"Well, hell, let's take Bill, too," I drawled sarcastically. Some days, you should just keep your mouth shut. I hadn't learned that lesson, I guess. We shoved our bags into our sixth-floor room, made sure there wasn't any light that could get through and fry vampires and then every stinking one of them, including Roff, lined up so they could go with me as mist. It's a damn good thing they don't weigh anything when I haul them around like that. That's how Bill, Winkler, René, Tony, Gavin and Roff all ended up as passengers when we found the hole in the air duct.
The air duct was located over the hotel ballroom, with a large square cut out of it so somebody could crawl through and get to a nearby vent. It wouldn't be difficult to remove the vent cover and open fire on the ballroom below.
I also imagined that the hole had been cut with a vampire's claws. More compulsion had been used to accomplish that, I was sure. Security was too tight around the hotel for it to be anything else. I smelled the vampire that had been there, sure enough. It was somebody new—I hadn't scented this one before. The only other smell was that of a rat or something. I guess those things can get in anywhere.
Put us down, I want to examine this! Tony demanded. I sent blanket mindspeech back so anybody who could hear me would.
No! They'll come back and scent us! We'll be here tomorrow night, waiting as mist and see what they're about to do! Doofus! I misted right through floors and everything to get us out of there. The couple making love didn't even notice as I blazed right through their bed.
"They'd really scent us?" Bill asked just as soon as he'd become solid again inside our hotel room.
"Duh," I said. "I'd sure as hell smell it if somebody else was there. We don't need to muddy the scene; we just need to be back there tomorrow, waiting on them."
"In the meantime, I still want to check out the rest of the hotel," Tony had his arms crossed over his chest. He was angry, Gavin was angry, René was angry on his vampire child's behalf and Roff was acting a bit sullen. Bill's only goal was to check the entire hotel for threats against the Vice President; Winkler had a smirk on his face—he was enjoying himself. The schmuck.
"Fine. Let's go through the whole damn thing, floor by floor," I snapped and gathered them all up as mist again. We did. We went through the entire hotel, floor-by-floor, room-by-room (the couple on the fourth floor was still at it) but didn't get the slightest scent of vampire. I didn't get a whiff of Rahim, either. He was staying away until he could pull off whatever he was planning, I'm sure.
"That was a bust," I snipped when we all dropped inside our hotel room again.
"I want to be there in the vent, waiting on them," Tony demanded.
"Tony," I held my head—I swear I felt a headache coming on—"you need to be downstairs in the ballroom. You can send mindspeech to me if you need to. I think Gavin or René should be with me; they can help slice up whoever is going to be inside the duct. This way, I can come quickly if there's a problem on the first floor."
"That would be my choice," Bill agreed. "I can hear Lissa's mindspeech when she sends it to me; I just can't send anything back."
Bill, I sent, wake me up after the vampires go to sleep. I need to be up during the day, I think. Bill nodded slightly to let me know he'd heard. Winkler and Roff might have a fit, but they were going to have to live with this. I knew what Rahim smelled like—I'd matched the scent from a house in Georgia with that from a hotel room in Paris. His ass was grass if I ever caught up with him, and I sure as hell wanted to know if he were planning to come in during the day. The only person I wanted to get my claws into worse than Rahim Alif was his best buddy vampire, Xenides.
* * *
"I don't understand how you're doing this," Bill was walking with me down the hall toward the elevator. I'd left Gavin sleeping the sleep of the dead in our hotel room. René and Tony were just as unconscious in the room next door. I'd told Roff to stay with all of them and make sure they were safe. He'd given me a wide-eyed stare and nodded. Yeah, he might be in trouble if Gavin woke up and found out I hadn't slept any.
"Can we get coffee, tea, or undiluted caffeine?" I rubbed my eyes as we loaded onto the elevator. Winkler was supposed to meet up with Bill downstairs. He was about to get a surprise. "Winkler, don't even say it," I held up a hand before he could get the words out as Bill and I stepped off the elevator. "Our friend isn't—well—you know. He could be here at any time and we wouldn't know it. Therefore, I'm staying awake, just in case. Now, give me coffee and shut the hell up." Winkler shut the hell up and went to order a tall cappuccino for me at a coffee shop inside the hotel.
The caffeine had some sort of effect, I think. I was wide-awake after a while. Winkler and I hung around the front door of the hotel while Bill went to meet with some of his agents at the back. I knew he had agents scattered through the lobby, but I didn't try to pick them out. I knew the one I waited for. Winkler was reading the Wall Street Journal while we waited; I'm glad he was making sense out of all that. My eyes crossed just thinking about it. Merrill read it, too—online, of course.
If I'd been depending on my eyesight to pick him out, I'd never have spotted him. He couldn't mask his scent, though, even with expensive cologne. Rahim Alif strolled into the hotel lobby dressed like a college student. He wore a T-shirt and cargo shorts—it was hot in Chicago the first part of September. Flip-flops, a baseball cap and a backpack slung over his shoulder rounded out his outfit. I elbowed Winkler as Rahim walked past us, on his way to the front desk. None of Bill's agents had a clue.
I listened carefully as the hotel desk clerk looked up his reservation. Rahim had booked a room under the name Raymond Andreadis. Rahim was passing for Greek. He was given a room on the eighth floor and was already walking toward the elevator when I sent mindspeech to both Winkler and Bill.
Bill, if you'll give me a couple minutes, I'll have him at the back door for you, I sent and ran to catch the elevator with Rahim. He nodded politely to me as I punched the button for the ninth floor. He stepped off on the eighth floor as planned and the minute the door closed again to take me to the ninth floor, I was mist and trailing behind Rahim. I floated over his head while he slipped a key card in the slot, walked into his room and shut the door.
He wasn't tall; maybe five-eight or nine and I nabbed him, turning him to mist before he could set his backpack down. I didn't know what was in it and didn't want to wait around to find out. The Vice President was supposed to be in the building soon; he had the presidential suite booked on the top floor. I'm sure he smiled every time somebody gave him the presidential suite, too.