by Kresley Cole
The phone rang. Webb was the only one who called his personal line. Declan had no friends or family.
When he answered, Webb said, "You completed all of your captures! Good work, son."
Even after all this time, Declan savored the praise. He knew he'd cast Webb in a father's role, but Webb had been just as quick to put Declan into a son's. They'd both lost loved ones in this war. "Thank you, sir. But we sustained casualties when taking both the vampire and the Valkyrie."
"I saw the videos of the captures. Of course, we knew taking Lothaire wouldn't be easy. You confiscated a ring of his?"
"A plain gold band. He was incensed to lose it, even more homicidal."
"It must have mystical powers. Find out what it does. And what about the Valkyrie? How did she know we were closing in?"
"Her soothsayer sister dispatched her to attack my men."
"Nix the Ever-Knowing did this?" Webb asked, his tone peculiar. "When is the glowing one in the exam schedule?"
Declan pulled up the rotation on his screen. "Dixon won't have her until next week." The facility was backlogged with inmates, and still Webb insisted on bringing in more, no matter how much Declan protested.
"Question the Valkyrie before then. Dig for as much intel as you can get before the docs get through with her. We need to discover how she produces energy, how she channels it--"
"You knew she could channel electricity?" That intel would've saved lives tonight.
"Not until we watched her capture," Webb said. "Think, Declan, she doesn't eat or drink, but she produces continuous, uninterrupted power. She's like a walking reactor. Tapping into her energy source could solve the limitations inherent in the TEP-C."
The Order's charge throwers, or tactical electroshock pulse cannons, were incredibly effective against detrus--at least, against most of them besides Regin the Radiant--but they had limited firing power.
"If you can discover what fuels her, we can use it against her own kind. ..."
Turning their strengths into weaknesses. Dixon's team of scientists would cut the Valkyrie open on the operating table to get to the truth. Since they'd need measurable, duplicable results, they'd do it repeatedly.
Declan gazed at the monitor, regarding the female with puzzlement.
"In any case, now that we finally have a Valkyrie, we need to learn everything we can about her species, and what sets this one apart."
Whenever the Order had been close to capturing a Valkyrie in the past, the target had grown spooked, as if she'd been tipped off. Likely by Nix the Ever-Knowing.
So why had Nix allowed Regin to be captured?
Why tell him he was late?
"And we need to know about the vampire's ring," Webb said. "I understand how difficult it is to get miscreats to talk, but I'm confident you can get me these answers."
Though Declan had become an expert at torture, the immortals were astonishingly closemouthed, even withholding information about their natural enemies. The only way to get results was by tormenting a loved one or mate, but Declan had no leverage like that over either the Valkyrie or the vampire.
No matter. Somehow he would break them. "Yes, sir," he said absently.
"Son?" Webb sighed. "You're not feeling mercy for the Valkyrie? Because you had to harm a female?"
Thirty-five years of something had rushed to the fore.
"Remember, their beauty is a weapon. This one will not hesitate to wield it on you." A pause. "Has she compromised your judgment? Tempted you in anyway?"
Declan grated, "No, sir!" The Order would mind-wipe and cast out any member who became involved with a detrus. Even an involuntary entrancement was enough to have one's memory erased.
Unless it happens to me.
Two years ago, a witch had entranced Declan, cursing him to relive every terror and agony he'd ever experienced.
Webb had procured a countercurse before Declan had been driven insane--or at least noticeably insane. Then the commander had covered up the whole ordeal.
How many more rules would the old man break for him? Would he fix any more transgressions?
On this night, Declan had savored the feel of a captive's body in his arms. And I'm ... changing. His doses could barely control it.
Cast out.
At the idea, sweat beaded on his upper lip. The Order was all Declan had. He'd rather die than lose it. "I'll get the results, sir."
"Maybe I'll come out and check on things next month or so. Might be a good time, with so many developments on the horizon."
"Very good, sir. And perhaps we can talk then about culling some of these prisoners."
