Page 78 of Warrior Unraveled

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Vintoq placed a stack of papers on Zoltan’s desk. “The reports you were looking for, oh Great One.”

Zoltan nodded. “For the entire last four weeks?”

“Yes. It includes every possible Stealth Guardian sighting as recorded by our spies as well as our own men.”

“Worldwide?”

“As you requested.”

“Good. Pull up a chair and sit down. You can help me go through them.”

Vintoq pulled the chair closer and sat down. “What am I looking for?”

“Names.”

“Names?”

“Yes, take down the names of anybody mentioned in the reports, note whether they are human or Stealth Guardian, and the location they were spotted at.”

Vintoq nodded dutifully. Then he looked at the stack again. “And, if I may ask, what is the purpose of it? These reports have already been acted upon, with no result. The Stealth Guardians spotted are long gone from wherever they were seen, and the humans are no use to us at this point.”

Zoltan cast a long assessing look at his underling. “On the contrary.” He reached for the cell phone next to him. “Do you remember this? Ulric brought it to me. It belongs to a Stealth Guardian, and its contact list is full of names.” He slammed his hand on the stack of reports. “There must be someone in here who matches a contact in this phone. I only need to find one, and we’re in the game. Now, start.”

“Of course, oh Great One.” Vintoq took a part of the stack and placed it in front of him, then started leafing through the reports. “This will take a while.”

Zoltan grunted. “Hmm. Perseverance leads to success.” And patience. Though the latter he had in short supply. He was running out of time. He needed to make a move soon, or this window of opportunity would close just like others had closed before.

He glanced back at the dagger that rested on the side table again, next to his other trophies. It had outlived its usefulness, but he kept it as a reminder that he couldn’t fail again. He had sold the destruction of the Stealth Guardian compound as a win to his subjects, even though he knew it had been a failure, because it hadn’t achieved the most important goal: destroying the guardians from within. Destruction of only one compound when they could have gotten to so many more, had his advance team not screwed up, was a failure of epic proportions. But to his demons he would never admit it. They had to believe that it was a success.

Propaganda was important. The wrong kind could topple a leader. The right kind could empower him.

~ ~ ~

The entire day, there had been a sense of calm before the storm at the Baltimore compound. Wesley had watched the guardians as they went about their work: doing perimeter checks every hour, monitoring communications with other compounds, watching the news for anything odd, and in general, just waiting for something to happen. But nothing stirred.

By the time the sun had set and dinner was over, Wes was on edge.

“We can’t just sit around and wait,” he said to the guardians lounging in the living area.

Pearce looked up from his tablet, with which he was still monitoring Deirdre’s movements. “Sorry, pal, but what do you want us to do? If you have an idea, let us have it.” He shrugged and dropped his gaze back to his device.

Maybe this was as good an invitation as he’d ever get. Wes took a deep breath, then braced himself for the opposition his idea would garner.

“It’s time to bring Scanguards in on this. The vampires can help us.”

Every head spun in his direction. Well, at least he had everybody’s attention. Now he just had to make his case.

“The council won’t authorize it, not in a time like this,” Hamish said calmly.

“I’m not asking the council, I’m asking you guys,” Wes said. When several of them opened their mouths to protest, he lifted his hand. “Hear me out, before you object. It’s not like you’re doing anything else important right now.”

A few glares answered his words, but Wes ignored them. Instead he looked at Virginia. At least she wasn’t glaring at him.

“Fine, we’ll listen,” Virginia said.

He couldn’t help but notice that even Enya looked surprised at this, though Virginia didn’t seem to notice it.