Hope and Vengeance (Saa Thalarr, book 1): Saa Thalarr, book 1 (13 page)

"Only you, Saxom and Xavier know this information. Chessman and Showalter can be controlled. It stops here."

"And should I choose to ignore your request?"

"Then I will not take blame for the consequences, because those will come. In ways you cannot begin to imagine."

"Then I choose to allow the Council to decide."

"Then you are a fool." Merrill swept angrily from the room. Wlodek watched as a sheet of paper lifted off his desk and floated to the floor.

* * *

"Adam?" Anna spoke my name softly as my eyes opened just before nightfall.

"Sweetheart?" I rolled over, offering her a smile—she stood beside the bed, gazing down at me.

"The media has caught up with our quarry. Some journalists have already latched onto the fact that he's here with Kirby Lee and another man they can't identify." She handed two newspapers to me as I sat up in bed.

"It was bound to happen," I rubbed my forehead before focusing on the article on the top paper.

"Yeah." Anna walked away from the bed, her head bowed in thought and arms crossed tightly over her chest. "I'm just worried about what might happen if any of those journalists get too close to Manuelo." She stopped talking when her cell phone rang.

"Hello?"

I heard clearly as Lion explained that there was evidence of spawn in Las Vegas.

Chapter 7
 

"Near the Air Force base," Lion informed us an hour later, at a coffee shop inside the Egyptian Casino. "Bodies mutilated and half-eaten. The authorities don't know what to make of it—they're saying wild dogs may be responsible, but the truth is, they just don't know."

"Anybody missing?" Anna asked. She didn't drink coffee often, but she was having a cup now.

"Six people reported missing in the past two days. That doesn't include the ones who were eaten." Lion passed a folder in my direction. It listed names and current addresses of all those missing. All six were male.

"They prefer women and children to eat," Anna sighed as I studied the names, committing them and their corresponding images to memory. My fingers stilled on the reports—all those attacked and killed had been women.

"That's not right," Joey joined the conversation.

"The meat is tender," Lion rubbed Joey's back. "These are predators. Never forget that."

"They don't remember they were human?"

"They have no memory. All they know to do is follow the orders of their maker."

"Does their maker have a memory?"

"If they live long enough," Anna shrugged. "It takes roughly five years to recall that they can speak. A few more years past that they'll remember some things, but by that time, they're so immersed in what they've become, it no longer matters."

"Those trolls we saw in Shreveport?" Joey asked.

"Were around twelve years old. They could have spoken if they wanted to, but you wouldn't have understood their language."

"Why?"

"Because they weren't from Earth, kid," Lion explained.

"Then how are they getting here? Who's shipping them in?"

"That's something we can't explain right now," Lion said. "You'll have to trust us. Anna, Dragon says to hop to Kansas City if it becomes necessary." I watched as he gave a slight nod in her direction. Somehow, I had the idea that this was something they'd already discussed between themselves while Joey and I had been sleeping.

"Adam, that is still hovering in the possibilities section. It hasn't become an absolute, yet."

"Remember Pheligar's warning," Lion nodded in Anna's direction a second time.

"I won't forget that." She sounded uncomfortable, and I couldn't explain it. Her pretty face was set and unreadable. I'd never seen that from her before. Something troubled her and I had no idea what it might be.

"I'm worried that everything might happen at once," Lion muttered, nodding and gazing into his coffee cup.

"I'm worried that the Powers That Be are worried," Anna responded. "I thought I'd be working alone on this. You see what that turned into." She swept out a hand.

"It means this is more important than anybody realized," Dragon said, nodding to me and pulling out a chair to sit on Lion's other side. Like before, he wore leather pants and boots, but the vest had been discarded in favor of a more conventional, white, long-sleeved shirt. The cuffs had been turned back, revealing a red dragon's head on each forearm. The teeth on both dragons gleamed against Dragon's skin, and I wondered at the skill needed to produce a tattoo of such quality.

"LaFranza," Dragon shrugged.

I had no idea who—or what—LaFranza was, so I remained silent.

"Pheligar says he's ready to transport Lynx and Tiger in if it's necessary. Wolf is still out on assignment."

