Luke Irontree & the Last Vampire War (Books 8-10), page 37
Chapter
Six
The vampires and their werewolves didn’t test Luke’s defenses and by late afternoon, they’d cracked the safe, moved the silver out of the basement, and loaded it in the armored car. The caravan back to Portland was tired but triumphant. They hadn’t hit all their objectives, but they had wiped out a bunch of vampires, stolen their computers and cell phones, and taken a small fortune in silver.
The first stop they made with their pilfered armored van and stolen silver was their ammunition factory, though “factory” might have been a bit overblown of a thing to call the empty house deep in the residential Portsmouth neighborhood of North Portland. The pack had offered the empty property as a place where they could quietly melt down silver and lead to manufacture the wood chip and mixed buckshot shotgun shells that had been the backbone of their anti-vampire war since Luke had first introduced the shotgun to their efforts before their naval assault on the freighter carrying vampires into Portland.
It would be a hell of a lot easier to melt down the pure ingots than cutting up whatever junk silver they brought in from pawnshops and thrift stores. Plus, the price was right. They couldn’t get much better than free. And stealing it from the fangers made it even sweeter. The next stop was to stash the rest of the silver. They’d only dropped enough to keep operations going since the house didn’t have much in the way of real security. For now, a locked garage with the armored van’s rear door backed against the wall would have to do until they could come up with something better. The van itself was the biggest safe they now had access to. They’d have to secure a large vault and a place to store it.
Of course, Jamaal and Pablo’s nephew Jorge had gone over every inch of the vehicle to remove any tracking devices that a security vehicle like it would have. By the time they’d broken into the safe and carried the silver out of the basement, they were confident the van was safe to move into their territory with its payload of death. Soon, they’d be returning it to the bloodsuckers with gusto.
Satisfied that it was as secure as it could be for the moment, Luke and Roxi piled into the borrowed pack car and headed toward the pack’s clinic.
“You really should get yourself something that’s not borrowed,” Roxi said, buckling her seatbelt.
“I know. I’m still struggling with the loss of my Volvo. I know it’s just an inanimate object, but it was mine, and it was special.”
Roxi reached over and squeezed his leg. “I know. We could find another Volvo and get it fixed up to honor your old one.”
“I’m not sure I can do that. It might be time to move on and get something more appropriate.”
She chuckled. “We could get a black 1967 Chevy Impala…”
Snorting, he chuckled and reached down to grab Roxi’s hand. “I’m not sure I’m as good looking as Dean and my hair is no longer Sam-worthy in length. And you’re too short to be either. Besides, the women around them tended to have short lifespans, and I’d rather not mess with what we have here…”
“How about dayglow van with flowers—”
Laughing, Luke shook his head. “I’m not getting a Great Dane, though Pablo would make a good Shaggy.”
“We’ve already got Brutus. He’s big enough to qualify. I could be Daphne. I’ve always had a thing for short women in glasses and sweaters…”
“I’m not sure I’m ascot material though.” Luke pretended to straighten an invisible ascot.
“You never know until you try.”
Roxi had lightened his mood with her silly suggestions. He loved her for it and many other reasons. Their laughter died down as they pulled up in front of the pack’s clinic. He was glad he was in a lighter mood so he wouldn’t bring down his friend. He wanted to visit the clinic before he had a chance to sit down and let exhaustion take over. Together, they walked in as the evening shadows grew long.
Maggie, sitting near the entrance, stood up and pulled Roxi into a friendly hug, then Luke into a more intimate one.
“I’m glad you’re both OK,” Maggie said, kissing Luke’s cheek before stepping back.
“Just tired. How is Owen?” Luke asked.
“Healing. He’s a bit grumpy that I won’t let him go home yet, but I want to keep him under observation. Plus I need to do a full MRI to ensure he doesn’t have anything left in him, though I’m sure he’d feel the silver.”
