Time to split up, Jared told me. Stay safe, baby.

You, too. Oh, and keep an eye on Jude. We don’t want her doing anything stupid.

Don’t hesitate to call on Dexter if you need to. It was an order. It was an order because he knew me well enough to guess that I was too protective of Dexter to want to expose him to this kind of danger. Yeah, I know that might sound kind of backwards since Dexter was supposed to be there to protect me. But every time I recalled him limp on the floor after a harsh blow from Magda, I felt ill.

Fine, I lied, knowing Jared would push if I didn’t give him an answer.

I know that you’re lying. Christ, you’re so damn stubborn.

Then why bother me? Ignoring his flow of curses, I led my team – Chico, Butch, Salem, David, and Harvey – to the trees that were on the left of the large stretch of land at the rear of the house. That placed us directly opposite the rest of the team, who were hiding in the trees parallel to ours. Despite my enhanced vision, I wasn’t able to spot any of them – not even the glow that would undoubtedly be coming from their irises.

It was as I sat there studying my surroundings that I realised something; due to the many acres of land around us, this place looked a lot like an open field. The same open field that Luther had seen in his vision? I’d like to think not, but it wouldn’t surprise me. In fact, I’d suspected that the attack in his vision would be something to do with the op. I’d just kind of hoped I was wrong. Great.

Although I heard two vehicles approaching in the distance, it didn’t occur to me that the cars might be intending to stop at the farmhouse. Why would it? None of the others that had approached had stopped here. But not only did one of these particular cars do so, they both did.

I cursed silently. Nobody liked a spanner in the works, especially when the plan was ready to put into action. Indicating for the team to remain in position, I silently hurried toward the trees that were closer to the front of the house. My new Pagori speed got me there in an instant. It still felt strange to be so much stronger, but at this particular moment, I wasn’t going to gripe about it.

From my hiding spot, I could see that two cars had parked beside the Handlers’ SUV. Four male Pagoris exited one vehicle, but didn’t pass by the other; instead they waited just behind it. It seemed to be a gesture of respect, an acceptance of their position in the hierarchy of vampires there.

Two vampires exited the other car, and one of them then went to the rear door and opened it courteously. It was reasonable to assume, then, that this just might be ‘the boss’. Well that would make sense. The only thing left to happen at this stage of the operation would be for the baby to be handed over to the Buyer, and it was probable that he would wish to be present at each transaction. This worked out quite nicely, as it meant we could kill him.

I cursed again when who was potentially ‘the boss’ exited the car.

Obviously sensing the cocktail of surprise, agitation, and anger circulating through me, Jared asked, What’s the matter?

Their boss has arrived, and he’s brought seven vampires with him. But that wasn’t what had me feeling enraged. The rage was owed to the fact that we knew this person, we’d been in their presence, and had we known that they were behind the op, we could have ended this some time ago. At the idea of that, nausea swirled around my stomach.

What is it?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

(Sam)

It’s f**king Orrin. The vampire’s walk was nothing like it had been at his home. Back there, he had seemed somewhat bashful and introverted – ‘seemed’ being the key word. The bloody bastard had played us, and he’d played us well. Now his walk was confident, purposeful, and imposing. In the place of the timid smile that he had worn for us was a harsh scowl.

Oh he was sooooooo going to die tonight. And very, very painfully.

The bastard, I’ll kill him, growled Jared. I sensed that he was as frustrated with himself as I was with myself for not looking closer at this particular vampire, at not even considering him. All right, maybe it was fair to say that there hadn’t been anything to make us link Orrin with this op, but had we paid more attention, we might have sensed his little act. Might have questioned just why he was putting on a little act.

Returning to my team, I took a calming breath. “The boss…it’s Orrin.”

Salem, who had gone inside Orrin’s home with us a few evenings ago, blew out a breath. “I never would have guessed.”

That made me feel slightly better. “He’s brought seven vampires with him.”

“That takes the people count up to thirteen versus sixteen,” said Chico. “Still good odds, though.”

