Ambushed (5 page)

It
was obvious that Jasmin wanted to go back to our hotel and lick her
wounds. It was hard to say exactly what was going on with her, but
she'd definitely lost some of her edge.

It
was bad timing. I would have liked to give Jasmin a few weeks to
unwind. She deserved at least that after everything we'd been through
over the last month, but unfortunately that wasn't an option right
now. Instead of letting her go back to the hotel, I'd ordered her and
everyone else back to the Deutsche Bank branch while I went back to
the hotel to get our rental car.

Jasmin
had been almost ready to rebel when I gave her the order, but she
knew I was right. We couldn't afford to leave an old, extremely
powerful vampire mentalist in place at the bank. Not if we wanted to
be able to make the next money transfer safely, not if we wanted to
make sure that the vampire population at large didn't find out about
us.

I'd
been ready to try and scent-track the mentalist through the city, but
we got lucky. James and the rest checked the front and back doors and
the secure loading dock that was used whenever the bank needed to
physically move anything high-value. There wasn't any trace of the
vampire having left the bank while we were dealing with his lackeys.
He could have still left via the loading dock, assuming that he was
in a vehicle at the time, but the odds against that were pretty
heavy—unless the vampire had gotten more out of my mind than
I'd thought.

I
hadn't been able to smell the vampire while I'd been in the bank, so
I was pretty sure that our vampire worked in the back of the bank
somewhere. My money was that he'd eventually leave via the back door,
but we wouldn't know for sure until he actually exited the building.
A brief storm had swept through the city a little while before I'd
gone to the bank the first time around, so there weren't any old
scent trails that we could follow back to the vampire's apartment.

I'd
always wanted to be the one calling the shots, but now that I was out
from under Kaleb's thumb I was finding that I didn't like how big the
stakes had gotten. There wasn't any two ways about it, the vampire
who had invaded my mind needed to die, but I didn't like the fact
that bringing him down might cost me the life of one or more of my
friends.

It
was nearly six p.m. before James broke the silence on our four-way
conference call. "He just left the building, guys."

"You're
sure it's him, James? We can't afford to follow the wrong guy."

"Yeah,
I'm downwind of him and he smells old, older than any of the other
vampires I've ever run into. He's either our guy or there's more than
one vampire holed up inside of the bank."

"Okay,
you all know the drill. Stay far enough away that he can't scan you
with his power. We need to anticipate his route enough that we can
keep eyes on him at all times."

I
turned the rental car on and started watching the alleyway to the
back of the bank out of my side view mirror. It wasn't surprising
that our target hadn't come around to the front of the building, but
it did make things more difficult.

I
dropped the car into gear. "I'm in motion, I'll head to the road
just north of us and take station on the east corner. Jasmin, can you
see him?"

Jasmin
had snuck onto the roof of the building next door to the bank.

"Yeah,
I can see him; he's headed north. James, keep moving south. Jess, if
you hurry you should have time to reposition to the corner on the
west."

I'd
forgotten how much I hated driving inside of cities. I didn't have
time to screw around and I now had enough money to replace the rental
car several times over, so I drove aggressively and ended up trading
paint with a couple of cabs before I managed to get into position.

Jasmin's
voice in my Bluetooth earpiece was a constant reminder of just how
little leeway I had.

"He's
headed your direction, Alec, are you there yet?"

"No,
but I'm just about there, is there anywhere to park once I get
there?"

"Not
really, you might have to ditch the car."

I
took a deep breath to stop myself from grinding my teeth. Abandoning
the car wasn't feasible, not until we were positive that he wasn't
going to jump into a car of his own after just a block or two of
walking.

The
light ahead of me turned yellow and I gunned the engine to get
through before cross traffic started moving.

"Okay,
I'm here, can someone tell me what I'm looking for?"

I
wasn't actually quite there, but I was close enough that I might be
able to spot him if he was already at the corner.

