Witches were extremely intelligent and cunning, and their relationships between covens could be immensely complex. Handling the occult wasn’t black-and-white. It required someone with a level head. Figuring out the complex dichotomies of the witching world demanded patience. He tapped his fingers on the desk. He needed someone smart.
He narrowed the search to people with B.A. degrees or higher. The highest on the list was Shane Grey, Ph.D.
Bingo.
Three down, two more to go.
* * *
An increase in hauntings.
For the most part ghosts, while terrifying to humans, were nonconfrontational. But an angry Poltergeist wreaked havoc and terror. Damon wagered that the many abandoned asylums of Rochester contained a shit-ton of pissed-off Polters.
He typed in “ghosts and poltergeists.”
A lone profile popped onto the screen. The haunted gray eyes of the hunter stared at him from the monitor. Damon could tell that some seriously traumatizing shit had passed in front of that man’s eyes. A small red flag flashed near the profile picture.
He clicked on the flag and the screen flashed “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Damon raised a brow. Damaged goods weren’t generally listed. Why the hell were there so few ghost hunters? He widened the search.
Damn. The majority of them were already assigned to the Florida Keys and Saint Augustine.
He hit the return button to the single profile.
Name: Ashley (Ash) Devereaux
Current location: New Orleans, Louisiana
*Transfer required (Post P.T.S.D.)
* * *
New Orleans? Now there was a city with one hell of a ghost population. He hit the add button, and hoped the guy wouldn’t freak out on him. If he was still listed after a P.T.S.D. diagnosis, then the E.U. saw something in him that went beyond his stats.
Last one.
Several new species of non-werewolf shifters reported.
After entering “non-were shifters” into the search engine, he pulled up roughly ten profiles. His gaze shot to the profile of one hunter immediately. Two different colored eyes, not a common trait in anyone. Intrigued, he opened the stats.
Name: Trent Garrison
Experience: One year field training, two years full-time off-site operative
Current Location: Jersey City, New Jersey
*Transfer requested (Post-facial injury)
He eyed the man’s features. The E.U. had yet to update his profile shot. He respected someone who fought post-injury, and since non-werewolf shifters had been rising in population over the past two years, this man had been a pioneer in the field.
A muffled knocking sounded from the other side of the door.
“Damon?” Tiffany called.
He punched in the door code, and the latch clicked open.
Tiffany stepped inside. “You’d better get a move on. We have to prepare.”
In his mind, the walls he erected during every hunt snapped into place. A level head would be the key to the success of this raid. He would
not
have a repeat of Mark’s death. Come hell or high water, every member of the team the E.U. provided him with would come home safe. But his main concern, far and away more important than anything else, was ensuring Tiffany’s safety.
He nodded. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Her eyes darted to the main monitor. “Are these the hunters you’re picking for your team?”
He didn’t respond. Was that really what was sitting in front of him? His future team that he’d handpicked? A surreal feeling washed over him. He should have felt honored to lead an entire division, but the tight knotted feeling in his gut refused to subside. After what had happened with Mark, did he deserve to lead?
A low whistle escaped Tiffany’s lips. “Daaanng. Are all the guys in the Execution Underground hot or what? Is that a requirement? Every single one of these dudes is frickin’ gorgeous.”
Damon grumbled in response. What was so fantastic about the men pictured on the screen? He didn’t see it.
Tiffany grinned as if she were picking out her favorite Mr. February calendar pin-up. “They’re all easy on the eyes, though I’m kind of partial to that one. He has awesome hair.” She pointed at the golden-blonde from Louisiana with the haunting eyes, and then to the werewolf hunter. “But he’s definitely my favorite.”
He scratched his head and looked away. He tried to ignore her comments.
“Jace McCannon,” Tiffany read from the hunter’s statistics. She bit her lower lip. “He is one fine piece of—”
Damon hit Power-off on the monitor. The men’s faces were gone in a second. Damn. It bothered him when she even looked at other men.
Tiffany hmphed, but a small grin crossed her face. “Jealous, much?”
