Dark Legion

by Rob Cornell

  Lockman ducked again, then scurried back out of range. He noticed the bullet wounds in the vamp’s chest bled no more than a few cuts would. The silver rounds should have burned through the vamp’s flesh, turned those holes into craters.

  “What do you want?” he shouted.

  The hulk did not answer. He charged instead.

  Lockman backed away until he came against the wall.

  The vamp reached him, swung.

  Lockman ducked, but the attack was a feint and the vamp had him by the neck with his opposite hand. He tried to pry the vamp’s gloved fingers loose to no effect.

  The vamp threw his punch again, this time with Lockman unable to duck.

  The last thing Lockman saw was a set of black-clad knuckles headed straight for his face.

  Then darkness.

  Chapter Twelve

  Something isn’t right.

  The thought echoed in Lockman’s mind as he swam out of the dark. When he opened his eyes, Kate’s face looked down at him. He blinked while trying to remember how he ended up on the floor.

  Something isn’t right.

  The vamps. Teresa.

  He sat up. Too fast. The room swirled. Nausea flooded his stomach.

  “Easy,” Kate said and put an arm around him.

  “They took Teresa.” He glanced around the living room—or what was left of it. They had left behind the van, still half-parked inside the cabin. The mixed smells of drywall dust, stale exhaust, and cordite didn’t help with the nausea. “Where’s Jess?”

  “At the rendezvous point.”

  “Why aren’t you with her?”

  “I came back for you.”

  “That wasn’t part of our plan.”

  She patted the rifle on the floor beside her. “I came prepared.”

  Lockman shook his head. There was no preparing for an attack like that. It was like they knew exactly what to expect and made all the right moves to get in. Then they defied everything Lockman thought he knew about vamps. Their size. Their strength. Their weakness to silver.

  “What happened?” Kate asked.

  Questions. Lockman had so many of his own, he didn’t know how to clear his head long enough to answer Kate’s. “Something isn’t right,” he voiced the thought that kept tolling in his mind like a church bell.

  “Talk to me, Craig.”

  “I’m alive. That’s number one.”

  “On your list of things that aren’t right?”

  “There’s no reason vampires would leave me alive unless they had special instructions. But I have a hard time believing we have another Dolan on our hands, using vamps as lackeys.”

  “What does it mean?”

  He held up a hand. He needed to think, damnit. What the hell was going on? Teresa had said vamps had taken her sister. Now vamps had taken Teresa and left Lockman alive. None of this was typical vampire behavior. Not even Dolan’s vamps had enough self-control to temper their bloodlust. “If they wanted Teresa, but not me, they should have eaten me.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  He looked at her. “That’s because none of this makes any sense.”

  She drew back, eyes wide and intense. “You’re scaring me.”

  He nodded and let the nod go on as if he were in a trance. The cool hand against his cheek brought him back to reality. Kate’s hand. He slapped his hand over hers and held her fingers to his face. “A little shell-shocked. Sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry. I just…I’ve never seen you like this.”

  Yes. What was wrong with him? What had happened to the cool professional? A few vamps, a little bit of gun fire—

  Gunfire.

  “They didn’t have guns.”

  Kate cocked her head. “What?”

  “They fired on us from the back, to get our attention. But when they came through the front, they were unarmed.”

  Kate looked around at the destruction. “Doesn’t look like they needed them.”

  “They took Mandy. They took Teresa.” His clenched his fists. Together, he and Teresa had spent years fighting the un-fightable, the unthinkable. Vamps. Shape shifters. Bad mojo. They had saved each others’ lives on the battle field, and each other’s sanity in the bedroom. They were bound by that.

  “I have to go after her.”

  Kate’s face hardened. “We have to get back to Jessie. We have our own problems now.”

  “Help me up.”

  Kate helped him to his feet and he shuffled to the van, peered in through the driver’s side window. The stuffed decoy only consisted of the head and torso. A set of bungee cords strung together had kept the wheel straight and the gas pedal down. The impact had killed the van’s engine, otherwise the wheels would still be spinning and the van may well have driven on into the kitchen.

  “We have to go,” Kate said. “Jessie’s alone.”

  Some of the shock had worn off and let in the pain. Lockman’s muscles ached. His back screamed, probably from when the vamp threw him against the wall. They must have fed right before the attack. That explained the strength, but not the size. The size and the speed—or lack of it. A trademark vamp skill. Incredible speed, especially after feeding. But the one he had tangled with moved like a bull wading in molasses.

  Something isn’t right.

  Understatement of the year.

  “Craig?”

  He stepped back from the van and went out the broken front door. He high-stepped over debris to get around to the back of the van. The doors still hung open. The inside looked clean. Barely a film of dirt on the metal floor. Nothing to tell him where these vamps had come from or where they were headed. “Damn.”

  Kate stood in the doorway, holding her rifle like Lockman had taught her, both hands, barrel up. “I know she was your friend, but—”

  “What would have happened if I had left Jessie behind in Los Angeles? If I’d done what I was trained to do and covered my own ass for the sake of National Security.”

  “Jessie is your daughter. She’s family.”

  “Teresa was family once. Might as well have been.”

