The Darkening (Immortals)

by Robin T. Popp

  He felt something cold against his palm—Lexi nosing his hand—and realized that he’d stopped walking.

  “I’m just a little tired,” he told Lexi, who was looking up at him with a question in her lupine eyes. He looked around the street and saw what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse a block ahead.

  He looked down at the wolf and saw that she had seen it too. It was like they both silently agreed that the warehouse was where they should stop to rest, and they moved off toward it.

  “How about over here?” he suggested, pointing to one of the cleaner corners once they were inside. Lexi lumbered over to it and sank to the floor. Almost instantly, she fell asleep.

  Darius sat beside her, propping his back against the wall. He’d thought she was asleep, but she raised her head and, seeing him seated close beside her, dragged herself the few inches needed to lay beside him. Then she laid her head in his lap.

  Darius was at first unsure how to react. He’d never been close to a woman before. He’d had sex with plenty of them, but that was all it had ever been and he’d rarely spent time with a woman without there being sex involved.

  Being with Lexi was different, though. He gave in to the temptation to run his fingers through her silky fur.

  The world seemed better when he was touching her. It scared him to think how close he’d come to losing her. Closing his eyes, he saw again the way she’d fought by his side, hurling fire without hesitation. How many women did he know who would do that? He thought about the vampire initiation where she’d exhibited a fierce loyalty to her friend, and about her devotion to duty as a bounty hunter. Both were traits he respected and admired. It was easy to understand why he liked her so much.

  But it went beyond that. When he was with her, his pulse raced and his body quickened with need. Clothed or nude, she was gorgeous, and he ached to make love to her…

  Darius paused as he realized what he’d just thought. He ached to make love to her—not have sex with her. It was an important difference, and it left him with a life-changing revelation. He was in love with her.

  Gazing down at her sleeping form, he was filled with warm satisfaction, a sense of wholeness. It was a feeling he held on to with fierce determination because tomorrow it could all end.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Lexi woke and, without moving, opened her eyes to look around. She wasn’t in her room. In fact, she didn’t know where she was. Her head was resting against something warm but hard, and everything seemed sharper and louder than usual. With a start, she realized she was in wolf form.

  The memories of the night before came rushing back with painful clarity and a sense of urgency. Darius!

  Raising her head, she looked around. He was there beside her, his back against the wall, his eyes still closed. She relaxed a little, until she noticed the angry, red striations radiating out from a wound that should have healed but clearly hadn’t.

  Pulling on her magic, which thankfully had been restored while she slept, she morphed to human form. Then she knelt beside Darius and laid her hand against his chest. It slowly rose and fell with each breath he took, but the skin was hot.

  “Darius?” She laid her hand against his forehead, and it too felt hot. “Darius, wake up.”

  He came awake with a start, wild-eyed and instantly alert for danger, automatically reaching for his dagger before she had a chance to place her hand on his arm to quiet him. “It’s okay. We’re safe.”

  “Lexi?” He turned to her, blinking a couple of times like he was trying to bring her face into focus. “You’re okay?”

  She smiled at him and touched her stomach where the wound was completely healed. “All better. You, on the other hand, don’t look so good.”

  He tried to wave his hand to dismiss her concern, but the effort proved too much. “I’ll live,” he said weakly.

  “Right,” she muttered, not convinced. She leaned closer to him, trying to get a better look at the wound. The scalpel had sliced through the top circle of the figure eight, just along the upper inside edge. “Is this your only injury?” she asked, needing to know the extent of the damage.

  He was very careful about meeting her gaze when he answered her. “My back. Amadja burned it.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Let me take a look. Do you think you can lean forward?”

  She could tell it hurt him, but he cooperated. She moved so she could see his back. “Nothing.”

  “Are you sure? It hurt a lot worse than the knife wound.”

  She looked again, feeling a little confused. “No, it’s all clear. No scars or anything. I don’t get it. Aren’t you supposed to heal quickly?”

  “Yes.”

  “So the wounds on your back healed the way they’re supposed to, but this one didn’t.” She stared at the wound on his chest. “This is what he meant by your being vulnerable,” she said at last.

  “You mean Whitley?”

  She nodded.

  He leaned back against the wall, wincing with the effort. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “You need medical help,” she said firmly, her mind already working out the logistics of getting him to a hospital.

  “No. They won’t understand about me being an Immortal, and once they do, they won’t leave me alone. Not to mention that the whole world will know we’re here.”

  She could hear the pain in his voice when he spoke and knew that he was suffering the way any human would have.

  “If he’d struck you a little lower—”

  “I’d probably be dead,” he finished for her.

  She shuddered at the thought. “There must be something we can do.” She thought about it. “It looks infected.” She reached out to touch the wound, but he put his hand up to block her. In doing so, he accidentally brushed his hand against his chest and the lifeforce tattoo moved. It shifted just enough that the edge of the upper circle dropped down below the top of the cut. Instantly the striation marks outside the circle faded and the cut began to heal.

  “Darius, what would happen if you moved this tattoo?” she asked hesitantly. “Does it have to be over your heart?” She suddenly had the fear that the tattoo fed his life force directly into his heart, and if he moved it, he might die.

