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I took a moment to analyze his words and scent. We were attracted to each other. We wanted to like each other, but we were still a little awkward because, well — natural enemies trying to have a relationship pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?”
“Does Sunday night work for you, to try the arm-wrestling thing again?”
He smiled. He actually, fucking, smiled. “It does, and I’m glad you’re also looking forward to a time when we don’t have to be so careful around each other.”
It turns out, he was right, and we had a blast with the whole axe-throwing thing. I hadn’t expected Ryan to be funny, but he made me laugh twice in the first ten minutes — mostly making fun of the humans who had no clue, which we could do with telepathy without risk of being overheard.
Unfortunately, we only had around fifteen minutes of fun before Marco was in my head. Are all of you okay? Report by hierarchy, please.
This was a group broadcast, and I could sense everyone he’d telepathed to — me, Josef, Venom, Moira, and Patience.
I’m good. I answered quickly.
Everyone else verified they were fine, Patience last, and Marco told us, Someone hacked my vehicle. I don’t know whether I am under attack, or the entire coterie, so we need to go into immediate lockdown. I’ll report in again once I’ve made it to a safe place. Patience will hand out jobs, and Josef is in charge of security. Etta can override either, but I don’t foresee she’ll need to.
And then Venom was in the door, his hand on my arm, ushering me out of the room. I’d had no idea he was so close. Was he here of his own accord, or had Marco ordered it?
Coterie issue, I telepathed to Ryan. If I’m able, I’ll let you know what’s happening once we sort through everything, but we’re on lockdown and I’m needed. I’m sorry our evening got cut short.
Stay safe. I’ll probably know before you have a chance to get clearance to tell me, so focus on safety now, not permission to let me in on whatever’s happened.
* * * *
Ryan
I immediately understood that Venom had been near, and I only knew he’d tailed us because something unexpected had happened. Was Venom watching us on Marco’s orders, to keep Etta safe in case I had designs on taking her out, rather than courting her? Or had Etta ordered him to stay close? It would be easy enough to do, tracking her cellphone, to stay far enough back I wouldn’t notice the tail. They couldn’t track mine, but it was probably part of their standard protocol to keep track of the top vampires in the coterie. Possibly the shapeshifters and humans with important jobs as well.
I turned the axes in, got my deposit back, and got into my vehicle and on the road towards an underground home I’d purchased on the side of Lookout Mountain. I’d originally bought it because it wasn’t that far to Abbott and Aaron’s houses, hiking through the woods and then traversing up a stone cliff face, but both houses had been destroyed in the lead-up to the big battle, and neither of them lived there now. Still, it was a safe space for me, and a residence I rarely spent time at these days. It was perfect for my needs on this night.
I drove the long way around, heading up one-fifty-three and going over the river, made my way through Hixson and Red Bank, came through downtown Chattanooga, and eventually made my way south to Lookout Mountain.
About two-thirds of the way up the mountain on a little side road, I own a wooded lot with a five-car garage that looks like a modest home. It isn’t terribly far from the Craven’s house, a historical home that gets a good bit of tourist traffic. Ordinarily, I like to keep my residences away from lots of eyeballs, but that isn’t possible on this mountain, and sometimes it’s best to hide in plain sight. I parked inside, showered and changed clothes, and moderated my body temperature to be the same as the air around me before I wrapped the shadows around me and stepped out the back door of my little faux house. It was barely a quarter of a mile walk through the woods to reach the underground home I’d purchased, and I made it inside, confident no one had trailed me.
This home has an extensive control room, and I called my assigned analyst, Chrystle, at Slayer Central. “Something’s happened.”
“It has. Someone hacked Marco’s vehicle and took control of it while he and Cora were in it. She had an EMP device in her purse, and she killed the vehicle. Also, someone ever-so-carefully probed your phone’s defenses while you sat outside the coterie house. I assigned one of our hackers to analyze it, but my initial assessment is that someone was told to see if they could get in, but to be super-careful not to be noticed.”
Had Etta ordered them to do it? Or had another vampire decided it would be a good idea, while I was close and just sitting there?
“Good to know. Marco and Cora are safe?”
“They are.”
“Anything else I need to know before I call Kirsten?” I was hoping for a report on Etta without having to ask for it. Silly, in retrospect, but it made sense at the time.
“Venom made it to the closest coterie property with Etta in his vehicle, and I believe one or both are waiting to be picked up by a vampire with an antique Mercedes Benz from the sixties. Only those with old vehicles are on the move. Orders for the coterie and the pack wolves at this time are that they aren’t to get into a hackable vehicle. I ran diagnostics on your defenses and affirmed no one had fucked with your car, and assumed you were radio silent for a reason.”
“Yeah. The way Venom retrieved Etta, I worried it was a test to see who I’d call. Not that they can hack my phone, but we all know it’s possible to pick up a signal if you can get close enough to the person on the phone.”
“Is this vampire worth it? With so much mistrust before you even begin?”
“I want to trust her, but it’s a given that the people in charge of coterie security are going to take advantage of the situation to try to learn as much about me and how I operate as possible.”
“I’ll keep you as safe as I can, but you’re playing with fire.”
She wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t think I was going to get burned.
My inner Slayer reminded me vampires kill those who scare them. Would Etta kill me if I got too close? If I learned too much about her?
