Phantom Shadows

Chapter 16

Dappled sunlight tumbled down, dodging the barren branches of deciduous trees and bouncing off the leaves of evergreens until it could fall in clumsy polka dot patterns on the two men below.

Quieter than mice, the tall, dark figures made their way through the brush.

“This isn’t right,” David announced.

Seth eyed David’s grim countenance. “I know. But it’s necessary.”

“We promised her we wouldn’t deny her vengeance.”

“Actually we didn’t. You said we couldn’t deny her vengeance, not that we wouldn’t.”

“You’re splitting hairs.”

“I would rather Ami be pissed at me than risk losing her, physically or mentally, if something should go awry that allowed Emrys to get his hands on her.”

They had told no one of their intentions. David’s house had been quiet, save the sounds of slumber, when they had teleported away without a word.

No words spoken aloud, that is.

We’re getting close, David told him.

Seth knew David saw the wisdom of their handling this alone. That battle at network headquarters had been too close. Humans had died. Dr. Lipton had been forced to transform. At least one of the vampires had been captured by the mercenaries and was now most likely suffering the same torture Ami had.

Seth wasn’t willing to risk that happening again.

They were going to meet Emrys on his home turf. The fire- and manpower the mercenaries had brought to the network would likely be nothing compared to what they possessed at their base. But Seth and David had breeched Emrys’s compound in Texas. Had, in fact, burned it to the ground.

They would do the same today.

Just the two of them.

No Seconds or immortals would be killed. Ami would remain safe, tucked in the protective arms of her husband. And the threat the Immortal Guardians faced from the human world would be destroyed.

Almost there, David said. He had followed a couple of soldiers from the attack on the network to their base, but told only Seth its location.

I’m going to do a little recon, Seth announced.

David nodded.

Wings sprang from Seth’s back and his clothing fell away as he shifted forms and took to the air. The tips of his feathers brushed branches as he found a break wide enough to allow him freedom from the trees.

Once he flew high above the earth, he saw exactly what David had described: two buildings in the center of a clearing. One was a two-story brick building with few windows. The other was a steel hangar. The open door of the latter revealed a solitary vehicle—what appeared to be a broken-down Humvee.

A pool of asphalt formed a small parking lot beside the main building. Weeds slain by winter’s chill dotted the ground around it. A fence strung with razor wire circled all. But that fence boasted no guards. Nor did the gate—closed and padlocked—at the sole entrance.

Seth sailed past, then swooped around to backtrack. Surveillance cameras clung to the corners of the building, but he could detect no hum of electricity that would indicate they were functioning.

He listened carefully for a moment longer, then returned to David, who waited patiently in the shadows of the nearby forest.

“We have a problem,” he announced as he regained and clothed his form with a thought.

“What’s wrong?”

“No one is manning the gate. And I detected no heartbeats within the building.”

David frowned. “There were men there last night. Many of them.”

“Did you see them or did you hear their heartbeats?”

“Both.”

“So there’s no chance they could be blocking us?”

“No. Not unless they’ve developed a method of doing so within the past few hours. And I have no idea what they could do to block you.”

Seth hated surprises. He really did. They were so rarely good. “Well, let’s go ahead and see what happens.”

“Do you want to take the Texas approach?”

Seth thought about it. He just wasn’t sensing anything. “No. What do you say we simply take a stroll?”

David smiled. “It’s a nice blustery day for it.”

Laughing, Seth walked through the forest to the break in the trees with David by his side.

They paused as though by prior agreement.

“I don’t sense anything either,” David murmured. “The place has a totally different feel to it than when I was here before.”

They strode to the fence and climbed it like humans, careful to avoid the sharp razor wire. If anyone did keep watch through those surveillance cameras, all they would see is two unusually tall men trespassing.

Across the field, then over the blacktop they ambled. No mercenaries raced out to meet them. No bullets struck from concealed snipers. No guard dogs charged, barking and frothing at the mouth. No challenges were issued.

