Phantom Shadows

Chapter 4

Bastien stiffened. While he didn’t appreciate his concerns being so easily dismissed, he thought Tanner wasn’t seeing the full picture. “You’re right. This isn’t high school. It isn’t a popularity contest that means nothing in the greater scheme of things. It’s life or death. If the other Seconds don’t accept you, you won’t be able to count on them to back you when you need them.” He looked at Seth. “Tell him.”

Seth shook his head. “They’ll back him or they’ll answer to Chris Reordon.”

“Who would love nothing more than to see me fall. I’m sure he would feel the same way about anyone he considered my ally.”

Melanie spoke. “If that were true, I wouldn’t have a job.”

Bastien stared at her. “What?”

“Who do you think pushed Mr. Reordon to allow you more frequent visits with Cliff and Joe?”

“Seth.”

“Actually,” Seth said, “it was Dr. Lipton. I merely offered my approval.”

“And Richart and I both refused to let Mr. Reordon chain you up in the holding room,” she said. “He may not have liked it, but he didn’t fire me.”

Bastien still didn’t understand why Richart had stood up for him. Or Dr. Lipton for that matter.

As for Tanner . . .

Bastien glanced uneasily at Melanie. He would really rather not do this in front of her, but didn’t see any way to avoid it. Seth wasn’t going to leave this unresolved.

“Look,” Bastien told the only man he had truly considered a friend in many, many years, “the last decade has been beyond fucked up for you. What happened to your son was horrible enough.” Tanner’s boy had been kidnapped and murdered by a pedophile, whom Bastien had himself tracked down and punished . . . very slowly. “Then you got tangled up in my folly and lived every day surrounded by vampires who apparently wanted you dead whenever I wasn’t around.”

“Vampires who aided me in my quest to get every fucking pedophile off the street.”

“I’m just saying this is a chance for you to have something better. If you serve as my Second, people will give you shit every time you turn around. You don’t need that.”

“Sure I do,” Tanner retorted with a grin. “Kinda makes life interesting, don’t you think?”

Bastien stared at him a moment, then shook his head. “All right, you crazy bastard. I was trying to help your sorry ass, but if you’re determined to be miserable . . .”

“Misery loves company,” Tanner quipped.

Bastien, Seth, and Melanie all rolled their eyes.

“Now that that’s settled, Tanner can move into David’s place.” Seth tilted his head to one side and seemed to listen for a moment. “I’ll take him there now so he can get settled.”

Him? “Aren’t we all going back?”

“No. I think it would be best to let David’s place clear out a bit before you return.”

“Don’t want to taint them with my presence?”

“No. Just trying to save David’s new furniture. The paint is still drying from the scuffle that arose at the last meeting we held. And the new furniture hasn’t even been around long enough to gather dust. I don’t want to risk your opening that mouth of yours and saying something asinine that will give the others an excuse to kick your ass again.”

“It isn’t my fault if they can dish it out, but can’t take it,” Bastien said.

“Something you might try to keep in mind,” Seth added, “is that David doesn’t have to open his home to immortals, their Seconds, and members of the network. He does it because he knows how lonely this existence can be and wants to provide us all with a family that we can turn to for company, for comfort, hell, just for fun. Family that we won’t have to watch age and die. I didn’t ask him to mentor you. He offered. When everyone else called for your execution, David welcomed you into his family. The least you could do is refrain from instigating altercations that reduce his home to something that looks like a tornado hit it.”

Damn. Seth really knew how to make a man feel like a teenager being upbraided by a parent. As old as Bastien was, that was quite an accomplishment.

Bastien refused to duck his head and say, “Yes, sir.” He hadn’t asked for any of this.

He would, however, see if he couldn’t restrict his acerbic commenting to the training room where less damage would be done if a fight ensued.

“The others should leave to begin the night’s hunt shortly. I’ll ask Richart to come for you then.” Seth met Melanie’s gaze. “Are you warm enough, Dr. Lipton?”

She smiled. “I’m fine, thank you.”

Seth returned his attention to Bastien. “You have company.”

Bastien looked at Melanie.

“Not her,” Seth said with exasperation. “A handful of vampires are headed this way. You’ll hear them momentarily.” He reached out and touched Tanner’s shoulder.

“Wait!”

“What?”

Bastien stared at him. “What are you doing? Aren’t you going to take Dr. Lipton with you?”

“No. I want her to continue monitoring you.”

“While I’m fighting vampires?” Bastien asked incredulously.

“She’s been trained.” Seth looked at Melanie, who nodded she was okay with it.

Then Seth and Tanner disappeared.

