Shadows Strike(41)

These vampires had delighted in the pain and fear they had inflicted, the screams they had elicited. Screams Heather could almost hear still echoing in the hallways as she and the others searched the building.

She and Adam took turns pointing out the purpose of each room. It was all pretty standard fare until they headed downstairs to the basement and stopped before some very thick doors with a keypad beside them.

“These are biohazard symbols,” Adam pointed out.

Heather’s cell phone rang. Frowning, she fumbled in her pocket and drew it out, then swore when she saw the caller. “It’s my dad,” she announced.

Seth and David shared a look.

“Answer it,” Seth told her.

Heather took the call. “Hi, Dad.”

“What the hell are you doing?” General Lane hissed, his fury flowing over the line.

She frowned. “What?”

“What the hell are you doing at the base? How can you even be there? That location is classified!”

Dread and fear suffused her as she met Seth’s gaze with wide eyes, then spun in a circle, searching for surveillance cameras that had not been destroyed. Two dangled in a tangle of wires and plastic from opposite corners of the room. Aside from those . . .

“There.” Adam pointed to a tiny dark hole in one wall near the ceiling.

“Who are those men with you? How the hell did the four of you get there? Do you have any idea of the shitstorm this is going to create?”

“Dad . . .” Heather looked to Seth and David, not knowing what to tell him.

Seth held out his hand.

Heather handed over her phone.

“General Lane,” he began, then frowned. “We’re here to try to find out what Nick Altomari couldn’t tell you: Who was responsible for this atrocity . . . I can’t tell you that . . . Can’t . . . No . . . No . . . I can’t tell you that either. Aside from you, who else knows we’re here? . . . Can you keep them quiet? . . . That would be unwise . . . I assure you, General, you do not want to do that. If you value your daughter’s life, you won’t do that.”

Heather’s heart sank. This was so not happening.

All of the surveillance cameras they had seen at the base had been wrecked like the two obvious ones in here. The miniscule camera Adam had spotted in the wall must have been installed by the men who had come in and cleaned up the mess.

Now her father knew. His memory would have to be erased.

Her eyes began to burn with tears.

And she would lose him.

David suddenly stepped up behind Heather, turned her slightly to face the camera, and slid a hand around to grasp her neck. Though he applied no pressure, she knew it would look to her father as though he did.

“You will keep this quiet,” Seth snapped, “or we will kill your daughter while you watch us do it on your hidden camera.”

She squeezed her eyes closed. How had this gone so wrong?

“If you will cease . . . We are not your enemy, General Lane,” Seth said after a pause, the anger in his voice lessening. “I have no interest in harming your daughter, but your threats may leave me little choice.”

David leaned down and whispered in her ear. “We won’t hurt you, Heather.”

Oh, but they would . . . if they hurt her father.

Adam shoved a desk over to the wall with the camera and climbed up on top of it.

“Should you do so,” Seth warned her father, “I will reveal that your daughter is telepathic and tell them she led us here.”

Drawing a knife from the sheath on his thigh, Adam pried the tiny camera from the Sheetrock and held it up, silently asking Seth what he should do with it.

Seth drew a finger across his throat. “It doesn’t matter how I found out. The point is that I know and—if you wish me to remain silent, if you wish your daughter to live—you will cease your threats and listen to me.”

Adam dropped the camera onto the table and crushed it beneath his boot.

David removed his hand from Heather’s neck and gave her shoulder a gentle pat.

“Wise man,” Seth praised. “First, you will destroy whatever video footage your hidden cameras have captured of our presence here on the base. You will destroy it without making copies or letting anyone else view it. And you will ensure that the soldier monitoring the surveillance feed there will not say a word to anyone about seeing us. You’re a smart man and know that the first person they will come after is the one they can most easily identify: your daughter . . . I may as well be a ghost for all the luck they would have finding me . . . No . . . Such would be futile . . . You could try, but I would advise against it. Need I remind you I have your daughter? . . . I see we understand each other . . . You will meet me tonight, and you will come alone. I shall call you soon with a time and place. Until then, I will be the one monitoring your every move, so do not think to betray me.” He ended the call.

