Welcome to the Darkness (Darkness Trilogy)

by L. M. Justus

  Sarah reached over and cupped my cheek in her hand. “Ditto,” she said.

  I could have drowned in her hazel green eyes. I leaned in and kissed her. To my delight, she responded with enthusiasm. I savored the feel of her warm lips on mine and I fell back on the bed. She straddled me and we continued kissing.

  My fangs sprang out, and I jerked my head to the side. We were both breathing heavily when I looked up at her out of the corner of my eye.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. She gently turned my head back to face her.

  She leaned over me, her hair falling over her shoulders. Our lips met again, and she pushed her tongue into my mouth. I slid my hands under the bottom of her shirt and caressed the warm, firm skin of her back. She shoved her hands under my own shirt and broke our kiss, indicating for me to take it off. I pulled it over my head and let it drop to the floor. She smoothed her hands over my chest and I thought maybe we might become a ‘mated pair’ after all.

  A sharp rap at the door startled us both.

  Shit! What was it now? I scrubbed my face with my hands in frustration. Then I sniffed the air. “I smell food. I think it’s your dinner,” I growled. I worried about my fangs making my hot and bothered state obvious to whoever was at the door.

  “I swear, we are so not finished with this,” Sarah said, sliding off the bed to answer the door.

  One of the vamps stood with a tray holding a plate covered with a large golden dome. “Your dinner, Ma’am,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Sarah said, taking the tray.

  “I shall return shortly with a dinner for the young master,” he added.

  Sarah closed the door after the vamp turned away. She carried the tray over to the bed and set it down. Then she gave me a sheepish look.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “You might as well eat it while it’s still warm.”

  She lifted the dome off the plate, revealing a take-out bag from Burger King. Sarah covered her mouth and laughed.

  “They’re not sparing any expense for you, are they?” I said.

  “Maybe they couldn’t find anything else at this hour. They probably don’t keep food in this place because none of the vampires eat.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a burger, fries and a Coke. She searched my eyes. “I’d offer you some, but . . .”

  “Naw, it’s okay,” I insisted, waving away her concern. Sarah had been great so far and not mentioned my little incident with the fruit salad. Back in our motel room outside of Salt Lake City, I’d crept into the bathroom with our doggie bag from the diner. I’d plucked a piece of melon from the container of leftovers and tried to eat it. It had smelled normal, but the second I’d popped it into my mouth I’d known something was wrong because it tasted like melon-scented soap. Still, I’d forced myself to chew it up and swallow it. Then–just like Nathaniel had said would happen–I’d immediately thrown it up, along with a bit of blood that was left from my last meal. Basically, it had been a humiliating and disgusting disaster.

  I watched Sarah chewing her mouthful of Whopper with envy. “Here’s a scary question for you,” I said. She continued eating, watching me with interest. “Why do they have these silly domes and fancy dinner plates if they don’t eat food? Do they use them for serving up freshly harvested human hearts or something?”

  Sarah swallowed. “That’s not even funny,” she said.

  I got up and started pacing the room. “I’m not trying to be funny.”

  “Hmm . . .” she murmured. “You’re hungry,” she stated.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Your eye color’s faded though, like it gets when you have to feed.” She wiped her mouth with a napkin and took a sip of her drink. I looked down at the floor. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she added.

  “I don’t want to drink blood anymore, but at the same time, I do. It tastes so good, like nothing you’ve ever tasted before.” I glanced at her to see her reaction. “Sorry, I’m probably grossing you out.”

  “Not at all. I have a strong stomach.” She gave me an encouraging smile and my anger melted away. I hoped she didn’t think I was pissed off at anything she’d said or done. She was the only one keeping me happy and sane now.

  A minute later, there was another knock at the door. “Come in,” I called out.

  The knob turned and the door swung open. The vampire who’d brought Sarah’s dinner was back, but this time he stood waiting with a young woman. I was starting to recognize different scents, so I knew she was human. “Your dinner, Sir,” the vamp said.

