“You encountered no Immortal Guardians tonight,” Zach told him.
After a pause, the vampire said, “I couldn’t find any Immortal Guardians.”
“The vampires with whom you chose to band together proved to be too volatile,” Zach continued.
The vamp nodded. “Those vamps were freakin’ crazy.”
“So crazy they turned on you, leaving you no choice but to kill them.”
“I had to,” the vamp agreed. “It was kill or be killed.”
“Once they were dead, you found no others with whom you could band together, so you ended your hunt for the night.”
“I’ll start fresh tomorrow.”
“Good. Now open wide.”
The vampire dutifully tilted his head back and parted his lips.
Zach drew the tracking device from his pants pocket and dropped it in the vamp’s mouth. “Swallow.”
Closing his mouth, the vampire swallowed.
“A piece of candy one of the women dropped when the other vampires attacked her,” Zach said. “Strawberry flavored. Delicious. You wish she had been carrying more.”
Again the vampire nodded and worked his mouth as though he could still taste it.
Zach stepped back. “Run along. You saw neither me nor my companion tonight.”
Tucking the tranquilizer gun in the back of his pants, the vampire loped off up a darkened sidewalk.
Zach turned and found Lisette watching him.
“How do you do that?” she asked.
“It takes a great deal of power.”
“Enough to attract the Others?” The threat they posed loomed always in the periphery of her thoughts.
“Not when I only do it once and for such a brief time.”
She tucked her shoto swords away. “You could have let me take care of the weasels while you did your mind-control thing.”
“I wasn’t willing to take the chance. Thus far, none of the standard-fare vampires have carried a tranquilizer gun, but that could change if the new vampires keep failing to capture us and decide to recruit the slacker vamps instead of just using them as bait.”
She drew out her phone, a faint smile toying with the corners of her lips.
“What?” he asked.
“You said us.” She dialed a number. “You’re one of us now. You’re an Immortal Guardian. You’re one of the family.”
He was? Seth had said as much earlier, but . . .
Zach thought about it for a moment and nearly staggered in shock as he realized he did think of himself as one of them.
“Chris?” she said. “Lisette. We need a cleanup crew at Duke.”
Zach heard a security guard strolling their way and sent him in a different direction as Lisette let Chris know where on the campus they could be found. Can you inform him we tagged a vampire without Cliff overhearing? he asked, knowing the vampires who resided at network headquarters could hear both sides of the conversation if they were listening.
She nodded and started pushing buttons on her phone. A few seconds later, she returned it to her pocket. “I texted him. He’ll understand why. And a team will be here in five.”
Zach nodded.
“You look thoughtful,” she commented, bending to check the pulses of the females.
Both were dead like the males, he knew. Once the vampires had fallen, he had heard no heartbeat other than his own and Lisette’s. But Lisette was kindhearted and always hoped their ears deceived them when they were too late to save a mortal.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked as she rose, absently wiping her bloody fingers on her new coat. The old one had suffered too many slashes and stains in recent weeks to be salvaged.
“Nothing really. Just wondering what it’s like.”
“What what is like?”
“Being part of a family.”
She smiled and walked into his embrace. “You’ll know soon enough. Seth and my brothers are already beginning to think of you as such. The rest will, too, in time.”
Zach kept a sharp gaze on the campus around them, ears attuned to anything that might indicate another newbie vampire lurked nearby. “I’m not so sure.”
Two college students strolled in their direction. Zach mentally guided them away.
“Is that what you want?” Lisette asked.
The hesitance in her voice made him pause his vigil and look down at her. “What?”
“Is that what you want—for the rest of the Immortal Guardians to accept you into the fold?” Her gaze dropped to his chest. “We’ve never really spoken of the future. Not long-term, anyway.”
“My future is with you,” he said simply. He could no longer conceive of one without her.
Her eyes rose, snaring his. “I want you to be happy, Zach.”
Smiling, he drew the fingers of one hand down her soft cheek. “I didn’t know what happy was until I met you.”