Melanie listened quietly as their words flowed. She had never been privy to an Immortal Guardians’ meeting before and was surprised by the teasing banter the powerful men and women shared.
She hadn’t expected that. Even Seth and David smiled.
While the talk continued, Melanie wondered if meetings like this had even been necessary before Bastien had sought his revenge. Vampires may have launched occasional uprisings over the millennia, but none had been anywhere near as successful as his.
Or the subsequent uprising led by Montrose Keegan and the vampire king.
This really was a first for the immortals. The network, too. Without knowing the extent of the enemy they faced—who Emrys was, how many men he commanded in his shadow army, and what his ultimate goal may be aside from getting his hands on Ami again—she didn’t know how they would combat this threat. How could they even know what kind of attack the immortals would face next? The threat seemed to constantly evolve. As did the drug the enemy used. The only drug that affected immortals.
One by one, the immortals and their Seconds bounced ideas off each other that mostly entailed heightened security protocols.
Having a swift antidote to the drug would be a tremendous help if not an outright game changer, but Melanie had yet to test the one she had concocted. Had not even told them she may have found one. How could she when she didn’t know how to test it without significant risk?
“I think we should bring the vampires into the loop,” Bastien announced abruptly.
All conversation ceased.
“What?” Darnell asked as though he questioned what he had heard.
Melanie certainly did.
“I think we should bring the vampires into the loop, maybe even enlist their aid,” Bastien repeated.
Dead silence filled the room, so thick one could practically swim in it.
“Are you insane?” Chris demanded incredulously.
“Chris,” Seth warned.
Perhaps, like Melanie, he was growing tired of the hostility the network’s leader continually directed at Bastien. There must be more to it than Bastien’s breaching network headquarters.
Melanie touched Bastien’s arm. A zing of electricity zipped through her as it always did when she touched him. Or when he touched her.
His warm, brown eyes lowered to meet hers.
“Do you mean Cliff and Joe?” she asked.
He shook his head. “They’re already in the loop.”
Melanie felt Chris’s accusing gaze before he spoke. “Have you been discussing classified information with the vampires, Dr. Lipton?”
Trepidation claimed her. Chris Reordon could and would fire her if he thought she had circumvented the rules. And she feared what he might do to the vampires if he found out just how much they knew of the inner workings of the network.
Technically, it wasn’t her fault—Cliff and Joe knowing so much they weren’t supposed to. But she didn’t think that would matter to Chris, who fiercely fought any threat to those who worked for him or to those for whom he worked.
“Answer me, Dr. Lipton. If you’ve been sharing information—”
“Leave her alone, Reordon,” Bastien snarled. “I’m the one who has been talking to Cliff and Joe.”
Chris turned to Seth and motioned furiously to Bastien. “You see? This is why I tried to prevent him from visiting the vampires at the network, why I didn’t want him on the premises.”
“Yes, and look how well that worked out for you,” Bastien drawled.
Chris shot him a fulminating glare.
Melanie kicked Bastien under the table, then caught her breath. What the hell was she doing?
Bastien looked down at her, face full of surprise for a few heart-stopping seconds.
Melanie waited for a caustic comment.
Instead, the corners of his lips twitched before he looked away.
She heaved a silent sigh of relief and told her heart to stop pounding. Bastien was irresistibly handsome when he almost smiled.
Seth held up a hand. “Neither Bastien nor Dr. Lipton has betrayed the network, Chris.”
“Then how—”
“The vampires have hearing that is almost as sensitive as ours. They hear things while in their apartments, in the labs, and in the other areas they are allowed to frequent. Not that it matters. They never leave the building and neither possesses telepathic abilities, so who are they going to tell?”
Chris actually seemed to think about that as he turned back to Melanie. “You should have told me they could hear us.”
“To be honest,” she replied, “it never occurred to me that you didn’t know.”
He nodded. “You’re right, of course. I should have known and should have taken that into consideration.”
Melanie hoped he didn’t plan to soundproof everything at the network now. The restrictive lives the vampires led sometimes bored the pants off them. And Joe had once confided that listening to all of the “bullshit goings-on” at the network was a bit like watching a soap opera.
Would Janet finally agree to go out with Charles? Would Kevin get the promotion for which he and Sam competed? When would Tara tell Jack she’s pregnant?
Tune in tomorrow to find out.
Bastien shifted in his seat.
Realizing she was still holding his arm, Melanie flushed and withdrew her hand.
At David’s end of the table, Ami leaned forward. “Bastien, if you weren’t talking about Cliff and Joe, then what did you mean when you said we should bring the vampires into the loop? What vampires?”
“All of them.”
Melanie had to admit she could understand the What the hell? looks sent his way.
Darnell said, “You’re kidding, right?”
“There was no way those soldiers could have known whether they were hunting an immortal or a vampire,” Bastien said.
Tanner nodded. “No way they could have kept up with the chase from UNC to Duke at the speeds Bastien and the vamps traveled either. They had to have been waiting, hidden somewhere at Duke, hoping one or the other would happen to come along.”
Bastien didn’t seem pleased by the other man’s input, though Tanner had made a good point. Melanie wondered why. Cliff and Joe had mentioned Tanner nearly as often as they had Bastien and seemed to think the two men were good friends.
Chris began to scribble in his notebook again. “Did you make a phone call before you left to pursue the vamps, Bastien?”
“Who the hell would I call?”
“He didn’t,” Seth answered for him.
“What about you, Richart?”
“No. I took care of the vampires left behind, followed Bastien’s trail long enough to discern the others were leading him toward Duke, then teleported to the campus to search for them.”
Chris stopped writing.
Darnell leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Montrose Keegan told the vampire king to have his vamps stake out all of the garages with tow trucks and wait for an immortal to call for a cleanup. If Keegan told Emrys that college campuses are prime vampire hunting grounds, he may have done the same thing, just divided his soldiers amongst a few of the campuses and . . . waited.”
“Or all of the campuses,” Lisette added. “We don’t know how many men this Emrys commands.”
Bastien leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Those men could have had no idea who would’ve made an appearance last night: a vampire or an immortal.”
Seth nodded. “The odds were greater of it being a vampire.”
Melanie looked up at Bastien. “Would they even know how to tell the difference between vampires and immortals?”
Vampires were humans who had been infected with the virus. Immortals were gifted ones—men and women born with extremely advanced DNA—who had been infected. That DNA, whose source remained a mystery, not only lent immortals special gifts, it gave them all certain similarities in appearance: namely black hair and brown eyes. Only Sarah had brown hair and hazel eyes, a result of the gifted ones’ DNA being diluted with human DNA over so many millennia.