Bastien couldn’t believe it. He turned to Melanie. “What did he mean you’ve been trained?”

She shrugged sheepishly. “I can kick ass.”

She said it with such reluctance that Bastien felt a rush of amusement. His lips twitched as he fought a smile.

“What?” she demanded with a frown. “You think I can’t?” She crossed her arms in a defensive pose that only drew his attention to her lovely breasts.

“No, it’s just . . .” Eyes up. “You looked so chagrined when you said it, like someone admitting they’d just farted or something.”

She laughed and lowered her arms. “It just felt weird to say it. I’ve never been comfortable tooting my own horn.”

Something as simple as her smile should not make his heart race and his body react in unsuitable ways. It really shouldn’t.

But it did. It also cast a spell that made it impossible for him to avoid smiling back.

This was not good.

The sounds of several bodies approaching through the trees reached his sensitive ears. Five vampires ambled in their direction. They were still a couple of miles away and seemed to be in no hurry. The scent of blood—several types—accompanied them. They must be fresh from feeding.

Very odd. The insanity that infused vampires was usually accompanied by extreme paranoia that prevented them from getting along. Even the vampires who had banded together under Bastien’s rule had only refrained from attacking each other over the least provocation because they feared what Bastien would do to them. He hadn’t lied when he had told the others that vampires had to fear you to follow you. Like the vampire king, Bastien had had to make an example of a few before that fear had solidified. He hadn’t done so with a machete. But it had nevertheless been unpleasant.

“What is it?” Melanie asked. She had the loveliest brown eyes.

Keep your head in the game!

“Five vampires, fresh from feeding.”

And damned if it didn’t sound like an ordinary bunch of guys out killing time until the next movie started at the nearest theater.

This could potentially be interesting.

He would’ve looked forward to the confrontation if he weren’t concerned for Melanie’s safety. “What kind of training are we talking here?” he asked. “Self-defense?” He needed to know just how vulnerable she would be when the vampires attacked. He’d like to think they wouldn’t, that he would luck out and find new allies on his first night searching, but vampires always attacked. If they didn’t, they were plotting something.

“Self-defense,” she confirmed. “Martial arts. Weapons. Speaking of which, I’ll need to borrow a few. I don’t usually carry when I’m at work, because Mr. Reordon doesn’t want Cliff and Joe to get their hands on them.” Expression brightening, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out what looked like three EpiPens, but were—he assumed—auto-injectors packing the tranquilizer. “Except for these.”

Bastien considered them thoughtfully. Three auto-injectors. Five vampires. He could work with those numbers. Perhaps he could begin to forge ties with the vampires tonight after all.

“I tell you what . . .” He drew his katanas and gave them a twirl. “Do you know how to use these?”

“Of course.” Her pragmatic response, utterly devoid of boasts, convinced him she spoke the truth. Richart’s Second crowed about his skills all the time, but Bastien had yet to see the boy win a single sparring match.

“Then I’ll trade you these for those.”

Melanie eyed his weapons. “I’d rather have the daggers.”

Smiling, Bastien returned the katanas to their sheaths and drew a dagger from the loops sewn into the lining of his coat.

Melanie offered him the auto-injectors with a sly smile. “You work fast.”

His pulse picked up.

When he didn’t respond, she motioned to the forest. “Already planning to recruit?”

He shrugged and studied the auto-injectors. Melanie was just too irresistible at the moment. “No point in waiting, really. How do these work?”

“Remove the red cap, press the tip against their skin, and hold it for three seconds.”

Bastien removed all of the red caps. “Three seconds is a long time.”

He could cross a football field from end zone to end zone in three seconds.

“I know. But usually auto-injectors take ten seconds to deliver a full dose. I cut it down as much as I could.”

He nodded and handed her another dagger. Then another. And another.

Each one she tucked into a different pocket.

The vampires were close enough to catch Bastien and Melanie’s conversation now.

He caught Melanie’s attention, touched his ear, then motioned to the forest on the east side of the clearing.

“It was the vampire king’s fault,” he said, beginning his performance. “He should never have believed the lies.”

She nodded. “He’d be alive today if he hadn’t. He and his army.”

The vampires stopped moving. Their voices hushed.

“It’s the old sleight-of-hand trick,” he went on. “Keep the vampires’ attention focused on the immortals—”

“And they’ll never see the new enemy coming,” Melanie finished, her soft, warm voice filled with regret.

“Vampires as a whole will be as easily extinguished as the vampire king and his army. Immortals, too.”

A nearly silent conversation began among their audience.

“Most vampires think the Immortal Guardians quelled the king’s uprising.”

