Luke Irontree & the Last Vampire War (Books 8-10), page 83
“They reported in about thirty minutes ago. They’re already in Washington heading west,” Sam said.
“So that leaves the two teams we took for the kid’s rescue. And none of Roxi’s team. Delilah’s team is too far out of position if they turned around now.” He stopped and guessed their routes at this time of morning. “Hmm, we could move them into position in maybe fifteen minutes at the best if they haven’t gone too far.”
Ramon, who’d been tapping away on his phone, looked up, a regretful look on his face. “There’s a bridge lift at the Oregon-Washington Bridge. They’d have to back track all the way to the Glenn Jackson Bridge.”
“Fuck.” Luke gripped his fist until his knuckles hurt, then let it go, stretching out his fingers. “Any idea how many cops are down there?”
“No numbers. They’re reporting lots of cruisers and a couple of SWAT vans.” Ramon cringed back.
Seeing his friend’s reaction, Luke closed his eyes and took a couple deep breaths. He needed to be calm and collected.
“Luke, we can’t have a shootout on Swan Island with the police. We’d be trapped as they brought in more cops and probably werewolf allies.” Sam slowed to turn onto Greeley Avenue. “Muscle isn’t the answer.”
“You’re right. In that case, we need to find out where the cops are going to take whoever was captured. Has anyone been able to link up with Pieter?”
“He’s not part of the packlink, Luke.”
“Why?” He’d assumed his Belgian friend has officially been brought into the pack and all its connections. The news that he wasn’t confused and worried him.
“Last time I asked him, he said he wasn’t ready for that level of connection. I think he’s still hurting badly from what happened in Belgium and Paris.”
Luke sighed. He should have checked in more deeply with his friend, but he always seemed to be too busy or too focused on something related to the vampires. But he couldn’t really blame them. He should have done better as a friend. Shaking his head, he pursed his lips and stared at his clenched fist.
And now Pablo was in the hospital still unconscious. Pieter had finally made a deep connection with Pablo and Tony, only to have that happen. No wonder he was a bit gun shy about taking the final steps of joining the pack. But it had to be lonely for him, profoundly so if what he’d learned from his other werewolf friends about how important pack was to wolves as a source of comfort and community.
To intentionally hold himself apart… Luke could understand that. He’d done it for most of his life. First, because being an elite officer running his own legion set him apart. Then out of loneliness after Marpesia’s death as he wandered the world, mourning her. Finally, because of time and age and not knowing anything else after centuries of being mostly alone.
When the time was right, he’d talk to Pieter about not letting it go on too long and encourage him to plan his path forward. He didn’t want his friend to forget the close bonds of family and community. He didn’t want Pieter to end up like him.
“Luke,” Ramon said gently to prod him. “Reports are the cops are packing up and moving out. What do you want to do?”
He shook his head to clear it. “Send out a few of the cars on Swan Island like they’re naturally done with their work night. Pull over when the cops move by like good law-abiding citizens. Then follow. If the cops split up, they can sort out who goes which way.”
“Got it.” Ramon’s fingers flew over his phone.
“Sam, are we close enough to get into the mix?”
“Yeah. I think so,” she replied.
“Isabelle,” Luke said. “Do you know the drivers of the other cars with us and their passengers?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Text someone and relay the plan. We’ll try to do our best to sort out where they go. If we can narrow our options, it’ll help make our next move.”
“Luke, do we want Delilah to head back this way?” Ramon asked.
“No. Tell them they’re done for the night. Get back to the farm and get some rest. We may need them later, and rested is better than not.” Luke wished he was in the front with Sam so he could better see what was going on around them, but a blood-soaked weirdo in armor was a bit too suspicious.
They stopped on the overpass for Going Street as cop cars flowed toward I-5 while others merged onto Greeley, also heading toward I-5.
