Phantom Shadows

Had his vision not been preternaturally sharp, he would have missed the tiny mirror—barely bigger than a thumbnail—that appeared first and gave the man who held it a glimpse of Bastien and his captive.



Breath sucked in. The mirror slipped out of sight.



Something round and metal, the size of a tennis ball, bounced and jounced across the pavement toward Bastien. Light as bright as the damned sun engulfed him in a brief flash, blinding Bastien and making the vampire howl in pain.



Bastien yanked the vamp in front of him half a second before gunfire erupted, muffled by silencers. The vamp jerked and grunted. The scent of blood filled the air.



Footsteps pounded around the corner.



Because his advanced DNA made him more powerful than the vampire, Bastien’s vision swiftly cleared. While the vamp continued to scrub at his eyes with one hand and clutch his chest with the other, Bastien studied the men who approached.



All were garbed like Special Ops soldiers and carried much of the related weaponry with one notable addition.



The vampire jerked when a tranquilizer dart hit him in the shoulder. His body instantly went limp and heavy.



Still using him as a shield, Bastien zeroed in on the soldier holding the tranquilizer pistol. The next time the soldier fired, Bastien moved—as swift as lightning—and caught the dart. He hurled it back at the soldier, hitting him in the throat. The man collapsed without a sound.



Another soldier fired a second tranquilizer pistol. Bastien ducked the first dart, then caught the second and sent it back to its launcher.



All but one of the remaining soldiers opened fire with their silencer-equipped assault rifles. Bullets tore through the vampire and hit Bastien. Fire burned through his stomach and chest. Breathing became difficult as one lung collapsed.



Shit!



Dropping the vampire, Bastien sped forward, grabbed the rifle one of the downed human soldiers had dropped and fired. The remaining soldiers began to fall as bullets penetrated Kevlar or hit flesh not protected by armor.



Despite his attempts to evade the darts, Bastien felt a sharp sting in his neck. His knees weakened.



Alarm surpassing pissed off, Bastien put on a burst of speed, circled the building, and came up behind the soldiers. He grabbed the first one he met, dragged him back against his chest, and sank his fangs into the man’s throat, siphoning as much blood as he could into his veins to dilute the drug he could feel steadily sapping his strength and to aid the virus in repairing his wounds.



Yanking the tranquilizer pistol from the soldier’s hand, Bastien fired at the others as they turned to fight anew.



Every human fell . . . eventually. And every one of them died, either as a result of bullet wounds or being tranqed with a drug too strong for their systems to handle.



Bastien dropped the soldier he had drained.



The campus around him tilted and rolled. Staggering, he struggled to remain upright.



A loud clatter disturbed the quiet.



Bastien glanced down at the tranquilizer pistol that had fallen from his hand.



Had he meant to do that?



Noticing a dart protruding from one thigh, he yanked it out, then removed another he found in his arm.



A steady pat pat pat drew his gaze to the blood dripping onto the ground at his feet. How many bullet wounds had he incurred?



Several seconds spent thinking about it yielded no numbers. He was too tired to count.



He looked at the bodies on the ground. The blood. The weapons.



Maybe somebody should clean this mess up before . . .



He frowned. Wouldn’t something bad happen if this shit wasn’t cleaned up?



It took a minute for him to fish his cell phone out of his pocket. His hand didn’t seem to want to cooperate. Squinting down at the display, which seemed both too bright and weirdly out of focus, he tried to decide whom he should call.



He glanced at the bodies. At the phone. At the bodies. At the phone.



Oh. Right. The network.



Dr. Lipton tucked a new page in the chart on her desk and reached for her cell phone.



Just as her fingers touched it, it rang. “Melanie Lipton” she answered. Several long seconds passed without a response. “Hello?”



“Dr. Lipton?”



Her heart leapt as those deep, rich tones washed over her. Sebastien Newcombe. She’d know his voice anywhere . . . even if something about it did seem a bit off. “Yes. Bastien?”



“What are you doing here?” he asked, his words full of bewilderment.



Melanie frowned. He sounded drunk. Immortals couldn’t get drunk. “What do you mean? I’m in my office at the network.”



“You are?”



“Yes.”



“Oh.”



Melanie rose. Something was wrong.



A clatter came over the line.



“Sebastien? Are you still there?” She hurried out into the hallway.



“Yes.”



“What happened?”



“I think I fell.” A moment of silence passed. “Yeah, I fell.”



