So maybe there were no more vampires left, she thought hopefully.
Chris seemed to be following the same train of thought, because he leaned forward and braced his elbows on splayed knees. “Is it possible you killed them all and Bastien is on the run?”
“No,” Roland immediately responded. “This guy has it in for me. He isn’t going to give up after just three skirmishes.”
Inwardly Sarah shook her head. Three skirmishes in two days. Three days of training. All together it seemed as though months had passed.
Marcus nodded. “I agree. Whatever this is, it’s personal. He isn’t going to give up that easily.”
“As to that”—Chris flipped the file open—“I’ve been doing some digging and trying to find out who the hell this guy is. Since you said he looked to be about thirty and is lucid enough to organize and maintain a small army, I figured he had to have been transformed within the past ten years or so. Unfortunately, every Bastien or Sebastien, first or middle name, born in England in the past fifty years has been accounted for. I expanded the search to include Scotland, Ireland, and Wales and came up with the same results, which means it’s an assumed name. He’s going to be hard to track down.”
Vampires were usually fairly easy to trace because, unlike immortals, they tended to keep the names they were given at birth. They might try to change it once or twice to avoid suspicion, but inevitably reverted to the first once the madness kicked in and it became more difficult to arrange and keep up with aliases.
Roland glowered. “So you’ve got nothing?”
“Not exactly,” Chris said, unfazed by Roland’s ire and Marcus’s growing irritation. “Like you immortals, when vampires use assumed names they usually use family names because they’re easier to remember. I put the genealogy geeks on it and they found this.”
Rifling through the papers, Chris chose three, turned them upside down, and slid them across the coffee table to Roland.
Sarah, Roland, and Marcus all leaned forward to peruse them.
It looked like something printed off of various Web pages. One said something about the House of Lords. Another was the passenger list of a ship. She couldn’t tell what the third sheet said. The writing was too small. However, there was an old sketch, displayed near the top, of a man who resembled Bastien.
“The only Sebastien we could link you with is this man,” Chris said, pointing to the sketch, “Sebastien Newcombe, Earl of Marston, born 1783.” It couldn’t be Bastien then. Roland had said vampires rarely even lived one century. “Now, you and Marston were both in London for much of the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Marston died in 1815 under mysterious circumstances. His body was never recovered. That’s a quote and, as you know, a red flag.”
“They can’t be one and the same. Vampires don’t live two hundred years.”
“True. But I wonder if you might’ve killed Marston and all of this is a vendetta handed down father to son to today’s Bastien. Thanks to a flood destroying a few pertinent records, information on Marston’s bloodline becomes a bit sketchy in the twentieth century, right around the time your man would have been born.”
“So Marston was a vampire I hunted?”
“Either that or a human.”
Roland’s voice turned chilly. “Immortals do not kill innocents when they feed.”
“I’m aware of that,” Chris said. “But you do kill minions and minions tend to procreate.”
Marcus frowned. “You think Marston was a minion and Bastien is his descendant?”
Chris shrugged. “Marston wouldn’t be the first member of the nobility to run with the wrong crowd. Nor would your Bastien be the first to be recruited, then later turned by an ancestor. We’ve seen the virus make its way down through family trees before. Remember that vamp in Virginia who turned both of his grandsons a few years ago?”
Sarah nibbled her lower lip as Roland picked up the paper and studied the sketch more closely.
“I don’t know,” he pronounced slowly. “I don’t recall encountering him in London.” He handed the paper to Marcus. “Do you?”
“No, and minions tend to linger longer in my memory because we have to dispose of the bodies.”
Uncertain whether they would be irritated by her pointing out the obvious or appreciate her input, Sarah slowly raised her hand.
Roland glanced over at her with a furrowed brow, then smiled. “We aren’t in a classroom, Sarah. If you have something you wish to say, you don’t have to raise your hand.”
The other two men grinned.
Shrugging, she returned their smiles. “Well … I was just thinking you might be overlooking something….”
Chris frowned.
“I mean, I could be wrong. It just seems so obvious….” She trailed off.
“What does?” Roland asked, reaching out to touch her hand.
Holding his gaze, she said, “Maybe Bastien isn’t a vampire at all. Maybe he’s immortal. And the reason Chris couldn’t find any information on him is that he isn’t a descendant of the Earl of Marston. He is the Earl of Marston.”
Roland and the others stared at her.
“That isn’t possible,” she heard Marcus say.
Sarah continued to hold Roland’s gaze. “You told me yourself not half an hour ago that all immortals share similar physical characteristics. When he landed on the hood of Marcus’s car—”
“Is that what happened to it?” Chris said in the background.
“—I got a good look at him, Roland. He has black hair, dark brown eyes, and is over six feet tall. If he stood next to you and Marcus in a crowd, people would think the three of you were brothers.”
Chris shook his head. “He can’t be immortal, Sarah. Immortals don’t fraternize with vampires, they kill them. And they sure as hell don’t try to kill other immortals.”
Roland turned to look at Marcus.