"This is a mess," Anna mumbled, rubbing her forehead. My arm stole around her and I squeezed her shoulders solicitously. My mind worked furiously at the same time, attempting to decipher this conundrum. That didn't mean I wouldn't take every opportunity I could to touch Anna.

Adam, what's going on?
Joey sounded upset, even in mindspeech.

I'm trying to determine that. Keep your ears open, son. We'll figure this out
.

I like it when you call me that.

I know
.

While he was human, Joey never had a father figure in his life. I knew that from reading his records, and his mother never said whom his biological father might be. I was happy to fill that role, as I'd never get a child of my own.

"Who's tracking the spawn from the killings?" Anna asked.

"I am," Lion said. "I'm heading back that way when I finish this." He held up his coffee cup.

"I'll keep an eye on things in Corpus Christi. Daniel went back to calm the Pack, and he's staying in touch." Dragon pulled a cell phone from his shirt pocket and laid it on the table.

"Want coffee?" I asked. Dragon hadn't ordered anything.

"He prefers tea so black and strong it can pump iron," Anna sighed. "They don't serve that here."

"I'll have water," Dragon nodded, his eyes hooded. He spared a slight smile for Anna, however. I signaled our waitress, who quickly brought a glass of water.

* * *

"This gets weirder every day," Joey flopped onto the sofa beside me.

I'd chosen to watch a rerun of the local news while Anna slept. We'd driven her back to the safe house after Dragon offered to keep an eye on Roy Cheek and his menagerie.

Roy was currently hiding in his hotel room at the Emperor's Palace—he'd been chased there by a pack of journalists. All of them wanted answers on his recent run of luck after Kirby Lee's husband disappeared and the refinery shut down in Corpus Christi.

The last thing Anna said to Dragon before we left the casino, was that she felt Roy's luck was about to run out. Dragon didn't reply, he'd merely given her an enigmatic nod.

"He's become too much of a liability, no matter what he did for them," I said aloud.

"What?" Joey asked.

"Cheek. Whatever deal he made with those things—the enemy, as Anna says—he's no longer useful to them. Too many people are following him around, now."

"You mean he's toast?"

"I think he was toast the moment he was approached by the enemy."

"I've seen at least fifty hits on the 'net, saying Kirby Lee murdered her husband, and fifty more saying Cheek did it so they could be together."

"Understandable, how they might arrive at that conclusion."

"How is Cheek connected? The police in Corpus think this is about a boat and a cheating wife. It's not. Why would the enemy come to Cheek for anything, other than a ready supply of fresh bodies that he wouldn't have to pay and nobody would go looking for? It can't be just that, can it?" Joey turned a worried gaze in my direction. "Surely they can round up their own food source."

"Let's look at our facts," I began. "Cheek hired undocumented workers, got them to work for him and then handed them over to the enemy before he had to pay them, so he could keep the money to gamble."

"Yeah. Then he made a big show out of the EPA closing the refinery in Corpus, over violations. The refinery is still closed," Joey said.

"True. Then, the Corpus Packmaster and I are attacked by rogue werewolves in Rockport. They intended to kill both of us. Anna shows up and I don't die."

"The first kink in their plans. They come looking for Daniel in Shreveport. We help him and again—you don't die. Daniel doesn't die, either."

"Because Anna, Lion and Dragon are there. I'm not sure we could have taken down the trolls, Joey. They were too big for us to handle."

"This is fucked up."

"You are correct."

At that moment, a flashing banner crossed the television screen, announcing breaking news. I stared as the words crawled across the bottom of the screen. If I'd thought things were complicated already, I was very, very wrong.

Body washes up on Port Aransas beach
, the crawler announced.
Identified as Anna Kay Madden, a popular local investigator. Stay tuned to News Eleven for more details as they become available
.

"If that's Anna," Joey's eyes were huge as he blinked at me.

"Then who's sleeping in my bed?" I growled.

* * *

My cell phone buzzed as I stalked toward the bedroom, Joey stepping fearfully behind me. I ripped my pants pocket with partially formed claws as I pulled it out and glanced at the text.

The message was from Dragon. While I stared at the screen, a second message appeared—from Lion.