“I’m going to follow these since we’re here,” Sam said. “Isabelle, relay that we’re going to stay with whoever merges onto I-5. If some of the cops split up onto Interstate, one of them can follow. And whoever is last in line, have them pull a U-turn and pickup anyone who goes north on Greeley. If no one does, they can catch up with us.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Ugh. You’re in trouble for that.”
Isabelle chuckled mischievously.
Once the stream of cop cars heading south on Greeley ended, Sam merged back into the southbound lane and followed at a discreet distance. Sure enough, some of the cops took the Interstate option. Sam kept behind the ones merging up onto I-5 South.
“I’ve got two more cars with us, Sam. What about the Broadway exit and I-84?” Isabelle asked.
“We’ll take the Broadway exit if they use it. There’s a big jail in Southwest, and this is a decent way to get to it. Send the other two south if the cops split up again.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Isabelle snickered.
Luke stared out the front window, watching the cops in front of them. He hoped they all stuck together. They only had so many cars available to handle more splits. But sure enough, about a third of the cops pulled off onto Broadway.
“Shit,” Sam said, hitting the steering wheel.
Half of the cars that had pulled off onto the Broadway exit took the right turn toward the Broadway Bridge and downtown Portland. The other half went straight where they could either merge back onto I-5 South or head east on Broadway into Northeast Portland. They were already going to lose one set of cops.
“Has someone alerted Holly?” Sam asked. “We’re going to need a defense attorney to get in and poke the cops about talking to their clients. Assuming we can figure out who was snatched.” She mumbled the last.
A small wave of relief washed over Luke. He knew Holly was a defense attorney, but it was information he rarely thought about and never needed…until now. If their people were being processed into the system, Holly would be able to figure out where. Then, they might be able to come up with a plan to spring their people. Assuming the vamp’s agents within the police force didn’t get up to some shenanigans.
Luke had to hope that the vamps would retire for the day and the cops would be on their own, which would mean their people would be booked and sit in a jail cell. He never thought he’d have to put his hopes in police following procedures. If they didn’t, their people could be in deep trouble. Roxi could be one of them.
He squashed down the panic that threatened to rise up from deep in his heart. If she were disappeared by the vampires, he’d bend all his will and resources to discovering where she was. He’d do anything to free her and get her back. Once he noticed his breathing growing shallower and faster, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, sitting back against the wall of the van.
Letting the conversations about the reports from the other teams wash over him, he focused on getting his mind clear and ready. If they found an opportunity, he had to be ready to exploit it. Roxi was depending on him.
“Luke… Luke?”
Blinking his eyes open, he realized the van wasn’t moving and when he looked through the cage and out the windshield, he only saw a nondescript gray cement wall. “What?”
Sam had twisted around in her seat to look into the back of the vehicle. “We’re parked in a nearby garage. There’s no one around.”
He made to stand up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Sam looked him over. “You look like you were just in a slaughterhouse. You can’t stand outside a police precinct like that. Isabelle can handle it. She’s the only one of us who doesn’t need a hot shower and a bucket of borax and steel wool to get the blood and gore off.”
“Right.” He shook his head and slumped against the wall of the van.
Isabelle popped out and quickly shut the door. Now that they were just sitting with no destination in mind, the back of the van felt cramped and none too fragrant. Sam was right, as per usual. They all needed serious time in a shower.
“Don’t worry, Luke. We’ll find Roxi and spring her. Holly will be here in time to get on top of it.” Sam’s eyes filled with empathy.
“I wish I could go with her. I feel so powerless sitting here.” He sat up and arched his back as best as he could in his armor. Erik now laid on his back in his human form, a blanket covering him. He looked awake and alert.
“You ready to talk, Erik?”
“Yeah. Thanks for the breather.” He sat up. “Where do you want me to start?”
“At the beginning.” Luke’s voice sounded clipped and curt even to himself.
