Ethan thought the other immortals might have begun to thaw toward Bastien. Ethan’s eyes slid toward Roland and caught the glower that one sent the immortal black sheep.
Well, some of them had softened toward him. Ethan didn’t think Roland would ever forgive Bastien for kidnapping Sarah and giving her a concussion. And Sarah wasn’t exactly thrilled about Bastien’s having tried to kill Roland more than once. So . . . yeah. Some tension lingered there.
The remaining chairs on Ethan’s side were claimed by Krysta’s brother Sean and his Second Nichole, the British immortal Edward and his Second Desmond, and Aidan and his Second Brodie.
Ethan thought Aidan downright peculiar. Seth had transferred the immortal to North Carolina last year just before the Immortal Guardians’ final showdown with Shadow River. Born around seven or eight hundred BC, the Celt seemed bizarrely entertained by . . . well . . . everything that went on around him. Ethan would swear the man had smiled through every battle in which they’d fought together. Hell, he was smiling now, faintly.
Although every once in a while, Ethan caught a glimpse of weariness in the elder immortal’s eyes. Not physical weariness. More of a world weariness. Perhaps the odd pleasure he exhibited was simply relief at having new challenges to dispel the boredom that doing the same damned thing every night for millennia could generate. Ethan had only been immortal and fought vampires nightly for a hundred years. He couldn’t imagine doing it for nearly three thousand. Alone. No wife. No girlfriend.
Ethan’s thoughts returned to Heather. Damn, he’d hated to leave her tonight. The way they’d met might have been fucked up, but he had really enjoyed her company. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so easily or so often.
Darnell, David’s Second, strolled into the dining room and seated himself in the last remaining chair near the head of the table. David followed. Even had David not stood six foot seven inches tall and had shoulders as broad as Ethan’s, the elder immortal would have commanded attention. Thousands of years old, he fairly oozed power. With skin as dark as midnight, the face of a pharaoh (as Ethan had once heard Sarah describe him), and a mass of pencil-thin dreadlocks that fell to his hips, he had been on the planet long enough to have witnessed biblical events.
David possessed multiple gifts, all of which Ethan would love to possess. David could heal with his hands, shape-shift, read minds, move things telekinetically . . . and he could withstand several hours of exposure to daylight. David was not someone anyone would want to cross. He was unbeatable in battle. And fiercely loyal to his immortal family and the humans who aided them.
David lowered his powerful frame into the chair at the head of the table and greeted them all with smiles. Adira instantly slid off Roland’s lap and began to toddle her way down the table toward him. Immortals smiled over their shoulders as she grasped the backs of their chairs to help her maintain her balance. When she reached David, Adira thrust her arms up toward him.
Smiling, David gathered her against his chest. “Hello, sweetheart. How’s our girl tonight?”
The front door opened. Chris Reordon entered, his crappy leather briefcase clutched in one hand, and swung the door shut behind him. “Evening, everyone,” he said as he joined them and took one of the only two seats left, which would put him at Seth’s elbow when Seth arrived.
Ethan glanced around the table and felt sorrow lodge in his throat. Stanislav and Yuri should be at this table, their Seconds—Alexei and Dmitry—with them. The Russian immortals’ deaths, at the hands of mercenaries, still struck Ethan like a kick in the gut at moments like this when they all gathered together.
Ed had told Ethan that Dmitry and Alexei were both serving as guards down at the network for now, neither yet ready to serve as another immortal’s Second.
David glanced at Zach. “Is Seth still in Mozambique?”
Zach nodded. “Last I heard.”
While Adira stuffed one of David’s dreadlocks into her mouth, David turned his head to one side and closed his eyes. “Seth.” A moment passed. “Yes.” He opened his eyes. “He shall be here shortly. He’s at the network.”
“That is so cool,” Sheldon said, voicing Ethan’s own thoughts.
David smiled.
Once again, Ethan bemoaned the fact that he had been born with such a boring gift. But his bloodline had been diluted so much over the millennia by ordinary human DNA that he was fortunate he had any gift at all.
