Chapter 39
39
T wenty-five minutes after Milo’s phone call, Cole sat in the back of one of the blackout vans. Gabriel, who sat next to him, shoved his cell phone back into his pocket.
“The police have blocked off the streets around the building, advising motorists and pedestrians that there’s a dangerous gas leak. No civilians are allowed in the area. Press helicopters are also banned.”
“But what if the vampires in the building notice that there’s suddenly no traffic going by?” Cole asked. “Won’t they get suspicious?”
“No, because there will be traffic. We’ve dispatched a couple dozen of our Vuber drivers to drive back and forth on these streets instead. And I’ve arranged for a little distraction,” Gabriel promised.
Cole was surprised at how quickly Scanguards had gotten ready to come to the hybrids’ aid. Two dozen vampires, women and men, had put on full-body Kevlar suits that covered every inch of their body, then added a large helmet that made sure their head wouldn’t be exposed to the rays of the sun. In their gloved hands, the vampires carried guns. When Cole had seen them the first time, he’d assumed they were toy guns, because they looked like they were made of black plastic. But according to Gabriel they were deadly to a vampire.
“Are you sure those guns will kill the vampires?” Cole asked, pointing at the weapon in Gabriel’s hand.
“Trust me, the UV-rays they emit will turn any unprotected vampire to dust in seconds.” He pointed to one of the other vampires in the van. “Isn’t that right, Luther?”
Luther nodded. “We use the same guns at the vampire prison in Grass Valley, though I recently made a little adjustment to the ones Scanguards has.” He winked. “They have a little more power behind them, but they need to be recharged more often.”
“You mean they’re gonna run out of juice in the middle of the fight?” Cole asked, alarmed.
“Doubt it,” Luther claimed.
“Team one and two, to the front entrance. Team three and four, to the alley.” Samson’s voice came through the earpiece everybody wore, even Cole.
He was also wearing a bullet-proof vest, but no helmet. There hadn’t been enough equipment to dress him in the same fashion as the vampires. Cole didn’t mind. The Kevlar suits looked heavy, and would make it hard for him to move. The vampires didn’t seem to be worried about the weight of their uniform. Gabriel and Luther put the visors of their helmets down, as did the other two vampires in the van. One of them slid the side door open, and one by one, they exited the van.
Gabriel’s team was assigned to the alley entrance of the building. From the blueprints they’d studied before leaving HQ, they knew that the building the hybrids were held in also had exits to the main street, but on that side, there was no garage door, meaning if Milo’s men wanted to escape during daytime, they could only do so from the alley side, leaving in one of their vans.
Scarlet, Naomi, and Anita were in one of the other vans, making sure that the hybrids knew when to expect the rescue team, and informing the rescue team of the goings-on in the building. The drones were still in the air, but wouldn’t be much help once the Scanguards teams entered the building.
“Cole, stay behind us at all times,” Gabriel cautioned.
With a nod, Cole acknowledged the demand and followed the six vampires who crossed the street, looking like a military special ops team. He glanced at the cars on the street, and noticed that they stopped without complaining to let them cross unimpeded. In their windshields, he noticed a red V sticker. This had to be the Vuber drivers Gabriel had mentioned, and he now realized what they were: a driving service for vampires.
Arriving at the entrance to the alley, onto which the van carrying Vanessa had disappeared, Cole’s heart was pounding out of control. Despite the fact that Scanguards was clearly experienced in operations like this, he was worried. Too much could go wrong.
Vanessa listened for any sounds coming from the outside of the building. She knew from Ryder that Scanguards was on their way, but there hadn’t been occasion to talk in detail about what they were planning, because some of Milo’s henchmen were too close to the chained hybrids, and could overhear their conversations. They couldn’t risk tipping them off. Everything depended on the element of surprise.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Milo had made his demand. Everybody on the ground floor had heard him speak to Samson. Was the hour nearly up? She felt her heart beat faster. While they were all chained to the big iron rings on the floor, they were sitting ducks. Their kidnappers were carrying weapons, and she was sure that they were loaded with silver bullets.
Vanessa’s ears suddenly perked up. She heard a sound of metal scratching against something. The sound was coming from somewhere near the doors to the alley. Her gaze snapped to the two vampires who were guarding the hybrids, and she realized that they had heard something too. Fuck! She couldn’t allow them to go to the door and investigate the sound.
Making a spit-second decision, she lifted her hands and rose. “Excuse me, hey,” she said loudly, addressing the two vampires.
Both snapped their heads in her direction, instantly alert, raising their weapons slightly.
“Sit down!” one of them ground out.
