I looked past Smith and froze. A man had just walked into the lounge. Tall, skinny, sandy blond hair cropped short. Bright blue eyes.
If Esteban had a gangly, nerdy-looking cousin, it would be this guy. Only he didn't look nerdy. He looked fierce.
It took my brain a moment to catch up to my body and recognize the face. Lancaster. It was Mitchell Lancaster.
How had he just waltzed in without anyone from the Taskforce stopping him?
He caught my eye, grinned, and flicked a hand at me in an odd gesture.
I blinked and then smiled at Smith, wondering what had broken my attention.
Smith was sipping his red wine and watching me. Waiting, perhaps, to see what I would ask next.
Right. What was I going to offer him to keep him talking for a few minutes longer?
Smith glanced toward the bar and dropped the wineglass.
"Lancaster," he said.
I followed his gaze, saw a blond man—no, saw him again, I realized, hairs rising on the back of my neck. I'd seen him walk into the bar, and then I'd…forgotten.
Shit. He'd made me forget.
Even as the waitress hurried over to us, towel in hand to clean up the glass, the fear on Smith's face cleared and he turned back to me, clearly having forgotten what had made him drop the glass.
I threw up my shields, the reaction instinctive. Crap. What was he doing? I racked my brain, trying to remember what Smith had said about him.
Lancaster stood by the bar, watching Smith, perfectly at ease, as though he was in no particular hurry. No one in the bar was reacting to his presence. Given there was supposed to be at least one Taskforce agent in the room with me, that was bad news.
Very bad news.
I made myself focus back on Smith, hoping like hell that my shields would hold against whatever Lancaster's power was. And if they did, I didn't need Lancaster to know I wasn't under whatever power he thought he was exercising.
Marco said some vampires could make people forget.
And Smith said Cilla and Lancaster had gotten more powerful. Fuck. Why hadn't I asked him more about that? I needed to know what Lancaster could do. But Smith thought we were talking about my dad's research. About what he needed to find a cure.
"What do you think you're going to find in Dad's research?" I asked, picking up the thread of our conversation. I slipped my hand down to my jacket pocket, folded it around the panic button. But I hesitated. If I called the other Taskforce agents into the room, who knew what might happen if Lancaster got them all under his control? None of them were vamps because this was a daytime operation, and while the shifters were all well trained in shielding, it only worked if you did it preemptively. Werewolves didn't routinely walk around with their shields up, especially not when they weren't expecting to be around vampires. Lancaster had clearly taken control of whoever Dan's agent in the room was with ease. I didn't want to give him more of them. And I definitely didn't want him to get his hands on Dan. So no, no button. No reaching for the phone in my purse. Nothing to increase Lancaster's leverage. Or make him realize I wasn't under his thrall or whatever the hell it was.
"I need to understand how to turn off what I turned on. No one was better at manipulating the virus than your father," Smith said.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose. Felipe hadn't seen anything new in my father's research. Not yet. What did Smith think Dad had found? What would happen if he got his hands on the information and it didn't contain the answers he needed?
"I see." I tried to watch what Lancaster was doing without looking directly at him.
"Baxter," I said softly. "You said Lancaster’s and Cilla's powers became stronger. What exactly are Lancaster's powers?"
Smith's forehead wrinkled. "That's an odd question."
"Not so odd. Just curious. You said before that you weren't entirely sure how he got the jump on you when he attacked you. Before you escaped…I wondered whether maybe he thralled you."
Smith's frown deepened. "If he thralled me, I would be dead, I think."
"What are his powers, then?"
Smith frowned. "I'm not sure I…." He trailed, off looking confused.
Crap. Had Lancaster made him forget? Removed the memory of what he could do?
The wolf growled deep inside me. She knew danger when she saw it. I wanted to run, but I couldn't leave Smith. What if Lancaster killed him? It was safer here. I had backup here.
At least I hoped I did.
Where the hell was Dan? If they were monitoring me, then they should have picked up Lancaster's face. Something was badly wrong.
As if to agree with me, the lights in the lounge suddenly flickered and went out.