Both remained silent.
“Has an immortal ever later turned vampire?” she asked uncertainly.
“No, never,” Chris insisted. “Once their bodies mutate the virus, they’re safe from the madness forever. And while there might be one or two immortals I would classify as assholes, they’re never evil the way vampires are. Immortals are good guys. They don’t turn bad no matter what the incentive.”
“Oh.” Discouraged, she returned her attention to Roland, who still stared at Marcus.
“Could Seth have missed one?” he murmured, his expression grave.
Marcus looked ill. “He never has before.”
“Not to our knowledge. Or his.”
“Oh shit.”
Chris’s eyes widened. “You aren’t serious, are you?”
Roland met his disbelieving gaze. “It makes the most sense.”
“But he tried to kill you! Three times!”
Roland laced his fingers through Sarah’s. “If Seth didn’t find him after he was transformed and no other immortal happened upon him and took him under their wing, he will have learned everything he knows from vampires.”
Marcus dragged a hand down over his face. “He probably doesn’t even know he is immortal and thinks he’s a vampire. No wonder he’s so bloody fast and strong.”
Sensing how troubled Roland was by the notion, Sarah surreptitiously inched closer to him.
He squeezed her hand. “This changes everything.”
Marcus nodded. “We sure as hell can’t kill him now.”
“Uh, I hate to sound like a broken record,” Chris said, “but he—tried—to—kill—you. And if he’s been living as a vampire, he’s probably killed a lot of humans in the last two centuries and transformed who knows how many others.”
Marcus emitted a huff of annoyance. “No shit, Sherlock.”
Sarah decided to leap in again before Chris could spout a caustic rebuttal. “You don’t know that. If he’s immortal, that means he isn’t a slave to the bloodlust, right? So maybe he feeds the way immortals did before blood banks came on the scene. Maybe he takes what
he needs without killing his victim. He could’ve killed me when they attacked en masse in my front yard, but didn’t.”
“He told his men to,” Marcus reminded her.
“No, he told them I was Roland’s weakness.”
“Then chased after you when you tried to get away,” Roland pointed out.
She chewed her lip. “If he thought you cared about me, he might have thought I would be useful as bait.”
Roland swore and dropped his head back.
Marcus frowned. “What?”
“When his minions were dousing the house with gasoline, one of them told another Bastien had said not to light it until they got Sarah out. I assumed he intended to … I don’t know … punish her for helping me or use her to get to me if we managed to escape. But the minions never specifically mentioned taking her back with them.”
Chris shook his head. “You aren’t actually suggesting he was protecting her, are you?”
Marcus cocked a brow. “If he doesn’t kill humans …”
Sarah thought Chris looked as if he were about to blow a gasket.
“He commands a pack of vampires! Do you think they’re innocent, too?”
“We can’t kill him,” Roland reiterated. “Not until we know for sure.”
“Then what the hell are you going to do—walk up to him, shake hands, and say, ‘No hard feelings’?”
“No.” Roland shared another look with Marcus. “We’ll capture him and turn him over to Seth.”
Marcus nodded slowly. “Do you want to tell Seth, or do you want me to?”
Roland’s hand tightened around Sarah’s. “I will.”
Chapter 14
The heels of Seth’s boots made sharp percussive sounds on the stone floor as he strode through the castle’s many passageways. Up one. Down the next.
There was an urgency to his steps, a tension in his shoulders that held them rigidly squared. The hem of his leather duster flared out behind him as he swung around another corner, confident of his direction despite the stygian shadows unbroken by either torches or electricity.
In his right hand, a cell phone was clutched so tightly, the plastic threatened to crumble. Roland’s words still spun through Seth’s mind, circling like vultures waiting to pick clean the bones of his reason.
It couldn’t be true.
Roland’s enemy could not be an immortal. He couldn’t have missed one.
Could he?
At last, Seth reached his destination and entered a room large enough to be a ballroom, leaving the door open behind him. Immortals and humans alike were forbidden to cross its threshold or even to open the door and peer within, not that they could. Though there was no visible lock on the large oak door, any who sought to open it in Seth’s absence would find the task impossible, even when force and power tools were applied.
Seth took his responsibilities seriously and generously opened his many homes to the immortals he watched over—as well as the humans who served them so honorably and fought by their sides—whether he was currently in residence or not. Anything they needed, he endeavored to provide. But this …
This was his alone.
No windows graced the room. No moonlight lit his path.
Were it not for the overhead lights that flickered on at his silent command, he would be standing in a dark void. There was no furniture. No ornamentation whatsoever save the elaborate carving that whorled across the floor and up three of the four pale gray marble walls. Only the wall encasing the door bore no markings.
Seth’s hands trembled as he crossed the floor, his steps echoing hollowly in the cavernous room. His heart drummed loudly in his chest. Dread spilled into his stomach, burning like acid.
Hidden amongst the many shadows and crevices the massive engraving created were names, dates, and small notations made in an ancient language that would confound all but the one who had etched them.
