Darkness Bound (A Night Prowler Novel)

by J. T. Geissinger

  So the four of them settled in beneath the dense cover of a stand of mammoth ferns to wait.

  “They’ll have to come by air,” Leander said, pacing in front of the dais in the Assembly room where Alejandro normally held court. “Planes are the most logical choice. They won’t be hindered by the terrain, and they’ll be much safer flying than on foot.” His voice darkened. “And they can bring a much bigger force that way.”

  The Assembly members were all present, but today the elaborate throne stood empty. Alejandro hadn’t been seen since the interrupted contest with Hawk, and there had been no time to organize a vote to decide which of the two would be Alpha.

  Voting for the Alpha, thought Leander, his lips quirking with mirth in spite of the seriousness of the current situation. If nothing else, his wife never failed to surprise him.

  Everyone was on edge. LeBlanc and Bhojak were glowering at each other from opposite sides of the room. The Assembly members were agitated, fidgeting in their chairs, the tension palpable because no one knew when the Expurgari and Section Thirty might strike. It could be one hour, one day, one week. And no one knew how best to prepare.

  Even the twins seemed restless. Tucked into an open drawer in a sideboard that acted as a makeshift bassinette, they fretted beneath a white blanket knitted by their mother, squirming like a pair of hatchlings.

  Leander hadn’t wanted to leave them alone to come to this meeting. As things stood, he didn’t want to leave them alone for a second.

  Xander said, “We can’t defend ourselves if they come by air. Our only chance is if we can somehow draw them to the ground, engage them in hand-to-hand combat.”

  Leander said, “Or figure out a way to crash the planes.” He stared at Xander, the kernel of an idea forming. He was just about to open his mouth again, when a zephyr blasted through the sheer curtains on the far side of the platform, lifting them to a billowing bell before they settled back against the polished floor.

  The zephyr was Jenna. She took shape as woman, and her first words were, “He’s here!”

  “What? Who?” In a moment of blind panic, Leander thought she meant Jahad, the leader of the Expurgari. Had they arrived already? But the name she growled with hatred belonged to someone else.

  “Caesar!”

  Instant pandemonium. Everyone leapt to their feet and started shouting.

  “That’s not possible!”

  “Where? How?”

  “What do we do?”

  “Did you see him?”

  “Is he alone?”

  Jenna glimpsed the twins in the sideboard and all the blood drained from her face, leaving it the color of chalk. “Leander, get the children out of here! Get them into the caves—get everyone to the caves—I’m the only one who has a chance against him—”

  “I’m not leaving you here! He can’t overpower all of us!”

  A voice, slick and full of malice, rang out from the other side of the room.

  “Oh dear. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

  Everyone turned and there was Caesar, flanked by three men, standing by the curtains to the suspended bridge. Caesar was smiling, grimly, without an ounce of warmth. The other three—a hulking, black-eyed male with a cool, menacing beauty; a skinny male with darting eyes and twitchy hands; and a human with a bushy, filthy beard—stood still and silent.

  “Son of a bitch,” Leander breathed, pushing Jenna behind him.

  Fools, all of them. They’d been so intent on making plans for war they hadn’t noticed the wolves circling the henhouse. A snapping sensation started in his spine, shooting outward, ratcheting higher when he saw Caesar’s grim smile grow wider.

  “Son of an Alpha, actually.” Caesar’s gaze cut to Jenna. “And you’re wrong about what you said before. I can overpower all of you. Quite easily, as it turns out. Allow me to demonstrate.”

  He snapped his fingers, and the male with the twitchy hands lifted them, palms out, and pointed them right at Leander and Jenna.

  Caesar said, “Nighty-night, kitty cats.”

  And that’s when the air became fire.

  In the infinitesimal moment before the wall of flame consumed them, Jenna put her hand on Leander’s shoulder and Shifted to a form she’d never taken before.

  Ice.

  It was instant and unthinking, a visceral reaction that required no thought or exertion save a small focus of will, and then she was transformed. Leander was encased in a block of solid ice, entirely surrounded.

