Hero Rising (7 page)

Harold sighed. “Man, you really messed up my plans for tonight. But I guess my friends will have to wait.”

“Well, you can make it up to them with the money you’re earning,” I said. “Remember to memorize faces, and names of the staff there, and any layout of the building you can get. How many floors are there? Is there a locked room or basement? What’s off limits? That sort of thing. Can you do it?”

Harold pocketed the money. “Sure, man, I can do it. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

Suddenly, my cell phone rang. It was Tommy.

“Okay, go. Do your best and you won’t be sorry.”

He turned to go.

“Oh, and Harold?” He looked back at me.

“Thank you,” I said simply.

Chapter Fourteen

Tommy was waiting for me in the lobby when I entered the hotel. I could tell he was excited but he was trying to hide it since he didn’t want to draw any attention. He waited for us to get into our room to talk.

“Where’s my room?” Tommy asked.

“This is it,” I answered.

“Then where is your room?”

“You’re looking at it.”

“Are you kidding me? We are sharing a bed? And a very small bed at that. This feels like we are in a closet.”

“I took this room because there is only one window in the bathroom. I asked for a room with no windows and this is all they had.”

“I forget you vampires have to worry about those things. Still doesn’t explain why we are sharing a room.”

“The room cost $450. Plus, it will be good for us to be together, just in case things go down. I’ve got your back. You’ve got mine. From inches away.”

“There will be no going down…and I repeat, there will be no going down by either of us on this venture.”

“You wish, Tom.”

“You wish it more, Josiah,” he ribbed me back.

“We will sleep opposite each other,” I said.

“It doesn’t change the fact that our groins are going to be eye to eye. Sleeping opposite just means I don’t have to smell your stinky vampire breath.”

“Don’t forget my breath is also part werewolf,” I said jokingly.

“That’s even worse. Your vampire-dog breath must be hell for poor Lena. How does she even kiss you?”

“She’s never complained. And look who’s talking about being a werewolf. You’re a purebred, man, not a mutt like me.”

“Ha, you got me there. You know what I say, Josiah? If we are going to do this, we go full bore. We are going to sleep naked and spoon all night. And there will be none of this front of the spoon bullshit. We will be taking turns being the front of the spoon. I’m not into holding someone all night and get no love back.”

“You’re such a clown, man. Even after all these years.”

“Humor is how I process a dangerous situation. You know that.”

“Yes, I know.” Tommy was an interesting cat. He used humor in every situation. It was his way of dealing with stress and anxiety.

Tommy decided to switch gears and finally listen to what I had to say. “So, what’s going on? What’s the latest?” he asked as he threw his duffle bag onto the floor and sank into a chair.

“Sion found out where Hector is being held,” I said. “He’s in a hostel just down the street.”

“Excellent!” Tommy said. “When do we go get him? Let’s go now.”

“Not so fast,” I said. I was trying like hell to be rational about the whole situation. And I hadn’t forgotten about my promise to Lena to be careful. “We need to scout out the place first,” I explained.

“What is there to scout out? We just go in and get him out. Kick whatever ass we need to kick and be done with it.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” I said. “There are a lot of Tandra there and we don’t want to hurt them. I don’t want to hurt any more of them than I have to.”

“We don’t have to,” Tommy replied as he got up from his chair and started pacing around. “We’ll just clear out the place. Make them leave. Then take down whoever is holding Hector hostage and get him and leave with him.”

I sighed. “Tommy, I’ve hired a guy to check the place out.”

Tommy looked at me like I was crazy. “You hired a guy? A Tandra?”

“Yes,” I said. “I decided I needed to know a little more about the place, and who is in charge, and Hector’s exact whereabouts if I can. We need an edge, and this was the idea I came up with.”

Tommy let this sink in. He was raring to go, but now he had to wait.

