Darklight 5: Darktide

by Forrest, Bella

  Vampires from the VAMPS camp filled out the rest of our group, bringing us to a solid thirty or so operatives. Some would pilot redbills, protecting us humans while we traveled through the tear. Bravi chose to lead another group; her team intended to sneak through nearby portals that Harlowe located in the Angeles National Forest. Our groups planned to converge at Lake Siron. The idea was that traveling separately would reduce the chance of discovery by hunters patrolling around the tear.

  After a busy day of gathering rations and weapons and briefing vampires and humans alike, my last errand today was a personal one. I slipped into the medical ward, a long room with cots, some with curtains halfway drawn for privacy. Two sleeping soldiers were recovering, but I wasn’t here for them.

  Louise sat in a small office at the end of the room. I’d had no opportunity to talk to her at length since she’d arrived, but I intended to change that.

  I smiled at her but held back. “Are you okay to hug?” I asked, unsure.

  “A side one,” she said with a matching smile, gesturing to her arm that was in the sling.

  We embraced. She felt stronger than when I last saw her, a day or so after she was shot at the Edinburgh press conference.

  “I’m just waiting for a medic to check me over and make sure I get a physical therapy appointment during my stay.” She furtively glanced to the side.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  Louise looked a little stiff, and her cheeks warmed. “Yes, but… um… I know you caught everyone up later last night about what happened to Bryce, Arlonne, and Sike, but I just wanted to ask for some more details about how Sike’s doing.”

  The intensity of her stare made me hesitant. “The last time I saw him, he was doing okay,” I said. “Like we said last night, he was badly injured, so we had to leave him behind at the Hive, but he was already up and about causing mischief. With any luck, he’s still there, and we’ll see him soon.”

  She let out a relieved sigh.

  “You’re not going on either of the missions with your arm like that, are you?” I said gently. “So why did you come?”

  She smiled sadly. “After the chaos of the last few months, I’ve been talking with some government agencies that Fenton put me in contact with. Someone offered me a job, and I’m choosing to take it.” She paused, something heavy in her eyes. “I hate waiting around, hoping that someday I might get my Bureau job back, and honestly… I need to get away from the vampires. I hitched this ride to LA to see everyone for the last time. I wanted updates, of course, but I’m heading to Seattle in two days.”

  It slowly sank in that Louise was officially leaving… this might be the last time I saw her. I hated losing Louise’s skillset and presence to another cause, but I could understand how the pressures of her situation with Sike, the danger she’d endured, and getting so suddenly kicked off her career path could lead her to want to escape.

  She correctly interpreted my indecision and shrugged. “You can be honest with me if you think I’m abandoning you guys.”

  I paused, then said, “It may not mean much to you, and I’m not trying to influence your decision, but … Dorian and I discovered something. Something that might help with the curse.” I explained the cure to her, detailing the need to put vampire blood into the human body, but glossing over drinking from Dorian. That felt too intimate to share. She listened with rapt attention, but her expression became more pinched and uncomfortable as I went on. I was losing her.

  The medic suddenly appeared in the doorway and addressed Louise. “I can see you now, Miss O’Neil.”

  Louise glanced at him, then looked back at me. Her eyes softened as she hugged me from the side once more.

  “I’m happy for you, and I wish you the best. Text me when you get back from the Immortal Plane.” She started to walk away but paused. “It’s too much for me to consider right now, but… I’d like to hear how things progress with this… cure. Good luck.”

  Louise and the medic left the room. I sighed, a slight damper put on my excitement about the cure. Louise seemed to be at least a little intrigued, but her mind was made up for the moment.

  I glanced at my watch, wincing at the time. I had to get some sleep, since we planned to leave early the next morning, but I still needed supplies to help Dorian give me blood via injections. I didn’t want to ask to use the supplies provided for the medic, since those might be needed to help soldiers in the field, so I figured going and asking for a bunch of single-use needles and syringes would get the job done to both draw and inject blood.

