Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Felix was heavy, but I was strong. Tracy had no problem with Augustus. We carried the warriors on our backs piggyback style like they were children. The visual was comical but we were all business. We flew undetected right past the guard towers. Upon closer inspection, it was evident that the guards were Vamps. It was disheartening and infuriating. But as Ethan had said, Vampyres who were complicit with creating Dhampirs were not our people… they were ash.
I took the lead, Felix pointed the way and Tracy kept us hidden from sight. It was helpful that it was the middle of the night and we were wearing black, but being cloaked was an added layer of protection. If I had a working heart, it would have been beating out of my chest. I wasn’t sure how long Tracy’s cloaking would last, so I moved fast.
“It’s glamoured,” Felix whispered. “Its false facade looks like an incinerator building for trash. I’ve seen them in the movies. It’s been boarded up and has orange construction draping all around it to give the impression it’s being worked on. Danger signs are posted everywhere.”
The first explosion went off with a thunderous bang. The guards in the towers left their posts and sprinted toward the noise. When the second and third went off, shouting and a general freakout ensued. Frantic humans filed out of the buildings, hopped into cars, and sped away from the compound. When the fourth and fifth went off, the rest of the population of Area 51 cleared out. However, according to Felix, no one left the building with the bunker.
“Can you see what it really looks like—without the glamour?” I asked. While I wanted to look, I was more concerned with not flying into a pole or wire. It would suck all kinds of ass to get knocked out of the air.
“Yes, and you’ll be able to as well. The glamour only works on humans. The true facade is simply a non-descript concrete structure with a flat roof. It’s to your left.”
I looked in the direction he pointed and felt a zing in my gut. It wasn’t from the sixth and seventh grenades going off. I could feel Ethan. I saved my scream of joy for when he was in my arms. The building was three stories high and exactly as Felix had described it. All of the buildings in the compound were no frills and very utilitarian. I allowed myself a hot sec to scan the area for alien spaceships. Didn’t see one.
“Tracy,” I said softly as the last of the grenades exploded. “We’re going to land on the roof of the three-story building to the left. How much longer can you keep the cloaking up?”
“I’d say about ten minutes,” she replied as she swooped down to the destination. “Might be able to do it again, but I’ll need a little break.”
We didn’t need to worry about the humans. They were gone. However, there were still traitorous Vamps on the premises. The longer we stayed hidden, the better.
“There’s my lover,” Augustus said with relief. “Poosh is my life! Lynda is but a fond memory from my past. While I loved Lynda and our brief but invigorating time together from the depths of my soul, I love Poosh more. The Demon’s criminal ways and aerobatic maneuvers in the latrine give my rod quite the boost! I find her sticky fingers and penchant for illegal activities arousing and life affirming.”
I didn’t comment. There really wasn’t much to add to his delusional thinking.
The gals had made it to the roof before we did. They were high fiving and waving at us. Our landing was smooth and I motioned for everyone to gather around Tracy. As the guards weren’t human, we didn’t need to alert anyone to our arrival. The grenades would only keep them busy for so long.
“Poosh,” I said as I hustled the group over to the rooftop door. “Can you pick the lock and disable any security system?”
“Piece of cake,” she said with a naughty grin. “I’ve been picking locks and knocking out alarms for thousands of years!”
“I have a boner,” Augustus announced.
“Swaffel it,” I told him.
“Roger that,” he said, smacking his junk against the side of the building so hard that I once again had phantom crotch pain.
The Demon had the door opened, and the alarms disabled in one minute and twenty-one seconds. She knew her stuff. “I’ve disarmed the entire building,” Poosh announced with pride. “No one will be able to tell either! I bypassed the main and burned the shit out of it. It’ll still appear to be working to those inside.”
“Excellent,” I told her as she grinned wide. Reminder to self… never get on Poosh’s bad side. She was a maniac.
When Augustus went to comment, I raised a brow. I didn’t want to hear about his junk anymore. He smartly refrained from oversharing.
