He sighed and shook his head. “Thanks for getting here so quickly.”
Matt nodded. “We tried to follow the child, but we lost her. The main force engaged with us, allowing them to slip her away.”
“We’ll get her back. In the meantime, I need to see the three crazies who just won’t stay away from this mess.”
Matt led the way inside. Maksim followed Tariq. He needed to feed again to gain strength and taking the blood of spies seemed fair, even though the security detail had no qualms about providing for them.
Daniel Forester leapt to his feet when Tariq and Maksim entered the room. Vince Tidwell and Bruce Van Hues were a little slower to get up, and both eyed Matt warily. Vince sported a bruise on his jaw, and Bruce had lumps on his forehead and temple. Daniel moved stiffly, holding his ribs.
“We drove up to talk to you,” Daniel said, the words spilling out of his mouth fast, “when a man burst through your gates carrying a child. There were soldiers and disgusting-looking creatures following and then your soldiers engaged with them. We saw that the man carrying the child was slipping away while the others fought, so we followed him.”
Tariq shook his head. “You have no idea what kind of fire you’re playing with.” He wanted to shake all three of them, but on the other hand, he couldn’t help but respect their courage. They’d seen Vadim’s puppets and they’d still followed the very intimidating half-human hybrid in order to find out where he was taking Liv.
“I told you, we’re committed to destroying these things. They have an army that can’t possibly be vampires because the sun would kill them.” Daniel made it a statement, but then he frowned. “Right? Vampires can’t go out in the sun?”
“No, they can’t,” Tariq said. “But you aren’t trained to fight these creatures and eventually, when you go up against one, you’re going to die.”Daniel gestured toward Matt. “He fought them.”
“He’s trained.” Tariq was aware of time ticking away. “I have to get to Liv. You’re going to stay here until I get back. Matt, keep an eye on them. I want them contained where I know they’re safe.”
“You said if we thought about it and decided for certain, we could help. We decided. We’re not without some skills. We could be assets to you.”
Maksim smirked as he moved toward Daniel. “Do you really want to see what you’d be getting into? We hunt the vampire, and in order to do that, we have to live, century after century. We exist the way they do. On blood. Sleeping in the ground. We have powers you can’t imagine, just as they do. If you’re an asset we can count on, that means you provide blood when needed.”
Daniel scowled and refused to give ground. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be,” Maksim said, and hooked his hand around the back of Daniel’s neck, yanking the man to him. Without hesitation, he sank his teeth into Daniel’s neck.
Daniel didn’t move, but his two friends did. Both rushed toward Maksim, who simply held up a hand. The two men bounced back as if they’d hit an invisible barrier.
“That’s what you’re going to be dealing with,” Tariq said. “Where did they take Liv?”
Breathing far too fast and loud, Vince, his eyes on Daniel and Maksim, face pale, tried to answer, but stuttered a little. “Warehouse. Out by the harbor.” He gave the address.
Tariq left them to Maksim’s mercy. Maksim would take blood from each of them in order to monitor them at all times. If he deemed it necessary, he would remove their memories of all events that had transpired. If he believed the three men would be assets to them, he would turn them over to Matt for training. If that was successful, Maksim and Tariq would continue that training until they were as elite as Matt. Only then would Tariq approve them joining the fight.
Tariq needed to visit the two human males who had aided Emeline. Matt had them under guard. The two ex-soldiers guarding Vadim’s recruits nodded to him when he entered the room. These two men had served countless missions for their country. They never hesitated, no matter the odds. He liked them both. He hadn’t known it until Charlotte came into his life, but he remembered the two men because they were excellent at learning how to kill a vampire. Like Matt, they showed no hesitation.
Vadim’s two human psychics both looked very apprehensive and tried to get to their feet, but failed, due to the shackles on their ankles.
“Your names,” Tariq bit out. He was very aware of the position of the sun. He had to time everything just right.
The blond spoke first. “Ryan Jenkins.”
