As Anandur took his seat in the war room, also known as Kian’s office in the underground, he was all hyped up about the opportunity to kick some Doomers’ asses. Tonight's mission was exactly the type of distraction he needed.

Hopefully, the lack of sleep wasn’t going to affect his alertness.

After the double explosions Wonder had detonated under his feet last night, he’d spent the rest of it seething with anger and punching his pillow into submission.

The thing hadn’t survived, and the first thing he had done this morning was to order a new one. Tiny feathers were still floating all around his bedroom because he hadn’t had time to vacuum the suckers.

“What’s with you?” Brundar asked as he sat next to him. “Your frown could give Bhathian’s a run for its money.”

“I had a fight with my pillow last night.”

Brundar lifted a brow. “Who won?”

“The pillow lost. Services are being held tomorrow after we come back from the mission.”

“My condolences.” Brundar dipped his head.

Since Callie, Brundar was developing a sense of humor, which was absolutely awesome. Finally, after centuries of trying to get a rise out of his brother, Brundar was picking up the banter Anandur was throwing his way.

And since he was doing it in his toneless, expressionless, robot-like manner, he was cracking people up without even trying.

Good times.

But as it was often the case, life or the damn Fates couldn’t let a guy enjoy a peaceful, content moment for too long. Something always had to go wrong.

Like a woman-child who was too tempting to say no to, and when he finally succumbed, giving her a kiss to trump all kisses, she’d moaned another man’s name in his mouth.

If Anandur could find that Esag dude, he could challenge him to a fight over Wonder. When Anandur turned on the charm, no other dude stood a chance. Unless said dude was missing in action, and the only place he could be found was in Wonder’s head.

Fighting phantoms was a losing proposition because they were as perfect as their host wanted them to be. They never screwed up to prove themselves unworthy.

“Dalhu, what're you doing here?” Brundar asked.

“I’m going with you on the mission.” Dalhu sat on Anandur’s other side. “I haven’t seen any action since the monastery, and I’m getting twitchy.”

Anandur quirked a brow. “You haven’t trained for months. What makes you think you’re ready for action?”

Dalhu pushed back up to his feet and stretched his body to its full height. The guy was huge even compared to Anandur. A smirk lifting one corner of his lips, he crooked a finger at Anandur. “Let’s get on the mat, and I’ll show you exactly how ready I am.”

With a big grin stretching his face, Anandur stood up. “You’re on.” The ex-Doomer was a formidable foe, but Anandur was the undefeated wrestling champion. This was exactly the kind of challenge he needed to release the frustrated energy swirling around his gut and slowly poisoning him from the inside.

Regrettably, Kian had chosen that moment to arrive. “Sit down, gentlemen.”

Anandur pointed a finger at Dalhu. “After we come back from the mission.”

“You’re on.”

Kian waited until all eyes were on him. “I just got off the phone with Onegus. Turner’s guys completed their reconnaissance, and we have the final numbers.”

He clicked the monitor on. “This is the apartment building the Doomers are using as their quarters. There are a total of twenty-two of them. Six operate the warehouse and are in charge of the thirty-one humans they have doing slave work for them. Fifteen are in the field, selling the drugs mainly in clubs. They take turns working in the warehouse. The last one is their commanding officer, a guy named Gommed. Ring a bell, Dalhu?”

The ex-Doomer shook his head. “Nope.”

“Makes sense,” Bhathian said. “They are never going to get caught because they can thrall their customers and the security people in the clubs to forget them.”

“Nah,” Arwel said. “A good dealer forms relationships with his clients. They need the humans to remember them. Otherwise, they will go and buy from someone else. The Doomers are not the only game in town.”

“Then they thrall the security and the police,” Bhathian acquiesced. “That’s enough to keep them doing business with impunity.”

“Right.” Kian frowned. “What I would like to know is whether this is a pilot program and more are coming in the future, or do they already have warehouses like that spread out all over. The Brotherhood works on a large scale; if there is one location, there are others, or there are going to be.”

“Depends who runs it,” Dalhu said. “And I don’t mean the commanding officer in the field. If he is the only one in charge, then there are more distribution centers like this one. But if one of the head honchos is in charge, then this is a test run.”

“That’s what I thought,” Kian said. “Turner’s team didn’t report anyone other than that Gommed guy, so we have to assume there are more. We will have to question the Doomers we catch.”

“Won’t work,” Dalhu said. “The only one who might know about other centers is their commanding officer, though he probably doesn’t. And if he does, you should assume that he is under compulsion not to reveal anything of importance.”

“Don’t you know it for sure?” Anandur asked. “Didn’t they do it to you?”

“I suspect that they did, but I have no recollection of it. What I remember, however, is that my thought process became clearer the longer my mission was. Which made me think that I had been put under compulsion, but that it had weakened over time.”

Anandur thought back to his time in the facility. “The Doomers I was locked up with talked quite freely, but then they thought I was one of them.”

Dalhu shook his head. “The simple soldiers know so little that no one bothers with them.”

That had been Anandur’s impression too. “What about my buddy Grud? Did Turner’s guys mention him?”

“No, and it’s not important," Kian said. “The other two Doomers that Wonder caught gave us the names of their comrades. But having the names gives us no advantage.”

Arwel lifted his finger. “What are we going to do with the humans?”

“That’s a good question. I’m still trying to come up with the answer. As far as we can ascertain, those working in packaging are illegal immigrants. We can try to send them back to their families with some money to tide them over. Even if they remember anything, the most they can suspect is being drugged or hypnotized. But if the damage to their brains is so severe that they don’t remember where they are from, then we have a problem.”

“What about the others? I assume they have chemists manufacturing the drugs?” Yamanu asked.

“The chemists are a different story. I don’t believe they were thralled like the others because that would’ve been counterproductive. They needed their brains functioning well. We need to find out if they were bribed or coerced by threatening their families.”

Bhathian leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “So we round them up and ship them to the airstrip?”

“No. The San Francisco airport is small and private, but it’s not exclusively ours. Someone might wonder why a bunch of zombie-looking humans is being herded through it. We are going to transport them via bus. Shai is working on renting a place near the sanctuary so Vanessa can hop between the two.”

“And the chemists?” Yamanu asked.

“We’ll run them through our probes, meaning Edna and Andrew.”