Instead birds chirped. Squirrels scuttled about in the detritus littering the nearby forest floor. A hawk forged a leisurely path through the blue sky above, its shadow scampering across the ground beneath it.

The front double doors of the building were glass, but not of the usual grade. Should someone aim an automatic weapon at them, the bullets would bounce off without so much as cracking it.

Seth and David each grasped a door handle and opened the doors. Unlocked.

David grimaced. “You smell that?”

Seth nodded. Death was not a subtle scent.

They stepped inside. The doors shushed closed behind them.

The heavy-duty white linoleum floor was streaked with dried blood and black boot scuffs. Two hallways were divided by a vacant desk topped with a bank of surveillance monitors, all dark.

Seth took the hallway on the left, David the one on the right. The thud of their boots hitting the floor echoed loudly in the silence. There seemed to be no electricity. The fluorescents overhead were dark. No heater droned. The temperature within the building nearly matched that outside. No heartbeat thumped, speeding at Seth’s approach. No breath stirred. No clothing rustled or weapons rattled.

His way dimly lit by the light streaming through the front doors, Seth reached an open doorway and peered inside.

A classroom?

The next doorway exposed a boardroom with a long table and cushy chairs. The next a clinic, blood-spattered and chaotic. Instruments and red-stained first aid materials were strewn across the floor and every other surface. Flies buzzed around the mess left behind.

The last room was a weight room.

On the opposite side of the hallway, a quartet of identical locked doors with what looked like mail slots gave beneath his strength. Reinforced steel walls. Titanium chains as big as his arms. Clearly, these were rooms meant to hold any vampires or immortals they captured. Two of the rooms were pristinely clean and showed no indication that they had ever been occupied.

The third and fourth . . .

Bastien’s vampires must have been held in there. Based on his visits with them, Seth guessed Joe had been in the third room. There were bloodstains on one wall that indicated the incarcerated vamp had repeatedly slammed his head into it. Bloody stripes marked the other walls where he had clawed them so hard his fingernails had ripped off. A pool of dried blood on the floor smelled of the virus.

It was a large stain. Large enough that Seth wondered if the vampire had bled out, finally finding peace in his own destruction.

The fourth room bore many bloodstains as well. But he didn’t think enough had been lost to kill Cliff.

You need to see this, David said.

Seth retraced his steps up the hallway and headed down the other. Open doors revealed an office, sleeping quarters, a cafeteria, and a lounge with games and a television.

David waited at the end of the hallway, just outside the last doorway.

The scent of death grew to stifling proportions as Seth approached.

He stepped inside.

The bodies of a dozen or so soldiers, all shot in the head, had been tossed into a pile in the center of the room.

Seth stared down into their unseeing eyes. “Why the hell would Emrys kill his own men?”

David stepped up beside him. “I recognize a few of them from the battle. That one there. Those two. I think this one, too.”

“The vampire king killed any of his followers who sowed dissent or spread doubt amongst the ranks. Perhaps these men rethought the wisdom of working for Emrys after coming face-to-face with immortals in battle.”

“Such is my guess.”

“Let’s search the rest of the building, then check the hangar.”

David nodded. “I’ll take the basement.”

“I’ll head upstairs.”

Whatever had filled the rooms upstairs had been removed. Only dust bunnies remained.

Seth heard David curse.

You’d better come down here, the other said.

David met Seth at the bottom of the stairs. The basement was as large as the other floors. Death floated on the stale air down here, too.

David motioned to the first open doorway.

Seth looked inside and felt as though he had stepped back in time to the day he had rescued Ami. A first glance revealed an operating room. A second uncovered the manacles and leather strap that would immobilize anyone unwillingly placed on the steel table’s surface. Whatever tools of torture the butchers had utilized had been removed, leaving only discarded scrubs, a few soiled towels, and a half-empty bottle of rubbing alcohol turned on its side.

“There are three more like this one,” David said and led Seth from the room.

Offices robbed of everything save battered desks and crappy chairs followed the torture chambers. Past those . . .

Seth stared at the bodies, shot execution style like the ones above, in the first cell. “These are civilians.”

