Kerrelyn Sparks - Wanted - Undead or Alive

“Robby, behind you!” Phineas shouted.

Robby spun to face his attacker and grabbed Dimitri’s arm. Angus zoomed toward them and clunked the Russian on the head with the hilt of his claymore. Dimitri collapsed on the floor unconscious.

Meanwhile, Corky wiggled free from the silver chain, and just as Robby made a grab for her, she teleported away.

“Nay!” Robby and Angus shouted in unison.

A pall of disappointment fell with a whoosh over the room. They had taken everyone prisoner except the target.

“She got away?” Freemont asked. “Can you follow her?”

With a curse, Phineas kicked the metal folding chair. “We don’t know where she went.”

“Hot damn,” Freemont whispered. “I’ve never seen so many booty-licious babes in one room.”

“They can hear you.” Phineas cast an apologetic look at Caitlyn, Toni, and Lara, then leaned close to his brother. “Watch what you say once their husbands arrive. They have super hearing and super strength.”

“Right.” Freemont stopped ogling the women and gazed forlornly at the leopard-skin fedora he’d placed in front of him on the long wooden table.

They were sitting in a conference room at Romatech, waiting for the strategy meeting to begin. After the fiasco at Corky’s hideout, Phineas had offered to teleport his brother back to DVN, so he could return the limo to Leroy’s House of Class, but Freemont had insisted on sticking by his side.

“A friend of yours is a friend of mine,” Freemont had told him. “And an enemy of yours is an enemy of mine. I’ve got your back, bro, you know what I’m saying?”

Phineas had pulled him into a hug, his heart swelling with love and pride. Then he’d teleported Freemont to Romatech and introduced him to his friends.

The two mortals, Rat Face and Blockhead, had been teleported to Romatech, along with an unconscious Dimitri. The prisoners were downstairs in the basement, the mortals in an interrogation room, and Dimitri in the silver room to keep him from teleporting away.

“I screwed up, didn’t I?” Freemont mumbled. “The old dude will never hire me now.”

Phineas shifted in his chair. “You never know. Angus is pretty cool—”

“But the bitch got away ’cause you had to save me. I should have stayed out of it, I guess.”

“You guess?” Phineas gave him an annoyed look. “Didn’t I tell you to lay low?”

Freemont winced and slumped lower in his chair. “I totally blew it.”

Most of the MacKay S&I employees were busy elsewhere, but a few of the ladies had gathered early in the conference room. Across the table, a very pregnant Caitlyn Panterra was discussing baby things with Toni MacPhie.

“Are all the women here knocked up?” Freemont whispered.

“Toni and Caitlyn are,” Phineas mumbled. These days, he was surrounded with happily married couples.

Lara di Venezia grinned at them. “Scary, isn’t it? Olivia’s expecting, too. I feel all alone these days.”

Freemont sat up, smiling at the pretty redhead. “I’d be happy to keep you company.”

Phineas nudged him with an elbow. “Lara is married to Jack, one of the best swordsmen in the vampire world.”

Freemont huffed with disappointment. “Are all the babes here married?”

“Very happily married,” Phineas grumbled.

“Have you seen LaToya lately?” Lara asked him.

He groaned inwardly. “No.”

“Oh.” Lara’s smile faded. “I thought you might have gone to New Orleans for her birthday. I sent her a card last week, but I haven’t heard back from her.”

Phineas sighed. LaToya had never told him her birth date. Probably because she didn’t want a present from him. Hell, who was he kidding? She’d never wanted anything from him.

“Who are you talking about?” Freemont asked.

“LaToya Lafayette,” Lara replied. “We were roommates when we both worked for the NYPD. More than roommates, actually. Best friends. But she’s never been able to accept the fact that I married a Vamp.”

“Bummer,” Freemont mumbled.

“Yes.” Lara heaved a big sigh. “I miss her. She moved back to New Orleans, and joined the police force there. You went to see her at Christmastime, didn’t you, Phineas?”

He nodded.

Freemont eyed him curiously. “You have a girlfriend?”

“No.” Not unless there was a new tradition for mistletoe that involved a girlfriend threatening to shoot off her boyfriend’s head. “We don’t get along very well.”

“I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out for you,” Lara said, then shook her head sadly. “I tried so many times to tell her what a nice guy you are, but—”

“It’s okay,” Phineas interrupted her. “She just doesn’t like Vamps.”

“Exactly,” Lara agreed. “So you shouldn’t take it personally. She would have rejected any—”

“I know.” Phineas gritted his teeth. “It’s no big deal.”

Lara gave him a dubious look, then thankfully turned her attention to Freemont. “I don’t mean to pry, but I heard you talking about MacKay S and I. Are you going to work with us?”

“I’d like to.” Freemont glanced at Phineas. “It would be buck.”

“Don’t forget you need to finish college,” Phineas murmured.

Freemont rolled his eyes. “I can do both. I’m free for the rest of this summer. And I could take night classes from now on.” He made a face. “I’m just afraid I blew my chance. The old dude’s not going to want me now. I screwed up his last mission.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lara insisted. “Vampires and shifters are stronger than us—”

“Shifters?” Freemont’s eyes widened. “What the hell is a shifter?”

“Oops,” Lara whispered.

Phineas winced. “I didn’t quite tell you everything.”

Freemont sat back. “What do you mean? There’s more spooky shit?”

“Yeah. Some of the people you’ll meet tonight aren’t vampires. They’re not exactly human, either.”

“They’re aliens ?”

“No, they’re from Earth.”

“Oh, good.” Freemont exhaled with relief. “Those aliens really freak me out. I mean, why do they travel a jillion light-years just to stick a probe up someone’s ass?”

“They’re not aliens,” Phineas muttered, aware that the ladies in the room were snickering. “They’re shifters.”

“So how do they shift? Do they phase from one alternate reality to another?”

Phineas scoffed. “What kind of crap have you been watching? There is no alternate reality.”

“So you say.” Freemont’s gaze darted suspiciously around the room. “But how can you be sure?”

“Because this is it! Has anyone in the entire history of our planet ever found a portal to another dimension?”

Freemont lifted a finger to make a point. “If they stepped through, then they’re not here to tell us about it.”

Lara chuckled. “That’s a good point.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Phineas muttered.

“So how does the shifting thing work?” Freemont’s eyes lit up. “I know! They ascend into a more advanced, spiritual form, one that goes beyond the restraints of a physical body, so they exist as pure transcendent energy—”

“They’re animals.”

“Huh?”

“They shift into animals,” Phineas repeated. “Like wolves.”

“You mean werewolves ?” Freemont stiffened, his expression tinged with panic. “You’re messing with me, right? I mean, vampires are bad enough, but I figure they like to pick on the pretty ladies, so I’m safe. But werewolves! They’ll chew on anything. They’re big! And bad!”

“And they’ll blow your house down.” Phineas’s smile quickly faded as the same old vision flitted through his mind. Pale blue eyes the color of a summer sky. Why did the most beautiful woman on Earth have to belong to the canine family? Stop thinking about her! Brynley was all wrong. And she hated Vamps even more than LaToya.