Page 8 of Countdown to Murder (A Paranormal Halloween #3)

Panda

I returned the weapons to Drake and then checked out an arsenal, plus I had my personal weapons.

This plus my garment bag of suits, and a duffel with jeans and shirts in case we needed to be casual, meant I had a trunk full of equipment to put into the belly of the plane.

Drake’s hangar is located across the runway from the Chattanooga airport, meaning I didn’t have to drive anywhere close to the main terminal.

I carried the case with four long guns in one hand and pulled a steel rolling case full of ammo in the other.

On my second trip, I grabbed the duffel with my clothes and toiletries and looped the long strap over my shoulder, put the backpack with my handguns and knives on my back, draped the garment bag over one arm, and carefully lifted the case Lou, our head tech guy, had given me with the other hand.

Most of our electronics are hardened for battle, but not everything can be, so the tech case would need to go in the passenger compartment. I’d keep the backpack with me as well.

Mira’s car was already parked, and I saw her walking with a garment bag, suitcase, duffel, and long gun case. I’d wondered how many bags she’d bring, and I approved.

Ember and Sloan had been with the client nearly a week.

I’ve worked with Ember a few times, and she brought two suitcases full of clothes and shoes for a job early on, plus her weapons cases.

Cora, on the other hand, usually brought three large suitcases but only half of one was clothes, and the rest was usually weapons.

I had a feeling Mira also had more weapons than clothes.

Honestly, for this kind of assignment, both strategies are fine.

Ember’s clothing allows her to blend in most anywhere, which can come in handy.

The plane has a few rows of normal first-class type airplane seats, but it also has sofas arranged in a conversational style, and some beds in the back.

Mira was kicked back in the second row of seats, slightly reclined with her feet up, reading a company tablet.

The pilot shook my hand and handed me a tablet, and I took a seat on one of the sofas to read mine.

We’d be guarding Ella MacKenna, former star of a hit television series and current darling of the big screen.

Ella had a stalker who was able to get into her home and leave flowers.

Daily. Each bouquet had a note that was basically a countdown to Halloween.

Over a series of notes, the stalker told her he couldn’t wait until Halloween, when he’d kill her so she could live forever.

Sloan and Ember had picked up the scent of an unknown vampire.

The theory was that he was flying in, somehow, to avoid Ella’s elaborate security system and the additions the Drake team had added.

The human police took the note at face value and thought the stalker meant to kill her outright.

Sloan was of the opinion the stalker intended to turn her into a vampire.

The two teams would work fifteen-hour shifts, with our time overlapping at night.

Mira and I would work from twenty-one hundred until noon the next day, while Sloan and Ember worked from noon until oh-three hundred.

Ella had a cook on staff who’d feed us as well as her, which meant one less person we’d had to bring with us.

We had fourteen outside guards who’d patrol in two teams of seven on the same overlapping schedule.

Ideally, they would not have contact with the client.

We also had geeks to man an onsite control room.

It took me over an hour to read through the police and FBI reports.

The vampire had followed Miss MacKenna from California to Florida, and now everyone was headed to Vermont.

The client insisted on staying in her own homes rather than letting us put her into one of our safehouses, and I rolled my eyes.

Next came Sloan and Ember’s report. Ember noted that Ella MacKenna smelled as if she had some Aos Sí heritage, and I cringed at the thought.

The Fae are like crack cocaine to vampires, and I couldn’t imagine a vampire wanting to turn one.

No, he’d make her a blood slave for a few decades and then extend her life indefinitely.

It was intended as a way for vampires to keep their shapeshifter lovers alive for a few centuries, or until the vampire tired of them, but the most powerful vampires could use it to keep a blood slave alive.

Blood slave isn’t the right term. It’s really mind rape, to make the human think they’re in love with the vampire. I call them a blood slave because they become slave, used for blood and sex.

He was going to wipe away her spirit — the part of her that rejected him — but her body would live on.

The death threat was for the human authorities, so they’d assume she was dead once she went missing.

This meant I wouldn’t be working for the Concilio on this one.