“I’m sorry, really sorry,” Vanessa continued. “But I have to pee.” She crossed her legs to pretend that it was urgent. “There must be a restroom somewhere in here. Please.”
“You’re gonna have to hold it!”
The other vampire let his fangs extend and snarled in her direction. She pretended to feel frightened and gasped loudly, drowning out the scratching sound from the door. She was certain now that somebody was picking the lock.
“I’m sorry,” she added, just as loudly, and raised her arms in surrender. “It’s just that I drank a lot of coffee this morning.”
“Fucking hybrids!” the vampire griped. “Serves you right for eating human food!”
“Now sit down!” the other guard added.
Slowly, Vanessa dropped down next to Patrick, exchanging a brief look with him. A second later, there was a sound of a siren approaching. It came from the front of the building that was abutting the main road.
Several of the vampires ran in that direction, calling commands out to each other, when someone from the stairs that led up to the second floor called out, “It’s a fire truck.”
Milo came running and headed to the stairs, while the siren was still wailing outside. “What’s it doing?”
A second passed, before the answer came. “It stopped on the other side of the street. Looks like there’s smoke coming from the building across.”
Vanessa exchanged a clandestine glance with Ryder, who nodded confidently. This was the diversion. She felt her body tense. It was time.
The door was pushed open an instant later, and all hell broke loose. A man in a full-body Kevlar suit entered, his head hidden behind a helmet with a reflecting visor. From the gun in his hand, a strong ray of light was emitted. It hit the vampire closest to the hybrids with full blast, vaporizing him in less than a second. Behind the Kevlar-clad men, others swarmed the building. The next ray of the UV-gun turned the second guard into dust. The kidnappers were screaming, running for cover and reaching for their weapons.
When she saw a movement in the corner of her eye, Vanessa’s gaze shot to the stairs. She caught sight of Milo who, instead of running upstairs, went around the staircase to the area where the vans were parked. He disappeared behind them, and she lost sight of him.
Following the first team of Scanguards rescuers, who now moved deeper into the building, several other figures also clad in Kevlar, came running, carrying shields. Vanessa recognized them as the kind of shields the police used for crowd control.
The vampires entering with the shields rushed to the area where the hybrids were tied up and shielded them to protect them from the kidnappers in case they could get off a shot to hurt or kill one of the hostages.
Vanessa let her gaze roam, and noticed that more Kevlar-clad rescuers were entering from the front of the building where the firetruck was still parked and making noise. They too were armed with UV-ray guns and now attacked the kidnappers from the other side, herding them into a corner where Milo’s men managed to hide behind old machinery. There was no escape from that corner. Even though Milo’s henchmen shot at the Scanguards staff, their bullets didn’t penetrate the Kevlar suits.
Meanwhile, two more Kevlar-clad vampires entered, both of them equipped with bolt cutters, blocking her view of the goings-on in the building. As fast as they could, they cut through the hybrids’ chains and handcuffs. Vanessa was one of the first to be freed. She rose to her feet, when she saw Cole. He wore a bullet-proof vest, but no other protection, though he had a handgun in his hand.
“Cole!” she called out to him, running toward him.
Before she reached him, her gaze fell onto the stairs again, and she was reminded of the vampires that were hiding on the second floor.
“Dad! Orlando! Amaury!” she yelled in the direction of the biggest vampires. When two of them turned their heads to her, she pointed to the stairs. “There are more of them upstairs.”
With a quick nod, three of them now rushed toward the stairs, while two others hurried to the stairs at the other side of the building. Relieved, Vanessa turned to Cole. He was only a couple of feet away from her, and now pulled her into his arms.
“I was so worried,” he said and squeezed her to him.
“It’s too dangerous for you here.” Vanessa freed herself from his embrace and grabbed him by his arm. “You need to get out of here. There are more vampires upstairs.”
She pulled him with her as she headed for the door. From the corner of her eye, she noticed that her Kevlar-clad colleagues were still firing UV-rays at the remaining vampires who had barricaded themselves behind some machinery and were firing wildly in the direction of their enemies.
When a bullet whizzed past her, hitting one of the blacked-out windows overlooking the alley, she pushed Cole down toward the ground, guessing that more bullets were coming. As she covered Cole and raised her head to see which way was safest to escape, she saw somebody’s legs between the parked vans. She recognized the tacky purple cowboy boots instantly: Milo.
“Shit!”
“You hurt?” Cole asked, turning his head to cast her a worried glance.
“No.” She pointed in the direction of the vans. “Milo is trying to escape.”
“Fuck!” Cole cursed. “We’ve gotta stop him.”
