After Dark

by Gena Showalter

  Damon ran his hand over his hair. “Not sure. If the vampires have a virus, the weird behaviors make sense. But what about the dead guy turning so quickly? It only took an hour for him to turn and regular vampire gestation is at least a month, sometimes longer, when buried in the ground. He shouldn’t have changed that quickly.”

  Chris started typing again. “The virus could be causing a genetic mutation in their makeup and speeding up the transformation process.”

  Damon rested his head in his hands. “So we have sick vampires running around who are mutating into zombielike monsters. But that doesn’t explain why a newborn vampire would leave blood. Once a baby vamp bites, it doesn’t detach until the person’s drained, and this guy wasn’t.”

  Chris gave a single nod.

  Damon finished his thought. “But a stronger vamp could do that.”

  Chris stared at him. “You’re thinking an older vamp is killing these people and then feeding the leftovers to the baby zombie vamps?”

  If an older vampire was controlling younger ones within the Rochester city limits, there was a clear culprit. Damon and Chris exchanged knowing looks. They didn’t need to say it aloud to know they were on the same page.

  Caius Argyros Dermokaites.

  * * *

  Tiffany yawned and stretched as her eyes flickered open. She blinked away the sleep from her vision and rolled over. Sitting up in bed, she glanced around the bedroom. No Damon. She flopped back into the pillows and let out a long sigh.

  Holy smokes, the things they’d done...

  A sweet ache pulsed through her core. The slight soreness was just enough to remind her of every move they’d made between the sheets. She’d never thought she would have been capable of anything even close. A small smile crept over her face.

  She’d never thought her first time would be with a strong handsome hunter, though if she’d been the kind of girl to daydream of the perfect man, Damon or someone like him—someone like B—would have been the star of her fantasies. The members of the Execution Underground were brave warriors, the soldiers of the supernatural world, and Damon embodied everything the E.U. stood for. He was strong, intelligent, skilled, ruthless and passionate. Wow. She’d never been one for the sappy stuff, but the thought of the night they’d spent together gave her butterflies.

  She stood and stripped one of the sheets from the bed. Wrapping it around herself, she padded down the stairs. She went into the laundry room and pulled her clothes from the dryer, checking them over. Still mildly stained with blood. No surprise there, but it would have to do. She dropped the sheet and threw on her clothes before heading into the living room in search of Damon. Who wasn’t there, or in the kitchen.

  Where the heck was he?

  She heard a heavy door closing, and moments later he emerged from the downstairs hallway with a scowl twisting his face.

  “Did someone spit in your coffee?” she said.

  Without a word, he flopped down onto the sofa and buried his head in his hands.

  Tiffany raised a brow. “Okay, then. No ‘hope you slept well after that crazy time we had.’” She dropped her hands to her sides with a slight humph. Was she an idiot to expect a little sweetness? Given how tender he’d been earlier...

  “Is this city really overrun with supernaturals?” he asked, lifting his head from his hands.

  She blinked several times. “What?”

  He let out a long breath. “According to H.Q., this city is overrun with supernatural predators. Way more than just vampires. Is that right?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, pretty much. Mark never taught me anything about hunting supernaturals other than vamps, though, so I stay clear of the others.” She walked to the couch and sat down beside him.

  He glanced toward her. “How do you know they’re here, then?”

  She grinned. “Once you know of the existence of supernaturals, it doesn’t take a trained hunter to spot one. You know how it is. It might be a flash of a wolf eye here or there, or just a strange feeling when you encounter someone. I’ve learned never to ignore my instincts.”

  A moment of silence passed between them. She waited for him to speak. When he didn’t, she finally cleared her throat and asked, “Why does it matter?”

  “I need to assemble a division of hunters.”

  Her eyes widened. “So you mean there’s going to be a whole load of you guys here in Rochester now?”

  He nodded. “Five others.” He got up off the couch and walked across the room. His demeanor matched his distant tone.

