Return of the Phoenix - 01 (25 page)

“But why would you help us?” he asked again.

“For one, I owe Rufus for saving my life,” Jack said. “Two, he is allowing my mate to come or go with me, as we see fit. And thirdly…” Jack looked at Rufus and smiled, “he’s my friend. And that’s what friends do for each other.”

Jack turned back to the group of vampires and gave them a good hard stare. He began a slow walk toward the table. “I don’t blame you for not exactly trusting me. And to be honest, I don’t know you, so I don’t trust you. But I trust Rufus. If he trusts you enough to allow you into his home, then I’ll just have to accept that. But the fact of the matter is, I gave Rufus my word that I would do my absolute best to convince my people of the war within the vampire families. How the
Lamia Beastia
have sworn off feeding on humans and only feed on livestock. How the
Lamia Humanus
have gone about redirecting the Monster Squad into attacking you and setting you up to be their fall-guys.” Jack stopped when he reached Rufus’ side. “I can’t promise that I can make a difference, but I swore on my life that I would give it everything I had. And my life means a lot more than it used to now, because it’s tied to my mate as well.

“If you insist on going through with your attack on the squads, I can guarantee you two things, a lot of your people will die in the attack, and a lot of innocent human lives will die in the attack, but you will never reach the Monster Squad. They are buried under ground so deep, you couldn’t reach them with a nuclear bomb. All they’d have to do is wait ‘til sunrise then come out guns blazing. Those who didn’t run with the sunrise and tried to find a dark place to hide would be sniffed out and staked or…well, it wouldn’t be pretty.

“The point is…this plan of his? It’s the easiest and least bloody way to save the most lives. You can either get on board or you can get out of the way. But an all-out assault? It’s suicide. I can guarantee that.”

Most of the vampires were silent during Jack’s impromptu speech, and very few said anything now. One, very large and very old looking vampire at the end of the table stood and Jack almost went for his weapon. “It would seem, Monsieur Thorn, that you have chosen your emissary well.” He turned and walked away from the table. Jack looked at Rufus and then stepped back out the way he came.

Natashia greeted him in the hallway again. “I hope I didn’t overstep,” Jack said.

“I think you performed splendidly,” she said.

Nadia hugged him and led him back toward their room

Rufus milled about to answer questions and discuss secon
dary options, and the whole time, he hoped and he prayed that Mr. Thompson was up to the task at hand. Without him, the civil war would soon be over and the
Lamia Beastia
would be forever extinct. The
Lamia Humanus
would execute their plan to use humans as livestock and rule the world. Rufus sighed and then continued the terrible task at hand…politics.

*****

Franklin searched like a madman. Of all of his memories, he could not recall any of Mitchell and his group of idiots actually finding his USB drive. They discovered a virus in their computers, but they didn’t actually search his person. He dug through his carry-on luggage. Finally, he found the suit pants he had worn that day.
Please be there, please be there, please be there…Aha!!
Franklin’s hand felt the familiar shape of the USB drive and slowly withdrew his shining jewel from his trouser pocket.

“You’re going to go down in a ball of flame, Mitchell. You and that half-blood bitch you have working for you,” Franklin growled.

He marched to his closet and got dressed. His head still ached, but nothing at all like it had before he crawled into the tub. He glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was barely 10:30AM. If he hurried, he could get it in the afternoon express back to the hacker. Franklin quickly dressed and found a small manila envelope to slip the USB into. He slipped the envelope into his breast pocket, and after taking two more headache formula and swallowing the rest of the cold coffee, he left to overnight the package.

As soon as he was on the road, he called the hacker and told him the package would be en route. Be prepared for it. Use the email address he finds on it and the data on there and make it public ASAP. Send it to every news agency, every internet blog, every tabloid, anybody who might possibly take it ‘to the pe
ople’ as quickly as possible. The hacker laughed and assured him, for what he was paid, he’d hack the president’s email and send it to him if he wanted.

“Just get it to the press. The president will get wind of it soon enough.” He smiled.

Franklin ran into the nearest express shipping office, scribbled the PO Box address on it, kissed the manila envelope good bye and paid for overnighting it. Then went out and headed for a coffee shop for one of those gourmet coffees all of the interns are so wild about.

This was going to be a good day. He could feel it in his bones.

23

After much soul searching, Laura decided that it must be her that was changing. Maybe she just wasn’t cut out for this line of work anymore. She had talked herself around in circles and kept coming back to the same conclusions…she just didn’t agree with her boss’ tactics. It had happened at the company and she left, and now it was happening here…except she really didn’t want to leave the Monster Squad.

She went back to her office and reflected on her time with the team. She knew that they provided a necessary service and had saved a lot of lives over the years. For the most part, people didn’t know about the monsters, and those who had seen things, dismissed what they had seen to an overactive imagination. In reality, people didn’t want to know what was out there. It di
storted their perception on reality. And recently, Laura’s own perception on reality was being distorted. She had been asked to do things that went totally against what she thought was right.

She stood and went out to Evan’s lab. He was busy working on something small, using a magnifying glass to see the miniscule object under an intense light. She tapped on the table as she approached to get his attention.

