She reached the end of the block with a sigh of relief. There wasn’t much traffic, but she looked both ways, and as she did, she saw a third guard appear from the back of the house. He walked down the cracked concrete driveway, exchanged a few words with the porch sitters, and then exchanged places with one of them, who then disappeared into the back.
A total of three guards. That was doable, especially since Sid wasn’t planning on being a hero. There’d be no breaking and entering, no sneaking in to free the prisoners, and sure as hell no big shootout in the middle of the day. But she wasn’t going to limit herself to standing across the street, either. Today’s trip was all about recon, which meant she had to get close enough to verify that there really were captives inside the house.
She’d made that mistake early on, rushing off to report her findings to the police, only to have them discover an empty house and no sign that anyone had ever been there. Sid had been sure she had the right house, but it had been nothing but a decoy. She’d later learned that this was the slavers’ modus operandi. But that incident was part of the reason why the police didn’t give much credence to her reports anymore.
For the next phase of her recon, she circled around the block and cut through a second apartment complex that stood behind the small house. This late in the day, the sunlight barely penetrated the narrow space between the several buildings. With her dark gray hoodie, she had plenty of cover to stand and observe the slavers’ back yard. The third guard was there, sitting on a battered aluminum lawn chair and looking bored out of his mind. At one point, she was pretty sure his eyes drifted closed, but she didn’t make her move until he got up and cruised back around the left side of the house to rotate guard duty with his buddies on the porch.
Moving quickly, Sid slipped over the ancient and drooping chain-link fence bordering the property, and hurried across the mostly dirt yard and up to the right side of the house, which was covered in prickly and neglected holly bushes. She remained still until the new guard was settled on the lawn chair, forcing herself to wait even longer, until there was a good chance he’d grown complacent and bored. And then, hugging the right side of the house, trying to avoid getting her clothes snagged on half-dead holly branches, she moved from window to window. She always hoped for a torn window shade, or a gap in the curtain, something to give her a glimpse inside, but that rarely happened. And today, as usual, the house was buttoned up tight.
She’d never been inside this house, but real estate websites were full of information, if one knew what to look for. She knew the house had three bedrooms, two on the side where she was now, and a third at the end of a short hallway. The windows on the other bedroom faced the back yard which made them too dangerous to sneak a look at. The lawn-chair guard was absent during the changeover, but walking up to the house in plain sight was too much risk for too little payoff. Sid had no doubt what they’d do to her if she was caught. These were the people who’d killed Janey, and although her father’s name protected her from the vampires at the top, their street thug guards might not check her credentials before killing her.
Hopefully, she’d find what she was looking for in one of the two bedrooms above the holly bushes. She paused beneath the window closest to the front of the house. She couldn’t see what was inside, but people were rarely silent. She listened intently, but there was nothing. Not the scrape of a foot, not a single whimper or cry. Sighing, she crept through the prickly bushes to the second bedroom and stood up just enough to see that this window, too, was sealed off tightly. It was as if they didn’t want any bit of sunlight to creep in, as if . . . She froze as a horrible thought occurred to her. What if there weren’t slaves in the house at all? What if it was nothing but vampires?
Her heartbeat kicked into panic mode as she checked her watch. Nearly 4:00 P.M., and this was December. Days were short, nights were long. She’d actually counted on the early darkness to help her slip away after her little recon. But if those were vampires in there, she had to make like the birds and get the f**king flock out of there right now.
Sid forced herself to move carefully, ignoring the old fight-or-flight instinct that was telling her to Run! Now! She kept telling herself she had time. Sunset had to be at least half an hour away, and if the vamps were at all like people, they wouldn’t jump up and be ready. Didn’t they have to pee like everyone else? Brush their teeth or something? She rolled her eyes and concentrated on the important stuff, like remembering how long she’d been lurking in the bushes, and how long since the guards had made their last switch. Glancing toward the front of the house, she considered slipping out through the front yard instead. The covered porch where the guards sat had an old railing around the open sides and more of the unruly holly bushes. It was just possible she could sneak past them and blend into the shade of the big apartment building next door. That was certainly a better alternative than risking a dash across the wide-open back yard with the guard sitting right there and nothing moving but her.
