He sighed and asked, “Is José still waiting out there?”
Lana stepped into the doorway and found Vincent’s loyal follower still standing guard.
“He is,” she confirmed.
“All right. Forget the front gate. We’re going back the way you came, over the hill instead of around it. Moreno, you’ll tell me everything you know on the drive to Pénjamo.”
“Yes, sir.”
Vincent cast a final loathing glance at the dead Camarillo, then strode across the room, catching Lana’s arm as he went past. “Let’s go, good girl.”
Lana scowled. She wasn’t being good, she was being smart. It was only luck, or maybe more of Vincent’s magic, that no one had come to investigate Camarillo’s screaming. But luck could only carry them so far. They had to get over that wall and on the road before anyone was aware that Camarillo was dead, and that his vampire prisoners were gone.
She kept pace with Vincent as he followed José deeper into the lush green of the garden. It was a beautiful place, full of growing, living things. It seemed wrong that it should exist in the backyard of a man who left nothing but death and destruction in his wake.
José led them to a section of wall that was covered in a thick, creeping vine. Creeping and creepy. The trailing plant had dark green, waxy leaves and was heavy with weird hanging pods. With nothing but moonlight to see it by, it looked like an alien thing just waiting to strangle the unwary. Lana eyed it distrustfully, but José turned his head to smile broadly at Vincent and point at the wall. “This is it, jefe.”
Lana’s heart sank, convinced that José had lost it, but Vincent stepped right up to the wall and pushed aside the heavy vine to reveal an electronic keypad.
She moved up close to him. “How’d you know that was there?” she asked absently, studying the keypad and wondering what the birthdates of Camarillo’s children were. People tended to be rather predictable in their selection of passwords.
“The device emits a very high frequency noise—probably a short that should have been fixed.”
“I don’t suppose that high frequency is beeping out the passcode,” she muttered snarkily.
Predictably, Vincent was only entertained by her sarcasm. He grinned down at her, then turned his attention to José, who was standing by patiently, awaiting his next command.
“¿Sabes la contraseña, José?” Lana asked, beating Vincent to it. Unfortunately, the guard’s affections seemed to be reserved for Vincent, because he only gave her a puzzled look before transferring his attention back to the vampire.
“¿Sabes la contraseña, mi amigo?” Vincent asked. Do you know the password, my friend?
José brightened immediately, standing taller and thrusting his chest out. “Si, jefe. Es cero nueve uno dos cero seis.” Yes, jefe. It’s zero, nine, one, two, zero, six.
Vincent nudged Lana with an elbow, tapped in the key code, then stood back with a satisfied expression as the wall shifted beneath the vines, revealing a crack in the shape of a gate. It was so cleverly constructed and concealed that, even knowing it was there, Lana had to look closely to see the line of its opening. Vincent pulled it wider, then turned to José.
“This is where we part company, my friend,” he said, speaking English with almost fond regret. “Sleep now.”
Lana started to frown, then drew back when José collapsed where he stood, crumpling down as if every bone in his body had disappeared.
“Is he—”
“Asleep,” Vincent assured her. “And he won’t remember any of this when he wakes. Come on, you’re the one who wanted a quiet exit. Now’s the time.”
Lana didn’t need to be told twice. She hurried through the gate, stopping several yards out to pull out her cell phone and determine exactly where they were. She had the SUV’s GPS location programmed in, so it was only a matter of . . . Yep. There they were.
Jerry and Vincent both emerged quickly, with Jerry coming over to stand next to her, while Vincent pulled the gate back into position until it once again blended seamlessly into the surrounding wall.
“We’re a little over a quarter mile from the SUV, as the crow flies,” Lana told him. “Unfortunately, we can’t fly . . .” Her words trailed off and she studied Vincent. “You can’t, can you?”
“Of course not,” he said, appearing offended by the question. As if she hadn’t just seen him whammy a man with nothing but his voice and blow through a bolted door with a flick of his fingers. Not to mention the whole ripping out the throat part, but she supposed any strong man, with an equally strong stomach, could have done that.
“Just asking,” she said mildly, secretly pleased to have finally irked him. “Okay, so with this terrain, our walk is probably closer to a mile, and at night like this, it will be fairly rough going.”
“Darkness isn’t a problem for Jerry and me. Neither is the terrain. How about you?” he asked, eyeing her up and down.
“I’ve survived a hell of a lot worse,” she told him flatly, hoping he understood that the hell of a lot worse part included the company, namely him.
Vincent’s half grin told her he understood perfectly and rather enjoyed it. “Let’s get going then. You set the pace, Lana.”