“I was healing an immortal in Sudan whose hand had been severed. Where were you?” David countered. “I believe Bastien attempted to follow protocol when he arrived at network headquarters and was refused entrance.”
“I didn’t think he should be allowed contact with the vampires unattended. Not after what had happened with Marcus and Ami.”
“A thirty-second phone call would have netted him an escort if safety concerns had been your true motivation. Instead you allowed bias to govern your actions.” David’s mahogany gaze skimmed everyone present. “Should any of you share Chris’s suspicions, rest assured Sebastien had nothing to do with the current uprising. Seth and I have both examined his thoughts.”
“Even those he intentionally blocks?” Chris asked.
Some immortals, Ami knew, were strong enough to hide their thoughts from all but the most powerful telepaths. Or there were those like Richart who, having spent all of his life in the presence of a telepathic brother and telepathic sister, had learned over time to erect unusually strong barriers in his mind.
“Even those,” David confirmed.
When Chris retreated into belligerent silence, David smiled. “Need proof? Very well. You may be pissed about Sebastien’s encroaching upon your domain and injuring your men. Your pride may be hurt because you thought the network impregnable, yet were unable to halt his incursion. But you do not condemn him for slaying Vincent because deep down you believe it was an act of mercy, and you are relieved that the young vampire will no longer suffer.”
All eyes focused on Bastien and Chris. Both wore matching scowls.
Had Bastien killed the young vampire at the vamp’s request? Ami alone knew how he fretted over them, despising himself for not being able to help them. He let no others see that side of himself.
Seth leaned forward. “All right. No more objections to Sebastien’s presence. This matter concerns him, and he has information that may benefit us.”
Across from her, Roland opened his mouth to make what surely would have been a caustic rebuttal, but emitted only a grunt as a thud sounded beneath the table. The curmudgeonly warrior shot his wife a reproving look that softened into a smile when she winked impishly.
Ami clamped her lips together to keep from laughing.
Darnell entered, holding a cell phone to his ear. “Okay. Thanks.” He lowered the phone, his gaze seeking Seth’s. “We have confirmation.”
Seth nodded. Ami silently applauded Darnell when he seated himself beside Bastien.
Chris handed him a folder.
“Some new intel has come to light,” Seth announced. “We all assumed this new uprising was being led by a vampire Roy referred to as their king. We now have reason to believe otherwise.”
“Don’t tell me it’s another immortal!” Richart blurted out.
“No,” Seth assured him. “It isn’t an immortal. It’s a human.”
Darnell nodded. “Dr. Montrose Keegan, the scientist who worked with Bastien, is back in town. We were alerted to the possibility by a substantial withdrawal made from his bank account, which has been inactive since he vanished after Bastien’s ... um—”
“Sound defeat?” Roland drawled helpfully.
“Roland,” Seth spoke softly, “don’t provoke.”
Darnell cleared his throat. “I was going to say change of circumstances. Anyway, we’ve confirmed that Montrose himself withdrew the money. Neither his card nor his identity were stolen. We even have surveillance footage of him entering the bank.”
Lisette pursed her lips. “An interesting coincidence.” She looked to Seth. “Do you think he is the vampires’ leader?”
“It seems a logical conclusion,” he said.
“Bullshit,” Bastien scoffed. “Montrose may have brains, but courage? Not an ounce. He’s as cowardly as they come and wouldn’t have the bollocks needed to lead a dozen vampires, let alone what is beginning to look like an army of hundreds.”
“Are you sure?” Seth asked.
“Absolutely. To lead vampires, you have to interact with them personally. They won’t take orders from someone they never see. And if they don’t fear you, they won’t follow you. Vampires don’t fear humans. Montrose never came to the farmhouse, never dealt with anyone face-to-face other than his brother Casey and me. He was terrified of vampires, too timid to even ask me for a blood sample, and I was the sanest of the lot. Instead he just ran his tests on his brother, content to remain hidden in his basement laboratory. And there were times he even feared Casey.”
