"Remember when I told you something big was coming? That killing Warrick would bring more problems? I"m taking you to show you just the beginning of what is in store for us." He pulled up to the parking lot for La Spezia Bella and parked.
Normally, even in the middle of the day, the lot should have been filled to the brim, but today there was barely a car. Out front, the police were still studying the scene. Yellow police tape surrounded the area. For a moment, Amara wondered why no Administration investigators were called in. I It wasn"t a widely known fact that the owner wasn"t human, and it wouldn"t have surprised her if the local police were completely oblivious.
Alexander led her around the front and past the officers standing outside. Amara didn"t bother pulling out her badge to show who she was. She didn"t need to. The vampire had everything taken care of there. A little mind control over the humans, and they could get into anywhere they pleased.
Once they were inside, Amara"s eyes widened. Bodies littered the room, some lying on the floor while others hunched over tables or face down in their food. One man"s hand still rested on the base of his wine gla.s.s. The odd thing was that there was no blood. Not a drop of it anywhere in sight. None of the bodies looked as though there were any injuries. No bites, no bruises, no stabs-nothing. It was as if the entire room just dropped dead where they stood.
"What happened here?" Amara asked as she started into the room. She was careful not to touch anything as she looked around, trying to find some sign of what went wrong.
"The first strike," Alex said in a quiet, remorseful tone.
"First?" Amara glanced back to him from a few feet away. She looked for clues, but so far nothing seemed out of place.
"First." The vampire confirmed with a nod. "There"s going to be more. Maybe not like this. Maybe more violent. Something shocking and disturbing that will catch the city off guard. What could be more strange than an entire room of people collapsing dead in the middle of the day for no reason?"
Amara took a moment to look around again. He was right. The problem was, she wasn"t sure what was coming next. Then a thought hit her.
"Where"s the owner?"
"Enrico? Who knows? It"s a good question, isn"t it?"
Amara nodded and started walking back to Alexander. "Why weren"t any of us clued into this? How did you find out?"
"I come here for lunch sometimes. Just because I don"t know Enrico doesn"t mean I can"t appreciate what he does. We"ve never really spoken, but I love the food here. It"s another good question. Why aren"t any of your partners here? It"s obviously not something that happened naturally. Shouldn"t some of your people be here looking into this?"
Amara slipped her hand into her pocket, her fingertips touched the top of her cell phone. Her first instinct was to call this in, but what if they already knew? She wasn"t exactly sure what was going on here. The police could have been trying to branch off and take care of things themselves, which still wouldn"t be a good idea.
"We"re sure we"re not missing something, Alex? We"re absolutely sure this isn"t a gas leak or food poisoning? Maybe one of the chefs went insane and fed them all rat poison."
"Look around, Amara." The vampire paused to gesture around the room. "Does this look normal to you? Even the waiters and waitresses are dead. What are the odds that they all ate the food here? Don"t you think that, with my advanced vampire senses, I would be able to smell a gas leak?"
"I"m going to take a closer look around before I call this in. Just to be sure. I don"t want to have our people show up here and ha.s.sle the police for nothing. I don"t want to look like the idiot."
Amara walked around the bodies scattered here and there. She had to check the kitchen and the offices. Maybe, if anything, she could find Enrico, the owner. When she walked into the kitchen, she hadn"t been prepared for what she might find there. As soon as she stepped one foot inside, she took that same step backward.
The smell of burning skin and hair still lingered in the room. She took a few deep breaths and walked in to continue her search. One of the cooks had fallen over on top of a burner and caught fire. She guessed that the police must have found him and put him out because now all that remained was a strip of charcoaled skin stuck to the stove and a burned body on the beautiful linoleum floor. Spilled and splattered food painted the kitchen"s mess, but again, there was no blood. The entire scene felt so off.
"His office is upstairs." Alexander"s voice made Amara"s heart jump into her throat. She"d been so absorbed in the scene around her that she"d almost forgotten he was there.
Alex put his hand on the girl"s shoulder. "Are you going to look into it?"
