Phantom Shadows (Immortal Guardians #3)

“They want you, too,” Melanie said in that soft, genuine voice of hers. “We don’t know what their aim is. I assume they want to study you, possibly expose you to the public.”

“What’s so wrong with going public?”

Bastien snorted. “Nothing if you invest your money in repeating pump-action crossbow manufacturing. Because as soon as word breaks, an ass-load of religious fanatics, hunting aficionados, and horror movie fans are going to come after us. All of us. But, since vampires are the ones who actively prey upon humans, they’ll come after you first.”

“Shit.”

“Precisely.”

“It isn’t just that,” Melanie said. “This man and those he commands are butchers. We’ve seen their handiwork. They may promise you wealth and power and anything else they think you desire, but they will use the drug when you least expect it. It may be at your first meeting. Or at your fifth or fiftieth, when they feel you’re no longer useful to them. They think you’re an expendable animal. And when they have you at their mercy, they will torture you.”

Bastien nodded. “When I say they want to study you, I don’t mean they want to take your blood pressure or ask you to turn your head and cough. They’ll torture your ass. The pain and discomfort you experienced during your transformation will be as minor as a paper cut in comparison.”

Stuart swore.

Bastien tensed when the boy jumped up and began to pace.

“So what you’re saying is I’m screwed. This mercenary fuck wants me and every other vampire dead and so do you immortals.”

“No, we don’t. You’d be an empty pile of clothing like Murray’s man over there if that were true. The immortals are looking for vampires with whom we can form an alliance of sorts.”

“Bullshit.”

Melanie caught Stuart’s eye. “This isn’t the first time an immortal has approached a vampire with an offer of aid. You wouldn’t be in this clearing tonight if you hadn’t heard that Bastien had done so in the past.”

“Yeah,” Stuart said, voice high with anxiety, “because he thought he was a vampire!”

“But that’s a good thing,” she insisted. “He lived with vampires for two centuries. He knows what you’re going through. I know what you’re going through. Two vampires have already joined our fight. Had they not, I wouldn’t have been able to alter the drug so that it only sedates and doesn’t kill vampires.”

Stuart stopped short. “Really?”

“The two were members of my army,” Bastien said, “who had the foresight to surrender and ask the Immortal Guardians for help rather than continuing to fight once I was taken.”

“Once you were taken?” Stuart repeated. “Like as a prisoner?”

Bastien shrugged. “I had spent too many years wrongly blaming immortals for something they didn’t do to go willingly. And, yet—as you can see—they didn’t harm me. They won’t harm you either if you help us.”

“Help you how?”

“We need someone to help us spread the word to the other vampires, impress upon them the importance of avoiding capture by Emrys and his soldiers. I narrowly escaped capture myself, and you know I’m much stronger than you are.”

“Yeah. You wish.”

The words had scarcely left Stuart’s lips before Bastien flew to his side and lifted him two or three feet off the ground with a hand at his throat.

Eyes bulging, Stuart clawed at Bastien’s hand with both of his own to no avail. His face mottled. His legs kicked.

Melanie cleared her throat. “Um . . . Bastien.”

Opening his fingers, he let the vampire drop to the ground. “As I said, I’m much stronger than you.”

Stuart coughed and gasped. Climbing to his feet, he glowered at Bastien.

Melanie ambled over to join them.

Bastien clutched Stuart’s arm. “Do you kill when you feed?”

“Yes,” he responded defiantly.

The emotions flowing into Bastien told him otherwise. Stuart was all boast and no bite.

Releasing him, Bastien stepped back.

“What do I have to do if I join you?” the vamp asked.

“Vampires from all over the globe have been pouring into North Carolina since tales of my uprising leaked, so we know you use a method to communicate that goes beyond word of mouth or congregating at the local pub.”

Stuart rubbed his neck. “There are . . . places on the Internet where a lot of us like to hang out.”

“We’ll need a list of those.”

Stuart shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I need to think about it.”

“Not if you want to live.”

