Chris shook his head. “Gershom lives completely off the grid. If he used a cell phone or the Internet or even had a damned bank account, we would have someplace to begin. But . . .”
Sheldon fidgeted. “How long can they keep this up?”
Both Seth and Zach had fought vampires at the military base and had lost quite a bit of blood before beginning the pursuit. Gershom had likely been fresh and at full strength.
“I don’t know,” David admitted.
Richart’s brow furrowed. “I can’t believe they’ve kept it up this long. Teleportation takes an enormous amount of energy. I would’ve fallen flat on my face after only an hour.”
Aidan nodded. “I’m damned near three thousand years old and couldn’t have kept it up nearly this long.”
Sarah bit her lip. “It just feels like we should be doing something. Like we should be helping them in some way.”
David sighed. “At this point—”
Seth and Zach appeared near David’s chair. Zach leaned heavily against Seth, his arm draped across Seth’s shoulder.
Gasps rippled through the room.
Lisette lunged to her feet.
The two eldest immortals stumbled forward a step, then sank to their knees.
David leapt up and reached Seth just as the Immortal Guardians’ leader started to fall backward. Taking Seth by the shoulders, David eased him down onto his back.
Lisette did the same for Zach. “Zach?”
Ethan, Heather, and the others all crowded around.
Both warriors appeared to be in about the same shape wound-wise as they had been the last time Ethan had seen them. So they must have expended so much energy chasing Gershom that their wounds couldn’t heal.
Both also appeared to be losing consciousness.
David placed a hand on Seth’s chest.
Seth’s eyes flew open as he drew in a sharp breath. As color returned to his pallid face, he gave his second in command a grateful look. “Thank you.”
David nodded. “Aidan?”
Aidan shouldered his way through the crowd and knelt beside David. “Yes?”
David looked to Lisette. “Release Zach and sit back.”
She did as ordered.
David gripped Aidan’s wrist, then touched Zach’s chest. A moment later, Zach gasped, his eyes opening as color returned to his face.
When David withdrew his hand and released Aidan’s wrist, the Celt sagged to one side.
His Second, Brodie, caught him and braced him to keep him upright.
“Sorry,” David said with a faint smile. “They were low on energy and that was the fastest way I could replenish them both.”
Ethan thought David looked ready to keel over now, too.
Aidan nodded, his head sagging a bit as if he barely had the strength to hold it up. “You’ll have to show me how to do that one day.”
“Me, too,” Roland added.
Adira began to whimper and squirm in her mother’s arms.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Ami murmured. “Seth is okay. He’s just resting.”
Seth held a hand up to Ethan.
Ethan grasped it and tugged until Seth was sitting upright.
Seth nodded his thanks. “Let her come to me, Ami.” He even sounded tired.
Ami lowered Adira to the floor.
The powerful immortals and their Seconds all parted to let the tiny toddler make her way through them to Seth.
A weary smile touched Seth’s lips as she climbed onto his lap and wrapped her chubby little arms around him. “Well,” he addressed the throng as he smoothed a large hand over Adira’s soft curls, “he got away from us.”
Ethan had no idea how to respond to that. Nor did anyone else, judging by the quiet that blanketed the room. Seth was . . . undefeatable. Seth had always been undefeatable. How could Gershom possibly be more powerful than him?
Zach sat up with Lisette’s aid. “Stop panicking,” he drawled. “You’re all worrying that Gershom is more powerful than your illustrious leader. Well, he isn’t.”
Seth nodded. “Gershom knew his destination every time he teleported. We didn’t. Whenever we reached a place he had been, we had to mentally trace the tendrils of energy he left behind to determine his next destination, then teleport after him. That took time.”
“So he managed to get a little farther ahead of us with each teleport,” Zach finished. “The farther ahead of us he got, the more time his energy trail had to fade before we encountered it and the longer it took us to trace it.”
Richart studied them both, his face grim. “He must be incredibly strong to teleport so many times and for so many hours.”
