Phantom Shadows Part 11

Bastien clutched Stuart's arm. "Do you kill when you feed?"

"Yes," he responded defiantly.

The emotions flowing into Bastien told him otherwise. Stuart was all boast and no bite.

Releasing him, Bastien stepped back.

"What do I have to do if I join you?" the vamp asked.

"Vampires from all over the globe have been pouring into North Carolina since tales of my uprising leaked, so we know you use a method to communicate that goes beyond word of mouth or congregating at the local pub."

Stuart rubbed his neck. "There are . . . places on the Internet where a lot of us like to hang out."

"We'll need a list of those."

Stuart shook his head. "I don't know, man. I need to think about it."

"Not if you want to live."

"So, if I say no, you'll kill me?"

"If you aren't with us, you're against us."

"There's more," Melanie said, issuing Bastien a frown. "You've been a vampire long enough to notice that older vampires are less than stable mentally."

Stuart's gaze strayed to the blond.

"The mental deterioration is a result of brain damage that increases every day you're infected with the virus. You may be fine now. But you'll begin to have psychotic episodes in the next year or so. Before then, twisted fantasies will disrupt your thoughts. Disturbing impulses that will become harder and harder to deny."

Stuart eyed Bastien. "You have that?"

"No. Immortals don't have to battle the insanity vampires do."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Stuart, the two vampires I told you about . . . We're working with them to find a way to prevent that and to reverse the damage, to find a treatment so being infected won't result in an automatic mental decline. We want to help vampires."

"Then why kill us?"

"You leave us little choice," Bastien said. "If there were a rabid dog in your neighborhood, would you let it run around attacking at will, or would you put it down?"

"We're trying to spare you both fates," Melanie explained. "But, we can't impress upon you strongly enough that either of those-a descent into madness or death at the hands of an immortal-would be preferable to the fate you would meet if you were captured by Emrys and his army."

"They're humans. I just don't see-"

"They have pistols that will sedate you and any other vampire in seconds," Bastien reminded him. "These are mercenaries armed with automatic weapons. You won't be able to stand against them. I barely escaped myself."

Stuart still looked uncertain. "I have to think about it."

"I'll give you until tomorrow night."

Stuart shook his head. "What if I need more time? I mean . . . I don't know."

Bastien took the boy's arm again and felt only fear. No malice. Or triumph. Or anything that might indicate deception. "Three nights," Bastien conceded. It was a h.e.l.l of a decision. "Meet me here at midnight or I'll a.s.sume you've opted not to join us and will hunt you down. And Stuart . . ."

"Yeah?"

"If I have to hunt you down, there won't be any talking when I find you. We clear?"

"Yeah." Stuart took a step back. Then another. Seconds later he vanished into the foliage and Bastien heard him rus.h.i.+ng away as fast as he could.

He turned to face Melanie and found her studying him, her pretty face impa.s.sive.

"You can kick a.s.s," he praised, both impressed and puzzled by the fact that she had held her own so well against a vampire.

"Yes." With a tip of her chin, she indicated the trees through which Stuart had departed. "You're really going to let him go?"

"Yes."

"You can't do that, Bastien."

He should not like the sound of his name on her lips so much. "He can't spread the word if I don't."

"But he said he's killed."

"He was lying."

"You don't know that with any certainty, not without one of the telepaths confirming it."

"I know it with some certainty."

"How?"

"Don't you know about my gift?"

"No. Why? What is it?"

"I'm an empath."

She stared at him in silence for so long he began to feel a bit self-conscious. "You can feel other people's emotions?" she asked finally.

"Yes. And Stuart's told me he was lying to try to save his a.s.s."

Again she stared at him.

"What?" he asked when the silence stretched.

"You can feel my emotions? Right now?"

"No. I have to touch you to feel them."

"So . . ."

He could see her considering it, trying to remember every time he had touched her or she had touched him. At the network. In her car. At David's. Trying to remember what she might have inadvertently revealed.

"You might have mentioned it. Given me a little warning."

"Such didn't occur to me."

More silence.

"What do you feel when you touch me?" she asked.

Bastien's attention dropped to her full lips as she licked them anxiously. "Sometimes I feel your concern. Sometimes uncertainty. Clinical detachment. Fear the first time we met."

"Well, our first meeting was rather . . . explosive."

That was putting it mildly.

"What else?"

He knew what she sought. "Sometimes my gift tells me you feel what I feel myself every time I look at you. Or think of you. Or touch you."

Her soft, smooth neck moved with a swallow. "You're attracted to me."

"Yes."

"I'm attracted to you."

"I know."

"What are we going to do about it?"

"Nothing."

"You're not going to give me a reason?"

"If you need one, I'm not looking to enter into a relations.h.i.+p just now." He wasn't sure how much longer he would be with the immortals. He would only be able to tolerate so much c.r.a.p before he would have to move on to avoid killing someone. And, for all he knew, if he did move on, they might hunt him down and finally execute him for killing Ewen. Why the h.e.l.l would he bring a woman into his life now?

"Blunt," she said. "I can respect that."

"I'm too old to play games."

"Some men are never too old to play games."

"The same could be said of some women."

"That's true, though I wish I could say otherwise." Sighing, she looked around the clearing, then down at the daggers in her hand. She held them out to him.

His fingers brushed hers when he took the weapons, allowing him to feel her emotions. No embarra.s.sment. Mainly frustration and disappointment.

He felt a healthy dose of that himself.

Some men were only interested in physical beauty. Bastien needed a brain to go along with that. Without wit and intelligence to intrigue him, after two hundred years a hot body just became the same old same old to the extreme. And no s.e.x was better than s.e.x with someone who bored him.

Melanie would never bore him. She was smart and funny and so d.a.m.ned s.e.xy . . .

"Did you feel anything else when you touched me?" she asked.

"Irritation," he mentioned. Thinking of her aggravation with him during the meeting, he smiled. "Which reminds me . . . You kicked me."

She shrugged, lips tilting up just a bit. "You were being an a.s.s. Didn't anyone ever tell you you can catch more flies with honey?"

"Sure. But who wants to catch flies?"

She laughed. "You're impossible."

"So everyone keeps telling me, but in far less pleasant terms."

Melanie's Chevy Volt suddenly appeared in the clearing. Richart stood next to it with his hand on the hood.

She jumped, then looked at Bastien. "Doesn't it startle you when he does that?"

"It did at first, but I've spent so much time around him lately that it no longer phases me."

Richart lifted his hand off the car, took a step, then sank to his knees.

Bastien zipped over and caught him before he could fall forward and hit the ground face-first. "What is it? Have you been tranqed?"

"No." Richart gripped Bastien's arm and used it as leverage to gain his feet. "I've never teleported a car before and was curious to see if I could do it."

Bastien released him as soon as he stood, but prepared to throw a hand out as the Frenchman swayed.

Beige gra.s.ses and weeds crackled and crunched as Melanie joined them. "Does teleporting weaken you?"

"Teleporting cars does, apparently."

"What about people?"

Bastien could see her slipping into her physician mode. Odd that even when she was clinical and impersonal he found her utterly alluring.

"Not if I only teleport one person at a time."

"Do you need blood afterward?"

He sent her a flirtatious smile. "Are you offering?"