“We’ll stay together and clear a floor at a time. We need to work fast. The grenade blasts will cause human military personnel to come in and secure the area. Not sure if the glamour will keep them out of this building. Goal is the bunker, but we need to stay alive to get there,” I instructed quietly while looking around for cameras in the dingy cement stairway. I didn’t see any but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. “I don’t give a crap about taking prisoners alive. If anyone tries to stop us, make that the last thing they do. Am I clear?”
“Abundantly,” Martha said. “Want me to pinch the nip?”
“Yep.” Ethan wasn’t going to believe how we found him… once we found him. “Can you tell how close we are to Lizard?”
“Hang on,” she said, squeezing and yanking.
I was shocked as the chorus of Lord Help Me Jesus filled the corridor of the stairwell.
“Down,” she said. “I have to get closer to know the exact location.”
“Let’s move.”
We moved silently and in unison. The stairwell was musty-smelling and filthy. When we were only feet away from the door that led to the third floor, I stopped the forward motion and leaned in.
“Martha and Jane, stay here. You’re our only hope of finding the exact location of the guys. I can’t risk you.”
“Roger that, Booby St. Booby,” Jane whispered. “Do we have your permission to rip the heads off anyone who might try to escape through the stairwell?”
“You do,” I told her. “No fancy shit and no grenades. Just a quick decapitation. We can’t risk being detected before we want our presence known.”
“Can fuckin’ do,” Martha said. “Go clear that dang floor!”
I grinned at the two old dummies who drove me nuts. They were fabulous.
“Felix, tell me the layout of this floor, please.”
The warrior consulted the map. “Completely open floor plan. No windows. No closets. One door. Just a large room.”
“That seems odd,” I said.
“No odder than Augustus swaffelen and Jane and Martha pinching their fun buttons for directions,” he pointed out.
He wasn’t wrong. It would be far easier and quicker to clear an open area than one filled with separate rooms and tons of closets.
“On three, we go in. Stay low and fan out. Keep your backs to the walls. Augustus, Poosh and Felix go to the left. Tracy, you’re with me. Weapons out. If there’s a human, just knock them out. Do not kill them. Any Vamps in the building aside from us are traitors and will be treated as such.”
Weapons were drawn, and we were ready to roll.
“One. Two. Three.”
Poosh kicked the door open. We entered silently and quickly. What we saw was shocking and made me want to puke. Bloody tears filled my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. Augustus swore viciously and dropped to his knees. Poosh growled like an animal. Felix kept shaking his head, trying to understand what we were looking at. The vast and cavernous room was empty of life, but remnants of past lives were scattered all over. Bones and full skeletal frames looked as if they’d been tossed into piles. Ripped pieces of blood-encrusted fabric covered some of the dead. Most were left exposed.
“What is this?” Felix finally asked in a hushed tone.
“It’s an abomination,” I answered as I stepped further into the room to examine the bones.
“All female,” Poosh announced with venom in her voice. “They were human women.” She squatted down and picked up a femur. She sniffed it and gently scratched it. “This one is somewhere between fifteen and seventeen years old.”
“The bones are from teenagers?” I asked, horrified.
“No.” She shook her head. “Sorry, I should have been clearer. The time of death was fifteen to seventeen years ago. The woman was somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties.”
I couldn’t speak. It was no less horrifying that the bones belonged to an adult woman rather than a child. The tragedy in front of us was unspeakable.
“The timing is right,” Augustus stated flatly.
“For?” I asked.
“The Vampyres got the spell from Cooch to create Dhampirs twenty years ago. The age of the bones makes sense.”
A rage that I’d never felt before boiled up inside of me. My skin felt hot and my mouth went dry. The need to tear apart the ones who had disregarded human life to such a disgusting degree consumed me.
“My God,” Felix cried out in an anguished voice.