“Well,” David said, “that could’ve gone better.”

Heather wasn’t one to cry easily, but damned if she didn’t burst into tears at that proclamation.

David wrapped an arm around her and drew her against his broad chest. “Don’t panic,” he murmured, voice kind as he patted her back. “Your father is still well.”

But he might not be after tonight’s meeting.

“Adam,” Seth said, “do you see any other hidden cameras in this room?”

Heather heard the soldier move around the room as she closed her eyes and continued to soak David’s shirt with her tears.

“No, sir. We’re good.”

A moment later, the air filled with a dozen or so conversing voices.

“What the hell?” Ethan snapped.

Heather raised her head and felt no relief when she discovered that Seth had teleported them back to David’s living room.

Ethan leapt out of the chair he had been lounging in and hurried forward. “Heather? What happened?”

Heather latched onto him like a drowning woman would a life preserver. Locking her arms around him, she squeezed as close as she could get. Sobs shook her shoulders while an uneasy hush descended upon the room.

“Is she okay?” Darnell asked softly.

No, I’m not, she thought and tuned out Seth’s response.

Any chance they had had of netting her father’s cooperation had died the moment they had threatened her life.

Ethan held her close. “Shh. It’s okay. Don’t cry, honey,” he murmured, sliding his hands up and down her back in soothing strokes.

But it wasn’t okay. Nor was it going to be okay.

In just a few hours, she would lose her father.





Though over a dozen people filled David’s home, a troubled hush had befallen it. Ethan occupied the living room with Zach, Lisette, Aidan, Imhotep, Chaahk, Darnell, Sheldon, Tracy, Ed, Marcus, Ami, and little Adira. As usual, the toddler seemed to pick up on the somber mood of the others and barely made a sound.

Heather sat in a chair, some distance from the rest of them, staring blindly through a window. Ethan had claimed the chair beside her, but—aware of how the night might end—didn’t know what to say or do to help her. So he just stayed close and lent her whatever silent support he could.

When Adira sensed Heather’s sadness and tried to go to her, Marcus tugged her back and drew her up onto his lap.

Ethan stared at Heather’s tight lips, red-rimmed eyes, and stiff shoulders and could find no hint of the playful woman who had threatened to draw a mustache and bushy eyebrows on his face if he fell asleep. He didn’t have to be telepathic to know she was preparing herself for the worst. Preparing herself to say good-bye to the father she loved. Knowing that in less than an hour she might have to watch Seth erase hours of memories that, because of the mental barriers her father had built over the years to protect his wife and daughter, could either damage his brain beyond repair or kill him outright.

Ethan reached over and took her hand, so grateful when she clung to him instead of blaming him and pulling away.

As Seth and David strode into the room, Ethan hoped like hell her father would cooperate and allow himself to be swayed to their side.





Chapter Fourteen

General Lane sat in the driver’s seat of a Humvee, every nerve stretched taut.

The GPS coordinates he had been given had led him to the middle of a damned field with nothing around for miles. No farms. No crops. No isolated country homes. Nothing but grass and weeds adorning rolling hills and, in the distance, trees.

He glanced at his watch. The bastards were late. “Anything?” he murmured softly.

“Negative,” a voice returned in his earpiece.

Only a sliver of a moon clung to the star-filled sky. General Lane had opted to leave the headlights on. Might as well let them know he was there. And let him see the bastards coming.

If anything had happened to Heather, if they had hurt her in any way . . .

“Shit!” a voice whispered in his ear. “Targets sighted.”

“What the fuck?” another murmured, astonishment in the barely audible murmur.

Five figures materialized from the blackness beyond the headlights, striding forward as casually as though they were just out for a stroll. Four men. Tall. Three of them damned near seven feet. A fourth three or four inches above six feet. All save the tallest wore black shirts, black cargo pants, long, black coats, and . . . were those swords in sheaths on their backs?

The tallest wore black leather pants and no shirt. A bandolier sporting numerous throwing knives adorned his hips.