Authors: Dean Murray
"What time
is it?"
"A little
after sunrise. Or maybe ten minutes before breakfast. It all depends
on how you look at it."
"Very
funny, Taggart. Are you feeling nostalgic for the days back when you
didn't know there was such a thing as clocks?"
"Maybe a
little, but I wouldn't want to go back to living like that. I'm too
big of a fan of hot and cold running water for that."
"Hear,
hear. Are we at least getting close to Minneapolis?"
I was waiting
to see if he was going to avoid answering that question the same way
that he'd avoided the question about what time it was, but he just
shrugged.
"It's been
a little while since we last passed a sign, but I think by now we're
only ten or fifteen minutes away from the city. Do you want to stop
for breakfast now, or do you want to call Isaac first?"
"Let's
call Isaac first. I'm going to need to get some food in me soon, but
first I want to find out what we're up against."
Taggart passed
me his phone, which I thought was odd until I realized that we would
probably be using my phone to call the vampires. Isaac answered after
only the third ring.
"Hey guys,
are you getting close?"
"That
depends. We're just about to stop for breakfast in Minneapolis. Where
are you guys?"
"We are
about two hours north of you and we have a visitor."
Alec's voice
came on a second later. "Adri, Taggart. How did things go last
night?"
"To be
honest we aren't exactly sure. We came out on top, but not by much.
In the end I electrocuted her and then stabbed her in the chest, but
I'm not sure whether or not I managed to keep her there. It didn't
feel quite the same way it did with Pamela. That's part of why we
called. We are hoping that Isaac can work some kind of magic that
will let me call the vampires without giving away the fact that we
are already in the state."
Isaac sighed.
"Yeah, I knew this was coming, but to be honest I'm not excited
about it. These guys are way out of my league. I can compensate for
that a little by putting in a lot of prep time on the front end, but
that only goes so far. I can buy you thirty or forty seconds, but not
much more than that."
I looked over
at Taggart and he nodded at me, so I turned back to the phone. "Okay,
that should be enough. All I really need to do is call and confirm
whether last night's effort was a success. Before we do that though,
what news do you guys have for us?"
Isaac cleared
his throat. "To be honest, I didn't think this would work, but
the location that Detective Belarose sent us to seems to match up
with what your sister told us to look for. It's just over two hours
north of the city and it's a massive building that has a series of
large spaces with smaller rooms partitioning them off."
"And you
didn't say anything about any of that to her before she started
flipping through the maps?"
"Not a
word. It was uncanny. She just spent five minutes sort of flipping
through the atlas that we brought her and then all of a sudden she
went back to the biggest map and pointed to a spot north of the city.
A second later she flipped halfway through the atlas and stopped
exactly on the map that corresponded to the location that she'd been
pointing at.
"It went
like that for a couple of minutes until she got to the most detailed
map in the atlas. Then we pulled up a satellite view of the town and
she pointed directly at what, as nearly as I could tell, was the only
building in the town that is large enough to be what your sister
described to us."
"So what
else do we know about the location in question?"
"Not a
ton. I was debating sending someone in to see if we could smell any
vampires, but then I talked to Alec and he told us about some of the
mistakes that they made a few days ago on their assault. It's pretty
unlikely that we're up against anyone with that level of power, but
there isn't any reason to risk tipping off a mentalist if there's one
in there."
That actually
threw me for a loop and I looked over at Taggart. "What do you
think, Taggart? If that vampire we fought last night is still alive
she seemed pretty powerful."
Taggart
considered my question for several seconds before shrugging. "Judging
someone's level of power is very difficult inside of the dream.
You'll remember that Kaleb healed at an astronomical rate. It's
possible that our opponent from last night was displaying much more
in the way of telekinetic power than she actually possesses in real
life."
I felt like
pulling my hair out. "Okay, I guess it doesn't really matter
either way. She may be dead by now, and even if she isn't we are
already being as careful as we can be."
There was a
pause as everyone waited to see if anyone else had something they
wanted to say. I heard someone shifting around and then Isaac resumed
typing on his laptop.
"I guess
everything else can wait until the two of you get here. If you're
ready now I can go ahead and initiate that call."
My throat was
suddenly dry. "Yeah, go ahead. We might as well find out what
we're up against there."
"Okay, I'm
patching the signal from your phone through my phone and then
bouncing it through all of the rest of the boxes that I've hacked
over the last two years."
A few seconds
later the phone started ringing. It only took two rings for someone
to pick up.
"Is this
who I think it is?"
I felt like I'd
been slapped across the face. It was her. We hadn't managed to kill
her after all.
"Yes,
it is."
"Calling
to gloat, little human?"
"Actually
I wasn't. I was calling to see whether or not we'd managed to kill
you. Looks like I failed this time."
"Indeed
you did. I hope I've made the consequences of a second attempt
clear."
"Crystal.
I'll call you back in four hours, we should be in Minneapolis by
then."
I hung up before she could say anything else and then I started
shaking.
Adriana Paige
Pinnacle Hotel
Cloquet, Minnesota
Breakfast
was a quiet affair. Taggart tried to reassure me several times, but
we both knew we'd just shot our second-to-last bolt. Everything was
now riding on the assault we were planning against a building that
might or might not have an unknown number of vampires in it.
We
bolted down our food, used the restrooms and were back on the road
less than fifteen minutes after we pulled into the parking lot. We
arrived in Cloquet precisely on schedule and found that Alec had paid
to rent out a large conference room in the city's best hotel.
It
was the kind of thing that Isaac couldn't do and that Taggart and I
shouldn't be doing. The gold represented a significant amount of
money, but it wasn't inexhaustible and the two of us weren't likely
to have a chance to stop and work in one place for long enough to
replace anything we spent.
