His face lightened. “Good.” He looked to Seth. “So, am I doing this, or what?”
Lisette could almost hear Seth’s stomach churning at the prospect.
“Fine,” Seth said at last. “You can do it. But we go together.”
“If you go, you’ll just—”
Seth held up a hand. “We go together,” he repeated, words clipped. “And not just so I can be assured you won’t kill Aidan. Have you forgotten the Others are hunting you?”
“Hell no. They’re like fucking bloodhounds. Every time I expend more energy than usual, they come running and I have to disappear.”
Lisette stared at him. “Every time? You didn’t tell me that. I thought it was just tonight.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Zach . . .” How long would they hunt him?
And how long could he continue to elude them? Lisette feared she would never see Zach again if the Others succeeded in recapturing him.
“As long as I’m gone when they get there and have left nothing behind that carries my scent,” he said, “they have no way of knowing for sure whether it was me or Seth. And, since I can still conceal my presence from them, even if they figure out it was me, they can’t follow me once I teleport.”
Seth grunted. “Expending the amount of energy you’ll need in order to topple Aidan’s mental barriers is sure to draw their notice. If I sense the Others coming before you’re finished, I’ll take over, and you can disappear so they’ll think it was me the whole time. In fact, even if you finish before they arrive, I’ll linger after you leave, just to throw them off a little.”
Zach nodded. “Sounds good.”
Lisette continued to fret.
“We’ll go as soon as we finish our meal. It’s daytime in Denmark, and Aidan will be sleeping.”
They returned to their pasta, silent, somber.
“Someone want to tell me why my phone isn’t ringing?” Seth asked out of the blue.
Lisette forced a smile. “David volunteered to take your calls for a bit. I think he saw how on edge Zach was and decided he could use a break.”
“Ah.”
Zach grunted. “That reminds me. I learned a couple of things from one of the new breed of vampires tonight.”
Seth frowned. “I thought I told you not to engage them.”
“You told your Immortal Guardians not to engage them. And they didn’t. We came across one of the new vampires traveling with seven of the usual vamps. I ordered Lisette, Richart, and Jenna to remain on the roof nearby while I dispatched the psychotic vamps and confronted the new one myself.”
Seth raised his eyebrows and met Lisette’s guilty gaze. “Did you remain on the roof?”
“No,” she confessed, “but the danger had passed. Zach had already taken out the insane vampires and incapacitated the newbie when we joined him.”
Seth shook his head. “There could have been—”
“More lurking downwind. I know. Zach and David already read me the riot act, so stop looking at me like that. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
“David read you the riot act?” Seth asked, lips quirking.
“In his quiet, gentle, don’t-make-me-lose-it-like-the-Hulk way,” she said.
Seth smiled and returned his attention to Zach. “What did you learn?”
“First, that even with the dosage upped, the drug won’t affect you or me, although it is strong enough to make David groggy.”
“Will it knock him out?”
“One dose won’t, no.”
“Good to know. What else?”
“The immortal you’re looking for is definitely an elder and very powerful. Yet another reason to delve more deeply into Aidan’s mind. Because your immortal enemy doesn’t just erase the memories of the vampires in his army. He plants commands in their subconscious to get them to do what he wants.”
Lisette had never heard of such a thing. “You mean like hypnosis?”
“More like hypnosis times a hundred,” Zach confirmed. “These are impulses so deeply implanted that the puppet couldn’t ignore them no matter how strong his will to do otherwise.”
Seth took a bite. Chewed. Considered Zach’s words. “That explains how the vampires can carry out duties without revealing anything about the one commanding them. But such behavioral modification would take great power.”
Zach nodded. “If I didn’t know how loyal he was to you, I would suspect David.”
“David would never betray me.”
“I know. The big question is who would?”
Seth sighed. “A question for which I still have no answer.”