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Desmond, Holden and Sutherland rounded out my crew. Since I didn’t officially count as a vampire, I’d added my father to fill out the quota I’d established for the others. If I’d brought everyone I wanted to keep an eye on, my team would be twenty people, and that wouldn’t qualify as playing fair. I had to trust the other teams would keep my loved ones safe.
Genie had given me a crushing hug before we left, and I’d shared similar loaded embraces with Cedes, Nolan and Tyler. These people were my family. I’d sworn they were mine in front of the vampire council, and now I was sending them out into the great unknown.
I tried not to think of how many might not return at the end of the night.
“Keep yer eyes up,” Nolan said, playfully cuffing me on the chin. “You’ve still got some lessons t’ teach me.”
Sig had offered me a friendly pat on the back, but it was Lucas who seemed the most afraid to let me out of his sight. He’d said little about the Morgan situation, but it didn’t escape my attention how he’d put her on a team with Juan Carlos.
Before we left, Lucas waited until I was alone and pulled me aside. He appeared ready to make another appeal for me to stay behind, but in the end he just hugged me. He held me close until my mouth was overwhelmed with the taste of cinnamon, and then said, “See you soon.”
See you soon.
I held on to those words, repeating them in my mind as I watched the people I knew and cared for leaving the lobby—this time with a goal to kill. I tried to memorize every face and name. While some were just characters in the periphery of my own story, there were others who mattered more than I could ever properly tell them.
I wanted to say goodbye, but it felt like a curse to do so.
Instead I thought, See you soon, see you soon.
Like a touchstone in my mind, I turned those three words over and over until they lost all meaning individually, but the phrase remained true.
We’d come back here.
We’d all come back.
Nothing else was acceptable.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Though the necro site Holden and I found was nearby, it wasn’t the place we’d been assigned. Since we hadn’t done the appropriate recon, Sig and Lucas had insisted on going. I don’t know if it was because they thought they were stronger than Holden and me, or because they believed they were better prepared for surprises, and I didn’t ask. Arguing was just a waste of time at this point.
My team pulled the unfortunate task of dealing with the necro holed up in Belvedere Castle in Central Park. The groups were assigned based on locations at least one of the team members had scouted. Desmond’s duo had been the ones to find the castle, so we followed his lead into the park.
I wasn’t used to yielding command, but I didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice in the matter this time around.
“It’s like they flipped through a guidebook of New York and chose their hideouts based on the most popular tourist traps.” I stuffed my hands in my jacket pockets and picked up my pace so I could stay between Holden and Desmond. Sutherland was a few feet back, stopping every couple of minutes to stare absently at something before carrying on.
He wouldn’t be much help in the actual fight, but at least I knew what to expect from him. Putting him on any other team would create an unnecessary weakness for them, and I couldn’t leave him behind. He might actually prove to be handy in the end. Stranger things had happened.
We approached the castle from the trails, rather than coming across the Great Lawn. While this meant we didn?
?t get any advance views of our target, it also kept us out of sight. Any guards on the castle’s observatory decks would have a great view of the entire lawn and the picnic areas surrounding the pond. From our approach angle, we’d be protected by the forest’s leafy trees until right before we reached the castle.
There were far fewer bodies in the park than I’d expected. Compared to the overwhelming number clogging up the streets and tripping over themselves on the sidewalks, the park was almost empty by comparison. This was both better and worse in some ways.
Because there were fewer of them, it also meant they took us by surprise more often. We’d be moving along at a good clip until one of the risen would stagger out of the trees and stop in front of us on the sidewalk. We only had to engage one once, when it lunged for Holden and refused to yield its grip.
My sword proved its value when I cut the thing’s arms and head off in quick succession before it had a chance to bite the vampire. Holden was less thrilled because he’d had to abandon his suit jacket in order to get the dead hands off him.
Once we reached the path marked for the castle, we slowed down, not wanting to be surprised by either a body or one of the necro’s living men.
“How many did you see?” I asked Desmond.
“At least four watching the exterior, two on each of the decks. No idea how many were inside, but it smelled like there were more.”
Holden’s mouth twitched. I knew he was fighting the urge not to make a dog-related joke about smelling for humans, so I quickly went on. “Were they armed?”
Desmond must have noticed Holden’s reaction because he gave the vampire an unimpressed glare before continuing. So much for their truce. I guess now that Desmond and I were engaged, they weren’t going to pretend to be nice to each other anymore. “Looked like semiautos. Not sure what kind exactly. But they seem comfortable with them, so that’s something.”