“Yes. There are more.”

The dead in the basement included women and children. Some of the women still clutched their daughters or sons, their bodies curled around the little ones in an eternal gesture of protection.

“Let’s check the hangar.”

Aside from the disabled Humvee, the hangar boasted only oil stains and discarded lug nuts.

Seth took out his cell phone. “How are you doing with the daylight?”

David shrugged. “I can take another couple hours or so, more if I stay in the shade as much as possible.”

Seth nodded and dialed.

“Reordon,” a sleepy voice answered.

“I need to show you something.”

“Give me a second to throw on some clothes.”

Seth returned his phone to his back pocket.

“Think his men will be able to lift any prints?” David asked.

“They should. It looks like the mercenaries cleared out in a hurry. Hell, they didn’t even lock the front door.”

“While you go get Chris, I think I’ll search the place for trip wires or explosives. It seems odd that they would leave these bodies here for anyone to find.”

“Think they’re bait?”

“Could be. I’d hate for any of the network employees to lose a life or a limb when they arrive.”

“I’ll join you when we return. We can sweep the entire compound. If anything is here, you and I will find it.”

Chris was pulling on a peacoat when Seth teleported to his living room.

Seth glanced around. Chris’s home was the antithesis of David’s. While David’s was pristinely neat, Chris’s was all chaos, greasy pizza boxes, discarded clothes, and dirty dishes. Since Chris always kept his office neat, Seth wondered if the man wasn’t simply too damned busy to do housework.

“So . . .”

Chris moved some crap around on the coffee table and dug out a pile of small, brand-new spiral notebooks. “Yeah?”

“You ever consider having someone from the network’s cleaning crew come out here to tidy things up a bit?”

Chris grinned. “The clutter aggravating your OCD?”

Seth nodded. “It’s making me feel guilty as hell, too. Is it that you’re too busy to clean or too tired when you finally make it home?”

“A little of both.”

“You’re welcome to put it on the network’s dime.”

Chris shook his head. “This place may look like shit, but at least I know where everything is. If someone comes in and starts cleaning, I’ll have to waste time looking for things.”

“Just tell whoever does it to only worry about the dishes, the trash, and the clothes. Because . . . damn.”

Chris laughed. “If you think this is bad, don’t look in the kitchen.”

“I don’t have to. I can smell the fungus and the dried-up, crusted food from here.”

Still grinning, Chris stuck the pads in his coat pocket and added a couple of short, stubby pencils.

“At least think about it,” Seth requested.

“I will. Okay, let’s book.”

Seth teleported them both to the entrance of the compound’s main building.

David’s blurred form raced toward them from the vicinity of the hangar. “Nothing so far.”

While Chris and David exchanged greetings, Seth opened one of the front doors and motioned for them to enter.

They showed him the dead soldiers first. Out came the first notepad and pencil. Chris didn’t enter the room. He merely studied it, taking in every detail and scribbling down notes.

“Which ones do you recognize, David?”

David pointed out the ones he had seen at the network.

“Okay. What’s next?”

They showed him the rooms Seth believed had temporarily housed the vampires.

“You think they still have both of them?”

“Joe may have been destroyed by the blood loss.”

“I don’t think so. They probably wouldn’t have bothered to pick up his clothes if he had expired and there aren’t any lying around.”

Good point.

Chris exhibited no emotion until they showed him the first pair of the civilian bodies downstairs.

Seth cast David a questioning glance when Chris’s face lost all color.

“Do you know them?” David asked.

Chris swallowed. “The man is one of my contacts. I think . . . I think the woman is his wife.”

Or what was left of her. Emrys and his men must have tortured her to extract information from her husband.

Chris left the room, walked to the next and halted in the doorway. “Shit!” He strode to the next room. And the next. And the next. Spun around. “They’re my contacts!” He turned and continued on to the next. “They’re my fucking contacts. All of them!” Judging by the moan of regret that hummed in his throat, he had caught sight of the children in that one. “And their families! Why the fuck did they kill their families? Their children?”