“Where’s Cliff?” Ami asked. “Won’t he be joining us?”
Several others nodded. Cliff was the only vampire ever to be privy to their meetings. He really had become one of them in recent years.
Chris cleared his throat. “I thought it best that he not be present, considering what we’re going to discuss.”
Seth, the leader of the Immortal Guardians, abruptly appeared beside the chair at the foot of the table. Six foot eight, with long, black hair that reached his waist, he was the wisest and most powerful among them. Seth possessed all of the gifts the others held combined plus some they didn’t.
“I apologize for the delay,” Seth said, seating himself. He smiled at Adira, who grinned back from her perch on David’s lap. “Hello, sweetheart.”
Adira babbled something Ethan couldn’t translate.
Seth nodded to the others. “Shall we begin?”
Chris opened his briefcase and drew out a laptop computer. “Some of you are already aware that there was an incident at the network this morning.”
A few nods.
Krysta glanced around. “We didn’t hear about it. What happened?”
“Shortly after dawn, Cliff suffered a psychotic break,” Chris announced.
Gasps and Oh no’s circulated the table as expressions filled with dread.
“He attacked Dr. Whetsman and did his damnedest to kill him. We had to take Cliff down with a buttload of bullets and tranquilizer darts.”
“Is he okay?” Tanner asked, his brow furrowed. He had served as Bastien’s Second—in a manner of speaking—back when Bastien had raised his vampire army, so Tanner and Cliff had been friends for years.
Melanie addressed the table. “He still hasn’t awoken. It took double the usual dose of the tranquilizer to drop him. And we don’t know what his mental state will be when he finally does wake up.”
Chris opened the laptop. “We had no idea what triggered the break at first. We assumed Whetsman was being his usual self and had just said something assholish. Then Zach read Whetsman’s thoughts and discovered that Whetsman had shot Linda.”
All eyes went to Linda.
“I’m okay,” she assured them. “Zach healed me.” She sent Zach a smile. “Thank you.”
Zach nodded.
Chris set a movie into motion on the laptop’s screen. “This footage was taken from various surveillance cameras on the premises. Here is where Linda confronts Whetsman. He forces her with a concealed weapon to accompany him to his vehicle, then leans in and shoots her, out of sight of the cameras.”
“What the hell?” Sheldon blurted. “Why did Whetsman shoot you?”
“Because I caught him smuggling vials of the sedative out of network headquarters,” Linda answered.
Silence reigned.
The video continued.
“Whetsman went back inside to get the vials he had to leave behind when Linda tried to thwart him,” Chris narrated. “He ran into Cliff—”
“Did Cliff hear Whetsman shoot her?” Sheldon asked.
Chris paused the video. “No. Cliff . . . hasn’t been sleeping well lately.”
Seth leaned forward. “He only sleeps in short snatches. His dreams are often so violent they wake him up, and . . . he hears voices now.”
“Shit,” Tanner murmured.
Chris nodded. “When it’s bad, he wanders the halls, looking for a distraction. It appears he had just awoken from one of his nightmares and was walking it off when he ran into Whetsman.” Chris set the video into motion once more. “We think Cliff may have smell
ed Linda’s blood or fear on Whetsman and . . .”
Cliff’s eyes flashed amber as he suddenly tore into Whetsman, shaking him like an animal would a chew toy. Chaos erupted onscreen as the guards fired their weapons, hitting the young vampire with enough bullets to make him drop the doctor. Which only seemed to piss Cliff off more. When the doctor ran, Cliff plowed through the guards, followed him upstairs, and caught him just before he reached the front door.
Damn. He messed Whetsman up before blood loss and the tranquilizer finally took him down.
Seth leaned back in his chair. “It appears Cliff has solved a mystery for us. We’ve wondered for some time now how Shadow River got their hands on the sedative they used against us. How they knew they needed to up the dosage in order to totally and instantly incapacitate one of us on the battlefield. Well, according to what Zach and I saw in his thoughts, Whetsman gave it to them.”