“Some know the truth. But not enough. The immortals never would have achieved victory if so many of the vampire king’s followers had not already been destroyed,” Bastien lied.

“Well, now that vampires no longer have a leader, I don’t know how to warn them.”

Foliage rustled as the vampires put on a burst of speed and raced for the clearing.

Bastien moved to stand in front of Melanie, then cursed when she took two steps to the side and frowned up at him.

Reddish leaves already loosened by the cool weather burst from the bushes on the east side of the clearing and tumbled to the ground like candy from a piñata.

Dirt rose and fell in a cloud as the vampires skidded to a halt and faced them, all in a line, hands at their sides as if they were gunslingers preparing for a showdown.

Rather slovenly gunslingers.

Sans guns.

The vamps ranged in size from Melanie’s height—roughly five foot five—to nearly Bastien’s height of six feet and possessed the standard rangy, never-lifted-a-weight-in-their-lives build undisguised by baggy jeans. The blond wore a leather jacket he had probably filched from one of his victims. His auburn-haired friend wore a Carolina Panthers sweatshirt. The third vamp, whose short, raven hair was slicked back with what looked like an entire can of Murray’s Pomade, wore all black. Black pleather pants. Black dress shirt. Black pleather tie. Black belt. Shiny black loafers. Bastien couldn’t decide exactly what look the vamp had been going for, but he’d missed it whatever it was.

The other two vamps, who Bastien surmised had not been vamps for very long, wore matching Tar Heels sweatshirts.

Three of the vamps, the ones whose eyes were already glowing and whose fangs were exposed, were splattered with blood. The other two weren’t.

“Who the hell are you?” the blood-speckled blond in the leather jacket demanded.

“Yeah,” the vamp with auburn hair seconded. “What are you doing here?”

Bastien made a show of looking around. “If I’m not mistaken—and I’m not—this isn’t your property, so I have every right to be here.”

“Answer the question, asshole,” the blond said and took what Bastien assumed was supposed to be a menacing step forward.

“I’m here for the same reason you are. This place means something to me.” He let his fangs descend.

“He’s a vampire like us,” one of the Tar Heel vamps murmured.

“I don’t know,” the other muttered. “The woman is human. Doesn’t one of the Immortal Guardians have a female Second?”

The vamps all tensed.

“Are you Roland?” the blond demanded.

Bastien sighed and looked at Melanie. “Why do so many vampires think Roland is the only man infected with the virus who has a human consort?”

“Consort?” she repeated with an intriguing amount of interest. “Am I your consort then?”

“Don’t tempt me.” Seriously. The mere suggestion sent erotic images writhing through his brain and he needed to keep his head clear at the moment.

Later though . . .

No. Not even later. Melanie was off-limits.

“What’s a consort?” the Murray’s man asked.

Bastien turned back to the vamps. “Why are you here?”

The blond raised his chin. “I lived here once. I was one of Bastien’s soldiers.”

“No, you weren’t.” Bastien had never seen the little snot before.

“Was, too,” he retorted in a petulant singsong. “I wasn’t a grunt either. I was his second in command.”

“No, you weren’t,” Bastien repeated.

“How the hell do you know?” The vamp blurted, his face broadcasting his frustration.

“Because I’m Bastien, dumbass.”

Melanie sighed loudly and sent Bastien a look that said, Really? This is how you try to gain their cooperation?

Inwardly, Bastien shrugged. He’d tried. But he had always had a low threshold for bullshit. Particularly when that bullshit was doled out with a great big steaming pile of arrogance.

The blond shot forward in a blur, but stopped short before the others could do more than tense to follow. His expression stunned, he stared down at the dagger sticking out of his chest.

The dagger Melanie had thrown.

Bastien turned to Melanie. “And this would be your method of forging an alliance?”

She grimaced. “Sorry. Instinct.”

Once more fighting the urge to laugh—the two of them were really botching this—Bastien leaped forward.

While Melanie cursed herself for reacting too quickly, Bastien sped forward and plowed into the blond like an NFL linebacker. Without slowing, he caught the Panthers fan, too, and took them both down. The three slammed to the ground, dirt and winter brown foliage spraying up from the small crater they formed. Bastien reared back and hit the two vamps with the auto-injectors just as the other three vampires shot forward.

Melanie threw two daggers. One hit the vampire with the slicked back hair in the chest. The other hit one of the Tar Heels in the biceps. Both jerked to a halt and reached up to yank the blades out, giving Bastien enough time to deliver the full doses to the vampires he straddled.

The other Tar Heel kept going, streaking past Bastien and the others toward Melanie.

