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The wolf in me
Chapter 21 – All kinds of decisions.
No one's pov
Jade smiled. "Ok, now were on proper terms. Do you expect anyone else to arrive here tonight?"
The man shook his head. "As far as I know, no. They were just supposed to grab a few more. Not much was supposed to happen until tomorrow night. Of all the locations we have in town, this one is the newest."
"How often does anyone call these guys? Check up on them." Jade asked.
"I think they're not supposed to communicate unless it's an emergency. So I doubt anyone will call any of them." He answered.
"Do you know of any other places like this? Oh and what's your name by the way?"
"My name is Ed. I only know of one other. It's in an old tool and die factory on Harbor Avenue and Wells. That place is crawling with Vampires. Are you going to kill me?"
Jade smirked. "If you cooperate, no. My goody goody girlfriend will probably make me keep my word too. So be nice to her. Have you met the head honcho, a gal named Livia?"
Ed shook his head. "No. I heard her mentioned in passing but I've never met or seen her."
Jade motioned to the laptop. "Who's was that?"
"It belonged to Jason, he was the vampire in charge here. You killed him."
Jade got up from her chair and walked to the door. "Well Ed, you've been very cooperative. I'm going to leave you tied to the chair for a bit. So just sit tight and be quiet and nothing bad will happen to you."
Ed nodded to Jade as she left.
Jade walked back to the front office where she found Beck. He was sitting at a chair by the window, looking out onto the parking lot.
"Where's Tori?" Jade asked with concern.
Beck looked over to Jade. "Oh, she was hungry, so she went out to get some coffee and some food for everyone. She found there's a burger joint a few blocks away. She took one of the cars in the lot and said she'll be back in a bit with some burgers and fries."
Jade nodded, sat in a chair and put her feet up on the desk. "Any signs of life out there?"
Beck shook his head. "Nada, nothing."
There were a few moments of awkward silence before Jade finally broke it. "Why did you cheat on me?"
Beck looked to the floor and shuffled his feet. "I'm not sure exactly. It wasn't like one specific thing. Kate was just so nice and we just started to talk one day after school. You were off at an audition or something. We just sort of clicked. I think it was the thrill of doing something you're not supposed to do. We had not been getting along. I didn't think you were listening to me anymore. Kate wanted to listen. I am sorry."
Jade's neutral expression didn't change, except for the fact that she looked to the side for a moment. "I'm sure you are. Didn't she dump you right after I exposed you two?"
Beck nodded. "I'm sort of seeing Alicia Polinski right now."
Jade thought for a moment. "Blonde hair, nice smile. I think she's in show choir."
"Yeah, that's the one. You and Tori seem to be inseparable. The whole werewolf thing is kind of hard to get my mind around though. Tori said you were more than her girlfriend that she was your mate. What does that mean?"
Jade's mouth curled up into a small smile. "There is a physical and mental bond between us. I can feel what she feels sometimes and when were intimate with each other we even can read each others minds from time to time. It's a closeness that's hard to describe. I don't feel quite right when she's not around. In the truest sense, she is my soul mate."
"I'm glad for you." Beck said quietly. "Oh and thank you again. It's all hard to believe and you're the queen no less."
Jade smirked. "I most certainly am, so you'd better stay on my good side."
"I didn't think I was on your good side."
Jade got up and looked out the window. "You're not. But you stayed and helped, so you moved a bit closer to it. Right now, I need help and I do appreciate it."
Jade went and sat back down to wait for either Tori or Sinjin to arrive.
"Someone's coming, a car just pulled in." Beck said, causing Jade to stand up.
"Who?"
"It's Sinjin." Beck said as he opened the door.
"Hello Jade" Sinjin said, with an eager smile that sent chills down the werewolf queens back.
"Sinjin, I have a job for you. There is a laptop in the other room. I need to see what's on it. Can you help me?" Jade said.
Sinjin seemed to light up at the prospect of helping Jade. "Unless it's got some super encryption, I should be able to hack it."
"Good" Jade said as she led him down the hallway to the room with the computer.
"Here's the laptop, just holler when you find something." Jade said before she left the room.
Jade went back to the front office and reported the location of the other vampire nest that was told to her to Tori's uncle Frank. He said they would check it out. A few minutes after that, Tori returned with coffee, soda and food.
"Hey baby, I have food and coffee." Tori said as she walked in with a couple of bags.
Jade grabbed a container of coffee and took a long drink. "Hmmm...that's what I needed."
Tori handed some fries and a hamburger to Beck. "So Jade, did one of our friends talk?"
Jade grabbed a burger and took a bite. "One of them did."
Tori gave Jade rather a dubious look. "And what about the other one?"
"He won't be talking ever again." Jade said with a smirk. "Oh and Sinjin arrived. He's in the other room working on the laptop."
Tori briefly grunted in displeasure but otherwise said nothing and started to eat. Tori considered what they did a necessary evil, but she didn't have to like it. They ate their food largely in silence then did the only thing they could do, which was wait.
After about an hour Sinjin called from the other room. "Hey guy's I'm in."
Tori and Jade, went down to where Sinjin was while, Beck watched the door. "I got past the protection and reset his password to the word Jade.
