Page 41 of Hunted

Tonight marked the third time in as many nights that we’d tried to intercept one of the vampires Matteo Rossi had mind-wiped and sent back to bomb the covens where they’d formerly lived, using their own blood as a shibboleth to get past the wards. The first night, the ward had held, but the vampire had triggered the bomb before we could knock them out. Thank frack we’d made sure to empty all the covens with missing members since we knew they were now targets.

The second night, the X-1 tranquilizer dart had gone through a joint in their body armor, not administering a full dose. That vamp’s eyes had briefly cleared, and as Vlad shouted, running towards her, she’d dematerialized away. We had no idea where she was. Rossi could have somehow compelled her to return, and learned we were stalking his drones, which would ruin our chance to gain intel on his movements.

Ordinarily when mature vampires materialized, they reformed at their new location discreetly. Vlad had informed me once over beers that in the same way my mother, Sofia Montemayor-Caldwell used to drill us in shifting from our human to wolf skins carrying an arsenal of guns, short swords and knives, requiring that we practice over and over until we could come through the change with what weapons we brought into it, vampires in military training had to dematerialize under high stress conditions until they could reform exactly on their intended target, soundlessly, and without error. If you were looking the other way in a crowded room, you might not even notice.

That wasn’t quite what happened here.

The vampire slammed into the invisible ward Jori had set. As we watched, he crumpled like a mosquito on a truck windshield going seventy-five out on the interstate before collapsing in the bushes beneath the windows with a scream.

Vlad and I quickly moved in from opposite sides of the property.

“He’s hot,” Vlad called into my earpiece. “I can see the wires coming out from his vest.”

“I see it,” I said grimly. “Stay back. Fallon, on me. We may have to grab his mind if this doesn’t work. I’m not losing another one.”

“Acknowledged,” she said. “He’s heavily shielded. It’ll be a bitch getting through.”

“Fun times like always.”

“He’s moving,” Cris called as the vampire flopped over in the rosebushes, flapping around like a beached fish.

Vlad fired his tranquilizer gun. Two sharp pops ricocheted in the dark. “Damn. I’m out. The round impacted on his body armor. He’s about to dematerialize.”

We couldn’t allow that to happen. I’d been chasing down leads that led nowhere for weeks. Rossi continued to terrorize the Vampire Nation. He’d further polarized the werewolf community. And all the while, President Payne was gleefully watching us destroy ourselves. Not on my watch. This ended tonight.

I fired twice. Both X-1 rounds went into the vamp’s body armor.

I swore. “Negative impact.”

“I’ve got him,” Fallon came up beside me, hands extended before her, brow furrowed in concentration.

“I’ll do it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’ve got this,” I said, already reaching out to feel the burning hot surface of the vampire’s mental shield. Sweat broke out at my temples.

Breaking into vampire minds wasn’t the same as reading a human or even a shapeshifter. All vampires were heavily shielded against intrusion by neural manipulators. Cracking into their heads was the equivalent of bashing your skull repeatedly into a concrete wall. And as an extra measure, Rossi wrote a secondary layer of shielding over each of the drones he brainwashed, similar to the one I had coded over Ellie’s mind to protect her.

Getting into this vampire’s mind wouldn’t just be dangerous for Fallon. If one of us didn’t do it exactly right, the moment we got through, we would shred what was left of the vampire’s memories, along with any usable intel that was still left—if Rossi hadn’t already done it for us.

The vampire shimmered, then resolidified, falling to the ground as I pressed harder on his mind.

“River,” Fallon shouted, when I began to sway in place. “Abort, damnit. One fang-head isn’t worth this.”

“I’m almost in.” This was about far more than one fang-head and we both knew it. We had to get the intel on where Rossi was holding his victims and put an end to this madness before he gained enough momentum to present a serious challenge to Guillermo. Even if Rossi lost, whenever a major Alpha was challenged, it led to more challenges and fighting lower down within the packs throughout the surrounding territories. In the packs where the Alphas didn’t maintain firm control like Brody and London, there would be off the books challenges, cage fights, even deaths, as wolves sought to burn off aggression. Rossi had to be stopped.

With a jolt, I felt the vampire’s shield begin to shimmer. I just needed a little more pressure. My head began to burn. Something hot trickled down the collar of my jacket. I let moon magic warm my skin, guiding me to lift the edges of the barrier. The vampire didn’t resist, barely conscious now. But he was still in there. Unlike the scientists Rossi had cruelly wiped and left with no memory of who they were or the work they had been doing on the ALDD project, this drone would have had to have retained basic memory function in order to jump home, execute commands and set off the bomb.

And then suddenly, I was in. I reached for the vampire’s memories, but something was wrong. The world swayed around me. I swiped at my nose. My hand came back smeared with bright red blood.

“Goddammit, River,” Fallon swore. “Sit down and let Topher take a look at you.”

“I’m fine,” I slurred. But even as I said it, another wave of dizziness had me sinking to my knees.

“Lie down before you faint and hit your head,” Topher ordered, hurrying in with a field medical duffel.

He and Fallon lowered me to the ground. Topher had snapped on gloves and was firing questions at me as he checked me over, in full-on paramedic mode, but I couldn’t hold the answers in my head. The night sky spun overhead.