Hours later, he was still telling himself this when he strolled onto the Monterey wharf packed with tourists and the evening dinner crowd. The air smelled of clam chowder and the ocean. The occasional bark of a harbor seal broke up the chatter of humanity.

He sensed the gathered vamps long before reaching the wharf and treaded carefully. Whatever they were doing here, they hadn't thought to put up wards around the area. They wouldn't sense him until he was in their midst.

Jonny paused in front of a boarded up restaurant, one of the largest buildings on the wharf. He counted … seventeen vamp signatures inside. It was a larger number than he was accustomed to finding gathered in one spot though nowhere near the several hundred that had defected. Still, they weren't recruits either, which meant one of them was going to know where the others were.

He followed a sign pointing to a spot from which to view the bay and stopped behind the building. No one else was present. The tour boats were docked and dark, and a pallet filled with harbor seals swayed from the movement of waves and animals. He was able to sense Ashley, too. She read as a Natural, and he began to suspect Brandon was able to do more than move in stealth mode. He had covered Ashley's signature the night before. Without him present, Ashley was exposed.

Jonny hung back by the railing, gaze on the two-story restaurant. The upper level had been an open air club, and some table and chairs remained. Instinct told him to step aside and allow Charles to handle the vamps. However, something else urged him to act on his own. He wanted to think it was a sense of duty and not emotion, but he wasn't certain. Having learned to be patient and cautious under pressure, he had the urge to be reckless for once, to barge into the vamp hideout and wipe everyone out before releasing Ashley back to her brother.

Jonny debated another second then strode towards a door hidden under a stairwell beneath the upper deck of the abandoned building. He eased it open and slid inside, senses alert. The interior was dark and dusty.

He walked silently in the direction of the grouped vamps, veering off course only to confront the solitary guard they'd left near the back entrance of the building. It took a thought and a touch for him to paralyze then kill the creature. He had learned many ways to kill over the years with Charles' help. His power, when concentrated and channeled in a single direction, managed to short out someone from the inside out. He was able to sever the spinal cord or boil someone's blood just as easily without being more than a foot or two from someone. He could also hold them mesmerized, incapable of movement or independent thought, and physically beat them to death or stab them or whatever else he wanted to do. His favorite method, though, was to tear out their throats. Messy, simple and always sent a message that even vamps understood.




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