1 Chapter 1
Albert Manlii
Plan B didn’t often come into play, and Albert Manlii loathed the necessity for it. His people were meticulous in their research, so they could rule out humans that were likely to reject their proposal. But once they’d played their hand and extended the offer, either the potential recruit accepted it, or…Plan B.
It was too dangerous to let a human walk away with that kind of knowledge. Period. Just as it was impossible to know with one hundred percent certainty how a human would react to the offer, they had no assurance that the human wouldn’t talk afterward, and that those they spoke to wouldn’t think that maybe there was something to that crazy talk of vampires.
“I just can’t,” the woman said a second time. The firm set of her jaw confirmed her resolution on the matter.
Albert sighed and signaled with a scratch behind his left ear. “I understand. I appreciate your calm consideration, and I’m sorry you won’t be joining us.”
He turned and strode away. He was a good twenty-five yards from her when the dull thud of her body hitting the floor reached him. He didn’t look back.
* * * *
Albert straightened abruptly in his seat. His chin raised as he turned toward the open window and sniffed the air. It was a male scent, of that he was certain. Not too young, but not too old, either. If he were a betting man, he would peg the age of the owner of those intriguing pheromones to be somewhere in his thirties. Close to his own age. Or…not.
His lip curled self-depreciatingly as it was wont to do. After his thirty-fourth birthday, he’d lost track of his precise age. He’d spent too many decades over the first few hundred years after he’d been turned despondent and distracted, struggling to survive. He needed to add about two thousand years to get his true age.
He drew in a deep breath and shivered as that enticing aroma swirled, beckoning him to the window. The man behind the scent approached from the west. He walked slowly, his head down and shoulders slumped as if they carried the weight of the world—or more likely, the burden of his own imminently pending mortality.
Albert tapped his phone screen and dialed a number from memory as he strode out of his apartment.
Eunice answered immediately. “Yes, boss man.”
He sighed, but let the nickname go. Not letting inconsequential matters aggravate him was one of the reasons he made a well-liked and effective faction-leader. His associates respected him in the true sense of the word, rather than the fear-based perversion of it.
“Got a potential for you to check out. Hold on.” He hustled down the narrow staircase and exited the building.
The man, mere yards away when Albert pushed out the door, looked up as if startled. Albert nodded and gave a reassuring, light, and friendly smile. The man’s eyes lit for a fraction of a second before gloom reclaimed them. He returned the nod, and Albert paused on the stoop and fiddled with his phone’s screen to give his target a chance to put some distance between them.
Target.It was imperative he allow himself to think of the man only dispassionately. Against all common sense, Albert drew in another whiff of the man’s scent and shivered. He closed his eyes as the pheromones permeated throughout his body. Finally, after all these years, he’d found someone who affected him this way. That brief glimmer in the man’s eyes didn’t help Albert’s resolve to remain impartial. Did the man feel it, too?
Throughout this, Eunice remained silent—other than sounds of breathing. Of course, they didn’t needto breathe, but movement that had been involuntary in life was now cultivated habit, crucial to maintain the appearance of life so as not to attract undesirable attention. Besides, airflow over the larynx was required for talking, and they used their elevated sense of smell to their advantage.
Albert held back. With the slight breeze, he should be able to track the man by his scent even if he lost sight of him, but to be safe, he strove to keep the stranger in view. He plugged the wired earbud into the audio jack and fitted it into his ear.
“Okay,” he said. “Early to mid-thirties, or possibly a bit younger since the disease isn’t doing his appearance any favors.”
“Cancer?” Eunice asked. A reasonable educated guess since it was both the most likely fatal disease to affect a human of that age, and the one Albert was best able to pick up.
“Yes. I don’t recognize the type, so something uncommon, but it’s advanced.” Part of him felt sorry for the man, but his self-preservation instincts overpowered that emotion. It wasn’t as if there was anything he could do to save the guy’s life anyway. “You’ll need to work quickly.”
They pulled in one or two new recruits each year. Sometimes more, sometimes none. Finding willingconverts in the right age range was by far the most efficient and least dangerous path. People whose lives were about to be tragically cut short were often cooperative.
