AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And I put it out of my mind. I’m trained to focus on one thing at a time, and I was watching a house full of Lugat vampires. Three of them absolutely had to die, but two of them were only living in this house because it was cheap. They weren’t doing bad things. The other two, I’d normally just threaten and then keep an eye on. They hadn’t actually stepped over the line, but they were treading awfully close.
But how to kill three, warn two, and let the other two go?
We needed to get the three scheduled for execution on their own, which meant either finding a way to get them out of the house together, or a way to send the other four away.
Forty minutes later, Chrystle contacted me again. It wasn’t a good time to talk but she wouldn’t call unless it was important, so I texted her I’d call her back, and I left the other Slayer in place while I moved four football fields away — far enough to be certain no one in the house could hear me — and returned her call.
“Your parents have gone off the grid. No one knows where they are. Their analyst doesn’t even know what they’re up to.”
“Where’s Etta?”
I heard the clicking noises of her keyboard, and she told me, “Her phone’s in the parking lot of the downtown TBC, and has been for hours. The chip on her shoes is in a dumpster just outside of downtown Chattanooga.”
Fuck. Was that why Marco had called?
“Thank you. Do your best to find them. If you have to go over a hundred grand to pay for information, check in with me, but that’s the budget. I’ll go higher if it’s the only way. Use your best judgment if you can’t reach me and have to make a decision.”
I tried calling Etta, and then tried telepathing her. Nothing.
I called Marco back. “I’ve just been informed my parents have gone off the grid. I warned Etta a while back that if she saw them, to strike first and ask questions later. If they’re here, I don’t know if it’ll be to kill her or to kill me, or possibly both of us. She needs to lay low until I get this figured out, but I can’t reach her to tell her.”
“I will keep her safe. Is there anything else I need to know?”
“Not at this time. I would prefer to be allowed to help keep her safe, but I understand you don’t trust me.”
“I’ll see you at Homewood at four.”
It was nearly five in the morning now, so making it to him before dawn in time for a meeting would be tight.
“I know you rise earlier than that. If you’ll contact me when you’re up, I can come to you earlier. I have analysts working to figure out where my parents are, and once I’m back to my phone, I’ll begin making phone calls and doing my own research.”
“If you find them, let me know. No one should be required to have to take out their own parents.”
“Thank you for that, but they’re my responsibility. I didn’t think the gossip had made it outside of the highest members of your coterie. I thought I had time before I had to deal with them, and I’d hoped to be able to keep them far from Etta.”
“If you find them, let me know,” he repeated.
I went through what I knew. Etta’s shoes in the dumpster, her phone still in the limo, and it’d been there several hours. Marco wanting a face-to-face. My parents off the grid.
“Was Etta hurt? Is she okay?”
“Etta is safe.”
“Is she okay?”
“We’ll talk at four. If I can manage a meeting earlier in the day, I’ll let you know.”
“Is there any need in me showing up at the coterie house or either TBC location?”
“There is not.”
“I’m worried. Not going to lie. I’ll take your word that she’s safe, and I’ll do my best to track my parents down. No promises beyond that until I figure out for sure what’s going on.”
“I appreciate your honesty.”
The line went dead, and I assumed that told me how he felt about the fact I didn’t assure him I’d let him know if I found my parents. I couldn’t blame him. If they’d tried for Etta and came close, he had every right to want them dead so he could be assured they wouldn’t come after her again.
I had other ways of calling them off, though, and I’d go that route first.
