“So he claimed,” she cautioned.
“Roy’s lying,” Roland remarked. “It’s a trap.”
“I agree,” Darnell inserted. “Roy asked for Roland, Sarah, and Bastien—the only three immortals with whom Montrose is familiar—the night before Montrose Keegan resurfaced. That can’t be a coincidence.”
Marcus settled a hand on Ami’s thigh. “He thinks Sarah is still human, that she’s Roland’s Second.”
“That will work to our advantage,” Sarah pointed out. “They won’t be anticipating my strength and speed.”
Étienne inspected her from the corner of his eye, a sly smile stealing across his face. “Are you sure I can’t talk you into leaving this old sod and running away with me? I do so love strong women.”
Roland’s jaw twitched. “She’s strong enough to kick your ass if you don’t stop hitting on her.”
The sly smile became a grin full of amusement. “As long as she spanks me first.”
Roland’s eyes flashed bright amber. Étienne’s chair suddenly flew out from under him, dropping him to the floor in an ignominious heap.
His siblings exploded with laughter.
French epithets flew from his lips. “I was just joking!”
“Not about this you don’t,” Roland warned.
Seth exchanged a resigned stare with David. “What has gotten into them tonight?”
David shrugged. “Too much sugar?”
His dignity ruffled, Étienne rose, retrieved his chair, and took a seat.
“Sebastien,” Seth asked, “what are the chances Montrose will be present at this meeting?”
“None.”
“Then here’s what we’ll do. Roland will pose as you—”
“I’m going,” Bastien stated.
“No, you aren’t. You’re too great a distraction. The others don’t trust you and, if this is a trap, can’t afford to watch you and whatever Roy and his vampire king will throw at them at the same time. As I said, Roland will pose as you, and Marcus and Ami will continue to impersonate Roland and Sarah.” He looked at Marcus. “David and I will accompany you and linger downwind in the shadows, ready to come to your aid should you need us. The five of us should have no difficulty foiling whatever their battle plan is. Sarah, Lisette, Étienne, and Richart, I want you to conduct your usual patrols to ensure this isn’t merely a diversion meant to get us out of the way and aid their recruiting efforts. Yuri and Stanislav, roam where you will and keep your phones on. Seconds, monitor our progress and be prepared to act should we need you. Chris, ready the network’s holding cells, have additional medical personnel available both at the network and here at David’s, and intensify security.”
Everyone nodded except for Bastien, who stewed in furious silence.
“All right then. Richart, did you acquaint yourself with the rendezvous location?”
“Yes, on the way here. I will have no problem teleporting there should you need me.”
“Excellent. I—” The screaming guitar intro to Steppen-wolf ’s “Magic Carpet Ride” danced on the air. Leaning to one side, Seth retrieved his cell phone from a back pocket. His brow furrowed as he noted the name of the caller. “Yes?”
Moments passed. Seth’s free hand clenched into a tight fist on the table as the other immortals stiffened.
“How big?” he asked, voice tense.
Concern crept through Ami. Had someone been injured?
“Give me a moment,” Seth said. Lowering the phone, he stood. “Change of plans.”
“What is it?” Chris asked.
Ami had rarely seen Seth look so grim. “There’s been an earthquake in Ecuador.”
His gaze met David’s. David rose and rounded the table.
Ami stood. “How bad is it?”
“Bad. David and I will go immediately to render aid and help those we can.”
They had done the same in Haiti, carefully combing through the rubble, lifting stone and wall and materials that would normally have required forklifts or other heavy machinery to shift, moving silently through streets strewn with bodies, listening for even the faintest heartbeat within the piles of mortar.
“I’ll get our gear,” David said and left the room so quickly he seemed to vanish.
“Sarah, Lisette, Étienne, and Richart, I want you all to accompany Roland, Marcus, and Ami.” He met Marcus’s gaze. “We cannot risk even one of you being captured. They will do as David and I intended, remain downwind and ready to leap in if necessary.” He looked to the other end of the table. “Sebastien, I want you to patrol with Yuri and Stanislav. You’ve been here long enough to be familiar with the area. Focus on the college campuses so Richart can easily teleport to you to bring you in for back up should they need you.”
Bastien gave a curt nod.
Stanlislav glanced at Yuri, who did not look pleased. “I thought he could not be trusted.”