“Better safe than sorry. Don’t want him to get a twitchy finger from shrapnel rubbing against something sensitive when he’s playing with explosives.” Roxi leaned against the counter, yawning.
Maggie chuckled. “That’s true.”
“I think I have something that’ll cheer him up,” Luke said.
“Oh, the video of you stuck in the wall? Pablo already showed him that.” Maggie did her best to contain the smile threatening to burst forth at the corners of her mouth.
Luke sighed and shook his head, turning around to face away. “Of course…”
“Oh, Luke, I’m sorry.” Maggie stepped up behind and squeezed his shoulder.
“No, it’s OK. It’s humorous, and if it had happened to Pablo or Owen, I know I’d be poking fun at them.” He turned around, a sheepish smile spreading across his embarrassment flushed face. “It’ll be alright. We all need a good laugh these days.”
“Ready to go see him?” Maggie gestured toward the hallway with her head.
Nodding, Luke followed Maggie, Roxi slipping in behind him.
“Is that Luke I hear?” Owen called, a bit of groggy slur in his voice.
“Yup.”
“Be careful walking through the door. Wouldn’t want you to get stuck.”
“Ha. Ha. Ha. I’m glad you got a good laugh. I hear laughter is the best medicine.”
Owen chuckled. “That’s bullshit. Whatever your delightful girlfriend has in this drip is the best medicine.”
“Morphine,” Maggie mouthed to Luke.
“I am orbiting.” Owen raised two wobbly index fingers and made circles with them as if they were celestial bodies.
Roxi leaned in carefully to avoid jostling Owen and kissed him on the cheek. “Hello, Owen. Glad to see you’re on the mend.”
“Hey, Roxi. You’re looking as lovely as ever. When you going to dump this old fart and go out with someone fun like me?”
“Sorry, Owen. I like my men rugged.”
“Pfft. I used to be a logger. I wear flannel. I’m as rugged as they get.” He waggled his eyebrow at Roxi, then winked at Luke.
“I also like my men Roman.” She snugged up close to Luke, kissing his cheek.
“Ah, you got me there.”
Roxi narrowed her eyes, mischief dancing across them. “Besides, if you’re looking for trouble, why don’t you call Mary and invite her out west? She seemed to be interested in your variety of mischief.”
“I just might at that.”
Luke grinned. “You could tell her about your wound, and she can tell you how brave and sexy you are.”
“I like where your head is at, Luke. I wouldn’t have expected that of you. Doesn’t seem like something you’d use.”
Luke shrugged. “No, but I’ve led soldiers for centuries. I’ve watched them work that angle fairly often.”
Owen laughed, then grimaced, holding his stomach. “Don’t make me laugh too hard.” Once he settled in, he relaxed, pushing back into his hospital bed. “That sounds more true to the Luke I know. Though I still have no idea how you landed two beautiful women like these two.”
“Roxi and I are women of distinction and taste. We know where to find the rarest of men.” Maggie smiled fondly and winked at Roxi.
Owen yawned. “Although I’m orbiting, I’m about to zonk out again. How’d everything go after I decided to take a little break?”
“Pretty well. Some more injuries, but you got the worst of it, though Maggie and her team extracted silver from a few of our people.”
Owen’s face darkened, his eyes narrowing. “I’m sure we can find a way to ensure the fanged fuckers get their property back.”
Luke grinned wickedly. “We can make that happen, along with all the silver we just stole from them.”
“You know, I always wanted to take a treasure bath, but in this case, I think I’m going to take a hard pass. Having internal bling injected into my system kind of put me off the idea.”
Luke laughed. “Tell you what, buddy, if we find some gold to steal, I’ll give you first dibs on a treasure bath.”
“Deal.” Owen extended his shaky arm for a fist bump. Luke obliged him. “Now, as much as I like looking at your rugged Roman mug, I need to go chase some dragons.”
“I’ll talk to you later.” Luke waved and stepped out of the room.