Amara nodded. "Yeah. If we"re going to find anything, I think it"s going to be there. Which way is up?"
"Over this way," he said and led her past the large white ovens and to a small staircase set far back and off to the side, hidden back near the pantry and fire exit.
The stairs were steep and covered in a strip of dark brown carpeting that stretched up into the hallway and down into the office. The entire area seemed old and unkempt. Even the air had a dingy sort of smell, an aged smell, which reminded Amara of an old library. The walls were a dull shade of white, as if they were painted a long time ago, and no one took the time to keep up with them. The upstairs of the building definitely did not match the lower area where the guests dined.
The office was small and stuffed with files and folders. A small window let the light from the sun outside spill into the room and just in front of the window was an antique wooden desk.
Alexander walked slowly to the desk. Amara watched him move gracefully to a pile of papers and sort through it. She was still being wary of him, half expecting something this bizarre to be some kind of ambush. Amara flipped through some of the files when she heard Alex"s voice again.
"This is strange." He walked over to Amara with a slip of paper. It was an invitation to his next meeting. "I never sent him an invite."
"That is odd," Amara said softly as she looked it over. She held it up to the light, then looked at it again. "Is it a copy, maybe?"
"No, it"s an original," Alex said, looking down at the ink on his signature. "The ink bulges up, if it were a copy it would be flat. It"s the pen I use to sign with. When people show up, my bouncers know what to look for. This is authentic."
"Well, why would Enrico have an invitation to your little shindig if he weren"t invited?"
"Too many questions and not enough answers." He sighed. "I"ll have to up the security. In the meantime, maybe you should get some of your friends in here before the police mess with things a little too much."
Amara nodded and pulled out her phone, then looked up at Alex. If anyone could give her some more quick answers, it should have been him. He was the vampire in charge of this city. He should know at least a little bit more than she did.
"Have any more clues you"re willing to share before I call? I can"t exactly tell them to call you for more information."
"Well, until I look into things a little more, not much."
"I wish I at least knew how everyone in the building could just die at one time. All together. Without so much as a single injury."
"Well, that I can answer," Alex started. "You"re either looking for a vampire or a psychic. Both have psychic abilities. The same power I use to keep the police from noticing us can be used to create physical changes as well. My guess is the coroner will rule mark these out as cardiac arrest."
"So, you"re telling me that someone came in here and just made all their hearts stop-psychically?"
Alexander nodded.
"Great. Just great. Why didn"t I know vampires could do this?"
"Not many of them can," he explained. "Warrick had some powerful allies. If my guess is right, this isn"t going to be about Warrick. It"s something bigger, Amara. Just keep your wits about you and prepare for war. Things are going to get ugly before this is over."
"Cryptic clues don"t help very much, Alex," Amara snapped. She was tired of knowing he wasn"t sharing everything he knew.
"I"m not going to have you jumping to conclusions. Just wait things out and stay on top of your game. I give it a month before you know exactly what is going on."
"A month?" she sighed and thought on it. "Right before your big Halloween Extravaganza? Some kind of connection there?"
The vampire shook his head, then sighed. "By the G.o.ds, I hope not. That"s the last thing my business needs-being sucked into a gang war."
"Gang war, huh?" She smirked. She was getting more tidbits more here and there.
"Just keep an eye out for everyone, Amara. You"d be stupid not to. Now..." He took her arm and pulled her toward the door gently, more leading her than dragging her. "I think we should leave and have you make that phone call. Find out why the police haven"t or if they did. Then do me the favor of letting me know which was which."
"Knew you"d call that in some time," she said, half-jokingly. At least she felt a little more comfortable around the vampire. That was Stephanie"s fault. She"d been having too good of an influence on Amara.
"That"s not me calling in a favor, Amara. When I do that, it"ll be for something big. If you don"t want to let me know, that"s fine. That"s what I"ve got Jason for."
The humor drained away from Amara"s face. The way he put it made her feel like he was waiting to ask her to kill someone. Maybe he was. For now, she was done joking around.