Fear sliced through her. She hurled another dagger, but the vamp dodged it, letting it fly past and land in the neck of the vamp with the slicked-back hair.

Down to her last two daggers, Melanie began to walk backward as she swung the blades in front of her. Mortals couldn’t combat a vampire’s strength. Nor could they match a vampire’s speed. The best chance they had was to try to anticipate where the vampire would strike and swing to deflect the blow long before the vamp actually made it. Melanie had always been good at guessing the next move. And vampires did tend to underestimate any mortals who challenged them, toying with them first before they attacked in earnest.

At the last minute, Melanie dropped to the ground. A breeze combed through her hair as the vampire sailed overhead.

Heart pounding, she jumped to her feet and faced the vampire as he hit the ground and spun around.

His face mottled with anger. His hands closed into fists. His blue eyes began to glow as brightly as the moon above them. Lips curling into a sneer, he drew a butterfly knife from his back pocket, fanned it open with a flourish, and gripped the handles.

Melanie balanced her weight lightly on the balls of her feet, gripped her daggers, and waited.

The vampire blurred.

Swiveling to the side, Melanie swung both blades and stepped back.

A sharp pain stung her thigh. Again raising her weapons, she watched the vampire halt and stare down at the two long rips in his sweatshirt. One tore the material open from the middle of his chest to his hip. The other opened his side and lower back. The edges of both swiftly turned crimson, the stain spreading beneath each opening.

Jaw clenching, he charged forward.

Melanie again dropped to the ground. This time the vampire tripped on her, his foot lodging painfully in her ribs, then flew several yards to land in an ignominious heap.

Not too bright, this one.

Melanie rose and fought the urge to clutch her sore ribs. Another lesson she had learned when training was to never tip off her opponents to a weakness. Show them an injury and they would exploit it.

Rustles and thumps sounded behind her. She wanted desperately to peek and see how Bastien was faring, but didn’t dare take her eyes from the vampire stumbling to his feet and facing her. Dirt clung to the wet ruby patches on his clothes. His hair stood up on one side.

Growling in fury, he lunged in her direction, then froze, his gaze going over her shoulder.

A body brushed up against Melanie’s back.

Jumping, she spun around and swung one of the daggers.

Bastien caught her wrist before the blade could sink into his throat. “It’s all right. It’s just me.”

Relief rushed through her. “Make a sound next time. Or say my name. Something. I thought you were one of the other vampires.”

“I realize that now. My mistake. I’ve never fought alongside a human before.” He pointed at the vampire, who was easing back a step. “You,” he pronounced in an authoritative tone. “Stay where you are. We need to talk and if you run away you won’t escape. You’ll just piss me off.” His expression darkened. “And you do not want to piss me off.”

The vampire blanched and swallowed audibly.

Melanie looked behind Bastien at the others. The blond, the Panthers fan, and the other Tar Heel were unconscious on the ground, successfully tranqed by the auto-injectors. The vamp in black with the slicked back hair was rapidly shriveling up as the virus that infected him devoured him from the inside out in a frantic bid to continue living. He could have survived the knife to the chest. It had hit near his shoulder. But the throat . . . Her borrowed dagger had severed the carotid artery.

Vampires weren’t like immortals. Immortals wouldn’t die from blood loss alone. If the blood loss was extreme enough, the immortal would slip into a sort of stasis or hibernation until another blood source came along. Vampires like this one, however, simply bled out, dying before the virus could repair the damage.

Melanie stared. She had never killed anyone before. Had never even imagined doing so, even while undergoing her training. It left a sick feeling in her stomach. A heaviness in her chest.

Bastien’s hand on her wrist loosened, sliding up to her biceps to brush up and down in a gentle caress.

She looked up, met his gaze. “It was an accident.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t mean to kill him. The second dagger was supposed to hit that one.” She motioned to the sole upright vampire, who glanced around frantically, seeking some avenue of escape.

“I know,” Bastien murmured softly, then maneuvered her around so her back was to the others. “What about your leg? How deep is the wound?”

She glanced down. The blue jean material clinging to her left thigh had parted in a clean slice about half a foot long. Shifting the dagger in her left hand to join that in her right, she poked the wound. “It’s shallow. I don’t think I even need stitches.”

Bastien suddenly pointed in the vamp’s direction. “Boy, do not make me chase you.”

The vampire, who must have been about to bolt, went still, eyes wide.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Bastien asked Melanie, his voice much softer.

She nodded.

“Why aren’t the others shriveling up?” the vampire blurted. Melanie could almost hear his nerves jangling.

