Chapter 21
Leandro
As I continued to listen in, I could tell it was heading toward a fight, but this guy also hadn’t told Anais what was going on, or why she had been brought there. It was almost as if he was stalling for time. But for what reason?
I pulled out my phone and tapped a quick message to Petros, hoping that he would have eyes on some other activity and let him know the four were together, all right, but something was going on. Hopefully he would be able to help out with this or find some answers.
At the same time, I considered going back around to where he was and keeping an eye out from there.
Or tracking some other scents. I couldn’t stay out here much longer either.
The sun would be up soon, and as much as I was able to be out in it, it would make getting off the veranda without being seen a lot harder.
Right now, I had to decide. Did I stay here in case Anais needed me, or go to figure out what was wrong with this? She had her ring, her weapons and her team. I’d made sure she was as protected as I could without going in there myself.
Hearing her continue to talk made me hope that I could get back around to the front door before anything happened. I was going to have to be quick.
Hoping I wasn’t making the wrong decision, I left the veranda, hurrying from one to another on my way back toward my own room until I was in my suite.
I was most of the way through my suite when my phone buzzed. I grabbed it, knowing only Petros or my uncle would be messaging me right now. It was Petros.
Something is happening on this end. A vampire came running out and there’s sounds of fighting inside.
I swore and froze, not sure if I should go back the way I came and in the more surprising entrance, especially as it was open, or the other way and around the front.
Back the way I’d come was the shorter route, which was the only factor for me to truly consider. I hurried again, using as much speed as I dared when I knew I really needed to be quiet.
Although Anais had her whole team, there were enough vampires in with her that they would have to fight. I didn’t know if they could keep them at bay, but Petros wasn’t going to rush in, that was sure.
I hoped Petros would know to stay there and keep an eye out at least. He would have no desire to come into the fight, but he was still part of this team and hadn’t abandoned Anais when she’d needed him most.
Knowing I could trust him was a huge weight off my mind, but I still had to get back to Anais. She needed me more.
By the time I was back on the veranda, I could hear the fighting as well, but I didn’t get toward the door before there was a strange shimmer on the opposite wall and a vampire walked right through it. He kept his arm in the wall and three more vampires came through with him.
I raised an eyebrow, not saying a word and waiting to see what they did.
Was this what the relic let them do? The vampire who had appeared first also didn’t speak, studying me as I studied him.
He was blond, appearing more Scandinavian than the rest of us, and he wore a suit well.
It didn’t hide the muscles that seemed to fit his broad shoulders far better than mine fit me.
“Who are you?” I asked, keeping my voice down. I knew it was unlikely to matter if I was heard inside the room now, but I couldn’t hear fighting coming from inside there either, not loudly, anyway.
“I could ask you the same question, but I believe I already know. You’re with the vampire hunter and her naive team.”
“They’re far from naive,” I replied, not seeing any point in hiding that I knew Anais.
The vampire had three companions with him, and I could sense the stronger power they had. The vampire in front of me took his arm out of the wall and I caught the flash of something metallic and sparkling on his wrist in the morning light. He definitely had the relic.
“Are you going to answer my question?” I asked, still hearing the quiet in the room beside and hoping it was a good sign. I also desperately wanted to message Petros and ask if he was still clear and safe on the other side.
“About who I am? No, Leandro. I think you need to understand exactly what is going on here. You are not in any position to ask questions. Especially if you want your friends to live. They are your friends, correct?”
I lifted an eyebrow and tensed. These were still turned and I was Brethren, but they knew my name and they were a lot stronger, with a relic that allowed them to go through matter as they chose. This was a predicament and I needed to react correctly.
“What they are shouldn’t matter to you,” I replied as I tried to nonchalantly put my hands in my pockets to press the speed dial button on my phone and call Petros. “I think we should have a little conversation, though.”
The vampire chuckled. “You still sound like you think you’re in control of this, Leandro. You’re really not.”
I tilted my head to the side, knowing that I wasn’t about to put up with just about anything, no matter what they tried to tell me. I planned on being as difficult as possible. “So you keep telling me. But a single relic doesn’t make you invincible.”
Despite my words, I suspected there must be another in play. The sun was coming up and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Daywalking had clearly been passed to them to at least some degree. It could mean that a powerful Brethren from our clan was behind them, but that was even more worrying.
“Who said anything about a single relic?” they replied, confusing me even more. Unless they were bluffing and trying to throw me off whatever was truly happening here.
“So go on, then,” I said. “You seem to want to gloat about what you know and I don’t. Enlighten me. Enjoy your moment. What do you think you’ve achieved here that I’ve missed?”
The vampire didn’t laugh at this, or do as I’d asked. Instead, he studied me again.
“Or, I dunno, give me your name. Let me know the name of the vampire who has bested me so thoroughly. Surely you want to tell me that, at least.”
“You assume that I’m the person in charge of all this.”
“You’re the one in charge of everyone here, correct?” I asked, getting the feeling that I was going to have to pull the information out of this vampire by cunning or force. He wasn’t going to just give it to me. Not today.
