Kissed by Darkness

by Shéa MacLeod

  “Hey.” He reached out and stroked one finger down my cheek, leaving warm tingles in its wake. Oh, good lord, I was going to melt into a puddle right then and there. “When this is over, I’m taking you out for dinner. How do you feel about Italian?”

  Did he just ask me out on a date? Seriously? “I, uh, I love Italian.” What could I say? I was a pizza kind of girl. I know. Italian food wasn’t just pizza, but it was still my favorite, especially if it was the real deal. Yum.

  He flashed me a grin. “Great. I know this fantastic little spot just outside Rome. Very romantic.”

  Rome? As in Italy? I think maybe I squeaked. The guy hadn’t even slept with me except in the literal sense and he wanted to take me to dinner in Italy? Holy crap, wait until Kabita heard about this. She was going to freak the heck out. I swear, sometimes I was so sixteen.

  “Guess it’s now or never,” I said, playing it cool instead of blurting something stupid about Rome or Italy or dinner or even worse, begging him to throw me to the ground and have his way with me. Seriously, what was wrong with my libido lately? It was completely out of control. “Let’s go.”

  He grabbed the back of my head and pulled me in for a quick, hard kiss before taking my hand and heading off across the lawn. Great. Now all I could think about was how warm and strong his hand was and how soft and full his lips were. How it made certain parts of me sit up and take notice. How much I wanted to kiss him again, strip him naked, climb on top and …

  Honestly, had it been that long since I’d been with someone? Come to think of it, yeah. It had definitely been that long.

  I led him around to the side of the house where the pantry window was. Unfortunately, this time it was locked up tight so we were going to have to find another way in. Dammit.

  “Thought you said you knew the way in,” he hissed at me. I just glared at him and moved around to the back where I knew there was a nice, big sliding glass door. Push come to shove, a rock could accidentally make its way through said door.

  Fortunately for the door, there was no need for mysterious flying rocks. Jack tested the door and it slid open easily. Call me crazy, but while I could accept an open mudroom window, a big ass sliding glass door left open was another story entirely. “Jack,” I hissed at him. “I don’t think … “

  It was too late. The light inside snapped on and Brent Darroch sat there in all his creepy Julian Sands glory. He looked for all the world like some kind of wannabe king with his velvety high-backed armchair, surrounded by his neck-less goon squad minus Clive and the scrawny guy. Only instead of a scepter, he held a very large pistol. Freaking fantastic.

  There was no point in running back the way we came. A quick glace over my shoulder revealed Clive and Scrawny lurking behind me, Clive with a smug look on his face and a really big gun in his hand. Damn. He ushered us inside with a wave of his gun for an audience with his majesty. Scrawny took up the rear.

  “Welcome back, Miss Bailey.” Darroch’s oily voice sent chills down my spine. Not the good kind either. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. And my old friend, Jackson Keel, how lovely to see you. It’s been, what, at least ten, fifteen years.”

  “Twenty,” Jack growled. I could see the muscles working in his jaw. If he wasn’t careful he was going to grind his teeth flat. I wondered vaguely if a Sunwalker’s teeth could regenerate like the rest of him. I’d have to ask him sometime. You know, when we weren’t about to die horrible, agonizing deaths.

  Darroch waved his hand airily. “Has it truly been that long? Well, six of one, half dozen of the other. Isn’t that how the saying goes, Miss Bailey?” I ignored him. “Well, I really must thank you both for being so accommodating. When I planned this all out I had no idea it would be so … easy.” He smirked at us.

  “You’ve got the amulet, Darroch. You’ve had it for twenty years. Why do you need us?” Jack snarled. “You took it the same night you … ” He broke off. The look on his face told me something really nasty had happened that night twenty years ago.

  Darroch smirked. “Yes, the same night I killed your little plaything. It was such a pity. I wouldn’t have minded having her to myself for awhile.”

  The sound Jack made could only be described as a scream. It made my blood run cold. There was so much hate and anger in that scream. He launched himself at Darroch, but Scrawny threw himself in front of Jack, and slammed him halfway across the room with a single kick. Damn, but he was good.

