Page 10 of Countdown to Murder
“First time?”
“You may or may not like sex the first time, or even the second. Give it a chance before you decide — atleastthree or four times. Also, some men are better than others. If it isn’t good with the lion then you owe it to yourself to try it with others. However, your body has picked the lion, apparently, so let’s hope he knows how to please a woman.” She frowned. “I know nothing of his sexual prowess, unfortunately. Not even rumors.”
“I can’t have sex on a job. I’ll have to find ways to think of other things while I’m working.” I sat on the edge of my bed. “I don’t know much about this job. An A-liststar with a supernatural stalker who’s managed to get flowers into her house.”
“If it’s kill or be killed, you know you should kill, whether you’ve talked with any of us about it or not.”
I nodded, she hugged me, told me how proud she was of how far I’ve come, and then I was alone again.
I packed my favorite AR, both rigs for it, my favorite sling, and considered the shotgun. It went in, and I took a long look at my silver dagger. I wished they weren’t waiting until we were on the plane to brief us, but I assumed we were going against a supernatural, so I dropped the dagger in as well as my silver throwing knives and the wrist sheath for them. The knife at my back had a small amount of silver content, but the folding knife in my pocket did not.
I also made sure I had mags with both standard ammo and silver. Panda told me Drake Security would supply the ammo we needed for the occasion, but I always wanted both with me. You never know when you’ll come up against Fae, and standard ammo hurts them a whole lot more than silver.
Chapter Five
Panda
I returned the weapons to Drake and then checked out an arsenal, plus I had my personal weapons. This plus my garment bag of suits, and a duffel with jeans and shirts in case we needed to be casual, meant I had a trunk full of equipment to put into the belly of the plane. Drake’s hangar is located across the runway from the Chattanooga airport, meaning I didn’t have to drive anywhere close to the main terminal. I carried the case with four long guns in one hand and pulled a steel rolling case full of ammo in the other. On my second trip, I grabbed the duffel with my clothes and toiletries and looped the long strap over my shoulder, put the backpack with my handguns and knives on my back, draped the garment bag over one arm, and carefully lifted the case Lou, our head tech guy, had given me with the other hand. Most of our electronics arehardened for battle, but not everything can be, so the tech case would need to go in the passenger compartment. I’d keep the backpack with me as well.
Mira’s car was already parked, and I saw her walking with a garment bag, suitcase, duffel, and long gun case. I’d wondered how many bags she’d bring, and I approved.
Ember and Sloan had been with the client nearly a week. I’ve worked with Ember a few times, and she brought two suitcases full of clothes and shoes for a job early on, plus her weapons cases. Cora, on the other hand, usually brought three large suitcases but only half of one was clothes, and the rest was usually weapons. I had a feeling Mira also had more weapons than clothes. Honestly, for this kind of assignment, both strategies are fine. Ember’s clothing allows her to blend in most anywhere, which can come in handy.
The plane has a few rows of normal first-class type airplane seats, but it also has sofas arranged in a conversational style, and some beds in the back. Mira was kicked back in the second row of seats, slightly reclined with her feet up, reading a company tablet. The pilot shook my hand and handed me a tablet, and I took a seat on one of the sofas to read mine.
We’d be guarding Ella MacKenna, former star of a hit television series and current darling of the big screen. Ella had a stalker who was able to get into her home and leave flowers.Daily. Each bouquet had a note that was basicallya countdown to Halloween. Over a series of notes, the stalker told her he couldn’t wait until Halloween, when he’d kill her so she could live forever.
Sloan and Ember had picked up the scent of an unknown vampire. The theory was that he was flying in,somehow, to avoid Ella’s elaborate security system and the additions the Drake team had added. The human police took the note at face value and thought the stalker meant to kill her outright. Sloan was of the opinion the stalker intended to turn her into a vampire.
The two teams would work fifteen-hour shifts, with our time overlapping at night. Mira and I would work from twenty-one hundred until noon the next day, while Sloan and Ember worked from noon until oh-three hundred. Ella had a cook on staff who’d feed us as well as her, which meant one less person we’d had to bring with us. We had fourteen outside guards who’d patrol in two teams of seven on the same overlapping schedule. Ideally, they would not have contact with the client. We also had geeks to man an onsite control room.
It took me over an hour to read through the police and FBI reports. The vampire had followed Miss MacKenna from California to Florida, and now everyone was headed to Vermont. The client insisted on staying in her own homes rather than letting us put her into one of our safehouses, and I rolled my eyes.
Next came Sloan and Ember’s report. Ember noted that Ella MacKenna smelled as if she had some Aos Sí heritage, and I cringed at the thought. The Fae are like crack cocaine to vampires, and I couldn’t imagine a vampire wanting to turn one. No, he’d make her a blood slave for a few decades and then extend her life indefinitely. It was intended as a way for vampires to keep their shapeshifter lovers alive for a few centuries, or until the vampire tired of them, but the most powerful vampires could use it to keep a blood slave alive.
Blood slave isn’t the right term. It’s really mind rape, to make the human think they’re in love with the vampire. I call them a blood slave because they become slave, used for blood and sex.
He was going to wipe away her spirit — the part of her that rejected him — but her body would live on.
The death threat was for the human authorities, so they’d assume she was dead once she went missing. This meant I wouldn’t be working for the Concilio on this one. The asshole was taking pains not to bring supernaturals to the attention of the humans, so the Concilio wouldn’t care what happened to her. Though, since this was going to be high profile if she disappeared and her body was never found, and since the vampire was clearly getting into a highly secure building, it’s possible the Concilio would think he was flaunting his powers despite trying to hide them.
I looked over the pictures and blueprints of the Vermont mansion. Three stories plus an attic and a basement. Bigger than most hotels. The ground floor was for entertaining — a ballroom, a party room, lots of smaller conversation rooms, a billiard room, a media room, and a huge sunroom attached to the back of the house with an indoor pool.
The second floor was guest bedrooms, a large workout room, a media room made to look like a fancy theater, and living space for the hired help. The top floor was her bedroom, closet, and master bathroom. The top floor alone was nearly seven thousand square feet.
Originally, she’d insisted security would be allowed everywhere except the third floor, but then the stalker had left flowers in her condo bedroom a few hours later, twelve feet from her bed while she slept. Ember would now be allowed into the client’s bedroom, but the client still insisted no men come above the second floor unless Ember sounded the alarm that the stalker was up there.
The assumption was that she’d allow Mira upstairs as well. I hadn’t met Miss MacKenna yet, but something told me she might not agree until she felt comfortable with Mira, and that might be a problem.
The stalker had followed the starlet from Beverly Hills to Miami. Would he follow her to Vermont?
I considered the on-site personnel. Sloan is an eagle shifter. We might be able to make use of him in his eagleform, but it would be easier if he was a hawk or crow, or even an owl. Ember can shift into either a swan or a dragon, but swans stand out even more than eagles, and her dragon is larger than a bus with wings.
The same goes for me — it’s hard to hide a huge lion.
And Mira’s snake can’t follow instructions.
Sloan had been in charge, but I was being brought in to lead. I’ve worked with him before and I didn’t foresee him taking offense. He’s a former Navy SEAL, and his mindset is basically whatever it takes to get the job done.