“Why, for fuck’s sake?” Bastien demanded.
“For money, no doubt,” Roland pronounced with a scowl.
“Actually,” Seth corrected, “he did it at Gershom’s bidding.”
The quiet that enshrouded them then grew so heavy that even little Adira seemed to feel it. Her face sobering, she leaned into David’s chest and stuck two fingers in her mouth.
When no one else spoke, Ethan said, “What?”
“Whetsman’s mind is a mess,” Seth told them. “His brain is riddled with scar tissue where large portions of his memory have been erased.”
“Erased?” Ethan asked for clarification’s sake. “Or buried?”
Seth and David had told them that they preferred to bury memories when necessary because erasing them completely could cause brain damage.
“Erased,” Seth confirmed. “As you know, we identified Gershom as the Other who is hell-bent on sparking Armageddon. Matching me and Zach in age, Gershom is capable of mind control, of planting instructions in one’s subconscious, impulses one would be helpless to deny. And he has apparently been doing such with Whetsman for over a year now, essentially making Whetsman his puppet.”
“Shhhhhit,” Sheldon whispered.
Melanie nodded. “I didn’t notice anything different in his behavior. Nothing at all.”
“I didn’t either,” Linda said. “If I hadn’t actually seen him with the vials of sedative, I never would’ve guessed anything was up.”
Seth sighed. “That’s how mind control works when implemented by an elder.”
Lisette looked from Seth to Zach. “If Gershom wanted the sedative, why didn’t he just pop in and take it himself? He certainly has the power to do it. Why involve Whetsman?”
“We don’t know,” Seth admitted.
“Plausible deniability?” Zach suggested. “He’s already attempted to lay the blame for his actions at my feet once. Perhaps he thinks if he avoids being captured on surveillance video that he can still make that claim.”
Aidan cleared his throat. “If he were to erase the guards’ memories of his presence in the network, none would remember seeing him so none would have any reason to look at the video footage again. No one would even know they had caught him on tape.”
Chris shook his head. “Erasing the guards’ memories wouldn’t have kept us from seeing him in the surveillance footage. Certain events,” he said with a distinct edge in his voice as he sent Aidan a cutting look, “drove me to enhance network security. So video surveillance footage isn’t just monitored twenty-four seven by the guards on duty at network headquarters. It is also streamed live to guards on duty at two undisclosed locations, many miles away. Unless Gershom can be in three places at once to wipe the other guards’ memories at the same time, those guards will alert us to the Other’s presence in our midst if the special alarms I had installed to detect preternatural motion don’t warn us first.”
Damn. Chris really did think of everything, didn’t he?
Roland’s scowl deepened. “If he uses the mortals at the network to do his bidding for him, then any one of the network employees could potentially betray us.”
Ethan waited for Chris to explode with anger as he usually did when the dedication of his employees was questioned. But he didn’t.
Chris sighed. “I can only protect you from what I can see. I can’t see someone fucking with my employees’ brains and turning them into puppets. I don’t know how to combat that.”
David cuddled Adira closer, rocking a bit from side to side. “Seth, Zach, Aidan, and I will have to take turns scanning network employees’ minds for any anomalies.”
“Not Aidan,” Chris declared. “Lisette and Étienne can help you instead.”
David shook his head. “Younger telepaths wouldn’t know what to look for.”
“Then bring in another elder,” Chris snapped, “because I don’t trust Aidan.”
Ethan examined all involved. Why didn’t Chris trust Aidan? Was it because Aidan was still new to the team in North Carolina? Or had something happened? Seth and David shared a long look. Ethan was pretty sure they were consulting each other telepathically. He’d been around Lisette and her brothers enough to recognize the signs.
Seth turned to Chris. “For now, we’ll accede to your wishes. David, Zach, and I will scan the minds of your employees.”
