Flight from Hell (7 page)

She cleared her throat and began to read from the scroll.

“Alex, I imagine you didn't expect to hear from me after all these years. In fact, my guess is that you thought I'd forget all about what you did to Glory and, by default, to me. But unlike you, I have a long memory. And I intend to make you pay for every insult you sent my way, from fucking my wife to being responsible for my death.

“To wit: I have kidnapped your lovely protégée. If you do not deliver yourself over to me by midnight tomorrow night—November fourth—I will turn the dragon into a vampire and send her after you and everyone you know. And if there's one thing I've learned about you, you don't like blood on your hands. Not my kind of blood. Directions will follow tomorrow evening. Obey them. You know I'm not joking. ~J.”

***

Alex hung his head. “He's really here, and he has Shimmer. We have to find her. I've done some reckless and stupid things in my life, and will probably do so again, but one thing I won't abide is innocents being hurt because of my actions.” He glanced at us. “Will you help me, girls?”

Without a word, we nodded. Shimmer was in the hands of a ruthless vampire, who was also making himself anathema in the vampire community. We had ample reason to go after him. And only one night in which to discover his whereabouts. The thought of what a dragon-vamp could do in Seattle was terrifying. Shimmer could, even with limited powers, wreak havoc that we might not be able to counter.

“Okay then,” I said. “Let's activate that homing device. And we'd better hope we get to Julian before he gets to us.”

First things first. Alex needed to return to his office to retrieve the sensor that would indicate when we were near Shimmer. “It's not precisely the same as a GPS—it won't tell us exactly where she is, but when we're within a mile, it will begin to flicker with a blue light. A steady light means we're within a thousand yards, and the brighter it gets, the closer we are.”

“What good did the Wing Liege think that would be? It's not much more than a glorified Trace spell.” Camille shook her head.

“I don't know. It's better than nothing, I guess. And since she can't return to the Dragon Reaches, she's soil–bound and can't plane shift. Thank gods for small favors, right?”

I let out a little growl. “We also need to find out where Julian's hiding his vampire club. He's behind both of these problems, and finding him means putting a stop to the rogue attacks going on. At least we know who's behind them now. Small favors, I guess.”

I didn't feel comfortable staying in Shimmer's house even one more minute, but considering that Bette had said Shimmer talked about meeting Julian online, the next step was to search her laptop. Ralph had set it up for her, so he knew her password and was able to log in without a problem. He pulled up her e-mail and, with me watching over his shoulder, began to sift through the letters.

Apparently Shimmer had taken to shopping online, that much was apparent, and she also subscribed to several Supe e-letters. There wasn't much else there, except one folder labeled JE.

Alex let out a muttered curse. “That's got to be him. Julian Eichmann. His last name was Eichmann.”

As I watched over Ralph's shoulder, he flipped through the e-mails in the file. There were at least thirty of them, and we started with the oldest first, which was dated two weeks ago. One thing became clear in the first few letters—Julian was representing himself as a Were,
not
as a vampire.

The letters were mostly a batch of get-to-know-you notes, the usual favorite movies, colors, foods, conversations. But Julian quickly stepped up the pace and it became obvious that he'd done research on Shimmer. Either that or he truly was psychic—there were far too many coincidences in what they liked and believed.

“Normally, I'd look at these and say they were destined to find each other. But knowing what we do, it's obvious the freak has been stalking her. He targeted her from the start. Is there any indication as to how they met?” I straightened my shoulders and folded my arms across my chest. Sick fuck, he was.

Ralph quickly sorted through the remaining mail. “Looks like he placed a personals ad in the Supe Community Action Council newsletter. Hey—look what I found!” He turned around so quickly his glasses almost flew off his face.

I leaned back in again. The e-mail was brief and it was dated a week ago.

Hey, Shimmer—what say we meet, finally? There's a park close to your home, and it would be the perfect spot for a moonlit picnic—say 8:00 PM? I know you work nights but maybe you can go in a couple hours late? Please—I'd love to meet you and the idea of a blustery autumn picnic sounds so romantic.

Meet me at Severance Park. Don't let the entrance to the park throw you off—it only looks like a tangle from the outside. Once you get near the center, there's a lovely spot for a picnic, and a shelter that is protected from the rain. We can light a fire, have dinner. I'll bring everything. You just have to show up. Please say yes!