I quickly turned to see what he’d found. On the wall behind us, written in marker, were the names, ages, and dates of death of all the women in the room. It filled the wall. I felt numb. I clenched my sparking hands to my sides. Setting the dry bones on fire wasn’t on my list. The enormity of the heinous crime that surrounded us was hard to take in. What kind of animal would do this?
The kind of animal I was going to destroy. Shortly. There would be no mercy for the perpetrators of this immoral act.
“How many?” I ground out.
Felix scanned the wall, running his fingers over names. “More than a thousand.”
“So disrespectful. They were murdered for greed… for the desperate hope of world domination. Unacceptable,” Poosh growled. “These women deserve a proper burial. I might be a Demon, but these women belong with the Angels, not on a filthy floor in a fucking warehouse.”
She was right. Blowing up the building in a rage wasn’t going to help anything. I’d do that when we were done here. However, Poosh’s words hit me in the gut. It was further proof that Demons were not evil. Criminal and mischievous? Yes. Evil? No.
“I can solve that,” I whispered, pulling out my phone.
She answered on the first ring. “Asshead,” Pam said. “You okay?”
“No, but I will be. I have a favor to ask. It’s a big one.”
“Ask away,” she said. Her tone matched mine. She knew I meant business.
I quickly explained what we’d found and who the bones belonged to. She was silent the entire time.
“What would you like me to do, baby girl?” she asked.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Rome with the King.”
“Can you make a pitstop in Heaven?” I asked.
I could swear I heard her sad smile through the phone. “I can and I will. I’ll take those women home.”
“I love you, Pam,” I whispered through my tears.
“Love you more, girl,” she said. “Work fast. My gut tells me you have a ways to go with whatever you have going on.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“The pleasure and honor are mine, child,” she said.
I hung up and put my phone back in my pocket. “You guys might want to leave the room. I’m not sure how messy this is going to be.”
“Not leaving,” Poosh said.
“Me neither,” Augustus said.
“We stand with you, Astrid,” Felix announced. “Forever and always. I will never leave your side.”
I closed my eyes and smiled. Having Felix as a barnacle wasn’t my fondest wish, but having his support was priceless. My people might be crazy, but they were good.
Rolling my neck and popping my knuckles, I scanned the entire room for a good ten minutes. I made sure my gaze landed on every single body and bone in every section. There would be no one left behind in this hellhole. I could only imagine what these women had been put through. Sending them into the arms of the Angels was the very least I could do.
“In the name of everything that’s beautiful and pure, I will send you home. May your journey be safe and your afterlife glorious,” I said, raising my arms high and then slashing them down through the air.
Black glitter covered my body, my hair blew around my head, and a blinding golden glow blanketed the cavernous room. Iridescent bubbles of light bounced and danced as they found their way to the bones of the dead. The wind picked up and replaced the musty smell with the scent of spring rain. As the magic left my body, my knees began to buckle. I didn’t fall. I was physically supported by Augustus, Felix and Poosh.
As the bubbles touched the remains, they popped and emitted bursts of shimmering magic that wrapped around the broken and battered bodies. One by one, the women disappeared into the light. I watched in awe as the magic cradled the dead and carried them to a better place. A place they deserved to be.
Slowly, I dropped to my knees and made the dead a promise. “I will avenge your deaths,” I whispered. “And I’ll somehow let your loved ones know.”
After a long moment of silence, I stood back up. I couldn’t bring the women back to life, but I did my best for them. However, there was more to do.
“Felix and Augustus, please take a picture of the names. All of the names. Make sure they’re legible.”
“On it,” Augustus said. He and Felix went to work.
Poosh walked over to me and cupped my cheek in her hand. “Will you be my friend, Astrid?”
I smiled at the felonious Demon and placed my hand over hers. “Yes. I would be honored to call you my friend, Poosh.”
The Demon giggled. Her shrill voice didn’t even bother me anymore. It did kind of hurt my ears, but that was a very small price to pay.
“We have the names,” Augustus said.
“And we have two more floors and a bunker to deal with,” I replied. “Let’s do this shit.”