"Slacks,
a white collared shirt, not much skin showing…"

"And
huge sunglasses?"

My
interruption didn't even make Jasmin lose a beat. "Yeah, that's
the guy. He must be pretty old if the sun is bothering him that
much."

I
watched the vampire cross the road and continue east. I was in the
turning lane with a red light. A cab behind me honked, obviously
unhappy that I hadn't turned right when there was a break in the
traffic, but I ignored the growing line behind me. The longer I
stayed here, the better.

The
vampire was walking at a good clip, but not fast enough to make me
think he knew he was being followed. He probably just wanted to get
inside so he wasn't exposed to the sun. The really old vampires
sunburned easier than most people and they often had a hard time
getting their eyes to adjust to the light.

My
light turned green to a chorus of honks and I turned right onto the
road the vampire was walking along.

"James,
how close are you? I can see a place to ditch the car if I have to,
but I'd rather not do it unless you are close enough to pick it up
right afterwards."

Jasmin
muttered a profanity. "James, you've got to unmute your
earpiece. Nobody can hear you."

"Sorry,
I turned it off so the sound of the wind didn't drown the rest of you
out. I'm headed north right now, Alec. If you need to ditch the car
you can go for it, I should be able to get there before anyone drives
off with it."

I
pulled up next to the open spot and pushed the computer-assisted
parallel-park button as I watched the vampire out of my rear-view
mirror.

"I've
got eyes on him. Jasmin, you can relocate if you want; I can't
imagine that you'll be able to see him from up there for very much
longer."

Jess
cut in before Jasmin could respond. "I moved up one street to
the north, the foot traffic is pretty bad on this one, but I think
I'm gaining on him. Do you guys want me to stop at Coral Avenue or
should I keep on and stop at the next one?"

I
hadn't been paying enough attention to the street signs. Everything
about this operation felt thrown together. I quickly checked the name
of the street in front of me. "Yeah, wait on Coral, I'll let you
know if he turns and heads your direction."

The
next fifteen minutes were stressful. I had to ditch the car when the
vampire turned south on Coral, but James made it to the vehicle
before anything happened to it. It seemed impossible that the vampire
wasn't worried. The fact that his people hadn't checked in after
trying to mug us should have had him spooked, but I was pretty sure
that he would have lost us if he'd been trying to do so. It was all
we could do to keep him in sight.

James
stayed with the car while Jasmin, Jess and I bracketed the target.
The only thing that allowed us to get away with it was the fact that
we were so much faster and had so much more endurance than normal
humans.

As
long as the vampire kept moving in a straight line things weren't too
bad, but every time he changed directions it forced one of us to
swing around wide, racing down an alternate set of roads to get into
position so that we could maintain a perimeter around him.

The
vampire finally disappeared inside of a large, fifty-story
residential building and I sighed in relief.

"My
bet is that this is where he lives, but stay alert and make sure that
he doesn't slip out the back."

I
waited a couple of minutes and then followed our target inside to
confirm it was his actual home. I knew we'd found the right place
before I'd even taken my second step inside. The stench of vampire
was thick; it was layered over every other scent in the lobby the way
that only happened when someone passed through a place multiple times
per day.

I
stepped back outside and walked over to the small café where
everyone else was waiting for me. Once I was safely under the canopy,
and therefore hidden from view, I waved the other three over.

"It's
the right place, there's no doubt about it. We'll need to stay here
and watch in shifts, at least two of us at all times, to make sure
that he doesn't leave, but once it gets dark and things calm down
we're going to go in and take him out."

Jasmin
nodded, but she didn't look very happy at the idea of going up
against a vampire old enough to do the things that I'd described
earlier.

"You're
sure this is the smart thing to be doing, Alec? This guy could be
incredibly dangerous."

"Yeah,
I'm sure. It's not just a matter of needing to get the rest of the
money out, either. I'm not going to go down in history as the one who
let the vampires find out about us. Even if he's as powerful as I
think he is, he still won't be able to stand off all four of us."

