Loved (House of Night Other World #1)(71)

None of them worked. There was no sign that there had ever been trapdoors leading from street level to the tunnels.

There was a lot about Tulsa itself that was wrong—even though the city slept under a whiteout blizzard.

Festive garlands wrapped with lights decorated the downtown streets, swaying in the wind as if they were dancing with glee at being there—at being allowed there.

In Heff’s Tulsa, humans were no longer allowed to decorate the streets for Christmas. Neferet had declared that holiday obsolete.

And now human police officers—humans—made their presence very obvious outside the entrances to several buildings that provided tunnel sanctuaries beneath them. It was the second-oddest thing Heff had ever seen.

The first was his sister—alive and well and a fully Changed vampyre—closing the circle that had drawn them to this upside-down world. He tried to compartmentalize his confusion and his hope. Tried to use the mental tricks that had helped him stay sane during the past year, but like this world, his emotions were turned upside down.

“With me, Lieutenant,” General Dominick snapped as he brushed past Heff.

“Yes, sir.” Heff followed the general through the rubble and remains left by the homeless who had the poor luck to have chosen to pull apart one of the boarded up windows of the abandoned Sinclair Building to try to weather the storm. The general had ordered his vampyres to break into the building so that they could regroup. The homeless within? They had been what the general called “before-bedtime snacks.”

“Nothing is right.” General Dominick rubbed his hands together and braced himself against the wind and snow as they closed the plywood opening to the broken window. The two of them stayed close to the side of the building—taking refuge from the blizzard, as well as concealment from roving humans. “This is not our world. It cannot be.”

Heff said nothing. He knew better than to call too much attention to himself or to accidentally provoke the general.

“Sunrise is close. Too close.”

“Thirty minutes,” Heff said.

Dominick’s red gaze blazed at him. “I know that as well as you do!” The general turned his attention back to the snow-covered street. “I still see no one outside the Philtower, and there is no movement by the Atlas Building, either. Even with this snow covering the sun, we can’t take a chance at staying above ground.”

“But this building’s obviously been abandoned for awhile. There are public auction flyers posted that it’s selling next month. With this snow, I don’t think anyone except the homeless will be coming in here, and not even them if we barricade that loose board.”

The general didn’t answer with words. Instead he backhanded Heff. The force hurled him against the side of the building, his ears ringing as his head smacked a crumbling limestone pillar.

“It’s not your job to think. Take the fledglings and a squad of the vampyres. Go to the Philtower tunnels. I’ll take the rest of the vampyres to the Atlas Building. After sunset we meet here and decide how to find Neferet and get our orders. Now.”

“Yes, sir,” Heff repeated, rubbing the back of his head. He kept a tight rein on his emotions. He’d learned this lesson well. Draw no attention. Do as I’m told. And hold on. Always try to hold on to who I am. I am Kevin Heffer. I am surrounded by monsters, but they do not define me.

Heff did as he was told.

Their evacuation of the abandoned building was fast and efficient. No one had to tell any of them how close it was until sunrise. Like shadows within shadows, they slipped soundlessly from the Sinclair Building. Heff brought up the rear of his squad of ten adult vampyres and almost the same number of fledglings. He paused, waiting for the general to move far enough down the street with his soldiers that the blowing snow obscured his sight. Then he carefully repositioned the plywood barrier, using a broken piece of tile he’d found within to quickly pound the nails into place, securing it as if it had never been breached.

I might need this later, and that is something Dominick doesn’t need to know.

He caught up with the fledglings easily. They were already becoming sluggish and were almost sleepwalking when they came to the ornate entrance to the Philtower lobby.

“Stay here until I whistle. Then, come to me quickly,” Heff told his group, leaving them huddled together in the darkness just outside the arched entrance.

He sprinted to the double doors and slipped within.

He saw little differences between this Philtower and the one that housed Neferet. But those little differences were significant. There were no red Warriors stationed at the entrance and the elevators. There were no blue Warriors marching in to relieve them. There were no Warriors present at all. The lobby was completely deserted.

It was still ornate, with Gothic arches and huge light fixtures. But this Philtower had clusters of expensively upholstered circular seating arrangements, and the fixtures bathed the Gothic carving with a soft, rose-tinted electric light.

Neferet’s Philtower had no seating arrangements. And she had replaced the electric lights with flickering gaslights.

Though the flesh on the back of his neck prickled with a sense of unease, Heff jogged to the door that opened to plain, industrial-looking stairs leading down to a basement that housed the tunnels. The thick double metal doors were the same, only they were closed and barred, though it was easy enough for Heff to open them.