  Another medic entered the office, and I took a deep breath, approaching with my most charming smile. “Hey, Sylas sent me to grab another pack of twenty-one-gauge, single-use needles.” I’d done my research. For what I had planned, this type was our best bet.

  He looked perplexed. “Ruiz sent a gear list, and we already sent over supplies.”

  I swallowed an unexpected note of irritation and gave an apologetic look. “It’s just a last-minute thing. Something to do with not knowing how long we’ll be out there.” I kept my answer as vague as possible.

  The medic frowned, his mustache drooping, but then shrugged. Opening a locked cabinet, he grabbed a pack and tossed it to me.

  I thanked him profusely and went on my way. Finally, I was ready for the Immortal Plane—as ready as I could be.

  Back in the room, I climbed into bed with an already sleeping Dorian. The heartburn warmed my chest, an almost pleasant sensation that faded after a moment. It wasn’t worth waking Dorian for. Even if it was worse in the Immortal Plane, it would be bearable. We could try out the syringes tomorrow night. I fell asleep after a few minutes. Blood-soaked figures and whispering trees filled my dreams.

  * * *

  The squadron heading out to the Immortal Plane gathered at dawn. Those who were going to Moab with the relief team later that day came out onto the tarmac to bid us farewell.

  Captain Ruiz was among them and she firmly shook mine and Dorian’s hands. “The Bureau is on high alert for any trace of the old board trying to cross into the Immortal Plane,” she said. “And all units across North America have been given a list of the operatives going with you on this mission. If any of you come back through a portal and activate your beacon, they’ll send someone to come and pick you up.”

  “The Bureau’s support is much appreciated, Captain,” Dorian said, a deep respect in his voice. “I wish you and your team the best in Moab.”

  She inclined her head gravely. “We still haven’t heard from Clemmins or Runyard, but reports of civilian survivors are starting to trickle in from other towns. What’s clear is that this Immortal Council wanted Moab, and the Bureau camp guarding the tear, erased.”

  “We intend to make them pay for that, however we can,” I assured her. “Once we gather our resources and forces at the Hive, we’ll be starting our incursions against Irrikus’ infrastructure.”

  She nodded and for a moment her professional demeanor slipped, and I saw the disbelief on her face.

  “When higher-ups transferred me from the FBI into the Occult Bureau, I knew there was going to be some weird stuff,” she said, shaking her head slightly, the perfectly trimmed edges of her dark brown bob swinging, “but I never thought it would involve interdimensional war, monsters, and figuring out how to keep alive a blue-skinned giant who claims to be royalty.” She straightened, all business once more. “Best of luck to you all.” With a final sharp nod, she left the tarmac to join Gomez, the two of them immediately engaging in rapid conversation.

  I placed Gate Maker in my pocket, feeling him settle in without a fuss, unlike the redbills, who squawked as they gathered on the tarmac. A group of Bureau soldiers assembled to watch our takeoff, eyeing the giant birds warily.

  I gently touched the pouch around my neck that was holding Lanzon’s stone. After Gate Maker had drained its magic, it had remained cold and plain to the touch. I wasn’t sure it would ever work again, if Azpai’s spell had been absorbed w
ith the rest, but I didn’t feel right leaving it behind.

  “Ready?” Dorian asked me as he swung up onto a redbill’s back.

  I reached up for his hand. “With you, I always am.”

  The redbills easily covered the distance between Southern California and eastern Utah in just a few hours. During the ride, thoughts of the mission ahead filled me with nervous excitement and anticipation. A strong sense of déjà vu washed over me as the familiar desert landscape came into sight; the stakes were higher every time we returned to this place. The Canyonlands made me nostalgic for the early days of our journey, when the Bureau was the biggest problem we had.

  Dorian’s redbill circled a few times while we evaluated the tear, the rest of the flock following suit.

  “It’s gotten so much bigger,” he muttered bitterly.

  I pulled Gate Maker out of my pocket, letting him see the vast, pulsing wound of the tear spreading several miles across the sky. Lightning struck every few seconds, several bolts snapping down to touch the earth.

