Blood Oath (20 page)

Cade evaluated her for a moment. “No,” he said. “You’re not. You’re taking all of this quite well.”

“Come now, Mr. Cade. You don’t really think you’re the only extra-normal operative working for the government, do you?”

Cade’s mouth twitched. “Extra-normal. Clever.”

She shrugged. “Government jargon. What are you going to do?” Still looking amused, she didn’t seem willing to offer any more information.

Abruptly, Cade turned away and put his phone to his ear.

Which left Zach standing there, talking to the two agents alone.

Reyes glared. But Helen looked him over, sizing him up.

“How do you like the new job, Zach?” she asked.

That caught him off guard. “Do I know you?”

“Nope.” Still smiling. “But I know you.”

Christ. More mind games. Like he hadn’t had enough of those today. “Whatever you say.”

“You should listen to me, Zach,” she said, still infuriatingly calm, as if someone—some
thing
—hadn’t just broken her car nearly in half.

“Why is that?”

She gave him another million-watt smile. “Because we’re the good guys, of course.”

Zach laughed. “Yeah. I can tell.”

Her expression changed to pity. “You can’t. You’ve been fed a pack of lies. You joined the wrong team. I mean, really, would the good guys have a vampire working for them?”

Zach looked away from her, over to where Cade stood, phone still to his ear.

She kept pushing. “Ask him a question: how many people has he killed? Not in the line of duty. How many innocent people has he killed, just so he can feed?”

“He doesn’t feed on people,” Zach said.

“And you believe that?”

Zach didn’t have an answer.

She laughed at him. “Poor Zach,” she said. “You don’t know who ” to trust.

 

 

CADE HIT THE BUTTON for Griff. It took the man a moment to answer. His voice sounded rough.

“Yeah?”

“We’ve run into some people from the Agency.”

“You sure?”

Cade listened to the woman as she worked to turn Zach against him.

“Fairly certain, yes. What should I do with them?”

“They look dangerous to you?”

Cade almost smiled. “They never do.”

Griff thought about it for a moment. “Just get out of there. You don’t need the Agency on your ass.”

Cade looked back at Helen and Reyes. Saw the troubled look on Zach’s face. The woman was talking to him, and he was listening.

“It might already be too late,” Cade said.

He hung up, got Zach and got back in the car.

HELEN WATCHED Cade and the boy leave. She knew Zach was looking back at her. She smiled and waved.

As soon as their car turned the corner, her big smile shut off.

She checked her watch. Past three a.m. Sunrise in a little more than four hours. Cade would have to go to ground soon.

Reyes was on his phone already, calling for backup. He was bent over with pain now. He’d put up a good front, but Cade had hurt him. Helen wouldn’t have been surprised if he had broken bones.

Not her problem. Helen crossed her arms and leaned back against the trunk of the car again.

Reyes snapped his phone shut. “We’ll have a ride in five minutes.”

She sighed irritably. That would have to do. She still had another meeting tonight. She wasn’t looking forward to it, but she wanted to get it over with.

God, she hated to wait.

 

 

 

 

Z
ach kept looking through the back window as they drove away.

“We’re just going to leave them there?”

“Yes.”

Zach watched them through the back window until Cade turned down another street.

“Yeah, I suppose they can call DHS for a tow truck.”

“They weren’t from Homeland Security,” Cade said.

“How do you know? Were the badges fake?”

“Not the badges. The names. There are no employees of DHS named Helen Holt or Augusto Reyes.”

“How can you be so sure? You know the name of every Homeland Security employee?”

Cade didn’t respond.

“You know the name of every Homeland Security employee, don’t you?”

“And their positions,” Cade said. “Those two, whoever they are—they don’t exist.”

Zach wondered what that meant. Before he could ask, Cade spoke again. “I would have expected better driving from a car thief.”

Zach looked over at him, stunned. Nobody knew about that.

“I never—” Zach started. Then decided fuck it, no use lying.

“That was a long time ago.”

“It was nine years.”

“Right, I forgot. That’s like waiting in line for a latte to you, isn’t it? What do you care anyway?”

“I’m wondering how you ever got away with it.”

“Well, I didn’t, obviously. I got caught.”

“Only once,” Cade said.

“Once was enough.”

At first, Zach told himself it was little more than a practical joke. People in his hometown still left their cars unlocked. If they didn’t, Zach had figured out a way to pop open most doors. If he couldn’t bust the lock, he’d learned that a spark plug, tossed just so, would shatter a car’s window instantly, with barely a sound. He taught himself how to hot-wire from a schematic he found on the Net.

It was a challenge. And it was dangerous—miles away from the hours in class where he was the predictably bright student, the kid who got along with everyone, who always said and did the right things.

The money didn’t hurt, either. Tyler, one of Zach’s buddies, was pretty much aimed at prison from the moment he came out of his mother’s womb. Absent father, abuse from Mom’s boyfriends, too little money and too much time on his hands.

