Which reminds me...
“Have either of you found any dirty secrets about the vamps you’d care to share?” I ask Dante and Z. “A secret off button or, like, an aversion to shellfish or something, so we can just lob crabs at Simpson and his cronies and that’ll be that.”
Dante gives me that look. The one I get a lot and have for most of my life. Like he can’t understand what is happening in my brain right now.
Me too, buddy. Me too.
His lips quirk into a smile and he lets out a smooth chuckle and I feel like I’ve won a damn prize. He’s a quiet, serious guy. Kind of intense, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh before.
“Not yet, but I’m still hopeful.” He pulls out yet another book from the suitcase Z dragged in here and starts to skim through it.
“Crabs?” Zeph mutters. “Your mind, man. It’s an interesting place.”
The judiciary building isn’t one I’ve ever paid all that much attention to before this. It’s ugly. Grey. Somehow simultaneously imposing, but it blends in to the rest of the city skyline.
We stand a few streets away, checking out the joint to work out our best way inside.
Today, it’s a challenge. A puzzle to work our way through.
And I fucking love puzzles.
I’d prefer it if I had my partner in solving problems. The dream team back together again, cracking codes and jokes with just as much ease. Diving through laser fields or solving riddles, whatever it is we need to do.
But I need to get my partner back for that.
“The main electrical input is on the top of the building,” Fabian says and Zeph nods.
“I’ll head inside with you,” Dante says to me and I hold my hand out for a fist bump, which he reluctantly returns.
“And I’ll follow once the lights go out,” Fabian says.
“Nice,” I say. “Let’s fuck this place up.”
Tension is thick in the air as Zeph takes a deep breath and thunder rolls in the near distance. Storm clouds form overhead, unnaturally fast, like they’re in a time-lapse video.
There’s a crack and the sky lights up as a massive bolt of lightning hits the tippy top of the building.
Perfect shot.
“Nice.”
Dante and I race over. I activate the rune on my leg to give me a burst of speed so I can keep up with his vampiric speed.
A, now dead, electric fence surrounds the building. No telltale buzz to say it’s live right now.
There are two guards standing just outside a little cabin at the front of the gate, apparently unaware that anything out of the ordinary just happened. Dante and I make our way to one sideof the fence and he tears through the wire fence like it’s made of paper.
Shit. Dude’s stronger than he looks.
As we approach the door to the building, there’s a guard behind a thick layer of bulletproof glass. Before we’ve even got the door open, he slumps in his seat, unconscious. I glance behind me and see Fabian, who gives a nod.
The inside of the building is creepy as hell. It’s all bare walls and floors and dim emergency lighting. It looks like a place that’s been long abandoned, as though we’re going to spot plants growing through the walls around the next corner.
Like as soon as you step inside, you’re forgotten.
A shiver of unease goes up my spine, and Dante squeezes my shoulder.
“Focus now,” he says.
