THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

gone slack. Shock. It wouldn’t last.
    He took her left hand in his and chafed it with his own hands. She showed no awareness of his attempt to comfort, but he didn’t release her hand. The contact comforted him , dammit.
    He turned back to Eli, doing his best to pretend that he was facing his lieutenant across a table, rather than sitting here buck-naked in bed with a sheet covering his privates.
    “Okay, let’s hear what you know. Start from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”
    Eli grimaced. “It’s a short story, I’m afraid. Our day/night team went wheels up shortly after 1:00 this morning, and reached shelter for our vamp before dawn. Digger Harris took the day shift, but couldn’t make contact with the locals we hired. After he failed to reach a single member of the team at the coordinates we provided, he made a personal reconnaissance of the subject’s house.”
    Delano swallowed again, no easy task given he seemed to have no saliva available. “Which is when he found the whole team slaughtered and the Michaels woman and child missing.”
    “That’s it,” said Eli, rubbing the back of his neck, “in a fuckin’ nutshell.” 
    “We’re sure it was Janecek?” Delano knew the answer but had to ask the question.
    “I think it’s a safe assumption, particularly given that they were all exsanguinated.”
    “Where are they?” Beside him, Ainsley stirred at last, extracting her hand from his. “What has that creature done with Lucy and Devon?”
    Ainsley’s eyes no longer looked vacant, but Delano wasn’t entirely certain their new expression was much of an improvement. Her beautiful violet eyes had gone volcanic with a hot fury with which Delano was only too well acquainted. He didn’t have to probe her mind to appreciate what she was feeling. Her lust for vengeance spilled from every pore, permeating the room. 
    Easy, baby. “He won’t have harmed them.”
    She glowered at him. Yet, you mean.
    He wished he could refute her assessment of Janecek’s intent, but she’d know he was lying. But what Janecek intended wasn’t necessarily what would come to pass. Not while he still lived and breathed.
    “He’ll use them to negotiate. And to do that, he’ll have to bring them to us. When he does, we’ll simply have to figure out how to wrest them away.”
    She stared at him, unblinking. “You know what he’s going to try to negotiate. Us for them. Plus destruction of your labs and the work you’ve done.”
    “I know.”
    “Whoa right there.” Eli held up a hand. “Don’t tell me you’re seriously thinking about agreeing to his demands?” He looked from one to the other. “Goddammit, he’ll kill you both! And when he’s done, he’ll kill the Michaels woman and her kid just to put an exclamation point on his victory.”
    Delano tried to work up enough spit to swallow again. “At the risk of sounding repetitive, I know.”
    “And then there would be nothing standing between Janecek and his prey.” Eli didn’t raise his voice. Rather, he got quieter and more deadly as he went. “Our friend Radak and all the other monsters like him will be free to cull the herd with impunity then, wouldn’t they? Alleyways and crack houses and battlefields and hospital wards and anywhere else where sudden deaths can be readily explained. That is, until the day arrives when their numbers are so plentiful that they no longer give a shit whether or not their kills go unnoticed.”
    Delano dragged a hand through his hair. “Christ, Eli, I know that, too. Obviously, we can’t concede to his demands.”
    “ I can.”
    Delano and Eli swiveled to gawk at Ainsley.
    “The vaccine is all but finished, right? You don’t really need me any more. And if there’s any doubt, you can take as much blood as you like. I just need enough to stay on my feet to make the exchange.”
    “No!”
    Both men spoke at once.
    Ainsley held up a hand. “Hear me out. This makes sense. We oblige him to settle for me. He lets Lucy and Devon go. Of course, he’s not really planning to let them go. He’ll be planning to kill all of us, but as soon as I get close, I detonate a bomb and take him out.”
    Delano found his voice first. “A bomb?”
    “Yes. You can wire it onto me.”
    “A suicide bomb?”
    “No, a smart bomb that will hurt him but not me.”
    Delano leapt up, yanking the sheet with him. “No way. No fucking way.”
    Stunned silence greeted his use of the blunt Anglo-Saxon epithet, and he