Damn right he was jealous. He was jealous of any man she found attractive, and he would shove his fist straight down the throat of any man who made a move on her. He wasn’t about to confess that, though.
“We’d better prepare for the raid,” he said.
He stood to leave. Before the other hunters arrived, she needed to arrange the meet-up with the vampires, and he needed to prep his weapons. Preparing their plan of entry would have to wait until she led them to the location via the tracking device.
She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled. “If it’s any consolation, I think you’re sexier than all of them. You’ve got the whole tortured-soul thing going on. It’s in your eyes. Women love that.” Without another word, she brushed past him and walked out of the control room.
He raised a single brow. Tortured soul?
CHAPTER 14
After mulling over the plan with Tiffany, Damon stood in his room, arranging his array of weapons. Tiffany was downstairs, preparing to make her call. Everything was planned to the full extent it could be.
The incoming hunters would provide the tracking device for Tiffany to wear. His contact in the police department had ensured that word of Caius’s and Carl’s deaths and the abandoned and—much to Tiffany’s chagrin—now-impounded Bugatti was never released to the press, and somehow the mess at the restaurant had been entirely hushed up. Without evidence of Caius’s and Carl’s deaths, the other vamps would be confused as to their sudden absence. Everyone knew of Caius’s obsession with her, and luckily, it gave her a higher standing in the hierarchy. She was going to request a private meeting at the nest to discuss his disappearance. She’d prepped to play the role of the grieving, overly attached human.
Once she met up with her contact, she would be escorted to the nest. Damon and the other hunters would monitor her movements from a safe distance and follow her to the location. Damon had instructed her to play it cool once she was inside and not draw too much attention to herself. Caius’s subordinates would undoubtedly engage in a power struggle if they assumed he was dead. She needed to encourage them in the direction of declaring him missing, instead. Ideally she would also find out who was behind the zombie virus.
While Tiffany distracted the vamps, the tech specialists would map a layout of the building and use a high-powered heat sensor to detect where all the beings in the residence resided. It was Damon’s job to make the call on when to enter and to direct their routes of entry.
Tiffany promised him that once the hunters were inside, she would seek safety in the van with the tech team.
The hunters’ objective was simple: annihilate as many vamps as possible, particularly the ones showing any signs of viral infection. With luck all the Rochester vamps would be in attendance, including the bloodsucker orchestrating the spread of the disease.
No matter what, they hoped to effectively control the situation by destroying the source of infection, even if they were unable to identify him, which would free Damon to hunt down any remaining infected vamps—should there be any left—as quickly as possible.
He finished tucking his weapons into place, with one last piece to go. With care, he removed a long black case from the top shelf of his weapons closet and laid it across his bed. Damn, it had been a long time since he’d opened this thing.
He unhooked the latches and opened the lid to reveal his father’s pure silver slaying sword. The sword had passed through the past ten generations of Damon’s family, a treasured possession even before the Execution Underground’s formation in the late 1600s, uniting freelancing hunters who were newly settled in the Americas into one central group, a group which would later become international. The beautifully crafted piece of weaponry had served his ancestors in slaying thousands of vampires over the years, and now he intended to use it for the very first time.
He strapped the custom scabbard on his back and slipped the sword in. Assessing his mental check list, he made certain he’d prepared. He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes before the Sergeant’s chosen hunters arrived.
He grabbed his jacket from the bed, felt something in a pocket and realized what it was. Tiffany’s letters.
A tight feeling constricted his chest.
Before he could change his mind, he snatched the letters from the pocket and opened the single envelope holding them.
Tiffany was right. He needed to know.
He had ten minutes. He sat down on his bed and opened the pages. The first letter was dated three weeks after Mark’s death.
Dear B,
Your letters are piling up. I’ve received one every day for a week now. I haven’t read a single one.
Damon stopped breathing. Deep down, he wasn’t surprised she’d never read them, but it still hurt.
But she
had
read his letters now. One, anyway.
The
letter.
He flipped to the next letter.