“They aren’t dead,” Bastien told him and held up the used auto-injectors. “They’re drugged.”

“Drugs don’t work on us,” the vampire countered. “I used to be hooked on Ketamine. Now it doesn’t do shit to me.”

“This,” Bastien told him, again drawing his attention to the auto-injectors, “will.”

“Bullshit.”

“Have you ever seen a dead vampire not disintegrate?”

“No,” he admitted. “But I haven’t seen very many dead vampires.”

Melanie eyed the vamp. Could they have lucked out and actually found a newly turned one so soon? “How long have you been infected?”

“Since Spring Break.” Less than a year then. “I went to Acapulco, got high, passed out on the beach, and woke up like this.” His gaze, still luminescent blue, strayed to his companions.

“Listen for their pulse, if it will make you feel better,” Melanie suggested.

All were silent for a long moment.

“They really are still alive,” he said. “But they’re out? They’re unconscious?”

“Yes.”

He started forward.

Bastien reached out, touched Melanie’s hip, and eased her behind him.

She tried to resist—she could take care of herself—but Bastien got his way through sheer strength, keeping himself between her and the vampire at all times as the boy went to stand over his friends.

All but growling with frustration, Melanie poked Bastien in the ribs.

A bark of startled laughter escaped him when she inadvertently hit a ticklish spot. He quickly cut it off and frowned down at her.

Raising up the daggers she still held in one hand, she pushed him away with the other. “I don’t think he’s stupid enough to try to hurt me,” she said dryly. “Are you . . . what’s your name?”

The vampire stopped next to the blond. “Stuart.” Without answering her first question, he crouched down and started rifling through the pockets of the blond’s leather jacket.

Bastien grumbled something she couldn’t hear under his breath. Truth be told, she wouldn’t mind being in his arms under other circumstances.

Stuart made a sound of discovery and withdrew an iPod and what appeared to be Bose earbuds from the blond’s pocket. Rising, he wrapped the cord around and around the iPod, then tucked both into his back pocket.

“He won’t remember any of this?” Stuart asked, his eyes on the blond.

“No,” Bastien answered.

A second later, Stuart drew his foot back and kicked the blond hard in the head. “Asshole. Takin’ my shit.” A second kick followed.

“I take it you two weren’t close,” Bastien drawled.

“Hell, no. But if there’s one thing we vampires learned from . . .” he motioned to Bastien “. . . well, from you, it’s that there’s strength in numbers. Dick here was the strongest among us and seemed to be doing pretty well, so I joined him.”

Lovely, Bastien thought. The immortals were going to enjoy holding this over his head.

“So . . .” Stuart said, easing back a step and clapping his hands together. “I guess I’ll just be going now.”

“Nice try.” Bastien drawled and motioned to a pile of dirt that bordered a crater in the soil, a remnant of the last battle fought here. A battle he had missed, damn it. It may have turned out differently had he not. “Park it.”

Face grim, Stuart perched awkwardly on the soil. “It’s damp.”

“I care. Now pay attention. We have something to discuss.” Bastien untucked his shirt and began to tear a long strip from the hem like someone trying to pare away an apple’s skin in one long piece.

“Is it what we heard you talking about before we reached the clearing?”

“Yes. We’ve a new enemy.”

“The Immortal Guardians do?”

“Both of us—vampires and immortals—do. One bent on destroying us all so he can usurp our power.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“What are you doing?” Melanie asked, watching him curiously.

Bastien knelt before her. “Remember what I said, Stuart. Don’t make me chase you.” Taking the long strip of cloth, Bastien began to wind it snugly around and around Melanie’s thigh where the vamp had cut her.

She braced a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

Bastien completely lost his train of thought as warmth flowed into him at the sweet contact. He heard her pulse leap at his touch. Felt her breath catch as though it were his own.

“Our new enemy developed the sedative, Stuart,” she said.

“And yet, you’re using it.”

“I didn’t get my hands on the drug,” she said, “until it was used against vampires and immortals during the vampire king’s uprising.”

Bastien tied a knot in the makeshift bandage. “The enemy’s name is Emrys and he runs a mercenary group.” Rising, he glanced at the vamp. “At least we think it’s mercenary and not military.”

Stuart frowned. “What, you mean like Blackwater?”

“Yes, but think smaller and more elite. Only those who need to know are even aware of this shadow army’s existence. It’s so secretive we haven’t been able to ascertain its name or location, only that of the leader.”

“We wouldn’t have even known that,” Melanie said, “if he hadn’t duped the vampire king.”

Stuart looked doubtful, but at least he was listening.

