Agent Down: Region Two Series Book Two, page 22
It kinda screamed single-minded assassins. Not exactly a reassuring setting.
Stavros’ head whipped toward the door and staircase. “Someone is approaching.”
I leaped, scaling the loveseat and table, barely making it between him and the doorway in the heartbeat it took him to leave his book and move. I braced a hand on his chest. “I know. It’s the team.”
“¿Cómo? I detected no pursuers or hostiles on our return trip.”
Time to woman up. “They didn’t need to tail us because they bugged the car. Put an electronic tracker on it,” I translated. Specifically, Kimi had fit it underneath the back wheel well. I’d swept the car, a new thing I’d been able to teach him. I always did, part of my personal security protocol. Which Stavros knew.
His eyes closed for a moment. That too-familiar trace of pity I hated crossed his face, there and gone.
I tried out my reasoning on him. “Allowing them to locate us and see our place is a sound tactic to build trust.”
“It’s also a good move if you’re lulling prey into a false sense of security,” Liv said from the doorway. The one that, yeah, I’d purposely left open when we unloaded post-mission.
I hadn’t been so generous with the first floor door. That was too cavalier even for me. Plus, we—they, the team—mastered lock picking before Josh’s voice ever changed. Since we didn’t exist, Stavros saw no need for an electronic alarm system. Meaning that getting into this place was embarrassingly easy for any agent. Basically, I left enough security to hopefully reassure the team that this wasn’t an ambush where they needed to come in hot, but not enough to alert Stavros well before I heard, either.
I kept a hand on his chest, although if he decided to go through me I couldn’t stop him, and turned my head to Liv. She had her second favorite blade on her thigh and her preferred Glock with chemical rounds trained on us.
She stood square in the middle of the doorway, not minimizing herself as a target. Liv didn’t make that kind of mistake. I breathed around the lump in my throat, at our version of a peace gesture. “I figured we know where you sleep, so it’s only fair you know where we sleep.”
“I doubt this is your only bolt-hole.”
“No more than Scottsdale is the team’s only base. This is our primary space though. I can give you the locations of the others.”
Stavros’ sigh traveled through my arm and he tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling.
Liv tensed, only visible in the way her weight shifted to her dominant foot. “What’s he doing?”
“Dios, dame fuerza,” Stavros answered for me and crossed himself. “I now find myself asking the Savior for patience far more frequently than at any previous period of my existence.”
I shrugged since it was probably true, and let him go, turning to Liv. “I don’t have anything to hide. We don’t have anything to hide. Other than being outed to other vampires. If you really hate me, you can drop an anonymous tip to any true Master in the country, and they’ll do the wet work for you.”
“You two don’t seem soft targets.”
“We aren’t.” I didn’t see any point in false modesty. “We are reason enough for vampires to band together temporarily, long enough to take us out.”
Liv tensed again when I moved, although her gun stayed trained on Stavros. I crossed to the table and picked up the knife sheath. Hoping I was right, I took the few steps to offer it to Liv.
She studied me, head to toe. Slow and thorough. Then held out her left hand, motioning for the knife. I unsnapped the guard and I laid the sheath in her palm.
She did the judg-y single eyebrow thing Kimi and I had never mastered. “I have a blade.”
“Your second favorite. Thought you might want your favorite back.”
She bent her wrist enough to check, frowning and turning it back and forth. “It has a nick.”
“Picky much? I cleaned and oiled it after I took it out of that dead vampire.” I crossed my arms.
I saw it, the millisecond she made her decision. I put myself between her and Stavros, but Liv only holstered the Glock in a practiced move and added the knife to the rig on her left thigh. “What am I supposed to do with this, Vee?”
We both knew she wasn’t talking about her newly sharpened knife.
“Do what we do best. Think outside the box.”
Liv leveled a flat look at me, hiding something darker behind the calm. “Outside the box was all you. And look where it’s gotten all of us.”
Vampire reconditioning training came to my rescue. Only Stavros felt me flinch, hurt and despair trying to rise from the grave I’d dumped them in.
