Requiem

Chapter 3 - Payback-2

“More than you think,” he said. “They took anything, including money, food, clothes.”

“That is highway robbery,” I said.

“Basically,” he said. “Robbers could make a great deal selling what they stole.”

“You want me to put a whammy on them, Sabrina?” Rick asked.

“No.” We crawled, stopped, and crawled some more until I got to the window.

Finally it was our turn. I powered down my window and was about to hand the teller my money when I saw two demon eyes glare out at me and she and a gun was in her hand pointed at my face.

“Holy s**t!” I thrust my right hand at the gun and I yelled “Jam!” Directing my next words to Rick, I said, “Open the gates, Rick! Now!” He snapped his fingers. At the same time the gun clicked but didn't go bang! The gates shot up and I put the Jeep in gear and sped away.

“Come back here!” the demon screeched behind us.

I pressed the window button to power it up again, and cut off the cold air rushing in.

“Ohmygod, what was that s**t about?” Lindee asked, her voice high pitched as she turned around in her seat to look back.

“That was a demon,” I said.

“They're following you,” Rick said.

“I thought you said you could keep them away,” I said.

“Ah, that one sort of slipped through my defenses,” he said, looking at his iPhone again.

“Make sure no more do,” I said, realizing he was monitoring things from the phone, like he always did. How he could detect demons on it, I had no idea. I mean, what would be that app?

Thirty minutes later we drove into the city, and soon the entrance of Tremayne Tower's underground garage came into view. I turned off the street and through the first gates. Only then did I realize I didn't have my identification card on me. It was the only way we could get inside.

“I'm sorry,” I said to the man in the gate house. “But would you please call Mr. Tremayne and tell him Sabrina Strong and Vasyl are here?”

“Okay, ma'am.” The dark haired man ducked inside his window and shut it. I turned to stare at the red and white-striped gate in front of the Jeep.

“They sure have a lot of security here,” Lindee said.

“Yeah, they won't let anyone inside the garage on this side of the building unless we have our ID's.” I sighed. Elbow to the window ledge, I leaned on my fist. “I can't believe I don't have it on me.” I straightened as realization hit me. “Oh, s**t. I won't be able to get on the elevator without it and go to his office.”

“Won't he have someone meet us?” Vasyl asked.

I twisted my lips in thought. The guard opened his window.

“There you go, Ms. Strong.” He handed me a parking ticket as the gate rose. I'd never come in here where they gave out parking passes before. “Have a good evening.” He made a three-fingered salute to me.

“Oh, thank you.” I took the ticket and drove forward, into the lit parking garage. It was the same as always. But something different had been added. Parking attendants, wearing bright yellow vests, held flashlights while directing cars. I pulled up behind a car that had stopped. There were three cars in front of him.

“Wow. This place is busy,” I said. “Must be something going on.”

“Maybe there's a party,” Lindee said.

“Yeah, a vampire party,” Rick chimed in.

We were finally next in line. The young man leaned to my window.

“Are you here for Tremayne's party?” he asked.

It was the first I'd heard of any party. Clueless I said, “I'm here to see him.”

“Do you have a parking pass?”

I handed him the parking ticket. He nodded and pointed. “We've got your parking slot over there, Ms. Strong. In the D parking area.”

I followed the signs, turned down a different way than the cars in front of me had. I'd never liked the parking garage. I'd been shot at down here too. Ever since then I really hated coming in here.

“This place is super!” Lindee said, eyes wide open looking around.

“It's been a while for me,” the new voice startled us. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw Dante seated between Rick and Lindee.

“s**t! You scared the crap out of me!” Rick swore.

“Me too!” Lindee nearly screamed.

“My apologies,” he said.

“Hobart and Cho got to the airport okay?” I asked.

“They did. Hobart said he would head back to his place.”

“You know what's going on?” I asked as I drove along, following more parking attendants who pointed me through when I held up my parking pass. My Jeep was the only American made vehicle in this section. Expensive vehicles, makes and models of which I wasn't familiar with, aside from the Beamers and Mercedes.

“This is Tremayne's party, and announcement of his return to the vampire world,” Dante informed.

“That makes sense,” I said. “After all, he'd been considered a rogue for a few weeks.”

“I sense there is more to it than that,” Dante said.

“What does he want of me?” Vasyl asked.

“I wouldn't know,” Dante said.

“I guess we'll have to find out the usual way, 'coz I'm not getting any reads at all,” I said and pulled into an empty slot next to a red Ferrari and a silver BMW.

We all piled out. I knew the way to the elevators and the others followed me. The walk from where I would have normally parked may have taken us five minutes. Today, we were much closer. Dante strode ahead, and stopped at the elevator doors, ready to press the button, but he didn't need to. It opened and two people stepped out. My gasp echoed next to me with Lindee's surprised intake of air.

“Jeanie! Heath!” I knew it had to be Heath, because they were a couple. I wanted in the worse way to run up and hug them both, but I needed to err on the side of safety.

“Going down?” Jeanie said, looking super sexy wearing a shimmery blue cocktail dress. Heath was in a very nice suit. He never usually wore a full suit. But tonight he had a tux on.