He and Zach were friends in grade school, before either knew they shouldn’t be. Both latchkey kids, with single moms. Tyler came over to his house after school. They stuck together, like some bad movie version of themselves, the tough guy and the brain. If he stopped to think about it, Zach knew Tyler counted on him for stability. And he knew that once he went off to college, he’d never see Tyler again.

In the meantime, Tyler knew a guy who was willing to pay them for the cars they brought him. Laughably small amounts, really. But Zach wasn’t exactly rich himself. He needed cash for that Ivy League escape he’d planned.

So, while he spent time after school and weekends doing Mock Legislature, Poli-Sci Club and volunteering for campaigns, Zach also ran around a few nights every month stealing cars.

Then they were caught.

The cop who wouldn’t buy into Zach’s bullshit—the one Griff resembled so much—also figured out this was the reason for the recent rash of auto thefts. He and the prosecutor gave Zach a choice—go to juvie or turn in Tyler and his buyer.

Zach, sitting in a grimy conference room in the courthouse, didn’t have to think about it long. He saw his whole future turning to dust. He asked for only one condition: that his arrest record remain sealed.

Tyler went to juvie. His buyer went to prison. Zach made his escape.

And this was where it got him. He tried to settle back into his seat.

“You’re not as different as you think, Zach,” Cade said. “Everyone has secrets. You’ll see.”

Zach wasn’t sure what that meant. He wondered if Cade had heard Helen’s conversation with him. Then he yawned so hard he nearly passed out. He looked at his watch and wondered when he’d get any sleep.

“Almost sunrise,” Cade said, as if in answer. “We’re going to the safe house.”

—BRIEFING BOOK: CODENAME: NIGHTMARE PET

 

 

 

 

K
onrad entered his home in the Hollywood Hills. It had a beautiful view of the city, a chef’s kitchen, clean lines—and a vampire waiting in the living room.

Tania sat on the edge of the couch, swinging her legs.

Konrad bit back a curse. This was really getting to be too much for one day.

“Shouldn’t you wait for an invitation?” he asked, walking to the entry table. She’d already deactivated the alarm. How thoughtful.

“You know that’s just superstition,” she said.

“But it would at least be good manners. I assume you’re here for the bounty on Nathaniel Cade.”

Her smile only widened. “I am. But not quite how you think. I’m going to make sure you never bother Cade again.”

He stopped sorting the mail on the entry table. “Interesting,” he said. “You must be Tania.”

“You know me?”

He nodded. “In our little world, you’re known as the girl who will do anything for money. And there are always errands that need to be done. You’ve created quite an industry for yourself. I would think you would be happy to take my commission. Can I ask why not?”

“The reasons don’t matter.”

“The reasons always matter,” Konrad said. “I’m offering blood, money and even limited ability to travel in the day. All of that is well within my abilities. So what is Cade to you that you’d pass over a substantial reward?”

Tania dropped her smile. “Cade is mine,” she said. It was almost a growl. “You don’t threaten what’s mine.”

Konrad nodded. It made sense now. “Yes. I see. You’re not much for feelings, but you are very proprietary, aren’t you? Territoriality. Ownership.”

She looked bored. “You can stall if you want. You know how this conversation ends.”

Tania took a step toward Konrad. He didn’t look worried.

“I’ve lived a very long time. And I didn’t survive this long without taking measures against parasites like you.”

Quicker than Tania thought possible, Konrad’s hand stabbed what looked like a light switch.

The bulbs above flared to life, and the pain brought her to her knees.

Ultraviolets. Full-spectrum. And intense. Thousands of watts. Enough to light up a small stadium.

It wasn’t like true daylight—it would not kill her—but it delivered a stunning amount of agony all the same.

Before she could shake it off, Konrad was standing over her. She swept one arm at him, but she was still dizzy. Her aim was off. He snapped something around her neck. She heard a lock click, and then there was a new weight at her throat.

She stood. The glare was still awful, but she could handle it now. She opened her eyes and prepared to leap at Konrad.

“One moment, please,” he said. In one hand, he had a remote. “You’re now wearing six ounces of C-4 plastic explosive. It’s not much of a fashion accessory, I admit. But it’s more than enough to blow your head clean off your body.”

She touched the collar. Decapitation. One of two sure ways to kill a vampire. Head or heart.

“I’ve got your attention,” Konrad said. “Good.” He shut down the lights. “I can activate the collar with this remote. If I press a button, you die. It also includes a proximity sensor. Attempt to get near me, and you die. And the collar has a GPS sensor, so I can program it to limit you to a specific area. Attempt to leave that area, you die. Are you quite clear on the rules?”

Tania nodded, her jaw clenched tight.

“Good,” he said.

She tensed. Her reactions were faster than his, if she could just ...

Suddenly, her nerves were on fire. Every muscle in her body went into spasm. She hit the floor like a rag doll tossed by a fickle child.

Dimly, she heard Konrad speak again. “The collar is also capable of delivering electrical shocks in the range of eight amps. That’s more than an electric chair. As you may have noticed.”