The Guilty Innocent Read online

  Now it was my turn, I looked at the waiter and he looked at me as if we were in a face off...Then again, that might just be my take on things. I closed my menu and ordered my meal.

  “May I please have a western omelette with hasbrowns and strawberry pancakes. Thank you.” I said then I handed all four of our menus back to the waiter who took them pleasantly, then retreated towards the kitchen. We took this time to look around the restaurant, it was relatively empty, only a few people were eating breakfast.

  “So what do we do if we see these two people?” Devin asked. I looked at him, he looked to be so young. His beautiful hazel eyes peered into mine, waiting for my answer.

  “We escort them to their car and make them tell us what they know. Why they wanted Darian's politician list in the first place. They must be cooking up something pretty big to risk the wrath of a master vampire,” I said.

  Sergio nodded. “If these guys are the mafia, then there's no telling what the fuck is going on!?” he said disdainfully as he tapped his nails on the table top.

  “That makes perfect sense to me. I hope our meals will not take much longer, I'm absolutely famished!” Elise stated as she peered in the direction of the kitchen, as if she could will the food from the kitchen to the table.

  I suppose they would be hungry, the last time they had eaten was on the plane. I wondered if the cat people ate as fast as the wolf breed? After a twenty-five minute wait, our waiter returned with our food. He placed plate after plate on the table in front of us. Sergio and Devin began to tear into their food even before the waiter had finished placing all of the dishes. Elise cut into her honey glazed pork chops, slowly carving the meat into bite size portions. I began to eat my breakfast, it was delicious. The funny thing was, I had no idea how hungry I truly was until I started eating. I was grateful that this was a restaurant that served American cuisine. I was able to order something I was used to, not that I'm at all opposed to trying new and exciting things. Sergio and Devin were finishing up their meal even before Elise and I were halfway through with our own. Elise came in third place, but something told me, she could eat just as fast as the other two, but I suppose that wasn't her style. I couldn't finish my breakfast and had put down my fork. I settled into my scat and looked at the others, noticing that Devin and Sergio were looking at my plate. Sergio caught me looking at him and quickly averted his gaze. Devin, however, continued to stare.

  “If you're not going to finish that, can I have it?” Devin asked. He gave me a boyish grin. “I hate to see food go to waste,” he added.

  Sure you do, I thought, then I nodded and without another second wasted, his hand darted out several times to scooped up the remaining portions of my breakfast. We sat in the restaurant talking. We discussed our favorite television shows, music and movies, anything to kill time while we waited. It turned out that Elise and I enjoyed a lot of the same things, go figure.

  About 12:28 in the afternoon, I looked up to see Nikolai entering the restaurant. The hostess greeted him at the door and escorted him to his seat. He sat down and opened the menu, I was grateful that he did not notice us. His eyes scanned over the menu then darted towards the entrance. Five minutes later, Dmitri walked through the door, he walked over to Nikolai's table. Dmitri was about six-foot-four, with long blonde hair pulled into a ponytail and a pair of dark sunglasses covered what I knew to be his aqua blue eyes. He was dressed in a light grey button shirt and slacks, his long dark grey trench coat came down to his calves. Dmitri carried with him a black leather briefcase which he placed on the floor beside the booth. He removed his sunglasses as he sat down in the chair across from Nikolai. He pushed the briefcase over to Nikolai with his foot and gestured for the waiter to come to their table.

  “That's the man I saw in my vision, the one that knew about our visit!” I whispered to the others as they glanced unnoticeably at Nikolai and Dmitri. “What are they talking about?” I asked.

  Sergio turned to look at me, he shrugged. “My Russian is shitty, I'm only getting incoherent babble.” He confessed, then he looked at Devin and chuckled. He pointed at Devin. “He's probably hearing, 'whaa whaa whaa, babble babble'.” Devin tossed him a sarcastic expression then rolled his eyes in a playful manner.

  “Yeah, so we're both useless, Elise knows,” Devin said.

  We all looked towards Elise. She sat in her seat silently, her eyes focusing on the table cloth as if in deep thought. She must have known we were looking at her because she looked up questioningly.