I
grabbed a bagel off of the plate in the center of the table and
slathered it with cream cheese before turning and finding myself face
to face with Alec.
His
smile was so perfect that it nearly managed to cut through the clouds
of depression that had been assailing me. Despite all of the reasons
to think that things were going to turn out badly, having Alec there
made me feel like there was still hope.
"I'm
glad that you made it here okay and that you guys came out on top in
your fight last night."
He'd
hit a nerve with that one. Even seeing him wasn't enough to combat
the wave of despair that thinking about the battle brought on.
"For
all the good it did us."
Alec
frowned. "I'm sorry that things didn't work out the way that you
hoped. We're going to get your family out of there."
Alec
reached out and took my hand. It was a gesture that was meant to
reassure rather than something that was designed to convey affection,
but his touch sent a tingle racing up my arm.
Normally
I wasn't super demonstrative, but I could see Brindi watching us from
the far corner of the room and I felt like I needed to stake my claim
at least a little. Based on past experience, Alec was going to spend
a lot of time holding her hand while we were all together and it
didn't seem right for him to hold her hand and then barely touch me.
I
stood up on my tiptoes and hugged Alec. I could tell that I'd
surprised Alec. He started out stiff, but then he pulled me in tight
and it was like a little piece of heaven. Anyone who looked at Alec
could tell that he was built. That wasn't the kind of thing that
designer clothes were generally meant to hide, but even if he'd been
wearing castoffs from the Salvation Army it still would have been
apparent that he was packing a serious amount of muscle on his frame.
Seeing
it was different than feeling it pressed up against your body. Maybe
something about the dream had been different, or maybe I just had
been too caught up in what it felt like to have his lips pressed up
against mine, but I hadn't really appreciated how good it felt to be
wrapped inside of Alec's arms.
It
was like being cocooned by warm, living granite that had been covered
in something soft. I could feel the strength barely hidden by his
clothes and without even realizing what had happened, I melted
against him.
He
even smelled good. There was the faintest hint of some cologne there,
but mostly it was just Alec. If he ever found a way to bottle that
he'd be even richer than he already was.
I
wanted to just stay there in his arms, maybe forever, but definitely
for the next hour, but we both knew that this wasn't the time or
place. After the shortest sixty seconds of my life, his arms started
to loosen and I followed his lead.
I
felt like I should be glowing just like Cindi right after I'd pulled
her out of the in-between. I wasn't blushing or anything, but I was
just so happy, so thrilled to finally be back with Alec, that it was
all I could do to stop myself from grinning from ear to ear. I caught
Brindi glaring at me out of the corner of my eye, but I managed to
resist the urge to send her a nasty look in return.
I
cleared my throat. "So is this everyone?"
Isaac
looked like he was fighting the urge to grin after the little display
Alec and I had put on, but he managed to mostly keep a straight face.
"Yeah,
basically. Dominic and Heath are out keeping an eye on the building
that we think your family is in, but everyone else is here. Alec and
Brindi arrived a couple of hours ago as did Jenners over there."
Alec
nodded. "Carson sends his regrets that he couldn't be here to
help, but when Brindi and I left LA it was too risky to pull everyone
else out, so he had to stay. He did make some calls though in an
effort to round up some more help and Jenners agreed to come here."
I
nodded in the direction of the tall, brooding brunette guy in the
corner and got a nod in return. "Thanks for being willing to
come help, Jenners. After hearing how bad things got for the team in
Los Angeles, I was kind of hoping that Carson would be able to drum
up more help than that. What happened to everyone who came to help
break out Agony?"
Jenners
shrugged. "I'm here because I owe Carson a favor. He's been
calling in a lot of favors lately. Maybe he's starting to run short."
I
gave him an expectant look, but he had apparently said everything he
was going to say. Isaac was waving me off, so I just made a mental
note to ask Alec what exactly was going on with Carson and whatever
group it was that he was affiliated with.
"Okay,
what's the plan?"
Everyone
looked at Isaac like he was the guy in charge, which was just fine
with me, but before he could answer his phone started ringing. He
looked down at it like he was planning on declining the call but then
stopped mid motion.
"It's
the detective."
Isaac
answered his phone and then set it to speaker mode and flipped it
over. "Hello, Detective. None of us were expecting to hear from
you quite this soon."
"Yeah,
and if I had my way I would have never dialed your phone number
again, but something changed just now with Adri's family."
My
heart leaped right up to my throat, but I still managed to speak past
the lump. "What do you mean?"
"I
mean something has changed. I think they moved your sister out of the
building where they were keeping her."
"Do
you know where they are taking her?"
"I'm
not a Magic 8-Ball, kid, it doesn't work that way. I won't be able to
pin down their location until they stop moving…even assuming
that I'll be able to still feel them at that point. It comes and
goes."
I
forced myself not to respond to the abrasiveness in her tone. She was
acting like a jerk because she was uncomfortable with the fact that
she had powers. That wasn't ideal; it wasn't the kind of thing that
you'd want in a best friend, but the important thing was that she was
trying to help despite all of that.
"I'm
sorry, Detective. You're right, I didn't mean to be so pushy. Thank
you for calling to let me know that they are moving Cindi. Is there
anything else you can tell us?"
Isaac's
phone beeped, and then beeped again. He turned it over so he could
see the text he'd just been sent, but didn't take it off of speaker
mode.
"I
don't know. The group in the car that's moving her is a lot smaller
than the group that is staying behind with your parents. Maybe a
fifth or a sixth the size of the group in the building, but I can't
be sure. Beyond that, I'm getting bad vibes of some kind from at
least one of the people in each group."
"Bad
vibes?"