I explained further. “Look, Tom. I hired an older gentleman to check in to the hostel and find out everything he can. I paid him a little money but he’s going to get more when he brings me the information I need. Tomorrow. We need to know the layout of the building so we go right to Hector and don’t have to break down every door, man. There could be children in there. We don’t want to scare the wrong people.”

“Okay.” Tommy was wrapping his brain around this. Tommy trusted me thoroughly, and he respected my decisions.

“When we get this information from the man, then we’ll plan an attack. I need to call the kidnappers in the meantime and see what their plans are.”

“Do it,” was all he said. I knew Tommy’s way was to obliterate the hostel. Find Hector and get the hell out of Manhattan.

I called the number. Again, the phone picked up but no one spoke. “It’s me,” I said. “I’m in New York.”

“Great!” came the reply. “We knew you’d come through for your friend.” Whoever he was, he wasn’t too smart. That simple comment told me he wasn’t working alone.

“So, what do you want from me?” I asked innocently. I decided that I would pretend to go along with these assholes, only because it really was the best way to get Hector out of there. I rarely lied in matters of battle, but I had no intention whatsoever of letting them get away with this though. I was bound and determined to make sure they paid dearly for what they had done. That usually meant Tommy and I would be dishing out a hell of a lot of pain. But first I had to know exactly who and what I was dealing with.

“Hector has several bank accounts, each with several hundred thousand dollars in them,” said the voice, “It is too late to do it tonight. Tomorrow, you will go to these banks and take out all but a thousand dollars from each of them.”

“And just how do you expect me to do that?” I answered. I was confused. “I’m not Hector, and I can’t just walk into a bank pretending to be him and clear out all of his accounts. Moreover, hello, I don’t go out in the daytime. It’s bad for my delicate complexion.”

“You were always on his bank accounts. He said he put you on there years ago. If he is telling us the truth, all you need to do is go in and get the money. Then bring that money to me.”

“What makes you think I just won’t go to the police?”

“We know what you are. You don’t deal with the police. You live under a different code.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“It’s why you haven’t shown the world you are a vampire when you do your superhero tricks. Any footage of you has you saving Tandra or fighting clean. You leave before you’re questioned by authorities. You’re keeping things close to the vest and private.”

I was shocked that he knew so much. Tommy and I looked at each other, worried. I knew he could hear every word with his super-acute werewolf hearing.

Now the caller told me a second thing. No one, other than Mani or Carni, referred to humans as Tandra. Now I knew I was dealing with a vampire or a werewolf. Nothing about this smelled like a werewolf. All of my instincts were telling me that I was dealing with vampires.

I wondered if Hector did put my name on all of his accounts or if he said that, Maybe he just wanted to get me out here. He knew I was his best bet at being saved. Either way, he’d stalled for time and that was what we needed.

“You obviously know key information about me. You might even know my name,” I said.

“We don’t care who you are,” he said, cutting me off. “We aren’t the paparazzi; we’re out for a bigger score here. You’re just a means to an end. Once we heard Hector had a co-person in charge of his accounts, for all we care, you could have been an 18-year-old Brazilian prostitute and we would have called you to come out here.”

“If you know who I am, then obviously, you are aware of what I can do.”

“What? You fly and can fight. Big freaking deal. You’re only one man. If my boys can’t stop one man then they don’t deserve to live either. I’m not worried about one person.”

One person? Well, that is where he would be wrong. I had my golden boy Tommy with me and he loved pounding Mani. This guy had no idea who I was or what I was capable of. Truth of the matter was, it didn’t matter to me if he and his crew didn’t know who I was. In all actuality, the less they knew, the more it benefited me.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.” They had everything planned and the only thing I had going for me was that I knew where Hector was being held. I needed to talk to the old man I paid to stay there before I went any further, but they didn’t know that. At least, I hoped they didn’t.

“We calculate that you can do this within six hours. If you don’t call us back, with the money, he’s dead. You understand?”

I was thinking fast now. “You might not care who I am. Do you know
what
I am?” I asked.

