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Christina Strong - Tremere
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Rescue
“The stars above shine down below
The fever you hold on this night deathly cold”
The Sky is a Poisonous Garden – Concrete Blonde
Jason and I had joined the Tremere security force when we’d relocated to Salem a few weeks before. I had come here on orders from the clan, and Jason had followed because he loved me. Elvira Van Dorn, the prince of the city, had agreed to let Jason help with security because she thought it would be good for me.
Frasier O’Connell had joined the security team too. He was my ghoul, brought into this world from his own after he’d helped us find my friend Lena Stockton. Frasier had been bored with his world, and he found the tales I’d told him of my fascinating. I’d ghouled him, and now he was getting all the excitement he could have ever hoped for. He was on the other side of the house with AJ and Rafe’s cousin, Brian Littrel.
A shot rang out from the bowels of the house. Without a word Jason and I went in carefully, he moving to the right and me to the left. We made our way through the empty house to the kitchen were we found the stairs to the basement. There was light from the bottom of the steps, so we went down, Jason going first.
At the bottom of the stairs were two doors. One was closed, but through the other we could see Brenda and Rafe. We went into the room and immediately saw the nearly decapitated body to our left. There was blood on the wall and the face was gone. It must have been Simon, the man we’d come here to kill.
“Do you see any keys anywhere?” I heard Brenda ask.
Jason looked across the room to where a young girl was chained to the wall. It was Samantha, and her face looked like she’d run into a brick wall. “We don’t need no stinking keys,” he told Brenda as he started across the room.
I followed and pulled out the lockpicking tools he had given me. In short order we got her unchained and Rafe picked her up gently in his arms. She looked weak, out of it really. Simon must have been going at her for a while.
A noise from the doorway made Jason and I spin, our guns pulled. I was happy to see that I was only a split second slower than he was. From the corner of my eye I saw Brenda turn too, her Glock in her hand.
“Hey, hey,” Micky George protested, his hands up. He was the head of the security team. When we relaxed, he looked down at the body. “I see you found him.”
“Prudence is in Boston,” Brenda told him. “He didn’t know where.”
“What the fuck is she in Boston for?” Micky demanded.
She told him that Prudence Gentry was going after Corrine Wright, and they both took out their phones. Prudence was another Tremere in Salem, one who seemed bent on breaking all of the rules. Corrine was protected by the clan through a contract with her mother, Eliza Dushku. We could not allow Prudence to hurt the girl, no matter what the cost.
I tore a corner from my shirt off and tried to clean the blood off the Samantha’s face, but I only succeeded in smearing it around. She needed healing and a bath, in that order.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked Brenda when she’d hung up her phone.
“Get Samantha out of here,” she ordered. She was upset, so I let it pass.
“Okay, take her home, your house?” I questioned. “The restaurant? You want me to call Graham?” Graham was a mage with a touch for healing. The last I knew he was at the restaurant we’d found AJ at earlier, but God only knew where he was now.
“My house.” She looked at Jason. “Have you seen Frasier and the guys?”
“They’re outside,” he answered.
“They’re outside,” she repeated, a little relieved. “AJ’s not in here.” It wouldn’t do to have the normals see what we really were.
“The last time I saw them they were outside,” he added. “I don’t know if he’s coming in or not.”
“Okay, do you want us to call Graham?” I interrupted. I thought the girl was a little more important than a mortal we could dominate if we had to. “Have him meet us at the house?”
“Yes.” Her phone rang and it was Jared Smith from the Black Rose Coven letting Brenda know that Corrine was safe in Nashville, although I couldn’t begin to guess how he’d gotten her there so quickly.
When he got off the phone, Micky interrupted to ask her where they were.
“They’re in Nashville,” she told him.
“They’re in Nashville?” he demanded.
“Tennessee.”
“Fucking mage,” Micky murmured as he took out his cell phone again to call Ford Radek, the Tremere chantry Regent.