Too pissed off to stall any longer, I contacted Jared again, staring at the spot that he and his team were waiting. I’m ready to move.

Good, let’s do this.

Whereas usually I would have had to absorb the energy around me, things were very different after the brothers’ meddling. Now the energy − both kinetic and solar − was already clinging to me, filling me. I let it buzz through me, invigorating me. On three. One, two, three. And then I manipulated some of the energy into a fireball and threw it. As I’d planned, it caught the clothesline that was hanging at the rear of the house, setting alight some of the garments pegged on it.

As we’d hoped, several of the vampires came dashing outside to investigate. Before they could even think to act, a bolt of lightning struck the small shack behind the clothesline. Suddenly all of them, other than one female, were there, ready to fight…and away from the baby. This not only gave Butch a chance to get inside, but it meant that the battle was happening away from the baby.

“Go,” I told Butch, watching with satisfaction as he slinked through the trees, heading toward the front of the house. There wasn’t room for optimism yet, however.

Jared was the first to attack. Remaining under the cover of the trees, he projected a massive lightning bolt at the vampires. The bolt hit one of them, reducing him to ashes. The hope was that the action would lure them away from the house and toward the trees. It sort of worked. Everybody other than Orrin and Blake began to move.

My mouth almost dropped open when Rudy – who I recognised from Orrin’s home – swiftly changed into a white tiger. Well that could be a problem. One of the others – a muscular Keja – wiggled his fingers, and they suddenly turned into black, oily tentacles. Ew. Startling me more than any of that, however, was when another Keja faded, becoming invisible. No, not invisible, I realised as he turned toward where Jared and his team were hidden. When he moved, it was possible to see him ever so slightly. But when he literally dashed away, I couldn’t see him at all. Apparently then, he was only slightly visible when he moved reasonably slowly − which wasn’t something he was liable to do in an attack. Oh joy.

It was fair to say that this wasn’t going to be at all easy. These vampires were clearly powerful…but so were we.

Not wanting all of the vampires to head for Jared and outnumber the rest of the team, I launched a powerful energy ball at one of them, hitting him in the back and making him burst into ashes. Simultaneously, Chico exhaled dozens of thorns in their direction; some connected with a dark-skinned Pagori. Instead of falling to the floor in agonising pain that would quickly lead to his death, however, he swerved…and exhaled thorns at us that were identical to Chico’s. We barely managed to dodge them.

“Oh shit. He’s a Syphon.” That was definitely not good. Whatever gift we used against him, he would be able to absorb and use for himself. Tell the others not to use their gifts on the dark-skinned Pagori, he’s a Syphon, I warned Jared. The only way we can deal with him is with up close and personal combat, but you’ll have to wait until his ability to exhale thorns has worn off. The average time was somewhere between three and five minutes.

Great, he snapped. I’ll get Stuart to duel him. That was clever, since Stuart had sparred with Chico often in order to improve the speed at which he could explode into molecules − when poisonous thorns were coming at you and you needed to dodge fast, your speed could improve very quickly. But I didn’t have time to praise Jared for his decision as suddenly six vampires were charging at me and my team. Oh bugger.

The one that had decided to focus on me jumped in the air and hissed a large spray of water at me. Or, what looked like water. It was only when it hit the trees in front of me and the bark sizzled away that I realised what it was: acid. I slammed up my shield just in time, smiling at him. Again he hissed acid, seeming to think that it would dissolve the shield, but again it didn’t work. Behind my shield, I tauntingly wagged a finger at him, just to piss him off.

I was about to reshape my shield into an energy beam and bury it in his chest when, distracting the hell out of me, Salem was suddenly flat on his back in front of me and clutching his abdomen. The vampire chose that moment to hiss acid at his face. Salem cried out as patches of his skin began to sizzle, smoke, and peel. Shit.

As a feral-looking Pagori leaped at Salem – I guessed it was the same vampire that had put Salem on his back in the first place – I pushed my shield outward, encompassing Salem. The Pagori rebounded off my shield and went zooming backwards.

