She Came From the Shadows (James and Tera: book 2)

17

It was a Saturday morning. I woke up to the ringing of my phone. It was Calum, my boss. He was the owner of the bar in our town, the Pub. Coincidentally it's called that because there are literally no other bars that are considered a pub.

"Yes, sir?" I answered in a half-awake tone.

"Rise and shine." He whispered. "I hope you're on the way."

I was afraid of him whispering. I was bracing for impact. "Uhh, well, I kind of just woke up."

"Daindead, James!" He yelled into the phone. Yep, there it is. "I had to get Oliver to move those boxes all by himself. Do you know how long it takes for one man to move that many crates of beer?"

I rubbed my eyes and sat up. "Why didn't you get Ava to help?"

"Ha!" He laughed half-meaningfully. "You think I'd get my sweet damsel of a daughter to do heavy lifting? Hell no. It's not right."

"Then what about you?"

He hesitated for a moment before answering. "Most bosses would be more strict on their employees asking about the amount of work others do."

"Let me guess, your back was killing you?" I asked with a half smile.

I could feel his temper rising. "You wanna keep your job or do ya wanna get to work already?"

I loved messing with Calum. He knew I was joking and he secretly enjoyed it, but I gave it a break. "Be there in less than half an hour, old man." I hung up, and got out of bed.

...................................

I was in my car backing out of the yard and onto the road towards work. On the way there, I heard on the radio a news story about the burning of a building just outside of town. It was an old factory that was a few buildings away from the lumber yard my dad works at.

I listened closely, remembering how it came to burn down.

Flashback to the other night

We had gotten the location details from a text that Victoria had sent me. It was an old factory that was located a few buildings from my dad's job. It wasn't very far, maybe a 15 minute drive.

We were required to go to this court. It was being held by some vampires who were higher-ups in this area. Apparently, like werewolves, there are vampires who have their own areas of command. They lived by some sort of hierarchy system.

We pulled up behind the factory where we were instructed by Victoria's message. The back was pitch black and had only one streetlight for light. It seemed to be the only thing that had electricity because the rest of the lights were out, along with cameras that were connected to it. The vampires seemed to know security measures well.

Tera and I were in her Dad's truck. He, again, didn't want my car getting tracked back to me. We got out of the truck and were greeted by Victoria, whom seemed to know we were coming and appeared out of nowhere and stood in front of us, startling us to the point of Tera growling a little.

"Welcome." She told us.

"Jesus, don't do that!" I scolded her.

"'Jesus'. That reminds me, if you have anything that is considered holy, please leave it behind." She told us. "We don't want any breach of trust happening."

Breach of trust? Why should we trust them, or her for that matter? I mean, she did help us get that crazed vampire at the swinger party, and she did protect me and help prevent Tera from turning and killing the vampire, but nonetheless she was still a vampire, and any vampire shouldn't be trusted no matter how good they seemed. Or at least that's what Dancing Wildflower had told us. Charles, sort of the same advice, except a little less antagonistic.