Her clothes were damp in places. He hoped that was his blood. The tiny hands that clutched sais were bloody, the knuckles swollen and split. Thankfully, those minor wounds healed while he watched. Her pretty face was flushed. Her chest rose and fell with deep breaths. Flyaway strands of long, brown hair stood out around her face and poked out of her braid.
“Stop!” she said, part command and part plea. “I don’t want to kill you.”
“Do it!” Roland snarled. “Kill the fucker! You can do it, Sarah!”
“Yes,” Bastien wheezed and swiped a damp sleeve across his face to wipe the blood from one of his eyes. The other eye was nearly swollen shut and the virus was taking its time healing the damage. “She can. That was my point.”
Sarah’s brow furrowed. Relaxing her fighting stance, she glanced over her shoulder at Roland.
“Don’t turn your back on him!” her husband shouted.
Sarah spun around and faced Bastien, ready to fight.
Bastien shook his head and held up the hand on his unbroken arm in surrender. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”
A gleam of pride entered Roland’s glowing amber eyes. “Because she just wiped the floor with your ass and you know she can do it again.”
“Which, as I said, was my point.”
“I don’t give a f—”
“Wait a minute, sweetie,” Sarah said, eyeing Bastien thoughtfully as she halted her husband’s tirade. “I want to hear what he has to say.”
“He can’t be trusted.”
“He can tonight,” Étienne volunteered.
Roland speared him with a glare. “You think I’m going to take your word for it? Fuck you! You just allowed him to attack my wife.”
“Look at her,” Richart said. “She doesn’t have a scratch on her.”
“Because she’s stronger than he is!”
Bastien’s sigh turned into a grunt of pain. “Do I really have to say it again? That was my point.”
Sarah backed over to her husband with caution as Bastien shuffled toward Roland.
Bastien hadn’t experienced this much agony since the night he had been captured by the immortals. “That’s why it has to be you. That’s why you have to be the one who transforms Melanie. Sarah is two centuries younger than I am. She’s only been immortal for going on two years. I should have easily been able to overpower and defeat her. But she kicked my ass.”
Bastien paused, gritting his teeth against the pain as the bone in his arm shifted back into place and began to mend. “If Richart, Étienne, and I all attacked her together, there’s a damned good chance she would still come out on top because she’s as strong as you are. As fast as you are. And heals almost as quickly as you do. Such has never happened before. Newer immortals are always weaker than older ones.”
Though Roland’s eyes continued to glow brightly with rage, he seemed to be listening. “It’s probably because she was transformed by an immortal instead of a vampire. Any immortal could have transformed her with the same results.”
“You don’t know that. None of us do. You’ve stubbornly refused to let Melanie or anyone else at the network run tests on you and Sarah to see what they can learn. It could be your healing ability. Or something unique in your DNA.”
“Or it could be something unique in Sarah’s DNA,” Roland pointed out.
“That’s less likely, I think, considering her bloodline has had centuries more of being diluted with ordinary human DNA than yours has.”
Sarah sheathed her weapons. “So you’re hoping if he transforms Melanie, she’ll be strong like me? Why didn’t you just say that, Bastien? Why did you make me hurt you?”
Bastien wanted to laugh. The boys he had sparred with in his mortal youth would’ve never let him forget he had been bested by a girl. “Roland wouldn’t have listened.” He motioned to the two telepaths. “They wouldn’t have either if they couldn’t hear my thoughts. They all look at me,” he said with no self-pity, “and see nothing but the murderer of a friend. The leader of vampires, of your enemy. An outsider who can’t be trusted.”
Sarah looked at the others, who offered no denials. “I don’t know that that’s true. They listened to you at the meeting.”
“Because Melanie, Seth, and David backed me.” Enough talk. Bastien looked to Roland. “Our existence has never been as treacherous as it is now. I want Melanie to be as strong as possible. As safe as possible. I want her to have a greater tolerance for sunlight and the tranquilizers. I want her to have more speed and strength than I do. I want vampires to pose no threat to her in small numbers. Wouldn’t you want the same for Sarah?”
Roland moved his shoulders and arms. “You can release me now.”
Richart and Étienne glanced at each other uneasily, then released their hold on him.
“Will you do it?” Bastien asked. He would beg if he had to. This was for Melanie.
Roland cupped Sarah’s face in one of his hands. “I would want the same for you.”
“I know,” she said softly.
“Would it trouble you if I transformed her?”
Her brow furrowed as her gaze slid to Melanie. Resting her hands on Roland’s hips she drew him closer and looked up at him. “Would it . . . bind the two of you in some way?”
“No.”
“It bound us.”
He shook his head. “Our love bound us, not my transforming you.”
“So you won’t . . . feel her emotions or . . . develop an attraction to her?”
“No, sweetling. My heart is yours and yours alone. My desire only for you. And it will remain so always.”
Her forehead smoothed out. “Then I think you should do it. And, after this, I think we should let Melanie run those tests.”
He kissed her lightly on the lips. “As you will.”
When he would have pulled away, she grabbed his belt loops and stopped him. “Wait. Could you maybe bite her on her wrist or arm instead of her neck?”