“Leverage,” Seth stated.

David sighed. “What better way to make a man talk than by threatening to harm those he loves the most?”

Chris paced furiously for a moment.

Seth didn’t have to read his friend’s mind to know guilt was eating him up inside.

Pausing, Chris closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as if he were trying very hard to erase those images from his mind. “Why leave them here like this?”

“Only two reasons come to mind,” Seth said. “A message, warning you not to use such resources again to search for the mercenaries in the future.”

“Or bait,” David added. “Seth and I are going to scour the place for explosives or other booby traps that may have been set to take us out while we were distracted by the bodies so we can be sure no harm will come to the cleaners when they arrive.”

Chris nodded.

“This wasn’t your fault, Chris,” Seth told him.

“I recruited them,” he said, unconsoled.

“At my instruction.”

“You aren’t going to make me feel better about this.”

Seth nodded. He could relate.

“So how are we going to locate Emrys and the remainder of his men now? This was our biggest lead to date.”

Seth met David’s gaze, knowing they had both come to the same conclusion.

“I don’t see that we have any choice,” David said.

Seth sighed. “We’ll have to let Ami lead us to them.”

Chris stared. “Is there no other way?” He had read the files. He may not have seen what Emrys and his butchers had done to Ami, but he knew all of the details.

“I think the one thing we can bank on is Emrys being wherever the vampires are. Since Ami was in close proximity to the vampires on numerous occasions during the attack on the network, she should be able to lead us to them.”

Somber silence enfolded them, made worse by the sickening stench that constantly assaulted them.

“Tell me something,” Chris said. “Have you guys ever dealt with a situation this . . . dark . . . before?”

“Yes,” they answered simultaneously. Seth and David had seen trials the others would never believe.

“Okay. Pity party is over. You guys go ahead and do your thing. I’ll start making calls.”

“Make them outside.” Seth didn’t want the man to stay down here and stare at the bodies he felt he had placed in these rooms.

“Is he dead?”

Emrys, Donald, and Nelson stood in the observation room that overlooked one operating room on one side and a second on the opposite. Both of the rooms below looked very much like the ORs one might find in a hospital. Except the table in the center rested atop a titanium pedestal and was bolted to the floor with titanium screws coated in heavy concrete.

The patient they currently studied was held immobile by steel manacles it would take a blow torch hours to cut through. Two at the wrists. Two just above the elbows. Two across the thighs. And two more at his ankles. A ninth steel manacle, covered in a strip of leather, kept him from moving his head.

The short stubs of his dreadlocks poked out above it.

A narrow sheet had been draped across his groin to spare the partners’ delicate feelings.

Delicate my ass, Emrys thought, eyeing Donald resentfully. The man acted like he shit diamonds.

He returned his gaze to the captive. “No. He’s sleeping.” Sedated actually, but that was need-to-know.

Both vampires had been in pretty bad shape after their examination by Emrys’s medical team. The other one had left half his damn brain on the wall and hadn’t cleaned up as well, so Emrys had shown Donald and his yes-man this one first.

“Why is he restrained?”

Because he’s fucking Charles Manson times a thousand. They both were. “The torture the immortals subjected them to has driven them insane.” He had not yet confided that the virus tended to have that effect on any humans infected with it. He had removed that little tidbit from any and all information he had handed over to Donald, who may have wondered how exactly they would command an army of supersoldiers who were totally off their rockers.

Emrys would figure out the whole insanity thing later. After he made his first billion.

He pressed a button on the wall beside him. “Proceed, Nate.”

A man in scrubs and gloves stepped into view. A blue surgical mask hid his face. A cap the same color covered most of his light brown hair.

Rolling a cart full of instruments along with him, he stopped beside the vampire.

“Check this out,” Emrys said, smiling in anticipation.

Picking up a scalpel, Nate pressed it to the vampire’s waist on the far side and carved a deep path across the vamp’s abdomen.

Blood welled and spilled out of the wound that, on the battlefield, would have required the attention of a medic and taken a human soldier out of play. As they watched, the wound narrowed, the gaping sides drawing together as though magnetized, then sealing. Scar tissue formed, then faded. All in a matter of minutes.