  She knew he had a lot on his mind, but after last night she...well...she wasn’t really sure what she’d expected, but more than this, anyway. Damon’s skills between the sheets made the guys in the romance novels she read look like bumbling idiots. But out of bed, cold and distant was his default setting.

  “What’s so bad about that? About bringing in other hunters?”

  Damon ignored her question. “We’ve got worse things to worry about. The results of the samples I sent to headquarters arrived. The bloodsuckers have some sort of virus they’re passing between them. That’s what’s making them act like zombies and causing their victims to turn so quickly.”

  Tiffany whistled low and long. “That is not good. How are they passing it around?”

  He shook his head. “No idea. But it seems the vamps contract the disease at transition. Chances are it started from one vamp who turned someone and continued from there. I don’t know how or why, much less how to stop it, but I have to find out.”

  “If it keeps spreading, won’t the entire vampire population be overrun with these freak zombie leeches?”

  Again Damon didn’t respond. His stare was fixed and distant, and she could tell he was lost in thought. Suddenly he snapped back to attention. “If we find the source of the virus and destroy it, then we can go after all the spawn. We think the current existing vamps can’t contract it, since they’re already turned. I think one of the old ones is behind this, though—creating an army of monsters to destroy, maybe to gain more power in the vamp world, and make hunting humans easier, as well—and I think I know who it is.”

  She knew exactly what he was thinking. “If you expect to go into Caius’s nest with guns blazing, you’re out of your mind.” She stood up and walked toward him. “I have a better suggestion.” Lingering directly in front of him, she wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on her tiptoes and pulled his head toward her for a kiss. Their tongues swirled together, and immediately heat rushed between her legs. She pulled back. “I’ll kill Caius.”

  “Over my rotting corpse.” Damon wrapped his arms around her waist and raised a single brow at her. “Did you really think kissing me would get me to agree to that?”

  She shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

  Damon let out a long sigh. “Tiffany, look—”

  “Let me finish,” she said, cutting him off. “Whether you like it or not, I know a lot more about the dynamics of this city’s vampire scene than you do. All the local vamps have their heads so far up Caius’s ass they might as well take up permanent residence. They’ll do anything he asks of them, and they’ll kill to protect him.”

  “Vampires have no loyalty. Why do you think they’re so devoted to him?”

  She crossed the room again to sit on the sofa. “Caius is a good leader, I’ll give him that. He’s good at controlling, even other vamps. He’s been here only three months when he fled here from New York City, after he killed my brother. Since Club Fantasy was already his, this was a natural place to relocate, I guess. He’d been an absent club owner before that. In only three months, he’s taken a disbanded group of rogue-like vamps and changed them into an organized nest. He must have been some sort of Roman version of Charles Manson in his day. He’s a manipulative psychopath. He was only second in command when my brother raided
his nest in New York City. With the head honcho dead, Caius is the big fish now, and he takes his position very seriously.” She shot Damon a pointed look. “With so many vampires in this city, in order to kill Caius you’d have to get him alone, and in order to do that you’d need to gain his trust.” She pointed to herself. “I’ve already done that.”

  He met her stare. “What are you proposing?”

  “I’ll get back inside Caius’s inner circle. I’ll make up some excuse for having run last night, and then I’ll let you in to help me fight once I have him alone.”

  Damon shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

  She placed her hands on her hips. “Do you have a better idea?”

  He grunted in exasperation and fixed her with a hard stare. “Why do you keep trying to tempt death?”

  She scoffed. “Would you quit with that? Maybe I just want to avenge my brother, all right? How do you know I can’t—”

  He interrupted her as he walked to her side. “Even if you were completely capable of handling an ancient vampire on your own—” he narrowed his eyes “—which you’re not, I still wouldn’t want you anywhere near Caius. I don’t know what I’d do if you were hurt or if I was unable to protect you.” He placed a hand on her cheek. “Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes. You trying to fight a vampire as ancient as Caius is foolish. We both know why you’re willing to risk your life. I can see your pain over your brother, and I can’t imagine how painful losing your parents to vampires at such a young age was, but there are few things worth throwing your life away over, and your family wouldn’t have wanted you to throw it away over them.”

