Reckoning: A Fallen Siren Novel (21 page)

“So that’s how they did it?” Zack asks Ford. “Lamont used Cheng to kidnap the girls? What did he promise him?”

Ford replies without hesitation, the wound on his neck now all but erased. “What do you think? Wealth. Immortality, of course.”

Just what the world needs. More immortal sleaze-bags.

“What part did Asa Wade play in your plan?” I ask.

“None,” replies Ford. “As far as I know, Asa came of his own accord. He had a score he wanted to settle. With Zack and his bitch.” He raises his hands in supplication. “Not my words. Not my fight. None of this is. Was.” He turns to Kallistos. “Please, let me go.”

Kallistos appears to give it consideration, but is soon shaking his head. “You sound like your pansy-assed monarch. You think you deserve no punishment.”

“I’m just as much a victim as they are,” Ford replies, gesturing to the girls.

“Victim?” Kallistos snarls. “You were Lamont’s blood
slave for how long? No. You voluntarily bound yourself to Lamont. You did it because you enjoyed the power and prestige the title awarded you. Don’t speak to me of being a victim. You want to see what a victim looks like?”

Kallistos turns his back on Ford and gestures toward the girls.

“Can you create some . . . reasonable memories to explain all of this so you can bring them out of it?” I ask, rubbing at my throat. The pain has eased and talking is no longer agony, but my voice is still rough.

Kallistos wipes Ford’s blood from his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket. “Of course.” He smiles at me. “But first—”

He raises my gun once again and shoots Ford square in the chest. The act is so abrupt, so unexpected, I’m frozen in place. Zack isn’t. He’s poised to protect himself. To protect the girls. To protect me.

Kallistos drops his arm. The barrel points toward the floor. “Relax,” he says to Zack. “It had to be done.”

Ford is bleeding out in front of me. The red stain covering his shirt is getting larger and larger. I fall to my knees beside him and put pressure on the wound.

“Undo this!” I beg.

Kallistos shakes his head. “Ford was a witness.”

“A witness to what?”

“Zack killing his King. To save you.”

Blood bubbles up from Ford’s mouth. He tries to speak.

Kallistos kneels down beside me. “Cheng was a trafficker. I can fix it with the girls.” He sweeps a hand around the chamber. “I’ll plant the story that this was an
attempt to auction them off. I’ll have Simon hack into the FBI hotline. Plant an anonymous tip. You and Zack caught it, followed Cheng from his hotel. He and Ford resisted arrest. I’ll get rid of the . . .” He searches for the word. “Unusual evidence. It will be as if Lamont was never here.”

I’m too stunned to comment.

Suddenly, Zack nods. “We can also use that angle to explain the money they’ve been earning from the Emporium in exchange for their blood. Chalk it up to Cheng’s attempt to groom the girls.”

“Explain,” Kallistos says.

They’re ignoring Ford, already writing him off as someone who can’t be saved. They’re right. I watch as he takes his last breath. A wave of nausea washes over me, but I have to push revulsion aside and focus on the matter at hand. We have two bodies and the clock is ticking.

“It’s something traffickers do. They use different strategies, different techniques, but basically they increase dependency while at the same time assessing how compliant and malleable their victims might be. I say we stick closely to the story you told the girls. They were approached about participating in a medical research program. They had to show up when and where they were told for their weekly blood donations, a different place each week, no questions asked. And they had to maintain strict confidentiality. In exchange, they were paid. Once Cheng was convinced they would be a good prospect, he nabbed them.”

I climb to my feet, wipe the sweat from my brow. “But Julie was earning far longer than the others,” I say.

Zack doesn’t miss a beat. It’s unnerving how easily he
weaves together the story. “He left her alone so that she could unwittingly help him recruit others. Again, it’s not an unusual strategy. We’ll say they used a bloodmobile. They would park it somewhere for a short period of time along the bus or trolley route so it would be easily accessible. Simon, you catching all this?”

Simon’s voice comes across on my headset loud and clear. “I have the MTS bus and trolley schedules up for San Diego already. I’ll get my hands on some prepaid cells we can plant. If Kallistos can confirm the names of all the girls and the addresses for their schools, I can work it out. We’ll plant text messages. But I’m going to need backup to accomplish this quickly—two, maybe three hours. I have a couple buddies I can call.”

