Page 73 of Flesh and Fury
“Uh…yeah, I slept fine.” He sat up and looked around. They were driving down what looked like the main drag of a town. Several cars were on the road, but the traffic wasn’t thick. “Where are we?”
“Flagstaff, Brown. You’ve been asleep for the last three hours,” she replied.
“You fell asleep a little after we left,” Eoghan said, twisting around and meeting his eyes.
“I was asleep when you traded places,” Ari stated the obvious. He felt a little hungover even though he’d slept all day and now these stolen hours. His nights and days were all mixed up after only one day. “Why did we stop?”
Priest pointed to the big rig in front of them. “The vamps needed to fill up, so I did too,” she said. “We made good time, considering the semi is slower than a car. I need to give their driver a pat on the back. I wouldn’t have gone as fast as he did, considering he’s literally transporting living cargo.”
“Dead cargo, boss,” Eoghan said with a tiny chuckle.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “I think your shifter friends might agree with you, though.”
“Speaking of which…have you heard from the others?” Ari asked.
“Eoghan’s been monitoring my phone messages.”
“So far, Walters and Garcia arrived at Santa Fe and Albuquerque last evening,” Eoghan said. “Juan says he and Edward already have plans in place and will be ready to move by midnight, less than twenty-three hours now. Vance Rosssays his clan has arrived in Tucson and they’ll be ready to move on time as well.”
“Red Crow and Rana?” Ari asked.
“They’ve been in Phoenix since early morning yesterday,” Eoghan replied. “Rana says she’ll make sure they’re in place and ready to move by midnight. All of them are scoping out the synthetic blood plants where Tillis Bradshaw has his base of operations to find the best way in.”
“I have every confidence we chose the right partners for this mission,” Priest said.
He was glad she trusted them the way he and Eoghan did. “That’s good,” he replied. “And I guess that leaves our guys. Have you heard from them?”
“Yes. Severin and Invictus have been here in Flagstaff since noon yesterday,” the chief replied.
“Yeah, they texted her two words…arrived…noon,” Eoghan said with a laugh.
“They’re men of few words for sure,” Ari said with a chuckle. “What about Joe—”
“—and Alo?” Eoghan interrupted. “Yeah, I was getting to that. They called while we were at the gas station and told the chief…well, you tell him.”
“They have a plan,” she said.
“Already?” Ari asked, a little astonished.
“Yes, and it sounds like a good one,” she replied. “Apparently, the blood plant is located right off Highway Forty, butting up against the very western boundary of the Navajo reservation. King John’s reservation is immediately beside it. When Roosevelt set up the Agency and formed the shifter and vampire reservations, they were often in proximity to a human reservation.”
“Yes, I did know that,” Ari replied.
“Well did you realize that Arizona has more reservation lands than any other state in the nation?” Eoghan asked.
“I actually did know that,” Ari said, smiling. “In addition to the Navajo Nation, Arizona has Hopi, Apache, Gila River, and Hualapai tribes among others. Twenty-two federally recognized tribes.”
“How’d you know that?” the chief asked, looking at him in the rearview mirror.
“Books.”
“Books?”
“Yeah, books. Things like that fascinate me,” he said.
She nodded, offering him a little smile.
He smiled back, and looked at Eoghan who was watching him with nothing less than pride in his expression. “So, what else did Joe say?”