Jared’s gaze followed my line of vision and he laughed. Who wouldn’t? The feathery, sequin-covered eye-masks that they had clearly made themselves should have made Fletcher and Norm look completely daft, but they somehow suited them. It was their idea of dancing that was so amusing. It looked more like they were hyperventilating.

Having jumped down from the float that they had clearly hitched a ride on, they both dashed over to us. As usual, Fletcher gave me a tight hug. “Isn’t this party bloody brilliant?”

“I know, it’s amazing. I love it.”

Norm, too, gave me a hug. Pulling back, he studied my eyes and smiled knowingly. “The mercury’s glowing.”

I tensed. “Tell me the truth. Does it look bad?”

Jared groaned in frustration, tugging me to him and enfolding me in his arms again. “I’ve told you, it looks anything but bad.”

I huffed. “You would say that – you like sex.”

Laughing, Fletcher agreed with Jared, “It doesn’t look bad at all. It looks quite sexy actually.”

“Sexy,” repeated Norm, though he was looking directly at an unsuspecting Jared − it wasn’t an uncommon thing.

Unlike Jared, Fletcher hadn’t missed that and he shot his boyfriend a scowl that swore repercussions.

Norm snickered. “Oh you can look, but I can’t?”

“I’m pleased we’ve sorted that out,” replied Fletcher with a cheeky smile that made Norm gape in outrage. Turning back to me, Fletcher said, “Widow Twankey’s nowhere to be seen. Does that mean she’s gone?” When I shook my head, he gave me a castigating look. “You must have a screw loose to keep her around. Well, at least she’s not here at the party.”

Right at that moment, I couldn’t have cared less where she was. With Jared wrapped around me and the fabulous atmosphere, the woman didn’t seem important. We continued to dance and eat and dance and eat…right up until sunrise when the street party finally ended, culminating in an amazing firework display.

Even if the street party hadn’t been so incredible, we would still have enjoyed the night. We had a list of reasons to be happy. I had been totally accepted by all so there was no longer any worry that Jared may have to step down from his position. Magda and Brook were very wisely keeping a low profile. There had been no more bouts of excruciating pain or attacks of bloodlust. And my gifts were now under total control − not to mention stronger.

But our contentedness only lasted until dusk when we received a message from Antonio, summoning us to meet with him. Ryder had got the information we needed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

(Sam)

I was glad to be meeting with Antonio in this particular room of his mansion. In the centre of the huge space was a large glass aviary. Inside, with the many trees and plants, there were canaries, rabbits, guinea pigs, and lots of different types of birds. Making it even nicer, a tiny stream bordered the entire aviary.

This room was where Antonio came whenever he felt overwhelmed by things; he’d once said that the peaceful space relaxed him. So, as always, he and Luther were wearing beaming smiles as they watched the animals scurrying around. At my entrance, the dogs immediately came to sniff and nuzzle my hands. Jared received merely a fleeting, dismissive look from them, which made him snort.

“So what did Ryder find out?” Jared gruffly asked Antonio. He never bothered with pleasantries when he was in this kind of mood. And why was he in a bad mood? He’d been hoping that Ryder wouldn’t retrieve the relevant information until after our ceremony. Yeah, I could understand that. But I’d rather have the whole thing over with before then, as it would mean I could totally relax and have nothing on my mind other than the ceremony. Hopefully this peaceful place would work its wonders on Jared.

Antonio’s mouth twitched in amusement at Jared’s abruptness. “I believe there is plenty that you should be able to use to shut down this operation once and for all.”

“Good.” Somehow, that managed to sound like a growl.

I elbowed Jared hard. “Snap out of it. You said sex would cheer you up. Clearly that was a load of bleeding shite.”

He released a long-suffering sigh. “Fine. Tell us what Ryder found out,” he said more calmly.

Antonio nodded. “The Deliverer, Wendy, did not know much at all. She was merely given the position by the Medics, and was told not to ask questions. She didn’t. The Medics, on the other hand – Sandra and Mitch, I believe their names are – proved very useful.”

