn’t say that he actually opened it.”
He handed it to me and reached back into the safe to pull out the papers. I examined the box as well. It had markings on it, but there was no seam along the box. “You’re right, I don’t see anything either.” I handed the box to Dalton. “Let’s get out of here, before someone comes back.”
I walked over to pick up Hampton’s head, but Dalton interrupted me. “Hey, this does come open, but there’s nothing in it.”
I looked back at him. He stood with two box halves in his hands. “How the hell did you do that?”
“I don’t know. It just came open.”
I caught the puzzled expression on Jean Luc’s face, but we really couldn’t take the time to ponder it now. “Bring it along so we can examine it later.”
Lifting Hampton’s head as we moved out of the room, my eyes were drawn upwards. That’s when I noticed the camera in the upper right-hand corner of the room.
Not good.
Back in the car, Dalton drove and Jean Luc sat in the passenger seat paging through the documents.
“What have you got?” I asked.
“A list of names. I think they were participants from the dig in Turkey. The other pages are notes about where most of them live and work.”
I shuddered. “I wonder how many people he killed.”
“We will know more once I give this to Misha. We should go back to the office and switch cars before we go to the safe house.”
We finally arrived at the safe house an hour later. I guess I had been hanging around with Misha too long, since the
Mission Impossible
theme kept running through my head while we drove.
There was an unfamiliar car parked in the safe house driveway. Jean Luc flashed out of our car and we followed quickly.
As Dalton and I walked into the house, raised voices met us. In the living room, Misha and his father were having a face off. Boris’s bodyguards shifted warily while Jean Luc observed with a bemused expression.
“Father, keep it down. Jason is sleeping,” Misha hissed.
“You need to explain to me what is going on here. You are using the clan house to hide a human? Why would someone be after him?”
“He’s part of our investigation. Vampires are after him.”
“Vampires are too arrogant to even consider humans a threat. Why should they care so much?”
Misha rolled his eyes. “Now you’re insulting Jean Luc.”
Jean Luc shrugged. “I agree with his assessment. Normally most vampires are arrogant. But if a human threatens them, their arrogance will not tolerate it. Or if the human has information they may need, he does become a priority.”
Boris continued. “So, which is it?”
Jason’s voice answered from behind me. “Right now, they’re after me because I’m a thorn in their side. A gnat buzzing around them.”
Boris studied Jason as he walked further into the room. “And why are you buzzing around them? They will swat you down sooner or later.”
“I know, but they killed two friends of mine. Someone needs to make them pay.”
I wasn’t sure if I imagined it or not, but I could have sworn Boris’s face took on a look of respect. “A warrior’s code.”
“Yes.”
“And how did you meet Misha and his teammates?”
Misha stepped forward. “That’s not relevant. It’s part of an ongoing investigation.”
Jason shook his head. “Don’t, Misha. Your father deserves to know the truth. We met when I shot your son.”
Boris growled deep in his throat. The hairs on the back of my neck—hell, on every part of my body—stood at attention. In a blink of an eye, Boris’s veneer slipped. The polished leader and businessman morphed into a seething father, his eyes glowing right before they turned black as pitch. Everyone tensed. The bodyguards stepped forward to flank Jason as Boris stalked into his face. He towered over Jason a good five inches, but Jason stood his ground.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t eviscerate you right now.” Boris’s voice had dropped an octave, as if he hadn’t been scary enough already.
“If I were in your place, I would ask the same question. I have no excuse. The first demon and vampire I met tried to kill me. When I saw Misha use his powers, I struck first before he could get me. I was wrong. And on top of that, your son saved my life, knowing I was the one who almost killed him.”
After a second, Misha stepped next to Jason. Boris’s gaze moved to his son’s face. “I’ve forgiven him, Father. You cannot claim right of aggression here. That would be my choice to make, and I have chosen otherwise.”
Boris nodded tightly and stepped back. After a few seconds, his eyes returned to their usual blue. The entire group heaved a collective breath.
I cleared my throat and jumped into the fray, speaking directly to Boris. “If you have time, we could sure use your help.”
* * *
We sat at the kitchen table, passing around the two halves of the small wooden box and the safe papers so that everyone could examine them. Now that Dalton had opened the box, anyone could open and close it. Hampton’s head remained on the floor in its cardboard container. I refused to let it join us at the table.
Boris picked up the small box pieces and turned them over in his hand. “I have not heard of this key before. The writings on the box are not familiar to me either.”
“Well, Hampton, and now Sebastian, found it important enough to systematically locate and murder everyone associated with the dig where this box was discovered,” Dalton explained.
Misha chimed in, “And there was nothing else at the warehouse besides the papers, this box, and Hampton’s head?”
I shook my head. “No. Maybe they cleaned out the place after Hampton died. But there were security cameras.”
Misha’s eyes lit up. “If the cameras are wireless, we may have gotten lucky.”
“How?” I asked.
“I can hack into the system and we can watch any recorded feeds. Give me a few minutes.”
True to his word, Misha called us back into the room in twenty minutes. “I think we got something. There is no sound, but we have picture. Let me hook it up to the TV so we can all watch.”
We waited another minute until the TV screen filled with an image of the warehouse. Misha rewound the film. “The nice thing about these cameras is they are motion-sensitive, so we don’t have to wade through hours of footage with no one in the room. There are several cameras, so let me figure out which one has something interesting to watch.”
“Here’s something.” We watched the screen and saw Dalton, Jean Luc and me go through the offices and end up in the room with the safe. I watched as Jean Luc and I tried to open the box, and then Dalton opened it with ease.
Misha went through a few more minutes of footage until he came to a demon standing in one of the rooms, bent over something on a desk. He was blue with black stripes. Sebastian stood in the corner watching the demon with fascination.
“What kind of demon is that?” I asked.
Misha grimaced. “It is similar to one of the pictures in Cowell’s journal we didn’t recognize.”
Boris leaned forward. “One of our ancients recognized that picture from her childhood. She heard stories of a powerful demon banned from earth called the Majock.”
The demon continued to block the camera’s view.
“What the hell is he doing?” I blurted.
As if in answer to my question, he backed up, and we could see Hampton’s head propped up on the table. Electrodes were attached to his face and the other ends to a machine. The demon flipped a switch and the head actually shimmied across the table.
The demon on the screen closed his eyes and concentrated. After a few minutes, he opened them and shook his head.
Sebastian stepped forward and started talking agitatedly. The demon responded, at which point Sebastian backhanded him and left the room. The demon flicked the switch again and closed his eyes. After a few minutes, he shut off the machine, and walked out of the room. Misha stopped the replay.
Jason spoke up. “What was that about?”
Boris answered him, “I think in order for the demon to attempt reading Hampton’s memory, he needed electrical impulses. Since Hampton is dead, they had to provide the impulses to bring him back to life.”
I gasped. “Good Lord, he’s trying to create a Vampenstein.”
Jason chuckled. “Or a Frankenpire.”
Misha’s eyes twinkled. “But it didn’t work.”
“Or it worked and Hampton didn’t have the information they wanted,” Dalton said. “Either way, Sebastian has to be stopped.”
Chapter 39
What a change of pace, waking up in a man’s arms. After we left the safe house, Dalton took me home and we ended up in bed again. I guess my handcuff and role-playing comments had inspired him.
I rolled over to face him. He was frowning.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I had some really weird dreams last night, and then I woke up with a headache.”