  “Wha–wait a minute. I thought you were going to bring up a jug of blood or something. You can’t leave her here with me,” I said. “I can’t hypnotize people,” I added, under my breath.

  “Not to worry, Sir. Everything has been taken care of. Her mind has already been controlled. You may feed from her when you are ready and then send her back downstairs. She can find her way on her own. If that is all?”

  “Um, yeah, I guess.”

  Satisfied his job was done, he gave me a curt nod and spun on his heel to leave. I stood rooted to the spot, staring after him. Sarah came over and shut the door, closing us into the room with the poor, mesmerized woman.

  “Is it just me, or does she look enough like you to be your sister?” I asked. The woman was within an inch of Sarah’s height, and had almost identical honey-brown hair.

  “This woman looks more like me than my sister does. Sophie’s taller than I am, and she’s blond.”

  “Oh, right,” I replied. “Your sister, Sophie. Did you ever manage to get ahold of her?” I knew Sarah had planned to call her a couple of days ago.

  “No, I got her voice mail. To be honest, I’m surprised she didn’t call me back. I left the number for the cell phone Nathaniel gave me. Anyway, maybe she lost the number. I’ll try calling her again while you’re having your death sleep after you feed.”

  I wanted to keep up our conversation so I could put off the inevitable, but I wasn’t sure what else to say. Then I realized I was still shirtless, so I went over next to the bed to scoop my shirt off the floor and put it back on. Everything was tinted red, as if I was wearing a pair of glasses with red lenses. It was another sign–besides the dull ache in my jaw–that meant I had to feed soon.

  I walked back over to the woman and tried to decide whether to feed from her neck or her wrist. The blood always flowed more quickly from the neck, but it also seemed more intimate and strangely inappropriate. I felt awkward about the whole thing, especially with Sarah as a witness. Feeding was a physical necessity for me, but not something I felt comfortable being watched doing, like someone watching you go to the washroom. Plus, I had my doubts this woman was a willing participant, which made this almost like a kind of rape. Why oh why couldn’t I get take-out from Burger King for dinner?

  I took a deep breath to gear myself up for the task.

  “Do you want some privacy?” Sarah asked.

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “How do you always know the perfect thing to say or do?”

  “Well . . .” she said, pointing to her head. “Being psychic helps a little.”

  “So it has nothing to do with women’s intuition or anything like that?”

  She chuckled. “There may be a bit of that thrown in too. Plus the look on your face speaks volumes. Now’s as good a time as any for me to call Sophie. I think I’ll go do that from the drawing room, and after that, I might explore a little. The King said it was okay for us to look around the mansion, and it’s a neat looking building. The landscaping outside looks pretty amazing too. Worth checking out, don’t you think?”

  “Just . . . be careful,” I warned. I didn’t like the idea of her wandering around alone, but I also didn’t want her to think I didn’t respect her independence.

  “Not to worry, the sun’s almost up,” she said. The first hints of early morning light filtered into the room. “Besides,” she continued, “I think the King will make sure we’re safe here. We could be the source of some major bre
akthroughs in his research, right?”

  “I wish we could rewind things to about a half hour ago,” I said, ignoring her question. “That was a lot more fun than . . . this,” I said, waving my hand toward my ‘dinner.’

  “Or, maybe you should stop procrastinating so we can get on with that,” she said, pointing to the bed, “in another hour and a half or so.” She winked at me.

  I couldn’t help smiling back. “You’re really something, you know that?”

  “Something awesome,” she joked.

  “Yeah, something awesome,” I agreed.

  “Have fun,” she said and patted my arm. Then she turned and slipped out of the room, letting the door swing shut.

  I stepped in front of the woman. She remained still, staring into space, unseeing. I paced around behind her and moved in closer. Then I brushed her hair to the side, revealing her neck. Her pulse beat strongly and my fangs elongated. I could almost imagine it was Sarah from the back. Did I want to picture it being Sarah? I didn’t want to use her as a food source. No, I was lying to myself if I thought that were true. I did wish it were Sarah instead of some anonymous girl from who knows where.