“Do whatever you need to do,” Kallistos says. “As soon as the job is finished, we’ll dispatch someone to wipe their memories. And your memory when this is done. We can’t have any loose ends.”

“Understood,” Simon replies without hesitation.

Zack chimes in. “We can easily buy you the necessary time. If you can get the cell phones here, we’ll plant them in the room where the girls were held. They’ll be discovered. Forensics probably won’t start pulling phone records until tomorrow. Speaking of records, we could also use a bank account showing matching withdrawals that could also eventually be tied to Cheng.”

“Simon?” Kallistos asks.

“Got it,” he says.

Kallistos looks up, his gaze on Zack. “Now we need to come to an agreement on how to clean up
your
mess.”

“Zack’s mess?” I ask.

Zack picks up the remains of Lamont’s clothes,
holding them up with two fingers. “Yeah. It’s after Labor Day. I’m going to have a hell of a time getting rid of this white suit.” He gives the dirt floor a swipe with his boot, scattering the remnants of ash.

“Do the two of you understand what’s happened here? Zack killed a sovereign.”

“I also saved Emma’s ass,” Zack interjects.

Kallistos ignores him. “A
Were
killed a vampire King.”

“And saved Emma’s ass,” Zack says again, this time louder.

Kallistos rounds on him. “Emma would have lived and you damn well know it. You were thinking with your dick, or your heart. Certainly not your head. If this becomes known, we risk a war that will affect more than the supernatural community. The violence will spill over to the mortal world, too. No one will be safe.” He turns back to speak to me, voice softer. “Lamont was in
my
territory. He’d taken
my
people. Waged war on
my
Kingdom. And he died by
my
hands. No one can know it was Zack, not ever.”

“Agreed.” I glance over at Zack. “Except for the three of us.”

I hold my breath, wait for Zack to say something. Finally, he does.

“Agreed.”

Kallistos nods and moves off, hand at his ear, speaking into his earpiece. It’s a conversation we aren’t privy to. I catch the name Tony before joining Zack. We don’t have much time. Once Kallistos sets the wheels in motion, his “cleanup” crew will be here in minutes. I flash back to last year and another crime scene that he offered to clean up. That one involved blowing up a building.

I heave a sigh. “Should we get the girls out of here? It would make it easier to clean up.”

“No fucking way am I leaving Kallistos and his clowns here to do this by themselves. We need two large plastic barrels, rubber gloves, Dustbuster, rags.” He calls out the latter loud enough so Kallistos can hear.

His request is acknowledged with a curt nod.

Only Zack isn’t quite finished. “And have Evan bring the SUV here. I need the black duffel in the back of the van. . . .”

I look around. Most of the “unusual evidence” left to clean up can be dispatched quickly by Kallistos’ men. But Zack isn’t going to relinquish control again and I can’t blame him.

I glance at Kallistos. He’s with the girls now, in a corner. I listen as he speaks to them in a hushed tone, spinning the tale they’ll remember as truth. In actuality, it’s not far from it. Cheng evidently
was
behind the kidnappings. And he was wanted for human trafficking. They’ll remember being abducted and brought here, kept in the cages until Ford arrived, then being brought out to be sold. Only the part about being bled and, of course, that any vampires were here, that vampires exist at all, will be scrubbed—just as simply and easily as he scrubs away the evidence of puncture wounds on their skin with his tongue.

“When you’re ready,” Kallistos is saying, “you and Zack can take the girls down the tunnel to the opening under the mission. Have them sit inside. The thrall will lift within a few minutes. They will remember as commanded.” Kallistos’ phone rings. He answers. “All is well. I will be home soon.” He tucks his phone back into his
jacket. “Owen,” he says, by way of explanation. Kallistos cocks his head to the left. “Tony’s here.”

The sound of approaching footsteps snaps our attention. Tony, the same vampire who helped Kallistos “clean up” Barbara Pierce’s lab, smiles when he sees us. He has two others with him.

“We need to hurry,” Zack says, checking his watch. “This needs to be called in soon.”

Tony turns to Kallistos to get his instructions.

Kallistos directs him back to Zack.

“Simon said to give you these.” Tony hands him a clear ziplock bag filled with cell phones.

