So You Used to Be Human - Book 3 (Original Version)

Interlude: Safehouse

Claude had control of the entire house from where he sat. Or rather he would have control if he knew the password to type into the computer terminal in front of him. Beatrice hadn't bothered to leave any handy post-it notes with her passwords written down just for him to find, so that was a bummer. It was always so nice when you encountered extremely helpful people who practically handed you the keys to their houses, their cars and their entire fortunes on a silver platter. It would have been nice and rather telling of Beatrice's character if she had been one of those people. It would have given him some hope of actually making it out of this so-called vault in one piece.

Careful examination of the space had revealed that while it was designed to be a safe room it was, in fact, more in line with being an actual bunker. Like the "survive a nuclear winter in" kind of bunker. However, it was the best stocked and most comfortable nuclear-winter bunker Claude had ever had the pleasure to be stuck in. Seeing as it was the first one he was stuck in and not passing through, he considered this to be a temporary perk.

Typical for a vampire to have installed an impenetrable metal can inside her apartment. The thing is, she was probably meant to be the one inside ready to wait out any attackers since there was no way anybody was going to be getting through the front door.

Oh, that reminded him...

"That's never going to work you know," he said into the microphone in front of him, while watching the monitor. "The locking system is designed to withstand these kinds of attacks. That's why you needed me to crack it in the first place."

Nick and Nora both looked up at the camera, irritation flashing across their faces. Nick had wheeled in a couple of high-pressure gas tanks and was struggling to light the torch that was attached.

"You just don't want us to get in there, so you'd tell us anything to stop us trying!" Nick yelled at the camera.

"Is he always this stupid, or does he have to practice?" Claude asked. He cracked open one of Beatrice's very expensive Trappist ales and poured himself a glass. Might as well get comfortable while he waged his psychological campaign on the two idiots outside. Beatrice had taken off ten minutes ago and had left them to their own devices, but Claude seriously wondered if that had been a huge mistake on her part. There might not be a house to come back to if the two idiots outside the bunker had their way.

"When we get this door open, you're going to regret every single word."

Claude glanced at the wall of assorted weaponry that Beatrice had stockpiled over the years and smirked knowingly. The collection of knives from all cultures was impressive by itself but add to that the selection of auto and semi-automatic firearms and the term zombie apocalypse came immediately to mind. Come to think of it, vampire apocalypse or just random vampire attack would be more fitting. It had only been a guess when he had ducked inside to escape Beatrice, a move designed to buy him more time, but it seemed that Claude was in the safest place on earth: a vampire-proof bunker built by a vampire. A very paranoid and gun-happy vampire who was ready to go Rambo on any vampire within shooting distance.

And these two idiots outside didn't have a clue.

"I'm sorry," Clade said. "I couldn't hear you over the idiot talking."

"I said—"

"Wait, there it is again!"

"You think—"

"And there!"

Nora's eyes narrowed to slits, and she stopped talking, her rage almost boiling over, but she kept it in check somehow. Somehow.

"When Beatrice gets back, she's going to rip this door off and then she's going to tear you to pieces, and we're just going to watch and laugh."

With that, Nora raised the gun to the camera. BLAM! A burst of static and a distant scream from one of the other monitors as the camera went dead. Claude just rolled his eyes and switched over to one of the other cameras. Nick was currently yelling at Nora and holding his ears, the recoil of the gunfire in the closed area a little too much for him. Nora was also clutching her ears, completely regretting shooting out the camera.