The Hunt (Page 27)

Rafe

The SCIF room in the basement is currently unmanned while Drew and Asa help to prepare the fake kill spot. We've scouted locations and settled on the northern-most point on the property, near the windmill field. A dozen self-heated windmills churn in the Arctic air, gathering power for the vast resort.

After a brief connection with Dria to let her and Paul know where to find us, I decide to throw myself into this part of the plan with some fun. I deserve to let off a little steam after having to endure the sickly-sweet and stabbing comments from Coraline in the bar. God, that woman is annoying.

Drew and Asa stand close together, examining the spot we picked. Asa drops the bag with the weapons in it at his feet. Without warning, I run full tilt at their unsuspecting backs and knock them face-first into the ice-crusted snow. A full belly laugh rips from my throat and I spring off them, awaiting retaliation.

"Come on, you two. Lighten up. We have to make it look like an actual fight took place-"

Asa barrels into me and launches us both back several feet to land on a snow-mounded, scrub bush. His features are hidden behind a white ski mask, but mirth dances in his dark blue eyes. "You mean like that, boss?"

I laugh again and put two feet between us to shove the vampire off. "Here, Drew-catch!" I push as hard as I can and Asa's muscled form sails through the air. Instead of catching him, Drew decides to side step and let's his seethe-mate crash in a heap.

"Won't it look suspicious if we'll all caked in snow when the Tribunal member shows up?" Drew asks, a faint trace of annoyance in his voice as tries to brush the snow off himself.

Asa stands up. "Who put the stick up your ass? We're supposed to look like we fought her."

The little bit of sunset light we had earlier is gone and the patch of field we picked lies at the farthest reach of the security lights close to the last windmill. The bite of the cold and the tackling brings a carefree moment to the week and I don't intend to let lanky, big-nosed Drew ruin it for me. I nod my head at Asa, who takes up a spot behind the other vampire.

"Lighten up, Drew," I say while extended an open hand to him in an offer to shake. "Life doesn't always have to be so serious." He reaches for my hand as Asa silently kneels down behind his legs. I reverse my hand right before Drew clasps it and push him square in the chest. He tumbles back over Asa's bent form to land flat on his back.

Our combined laughter rings out across the half-lit space, to be quickly swallowed by the howling wind. "Oh my God, dude," Asa begins when Drew gets back to his feet. "You looked like such an ass."

Pouring on the vamp speed, Drew lunges upright and races at me like a small, agile receiver-turned-lineman and I'm the quarterback holding the ball. The force of his impact sends us farther than before and I have no doubt we're successfully making the area look like it's seen a battle.

Back and forth, we knock each other over and more than once I get a dousing of snow down my back. In a few minutes, Dria and Paul step into the picture and I'm sure they heard our laughter way before they reached us.

Dria looks dashing as always in her white, fur-lined long coat, red hair billowing under her facemask and past her shoulders. Paul stands slightly dejected at missing all the fun. Asa rams him for good measure and the chef soon lies stunned, on top of another squished bush. He comes up smiling and whips an ice ball at the other vamp's head.

My wife surveys the scene with a critical eye. "Looks good. Now we just need to add some blood," she says while holding a dark medical-type pouch high, "and a severed head."

Paul's laughter at being included in the fun quickly dies out mid-chuckle. "Where are we getting a head?"

"Illusion, remember?" Vivian motions to the base surrounding the nearest windmill. "Go grab a head-sized brick. I'll do the rest."

Paul removes himself from the bush and goes to find a suitable 'head'. Asa rips off his facemask and begins flapping it to shake the snow from the surface. "Is Coraline really going to buy that I could be the one to kill Emiko?"

I clear my throat. "I let it slip that she raped you after we discussed Vivian's rightful killing of Vikram."

Asa voice comes out heated and high-pitched, "I never said she raped me."

Dria pats the younger vampire on the cheek. "You never said 'yes', did you?"

"Well, no, of course I wouldn't have agreed to have her mount me like monkey in the damn bowling alley."

"She didn't give you much choice, did she?" Dria asks.

Asa's face shuts down and he slips his ski mask back on. "Whatever."

Surprisingly, it's Drew who comments next. "You can't control your body's reaction to stimulus. Just be thankful she wasn't a man."

"I bet he would have fought harder if it was a man," Paul says. Dria shoots him a look and Drew punches him in the arm. "What? It's obvious, right?"

Asa stalks to the edge of the clearing and faces away from us, clearly unwilling to have the conversation continue.

Drew says in a quiet voice, "Paul, it wouldn't have made a difference. Don't you get it?" The wavy-haired vampire shakes his head and looks toward Asa. "It just would have been much worse if it were a man."

"Can we get back on track, please?" I say. "Tommy called me a little bit ago. Stan, Jet, and all the Weres left in the hunt are in the dining room right now warming up. Coraline was last seen talking to Stan.

"With the way she was drilling me for information, she's got to know by now that Vivian went out in the cold to check the silver sensors. I'm sure-given the right encouragement-Stan will tell Cora anything she wants to know. The whole point to telling the council member about Asa was so she could have a reason to believe he's the one who beheads Emiko."

Asa whips back around to join in the conversation, "Yeah, I get it now. But let's face the facts-could I really have been capable of killing her on my own? Will Coraline buy it?" He snorts. "Hell, I'm not so sure I would."