The dark-haired man went next. “Andrew Wilson.”
“Tell me why I should keep you alive.” Tariq laid it on the line. He would kill them if there was the slightest hint that they had come to spy or harm his family in any way. “Make it fast—I have a child to rescue.”
“You can’t get into that warehouse without Fridrick bringing down the safeguards. It’s a trap. They’re expecting you to follow. They’ve got a hidden army there,” Ryan said hastily. “You can’t just walk in and get her.”
Tariq was very aware of that fact. He simply shrugged. “So far I’m just getting impatient. Why were you working with Vadim?”
“Fridrick approached us. We had done some psychic testing at the Morrison Center here in the city. He told us he had a job for us using our particular skills,” Ryan answered for both of them. “He took us to Vadim. The man was too smooth and I didn’t like the whole setup, especially when he started messing with our minds. I have a kind of shield that stops most attacks, but he got through and he forced us to drink blood. Not his. Another man’s blood, a prisoner’s. Then he put something in us. Something that works on us day and night to do his bidding.”
Tariq kept his face blank. More splinters. Vadim had no idea that he was diminishing his power by inserting the pieces of himself into others.
“He’s recruited at least fifteen psychics, all male. Two work in your club. He said you couldn’t detect them because they have Carpathian blood covering whatever it is he put into us. There was no way to go against him, not even when he let those monsters he created hurt that child.” There was genuine disgust and repugnance in his voice. “It made me sick to stand there and watch that shit, knowing if I made one move to stop them, those monsters would kill me and I wouldn’t have a chance to save her.”
Andrew took over. “While Vadim sleeps, we can try to fight him, but he’s too powerful when he’s awake. That thing inside of us won’t let up. It’s hard to fight the compulsions.”
Tariq nodded. “You knew they were after Emeline.”
Both men nodded. “We made up our minds that when they struck here, we’d fight them and maybe have a chance to prevent them from taking the women. They wanted us to bring four back to them.”
Four. Emeline. Charlotte. Genevieve. And that had to mean Amelia. She was only fourteen, but Vadim and his army of vampires wouldn’t care about her age. They would have taken her as well.
“If we couldn’t get the women, we were to take any of the children. Fridrick said they would bargain for the women, that he knew once they had the kids the women would do anything to get them back,” Ryan continued. “You can’t let them trade themselves for that child. They’re going to kill her anyway. There’s no saving her.” There was genuine regret in his voice.
Andrew shook his head. “Those things, that giant of a man Vadim created—they’re so strong you can’t fight them. Killing them is next to impossible. He gave them his blood and the Carpathian prisoner’s blood. Vadim likes to experiment, and these hybrids, as he refers to them, are killing machines. They don’t seem to have any feelings at all for caring. They’re especially cruel. Vadim’s got at least six or seven of them guarding that warehouse along with I don’t know how many of those monsters. He feeds them women. Slaves he buys off the cartels or prostitutes they pick up in the streets. He promises them he’ll give them immortality. That’s why most of the other psychics haven’t fought him. They want his power.”“They’ll never get it,” Tariq said. “They won’t live long. Puppets die fast, but while they’re alive, they wreak havoc everywhere they go.”
“Can you get whatever he put in us out?” Ryan asked. He shook his head. “I just went for a job interview and ended up their prisoner. You have no idea the things they’ve done. The experiments. The women they’ve hurt and killed.” He lifted his shackled hands to his eyes and pressed his fingertips to his temples. “I can’t look at those things anymore. I can’t stand it. I’ve gotten to the point that if they killed me, I wouldn’t care, not if I had to keep seeing the sick things they get off on.”
Andrew nodded. “So if you can’t get it out of us, you might as well kill us. We aren’t going back, and the moment Vadim wakes, he’ll come at us.”
Tariq knew that was true. Vadim would know the two men betrayed him and he would make them suffer before he killed them. He’d force them to do the very things they were trying to run away from.