Chapter 11 #2
With Zac, Emma, and River behind him, Adrian led the way to the room and opened the closet door. A ladder unfolded from above when he drew down the hatch, revealing a dark entrance into the unknown. Stale air wafted down on a cool draft.
Adrian started up the ladder as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Vampires could see in the dark, but the others couldn’t. “We’ll need a lantern, or a candle or something. Anybody have a flashlight on them?”
River summoned a ball of light with her hands.
“That’ll work,” Adrian said, impressed.
Stacks of boxes bordered the sides of the narrow space. A thin layer of dust coated most of them, but a few showed signs of recent disturbance. Threadbare carpet muffled their footsteps.
“Something smells funny up here.” Zac grunted. “Like dead vamps. Sorry, but you guys have a unique smell.”
“No offense taken,” Emma said.
A silver glint drew them to the far end of the finished space. A pair of shackles hung suspended from an overhead support beam above a pile of clothes.
“Oh no,” Emma breathed out. She hurried over and crouched to examine the remains. Boots, jeans, a red cardigan, and an ash-dusted white camisole. Emma ran her hands through the pockets but discovered nothing, not even a wallet. Her shoulders dropped.
Adrian frowned down at the pile and wondered which unfortunate soul had met their demise inside the gloomy space. Had she been a survivor from Rosenhaven or an unlucky traveler?
“I still find it hard to believe. This isn’t like the Joe I remember.” Emma hugged her arms around herself. “He was never afraid of me. Not once. He was a good man. He wasn’t… wasn’t like this ugliness.”
“People change when they suffer a loss,” River said, her voice soft. “This isn’t how I remember him either, but looks like the new Joe fooled us all.”
“Not to be insensitive, but how’d they catch a vampire anyway?” Zac asked.
“There are ways, although the most common method I’ve seen over the years is hunters overwhelming vampires with sheer numbers,” Adrian replied.
“She also could have been young and gullible. Joe’s aware of the supernatural, and if he approached her with knowledge of what she was, she could have come with him for a sip to drink and a safe place to crash until nightfall. ”
Emma made a quiet sound behind him. “They laughed while they did it. They thought she deserved it. It took… it took hours.”
“C’mon, Emma. Let’s go back downstairs.” River curled an arm around her shoulders and guided her away. Adrian watched, torn between following to offer his own comfort or completing the investigation.
Nearby, Zac found a box of bloodletting tools, painting a portrait of the horrors that had occurred in the attic. Adrian counted nine notches scraped into the wood beam, turning his stomach with nausea and grief that despite the Overseer presence, the hunters had still operated unchecked.
“So, we have a magician and a bunch of sadistic hunters willing to torture vamps. That still doesn’t tell us where they are now.” The werejaguar kicked the toolbox. “Hopefully, Harrison gets something useful on the computer.”
“Until then, we finish sweeping through the house and outside,” Adrian said.
They abandoned the attic and returned to the second floor. While they waited, they rummaged through the trash cans, searched through every drawer in the house, and rifled through old clothes in closets.
In the shed outside, Adrian discovered evidence of the gang manufacturing homemade bombs. They’d left behind a discarded detonator, kicked behind a gas can in the corner. Stacks of bagged fertilizer weren’t far away, abandoned beside the empty boxes of two pressure cookers. Zac’s nose was right.
“Hey,” Zacarias called from the kitchen, his booming voice drawing them from different parts of the property.
“What is it?” River asked.
“I found some stuff knocked under the table. They must have missed this during the rush to leave.”
Adrian stepped up to find Zacarias emptying a Party City bag filled with Mardi Gras beads and masks. A long receipt tucked inside accounted for more than the few items in the plastic bag.
River stepped up for a look. “Were they hosting a party?”
Emma frowned. “If they were, it’s cancelled now.”
By the time Thomas’s friend arrived, they had gone through everything else.
Adrian eyed the lean raven shifter but remained out of the man’s way, grateful Emma had convinced the local shifters to work with them at all.
Harrison didn’t ask many questions while Thomas brought him up to date with events.
Afterward, he went upstairs with his friend.
When the two returned downstairs, everyone gathered in the kitchen.
“Well? Did you get anything?” River asked.
Harrison nodded. “Some, yeah. It was sloppy work. They had no real clue what they were doing, is what I’m going to guess. Good for us, bad for them.”
“And? What did you find?” Emma prompted him to continue.
“Lots of porn, some recent transaction receipts, and a saved reservation for five rooms at the Holiday Inn in New Orleans. Check-in date is tomorrow. They’re rooming four people to a room, so you’re looking for a group of at least twenty.”
“That could explain the party stuff. It’s Mardi Gras season,” Zac said. “Though why they all felt the need to go down together to Louisiana seems odd. Do vampires flock to the area or something for the tourists?”
Emma shrugged. “It’s an ideal hunting ground, plus the added benefit of actual nighttime things to do.”
“New Orleans is also a magical hotspot,” River said. “A bunch of leylines converge there. If he has to perform some sort of ritual, then it would be a logical place to go. Sariel would have directed him.”
“But you once told me there are lots of leylines across the States,” Zacarias pointed out. “So why New Orleans in particular?”
It couldn’t be time for the Decennial Blueblood Gala.
Could it? Shit. Abruptly, Adrian jerked upright, spine straight and tall as he fished out his phone.