  “Translate.” Sergio said as he smiled charmingly at her. She looked at him, her lips slightly parted as if she were going to say something, but thought against it. She took a deep breath and began to translate.

  “He just ordered a cup of coffee and he is telling Nikolai that he knows about his affair with the boss's girlfriend.” Elise said as she continued to listen to their conversation. We sat at the table silently waiting for Elise to continue.

  “Nikolai has a gun under the table, now the other is asking him about us,” she said softly. “They believe we are associates of Nikolai's. He's telling Nikolai that their boss wants him to stop sleeping with Lidiya.” Elise shook her head. “What an idiot to sleep with a Russian mafia boss's girlfriend.” She said, her French accent lacing all of her words, making them sound elegant.

  “Now Nikolai tells him he meant no disrespect and Dmitri said 'of course not' not truly believing Nikolai. Dmitri still wants to know who we are.” Elise's eyebrows were creased as she listened intently. “He is telling him that we are friends of his from out of town. Dmitri thinks he's lying and wants to make sure he did not tell us anything, Nikolai said he did not, Dmitri seems satisfied.” Elise said then she took a sip of her juice.

  I continued to watch their table the entire time as Elise translated, I could see the fear in Nikolai's eyes as he stared at the coldness of Dmitri's gaze. Nikolai set the briefcase on the table and opened it, a smile spreading across his face as he nodded approvingly. He then closed the briefcase. Dmitri finished his coffee and rising from his seat, said something else to Nikolai as he prepared to leave. I didn't want him to get away, I looked towards Sergio, who seemed to know my intentions and he rose from his chair followed by Devin and then myself. Before we could get close to them, Elise called out to us, we turned to look at her. A second later, I heard an eruption of screams, people became hysterical, pushing past us and each other as they rushed towards the exit. Sergio leaped high into the air over four tables and landed in front of Dmitri, grabbing hold of his coat. Dmitri swung the leather briefcase, attempting to hit Sergio in the face, but Devin snatched the case from his hands. I looked back towards Nikolai and found him slumped over the table. Blood began to seep from the bullet wound in his head, forming a puddle. I never heard a gunshot, Dmitri must have used a silencer and of course someone saw the assassination and started this chaos. Dmitri struggled in Sergio's vice-like grip. He pulled his gun from his inside pocket but Elise caught his hand and began to crush the bones. I could hear the crunching sound of his bones breaking! Dmitri cried out from what must have been agonizing pain and dropped his gun, which convinced Elise to ease up on his injured hand.

  Elise began to speak to him softly in Russian, he shook his head stubbornly, proving that he was not going to be a team player. Sergio grabbed his chin in a powerful grip, forcing his eyes to meet Elise's. Devin stood beside them, still holding the briefcase. Elise spoke to the man again and this time when he tried to refuse, Sergio's grip tightened as if he were trying to crush the man's jaw. Dmitri cried out and began to speak rapidly in Russian to Elise. I supposed he was telling her he'd cooperate. She spoke again to him, this time, it appeared he was answering whatever questions she was asking. I began to hear police sirens approaching, I looked towards the door and saw another man dressed in all black, wearing a matching face mask. He entered through the door holding an automatic machine gun. I dropped to the floor and yelled for the others to do the same. Instantly they were on the floor as the gunman
sprayed the restaurant with bullets. Dmitri was shot through and through, blood splattered the floor around him as his lifeless body danced erratically as the bullets entered him. The sight of Dmitri being slaughtered scared the shit out of me, I was too scared to move! I didn't want to get shot trying to flee. The man aimed the gun towards the floor, trying to kill us as well. Sergio positioned himself in front of the rest of us as we began crawling towards the kitchen. I cut my hand on a shard of glass from a broken bottle on the floor, but I continued to crawl. Once we made it to the kitchen, Devin and Sergio kneeled inside by the door, waiting for the gunman to come through the double doors. Elise took my uninjured hand and led me towards the back. We moved swiftly across the room until we reached a locked stainless steel door. We turned back to check on Sergio and Devin, the gunman had fired random bullets through the walls of the kitchen. Sergio nodded at Devin and Devin opened the double doors, it was then that we found out there were two gunmen. Sergio leaped towards one of the gunmen, who began to fire several shots into Sergio's chest. Sergio landed in front of him and in a movement almost too fast for me to see, he broke the man's neck then tossed the body to the floor. The other gunman ran out of the door. I watched through the large pane glass window of the restaurant as he climbed into his car and drove away as police patrol cars pulled up.

