“Still, it was literally hell, and I don’t know how long I would’ve been in that position if you hadn’t figured it out so quickly.”
“I think the building’s protective wards would’ve clued someone in eventually. How are you feeling?”
Levi smiled tightly, a haunted look in his eyes he couldn’t quite hide. “Like shit, but there’s work to do.”
Spencer chuckled tiredly at that. “Yeah, no kidding.”
Fatima jumped up onto the table and nosed about, searching for a spot to lie down in. Spencer and Levi separated, they and the rest of the field team having plenty to work on until the meeting about tomorrow’s planned search and seizure started.
By the time they all left the war room, Spencer had finished his coffee and was in desperate need of more. He hid a yawn behind his hand on the walk to the large briefing room, where what looked like two dozen special agents were making their way to. He was about to slip inside when his cell phone rang.
“Save me a seat,” Spencer told Kori before stepping out of the way and pulling out his cell phone. The number had a local area code but wasn’t tied to any name in his contact list. Frowning, Spencer moved farther down the hallway away from everyone else and answered it. “Special Agent Spencer Bailey, line and—”
“Alyona was kidnapped,” William snarled into the phone.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
Takoma wokeas twilight fell beyond the walls of his Night Court’s heavily guarded heart in Medina. He shook off the lethargy from the magically reinforced sleep with practiced ease and blinked his eyes open, staring up at the dark ceiling of his windowless and steel-reinforced master bedroom. The soft glow from the Tiffany lamp on the dresser across the room provided light he really didn’t need, not with his enhanced eyesight.
He didn’t get the luxury of an easy waking. The heavy pounding on the bedroom door had Takoma flinging himself out of bed and to the locking mechanism that kept the door sealed shut against all comers. He stabbed a finger to the intercom controls, voice coming out in a low snarl. “What?”
“We have a problem, Master,” Stasya said in a cool voice that only shook a little, which was more than enough to make Takoma want to murder someone. Alyona’s mother was not easily rattled. “The heart is secure, but please exit your room so that we may inform you of what has transpired.”
Her words were said in that careful way that meant she wasn’t under duress but she was scared. The team of human servants who lived at and guarded the Medina estate across the water from Seattle proper were as loyal as they came. Layers of security were built into the property, and not all of those were laid into the foundation. Code words and phrases were known by everyone who lived and worked in the various properties, and while there was no breach to the heart of his Night Court,somethingwas wrong.
Takoma didn’t bother reaching for the assault rifle racked on the wall by the door. He merely tapped out the code to unlock the door. The heavy thud of the vault-like lock undoing itself echoed in the room. The door opened outward, and he found Stasya Zaitseva standing just behind its reach, pale-faced and angry, with William at her back. Her white-blonde hair was neatly styled, and her black pantsuit had been chosen to highlight the multitude of gold and diamond jewelry she wore. Her put-together look couldn’t hide the devastation in her blue eyes though.
“What happened?” Takoma asked, ignoring the insidious hunger he always woke up with. Over time, he’d learned to not let that need to feed control him upon waking. He was not some newly made vampire who couldn’t resist the base urges of their kind. A master had to have better control than that, and he’d learned those lessons within his first century.
“Alyona was taken sometime after dawn today. I went to drop off a package at her home this morning and found the door unlocked, the wards broken, and the place ransacked,” William said.
“The security alarm was never triggered, and the electricity went out. We’ve had the team working nonstop all day trying to locate her whereabouts, but to no avail,” Stasya said.
She spoke with a calmness few other mothers might have in the face of their child gone missing. But the Zaitsev family had been employed by Takoma for generations, and they knew panicking was never helpful. The news still made Takoma want to murder someone, preferably whoever had touched his favorite human servant.
“Has anyone else been compromised?” Takoma demanded.
“All human servants have been accounted for. All businesses within the metropolitan area are intact, and every home that houses a vampire has confirmed there have been no attacks on the Night Court itself.”
“You’re certain?”
“Only Alyona is missing.”
Takoma let his anger burn through him as he stepped away from the door and went over to the dresser. The sleeping pants he wore weren’t acceptable for a hunt, but the jeans and long-sleeved shirt he yanked on would do just fine. It took less than a minute for him to get dressed and lace up a pair of boots. Then he left the bedroom behind, undoing the loose braids he typically slept in so he could redo them in tighter ones to keep his hair out of his face.
“I notified the mage of what occurred. He couldn’t leave the SOA until this evening. I’m having him escorted to Alyona’s home to see if perhaps there is something he can see that we can’t with his magic,” William said.
The news that at least Spencer hadn’t been targeted this time around was only a small consolation. “You weren’t able to find anything?”
The pained expression on William’s face was answer enough. “Whatever magic they used, it’s not my wheelhouse.”
Takoma grunted. “Get my transportation ready. Have a car waiting for us at Madison Park.”
Stasya inclined her head and went to do his bidding in the same exacting manner she had instilled in her daughter. Takoma walked through the vast estate that had been his home since just after World War II, long strides taking him to the living room on the first floor that overlooked the backyard and Lake Washington. The multimillion-dollar view of Seattle at night was always beautiful but didn’t hold his attention.
Haitao was grim-faced when he finally woke and met Takoma by the back glass sliding door that overlooked the pool and back patio. The steel shutters that blocked sunlight during the day were retracted to the corner, and the wards on the glass were intact and glowed softly. Haitao carried a tablet, which he handed over to Takoma in lieu of a greeting.
“Alyona’s security system downloads a backup to the off-site server every five minutes. We have video of her arriving, but it goes black two minutes later when she’s already in the house. We don’t have anything for the time during which they took her out of the house. A review for the twelve hours prior to that shows no one attempting to break in,” Haitao said.