Dear B,
I wish you’d stop sending letters. Every time I see the return address of the Execution Underground, my stomach churns because I know it’s either a check that’s meant to pay me off for the brother I lost, a check I have to cash if I don’t want to be homeless...or a letter from you. I don’t know which makes me feel worse.
He bit his lip. Shit. That one stung.
Dear B,
Why?
All I can think is why...?
A sharp pain stabbed at his heart as he read the words. The next was merely a single sentence.
I feel nothing...
God help him. He had to keep reading. He couldn’t pause to think. It hurt too much.
Dear B,
I tried believing this today.
Everything is normal. Mark is not dead. You are not the cause of any pain in my life. Life is the way it used to be. I’m a happy college student, preparing for med school.
Yeah...it didn’t fool me for a second, either.
And the next:
If you were here, I’d stab a knife straight into your back, just like you did to Mark. What worthless excuse for a man betrays his friends? What kind of pathetic human being leaves the ones they love to die?
You do.
Next:
I wish I hated you. Things would be less complicated if I hated you.
He hated to keep reading, but he had to.
Dear B,
I’m addressing this to you, because though I know I’ll never send it, I don’t know who else to write to. It’s strange that the only person left in this world who I feel a strong connection to is the man responsible for the death of my brother.
I’m all alone now. I have no family left. My grandparents are dead. Aunt Cecelia’s dead. My parents are dead. Mark is dead. And now you might as well be dead, too.
I must be next....
Tiffany
He had to force himself to keep going.
Dear B,
I realize now that not only is my brother really dead, but so is the friendship you and I had. I’ve run through endless possibilities of ways to fix this, ways we could reconcile, but there is no way.
Tiffany
He wanted to stop, but he couldn’t.
Dear B,
I need to move on, to forget about you and put the past behind me, but your letters just keep coming.
I tried to burn them. I built a small fire out behind my apartment building last night. As I watched the flames, I held your letters—all of them, the ones I’ve read and the ones I haven’t—over the fire. But even though I will never read them again, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t burn a single one.
Tiffany
And finally...
Dear B,
This is the last letter I will ever write to you. I’m moving forward with my life.
I wish I could say what we once had between us was good, but I question whether a relationship built entirely on letters is really a relationship at all. The bitter, cynical side of me says it was never really anything. The nostalgic side disagrees and insists that at one point in time we did have something good, but that the goodness was just lost.
On most days, it feels as if I’m at war with myself about what to make of what we once were and what we are now. Was it good? Bad? Worth it? Not worth it? I don’t know if I’ll ever fully come to terms with either feeling. Perhaps that’s because it’s a little of both.
All I can hope for is that in the future I’ll be able to go a day, maybe a week, maybe even a month or, finally, years without thinking about you, because at the current moment...
You occupy my mind every second, and without you, life doesn’t feel worth living.
Yours truly,
Tiff
Damon folded the letters and placed them back inside the envelope. Mechanically, he tucked them inside his pocket again. A knock sounded at the front door. The team had arrived.
Tiffany called out to him from downstairs. “Damon?”
For a long moment he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. His heart pounded, and adrenaline pierced through him. He could feel her pain, her grief within every word, but...
Damn. Despite everything she’d said, her feelings had never faltered. They were back to where they’d been prior to Mark’s death. He sucked in a deep breath. A massive weight lifted off his shoulders. They were back to where they’d started, as if they’d continued writing all along. Back to both of them knowing but never speaking it aloud.
She loved him...and God help him, he loved her, too.
* * *
Tiffany stood stock-still as Damon attached the tracking device to the clasp of her bra. Despite all her nerves, the feeling of his fingertips brushing her skin sent chills racing down her spine, and heat rushed between her legs. The last time she’d felt that feeling, he’d been on top of her, pushing inside her. Pure ecstasy.
She barely noticed the small device rubbing against her skin as Damon lowered the hem of her shirt. With gentle movements he moved her long hair to hang free down her spine. She bit her lower lip. She didn’t know why, but since right before they left his apartment with the E.U. team, he’d been more tender with her than ever, similar to how he’d been in bed, but...different.
