Rogue Darkness by Dianne Duvall

Seth shook his head. “This isn’t a mercenary compound, Jared. It isn’t a military base chock full of heavily armed soldiers. It’s a pharmaceutical research facility. Most of its employees are conducting research meant to help people. Members of the maintenance staff who clean the place every night are just working to support themselves and their families. They are nonviolent and aren’t there with malicious intent. We can’t just rush in and start decapitating people left and right when our targets are the few who are holding Tessa.”

Cliff held up a finger. “And those who tortured the vampires they experimented on.”

Jared threw up his hands. “Then we rush in, kill those few, retrieve Tessa, and let the rest of the employees sort out the aftermath.”

Chris let out a huff of disbelief. “We don’t want them sorting it out, Jared. You heard Melanie. Our goal here isn’t just to rescue Tessa. It’s also to find out how much these people know, determine whether their source was Roubal or Gershom, and see how many others they’ve shared that information with.”

Unphased, Jared said, “Then tell us what to steal and whom to question, and we’ll get it done.”

“Oh please,” Chris rebutted. “You can’t get it done. You aren’t tech-savvy enough to get it done. None of you immortals are. We need access to their network, which has multiple tiers of protection. We need to search their hard drives and cloud backups, comb through their research data and their contacts. And all of that will take time. This place already had tight security before. With an immortal in custody, they will be on even higher alert. If you zip through their security checkpoints and start breaking shit up and blowing it to smithereens, we’ll never get what we need.”

A muscle in Jared’s jaw twitched. “Tessa comes first.”

Though pissing off someone with Jared’s power was imbecilic, Sean felt the need to point out, “Tessa would want us to get what we need.”

Nicole rested a hand on his thigh under the table. “I agree.”

Jared’s eyes glowed gold with anger. “When she’s being tortured?”

“It’s too soon for that,” Melanie inserted. “The first thing they’ll do is secure her and take blood samples. Right now, they have no reason to suspect her DNA is more advanced than that of an ordinary human or the vampires they’ve studied. They think she’s infected with an alternate strain of the virus, one that doesn’t cause brain damage. So they’ll focus on comparing the virus she’s infected with to the one they extracted from the vampires to see how they vary. When it becomes clear that the viruses are the same, they’ll then want to determine if there’s something unique about Tessa that makes it behave differently and will sequence her DNA. Since her DNA is far more complex than a human’s, sequencing it will require multiple samples and take longer than usual.”

“How long?” he demanded.

“Up to two weeks, depending on their speed and performance, maybe longer. In the meantime, they’ll run a full blood panel to check for all the usual things doctors do during annual physicals. After discovering she doesn’t host a different variant of the virus, they might also question whether Reed was right about her being an immortal rather than a vampire like the others and wonder how they can prove it.”

“How can they prove it?” Jared pressed.

She shifted, her look turning uneasy. “Until they finish sequencing her DNA, there aren’t a lot of options on that. The easiest way would be to deny her blood or drain her.”

If Jared could pale, Sean thought he would’ve been as white as a sheet upon hearing that. Jared sent Seth a look of panic.

“They are unlikely to resort to that before we get to her,” Seth assured him. “Chris, Scott, what do you propose?”

A hush fell as the two network heads considered possible courses of action.

Henderson tapped a finger on the table, his head tilted to one side. “I think we should approach this from a corporate espionage perspective rather than as a military incursion. It will preserve the data needed for their other research, prevent unnecessary deaths, and keep our identities safe. If we do this right, we’ll be able to accomplish all of our goals without them even knowing with certainty whether immortals are responsible or one of their competitors.”

Seth met David’s gaze and held it long enough for Sean to assume they were conversing telepathically. A moment later, he nodded. “How do you suggest we proceed?”

Chris retrieved his trusty notepad and stubby number two pencil, then started writing. “I propose we choose a doctor who works days and have an immortal shape-shifter impersonate him. Scott’s crew is already compiling a list of employees and their home addresses. The shape-shifter won’t have to be spot-on the way we believed Becca’s should be. He’ll just need to fool the guards. And since the guards only see the doctors twice a day, as they arrive and as they depart, they’re unlikely to notice minor discrepancies. Once we choose a doctor, we’ll get our hands on his fingerprints. Seth can take my team to the doctor’s house—preferably one who lives alone—to collect those. While he’s there, Seth can pluck the doctor’s security code from his mind. My team will apply the fingerprints to the shape-shifting immortal’s hand. And that, along with the code and badge we’ll modify, will get him through security.”