“Gloves on. Collect all of the glasses, the carafes, the tablecloths. Vacuum up the shards. Dump them in one of the barrels along with Lamont’s phone, any radios, the earpieces on the floor, and the vampire clothing. I need to collect some clothes from upstairs and plant the cells you brought. As soon as that’s done, we wipe down the stage area and all of the walls. Got it?”

The vampires nod in unison, then go to work.

Kallistos looks me up and down. “You’re a mess.”

I’m soaked in Ford’s and Cheng’s blood, my clothes painted in macabre splotches. “It’s been a long night.”

He reaches for my hand and tilts his head toward the girls, who are still in thrall, still waiting patiently for their next command. “You did what you set out to do. You saved them.”

I step back. My hand slips from his. I fold my arms protectively across my chest. I can’t quite look him in the eye. “And did you do what you set out to do?” My gaze falls, instead, on the bodies of Ford and Cheng, crumpled, bloodied, dead. “You killed them.”

He smiles wryly. “Not all of them. I let a few go.”

“So they would tell the story. You shouldn’t have killed the humans. It wasn’t right.” My voice seems distant to my own ears.

He reaches out to cup my cheek, tipping my face up and searching my eyes. For what? Understanding? Forgiveness? He finds neither.

“What is right?” Kallistos asks. “You think your form of justice is better? Would you rather see them imprisoned, stuffed in cages like animals? Like those girls? Would you rather risk having it all unravel?” He leans down, his voice tight, strained. “Cheng was a monster. Your own FBI has made him one of its most wanted. And Ford? Do you really think he was any better? That he was innocent in all of this? I made the tough decision. It’s what sovereigns do.”

I push his hand away, match my tone to his. “Trouble is, I don’t believe the decision was all that tough for you.”

“Emma, time to take the girls out of here. I’m calling this in!” Zack shouts out.

He may be acting like he didn’t hear every word Kallistos and I have just spoken, but I’m confident he did. They all did.

An awkward silence descends on the room. But it lasts only a moment. Soon the buzz of work resumes. Tony and his cronies move with lightning speed, disposing of the table, chairs, and blood evidence by transporting it down the same tunnel we entered through. All that remain are the bodies of Cheng and Ford, the staging area where the auction was to take place, and the area where the girls had been kept. In less than ten minutes they’ve “scrubbed” the entire crime scene.

Kallistos wipes his prints from my gun and hands it back to me.

Mechanically, I take it.

“Your gun. Your call,” he says. “What happens next is up to you.”

With that, he walks away.

I lead the girls through the passageway to the entry point under the chapel. A short flight of steps leads to a bolted door. I push through to find it’s a false wall within the priest’s compartment of what I recognize as a confessional. We step out into the chapel. The girls file past the statue of the Virgin Mary surrounded by the flickering of hundreds of votives and into the rear pews. I know they will come out of thrall shortly. They will remember what Kallistos told them to remember. I, however, will remember the way it really happened.

I stroll down the aisle and stand in front of the ornate altar. Iron stands line both sides, filled with candles. The smell of polished wood and incense permeates the air.

“Agent Monroe?”

I turn around. It’s Julie Simmons. Barefoot and bruised. Her hair matted. Her eyes are hollow from lack of sustenance and loss of blood, but real awareness shines through. She’s back. She wraps her arms around me. “Thank you,” she whispers.

Tears cloud my vision. I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them again, I see that the other girls have gathered near. They should be peppering us with questions. Instead, they are eerily quiet. Kallistos has programmed them with all the answers they need, all the answers they’ll repeat to the police, their parents, one another.

Zack catches my eye. He is standing behind them.
He’s changed clothes, back to his suit. Only the cuffs are soaked in blood. His hands are, too.

I make my way over to him.

“Suit’s a little worse for wear,” I say.

He smiles. “Right back at you. When we’re ready to leave, Evan parked the SUV in the west corner of the lot. He left with Malcolm and our equipment.”

I hear the sound of sirens approaching.

“How are they?” he asks, motioning to the girls.

“Better than one would expect after what they’ve been through,” I say.

“How are you?”

I have to sift through a dozen cascading emotions. Zack waits for me to answer. But I can’t. Not now. “I need to get some air,” I tell him.