  The wall of fire passed right over them, leaving them unharmed.

  As soon as it passed, Jenna Shifted to Vapor, then back to woman, a flash of mist that coalesced in an instant to flesh and bone. Now she stood in front of Leander, facing Caesar, watching an expression of pure fury twist his face, watching his minions go rigid with shock.

  She shouted, “That’s right, assholes! How d’you like me now?”

  Behind her, Leander made a small, wordless noise. Smoke and the smell of charred fabric hung acrid in the air; the fireball had singed the drapery on two sides of the room, leaving it waving in charred tatters from the branches far above, dripping rain.

  From everywhere and nowhere arose the screams.

  They were eerie and otherworldly, the most frightening sounds she’d ever heard. She didn’t have time to consider the source, because Caesar was shouting at his flame-throwing companion to go again, throwing his arms wide to indicate a wall of fire not only for Jenna and Leander, but for the entire room with everyone in it.

  Several members of the Assembly had the presence of mind to Shift to panther. Bursts of heated power rippled through the room as they transformed. With lashing tails, bulging muscles, deadly claws and fangs, they sank into pounce positions, roars of rage ripping from their chests.

  The flamethrower stepped to one side. Jenna inhaled a breath that felt like snow. Her pulse slowed with the minute focus of her attention. In the space of a heartbeat, a million thoughts flashed through her mind at the speed of light, a million possible calculations and transformations.

  Rain, lightning, bullet, steel, cage, stop, wall, box, kill that piece of—

  But instead of throwing another stream of fire in her direction, he turned around in a whip-crack move, bent over, and turned back again.

  In his fists, held out at arms’ length, were the twins. It was they who were screaming, screaming with such deafening volume Jenna’s eyes watered. They stared straight at her, holding perfectly still with wide, wide eyes . . . and closed mouths.

  Their screams were in her head. Only she could hear them.

  Jenna jolted forward, every nerve in her body flayed raw, protective instinct pummeling her mercilessly, flooding her cells with adrenaline. Before she took two full steps, Caesar yanked Hope from the flamethrower’s left hand, and crushed her to his chest.

  “Stop!” commanded Caesar. Abruptly, she and everyone else did.

  “Jenna.” Leander’s voice was hoarse, beseeching, but Jenna couldn’t look away.

  Hope’s tiny white arm flailed up. Her fingers gripped his shirt, bunching the fabric. Her little legs kicked out beneath his arm for a moment, frantic, then she fell completely still.

  Hurting my baby! Oh my God, he’s hurting my—

  “You and I,” Caesar said to Jenna, lowering his head and looking at her with eyes so black they reflected back not a single flicker of light, “have unfinished business. Send everyone else away and I’ll let the little brats live.”

  A lie. She smelled it. She saw it in his eyes. But for a moment she clung to it, hoping she could somehow still turn this to her advantage. If she agreed, she’d at least save the Assembly members, she’d at least gain a few more minutes so she could—

  Mama.

  Jenna froze. She looked at Honor. Dangling at the end of the flamethrower’s fist, her baby stared b
ack at her with total, unblinking concentration, her green eyes brilliantly, chillingly, alive in her small, angelic face.

  Then her infant child smiled at her, and the world ground to a standstill.

  To Jenna it was as if a switch had been thrown, and a room that had once been dead black was flooded with drenching golden sunlight. She felt it in her muscles, her cells, the atoms of her body, a mother’s recognition that transcended words or logic, a thing only those joined by flesh and blood can know. She had the urge to laugh and cry at once, as those experiencing transcendent moments often do, but she only exhaled, all the tension draining from her body as if a plug had been pulled.

  She was no longer afraid. She didn’t have to be.

  “Yes, Honor,” Jenna whispered. “Good girl.”

  Honor laughed.

  First the flamethrower stiffened, his eyes bulging wide. He tried to speak, but the only sound that passed his lips was a choked, hacking cough, cut off abruptly when his tongue caught on fire. His hair burst into flame next.

