Chapter Twenty-One

When Amara sat down for dinner the sun was just beginning to lower in the sky behind the wall of colorful trees that grew in the distance. She sat in the outside area of the restaurant, enjoying the rural area she had chosen to stay in. She picked it especially for the wonderful autumn view.

When her phone rang, she wasn’t exactly surprised. She glanced down at the number and recognized it as Jeremy’s and picked up the phone quickly.

“What’s up, Jeremy?”

“We have a problem.” He sounded so very serious, and so unlike Jeremy. Even when things got bad, Jeremy always kept a sense of humor. It was how he dealt with things, by joking about them. If he couldn’t laugh at something, he couldn’t handle it, and if he couldn’t handle whatever was going on, it was a bad sign for everyone else. Jeremy wasn’t laughing.

“Since the attack on Enrico’s restaurant, we’ve had a few others hit. Not just diners, anything vampire or vampire hunter owned.” Jeremy paused for a moment;, Amara assumed it was to gather his thoughts. “Whoever is doing this, they’re not just attacking vampires. They’re attacking anyone who is fighting them, too.”

“Unless it’s two different groups attacking one another,” Amara suggested.

“No. It’s all the same way. It’s all the same cause of death, and it’s groups of people dying at the same time.”

Amara thought for a moment. She thought back to what Alexander said, to the little clues he’d given her. Did she know any vampires who could possibly have the ability to cause someone’s heart to explode? Probably not. She was sure they’d have done it to her already if she did. Whatever was going on, they had to solve this now before anyone else got hurt.

“Meet me at my hotel room in fifteen minutes, Jeremy. You know where I’m at.”

“I can’t,” he sighed. “The station is going crazy. We’re getting calls left and right, and no one seems to know what’s going on. None of our contacts are getting back to us. No one. Nothing.”

“Just come here, Jeremy. Trust me, okay? When have I let you down before?”

Jeremy let out a long, complain of a groan. “This had better be worth it. I’m going to get my ass reamed out for leaving.”

“Just tell them you have a contact that’s only willing to meet in private.” Amara got up to grab the attention of a waitress. She needed her check.

“Do you really have a contact?” Jeremy was suddenly doubting her, and that wasn’t normal either.

“When have I ever let you down?” Amara let the insulted tone ring clear through her voice. She couldn’t believe Jeremy was suddenly hesitant to trust her.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. It’ll take me that long to get there,” he finally agreed.

“I’ll see you in twenty minutes then.”

* * * *

A half an hour later, Amara still sat in her hotel room wondering where Jeremy had disappeared to. With everything happening, she really hoped nothing got to Jeremy on his way to her hotel. She thought about calling him more than once, but if she called, and he was already captured, it would only put him in a worse situation. Then again, he could have just been stuck in traffic.

After forty-five minutes Amara grew antsy. She started to take apart her gun to clean it when there was a knock at the door. She cursed quietly, looking down at the disassembled pieces and grabbed her spare from the drawer. She walked to the door and stood off to the side. If anyone decided to fire through the door for at her, she would give them him or her a real surprise.

“Who is it?” she called through the door in a light, upbeat tone. The sort of tone a mother uses to call her children down for breakfast or muffins fresh from the oven.

“Amara, it’s Jeremy. Just let me in. It’s been a long trip.”

Amara opened the door but didn’t lower her gun until she saw he was alone. If someone had been holding him hostage, she would have taken them that person out first.

“What held you up?” she asked as she shut the door behind Jeremy, then carefully locked it.

“Getting out of headquarters. Everything is a mess there right now. Some people are screaming anarchy and others are shouting about vampires. Everything is a wreck.” He looked around the empty room for a moment and sighed. “Did I miss your contact?”

“No,” she shook her head. “Sit down. I have a lot of information to go over with you.”

“Wait a minute,” He glared at her, and his tone rose with anger. “You had me leave and come here for information you could’ve damn well given me over the phone?”

“No, I couldn’t have given you this over the phone. It’s information I don’t think I’m really supposed to be sharing, but given the circumstances, I think it’s appropriate.”