“I heard you walking across the common area toward my lab space, Laura. What can I do to help you?” he asked without looking away from his project.

“Evan, I’d really like to speak with you, if I could.”

“Of course, Laura. What would you like to speak about?” He reached to his side and picked up a small soldering iron and touched it momentarily to the object and smiled, his attention still on the tiny object.

“Evan, this is important. May I have your attention, please?” she insisted.

He laid the object to the side and turned off the intense light behind the magnifier and pushed it aside and turned to her, his smile unwavering. “My attention is entirely yours, Ms. Youngblood.”

Now that she had his attention, she wasn’t exactly sure where to start. She decided to jump right in and hope to iron out wrinkles later. “Evan, I know you’ve been out of it for a while…”

“I was imprisoned, Laura. Let’s not mince words,” he said.

“Er, yes. You were imprisoned for three years. So, you weren’t exactly privy to Colonel Mitchell’s behavior during that time.” She paced in the small space of his lab area. “But from the time before and what you remember of the colonel and from the time since you’ve been back…does his behavior seem…” she searched for the correct word, “
off
to you in any way?”

“Define ‘off’, Laura. I’m not sure that I know where you’re going with this.”

Laura sighed. “Does he seem to be acting less like himself?”

Evan swiveled his chair side to side for a moment as he thought about her question. Suddenly he looked up at her and said, “No.” Then turned and picked up the tiny object again. “Are there any more questions you’d like to ask me?”

“Evan, come on!” she pleaded. “This is
me
! Talk to me.”

He spun back to her and practically glared at her. “You come to me and ask if your boss seems ‘off’? You never so much as came to visit me while I sat in that silver-plated cell and rotted for nearly three years,” he said through gritted teeth. “
Three years!
And now that I am out, you’ve barely spoken to me, but you’re concerned about Matt. Fine. Let’s just talk about him. I’m sure the two of you got real cozy while I was locked up, eh?”

She stepped back, shock registering as she realized that Evan was not only jealous, but hurt. Here she was, waiting for him to come to her to express interest in resuming their budding relationship, and he was wondering…God only knew what he was wondering, all the while he was working away and gong about his business as if nothing was wrong. “Evan, I don’t…I didn’t know,” she stammered.

“Didn’t know? Didn’t know what? That I was alone? Or that I was starving in the darkness?” he seethed. “Didn’t know that my heart was breaking for you every moment of the day?”

“Yes, of course…I mean, NO!” she stammered. “I had no idea that you ever thought that Matt and I had something going on. That idea is ludicrous!”

“Is it now?” he barked. “Then why the sudden interest in how he’s acting?”

“It’s complicated. I guess I can’t expect you to understand, you—”

“I’m what?” he growled. “Just a vampire?” His words dripped with venom.

She suddenly turned angry. “No. That wasn’t what I was g
oing to say at all.” Now it was her turn to get angry. She stepped toward him, hands planted firmly on hips. “I was going to say that you’ve been gone too long to notice the subtle changes in his behavior.” She took another step toward him, this time with a finger pointed in his face, “I was going to say, that if I’d had any clue that you still cared about me, I would have been
man enough
to make the first move the moment you got out and tried to rekindle what we had!” She took another step, jabbing the finger more pointedly. “I was
going to say
that had I known you were going to just throw yourself into being Matt’s butt-buddy and shadow puppet, I wouldn’t have risked my career and possibly prison time slipping you blood and then busting you out!” Now she stood directly in front of him and he was leaned back against his workbench, her finger directly in front of his face. “I was going to say, that had you been around, that maybe you would have noticed his behavior changing and could help me identify it so that I could know if it was him or me!” Then she stepped back and made an effort to calm herself. When she looked back up, there were tears threatening her eyes. “Because, if it’s me, then I can’t do this job anymore. And I really don’t want to leave, but I will if I have to.”

She turned and left as quickly as she gracefully could before she lost control in front of him. Evan sat there for a moment co
ntemplating what she had just dumped on him, and he felt like an idiot. Even before he was made into a vampire, he wasn’t very good with reading women, much less dealing with relationships. This only went to prove that being an immortal didn’t improve one’s charm with the ladies. He shook his head and in his frustration, swiped his arm across his workbench tossing everything across the floor. If he really gave two shits about his work, he would have cared about the damage he’d done, but honestly, the only thing he cared about just left in a huff.  If he had a functioning brain cell left in his head, he’d take off after her and try to fix it, but for the life of him, the only words he could think to say to her was, ‘I’m sorry’ and somehow, he doubted that would fix this.

Fuck it. I have to try.
He ran after her, trying to follow her scent, but he lost her near the ventilation intake. The facilities air intake sucked up everything and he was left standing there, wondering which way to go. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine, if I were an upset female, where would I go? The lady’s room?

It sounded as good as any other place, so he tried. He went there and placed his ear to the door. He heard nothing. He opened the door slightly and had no idea what to expect. Rather than the plush interior with feathered fans and perfume bottles, lotions, and stacks of every conceivable tissue known to man, he found a sterile looking white tile restroom that appeared, for all intents and purpose identical to the men’s restroom…minus, of course, the stand-up urinals. Which would make sense, since women don’t normally stand to urinate. Unless, they weren’t…he was thinking too much. “Laura?” he said softly.