Bastien hadn’t really anticipated accomplishing this much when he had proposed his plan. He and Melanie had really lucked out.

Of course, there were a lot more recently turned vampires in the area, thanks to the vampire king. Near the end, he had told his followers to turn others at will, and his soldiers had taken that order and run with it. Chris Reordon was still sorting through all of the Missing Person reports that had inundated the police and sheriff ’s departments in North Carolina and surrounding states.

“Was this before or after you killed the king?” Stuart asked with an abundance of sarcasm.

Bastien stood too close to Melanie. Every time their arms brushed, he was struck by little shocks of her emotions, many of which revolved around his sorry ass. “Before. What do you think weakened the king’s ranks enough for us to destroy them?”

Stuart frowned.

“This mercenary—Emrys—promised the vampire king power, an army . . . everything the king desired basically . . . in exchange for the capture of one of us. The vampire king trusted him and was taken down with the drug, many of his followers with him.”

Sure it was a fabrication. Well, not the deal part, but the Emrys taking down the vampire king part. That had been pure Immortal Guardian handiwork accomplished with the aid of Reordon and his network.

And a butt-load of Napalm-B.

“So they want one of you guys?” Stuart asked, a speculative gleam entering his eye.

“They want you, too,” Melanie said in that soft, genuine voice of hers. “We don’t know what their aim is. I assume they want to study you, possibly expose you to the public.”

“What’s so wrong with going public?”

Bastien snorted. “Nothing if you invest your money in repeating pump-action crossbow manufacturing. Because as soon as word breaks, an ass-load of religious fanatics, hunting aficionados, and horror movie fans are going to come after us. All of us. But, since vampires are the ones who actively prey upon humans, they’ll come after you first.”

“Shit.”

“Precisely.”

“It isn’t just that,” Melanie said. “This man and those he commands are butchers. We’ve seen their handiwork. They may promise you wealth and power and anything else they think you desire, but they will use the drug when you least expect it. It may be at your first meeting. Or at your fifth or fiftieth, when they feel you’re no longer useful to them. They think you’re an expendable animal. And when they have you at their mercy, they will torture you.”

Bastien nodded. “When I say they want to study you, I don’t mean they want to take your blood pressure or ask you to turn your head and cough. They’ll torture your ass. The pain and discomfort you experienced during your transformation will be as minor as a paper cut in comparison.”

Stuart swore.

Bastien tensed when the boy jumped up and began to pace.

“So what you’re saying is I’m screwed. This mercenary fuck wants me and every other vampire dead and so do you immortals.”

“No, we don’t. You’d be an empty pile of clothing like Murray’s man over there if that were true. The immortals are looking for vampires with whom we can form an alliance of sorts.”

“Bullshit.”

Melanie caught Stuart’s eye. “This isn’t the first time an immortal has approached a vampire with an offer of aid. You wouldn’t be in this clearing tonight if you hadn’t heard that Bastien had done so in the past.”

“Yeah,” Stuart said, voice high with anxiety, “because he thought he was a vampire!”

“But that’s a good thing,” she insisted. “He lived with vampires for two centuries. He knows what you’re going through. I know what you’re going through. Two vampires have already joined our fight. Had they not, I wouldn’t have been able to alter the drug so that it only sedates and doesn’t kill vampires.”

Stuart stopped short. “Really?”

“The two were members of my army,” Bastien said, “who had the foresight to surrender and ask the Immortal Guardians for help rather than continuing to fight once I was taken.”

“Once you were taken?” Stuart repeated. “Like as a prisoner?”

Bastien shrugged. “I had spent too many years wrongly blaming immortals for something they didn’t do to go willingly. And, yet—as you can see—they didn’t harm me. They won’t harm you either if you help us.”

“Help you how?”

“We need someone to help us spread the word to the other vampires, impress upon them the importance of avoiding capture by Emrys and his soldiers. I narrowly escaped capture myself, and you know I’m much stronger than you are.”

“Yeah. You wish.”

The words had scarcely left Stuart’s lips before Bastien flew to his side and lifted him two or three feet off the ground with a hand at his throat.

Eyes bulging, Stuart clawed at Bastien’s hand with both of his own to no avail. His face mottled. His legs kicked.

Melanie cleared her throat. “Um . . . Bastien.”

Opening his fingers, he let the vampire drop to the ground. “As I said, I’m much stronger than you.”

Stuart coughed and gasped. Climbing to his feet, he glowered at Bastien.

Melanie ambled over to join them.

Bastien clutched Stuart’s arm. “Do you kill when you feed?”

“Yes,” he responded defiantly.