“Where’d you get this mysterious information from anyway? How’d you get tipped off before anyone else?” Jeremy sounded more and more accusing. Maybe it was just the stress of the situation, but it was fairly obvious what he was saying.

“Wait a minute.” Now it was Amara’s turn to get angry. “Are you accusing me of something?”

“It’s just strange,” he snapped at her, keeping close to the door. “Stephanie is gone, you’re on your own again, and suddenly there are these bizarre attacks, and you’re the one who found out about them first. You’re the only one with any information or so much as an inkling of what’s going on. You have me leave the H.Q. to come meet with you and some contact who isn’t here when I get here.”

“You’re almost a half an hour late, Jeremy. People have things to do with their lives. Now are you sitting down and listening to what I’ve got, or are you leaving?”

She didn’t bother to argue the fact that her having the information was strange. It was, she couldn’t deny him that fact. Hell, if their positions were reversed, she probably would have been accusing Jeremy of the same thing. After all the time she spent thinking other people were behaving strangely or that they were shady or hiding things, here she stood in the same situation. The only difference was that she wasn’t completely sure anyone else had anything to hide. She knew she kept some information from Jeremy and it felt wrong. It almost made her feel guilty.

Jeremy watched Amara for a long moment as he debated the situation. Amara had always been a loner. She had always been the sort of person to manipulate situations for her own good. He was never sure he could really trust her. What choice did he have right now? Any information was more than what they had, and Amara never let them down on information.

“Okay,” he said and sat down on one of the chairs near the door. “What’s up?”

“Grab a pen and paper, and don’t put my name anywhere in this. I don’t want anything being connected with me.”

Jeremy gave her another look. This was the first time she didn’t want credit for her hard work. At least that he knew of anyway.

“I’m serious,” Amara said. She knew this looked worse and worse to him. “I’ll explain after I tell you what I’ve got. I promise.”

Jeremy sighed and pulled out a pent and pad. He always kept one on him. It had been his job for so long to take notes and analyze situations that it just became second nature to keep those things in his pocket.

“Okay, first off, it’s vampires. At least a single vampire with the ability to manipulate a human’s body instead of just their mind.” Amara paused and watched as Jeremy scribbled down her words. When he glanced back up at her and lifted his pen, she knew it was the signal to continue. “It’s connected to Warrick’s death, I’m just not completely sure how just yet. I think Warrick may have been part of some sort of war. Maybe over turf? Or possibly just in vampire covens? I’m not sure. When Warrick died, it set off a chain reaction.”

She paused again and watched as Jeremy wrote it down. He glanced up and gave her a curious look, as if he wasn’t sure he believed her.

“How can you be sure it’s got to do with Warrick?” he asked her.

“Just trust me, Jeremy. It does. I don’t have proof yet, but I’ll get it for you. The police aren’t calling things in anymore. I’m not completely sure why, but it looks like they’re trying to take over the paranormal cases for themselves rather than letting us handle them. Part of me feels like they may be involved. Somehow.” Amara sighed and put her head in her hands. “Something big is about to happen, and I don’t have the damnedest clue what it is. It was described to me as a ‘gang war’.”

Jeremy wrote it down, then got up and walked over to Amara. She was still standing, but looked like a lost child. Even with her looking so young, being trapped in such a young body, Jeremy had never seen her look that way before. He put his hand on her shoulder to reassure her.

“Things will be okay. They always turn out. Always.”

“Thanks to groups like The Administration,” she added and looked up at him through tired, worried eyes. This was about as much stress as she could handle. “If we’re not called in anymore and vampires take the police…what happens then?”

“That’s not going to happen,” he said it as if it were a promise. Something he felt absolutely sure of. “Even if no one calls us in, we’re still here to protect the general public from these creeps with our lives. It’s what we do. It’s what we’ve always done. We sign up for this, and we’re all very passionate about it. Things will be okay. I promise.”

