Vintage Soul (22 page)

They saw their goal long before they reached it.
 
The Tefft Complex was a huge, gleaming structure of reflective glass windows, steel, and concrete.
 
Lights winked out of offices up and down the north, east, and west face of the building, visible from anywhere in the downtown area.
 
It wasn't the tallest building in San Valencez, but it was one of the most imposing, and, as Vein had discovered, it had a secret.
 
Like a giant, metallic bone stretching up into the darkening sky, he knew it had a core that wasn't visible to the casual observer.
 
The Tefft Complex had a hollow core, and it was in that central, sealed section he knew Vanessa was being held.

There were several businesses housed in the complex.
 
There was a small, foreign bank, a jewelry importing firm, an insurance company, and even a small coffee shop on the first floor.
 
Banks of elevators rode smoothly up and down the walls of the skyscraper, and if you walked in through any of the main entrances, you'd see that they ran in a tight circle near the center of the rear wall.
 
The southern face of the complex had no windows, and the elevator shafts did not actually run across that back facing wall – and they were not all visible.

It had taken some doing, but once Vein had determined he had the right building, he'd started digging.
 
When it came to the darker side of the city, what seemed apparent on the surface was almost always deceiving.
 
The Tefft Complex proved no exception to the rule.
 
There were at least two elevators in that structure that could not be accessed through the lobby.
 
There was also a large section of the building itself that was accessible by no obvious means, but that certainly existed.

A little more digging, and he was certain he'd found the flaw in the façade.
 
While the elevators didn't open into the main lobby of the building, there were maintenance halls between the shafts, and they extended to the hidden shafts, as well as the others.
 
Private elevators weren't uncommon, and they required the same types of maintenance and service that public elevators did.
 
Vein and his crew were very adept at climbing, and it didn't seem likely that an elevator shaft would cause them much trouble.

What they might find once they entered that closed level he could only guess, and the guesswork was what made him nervous.
 
Johndrow was right about one thing – they were less equipped than DeChance against most magical attacks.
 
Strength and speed were on their side, but the innate weaknesses of
undeath
were too widely known and easy to emulate by magical means.

It was a problem.
 
Vein had sent his followers crawling through all the darker pits of the city in search of charms, protections, and weapons that might give them an edge, or, barring that keep them from being destroyed.
 
The haul was a small one, but surprisingly potent.
 
He grinned, thinking about it.

On the corner of Oak and Vine, there was a small gift shop that specialized in occult items.
 
Though she wasn't always there, it was known that this shop was run by the woman called Amethyst, the one who'd humiliated Vein so easily in the alley.
 
Her specialty was amulets, charms, and crystals, and though most of what she sold in the shop was powerless, meaningless junk, you could find the better items if you knew where, and how, to look.
 
As it turned out, Vein wasn't the only one in the city attracted to Kali.
 
Amethyst had an apprentice.

Kali had talked the guy out of five amulets that would protect them from magical detection, and one larger crystal meant to deflect spells.
 
In addition, Vein had purchased a blood crystal.
 
There was little magic available to the undead, but magic didn't always reside in the practitioner.
  
Often it was imbedded in an object – a talisman, or a scroll where the words were enchanted to act of their own volition once the bearer spoke them aloud.
 
Blood crystals were among the only enchantments unique to the undead, and Vein had gone to a lot of expense to acquire the one he wore around his neck.

The crystal had only one purpose.
 
Once he placed a drop of his own blood to it, the stone would swing out to the length of the thong that held it around his neck, and it would stretch in the direction of the strongest blood bond.
 
In this case, he intended to use it, once they'd managed to break through the security of the inner building, to find Vanessa as quickly as possible.
 
He wasn't bonded to any other, not among the elders, and certainly not among this crew.
 
The only one with promise was Kali, and as he'd told himself earlier, that was for another time.

They pulled to the curb several blocks away from the Tefft Complex and sat with the motor running for few moments.
 
Bruno handed out the amulets, and they slipped them over their necks in silence.
 
Vein stared down at his, an almost solid black crystal.

“You sure these things will work?” he asked.

Kali shrugged.
 
“How would I know?
 
He said they would.
 
Why would he lie?”

Vein shrugged and opened his door, stepping out onto the sidewalk.
 
It didn't matter.
 
They were committed, and he, for one, was going to see it through to the end, even if the damned amulets didn't work.
  
He'd been sitting long enough; it was time for some action.
 
He slipped his sunglasses on, and a moment later the others had gathered around him.
 
They stood and stared up at the huge, looming structure, then started walking toward it as a group.

Vein and Kali took the lead.
 
Behind them the other three lined up.
 
Pierce had been unable to join them – he'd been the in the alley with Vein, and had not been back around since the attack.
 
His absence was another thing to be dealt with at a later time.
 
Kali more than made up the difference.
 
Bruno walked directly behind Vein, and beside him was a thin kid they called Shade.
 
On the far side,
tall and lanky, walked the oldest of them next to Vein.
 
His name was Robert, but they called him bones.

Vein didn't like using the names they'd been born with.
 