Marcus leaned forward. “Are you saying you think he’s not involved?”
“Not at all. I’m saying he isn’t the ringleader. Their so-called king must truly be a vampire, though I don’t know how Montrose hooked up with him. Or why. Casey is dead. Montrose can’t help him and has lost that motivation.”
Ami considered the likely options. “Maybe the vampires heard about him and enlisted his aid to find a cure.”
Bastien shrugged. “It’s possible.”
Sarah leaned forward so she could look past the others and meet Bastien’s gaze. “Could he be seeking revenge?”
Bastien tilted his head to one side, considering her idea. “Against the immortals? For killing Casey in the final battle?”
“No, against you. If rumor has reached him that you’ve switched sides ... he may blame you for his brother’s death. Maybe he thinks you sold the others out and handed Casey over to his killers.”
Ami looked up at Marcus. “Roy did ask for Bastien personally.”
Bastien sat up straighter. “He did?” His gaze went to Seth, then David. “You didn’t tell me that.”
Chris motioned to the file David had given Bastien. “It’s all there in the file.”
Irritation flickered across Bastien’s handsome features as his eyes began to glow. “I haven’t had a chance to read the damned file. It was just handed to me.” He met Ami’s gaze. “What happened? What did he say?”
Ami told him.
“He wants my help?”
Though Bastien’s face was impassive, Ami saw the pain beneath the surface. He wanted desperately to trust the vampires and take their desire to seek a cure at face value, having lived among them for so long. But he had been badly deceived.
“So he claimed,” she cautioned.
“Roy’s lying,” Roland remarked. “It’s a trap.”
“I agree,” Darnell inserted. “Roy asked for Roland, Sarah, and Bastien—the only three immortals with whom Montrose is familiar—the night before Montrose Keegan resurfaced. That can’t be a coincidence.”
Marcus settled a hand on Ami’s thigh. “He thinks Sarah is still human, that she’s Roland’s Second.”
“That will work to our advantage,” Sarah pointed out. “They won’t be anticipating my strength and speed.”
Étienne inspected her from the corner of his eye, a sly smile stealing across his face. “Are you sure I can’t talk you into leaving this old sod and running away with me? I do so love strong women.”
Roland’s jaw twitched. “She’s strong enough to kick your ass if you don’t stop hitting on her.”
The sly smile became a grin full of amusement. “As long as she spanks me first.”
Roland’s eyes flashed bright amber. Étienne’s chair suddenly flew out from under him, dropping him to the floor in an ignominious heap.
His siblings exploded with laughter.
French epithets flew from his lips. “I was just joking!”
“Not about this you don’t,” Roland warned.
Seth exchanged a resigned stare with David. “What has gotten into them tonight?”
David shrugged. “Too much sugar?”
His dignity ruffled, Étienne rose, retrieved his chair, and took a seat.
“Sebastien,” Seth asked, “what are the chances Montrose will be present at this meeting?”
“None.”
“Then here’s what we’ll do. Roland will pose as you—”
“I’m goi
ng,” Bastien stated.
“No, you aren’t. You’re too great a distraction. The others don’t trust you and, if this is a trap, can’t afford to watch you and whatever Roy and his vampire king will throw at them at the same time. As I said, Roland will pose as you, and Marcus and Ami will continue to impersonate Roland and Sarah.” He looked at Marcus. “David and I will accompany you and linger downwind in the shadows, ready to come to your aid should you need us. The five of us should have no difficulty foiling whatever their battle plan is. Sarah, Lisette, Étienne, and Richart, I want you to conduct your usual patrols to ensure this isn’t merely a diversion meant to get us out of the way and aid their recruiting efforts. Yuri and Stanislav, roam where you will and keep your phones on. Seconds, monitor our progress and be prepared to act should we need you. Chris, ready the network’s holding cells, have additional medical personnel available both at the network and here at David’s, and intensify security.”
Everyone nodded except for Bastien, who stewed in furious silence.
“All right then. Richart, did you acquaint yourself with the rendezvous location?”