The asshole was taking pains not to bring supernaturals to the attention of the humans, so the Concilio wouldn’t care what happened to her.

Though, since this was going to be high profile if she disappeared and her body was never found, and since the vampire was clearly getting into a highly secure building, it’s possible the Concilio would think he was flaunting his powers despite trying to hide them.

I looked over the pictures and blueprints of the Vermont mansion.

Three stories plus an attic and a basement.

Bigger than most hotels. The ground floor was for entertaining — a ballroom, a party room, lots of smaller conversation rooms, a billiard room, a media room, and a huge sunroom attached to the back of the house with an indoor pool.

The second floor was guest bedrooms, a large workout room, a media room made to look like a fancy theater, and living space for the hired help. The top floor was her bedroom, closet, and master bathroom. The top floor alone was nearly seven thousand square feet.

Originally, she’d insisted security would be allowed everywhere except the third floor, but then the stalker had left flowers in her condo bedroom a few hours later, twelve feet from her bed while she slept.

Ember would now be allowed into the client’s bedroom, but the client still insisted no men come above the second floor unless Ember sounded the alarm that the stalker was up there.

The assumption was that she’d allow Mira upstairs as well. I hadn’t met Miss MacKenna yet, but something told me she might not agree until she felt comfortable with Mira, and that might be a problem.

The stalker had followed the starlet from Beverly Hills to Miami. Would he follow her to Vermont?

I considered the on-site personnel. Sloan is an eagle shifter.

We might be able to make use of him in his eagle form, but it would be easier if he was a hawk or crow, or even an owl.

Ember can shift into either a swan or a dragon, but swans stand out even more than eagles, and her dragon is larger than a bus with wings.

The same goes for me — it’s hard to hide a huge lion.

And Mira’s snake can’t follow instructions.

Sloan had been in charge, but I was being brought in to lead. I’ve worked with him before and I didn’t foresee him taking offense. He’s a former Navy SEAL, and his mindset is basically whatever it takes to get the job done.

I walked to the back of the main cabin compartment, looked to see what was in the warmer, and was pleased to see hamburger patties, with buns and condiments in the small refrigerator.

I popped some burgers in the microwave, and Mira joined me when the smell permeated the plane.

She ate a burger patty dipped in mayo without a bun while I ate four burgers with buns and all the fixins.

“How tall are you?”

“Four eleven.”

“I think Ember might be a few inches taller, but she’s small, too. You’re skinnier, though.”

“I’m surprised Drake put so much information about supernaturals on our tablets. Especially telling us what Sloan and Ember are.”

“That was there for your information since I already knew. The employment paperwork you signed gave the company the right to tell other employees what you are, too. The text on the tablets will change shortly before we land, and all mention of anything supernatural will be removed. No one knows what trigger is used, but my theory is that it’s done based on altitude and not time.

That way, even if we crash or have to make an emergency landing, it’ll be scrubbed. ”

She took the information in without responding, so I moved us to the next subject. “I’m assuming you have experience assassinating vampires?”

“My training was sufficient for this. Yes.”

“That wasn’t what I asked, Mira.”

Those cool, honey-colored eyes focused on me with zero emotion, and I wanted to shake her to make her feel something.

“It’s the best answer I’ll give you.”

Right, because she wasn’t going to admit to murder over and over. She’d done so once, but she’d had to be shown the safeguards put in place before she would. I didn’t blame her, but I needed more information.

“Real-world experience or not?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then. Shields?”

“Impenetrable so long as they don’t drink from me.” One would think an emotionless voice would be knife sharp and icy cold, but hers was merely cool, and far from sharp.

“Mine are as well, and Ember and Sloan have strong shields, so we’re good there.”

I breathed in, trying to get a sense of her, and for the first time, I picked something up. Not an emotion, but heat, as if more of her blood was near the surface of her skin. My dick picked it up as arousal, and I had to focus to keep it from getting hard.

I wasn’t certain I believed the asexual thing, but I needed to be professional until we finished this op.