Vanessa let her eyes roam to assess the situation. The vampires who’d come in with the police shields were already ushering the unarmed hybrids out of the building, because without weapons and protective clothing, they could still become a casualty to the remaining rogues who were still fighting. Several members of Scanguards’ rescue team were on the second floor, and by the sounds coming from there, they were fighting with Milo’s men who’d tried to hide upstairs.
The vans in between which Milo was hiding, were cutting off Vanessa’s direct line of sight to the corner from where several of Milo’s men were shooting at the Scanguards staff. They wouldn’t hear her now, the noise too loud.
“Cole, give me your gun,” Vanessa demanded. “I’ll stop Milo. You stay here.”
“Fat chance,” Cole protested. “I’m wearing a bullet-proof vest. You’re not. I’ll get him.”
Cole already rushed toward the vans.
“Fuck!” she cursed and went after him. As she ran, she saw a wooden stake on the ground, lying amid ash, the remains of one of the rogue vampires. She picked it up quickly. She reached Cole where he was pressing himself to the back of one of the vans, his gun raised, trying to look past it to see where Milo was. Vanessa gritted through her teeth, “Stubborn idiot!”
“Yeah, well, get used to it.” Cole bridged the distance between this van and the next, then stopped there, while Vanessa followed him. Again, he cast a glance past the corner of the van. “Fuck!”
Cole didn’t have to tell her why he cursed, because Vanessa saw it too. The engine of the van next to the one they were hiding behind was running. The brake lights were illuminated. Milo was already in the van.
“Shoot the tires,” Vanessa advised.
“Good idea.” Cole shot the left back tire, then aimed for the front one, deflating this one too.
Vanessa heard a sound coming from the van. Somebody was opening the door, but it wasn’t the driver’s door.
“He’s trying to get out the passenger side,” she whispered to Cole. “I’ll go around the back.”
“Wait, you’re not armed.”
She lifted her hand, showing him the wooden stake. She could see Cole’s displeasure.
“Damn it. You’ll have to get too close to him to use that.”
“Distract him.” Without waiting for his reply, she peered around the corner of the van Milo had just left. The passenger door was still open, but Milo was nowhere to be seen. “Fuck!”
Her eyes shot to the front of the van, when she saw movement there. She saw the muzzle of a handgun, and ducked, when she heard a sound to her left. The side door of the van slid open loudly. In her crouching position, she took a split second too long to whirl around and rise. Milo jumped onto her, the impact making her lose her stake, her back slamming against the other van. A shot rang out, and the window of the van shattered into a thousand pieces, but Cole’s bullet had missed its target.
She caught Cole’s horrified look as he aimed again, but didn’t shoot. She knew why: she and Milo were moving too fast, trading blows and punches. One hard strike sent her reeling, while Milo’s gun went off, before it dropped to the ground. She blinked, and realized that Cole wasn’t at the front of the van anymore. Had the bullet hit him? Panic surged through her as she lost her balance. Before she could crash to the ground, and Milo could pick up his gun, somebody pushed her out of the way.
In the next instant, she saw Cole. He pulled her back toward the protection of the other van, while a Kevlar-clad vampire squeezed past her, his UV-ray gun pointed at Milo. She saw him pull the trigger, but no UV-light ray fired at Milo.
“Fuck!” He tossed the UV-ray gun to the ground, and reached into a pocket.
Milo fired his gun, and while he hit his Kevlar-clad opponent, the bullet didn’t penetrate the suit. Vanessa saw the wooden stake in her colleague’s hand. Milo fired again, and shrank back, but the open passenger door prevented his escape.
“I should have killed you thirty-seven years ago.” She recognized Thomas’s voice now. “Better late than never.” He lifted his arm and plunged the stake into Milo’s heart.
A second later, ash rained onto the ground, and Milo’s gun and several metal items hit the floor. Thomas turned around and lifted his visor. At the same time, Vanessa realized that it had gotten quiet in the building.
“It’s over,” Thomas said, his voice flat.
“You saved my life, Thomas. Thank you.” Vanessa let out a sigh of relief, and turned to look at Cole, who was crouching on the floor with her. She squeezed him. “Are you hurt?”
He shrugged. “Just a few bruises. Nothing your blood won’t heal.”
For the first time in hours, Vanessa smiled. “You scared me. You should have stayed at HQ.”
“That’s what your father said too. And I wasn’t afraid of displeasing him either,” Cole claimed. “So, guess what. I’m not afraid of you punishing me for disobeying your orders.” He smirked. “In fact, I’m looking forward to it.”
She boxed him gently in his shoulder. “You’re such an idiot.”
“Yeah, but you love me nevertheless.”
“Can’t argue with that.” She brought her lips to his and kissed him. “Let’s go home.”