Donald stepped closer to the glass. “Holy shit.”

Even that little pissant, suck-up Nelson moved closer to the glass and stared with wide eyes.

Again, Emrys depressed the button. “Demonstration number two, please, Nate.”

Nodding, Nate left their line of sight for a few seconds. When he returned, he wore protective ear phones and carried a Smith & Wesson M&P. He raised the semiautomatic pistol and aimed it at the vampire’s torso.

Donald and Nelson both stuck their fingers in their ears.

Pussies.

“Fire in the hole,” Nate called and squeezed the trigger. Emrys had told him to leave the silencer off for effect.

The vampire’s body jerked as a hole sprang open in his chest.

Blood welled and spilled from the wound in thin rivulets that wound their way down the vampire’s sides to drip onto the table. Moments passed. A misshapen lump of metal slowly rose to the entrance of the wound and tumbled out.

The ass-kisser gaped. “You are shitting me!”

The hole closed, sealed itself, and began to scar over. It took longer than Emrys would’ve liked because the vampire was drugged (and would have taken longer if they hadn’t pumped him full of extra blood), but the men beside him were no less astonished.

Donald turned to Emrys. “He’s still alive?”

“Yes. After what he endured in the immortal’s compound, we thought it kinder to sedate him.”

“I want a closer look.”

“I thought you might. Follow me.”

Emrys led them down to the room they kept the Black vampire in, glad Donald hadn’t asked to see the other one. The White vampire’s wounds weren’t healing as quickly because they had nearly OD’d him on the tranquilizer, so he was still in pretty rough shape. They’d slapped some makeup on him to hide the worst of it, but that wouldn’t fly up close and personal.

Emrys waited while both men donned scrubs over their suits.

Nate nodded to each of them in turn as they entered.

Donald leaned over the recumbent form on the table. The vampire’s medium brown skin was smooth and free of wounds, the blood that had not yet dried and the expelled bullet the only evidence left that he had been cut and shot.

Donald held his hand out for the scalpel. “May I?”

Nate met Emrys’s gaze.

Emrys nodded.

When Nate handed over the blade, Donald sliced a deep gash across the vampire’s thigh.

Like the others, the wound welled with blood, then closed and healed.

“See?” Emrys said. “No special effects.”

“Are they really as fast and as strong as you say they are?”

“You saw the video. Did your analysts find anything to indicate the footage had been altered in any way or sped up?”

Donald shook his head.

“We are going to be so rich,” Nelson said, his expression full of awe as he stared down at the vampire.

For once, Emrys agreed with him.

And so did Donald, who at last met Emrys’s gaze. “Let’s talk.”

Melanie felt strange in her new vampire-hunting togs. Almost as if she were playing dress-up. Instead of her usual jeans and Chuck Taylors, she wore boots and black cargo pants with a butt-load of pockets. A black turtleneck hugged her torso. A gun belt hung on each hip, sporting Sig Sauer P220s. Her breasts were flattened by a Kevlar vest. A bandolier sporting a dozen daggers draped across her chest. Several auto-injectors full of the antidote filled one hip pocket. Extra clips and auto-injectors containing a human dose of tranquilizer filled the other.

Bastien paced the bedroom they shared, throwing off a real caged tiger vibe.

“Is it that you’re pissed?” she asked finally. “Or are you just worried?”

“Just worried?” he repeated. “We’re heading into the den of the men who shot you three times in the chest. Men who tortured Ami. Men who left piles of bodies behind at the compound Seth and David found. Just worried doesn’t cover it.”

“I’m immortal now, Bastien. I’m also wearing a vest. And I’ve already been trained, so it’s not like I’m going into this blind or unprepared.”

“Immortal doesn’t mean immortal. It means almost immortal.”

“You’re going up against the same people,” she pointed out. “Why—”

“I didn’t nearly die twice in recent weeks.”

“If I’ve cheated death twice, I can cheat it again.”