Zach’s lip curled. “He’s not as strong as you think.”
Seth grunted. “When we followed him to the Himalayas, we found one of the Others down on the ground. Gershom had sensed Teman’s presence and popped in behind him. Before Teman knew Gershom was there, Gershom did what you just saw David do. He sucked the energy out of Teman, bolstered his own, then resumed his flight.”
David swore. “The Others were supposed to be helping you. Teman was supposed to leap into the fray and hold Gershom until you had time to catch up to him.”
“Well, Ami was right. It would seem Gershom has become as adept at shielding his presence as Zach has,” Seth told them. “Teman said he didn’t have any inkling at all that he was no longer alone until Gershom touched him.”
“Then how the hell are we going to catch him?” Roland asked.
Lisette wrapped her arm around Zach and helped him rise. “We’ll have to answer that question another day. Right now these two need rest.”
Ethan helped Seth stand.
Darnell did the same for David. Brodie helped Aidan.
Ami moved forward to take Adira from Seth.
Lisette caught her brother’s gaze. “Can you take Seth and Zach to our place? They’ll rest better there.”
Richart nodded.
The fact that neither elder teleported there himself, allowing the younger immortal to do it for them, spoke volumes about their current physical state.
Richart teleported Zach and Lisette first.
Ethan kept a hand at Seth’s back to steady him. He found it unsettling to see two such immensely powerful warriors look so exhausted.
And to know that they might not be able to stop whatever Gershom planned.
Ethan reached for Heather’s hand and linked his fingers through hers.
A plan that might still, in some way, involve Heather.
A few nights later, Chris circled David’s large dining table, handing every man and woman a folder.
Once more, every Immortal Guardian and Second was present.
Appearing fully recovered, Seth sat at one end of the table, David at the other.
“General Lane was able to give us a lead on the vampires who attacked the second military base,” Seth informed them.
Opening his folder, Ethan glanced at Heather’s father, who had joined them for the meeting. “How’s the cover-up going? Is our story holding up?”
He nodded. “Hundreds of hackers try to break into classified government files and systems every day. It was only a matter of time, they’re saying, until one succeeded and did some real damage. Those who have been pushing for more funding to combat cyberattacks are having a field day with this.”
“Which fall guy did you end up going with?” Ethan asked curiously. “Terrorists or the hacker who did it to prove the weakness existed?”
“Officially, the latter. The powers that be thought it would cause less of a panic if the story ever went public. Thus far, the military has managed to keep both attacks under wraps. But should any media outlets ever get wind of it . . .”
Ethan nodded. “And unofficially?”
“Terrorists. There was simply no way to convince them that the attacks on the two bases were unrelated.”
Beside Ethan, Ed frowned. “How exactly have you kept this from going public? Even if our military manages to keep it under wraps, other countries would’ve seen it with their satellites, wouldn’t they?”
“You can thank the network for that,” Seth told them. “Network contacts worldwide disrupted the feed of the satellites trained on that location and erased all images that were captured before they could do so.”
Damn, Ethan thought. Where the hell would the Immortal Guardians be without the humans who aided them?
Chris motioned to a large image he had propped on an easel. It depicted a satellite image of a string of islands and what appeared to be a large ship several miles offshore. “Thanks to General Lane’s intel, we learned that the vampires hitched a ride on this freighter, then ditched it and swam to shore here.” He pointed to the island with one of his trusty number two pencils.
Zach frowned. “Did the freighter know what they were carrying?”
“No,” Seth responded. “They don’t even remember why they swung by the island. The crew’s memories of that night have been erased.”
“Erased? Not buried?” Étienne asked.
“Erased,” Seth confirmed.
“Did the vampires kill anyone onboard?” Lisette asked.
“No. And none of the humans exhibited the symptoms of substantial blood loss that would’ve indicated the vamps had fed upon them.”
“Isn’t that . . . odd?” Heather asked, glancing up at Ethan, then at the men and women around the table. “I mean, I didn’t think vampires were known for their restraint.”