Next I called up Cass, said I felt bad about the way we left things, and asked if she’d accompany me to the opera that night. She jumped at the chance, certain it meant I was waffling. Aaron would be so much happier if she secured my agreement. And she’d be so much happier if she could secure it without all that apologizing nonsense.
It was a lovely performance of Fidelio. Afterward, I took Cass to a wine bar—a very nice one, I might add. Together with the tickets, the evening cost me as much as I’d paid Rudy for his performance artists. But Cass was impressed. Also a little tipsy, as we made our way along the darkened streets. Tipsy enough that she let me steer her into a “shortcut” through a churchyard. She didn’t even pick up the life signs of the guy at the other end until he stepped into the moonlit gap.
“Hello, Zoe,” he said. “You’re a hard girl to find these days. Been thinking hard on our offer, I hope.”
I wheeled. Another man slid from the shadows, blocking our retreat. When Cass turned to see him, he lifted a machete and grinned.
“Oh God,” I whispered to Cass. “I am so sorry. Don’t worry. I’ll get us out of this.”
“I’m sure you will,” she said, her tone as dry as the Chardonnay we’d just finished. “But I think I can handle it.”
“No, don’t—!”
She was already striding toward the guy with the machete. “And what do you think you’re going to do with that?”
“What should be done to all bloodsuckers. Off with ’er head.” He grinned and waved the machete, blade glinting in the moonlight. “You’ll be a lot more useful when you’re dead, parasite. You’ll help someone for a change. A lot of someones. Once we discover the secret—”
“Oh, stuff it,” she said as she stopped in front of him. “Do you really expect me to believe you’re going to lop off my head here? In downtown Toronto? And then what? Drag my decapitated corpse to your lair?” She turned to me. “Really, Zoe? I thought you were smarter than this.”
“Cass! Watch—!”
She grabbed the guy’s arm as he swung the machete. She didn’t even turn around to do it. Just reached back, grabbed his arm, and yanked. He may have been almost twice her size, but she caught him off guard and he stumbled. She was on him in a second, teeth sinking into his neck.
“No!” the other man cried.
He raced toward his companion as Cass let the man fall to the ground.
“Oh please,” she said. “Save the drama. I’m sure you know enough about vampires to realize I’ve merely sedated him with my saliva. I’m hardly going to drink from a man reeking of cheap whiskey.
God knows what kind of hangover I’d get.” She stepped toward the second man. “Now, unless you’d like the same …”
He turned and ran. Cass looked at me, shook her head, and resumed walking.
I had to jog to keep up with Cass. Even at four hundred years old, the woman can move damn fast.
“I did not set that up,” I said. “I swear it. There’s no way I could have told Brittany to warn you about fake immortality questers.”
“No? The girl can’t receive text messages on her phone?”
“You think I texted her to say that? When? You didn’t mention the delegate offer until she was in the same room with us.”
“Elena forewarned you. No, not Elena. It was Clayton, wasn’t it? The man has a grudge against me. I have no idea why.”
“Um, because you hit on him … while Elena was being held captive, fighting for her life.”
She wheeled, boots scraping the pavement. “Who told you that?”
“Everyone knows. But Clay wouldn’t call me with tips. He doesn’t much like me, either. Probably because I hit on Elena.”
She rolled her eyes and resumed walking.
“Okay,” I said. “Clearly those two were not real immortality questers. I’m guessing someone from Rudy’s is playing a prank on me. They know I’ve been having trouble with questers and that you’re in town. Making me look bad with a real vampire. Ha-ha. I’ll get them back. But I did think, at first, those two were the real deal, because I have been having problems.”
“I’m sure you have. Your ruse has failed. Don’t compound the damage by insulting my intelligence.”
“But—”
“Go home, Zoe. Our evening is at an end.”
I’d been following Cass for five blocks, reasoning that if she really wanted to get rid of me, she’d have hopped in a cab by now. She knew I was there, keeping pace fifty feet back, working out a strategy. Also, I was calling directions when she’d pause on a corner and try to figure out which way to turn.
We were cutting across a quiet residential street of townhouses when I noticed the car. It was black, all the lights off as it inched along the road toward us. Then it stopped.
I broke into a run and caught up to Cass.
“That car,” I whispered. “I’ve seen it before.”
She fixed me with a look. “Really, Zoe?”
“No, I’m serious. It’s them. The immortality questers.”
She sighed. “I cannot believe you’d honestly try this again after—”
The car shot forward, motor gunning. I grabbed the back of her coat.
“Come on! There’s a walkway right—”
She pulled away and turned to continue down the sidewalk as the car raced toward us.
“You’d better warn your friends,” she said. “If they lay a hand on me, they will lose it. I am not in the mood for games.”
The car’s rear door flew open as it slowed.
“Cass!” I yelled. “I’m serious! This isn’t me!”
A man leapt from the car. Cass ducked him easily, but a second man had swung out from the other side. He caught her from behind, wrenching her arms back.
“Zoe!” she snarled. “This isn’t funny. Tell these men to unhand me or—”
The first man grabbed her legs and they threw her into the backseat. As he wrestled her in, the second man took a step toward me.
“Little Zoe Takano,” he said. “What are you going to do now? Try to stop us? Or be happy we have a prize in your stead?”
I took a slow step back.
He laughed. “That’s what I thought.”
I could see Cass in the backseat, fighting two men as they restrained her. She looked over at me, her eyes blazing.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed. Then I turned and ran.
I watched from my hiding place as the car made a right turn, sticking to the residential roads tucked deep in the heart of downtown. I knew a shortcut, and the roads here were narrow, plagued with stop signs that would keep their progress slow.
I calculated where they’d go, coming out onto a busier street to make a speedy escape. Sure enough, the car appeared as I waited, hidden, near a stoplight. They were on a side street, meaning at this time of night the light wouldn’t change until it needed to. As they idled at the red, I snuck out, used a pick to carefully pop the trunk, and slipped inside.
They took Cass clear out of the city to what looked like an abandoned farmhouse, on a chunk of property with signs warning that condos would be coming soon. Sneaking out of the trunk and into the house was a breeze. Hey, I’m a thief. It’s what I do.
Cass was being held in the basement with only one guard on duty, the others upstairs, on a phone conference. I snuck past the guard and found Cass, huddled dejectedly in a room, resigned to her fate … Yeah, not in this lifetime. She was on her feet, pacing as she waited for that life sign that would tell her someone was coming. Although the door made barely a whisper as I opened it, she spun, fangs out, eyes glittering.
She saw me and stopped. For at least five seconds, she just stared.