  Kate stepped out onto the porch. “So was Otto Dolan.”

  He spun on her. His whole face burned like a brand. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t begin to think of words that meant anything in that moment.

  Kate looked away. “That was over the line.”

  “Dolan was Gabriel’s brother. Not mine.”

  “I know.”

  “We might have shared this body, but we are not the same person.”

  “I know. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. But Jessie is your family now. Right now. And me, too.”

  Lockman inhaled deeply. He gave the van one more cursory scan. “All right. Let’s go. But we have to make a stop on the way.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  A mile down the road, Lockman found Teresa’s car parked right where she had said. A two-door Honda that looked like at least twenty years old. She had parked facing west, in the direction of the cabin. Lockman cut across the dirt road and parked nose-to-nose with her car.

  In the passenger seat, Kate stared out the windshield. “That’s hers?”

  “Wait here.”

  He got out and moved around the Honda and checked the doors. Both locked. With an elbow, he shattered the driver’s side window, reached in, and unlocked the door. He slipped behind the wheel and leaned over to open the glove box.

  Rifling through he found her registration. Boston address. Long drive. But safer than taking a plane and leaving a paper trail. Safer still to rent a car under an alias. Which meant she hadn’t been too worried about someone tracking her. He twisted around and checked the backseat. Nothing back there except a worn out pair of running shoes. He thumbed the button to pop the trunk.

  When he got out of the car, he noticed Kate glaring at him. Her jaw set. Her neck stiff. How could she not understand? Teresa meant something to him. If Kate expected him to abandon her after an attack like that, it was the
worst kind of double standard. It was okay for him to risk his life and the safety of hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans to save Kate and Jessie. But when another close friend is threatened, he’s supposed to revert back to his cold, professional self?

  He punched the Honda on the way to the trunk, hard enough to leave a small dent. The pain crackling through his knuckles satisfied him enough.

  Inside the trunk, Lockman found the mother lode. A large case that looked like it held a keyboard or similar musical instrument opened to reveal a small arsenal. Uzi 9mm. Desert Eagle. Pump-action shotgun. Military grade cluster grenades. And a disassembled rifle that looked as though, if put together, it could rival Rodriguez’s infamous Ms. Betty.

  The weapons screamed “Marty.” Apparently, they had a weapons hookup in common. It was as good a place to start as any.

  The rendezvous point was an abandoned boathouse on a private lake about a twenty minute walk north of the cabin. But driving there meant circling a large section of untouched woodlands and the lake itself on twisting dirt roads that didn’t allow a speed much over thirty-five. It took them almost an hour and a half before they pulled into the gravel lot beside the boathouse.

  Jessie came running out to meet them. “Jesus, I thought you guys were dead.” She plowed into Lockman after he got out of the car.

  He wrapped his arms around her, felt her trembling. “We’re all right.”

  Jessie pulled away and hugged her mother. Then she looked around them. “Where’s your friend?”

  Kate hung her head, mouth screwed tight.

  “Taken,” Lockman said.

  They checked into a motel thirty miles south. Dusk had given way to a clear night, the stars thick in the sky. Lockman stood outside the hotel, looking up at the stars, at the night, and mulling over yet another quirk about the attack at the cabin. The vamps had attacked at dusk, the sun still out, but not for much longer. Why don the protective clothing when they could have waited a few more hours and attacked, full strength and uninhibited, in the dark?

  The door to their hotel room creaked open and let out the sound of the television, a newscaster discussing troop increases in the Middle East. Then the door clicked shut, cutting off the TV noise.

  Without turning, Lockman could tell by the footfalls it was Jessie who had come out. “Hey, Jess.”

  She stood next to him and looked up. “Nice night. Mom’s pissed at you.”

  “I know.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going after Teresa.”

  “Duh. What else would she expect you to do?”

  “Stay here. With you two.” He swallowed and looked down at his daughter. She looked so frail these days. Drenched in her confusion and anger about leaving behind her boyfriend, who’d been driven insane by the specter that had possessed him. “Maybe she’s right.”

  Jessie’s brow wrinkled. “And let the vampires have your friend? Really?”

  “The two of you are what’s important.”

  “Yeah, we’re important. But the world doesn’t revolve around us. That’s the problem with Mom. That’s always been her problem. But I thought you knew better.”

  “What’s the point of all my precautions? All I’ve done to protect the two of you if I abandon you now?”

  The sound she made could only come from a teenager, a cross between a tsk and a grunt. “That’s lame. You wouldn’t be abandoning us. Mom’s just afraid you want to get in Teresa’s panties.”

  “I think there’s more to it than that.”

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. The ratchet sound of Cicadas came over from the tall grass on the other side of the road.

  “Hey, Dad…” Her voice wavered. “Can I call you that?”

  She never had before. “Yeah.”

  “You should try to help her, no matter what Mom says. If I had a choice, I’d never leave behind someone I cared about.”

  Lockman closed his eyes a moment. His throat tightened. “Jess.”

  “Forget it. I know the spiel. Magic’s evil. I can’t help Ryan. I don’t have any magical abilities, even though I blew every fuse in the cabin and killed Teresa’s cell phone.”