“Don’t joke about this.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to think I’m not taking all of this seriously. I’m taking it very seriously. I know any of us could be killed tonight. I also know that having me around to both kick ass and serve as a medic will be to your advantage. And if, when we find Cliff and Joe, either one of them has gone over the edge, I know that I’m most likely the only one who will be able to talk them down and bring them back under control without hurting them.”

“You think I can’t? I talked Vince down.”

“I know. But his psychosis was different than that afflicting Joe. Joe’s is infused with a lot more paranoia. At times it makes him view everyone—even you—as the enemy. Everyone but me. Which is why it’s so important that I’m there when you find him.”

Bastien ran a hand through his hair. “No wonder he took off when he thought you were dead.”

She twisted and bent and walked around, trying to acquaint herself with the feel of the weapons and ammo and the slight shifting of the holsters and belts and weighted pockets. Were she still human, it would have taken her time to get used to it. The ammo alone was surprisingly heavy. But her increased strength made it a breeze.

Bastien continued to pace restively.

“Bastien?”

He glanced over. “Yes?”

When his eyes flared, she forgot whatever she had intended to say. “What is it?” she asked, uncertain what emotion had struck him.

He raised his brows in question, his luminous gaze piercing as it traveled over her.

“Your eyes are glowing,” she said.

He shook his head. “I shouldn’t tell you.”

“You can tell me anything.”

“It’ll just encourage you,” he said and smiled wryly. “You look hot all geared up for a fight.”

A momentary brightness entered her being. “I do?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Yes, damn it.” He closed the distance between them and rested his hands on her hips. “Incredibly hot.” He drew her close until their noses touched. “I-want-to-rip-your-clothes-off-with-my-teeth hot.”

Shivers of arousal rippled through her at those husky words. Their doorbell rang, squelching any notion of engaging in a quickie.

So much soundproofing had been used to create this and the other quiet room that anyone inside—save Seth—couldn’t hear the knock of someone out in the hallway, so David had installed doorbells.

“To be continued?” Melanie suggested.

His hands tightened on her hips. “Are you sure you’re up to this? I’m not asking because you’re a woman, or a doctor, or an egghead.”

She grinned. He made egghead sound like an endearment.

“I’m asking because you’re fresh from your transformation.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “And because I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I’m up for it,” she assured him.

Dipping his head, he took her lips in a warm passionate kiss that carried with it his fear that it may be their last.

“It won’t be our last,” she promised. “Can you feel my certainty of that?”

“I can. How did you know what I was thinking?”

Reaching up, she stroked his face. “I just know you.”

The bell rang again.

Bastien sighed. Backing away, he released her and crossed to the bedroom door.

Tanner stood out in the hallway. “It’s time.”

Bastien’s Second was garbed in typical vampire-hunting togs like Melanie, but with fewer blades.

Something about him looked different, though.

Melanie studied him. Same lean form. Same broad shoulders. Hair still cut as short as an accountant’s. Oh! “Did you get contacts?”

He smiled, blue eyes no longer hidden behind spectacles. “No. David corrected my vision.”

“Really?” That was so cool.

He nodded. “He was worried that glasses or contacts would hinder me when I’m fighting, so he put his hand over my eyes, it got warm for a minute, then I could see perfectly.”

Melanie looked up at Bastien. “Why couldn’t I have been given that gift?”

He rubbed a hand up and down her back. “Even though you weren’t, you’re still a born healer.” He ushered her through the door. “Will you and the other Seconds be accompanying us?”

“To a point,” Tanner said. “We’re going to monitor things from a distance.”

Melanie wondered if that was wise. The humans at the network had pretty much gotten their asses kicked the last time.

Bastien shook his head. “I think the humans should stay out of it. You’re too vulnerable.”

“Not with the armored vehicles Chris and Seth commandeered for us.”

“Do you even know how to drive one of those things?”

“Hell, no. I’ve never driven anything with more than two doors. But Chris and Seth have apparently recruited a lot of military veterans over the years.”

A little twinge of nerves made Melanie’s stomach jump.

