Demon Accords 6: Forced Ascent Page 9

  “Sorry boys, looks like we’re leaving. No time to play,” she said with a smile at them and a glance at me. Both cops spun around and stepped back at the sight of me or more likely, the giant vampire at my back.

  “She can’t give you her number, fellas, but you can give her yours,” I said with a smile as I waved Awasos into the back of the Denali.

  “They already did,” Stacia said to me as she slid into the backseat. Arkady moved to the driver’s door and I closed the tailgate before climbing into the front passenger seat.

  We found Tanya and Lydia talking to the reporters out by the access road entrance, the troopers on duty still blocking the road. Trenton was standing guard behind his young queen.

  From what I could understand of the half dozen simultaneous conversations, at least two of the cameramen standing on top of their new vans had caught some of the missile crash.

  “The major is all right with them heading back to the site,” I told the cop on gate duty. He looked dubious but called on his radio for an update and then raised both eyebrows when the answer agreed with my statement. The press, sensing something was up, watched our exchange, various cameras trying to record it through the tinted glass of the Denali. When the gatekeeper trooper told those nearest him that they could proceed up the road to the crash scene, there was a mad scramble for vehicles and gear. Arkady pulled our car onto the road, moving slowly to avoid crushing any frantic journalists. Almost clear of the confusion and chaos, we were just starting to accelerate when I glanced at the side of the road at the very last reporter crew there. A familiar face turned my way, her head doing a fast double take as she recognized me. Brystol hit her photographer’s shoulder but he took too long to turn his attention where she wanted it. We pulled away into the dark, her pale face receding into the distance in the passenger side mirror.

  “I need direction, my Queen,” Arkady said, looking at Tanya in the rearview mirror. I turned and looked back, meeting her eyes when she glanced my way. She nodded, unbuckling her seat belt and stripping off her leather jacket. Opening the soft brown garment across her lap, her fingers moved across the fabric to the intersection of the nylon lining with the leather edge at the bottom back. A tiny, hidden zipper opened a pocket about four inches long. She reached in and pulled out a flat wooden box about six inches long and three inches wide with a mere half inch of depth. The wood was a checkered pattern of light and dark squares, polished by wear and time to a smooth sheen. It looked old. Slim white fingers tipped with blue polished nails manipulated the box with nimble skill, pushing on this dark spot, pressing on this light square. I realized it must be one of those puzzle boxes, the kind with no apparent method of opening. Sure enough, the final press of those adroit digits caused a slight click, and a tiny section at one end popped open. She pulled it like a little sliding drawer and it came smoothly open, a folded rectangle of expensive parchment tucked inside.

  The folded notes turned out to be several pages of old letterhead, each packed with tightly handwritten lines of numbers and letters. I could see the papers clearly, even in the dark of the car, courtesy of my enhanced eyesight, yet they were gibberish.

  “Code?” I asked. Tanya looked up at me and nodded before going back to scanning the pages rapidly, but it was Lydia who explained.

  “It is called an absconditum by Darkkin. Latin for hidden thing. It can mean many things, but mostly it is a list of assets that are deeply hidden within society. Absconditum are bought, sold, and traded among Darkkin. This one is a coded list of safe houses and the trust funds that support them.”

  “Wait, what? Houses and trusts?” I asked.

  Tanya nodded but didn’t look up and I didn’t need my bond to know she was deep in thought, decoding lines of text in her head.

  “Hiding from mortals becomes a sport, an art form and a science all rolled into one when practiced for thousands of years. Setting up caches of money, identification, weapons, and equipment is second nature to vampires. The more complex examples include trusts, managed by stable banks or law firms, which supply a stream of income to generations of humans who hold and maintain safe house properties. Some properties are managed by the trusts themselves, some are owned and run by human families, who receive a generous salary for living in and maintaining these properties. Once set up, they tend to take care of themselves. Darkkin will trade these groups of hidden assets among themselves. That list was established at the turn of the nineteenth century. Tanya got it as a gift years ago. She has many more tucked away as well.”

  “A gift? It has to be worth, like what? A million? Two million?” I asked. “Who gives gifts like that?”

  “This one is actually from the big guy next to you,” Tanya said, glancing at Arkady before looking back down at the lists. “And I think it would sell for more than five… if I was ever willing to sell it.”

  I too looked at the big vampire, who was staring straight ahead as he drove. A tiny smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. Uncomfortable, I turned and looked ahead, seeing the forest on either side of the dark road through the Barrens.

  Did I know that once? About the lists of safe houses and caches of money? About vampires giving my vampire multi-million dollar gifts like I gave… bracelets?

  “Stop that. You know I’ve been given things of great value. How would it be different than if my last name was Gates, Buffett, Hilton, or Kardashian?” Tanya said.

  I didn’t answer, which caused a sigh of exasperation from the back. But the next voice that spoke wasn’t hers, or even Lydia’s. It was Arkady who quietly started to speak.