  “It’s not a joke.”

  “I’m not joking.”

  “Destruction is not something to be proud of.”

  “I’m not trying to destroy anything. I want to help my friend just like you want to help yours.”

  “You still don’t see.” Lockman stepped around to face Jessie. “You want me to admit you have a knack for mojo? Fine. You’re right. You’re what the Agency called a sensitive. You know who else was a sensitive? Gabriel. And look what his abilities nearly accomplished.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “It’s all the same. Your little ritual today. What did that accomplish? Destruction.”

  “But I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  He pointed a finger at her. “Right there. That’s the crux. This kind of power you can’t always control. It feeds off of strong emotions. And one of the strongest emotions is anger. You blew the lights because you were mad at me. What if, instead, you had blown the gas line?”

  The color drained from her face. She folded her arms across her chest and shivered.

  “Now you understand.”

  “It isn’t fair.”

  “The whole reason the Agency existed was to protect people from the very things you want to dabble in. It corrupts. It isn’t fair, but it’s the way it is.”

  She sighed, looked at her feet. “It doesn’t have to be like that. I know it doesn’t.”

  Lockman put an arm around her. He wouldn’t argue anymore. He’d said his piece and, for once, he thought Jessie might have finally heard him.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Well what?”

  “Are you going after Teresa?”

  He stared into the night. His stomach tumbled like a wash machine. “Yes.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “It should be near the surface of the skin. You won’t have to cut too deep.”

  Kate stared at Lockman as if he’d asked her to cut his whole leg off. She wouldn’t even look at the pocket knife he had sterilized and now held out to her.

  “I can’t do this.”

  He sat in one of the motel room’s chairs, facing Kate in another, his bare foot propped on her knee. He waved the knife at her. “Take it.”

  “No.”

  Lockman took a deep breath. “Kate, listen. I know I’m asking a lot, but this tracking device in my heel will only continue to cause us trouble until I get it out. I don’t know who has access to the device anymore. I can’t risk having it in there.”

  “Shouldn’t a doctor or something do this?”

  “I can’t walk into a hospital and say, ‘Hey, Doc, got a minute to remove a homing device from my foot.’ Wouldn’t go over well.”

  Kate rolled her eyes and in that moment looked frighteningly like her daughter. “Don’t treat me like I’m stupid.”

  “Hey, Mom.” Jessie sat on the edge of the bed, arms folded, a grim look on her face. “You know he’s going after Teresa, right?”

  “I didn’t think a decision had been made.” Kate gave Lockman a pointed look.

  He glanced at Jessie, wondering what she was playing at.

  Jessie raised her eyebrows, giving him her best “Duh” face.

  “Right.” He nodded at Kate. “I’ve made the decision.”

  “That’s it? No discussion? You make the decision and to hell with what the rest of us think?”

  “I have to do it.”

  Kate glared at Jessie. “I guess you’re taking his side.”

  “It’s what I would do if I were him.”

  Kate snatched the knife out of Lockman’s hand. “You two think you’re so clever.” She lifted his foot and spread a towel across her lap, then set his foot back down. She eyed his heel, then pointed with the knife. “Right there.”

  “Right where I marked it.” He had dr
awn a circle with a black marker around where she should cut.

  “And you don’t want, I don’t know, a rope to bite down on?”

  “Just put the alcohol on first. I’ll worry about the pain.”

  “I’m not doing this because I’m angry with you. Don’t think you can goad me that easily.”

  “Okay.”

  She cocked his foot one way, then the other, studying. “Right there?”

  “Right there.”

  “Jess, turn around.”

  “Give me a break.”

  “Turn around or you’re grounded for a week.”

  “Whatever.” Jessie turned on the TV and put her back to them.

  Kate met Lockman’s eyes. “Are you really going?”

  He couldn’t tell what kind of storm brewed in her mind. He saw anger and fear. And something more. “Yes.”

  “Then this is it. You leave, don’t bother coming back. We won’t be here.”

  “Kate—”

  Before he could finish, she jabbed the tip of the knife into his heel.

  The next morning, Lockman limped his way to the door. The wound was cleaned out with alcohol and packed with gauze. It would slow him down a bit at first, but he had operated with worse wounds, and pain-tolerance was one of many skills the Agency had taught him.

  Jessie and Kate stood close by, Kate with her arms crossed, Jessie’s eyes glassy.

  Lockman held out one of a pair of burner phones he had bought on their way to the motel. “I’ve programmed the number to mine in this phone. If you need to contact me—”

  “We won’t,” Kate said.

  “—for any reason, speed dial’s on one.”

  Kate stared at the offered phone with more contempt than she had the pocket knife. She kept her arms crossed.

  Jessie sighed and took the phone.

  “Stay in touch,” Lockman said.

  Jessie nodded. “We will.”

  Kate said nothing.

  He looked back and forth between them. There was something more to say. Had to be. But he couldn’t put the words together.

  Jessie did it for him. “Love you, Dad.”

  Despite living like a family for almost a year, not one of them had said those words until now. In fact, the last time Lockman had heard “I love you” was fifteen years ago, right after he had proposed to Kate—right before he’d been forced to leave her.