  Jack may have been a 900 year old warrior, but he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell against Scrawny, who’d obviously seen one too many Jet Li movies. I tried to help, but Darroch waved me back with his gun.

  Next thing I knew, Clive waded into the fray and knocked Jack on the head with the butt of his gun, dazing him. Clive and Scrawny made short work of tying Jack up and propping him against the nearest wall.

  Jack may have been dazed, but he wasn’t out and he was still pissed. “Darroch, you fucking … I will kill you for what you did.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Keel. You don’t have a chance in hell of touching me. So stop being so melodramatic.” He waved his hand airily and Clive kicked Jack viciously in the ribs, sending him toppling sideways.

  “Darroch, you jack ass, what did you do that for?” I snapped. “He’s already tied up. What do you want us for, anyway?”

  Darroch looked at me from hooded eyes. Eyes as cold and dead as the vampires I killed. I knew without a doubt then that twenty years ago Darroch had somehow murdered a two thousand year old Sunwalker. A Sunwalker who’d been important to Jack. Whether she’d been just a friend or more than that I didn’t know and didn’t care. It wasn’t the time for personal vendettas. It was the time for surviving and surviving meant finding out all I could about Darroch’s plans for us and the amulet.

  I didn’t know why Jack hadn’t sought revenge before. I sure would have. But he’d claimed to have his reasons. Said he’d made promises. One of these days he was going to have to explain those promises.

  “Well, that’s the thing, you see.” Darroch flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his pant leg before crossing one leg over the other. “I’ve been trying to access that damn amulet for years, only to discover, and this will amuse you, Jack, that I am not strong enough!” He threw his head back and laughed uproariously. “Can you imagine? Me! Not strong enough! Me, not pure enough. Me, a member of one of the most influential families in the United States of America, a descendent of nothing more than a Commoner! Can you believe the injustice of it?”

  “Proof positive that money doesn’t buy breeding.” I couldn’t help it, it just came out. Sometimes people irritate me so much, and Darroch was unusually irritating.

  “Oh, Miss Bailey, you have no idea!” He seemed delighted with himself. “All these years I’ve been searching for the pieces I need to complete the ritual and now,” he clapped his hands together, “now I have them!”

  “Why don’t you get on with it already instead of talking our ears off? We know you’re in control of the local vampires. We know you sent them after me to kill me. You’ve already got the amulet. So why the hell do you need us?” I was getting really pissed off.

  “Why, my dear Miss Bailey, you are so feisty today.” He beamed at me. I scowled back. “You are right, of course,” he continued, unfazed. “I have taken control of the local vampire clans. Their leaders were weak and ineffectual. I promised them power and human slaves. In their greed and hunger, they were delighted to do whatever I asked of them.”

  “So, that was why their eyes were red. You’re not a vampire, so your control of them changed their physiology.”

  “Yes, I believe so. I’m not sure entirely why their eyes changed, specifically. Something in my DNA, I imagine.” He chuckled. “No matter. I lied, of course, about giving them power. I have no use for the undead, certainly not ones with any power. I had no intention of keeping my promise. I simply wanted them for one purpose. They were a means to an end, so to speak.”

 
“To kill me.”

  “No, no, Miss Bailey, you mistake my meaning. I did not want them to kill you.” He leaned forward in his chair, almost eagerly. “I sent them to test you. Kaldan took it a little too far, I admit, but I had every confidence you would prove yourself and I needed to make sure.”

  Jack and I gave each other a look that was entirely full of bafflement. “Test me? Why?”

  “I had to be sure, of course. I had to know if you were the one. You see, don’t you?”

  Jack shook his head. “Stop beating around the bush, Darroch,” he snarled from his place on the floor. “What ‘one’? What is Morgan to you?”

  “Why she’s the one I’ve been looking for all these years, of course. She’s the last piece.”

  “Excuse me.” I was running very short on patience. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You should be delighted, Miss Bailey.” He leaned back and did the finger steeple thing. “You are the last piece of the puzzle, a puzzle that’s millennia old. The last piece I need to perform the ritual which will allow me to access the power of the amulet and my own latent abilities. You, Miss Bailey, are the Key to the Treasure of Atlantis.”