Seth’s gaze bore into Bastien’s. “Can you be trusted?” A muscle in Bastien’s cheek jumped. “Yes.”Ami couldn’t identify the emotion contained in that word. Reluctance? Weariness?
David returned with two heavy canvas bags. Looping one over his shoulder, he held out the other.
Seth took it. “Darnell, I want you to monitor things from here.”
He nodded. “Be careful.”
Everyone at the table knew that request arose not out of fear that Seth or David would be physically harmed in their efforts but that their differences—their gifts—would be detected.
Nodding, Seth reached out and settled a hand on David’s shoulder.
In the next instant, they were gone.
Marcus glanced at the woman who stood beside him. Moonlight filtered down from above, swimming through wispy clouds, then picking its way through barren tree limbs to dabble in Ami’s curly, sienna tresses the way Marcus’s fingers longed to.
She wore no coat to stave off the frigid wind. Swiftly losing the heat from her body, it rested on the ground behind her, discarded so it wouldn’t slow her movements in the coming moments. Black cargo pants hugged her hips. The long-sleeved, black shirt above them molded itself to her breasts and narrow waist. Over one shoulder hung one of the reloading blocks Darnell had made for her with six 31-round clips velcroed in place on each. The Glock 18’s they would equip weighted holsters strapped to her thighs.
Ami’s small, slender fingers hovered near the weapons’ grips as she studied the empty clearing before them. Her pale cheeks and nose began to pinken from the winter chill. White clouds formed in front of her lips with every exhalation.
Damn, but he loved her. That it had happened so swiftly shouldn’t surprise him. Roland had fallen for Sarah in mere days.
Unable to resist touching her in that moment, Marcus settled his hand on her lower back, careful to avoid the two sheathed katanas that rode down its center.
She looked up, green eyes pensive.
“Still have that feeling?” he asked.
“Stronger than ever.”
On his other side, Roland murmured, “What feeling?”
They had arrived at the rendezvous point a couple of minutes ago. Nothing two-legged had stirred in the time since. The large farmhouse that had formerly resided in the picturesque clearing and served as Bastien’s lair had been razed a year and a half ago after the defeat of Bastien’s army. No sign of it remained, not even a weed-strewn cement slab. The maze of tunnels beneath the house, once home to a hundred or more vampires, had been packed with the house’s structural rubble, then filled and augmented with dirt, gravel, and sand that had settled into a low knoll.
Tall trees, a random mixture of deciduous and evergreen, formed an imperfect circle around the clearing. The muddy tire tracks that had once passed for a road now nourished a sprinkling of saplings and the brittle beige remains of thigh-high weeds.
“What do you smell?” Marcus asked Roland.
Chin rising slightly, Roland drew in a deep breath. “Something … very faint.”
Marcus had caught it, too. An odor so weak it was more like the memory of a scent.
“Men,” Roland continued. “A group of them, though I can’t discern how many.”
“Here now, lingering just far enough away to elude us?” Marcus asked, but didn’t think so. Something about it didn’t feel fresh.
The older immortal shook his head. “More like they’ve come and gone. Though how long ago I know not.”
“Perhaps they came earlier to scope out the battle site. Plan their attack.”
“Those were my thoughts.”
“Look at the grass. Enough blades have been bent and flattened to suggest quite a few.”
“Yes.”
Marcus peered into the shadows, searching for any whisper of movement. His sharp eyes honed in on miniscule broken branches and twigs that confirmed the recent passage of large bodies. Yet nothing aside from foliage bent or swayed.
Ami shifted restlessly beside him. “I smell something earthy.”
“Like freshly turned soil?” The scent was as prominent as that of crushed grasses.
“Yes, but I don’t see anything.”
Neither did he. Nothing that indicated any digging had taken place. Only a clod of dirt here or there that had likely been displaced by heavy boots like his own.
“Something isn’t right,” Roland rumbled.
The hairs on the back of Marcus’s neck prickled. An instant later a new scent reached them.
“We’ve got incoming,” Roland announced grimly, drawing his sais.
Ami curled her fingers around the grips of her Glocks. “How many?”
Marcus sorted through the odors. “Three or four. All vamps.”
Though the vampires were two miles away when Marcus and Roland first detected them, it took them only a minute or so to reach the clearing.
And those sixty seconds seemed to last an eternity.