"Fuck," I said softly. The lounge was downstairs from the ground-floor reception area. It had no windows. Without the electric lights, it was nearly dark. I saw pretty well in the dark, but the fact that the backup generators hadn't kicked into life wasn't making me happy about what the hell was going on. Nor was the fact that none of the other patrons were reacting. When the lights went out, humans usually panicked. Or at least start talking and then moving to fix the problem. But all the humans at the surrounding tables continued to act as though nothing had happened. In fact, one by one, they fell silent, what I could see of their faces in the darkness going weirdly still. If Lancaster was controlling the whole room, I was in some serious shit.
"It's probably just an electrical glitch," Smith said, as though he didn't think it was unusual.
Electrical glitches didn't come with eerie silences.
I ignored him and reached for my phone.
"I wouldn't do that," Smith said. "He won't like it."
"He—"
And suddenly Lancaster was beside our table. He had a gun. I could see well enough to make out the shape of it against the pale skin of his hand.
More bad news. Cleary he had more than joining our conversation on his mind. But it wasn't pointed at me yet. So maybe he thought he had me under control, too? I didn't know if all vampires could tell when a werewolf was shielding, so I needed to give Lancaster no reason to check. I kept still, trying to mirror Smith's uncaring pose. Lancaster would find out if he tried to force me to do something and I resisted. Then the game would really be up. I had to try to keep up the illusion that I was another fly trapped in his web.
"Hello, Baxter," Lancaster said.
Smith looked up, smiled. "Mitchell. What are you doing here?"
Okay, he was definitely under some form of vamp whammy. He'd just been telling me that he feared for his life, that he thought Lancaster was going to kill him, but now he was all smiles.
"I came to meet you. Remember? It was what we agreed."
What the hell? I forced myself not to react. Was Smith under some sort of vamp whammy, or was he in on it, and this was how he intended to get out of the bar and vanish again?
If he was working with Lancaster, then he was a damned good actor. And I was an idiot. But no, Smith had smelled scared earlier, not nervous. I could understand nervous, if he was trying to pull off a scam, but fear had a different scent altogether. I didn't think he was scared of me, particularly. I didn’t think he was even scared of the FBI taking him in. But Lancaster was a different matter.
I concentrated, focusing on Smith's heartbeat. Yes, it was faster than it had been before. The body remembered, even if the mind didn't. The body knew when it was in danger.
"Aren't you going to introduce us, Baxter?" Lancaster said.
"Mitchell Lancaster, Ashley Keenan."
"Ashley, it's nice to meet you."
I schooled my face to a smile. I was trying to sort through my memories of the vampires I'd met with Cilla. I couldn't remember if this guy was one of them. But maybe I wasn't supposed to remember if I had. If he'd had these powers then, maybe I wouldn't have remembered anyway.
"Nice to meet you, too," I said and then lapsed back into silence. It seemed safer.
"You and Baxter and I are going to go for a little drive. Did he tell you?"
"Maybe." I tried to sound vague, as though the memory of the last half hour was a fog. "Where are we going?"
"Don't you remember? You were going to show us the Taskforce offices."
The Taskforce? Did he really think we could just waltz in and take…? "Oh, yes," I said. realizing I needed to respond. "I think he mentioned it. What did you want to see again?"
"You were going to show Doctor Smith what your father left for you. He was friends with your father."
Lancaster's voice was soothing. Calm. There was an edge to it that tempted me to listen, to pay attention, but my shields didn't let it go any further than that. But clearly he didn't need to talk to control people. He hadn't said anything when he'd walked into the bar.
But he seemed to be controlling a lot of people. The Geiger wasn't a huge building though. The Taskforce offices were much larger. Too big to control everyone in it, surely? If he could control that many people at once, he could have done this at any time. Walked in there and made us hand over the research. Therefore, I had to assume his powers had limits. So even if he got past Taskforce security with his powers, he wouldn't be able to keep everyone compliant. And then he'd be in trouble. He needed me. I had clearance. I could sign in guests. Get past the scans.