“She’s not in here,” another woman’s voice said. “And you shouldn’t be either.” Judging by the slight accent it was either Sanchez or one of the other Latino women who worked at the facility. He prayed it wasn’t Sanchez. That woman scared him. If he were smart, he would simply say, excuse me and slip out, but…he really felt the need to find Laura.

“Any chance she came through here?”

“Nope,” said the disembodied voice. “Now get out before I stake your ass, bloodsucker.”

Holy shit!
Evan thought. Whoever it is, knows I’m a vampire. But…”Sanchez?” Surely she was the only one whose senses were sharp enough to be able to tell.

“I swear to God, it’s bad enough I have to shower with all those swinging dick smartasses, but if I can’t take a dump in peace, I’m gonna give you a swirly so bad you’re gonna look like the singer for the Stray Cats, you got me, lab rat?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Evan said, and scooted out the door. He turned quickly and bumped into Laura. “I’m sorry!”

“For sneaking into the Lady’s Room?”

“What? No. For…us,” he said. “I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t fix anything, but it’s all I have.” He sighed, sounding defeated.

Laura gave him a stony look. Evan knew he bought exactly zero points with his comment. “Laura, you know me. I’ve never been exactly good with the ladies.” He pleaded. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have exploded like that on you. You came to me loo
king for a sounding board and I unloaded my insecurities on you and…”

“And maybe I could have been a little more sensitive with your situation as well,” she said, not meeting his gaze. “Evan, I can’t say that I’m exactly good with people either. Nor am I that experienced with relationships. At least, not successful ones, a
nyway.”

“Do-over?” he asked, a lopsided grin breaking across his face.

Laura smiled at him then threaded her arm through his. She pulled him toward her office. “Let’s see if we can work through
both
our problems and our insecurities in my office, shall we?”

From within the restroom Sanchez yelled out, “Thank God! I never thought you two would leave! Get a room already!”

*****

Mitchell scanned the activity reports that came in from the field. With the full moon almost upon them, the activity level was picking up and the activity reports reflected everything from possible zombie outbreak in the middle of Mexico (unco
nfirmed), to goblin activity in lower Canada (single sighting confirmed, awaiting secondary confirmation), to a possible baby vamp attack (single confirmation, awaiting secondary confirmation) in California. Matt sighed. If either of the single confirmations got a secondary confirmation, he’d be sending out Second Squad. If the other gets confirmation while Second was in the field, they could have simultaneous ops running. He really didn’t like that possibility but they always ran that risk when the full moon came about.

And the worst part was, the night of the full moon, he’d be out of commission. Again. Just like
every
full moon. He needed Laura more than ever at that time, and the possibility that she may be coordinating two operations at one time? She was up to it. He knew she was. That was why he hired her. He double checked the date on his watch. Two days to go before the full moon.

Matt could feel his ability to keep everything in check sli
pping. Sometimes he even questioned his ability to continue his command. But every time he questioned his ability to lead, his hubris rubbed that doubt to ash. So many times he wanted to bring Laura in and tell her the truth, but…how would she react? Would it change their working relationship?

Matt, found himself drinking more. And feeling it less. He poured himself a scotch. He clinked a chunk of ice into the glass and swirled it around a few times before swallowing the drink back. He waited a moment for the familiar burn. Nothing. He could taste it just fine and he relished the flavor. He just couldn’t enjoy the slight buzz that it once gave him.

He looked out over the training grounds that his men used and sighed. If they knew the truth…if they only knew the truth. They’d probably turn their weapons on him. Then each other.

When he questioned what they had done, he thought back to his wife Jo Ann and daughter Molly. They never stood a chance. Neither wanted to go camping that fall weekend, but Matt insis
ted. The weather would be perfect, he told them. The moon would be full, they could build a huge campfire and make s’mores. It was supposed to be a new beginning, but instead, it was the end. It was the end of Mitchell Mathews – the lone survivor of the attack. When Major Mathews discovered the full extent of his injury and his miraculous recovery, plans were put into place. It didn’t take long to discover
why
Major Mathews recovered so quickly. But
what
Mathews became every month…that was a topic of much debate. The few who were in the know quickly decided that if Mitch Mathews was attacked and survived, then his attacker was still out there. And if there is one, there are more. So, a new unit was created to deal with just such a threat and Major Mathews was put in charge of it. Except Major Mathews was erased, his records destroyed, and Matt Mitchell was created. A perfect example of oversized government and the glory of computer records. If you aren’t in the computer, then you no longer existed. It worked easily enough for Matt to simply swap his surname for his first name, so why not try it for Evan Peters? Dr. Peter Evans had raised no eyebrows when he was brought on staff. Those who did know were smart enough to keep their mouths shut.

Good for them.
They’ll live longer if they keep quiet
.

Matt shook his head. Why would he think such things? That wasn’t like him. Matt sighed. He poured another drink and co
nsidered once more of bringing Laura in on the truth. She
was
his XO. She should be privy to all things that had an impact on the operation.