Some of Frank Greisser’s people were idiots, pure and simple. Of course, when you used fangs for hire and would take anybody who volunteered, you got fuck-all for quality anyway. The more idiot vampires Greisser sent to Penton, the better. That meant fewer smart ones.

The male vampire Mirren was watching had laid his gun aside and sat on the ground, leaning against the side of the old cotton mill that had given life to Penton about a hundred years ago and whose closing had rang its death knell in the late 20th century as textile production moved overseas. It’s how Aidan had been able to gradually buy up the whole town and control who lived here.

The mill lay in semi-ruins from various fires and attacks over the past couple of years as the fights with the Tribunal bullies accelerated, but the building still had enough structural integrity to provide shadow for the idiot vampire who, rather than watching for Pentonites to kill, was playing with a mobile phone.

Aw, fuck me. Idiot wasn’t playing with a phone; he was playing with Mirren’s phone. Mirren recognized the pattern of the case. He patted his pockets and found it missing—must have happened while he was making mincemeat of the bunch of Tribunal toadies that had gathered on the south side of town. This fool probably thought he could decode some of the contacts from Mirren’s phone and deliver them to Greisser for a nice bonus.

Mirren drew his .45, eased around the side of the mill, and came to a stop behind the guy. “Nice phone.”

Idiot scrambled to his feet, dropping the device. It skittered off his foot and came to a rest near Mirren, who picked it up and stuck it back in his pocket. “Thanks. You saved me the trouble of prying it out of your stiff little fingers.”

The guy looked down at his hands and flexed his fingers. “They’re plenty flexible to shoot you with.”

“Not after rigor mortis sets in, fuck-for-brains, and you left your gun on the ground. Go ahead, I’ll give you a fighting chance. Pick up your weapon.”

Idiot leaned over to retrieve his gun from the ground; Mirren aimed for the top of his head and pulled the trigger before he’d gotten a grip on the pistol. “Sorry, man. No time for playing with my prey tonight. Glory’s coming home.”

He had a few words for her when she got here, too. He practiced them as he went about the routine of dispatching Idiot to his final resting place. Don’t EVER take off like that while I’m in daysleep when I’ve told you not to. He sliced a neat incision in Idiot’s chest, cut out the heart, and threw it on the ground. What part of ‘no’ did you not understand, Gloriana? He rifled through Idiot’s pockets and pulled out a wallet and another mobile phone. Don’t make me handcuff you to me when I’m in daysleep to keep you safe. He stuffed the wallet and phone in a pocket of his cargo pants with two others he’d already confiscated tonight. When I say no, I mean no.

He pulled out his phone and called Will. “I’ve got a cleanup on aisle five at the old mill.”

Will didn’t respond for a few seconds, then, “What the hell is going on? Glory tried to call you, some dude answered your phone and told her you were dead, and she has half of Penton in a panic right now. Not to mention she’s scared to death.”

Fuck. Mirren wished he’d known that before he’d sent Idiot to the vast beyond. He’d have dragged it out longer.

“I lost my phone and the loser found it. I’ll call Glory. You let the lieutenants in Penton know I’m the same living bastard I always was.”

Will huffed into the phone; Mirren couldn’t tell if it was a sound of exasperation or a laugh. “Don’t call Glory—they tossed her phone in case it was compromised. Call Cage.”

Guess Mirren wouldn’t use all those threats on Glory. He’d die before he scared her like this on purpose. He punched in the speed dial for Cage, who answered on the first ring.

“Who the hell are you?”

“It’s me, Cage. I’m okay. Let me talk to Glory.”

A shuffling noise filtered out of the phone until Glory came online. “Mirren?”

Oh hell. He could tell she’d been crying. “I’m sorry, baby. I guess I lost my phone and some idiot hired fang of Greisser’s found it.”

“Oh thank God. I was so afraid.” She took a deep, audible breath. “Don’t you ever do that to me again. Do you hear me? I will hurt you.”

Mirren couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face. “Where are you?”

“About five miles out now.”

He hung up the phone and moved the conversation to his head. Are you okay? Everyone else okay?

Nik is hurt, but it’s minor. Cage is depressed. We’re all exhausted. Where do we need to go?

Mirren took a look around, scented the air for other vampires, then turned his attention back to his mate. We’ve broken their perimeter and they don’t have time to re-form it tonight. Have Archer set the old mill on fire as a distraction in case there are still hired fangs lurking around, and tell him to take out anyone he doesn’t know. Then tell him to go to the training center and get some rest himself, along with Cage and Robin. Most of our people are there now. We need the shifters to organize patrol during daylight hours tomorrow and Cage to make plans for tomorrow night. The rest of you come to the clinic, to Krys’s room. Use the entrance in Aidan’s old greenhouse.

Got it. See you soon. I love you, vampire.

We’re still going to have a talk about you leaving while I was in daysleep, Glory.

You promise? Maybe you can spank me. Oh, and Merry Christmas.

Yeah, he might spank her—after they talked. If Glory thought she could bat those pretty eyes of hers and make him forget that she’d run off on a dangerous job while he was in daysleep, she had another thing coming. Although he did feel guilty about the whole phone business.