She left and let the vampire take her back to her hotel room in silence. The two barely said goodbye to one another, and as soon as she got into her hotel room, she called in the report. She knew The Administration would send someone down right away, and the investigator they sent down would likely find as much as she would have found without the help of Alexander.
Oddly, when they asked her if she found anything while she was there, something inside her told her to keep it to herself for now. She told them what she found, but didn"t share the extra details. For now, she would keep them to herself, and if it came to it later, she would fill in everyone else. She didn"t want to give Alexander a reason to keep her out of his loop if he chose to let her into his circle right now. From the looks of things, she would need all the help she could get.
Chapter Twenty-One.
When Amara sat down for dinner the sun was just beginning to lower in the sky behind the wall of colorful trees that grew in the distance. She sat in the outside area of the restaurant, enjoying the rural area she had chosen to stay in. She picked it especially for the wonderful autumn view.
When her phone rang, she wasn"t exactly surprised. She glanced down at the number and recognized it as Jeremy"s and picked up the phone quickly.
"What"s up, Jeremy?"
"We have a problem." He sounded so very serious, and so unlike Jeremy. Even when things got bad, Jeremy always kept a sense of humor. It was how he dealt with things, by joking about them. If he couldn"t laugh at something, he couldn"t handle it, and if he couldn"t handle whatever was going on, it was a bad sign for everyone else. Jeremy wasn"t laughing.
"Since the attack on Enrico"s restaurant, we"ve had a few others. .h.i.t. Not just diners, anything vampire or vampire hunter owned." Jeremy paused for a moment;, Amara a.s.sumed it was to gather his thoughts. "Whoever is doing this, they"re not just attacking vampires. They"re attacking anyone who is fighting them, too."
"Unless it"s two different groups attacking one another," Amara suggested.
"No. It"s all the same way. It"s all the same cause of death, and it"s groups of people dying at the same time."
Amara thought for a moment. She thought back to what Alexander said, to the little clues he"d given her. Did she know any vampires who could possibly have the ability to cause someone"s heart to explode? Probably not. She was sure they"d have done it to her already if she did. Whatever was going on, they had to solve this now before anyone else got hurt.
"Meet me at my hotel room in fifteen minutes, Jeremy. You know where I"m at."
"I can"t," he sighed. "The station is going crazy. We"re getting calls left and right, and no one seems to know what"s going on. None of our contacts are getting back to us. No one. Nothing."
"Just come here, Jeremy. Trust me, okay? When have I let you down before?"
Jeremy let out a long, complain of a groan. "This had better be worth it. I"m going to get my a.s.s reamed out for leaving."
"Just tell them you have a contact that"s only willing to meet in private." Amara got up to grab the attention of a waitress. She needed her check.
"Do you really have a contact?" Jeremy was suddenly doubting her, and that wasn"t normal either.
"When have I ever let you down?" Amara let the insulted tone ring clear through her voice. She couldn"t believe Jeremy was suddenly hesitant to trust her.
"I"ll be there in twenty minutes. It"ll take me that long to get there," he finally agreed.
"I"ll see you in twenty minutes then."
A half an hour later, Amara still sat in her hotel room wondering where Jeremy had disappeared to. With everything happening, she really hoped nothing got to Jeremy on his way to her hotel. She thought about calling him more than once, but if she called, and he was already captured, it would only put him in a worse situation. Then again, he could have just been stuck in traffic.
After forty-five minutes Amara grew antsy. She started to take apart her gun to clean it when there was a knock at the door. She cursed quietly, looking down at the disa.s.sembled pieces and grabbed her spare from the drawer. She walked to the door and stood off to the side. If anyone decided to fire through the door for at her, she would give them him or her a real surprise.
"Who is it?" she called through the door in a light, upbeat tone. The sort of tone a mother uses to call her children down for breakfast or m.u.f.fins fresh from the oven.
"Amara, it"s Jeremy. Just let me in. It"s been a long trip."
Amara opened the door but didn"t lower her gun until she saw he was alone. If someone had been holding him hostage, she would have taken them that person out first.
"What held you up?" she asked as she shut the door behind Jeremy, then carefully locked it.
