"I'm fine as long as you feed me coffee first thing," I replied mildly. "And I wouldn't be placing bets on Liander doing your clothes. He sounded pretty pissed off with you last time I talked to him."

"Yeah, well, he shouldn't try placing unreasonable restraints on me."

"Didn't we have this very same discussion four months ago?" I did a quick peek around the doorway. Nothing but darkness. I blinked, flicking to the infrared of my vampire vision. Still nothing but rubbish-strewn emptiness. "I'm ready to head in."

"Me, too." He paused, "And yeah, we did have this same discussion."

"So, did you talk to him like I told you to?"

"Sort of."

Meaning he'd gone for the ignore-everything-and-give-good-sex option. No wonder Liander had a smile a mile wide the next morning.

And no wonder he was back to being an unhappy camper now.

"Can I remind you that a good man is hard to find?"

"Can I remind you're here to capture a vampire, not to lecture your older, more experienced, brother?"

I grinned. He'd beaten me into this world by a whole five minutes. "Heading in now."

"Me, too."

I snuck around the corner, keeping low and close to the wall as I scanned the immediate surroundings. The room was large, and had a wide platform running around the edges. It looked like a loading bay, one where the trucks just reversed to the ramp and the goods were wheeled directly out. Two double-swing doors were visible, one directly ahead and one to my left. The left one swung slightly—an obvious indication that someone had gone through it recently.

So why did the scent trail lead straight ahead?

I wasn't sure, but I wasn't trusting visual evidence, not in a place that smelled so much like a trap. I padded right, keeping to the walls, following the muted odor of death up the ramp and through the door.

A long hallway dotted with doorways greeted me. The air here was close, and had a stale, almost rotten smell. Like something had been decaying here for a very long time.

I wrinkled my nose and hoped like hell it was just putrid rubbish of the non-flesh kind, even as my wolf senses told me that at least some of the smells weren't.

Obviously, there'd been more victims snatched by the baby vamp and perhaps his maker than had been reported.

I continued on, opening each door and trying to ignore the more tangible signs of decay and death in each room as I went. The baby vamp couldn't be working alone, that much was obvious. There were at least ten whole bodies, as well as an assortment of various body parts—limbs, heads, and organs—scattered throughout the rooms. Even a newly turned vamp at the height of his feeding frenzy couldn't consume that much blood.

I eventually reached another swinging door. The scent of death was stronger here, meaning the baby vampire was closer. Much closer. Like just beyond the door. Trying for an ambush, perhaps? If so, he might have considered a shower first. His natural odor was a dead giveaway to anyone with a decent honker.

I stepped back a little and kicked the doors open. As they crashed back, I dove through, rolling onto my feet and sighting the laser's target on the vamp in one smooth movement.

He was younger than I'd presumed—a teenager rather than someone in his late twenties. This close, the veins under his pale skin were very visible, and were the healthy blue of a well-fed bloodsucker.

His sudden laugh had goose bumps fleeing across my skin. Not because of the low, chilling sound, but because his laugh reminded me of another's.

Gautier.

Did that mean our rogue guardian was the kid's maker? It would certainly explain how he'd escaped the Directorate for nine kills.

The thought had barely crossed my mind when awareness surged, prickling like fire across my skin.

He was here. Gautier was here.

Fuck.

Panic surged, but I thrust it down ruthlessly. To give in to panic would be playing into Gautier's hand. He loved fear. Fed on it.

But I couldn't deal with Gautier and keep an eye on the baby vamp. I'd fought and beaten more than one vampire at a time in the past, but Gautier was the most successful killing machine the Directorate had ever trained. The one time we'd fought, he'd beaten the crap out of me.

I wasn't even sure that Rhoan and I, as a team, could defeat him.

"Rhoan, we have a problem."

"Don't tell me we've lost him. I do not want to spend another night in weather like this."

"I have the vamp. The problem is bigger than that." Bigger and closer. A chill ran over me, but I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder. But my senses told me the darkness that was Gautier was moving forward from the far side of the room.

"Bigger in what way?"

I gave in to temptation and looked my shoulder. "I know you're out there, Gautier."

The words were barely out of my mouth when the baby vamp attacked. He was on me like a rash—a spindly whirlwind of arms, legs, and desperation. I staggered back under the force of his attack, somehow managing to get my arm between us. His teeth slashed my palm rather than my neck, and sliced deep. Pain roiled white hot through my body. I hissed, but it was his greedy sucking that got to me more than the pain. I wasn't about to beany vampire's last meal. I swung my fist, hitting him over the head with the body of the laser as hard as I could. The force of the blow tore him from my flesh, and with a grunt of effort, I thrust him away from me. He landed on his back and slid along several more feet, until he was close to the still-shadowed Gautier.

"Kill him," Rhoan said. "Gautier's probably his maker, and if he's not, we'll worry about it later."

I blew out a breath and hoped like hell he was right—otherwise, Jack was going to be extremely pissed. I raised the laser and fired the weapon, sweeping the bright beam from left to right across the vampire's bony neck. Skin and bone sliced as easy as paper, and the smell of burnt flesh stung the air.

My stomach flip-flopped, but I ignored it, concentrating on Gautier's unseen presence. A presence that seemed even darker and more menacing than usual—and that was something I'd never thought possible until now. "You really can stop hiding, Gautier. I know you're here. Your rotten stench always gives your presence away."

His chuckle ran across the night, a low sound that set my teeth on edge. He walked free of the shadows hiding his form, and strolled toward me. Gautier was an even longer, meaner stick of vampire than the vamp who lay on the ground, and his flesh was just as pale. But like the baby vamp, there was nothing translucent about Gautier's skin—he too had the wholeness of a vampire who ate often and well.

I remembered the stink in the hall, the decaying bodies and many body parts in the various rooms. A chill ran through me. Apparently, Gautier was off the Directorate leash in more ways than one.

"I'm on the landing above and to your left," Rhoan said. "The minute he comes into range, we both fire."

Sounded like a perfectly acceptable option to me. Jack might want to interrogate this sick bastard and uncover what other macabre games he'd been playing since leaving the Directorate, but I was perfectly happy to disobey orders when it came to Gautier.

Though I very much doubted he'd fall into our hands so easily.

As if to give emphasis to this thought, he stopped just near the body of the baby vamp—tantalizingly close to the required laser range—and gave another low chuckle. The sound crawled over my skin and made me shiver. Gautier in a happy mood boded no one any good.

"Shame on you for killing my little friend," he said, tone oily and amused. "Don't you know the Directorate likes to question baby vamps and get the name of their maker first?"

"We both know who the maker is, Gautier," I replied, itching to pull the laser's trigger even though I knew it would be useless. "Though I am at a loss to know why you'd bother with such a poor specimen."