Bastien removed his hand from her back and twined his fingers through hers.

“How are you getting along with the other Seconds, Tanner?” she asked, needing a diversion.

“Fine.” His jaw tightened as he looked at Bastien. “Someone let my tragic past be known, so now everyone feels fucking sorry for me. Too sorry for me to condemn me for allying with vampires and this asshole.”

“It wasn’t me,” Bastien denied. “Your past is your business.”

Melanie didn’t know exactly what Tanner’s tragic past entailed, just that it had something to do with his son.

“I don’t even like any of those guys,” Bastien went on, not caring that those guys could hear him. “You think I sit around drinking tea and gossiping with them?”

“No, but if you thought them knowing about my son would soften them toward me and keep them from giving me shit, I doubt your FU attitude would prevent you from blabbing.”

Melanie pursed her lips. “Tanner, Bastien wouldn’t even clear up misconceptions about his own past. And doing so might keep the other immortals’ contempt from spilling over onto me when I defend him.”

Bastien squeezed her hand. “I thought it would be easier to just kick their asses if they said anything to you.”

Melanie gave Tanner a See what I’m saying? look.

Tanner frowned. “Well, who else could it have been? No one else knows.”

Bastien shrugged. “It must have been one of the telepaths. Those nosy bastards can dig around in your head and uncover anything.”

“Can you teach me how to keep them out?”

“I can try.”

“Great. Thanks.”

Bastien followed Melanie up the stairs and down the hallway to the large living room. A sea of black met them. Black shirts. Black pants. Black coats. Black Kevlar vests. Black weapons. Black hair.

The only spots of color were Ami’s and Sheldon’s red hair and Tracy and Chris’s blond locks.

So far the uneasy truce between Bastien and Reordon was holding. Uneasy being the key word.

The immortals turned as Bastien, Melanie, and Tanner entered. All bowed gallantly and smiled at Melanie, bidding her a good evening.

She smiled back. “Hi.”

As they had with Sarah, the immortals wanted her to feel welcome so strongly Bastien didn’t even have to touch them to feel it. No gifted one had willingly been transformed . . . ever . . . until Sarah and Melanie. Not that Melanie had had much of a choice. Transformation or death. She’d chosen the former. But an alarming number of gifted ones who had come before her had chosen the latter.

Bastien’s worry that their scorn for him would suck the warmth right out of any welcome they gave her appeared unfounded. Everyone in the room, including the Seconds, seemed determined to prevent her from regretting her decision.

He did a quick count of those present. Seth, David, and Darnell. Marcus and Ami. Roland and Sarah. Reordon. Richart and Sheldon. Lisette and her Second, Tracy. Étienne and his Second, Cameron. Ethan, Edward, Yuri, Stanislov, and their Seconds.

Seth greeted Melanie and asked how she was feeling.

“Good, thank you.”

“Dr. Lipton—”

“Melanie,” she corrected with a smile he returned.

“Melanie, no one here will think less of you should you not wish to join us tonight. Your combat experience is limited and the humans we’ll face have proven to be very dangerous foes.”

“I’m going,” she stated, voice firm, expression confident, though Bastien could feel anxiety pulsing through her.

He didn’t fault her for it. He had been nervous as hell the first time he had seen combat as a mortal.

“There will be other battles,” David added.

Sarah’s entrance to the Immortal Guardians’ world had been a harrowing one. Bastien supposed the two elders would prefer that Melanie’s be a little less so.

But Melanie was having none of it. “I’ve spent more time with Cliff and Joe in the past two years than anyone else here. I want to be there when you find them. Knowing what I do about Emrys, I think they’ll need me to be there. Especially Joe. If their mental state has declined, I’ll likely be the only one they won’t view as a threat.”

“As you will. We’re grateful you’ll be joining us.” Seth addressed the group. “For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been taking Ami out every day in search of the missing vampires and we were finally able to pinpoint an approximate location this afternoon. When we leave in a few moments, we will travel together, Seconds included, to an area a few miles distant. The immortals will then move in under my command.”