“Yes, on the way here. I will have no problem teleporting there should you need me.”
“Excellent. I—” The screaming guitar intro to Steppen-wolf ’s “Magic Carpet Ride” danced on the air. Leaning to one side, Seth retrieved his cell phone from a back pocket. His brow furrowed as he noted the name of the caller. “Yes?”
Moments passed. Seth’s free hand clenched into a tight fist on the table as the other immortals stiffened.
“How big?” he asked, voice tense.
Concern crept through Ami. Had someone been injured?
“Give me a moment,” Seth said. Lowering the phone, he stood. “Change of plans.”
“What is it?” Chris asked.
Ami had rarely seen Seth look so grim. “There’s been an earthquake in Ecuador.”
His gaze met David’s. David rose and rounded the table.
Ami stood. “How bad is it?”
“Bad. David and I will go immediately to render aid and help those we can.”
They had done the same in Haiti, carefully combing through the rubble, lifting stone and wall and materials that would normally have required forklifts or other heavy machinery to shift, moving silently through streets strewn with bodies, listening for even the faintest heartbeat within the piles of mortar.
“I’ll get our gear,” David said and left the room so quickly he seemed to vanish.
“Sarah, Lisette, Étienne, and Richart, I want you all to accompany Roland, Marcus, and Ami.” He met Marcus’s gaze. “We cannot risk even one of you being captured. They will do as David and I intended, remain downwind and ready to leap in if necessary.” He looked to the other end of the table. “Sebastien, I want you to patrol with Yuri and Stanislav. You’ve been here long enough to be familiar with the area. Focus on the college campuses so Richart can easily teleport to you to bring you in for back up should they need you.”
Bastien gave a curt nod.
Stanlislav glanced at Yuri, who did not look pleased. “I thought he could not be trusted.”
Seth’s gaze bore into Bastien’s. “Can you be trusted?” A muscle in Bastien’s cheek jumped. “Yes.”
Ami couldn’t identify the emotion contained in that word. Reluctance? Weariness?
David returned with two heavy canvas bags. Looping one over his shoulder, he held out the other.
Seth took it. “Darnell, I want you to monitor things from here.”
He nodded. “Be careful.”
Everyone at the table knew that request arose not out of fear that Seth or David would be physically harmed in their efforts but that their differences—their gifts—would be detected.
Nodding, Seth reached out and settled a hand on David’s shoulder.
In the next instant, they were gone.
Marcus glanced at the woman who stood beside him. Moonlight filtered down from above, swimming through wispy clouds, then picking its way through barren tree limbs to dabble in Ami’s curly, sienna tresses the way Marcus’s fingers longed to.
She wore no coat to stave off the frigid wind. Swiftly losing the heat from her body, it rested on the ground behind her, discarded so it wouldn’t slow her movements in the coming moments. Black cargo pants hugged her hips. The long-sleeved, black shirt above them molded itself to her breasts and narrow waist. Over one shoulder hung one of the reloading blocks Darnell had made for her with six 31-round clips velcroed in place on each. The Glock 18’s they would equip weighted holsters strapped to her thighs.
Ami’s small, slender fingers hovered near the weapons’ grips as she studied the empty clearing before them. Her pale cheeks and nose began to pinken from the winter chill. White clouds formed in front of her lips with every exhalation.
Damn, but he loved her. That it had happened so swiftly shouldn’t surprise him. Roland had fallen for Sarah in mere days.
Unable to resist touching her in that moment, Marcus settled his hand on her lower back, careful to avoid the two sheathed katanas that rode down its center.
She looked up, green eyes pensive.
“Still have that feeling?” he asked.
“Stronger than ever.”
On his other side, Roland murmured, “What feeling?”
They had arrived at the rendezvous point a couple of minutes ago. Nothing two-legged had stirred in the time since. The large farmhouse that had formerly resided in the picturesque clearing and served as Bastien’s lair had been razed a year and a half ago after the defeat of Bastien’s army. No sign of it remained, not even a weed-strewn cement slab. The maze of tunnels beneath the house, once home to a hundred or more vampires, had been packed with the house’s structural rubble, then filled and augmented with dirt, gravel, and sand that had settled into a low knoll.