  Well, shit.

  ***

  “Are you crazy? Never mind. I already know the answer to that. Seriously, me? A key? You’ve got to be kidding.” I gave Jack a sideways look. He just shrugged. He didn’t know what Darroch was going on about either. We both knew the amulet was called the Key, but Darroch wasn’t talking about the amulet.

  Darroch gave me a toothy smile. “Not a key, my dear. The Key. I need the blood of a descendent of Atlantis as part of the ritual.

  “In order to ensure that only a member of the Royal Bloodline could access the amulet, the last High Priest built in a safe clause,” he continued. “If anyone of Atlantean blood who was not either of the Bloodline or of the Warrior Priest Line tried to access the amulet, they’d need the blood sacrifice of another descendent in order to do it.”

  Of course, it made perfect sense. The blood was the key, it had to be.

  “How did you know about the amulet?” I asked. It wasn’t like they taught Ancient Atlantean history in school.

  He gave me a pleased smile as though I’d done something really smart. “Why, the knowledge has been passed down through my family for generations, of course. From father to son since the beginning.”

  It hit me. “You are a descendent of Atlantis, too. Except your bloodline was Common which was why you needed someone from the right Bloodline.”

  Anger slid through his eyes before he caught himself and gave me a smile. “Very good. Unfortunately, the amulet was designed to wake latent genetic knowledge in all descendents of Atlantis with whom it came into contact, so the likelihood of a descendent of Atlantis being captured and used was low. Even if they did get captured, it was an even playing field. It was a most annoying quandary.”

  He didn’t look annoyed. He looked smug, flushed with victory at outsmarting a long dead priest. Unfortunately for Jack and me, the Atlanteans hadn’t planned on guns. Goons, maybe, but definitely not guns. Guns leveled all playing fields.

  What Darroch didn’t know was we had our own leveler. Two, actually if they managed to get their asses here before Darroch chopped me into little pieces or whatever it was the ritual required. Apparently the peace-loving Atlanteans had a barbaric side.

  Darroch waved to his goons and they hustled across the floor toward me. I guess I was going to find out sooner rather than later. They stripped me of my weapons then dragged me back to Darroch. The only ones they missed were the knives in my wrist sheaths. Not too bright.

  “Stop!” Jack bellowed, playing hero again. “You need Atlantean blood, fine. But take me instead. I will be your blood sacrifice.” In that moment I could see in him the Templar Knight he’d once been so long ago. It kind of choked me up, actually.

  Sounded like a good plan to me. Except for the whole part where Jack would probably die. Jack could survive pretty much everything from what he’d told me earlier, but I wasn’t sure massive blood loss coupled with the activation of the amulet was one of them. And I really didn’t like the thought of Jack dying. But I shouldn’t have worried because rather than taking him seriously, Darroch roared with laughter.

  “Oh, you stupid, pathetic man. How weak you’ve become since I saw you last. No longer the proud warrior of legend.” He leaned forward right into Jack’s face. I wondered how Jack managed not to head butt the man. I would have found it an irresistible temptation.

  Then I felt something cold and hard pressing against my temple. Oh, yeah, goon with gun threatening to kill me. That would put a damper on things. Jack might be willing to risk himself, he was immortal, after all, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt he wouldn’t risk them hurting me.

  Darroch tilted Jack’s head up as Clive yanked my arms back and tied them behind me. “Yes it’s true, isn’t it, Jackson? You’re in love with her.”

  Say what?

  Darroch shook his head in mock pity. “I almost feel sorry for you. Almost.” He let go of Jack and surrounded by his goons, headed toward the hall with me in tow.

  “Darroch!” Jack roared, yanking against the rope, “Don’t you dare harm her. Take me!”

  Darroch turned around. “Don’t you understand, Jack? I don’t want you. Your blood isn’t strong enough, either. Otherwise I would have killed you years ago. Instead you led me to exactly what I needed. You led me to her.” He stroked my face and it took all I had not to throw up on his shoes. “Blood calls to blood, after all.”