"Which is why," Dria says, "you'll be paired up in the killing with Drew."

Drew straightens a bit. "Good addition. After all, I did kill Ivan."

I dart a glance at my wife, certain she might betray a slip of a smile at the boldness he's showing. She had to practically push him into the act, now he makes it sound like he was into it all along. Her practiced calm is in place and through our connection I feel she's amused.

Dria whips out the folding knife she keeps handy and slices the top of the blood bag open. The coppery smell of fresh pennies wafts up through the cold air. "Let's start tossing this around to make the site look more legit."

Paul's teeth lengthen and he clamps a gloved hand over his mouth. His eyes close briefly in shame and he takes a moment to collect himself. "I'm sorry," he mutters from under his glove. "That smells really good."

"The silver isn't detectable by scent, but it is by taste. This stuff has so much silver in it, one drop in your mouth and you'd know instantly something was off." She hands the bag to Drew. "Put some on both of you as well, and tear your coats. She wouldn't go down without a fight."

I pull my wife to the side while the three vampires take out weapons from the bag Asa brought, pour blood on the blades and fling the droplets across the tramped snow. I'm sensing some discord in your mind. Are you having second thoughts?

The plan is sound. I just feel like there are too many things still unspoken.

All the evidence points to Emiko being set up, correct?

Yes.

Well then, what is it?

I couldn't read her because of the silver poison. I anticipated we'd talk and I'd find out what was truly going on.

You're assuming she'd have something more to add to what we already know. My wife nods. But what if there is nothing else to know? She could be just as blind as to why she's been dragged into this as we initially were.

Dria begins to pace across the clearing. Since it tamps some of the spilled blood in place and makes the scene look better, I don't bother to stop her. I can sense tension coiling in her, reminding me of a cobra about to strike. Don't you need to calm down if you plan to cast an illusion this big?

She whips back to face me. My wife's expression is hidden behind her ski mask, but her green eyes snap with anger. "Paul, lay down in the snow. Be very still."

"What?" he stammers. "Right now?" One cold look from Dria has him scrambling to obey. "Is this spot good?"

She doesn't answer him. "Asa, bury his head in snow. Drew pour some more of the blood on that brick and then dribble some all over the snow where his neck is. Paul, don't swallow any or you'll get sick."

Lie still and don't swallow? Paul flays his arms and grunts. Sounds like direction in a badly-filmed porn.

We all laugh at his observation, except for my wife. Dria has opened the link between the seethe members once again, and those of us who can focus enough to build up a thin personal wall, do.

Dria paces to the edge of the clearing and goes still. I can tell by reading her mind she's starting to lay the glamour in her thoughts. Once she's ready, she'll project it to the scene and hold it in place with her concentration.

In an instant, the stench of death fills the clearing. The unglamorous side not often revealed in movie and TV shows. Blood, urine, feces, and the stench of meat gone slightly bad wafts upward... it's enough to make one lose their appetite for hours. The rank smells cling to the insides of my nasal passages, forcing me to breathe through parted lips.

Asa's voice cracks across the clearing, shattering some of the hold the spell has on me, "You might be overdoing it a bit, Vivian. Sanji's death scene didn't smell this bad."

The cloud of death lessens a bit and the layered image of destruction fleshes out. The cleanly-sliced skin near Paul's neck transforms before our eyes to take on a more feminine size. His body shrinks in appearance and changes to the slim, black-cloaked, tiny frame of the deadly ex-enforcer.

The brick-like paver stone covered in blood turns into Emiko's severed head, complete with the face mask pulled up to reveal her delicate, smooth features frozen in death. The stub of her neck lies in a bloody patch of snow and long black hair trails behind, resting limp on the trampled ground.

"How does it look?" Dria asks.

"Scarily real," Asa says with a shake of his head.

"Excellent," says Drew, a note of awe in his voice.

"How do you plan on dealing with the heart removal part?" I say while gesturing to Paul's chest. The young vampire twitches, drawing a smile from me.

"Make a small snowball using some red snow. When it comes time for Asa to finish the kill, he'll use the handle of his silver knife and motion like he's cutting her heart out." Dria says it all so matter-of-factly it all seems to make perfect sense.

The tension and fear I have coiling in my gut over whether this illusion is the best thing to do shrinks a little. But it's still there. We're taking a huge risk. And all for what? Some Asian assassin we don't know well, but who has been used as a pawn by those she trusted? Dria's end game, when Cora and her crew leave, is to offer Emiko a chance to join our seethe. It might work as a viable option to the ex-enforcer. Or it might be tossed back in our faces and then what the hell do we do with Emiko?

Dria ends the illusion and touches my arm, strengthening our connection and effectively cutting out the others for a brief moment. She can always refuse and change her identity. It's a big world and as long as she avoids the Tribunal she'll be fine.

And that worked for you so well, right?

Hey, I managed to avoid them for a few hundred years.

Yes, but they always knew you lived... and were out there somewhere.

Good point. But they never connected me with Ceara, the young vampire killed in Mikov's seethe centuries ago. The fire that swept the whole compound remains one of many unsolved large executions throughout the recorded history of my kind.

You're too recognizable now, I say. There is no way you could pull such a disappearing act again.

Dria turns to look at the mock battle scene. Let's hope we never have to find out. "Asa, place the call to Jon. It's time to lead Coraline to the scene."