***

“Apparently, she did. I just checked her sent e-mail and she told him she'd meet him. That's the last note she received from him.” Ralph let out a long sigh. “I can't believe she fell for that guy before she ever laid eyes on him.”

“It happens all the time.” Camille shook her head. “So, she went there, met him, and . . .”

“And he charmed her,” Alex said. “I doubt if he fed from her, though. I would have known. In fact, I know exactly when this happened. She came into work a few hours late—she'd asked for permission and I gave it to her. She told me she had to visit a sick friend. When I spoke to her on the phone, she was pleasant—well, as pleasant as our interactions ever get. But when she showed up for work later that night, she acted like a surly snot-nosed brat. Bette even mentioned that she must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, or that she had the dragon equivalent to PMS or some such comment.”

“So he'd managed to start working on her psyche.” I frowned. “Obviously, his goal was to use her to kill you, but that didn't work, so he's changed plans and now he's using her to bring you to him.”

“I'm surprised he didn't think of that in the first place.” Alex frowned. “Maybe he did. Maybe she missed me on purpose. She didn't try again—and the woman is freakishly strong. Maybe we're playing into his plans right now. Julian loves head games. Except he didn't expect Carter to get involved. He probably expected Ralph and me to show up here in order to figure out what's been going on.”

“We can speculate all we like, but the fact is: his plan might be any any permutation of the possible answers. Whatever the case, if we have any luck at all on our side, Julian won't know that my sisters and I are helping you. He'll be expecting you and Ralph to track him down without outside aid. Let's see . . . he'll be expecting you to investigate the park—which we're going to do. But prepare for traps. Julian has played this out cunningly, from what I can tell.”

“Did you stop to think that he may have seen the rest of us here?” Delilah asked.

I thought about it, then shrugged. “Ten to one, whoever delivered the arrows wasn't Julian himself. He's bound to have lackeys, and he's been siring off vamps right and left. Chances are he sent somebody to do his dirty work for him. But whether they've reported back to him or not? I don't know.”

“What I want to know, is how did he know when we'd get here?” Alex asked.

That thought had also crossed my radar. But it seemed to me that Julian would have expected them to follow Shimmer home the night
before
, after her attack on Alex? So he should have had someone lying in wait here
then
if that was the case. I glanced around the room. Everything seemed in place, everything seemed normal.

“Maybe he bugged her house?” Camille began looking at the lamps.

The thought made a certain sense but . . . “Wait! Not a bug . . . no . . . what if . . .”

I jumped up and ran to the front door, opening it. The others followed me more slowly. I began to examine the lock. Sure enough, there were runes etched around the deadbolt. And that meant . . .

“Bingo! Julian set a spell to trigger once the door was opened. He kidnapped Shimmer after she had already broken it off with Carter, so it stands to reason nobody else was expected to enter the house until Ralph and Alex came to check on her. She probably told Julian that Ralph had a key, so he set the spell on the lock for when the key was turned and the door opened.” I motioned to Camille. “Take a look—can you tell if that's what happened?”

She knelt to look at the runes. “Sorcerer's tongue. I can't read them but I can tell that opening the door tripped the spell. You're probably right.”

“So the bottom line is, we have no clue whether Julian knows we're involved in the matter.” Delilah frowned. “I say we err on the side of caution and assume that he knows Alex has friends helping him. I'd rather go in overprepared rather than ill-equipped.”

I motioned for everyone to follow me outside. Alex locked the door behind him and we headed over by our cars. At the side of my Mustang, I turned to the others.

“It occurred to me there might be an audio element to that spell, so I didn't want to say any more in or near the house. Here's the plan: We'll go with you, but we're not waiting till tomorrow night. If we do, he'll be fully ready for us and we'll be in more danger. We'll go tonight to see if we can find her. Ralph, you go back to the agency. I hate to be a killjoy but you aren't prepared for a fight, dude.”

Ralph gave me a cockeyed grin. “Don't be so sure. I'm a werewolf, and I'm pretty damned strong in my wolf form.”

Alex let out a snort. “Ralph isn't your typical geek. Maybe blood sends him into a tailspin, but the boy can fight. Let him come. He's saved my ass more than once.”

I shrugged. Truth was, I'd halfway forgotten Ralph was a Were—he looked so much like a typical chiphead that I'd been thinking of him as an FBH—a full-blooded human.

“Sorry. My bad. So, we head to the park, and the two of you follow our directions. You willing to play this by our rules?”