  Her heart stopped, and her eyes widened. How did he know about...?

  She swatted his hand from her face. He froze as she stepped away. “How did you know that?” she rasped. “How did you know my parents were killed by vampires, too?”

  He didn’t respond.

  No. No. It couldn’t be.

  Damon Brock. Damon Brock. The words fell out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “Has anyone ever called you B?” No. She didn’t want to know. She couldn’t know. It would ruin everything.

  Damon flinched as if she’d struck him.

  Before she knew what she was doing, she rushed forward and shoved his chest as hard as she could. He didn’t even stagger. “Do they call you B?” she yelled.

  Tears poured down her face. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t. No. She pummeled his chest, but he didn’t move, didn’t defend himself. “Did he call you B?” she screamed.

  The muscles in Damon’s throat strained as if he could barely choke out the words. “He called me B because my last name is Brock. That’s why I signed the letters that way.”

  All sound, all movement, all feeling...stopped. Her hands shook at her sides, and her heart thumped against her chest, the sound of her own blood throbbing in her ears. Every inch of her body went numb.

  Mark had always referred to his partner as B. She never knew it was the letter for a last name. She always assumed it was his first initial.

  “B’s an amazing fighter, Tiff. I wish you could meet him. I wouldn’t trust anyone else to watch my back.” He nudged her in the shoulder. “Good-lookin’ guy, too. Maybe you’ll find a hunter like him someday and then I won’t have to take care of you anymore.” He grinned.

  Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. If he’s anything like you I’d kick him to the curb.”

  Mark met her eyes. “Seriously, Tiff. He’s a good man.”

  Mark’s voice rang in her ears—the day he’d asked Tiffany to write to B. His fighting partner. The man he’d looked up to when they no longer had a father. Mark had said B had been like an older brother. His best friend.

  Something inside Tiffany snapped. No. No. No. No. No. No. She had not slept with the man responsible for her brother’s death. She hadn’t lost her virginity to him. She sobbed, sobbed as she hadn’t sobbed since she’d buried the last person she ever loved, the last and only person who had ever loved her, only three months earlier.

  “How could you abandon him?” She choked on her own tears, barely able to speak. “Why didn’t you save him?”

  She stumbled backward, and Damon grabbed hold of her wrists, holding her up so she didn’t collapse to the floor. Her whole body shook as she looked up at him.

  A single tear ran down his cheek, and the pain on his face was staggering.

  “No!” She wrenched away from him. How dare he cry on Mark’s behalf? As if he hadn’t been capable of saving him? “Don’t you dare act like you cared about him! He trusted you and you let him down, and now he’s dead because of it.”

  Damon’s hands clenched into fists, and his pain was so palpable she felt it in her bones.

  Tears continued to roll down her face, drenching her cheeks. “He looked up to you. He loved you, and you let him die in Caius’s arms.”

  Damon’s fist collided with the wall so hard plaster fell to the ground, and she felt the force of the blow in her feet. He threw another punch. Dust flew through the air as he released his rage. Then his head snapped toward her.

  “You think I don’t blame myself for his death every day?” His ice-blue eyes blazed with anger, pain, sadness, remorse. He strode to her and grabbed her shoulders, staring hard into her gaze. “You think I wouldn’t give anything, wouldn’t give my own life, to bring him back? Nothing I could ever possibly do would be enough to pay for how I failed him. I don’t deserve forgiveness, but you have to know that I will bear the pain and regret of how I hurt him—” he paused and brushed her cheek, wiping her tears away “—of how I hurt you, for the rest of my life.”

  She sucked in a hard breath. “Why?”