“Sweet dreams,” Roxi said before joining Luke.
Maggie pulled the door shut and followed them to the lobby of the clinic.
“Shouldn’t he be healing up faster?” Roxi asked once they stood by the exit.
“If this were normal ammunition, yes. There’d be post-surgery healing because the wounds healed up, which can be tricky in the chest cavity, but silver ammunition changes the equation. I’ve never had a real chance to study silver wounds. Not like something you can do a double-blind study on.” Maggie sighed. “Not sure I wanted to gain that knowledge at the expense of my packmates, but there are a variety of wounds to observe, Owen’s being the worst. He’s lucky the blast wasn’t a few inches higher.”
“We’re going to have to take greater precautions. I need to see about getting a hold of some more flak jackets. They won’t stop heavier stuff, but they’ll stop a shotgun blast, and right now, that’s our greatest danger with the vampires taking a page from our book.”
“I’d appreciate it if I didn’t have as much research material in the future,” Maggie said emphatically, Roxi nodding in agreement.
Sighing, Maggie closed her eyes for a moment, slumping in on herself slightly. After a few moments, she straightened up and smiled sadly. “What’s next for you two?”
“We’ve got an appointment with Jamaal, then I think some rest. I’m burning the candle at both ends at the moment, and I need some sleep,” Luke replied.
“Good, you’ve both been busy.” Maggie reached out and squeezed Luke’s arm.
“You look like you could use some rest of your own, Maggie. Is one of the other doctors coming to relieve you?” Roxi rubbed Maggie’s shoulder.
“Yeah, Saoirse is on her way in. Then I can go home and sink into a hot bath before catching up on a bit of sleep.”
“Good.” Roxi pulled Maggie in for a hug. “See you later.” She stepped to the door, laying her hand on the handle. “I’ll wait for you outside, Luke.”
He nodded at her, a grateful smile on his face. After the door closed, Maggie stepped into his arms, laying her head on his chest. “I’m glad you both came out OK.”
Stroking her hair, he kissed the top of her head. “Me too. I’m sorry we created so much work for you.”
She shrugged. “It’s the nature of the beast. I think how much worse it would be if we stood idly aside and watched the rise of this evil. I’ll do anything in my power to prevent what happened to me from happening to others.”
Squeezing her tightly, he stroked her hair. “Thank you. For everything, Maggie. I owe you so much.”
“You don’t owe me anything. All I want or need from you is your love and affection.”
He smiled warmly. “And you have it, Magdalena.”
“I know. Let me know when you have an evening, I’d love some alone time with you.”
“Let’s take a couple days to recuperate, then we’ll get together. Maybe this weekend?”
Maggie nodded against his chest. “I’d like that.” She pushed back, laying her hands on his shoulders. “Now give me a good kiss.”
Setting his crooked forefinger under her chin, Luke tipped her head up and leaned down. When his lips met hers, he pushed away everything but the beautiful woman in arms, focusing on the warmth of her lips, the slight tremble of her arms, her bewitching scent. When she finally pulled back, he laid his forehead against hers.
“I love you, Maggie.”
“I love you, too, Luke.”
He gave her forehead a final kiss then slipped out of the door. Roxi was already waiting in the passenger seat of the car, the radio pouring “The Winning Side” by The Airborne Toxic Event out the windows. Once he settled in, she reached over and squeezed his leg just above his knee.
“Let me know when you need a date night with Maggie. I’ll take the kid for a movie night at Zel’s and crash on their couch.”
“Thanks, Rox. I appreciate that.” Between Maggie and Roxi, he felt warm and loved. He did feel blessed in that aspect, he just wished he could get to the end of his service against the vampires. Lately, he’d begun dreaming about a life of peace with his friends, his adopted daughter, and the women he loved.
A few minutes later, they pulled up in front of the former cell phone store on Lombard Avenue that now housed their headquarters. Jamaal had moved his tech team and operations there since it was wired to meet their high energy needs as well as their demand for bandwidth. Jamaal had proudly let him know they were doing all kinds of shady shit to ensure they didn’t run short on internet power.