  “It’s not going to be easy to stitch that back together,” the lizard muttered. His tail twitched for a second. "I’m sorry to have played a part in its expansion.”

  He crawled back into my pocket, and we flew on in silence.

  We grew closer to Moab, and soon I spotted the hill on the east side of town where we’d previously landed. The area down below was no longer a military encampment; it was nothing but the wreckage of tents and scattered, smashed equipment. There was a pitiful tent city several miles out in the desert where I knew Halla, Sabal, Riven, and a large team of Bureau soldiers were traveling to later today. Sabal’s desire to help the remaining Moab population had surprised most of the people who knew her, but after some hemming and hawing, Halla decided it would be good for her to keep busy. And where Sabal went, so did Halla.

  The Bureau briefings had prepared us for the damage, but the sight was sobering. The tiny town of Moab, nestled against the Colorado River, was a blasted shell of its former self. There was no sign of human life among the toppled buildings and burnt greenery.

  Nobody was coming to attack this place anymore… they didn’t need to.

  Moab had fallen. The destruction of Irrikus had spread to the Mortal Plane, unrelenting and uncaring about the innocent lives in its wake.

  We had to stop it.

  Chapter Ten

  There were always a few souls in the sky, so the Immortal Plane rarely experienced true night but rather an endless, shifting twilight. Soul-dim at Lake Siron made the immortal landscape eerily beautiful.

  While most of the group sheltered close by in trees, Dorian, Laini, and I had spread out along the shore, creeping about in the ominous silence. Collectively, it had been decided that those of us who had visited before should try and call the aquatic wildlings of Lake Siron, rather than everyone standing out in the open. I crouched, studying the surface of the glowing water, a few pebbles in my hand, remembering how we had called the wildlings to take us to the Gray Ravine.

  This was the final stage in an epic, fast-paced journey. After a tense flight through the tear where we’d nearly lost Laini and Colin’s redbill to the lightning now constantly exploding through the rift in the barrier, we’d scouted carefully around Vanim, knowing that hunters regularly herded monsters from the wastes of the Immortal Plane through the tear.

  We’d discovered a far greater threat, however, when Castral hurried back to the group to report that there was a huge training camp full of hunters on the opposite side of the ragged mountains surrounding the ruined city. Dorian and I exchanged a tense look; during our mission in Itzarriol, we’d heard about this training camp from a guard that Dorian and Kane had interrogated. They had been unable to get a specific location from him at the time. Now that we knew how close the camp and the many hunters who lived and trained there was to the tear, it made our entrance and exit plans rather more complicated. A few redbills were fine since we could move fast and stay concealed in the fog, but what if we needed to move large numbers of Bureau soldiers into the Immortal Plane?

  Filing away the information and our concerns, we’d left Vanim immediately, flying high and fast in the fog, out of sight from the tear. Harlowe, accustomed to traveling between gates for her job as a gatekeeper, had been invaluable, keeping our large group shrouded in fog and cloud. Although we saw patrols, there were very few. I imagined the systems were somewhat in chaos after the events that had unfolded in Itzarriol. Speed meant greater risk of discovery, but we lacked the option to play it safe; if we were going to strike, we needed to do so before the Immortal Council could gather their resources. We found Bravi’s group on the other side of the redwood forest and arrived at the lakeshore an hour or two later.

  Five days back in the Mortal Plane had been a tease for my mind. I was getting used to how oddly sound traveled here, how the plants moved in unsettling sentient ways, and how things crept into the edges of my vision, but I still couldn’t relax. Soul-dim was harder to adjust to after California sunlight, but the bright water helped. I made a mental note to check in with Zach, Gina, and the rest of the human team about how they were holding up.

  The lakeshore held discomforting memories of our group left broken and bleeding after Inkarri’s attack. I was eager to see Bryce and Sike again to see how their recovery was going. I was also looking forward to reuniting with Arlonne and her terse, pleasant companionship.