Mirren took another look around the cotton mill exterior. The hulking three-story, red-brick building was surrounded by a concrete parking lot on three sides and a paved road in front. No wind stirred the damp, pine-scented air tonight, so the fire wouldn’t spread. They’d been threatening to burn the damned thing down for at least a year anyway. Too many hiding places.

Pocketing Idiot’s wallet and phone, he made his way through the shadows of downtown, stopping to sense any vampires not in the Penton scathe, or any humans not bonded to one of them. Everything was quiet. He gradually reached the older, residential part of town, where Aidan had once lived on a cul-de-sac in a white, turn-of-the-century home that had been one of the town’s finest. To the back of the large side yard was an elaborate greenhouse system where Aidan, originally a farmer back in early 17^th-century Ireland, had indulged his hobby of raising night-blooming flowers.

Now, everything lay in ruins. Tribunal fighters, led by Will’s sadistic father, had burned the house. All Mirren could make out in the dark were the silhouettes of two chimneys and the low, rectangular bulk of the home’s foundation. He followed a weedy path around the side of the house and waited a few moments, scenting the air again for outsiders—even the pregnant woman the Penton team would be bringing in. Nothing.

Mirren entered the greenhouse, its structure intact but most of the glass broken into shards on the ground or hanging from the frames. It crunched under his boots as he walked down long rows of wild, overgrown plants. Even now, he could take a deep breath and appreciate why Aidan had loved it so much. Each leaf and stem retained a hint of sunshine and fresh, living things. Not exactly sensations vampires got to enjoy.

In a far corner of the long, narrow structure, Mirren knelt and lifted a dirt- and weed-covered patch of sliver-thin wood. It covered the opening to the steel hatch that accessed the underground suites beneath the medical clinic.

The tunnel had been bombed and, three months ago, still remained in heaps of concrete, rebar, and red dirt. The Penton crews had reopened and fortified it, extending the tunnel to the new training center. Beyond that, the tunnel branched into a dozen different escape hatches in different directions. The population of Penton had been trapped underground once; Mirren didn’t intend to see that happen again.

He climbed down the ladder into a steel-lined holding area outside the tunnel proper, reaching up to slide the camouflaged opening back in place. He’d wait for the others here.

The “lobby,” as the guys who constructed the area jokingly called it, was a ten-by-ten room with steel walls and sealed concrete floors. Metal benches stretched across part of each wall, and a big black trashcan sat in the corner. Mirren leaned against the wall near the trash and pulled out Idiot’s wallet.

The Illinois driver’s license belonged to a Jason Smith, and the image on the photo matched Idiot’s face. So the guy was either a Tribunal lackey or one of Greisser’s hired fangs. Probably the latter. Greisser was a mean son of a bitch, but he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t put up with someone like Idiot on his own personal staff.

The license and the credit cards, Mirren threw in the trash. There were several hundred dollars in the cash compartment of the wallet; he stuck that in his pocket. He was about to toss the wallet in the trash, which got burned at the end of each day, when he noticed a scrap of paper stuck in one of the credit card slots.

It was a gas receipt from a station near Atlanta, and on the back was scribbled a phone number with the 404 area code. Also Atlanta.

“Who do you know, Idiot?” Mirren reached in his pocket, pulled out Jason Smith’s phone, and punched in the number. No name came up on the screen, so it wasn’t one of the man’s regular contacts unless he, like most of the Penton residents, camouflaged his identity and that of his friends. Idiot didn’t strike Mirren as being all that smart.

“Why are you calling me?” The voice on the other end of the line was curt, annoyed moving toward angry, and heavily accented. A German accent—or Austrian. Mirren would bet his eternal soul it was Frank Greisser. His was a hard voice to forget. “Emergencies only, Herr Smith, so this better be an emergency.”

Mirren didn’t want his own voice being recognized so he mimicked the mid-range tone and Midwestern accent of Jason Smith as best he could over a Scottish brogue that had lived too long in the Southern United States. “I managed to get my hands on the Slayer’s cell phone. Just wanted to see if I should bring it to you.”

Greisser didn’t answer for a few heartbeats, and Mirren started counting. If Greisser didn’t speak before he got to ten, Mirren would hang up, just in case Greisser suspected he’d been compromised and was tracking the location. He didn’t want anyone to even suspect this tunnel was back in use.

The Austrian accent on the other end of the call sounded less tense when he spoke again, just as Mirren’s count reached seven. “I suppose it would be hoping too much to ask if you also captured the Slayer along with his phone.”

“No, sir. He had that big sword. It was just a lucky break that I got the phone. Big oaf never even missed it.”

Mirren had never referred to himself as the Slayer—a moniker he hated because it reminded him of a time when he’d been the Tribunal’s paid assassin. And he’d certainly never called himself a “big oaf.” Glory used the phrase often, however, so it felt natural.

“Have you looked through the contact list? Emails? Anything revealing?”

“Just code names on the contact list. You want the phone?”

Greisser snorted. “Of course I want it, you fool. Bring it with you to your briefing Tuesday night at the Marriott. We’ll get some tech people to examine it and see what they can uncover. The meeting begins at eight; plan to be there by seven-thirty.”

“Will do.” Mirren ended the call with nothing more. The longer he talked, the more likely he was to make a slip. He didn’t want Greisser to know that the Slayer had Jason Smith’s phone.

Or that the big oaf now knew when and where to find Frank Greisser. He had three days to plan a little trip to Atlanta.