He smiled. “I intended to.”
Sarah rose up onto her toes and kissed him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
She released him.
Roland lost his faint smile as he turned away. So quickly Bastien almost missed it, he slammed his fist into Richart’s, then Étienne’s faces. Both immortals flew backward, hit the floor, and skidded away several feet. “Don’t ever restrain me again!”
Neither answered. They were too busy groaning and cupping their mouths and noses with their hands.
Lisette tilted her head to one side and raised one eyebrow, daring Roland to do the same to her.
Roland settled for a glare. “I’ll let you off with a warning.” She grinned cheekily. “Chicken.”
That almost made the dour immortal smile again. Until the door shook.
Lisette grimaced and braced her feet. “Now they’ve gone and gotten a battering ram. How rude.”
Roland crossed to her, planted a hand on the door beside her head, and motioned her aside.
She straightened cautiously, as though she expected the guards to burst through if she abandoned her post.
Six centuries older and stronger, Roland held the door effortlessly while she moved to stand over her brothers, who remained where they had fallen.
Roland yanked the door open and bellowed “What?”
As one, the soldiers recoiled and stood in the hallway, eyes wide, fingers on the triggers of the automatic weapons they carried.
While the soldiers here at the network disliked Bastien, they outright feared Roland.
The one Bastien recognized as Todd cleared his throat. “Um . . . we know Bastien is in there and . . . we heard noises, sir, and just wanted to make sure—”
“Everything’s fine. Bugger off.” Roland slammed the door and turned back to the room.
A tap tap tap sounded.
Scowl deepening, Roland yanked the door open again. “I said—”
“With all due respect, sir,” Todd stated bravely, “when Mr. Reordon
gets back, he isn’t going to settle for ‘It’s all good.’ I need to know that Bastien is in custody and I need to know what’s going on.”
“Immortal business that’s none of yours.”
When Roland would have shut the door, Todd stuck his foot in the gap to stop him.
“Do you want to piss me off?” Roland asked him, voice soft and deadly.
The men behind Todd looked terrified, but stood their ground. Chris had chosen well.
“Sir, my job is to protect the men and women who work in this facility. Men and women, I might add, whose work has proven invaluable to you and the other immortals. Mr. Reordon believes Bastien poses a threat and . . . if whatever is happening in there will endanger any of the network employees—”
Sarah stepped up beside her husband. “We appreciate your loyalty, Todd, but there’s no danger to anyone outside of this room. We were just . . . taking care of a little personal business.” So saying, she opened the door wide enough for those in the hallway to get a good look at Bastien.
Their shock was obvious. As was the gleam of satisfaction that entered their eyes when they saw Bastien had had his ass handed to him by at least one of the other immortals present.
Yeah. They hated him.
Todd nodded and offered Sarah a smile. “No problem. Thanks for clearing that up for us, ma’am. I’ll let Mr. Reordon know that everything is under control.”
“Thank you.” Sarah closed the door and stared up at her husband. “You see? That’s all you had to do.”
“Scaring them is more fun.”
She grinned and kissed his chin.
Bedding rustled as Melanie shifted. Though her head rolled on the pillow, her eyes remained closed. “Bastien?”
Bastien moved toward the bed.
Sarah darted across the room and yanked the privacy curtain forward, hiding them from Melanie’s view. She frowned at the others and hissed, “She can’t see him like this.”
Everyone in the room looked at Bastien.
“What?” he asked. Did he look that bad? The bone in his arm was no longer protruding from the skin.
Lisette pursed her lips. “You’re right. Étienne, switch clothes with him.”
Étienne frowned. “No way.”
She rolled her eyes. “Just do it. You’re the same size and Richart can teleport you home to change when we’re done here.”
“Fine,” he grumbled and, in seconds, stripped down to his boxer shorts. He wadded his clothes up into a ball and held them out to Bastien. “Well?”
Okay. This was . . . strange.
Bastien stripped down to his skivvies, handed over his torn, sticky bundle, and donned Étienne’s clothes.
Scrabbling sounds drew Bastien’s attention to the hole in the wall as he zipped up the pants.
Linda awkwardly clambered through it with something white in her hands. Once her feet were firmly planted on the floor, she straightened and blew ruffled bangs out of her eyes. “You’re done fighting, right?”
“Yes,” Sarah assured her.
Linda smiled. “Good.” She strode toward Bastien. “Here. This should help.” She held out a couple of large hand towels, both damp.
He took them, wondering why she was smiling at him. “Thank you.”
Lisette snatched one of the towels from him, gripped his chin in one deadly feminine hand, and began to wipe his face clean. And she wasn’t rough.
Sarah took the other towel and tossed it over his head. Rising onto her toes, she rubbed it over his hair, luring some of the blood and dust and other debris onto the towel and out of his thick locks.
Bastien stood there, feet rooted to the floor.
Yeah, this was really strange.
Everyone in this room scorned him. And yet they were doing their damnedest to make him presentable for Melanie. He knew it was for her, not him, but . . .
Was this what it felt like?
Sarah turned to Roland. “Sweetie, do you have a comb?”
