Free Now or Forever by Jackie Ivie Page A

treading water after losing you at Angkor Wat. They were really shitting bricks when you didn’t show up at the hangar after their drug trafficker trick. They’d lost your sorry ass. And Stan. They’d even lost the vampire! All they could possibly do was hang out at their monitors and hope like hell you turned the laptop back on so they’d get a fix on your location...and you did! Like the dumbest new recruit! You didn’t even notice it wasn’t a VAL pilot in the chopper’s seat when you got picked up! Ah!”
    He smacked his forehead with a palm. As much power as he used it should’ve hurt. Nope. Must be another premium benefit to this partial vampire thing.
    “Len?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You are not making sense.”
    “Oh Tassanee. I’ve got to finish kicking my ass before I make sense. Look at the cell screen. What do you see?”
    She slid the top of the phone open and looked at it. And then back at him. With that cute expression of hers. And his heart gave another stutter. Damn thing.
    “It says sixteen dash eight.”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s the code? What does it mean?”
    “The first number is the level of danger. Twenty being imminent death. Two is akin to telling you to tie your shoe laces or something like that. Sixteen is somewhere between bad and pretty damned bad.”
    “And the second number?”
    “Well. That specifies the level of threat.”
    “Is eight bad?”
    “Actually eight is good. The second number is based on a fraction of the first. Stop me if I’m going too fast. If it’s a quarter of the first number, then the threat is minimal. That would be a four. Local authorities, mainly. Civilians with arms. Nobody with much power. If it’s three quarters that means we’d be facing a difficult foe. If that number was twelve, it means someone in-the-know is right on our tail. Could be another immortal. Or a well-equipped small army. Or a mass of Hunters with intelligence leading them. A full number would mean the threat is imminent and deadly. We usually have two options then.”
    “What are they?”
    “Hide and then run. Or run and then hide.”
    “Those don’t sound like good options.”
    “Right. That’s why it’s a good thing it’s an eight. Half of the first number. That means it’s a small band of Hunters. I liken it to half a brain. There’s like half a brain per whole Hunter. Get it?”
    “They’re not very bright?”
    “Yes and no. They’re not exactly rocket scientists but they’re not walking masses of matter, either. So. All of that aside, we’re facing a mid-level threat. More than one Hunter. Less than say...twenty.”
    “How do we know that?”
    “We’ve got at least two of the bastards to deal with. Even if we’ve only got one pilot, he’s going to land at some point, and he’ll have ground help. And don’t forget. Stan got in one of their planes, too.”
    “Will he be okay?”
    “Tassanee. Babe. Keeping you safe is my major objective at the moment, Okay? I’ll worry about Stan later.”
    “Oh...Len.”
    “No tears. Remember? It’s a rule. Here.”
    He fished out his little packet of tissues and handed one to her. And then he was sorting through his backpack and checking rounds. Just in case they’d been messed with when his brain had been disengaged. Whew . Still had both 9mms. His shoulder holster. The Ak-47. Spare rounds. And look. There was the camera, too.
    “These Hunters. They’re human?”
    “Yeah. Mostly. Some might be half-turned. With special powers. Like you made me.”
    “Why do you consider them so stupid, then?”
    “Bright. You are very bright, Tassanee.” He took a deep breath. “They aren’t stupid. I just like to put them in that box. Know what I mean?”
    She shook her head.
    “It helps prepare for an enemy if you make fun of them. It’s kind of like psyching yourself up for an opponent. You make fun of them. Jeer at them. Belittle them. It helps up here.”
    He tapped his forehead. She was giving him that confused