The nerdy Black man seemed proud to be committing whatever infractions needed to support the shadow war his pack was engaged with in alliance with Luke. He appreciated everyone’s effort to work around the systems designed to constrain people. Though, as werewolves, they’d found safety by living in the cracks others ignored and didn’t care that much about. They’d survived and thrived, and now it was paying off in their creativity and their willingness to do what it took to get the job done.
Jamaal waited for them in the front room of the building. “Luke, Roxi. Good to see you.” He beckoned them to follow him down to the basement.
“Shut the door behind you,” Jamaal said as he stepped into his office. Roxi stepped in first, and Luke pulled the door shut behind him. “First of all, what the shit is this?”
He reached down and picked up a laptop, lifting it by the monitor side. As he picked it up, a few pieces of plastic fell out, clattering onto his wooden desk. The screen was spider webbed and pock marked. The keyboard only had a few keys left on it.
“Um, looks like someone got a bit trigger-happy near that one,” Luke said, sticking his hands behind his back.
Jamaal shook his head. “Ya think? I just hope the hard drive is still intact. I can pull it and stick it into another unit.”
“I’m sure you can do it. You haven’t let me down yet,” Luke said.
“Dammit. Now I’m going to have to pull a miracle out of my pocket.” Jamaal sighed and sank into his chair, gesturing toward the two chairs on the other side of the desk.
“Besides someone’s mistimed adventure into Ludditism, how is everything else going?”
Roxi snorted next to him. He turned his head and winked at her with his right eye so Jamaal wouldn’t see it.
“We can debate anti-technology philosophies later. The team is working hard on breaking into the rest of the stuff you brought us. Most of the phones were pretty easy but yielded nothing of import. Just the usual uninformed foot soldier stuff. We’ll spoof them into the system in case any important orders come through. We still have a couple phones we haven’t broken into yet. They’re turning out to be a bit more work, but we’ll crack them.”
“And the laptops?” Luke asked.
“Two of them have yielded nothing.” Jamaal paused. “Well, that’s not entirely true. One of them yielded an impressive porn collection. Some real exotic stuff. The other one had half a novel.”
“Was it any good?” Roxi asked.
“No. No. Not at all.” Jamaal shook his head vigorously. “I don’t think I’ve read anything that bad in my life, and I used to write Aragorn-Faramir slash fic in high school.”
Roxi snorted, leaning forward. She placed her elbows on the desk and looked pleadingly at Jamaal. “Please, to all the gods above, below, and in between, tell me you still have that and you’ll let me read it.”
“Um, no.” Jamaal pulled his eyes away from Roxi who was pouring on her considerable charm. “Though I’ll be glad to send you the turd on this hard drive.”
Leaning back, she shrugged. “Might be worth a laugh.”
“Anything actionable?” Luke asked.
“Not yet, but we just started. It might be encrypted. Hell, that partial manuscript might be a cypher. The team is just getting going on it. We’ve activated the whole lot to dig in.” He leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands in front of him. “Though, on a hunch, I checked on the price of silver.”
Luke raised his eyebrow, leaning forward.
“Prices have gone precipitously up. Based on the numbers you reported bringing in, the vamps are driving up the prices.”
The earlier silliness disappeared from Roxi’s face, and she became all business. “What we found might not be the only stash. I doubt they’d concentrate everything in one house in Bend.”
“She’s probably right,” Jamaal said.
Luke sighed, annoyed with himself. “We should have been buying silver years ago. As soon as we started using it.” He shook his head at himself. “I was thinking too small.”
Roxi set her hand on his knee, squeezing it. “You can’t blame yourself for everything. Now we know what’s going on, and we can adjust. We have plenty of silver to turn into ammunition. We don’t need to possess all of it. Just enough of it. That’s all.”