"Getting out of headquarters. Everything is a mess there right now. Some people are screaming anarchy and others are shouting about vampires. Everything is a wreck." He looked around the empty room for a moment and sighed. "Did I miss your contact?"
"No," she shook her head. "Sit down. I have a lot of information to go over with you."
"Wait a minute," He glared at her, and his tone rose with anger. "You had me leave and come here for information you could"ve d.a.m.n well given me over the phone?"
"No, I couldn"t have given you this over the phone. It"s information I don"t think I"m really supposed to be sharing, but given the circ.u.mstances, I think it"s appropriate."
"Where"d you get this mysterious information from anyway? How"d you get tipped off before anyone else?" Jeremy sounded more and more accusing. Maybe it was just the stress of the situation, but it was fairly obvious what he was saying.
"Wait a minute." Now it was Amara"s turn to get angry. "Are you accusing me of something?"
"It"s just strange," he snapped at her, keeping close to the door. "Stephanie is gone, you"re on your own again, and suddenly there are these bizarre attacks, and you"re the one who found out about them first. You"re the only one with any information or so much as an inkling of what"s going on. You have me leave the H.Q. to come meet with you and some contact who isn"t here when I get here."
"You"re almost a half an hour late, Jeremy. People have things to do with their lives. Now are you sitting down and listening to what I"ve got, or are you leaving?"
She didn"t bother to argue the fact that her having the information was strange. It was, she couldn"t deny him that fact. h.e.l.l, if their positions were reversed, she probably would have been accusing Jeremy of the same thing. After all the time she spent thinking other people were behaving strangely or that they were shady or hiding things, here she stood in the same situation. The only difference was that she wasn"t completely sure anyone else had anything to hide. She knew she kept some information from Jeremy and it felt wrong. It almost made her feel guilty.
Jeremy watched Amara for a long moment as he debated the situation. Amara had always been a loner. She had always been the sort of person to manipulate situations for her own good. He was never sure he could really trust her. What choice did he have right now? Any information was more than what they had, and Amara never let them down on information.
"Okay," he said and sat down on one of the chairs near the door. "What"s up?"
"Grab a pen and paper, and don"t put my name anywhere in this. I don"t want anything being connected with me."
Jeremy gave her another look. This was the first time she didn"t want credit for her hard work. At least that he knew of anyway.
"I"m serious," Amara said. She knew this looked worse and worse to him. "I"ll explain after I tell you what I"ve got. I promise."
Jeremy sighed and pulled out a pent and pad. He always kept one on him. It had been his job for so long to take notes and a.n.a.lyze situations that it just became second nature to keep those things in his pocket.
"Okay, first off, it"s vampires. At least a single vampire with the ability to manipulate a human"s body instead of just their mind." Amara paused and watched as Jeremy scribbled down her words. When he glanced back up at her and lifted his pen, she knew it was the signal to continue. "It"s connected to Warrick"s death, I"m just not completely sure how just yet. I think Warrick may have been part of some sort of war. Maybe over turf? Or possibly just in vampire covens? I"m not sure. When Warrick died, it set off a chain reaction."
She paused again and watched as Jeremy wrote it down. He glanced up and gave her a curious look, as if he wasn"t sure he believed her.
"How can you be sure it"s got to do with Warrick?" he asked her.
"Just trust me, Jeremy. It does. I don"t have proof yet, but I"ll get it for you. The police aren"t calling things in anymore. I"m not completely sure why, but it looks like they"re trying to take over the paranormal cases for themselves rather than letting us handle them. Part of me feels like they may be involved. Somehow." Amara sighed and put her head in her hands. "Something big is about to happen, and I don"t have the d.a.m.nedest clue what it is. It was described to me as a *gang war"."
Jeremy wrote it down, then got up and walked over to Amara. She was still standing, but looked like a lost child. Even with her looking so young, being trapped in such a young body, Jeremy had never seen her look that way before. He put his hand on her shoulder to rea.s.sure her.
"Things will be okay. They always turn out. Always."