The powerful Keja settled himself on one of the benches before continuing. “None of them had known each other prior to becoming Medics. Erik had been struck off the medical register for misconduct. Mitch had been in an accident that left him with a tremor in his hand, which meant he could no longer be a surgeon and so he lost his job. Sandra was in medical school but struggling to pay for it herself.

“One thing that applied to all of them was that they were financially struggling. Erik and Mitch had lost big jobs, but still had big mortgages and families to support. Sandra worked part-time as a waitress, but some of her wages were going to her mother, who was an alcoholic and mostly drinking it away.”

A part of me could sympathise with that, but I didn’t feel that it could possibly excuse anything that they had done.

“Each was recruited separately. They were teased by a stranger with the idea of a job that would be the answer to all of their problems. They were then given a card and asked to call if they wished to talk about it more. Each of them did. Separately, they were collected and taken to a detached house. There, they were informed exactly what they would be required to do and asked if they had problems with this. These people are known as the Handlers.”

“I take it the Medics didn’t have any issues.”

“Sandra had had her doubts, but apparently because of her own childhood, her belief was that children would be better off with financially comfortable families. She was assuming that the babies were going to such people. Mitch had simply needed the money desperately as he was extremely close to losing everything. Erik had been scared and intimidated into saying yes after, without their knowledge, watching one of the vampires feeding on a human.”

No wonder he had been so petrified of us.

“After accepting the position, all of them had their memories altered so that they remembered only what they needed to remember. Erik had, at one point, seen fangs after meeting with one of the Handlers, and it had sparked the other memories to resurface. He therefore knew exactly where the babies were going, and exactly who they would be going to.”

“Yet he didn’t stop?” Jared’s expression morphed into one of disgust.

“It wasn’t sitting well with him. Many times he had considered going to the police, but he was in too deep and he had a wife and twin daughters. Apparently, though, the vampires had noticed the guilt, so they had frightened him by telling him that if he talked, they would drink his wife dry and sell his children before then killing him.”

My eyebrows rose. “I suppose that explains why he was prepared to slit his own throat rather than tell us anything.”

“Was Ryder able to get us any names?” Jared asked Antonio.

“Yes. The name of the person who did most of the talking was ‘Zeke’. The one with the gift of meddling with memories was ‘Blake’.” Antonio smiled slightly as he added, “Ryder did sketches of them, but he’s no artist, so don’t expect too much.”

“This house that Erik, Sandra, and Mitch were taken to,” I began. “Did Ryder manage to get an address?” I wasn’t optimistic about that.

Antonio’s smile was smug. “Fortunately, as Sandra was familiar with that particular area, she was able to recognise the avenue.” Oh, fab.

Jared nodded approvingly. “Were there any other names? Anything that could be linked to the vampire who’s running the operation?”

Sighing disappointedly, Antonio replied, “They merely referred to him as ‘the boss’. They talked to each other about ‘Lynne’ and ‘Moira’, both of who I suspect take care of the babies.”

“Then Lynne and Moira die too,” I said simply, to which Jared nodded.

Antonio rose from the bench. “I suggest you leave promptly. Regrettably you’ll be missing tonight’s entertainment, but I will not have you miss or delay the ceremony − it will happen in two evenings’ time. Tomorrow evening must be a time that you can relax and prepare for it. As such, if all is not resolved tonight, I will hand over the assignment to another squad.” He held up a hand when both Jared and I went to speak. “I appreciate that this is a sore spot for every squad, but I will not let your work interfere with your Binding.”

We gave Antonio ‘fair enough’ nods. He was right; we couldn’t place an assignment before our Binding, no matter how delicate this particular assignment was. That simply made me more determined to end it tonight.

Okay, so the plan had been simple enough. Using the same technique we used at the secluded bungalow, we get inside, kill the occupants, and rescue anyone that needed rescuing, if applicable.

