“They didn’t know you.”
Seth nodded.
The sound of the metal blade stabbing the ground seemed obscenely loud.
Neither spoke as the grave took shape.
When it was long and deep enough, Seth lowered the bodies into it with care.
His companion abandoned the shovel and joined Seth in singing a prayer for mother and son in an ancient language none currently living had ever heard spoken.
When silence reigned once more, Seth picked up the shovel and started returning the soil to its home. “Could we maybe do this another time?” he asked without looking up at the other, who was taller than himself by a couple of inches.
“Do what?”
“Whatever it is you’re here to do. Or say. I really have no interest in your threats tonight. If you and the others did more than sit on your precious asses and observe, perhaps I wouldn’t be doing this right now.”
“I’ll issue no threats tonight, cousin.”
“Well, whoop-dee-fucking-doo. Are you going to tell me you’re here because you missed me?”
“No,” he said simply.
From the corner of his eye, Seth watched him pace away a few yards, pause, pace back. Cross his arms. Uncross them. Pace away again.
He seemed . . . off.
Unsettled.
Something.
“What’s with you tonight?”
“Nothing.”
Finished filling the grave, Seth set the shovel aside and turned to the house. He closed his eyes, pictured the kitchen. The gas pipe behind the stove sprang a leak. A small spark and it ignited. He would visit her family and plant the memory of an explosion, of mother and child being killed instantly, then given a lovely funeral.
No one would see the bodies. No eyebrows would be raised by the bites. No inquiries would be made. No sensational headlines would proclaim their deaths vampire kills. No one would know the truth. Only Seth and . . .
“Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”
Tense silence.
“Zach—”
“Your phone is broken.”
Seth frowned. “What?”
“Your phone is broken,” Zach repeated. Seth pulled his cell from a back pocket and gave it a look. No wonder things had been so quiet. The device had been shattered by a vampire strike.
Seth looked at Zach. Why would he care if Seth’s phone . . .
Alarm struck him. “What’s happened?” It must be bad for this one to risk the wrath of the others to interfere and bring it to Seth’s attention. “Who’s been trying to reach me?”
Zach’s jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth.
Seth knew what this would cost him and wondered if he would—
“Your people in North Carolina.”
“Which ones?”
“All of them.”
Seth swore and prepared to teleport to David’s place.
“Seth.”
“What?”
Zach met his gaze. “You’re battling a mythological beast there.”
Seth shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“Hydra,” Zach clarified. “You’re fighting the Lernaean Hydra.”
“The Greek mythological creature Hercules was sent to slay that had all the heads?”
Zach nodded shortly. “Cut off one head and it grows two more. Your immortal black sheep didn’t know what he was breeding when he undertook his uprising.”
“I assume you mean Sebastien.”
“You can’t defeat it. Every head poses a threat. To you. To us. The more heads, the greater the threat. They can’t know who you are. And they can’t know who we are. The others won’t stand for it. Already there have been rumblings.”
They had cut off Sebastien’s “head” and Montrose Keegan and the Vampire King had replaced him. They had cut off those two’s heads and . . . were still trying to find out who had taken their place. Was Zach saying Emrys wasn’t working alone? That whomever they fought now would conquer them?
“You’re forgetting one thing,” Seth said.
“What?”
“Hercules defeated Hydra . . . with Iolaus’s help.”
“I’m no Iolaus.”
Seth raised his eyebrows. “Did I say you were?” He bowed. “Thank you for the tip.”
Wondering what disaster he would face next, Seth teleported to the States.
Quiet fell in Seth’s absence, broken by the crackling flames that devoured the small house. The scent of disturbed earth wafted on the breeze.
Zach hadn’t told Seth why he had come, why he had alerted him to the fact that he was needed, because Zach really didn’t know. It had been a dumb-ass thing to do. He would gain nothing from it. And would lose much.
Sighing, he flexed his shoulders. A pair of nearly translucent wings burst from his back. Matching the tan color of his skin at their base, they gradually darkened to black at their tips. The fragile feathers fluttered a bit as wind ruffled them.
He lacked even the time to stretch them their full span before figures began to step from the shadows.
Matching him and Seth in height, they strode forward with purpose, surrounding him on all sides.
He smiled grimly.
Had they feared he wouldn’t return? That they wouldn’t have the chance to exact their punishment?
He tucked his wings away, hoping to protect them from what he knew would come.
“You were warned,” one stated.
“So I was.”
“You know what we must do.”
He decided now wasn’t the time to debate the word must.
Zach spread his arms wide and borrowed a phrase from Seth’s black sheep. “So be it.”
While Bastien counted every second that passed and silently castigated himself on what would be Cliff’s sofa, Richart lounged in a chair near the apartment’s door.
“Does Melanie know you love her?” he asked softly.
“No.” Bastien kept his face buried in his hands, his elbows planted on his knees. “What the hell do I know about love? The last two people I loved were my sister Cat and her husband Blaise. Cat’s been dead for two centuries, killed by Blaise, and—genius that I am—I believed him when he blamed someone else.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is . . .” He shook his head. “It’s been so long . . . I don’t know how to love anymore.”