"I'm so honored." Jade said with just a hint of sarcasm to her voice.
"There doesn't appear to be much on it. Someone installed one of those heavy duty erasing programs. It's a program that can be used to permanently delete old files." Sinjin pointed out.
Jade opened the email. There were only 3 emails.
The first was a junk email for Viagra. The second one seemed to be a receipt for a bill of sale.
It was a receipt for 40 coffins to be delivered to this address. The seller was the "Universal casket company of Arizona. But the buyer was listed as La Noche enterprises.
The third one was a small message with an excel spreadsheet attachment.
The message said. "Here is the updated list. As always permanently delete the old list and all other old correspondence. Security is of prime importance."
Jade clicked icon to open the spreadsheet. "Let's see what this list is."
All three of them looked over the file. It appeared to be a very long list of names and addresses. There were well over a thousand entries. The addresses were from both the local area and all over the world.
"What's this?" Jade said.
Tori moved took the mouse and moved the list down to a name, and then to another name. As she continued to do it, her face became more and more white.
"They must have been spying on us for years. This is a list of the address of nearly every werewolf in the dam world. It even lists the estimated number of werewolves living at the residence." Tori said with dismay.
Jade thought for a moment. "So they know where everyone lives. They can hit us where we live and they know exactly where everyone lives."
Tori pulled out her phone and began to dial. "Uncle Frank." We have some news. "The vampires have assembled a database of from what it looks like, the address of every werewolf in the world. "
"I'm going to send a copy of the database to him. Tell him to distribute it." Jade said as she forwarded the email.
Jade pulled out 40 bucks and handed it to Sinjin. "Here's your pay. You can leave now. Thank you."
He looked for a moment as if he expected something else but finally just took the money and left the room.
"Ok, Ok, Talk to you later uncle frank." Tori said as she hung up. "Jade, he's going to see to it all pack leaders get a copy of the list and then they can start to take appropriate precautions."
"Hey guys, check this out!" They heard beck say from down the hall.
They all emerged into the office, where they found Beck going through a box.
"I found this in the corner. The shipping label was dated last week. Shipped to La Noche enterprises." He pulled out of the wrapping, in the box, what appeared to be a small plastic box with antennas on it.
"These are cell phone Jammers I think." Beck said.
Sinjin who hadn't left yet, walked up and examined one. "Yes they are and they're the top of the line. Set one or two up outside a building and no one inside would be able to make any cell calls."
Tori glanced at the box. "Beck, how many are in there?"
Beck looked in the box and counted. "30"
"Fuckers think of everything." Jade muttered. "I'll bet they are going to set these up at each place they attack. That way the werewolves inside can't call for help or warn anyone." Jade then picked up the box and handed it to Beck. "Put this box in the back of the car that Tori was just using. We're going to use these bad boys when we attack."
"Another car is coming." Tori said looking out the window. "Oh it's Cat."
Cat got out of the car holding the makeup case she had been asked to bring and came inside.
Jade smiled and examined the makeup case. "Thanks' Cat. This may be needed. To make someone look just a bit more like a vampire. As I see it, one of our people will have to man this place until we launch our attack. If anyone shows up and the place is deserted, they may get suspicious. So with someone here, they can be either bluffed or killed."
"W when is the attack going to be launched?" Tori asked.
"They are launching their attack in 48 hours. So we're going to launch ours within 24, there simply is no choice."
"So what do we do now? Just wait?" Beck asked.
Jade shook her head. "As strange as it sounds, all of us have school tomorrow so I'll have to see to it we get some others to replace us for the rest of the night. I'm going to have to fill in the other pack leaders what we've learned so far."
With a quick phone call, 5 werewolves with acting experience were found and dispatched to the warehouse. They were filled in on all the details and told to try to bluff any visitors and if all else failed, kill them. They were told to keep the prisoner on ice until the attack started. The makeup kit was left for them to use. Cat, Beck and Sinjin were all sent home. Jade figured they wouldn't hit Cat's house a second time, considering they don't know she was rescued.
Tori and Jade arrived at Tori's home, where a number of people were there coordinating the search effort. Jade and Tori filled in everyone present and the other pack leaders all that they knew.
"You should check out this La Noche enterprises. Maybe it can lead us to something." Jade noted.
"La Noche?" Said one of the werewolves present.
"It means "The Night" In Spanish." David Vega noted.
"If we can find all the local vampire hideouts, hopefully we can figure out which one Livia is at." Tori's uncle Frank said.
"I doubt she'll be at any of them." Jade said, while staring at a map of the city.
"How would you know that?" Frank said.
"My beautiful Tori, shells out big bucks every month for both Elle and Vogue magazines. Up to this point I thought it a complete waste of money and time." Jade started, before interrupted by Tori.
"Jade!" Tori protested.
Jade continued ignoring Tori's protest. "When Tori met Livia she from reading all that fashion crap, recognized Livia was wearing all very high end designer clothes. She had Jimmy Choo shoes, A Donna Karan dress and a Louie Vuitton handbag. Tori said they all looked very high end, possibly designer originals. This chick has very expensive tastes. All the lairs we've found are in either old factories or warehouses. She ain't going to be spending no time in some dusty warehouse with the riff raff. She'll be staying somewhere nice. A 5-star hotel, condo or mansion. In addition to finding all the lairs, we need to find her digs."