“We understand you can’t go out in daylight. This means you have to wait. We know. All of Hector’s banks are open after dark. We’re not rookies, dipshit. I will text you the banks and their addresses.”

“I don’t have any ATM cards or pin numbers!” I said.

“You’re a legal signatory on the account. You can go in with your driver’s license and work it from there.”

Then the phone went dead.

Now, my blood was boiling.

Chapter Fifteen

Whoever these people were, they wouldn’t be able to touch any of my money. All of my own money was stashed in cash in my castle, and like I said, anyone who dared to come to the island of Helena would have to be prepared to fight a shitload of Mani to remove so much even a seashell from the island.

These guys thought they had everything planned, but they didn’t have any idea who they were dealing with. Who knew? Maybe I was the one who was clueless and they just weren’t afraid of me. That would be an amusing turn of events. The thought of these guys showing no fear excited me more than made me nervous. I loved a good fight. As Lena had noticed, I probably loved it too much. One of these days, it was going to get me killed.

If these guys were prepared to bring it, I knew Tommy and I were always gamed. Having Tommy here with me gave me peace of mind. Speaking of which, Tommy went into the bathroom and closed the curtains tightly. The sun would be up in a few hours.

“You need to duct tape those down before the sun comes up,” I called out to Tommy.

Tommy stepped back to the door and looked at me with a ‘what the hell did you say?’ look. He apparently didn’t like the fact that I just ordered him to do something. He had never gotten used to the reality that I was the one in charge. I wished I didn’t have to be and that I could count on other people to take the lead. Okay, not really. At the end of the day, someone was always the Alpha.
I
was that someone.

Over the years, in my relationship with Tommy, and despite the fact that Tommy was older than me, I had become the Alpha. Guys just didn’t come out and say it to each other because that would imply that the other guy was less than you. But, in every male friendship, there was a pecking order. Deep, deep down, both men knew who could take the other one out if things got out of hand. If they didn’t know who was tougher, and falling into line, they would probably end up fighting and then they would know for sure who was who in their friendship. Tommy and I had a very strange past in that regard.

Our only fight that was on the books in MMA had Tommy knocking me out inside five rounds. That had been a long time ago, before a lot of things had changed. I was no longer 100 percent human like I had been on the day the California Commission had made Tommy and I face off against each other in the MMA ring.

I’d heard that the second a human was turned into a werewolf, the person became 20 percent stronger. That meant if he was benching 340 pounds—the exact amount of weight that Tommy was putting up on the bench press before he turned into a Carni—he would now be benching 408.

When Tommy had first turned into a Carni or a werewolf, I had no idea that it happened. He and my sister, who’d later passed away, had kept it from me. I’d guessed they were trying to protect me, but it was information that would have proven valuable. But those days were gone.

Once I did find out, a lot of stuff made a hell of a lot more sense. One of the things was that Tommy had gone from benching 340 on the bench press on a Wednesday and by Monday morning of the next week, he was putting up 408 pounds easily. At the time, I thought that he was the superhero.

But our mixed martial arts days were far behind us. Any advantage his immortality gave him in his human form only benefitted me because he and I were always on the same side. I had his back and he had mine. We were bros for life.

“Listen, Tommy,” I said. “I’m not out to order you around. I’m out to get things done. One of our dearest friends is being held at neck point. You know how it’s done. You’ve killed many Mani in your day. One pierce through the neck and out again. That’s all it takes. And Hector would be history.”

“I know. You don’t have to tell me. I’ll go get you your duct tape.” Tommy left and returned in 20 minutes. He said there was a drugstore not too far from where we were staying that had everything.

We had to wait a few hours, and we passed the time watching TV and ordering food. Tommy slept a little but I couldn’t sleep. I was busy planning.

Finally, around ten in the morning, I got a call. It wasn’t blocked like the kidnapper’s was, and I answered.

“Hello?”

“It’s me, Harold.”

“Come on up,” I said to him. “We’re in room 906.”