“Well, you must be doing something right, because Melanie lights up whenever you walk into the room. And we both know you make her heart pound.”
“I’ve brought nothing but chaos and pain into her life.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
Bastien laughed mirthlessly. “Yes, it is. Everything I touch turns to shit. Every life I enter goes to hell.” Knowing Cliff and Joe were likely being tortured by Emrys just made everything worse.
Sebastien, he heard Linda say in the OR, you can see her now.
Richart stopped him at the door. “You will have to fight your way through the guards if you burst through it the way I know you want to. Just let me exit first and walk with me at a brisk human pace. If Melanie is conscious, it will upset her to see you full of holes or being dragged away in titanium chains by Chris’s men. She doesn’t need that right now.”
Bastien wanted to tell Richart that in the time it had taken him to say all of that he could have just teleported them there, but knew the Frenchman had elected not to so Chris’s men would know where they were and there would be no confusion.
“Fine. Just open the damn door.”
The guards out in the hallway were the same ones Bastien had plowed through last night. All stiffened at his appearance and fingered their weapons, ready to shoot him at the slightest provocation. Had he been alone and had the circumstances not been so fucked up, Bastien may have been tempted to mess with them a little, sure that even a cough would set them off. But he wasn’t alone. Richart would be hit by stray bullets. And Melanie would not so much be upset as p
issed when she saw the grisly results.
Linda must have warned the others she was summoning him because the room to which her voice led him was empty save for her and Melanie.
Melanie’s face was nearly as pale as the white sheet upon which she lay. Her eyelids were closed and remained so when they entered. She showed no response to their presence at all, even after Linda welcomed them.
Bastien couldn’t seem to speak, couldn’t bring himself to ask.
So Richart did it for him. “What’s her condition?”
“We transfused her with fresh blood, removed all of the infected blood we could, but . . . the virus worked swiftly. She was infected on a large enough scale for a long enough time that her immune system has been completely compromised. The damage is irreparable.”
Richart cleared his throat. “Are you saying she’s going to die?”
“Yes.”
Bastien stared at Melanie.
This was their greatest dilemma with the damned virus. Even if they found a cure, something to kill it, to make immortals and vampires mortal again, the mortals would be left with no immune system and would die, because the first thing the virus did was conquer, then replace the immune system.
Bastien forced his feet to carry him forward, stopped beside the bed. A needle was taped to one of Melanie’s hands and led to an IV drip. But the one closest to him was bare.
He took it in his own. Her soft skin was cold, her long, graceful fingers limp. “Richart.”
“Yes?”
“Bring Roland.”
“What?”
“Roland can’t help her, Sebastien,” Linda said gently. “Seth and David can’t either. No healer can. That’s the nature of the virus. That’s one of the many things that make it different from any other on the planet.”
Bastien met Richart’s gaze. “Get Roland and bring him here. Now.”
Richart shared a look with Linda, then vanished.
Neither Bastien nor Linda said a word while they waited.
Moments later, Richart appeared with both Roland and Sarah. Removing his hands from their shoulders, he staggered a step to the side.
Bastien caught his gaze. “Now Étienne and Lisette.”
Richart studied him, then nodded and disappeared.
Roland scowled and opened his mouth to blast him with some bullshit or other, but Bastien cut him off by turning to Linda. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Her nervous gaze went from him to Roland to Sarah and back. “I respectfully decline.”
“I’m afraid that option isn’t available to you.”
She raised her chin. “Lanie is my friend. I’m not going to leave her.”
“You needn’t fear,” Roland vowed, that familiar scowl creasing his forehead. “We won’t let him harm her.”
Sarah smiled reassuringly. “We just need to talk for a moment. We’ll bring you back in as soon as we’re finished.”
Linda looked at Roland. “Please call me back in if you’re going to try to heal her.”
“As you will.”
Her reluctance obvious, Linda left and closed the door behind her.
Richart returned with Lisette, then vanished again.
Lisette gave Sarah a faint smile and nodded at Roland.
Roland didn’t notice. He was already blistering Bastien’s ears with his bitching.
“First of all,” he snarled, “don’t ever send Richart to my home without warning. I nearly killed him! And don’t ever summon me. If you require my healing skills, you can kiss my arse. If someone else needs my skills, pick up the fucking phone and call me. If there isn’t time for me to get to you by car, then you can send Richart to my home. But don’t ever—”
“I get it,” Bastien interrupted just as Richart reappeared with his twin.
Étienne caught his brother by the arm and steadied him as he listed to one side. “Richart told us Dr. Lipton is dying.”
“I’m so sorry, Bastien,” Sarah said.
“She isn’t going to die,” he told them.
Roland lost some of his fury. “You know I can’t heal her.” He actually looked sympathetic. “I can’t cure the virus and I can’t reverse the damage it does.”
“I don’t want you to heal her. I want you to transform her.”
Shock rippled through the room like a jolt of electricity. Eyes widened. Looks were exchanged.
“No,” Roland said finally.
