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Then a slightly more triumphant lilt to Kit’s voice.

“I’ve got enough,” she said smugly. “More than we’ll ever need.”

“Don’t jinx us, kid,” Nick scolded.

He nodded though, glancing at Brick, who acknowledged his nod with a slight one of his own. Nick looked to Malek next, who stood closest to him. All of them wore black, and every one of them but Nick had their faces hidden behind masks for the building’s surveillance. Only their eyes peered out from slits, and the masks came equipped with morphing signals that would make it impossible for the system to get locks on any of their exact features.

Nick’s face remained bare, if bandaged and cut, but he made sure his back remained to every surveillance camera they’d mapped with Kit’s help.

He also wore a clip on his collar that should obscure his features to the security system as well, or at least majorly slow down a positive ID. The bandages and the cuts on Nick’s face wouldn’t hurt with that, either, Kit told him, which was yet another reason Nick had been assigned this part. It wasn’t the only reason, though.

“All right,” Nick sub-vocaled to Kit. “You ready? I need to move.”

They couldn’t stay where they were for long.

Tai was around back, along with the remaining six of Brick’s vampires. They were masked like Brick, Malek, and the others, and were waiting for Nick’s signal from the shadow-darkened walls on either side of the sanatorium’s shipping dock.

There was no more reason to wait.

“Kit?” he pressed.

“You’re good,” she said that time. “I’ve got the whole front lobby.”

Nick nodded, mostly to himself that time.

He steeled himself then, and set his headset to the open channel, which networked only to the sixteen of them. He glanced at Brick, and the elder vampire made one of his flourishing gestures, somewhere between a bow and a wave.

Nick rolled his eyes.

Then he walked out of the hedges and the shadows along the side of the sanitarium, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked straight for the front door.

* * *

Neither of thetwo women noticed him at first.

Nick supposed that wasn’t particularly surprising; who would have possibly expected him to walk right through the front door of the high-security building, and right up to the young human nurses who worked the front desk?

When the first of them looked up, Nick smiled his most winning smile with her, and shyly, she smiled back at him, her eyes slightly dazzled as she met his gaze.

“What happened to you?” she blurted.

“Car accident,” Nick said at once. He smiled wider. “My fault.”

Both women giggled.

Nick didn’t wear contacts, but he’d already immersed himself in a kind of humming thrall as he walked towards the front door, something he could do when he wanted to encase his entire presence in mystery and romantic illusion. The effect might be something like a mythical witches’ glamour. It made Nick into whatever the two women were most drawn to.

If he’d done it right, neither of the nurses would notice his eyes, or realize the meaning of them, even if they did.

It seemed to work.

The first nurse blushed deeply as she continued to stare at him, her eyes slightly glazed, a faint but visible lust in her expression as she looked at him. She stared at Nick like Nick was her favorite movie star back home, like she was both desperate and terrified to speak with him, like she couldn’tstandthe thought that she might not at least saysomethingbefore he turned and walked out of her life.

Nick aimed his smile at the woman sitting beside her next.

Like the first woman, she stared at Nick in utter disbelief, her blue eyes wide, her pupils completely blown. The second woman was older than the first, and looked mildly embarrassed at her own reaction to him, but it wasn’t enough to tear her eyes off Nick.

“I wonder if you could help me, beautiful ladies,” Nick said warmly, putting a much stronger dose of thrall in his voice. “I’m positivelydesperate,and would be oh-so grateful?”