Declan didn't want them contained, or, God forbid, created. He wanted them all exterminated. "This facility is well over capacity."
"We'll talk about that when I get there."
Once they'd hung up, Declan called for Vincente. The former Ranger was as trustworthy as any, he supposed, though Declan could never fully trust another, no one but Webb.
In moments, the burly guard arrived. Not for the first time, Declan wondered if the man ever slept.
He handed Vincente the protective box guarding the vampire's ring. "I want you to get this ring analyzed. Have the metallurgist test for any mystical properties. The usual precautions--no one touches it. Return it before I question Lothaire."
With a nod, the man took the box and exited.
Even after the warning that Webb's call had provided, Declan turned back to the monitor for another look at the Valkyrie. She was sitting on the floor of her cell in front of the glass, resting her forehead and hands against it, as if she expected the door to open at any time.
Instead of feeling satisfaction to see her like this, he suffered more of that inexplicable conflict within him.
He'd done his duty with her. So why this ... guilt? He clasped his aching forehead.
Why do I feel like I'm going mad? If so, then it'd been a long time coming.
He'd always known he wasn't a perfect soldier, had known he was fucked up. How could he not be? His days of torment had left him emotionally stunted, unclean. But he got the bloody job done, controlling his eccentricities and deviations with exhausting training regimens.
Every day, he worked out in his room, lifting weights with a punishing intensity, then he ran at least forty miles--half the width of the island. He ate only enough food to stave off the worst of his hunger.
Anything to weaken himself, to help him appear normal.
And for years, his injections had rendered him an automaton, mindlessly carrying out the Order's agenda. Those years had been the most satisfying in his entire life.
Clearly, he just needed stronger doses to get back to that state. Tonight he'd begin doubling up. It would help him ignore his new prisoner and finally get some sleep.
Decided, he stripped off his clothes, then snagged the case. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he plucked a needle from its cradle, using it to extract the clear contents from two glass vials.
He rested his elbow on his knee and squeezed his right fist, readying one track-marked inner arm.
A hungry vein answered the call. Kill the tension and pain, let me rest. He pressed the plunger ... exhaling with pleasure as his heartbeat grew plodding, his breaths slowing. The higher dosage confirmed his suspicions.
Oh, aye, Dixon had been adding something illicit. Bless her.
The strain eased, the pain of old battle wounds lessening until he could lie back--but he kept the monitor in sight.
His lids grew heavy as he watched the Valkyrie, until he eventually fell asleep.
Yet instead of the oblivion he'd expected, he dreamed of a night in Belfast when he was just seventeen, the night his life changed forever.
SEVEN
Declan rolled off the chit onto his back, staring up at the rotting warehouse ceiling above his mattress.
Maybe he wouldn't have it this time. That feelin' in the pit of me gut, in me chest.
Waiting ...
The girl--he didn't rememb
er her name--slurred, "Ah, Dekko, that was just grand."
Bullshite.
She was some loose bird who hung with the junkie gang he'd fallen in with three years ago. Their city was unforgiving. Since then, half had died. The other half were like him: hankering for the next score, fleecing anything and anyone.
"Though for a spell," she muttered, "I thought ye weren't to come a'tall. ..." Then she passed out.
Declan yanked off his empty condom. I didn't. Already anticipating the misery to follow, he'd gnashed his teeth, struggling to finish like a man. And couldn't.
He gazed over at her, feeling the strain build. Wrong. Wrong girl beside him, wrong time, wrong place. He rubbed the medallion hanging from his neck, frantically circling his thumb over it--
He shot upright, shoving his fist against his mouth to hold down whatever meager slop he'd forced himself to eat during the day. Chills seized him, his muscles shaking.
He felt this way every time he was with a woman.
Hell, he felt a measure of the strain constantly. Whenever Declan woke, his anxiety was worse than the day before, as if acid seethed in his belly and barbed wire cinched around his heart.
Tracks lined his arms; he could take or leave food even though he was still growing like a weed; bouts of nightmares plagued him.