The emotions flowing into Bastien told him otherwise. Stuart was all boast and no bite.

Releasing him, Bastien stepped back.

“What do I have to do if I join you?” the vamp asked.

“Vampires from all over the globe have been pouring into North Carolina since tales of my uprising leaked, so we know you use a method to communicate that goes beyond word of mouth or congregating at the local pub.”

Stuart rubbed his neck. “There are . . . places on the Internet where a lot of us like to hang out.”

“We’ll need a list of those.”

Stuart shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I need to think about it.”

“Not if you want to live.”

“So, if I say no, you’ll kill me?”

“If you aren’t with us, you’re against us.”

“There’s more,” Melanie said, issuing Bastien a frown. “You’ve been a vampire long enough to notice that older vampires are less than stable mentally.”

Stuart’s gaze strayed to the blond.

“The mental deterioration is a result of brain damage that increases every day you’re infected with the virus. You may be fine now. But you’ll begin to have psychotic episodes in the next year or so. Before then, twisted fantasies will disrupt your thoughts. Disturbing impulses that will become harder and harder to deny.”

Stuart eyed Bastien. “You have that?”

“No. Immortals don’t have to battle the insanity vampires do.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Stuart, the two vampires I told you about . . . We’re working with them to find a way to prevent that and to reverse the damage, to find a treatment so being infected won’t result in an automatic mental decline. We want to help vampires.”

“Then why kill us?”

“You leave us little choice,” Bastien said. “If there were a rabid dog in your neighborhood, would you let it run around attacking at will, or would you put it down?”

“We’re trying to spare you both fates,” Melanie explained. “But, we can’t impress upon you strongly enough that either of those—a descent into madness or death at the hands of an immortal—would be preferable to the fate you would meet if you were captured by Emrys and his army.”

“They’re humans. I just don’t see—”

“They have pistols that will sedate you and any other vampire in seconds,” Bastien reminded him. “These are mercenaries armed with automatic weapons. You won’t be able to stand against them. I barely escaped myself.”

Stuart still looked uncertain. “I have to think about it.”

“I’ll give you until tomorrow night.”

Stuart shook his head. “What if I need more time? I mean . . . I don’t know.”

Bastien took the boy’s arm again and felt only fear. No malice. Or triumph. Or anything that might indicate deception. “Three nights,” Bastien conceded. It was a hell of a decision. “Meet me here at midnight or I’ll assume you’ve opted not to join us and will hunt you down. And Stuart . . .”

“Yeah?”

“If I have to hunt you down, there won’t be any talking when I find you. We clear?”

“Yeah.” Stuart took a step back. Then another. Seconds later he vanished into the foliage and Bastien heard him rushing away as fast as he could.

He turned to face Melanie and found her studying him, her pretty face impassive.

“You can kick ass,” he praised, both impressed and puzzled by the fact that she had held her own so well against a vampire.

“Yes.” With a tip of her chin, she indicated the trees through which Stuart had departed. “You’re really going to let him go?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t do that, Bastien.”

He should not like the sound of his name on her lips so much. “He can’t spread the word if I don’t.”

“But he said he’s killed.”

“He was lying.”

“You don’t know that with any certainty, not without one of the telepaths confirming it.”

“I know it with some certainty.”

“How?”

“Don’t you know about my gift?”

“No. Why? What is it?”

“I’m an empath.”

She stared at him in silence for so long he began to feel a bit self-conscious. “You can feel other people’s emotions?” she asked finally.

“Yes. And Stuart’s told me he was lying to try to save his ass.”

Again she stared at him.

“What?” he asked when the silence stretched.

“You can feel my emotions? Right now?”

“No. I have to touch you to feel them.”

“So . . .”

He could see her considering it, trying to remember every time he had touched her or she had touched him. At the network. In her car. At David’s. Trying to remember what she might have inadvertently revealed.

“You might have mentioned it. Given me a little warning.”

“Such didn’t occur to me.”

More silence.

“What do you feel when you touch me?” she asked.

Bastien’s attention dropped to her full lips as she licked them anxiously. “Sometimes I feel your concern. Sometimes uncertainty. Clinical detachment. Fear the first time we met.”

“Well, our first meeting was rather . . . explosive.”

That was putting it mildly.

“What else?”

He knew what she sought. “Sometimes my gift tells me you feel what I feel myself every time I look at you. Or think of you. Or touch you.”

Her soft, smooth neck moved with a swallow. “You’re attracted to me.”

“Yes.”

“I’m attracted to you.”

“I know.”

“What are we going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not going to give me a reason?”