  “What does that mean? Darroch! What does that mean?” But Darroch didn’t answer him. Instead, he swept out of the room with his entourage and me behind him.

  ***

  We were nearly to the stairs when the shadows shifted and a woman dressed all in black with midnight hair in a long plait behind her stood in front of us, a silver dagger in one hand. Her smirk was nothing if not sardonic. “Hey Morgan. Got yourself an interesting situation, I see.”

  I grinned back. “Hey. Kabita. How’s it shakin’?”

  Darroch snarled. “What the hell is this? Who are you and what are you doing in my house?” He waved his goons forward.

  One of them raised his gun and fired. I was sure Kabita was a goner, but then the bullet stopped midair. We all stared at it in confusion as it dropped to the floor with a little thunk.

  What followed was a barrage of bullets, the sound nearly deafening me. Not a one found its mark. Instead they all slammed up against some sort of invisible shield before falling harmlessly to the ground. I’d had no idea Kabita had such power. It was seriously cool.

  Finally the shooting stopped. Either the bad guys were out of bullets, or they’d finally realized bullets weren’t going to work.

  Kabita may not have been very tall, but her anger made her formidable. “Do you know what I hate, Darroch?” She twirled the dagger between long supple fingers. “I hate liars. I hate people who try to use me. And I really hate people who try to hurt my friends. I’m your worst nightmare, Brent Darroch. You do not mess with me or my friends and get away with it.”

  Before the goon squad could grab her she’d whipped out a long knife and slashed one across the face while nearly taking a hand off the other one with her dagger. I wanted to jump up and down and clap my hands like a little kid, but my hands were still tied.

  Instead, I kicked out behind me catching Darroch right in the family jewels.

  He went down howling. I just laughed. Brent Darroch and his minions had one or two things to answer for.

  Kabita paused long enough to slash the bindings from my wrists so I could use the knives in my wrist sheaths. With a quick backward thrust, I stabbed the guy coming up on me from behind so fast he was on the floor holding his stomach before he could even think about firing his gun, if he had any bullets left. I looked around and discovered Inigo had popped out of nowhere and started thrashing goon ass. Awesome.

  That’s when I
realized Darroch had used the distraction to slip away from the fighting and head up the stairs. Shit, he was going after the amulet. If he got away with it we were screwed.

  “Morgan!” It was Jack, shouting from the other room. A quick peek told me he’d gotten free and had Clive in a headlock. “Don’t let him get his hands on it!”

  I was way ahead of him. I slashed at a couple goons as I fought my way to the stairs. I made it up a few steps before one of them grabbed my ankle and tried to haul me back down, so I kicked him in the face. I felt something crunch under my shoe and blood spurted up my jeans leg as he howled in pain. Ew, gross. I probably had blood all over my shoe now, too.

  I scrambled up the stairs, ignoring the fighting behind me. Kabita, Inigo and Jack seemed to have things well in hand. Stopping Darroch was paramount. I couldn’t let him get away with the amulet.

  I popped my head into the first bedroom. Nothing. Master bedroom. Not a thing. In the third bedroom the closet door was open and light spilled out onto the wine colored carpet that matched his ground floor office. He kept the amulet in a closet?

  I crept in quietly and peered around the closet door. Doh! False wall, of course. The amulet wasn’t in the closet, it was in a tiny safe room behind the closet and Darroch was inches away from it.

  Without so much as a thought, I gathered the darkness in the room all around me. I gathered the darkness of the house and of the night outside and pulled it into me. Everything took on edges of purple and silver like looking through some weirdo night vision goggles. My breathing slowed, my heart calmed, everything grew still. And the Darkness roared …

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I don’t know how I did it, but one minute I was at the closet door too far away to stop Darroch from grabbing the amulet. The next I was across the room with my hands at his throat, his feet dangling a good foot off the floor as I lifted him toward the ceiling. Then he was clear across the room, smashing into the wall and then sliding down into a motionless heap. It had been so easy I wasn’t even breathing heavily.