“Calm, niña.” I latched onto the measured voice that had become my lifeline over the last year. Now, conditioning reminded me that all that was really left was a dry dusty echo, like a weathered and picked clean carcass left in the desert too long. Only a leftover memory from my human life.
I only got to depend on Stavros for so long—mastering myself was the whole point of this experiment.
I walked to the sturdy workbench catchall and propped my butt on it. “Then I’ll innovate again. There’s no arguing the vampire population is on the rise, and has been for a few years. Apps and social media? Text for a ride, and the meal comes right to you. There’s certainly no denying vampires are the most significant cryptid-adjacent threat.” I held onto Stavros’ detached calm and said it. I claimed what I was. “We’re strong, but more importantly, intimately understand human institutions and reasoning. We are capable of co-opting innovations and organizing.”
“As we’ve seen, your version of innovation leads to disaster.”
Well, at least I knew where I stood with Liv. I talked over her and her challenge. “You’ve seen what Stavros and I can do. Our unique situation also lets us go places humans can’t, and thus we catch chatter even the Company can’t.”
I returned the favor, looking her up and down. “Or at least not soon enough to be effective.” I took a tiny, snotty measure of satisfaction from the way she bit down, teeth grinding, nothing to be seen from the outside, but easy enough for me to hear now. “Plainly, we need to find a way to work together.”
“No.”
“Yes. If you really meant that no, you’d have already reported us. Since we’re alive and you’re here, you obviously didn’t. Let’s be real. On some level, you know I’m right and you’re already playing scenarios in your head.” I raised my voice, addressing the pair of heartbeats just outside the door. “So are you two.”
Kimi and Josh stepped in from either side of the doorway. Kimi took in everything in the room, part agent, part her artist soul.
“Getting turned isn’t happening.” Josh had his hands on both guns.
“Our sharing that with anyone else isn’t on the table,” I said, voice as cold and decisive as I could make it, before Stavros lost his shit. We’d already discussed this, at length, but if he had a hot button, turning humans was it.
I felt him at my back, his aura touching my much flimsier one. I also felt a whiff of his stress, for want of a better word. A huge measure of his concern because he knew how powerful having my family here, in arm’s reach, once was for me. Most of his stress was personal though. Having lived hundreds of years alone except for hunts, sequestered from others vampires or humans, our messy, loud emotions felt like being caught in a wave of pure chaos and being pulled under for him.
This was one of the few areas where I was the senior partner. Without looking, I reached behind me, laying a reassuring hand on his rigid arm.
The steps rattled, shaking under the force of angry boots and Bruce stormed into the room, most dramatic entrance possible, classic Bruce.
My grip on Stavros tightened, and his hand covered mine.
Like it was magnetized, Bruce’s gaze went to our hands. If possible, more blood climbed his neck to his scarlet face. “You can’t fucking be serious about this shit.”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or Liv.
The sharp pop of Kimi snapping her fingers, jerked everyone’s attention her way. She signed, “My calculations show that they have a one-hundred-percent success rate and that they go on two-point-three times more missions than we launch. My data is incomplete but that’s a significant dent in the cryptid danger.”
Bruce’s attention bounced between my sisters, ending on Liv, who only tipped her head in acknowledgement. “The data—you aren’t buying this bullshit?”
“You saw what they can do.” Josh ducked his head at Bruce’s accusing glare, but didn’t back down, and turned to me. “We can discuss you coming home.”
He switched back to Bruce. “We lost part of our team, man. Maybe we can get that back. Open your eyes—that’s Vee, right there in front of us.”
“It’s not just Vee,” Bruce snapped. Then a gun was in his hands, sighted expertly at me. “But I can take care of that.”
“What are you doing, Bruce?” I funneled calm, patience, into my tone, for his and Stavros’ benefit. Stavros was perfectly capable of hauling me out the door, into the car, and headed for a different state before Bruce drew another breath.