Alex frowned. “I don't usually go into situations with anybody but members of my agency. But to be frank, I'm more used to investigations and paranormal showdowns than I am actual fights, though I've had plenty of those in my day. So yes, we'll play by your game. I'm responsible for Shimmer's welfare. My past put her in danger. I'm not turning up my nose at help.”

“After we stop at your agency to pick up the homing device, we'll head to the park. I'm pretty sure she'll be there. They seem to be filtering us in that direction. But chances are they'll have scouts, so we should park a block or two away and go in on foot. Everybody armed?”

Camille and Delilah nodded. Alex held up his knife. And Ralph surprised the hell out of me when he held up a pair of nun chucks. At my look, he let out a short bark of laughter.

“I was the runt of the Pack. I had to learn to defend myself. I know several forms of martial arts, and I can take down a three-hundred-pound man without blinking. If he bleeds, I might faint. But he'll be down by the time that happens.” He winked at me, and in that moment, I decided I liked him.

“Okay then, we're good to go. Everybody in, and you two follow us. Stay behind us. We don't want them seeing us pulling up to the park gates again.”

And with that, we were off again. After a quick stop at Fly By Night's building, we were off to Severance Park. The wind was raging now, along with the rain, and we were in for a long wet night of hunting in the dark.

***

Two blocks before we hit the park, I pulled over to the curb. This would give us plenty of leeway, and with the number of abandoned houses, chances are we could cross through backyards without being spotted from the sidewalk. And if some resident
did
manage to spot us, it would be unlikely they'd call the cops or come out to find out who the hell was passing through. The area didn't lend itself to sticking one's neck out.

Alex and Ralph pulled in behind us and Alex hurried up to our side. He held out a small device that was flickering with a pale blue. “She's within a mile of here. I can't keep this on longer than three hours, or the Wing Liege will be alerted, so let's move fast.”

“We figured they were keeping her nearby.”

We were standing on the sidewalk in front of a decrepit house with a F
OR
S
ALE
sign in the front yard. It looked abandoned, left behind by owners who probably had gone underwater when the housing bubble crashed, and who had long ago fled the yoke of trying to keep up with the mortgage.

I quietly organized us into a line of three groups—first would be Alex and myself. We were both vampires and it would be easier for us to see through the shadows and gloom. Then, Camille next to Ralph. Camille could keep an eye on him, and she still had room to prepare any spells that might be needed. Bringing up the rear was Delilah. She would guard our back.

Speaking in low tones, I whispered for them to follow me as I made my way through the front yard of the house for sale, and led them around back, into the gloom of what turned out to be a horribly overgrown tangle.

There were spiders everywhere and Delilah and Camille swore under their breaths as they pushed through the sticky webs. The wind wasn't helping, either. It was on a real tear now, and even though it drove the rain against us like a miserable shower of pellets, the fact was that it was also our ally—it covered our sounds except to the most astute of ears.

The backyard was fenced, but it didn't take much for me to scale and peek over into the next yard. The house had lights on inside, but the yard itself was shrouded in shadow and gloom, and I sensed nothing to raise an alarm. I leaned back down before dropping over the other side.

“Alex, help Camille, would you?” And then, I slipped up and over, landing on the grass below the rotting posts.

“Here you go, love. Upsy-daisy,” Alex cheerfully whispered from behind the wooden structure.

A moment later, Camille stared down uneasily from the top of the fence. She said nothing, but the look on her face told me she wasn't having all that much fun. Alex leaped up beside her, balancing her as she scrambled to swing first one leg over, then the other. He dropped down and helped her lower herself to the ground.

I motioned for her to hightail it into the shadows. Ralph followed, managing it on his own, then Delilah came last, easily clearing the fence. Once we were all together, we re-formed our line, and skirted the yard, sticking to the shadows. Another fence waited on the other side, and once again, I scaled it first, to garner a look at what lay below.

Aha! The other side of this fence led to a lot filled with brambles. The land was piled high with them, and I couldn't make out any path around them. We'd have to figure that out once we were over the side. No house was visible, unless there might be one hidden beneath the tangle, but chances were, the blackberries had just taken over the lot and now ruled it completely.

I motioned to the others, and then to the other side of the fence, and Alex nodded, waving for Camille to come up to the front. As soon as I dropped to the ground, I cleared out a space as best as I could, pushing the thorny bushes back as much as possible.