The Vampire Gift 4: Darkness Rising

by E. M. Knight

  I’ll have to make sure to adulterate the security camera footage immediately on my return. A fairly simple thing, given my myriad of talents…

  Forcing my mind away from Beatrice, I walk the rest of the way and gain entrance.

  Sylvia is waiting for me, arms crossed, impatiently tapping a foot. She has her wig back on, which is strange, considering the discomfort it causes her. This is the only area in the whole Order that she can go without it.

  “You took your time,” she says curtly, making no pretense of deference. Her tone is hostile and unfriendly.

  Immediately, I gather something is wrong. My heart leaps. “What is it?”

  “See for yourself,” she says haughtily, and gestures at the massive glass cube behind her.

  It’s opaque, so I cannot see through, but cameras on the inside give that ability, anyway. I stop at the nearest computer and examine the feed.

  The witch is exactly as I left her, asleep and still on the simple bed.

  “Yes?” I say. “It all looks in order.”

  “Look again.” Sylvia shoulders me aside and clacks a few commands on the keyboard. I hide my irritation at being treated with so little respect. Sylvia, of all people, should know I deserve it. After the life I’d rescued her from…

  But that is a story for another time.

  Multiple new windows pop up on the screen, showing historical trends of all the vitals we are monitoring.

  “This was her brainwave activity this morning,” Sylvia says, motioning to a line chart. “And this is what it’s at now.”

  The frequency in both instances is the same.

  I make a small, warning sound in my throat. “And?”

  I hate having my time wasted.

  “That’s what the program says, right?” she asks. “But it’s not what actually happened.”

  I narrow my eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Roxanne and Cynthia and I were watching the monitor throughout the day. Around four pm there was a huge spike of activity. The monitor caught it; the three of us saw it live.” She taps a point on the trend chart. “Yet it’s not here anymore!”

  “Somebody changed it?” I say.

  Sylvia nods gravely. “The data our monitors collect cannot be overridden. The systems were designed for permanency.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “But they were altered.” Sylvia looks quickly at the band of witches at the side of the room. “Not by any of us.”

  “I see.” Now I understand Sylvia’s concern. “If you three hadn’t been watching the monitor, it would all have gone undetected. Correct?”

  Sylvia nods.

  “So it’s your word against the redundancy of the machine,” I murmur.

  Sylvia gives an agitated hitch of her shoulders. She opens her mouth to protest, but I carry on right over her. “No, don’t worry. I believe you. You have no reason to lie.”

  “There’s only one explanation,” Sylvia says.

  “Yes,” I nod. “She knows we’re watching her. And her magic has influenced the readings. She’s hiding what she’s doing. Or trying to.”

  I walk up to the cloudy glass cube. I tap the surface. “This is certain to keep her magic contained?” I ask.

  Roxanne steps out of her little group. “Yes,” she says. “It’s linked with obsidian, which magic cannot penetrate.”

  “Yet some of it did,” I mutter thoughtfully. “Sylvia. One question. If this anomaly occurred at four… why did it take you until now to inform me?” I narrow my eyes. “It’s nearly nine.”

  “If you’re suggesting we tried to cover it up...”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. Answer the question.”

  She grimaces. “We only noticed the discrepancy now. We do a review of daily data each night, and...” She shrugs. “This was the earliest it could have been found.”

  “Pull the camera up again.”

  She does. I walk to the screen the peer at the pixel representation of the witch on the inside.

  Suddenly, a great jolt of alarm hits me. “This is the only camera you have, yes?” I demand.

  Sylvia jumps at my tone. “Yes, but...”

  “Goddammit! Open it! Open the cube!”

  Sylvia freezes. “You want us to release the witch?”

  “OPEN IT!” I scream. “OPEN IT RIGHT NOW!”

  Sylvia figures out what I’m implying. “You think she altered the feed...”

  I ignore the question and spring to command. “You, you, you and you,” I say, calling out the witches. “Line up behind me.” I face the opaque wall. My fangs come out, and my whole body readies for a fight. I draw my sword, small good that it will do, but it’s symbolic.

  Witchbane has never let me down before.

  “Sylvia,” I continue. “Alert the compound to prepare for full lockdown. Don’t give the order yet—but I want them at the ready.”

  She senses the danger in the air, swallows, and nods.

  She types in the message in the computer.

  “And now,” I say… “Open the cube.”

  She hits the button. The side starts to slide apart.

  Blood courses through my veins, every cell in my body readying for a fight…

  And when there’s just enough of an opening, I charge in, my witches right on my heels.

  But I don’t need more than a sliver of a second to see we’ve already lost.

  The sorceress is gone.

  Her bed is empty. And on a spot on the wall, right across from me, is a dark, pulsing portal into the Paths.

  I sheath my sword and straighten. I look back at the witches.

  “You’ve all failed. Now we’ve got a hunt on our hands. Good thing, however,” I extend my claws, revealing myself in full, “That I am the world’s most perfect hunter.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  JAMES

  NEAR THE COLLEGE TOWN

  My fledgling and I feed, but this time, taking cue from the vampire Lestat, it is only upon those with wickedness in their hearts.