“So, if I say no, you’ll kill me?”

“If you aren’t with us, you’re against us.”

“There’s more,” Melanie said, issuing Bastien a frown. “You’ve been a vampire long enough to notice that older vampires are less than stable mentally.”

Stuart’s gaze strayed to the blond.

“The mental deterioration is a result of brain damage that increases every day you’re infected with the virus. You may be fine now. But you’ll begin to have psychotic episodes in the next year or so. Before then, twisted fantasies will disrupt your thoughts. Disturbing impulses that will become harder and harder to deny.”

Stuart eyed Bastien. “You have that?”

“No. Immortals don’t have to battle the insanity vampires do.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Stuart, the two vampires I told you about . . . We’re working with them to find a way to prevent that and to reverse the damage, to find a treatment so being infected won’t result in an automatic mental decline. We want to help vampires.”

“Then why kill us?”

“You leave us little choice,” Bastien said. “If there were a rabid dog in your neighborhood, would you let it run around attacking at will, or would you put it down?”

“We’re trying to spare you both fates,” Melanie explained. “But, we can’t impress upon you strongly enough that either of those—a descent into madness or death at the hands of an immortal—would be preferable to the fate you would meet if you were captured by Emrys and his army.”

“They’re humans. I just don’t see—”

“They have pistols that will sedate you and any other vampire in seconds,” Bastien reminded him. “These are mercenaries armed with automatic weapons. You won’t be able to stand against them. I barely escaped myself.”

Stuart still looked uncertain. “I have to think about it.”

“I’ll give you until tomorrow night.”

Stuart shook his head. “What if I need more time? I mean . . . I don’t know.”

Bastien took the boy’s arm again and felt only fear. No malice. Or triumph. Or anything that might indicate deception. “Three nights,” Bastien conceded. It was a hell of a decision. “Meet me here at midnight or I’ll assume you’ve opted not to join us and will hunt you down. And Stuart . . .”

“Yeah?”

“If I have to hunt you down, there won’t be any talking when I find you. We clear?”

“Yeah.” Stuart took a step back. Then another. Seconds later he vanished into the foliage and Bastien heard him rushing away as fast as he could.

He turned to face Melanie and found her studying him, her pretty face impassive.

“You can kick ass,” he praised, both impressed and puzzled by the fact that she had held her own so well against a vampire.

“Yes.” With a tip of her chin, she indicated the trees through which Stuart had departed. “You’re really going to let him go?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t do that, Bastien.”

He should not like the sound of his name on her lips so much. “He can’t spread the word if I don’t.”

“But he said he’s killed.”

“He was lying.”

“You don’t know that with any certainty, not without one of the telepaths confirming it.”

“I know it with some certainty.”

“How?”

“Don’t you know about my gift?”

“No. Why? What is it?”

“I’m an empath.”

She stared at him in silence for so long he began to feel a bit self-conscious. “You can feel other people’s emotions?” she asked finally.

“Yes. And Stuart’s told me he was lying to try to save his ass.”

Again she stared at him.

“What?” he asked when the silence stretched.

“You can feel my emotions? Right now?”

“No. I have to touch you to feel them.”

“So . . .”

He could see her considering it, trying to remember every time he had touched her or she had touched him. At the network. In her car. At David’s. Trying to remember what she might have inadvertently revealed.

“You might have mentioned it. Given me a little warning.”

“Such didn’t occur to me.”

More silence.

“What do you feel when you touch me?” she asked.

Bastien’s attention dropped to her full lips as she licked them anxiously. “Sometimes I feel your concern. Sometimes uncertainty. Clinical detachment. Fear the first time we met.”

“Well, our first meeting was rather . . . explosive.”

That was putting it mildly.

“What else?”

He knew what she sought. “Sometimes my gift tells me you feel what I feel myself every time I look at you. Or think of you. Or touch you.”

Her soft, smooth neck moved with a swallow. “You’re attracted to me.”

“Yes.”

“I’m attracted to you.”

“I know.”

“What are we going to do about it?”