“I’m doing what you should be doing—protecting this family.” Bruce’s grip altered a hair. Targeting Stavros. “Once that thing is gone, then we discuss you hauling your ass home.”
I moved, the same time Bruce’s finger flexed against the trigger. I tapped his wrist right where nerve ran over bone. The barrel dipped as his hand spasmed open, the fired bullet slamming into my shoulder as I nudged Bruce. Not hard, only enough to put some distance between him and Stavros, Bruce stumbling and his back hitting the wall.
He stared at me, shock leeching color out of his face. Appalled either that I’d touched him, or that I’d taken the hit.
“Victoria.”
I didn’t need Stavros’ soft heads-up. I’d heard the rasp of weapons clearing three different holsters. I turned my back to Bruce. Keeping my tears under wraps—and wow, would I be glad when the memory of how to cry faded—I ignored the burn of chemicals and held Bruce’s confiscated gun, butt first, out to Josh.
Josh’s gaze darted from my face to my wound and back. He straightened, his gun disappearing, and took Bruce’s weapon. “What happens now?”
“That’s up to you guys.” I glanced at Stavros to double-check, who only dipped his chin in permission. With the security of Stavros having my back, I addressed Liv. “Assuming you can control your team enough to have a civilized discussion.”
“How are you not burning?” She stared at my wound, blood still trickling and creating a wet spot on my shirt. “How are you still standing?”
“The blood. It’s because of your diet.” Kimi made the connection before Liv did. “The tolerance to sunlight and our compounds is because you feed on other vampires. There’s some property in virus-mutated blood boosting your immune system. Or stem cells repairing damage in real time. Potentially a cumulative effect.”
Her theories at the science behind our physiology were undoubtedly closer to the truth than Stavros’ religious convictions about our subsisting on our kind being divine justice. I shrugged, forgetting the bullet, and hissed at the resulting bright burst of pain.
Kimi had a blade out quick as a thought, and came at me, implacable as when we were sparring in our Academy days. I held one arm out to fend her off, the other to halt Stavros as he surged forward. Leaving me caught between old and new relationships.
“I cannot allow them to harm you. That isn’t part of our testing.” Stavros eyes were all human, plain brown and brimming with sadness.
Kimi snapped her fingers in his face. His sadness turned to shock. Eyes widening again as her hands danced and I translated. “The chem has a two-minute dissolution window. The longer you whine and get in my way, the more Vee absorbs.” I didn’t need to translate the single middle finger she held up at the end.
I angled my wounded shoulder to her, and held still as she slid the tip of the thin, lethal stiletto blade, one she’d plunged between skull and spine on numerous creatures, into me. With a practiced flick, she flipped the bullet remnant and last of the un-dissolved solution out.
I exhaled in relief. “Thanks.”
She gave Stavros a look. Then turned it on Bruce. Neither man said a word, gazes skittering away from hers.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the laugh in. Then faced Liv, amusement gone. Kimi had tried to help me, where Liv hadn’t budged. “We’re useful. We can take hits. We aren’t impulsive or out of control. Call me when you’re ready to coordinate.” I fished a slip of paper out of my hip pocket and handed my number to Kimi. “Bye.”
“You’re throwing us out?” Josh blurted, still processing our three-way sister byplay, a beat behind us as always.
Stavros finally had enough. “Victoria is asking you, far more politely than your behavior warrants, to return to your home and allow us to repair the damage you’ve done. You are—” he gave a half-pause “—welcome here again, though I hope you recall your manners by that time.”
A dusky tint colored Liv’s cheeks. She dipped her head to Stavros. Then nodded to Josh, who’d locked onto a still stunned Bruce’s elbow, sending them out first, Liv and Kimi on their heels.
Not daring to look at Bruce again, I finally let out a breath as Kimi closed the door.
“I hadn’t anticipated the blatant, continued violence when I offered up this proposal.” Stavros handed me a wad of gauze. “Your restraint was commendable.”