Part-ay-y-y.

“Look at you guys! You look fabulous in that dress, Jeanie!”

“Thanks,” she said. Her short very blond hair was teased and the long tendrils were died to match her dress.

I turned to Lindee. “I don't know if you remember my cousin, Lindee? Lindee this is Jeanie. And this is Heath. Remember what I told you?” I prompted because I didn't want to blurt out that Jeanie was now a vampire.

“Oh, sure. I remember her during summer vacations. I went to your house once when I visited Sabrina,” Lindee said. Jeanie and I were practically inseparable during the summers.

“Hi, Lindee,” Jeanie said, smiling her brilliant smile. “I'm sorry that I don't remember you. Seems some things from my former life are a blank.”

“Oh, that's okay. A lot of my own life is a blank,” Lindee said and laughed.

“And this is Heath,” I said, gesturing. I had told Lindee to not look directly into their eyes or extend her hand. You didn't shake hands with a vampire, unless you wanted to become dinner.

“How'd you do,” Heath said making a little nod.

“Oh my God! I love your accent!” Lindee said. We all chuckled. Heath was originally from Liverpool, England, turned in the mid-sixties. He and his brother were both Beatles fans before they were turned.

“I hear there's a party?” I said, watching several people going to another elevator and crowding on.

“That there is. But we're to take you to Mr. Tremayne's office directly,” Heath said, pointing to another set of elevator doors.

“Well, I guess we'll go with you,” I said, pulling my purse strap over my shoulder.

“Blimey, Dante, it's good to see you, again,” Heath said as we stepped on. “Heard there's been some drastic changes to you. An Undead, now, eh?”

“I get around much easier now,” Dante said with a wicked smile.

“No doubt,” Heath said.

We all entered the elevator with the vampires. The doors snicked closed. My stomach rolled. I didn't like going down to Tremayne's office. Too many bad memories there, too.

Heath pressed for Level A—Level Hell, as I liked to call it—and the elevator slid downward. It was a very short ride. Filing out, we strode through the familiar curving hallway.

“Oh, wow,” Lindee said moving to the glass that made up one wall, and looked down into the next two levels. “This place is cool! Is that a billiards room way down there?”

“Yes,” I said, looking down to the bottom level. The two levels were arranged below like huge steps.

“You think we might have time to go shoot some pool?” she asked.

“Mostly donors play and lounge down there, waiting for their vampires to call them,” Heath told her.

“Besides, you're all going to be too busy tonight to play pool,” Jeanie said, her voice sultry.

“Hey, Sabrina?” I turned to Rick behind me. My brows up.

“Alright if I leave? I had something lined up tonight.”

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks for helping us back there.”

“Oh, no problem. See ya around, toots,” Rick said. He snapped his fingers and was gone.

“Aw, too bad,” Lindee said. “He's fun to have around.” No doubt about that.

Dante strode ahead of us and opened the double oak doors of the outer office. As always no one sat at the desk. The only time I had seen anyone stationed here was when Nicolas assumed charge of things after Tremayne was ousted as a rogue.

The sudden vision severed me from my world. I saw a flash of someone with large black vampire wings.

“Are you alright?” Vasyl had my elbow.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, blinking.

“A vision?” Dante asked.

Everyone had stopped to stare at me.

“Must have been,” I said.

“What was it?” Dante asked.

“I don't know, exactly. Looked like a vampire with wings. Black wings.” I looked up at Vasyl. His wings had been very dark, but they had some brown to them. Not black. This one had black wings and a very nasty looking claw at the apex of the wing, much like Vasyl's but the man wasn't Vasyl.

I shook my head. “I'm sure I'll have another one later on.” I always had multiple visions of the same thing. I might even have a more detailed vision that would make me out of it for several minutes.

“We'll discuss this later,” Dante said, looking grim.

“You saw it?” I asked.

“Of course I did.” Dante could read my mind, and also could peek in at my visions, now that we were connected on this new higher level.

Vasyl shot him a harsh look. He said something in French.

Dante said, “The vision was of a master.”

“Sacrebleu! What did he look like?”

“I didn't get a look at his face,” I said.

“Are you alright? Can you go on?” Heath asked while standing at the sliding white doors to the inner sanctum looking at me with those serious, yet almost puppy-dog sad eyes.

I nodded. I usually feel dizzy after a vision, but this one was so brief it was inconsequential and I didn't feel dizzy at all. “I'm okay. May as well get this over with.” I sighed. Anyone present didn't know why I hated meetings with Tremayne like this didn't know my history with him. There was safety in numbers, right? Especially with both Dante and Vasyl in my company. Maybe the news will be good.

Large red double T's of Tremayne's logo on the white doors slid apart as the doors opened. This, in my opinion, held the strangest place in all of Tremayne Towers. I'd been in this inner sanctum on a number of occasions—none of which I can truthfully say were pleasant. On one occasion I was rescuing Dante, who had become a mouse in order to spy on Ilona and Nicolas, back when he was a human shapeshifter.