He put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “No, but thank you for thinking of it. Look after yourself and the others. I would be — most displeased if something happened to you.”

Gregoire smiled and somehow managed to look worried at the same time. “I will, sir. Please look after yourself as well.”

Over the normal sounds of the city at night, Julian could hear the steady chopping of an approaching helicopter. Yolanthe’s strike team was almost here. He left Gregoire and strode into his study, where he went to a weapons cabinet that was tastefully concealed behind a walnut panel. By the time he had armed himself, the helicopter had landed on the helipad on the grounds behind the detached garage.

Yolanthe met him at the rear door.

Standing at five foot ten, Yolanthe was tall for a woman, but not unusually so. She had a lean, muscled body and panther-quick reflexes. Her strong-boned, olive brown features were classic Greek, and she wore her sleek black hair cut short in a no-nonsense style that hugged her shapely skull.

Julian had met Yolanthe when he had been a young Vampyre and still a general in the Roman army. They had been on opposite sides of a small, nasty border war.

With the weight of superior numbers on Julian’s side, the war hadn’t lasted long. Impressed with Yolanthe’s fighting skills and intelligent tactical ability, he had successfully recruited her, then several years later had turned her. She was one of his first progeny.

He told her, “We’re not staying.”

She fell into step beside him. Together they made their way quickly to the military helicopter waiting on the helipad. She asked, “Where are we headed, and what’s our mission?”

Julian leaped into the helicopter, glancing around and nodding at the nine familiar faces inside. He was unsurprised to find who Yolanthe had picked for the mission — all of the fighters present had served him for a long time. He knew them well, and trusted them.

As Yolanthe joined him, he told the team, “Justine tried to kill Xavier, but she didn’t succeed. He’s survived and he’s going to recover. He was also able to tell me what had happened. We’re going to take control of her estate. I doubt she’ll be there, but I’m hoping we’ll find some clues about where she’s gone. Expect extreme resistance.”

“Understood, sir.” Yolanthe touched the pilot on the shoulder. “We’ll need to set down a good quarter of a mile away and jog in, so we can get an element of surprise. Let’s go.”

As the whine of the chopper blades increased, Julian took a seat. Justine’s home lay south of the Bay, along the border of Silicon Valley, just outside of a small, upscale town called Los Gatos. By car, the trip would take over an hour. By air, they would be able to get there much sooner.

Justine’s estate was located some distance outside of the town, her land adjacent to Sanborn County Park. In an area populated with multimillion-dollar homes, her property was a lavish one by anyone’s standards. An elder Vampyre with a well-established wealth, she kept a household of over a hundred attendants, all of whom would have received some degree of weapons training.

As they grew closer, his muscles tightened in anticipation. The pilot set the helicopter in a picturesque, open clearing and powered down. Yolanthe handed Julian a headset, which he donned. While telepathy was by far the stealthiest method of communication, for most creatures it was only possible to telepathize within a range of a few feet, and it was useless for group communications.

He stepped out of the helicopter. The spring night air felt cool and damp against his skin. As soon as the other fighters hit the ground, they began to run.

A high security fence surrounded the estate, but that was no real obstacle for Vampyres. As Julian drew near, he put on a burst of power and speed, and launched into the air to clear the top of the fence by a good yard. He paused until all the others had joined him, then the team fanned out and stalked toward the mansion.

His sharp gaze scanned the area as they grew close, and he knew Yolanthe and the others were doing the same, looking for potential traps or security pitfalls. The scene looked perfectly domestic and peaceful.

A sense of disquiet stirred.

Julian didn’t bother to use his headset. Yolanthe was in charge of her team, and she would be the one to issue them orders. He told her telepathically, Something’s not right. We need to slow down.

She responded immediately, whispering into her mic, “Everybody, hold up.”

The team came to a halt. Julian studied the huge, sprawling mansion. Every interior light blazed, yet as he strained to listen, the house was completely silent. He could hear nothing. No music, or television. No sounds, anywhere in the area, until he grew convinced the property was deserted.

He muttered to Yolanthe, I don’t like this.

I don’t either. While she had straightened from her crouch, her expression remained hard and wary.

Keep your team here. He headed for the house.

She whispered a quick set of orders and raced to fall into step beside him. That hadn’t been exactly what he had meant, but other than throwing her an irritated glance, he said nothing and they continued the rest of the way together.

They came to the house at an angle and slightly to the rear, so that after they rounded a landscaped copse, the entire back of the building came into view.

A door stood open. Light streamed out, throwing a rectangle of illumination on the well-tended lawn.

Abandoning his cautious stance, he strode up to the doorway, Yolanthe at his heels. Stepping inside, he came into a large, luxurious kitchen.

Three people, two women and a man, lay in pools of crimson on the floor around a butcher-block island. Their throats had been cut. He recognized one of the women. She had been Justine’s latest lover, the beautiful woman Justine had kept on a leash at the Vampyre’s Ball. Now the dead woman’s pale features wore a bewildered expression.

He exchanged a sharp, frowning glance with Yolanthe, then moved into the hall. Throughout the ground level, he found more bodies, many more. A larger group was gathered in a family-style rec room. Those had been shot, each one double tapped with professional efficiency, a bullet to the heart and a bullet to the head.

Son of a bitch.

He stood staring at them, until Yolanthe stepped into the room. She swore softly when she caught sight of the group.

Only then did he turn away. His gaze fell to a small, telltale pile of dust, all of what typically remained of a Vampyre after they had been killed.

After walking through a few more rooms, he stopped and pinched his nose. A tension headache began to squeeze the back of his skull.

He had been right. There was nobody in the house — nobody left alive.

“There aren’t any signs of struggle,” Yolanthe said.

He said softly, “An outside attacker didn’t commit these murders. Either these people had died willingly, or Justine had spelled them into compliance. Either way, she slaughtered her entire household.”

Justine had known he would come here. Of course she had. She had realized that as soon as she heard that Xavier had survived. And she had made quite sure that nobody would be able to tell Julian anything.

His voice turned gravelly with the force of his emotion, he said, “You might as well call in the rest of the team. Have them search the other buildings, just in case. Let me know what the body count is when you’re done.”

The other Vampyre looked grim, her complexion pale. “Yes, sir.”

While Yolanthe’s team searched the property, Julian walked through the silent house. When he came to a darkened office, he flipped on the light and went to sit at the desk. A forensics team would scour everything in the room, including any files, but for now, he turned on a desktop computer and watched as it powered up.