  Someone screamed.

  At the end of his arm, Honor gurgled another sweet laugh, happily kicking her little feet.

  The flamethrower shrieked and stumbled back, letting go of Honor, but Jenna had anticipated it. She was Vapor, darting in, then woman, catching the precious bundle an instant before she hit the ground. She slid sideways on her knees over the bare wood until she collided hard with the side of a divan, shielding Honor in her arms. She looked up and froze.

  The flamethrower was engulfed in a roaring blaze of fire. He staggered around the room, arms flailing, bumping into furniture as everyone scrambled to get out of his way. Caesar was still standing with Hope in his arms near the doorway, his expression of horror identical to the one worn by his companion.

  Leander took advantage of their shocked distraction to leap on Caesar.

  They went down in a tangle of limbs, Hope caught between them. They hit the floor hard. Leander rolled onto his back and Jenna went weak with relief when she saw he’d snatched Hope from Caesar’s grip. Leander leapt up and away from Caesar before Caesar could even get to his feet, and then Leander was beside Jenna, crouching over her, placing Hope in her arms.

  He straightened just as the flamethrower collapsed atop the dais, and lay unmoving at the foot of the Alpha’s throne. The noise of his body burning was a terrible thing, the crackling and snapping and ugly, loud pops. And the smell . . .

  From the corner of her eye, she saw movement.

  The human with the bushy beard had been taken down by four large, black animals, and was being ripped to shreds as he tried in vain to fight them off. All she could see were his two feet kicking beneath the muscled bodies of the panthers, that and the widening circle of blood that had begun to pool beneath him.

  A few feet away, Caesar knelt on the floor, gripping his head in both hands. His expression was one of surprise, disbelief, and confusion; it was clear he wasn’t quite sure what was happening. He lifted his eyes and looked right into hers, his gaze searching. Then he dropped his gaze to the babies in her arms, and his mouth formed a small, horrified O.

  In her arms, Hope and Honor were both reaching out to him, their tiny, dimpled fingers stretching, flexing wide. Honor gurgled a little laugh, and just like that, Jenna knew.

  With a grim smile, she whispered, “Mommy loves you, girls.”

  Caesar burst into flame.

  It was like a detonation: the explosion of heat and pressure slammed through the room, blowing her hair back from her face. Jenna squinted against it, lowering her head to shield the babies from the blast. She heard a high, keening scream that wavered, sustained on a single note for what seemed an eternity, but then it cut off and the only sound was that of licking flames and the rain that was falling harder now through the trees.

  Jenna looked up. Where Caesar had been kneeling, there now appeared a pile of bone and ash, the floor all around it scorched in a perfect circle, as if the fire had been contained to only the space of Caesar’s body, enclosed and superheated.

  The third male who had accompanied Caesar had Shifted to Vapor and had vanished, leaving a jumbled pile of clothing and weapons on the floor near the exit to the bridge.

  She only realized when Hope and Honor began to squirm that she’d tightened her arms around them so hard they ached.

  Leander gripped her shoulder, sinking his fingers hard into her flesh. She glanced up at him and he was staring down at her and the twins, his eyes shadowed and endless. “But Caesar’s immortal,” he said, struggling, his handsome face blanched, his voice harsh and low.

  Jenna said, “Not anymore.”

  Leander bent and took Honor from Jenna’s arms. He held the baby out at arms’ length, staring at her with unflagging intensity. “They . . . they took the flamethrower’s Gift?”

  The others were beginning to gather around them, stepping past the smoking body on the dais, moving carefully around the circle of ash and bone on the floor. Morgan and Xander gaped at them, as did the rest of the Assembly, everyone visibly shaken.

  Jenna said, “Yes.”

  “Which means . . .” Leander’s gaze went to the pile of ash that used to be Caesar.

  Jenna whispered, “I think so.”

  She saw it in all of their faces, reflected back in every pair of eyes that gazed down at her and the twins.