Without a word Rafe headed for the stairs and Jason moved ahead to watch for danger. I followed, keeping an eye on the other doorways in the hall. A few minutes later we ran into Frasier, Brian and AJ just outside of the house.
While Rafe took the girl to the car I called the chantry and got Ford. He agreed to send Graham to Brenda’s so he could help Samantha, and I told him that we’d keep him advised of her progress.
Micky and Brenda caught up to us and she got into the car while Micky called for a cleanup crew. I would have stuck around to wait with him, but he told us to go on ahead and make sure nothing happened on the way to Brenda’s.
The storm was letting up a little as Jason drove us through town, although it was still raining hard. A lot of the streets were flooded, and large sections were out of power. Jason drove as quickly as he could and we got to the house just as the others were getting out of the car.
AJ and Rafe got Samantha into the house and Brenda told them to take her up to her bedroom. It occurred to me that I hadn’t heard Brenda’s ghoul say anything at all, and he looked like he was going to be sick. I had to wonder if he was the one who’d killed Simon, and if he had, if that had been his first kill.
I caught Brenda’s arm before she could follow them. “I’ll wait for Graham, bring him up when she comes,” I told her. She seemed pale, shaken. “Are you okay, Brenda? I mean, is Rafe going to be okay? I know Samantha will be taken care of but are you guys okay?”
“We’ll be all right, yeah,” she told me. “Can you have Jason and Frasier come up in case I need them?”
I smiled. “In case they decide to go all ‘grr’?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure.” When Brenda followed after Rafe, I glanced to where the guys were and gestured toward the stairs. “Can you go make sure the guys don’t hover? Brenda wants to clean her up and stuff and they may not let her. You know what it’s like when someone is injured and people want to hover?” I said pointedly.
Jason smiled and kissed my cheek. “Okay.”
I watched them go upstairs, thankful that we could be here to help Brenda when she needed it. She’d done so much for me, I was glad I finally had a chance to do something for her.
Graham showed up a few minutes later and I showed him upstairs. I was glad to see that the guys were in the hall, but Brenda must have been in with Samantha. I knocked on the door and called out to my sister. When she told me to come in, I opened the door a little. “Graham’s here,” I told her.
“Please bring him in,” she said, relief written on her face.
I moved back so the mage could come in and look anxiously toward the bed. Samantha was dressed in a modest nightgown and she’d been cleaned up, but her face was starting to swell where the bastard had beaten her. She didn’t look good.
“How’s she doing?” I asked softly. Something about seeing her laying there so pale saddened me, even though I’d never seen the girl before tonight.
“She’s really sore,” Brenda replied, watching Graham walk over to the bed. “There might be something broken but I cleaned her up as best I could.”
“Do you mind if I?” Graham asked, gesturing toward the girl. When Brenda nodded, he sat down on the edge of the bed and placed a hand on her forehead. He closed his eyes and concentrated for a long moment.
“She has a couple of cracked ribs,” he said finally as he moved his hand away, “and one of the bones in her right arm is broken. She also has a lot of bruises and so forth, but we can take care of that here. Would you mind leaving us alone for just a moment? It’s easier.”
She looked at Samantha anxiously. “That’s fine.” I could tell she didn’t want leave her with Graham, but she walked to the door and we left him to do what he needed to.
I leaned back against the closed door in case any of the overprotective guys decided they needed to go inside. Jason walked over to me and I slid my arm around his waist. We could hear low chanting through the door for a while, then it got real quiet. A few minutes later we could hear Samantha talking quietly with Graham.
Brenda tried to be patient, I know she did, but she couldn’t take it for very long. Jason and I moved out of the way and she knocked on the door. Jason, Frasier and I watched them go in and I could see through the door that the girl looked much better. I couldn’t explain the relief that filled me.
“Shall we go downstairs?” I asked them. I needed to call Micky and Ford to let them know what was going on.