A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. I wasn’t really concerned, but Tommy insisted on waiting behind the door as I opened it, just in case Harold had company.

“Come in,” I said as I opened the door for him. When I closed it behind him, Harold was a little surprised to see Tommy standing behind me in a defensive stance.

“It’s all right,” I said in a calm voice. “This is my friend.” I didn’t want the old man to know Tommy’s name any more than I wanted him to know mine.

Harold wandered into the room. “Why is it so dark in here?”

“We like it that way,” I said simply. I could tell that Harold was a little spooked.

“Let’s get down to business, and then you can be on your way, okay?”

Harold was more than okay with this. I gestured for him to sit in a chair and Tommy and I sat on our bed. Tommy was still playing tough, and he frowned at Harold and folded his arms. Harold tried not to look at Tommy. I gave Tommy a dirty look, and then smiled to Harold.

“Okay, what did you find out?” I asked him.

“Well, it’s kind of a creepy place,” Harold started out. “I mean, I can’t explain just how. There are some people staying there, but it’s not packed like some of the other hostels are.”

“Did you find out anything about whoever runs the place?” I asked.

Harold nodded. “Some dude named Nevil. He’s a muscular Puerto Rican man. He’s the one in charge, but he has some kind of assistants that help him out.”

“Do you know their names?” I pressed.

“This one chick, I think she’s his girlfriend or whatever. Her name is Ice. She is very easy on the eyes.”

“Her name is Ice?” Tommy laughed.

“It’s a nickname,” Harold replied.

“I gather it has something to do with her temperament. Go on, Harold,” I said

And there’s another guy named Jacques.

“Jock?” I asked.

“Yeah, Jacques, I think he’s French. The ‘S’ is silent in the name.”

“What does he look like?” I asked

“He has light brown hair and is built like a track star. Thin and muscular.”

“Were there others?”

“There were many others who seem to be all working together.”

“How many more?” I asked

“Maybe ten.”

“Those are our favorite odds.” Tommy laughed.

“These assistants,” I continued, “What do they do?”

“They basically run the place. One of the ones I didn’t get the name of, he’s Asian, I think, and he runs the kitchen. He was the only one around in the daytime. The rest of them were only there at night.”

“Okay,” I said. “What else? Did you find any areas that were off limits to some but not to others?”

“There’s a second floor,” Harold said. “Stairs leading up to a door that is chained up.

“Did you see anyone go up there?” Tommy asked.

“Yeah. The Asian guy. He’s different than the rest of them.”

“Different, how?” I asked.

Harold, poor old man, looked like he wished he’d never agreed to this easy money. He looked down like he didn’t want to meet my eyes.

“Well, the rest of them, Nevil, Ice and Jacques look really pale. And they have this weird look in their eyes, like they’re almost wild, kind of. Kind of like…” Harold looked at me and put his head down.

“Like me,” I finished for him. Harold kept his eyes down and just nodded.

“I don’t mean any disrespect.” He was practically apologizing to me.

“It’s all right, Harold. Don’t worry,” I said. “All of this must be very strange to you. I understand.”

Harold blew out a relieved sigh. “Cool.”

“So, you got us three names, and that it’s a little strange there, and the second floor is chained shut for some reason. That’s pretty good intel,” I said encouragingly. “Anything else? Anything at all?”

“Actually, there is something else,” Harold said.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Well, you know how those hostels have curfews, right? No one in or out past midnight.”

I didn’t know, but I nodded.

“Usually, they lock up the place and take shifts at the desk, you know?”

“Go on,” I said. “They didn’t have anyone at the desk all night?”

“Well yeah, they did, you know, if someone needs more toilet paper or whatever.”

“So, what was so different about this place?” Tommy asked.

“It was the chick and the French guy,” Harold answered. “They stood guard at both the front and back doors all night. Just watching.”

“So, Ice and Frenchie are key players in this outfit. Also, I’m pretty sure that Nevil is the one I have been talking to.”