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.”

Chapter 17

Ami led Seth, David, and Marcus through dense forest, following the unique energy signatures of Cliff and Joe.

“It’s different,” she murmured. “The energy. Not as strong. But it’s them. I’m sure of it. I think they’ve been drugged.”

“Can you still find them?” Marcus asked.

“Yes. It’s just taking me longer.”

“Don’t worry about time,” Seth told her. “We have plenty of that.”

She took off again, leading them through the trees and naked brush. Above their heads, branches, whose leaves had been stolen by winter, clacked together as they swayed with the wind.

Seth followed close behind Ami, David at his side. Marcus clung to Ami’s hand and observed everything in front of them with eagle eyes.

Ami paused, drew her weapon and sighted down the barrel, tapping her arm with three fingers and pointing ahead and to the right.

They slowed their approach.

David raised a thermal scope to his right eye and scanned the trees and ground ahead.

Marcus halted and stopped Ami. Eyes on the ground, he took two steps forward and crouched down.

Seth and the others looked where he pointed and saw the trip wire of a land mine poking up through the dead leaves.

They were close.

Wait here, Seth instructed.

He strode ahead, eyes sharp, until he reached a big enough break in the trees for him to shift and launch into the air.

Only a mile away, the compound was eerily similar to the one he and David had destroyed in Texas. A three-story brick and mortar structure, nearly devoid of windows, rested in the center of a sizable clearing. A large parking lot peppered with vehicles painted the ground in front of it black with white stripes.

Behind the building, narrow wooden structures he’d heard some call pigeon coops or shacks formed two rows. Barracks for his mercenaries?

Those without families anyway. Those with families probably lived in nearby towns. Darnell would have to uncover all of their names so Seth could either eliminate them or wipe their memories, depending on what he found housed in their thoughts.

Near the back of the clearing lay two hangars of roughly the same height with domed roofs. The doors of both were open, allowing Seth to see a couple of Black Hawk helicopters within one. The other brightly lit interior housed a few armored vehicles, being serviced by industrious mercenaries, and a lot of empty space where the vehicles they had lost in the skirmish at the network probably used to reside.

A similar structure had just been erected at Chris’s behest not far from the new network headquarters and housed the vehicles Seth had salvaged from the battle. Chris’s mechanical geniuses had been working furiously on them while the network’s soldiers who were military veterans practically salivated as each awaited his chance to get behind the wheel.

Which they did tonight. Three armored personnel carriers hid among the trees five miles distant. Should they be needed, they would have to take the main road and come right up the drive in order to avoid any other land mines the mercenaries might have placed along the compound’s perimeter.

The drive leading to the compound from the highway was a two-lane road the same black as the parking lot and parted dormant vegetation, allowing all visitors one way in and out after they passed through a gate guarded by men carrying automatic weapons. Those guards walked stiffly in the cold, shoulders high, hands tucked into the pockets of their thick jackets, asses no doubt as frozen as the ground beneath their boots or the breath that frosted the air in front of their mouths.