  She is a quick learner, fierce, and merciless. But utterly complicit in everything I say.

  A more perfect mix could not be conceived.

  We return to the vineyard, drunk on power and delight. I spin her round and pull her to me, then kiss her, and feel her hardening yet-virginal flesh open up to me like a flower in the sun.

  “There is no sun for us, my dear,” I tell her. “Only the moon. Only night!”

  Victoria and April emerge from behind the plane, cutting my euphoria short.

  “Who is that?” Victoria demands, flinging an arm out and pointing at my new companion. But even her foul humor cannot sour my mood. I reach into my coat and toss two full bottles to her.

  She snatches them out of the air with a scowl.

  “Relax, love,” I tell her breezily. “All is right. Pop the top, have a drink. Give some to April. We brought it back for you.”

  Indeed, inside the two bottles is some of the most potent blood I could collect.

  Victoria sniffs at the lip and shoves it away. “I’d rather it be fresh,” she grumbles. But without complaint she walks to April, who is still staring listlessly above, and gently brings the top of the bottle to her lips.

  I try not to betray my anxiety, but I hang on to every moment. This is it. If April fails to drink, if this does not bring her back… there will be no recovery.

  But, at least, that’s what I have my new golden girl for.

  For a flickering moment, a tiny light sparks in April’s eyes. She smells the blood. Her muscles tighten. Her body responds to it.

  Victoria tries to get April to hold the bottle, but the girl’s hands remain useless.

  And so my hope fades. Victoria’s spell has just condemned both of them to death.

  I take a step forward.

  “No, no, no, wait,” Victoria mutters. Frustrated, she tries to shove the bottle’s opening past April’s lips. “Wait, James, damn you, there’s still time!”

&n
bsp; I look at the brightening sky. “An hour,” I state. “No more.”

  Victoria grunts and keeps trying to feed April. “The spell should have worn off by now! I don’t understand.”

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t have dabbled in forces you know little about,” I tell her. “Perhaps you should have just let April… expire… last night.”

  She glares at me. “How can you be so heartless?” She turns back to the younger girl and coaxes her. “Come on, sweetie. Come on, April. I know you’re in there. Drink!”

  My newest fledgling watches all this and takes it all in without a word.

  “You said so yourself, Victoria,”’ I sigh. “If April does not consume human blood before her first sleep, she is doomed to a fate worse than death. We will be doing her a mercy by leaving her outside when the sun rises.”

  “You can’t be serious!” Victoria exclaims. I don’t know what humors me more, the irritation, or the fear in her voice. “I won’t let you do it!”

  “Ah, but you forget. I am stronger than you.”

  And I come up behind her and knock the bottle away. It falls, hits the ground, splinters, and leaks.

  “You bastard, you want her to die!” Victoria screeches.

  “No. If she dies, I lose another of the Nocturna Animalia. But I know when to call it quits.”

  Victoria is becoming frantic. She fears for her own life.

  “It’s not the spell,” she says quickly, eyes darting around. “I’m not strong enough in magic to do anything so lasting! It’s you and your screw up when you fed her—”

  I slap her. She cuts off.

  “Don’t,” I warn, “accuse me of being at fault, ever again!”

  She holds her cheek and leers at me, as defiant as ever. “If I had a tenth of my former strength...” she begins.

  “Ah, but alas you don’t,” I say. “You...”

  But then I stop speaking. Because, somewhere over the course of that conversation, April had dropped to the ground and started lapping at the spilled blood like a wounded cat.

  I watch her with a mixture of fascination and disgust. To stoop so low, as to be literally licking the blood from the earth…

  But then again, I did exactly that when I was weakened after the fight, didn’t I?

  I have a sudden change of heart.

  I drop down beside April. I hear her heart starting to beat faster. The blood is working. The blood is invigorating her body, it’s pulling her back from the bleak abyss into which she’d descended.

  I bundle up her hair and move it out of her face as she sucks at the little pool. When there’s no more left, I thrust a demanding hand out. Toward Victoria.

  “The other bottle,” I command.

  She gives it to me.

  This one I uncork and give to April. She takes it with both hands. She sits back, brings it to her lips, and downs the whole thing in mere moments.

  Her arms fall to the sides. Her grip on the bottle fails. It joins the shatters of the other on the rock.

  With her eyes closed, April takes a deep breath. A shiver runs through her body.

  And then her head snaps forward, her eyes pop open, and I see, to my true relief, the searing red, distinctive vampire halo around the irises.

  Recognition next. “James,” she says. She turns her head up. “And Victoria.” Then her eyes land on the fourth member of our party. “Who’s she?”

  “This,” I say grandly, helping April stand, “is your newest sister. The third of the Noctura Animalia, after me and you. Her name—”

  I trail off. I realize I don’t actually know her name.

  “Come here,” I beckon her. “Introduce yourself.”

  The girl from campus walks over with the perfect grace and dignity of an aristocrat. “I am Liana,” she announces.

  For a moment I’m blindsided. I stagger back in shock.

  Coincidence, I tell myself. Nothing more.

  Yet in all my years as a vampire, I’ve learned that coincidences do not exist… especially when they have to do with the supernatural.

