Amaury was so used to sensing emotions that his brain had started translating them into thoughts for him, but he had no idea if his brain was doing a good job or not.
“No, we need you for this,” Gabriel protested.
The sound in Gabriel’s voice told Amaury that he wouldn’t be let off the hook. And right now, he was too tired for a verbal fight which he wasn’t sure he would win at the best of times. “We’re talking several hundred people here. We can’t do it all in one session.” There was no way he could take in that many emotions all at once. The pain would be excruciating.
“We’ll break them up into smaller groups. How many can you handle at one time?”
Preferably one at a time.
“Twenty-five, maybe.” He would never risk being seen as a wimp. “How about you?”
“Twenty-five will be just fine. I’ll instruct Ricky. We can’t get all of them together at the same time anyway. We’ll have a few busy nights ahead of us.”
Amaury realized Gabriel was right—those would be busy nights. There wouldn’t be much time to hunt for a fresh meal or get enough sex to keep his pain at bay. He would have to find time to sneak away, otherwise things would get dicey for him. Anywhere close to forty-eight hours without sex and he’d start climbing the walls.
“What will the others do?”
“I’ll be at the staff meetings with you and Gabriel,” Yvette responded. Amaury raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. He caught Gabriel’s gaze on him.
“Yvette will be useful. She has a photographic memory like Samson.”
Now there was a tidbit of information he didn’t know about her. How had that ever escaped him? Great, and she’d seen him naked. Did she still carry that particular image in her mind? Amaury cringed. “Perfect.” He tried to keep all sarcasm out of his voice, but wasn’t so sure he succeeded.
Zane cleared his throat. “I’ll be infiltrating the criminal elements of the city to listen to the grapevine. I’m sure I’ll dig something up.”
“I should help you with that,” Amaury offered. Navigating the underbelly of San Francisco was much more up his alley than being cooped up in a room with twenty-five employees and their emotions. At least he would get to kick some ass. Being out with Zane virtually guaranteed it.
“We’ll need you at the staff meetings,” Gabriel insisted, his tone growing increasingly annoyed. “As I already said, we need your gift.”
Gift, my ass! It’s a curse!
Before Amaury could respond, a loud noise jolted him. In the next instant, smoke rose from underneath the car’s hood and entered through the vents.
“Carl, what was that?”
“Don’t know, but it’s not good. Hold on everybody,” Carl yelled.
They were already in a residential street in the outskirts of San Francisco. Carl jerked the car toward the shoulder, but seemed to have difficulty steering as the engine suddenly petered out.
“Carl, talk to me,” Amaury ordered. His hand gripped the handle bar above the window.
“Engine blew, brakes are sticky, and the steering is stiff. What else do you want? A running commentary?”
For the first time since he’d known Carl, he saw him lose his temper. His shoulders drawn up, the skin on his neck muscles pulling into tight horizontal lines, Carl was as close to panic as Amaury had ever seen him.
The car flew over a bump on the road and landed hard, lifting everybody out of their seats before they landed hard on their butts again. Vampires weren’t into wearing seatbelts.
Another wild steering maneuver and Carl brought the vehicle over the sidewalk. Both the curb and the thick brush the car grazed helped stop it inches before it hit a low fence.
Amaury looked at his colleagues. Everybody appeared a little disheveled, but nobody was hurt.
Immediately, Carl pulled the lever for the hood and jumped out, Amaury on his heels. He heard displeased grunts behind him as he joined Carl who’d already propped the hood up. With his hands Carl waved the smoke and steam away, before he started inspecting the engine.
“Damn,” Carl exclaimed after several seconds.
“What?”
“Here, see this?” Carl pointed to a hose, not that Amaury knew exactly what it was. It appeared to be blown to bits. “This didn’t just happen on its own. Somebody made sure it did. This was no accident.” Carl’s grave look was worrisome. He wasn’t one to spurt baseless accusations.
Amaury trusted Carl’s assessment, even though he himself couldn’t confirm it. Other than driving a fast German car, he wasn’t really into the mechanics of it. He left that up to people who found tinkering with an engine interesting.