“Right. We’d scouted the silver stash, checking it out from every angle while keeping away from their patrols. Roxi and Pieter determined it was too well guarded for our group to handle it on our own, especially without a plan. So we packed up and headed down to Swan Island to check out the warehouse down there. Roxi and Pieter wanted to take the cache of weapons we had there.”
He picked up a bottle of water and took a swig. “When we got down to Swan Island, we had to stash our cars a ways away from the warehouse. There’s not a lot of room to work down there, so they wanted to go in on foot. We put on our long coats and packed our duffels with our weapons and headed out.”
“What was the approach like?” Luke asked.
“It seemed fine. We followed procedures and approached cautiously in small teams, trying to look like any other night shift people that might be around. We also didn’t want to look too suspicious to any people who were there legitimately. When we arrived at the warehouse, we only found two pairs of vampires patrolling the warehouse. Roxi said she didn’t sense more than that.” Erik shrugged.
“We figured they hadn’t discovered the false wall we’d hidden the weapons behind and were just guarding it because it was our property. We quickly took them out. Everything seemed to be going as planned. A quick search through the guards’ pockets yielded keys to the locks, and then we were inside. The floor was empty and the false wall seemed undisturbed.”
He took another drink, then tipped the bottle up again, downing the rest noisily. “That’s when everything went to shit. Heavily armed men all in black swarmed out from the upper storage areas.”
“More vampires?” Luke asked, leaning with his good elbow on his knee.
“No. Had to be humans. Roxi said there were no more fangers, and we would have picked up the presence of other werewolves, especially that many. They had to be human mercenaries.”
“It’s not the first time the vamps have used human mercs,” Sam said.
Luke nodded. “Yeah. It’s an effective counter to our abilities to sense our adversaries.” He looked back at Erik. “Go on.”
“It worked. There were a ton of them, and they all had lots of really big guns. Certainly enough to take care of us. Some of us wolves might have survived but would have been helpless when they came to give us the coup de grâce.” He swallowed and looked down at his hands.
“That’s when he came in.” He looked up at Luke, anger burning in his eyes. “The one who we have the bounty on. Pieter’s brother.”
“Fucking Jan.” Each word tasted bitter and poisonous on his tongue.
“Him. The piece of shit strolled in through the door we’d just come through, whistling a jaunty tune, smug expression on his face. I’d like to take it and shove it down his throat.” Erik took a moment to regain his composure. “That’s when he made the offer.”
“What offer?” Luke asked.
“He said if Roxi turned herself in to him, the rest of us would be released. It didn’t take Roxi long to think about it. She sheathed her sword and stuck her hands in the air and started walking toward Jan. Faster than you could blink, they tased the shit out of her and trussed her up like a turkey.”
Erik looked a bit wild around the eyes. “That’s when he saw Pieter. Seemed like he didn’t expect to see him, but he adjusted quick enough. Said he was changing the deal. Roxi and Pieter for our lives. They already had Roxi moved outside the warehouse. I have no idea what Pieter was thinking. But I guess he had no intentions of going quietly. He screamed into our heads to ‘Scatter, flee, run.’”
“What?” Sam held up a hand to the metal cage. “He’s not linked to the pack.”
“That’s what I thought, too. But it didn’t feel like a standard packlink communication. It felt…distorted. Like he’d hacked in. Either way, the authority was there, and we obeyed. That’s when he dropped the spoons on a couple grenades. One he hurled at Jan and the other he tossed up into the air. Except it wasn’t a frag grenade. It was a flashbang.”
“How’d you get out without being stunned?” Luke asked.
“He’d given us a warning. I covered my ears and clamped my eyes shut as I scrambled for the back way out of the warehouse. That’s when the mercs opened up, shooting blindly. I took a couple rounds, but nowhere serious.” He sighed. “Guess I’ll have to get them removed.”
“Do you know if anyone else got out?” Sam asked, grasping onto the cage with both hands.
“I don’t know. I got out the back door, then went full wolf and sprinted out of there as fast as I could. I knew y’all were nearby in Overlook.”