“And Seconds,” Roland added.
All of the Seconds at the table frowned.
“We don’t know what Gershom’s plan is,” Roland continued, “so we don’t know how he might try to fuck with us next.”
“I agree,” Zach said.
Seth nodded. “So be it. I’m sorry, Seconds, but after what happened with Whetsman, we can’t take any chances.”
“Okay,” Sheldon said, face somber, then tapped his temple with one finger. “But I gotta warn you, you’re gonna see a lot of porn up there.”
Tracy laughed and jabbed her elbow into his side. “Freak.”
Grinning, Sheldon clutched his abused ribs. “Seriously, though, I’d rather you guys read my thoughts however often you need to than end up being some asshole’s puppet. It would kill me to find out I had betrayed you while under someone else’s control. So . . . scan away.”
The other Seconds reluctantly nodded.
Zach glanced at Seth and David. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not be the one who scans Sheldon’s mind. Who knows what you’ll find up there.”
Ethan and the others laughed.
“There’s one question,” Roland commented as the chuckles died, “that we’ve failed to ask tonight.”
“What’s that?” Marcus asked.
Roland’s gaze circulated the table. “We defeated Shadow River a year ago. Why is Whetsman still stealing the sedative?”
None could answer that one.
Chapter Seven
Heather stared at the television but, if asked, wouldn’t have been able to say what show she watched. Or didn’t watch, as the case may be.
Two weeks had passed since she had helped Ethan defeat those vampires in the clearing. Two weeks since she had found herself thoroughly enchanted by the powerful immortal who, like her, had always been different.
Ethan hadn’t called once. Hadn’t returned to check on her. He had, it seemed, walked out of her life without a single glance back.
How crazy was it that she felt so . . . heartbroken?
No. That was a bit much. But disappointed didn’t quite cover it.
Heather had gone on with her life as usual. She’d been called in to observe a few interrogations by local law enforcement. She’d also given a lecture at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. Those were always fun. Her student and faculty audience always began by viewing her with a healthy dose of skepticism, if not outright mockery, and left with wide eyes and faces that were either flushed with embarrassment when she demonstrated her so-called FACS knowledge by revealing their lies or with faces wreathed in impressed smiles.
Through it all, she had been unable to stop thinking about Ethan. About his handsome face. His teasing grin. Ab
out the laughter they had shared and the kisses that had heated her blood. About . . .
Her gaze slid to the clock on the wall.
About the dreams.
Not the dreams that had plagued her for a year, but the new dreams that had been haunting her ever since she had watched Ethan get in his snazzy car and drive away.
10:47 p.m.
Her stomach tightened into a knot.
Reaching for the remote, she muted the television.
No vampires had come looking for her. Ethan must have been right about the rain washing away the scents of blood and battle. Life had been depressingly mundane.
When she was awake.
Gravel crunched in the driveway.
Leaning forward, Heather lowered her feet to the floor, sat up straighter, and curled her fingers around the grip of the 9mm on the coffee table.
A car door opened. Shut.
Again she consulted the clock.
10:49.
Damn it. Please be wrong, she silently implored.
Ethan stared at the front of Heather’s comfy little home. Though warm light shone behind the curtains, he heard no movement inside, no television droning, no flip of a page that would indicate Heather read a book or a magazine.
Was she asleep? Curled up in bed with the covers tucked beneath her chin, her slender body encased in a barely there nightgown?
He checked his watch.
10:49 p.m. Early for him. But mortals tended to keep different hours. He didn’t know how often or how early Heather got called in to advise or observe interrogations.
Was this too late to call?
He wiped his hands on his pants. I can’t believe my palms are sweating. What the hell am I doing?
Calling himself six kinds of a fool, he collected the items he’d set on the roof of the car and strode up the wooden stairs. Bending, he set the goods to one side, out of her line of sight. Then, taking a deep, bracing breath, he knocked on the door.
Sneaker-clad feet carried Heather to the door.
Shadows Strike Page 11
