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We’d hired a security chief a while back, former Mossad and an extinct Caspian tiger, and Mordecai flashed Amal into the room with us. “Lauren’s gone missing,” I told him, and then Mordecai filled all of us in with more details than he’d had before.
“A convoy of vehicles was moving from the coterie house on the mountain to the main theater, when all shifters who aren’t apex predators were somehow teleported out of the vehicles at once. Three humans were also in the mix, including Lauren.”
“Slave traffickers?” Amal asked.
“Unknown,” I said. “But possible. We have to assume she’s been pulled into either a Faraday cage in this realm, or into a different realm entirely.”
“I’ll take Kirsten to all the realms so we can feel for her,” Mordecai said. “If Lauren was a specific target, she’s likely in a Faraday container even if she’s on another realm, but we’ll make the attempt.”
Kirsten was suddenly out of my arms and gone, and I told Amal, “I don’t know what to tell you to do. I’ll get Drake involved, and then I’ll keep an eye on Homewood’s security if you have contacts who might assist.”
I called Aaron Drake, since Nathan was out of town. Aaron would let the lion know once he’d given their analysts and hackers their orders. Once I was off the phone, I sat at our control console and Amal got on the phone with people who might be able to help, and I wished — for about the thousandth time — that I hadn’t fallen in love with someone who had no choice about being unconscious for six to nine hours a day, beginning at dawn, every day without fail. We could shorten the time by powering him up just before dawn when we knew we might need him earlier in the day, but there was no way to keep him awake during the early morning hours.
When Marco rose, hours later, Lauren was still missing. He got on the phone with other Master Vampires, but no one knew anything, and it was all we could do to keep Kirsten from just torturing random powerful people on the off chance they might know something.
Marco cancelled his appointments and stayed at Homewood, so he’d be at hand if he could help, should we gain enough intel to mount a rescue. He worked in his office down the hall, but I appreciated him staying close.
Kirsten tried multiple times to call Xaephan, but he didn’t answer. She went to Olympus to question Xaephan’s son, Killian, in his prison cell, but he clearly didn’t know anything. Mordecai informed me Kirsten told Killian if anything happened to her daughter, she’d torture him every day for twelve years, and only then might she decide to allow him the release of death.
Could Killian die? A half-demon turned into a Celrau vampire? Son of not just a demon, but one of the seven Demon Lords? I had no idea, but I wouldn’t put much of anything past Kirsten when it came to finding and rescuing Lauren.
The worst part of the day was that, after Kirsten had physically gone to every realm and tried to locate her daughter, and then threatened a few people she thought might know something, there wasn’t anything else to do. Nathan had finished up in Charlotte and had Kirsten flash him home, but even his presence wasn’t helping.
Hours later, while we sat in the control room brainstorming, Mordecai came to life, when he’d been sitting and holding Kirsten, silent as only the truly old ones can manage. “Everyone stay put. It might be a trap. I’ll investigate.” He settled Kirsten on her feet beside him, put his finger under her chin so she had no choice but to meet his gaze, and told her in a voice so dominant I’d have peed myself if he used it on me within inches of my face, “Do not move.”
And then he was gone, and I grabbed Kirsten and turned her to me. “If it’s a trap, you won’t help anyone by flashing into it. Thirty seconds. If he isn’t back in half a minute, you can flash the two of us to him.”
She glared at me, but didn’t flash us anywhere, and twenty seconds later, Mordecai appeared in the room with Lauren wrapped around him. She let go of the old god and ran to her mother, who let go of me and held onto her daughter so tightly, I wasn’t sure Lauren could breathe.
“I’m okay,” Lauren assured her mother. “I’m fine, but the others taken with me are to be sold as slaves. We have to save them, but I have no idea where they are.”
I looked to Amal, acknowledging his first assumption had been correct.
“Tell us what you can,” Nathan told her, his hand on her back, and then his arms around Lauren and her mom, holding them both. “Were you hurt? Are you okay?”
“No one laid a hand on me, and I need to tell ya’ll…” She took a breath and backed away from everyone. “I should start at the beginning, I think, before I tell you who freed me. Is Nick okay? He wasn’t brought to the same place I was — did they take the large predatory shifters somewhere else?”
“The apex predators were left alone, the rest of you simply disappeared into thin air,” I told her.
“They had us sorted by what everyone shifted into, and the three humans were in a cage by ourselves. The horse cage was fullest, so that’s the one they processed first.” She shook her head. “Let Nick and Queenie know I’m okay. How much time has passed? I think I was there for maybe two or three hours, but it’s dark here, which isn’t right.”
“It’s been over thirteen hours here,” Mordecai told her, “which means you were likely in Niflheim, though possibly in Jotenheim or Svartalfheim.”
“Or Faerie,” Kirsten said.
“She was in a Faraday cage, disconnected and inactive once sitting in our driveway,” Mordecai said. “Whoever sent it cleared it of all energies so I wouldn’t be able to tell where it came from or who has touched it in recent weeks. The cage doesn’t use electricity as we know it, but it uses a form of it. The giants use it, as do the dwarves, but it’s most common on Niflheim, where it powers their heat and light.” He met Lauren’s gaze. “Was it cold and damp?”
“Let me talk to Gavin and Nick, and I’ll start from the beginning and tell you everything.”
Not even two seconds later, Gavin and Nick appeared before her, and she didn’t know who to run to first, but her men resolved the situation because they both hugged her at the same time, and she threw her arms around their necks, emotions spilling out of her, she was so happy to see them. I thought Lauren was playing with fire, openly seeing both the lion’s Rex and the Master Vampire, but if she could pull it off, more power to her. I wanted her happy and safe, and however that happened was fine with me. Well, it would be fine if it wasn’t Gavin. Fuck.
“We’re underground,” she told Gavin. “You’re safe. I’m safe.” She kissed his cheek, then Nick’s, and squeezed them both tighter. She stepped back and told her men, “I need to tell my story. The rest are to be sold as slaves. We have to find them.”
It didn’t take her long to tell her story, along with the information that as soon as Xaephan had realized Lauren had been taken, he’d had her sent to Homewood, and he’d been clear that Lauren should tell her mom he’d been responsible for her being returned, and that he’d done so quickly, and that she hadn’t been harmed.
Mordecai disappeared during her recounting of it, but I’m not sure Lauren noticed. She was usually aware of her surroundings, but it was understandable she wasn’t while in the bowels of Homewood with her mother and lovers by her side. She could relax, here.
I wasn’t thrilled with Gavin’s presence, but he wasn’t likely to learn much we didn’t want him to know just by seeing the layout of our control room. I noted Amal changed out some of the screens shortly after his arrival, showing things we didn’t mind the vampire seeing, rather than some of the internal data we’d had up earlier, and I approved.
