“Bastien wouldn’t do that,” she told Marcus. His days of inciting vampires against immortals were over.

“From what I hear he isn’t exactly eager to help us eradicate the vampires.”

“Because he wants to save them,” she insisted.

Marcus sighed and clasped her foot. “We all want to save them, Ami. We’ve been trying for centuries to find a cure or at least some way to keep humans who are infected with the virus from losing their sanity. But we’ve had no success. Yes, we hope the three vampires salvaged from Bastien’s uprising will help our scientists finally succeed. But until then, we can’t just sit back and let the other vamps prey on humans, slaughtering them left and right.”

“I know,” she said, saddened. “He does, too. It’s just difficult for him. He lived among them for two centuries.” Ami considered Bastien something of a kindred spirit. Though he was an immortal, Bastien was essentially alone in the world, unlike any other inhabitant. Ami could relate.

“How else could these new vampires know about the network if Bastien isn’t getting them word?” Marcus asked.

She bit her lip. “Not every vampire he tried to recruit joined his army. Darnell said there’s no way of knowing how many of Bastien’s men may have talked to vamps outside the fold. They clearly kept secrets from him.”

“Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate.”

“Occam’s razor?”

He nodded. “The simplest explanation is usually the better one.”

“Darnell thinks Montrose Keegan might be involved.”

The human professor and biochemist had been helping Bastien search for his own cure to the vampiric virus, but had vanished before the network could pick him up after Bastien’s fall.

“Bastien’s pet?” Marcus asked. “That makes sense … and doesn’t increase my confidence in Bastien’s loyalty to the Immortal Guardians. They’re probably working together again.”

An opinion Darnell had told her was shared by most of the immortal population.

Ami decided to tackle Marcus’s views of Bastien later. “If Bastien is involved, I’m sure Seth will nip it in the bud. Meanwhile, the Immortal Guardians have been handed a unique opportunity.”

He pondered that a moment, absently rubbing her foot. “If their plan is still in play, we know where most of the vampires will be tonight.”

She nodded. “Loitering around every tow truck in the state, hoping one of the drivers will get a call for a cleanup and lead them to an immortal.”

His hand on her foot shifted, slid to her ankle, and began skimming up and down the bare skin above her socks and beneath her jeans. Sizzling sparks followed every touch.

“We’ll have to strike fast,” he remarked, “take them completely unawares before they can phone their colleagues and warn them.”

“Or call for backup.”

“I assume Reordon is coordinating everything?”

“Yes. The network is researching all possible targets. Chris will e-mail us a list of locations to investigate by sundown. Every immortal in North Carolina. Aiden will join the hunt with a list of his own. Also, Seth will be teleporting David in from Africa tonight, so they’ll be pitching in, too.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He continued to stroke her ankle and calf. “Your skin is so soft,” he murmured almost absently, then seemed to catch himself. Clearing his throat, Marcus stood. “Let’s go see if Chris has sent the list yet.”

His luminous eyes avoiding hers, he turned and headed for the computer on his desk.

Chapter 7

“How is he?” Cliff asked, face somber.

“Not good,” Melanie answered, knowing the young vampire would appreciate the truth.

“Did he do that?” He motioned to her bruised face and cut lip.

“No. I think Dr. Whetsman’s elbow got me in the eye. His nails raked my cheek. And one of the guards accidentally hit me in the mouth with the butt of his gun when I grabbed his arm and tried to get him to stop shooting.”

Swearing, Cliff paced away. Short, stubby dreadlocks covered his coffee-colored scalp in one-inch spikes. He had only recently begun to grow them, admitting that twisting them helped ease his agitation the way squeezing a stress ball sometimes helped humans.

Saddened, Melanie thought it made him look far younger than twenty-four.

“What about Joe?”

“He isn’t talking.” The blond vampire had withdrawn completely since the incident.

Cliff walked back toward her. “He thinks he’s going to lose it next.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. If Joe wasn’t next, then Cliff would be. “Vincent isn’t gone yet.”

Cliff shook his head with a despairing sound.

Melanie touched his arm. “Hey. He’s still with us. He isn’t completely lost. If he were, he wouldn’t feel such remorse.”