  His eyes widened as if he couldn’t comprehend what she was saying.

  “Tell me why you left him there to die, why you didn’t save him.”

  As if unable to face her a moment longer, he turned away from her.

  “Tell me why the valiant, brave, courageous B left his partner for dead. Tell me why the man I thought I knew turned out to be a coward.”

  Damon hung his head, his back still turned toward her. “Because I am not, and never was, any of those things.”

  She marched up to him and forced him to face her. “Don’t evade me. Tell me why, damn it!”

  He shook his head. “You don’t want to know the details, Tiffany. You—”

  She jabbed a finger into his chest. “Don’t tell me what I do and don’t want. You don’t know me.” She pushed at him again. “Tell me.”

  He cursed under his breath. “Because I let my feelings for the job cloud my judgment. I let my hatred for vampires fuel me and went by the book instead of saving my friend.” He ran his fingers through the short stubble of his hair. His jaw clenched as she forced him to remember the moment, remember what he’d done.

  “We’d been planning a raid on the nest for months. They’d killed hundreds, that band. We planned everything out, but it all backfired when one of the new hunters-in-training stepped out too early. The vamps rushed us as soon as they knew we were there. Your brother fought hand to hand with Caius. He was a brave man. Then Caius managed to stab him with his own stake. The bastard left him bleeding and ran. I was in pursuit of Caius’s elder, the head of the nest. I was right on his heels.”

  He put his hand over his mouth as if to hold in the words, then dropped it to his side again. “With all the other vampires battling for their lives against other hunters and Caius gone, I knew none of the bloodsuckers would be hungry enough to go after Mark. His wound didn’t look deep, and I was so caught up in the fight, in the adrenaline and anger of the chase, that I left him. I followed protocol to kill the vampires instead of saving my partner. I was seeing red. All I could see, all I could hear, all I could think about, was all the dead people I needed to avenge.” He let out a long br
eath. “By the time I finished off the elder and went back for Mark, he was gone. Dead. I tried to save his body, but the vamps had the nest protected with explosives. The building blew up with Mark’s body inside. I barely managed to get out alive.”

  A fresh round of tears streamed down Tiffany’s face.

  “I was the leader of that raid, and instead of saving my wounded partner, I was too obsessed with making the kill and following orders.” Damon’s hands curled into fists. “I will never allow my anger, my emotions to get the better of me during a fight again. Ever. And I swore to myself that I wouldn’t get close to anyone again, wouldn’t make any personal attachments, so I couldn’t fail someone, but I failed at that, too.” He met her gaze.

  “Well, aren’t you the good, obedient soldier.” Tiffany walked toward the door. She needed out. She needed fresh air to breathe. She needed to be away from him. She placed her hand on the knob and turned the handle. “I hope you enjoyed the kill.”

  Without another word, she left the apartment, tears still streaming down her face.

  * * *

  Pain stabbed through Damon’s heart as if someone had shoved a knife into it and twisted. If words could kill, the pain and sorrow in Tiffany’s voice would have destroyed him.

  The old feelings of regret rose to their peak. Never had he wished harder that he could have taken Mark’s place. That he’d died and Mark had lived. Damon’s father had died late in life in the line of duty at an old age, and his mother had passed not even two months later, the grief of her husband’s death, of his absence, too much to bear. Both of them had been gone for years, and he’d never had siblings, leaving no one who would have missed him if he’d died in Mark’s place. But Tiffany would feel the loneliness from her brother’s death for the rest of her life.

  And he’d practically stolen her virginity.

  Shit.

  The pain that had radiated from her floored him. And she still didn’t know the worst of it...that Mark had to die again, but this time by Damon’s own hand.

  It had been a long time since he’d prayed, but it was worth a shot. He wasn’t quite sure where to start, so he just closed his eyes. He didn’t need any of the formal Catholic rituals he grew up with—he just needed to talk.