  I tossed one of the pebbles from my hand into the lake. The stone sank, a few bubbles floating to the surface, and then—nothing. There were only the big gas bubbles ponderously rising from the water. I waited, watching time tick away on my watch. Three minutes passed. I was vulnerable in the open, but the vampires would signal if something approached.

  Just as I was starting to panic, a string of bubbles rose to the surface. A wildling cautiously rose halfway out of the water, gray-brown scales covering his head. His white eyes narrowed.

  “This is dangerous,” he hissed, revealing needle-sharp teeth. “You need to leave.”

  “You look familiar,” I said, trying to be friendly. Had he been part of our journey to the Gray Ravine? “Elder Mox gave us permission to visit. We politely request passage.”

  Without the wildlings’ help, I didn’t know how to get into the Hive.

  He blinked slowly. “You do not understand. There is nothing there.”

  My stomach dropped like a rock. Had something happened to the Hive? Or was he bluffing for safety?

  “I’ve traveled with your kind before, to the Gray Ravine,” I said firmly. “I left my friends at the Hive just a few weeks ago.”

  The wildling grunted, a wet sound in his agitated throat. “Nothing there.”

  An intense flash of powerful anger, burning like battery acid, filled my gut in a way I’d never felt before. I sucked in a sharp, shaking breath, forcing away the emotion. He was merely trying to protect the Hive.

  The anger dissipated as the sound of impossibly fast feet on the shore caught my ear. I whirled with my hand on my knife, wondering why my allies hadn’t warned me, but—

  A familiar dark-skinned vampire with pale purple hair stood grinning at me, a second vampire beside him.

  “Kono,” I cried, sheathing my knife. “You made it back!”

  The last time I’d seen the Hive scout was after our escape from the sanitarium when he’d been gathering survivors. I was relieved to see him alive and well, the mark around his neck from the cruel collar placed there by the rulers no longer visible. He still looked tired, and somewhat nervous, but as he stepped toward the wildling, I saw he was armed with an intriguing new knife, suggesting he had not spent the last few days merely hiding away.

  He bowed slightly to the aquatic creature. “Wildling, please open the way for our guest.” His demand was clear, but I could see that his eyes darted fearfully to the skies around us, looking for patrols.

  “The orders state that no more can enter,” the wildling insisted.

  Surely the Hive
council wasn’t turning refugees away? Why would they deny protection?

  “It is only one,” Kono said, tone persuasive.

  “I have more people with me,” I explained, a little reluctant. “Dorian, Laini, and I have actually come back with a large party of reinforcements.”

  I’d hoped Kono would celebrate hearing we’d brought more support, but instead he tensed. Apparently, an entire party rather than a single person changed things. I hoped he knew that he could trust us. If there were orders discouraging bringing more individuals into the Hive, then he put his own position at risk by allowing us entry. Would he risk his personal safety for us?

  Kono turned to the wildling. “I’ll guide them in via one of the above ground tunnels myself,” he reassured the wildling. “We have a responsibility to provide safety for as many as we can.”

  The wildling hesitated but eventually nodded and sank into the water.

  Face tense, Kono turned back to me. “I’ll take you and your group to the Hive, but we need to move swiftly. This area isn’t safe.”

  We gathered the party quickly, forgoing all introductions for now. Kono and his young and scrawny companion, whom he introduced as Oz, led the way into the foothills surrounding the lake, bringing us to a wall of thorny, twisted blue vines. Kono scanned the area before stomping three times on a rock jutting from the glowing stream that trickled through the base of the barbed plants. The tendrils shivered, then peeled back to reveal a passage carved into the rock. The Hive has secret passages? I grinned, impressed.

  The passage dripped with glowing algae, and Zach made a face of disgust as we entered. Our large party, some thirty strong, gathered in the narrow tunnel, and the bramble wall closed behind us. My shoulders finally loosened now that we were out of the open.

  “Kono is one of the scouts from the Hive,” Dorian said, presenting Kono to the group. He put a hand on the broader vampire’s shoulder, his eyes earnest. “I’m so glad you made it back.”