Amara couldn’t help but smile a bit at that. It actually did make her feel just a little bit better. She still had to keep her mind on the case and what was going on.

“So who is your contact, anyway?” Jeremy finally asked. He set the notebook down beside him, a sign that he was keeping this particular note out of his files.

Amara needed the extra verbal assurance that he wouldn’t add it in later.

“Just between you and me? Off the record?” she checked.

“Completely off the record,” he said with a firm nod. If Amara was willing to tell him, he could keep it a secret, or at least he hoped.

“Alexander Sef.”

Jeremy’s eyes widened, and Amara looked down. Why did it suddenly feel like such a shameful thing to get information from him? She had just worked with him a few months before to bring down The Yellow Sun Diner. Then again, Jeremy didn’t know that. They hadn’t really mentioned who helped them when they all filed their reports. It was really for Christopher’s benefit, but now that she really thought on about it, maybe it was for hers as well.

“What if he’s part of this? What if this is all some plot of his?” Jeremy was careful to keep his tone soft. He knew this would be a tender subject with Amara. She was his friend, and he knew she probably went through a lot with this, but he was starting to worry about the state of her mental health.

“It’s not. I’m sure of it.”

“How can you be sure? It’s Alexander Sef we’re talking about,” he said it as if she needed reminding. “He’s always got his own agenda. He’s got his own plans and he’ll use anyone—especially you—as a pawn to bring them to life.”

“I know,” she sighed deeply. “It’s a conversation I walked in on months ago. Something I just pushed to the back of my mind at the time. I almost forgot about it, but today I was reminded. During the meeting I crashed with Stephanie and Chris, Alex talked about something which that could be the end of vampires. He said he would protect his people and wouldn’t put ‘his people’ at risk to do something to benefit vampires.”

Amara sat down on the bed and looked over to Jeremy. “At first, I thought he meant his vampires. You know, the vampires are his servants. Part of his personal coven. Later, I realized he feels responsibility for the entire city. All the people—dead or alive—that live within his realm belong to him. He feels like he needs to protect them.”

“You’re sounding a little too attached.” Jeremy sounded very concerned. “Maybe you should consider checking yourself into The Clinic for a little observation.”

“I’m not kidding, Jeremy.” Amara glared at him. “I’m telling you what I know. He was talking about keeping humans alive. I think he’s on our side with this one. I think he’s here to help this time. When it’s over, we can rip his heart out. Hell, I’ll rip his heart out. It’s been my dream ever since he murdered my parents, but for now, we could use him. He’s our inside source when no one else will be.”

“That’s the problem, Amara. No one else will be. Why is he being so bold?” Jeremy pointed out. If no other vampires—or even other hunters—were willing to help, then why him?

“He’s Alexander Sef.” She gave him a very bland look, as if she’d had this conversation before. “If he’s not afraid of us ,what is he going to be afraid of?”

“If he’s helping us, he’s afraid of something,” Jeremy remarked.

“That’s the scary thought.” Amara glanced out the window at the setting sun. “What’s big and scary enough to worry Alexander Sef so much that he’d help The Administration?”

“No,” Jeremy corrected her. “The question is: what is big and scary enough to make Alexander Sef come looking for help from you?”

Amara nodded thoughtfully. The more she thought about this the more she didn’t like it. Jeremy was right. If Alexander tried to help her with this, it meant he would ask for her help later. She already figured that part out herself, but she had not put as much thought into it as she probably should have. Whatever it was he was about to ask her to face had to be something tremendous. Something he couldn’t take on himself.

“Don’t bring up the source, okay?” Amara asked Jeremy one last time. “Don’t mention where this information came from. Me or Alexander.”

Jeremy nodded. He could keep that promise to her. “You need to make me a promise too.”

“What’s that?” Amara asked and glanced back at her friend.

“Don’t get too deep in this,” he asked softly. It was almost like he was pleading with her, begging her. “Don’t get in over your head.”

“I promise,” Amara said softly, but it reminded her of the way Christopher promised not to get killed by Crimson. It was a promise held together very loosely with circumstance.