**

Jasmin
and I took the last shift, me because I wanted to keep an eye out for
any problematic developments, her because I didn't want to stick
James with her in her current state.

James
and Jess showed up a few minutes before three a.m. It was late enough
that I was starting to think longingly of my pillow, but I knew that
waiting until then to attack was the prudent thing to do. Vampires
supposedly needed just as much sleep as humans, and this vampire was
still maintaining his cover at the bank, so attacking this late
almost guaranteed that we'd catch him asleep in his bed.

Jess
handed me a thin black roll of cloth. I unrolled it enough to confirm
it was a ski mask just like I'd requested, and then stuffed it in my
pocket.

"Were
they hard to find?"

James
grinned and shook his head. "Considering that it never snows
here it was ridiculously easy to find them. This place has a very
robust criminal side to it."

"Yeah,
well, the street thugs are probably just taking their lead from the
bankers."

Jasmin
accepted her ski mask and nervously played with it as I stood and
stretched. "Okay, we do this just like we discussed. Try not to
kill the lobby clerk, but make sure he's down for the count. Once we
find the vampire's apartment we go in hard and fast so that we've got
our claws inside of him before he's had a chance to realize anything
is going on."

I
waited while everyone nodded and then led the way back towards the
vampire's building. I'd spent the day looking for cameras on the
street, so I knew exactly where we needed to hood up. The ski mask
slipped over my face without any fuss and then we were stepping
inside of the lobby.

The
desk clerk was fiddling with something on his computer monitor and
didn't look up until we were less than ten feet from him. His hand
darted towards the phone as soon as he saw me, but he never even had
a chance. I crossed the distance between us in two quick bounds and
slammed his head into his mahogany desk. I checked his breathing and
his pulse and then followed James over to the elevator where he was
busy dismantling the security camera that had recorded our entrance.

Jess
had shed her clothes while I was taking care of the desk clerk. Once
James signaled that the camera was out of commission, she took off
her mask, handed Jasmin her clothes and her earpiece, dropped down
onto all fours as the elevator arrived and then darted inside and
sniffed the buttons on the panel. I stuck my head inside of the
elevator, but the stench of vampire was too overpowering for me to
pick out anything.

Jess
sneezed a couple of times and then staggered back out and shifted to
two legs, adjusting her ha'bit as she leaned against the wall. "I
think he's on the twenty-fifth floor."

I
handed her phone back to her. "Okay, good work. Stay here with
an open line and make sure he doesn't leave without us realizing it.
Don't engage him. If he shows up make a run for it. If you can circle
back around this way we'll try to set up an ambush of some kind."

"Okay,
hopefully it doesn't come to that."

I
turned back to James who was shooting the stainless steel elevator a
distasteful look. "I take it you'd rather take the stairs?"

"Yeah,
as bad as that's going to suck, I'd rather not spend any more time
surrounded by that stink than I have to."

It
was almost enough to draw a chuckle out of me, but I just waved him
towards the stairs. "You've got point, I'll take tail."

It
wasn't the right formation. Jasmin should have been point, but she
was so jittery that I didn't have any choice but to put her in the
middle.

I
turned my phone on and slipped my earpiece in as we started upwards.
Jess answered on the first ring.

"I
assume we're going to want to ditch our phones as soon as we're done
here?"

"Yeah,
that goes without saying, but I appreciate the reminder."

We
took the stairs two at a time, reining ourselves back a little to
make sure that we didn't arrive at the twenty-fifth floor winded.
Even so, it only took a few minutes to make it to the floor in
question and the three of us exited the stairwell moving with
well-practiced silence.

The
scent trail led from the elevator around to the right. We followed it
until we arrived at a single door that had to belong to the vampire.
James started to move forward as if to crash through the door, but
then stopped and put his ear up to the cool metal.