Anxiety flooded her as she waved to one of the security officers who guarded the doors to the vampires’ apartments across the hall. “Get Mr. Reordon down here,” she whispered. “Now!”



The man reached for a walkie-talkie on his shoulder and began to mutter into it.



Melanie started toward the elevator at the end of the hallway. “Are you injured? Bastien?”



“Feels like it.”



“How badly?”



“I don’t know.”



“Where are you?”



“On the ground.” Bastien’s words slurred.



“No, I mean . . . Look around you. What do you see?”



There was a pause. “Bodies.”



Oh crap. “What else?”



A large desk rested in front of the elevator doors. A dozen men garbed in black fatigues and sporting automatic weapons stood around it. Two more, seated behind it, rose at her approach.



“Is something wrong, Doc?” Todd asked.



She nodded. “If Mr. Reordon isn’t already on his way, get him down here now,” she murmured. Then, louder into the phone, she said, “What else do you see?”



“Trees,” Bastien muttered.



Trees? Yeah. That narrowed it down. He could be anywhere in the freaking state.



The numbers above the elevator doors lit up.



“Is anyone there with you? Another immortal perhaps?” She had heard that he had been forbidden to go anywhere without an immortal escort.



“Um . . . I can’t tell if those are vampires or immortals shriveling up over there. I think they’re vampires. I killed a couple of vampires, didn’t I?”



A slew of faint French erupted over the phone.



The elevator pinged. When the doors slid open, Chris Reordon—head of the East Coast division of the network of humans that aided Immortal Guardians—emerged.



“What’s up?” he asked with a frown.



Melanie felt only partially relieved. Chris could send Bastien aid, but the question was: Would he? A lot of animosity existed between those two. Animosity that had exploded into full-blown hatred when Bastien had breached these very network headquarters only a few weeks earlier, forcing his way inside and injuring dozens of guards after . . .



Well, after Melanie had called him to let him know one of his former vampire followers had had a psychotic break. She would never forget the look in Bastien’s eyes the night he had ended the young vampire’s life.



Hoping personal bias wouldn’t interfere in the execution of Chris’s duties . . . again . . . Melanie drew in a deep breath. “Something has happened to Sebastien Newcombe.”



Chris’s scowl deepened. “What?”



She drew his attention to her phone. “He’s been injured and . . . his words are slurred. His thoughts don’t seem to be coherent. He’s down and says there are bodies all around him and two of them are either vampires or immortals.”



Swearing, Chris held out his hand for the phone. “Bastien? Where are you?” A growl of pure frustration followed. “On the ground where?”



Melanie bit her lip.



Chris’s demeanor suddenly changed. “It’s Chris. Is this Étienne or Richart?” He drew a pencil and small notepad from his pocket and dropped the notepad on the desk. “What? How many?” He scribbled something down. “What side of the campus are you on? . . . Which building? . . . Okay. Take out the lights. I’ll send a cleaning crew over there ASAP. Bring Bastien here. I want to talk to him.”



Melanie frowned. Talk to him? He was injured and barely coherent.



“The holding room.”



That didn’t bode well.



Chris ended the call and handed her the phone.



“Why is he being put in the holding room?” she dared to ask.



Chris retrieved his own phone and began to bark orders into it.



“Mr. Reordon?” she persisted. “Why is Bastien being put in the holding room?”



Irritation swept his visage. “Because over a dozen dead humans litter the ground around him.”



The guards began to grumble. They held no love or admiration for Bastien either, some of them having been injured by him personally.



“Immortals are supposed to protect humans, not kill them,” Chris muttered as he ended the call. “Half of you come with me,” he told the guards. “Todd, get two dozen more down here with full firepower. I want both the elevator and the door to the stairwell heavily guarded. Tell the men to be prepared for anything.”



“Yes, sir.” Todd motioned to several men, indicating they should follow Chris, then reached for the walkie-talkie on his shoulder.



Chris started down the long hallway toward the holding room. Melanie hurried to keep up with him as the guards, fingers on the triggers of their weapons, fell in behind them, tense and alert.



“But . . . you don’t know what the circumstances were,” she broached. They wouldn’t hurt Bastien, would they? Or deny him medical care? Because it sounded like Chris intended to chain him up and interrogate him. Again. “He’s injured. What if—”



“Immortals aren’t supposed to harm humans unless the humans pose a serious threat.”