Chapter 496
“And what do you need that I haven’t given you?” I asked Christian. I wanted to be sure we were on the same page. If I was going to be involved in this, it needed to have at least a small chance of working or else I was going to bow out before I got too involved..
“Can you get me the names and visuals for those Vampires you said were turning the others? Last known locations, etc.”
That was easy enough. “I already have that.” I searched through the data I’d compiled and pulled up the spreadsheet he’d just described. While I was working, I was staring at the table, but for a moment, I had the odd sensation that someone was looking at me. I glanced up, but Christian was concentrating on his coffee. My eyes went around the room. I didn’t see anyone. It was odd, but I shook it off and sent him the spreadsheet, pulling my focus back to what we were discussing. “That’s the best I could do using what little camera footage I could pick up on in the areas where they were turned. I went through their minds and our databases and ID’d some of them, as you can see. But I don’t have them all. The main one is that blonde woman. She’s turned the most.” I hoped he’d see the Vampire I was referring to. She was at the top of the document.
“Honey,” Christian read, nodding, not using a term of endearment. That was this lady’s name, assumed name, anyhow. “She seems like a gem.” He snickered for a second before he added, “Actually, I have something to show you, too. But go ahead. Anything else?”
I raised an eyebrow, wondering what he wanted to show me and how Honey had anything to do with it, but I answered him. “No, I don’t know anything else about her.”
“Okay. She has something to do with what I want to show you.”
“So show me,” I insisted. He was being weird again. I didn’t like it.
He sent me a video file. “You’ll wanna watch that later. Anything else?”
I really wanted to open it right then, but I didn’t. “What else do you need?” I had other files I could send him, but I didn’t know how much of it would be useful, and I didn’t want to bog him down if what he really needed to know was in the spreadsheet he had.
“Nothing for now. Just let me know if you find out anything else, okay?”
“All right,” I agreed, though I wasn’t exactly sure what sort of information he was referring to. I’d go home and look through my findings again and see what else I thought was absolutely pertinent. “When are you leaving if you’re going to go?” It sounded like his mind was pretty much made up, but looking over that spreadsheet on the Vampires might change his mind.
“Don’t know. Soon.”
Once again, I thought I should probably be trying to talk him out of this. But I didn’t. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be any more involved. “Are you sure there isn’t someone else you can get to help you?” Maybe he should take someone else along.... I didn’t like being the only one who could reach him.
“There is, and I will. But not with the Daunator part. Just with the others.” I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but he was done. He finished his coffee, put his cup down, and started to slide out of the booth. “Thanks for your help, Cass.”
I watched him, still a little surprised at his last answer but not knowing what else to ask. “Sure.” He picked up his cup and took it over to the trash can, tossed it in, and headed out of the coffee shop, that look on his face that let me know he was going over the file again and not paying attention to another person in the world.
It was so strange, the whole conversation. Why was he doing this? He had to have some motivation I couldn’t decipher. He wasn’t going to tell me what it was, though. I could jump into his head and look around, but that might be scarier than trying to access Daunator’s thoughts. I decided to take a pass on that—for now.
Instead, I opened up the video he’d sent me. I recognized Honey, the Vampire who’d been doing much of Daunator’s dirty work, right away. There was a woman chasing her up a fire escape, and since the footage was from this other person’s view point, I imagined she must be one of us, though there was nothing on the video to let me know who it was.
Once they reached the roof, a whole new set of Vampires stepped out of the shadows to face the person whose vantage point I was looking from. It would be seven against one, from the looks of it. As they moved in, the IAC I was looking through rose up to meet them, taking six of the seven down, one at a time. It was pretty amazing. I could tell from what I could see that it was definitely a woman, that she wasn’t very tall, and of course she was in excellent shape. It wasn’t until all of the new Vampires were gone and she turned back to face Honey that I realized the voice was familiar. I did know this person. She was a Guardian, one I didn’t really care for. One who’d threatened to shoot a Vampire that was holding me hostage, despite Zabrina’s threats to kill me if she did so. “Eliza,” I muttered, not sure how I felt about this. Was Christian going to ask her for help, too? Could I work with the man whose face I’d ripped off and the girl who’d tried to steal my sister’s boyfriend and stabbed her in the back? It looked like maybe I already was....