  “I was reborn to this life over four hundred and twenty or so years ago, in Russia during Time of Troubles. My sire was one of Senka’s. Makes her my babushka as well as my queen’s. Birth father was soldier, as was I, before this life. I served my Elder as bodyguard and warrior. When word of the birth of a vampire was eminent, I offered myself to Senka. Told her it would give honor to my life to be a guardian of such a miracle.”

  “So you’ve guarded her since birth?” I asked, thinking I must already know this… knew this.

  “Yes, always,” he agreed.

  “But a five-million-dollar gift?”

  “Bah, what is dollars? She is most important vampire ever. Plus, I am over four hundred years old… you never heard of compound interest?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it was a frequent lesson from Gramps,” I said, thinking of someone who had money growing for four centuries.

  “Actually, didn’t you take this one from the body of a vampire you killed?” Lydia asked.

  I looked at Arkady with raised eyebrows and he glanced my way. “What? Darkkin spoke in front of vampires that Young Queen was evil and should be destroyed. He spoke it twice. Never a third time,” the giant said.

  “Arkady, head to Philly. Let’s ditch this car and then we’ll head into western Pennsylvania. I think I found a farm that will be about perfect for a few days,” Tanya said.

  Chapter 11

  An hour and twenty-two minutes later, we pulled up to a combination garage and storage building behind a Presbyterian church in Holmes, Pennsylvania. Trenton hopped out and punched a four-digit code that Tanya gave him into a garage door opener keypad and the door rolled open.

  Inside the garage was a pair of cars: an older Honda Accord and a fairly new Subaru. Moving quickly, Trenton and I backed the two cars out while Arkady maneuvered the Denali into the newly open garage space. Tanya opened a portion of the wooden wall in the back of the garage, revealing a small safe that opened when she dialed the correct combination.

  Inside were stacks of cash, older style bills. She took several sheaves of bills and left one on the front seat of the Denali.

  Then we all climbed into the two cars. “Chris, please ride with Lydia and Trenton in the Subaru. Arkady, you drive the Honda. Wolfgirl, you’re with me.”

  I must have looked dubious because Tanya stopped and smiled at me. “We—” She pointed at Stacia and herself, “—both have a
connection to you. Putting us in one car and you in the other will guarantee we never get separated and need to break cell phone silence.”

  I nodded and climbed into the Subaru’s back seat, then moved aside to let Awasos climb over into the back.

  We hadn’t been using any cell phones since the meeting in Albany and the supply of un-activated phones we had with us were all sealed in a metal canister to block all signals. Her point about our connections made sense, but keeping Stacia in the same car with my very territorial vampire seemed dangerous or at least a bit tortuous for the blonde werewolf.

  “A church?” I asked Lydia as we drove out of Holmes.

  “Cars need maintenance, churches need money. Churches also tend to survive for long periods of time. As long as they aren’t dragged into anything illegal or immoral, the right church can be a big player in this business.”

  “So, I’m guessing they don’t know anything about vampires?”

  “They think the vehicles are being kept for a nonprofit service that helps battered women escape their husbands,” Lydia said.

  “How did you convince them of that?”

  “We actually have ties to such an organization. Provides great cover for stuff like this and keeps the group funded.”

  “Do most vampires give to charity?” I asked.

  “You’d be surprised. We tend to try to take care of humans,” she said.

  “Tending the flock?”

  “Some of that, but also remember, with the exception of your mate, we all used to be human at one time.”

  Still heading west, both cars slid through a KFC drive-thru and loaded up on the Colonel’s best recipe for Awasos, Stacia, and myself. The vampires all had bagged blood from a cooler that had come with us from the Denali. I had another forty or fifty minutes to think about the fact that the government was willing to launch cruise missiles at me and sacrifice both local and federal law enforcement personnel in the process. That hadn’t worked so well, and I was very interested to catch some news to see what kind of shit storm had ensued. We cruised into a quaint little Pennsylvania town named Warnesville, passed through it, and headed down various back country roads till we arrived at a small family farm. It looked like it had once been run as a dairy operation but had fallen idle since. The white farmhouse needed several coats of paint, the farm garden outside the back door was overrun with weeds and dead tomato plants, and the barn looked like it was ten years from collapsing into a supply pile of designer barn wood.

  A high intensity light on a telephone pole lit the yard and showed a Ford F-150 pickup and a Toyota Corolla sedan parked near the house. Neither car had seen the inside of a dealer’s showroom in years—or the inside of a car wash, for that matter.

  Arkady turned in the open area between barn and house, leaving the Accord running and pointed back out toward the road. Trenton followed suit with the Subaru. A light came on in the farmhouse kitchen and a moment later, a stout man with a lever action rifle stepped out the back door. Dressed in gray sweatpants and a stained beige t-shirt with the name of a local auto shop stretched tightly across the beer belly underneath it, he was about five foot eight and maybe two hundred and thirty pounds and likely in his late thirties although his thinning hair made him look a few years older.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he greeted us, then took a step back and almost raised his rifle as Arkady stood to his full height.

  Tanya rose lithely from the back of the Accord and spoke to him. “When farmers stop complaining and priests stop asking for things…”

  “What? Lady, are you mental?” he asked.