For as long as he could remember, he'd had a frenzied sense that he was supposed to be doing something. No matter where he was, he felt like he was supposed to be some-where else.
And that strain was killing him.
After sex, it grew stronger, like a beast lived inside him, clawing at his insides to get free. Though only seventeen, he was ready to give up women altogether.
For now, he'd numb the feeling the only way he knew how. He reached toward the battered crate beside his mattress on the floor and plucked up the syringe that lay ready.
Why did he always expect to feel different after sex? When he knew better?
Because, Dekko, ye're not ready to admit ye're done as a man.
He frowned at the weight of the syringe in his hand. He'd been shooting heroin for three years, and knew it was too light. Dread seized him as he gazed down. Empty.
Rage building, he hurled the syringe across the room, then turned on the girl. Jostling her awake, he yelled, "Ye feckin' slag! Ye stoled it?" That was all he'd had. No money to buy more.
She woke, mumbling, "Needed a wee bump--"
"Get out!" he roared, shoving her up and out on her arse, tossing her clothes at her before slamming the door in her face.
He punched the wall, moldy plaster exploding. Tonight he'd have the nightmares again. A monster at his back. Burning pain slicing through his chest. A woman's grief-stricken screams.
Those screams ...
Desperate to avoid those dreams, to numb the strain, he yanked on his pants and threw on a jacket, readying to leave. On his way out, he passed the bitch in the hallway, spat in her direction.
Half an hour later, he pleaded his case to his dealer: "Just a couple of quid's worth. Give me the shite now, and I'll fleece ye some of me mam's jewelry if I have to." Would he actually steal from his own mother?
Oh, aye. But it'd take time to get to his parents' house and back.
The verdict: "Cash first, Dekko."
Declan would need even more time to fence the jewelry. Might take him a day to get back here with the scratch. He didn't have that long.
"I'm beggin'." He was about to vomit. The dealer clearly thought it was from withdrawal. No, from madness, more like. He'd do anything to avoid what awaited him. Anything. Others in his gang had no problem giving to get. With that in mind, he said, "There's got to be something I can give ye?"
His dealer's eyes widened with surprise. He hadn't known Declan Chase would suck for it.
I hadn't either. Could anything be worse than this feeling?
"Hie yer arse out o' me sight, Dekko." The man booted him in the back, sending him reeling out the door.
Unsure whether he was relieved or not, Declan scuffed back out into the streets.
When a biting wind blew in from the sea, his chills worsened until his teeth chattered. With a despairing eye, he gazed around, tempted to break into a house right off the main strip, but everywhere he turned, bars covered the windows.
No choice but to set off for his parents' place. They were working-class; any jewelry of his mother's had been either handed down from her own mam or hard-earned by his da.
But she can't need it like I do.
An hour into his journey, Declan passed the run-down cathedral where he'd been an altar boy. At fourteen, he'd confessed his constant gut pains and tensions to the parish priest--a stern old codger who'd told him to keep his ailment to himself and find a vocation.
Declan had found heroin instead. He'd never told another what he grappled with every day. Not even his brother, Colm--not even before their falling-out.
His mam wouldn't be the first family member Declan had stolen from.
By the time he reached his parents' at three in the morning, he was quaking so hard his vision blurred. He'd already vomited twice, laden with strain. Those screams ...
The front door was open, the house quiet. He eased inside, going straightaway to the kitchen, to the bottle of whiskey he knew he'd find in one of the cabinets. Might help him get through the next couple of hours. He lifted it, chugging--
He lowered the bottle, peering into the dark. In a murky corner of the kitchen, someone lay on the floor. Was his brother passed out? "Jaysus, Colm. Ye're too young. Ye want to end up like me?" Declan would beat his arse for this. "Colm?" he demanded, striding over. "What the bloody--"
His brother's sightless eyes were opened wide, fixed on the ceiling. His throat was slashed down to the spine.
"C-Colm?" he rasped. Dead? Someone had murdered his little brother? He stared dumbly, tears welling. Until muffled screams sounded from the living room.
