Eyes wide, she nodded hastily. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what—”
“It’s the drug. I know. Étienne, keep her in check.” He vanished.
Krysta stared up at Étienne, eyes wide. “I can’t believe I just did that. I’m so sorry. Are you hurt? You aren’t hurt, are you?”
“I’m fine. You just scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again. She hadn’t thought. Energy had poured through her, demanding an immediate outlet. She had seen the helicopter and . . .
She hadn’t thought. She had just acted.
“Are you okay?” he asked, grabbing one of her Glocks and firing over her shoulder at some threat behind her.
“Yes.”
“No chest pains?”
“No. My breathing is even beginning to slow.” And rational thought was returning.
He nodded.
“I really am sorry,” she said. They could have died in that helicopter. One of the rotor blades could have decapitated them when it crashed. Or they could have burned to death in the fire.
Could fire kill immortals?
“It’s all right. Let’s go help Yuri and Stanislov—”
Eyes rolling back in his head, he dropped to the pavement.
“Étienne!”
A dart stuck out of his shoulder.
Looking past him, she jerked to the side to avoid a dart aimed at her, then flung a dagger at the mercenary aiming his tranquilizer gun at them.
It sank to the hilt in the man’s chest, felling him as quickly as the dart had dropped Étienne.
Kneeling, Krysta rolled Étienne onto his back and drew out two autoinjectors with shaking fingers. “Étienne?” She flipped the lids open and jabbed them into his neck.
A few seconds later he gasped. Eyes flying open, he sat up so swiftly he rammed his head into hers.
“Ow! Shit, your head is hard!” she complained, rubbing her throbbing forehead.
“What happened?”
“Seriously, you didn’t feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“Never mind. You were tranqed. Are you okay?”
“I’m good.” His chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. “I’m great!” He leapt to his feet, a wide smile splitting his blood-painted face. “Let’s go kick some ass!”
Krysta scrambled to her feet as he sped into the nearest hangar. “Wait!”
Something exploded inside.
“Oh, crap.” She took off after him.
As Seth swung his katanas with deadly precision, he heard David laugh on the other side of the building.
Seth smiled wryly, confusing his opponents. I think we may have a new problem on our hands.
It would seem so.
Have you been hit with a dart yet?
No. Strike that. Yes.
Do you need me?
No. It’s a great deal stronger than the darts used against us in the past. I had to use the antidote.
Two doses?
No. One sufficed for me. The young ones must be more susceptible.
The closer Seth came to the back of the building, the thicker the soldiers grew. They were definitely protecting something.
Or someone.
A dart hit him in the chest.
Seth yanked it out.
Another hit him in the neck.
Again he yanked it out and cursed the damned hallway that allowed so little maneuvering. All the humans had to do was fire blindly in his direction and sooner or later they’d hit him.
He worried anew about David.
I’m fine.
Warn me if you need to use another dose of the antidote. If it juiced David up as it had Krysta and Étienne . . .
Hell, with his power, there was no telling what havoc he could wreak.
David laughed. Don’t worry. I won’t risk it. And shouldn’t have to. I’ve nearly eliminated all of the soldiers over here.
Any sign of the commander?
No. And the soldiers’ minds are too chaotic and plentiful to read.
I suspect I’m on his trail.
Bullets continually peppered Seth’s large form.
The soldiers’ panic multiplied as they watched with wide eyes as every bullet that pierced him, within seconds, reemerged from his body and fell to the floor at his feet.
“What the hell are you?” one shouted.
The childish “wouldn’t you like to know” taunt floated through his head, wringing another smile from him.
A smile that seemed to terrify the soldiers even more.
A mercenary ducked out of a doorway farther down and aimed a shoulder-fire missile at him. “Fire in the hole!”
The remaining soldiers all hit the ground as fire and smoke accompanied the missile’s launch.
Seth waved a hand, directed the missile up through the ceiling, the roof, and detonated it in the night sky.
The soldier gaped.
Seth arched a brow. “Care to try again?”
The soldier swallowed as his comrades regained their feet.
“That’s what I thought. Now why don’t you show me what—or whom—you’re hiding?”
Weapons raised and resumed fire.
Through the hole in the roof, Seth saw Chris’s Black Hawk helicopters swoop past. A rumbling sound, wafting through the gaping maw he and David had left in the front of the building, told him the armored personnel carriers and Humvees full of network guards had also arrived.
Enough. He needed to end this, if he could, before the humans fully entered the fray.
Ignoring the injuries constantly opening on his flesh, he cut down the remaining soldiers and eyed the door they had been defending.
Waving a hand, he slid the bodies away from it and took a step toward it.
Wait, David said.
Seth paused.
David streaked up the hallway and stopped beside him. “The building’s clear. Roland, Sarah, Marcus, and Lisette took out everyone in the basement levels and are outside lending aid wherever it’s needed, so whoever is behind this door is all that’s left.”
There was an electronic palm pad with keys requiring a code to open the door. Seth waved a hand. Sparks shot from the gadget and a loud clunk sounded. He pushed the door inward.
Automatic gunfire resounded as bullets bombarded him.
Three men, wielding the weapons, backed away to the far side of the room.
Seth recognized two of them.
Donald and Nelson, David said, yanking the weapons from their hands with a thought and flinging them out of reach.
Nelson drew a grenade from his pocket, pulled the pin, and threw it.
David again used telekinesis to send it out into the hallway and up through the hole in the roof Seth had created with the missile.
Show-off, Seth remonstrated as it exploded. Hold them still while I find out what we missed.
The men froze, the only movements David allowed them the rising and falling of their chests and the blinking of their eyes.
Seth delved into their minds. Was it a hard drive? A laptop? A hidden backup server? An e-mail? What had they missed? How had Donald and Nelson rediscovered vampires and immortals and begun the hunt anew?
When Seth found the answer, shock seized him.
“What is it?” David asked, brow crinkling with concern.
“It isn’t possible,” he whispered.
“What isn’t?”
Seth met his gaze. “Their memories have been restored.”
David stared at him, the same disbelief Seth felt writing itself upon his face. “That’s not possible.”
“It shouldn’t be. We buried them ourselves.” So deeply the memories could never have surfaced again on their own. Nor with drugs. Nor with hypnosis. Not even manifested in dreams.