  “Let’s find out,” he suggested.

  “No.” She put out a hand to stop him. “What if we’re wrong?”

  “If I start to have problems, take my hand and move it back.”

  She guessed that would work, though she thought it was risky. Feeling Darius’s gaze on her, she nodded. “Okay.”

  She watched him place his hand over his tattoo and saw the shimmer of magic above the surface. Then, moving very slowly, he dragged the tattoo off to one side until the scalpel wound was completely outside the twin circles.

  Almost immediately it started to heal. It took a full five minutes for all the angry red marks to fade from his skin, and another five before the cut was completely healed. She’d never seen anything like it. She looked up into his face and smiled. “That’s pretty amazing. How are you feeling?”

  “Like I might actually live,” he said with a smile. Then he frowned. “How are you feeling? You gave me a real scare last night.”

  “I’m fine, thanks to you.You saved my life. Thank you.”

  He raised a hand and brushed his fingers down her cheek. “I should be thanking you for saving mine.”

  She smiled. Despite everything that had happened to them, she enjoyed being with him. Then the rest of the evening came rushing back, including Amadja’s comment about Mai. “I have to get to a phone and check on Mai.” She looked around, starting to feel a bit desperate.

  “Slow down,” Darius told her, standing up. “I’m sure Mai’s okay. I doubt Amadja has had time to do anything. Let’s go back to your place and consider our next move, all right?”

  She nodded, and he pulled her to him. “I’m sorry,” he said, slipping his arms around her. “I’ve tried to ignore the fact that you aren’t wearing any clothes, and while I might be
an Immortal, I’m still just a man—a man who finds you the most enticingly beautiful woman he’s ever known.” He touched his lips to hers, and she felt a rush of desire shoot through her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with unabashed enthusiasm. When he finally broke off the kiss and told her in a voice gone hoarse with need that they had to stop, she didn’t feel rejected in the least.

  “Let me morph and then we can leave,” she told him.

  “If that’s what you want to do,” he said. “Of course, I don’t mind if you want to stay human.”

  She gave him a smile. “I don’t think New York City’s ready for me to walk down the street nude.”

  He smiled. “Their loss. But just so you know, I still have your clothes from last night—though they’re a bit torn.”

  She felt a burst of joy and irritation. “You mean to tell me you’ve had clothes for me and you let me stay naked this entire time?”

  The smile he gave her was sinful. “Baby, if it were up to me, you’d never wear clothes around me again.”

  It was late morning by the time they made it back to her apartment. The wards she’d placed were still intact. Nevertheless, Darius insisted on going in first, wanting to make sure Amadja hadn’t set any traps for them. He found the apartment clean.

  While Darius showered, Lexi called Mai’s apartment. There was no answer, and Lexi’s heart lurched. She dug out the GPS receiver from her pants pocket and turned it on. In no time, she had a grid of the city, and the blinking dot of light that was Mai’s necklace showed that Mai—or at least the necklace—was near Times Square.

  Lexi released the breath she was holding. Mai’s office was near Times Square. Picking up the phone, Lexi called her there.

  “Mai, are you all right?” she asked when she finally heard Mai’s voice.

  “If you consider getting the lead story of tomorrow’s edition fine, then I’m great,” she shouted excitedly.

  Lexi smiled. Mai certainly sounded fine. “Listen, I want you to be careful.”

  “I’m always careful,” Mai countered.

  Lexi debated whether to tell her about what she’d heard Amadja say. “Listen, Mai. This demon we’re after. He’s dangerous, and now you’re involved. He knows about you, so you have to be cautious.”

  There was silence on the other end, and then Mai spoke, her tone more serious than Lexi had ever heard it before. “It may not seem like I always take your warnings seriously, but when my best friend gives me a protection necklace that turns out to be a tracking device—yeah, I found the chip—then I know there’s something serious going on.”

  “So you’re taking precautions?”

  “I’m carrying my thornalis.”

  Lexi frowned. “I’ve never heard of it. What is it?”

  “It was invented by my people centuries ago, back when the wood nymphs were still at war with the trolls. It’s about the size of a small squirt gun and shoots out tiny thorns. The thorns travel through the air at such a high velocity, they’re like bullets. And the force of the air causes them to elongate until they are about four inches long. They are razor sharp, extremely painful, and if they hit a vital organ, I assure you, they are one-hundred-percent deadly.”

  It was Lexi’s turn to fall silent. In all the years she’d known Mai, she’d never witnessed this lethal side of her. “And you know how to shoot it?” she asked hesitantly.

  Mai laughed. “I was captain of the girls’ thornalis team back in high school. So even though you don’t need to worry about me, I know you still will, so tell you what: After I finish here at the office, I’m going straight home. All right?”

  “All right.” Feeling only slightly better, Lexi hung up the phone and went into the kitchen to make something to eat. She was starving and suspected Darius was hungry too.

  As she was putting food on the table, he walked in wearing only his leather pants and shoes. She supposed she should try to buy him more clothes, but, damn, he looked nice in that outfit. Lexi smiled as they sat down at the table together.

