Where Dark Things Wait: Night Creatures Book One

Chapter Thirty-Four - Plan of Attack

For a few hours they'd done not much of anything. They'd watched TV and talked about music, anything to fill the time until they pulled on their uniforms - the black-on-black version this time - and headed to the designated briefing room, where Major Marcellus Nerva, Sergeant Caldwell, Lieutenant Harrison, Sergeant Evans, and Corporal Maloney waited to discuss their plan of attack.

As they took their seats, the Major turned on the projector, bringing up a blank screen as he explained, "What we know is this; eight nights ago five assailants jumped O'Cuinn-Lyall at Durham Park and Ride - Belmont. They knocked her out, bundled her into a van with cloned plates, and knocked her out repeatedly to prevent her seeing any landmarks or even appraising the time it took to get from the park and ride to the place they held her.

"As for the 'facility', and I lose the term loosely, O'Cuinn-Lyall believe it started out as a domestic building, which had it's windows blocked up and its basement converted into a holding area - a dungeon, if you will - in which they keep imprisoned fae with the aim of draining and selling their blood, presumably as the hallucinogenic drug that it is to vampires. She only saw the garage and kitchen, before being imprisoned in one of the basement cells.

"During her imprisonment, she saw only six vampires, whom we believe are responsible for overseeing the imprisonment of fae and the harvesting of their blood. Of those six, we know that this man is their leader..."

A grainy photo of Lapis appeared on screen, taken during the seventies if his attire was anything to go by. The brown corduroy jacket and matching trousers dated the image almost as much as the grainy quality. None of that mattered though, and a growl rumbled from Kalyna's throat before she even realised that she could make such a sound. Her lip peeled back from her descending eye teeth, which caused brows to shoot towards hairlines on every face except Dunstan's.

Fear thrummed through her, unrelenting, so binding that if she'd regained her ability to draw regular breaths, she might have lost them again. Her fear elicited shame as well, an ocean of it that seemed deep enough and stormy enough to drown her. Then both reactions also fed into an anger that burned so hot and so bright that it might burn her up long before it could consume her abuser. But she couldn't afford to be out of control, to be lost to anger and shame; she needed to be stronger than that.

"Sorry," she stammered when she managed to reign in the anger and terror that reared up at seeing Lapis's face on screen.

"You good?" the Major asked, and she heard the question he didn't ask; are you sure you're up for this?

"I will be," she insisted, folding her arms over her chest, a defiant jut to her chin.

She had to be, because she had no intention of backing out.

Marcellus Nerva appraised her for a moment longer before explaining, "We know from James Price that he reported O'Cuinn-Lyall's location to this man, his sire, Warren 'Wren' Walton. Based on what Kalyna heard while help captive by him, he is both the mastermind behind this facility and the mastermind behind the murders of her children and husband, and he targeted Kalyna because she previously took out his sire, Cecil 'Clemmy' Clemantine. He is a callous, malicious, and highly dangerous individual and should not be underestimated.

"Unfortunately, Price could not give us much information about the other members of Wren's operation. He wasn't part of it and claims he hasn't had much to do with his sire in the last decade. The only names he could give us were Tasha Colbeck, Wren's sometimes-paramour and long-time-ally," he noted, and a picture of Peridot appeared on screen, followed by a one of a hematite-eyed man, with Carnelian stood in the background, "And this man, Buddy Rizzo, who according to O'Cuinn-Lyall is now going by 'Rizz'"