  Three patrol cars took off after the fleeing gunman. Sergio's speed was extremely fast as he retreated back towards the kitchen. One minute I was looking at him standing in the shambles of what used to be a beautiful restaurant and the next, he was standing by the hack door. Elise broke the lock, she took my good hand as we all ran through the alleyway away from the restaurant.

  I couldn't keep up with their speed, so Sergio picked me up and carried me in his arms as he continued to run. The city scenery past me by in a blur as Sergio ran, it was an amazingly smooth journey. I had expected to be drastically bounced around in his grip, but I wasn't. We stopped at an abandoned store, Sergio place me gently on my feet. Devin broke the wood boards off the door opening and we stepped inside. Devin pulled more boards off of the windows to give us some extra light...well it was probably more for my benefit than theirs, I appreciated it. I looked around, the room smelled musty, rank, kind of mildewy and I could hear the distinctive sounds of tiny feet scurrying across the floor and knew I wouldn't remain here for any length of time. If I saw a rat, I was willing to bet I would run faster than my shape-shifting companions.

  Sergio removed his shirt, his chest was covered with blood, both Elise and Devin looked at the blood. From my vantage point, they appeared to lust after it, much like a vampire, but not quite. I hoped they could control themselves, I really did not want to see a shape-shifter in bloodlust...again. Sergio wiped as much of the blood off of his chest with his shirt as he could. He was perfectly healed, not a scar visible, must be cool to be able to do that.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He looked at me and smiled. Then he pointed to my hand, I looked down to see my right hand covered in blood, I almost passed out. I hated the sight of blood, it always gave me goosebumps. I could even feel the goosebumps on my ass and it was twice as bad if the blood was my own. I felt light-headed and weak. Devin walked over to me and attempted to lick my hand, I snatched my hand away, shaking my head.

  “I'm just trying to help you,” he said innocently.

  “I know, but Warren said that the shape-shifting gene is in the saliva of a shape-shifter. I don't have anything against you, but I don't want to take any chances...you do understand, don't you?” I asked apologetically. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt anyone's feelings, but I had to look out for number one.

  “It's okay, I didn't think. That is the main way to transfer the gene. Don't worry, I understand. I was born a shape-shifter, so to lick my wounds in order to heal them faster is a normal instinct for me.” Devin said, he eyed me up and down and smiled. “You're a human, I'm sure you want a bandage instead,” he chuckled.

  I was relieved that he didn't take offense. “That and some peroxide will do,” I said smiling. Then something he said caught my attention. “What do you mean the 'main' way to transfer the gene?”

  “Well, it's in our blood too. So if our blood gets into a human's blood stream, then there's a chance you may or may not be turned. It's strange, but the gene seems to be more potent in our saliva. Go figure.” Devin said with a shrug.

  “Oh, I see.” I looked at Elise and Sergio, they were watching me as if I were the most interesting thing they have ever seen. I was beginning to feel like some sort of science project. I decided to change the subject, hoping it would take my mind off of my injury as well.

  “Look, guys, we need to get back to the hotel,” I said. Sergio nodded and stepped out of the abandoned building. I was more than happy to leave the building, if I heard the sound of feet scurrying across the floor one more time, I was going to leave them whether they were done regrouping or not. We walked a few blocks and Elise held a cab which drove us to our hotel. A few people looked at us as we entered, Devin had loaned me his blue jean jacket to cover my shirt which now had Sergio's blood on it from when he carried me. Sergio had managed to wipe the last few remaining drops of blood from his chest, but the fact that he was bare-chested aroused attention. Some of the attention was induced by lust. It was a good thing that he was wearing black, it sort of camouflaged the blood that stained his jeans. I had shoved my bloody hand into my pocket, hoping that it was not a deep wound.