  They carefully avoided talking about Tain or the demon while they ate. Afterward, Lexi showered while Darius cleared away the dishes. When she returned to the kitchen, she noticed Darius’s frown. She didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what was bothering him. “I’m sorry about Tain,” she said. She knew his brother’s sacrifice must hurt.“I guess we all misjudged him.”

  “I have to go back for him.” Darius looked into her face like he needed her to understand.

  “I know. I’ll go with you.”

  Darius shook his head. “No, you won’t. I almost lost you once—I’m not taking that chance again. I’ll go alone.”

  “Amadja is up to something,” she reminded him. “And while we have a rough idea of what he’s up to—releasing those shade demons—we don’t know when and we don’t know where.”

  “It’s going to happen tonight.”

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “When I was in jail, Paddy said he had until the full moon to convert all those vampires. That’s tonight.”

  That was so much sooner than she expected, and Lexi had to let the news sink in. “Do we know where?”

  “I’ve got a guess,” Darius said, surprising her. He told her about the room he’d found under the Chrysler Building. He described the pool filled with living magic and the funny domed ceiling. “There were a thousand or more pinpricks of light,” he said, “but in a line running up the center of the dome to the very top and then down again on the other side was a set of larger circles, with every seventh one larger than the others. Most of the circles leading up one side were lit.”

  Lexi thought about it. “It sounds like a lunar calendar,” she said after a while.

  Darius stared at her for the longest moment, and then he smiled and kissed her forehead. “That’s exactly what it is. At the stroke of midnight, that light at the very center, representing the full moon, will light up.”

  “So what do we do now?” Lexi asked. Midnight was less than twelve hours away.

  “I think I need to call Adrian. Maybe he’ll know of something we can do.”

  While Darius waited, Lexi dialed the number. She listened to it ring with a growing sense of defeat. When the answering machine came on, she left a message for Adrian to call as soon as he could and hung up. “Now what?”

  Darius took her hands.“We wait for him to call back.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Darius didn’t answer her; he didn’t have to. “You’re going in anyway, aren’t you?”

  He gave her an apologetic look. “I have to.”

  “No, you don’t.” Her sense of dread grew. “Please don’t go.”

  “A lot can happen between now and tonight, Lexi. Let’s not get worked up about things too early. Let’s just wait for Adrian’s call.”

  She nodded, but couldn’t relax enough to sit down. She didn’t like sitting around doing nothing, and a quick glance at Darius showed he was having as much trouble as she was.

  The situation was surreal, and she couldn’t stop her imagination from running through all sorts of worldending scenarios. A week ago, the Crypt had just been another vampire club—not the focal point for the world’s destruction.

  She tried to convince herself that Mai, feeling protected now that she was carrying a weapon, wouldn’t still run off to the club tonight. Tonight, in particular.

  Picking up the phone, she called Mai’s office. The phone rang and rang. She hung up and tried Mai’s apartment. There was no answer there either.

  “Lexi,” Darius said gently, coming up behind her. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m worried about Mai,” she admitted. “She won’t answer.”

  She got out the tracking receiver and saw that Mai’s signal was coming from her apartment. If she was home, why wouldn’t she answer the phone? Unless she couldn’t answer it. Once the thought was formed, Lexi couldn’t let it go. “I need to go check on her.”

  She started w
alking toward the door, but stopped when she noticed Darius walking with her. “Where are you going?”

  “With you, of course. You don’t think I’m going to let you run all over town with Amadja out there trying to kill us.”

  Lexi laid her hand against his cheek, thinking how much she’d come to care for this man. “You have to stay here in case Adrian calls. Don’t worry. I’m a bounty hunter. I’ll be okay.”

  Darius clearly didn’t like her leaving without him, but he slowly nodded. “When you find Mai, bring her back here.” He kissed her forehead. “Because I won’t rest easy until I know you’re safe.”

  Lexi nodded. “All right. Do you need anything before I go?”

  “Yes,” he said with a smile. “But there’s no time. I guess I’ll have to settle for getting Ricco’s phone number from you—if you have it.”

  She gave him a sharp look. “I didn’t realize you and Ricco were friends.”

  “We have an understanding,” he said. “But I’m fairly certain he’s not the kind of death-magic creature who wants to see the world destroyed.”

  Lexi happened to agree with him there, so she wrote down Ricco’s phone number, gave Darius quick instructions on how to operate the phone and then left.

  Lexi felt like it took forever for the cab to get to Mai’s apartment. As soon as she paid the driver, she dashed upstairs and knocked on the door. She was on pins and needles waiting for Mai to answer and had started to reach for her key when the door opened. Mai stood there looking perfectly fine. In fact, she looked better than fine. With her hair messed up, her eyes still dilated and her clothes askew, she looked like she’d just had sex.

  “Mother Goddess,” Lexi swore. “Do you have company?”

  Mai looked embarrassed as she straightened her clothes. “As a matter of fact, I do.” She giggled. “I’m so glad you told me about the Immortals,” she said. “Isn’t it exciting?”