“Actually,” Zach countered, “it could be a very bad way to go.”
Seth nodded. “Whoever our new nemesis is reads and alters the minds of every recruit. He would know the instant he met you that you were there to collect information for us. I doubt he would reward you with anything less than torture.”
A brief flicker of fear entered Cliff’s brown eyes. “Been there. Done that. Would rather not do it again.”
“And,” David added, “he could use what he finds in your mind against us.”
“Okay.” His disappointment palpable, Cliff consulted the elders. “So what should I do if I encounter one? I don’t think they would expect immortals to have a vampire as an ally. It just seems like you ought to be able to use that to your advantage in some way.”
Chris Reordon, head of the East Coast division of the network, looked over, his face brightening. “Do you think you could plant a tracking device on one?”
“You mean like slip it in his pocket?”
He shook his head. “Pockets can have holes. Clothing can be torn and jackets discarded. But vamps always keep their weapons close, so we made each tracking device magnetic. If you can get close enough to a vamp to attach one to his weapon, it might go unnoticed long enough for us to find whatever lair their leader keeps erasing from their memories.”
“Yeah. I should be able to do that.”
“I don’t like it.” Bastien spoke dourly, ever protective of his vampire friends. “If the vampire realized what was happening, he and his comrades would likely try to kill Cliff. One of us should do it.”
Marcus stared at him. “Do what?”
“Pose as a vampire and plant the tracking device on one of the new vamps.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Krysta asked, drawing everyone’s attention.
“No,” Bastien said. “Why?”
Her eyebrows rose. “Really? I mean, have you guys looked in the mirror lately? You look like brothers. Any vampire who has seen one of you will instantly make any of you who try to play vampire just based on the resemblance.”
“Few vampires who have seen us,” Roland mentioned, “live to see us again.”
“Even vamps who haven’t seen you could make you,” she told him.
Bastien frowned at her. “I wouldn’t dress in hunting clothes.”
“You wouldn’t have to. You’re all over six feet tall with shoulders so wide you can barely fit through a doorway and have muscles out the ass. You’re built like freaking professional athletes. How many vampires, outside of the freaky newbies, have that kind of build?”
She has a point, Lisette thought.
“Then we’ve exhausted that avenue,” Seth said.
“Not so fast,” Lisette protested.
Every head turned in her direction.
Zach’s grip on her hand tightened.
“I’ll do it,” she said.
“Hell no,” Zach snapped.
She nearly cringed when she looked up at him. His eyes blazed with fury. “I’m just talking about planting the tracking device. Not infiltrating their army. Our enemy would identify me as an immortal as soon as he read my mind.”
“Hell no,” he repeated.
“Zach, think about it. It’s something they wouldn’t suspect. A woman mole? They’d be too distracted over the novelty of stumbling across a female vampire to suspect me of anything nefarious.”
“Hell. No.”
“Then I’ll do it,” Krysta piped up.
Lisette heard her brother’s neck pop his head snapped around so quickly.
“What?” Étienne demanded.
Krysta shrugged. “Why not? I’m used to playing helpless young thing. I passed for a coed all the years I was hunting. I’ll just ditch my hunting clothes the next time we come across one and pretend to be newly turned. Getting close enough to plant the device should be easy peasy. I’ll—”
“Fuck that!” Étienne blurted.
“Then I’ll do it,” Melanie said.
When Bastien opened his mouth to spout what no doubt would’ve been an equally crude refusal, she clapped a hand over his mouth.
“I’m as strong as Roland,” she reminded all of them, “so the risk wouldn’t be as great.” Then she looked up at her irate husband. “If I can kick your ass, then I can sure as hell kick a newbie vampire’s ass. And I really wouldn’t even have to do that. If I run as soon as I sneak the tracking device onto his weapon, there’s no way he could catch me.”
Roland reached up and pried her hand away from his mouth. “Unless he tranqed you.”
Seth held up a hand to quiet further comment. “It’s too risky. Let the Seconds see what they can learn. I’ll continue to scan memories and see what I can learn myself.”
“And the rest of us?” Lisette asked.
“Hunt in pairs. All of you. Even the elders. I do not want any of you to hunt alone until further notice. Am I understood?”
Nods all around.
4
This scene takes place in chapter 17, shortly after Zach takes a tracking device from Chris Reordon and tells Chris and Seth that he intends to shove it down a vampire’s throat to ensure it won’t get lost. This scene actually exists in the book but was a couple of pages longer in the original draft. I thought I’d include it so you could see Zach attempt a little naughty sex talk.
Zach and Lisette found no newbie vampires that night. Or the next. On the third, they fought two skirmishes with the usual vampire fare. Few in number. Easy kills. Zach spent more time admiring Lisette during the fights than he did combating the vampires.
She was such a fascinating combination of fragility and strength, of vulnerability and ferocity. The way she wielded her shoto swords, the agility with which she evaded the weapons of her opponents…
It just made him want to pounce.
The last vampire in the second battle fell.
Lisette bent and picked up a shirt left empty by a decayed vampire. A watch fell out of the sleeve and hit the pavement with a clatter. “You okay?” she asked, regarding him curiously as she wiped her blades clean.
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “Your eyes are glowing.”
“So are yours.”
“Fighting vampires always makes my eyes glow. It’s the adrenaline. And the anger that floods me when I read their thoughts.”
Absently, Zach nodded. The thoughts of these particular vampires had been pretty foul.
“So?” she asked. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. I’m just frustrated.”
Smiling, she closed the distance between them. “I know. I am, too. But if we don’t find one of the newbie vamps tonight, we’ll find one tomorrow or keep hunting until we do.”
He stole a kiss. “That isn’t what’s frustrating me.”
“Then what is?”
He almost didn’t tell her, a little disconcerted by his own lack of control. But considering the things he couldn’t tell her, if she wanted to know something he could, he would do it. “Watching you in action, watching you fight and destroy vampires with such efficiency, watching your beautiful body move beneath your coat, makes me want to bend you over the nearest waist-high surface, tear your pants off, and fuck you like there’s no tomorrow.”