"Tori said we attack in less than 24 hours?" Frank asked.
"Yes, as soon as I feel we've found most or all of the lairs, we'll hit them all at once. However, we will attack at 10 pm tomorrow evening regardless. Hopefully during tomorrow, we can unravel their network and find where the bastards are hiding."
The assembled group, nodded in acknowledgment of Jade's orders. Tori at this point sat down and talking with her sister, while Jade listened to various reports from around the globe. Not knowing much about military matters, Jade deferred to the judgment of those who had actual military experience. She did make an occasional suggestion or comment.
As they neared the end of the discussion, Frank brought up a man who appeared to be in his 80's. He looked still somewhat fit but, was wearing an eye patch. "Jade, I want you to meet someone. This is Ben Gibson. You're going to face an ancient vampire. They are a lot stronger that the slugs you've taken out already. Frank took out an ancient vampire in the 40's. I think you may benefit from his knowledge."
Jade normally hated having to take advice, but this was a very special case. "Pleased to meet you, Ben." Jade said, as she shook his hand. "What advice can you give me?"
Ben smiled. "As vampires get older they get stronger. Something about the more life force they drink the stronger they get. This gal has been drinking blood for 2000 years. She will be much stronger, faster and tougher than any vampire you've encountered. You will not be able to just knock off her head. Her skin will be almost like steel. You'll be able to claw her but not easily."
"Tell me about the one you took out?" Jade asked.
"It was WWII and we learned that a very old vampire had decided to join the Nazi cause. I know it sounds bizarre, but believe me it really happened. It's a long story but the werewolves in allied high command decided he needed to be taken out. They dug up 3 of the toughest werewolves they could find. Me and two others. They parachuted us into Austria near his castle. We snuck in and confronted him." The man said, with a slight faraway look.
"You won?"
He shook his head sadly. "We won, but I was the only survivor. He took out the two others and took out one of my eyes. He was extremely fast, he didn't go for killing blows right off. He liked to cripple them at first. My compatriot tried to defend the one that was crippled and they both got killed. You need to keep attacking. If you go on defense, she'll tear you apart."
Jade exhaled from her mouth, looking a bit nervous. "How do I take her out?"
"From what I hear you're the toughest werewolf period. Your strength is a match for hers. In your wolf form your speed will match hers. You're going to have to stake her through the heart. In order to do that, you will need to beat the shit out of her, subdue her. One thing that may help is to constantly change forms. It will make her have to constantly change tactics. In your human form, you're a bit smarter and can use weapons. But my best piece of advice is, don't underestimate her, she's probably the oldest and deadliest creature on this planet."
Jade nodded and shook his hand. "Thank you, I'll keep that in mind."
A short while later, Tori took Jade by the hand. "Come on, it's late, there's nothing you can do here tonight. Everyone is searching. They don't need you right now, but I need you. Make love to me."
Tori took Jade up to her room where she slowly undressed her mate. The bond between them was now ever stronger with Jade's new status as a werewolf. They fell together on the bed and made passionate love. It was a wonderful beautiful experience for the both of them. But during the entire time, the thought of the fight Jade knew she had to have, lurked in her mind. It weighed on her mind heavily.
Some part of her wondered if this was the last time she would ever make love to Tori. During the moments of closest intimacy Jade was able to shield those thoughts from Tori. She didn't want Tori to know just how much she was worried.
Eventually they finished and lay in bed in each other's arms. Tori fell asleep very quickly but Jade remained awake, staring out the window. The worries now plagued her more than ever as a series of thoughts ran through her head.
"Wherever you go, I go" Jade remembered Tori's words.
"Stronger, faster, tougher than any vampire you encountered." Jade could hear Ben's voice in her head.
Again Jade thought of Ben's words in her head. "She's the oldest and deadliest creature on the planet."
"Tori will never voluntarily leave my side." Jade thought to herself.
"Cripple them at first" Jade muttered out loud.
"The one tried to defend the crippled one and they both got killed." Jade thought.
"Your fate is my fate." Jade thought of Tori's words, as she looked at the sleeping form of the woman she loved. That disturbed Jade immensely. She didn't want Tori to die. Jade wondered if Tori being there would be a distraction. What if Tori got really hurt. Jade wondered if that would affect her own fighting skill.
Lying there with Tori sleeping next to her, Jade made a decision. She didn't want her mate to die, even if she did. Jade loved Tori more than life itself. Jade would die to protect Tori.
Jade decided she would face Livia alone. It was the only way to make absolutely sure her mate would be safe.
Jade kissed Tori on the forehead. "I love you."
Tori stirred briefly and then clung closer to Jade.
"It's the only way." Jade said quietly to herself.
Things are building up. The attack is less than 24 hours away and Jade has decided to face Livia alone. Jade simply doesn't want Tori to die, period. She maybe not thinking too rationally but love is often very irrational.