Their troubled dynamic made it even more difficult to understand why Melly’s mother, Tatiana, had sent Melly to conduct this year’s trade negotiations with the Nightkind – unless Xavier was right, and Justine had been behind that ploy too. Julian and Melly had flamed out as usual, and none of the trade agreements had been approved until Xavier had stepped in and talked to Melly personally.

When Justine had tried to claim the agreements weren’t valid, Xavier had outmaneuvered her once again by recording Julian and Melly in verbal agreement with each other. Julian had confronted Justine with the recording, and she had left Evenfall just after sunset.

Now Julian reexamined things in a different light.

With the Nightkind political season over, the council had already met and disbanded for the year. Had Justine been looking for an excuse to get the council together one more time?

If they had reconvened upon her insistence, and the assassination attempt against Xavier had been successful, what would have been her next move – an assassination attempt against Julian?

And who would have made it with her?

Julian had a sense of time trickling away from him. The more time that passed, the more time Justine had to figure out her next moves. Even as she had left Evenfall hours ago, she would have been thinking ahead and rerouting any plans she had laid in place.

By now she had to know the attempt against Xavier’s life had failed, so she would be rerouting again.

I have questions for you, Justine, he thought savagely. Many questions.

What are you doing now?

Upstairs in his suite, he washed and changed quickly, donning black fatigues, boots, and a T-shirt. When he was finished, he jogged downstairs and called for Gregoire, who appeared again almost immediately.

He told the human, “I’m here for only a short while, and I don’t know when I’ll be back in the city. Evenfall is on lockdown. You need to keep the house here on lockdown too. Don’t allow anybody on the property, except for Xavier or Yolanthe.”

“Of course,” Gregoire said. “Do you need to feed before you leave?”

Julian shook his head. Then he paused to look into the other man’s eyes. While he did not encourage the kind of familiarity in his household that some other Vampyres did, Gregoire had been with him for almost forty years, quietly and unassumingly going about his tasks, and somehow always managing to ensure that everything was exactly the way that Julian wished.

He put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “No, but thank you for thinking of it. Look after yourself and the others. I would be – most displeased if something happened to you.”

Gregoire smiled and somehow managed to look worried at the same time. “I will, sir. Please look after yourself as well.”

Over the normal sounds of the city at night, Julian could hear the steady chopping of an approaching helicopter. Yolanthe’s strike team was almost here. He left Gregoire and strode into his study, where he went to a weapons cabinet that was tastefully concealed behind a walnut panel. By the time he had armed himself, the helicopter had landed on the helipad on the grounds behind the detached garage.

Yolanthe met him at the rear door.

Standing at five foot ten, Yolanthe was tall for a woman, but not unusually so. She had a lean, muscled body and panther-quick reflexes. Her strong-boned, olive brown features were classic Greek, and she wore her sleek black hair cut short in a no-nonsense style that hugged her shapely skull.

Julian had met Yolanthe when he had been a young Vampyre and still a general in the Roman army. They had been on opposite sides of a small, nasty border war.

With the weight of superior numbers on Julian’s side, the war hadn’t lasted long. Impressed with Yolanthe’s fighting skills and intelligent tactical ability, he had successfully recruited her, then several years later had turned her. She was one of his first progeny.

He told her, “We’re not staying.”

She fell into step beside him. Together they made their way quickly to the military helicopter waiting on the helipad. She asked, “Where are we headed, and what’s our mission?”

Julian leaped into the helicopter, glancing around and nodding at the nine familiar faces inside. He was unsurprised to find who Yolanthe had picked for the mission – all of the fighters present had served him for a long time. He knew them well, and trusted them.

As Yolanthe joined him, he told the team, “Justine tried to kill Xavier, but she didn’t succeed. He’s survived and he’s going to recover. He was also able to tell me what had happened. We’re going to take control of her estate. I doubt she’ll be there, but I’m hoping we’ll find some clues about where she’s gone. Expect extreme resistance.”

“Understood, sir.” Yolanthe touched the pilot on the shoulder. “We’ll need to set down a good quarter of a mile away and jog in, so we can get an element of surprise. Let’s go.”

As the whine of the chopper blades increased, Julian took a seat. Justine’s home lay south of the Bay, along the border of Silicon Valley, just outside of a small, upscale town called Los Gatos. By car, the trip would take over an hour. By air, they would be able to get there much sooner.

Justine’s estate was located some distance outside of the town, her land adjacent to Sanborn County Park. In an area populated with multimillion-dollar homes, her property was a lavish one by anyone’s standards. An elder Vampyre with a well-established wealth, she kept a household of over a hundred attendants, all of whom would have received some degree of weapons training.

As they grew closer, his muscles tightened in anticipation. The pilot set the helicopter in a picturesque, open clearing and powered down. Yolanthe handed Julian a headset, which he donned. While telepathy was by far the stealthiest method of communication, for most creatures it was only possible to telepathize within a range of a few feet, and it was useless for group communications.

He stepped out of the helicopter. The spring night air felt cool and damp against his skin. As soon as the other fighters hit the ground, they began to run.

A high security fence surrounded the estate, but that was no real obstacle for Vampyres. As Julian drew near, he put on a burst of power and speed, and launched into the air to clear the top of the fence by a good yard. He paused until all the others had joined him, then the team fanned out and stalked toward the mansion.

His sharp gaze scanned the area as they grew close, and he knew Yolanthe and the others were doing the same, looking for potential traps or security pitfalls. The scene looked perfectly domestic and peaceful.