  “When farmers stop complaining and priests stop asking for things…” Tanya said again, a frown on her face.

  The man thumbed back the hammer on his .30-30, swearing and turning back to the house. “Marnie, call the sheriff!” he yelled. A woman peeked out the kitchen window, her face alarmed. From across the yard, I could see her eyes widen as she took us in. She disappeared in a flash of ruffled white curtain. A moment later, she came running out the back door. “Jimmy, wait! Put that gun down.”

  “What? Marnie, get back here,” he yelled, but the woman was already between him and us.

  “I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?” she asked Tanya, obviously scared out of her mind, but still functioning as she stood in bare feet and a nightgown.

  “When farmers stop complaining and priests stop asking for things...” Tanya said again.

  “…the end of days is near,” the woman replied, almost in a whisper, hand going to mouth unconsciously.

  “You are the heir to this property?” Tanya asked. The woman, Marnie, nodded, eyes still wide.

  “You understand who we are and what we need?” Tanya asked. The woman nodded, then turned to what seemed to be her husband. “Jimmy, this is what I told you might happen. This is what my father talked to you about.”

  Jimmy seemed a bit peeved, but he lowered the hammer on the rifle and moved up behind his wife.

  “I’m sorry, Miss. We have never been called upon, although my father was once, as a young man,” Marnie said.

  “It’s understandable. These old ways aren’t convenient,” Tanya said with a warm smile for the woman.

  “Couldn’t ya just call ahead?” Jimmy asked, face scrunched up like he’d just stepped in dog crap.

  “Jimmy, the whole reason for this… for us to own this and get the payments is so they can appear in the night and not use phones and things,” Marnie said. Her tone of voice when she said they suggested she might have a pretty good idea of what she was dealing with.

  “You won’t harm me or mine?” she asked Tanya.

  “As guests, we hold our hosts inviolate,” my vampire replied, one hand over her heart. It was an oddly old-fashioned gesture for a twenty five year old.

  The woman nodded, arms wrapped around herself although I didn’t think it was strictly because of the slightly chilly air. Mid-thirties, curly light brown hair, with plain features and light brown eyes, she seemed tired. Maybe weary is a better word. It being the middle of the night and all, a certain sleepiness was expected. But this was the tiredness of someone who has worried for long time. Looking over the ill-kept farm and her ill-kept husband, I thought maybe her exhaustion lay in that direction.

  She led us to the barn, struggling with the big sagging door until Trenton stepped up and helped. The fact that he effortlessly lifted the whole door by its handle enough to stop its drag on the dirt did not go unnoticed, at least by Marnie. Jimmy was too busy studying Tanya, Stacia, and Lydia. In fact, he was so deep in his leer that he failed to notice the huge four-footed form that came up behind him until it brushed against the rifle he held pointed at the ground. He glanced down and jumped a foot to his left, his arm starting to bring the rifle up. But now I was next to him. I blocked the rise of the rifle with my left index finger. “Jimmy, is it?”

  He jumped again, just a little bit, but he nodded, frowning.

  “Did your wife and your father-in-law explain just what kind of people might be stopping by to use these facilities?” I asked, snagging the rifle from his grip. Holding in the Winchester’s loading gate with one finger, I blocked the feed of shells from the magazine as I levered the chambered round out into the air with my other hand. The ejected shell jumped in an arc past my right shoulder, but my hand snatched it from the air even as my eyes stayed focused on Jimmy. Closing the lever action, I handed him the rifle back and proceeded to cut the .30-30 round in half with a mono-edged finger. Pouring the powder out on the ground before handing it back to him, I smiled. “Good stuff to keep in mind for the next couple of days, doncha think?”

  He was frozen looking between the smoothly cut cartridge and myself. I nodded at ‘Sos, who was looking back at us patiently. “That one dislikes getting shot, and I don’t much like it when people shoot him, either. So let’s practice good firearm safety, shall we?”

  The others had entered the big barn and I headed after them, Awasos slipping through the doorwa
y just ahead of me. Behind me, I could hear Jimmy’s heart beating furiously, but I didn’t hear the rifle’s action. As I went through the doorway, I finally heard him start to walk after me.

  Inside, a layer of dirt and dust coated everything, including the old Camaro that took up most of the open floor space at the front of the barn. Marnie was leading our group past the car, which, like the farm and its owners, had seen better days. About halfway through the barn, she turned right and entered a small room that was mostly packed with furniture, old tools, and dairy equipment. At the other end of the space was a door and when she opened it… a closet. But she bent down and lifted a metal ring on the floor and a long rectangle came up so smoothly that it had to be counterbalanced. The opening in the floor revealed stairs going down and after flicking a switch, she stepped down the suddenly well-lit stairway.

  Below ground, we found a hallway with rooms to either side. First on the left was a bathroom with a shower. Across the hall was a kitchenette space that had an electric burner plate and a cheap microwave, as well as a dorm-style fridge. A table and four chairs occupied the center of the room.