Rituals

The things I dealt with trying to set shit up to happen to my brother so my ship would become real.It really was tiresome asking Nick the goddamned Reaper to just convinently drop past and keep Bryan as busy at least for a bit, while I checked out a hunch.Amir had asked me to keep an eye on Clayton considering the demon had started acting a bit shifty when Amir had mentioned that he was going to send the lot of them East Coast to look for Leila.See, I had the exact opposite opinion of Jacky.While Jacky thought that letting Amir know that Colt had been right under his nose the whole time and getting that to bring Craig back to fully focusing, I knew damned well that in order to make everything happy and perky, we'd have to get Leila back first.The fact that Craig had managed to find the reminants of a bear trap wasn't surprising.Most of the time it was a tool amongst wolves used to measure the strength and I'm sure Leila would be even stronger than a normal wolf considering she had vampire blood running through her veins.

If it wasn't for Clayton's shiftyness, I wouldn't be here at all, creeping along the alleyway in the darker side of Atlantic City, a city like New York, Los Angeles and Vegas that never slept and was always running.I felt right at home creeping here, considering this was what I spent most of my time doing Kira's bidding and occasionally Amir's since he was her second in command, but mostly, I went in creeping around to gather information with as minimal need to use strength as possible.Despite being a Chinchilla, which was relatively harmless and probably at least a bit of why I was left alone, I could actually fight.When I'd met Colt when I was fifteen, her first reaction was to train me and my brother both to be the strongest fighters and know how to take down every single type of anything that came near us.If it weren't for her, I'm pretty sure most of my life would've gone down the drain.I loved her for saving me from the Reaper known as The Ripper, who'd gone a little bit mad from Reaping the remains of the Vigiti Tres complex in Vegas.Reapers were known to go a bit mad if someone they cared about died and that was probably their biggest flaw, but the Ripper was rather stable these days after certain things happened that Colt set in motion that night.While everyone assumed that it was Bryan who she was sleeping with, it was me who held her tight at night while he just fucked her when he needed it.Me who worshipped her for being strong for defending me and saving my life.I owed her so much for saving me multiple times when I was younger and somehow, I'd just fallen hard.It wasn't the bond most felt for their mate, but I knew well enough that when I found my mate, I'd be torn between her and the person I was meant for.TJ and Lexus were both lucky enough to have been born vampires and not have to deal with the mating thing and could freely chose who they wanted and it had nearly killed Colt when her mate, their father died.She was so strong and no one thought she'd find another mate until she'd gone to Kira and asked for Kira to let her take care of one of Kira's fledlings until he got his strength situated.Apparently, Amir would never remember it for years to come and just feel like a piece of him was missing.I'd been there the night when they'd finally came across each other again about eight years ago and the whole room just smelt in a smell I can't even discribe, the same smell I'd smelt when I'd walked into Takedown the one night when both Max and my brother were together.The smell didn't go away until a few days later and the whole house stunk of it and it happened the next time when we saw Max in public.How Bryan missed the smell for the past threeish years is beyond me, even Colt caught onto it.

I crept as quietly as I could through the alleyways, trailing Clayton as far back as I could without having to imploy some technology I'd snuck out of Nick's room when I'd went to go talk to him.Bad enough I was pretty sure he'd realize the tracking dots were missing but the night vision goggle contacts would be pretty hard to explain.I'd only snuck it out for reassureance and the contacts were bugging my eyes already.Clayton every single night at dusk would venture off under what everyone else assumed was information gathering sprees, but because of Amir's forewarning, I knew it had to be something else.I'd been around Amir and Colt long enough to know that when one had a gut instinct about something, they usually were right.They were so in tune that it wasn't funny at all.In the six years I'd seen them around each other, they were so in tune and I could only hope that my brother and Max became like that.

Now the building he went into was known for dark deals and shady shit.It wasn't surprising but what was surprising was how my nose detected Leila's scent as clearly as I would smell a pile of greens or how I could identify different types of dirt.I wasn't even in the building and I smelt it.
I darted into an alcove along the alleyway when I realized that someone in the building was coming out with something.Peeking as far around as I could without poking my head out, I saw a small form with striking natural blond hair being pulled along by Clayton, kicking and punching as much as her small form could.He told her to stay put and turned around and her eyes fell on where I was hiding and I knew she could see me.There was no doubt this was Leila by the knowing grin she sent me when I pressed my finger to my lips so she didn't say anything.Her grin matched one Craig usually made when he knew something was up and he was one of the few privy to that information.I so bad wanted to scoop her up and run and return her to Craig's side but despite my natural fighting ability plus the fact that I carried a gun under each arm and a few mags hanging on my belt, I still wasn't sure how many I would have to fight to get her out of there.Her head cocked to the side as if wondering why I wasn't making any effort to try to get her and my decision was made for me.I raised both of my guns and whipped around the side of the alcove, poised and ready.It was surprisingly quiet and no one was there as I walked sideways towars Leila, my ears open wide for anything.

"About time you found me, Michael Money." I cringed as she put her hands on her hips and I could just tell she was related to Colt. "I've been waiting for ages.You guys sure took your sweet time." Her mother's tongue too.

"Blame your Aunt, Leila.She took her time, I'm just here because there's a certain vampire who really really wants his wife back and refuses to tell her that point blank." I holstered one gun and motioned for her to grab my now free hand. "Let's see how much I can stir up by taking you now.Your father will be happy and well, I'm pretty sure we'll end up still staying here for a while though since I'm sure there'll be someone hunting after you and we'll have to protect you."

"Oh, of course, they'll be after me, Mikey.They think I'm the key to something.A child of neither vampire nor were, a child of both cultures." Well there went the fact that she was related to Lexus and TJ both. "Can we run, Mikey?I want to see the pretty lights of the street."

"Yes, Leila, we can run." I hoisted her up onto my hip to carry her and quickly holstered my other gun and started sprinting.Who knew a child could have fun while being carried while running?I just hoped no one realized that I had her or else I'd be in deep shit.