26. Maria #2
“Think. Where in the hell are we getting two hundred bags?” He checks the pantry again.
Each box of clone blood holds twelve pouches.
He takes out a box with half the contents left and shows it to me.
“This is all we have. The renegades didn’t realize what the pouches contained.
Even if I offered Tucson and Phoenix everything we have in the warehouse, there’s not enough time for them to get donors scheduled and processed for that many donations that fast.”
“Tig can ask the Lux.”
“They don’t have that kind of stockpile.”
The flash alarm rings.
I spin around to see Tig and scream my frustration over the noise. “Now the dang alarm goes off?”
Chris races to shut off the flash alarm, then he returns to me. “It’s on a separate system than the entry doors.”
Tig nods at us. “Still doesn’t explain how they got through the garage without triggering an alarm. But we’ll find out.”
Two other men stride in from the hallway. They’re armed to the hilt.
“Zeke, Colin”—Tig sweeps a hand from the two men to us—“this is Chris and Maria. Go guard the tunnel entrance while I speak with them. If the renegades saw Chris and Maria return, they may double back. If you need more backup, call for it—don’t wait for my approval.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they say in unison, and sprint back to the garage.
“Emergency services said the renegades took Zinnia,” Tig says.
“They left a note.” I rush to Zinnia’s bedroom and return with the kidnappers’ ransom demand.
Tig takes a moment to read it. “Why didn’t her preschool see what happened and report it?”
I clear my throat. “Today’s a national holiday in India.” Tears fill my eyes again. “I knew we shouldn’t have gone. I just knew.”
Chris strokes my back. “Tig, how many clone blood pouches can you deliver?”
She eyes him like he’s insane. “You two want to pay the ransom?”
My breath hitches, but I manage to choke out an answer. “We have to give them what they want to get my baby girl back.”
“Did you read this closely? Nothing says they’ll release her. They’ll just keep her and demand more.”
I tug at my hair as I pace, panic racing through my veins. “We have to do something. We can’t let them hurt my baby.” Tears drip down my face again. “If they do anything to her, I swear, none of them will live—”
Tig grips me by the arm. “Sit. We’re going to talk this through.
” She guides me to a seat at the dining table, points at Chris to take another chair, then sits across from us.
“Before the Collapse, paying the ransom rarely resulted in the victim’s release.
After the development of AI-generated video, we couldn’t rely on video for proof of life.
But if these are the renegades who attacked you, I doubt they have access to that sort of technology. ”
“They have access to an advanced plasma cutter,” Chris grumbles under his breath.
I rub my hands over my face. “I don’t understand.”
Tig holds up the ransom note. “The kidnapping wasn’t planned. They had no way of knowing in advance that Zinnia lived here.”
I cross my arms. “She was in the truck when they attacked—twice.”
“Did they see her?”
“Uh, I doubt it,” Chris says. “The seat back on the old truck was taller than her.”
“I rest my case. The kidnapping was spur of the moment. Disorganized. They’ve had no time to make plans to fake proof of life.” Tig furrows her brow. “Chris, how many renegades do you think are still operating in this area?”
He sighs. “Hard to tell. There were about twenty who attacked the truck. My guess is we killed at least six of them, if not more, with the explosion plus the two I shot. I figured the survivors would still be licking their wounds. But for all we know, they split their numbers into multiple groups trying to track us, so the twenty we fought may only be a small portion of them.”
“Give me a moment.” Tig clicks her tongue, then switches to virtual video and speaker, so we see the emergency operator. “Put me through to IT.”
“Ari’s on assignment tonight and can’t be reached.”
“I know that. Get me someone as sharp as he is. We need data crunched. And quickly. A child’s life depends on it.”
“One moment, please.”
A woman appears on screen. “Hello. This is Willow.” I’ve learned enough from Chris to recognize the emblem she wears on her t-shirt.
The ivory-colored wings identify her as Lux, and her shoulder-length hair is dyed—or morphed—turquoise on one side, and lavender on the other.
“I understand you require IT assistance.”
“This is Commander Tig Anderson, in charge of our joint police forces. We’ve had a kidnapping in Arizona. A mortal child under treaty protection. Kidnappers got into Chris Atherton’s preservation dome. I want to know how. His ark has entry alarms. None were triggered.”
Before Tig finishes, Willow is doing something off-screen. “The code was punched in at seven forty-five tonight, local time. They tried three times. Got it right on the third.”
“Fuck!” Chris leans over clutching his stomach.
“The idiot before me used this area’s pre-Collapse zip code.
I knew I should have changed the code when I arrived.
I started the process and learned the programmer was on vacation.
I left a message and forgot to try again when central programming didn’t get back to me. ”
I grip his arm. “What do you mean? What’s a zip code?”
Tig gestures for silence. “He can explain later. But it confirms our suspicions. Only pre-Collapse vampires from around here would likely know that code.”
“I thought you said they were all post-Collapse.”
“I said they were most likely post-Collapse. We may have assumed wrong.” Tig turns to the virtual screen. “Willow, we suspect renegades have been illegally trading with the Tucson and Phoenix domes. Is there any way to confirm?”
Willow’s eyes glaze over as she glances away from the camera.
“The blood bag dispensers. They have an automatic counter. Your people in the preservation arks log the number of donor bags they receive and the goods traded daily. I can check the resource management database.” She swings around to face us again.
“Give me a few moments to run a comparison of our numbers against the machine’s.
I should be able to locate any unaccounted trades. ”
While we wait, Chris puts his arms around me and snugs me against his shoulder, but I can still see the virtual monitor.
Willow glances up at the camera. “One hundred extra donor blood bags are unaccounted for each week, more or less.”
“Dammit,” Tig growls. “Why didn’t we know this already?”
“No one has asked us to run the comparison before. You know how the councils avoid stepping on each other’s toes.
Renegades are vampires and under the purview of the vampire council, first and foremost.” Willow gets a frustrated look on her face.
“And the vampire council is always procrastinating. They don’t want to do anything about the renegade problem, and they can’t find their fangs even when buried in a vein. ”
Chris has explained the Lux’s frustration with the vampire council before. They’re one of three governing bodies, and when they can live forever, no decision seems urgent.
Tig sighs, and her shoulders slump. “Thank you, Willow. Please send me your report when you have it formatted.”
“Will do.”
Willow disappears, as does the virtual screen.
“Okay. Let me think.” Tig props her forehead on her palm.
“If they have blood slaves and are receiving a hundred donor bags a week, that could keep sixty vampires on a starvation diet, or twenty fed marginally. So we have a basic idea of the numbers we’re dealing with.
But they asked for two hundred bags off the top.
So I bet their numbers are on the higher side. ”
“Minus the twelve in total we’ve killed since I rescued Maria and Zinnia”—Chris tilts his hand back and forth—“more or less.”
“Yeah. So here’s what we do. Give them one hundred pouches—half of what they asked for. Then demand proof of life and a face-to-face meeting with their leaders. I’ll start working on getting the ten boxes.”
Chris shakes his head vehemently. “If you’re not giving them their full ask, you’re going in with a SWAT team tonight—”