Jael dashed down the spiral staircase in Selene's tower, his boots making no sound. Viktoria wouldn't even know he'd been there. His Draga was going to turn herself over to the man who'd kidnapped Musette and the mage who had hurt her.
She would fight with him about him going with her. And Viktoria and her sisters would be welcomed beyond the wards where he wouldn't be provided they went as victims. She could fight with shadows, but what if that wasn't enough? If she was bitten, her magic could be compromised, just like Musette's.
Well, she wasn't going in alone, but he'd let her think she was. She could hate him if she wanted to, but he would kill every man in that compound before they touched her.
He parked in the garage under Club Saol, got in the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor, holding it in until the elevator descended. When the doors opened he entered the maze of interconnected tunnels that ran beneath the blocks of real estate the Vitiate owned in downtown Port Storm.
Over the thousands of years they'd lived as vampires all of them managed to acquire enough wealth a job wasn't necessary, but they couldn't sit around doing nothing. And sometimes returning to the compound on the cliff wasn't a feasible option before sunrise, so each member of the Vitiate had a room in Club Saol where they fed, as well as a suite in the tunnels under their property.
Jael passed his dojo, the arena, the theater, a series of shops and warehouses, a tattoo parlor, a hotel and small convention center, and an apartment building. Bypassing a modern office, Jael entered an downward sloping offshoot that led to a cavern carved into bedrock.
The space was vast, at least two hundred feet tall, and the same distance wide. Heavy metal music played at an eardrum rupturing volume, and Jael had to take a few moments to adjust to the change in temperature as the cool of the tunnel turned uncomfortably hot.
A smokeless inferno burned along one side of the cave, and in the center was a man nearly seven feet tall and powerfully built with enough muscle Jael was glad he would never be set against him as an enemy. He wielded a flame thrower at a metal statue, melting it into a silver river that cascaded into metal vats arranged around its base.
Drake was forever melting and reforging the same woman in different forms.
The music cut off and Jael resisted the urge to take a step back, assaulted by the sudden quiet.
"Jael."
"Hello, Drake."
"I will not move back."
"I didn't come here to ask you to move back to the house."
"What do you want?"
"I need some help, my friend."
"Ha!" Drake scoffed. "Since when do you need my help, assassin?"
"Since speed became more important than stealth."
Drake's body tensed. "So, it has happened for you as well. Selene told me things would happen quickly." His shoulders sagged and his voice dropped to a whisper. "Strygoi do not like to be alone." He extinguished the flame thrower and set it down. "What do you need from me?"
"A distraction."
Drake turned around, finally interested. "Of what kind?"
"The kind that goes boom. I need to empty out an apartment building that takes up nearly a block. The more chaos the better."
"Only chaos? You're sure?" At Jael's nod, a smile spread across Drake's face and the black pupils in his red eyes shifted from round to vertical slits. "I have just the thing."
<><><><><>
Drake held what looked like a grenade launcher on his shoulder, aiming it at the mage's apartment building from the rooftop of a higher building across the street.
"What's that?" Jael asked. While he'd do anything to protect Viktoria, even when she didn't know he was doing it, he'd been wary asking Drake for this favor, thinking he'd have to scale down what Drake wanted to do. The man, for good reason, maintained a 'scorch the earth' policy when it came to dealing with mages, sometimes literally, but sometimes he scorched the earth just for fun. When Jael asked for a distraction to empty out an entire building, he'd been positive they'd have to negotiate from 'reduce the block to rubble' to 'leave most of it standing'.
"Something new." Drake pulled the trigger, and a projectile flew out of the tube. It soared in an arc, landing on the roof of the apartment building where it exploded with a loud bang. Dark black smoke poured out of the canister. It flowed over the surface, staying close to the roof rather than rising into the sky. When it reached the edges, it streamed downward, pouring into the building through open windows.
He took aim and fired a second time. Clouds of smoke burst from the canister, this time in hues of red and orange and flowed into the sky. Laughing, Drake aimed lower and sent the next volley through a window.
Smoke alarms went off and people screamed, rushing from the upper floors to the lower floors down the outside fire escapes. Sirens wailed, closing in on the smoking building. Drake raised a bigger tube to his shoulder.
"What's that one?" Jael asked.
"You know what they say." Drake grinned. "Where there's smoke..." He pulled the trigger on the larger weapon, and when this projectile hit the roof, it exploded into flames. "We only get one Draga. I don't begrudge you, Idris, or Stryx finding yours. You are hesitant to bond, but four thousand years wasn't enough time with mine. You find her, and you do whatever you have to." Drake slapped Jael on the back. "I'll keep them evacuating. Their wards will be going crazy with all the emergency personnel going in and out of the building."
Jael raced down the stairs to street level, and made his way through the crush of people leaving the apartment building. Fire trucks and ambulances pulled up and emergency workers gathered their equipment and entered the building.
Swords drawn and hidden under a bulky, yellow turnout coat, Jael entered the building. The wards stretched, close to their breaking point with all the traffic crossing them. Jael broke away from the crowds, following the pull of his swords towards the stronger spells.
He followed the trail to the basement level, and hit a wall. The hilts of his blades burned hot in his hands as he touched the tips to the brick. Bringing both swords up he slashed them in diagonal lines through the ward, expecting the wards to dissolve.
Jael threw up an arm to protect his eyes as the ward flashed a bright white and hot liquid splashed over him, burning his skin like acid.
<><><><><>
"I'm bored." Dream huffed. "Are we done with this plan yet?"
Viktoria arched an eyebrow at her sister. "We've been locked up for two minutes."
"Getting kidnapped isn't fun like it used to be. Where is the castle? And the musicians?" Dream glared pointedly at the chair they were bound to. "The cushions? Why do we have to be manacled in this disgusting basement?"
"And the horses! Driving isn't as romantic as being swept away on horseback." Memory sighed. "And a handsome, muscular man would have to put his arms around you and hold you close, so you could feel his hard—"
