Cadifor sat back in his chair. “I don’t know anyone named Mira. We may have to concede to asking some of the others. I suppose it’s only right to involve the rest of the Council. Though I think it more likely that they will be of the same mind as Rollo and not wish to act on something as tenuous as one of Aislinn’s visions.”
Makeda appeared from the bathroom drying her dark hair with a towel. Her chocolate skin gleaming with specks of water from her shower. “What has happened?” Curiosity tinting her voice.
Cadifor and the other two men took a brief moment to admire the exotic woman’s body, before he responded. “Aislinn says that a druid appeared in a vision and told us to locate a woman named Mira.”
Cadifor could tell by the look on her face that the information struck a cord with her. “I knew a Mira once. A very long time ago. I would have thought her to be dead long ago, but seeing as I survived this long I suppose it’s not inconceivable that she might. Although there is no guarantee that she would be the Mira the druid meant.”
“That’s better than anything else we have at the moment. Who was she and how did you know her?”
The naked woman walked over to the men and set the towel down. “She was the last sacrifice to the first vampire. But I met her quite some time after that.”
A rare surprised look crossed Cadifor’s face. “I take it if she lived then the vampire did not?”
“Not exactly. Mira was the only one to survive him. I believe they both lived. If you can call a vampire’s life living. And I think that the first one was not the same as the ones that followed. It’s been a very long time though.”
“A druid girl can’t have survived this long,” Cullen responded.
“Hard to say who survives and for what reasons. The druids were more free with the types of games they played with the Fates back then. Who knows. That is the only Mira I know who stands out in my memory. As I said she may not be the one.”
Tor decided that he needed to deal with Natalie first, considering he knew that the weres would be a much more complex situation. He walked down the hall wondering if the girl would scream and run or if she’d be fine when she saw him. She’s quite the spitfire, he chuckled to himself.
When he knocked on the door there was no answer. So he let himself in. He figured it was a good sign that she had not locked the door.
Natalie was sitting at the small table in the corner of the room. She had finished breakfast and was staring out the window. She barely looked up when Tor walked in. “I guess I expected you’d be back.”
“Well you did make me a promise. I fulfilled my end of the bargain,” he smiled. She was willing to talk to him, she sounded lucid, and she wasn’t running and screaming. That was a good start. “It’s your turn. Where are the tapes?”
“Okay, so I get that they have you guys on film. But what’s so damned important about them? I mean no one would take them seriously if they hit the papers. Especially in a tabloid. There isn’t a single human being alive, save a few crazies who already believe in you guys who wouldn’t think I faked the whole thing. Hell I was starting to think I faked the whole thing. Why torture me for six month and then someone breaks me out of an asylum to get them?”
Tor was impressed. It was an intelligent question. “Can’t tell you that.”
“Beautiful.” Natalie went over to the night stand and fished out a tablet and pen she had found there when she was looking around the night before. She started drawing a map on the page. “Look, I don’t know the address. When things started getting crazy I decided I needed to get rid of those tapes. Could’t bring myself to burn them. In part cuz I figured if I ever really thought I was crazy then I could go look at them and remind myself that I hand’t lost it.”
Tor watched her draw some lines on the paper that criss crossed. She drew some circles and some triangles. He stared in confusion at the page as she drew some squiggly lines and then a little house.
“So I was driving. Just driving. It was night and I was convinced I was being followed. I turned down a bunch of streets and then hit a gas station, scared out of my mind. When I filled the tank I headed out of the city. No idea where I was going I just wanted to get away. I kept driving until I didn’t see any lights in front or behind me and then I started driving down these dirt country roads. I was even watching the sky for helicopters. I kept telling myself I was getting paranoid and there was no reason for it.
“When the tank was down half way and I figured that there was no way I’d be able to get back to civilization if I kept going like I was I stopped the car, turned off the lights and started crying. I stood there terrified in the dark for I don’t even know how long.
“At some point the moon came out from behind the clouds and I spotted this old abandoned looking farm house way back off the dirt road. Scared out of mind I started walking toward it. When I got closer I saw that the roof was caving in and the doors and windows were kinda missing. That’s when it occurred to me that I could hide the evidence. I could come back for it if I could find my way back to it.
“The floor in the main room was rotted and there were holes in it. I managed to find some steps down to the basement. I stuck the bag containing all the film and tapes I had, there are no copies, in a kinda hole behind an ancient looking wood or coal burning furnace thing.
“Okay,” Tor said skeptically. “Do you think you can find it again? Are you sure no one saw you go out there?”
“Well I assume that if the last group of loonies were spending so much time and effort to torture me for information that they don’t know where it is. I didn’t see anyone following me. Maybe I was just lucky. And no… I’m not positive I can get back there. It was dark, I was scared, and there were no street signs.”
“Great,” Tor grumbled. “You were supposed to be my easy job.”
Jenna’s car finally pulled into a deserted parking lot outside an enormous warehouse. They had to be near an airport because Jenna could hear planes taking off or landing. The building looked as though it could house airplanes or blimps. The outside of the building was nondescript enough that most people could drive past it and never think twice about what might be going on inside. She still wasn’t certain where she was, but so far no one was handcuffing her or pushing her around so she wasn’t worried yet.
The men in suits didn’t waste any time. One opened the door for her and they led her across the parking lot and into the building. She had to admit that the way they were pushing her along led her to believe that they we less friendly than first appearances. She wondered what they would do if she tried to change and run right now. Brennus attempted to push that thought, but Jenna was far to curious at this point.