“That remorse isn’t going to keep him from losing it again,” he said. “I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” He took the blood bags she handed him.

“Just don’t give up,” she begged him. “You don’t know how great a difference you’ve made, being here, how much your cooperation has helped us. We are making progress.”

He nodded and drained the bags. As he passed the empties back to her, he glanced over his shoulder as if he heard something.

“What is it?” she asked. The first several times he or the others had done this, she had followed his gaze, expecting to see something in the room with them, but experience had taught her that whatever he heard was more likely in another room, possibly on another floor.

“You need to go,” he said, taking her elbow and urging her over to the door.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just find a safe room, preferably one that’s bulletproof, and sit tight until the smoke clears.”

“But—”

Banging on the door, Cliff waited for the armed guard outside to open it, then thrust her out into the hallway. “Please, Dr. Lipton. Just do as I ask.”

The heavy door clanged shut behind her. Though the vampires’ apartments were as comfortable and roomy as luxury apartments in the outside world, the walls and doors were heavily reinforced with steel and titanium they could not penetrate should they fly into a rage. A guard was posted outside each door. Entry required an electronic key card and the proper code.

The guard raised his eyebrows. “Everything okay, Doc?”

She nodded. “Everthing’s fi—”

Boom!

Ducking and dropping the empty blood bags, Melanie covered her ears and looked around.

Sirens began to blare, yellow warning lights to flash.

The guard behind her tightened his grip on the 10mm he carried and shifted into a defensive stance, eyes darting all around.

The guards in front of Joe’s and Vincent’s doors did the same, as did the half dozen guards gathered around the desk stationed before the elevator doors at the end of the hallway.

Automatic gunfire, muffled by distance, erupted somewhere else in the building. Shouts and cries followed.

Melanie’s heart began to pound in her chest. Her breath shortened as fear and confusion whipped through her.

The digital display above the elevator button lit up, the red, boxy numbers changing as the elevator began its descent from the ground level.

S1.

Melanie swallowed. The vampires were housed on the last floor: Sublevel 5.

S2.

The guards in front of the vampires’ apartments clustered together in front of Melanie, then fanned out across the six-foot-wide hallway.

S3.

Those at the end of the hallway, armed with fully automatic weapons, backed away from the elevator doors, knees bent, feet braced apart, sweaty hands tightening on the grips of their guns.

S4.

Glancing down at her watch, she felt her heart stop.

I’ll be there within the hour.

Her eyes flew to the elevator’s digital display.

S5.

Ding.

The doors slowly parted.

A dark figure burst from the opening, moving so swiftly all she saw was a shadow-like blur. Automatic gunfire assaulted her ears, deafeningly loud. Screams rang out. Sheetrock flew from the walls up and down the hallway as shots went wild.

Panicked, Melanie threw herself to the floor and scooted over until she lay face down on the cold tile with her side glued to one wall.

Howls of pain erupted from the guards near the elevator as those in front of Melanie opened fire. Cries of fear spilled from the lab across the hall from the vampires’ quarters.

“Lanie!” she heard her friend Linda call. Dr. Linda Machen was the only other female researcher who worked hands-on with the vampires.

“I’m okay!” Melanie shouted back. “Stay there and take cover!”

A guard—she didn’t know if it was one from the end of the hallway or one of the trio in front of her—hit the ground beside her and skidded away several yards, eyes closed, face battered.

“No! Melanie’s still out there!” she heard Linda scream just before one of the men in the lab closed and sealed the door.

More bodies hit the floor. A tile fragment leapt up from the floor in front of Melanie and sliced into her forehead.

Bullets wreaked havoc all around her.

Ducking her head, she covered it with her arms. Even if she could make it to one of the doors, rising up enough to sweep her key card and enter the code would leave her too exposed.

Silence fell. A moan sounded. Somewhere a body slumped to the floor.

Trembling, Melanie raised her head.

All of the guards were down.

In the center of the hallway, bodies spread around his feet like flower petals, stood a man garbed entirely in black, his head lowered slightly. Black pants clung to muscular thighs. His black shirt glistened with blood and sported a dozen or more holes. Big black boots. Long black coat.

His thick chest rose and fell swiftly as he raised his chin. Through the curtain of his lengthy obsidian hair, he met her gaze.