"None at the moment," Dragon said. "Take me with you as mist; I wish to see the inside of this temple."
I wish we hadn't gone. It wouldn't change anything for those two young girls—who knows from where they'd been abducted; they couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen and those ass**les had raped them first and were now cutting on them. At least three hundred of those Solar Red f**kers were there, either to participate or watch the sacrifice. I was ready to take out as many as I could but Dragon had some sort of control while I was mist, and he and I fought with each other while those girls died.
Take us home, now! Dragon issued orders when all I wanted to do was curl up somewhere and weep. He was dumped in the living room of the apartment; Karzac was shouting as I did it and I misted into my bedroom and blew the door shut with my mist.
* * *
"What happened?" Karzac demanded, looking Dragon over for injuries.
"I'm not hurt," Dragon held his healer off. "She was about to take on three hundred priests who were in the main temple; they'd raped and then sacrificed two young girls. She's furious right now, but I don't think there was any way she could have taken all of them on and they would have seen both of us, I think. We couldn't risk it, so I forced her to come back."
Karzac cursed long and well in his native language. Dragon sat down heavily on the sofa—he hadn't liked what he'd seen any better than Lissa had. He wondered if he should send mindspeech to Pheligar and ask him to take her off the planet.
* * *
"Director, here are the reports and images from all the security cameras." Tony watched as his assistant placed several flash drives and a file of information on the desk. Watts was good at what he did and as discreet as they came. He'd been army intelligence before coming to work for Tony.
"Is there anything on these?" Tony tapped the pile of flash drives.
"There are images of several, but Rahim and Xenides both are on those from the Atlanta facility."
"Get those images extracted and run them through the software," Tony ordered.
"Of course. I'll have that done right away."
Tony opened the file to read through it. "Have there been any other sightings or anything new on those two?"
"A suspected sighting of Xenides in Barcelona, sir, but nothing concrete to go on."
"Do we have figures on the estimated deaths that might occur if there isn't enough flu vaccine?"
"You're not going to like it, sir."
"Give it to me anyway." Tony held his head in his hands.
"While the normal death rate is expected to be a quarter to half a million deaths worldwide each year, they're estimating two to five million this year, if the new strain of the virus is as bad as they think it might be and there isn't enough vaccine to go around."
"That's bad enough, but it could have been worse."
"That is correct, sir. The new vaccine will be late in coming, obviously, but it should help some. That's why the estimate is as low as it is."
Tony shook his head. When had two to five million deaths become a low estimate? "What about the supply to the southern hemisphere?"
"Only a little of the tainted vaccine was shipped; the patients who received it are being watched closely but it is as we feared, they are exhibiting symptoms of the deadly anemia."
"What is the economic impact?" Tony wanted to pound his head against his desk.
"The Pharmaceutical companies are devastated, but the ones that manufacture over-the-counter remedies have experienced a boom."
Tony lifted his head. "See if there have been any major purchases of stock in those companies," he said.
"Of course, Director." Watts took the flash drives and walked out of the Director's office. Tony waited until Watts left before opening the top drawer on the left hand side of his desk and pulling out a framed photograph. The photo had been taken from a security camera in the Atlanta office. It showed Lissa, holding a magazine. She had no idea her image was recorded and of all the images of her that Tony now had, he liked this one best. She had such a thoughtful look on her face as she stared off into the distance. He figured she'd been thinking about the missing children in Great Britain; the headline on the magazine cover was about them, after all. Rumors were numerous, claiming Lissa helped bring the culprit down, although she'd been across the ocean at the time. He wished she were with him now and wondered where she was, exactly.
All his information said somewhere in Kent, but he couldn't get anywhere close before running into a brick wall of some sort—as if something were strong enough (and determined enough) to keep him out.
"Lissy, I'm sorry, baby," he apologized to the photograph. He'd even stuffed a personal note inside the envelope that held the President's commendation. Either she hadn't read it or she was still so angry with him that she refused to respond in any way. He couldn't blame her, but that didn't keep his heart from nearly seizing in his chest every time he thought about how he'd arranged for her unconscious body to be violated. And the ensuing results of that violation were far from comforting. Six men—top agents—were dying and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. Larry Frazier was on a forced leave of absence. The research biologist was having difficulty dealing with it as well. He'd skipped vital steps in his eagerness to see results with human subjects instead of going through normal procedures and waiting to see if there were any dangerous side effects.
Tony toyed with the idea of contacting Weldon Harper but thought better of it; he might be in enough trouble with the Grand Master as it was. The vampires certainly weren't going to talk to him or allow him to contact Lissa. He was lucky Wlodek hadn't forced his vampires to leave the department. The President was reluctantly advised regarding the status of the Paranormal Division and its potential demise—he'd studied Tony silently, wearing an expression of grim disapproval as he'd listened to the facts regarding the incident. The President was also disturbed over what would happen with the six agents. He hadn't fired Tony—not initially, anyway. Lissa had kept the President, the First Lady, and the Secretary of State alive; now, due to Tony's foolishness, she was beyond his reach. Perhaps forever. Tony sighed, placed the photograph inside his desk drawer and closed it.
* * *
"What if I want to meet her?" Amara watched Griffin's face closely. Amara was Griffin's mate and had been for a very long time.
"You can't. Not now, anyway," Griffin said. "Part of the punishment, you know."