Then what? Did he really want the research?
Smith said they'd argued, so why would Lancaster want to help him?
"I remember," I said.
"Good. That's good. Why don't you finish your drink, and then we can go."
Smith picked up his glass and drained what was left of the wine. My martini was mostly empty, but I gulped it down. Make Lancaster think he was boss and wait for a chance.
Smith rose from the table, and we walked out of the bar, climbing the stairs back up to the lobby. Lancaster walked beside Smith, the gun still in his hand. I couldn't let him shoot Smith. We needed him. Needed to know what he'd done to the virus so the plague vamps could be cured.
So as much as my instinct screamed at me to change, to try for Lancaster, I couldn't risk it. Smith wasn't Jase. He was human. A gunshot could kill him.
Emergency lights flickered over the exits, but otherwise, the daylight coming through the glass doors at the front of the building was the only other light source. The Geiger didn't have a vast glass-fronted lobby like one of the larger hotels.
I was regretting past Ashley's choice of meeting place.
Out in the lobby, no one reacted to us either. The staff behind the front desk were as still and quiet as everyone down in the bar. And there was still no sign of anyone from the Taskforce. That was the worst part, the part that had dread chilling my spine. What if Lancaster had hurt them? Killed them?
But no. I'd know if Dan were dead. Our bond might not be perfect, but I'd feel that. I knew that much.
I shoved the fear away. Dan was fine. And as soon as Lancaster got beyond whatever the limits of his influence were, Dan would come to save me. I just had to keep Smith alive until then.
The elevator was right at the top of the stairs, off to one side. Beyond the edge of the sunlight that came through the doors. Clever. But how had Lancaster known where we were meeting?
Damn it. Had Smith told him? Or had he followed Smith?
Or was it as simple as him using his power? If he could control people, how hard would it be for him to talk to an agent or someone who worked at the Taskforce and find out what was happening? Not all the Taskforce staff were supernaturals. And clearly he thought his powers worked fine on werewolves as long as he had the element of surprise.
What I needed was a vampire or two.
In the middle of the day. Bad timing.
Once, I'd managed to connect with Jase telepathically in a situation like this. Or sent him a scream for help, rather. But that hadn't been the middle of the day. Though, Smith and I had been talking for a while. It must have been closer to three. Jase didn't sleep through until sunset.
Lancaster pushed the button for the elevator, and we went down to the small parking lot beneath the hotel. A nondescript white van—the kind with no windows in the back—was parked among the more expensive cars I assumed belonged to the guests. A man sat in the driver seat, his head lolling back, eyes shut as though he'd fallen asleep.
I hoped he had. Hoped he wasn't dead.
Lancaster walked to the window and tapped on it. "Wake up, Elliot," he said, and the guy jolted awake, his eyes flaring wide with shock or fear for a moment before his expression faded into a familiar calm expression. The one Smith had. The one I was trying to maintain, too.
Elliot lowered the window. "Hi," he said to Lancaster. "Are you ready to go?"
"Yes." Lancaster tugged the side door open. "After you, Ashley."
I gritted my teeth and climbed in. At least I was conscious. Which was more than I could say about most of the other times I'd entered a vehicle with Smith or one of his vampire cronies.
The van had no windows, not even an opening into the front, but it did have seats. Or benches really, lining either side. Which made me wonder what the hell it was normally used for. But it was a simple solution. You didn't need luxury cars with UV screens like Marco had to avoid the sun if you could just choose a van with no windows.
I took a seat and pulled on the seat belt, as I would have done if this was a normal situation.
Lancaster waited until Smith had done the same before he climbed in, too, and slid the door shut. That seemed to be the signal for Elliott to go. The van's engine came to life as Lancaster seated himself next to me and pressed the gun into my ribs.
"My apologies," he said. "But, just so you know, there are silver bullets in this. In case any part of you is awake in there." He rubbed his head a moment with his free hand and then snapped his fingers. "Wake up, Baxter."
Across from us, Smith's expression sharpened, then focused on the two of us.
To my surprise, he smiled. "That went well, then."