Bastien made a sound of amusement. “Trust me. You don’t want to.”
Silence enfolded them once more.
Melanie swung her legs like Popper Knockers, bumping her combat boots together. Before leaving the network, she had donned the hunting gear Seconds normally sported: black cargo pants, black shirt, black sweater over the shirt to accommodate the weather, 9mms in shoulder holsters, knives in sheaths on her thighs.
A long, dark coat covered all and staved off some of the winter chill. Her fingers stiffened, however, as the cold breeze buffeted her, stronger up here on the roof than down at street level. If she didn’t think it would freak the men out or send the wrong message (wrong to Richart), she would stick her hands in each man’s pocket to warm them.
One of the coolest things she’d learned about immortals was that they could regulate their body temperature. Even in icy, below zero temperatures, they could remain toasty warm. If both men threw off their coats and stripped down to their underwear in these frigid temperatures, steam would rise off their skin.
“So this is what vampire hunting entails?” she asked. “This is what you guys do? You just sit around and pick at each other while you wait for vampires to come along?” It was kind of dull. She couldn’t seem to keep herself from fidgeting like a small child forced to sit through an unusually long church service in an itchy wool suit. She just wasn’t accustomed to being idle. It was beginning to get on her nerves.
And her nerves were already stretched taut from sitting so close to Bastien. Though her nose was numb from the cold, she could smell his unique scent and wanted nothing more than to pounce on him and rip his clothes off.
Bastien swore softly and moved a few inches away from her so they no longer touched.
Richart gave him a knowing look and returned his phone to his pocket. “We possess extraordinary hearing. If we sit quietly, we can hear for miles. Our sense of smell is the same. Should a vampire attack and attempt to feed anywhere on campus, we will hear it and smell it, so we don’t have to patrol, as it were.”
“So I was right? You really do just sit here and irritate each other until something happens?”
“He’s being kind,” Bastien said. “We usually walk the campus, searching it visually and widening the area we hear or smell, but want to play it safe tonight.”
“Because I’m here.”
“Yes. If or when vampires make an appearance tonight, we can leave you up here where it’s safe and take them out below.”
The arrogance! “I told you I can kick ass. Didn’t our little encounter with Stuart and company demonstrate that?”
Richart eyed her speculatively. “You helped Bastien defeat them?”
“Yes.” They hadn’t told him much about the battle itself. They had simply told him they’d found a potential recruit in Stuart. Richart had then teleported the unconscious vamps to the holding room, but they had ended up being too far gone. “I thought I held my own very well.”
Richart questioned Bastien silently with his eyes.
“She did,” Bastien confirmed, frowning at Melanie. “You never did tell me how you came to be trained. You’re a doctor, not a Second.”
“Oh, please. I work with vampires every day. Do you really think Mr. Reordon would’ve given me access to Vince, Cliff, and Joe if I hadn’t undergone the same training a Second does? Mr. Reordon wanted to make damned sure I could protect myself if the vampires ever attacked me.”
“Cliff had no difficulty capturing you tonight,” Bastien pointed out with a frown. “You were completely at his mercy.”
Melanie frowned. “That’s because I wasn’t on guard. You were there, giving me a false sense of security.”
“That really was bad form, Bastien,” Richart criticized.
“And don’t think I’ll fall for that crap again,” Melanie warned. “I managed to stop your scuffle, didn’t I? Without the tranquilizer.”
Richart chuckled. “I really wish I could’ve seen that one. You don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to knock him in the head myself since Seth foisted him on me.”
Melanie laughed. “I completely understand.”
Bastien’s scowl deepened. “What is it you Americans say—that’s so funny I forgot to laugh?”
“Wow,” she commented. “I haven’t heard that one in years.”
“Showing your age there, old man,” Richart goaded.
“We’re damned near the same age, dimwit.”
“In years. Not in spirit.”
Melanie grinned. This was much better.
Both men abruptly turned their heads to the north.
Melanie instinctively followed their gaze, but saw nothing.
Richart and Bastien stood.
When Melanie did the same, Bastien took her arm and carefully steered her away from the edge. Both men had been rather astonished by her total lack of acrophobia. Since her father had worked as a high-rise window washer, she assumed the absence of a fear of heights ran in the family.
The immortals seemed to keep an ear tuned to whatever had caught their attention.
“What is it? Is it . . . rats?” She caught herself before saying vamps, unsure if the vampires would be able to hear them.
Bastien’s lips quirked. “Yes.”
“How many?”
He held up a hand and touched his middle finger to his thumb.
Melanie thought back to the hand signals she had had to memorize during her training. Eight. That was a large number to find trolling for victims together. There was no telling how many humans the vampire king and his followers had transformed, but . . . with so many turning up so frequently, the numbers had to be off the charts.
Bastien and Richart both did a quick weapons check.
“We shall return shortly,” Bastien told her.
Richart reached out to touch Bastien’s shoulder.
Oh, hell no. Melanie leapt forward. Her fingers closed around Bastien’s arm just as Richart teleported him.
The world darkened. That bizarre feeling of weightlessness suffused her. Then her feet were touching pavement on the sidewalk near the Physical Sciences building.
Melanie wasn’t sure what Richart said next, but suspected it was a string of French swear words.
“Don’t do that!” he snapped in English.
She offered him a hasty apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to leave me behind.”
“We were leaving you behind for a reason!”
“Hey.” Bastien stepped forward, eyes flashing. “Don’t speak to her like that.”
Richart scowled. “Look, I’m just saying if she’s going to be joining us—”
“She isn’t.”
“Shut up,” Melanie and Richart both said.
Bastien clamped his lips shut.
“As I was saying,” Richart began again, “if you’re going to be joining us we need to set some ground rules.”
Melanie nodded. “I get it. But don’t you think we should do that later? Don’t we have more pressing issues to deal with right now?” She pointed behind them, where eight vampires—eyes glowing blue, green, silver, and amber—had stopped short and stood gaping.
“Immortal Guardians,” one sneered.
One by one, the vampires bared their fangs.
Richart looked at Bastien. “You’re the one who wants to make friends. How do you want to do this?”
Bastien considered the vampires.
A couple of them started to growl.
Melanie choked back a laugh. The sound was intended to intimidate, but . . .
When immortals made that deep rumbling sound in the backs of their throats, it brought to mind large, ferocious animals preparing to attack.
These guys reminded her of Tom from the Tom & Jerry cartoons she grew up watching, when Tom would try to roar like a lion and instead sounded like the little kitty cat he was: Raaor, pfft, pfft.
One of the vamps took a step forward. The others followed suit.