Seth found what he sought on the wall opposite the door, tucked away in the northeast corner.
One name. A single notation. And a date.
SEBASTIEN NEWCOMBE, EARL OF MARSTON
EMPATH
1783
The cell phone hit the floor with a clatter.
It was true.
Sebastien, or Bastien, had been a gifted one. When he had been infected with the virus, he had turned immortal, not vampire.
And Seth had not been there to help him.
Staggered by the guilt that inundated him, Seth leaned against the east wall.
How had he missed it?
Though he had never admitted as much to the immortals—to do so would only invite questions he could not or would not answer—there were three phenomena he always felt internally, no matter how far away they took place: the birth of a gifted one, the death of either a gifted one or an immortal, and the transformation of a gifted one into an immortal. The first generated a sort of breathless tingle in his chest, the second a feeling of emptiness, and the third a sick feeling of dread not unlike that he was experiencing now. If he focused on that dread, the individual’s fear and pain would come to him and serve as a beacon he could use to track them down much as he had the mystery woman.
He always felt it. Always followed it. Helped the newly initiated immortals through the difficult transition. Schooled them on their new nature. Gave them purpose, guidance, the comfort of a friend. Then either trained them himself or introduced them to another immortal, who would perform the task in his stead and become their mentor.
Who had done that for Sebastien? To whom had he turned in Seth’s absence? How many humans had he harmed or killed in his ignorance? His anger? His bitterness?
If he had been taught by a vampire, Sebastien’s head would have been filled with lies about the Immortal Guardians who hunted them.
Did he know he was different from his fellow vampires? Did he know he was immortal? Had he ever approached one of the Guardians, hoping for acceptance, and instead been attacked because of his vampiric ways?
Was that what had transpired with Roland, sparking this plot for revenge?
Pressing his back to the wall, Seth slid down and sat on the cold stone floor, boots planted a shoulders’ width apart, knees bent.
How had he missed it?
If Bastien had been turned in his thirties, it would have happened between 1813 and 1823. The first two decades of the nineteenth century had been tough ones. Bloody ones. And not just because of Napoleon Bonaparte’s perseverance. Another vampire had gotten it into his feeble brain that if he amassed enough vampire servants, he could take over the world.
It happened once every millennium or so. A vampire would start turning humans left and right, instructing them to turn more. But the virus was so corrosive that by the time he had transformed sufficient numbers with which he could plan a campaign, he was too stark raving mad to organize or lead them.
This one had been no different. Lost to the madness, he had quickly forgotten his agenda and just kept turning many of his victims instead of killing them, abandoning them and leaving them to fend for themselves. It had taken Roland, Marcus, and other Immortal Guardians years to track down and destroy him and the many fledgling vampires he had spawned.
And at the end of it all, Seth had found himself with an unusually large number of new immortals requiring aid and training.
The hardest had been Lisette. She had been turned in 1815 and, before Seth could locate her, had unintentionally turned both of her brothers. They had been offering her their blood and helping her hide her condition, none of them understanding that repeated feeding would transform them as well.
Three voices calling out to him at once.
Had there been a fourth, drowned out by their collective cries?
Despair overwhelming him, Seth braced his elbows on his knees and let his head fall forward.
How had he missed it?
Had there been others like Sebastien?
He had been so sure he had found them all, but now …
Bene
ath the self-recriminations and doubt pummeling him, he heard the sounds of bare feet meeting stone and the faint rustle of clothing moving steadily closer.
Through the open door his visitor came. Into the room. His room. The forbidden room.
Padding toward him. Slowing. Hesitating.
From the corner of his eye, he saw small pale toes curl against the cold stone, nearly hidden by the frilly hem of a demure white nightgown.
The mystery woman.
Stunned that she would seek him out, he raised his head and glanced up at her.
Caught midmotion, reaching toward him as though to touch his hair, she gasped, yanked her hand back, and took several hasty steps away.
Three days she had been with them and she was still utterly terrified. Though her wounds had been healed that first morning, she was so traumatized by all that had happened to her that she had neither spoken nor slept. He knew the latter because he, David, and Darnell had taken turns watching over her, gently trying to coax her into trusting them.
After a minimum of seventy-two hours without sleep, he didn’t know what was keeping her upright. Yet there she was, hands nervously clenched in front of her, red hair charmingly disheveled, brow furrowed with concern as her green eyes met his and clung.
Seth did his best to force a smile, wanting to put her at ease.
She was the one person on the planet who would not be subjected to his wrath for daring to trespass.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he greeted her softly. Since she hadn’t spoken, they didn’t know her name.
Upon returning to Texas after healing Roland and Marcus, Seth had gathered his little crew together and teleported them all to his castle in England, wanting to put as much distance as possible between her and the ones who had tortured her.
She had spent the first day cowering in her room, perhaps expecting them to pick up where her captors had left off. The fact that he and David had healed her many wounds—those that hadn’t already healed themselves—had not lessened her fear of them at all. It only seemed to confuse her.
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