Somebody's hurting me parents too! Fury ignited within him, burning away the tears. In a daze, Declan slipped into his parents' bedroom, grabbed the bat propped by his da's side of the bed.
When he entered the living room, he faltered, barely able to comprehend what he saw. Red-eyed beings with fangs and claws filled the area. And those were the creatures with humanlike bodies. Others were winged monsters with bulging eyes and limbs jutting out all over.
The winged ones had gagged and tied up his parents on the floor so they could ... slowly feed. Their deformed mouths peeled away one strip of flesh at a time--while his mam and da still lived, screaming in agony against their gags.
Me mind's going to break, can't do this, can't believe this is happening. But just when Declan thought he'd pass out from the crazy pounding of his heart, one monster's head rose up from his da, and blood dribbled from its mouth.
Da's blood.
A mindless wrath overwhelmed Declan, and he attacked them. All he could hear was his thundering heart, his bellows, the bat connecting with bone over and over. He didn't know where this frantic strength was coming from, but he crumpled the metal bat against their skulls.
Yet as powerful as he was, they were more so. They kept coming and coming until they overpowered him, pinning his thrashing body to the floor. Even as he flailed, he spied a glimpse of some eerie kind of intelligence in the hideous eyes of a winged monster, and Declan had an instant of clarity.
Colm was the lucky one. ...
As ever, Declan's mind wasn't ready to relive what those creatures had done to him--the unimaginable torment until he'd blacked out; twenty years later, his dream easily flickered past, picking up at the time when consciousness had trickled in once more. From outside his parents' house, he'd heard voices, and finally the blackness wavered.
He felt the biting tension on his bound wrists and ankles ease, nearly screaming as circulation coursed to his hands and feet once more. How long ago had he been tied up?
Days. ...
He was aware of a man's voice telling him that he would live, that hel
p was here. "Those things have been slaughtered, son. They'll never hurt anyone again."
"Da?" Declan rasped before the blackness took him once more.
In a kind of twilight, he felt his bones being set, his skin pierced again and again as his numerous wounds were stitched.
When he woke, he was in a hospital, covered in bandages and casts. A tall, dark-haired man sat beside his bed.
"I'm Commander Webb," he said, his Yank accent marked. "You're in a private hospital. You're safe now."
Declan recognized the voice of the man who'd saved his life. He was middle-aged, his hair closely cropped. He wore what looked like a military uniform, but Declan had never seen one like it. "Wh-what happened?"
"I'm sure you're in a state of shock right now. The docs are amazed you survived--"
"And me family?" He hated the way his voice broke.
"I'm sorry, Declan, but they're all dead."
He'd known, but he'd still held out hope. "You're the one who got me out of there?"
"My team and I did. I belong to an organization called the Order, and it's our job to protect people from those miscreats. Unfortunately, our scouts didn't locate this pack until too late."
"Miscreats? Pack?" Declan pinched his forehead, wincing as the skin on the back of his hand pulled tight under a bandage.
Webb nodded. "Miscreations. They're immortal beings. Just about anything you thought was a myth is out there walking the streets. Sometimes various species band together in leagues."
Declan's lips parted. He'd also held out hope that they hadn't been real. That he'd gone crazy. Now someone, a man with authority, was staring him in the face, confirming what his eyes had seen. Declan's mind reluctantly accepted it. "You killed them?"
"Yes, a complete extermination. Again, too late for your parents and brother and ..."
And you, the man hadn't needed to say.
The things those monsters had done to him, to his skin. The blood in my mouth, blood that wasn't my own ...
Declan looked away in shame, his face flushing. "They ... they fed."
"Those were the Neoptera, some of the most nightmarish of them all."
"Why us?" Declan's voice was raw with bitterness. He realized he'd never grasped what bitterness was until this exact moment. Hatred that burns cold.
"As near as we can tell, you were picked at random. They attack simply because they can. Some of them feed on humans like cattle. Some play with us, torment us," he said. "That's why we hunt them down and kill them without mercy."