  We made it into our room and I walked towards the bathroom, I began to cleanse my wounded hand. Elise stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over her full-breasted chest. She watched me rinse off the blood as I rubbed soap into the wound. I winced at the stinging pain that I was causing, but it needed to be done. She walked towards me and looked at my wounded hand. Her eyes examined the long, deep, vicious looking, bleeding wound. I found it hard to look at the exposed flesh, I began to feel the tingles of goosebumps all over again.

  “You're going to need stitches...or, if you're not as squeamish with vampire blood as you are with the saliva of shape-shifters, you could wait for one of them to heal you.” She said, with moderate concern. I'll admit, I was taken aback by her sudden interest in my well-being, but I did not question it.

  I nodded. “I think that would be a good idea as long as I don't have to drink it.” I said, I remembered what Darian had told me the time when he had given me his blood to save my life. He told me that humans can become addicted to vampire blood, just like any other drug and one would have to be broken from the bloodlust. I did not want to experience anything called “bloodlust” and I was grateful that I had not.

  Elise laughed, the back of her hand going to her mouth, covering it slightly. Her laughter soon subsided, she looked at me more seriously, her expression becoming more curious. “I don't understand you, I don't pretend to. You feel for both Darian and Xavier, you may even love them. You're a human, your life could be so easily snuffed out and yet you are here...” her words drifted off, she made an offhanded gesture as if to dismiss her statement. “I sent Sergio to the store for some first aid items for you.” She said then she turned and exited the bathroom. I was in a state of shock now. She had not been nice to me since the day we met, it was actually a relief to exchange words without hostility.

  “Elise?” I called out, she turned around to face me.

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you. I believe I do love them, I know I don't want to lose either one of them...” I trailed off, I looked down at my hands. “I don't want to lose anyone else anymore,” I said, unable to disguise my sadness and not really wanting to.

  Elise looked at me for a long moment. “We will save him, besides Darian is a survivor if nothing else,” she said then she left the bathroom.

  I pondered her last statement. “Darian is a survivor if nothing else.” He must be to have survived sixteen hundred and fifty years! Darian was an enigma to me, I did not know much about him, but I truly believed that he w
ould answer any questions I might have with the upmost honesty. If we could, no...when we save Darian and clear his name, I will appease my curiosity about him. I wrapped a towel around my hand and walked out of the bathroom. I spotted a comfortable chair by the window and sat down. Devin lay curled in a fetal position on the bed, napping.

  “He looks absolutely adorable!” I said chuckling as I looked at him. Elise glanced at me then to Devin she smiled slightly.

  “He's even more adorable in his animal form,” she said.

  Her eyes slowly panned over my face, I believe she was interested in my reaction. I looked at her then Devin, I thought about it and I found that I was curious. I had only seen one shape-shifter in animal form and that shape-shifter was in a half-animal, half-man form, not to mention he almost killed me. I sat in the chair and tried to imagine what they would look like in their animal form, how would they behave? Elise was watching me from across the room, I think she knew what I was pondering and I heard her chuckle.

  “He's a beautiful white leopard,” she said as she climbed onto the bed, brushing her fingertips lightly over Devin's cheek. “The only one in our Pride.”

  He stirred slightly under her touch, but did not wake up. Both Elise and I looked up when we heard the door of our hotel room open then close. She sniffed the air, I saw her relax. I assumed by her reaction that it was Sergio returning from the store. The bedroom door opened and Sergio entered, he was wearing a grey t-shirt now. He looked at me, then handed me the brown paper bad he was carrying. I thanked him, he nodded. He was definitely a man of few words from what I could tell. I looked inside bag, there was a box of band-aids, gauze, peroxide, anti-bacterial cream and stitching equipment. I swallowed hard when I saw the stitching equipment. I looked at Sergio and Elise, I frowned. I was not a good candidate for pain and the thought of having to be sewn up was terrifying to me.