They were so much more than they'd been, why cheapen that with an outdated label?
 
Of course, the elders disapproved, but they generally disapproved of everything Vein and his friends attempted or suggested, so the names stuck, and none of them answered to anything else.
 
Vein wondered if Pierce had gone back to being “Darren Pierce” already, or if they could drag him back into the fold.

They entered the lobby of the Tefft Complex and headed straight for the elevators.
 
There were security guards, but Vein gave them no chance to act.
 
They stepped into the first elevator and Kali pushed the up arrow.
 
The doors were closing before the first of the guards got the courage to press off the wall he was leaning on.
 
Too late.

Once they'd left the first floor behind, Vein wasted no time.
 
He nodded, and Kali poked the STOP button.
 
There was a trap door in the top of the elevator car, and Bruno had it open in seconds.

“Up, and to the right,” Vein said.
 
There should be a short tunnel, and on the far side of that there's a maintenance ladder leading down between the shafts.”

Bruno nodded, levered himself up and through the hole, and was gone.
 
Bones and Shade followed.
 
Kali met Vein's gaze for a moment, searched his cold features for something, found it, and disappeared upward like a wraith.
 
Vein pushed the up button, leaped, and was through the door before the machinery ground into motion.
 
He found the small maintenance tunnel, pulled himself inside, and crawled quickly through.
 
The ladder was right where he'd expected it to be, and he dropped the six feet to the floor of the darkened passage without a sound.
 
They stood in the darkness and glanced both directions down the corridor.
 
The walls thrummed as the elevators rose and fell steadily; gears caught smoothly, cables spun on huge, greased pulleys.

“Come on,” Vein said, heading off to the right.
 
“We were in the first public shaft, so the next one over should be one of the two private lifts.”

They moved quickly.
 
The darkness was no hindrance, but the further they moved from that public elevator shaft, the more the awareness of what they were about to attempt hit home.
 
They had no way to know what kind of security awaited them, or how effective the charms they'd purchased might prove.
  
There was no time to worry over it now, if they'd been detected, there was no sign of it.

They came to another wall, and Bruno heaved himself up the side.

“There's another short shaft,” he reported, “like the other one.”

He disappeared into it without waiting for the others, and they scaled the wall and followed.
 
The far side opened into another elevator shaft, and a quick glance up and down showed that the elevator, currently, was on the ground floor.
 
It was impossible to tell where the exit might lead without crossing the shaft and looking for another way out, but Vein wasn't interested.

He pulled the blood crystal out from beneath his shift.
 

“Kali, would you do the honors?” he held out his arm to her, wrist up.
 
She didn't glance down at it.
 
Instead, she met his gaze steadily.
 
As she did so, her hand shot out and her nail opened a small cut in the skin of his forearm.
 
She missed the vein by less than an inch.
 
He didn't flinch.
 
Quickly, he held the cut over the crystal.
  
Vein shook his arm; a single drop of blood seeped out before his skin could close and heal over it.
 
The blood fell across the surface of the crystal and spread.

The effect was instantaneous, and eerie.
 
None of them had ever seen one used before, though all of them were familiar with the concept.
 
The crystals were rare, and expensive, and usually they were only employed in the “Blood Hunt,” the quest to find the one who'd brought you to the blood and kill him or her for the act.
 
Kali watched with particular interest.

The blood spread out in a smoky haze.
 
Though they had clearly seen the drop fall onto the crystal, it didn't seem to have actually touched the surface.
 
It formed a coating, iridescent and pulsing, and when the coating was complete, Vein released it.
 
Instead of dropping to his chest, hit hung very still, floating in the air, then, almost lazily, the tip rose, pointing almost straight up the shaft of the elevator.

“Let's go,” Vein said.
 
He grabbed the wall of the elevator shaft and began his ascent, climbing in quick, graceful bursts like some sort of human spider.
 
The others fanned out and followed, ringing the shaft and coming up level so that they climbed as a unit.
 
None of them wanted to slip, or to be left behind, and if there was an attack, they had a better chance in a group where they couldn't be picked off individually.

It became clear early on that there was a significant difference between this shaft and the public elevators.
 
Though they climbed for what seemed an eternity, they passed only two doors.
 
Each time they came level with one, Vein hesitated, and glanced down at the crystal, but it never wavered.
 
It was pointed up, and he knew they were going to have to go all the way, nearly forty stories up, before they found what they sought.

They climbed in silence, and in a remarkably short time, the group of them clung in a tight semi-circle by the final door.
 
The blood crystal stretched out from Vein's neck, pointing not quite straight ahead, but almost.
 
It angled to the left a little, and Vein noted this, then turned to Bruno and nodded.

Bruno climbed a bit higher, found two support beams to lodge his booted feet in, and dangled in front of the door.
 
He slid his fingers into the crack in the center of that door, and with a single swift motion, he dragged it open.
 
There was no time to hesitate.
 
Vein swung through, and the other followed in a dark cloud.
 
When all but Bruno had entered, Bones knelt and held the door, Bruno swung in over his head.
 
Bones let the doors close with a soft snick, and they stood very still.