“Chris?” Seth spoke suddenly. “Seth. I have need of your cleaning skills…. Roland’s house is on fire with approximately eleven humans inside, one outside, all dead. He lives in an isolated area, so I don’t know how long it will take someone to notice the smoke and call the fire department. They could already be on their way.”
He rattled off the address. “I doubt it. Knowing Roland, it will be impossible for anyone to trace the house to him. But go ahead, just to be on the safe side…. Thank you.”
As he returned the phone to his pocket, Seth studied Sarah intently. “Roland told you what he is?”
“Yes, I know he’s an immortal.”
“And you have no problem with that?”
“No, I’m glad he is. Otherwise he would be dead right now.”
Nodding thoughtfully, he leaned forward and placed his hand on Roland’s chest.
Sarah thought at first he was feeling for a heartbeat.
Then his hand began to glow. Heat radiated from it.
Beneath her astonished gaze, the blisters on Roland’s face, neck, arms, and hands shrank, then vanished. Pink skin returned to a natural golden tan. The angry bullet wounds in one of his arms and those visible through the ragged tears in his clothing sealed themselves, smoothed out, and faded to nothingness. A few in his torso spat out mangled lumps of metal she dimly recognized as bullets, then did the same.
By the time the glow faded and Seth removed his hand, Roland looked whole and healthy again, if a trifle pale.
Sarah watched Seth turn and place his hand on Marcus. “Roland told me immortals who are healers can’t heal severe wounds without it draining their strength and the wounds opening on their own bodies.” Even when they were in top form. And Seth appeared to have been shot more than the two men he was healing combined. Yet no wounds had opened on him.
“They can’t,” Seth said. “I can.”
His hand began to glow again. Bullets emerged from Marcus’s body as his burns faded.
She frowned. Was Seth stronger because he was older? Or was he different? “Are you not an immortal, then?”
He smiled, so handsome he would have taken her breath away if Roland hadn’t already turned her head. “I’m about as immortal as they come.”
Hmm. Sarah couldn’t decide whether that answered her question or not.
The ethereal glow faded, leaving Marcus as whole as Roland.
“Does blood make you squeamish?” Seth asked, sitting back on his heels.
Sarah looked down at Roland’s blood-soaked form, then at the stains on her own clothing. Smiling wryly, she said, “If it did, I’d pretty much be screwed, wouldn’t I?”
He laughed.
She nodded to Roland, still holding his hand and stroking his hair. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Yes, but he needs blood.”
“I offered him mine, but he wouldn’t take it.”
His eyebrows rose. “You did?”
She nodded. “He said it wasn’t enough.”
“More likely he was afraid that, in his condition, he might lose himself and take too much. There should be a goodly supply of it in the refrigerator. Would you mind getting some while I make them”—he motioned toward Roland and Marcus—“more comfortable?”
“Just point me in the right direction.”
He did. “The kitchen is right through there.”
Sarah stood and hurried to the kitchen, surprised to discover her legs were trembling. The room was dark when she entered. Sliding her hand along the wall, she found the light switch and turned it on.
Wow. She didn’t know whose place this was, but it was frig-gin’ huge! Most of the two-bedroom frame house she was renting could easily fit inside this kitchen.
Crossing to the very expensive-looking stainless steel refrigerator, she opened the door on the right. It was nearly empty, spotlessly clean. Maybe all Immortal Guardians were neat freaks.
It was sort of weird to think of them doing housework. Killing vampires by night, then coming home to clean the fridge, mop the floor, or scour the bathroom by day.
Ignoring the club soda, organic fruit juices, and natural salad dressings, Sarah bent and pulled open what looked like a modified meat compartment drawer. Bags of blood were neatly stacked inside. There were more in the vegetable bin.
Seth hadn’t specified how much she should bring, so Sarah took it all. Loading up, she filled her arms, shivering at the cold, elbowed the drawers shut, then let the refrigerator door close itself. The plastic bags weren’t that easy to handle in bulk. They kept shifting and sliding and trying to slip out of her grasp.
Juggling them as best she could, she hurried back into the spacious living room.
Marcus and Roland were now conscious and seated, side by side, on one of the three sofas the room boasted. Seth was comfortably sprawled in an armchair across from them. The same one Nietzsche hid beneath.
Roland’s eyes widened when he saw her.