“She won’t turn vampire.”
“Yes, she will. You may not want her to, but—”
“She’s a gifted one.”
“Bollocks.”
“I wouldn’t lie about this.”
“You’d lie about anything if it suited your purpose.”
“Not this. I wouldn’t want her to turn vampire.”
“Why not? You love vampires.”
Bastien’s nerves began to wear thin. “Richart?”
“I don’t think he would lie about this. He cares for her too much.”
Lisette spoke. “His thoughts match his words. He’s telling the truth.”
“Even if he is,” Sarah said, “as Roland once told me, the fact that she can be transformed doesn’t mean that she wants to be transformed.”
“She wants to,” he insisted. “She told me she did.”
“Bollocks,” Roland said again.
Sarah looked up at Lisette. “Is it true?”
“It is.”
Sarah’s hazel eyes met his. “Then what are you waiting for? Go ahead and transform her.”
Bastien pointed at Roland. “I want him to do it.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you want. I’m not transforming her. I don’t want to be the one she guts if she changes her mind afterward. You’re the one who cares for her. You do it.”
Bastien met Étienne’s gaze. For once, I need you to trust me. Read my mind, read my intent, and do as I ask. Tell Richart to help you restrain Roland and ask Lisette to keep Chris and his men out when the shit hits the fan.
Are you out of your mind? Roland will destroy you.
Not if you restrain him. Just do it. You know actions speak louder than words with him. This is the only way. We’re wasting valuable time.
Étienne glanced at his twin.
After a moment, Richart looked at Bastien as if he were nuts, shook his head, then moved closer to Roland. Étienne surreptitiously approached Roland’s other side as Lisette frowned and eased backward toward the door.
Bastien drew two daggers. “Transform her . . . or I’ll destroy you.”
Roland laughed. “You couldn’t if you tried.”
Sarah did just as Bastien had hoped. She stepped in front of Roland. “What are you doing, Bastien?” She always tried to keep the peace between the two of them.
“Only what I have to.” Without warning, he leapt forward, swinging his blades.
Sarah’s eyes flashed green as she drew two sais in a blur of phenomenal speed and met him head-on.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Richart and Étienne fight like hell to hold Roland back as that one released a roar of fury that would rival a grizzly bear’s.
After that, Bastien had to focus all of his attention on keeping Sarah from slicing and dicing him. The newest immortal was a foot shorter than he was and half his weight, yet Bastien knew there was a good chance he wouldn’t come out of this intact.
Sarah was incredibly fast. And so strong. Quite a bit stronger than he was.
One of her blades sank deep into Bastien’s chest, and he was reminded of the night he had kidnapped her. Even as a mortal she had been a force to be reckoned with. And now she thought he intended to kill the man she loved?
Pounding erupted on the door.
Sarah tossed Bastien across the room, where he knocked over rolling trays of surgical instruments, slid two yards, and hit the wall, cracking the sheetrock.
Leaping up, he charged her again, swinging his daggers, confident she could fend them off without suffering an injury.
And fend them off she did. Every blade he drew, she sent sailing. Every kick she blocked. Every punch she ducked and countered.
Those tiny hands of hers were like rocks, pummeling his face and torso.
Shit!
No bodies swarmed into the room, ready to fill him full of bullets, so Lisette must be succeeding in keeping the door closed. Likewise, Roland wasn’t removing Bastien’s head from his body, so Richart and Étienne must be holding their own against the older immortal.
Sarah kicked Bastien in the chest, breaking several ribs and puncturing a lung. The wall behind him buckled and broke in a cloud of dust and sheetrock shrapnel as he went right through it, tumbled over a counter on the other side, and hit the floor.
Across what appeared to be a small break room, Linda sat at a small round table. Eyes the size of saucers, she gaped at him, a bagel poised halfway to her mouth.
Bastien staggered to his feet and shook some of the dust from his hair. “Don’t let anyone come through here.”
Dropping the bagel, she swallowed and nodded.
“I’m doing this for Melanie,” he panted.
She rose and sidled over to the door to close and lock it.
“And stay away from this wall,” he added. “You might be seeing me again.” Struggling to breathe, Bastien dove through the large hole in the wall and confronted Sarah once more.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded furiously.
“Because I have to,” Bastien rasped and attacked.
A slew of curses and dire promises of vengeance steadily spilled from Roland’s lips, encompassing pretty much everyone in the room except his wife and Melanie.
Bastien began to lose speed and strength as blood oozed from the dozens of wounds Sarah inflicted.
Damn, she could fight.
Blocking another thrust, she knocked the dagger from his grip and—in a heartbeat—broke his arm. More cuts. More punctures.
Another of those powerhouse kicks sent him sailing across the room to plow into a floor-to-ceiling cabinet full of medical supplies. Before he could regroup, she zipped over to his side, tore the built-in cabinet from the wall and toppled it onto him.
Bastien grunted. Done.
It took real effort to drag his ass out from under that cabinet and stand. His ribs hurt so much he couldn’t straighten all of the way. But he did what he could and squinted at Sarah through bleary eyes.
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