The weak winter sun was fading fast, the shadows growing deeper. And the more she thought about slinking through the front yard, the better it sounded.
She shrugged out of her hoodie, put the ball cap in her backpack, then tightened the straps until it lay flush with her back. Donning the hoodie once more, she zipped it fully and yanked the hood up over her hair, with her braid tucked inside. Then she got down on the ground and crawled along the base of the house until she reached the edge of the porch. On this side of the house there was an open lattice along the base of the porch that let her see the underside of it. It was dark in there, and it smelled wet and rotten, not like something recently dead, but maybe something long-ago dead that was taking its time to decay completely. She briefly thought about hiding in there, but realized that the noise she’d make breaking through the latticework would alert everyone to her presence. She shuddered in relief, then froze when she heard the guards talking.
“What time’s the sun go down?”
“Hell if I know. When it’s dark.”
“Do we wait ’til they come out? I ain’t sure I wanna hang around that long. What if they wake up hungry, man?”
The guard snorted. “You rather they hunt you down for not doing the job they paid you for? You don’t want these f**kers coming after you, bro. Besides, they like the women better.”
“Yeah, the women. Think they’ll share?”
“You ask too many questions. Better you sit there and shut up.”
Sid heard all of this with a mixture of fear and triumph. She shivered at the idea that some of Klemens’s old vampires were sleeping only a few feet away. But at the same time, there was a zing of vindication in discovering she’d been right about the slaves being held here.
Now, if only she could persuade the police to do something before the vamps and their captives were long gone. She sighed in frustration, then had a sudden thought. She’d seen the flash of rage in Aden’s dark eyes when she’d told him about Klemens’s slave trade. She hadn’t imagined that. He might not want her involved, but his reaction had been real.
On a whim, she pulled out her phone and dashed a quick text message off to Aden. He’d probably ignore her, but just maybe he’d be interested enough to check it out, or at least have one of his guys do a drive-by.
She tucked her phone back into her pocket and looked around. The shadows had grown much deeper in just the few minutes since the guards had started talking. The apartment building next door towered four stories over the small house, casting a long shadow this late in the afternoon. The street lights had flicked on a moment earlier, but they were dim, and it was probably no coincidence that the light closest to the vamps’ house was dark, the lens sporting a star-shaped bullet hole.
It was now or never.
Checking her gear one last time, Sid turned off her cell phone and shoved it as deep into her pocket as it would go. She drew a long breath, closed her eyes, and whispered a prayer to whatever universal forces might be listening, then rose into a bent-over crouch and made a dash for it.
She nearly made it. A few minutes sooner, and she’d have disappeared into the shadows with no one the wiser.
But those gods she’d whispered to obviously had a twisted sense of humor, because just as she made her dash for safety, the third guard came around the corner from the back and caught her movement. He gave a wordless shout, alerting the other two guards, and suddenly she had three armed thugs coming after her.
She ran for it anyway, but the guard nearest to her position, the talkative one who’d asked all the questions, hopped directly over the porch railing and landed only a few feet away from her. Sid was fast, but he had the advantage of height and caught her in three strides. He grabbed the back of her hoodie and twisted, nearly yanking her off her feet.
“What you doin’, f**ker?” he growled and hauled her back against his thick chest. Her hood fell back, revealing her braided hair, and the guard grunted. “Well, f**k me, we got us a real live girl,” he crowed and dragged her kicking and fighting back to where his buddies waited at the foot of the stairs.
“Fuck.” Sid recognized the other guard’s voice, the one who’d been the voice of reason. “This ain’t good. Where’d she come from?”
“Side of the house there. She didn’t see nothin’.” Her captor shook her, his big hand gripping her hoodie so that it dug into her throat. “You didn’t see nothin’, did you, bitch?”
“I gotta tell the boss—” the reasonable one started to say.