“This is all there is,” Sarah said, dumping her load on the coffee table. Seth leaned forward and deftly caught one as it slid off the side toward the floor. “Is that enough?”
“More than enough,” Marcus said, grabbing a bag and biting into it.
“Oh. Did I bring too much?”
Roland leaned forward and picked up a bag. “Had Seth not done the work for us, it would take all of this and more to heal our wounds and replenish our strength. But, since he did, we need only enough to replace the blood we’ve lost.”
Sarah nodded and tucked her hands behind her back. They were starting to shake and she was beginning to get that swollen-throated weepy feeling now that the danger was over and reaction was setting in.
She was so glad Roland was going to be all right. So relieved she wanted to crawl into his lap and wrap her arms around his neck.
Instead, she locked her hands together and did her best to look like she wasn’t about to embarrass herself by falling apart.
Roland seemed hesitant to feed in front of her.
Hoping to reassure him, she pasted a smile on her face. “I won’t freak out. I promise. You drinking blood is no more repellent to me than someone else eating one of those greasy triple beef hamburgers I see advertised on television.”
Roland wasn’t sure he believed that as he brought the bag to his lips. Watching her carefully, he bit down and drew hard with his fangs. No grimace. No shudder.
One would think she had just handed him a juice box.
Nietzsche chose that moment to creep out of his hiding place and rub against Seth’s black fatigue–covered calf. His striped and speckled gray fur and white paws were sticky with Roland’s blood and stood out in darkened spikes.
“Well, what have we here?” Seth picked the cat up, examined him briefly, then settled him in his lap. “Hello, Nietzsche. I didn’t know you were still around.”
Uh-oh.
The gaze Seth turned on Roland was inscrutable. “You do realize that cats aren’t actually supposed to live nine lives?”
From the corner of his eye, Roland saw Marcus frown.
“Wait a minute,” he said after draining the first bag. “That isn’t the original Nietzsche, is it? That would make him—what—forty years old?”
“Forty-three,” Seth clarified.
Roland opted to remain silent and glanced up to catch Sarah’s reaction as their words sank in.
Her eyes widened. “An immortal cat?” she blurted incredulously. “There are immortal cats?”
“One immortal cat,” Seth corrected as he stroked Nietzsche’s messy fur.
Nietzsche closed his eyes in ecstasy and began to purr and work his little paws.
Seth’s disapproval didn’t have to be verbalized. Even Sarah seemed to sense it and edged closer to Roland.
Well, what’s done is done.
“It was an accident,” Roland began, setting his empty bag aside. “I came upon a vampire who was draining a woman dry. When I attacked and started kicking his ass, she freaked out and pepper sprayed me.”
“Why?” Sarah demanded. “You were trying to help her.”
“She wasn’t lucid. She thought he was giving her a hickey, not killing her,” he explained. “Before my vision cleared, the vamp got in a lucky shot and cut my carotid artery. It healed, but—by the time I dispatched the vamp, took care of the woman, and got home—I had lost so much blood that I passed out before I could feed. I awoke sometime later to the feel of Nietzsche’s sandpapery tongue licking my neck.” He shrugged. “I don’t know how much he consumed, but he hasn’t aged a day since.”
Marcus studied the cat curiously. “Has it made him more violent? Is that why he attacked the raccoon?”
“No, Nietzsche has always been very territorial. The little nutcase.”
Seth sighed. “Let’s keep this between us, shall we? I have my hands full watching over all of you Guardians. I don’t need immortal pets to be thrown into the mix, as well.”
Roland and Marcus murmured their agreement, then each drained another bag.
Sarah perched on the sofa arm nearest Roland.
Seth waited until they were finished to speak. “Tell me what you know of the one who tried to kill you.”
“Not much more than the last time I talked to you,” Roland said, raking a hand through his hair in frustration. “His name is Bastien. He’s British. And he has raised a small army of both vampires and human minions.”
Seth’s brow furrowed.
“He attacked us again last night, shortly after Marcus arrived, as we were leaving Sarah’s home. There were seven vamps with him. A dozen more joined them after the fight began.”
“All of whom deferred to Bastien and looked to him as their leader,” Marcus threw in.
Roland nodded. “The plan was to kill me and take Marcus alive.” He gave a quick rundown of the fight and of Bastien leaving to pursue Sarah, eventually ceding the fight and fleeing.
“You didn’t follow him?” There was no censure in the question.