  I brought my lips close to her skin and realized this woman didn’t smell like Sarah. Luckily, my hunger took over, preventing me from thinking the situation to death. I bit down. The woman didn’t react when my teeth pierced her skin and the blood began to flow. I was painfully aware of the plunging motion involved, thanks to the King’s blatant description of the feeding process.

  I drank my fill and then pulled back, licking my lips. I sealed the wound with my saliva and brushed the woman’s hair back into place. I stood for a moment while the fresh infusion of blood raced through my veins. It felt like my body was vibrating with energy, but I knew I would soon collapse into my death sleep.

  I barely remembered to tell the woman to go back downstairs before I crawled onto the bed in my gluttonous haze. I fell face-first like a rock into the pillows.

  Sarah

  The muted sunlight of early morning lit the corridor with a dim glow and Sarah made her way down the hall toward the grand staircase. The plush carpeting muffled the sound of her footsteps, and the mansion was draped in an eerie silence. The vampires were hiding in the dark recesses of the manor for the day.

  She crept down the stairs to the main floor, remaining alert for any signs of life. The further she walked, the more Sarah realized how unlikely it was that she would encounter anyone. Feeling a bit more confident, she stood straighter and continued on her way to the drawing room.

  With a light push, the drawing room door swung open. Sarah stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. She chose the least uncomfortable looking couch to sit on and pulled her cell phone out of her jeans pocket. She stared at the keypad for a moment and gathered her thoughts. What should she say to her sister? Should she gloss things over and keep Sophie in the dark? Sarah massaged her forehead, took a deep breath, and dialed the number.

  Two rings . . . three . . . four. “Hi, this is Sophie. Sorry I can’t come to the phone right now–”

  Sarah ended the call without listening to the rest of her sister’s voice mail message and flopped back onto the couch with a sigh. Where was Sophie at this hour of the morning? Had she not spent the night at home? Sarah had to keep reminding herself that her sister was twenty years old–only a year younger than her–and an adult perfectly capable of deciding where she wanted to spend the night.

  She dialed her sister’s number again and left a message. It was odd that Sophie hadn’t called back after the last message she’d left, but Sarah promised herself she wouldn’t worry unless this call was also ignored.

  Sarah leaned back and closed her eyes. She hadn’t had any time alone over the past few days to reflect on everything that had happened or to consider the consequences of her hasty exit out of San Jose. After all her hard work getting through the academy and her dedication to a career in police work, she’d thrown everything away to help Reed.

  Her heart tightened with worry when she imagined her sister’s reaction to the news: ruining her career to help some seventeen-year-old kid. Except that he wasn’t just a random kid that needed her help; there was so much more to Reed than that. After spending every waking moment with him over the last week, she had discovered he was surprisingly sensitive and kind and he had already matured in their short time together. Sarah knew she was falling in love with him, and she was convinced the feeling was mutual.

  Reminding herself Reed would still be down for the count for some time, she decided to follow her plan of scoping out the mansion. There didn’t seem to be anything worth snooping through in the drawing room, so she left to explore more of the main level.

  The first room she poked her head into was a quaint little sunroom, although it was bare of furnishings. The second room looked like it was meant to be a good-sized library. The walls were lined with shelves, but not one of them held even a single book. How disappointing!

  The next room was an office with a large oak desk and swivel chair. There wasn’t any dust, which suggested the room was used, yet when Sarah opened the desk drawers, they were empty. No wonder the King didn’t care if they scoped the place out; there wasn’t anything to find.

  After completing her survey of the main level and finding many more rooms with nothing much in them, Sarah returned to the second floor to continue her search. Every room she peeked into was a bedroom furnished similarly to her own quarters. Why did the vampires need all the unused space?