  April nods, oblivious to what just happened to me. “You’re one of us?”

  “I am now.” Liana strokes my arm. I barely feel it. “James pulled me from the edge of death and thrust me into this brilliant, black world.”

  “She’s in love with you already,” Victoria states flatly, walking in to break up our little gathering. “You sure know how to pick ‘em, James.”

  She glances at the sky. “I still want to feed. You and Liana had your turn. It is time for April and me to have ours.”

  “Forty minutes,” I tell her solemnly. “No more. Be back by then. We need to be aflight by dawn.”

  “And are we flying to…?” Victoria asks, leaving the end implied, yet unsaid.

  I nod. “Yes. We are going to get revenge.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  DAGAN

  THE CRYPTS

  Alone, in my room, I wait for Riyu’s concoction to take effect.

  My mind is jittery. My usual confidence is gone. The numbness has spread, past my shoulder, overtaking most of my back and chest.

  If it gets any worse—well, I can’t even consider that. It would be the greatest fall of a First Guard Lieutenant in the history of The Crypts.

  The only chance I have lies with that peculiar herb, which I already took.

  Now all I need is time. And if that fails…

  If that fails, my shame will be enormous. Me—me!—giving up my position because I am no longer capable. Because I have become a cripple. Not wounded in the midst of battle, not hurt in some glorious fight, but here, like this, fallen in my room like an old man suffering a silent stroke.

  But that little, know-it-all vampire assured me the herb would work.

  My entire life hangs in the balance. Everything depends on whether he was right or not.

  I loathe this type of weakness, this type of vulnerability. It is not befitting a vampire of my stature, rank, power, influence…

  But I’ve been belittled to something worth scarcely more than a human. It sickens me.

  If Riyu’s cure doesn’t work… there is only one thing I have left in me to do.

  I’d have no choice but to cast myself into fire, or to burn, to be obliterated, by the harsh rays of the sun.

  Without warning the doors to my room blow open. My head snaps back. I’d locked the damn thing, so who—

  The King is standing in the doorway, leering at me.

  Without thought, I drop to one knee in an automatic showing of respect.

  “Get up,” he growls. “I don’t need you groveling before me.”

  Uncertain, I stand. At least I still have the feeling in my legs.

  I need to be very, very careful not to show him my weakness.

  He comes in and shuts the door.

  “The Ancient—” I start.

  “Will not be attending us,” Logan finishes.

  I frown. That’s unexpected.

  The King and the eldest of vampires have rarely been seen alone. One always shadows the other. Rumors of the true nature of their relationship swirl.

  But I pay no attention to such filth.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” I ask. Any time before, if the King wanted to see me, I would have been summoned.

  “Save the formalities, Dagan,” he says. “It is just me and you.”

  I nod slowly. “Then what do you want?”

  He looks around the room. His eyes are storming. Those dark black flecks, the ones that come up from time to time, run across the white in a steady stream.

  I’ve never seen them so evident before. I have no idea what they mean—no one does—but they, also, are the cause of much rumor and speculation.

  “I need you to get ready to get rid of someone,” he says. “When I ask.”

  My interest immediately piques. “Who?”

  He grunts. “Swear that what I tell you will not leave this room.”

  “Of course. My loyalty is
unfailing.”

  Unlike my body.

  “Swear it three times.”

  “Three times I do.”

  He nods. “I believe you. You haven’t let me down so far.”

  “Who is it?” I ask again. I have a dark, roiling suspicion…

  “Beatrice,” he answers.

  That is not who I had in mind.

  But I keep my alarm to myself. “If you want it done, I will do it.” I look at him from the corner of my eye. “It is not my place to question why.”

  “No,” he agrees. “It is not.” A pause. “But you still want to know.”

  I nod.

  “You are a tool, Dagan. Nothing more.” He walks to one wall and trails a hand over the weapons hanging there. “What I say, you do. Who I order, you kill.”

  “Always,” I confirm.

  “But,” I sense his hesitancy, “but this request is different.”

  I do not speak, simply waiting for him to continue.

  “I don’t want her dead yet,” he says. “In fact, I haven’t made up my mind either way about it. I just want to alert you to the possibility.”

  I nod.

  “You have no qualms about killing her?”

  “If it is at your command? No.”

  “You understand that should it come to this, you must make it look like an accident. I do not want it traced back to me. If you are sloppy, and someone discovers you did it, I will disavow you. I will also sentence you to death.”

  “Standard procedure.” I grunt. “I understand.”

  “Good,” Logan says. “It’s good to have loyal people surrounding me.”

  I feel there’s something he’s not telling me. If this were the only order he wanted to give, he would not have made the journey here on his own.

  But it is not my place to question the King. I simply wait for him to say more.

  Sometimes silence elicits the best answers.

  “You are loyal.” He faces me. “Aren’t you, Dagan?”

  “Without question,” I reply immediately. “Have I ever let you down?”

  The King considers this. He takes a very long time with it—so long it starts to make me uncomfortable.

  Finally, he seems to make up his mind.

  He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “No, you have not. And that’s why I’m here.”