Tall trees, a random mixture of deciduous and evergreen, formed an imperfect circle around the clearing. The muddy tire tracks that had once passed for a road now nourished a sprinkling of saplings and the brittle beige remains of thigh-high weeds.
“What do you smell?” Marcus asked Roland.
Chin rising slightly, Roland drew in a deep breath. “Something ... very faint.”
Marcus had caught it, too. An odor so weak it was more like the memory of a scent.
“Men,” Roland continued. “A group of them, though I can’t discern how many.”
“Here now, lingering just far enough away to elude us?” Marcus asked, but didn’t think so. Something about it didn’t feel fresh.
The older immortal shook his head. “More like they’ve come and gone. Though how long ago I know not.”
“Perhaps they came earlier to scope out the battle site. Plan their attack.”
“Those were my thoughts.”
“Look at the grass. Enough blades have been bent and flattened to suggest quite a few.”
“Yes.”
Marcus peered into the shadows, searching for any whisper of movement. His sharp eyes honed in on miniscule broken branches and twigs that confirmed the recent passage of large bodies. Yet nothing aside from foliage bent or swayed.
Ami shifted restlessly beside him. “I smell something earthy.”
“Like freshly turned soil?” The scent was as prominent as that of crushed grasses.
“Yes, but I don’t see anything.”
Neither did he. Nothing that indicated any digging had taken place. Only a clod of dirt here or there that had likely been displaced by heavy boots like his own.
“Something isn’t right,” Roland rumbled.
The hairs on the back of Marcus’s neck prickled. An instant later a new scent reached them.
“We’ve got incoming,” Roland announced grimly, drawing his sais.
Ami curled her fingers around the grips of her Glocks. “How many?”
Marcus sorted through the odors. “Three or four. All vamps.”
Though the vampires were two miles away when Marcus and Roland
first detected them, it took them only a minute or so to reach the clearing.
And those sixty seconds seemed to last an eternity.
He could appreciate why Roland now tended to become rather pissy before a confrontation with vampires. Considering his irascible nature, most wouldn’t have noticed a difference. But Marcus knew him well. Even so, he couldn’t have been more surprised by Roland’s answer when he’d questioned him about it.
It’s fucking nerves. Can you believe it? Nine hundred years on the planet, almost as many years spent dispatching vampires on a nightly basis, and now I feel a nervousness that borders on fear.
Why? You’ve never stressed over fighting vampires before.
I’ve never had anything to lose before. What I have with Sarah ... I don’t ever want anything to jeopardize that, Marcus. I don’t ever want to lose her. Yet, each night we go out and hunt an ever-increasing number of vampires together, and any one of them could get in a lucky strike.
Footsteps approached.
Marcus fought the urge to move closer to Ami, to reach out and shove her behind him. He couldn’t bear the thought of her getting hurt again and was comforted only by the knowledge that Roland was a powerful healer who could mend all but the most severe wounds if this all went to shit.
It also eased his anxiety a bit to know that Richart was only moments away, ready to teleport in and whisk her to safety if Marcus should order it.
The trees across the clearing parted. Three figures stepped into the moonlight: Roy, flanked on either side by vampires who looked as if their image should grace a frat house’s Facebook page. Golden hair cut short. Pretty boy faces. Fucking lettermen jackets of all things.
Roy himself looked like any number of twenty-year-olds dressed in a hoodie with the hood down, except his jeans weren’t four sizes too large. (It was a little hard to fight when the waist of your pants hung beneath your ass and the crotch was down by your knees.) The uncertainty he had displayed last night was gone, replaced by a smug confidence that—as far as Marcus was concerned—confirmed their suspicions that this was a setup.
Bold as brass, the three vamps strode to the center of the clearing and stopped, legs planted shoulder’s width apart.
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