  Awe.

  Dread.

  Fear.

  Jenna had a terrible premonition that this was the way her children would be looked at for the rest of their lives. This would set them apart from even their own kind, a breed already so apart from the rest of the world. They would be worshipped but they would be feared, objects of suspicion and distrust.

  Outcasts among outcasts.

  She and Leander stood. As they did, the gathered group took a step back.

  “Is anyone hurt?” Jenna asked into the hush.

  They shook their heads and exchanged glances, but no one spoke.

  “Good.” She gathered herself, drawing a fortifying breath, trying to steady her shaking hands. Beside her, Leander was a warm, strong presence. She turned her attention to Xander and said, “Have the remains removed. Put them in a box and bury them somewhere they’ll never be found, or disturbed. No rites, no headstone. Only you are to know the location.”

  Xander nodded. He had the Gift of Passage, so he could walk right into a wall of rock with the box and embed it there, if he wanted, leaving the box behind, emerging unchanged. Jenna hoped he would do exactly that.

  “Everyone else, let’s . . . let’s just . . .” Jenna faltered, finding it more and more difficult to breathe.

  “Sutherland, get the security detail back out there,” Leander cut in, stepping closer to her so his chest pressed against her back, offering support. She sagged against him, and he snaked an arm around her waist. “There may have been more in his party. And see if you can find any trace of that one.” He jerked his chin to the pile of clothes on the floor.

  “Right away, My Lord.” Grayson bowed, and left at a trot.

  “Everyone else, go home for now. We’ll send word when this mess has been cleaned up and we can refocus, but in the meantime, stay sharp.”

  The group obeyed, swiftly and silently, a few of the men staying behind to assist Xander.

  Then, his arm still around her waist, Leander led Jenna away, the twins cooing happily in her arms while fear hatched ugly and huge inside her, a carrion bird circling and cawing inside her gut.

  God only knew what was coming next.

  The Los Angeles Times, Friday, October 11, 20—

  MISSING JOURNALIST FOUND ALIVE

  In a recent development, missing New York Times journalist Jacqueline Dolan was found alive and apparently unharmed after disappearing from New York more than two weeks ago.

  Paulo Varela, a soybean farmer in the sm
all municipality of Rolim de Moura, in the state of Rodônia, Brazil, first saw Ms. Dolan Thursday morning, walking down the center of a two-lane highway used primarily by logging trucks. With the assistance of his English-speaking niece, Natália, the farmer learned Ms. Dolan was looking for transportation to the airport, which he provided himself. It was only after he returned home and his niece told him she believed his passenger was a missing American journalist that the farmer called the local police.

  Sources say Ms. Dolan is calm and coherent, but has so far refused to speak with the New York Police Department or the press about the details of her disappearance. A press conference has been scheduled for Monday morning at 9 a.m., and it is anticipated she will make a statement regarding her whereabouts at that time.

  Calls to her residence and family have not been returned.

  So far, life at home had been a nightmare.

  From the moment she stepped off the plane at JFK three days ago, accosted by a throng of shouting reporters with cameras shoved in her face, Jack had been hunted.

  She’d never been famous before. She’d been a name on a byline, a writer more at home in Kevlar and war zones than mingling among the glittering dignitaries and slick politicians she had occasion to interview. Now she was a story with a capital S, and it was hell.

  Someone had unearthed the picture of her taken at that cocktail party she’d attended with Nola at the White House, and it had become the one all the news outlets used. In it, she was striding toward a waiting limousine, dressed in a gown the color of raspberries, her hair upswept, her neck, ears, and wrists in borrowed jewels, a glimpse of leg revealed by a slit in the skirt, which billowed as she moved.

  She looked feminine and glamorous and nothing at all like herself. Jack remembered that at the moment that picture was snapped, she’d been thinking how wonderful it was going to be to rip off that stupid dress, take her hair down, and sit in her bathtub neck-deep in hot water with a cold beer.