Harm her
, Dragon's text read, and
I'll have your head so fast you'll never see it coming.

Hurt our girl
, Lion's text said,
and there won't be enough of you left to fill a matchbox
.

What the fuck?
Joey read the texts over my shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going?" An eight-and-a-half-foot blue giant appeared before me. Joey shrieked. My cell phone clattered to the floor as I stared in shock.

* * *

I recalled the memory vividly. I'd been in Chicago in the 1920s, chasing a rogue. Louis Armstrong was playing at a club near my hotel, so I'd thought to go hear the music that everyone was talking about.

They stepped in front of me as I walked toward the line of humans waiting to get inside the venue. Three people. A tall, sandy-haired man with broad shoulders, who moved with the grace of a cat. A woman, only slightly shorter than he, with a tawny mane of hair that hung to her shoulders. Like the man, she moved with the grace of a stalking panther.

Out of place beside them stood a woman, perhaps five-three or four, with long, platinum hair down her back. It looked as if the gazelle had joined the lions for a night out. The fashion of the day was short, bobbed hair, so the pale-haired woman was doubly out of place.

She wasn't dressed in the fashion of the day, either, choosing to wear slacks and a jacket. I'd seen only a few women in pants up to that time, so her outfit puzzled me. My breath caught when she turned, offering her profile. She was beautiful. If my heart had been beating, it would have stopped at that moment, I was so taken with her.

I never took my eyes off her for the duration of Armstrong's performance. Following the group afterward, I meant to discover where she was staying. Intended to make her mine. Somehow, the three managed to elude me—a vampire. I hadn't had sex in more than ninety years after that night. I looked for her everywhere, but she'd disappeared for good, leaving me with only a memory.

Until now.

"Adam, if you'll stop woolgathering, I can explain."

This wasn't Anna. The blue giant stood next to her, frowning at me. He dwarfed the safe house basement and terrified Joey.

"Who are you?" I demanded, my voice a raspy growl. I was angry. More than angry. I'd been deceived—in the most devious manner possible. Was this a trick, too, that she was taking this form as her present appearance? Had she stolen the vision of the woman I'd seen so long ago, to confuse or upset me?

"Her name is Kiarra," the blue giant spoke.

"Pheligar, let me handle this," she said, raking fingers through long, platinum hair in frustration. "They did this on purpose," she added. "First they weighted the body and dumped it offshore before I arrived, then let it wash up now to cause problems."

"Because they suspect," Pheligar snapped. "While others might be able to change appearances, they suspect that you are what you are. They're calling you out."

"Then they'll expect the second Anna to show up and refute the findings. They'll expect the body to be altered to prove the authorities wrong. What if we don't do that? What if we let things stand as they are? Change the airline records. That's all it will take."

"I've already done that," Pheligar sniffed.

"Good. Anna can stay dead, now."

"Who the fuck are you?" I demanded a second time. They'd held a conversation while ignoring me, as if a vampire weren't a dangerous entity to either of them.

"I am Pheligar of the Larentii," Pheligar announced. "I can separate your particles if I find you annoying. Be silent."

"Pheligar, please leave. Adam and I need to talk," she said.

"I will separate your particles if you harm her," Pheligar said before he disappeared.

"That's the third threat I've gotten tonight," I growled, crossing my arms and staring at the woman before me. If I'd seen her on the street, I'd have followed her without question. She'd been with me for days, in disguise and obviously lying to me.

"This disgusts me," I flung out a hand and turned my back on her.

"If you'll let me explain," she began.

"I want nothing from you. You've done nothing but lie and misrepresent yourself," I said, walking toward the kitchen and snatching up the keys to the rental. "I'm leaving. Joey, are you coming with me?"

"Adam, I want to hear what she has to say," Joey's voice was timid as he begged me mentally to stay. I didn't respond to his mindspeech.

"Fine. Stay here and listen to the lies." I flung myself toward the stairs leading to the trap door overhead.

* * *

"Our kind can't lie." Lion took the barstool next to mine. I'd found a casino bar that was mostly empty and sat there, nursing a drink I had no intention of consuming while feeling sorry for myself.