Of course, at first we needed to find out just how many people were inside, where exactly they were, and what it was they were doing. That was where Stuart would come in. From the roof of the late night café on the corner of the avenue, we had been able to tell that the gated house had plenty of security cameras. That wouldn’t be an issue as nobody monitoring the footage would notice Stuart travelling around as molecules. His role was to get inside, investigate, and report back with whatever information he found.

There turned out to be a huge problem with that.

“What do you mean you can’t get near the house?” I asked him. Jared and the squad all huddled closer on the roof.

Stuart looked at me helplessly. “The building’s surrounded by some kind of psychic alarm. I might not have noticed it, but a guy in the legion has the same gift and he’s placed one around his apartment so that if anyone even gets close to his door, the activity will trigger the alarm. You can’t see the alarm, but it makes a really low buzzing sound. I probably would have ignored the noise if it hadn’t been so familiar.”

Harvey flapped his arms. “So now what?”

“There’s something you guys should know,” began Stuart. “I heard two voices talking. One of the windows had been slightly open. Anyone passing wouldn’t have heard it…if they hadn’t been a vampire. They were talking about picking up a ‘package’ shortly to take to ‘Moira’, and that ‘the boss’ was impatient. They were also frustrated that some of the other ‘Docs’ hadn’t contacted them with a ‘package’ yet.”

“He obviously means Erik, Sandra, and Mitch, then,” said Jude, her eyes gleaming. The woman knew justice was close, and it was making her both anxious and restless.

“By package, they clearly mean they’re going to pick up another baby soon.” Jared sighed. “Well, if we can’t get in there, maybe the best thing would be to wait for them to come out. Then we follow them. We let them lead us to Moira and Lynne.”

“And we stop that baby from being sold,” stated Jude.

Jared nodded. “This ends tonight.”

Enter the new plan…

That plan entailed me sitting in the passenger seat of a car that Jared had parked outside the café. Courtesy of the vampires that Antonio sent, we were in possession of four cars that had been ‘borrowed’ for the night. It was a given that if we screwed this up and the vampires realised that someone was onto them, they would disappear and we might possibly lose any chance of getting to them or the person behind the op. Worse still, that would mean not only would babies continue to go missing and their mothers be killed, but we would be unable to track the children that had already been sold. None of that was acceptable to any of us.

With all that in mind, it was agreed that in order to follow the Handlers without attracting their attention, we would need to be extremely careful. While watching from a car seemed beyond cliché and could often attract suspicion, Chico had been right when he said that a car parked outside a café wasn’t going to look suspicious. As an added precaution, he had instructed me to go shotgun, reading a newspaper; that way, it would simply look as though I was waiting for someone.

Inside the café, Jared was having a coffee at one of the tables near the window with David and Butch, who would soon be using the car that was parked beside mine. All three of them were very subtly monitoring the target. Of course, a human would have extreme difficulties with monitoring from such a long distance, but our enhanced vision gave us that advantage. What we had to bear in mind was that Zeke and Blake also had that advantage and would be able to see us as clearly as we could see them – hence all the cautiousness.

Helping the situation, Stuart and Denny were hovering near the house in their alternate forms, ready to report back with any movement from inside the building. As the house was on a one-way street, it had made it possible for Chico and Jude to wait in another vehicle around the corner – the Handlers’ car would have to drive in their direction, and so Chico could pick up the tailing from there.

Salem and Reuben were waiting at the bus stop that was one hundred yards in front of Chico’s car, who would pick them up as he passed by. Chico felt that for all four of them to be sitting in the car on watch would attract the attention of passers-by or neighbours, and attention wasn’t what we needed. I wasn’t all that convinced that so much cautiousness was necessary, but as he had been on stakeouts before, I trusted his intuition. Apparently, he had been on a couple of stake-outs that had been ruined by simply a nosy old woman seeing a strange car parked near her home. These days, people were wary of strangers hanging around. They had every reason to be.