His phone rang.

He smiled apologetically and stepped back to answer it. “Here.” He listened for a minute. “What did they find? No, I want to talk to them. We’ll be there shortly.”

I hid my disappointment behind a smile. It looked like another movie night with Jordan.

Nikolas looked at me. “It’s still early. Do you want to come see the command center?”

Jordan was beside us before I could open my mouth. “Hell yes, we do.”

I grinned. “What she said.”

“Grab your coats and we’ll head over,” Nikolas said, returning his phone to his pocket.

The house they had rented was impressive, though not as big or as opulent as Eldeorin’s. Warriors patrolled the iron fence, and at least half a dozen black SUVs and motorcycles were parked in the driveway. As soon as we entered the house, I heard men’s voices coming from the living room. I followed Nikolas into the room that had been transformed into a temporary command center. Folding tables had been set up around the large room, and each of them was covered in computers and other electronic equipment. I looked at the closest one that held three large monitors displaying maps of Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. On each map were small clusters of blinking red, blue, green, and yellow dots.

“What are the dots?” I asked the blond warrior sitting at the table. He was someone I hadn’t seen before.

“The colored dots are our people. Each unit’s signature is coded for a different color, which makes it easier for us to track them.” He moved his cursor over one of the dots and a small box appeared on the screen, showing the person’s name, status, and last check-in time.

“How big is a unit?” I asked, impressed.

“A unit has six members.”

My eyes found Nikolas and Chris, who were talking to another warrior on the other side of the room. “When I met Nikolas and Chris it was just the two of them. They don’t have a unit?”

The blond warrior smiled as if I’d said something funny. “Nikolas and Chris normally work alone. If you saw them in action, you’d know why.”

Jordan elbowed me. “She’s seen Nikolas in action alright.”

I smiled at the warrior’s questioning look. “Nikolas found me in Maine last fall.”

“Oh, you’re that girl.” His blue eyes sparkled with laughter. “We’ve heard all about you.”

“See, Sara, you’re famous.”

We walked to another table where an Indian warrior named Raj was tinkering with tiny electronic devices the size of a dime. When we expressed an interest in his work, he was more than happy to explain it to us.

“These are transmitters we use for surveillance.” He held up one of the devices. “They work well most of the time, but some of our targets have started using warlock magic to detect and disable them. I’m working on a transmitter that is undetectable and impervious to magic.”

I took the device and turned it over in my fingers. “Are you close?”

“I believe so. I’ve been working with a warlock in Jaipur for two years, and I think we are close to perfecting it.”

“That’s pretty cool.” I gave the device back to him. “Thanks for the show-and-tell.”

He smiled widely. “Anytime.”

Jordan tugged on my arm. “Let’s check out the rest of this place.”

“Nice talking to you,” I said to the warrior as she dragged me away.

We circled the room, stopping at each of the work stations, which were manned by warriors. A couple of them showed security feeds from cameras in Los Angeles, and I recognized Blue Nyx on one of the monitors. One station was dedicated to police bands and news feeds, and another showed a map of Los Angeles with a dot for every confirmed vampire victim. There had to be almost fifty. My stomach churned as I turned away.

We wandered around the first floor and made a detour to the huge kitchen for snacks and sodas. When we returned to the living room, Nikolas and Chris were nowhere to be seen, though I could feel Nikolas’s presence close-by. Jordan and I claimed a sofa that had been pushed against the cold fireplace to make room for the equipment. Our location gave us a view of the entire room, and the equipment and voices in the room made it easy for us to talk privately.

“Okay, spill it,” Jordan ordered. “What did you and the faerie really do?”

I started to shake my head and stopped. I hadn’t told Nikolas the truth because I knew how upset he’d be, but there was no reason not to tell Jordan. She’d keep it to herself if I asked her to, and I really wanted to talk to someone about what had happened.

“This stays between us,” I said in a low voice.

She moved closer. “That good? So what did you do, go hunt down a vampire to practice on?”

Her guess was so close to the truth that I was at a loss for words for several seconds. My silence made her eyes go round and she grabbed my arm. “Shut up! You did not!”

I nodded slowly as I watched the door in case Nikolas returned. “I had no idea what Eldeorin was planning and it happened so fast.”

“Well, don’t leave me in suspense.”

I related the entire story to her, leaving nothing out, as I kept an eye out for Nikolas. Some of the warriors glanced our way and smiled at us like we were two school girls whispering about boys. If they only knew what really passed between us.

“You killed two vamps without a weapon?” Jordan croaked, staring at me with something akin to awe. “Sara, that is...”