“If you need one, I’m not looking to enter into a relationship just now.” He wasn’t sure how much longer he would be with the immortals. He would only be able to tolerate so much crap before he would have to move on to avoid killing someone. And, for all he knew, if he did move on, they might hunt him down and finally execute him for killing Ewen. Why the hell would he bring a woman into his life now?

“Blunt,” she said. “I can respect that.”

“I’m too old to play games.”

“Some men are never too old to play games.”

“The same could be said of some women.”

“That’s true, though I wish I could say otherwise.” Sighing, she looked around the clearing, then down at the daggers in her hand. She held them out to him.

His fingers brushed hers when he took the weapons, allowing him to feel her emotions. No embarrassment. Mainly frustration and disappointment.

He felt a healthy dose of that himself.

Some men were only interested in physical beauty. Bastien needed a brain to go along with that. Without wit and intelligence to intrigue him, after two hundred years a hot body just became the same old same old to the extreme. And no sex was better than sex with someone who bored him.

Melanie would never bore him. She was smart and funny and so damned sexy . . .

“Did you feel anything else when you touched me?” she asked.

“Irritation,” he mentioned. Thinking of her aggravation with him during the meeting, he smiled. “Which reminds me . . . You kicked me.”

She shrugged, lips tilting up just a bit. “You were being an ass. Didn’t anyone ever tell you you can catch more flies with honey?”

“Sure. But who wants to catch flies?”

She laughed. “You’re impossible.”

“So everyone keeps telling me, but in far less pleasant terms.”

Melanie’s Chevy Volt suddenly appeared in the clearing. Richart stood next to it with his hand on the hood.

She jumped, then looked at Bastien. “Doesn’t it startle you when he does that?”

“It did at first, but I’ve spent so much time around him lately that it no longer phases me.”

Richart lifted his hand off the car, took a step, then sank to his knees.

Bastien zipped over and caught him before he could fall forward and hit the ground face-first. “What is it? Have you been tranqed?”

“No.” Richart gripped Bastien’s arm and used it as leverage to gain his feet. “I’ve never teleported a car before and was curious to see if I could do it.”

Bastien released him as soon as he stood, but prepared to throw a hand out as the Frenchman swayed.

Beige grasses and weeds crackled and crunched as Melanie joined them. “Does teleporting weaken you?”

“Teleporting cars does, apparently.”

“What about people?”

Bastien could see her slipping into her physician mode. Odd that even when she was clinical and impersonal he found her utterly alluring.

“Not if I only teleport one person at a time.”

“Do you need blood afterward?”

He sent her a flirtatious smile. “Are you offering?”

Bastien’s fist slammed into Richart’s jaw.

Richart’s head snapped back. Blood sprayed from his lips.

Melanie gasped.

Bastien stared. He really hadn’t meant to do that. Hadn’t he just told Melanie he didn’t want a relationship with her? Behaving like a jealous moron wouldn’t go very far in helping him convince her of that.

Richart staggered back against the car and raised a hand to cup his cracked jaw. “What the hell, man?”

Bastien risked a glance at Melanie, then swore.

Though her eyes were wide, the look in them was too knowing.

“Dr. Lipton is under my protection.”

Richart leaned over and spat blood. “I wasn’t going to bite her, you horse’s ass! It was a joke!”

A harmless joke that every immortal on the planet, himself included, had probably spouted dozens of times. Except tonight it had sent a storm of jealousy thundering through him. “Well, it wasn’t funny.”

Richart grunted as his jaw began to heal. “If you’d just told me you wanted her for yourself, I wouldn’t have opened my mouth. Asshole.”

“He doesn’t want me for himself,” Melanie said. “He isn’t looking for a relationship.”

“It doesn’t matter if he’s looking,” Richart grumbled. “He’s found one. The two of you can’t take your eyes off each other. And in the rare moments you do, you usually touch.”

“What?” Bastien said the same time Melanie did.

Was she as appalled that her feelings were so transparent as he was?

“Don’t worry.” Richart drew out a handkerchief and wiped his crimson lips. “I doubt anyone else has noticed. Bastien is usually too busy pissing them all off.”

“He doesn’t piss you off?” Melanie asked.

“Other than just now”—Richart glared at Bastien—“no. I’ve spent enough time in his company that I’ve become immune to his bullshit.” He tucked the stained cloth away. “We’ll have to either drop by my place or return to the network because now I need blood.”

“The network,” Bastien chose. “I want to run our plan by Cliff and Joe and seek their advice. And we need to drop these guys”—he motioned to the unconscious vampires—“off in the holding room.”