Heads nodded.

“Let no one at the compound escape. And whatever happens, Emrys cannot be allowed to get his hands on Ami. I don’t care what you must do to prevent this. Just do it.”

Ami bit her lip and looked up at Marcus.

Bastien resolved to stay near her and back her and Marcus up whenever he could.

“Everyone know the plan? First we take out the humans. Next we ensure there are no traps or land mines like the few we found at the smaller compound. Then we bring in the Seconds. Should we require the assistance of those manning the armored vehicles, I will call them in.”

David spoke next. “Tread carefully if you locate the imprisoned vampires. As Melanie said, whatever torture they have endured may have spurred their decline into madness and she’s likely the only one capable of calming them.”

Melanie stepped forward. “That reminds me . . .” She tucked her hand into a thigh pocket, withdrew a fistful of auto-injectors with green caps, and started handing them out to the immortals. “If any of you are tranqed, flip the cap off and press this against your skin for three seconds. It will keep you from losing consciousness.”

Ethan turned his over and over in his hands, then tucked it in a pocket. “Do we need extras for when we’re tranqed again?” He must not have had to use it the night the network was attacked.

“No. I’m unclear why, but once you inject it, it seems to have a prophylactic effect, protecting you from further sedation. It may simply stay in your system longer than the other drug. But whatever the reason, one dose will do it.”

She looked so fragile surrounded by the tall, hulking male immortals.

“Once the compound is under our control,” Seth continued, “Darnell will go to work hacking and track down any of the mercenaries’ allies or connections, find out where they’re backing up their data offsite. Then we’ll confiscate their computers, hard drives, etcetera, and torch the place. Should something happen that causes us to deviate from this plan, know this: If we accomplish nothing more, Emrys must die. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Any questions?”

The heavily muscled human standing beside Yuri said, “Tell me again why we’re doing this at night? Won’t they be expecting us? Wouldn’t it be better to do it during the day when they think you guys can’t go out?”

Seth shook his head. “In recent years, that has become our MO. We descended upon Bastien’s lair in daylight. The vampire king’s, too. David and I destroyed Emrys’s Texas facility at dawn. I think at this point they’re more likely to expect us during daylight hours than at night, so we may as well strike when we’re all at our strongest.”

The man nodded. “Makes sense.”

“Any more questions?”

Silence.

“Good. Let’s book.”

Bastien reclaimed Melanie’s hand and joined the river of black flowing out the front door.

Lisette hung back as the others filed outside. When Bastien’s Second drew even with her, she caught his arm and gently held him back.

His eyebrows rose.

She hadn’t spoken to him alone since she had tied him up at Bastien’s lair the day they had overthrown Bastien’s vampire army.

“I told them,” she admitted.

He started to shake his head, then frowned. “About my son?”

“Yes.” She had read his mind that night to determine whether or not he was worth saving and had discovered tragedy.

His face tightened. “You had no right.”

She nodded. “I know. I meant no harm. I just . . . Bastien was right. I could hear the thoughts of the other Seconds and the immortals, knew the hostility they felt toward you, and thought it unfair. I thought if they knew how you served Bastien—in what capacity—and what had driven you to do so . . .”

No forgiveness lit his handsome face. “I’m not a child. I can handle scorn. Sticks and stones and all that shit. And I don’t regret one minute of the time I spent aiding Bastien so anything anyone says to condemn that period of my life will roll off me like water.”

“I know, but . . . I like you. I wanted them to welcome you,” she finished lamely.

He sighed. “You realize you sound just like Bastien, don’t you?”

She grimaced, appalled.

Tanner laughed. “All right. You’re forgiven, as long as you stay out of my head and don’t reveal any more of the secrets I keep up there. Now let’s go before we hold things up.”

She nodded and stepped out into the cold.

Tanner set the alarm and closed the door behind them. “So, I hear you like sports.”

“I love it,” she said. Football. Basketball. Baseball. She liked it all.

“Want to watch a game together sometime?”

She smiled. “I’d love to.”