“By our family standards, this was a total success.” Only half the team wanted to slam the door in my face. Namely, Liv, my ex-right hand and confidant and best friend, who considered my continued existence a disaster. And Bruce, the person I’d loved most, who now hated me the most.
“I don’t know if there are enough prey in all this state to heal you of more such successes.” Stavros’ voice came from the other side of the screen as I ducked in, pulling off the ruined shirt, laying a loose barrier of gauze over my aching wound, skin around it already turning gray, and pulling on another black turtleneck. I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door, and a hunt for monsters to feed on in order to undo the damage my family had done.
Chapter 34
Bruce
The shrill buzzing of the compound’s alarm set Bruce’s already fucked nerves on edge. Without looking at him, Kimi raised one finger in a “hang on” gesture, then tackled the system keypad. The noise cut off, whatever she’d done overriding the warning that their arriving guests weren’t part of the compound database and weren’t cleared for admittance.
The damn computer didn’t recognize Vee anymore.
Neither did he.
Twenty-four hours after tracing Vee to her new hideout—he wasn’t calling that barren pit a home, the hovel less personal than a secondary compound that only saw action once a year—and he still hadn’t made his peace. He couldn’t wrap his head around any of this. Maybe the Company had a manual detailing how long it took to process your world getting fucked over, again. Three times in two years had to be a record.
They should also cover how to let go. Because he’d honestly thought Vee would at least take him up on the challenge of returning here to—visit. Argue. Give the two of them a chance to discuss this shit in private.
He gave a humorless laugh, one that had Josh pausing in checking ammo rounds and side-eyeing Bruce. “You up for this?”
“Are any of us up for this?” Which was the most either had said since Josh hauled Bruce’s ass to the truck and shoved him inside, locking the rear from the driver’s seat so Bruce couldn’t get out, post-Vee shooting. They hadn’t even had the usual monosyllabic, one-sided conversation in the gym as Bruce beat the hell out of the bag.
So, Josh was pissed that Bruce was cock-blocking his reunion with his sister.
Even Kimi had resorted to pointed looks and not much else since they’d gotten HQ’s notice of a cryptid gathering, and Liv had used the number Kimi had programmed into all their phones to call Vee.
The team was going on a mission with a pair of vampires.
Bruce only realized he’d muttered the last out loud when Liv stopped beside him.
Her grip on his shoulder was firm, acknowledgement, not a warning. “This is a risk and we’re treating it has such. If at any point, any of you feel Vee or this Stavros entity have set us up or are a threat, take them out.” She stared at first Josh and then Kimi.
“Since when do we rely on feelings for kill orders?” Josh slammed a magazine into a rifle, arranged it on the table beside the rest of his arsenal.
Bruce knew he was displacing even as he rose and leaned over the bigger man. Hands braced on the table, face to face with Josh. “Since Vee disappeared for a year and a fucking half. Then reappeared just when we’re ass deep in alligators. You can bitch and whine and point fingers at me, and at Liv, all you want for protecting your asses because you know what Vee, the real Vee, would hate most? Dying wouldn’t even make her list. It would fucking devastate her that some monster version of her killed you. You don’t have the market cornered on hating this situation and these choices. So, shut the fuck up.”
“He isn’t wrong.” Vee strode in like she owned the place. With the vamp beside her, both in that all black, head to toe bullshit, huge machete handles rising from knee high boots. Ghosting in without a sound, like some fucking comic book vigilantes.
She spoke again. “At least, he isn’t wrong about my not wanting to hurt any of you. The part about you not being allowed to express an opinion is a different matter. I meant what I said about transparency. I’ll answer any questions you have, now or later.”
The vampire beside her frowned, but didn’t interfere.
“Did you set this up? Did you somehow feed this information to HQ to create an in for the pair of you?” Liv positioned herself between the team and Vee.
Vee faced her, probably neither realizing they were mirror images of each other, down to the crossed arms and challenging jut of their chins. Kimi and Josh exchanged a glance, heavy on subtext. Even when they were on opposite ends of a debate on mission tactics, Vee and Liv had never been this outright aggressive.