  Expecting to see more of the same, she pushed open the umpteenth door along the hallway and ducked her head in for a peek. A blinding flash of light exploded in her face.

  “Jesus! What the . . . ?”

  Someone grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the room. The door closed and she blinked to clear her vision.

  “Sorry! I thought you were one of the vamps,” a male voice said. Her vision returned, and a bushy haired, bearded man dressed in a tie-dyed shirt and baggy jeans looked at her apologetically. She stared at him open-mouthed.

  “My name’s Gareth, but most people call me Pickle,” he said, extending his hand to shake hers.

  What is another human doing here? she heard him think, a forced smile plastered on his face.

  Sarah ignored his outstretched hand. “Who are you?”

  “I’m . . . Gareth, but–”

  “Most people call you Pickle. I know, you said that already.” She glared at him, and his face reddened. “What are you doing here, and what was that flash of light?”

  “Oh, that was my UV ball,” he replied, holding up a silver sphere about half the size of a billiard ball. “Works great on the vamps. One flash of this baby, and poof–they’re toast! It’s like concentrated sunlight. In five seconds flat, they burn into a pile of ashes. Pretty cool, huh?”

  Was this guy for real? “Um, have you ever tried that on a real vampire?” Sarah asked.

  He scowled. “Of course. I’ve been hunting vamps for almost two years, and I’ve smoked seven of the bastards.”

  Sarah couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “This isn’t a game you know. If they find you in here, they’ll kill you.”

  “Ha! You don’t think I know that? Vampires killed my family and left me for dead, so I know exactly how serious this is. We’ve been investigating this nest of vamps for over a year and they never leave the lower levels during the day. They’re not going to find me here.”

  “Then why did you use your UV ball on me if they never come up here during the day?” Sarah asked.

  “A guy can never be too careful,” he answered, crossing his arms. “So what’s your story? What’re you doing here?”

  “I’m . . . a guest,” she replied, unsure how much information she wanted to share with him. “I’m a police officer, and I’m helping someone who’s in trouble with . . . other vampires. The vampires in this manor are sheltering us for the time being.”

  “Uh huh. And why would they do tha
t?”

  Sarah wasn’t happy with the direction the conversation was taking, and she remained silent.

  Suddenly, Gareth’s eyes brightened. “You’re one of the Specials, aren’t you?”

  “Specials?” Sarah echoed, a wary sense of dread filling her gut. This guy seemed a lot more aware of the goings-on around here than she’d originally thought.

  “Yeah. Humans with special abilities. The vamps harvest their DNA for their little pet project they’ve got going on in the basement.”

  “You know about the project?”

  “Sure, that’s why my buddies and me teamed up. To stop them. Not to toot our own horns, but we’re planning to save the human race from extinction.”

  Sarah blinked. Okay, Chicken Little. “So . . . you think if the vampires figure out how to go outside during the daytime, the human race will end?”

  “Is that what you think they’re doing? Trying to figure out how to make themselves immune to sunlight? Hello? That’s their lame cover story. What they’re really doing is creating a virus. To infect humans.”

  “What? Why would they do that?”

  “Because the King’s crazy, that’s why! He wants to populate the whole world with vampires, but they can’t turn everyone the old-fashioned way. First of all, most humans don’t survive the turning process, and second of all, it would take too frickin’ long to do it that way. A virus would turn us all into vampire-human hybrids in one fell swoop.”

  Sarah’s mind spun in circles, unable to sense the logic in his theory. “But that doesn’t make any sense. If the vampires turned us all, there wouldn’t be anyone left for them to feed from.”

  “That’s what ‘crazy’ means. It means doing things that don’t make any sense. The vamps go insane after a few hundred years, and the King is getting up there.”

  “Which means the Queen probably has a few screws loose as well,” Sarah mused.

  “The Queen?”

  “Yeah, the King’s sister,” she clarified. Pickle gave her a blank look. “Oh, so there is something you don’t know?”