The man nodded. “I am. But that’s no different to you, is it? You don’t lead your clan.”
“No clan leader would wade in to deal with riff-raff.”
This time the vampire chuckled again. And he still hadn’t given me his name. “You think we’re just riff-raff?”
“You’ve given me no indication otherwise.
Not even a name for me to know if I’ve heard of you or you’re just a footnote in the grand vampire world.
‘Cause I assure you, I’m not. If you know who I am, you know the level of power I possess.
Relics or not, you’d have to be aware of what I’m capable of if you attack. ”
“I’m Fabio,” he said, setting his jaw.
I’d finally gotten under his skin. “So, Fabio, are you finally going to tell me what it is I don’t understand?”
The vampire sighed. “You and your little girlfriend and her team. All of you are here for the same reason and because we wanted you to be here. The relic is... unimportant.”
I tried to hide the frown I wanted to express. This wasn’t what I expected him to say. And he was studying me still to see if my reaction was what he expected.
“And you think we didn’t know that part?” I said, deciding to throw out a reaction he might not be expecting.
His eyebrow flicked up so briefly that most wouldn’t have noticed it. “You walked right into our trap.”
“But is it really a trap if we knew about it and came here anyway?” I replied. “Are you sure that you’ve factored in every element?”
Again, he reacted, far less schooled in his responses.
This conversation wasn’t going the way he hoped, but I was mostly bluffing at this point.
We had talked about this being a trap for Anais, but not for all of us.
I’d gone to great lengths to pretend I was someone else.
Even if they’d thought I was Drew and involved with Anais, they shouldn’t have known I was Leandro.
All that was an indicator that this trap had been sprung by someone much higher up. Could it be a Brethren from inside the clan who wanted to try to take over the leadership of the clan?
“You’re not going to get out of this trap,” Fabio said. “If you’d known what you think you do, you wouldn’t have come here.”
I chuckled at this, the words cheesy and cliche, even if they were true. “And what makes you so sure that I can’t combat that either? Are you done being coy yet? You’re harder to get information out of than it is to get a nun to open her legs while the abbot’s around.”
“You’ve been set up, Leandro. The footage we’ve got from you so far, and a little help from an editor or two, will make all this look like you’re plotting against the academy and the Brethren. You’ve teamed up to take out both and ensure your line of vampires can do as you please.”
The laugh that bubbled up inside me at the absurdity of this couldn’t be contained. “There’s no way that anyone in their right mind is going to believe that we are that stupid. End the academy and the Brethren at the same time? You’ve got to be kidding me!”
I shook my head as I calmed myself down. The four vampires in front of me were staring at me like I had lost my mind.
“You’re all serious?” I asked, beginning to look at him and take in his expression.
He nodded.
This time I did let my reaction show. “You really think that’s going to work?”
He shrugged. “Not my problem, one way or another. It’s yours.
We’ve got everything we need. By the end of this day the academy and Brethren will all have seen evidence that you and your little hunter team will have been plotting against them.
Of course, there’s always people who might believe it’s a setup, but you know that even one person believing it can cause problems.”
Although he had a point, I knew it was a problem for another day.
I still planned on completing my mission if I could.
I didn’t expect my uncle to be one of the people who fell for this.
Fabio was right that some people would, but as long as it wasn’t my uncle, I still had a mission and needed to complete it.
And if he doubted, but I got the relic as he’d asked, it might help alleviate his worries and fix this. I knew there was only one course of action. The same one we were on.
I had to get the relic off Fabio and worry about everything else later.
“All right,” I said, knowing there wasn’t a lot more to say and I would have to think quickly.
“It seems like we’re done here, doesn’t it?
You’ve got the footage you needed, we’ve worked out who has the relic and this whole situation is over.
Why don’t we go inside, out of this sun, before we all get much more uncomfortable? ”
The vampire tilted his head and his eyebrow twitched up again. Once again, I had surprised him.
I was about to open the door into the room, deciding to end this ridiculous conversation and fairly sure that Fabio would follow when the door opened anyway. Two vampires came rushing out holding the dead body of another. One of Naomi’s crossbow bolts was sticking out of its chest.
Instead of going toward the room, I could only go toward Fabio to let them chuck the body over the balcony. Taking advantage of the moment, I hurried out of their way, making it seem like I didn’t want to get in the way, or get too close to the dead body.
Fabio appeared to be just as surprised.
“How many are dead?” Fabio asked. “And who killed them?”
“My vampire-hunter team,” I replied, looking over at him with a grin. Although I couldn’t answer the other question, I was pleased to see some dead bodies, but Fabio’s face was the opposite. He looked as if he could murder someone.
Despite shifting to try to get in his way, he activated the relic and walked through my arm and the wall into the room. His minions hurried after him, so I beat the last one to it and ran through after him.
If Fabio thought quickly, this could go really badly for me and the minion behind. But would he sacrifice another vampire to save me, when the strongest reaction he’d expressed so far was to finding Anais and her team had killed some of his turned?
Either way, it wouldn’t be long until I found out.