Page 39 of Sergi
BP.,,Blood Poppy? If the vampire hadn’t mentioned it, I might have questioned what the initials meant but wouldn’t have given the vial a second look.
MP was the Magic Poppy, the S a shifter formula, and I suspected the V was a vial of vampire blood. I didn’t have time to read the paperwork in the open file folder, but with the number of printouts spread across the counter filled with rows of numbers, graphs, and grids, he’d been documenting a great deal of data. What kind of data, I couldn’t tell.
When I completed the lab area, I dusted the file cabinets, the coffee table, and the bookcases. The director wasn’t a neat man. His desk was covered with more files, books, science magazines, and what appeared to be several days of mail that had been dumped on top of everything.
I glanced at the door and listened for voices or boots. Not hearing anything and guessing I had another ten minutes before the guard returned, I searched the desk for anything of interest as I wiped a clean rag over everything. While the desk was messy, it didn’t mean the guy didn’t know where everything was. I’d known a few shifters with similar organizational skills. One guy, a good friend of my uncle’s, could find a single sheet of paper in a mess like the director’s without blinking an eye.
I was taking a second deeper look, keeping my back to the single camera with a view of the desk, when my fingers touched something unexpected under a file folder. I pulled the object out and blinked. A vial of a thick, red substance.
My heartbeat ratcheted up as I read the label. BP-43. The date was from the previous week.
Why wasn’t the vial locked up? The director had either been lazy, distracted, or had merely forgotten about it. Without a second thought, I palmed it, gave the edges of the desk a final wipe, then stuck the vial in my lab coat along with the rag.
I stood back, turning in a circle as if I was checking for anything I might have missed in my cleaning, then picked up the bucket of supplies and carried them to the cart.
My heart was racing, and I sucked in a few breaths, forcing a calm I didn’t feel.
I couldn’t let the guard pick up on my anxiety. The only good news was that he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I leaned against the cart, and in a flash, I moved the vial from the pocket to under my shift as I had with the others I’d pilfered from the labs.
The guard returned five minutes later, and by then, I’d had time to settle my nerves and consider my actions. There were too many questions and not nearly enough information to connect the dots. But one thing was clear.
While I hadn’t decided on whether I could trust him, the vampire pinned to the wall was the only one who could provide answers.
Chapter Fifteen
Devon stoodat the door of the plane and scanned the area. The sun was out, but the air was cool. The customs agents had processed the plane quickly, and he assumed some money had exchanged hands. He stepped down to the tarmac and strode to the two vans that waited for them.
The team followed him, taking their duffels to the back of the vans where they would be stored for travel. Although the jet belonged to Remus, its ownership and tail registration were listed under a private corporation that was mired within dozens of false companies. If anyone were interested, it would take days to uncover the true owner.
The team consisted of ten vampires and ten shifters, including Devon and Remus. Rafael added one more to the count. He wasn’t sure if it would be enough. Their plans depended on there being more scientists and lab workers than guards, but he'd brought extra toys to even the playing field.
“We’re clear to go.” Remus dropped his duffel next to the pile. “The plane will stay at a field south of Timisoara until they get the call to retrieve us.”
“So far so good.” Devon waved Bella over from where she was monitoring the duffels packed into the second van. “Have you contacted Rafael?”
She glanced around the tarmac then waved at one of the shifters and pointed to the first van. “He’s on his way to Deva. The road to the lab had been quiet until last night. A supply truck went up, but it hadn’t returned before he left.”
“Was it a cargo van or something larger?” Remus asked.
“It was a cargo van,” she answered.
“Could be anything.” Devon checked his satellite phone.
“Or more guards.” Remus finished for him.
“Increased security?” Bella asked the question, but her attention was focused on the extra supplies being loaded into the vans.
Devon understood. “Because they caught a vampire along with a shifter.”
Remus nodded.
“That makes sense.” Bella paused to answer a question from a team member, then said, “It’s possible other vampires might have wandered too close, but my guess is that Sergi has been their first vampire intruder. If that’s true, they have to be concerned that someone might come for him.”
“He was captured over a week ago.” Devon shrugged off the concern. If there had been more than one cargo van, he might have been more worried. “If they had concerns about their security, they would have done something before now.”
Remus, who had also checked for messages, pocketed his burner phone. “At this point, it’s all speculation. Maybe Rafael can tell us more when we get to our first checkpoint. Either way, we planned for this.”
They agreed, and once everyone was in the vans, they settled in for the two-hour drive to Deva. It was late afternoon, and while the team broke into general conversation, Devon pulledout his phone. Bella would have checked in with the manor once they’d touched down, but he wanted to speak with Cressa. It would be her first day as head of security.