“Dammit. Let me check something.” He tapped the e-mail icon.
After swiping down through the cluttered list of spam, order receipts, and personal correspondence, he found the invitation.
Emma moved in close and set her hand on his arm. “What is it?”
“Every decade, the elder vampires like to host a gathering. It’s an opportunity to exchange information and—”
“Party like gluttons,” she interrupted him. “Don’t pretend anything noble occurs at those functions. We hosted one at Rosenhaven five decades ago, and I served drinks at the bar all night.”
Thomas snorted. “What, is it like a vampire high school reunion?”
Adrian frowned down at his touchscreen. “I suppose. Anyway, I received an invitation two months ago, but I declined and thought nothing further of it. They’re meeting in New Orleans this year. Tomorrow night.”
Emma’s eyes widened with understanding. “And the hunters are going to be in New Orleans too. Adrian, we have to warn them. We have to let them know there are hunters on the way.”
“I’ll call Heloise. Excuse me a moment.” He stepped away and dialed up the Overseer. The first attempt went to her inbox, so he hung up and dialed again. On the third attempt, Heloise picked up the line and huffed in irritation.
“Always so persistent. Adrian, I told you I cannot help—”
“A large team of hunters are planning to strike the Blueblood Gala.”
After an initial pause, Heloise’s brief silence ended with her exchanging rapid words in Russian with Antonin. “What evidence do you have?”
“Vampire remains in the attic, receipts for a hotel in New Orleans, some Mardi Gras accessories. That and there’s a matter of the magician who set Emmaleigh on fire with a daylight spell.”
“One magician would never step foot within the vicinity of the party. It would be suicide.”
“The reservations are for at least twenty people. And don’t forget they have a fallen angel, an invaluable source of intelligence and raw power.
They also have an arsenal of incendiary rounds for their guns, enough stakes to impress Vlad the Impaler, and an unknown number of bombs they cooked up out here in the garage. They’re going to war, Heloise.”
She sighed. “Look, I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I’m saying it’ll be a hard case to convince the banquet sponsors to cancel the festivities. And the Council of Elders may not force them to do it either. You know how they are.”
“If you’re too stupid to live…”
“Exactly. Survival of the fittest vampires. Many of those who will be in attendance are not exactly an example of… courage and competency. They are soft and weak. Disposable.”
“If we can’t shut it down, we can at least get support. Knowing about their plans gives us the upper hand, Heloise. We can mount a good defense and prepare before they arrive.”
“You only know they are going to be there,” she pointed out. “Nothing about what they’re going to do.”
Adrian ground his teeth. “I told you they have a mage and enough ammunition to take on an army. What else do you need to know?”
The Overseer grunted. “Look, I will contact the champions assigned to the gathering, but all I can do is put them on alert. Hopefully, they will take the matter seriously.”
“Can you come down and assist?”
“No. Antonin and I finally have a lead on Margot, and I cannot afford to lose it. Emmaleigh’s remarks about refined tastes got us on the right track.
Even if I did abandon my mission, I would be days behind you and never make it in time.
The rest of the Overseers are scattered across the country.
I doubt any of them could get to you to be of much use unless they chartered their own plane. ”
And most vampires loathed flight, preferring to remain on the ground or to travel by boat.
“I’ll do what I can, but I can’t make any promises. I’m sorry. Goodbye, Adrian.”
“Thanks for whatever you can do.” He ended the call and frowned, frustrated with the entire situation. “We’re on our own.”
“No, you’re not.” River stepped forward. “I’m going with you.”
“River—”
The witch waved off her mate’s protest. “It’s not going to end with the vampires, Zac. They’ll come for us next, or maybe the shifters. It doesn’t matter who’s next on the chopping block when we’re all part of the same world.”
Thomas nodded. “She’s right. I’ll inform my father-in-law of the situation, and then I’ll go with you as well.”
“Your wives aren’t going to like you leaving,” Harrison mumbled. “Or waking them up at midnight to tell them you’re leaving.”
“Wives?” Adrian raised a brow.
“Yeah, he has two,” Zacarias answered for his friend.
Thomas cleared his throat. “Ceres and Emma—my Emma—will understand. In fact, I’ll have more trouble convincing them to stay home themselves.”
River chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll manage to convince them to stay home with the cubs.”
Adrian looked from face to face until he ended up on Emmaleigh.
She still looked too pale for his liking, but he admired the determination and strength in her eyes.
The hunters thought they had beaten her, but she’d returned stronger.
She turned her head and met his gaze, then reached over to hold his hand.
“Five of us—”
“Six,” Harrison corrected. “I may as well tag along too.”
“I don’t know if we need a raven—” Adrian began, only for the lean shapeshifter to raise a brow and interject.
“Don’t need a master illusionist who can perform aerial surveillance while retaining the ability to speak in his shifter form?”
“Harrison has hidden us from vampires before. That’s how good he is,” Zacarias said.
“I stand corrected,” Adrian admitted.
Thomas grinned and nudged his wiry friend with an elbow. “If you can hide us from their kind, you can hide us from a few squads of hunters with no problem.”
“Great. I’m all for teamwork and pooling our resources. We’re more likely to accomplish our goals together than we are apart, right?” River asked.
Despite the frustratingly impossible odds ahead of them, Adrian managed to grin. “That puts six of us against twenty of them and a fallen angel. Piece of cake, right?”