Was this what it felt like to be one of them? To have friends who always had your back and were always there to help you with anything you needed? To be part of the immortal family in truth, not just in name?
Roland reached into his back pocket and drew out a comb.
“You carry a comb around with you?” Bastien couldn’t resist asking around the towel Lisette was using to wipe the blood from his nose and chin. The envy that stole its way into him left him uncomfortable.
“It’s for Sarah, asshole.”
The towel Sarah discarded was surprisingly filthy. She settled back on her heels. “Let’s switch, Lisette. I’m too short for this.”
Lisette, several inches taller than Sarah’s five feet, exchanged the towel—now soiled with pink blotches—for the comb and shifted to Bastien’s side.
Sarah ducked under Lisette’s arm and examined Bastien’s face. Her soft lips turned up in a small smile. “How’s the head?”
Bastien chuckled at the question he usually presented to her. “Pounding.”
Sarah wiped his face a couple of times, then drew the cloth down his neck. “I feel sort of bad now that I know why you picked the fight.”
“Don’t.”
Her smile widened. “That’s it? Just don’t?”
He nodded, wincing when Lisette tried to tug the comb through his tangled hair. “You would’ve done the same damage had we been sparring.”
She and Lisette finished spiffying him up and stepped back. Both grimaced.
“Roland, sweetie, come heal him.”
“Hell, no.”
“At least heal his face. It’s all swollen and gross.”
Well, hell.
“It’s for Dr. Lipton,” Lisette threw in.
Roland sighed. “Fine. But I reserve the right to bloody it up again after she recovers.” Nudging his wife aside, he palmed Bastien’s face with little care for the pain it spawned in the bruised flesh and broken bones.
Roland’s hand heated. The aches and pains faded as the many injuries on Bastien’s face healed, the tightness vanishing as swelling decreased. When Roland withdrew his hand (giving Bastien’s head a shove in the process), Bastien’s face felt normal again.
The rest of him still hurt like hell. But at least his other wounds weren’t visible.
“So?” he asked the women.
“Good enough,” Lisette said.
Sarah and Linda nodded their agreement.
“Bastien,” Melanie whispered again on the other side of the curtain.
He eyed the others, feeling awkward as hell. “Thank you.”
Roland shook his head. “It wasn’t for you.”
Right.
Chapter 14
Seth materialized in David’s home and followed the sounds of voices to David’s study.
Darnell was talking on the phone while typing furiously on the computer keyboard.
“What’s happened?”
Darnell jumped and spun around, dropping the phone. No relief swept his countenance as he hurried to pick it up. “The network was attacked.”
“By vampires?” How the hell had vampires found them?
“No, by Emrys’s men. No estimates yet on how many are dead.”
Seth teleported to the network . . . and had difficulty believing what he saw. Bright golden sunlight illuminated the destruction. Almost everything above ground had been obliterated. Even the paved parking lot bore large craters. A few jagged chunks of wall still stood, weary reminders of the building’s dimensions. Charcoal smoke stretched to the sky and formed dark, wispy clouds.
Seth could see the first sublevel through gaping holes in the foundation. Surrounding the building’s skeleton were two downed helicopters, several armored personnel carriers, and four Humvees. Bodies of the mercenaries formed piles around the places immortals had stood their ground. Damned near everything present bore scorch marks or bullet holes. Large bullet holes.
The scent of death clung to every surface.
A war had been fought her
e. With all of the casualties that went with it.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Seth swore. A hasty inspection of the various vehicles revealed a few that were salvageable. Seth held his hand out and sent them to the field bordering the building Chris—if he lived—was no doubt already setting up as the new network headquarters. Teleporting something or someone without touching or accompanying it took a lot more energy (no other immortal could do it), but he had little choice with fire engines speeding toward him.
The other vehicles he sent to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the world’s oceans. The dead soldiers he sent to the morgue at the new headquarters. Perhaps network employees could identify them.
A wave of his hand produced a breeze that scattered and dispersed the smoke.
Then Seth sped into the lower levels of the network.
The scents of blood and smoke burned his nostrils. Broken bodies lay amid the rubble. Seth listened hard for a heartbeat and found none. Not on Sublevel 1. On Sublevel 2. Nor on the remaining three. The damage Emrys’s men had done astounded him, reaching all the way down to the fifth basement level.
The wall at the end of the hallway had been blown, opening the escape tunnel for survivors.
The tunnel was a long one that led up to the basement of a single story home with no neighbors and no outward connection to the larger building.
How many had escaped through it?
The floor was red with blood that had dripped from the injured as they were helped to safety. He could smell the fear and pain of those who had passed through here.
The sirens grew louder, then stopped above his head. Seth raced up to deal with them, ready to erase memories and plant new ones. His strength was flagging, not from his battle earlier with the vampires in South Korea, but from the teleporting he had done to clean up some of the mess topside. By the time he finished dealing with the firemen and policemen who would likely follow, he would barely be able to put one foot in front of the other.
Three fire engines awaited him, parked, motors idling, lights flashing, sirens off. Seth strode forward as several firemen emerged and walked toward him.
“Mr. Seth?” one said.
Hmm. “Just Seth.”
Phantom Shadows ig-3 Page 27