Relentless – or stupid, whichever – the hisser once again tried to penetrate my shield with his acid. Before he could try it again, that very same vampire exploded into ashes, courtesy of a psionic boom from David. I gave him a brief nod of thanks then allowed my shield to fade away, and offered Salem my hand. “Can you get up?”

In answer, Salem ignored my hand and bounced to his feet. He didn’t look good at all. Although his wounds were healing, they were healing extremely slowly and were obviously painful. But they didn’t distract him from sending a vengeful, psychic punch hurling at the feral-looking Pagori. The force rippled in the air as it headed for the vampire, taking him out instantly. Salem’s grunt of satisfaction would have made me smile if I hadn’t, at that moment, sensed two vampires coming at me from behind.

I turned sharply, ready to fight them, when they were each abruptly lifted off their feet by an unseen force and sent colliding into a tree. Turning back again, I gave Harvey a nod of thanks. He barely had time to nod back before his attention was snatched by a vampire that was heading for him. I might have moved to help him, returning the favour, if green ooze wasn’t suddenly being aimed at me.

It was very familiar green ooze, actually…as was the vampire spraying it out of his hands. “Denny, what the f**k?” I demanded, shocked. Everything in me rebelled against the idea of hurting a member of my own squad, but he had obviously been brainwashed into turning on us or something, because he was about to attack me!

Unsure of what else to do, I was ready to blow a gust of wind at him. But then the ooze stopped just short of reaching me and wrapped around an invisible, struggling captive. That was when it all made sense. The struggling stopped as a psionic boom sprayed out of David’s fingertips and hit the invisible vampire hard. Like that, he was ashes inside the oozy web.

David’s triumphant smile disappeared from his face, however, as a white tiger crashed into him, sending him sprawling onto the ground. It went to bite down on David’s throat, but as David threw his arm up defensively, the powerful jaw instead locked onto his arm. He cried out through his teeth, shoving at the animal. I shot an energy ball at him, but the tiger flattened himself on top of David, effectively ducking from the impact. He couldn’t escape David’s other hand though as it pressed against his head. Blue sparks danced around the animal’s large skull just a second before its entire body burst into ashes.

I ran to David, checking his arm. It was practically savaged; I could even see bone. “It’ll heal, but with that kind of damage, it’s going to be at least half an hour before it’s properly healed.”

“I’m not leaving the fight.” His face was a mask of frustration and pain, but there was utter determination there.

I turned to Chico, who stood over us. “I need you to stay with him.”

Ignoring David’s petulant ‘I don’t need babysitting’ comment, Chico nodded.

“No, you don’t need babysitting,” I agreed. David’s pride was a big thing. “But you’re always an immediate target because of how powerful you are. This is no different than when Butch sticks with you. It’s just having someone to watch your back, that’s all.”

Pure instinct made me look in a particular spot. There was Jared with black, oily tentacles trapping his wrists and ankles, pinning him to the ground. A large Keja stood, sneering down at him. Fucking bastard. In the space of a millisecond, I was on my feet and an energy ball was in my hand. I only barely managed to hold it back when the Syphon threw himself in my path, wanting to absorb the energy ball and have my power for a while. Sneaky little sod.

I had to assume two things from that. One, the ability to exhale thorns had worn off. Two, Stuart was hurt somewhere, or the Syphon wouldn’t be running around freely.

Cursing, I sucked the energy back into my hand, disintegrating the ball. Eager to get to Jared, my instinct was to whip the shit out of the Syphon and get him out of my way. But I couldn’t touch him with my whip, because then he’d have one of his own. And I couldn’t attack him with my gifts in any way, because I couldn’t afford for him to have them. But I needed him gone!

As an idea came to mind, I smiled. “Novo.” The tattoo that had been twined around my waist was now a live, very ticked off snake. Like that time when I’d been up against Magda, Dexter’s scales were dark-red and he was hissing angrily.

Unsurprisingly, the Syphon’s cocky smirk faltered. Ha. He would know that though the snake was clearly preternatural, Dexter didn’t have a gift that he could absorb. As such, if Dexter hurt him, he was f**ked.