Luke finished for him. “So you scaled up the hill and found us on Willamette.”
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Luke jumped in his seat, his heart thumping. When he looked around the van, everyone else appeared startled as well.
“Sorry about that,” Isabelle said, settling into the passenger seat after opening the door. “I waved at Sam to let her know I was back.”
Sam chuckled weakly, clutching her hand over her heart. “I guess we were a bit engrossed in Erik’s story. What’s the report?”
“Holly is here. She’s in talking to the police now.”
Luke felt a bit of the knot in his stomach unwind, though the fate of all his friends on Roxi’s team, for the moment, replaced his worry about Roxi. She was alive and away from the action, though probably in a lot of pain if she’d regained consciousness yet.
“She said she’s got several other lawyer friends coming down to join her. She figured more attention couldn’t hurt,” Isabelle said.
“And it’ll keep them from snatching her and disappearing her along with Roxi and anyone else they might have captured.” If Holly were taken… Luke didn’t want to think about that.
Sam nodded. “She’ll come through for us, then get out of there.”
To Luke, it sounded like Sam was saying it pep talk herself as much as him and the others.
“What are we going to do about the others?” Ramon asked.
Sam cleared her throat. “Has anyone heard anything on the packlink?” She got back nothing but shaking heads. “Let me reach out to Holly.”
She closed her eyes and concentrated. Nodding, she opened her eyes. “Let’s head back to North Portland. I want to check in on a safe house or two, plus we need to gather up the cars we left parked. We’ll be able to see if proximity will let us pick up the rest of Roxi’s team.”
“But—”
“What are we going to do here, Luke?” Sam snapped. “We can’t rush the police station with less than a dozen people. We’re low on ammo and rest.” She took in a deep breath. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. I’m tired and just as frustrated as you are. Holly’s right. We can’t do anything here to help. It’s all between her and her lawyer friends at the moment.”
“But shouldn’t we station people to watch in case they move Roxi?” Luke felt his panic rising again.
“It would be a true shot in the dark. We don’t have enough people to watch every station and every vehicle.” Seeing that Luke was about to protest, she held up a hand. “We’re not giving up on Roxi. We’re just setting up for the next stage. We need to clean up and get a bit of rest. None of us will be any use if we’re covered in blood and too tired to see straight. I know you don’t like it. Neither do I. But it’s the best course right now.”
Luke took several harsh breaths, then nodded, his eyes burning with unshed tears.
Sam turned on the van. “Thank you, Luke. I just hope the safe houses haven’t been discovered. I need a hot shower.”
Luke stared at his pink hands, stained with blood in contrast to his gleaming armor, freshly cleaned of blood and gore. A hand gently squeezed his shoulder.
“Luke, it’s your turn.” Sam toweled her black hair. She wore a fluffy white bathrobe.
Standing up, he numbly walked into the bathroom and stripped down, leaving a pile of gore-stained clothes on the pile Sam had already started. Cranking the water as high as he could stand it, he stood under the hard stream, resting his head on his forearm as he leaned against the tile of the shower.
The two safe houses the pack had set up hadn’t been compromised. Splitting the teams between them, they showered in shifts while others prepared food from the stores of dried and canned goods. When it was their turn for a shower, a clean person would take over for them.
So far, they’d only heard from one of Roxi’s team. Isabelle had zipped out to pick them up in the van since it provided a space that was hard to see into. They were in the other shower. Once they finished, Sam said she’d debrief them. Now, they played a waiting game for the backup teams they’d activated to come help with search and rescue. Though Luke had no idea how they’d be able to do much searching around Swan Island with a strong police presence still causing issues.
Maybe things would look a bit brighter after he scrubbed his skin off and put some processed food in his stomach. Right now, all he could focus on was that the woman he loved more than his own life was in the hands of Jan—a man he’d helped take everything from.