Not that she was complaining.
“Are you ready?” he whispered in her ear.
She nodded. “Yeah, as ready as a girl can be for playing in a vampire nest.” Nerves built inside her again. A light sheen of sweat covered her palms. She always felt a little clammy before meeting vamps, even when fully armed, with her gun hidden beneath her jacket as it was now. But the feeling always subsided when she encountered them and her hatred for what they’d done to her family rose to the top.
It was the anticipation that raked her nerves, not the mission itself.
“Repeat to me what you’re going to do again. I want to be completely certain we’re on the same page,” Damon said.
She let out a long sigh and faced him. “I’ve already repeated this to you twenty times, but all right. I’m driving to Club Fantasy and meeting up with Janette. I’m riding with her to the nest, and when we enter, I’ll stall the discussion of Caius’s disappearance for as long as I can. When you guys burst in, I’ll hightail it out of there to the van.”
He gave her a single nod. “Good.” He met her eyes as he placed his hands on her shoulders. “We’ll be close by the whole time. Nothing will happen to you. I swear it.”
She smiled as much as she could, considering her nerves. “I trust you to keep me safe.”
He circled his arms around her waist and pulled her flush against him. Pressing his lips against hers, he kissed her deep. A small round of catcalls and whistles echoed from his fellow hunters.
He released her and shot a glare in their direction. “All you morons shut your gaping mouths and get back in position before I put you there,” he commanded.
The other operatives snapped to attention. Their mouths slammed shut.
Tiffany planted a kiss on her palm, before pressing it against his lips. She grinned. “For you to keep.”
She longed to hear him utter three words to her. But she knew how hard that would be for him. For a man who’d been taught to bottle up his emotions, to be distant for the sake of the job, telling her how he felt would be torture. He wasn’t prepared for that yet, not while he still bore the guilt of Mark’s death.
He opened his mouth, trying to force words out, but she placed a single finger over his lips.
“You don’t have to say it. I already know.” She ran her hand over his arm before she sighed. “Let’s go massacre some leeches.” She turned away and walked toward the door.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later she sat in the passenger seat of Janette’s silver sedan, cruising away from the city. She had no idea where they were going. She assured herself that there was nothing for her to be afraid of; Damon and the rest of the Execution Underground team were right behind her.
Once the vamps had accepted her suggestion of a meeting, entering the nest should have been a piece of blood pudding, but a mounting feeling of dread crept through her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the night wasn’t going to go as smoothly as planned.
After thirty minutes of silence, Janette parked her car outside what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. Tiffany nearly scoffed. What a cliché. Was it just her, or did all drug dealers, gangsters, monsters and the general underbelly of the population operate from inside old warehouses?
She and Janette exited the vehicle and slipped inside the freezing cold building. Tiffany almost choked on her own tongue. The inside held more vampires than she had ever imagined resided in Rochester. Nearly thirty bloodsuckers filled the room, along with only a small scattering of the humans she knew to be Hosts.
With twenty members of the Execution Underground at Damon’s side, the vampires outnumbered them. She tried not to think about that. Few of the vampires were very old, of that she was certain. She prayed the E.U. hunters could handle the extra monsters.
All eyes turned to her and Janette as they entered the room. Tiffany scanned the crowd and recognized several faces. The closest in rank to Caius was Lucas. The regular bartender at Club Fantasy, Lucas had been on this earth since the mid-1800s, when he’d been working as a scientist, or so Caius had told her. The vamp wasn’t nearly as ancient as his egotistical Roman superior had been, but in age he trumped all the other vamps in the room. Caius had told her that Lucas was the second-eldest vampire in the city, another migrant from N.Y.C.
“Finally our absent leader’s pet is here,” Lucas said with a grin.
From the look on his face, she already knew he couldn’t have been happier about Caius’s disappearance. With Caius gone, it was highly likely power would fall to him. Others might try to battle him for the position, but considering his age, his defeat would be highly unlikely.