by Adrian, Lara
Savannah’s heart felt trapped in a vise, cold and constricted, as this awful glimpse played out before her. She wanted to look away. She didn’t want to see the terrible remains of the once-beautiful, innocent twin boys.
Ah, God. The horror of it choked her.
Someone had killed those precious boys, slaughtered them.
No, not someone, she realized in that next instant.
Some thing.
The cloaked figure that held the sword now was built like a man--an immense, broad-shouldered wall of a man. But from within the gloom of a heavy wool hood, glowing amber eyes burned like coals set into a monstrous, inhuman face. He wasn’t alone. Two others like him, dressed similarly in hooded, heavy cloaks, stood with him, parties to the carnage. She couldn’t make out their features for all the shadows and the flickering, low light of the flames twisting up the walls and support beams of the stable.
Not human, her mind insisted. But if not human, then what?
Savannah tried to get a better look as the image of the boys’ attackers began to waver and dissolve.
No. Look at me, damn you.
Let me see you.
But the glimpse started splintering, visual shards that broke into smaller pieces, turning this way and that. Slipping out of her grasp. Distorting what she saw.
It had to be a trick of her unsteady hold on her gift.
Because what she was seeing from this vision of the past couldn’t possibly be real.
From within the deep hood of the one now holding the sword, the pair of glowing eyes blazed bright amber. And in the instant before the image vanished completely, Savannah would have sworn on her own life that she saw the bone-white glint of razor-sharp teeth.
Fangs.
What the...?
A hand came down on her shoulder. Savannah shrieked, nearly jumping out of her skin.
“Take it easy!” Rachel laughed as Savannah swung her head around. “Don’t have a damn heart attack. It’s just me. Jeez, you look like you just saw a ghost.”
Savannah’s pulse was hammering hard, her breath all but gone. She had no voice to answer her roommate, could only stare up at her mutely. Rachel’s gaze went to the sword. “What are you doing in here by yourself? Where did that come from?”
Savannah cleared her throat, now that her heart had finally vacated the area. She pulled her hands away from the blade, hiding them so Rachel wouldn’t see how they shook. “I...I found it yesterday.”
“Is that a ruby in the handle of that thing?”
Savannah shrugged. “I think so.”
“Really? Far out!” She leaned in for a better look. “Let me see it for a second.”
Savannah almost warned her friend to be careful, that she wouldn’t want to see what Savannah had just witnessed. But that gift--a curse, today--belonged solely to her.
Savannah watched as Rachel picked up the blade and admired it. Nothing happened to the girl. She had no inkling of the horrific past secreted in the centuries-old weapon.
“Rach...do you believe in monsters?”
“What?” She burst out laughing. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Nothing.” Savannah shook her head. “Forget it. I’m just kidding.”
Rachel gripped the sword in both hands and pivoted on her heel, taking on a dramatic combat pose. Her wristful of thin metal bangle bracelets jingled together musically as she mock thrusted and parried with the blade. “You know, we shouldn’t be handling this thing without gloves on. God, it’s heavy. And old too.”
Savannah stood up. She plunged her hands into the pockets of her flared jeans. “At least two hundred years old. Late 1600s would be my guess.” More than a guess, a certainty.
“It’s beautiful. Must be worth a fortune, I’ll bet.”
Savannah shrugged. Gave a weak nod. “I suppose.”
“I don’t remember seeing this on the collection’s inventory list.” Rachel frowned. “I’m gonna go show it to Bill. I can’t believe he would’ve missed this.”
“Bill?”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Professor Keaton. But I can’t very well call him that tonight on our date, now, can I?”
Savannah knew she was gaping, but she didn’t care. Besides, it was nice having something else to think about for a moment. “You’re going out with Professor Keaton?”
“Dinner and a movie,” Rachel replied, practically singing the words. “He’s gonna take me to that scary new one that just came out. The Chainsaw Massacre.”
Savannah snorted. “Sounds romantic.”
Rachel’s answering smile was coy. “I’m sure it will be. So, don’t wait up for me at the apartment tonight. If I have anything to say about it, I’m gonna be late. If I come home at all. Now, hand me the case for this thing, will you?”
Savannah obliged, giving a slow shake of her head as Rachel donned a pair of curator’s gloves and gently placed the awful weapon back inside the slim wooden box. Tossing Savannah a sly grin, the girl turned and left.
When she had gone, Savannah exhaled a pent-up breath, realizing only then how rattled she was. She reached for her own pair of gloves and the notebook she’d filed on the shelf the day before. Her hands were still unsteady. Her heart was still beating around her breast like a caged bird.
She’d seen a lot of incredible things with her gift before, but never something like this.
Never something as brutal or horrific as the slaughter of those two children.
And never something that seemed so utterly unreal as the glimpse the sword had given her at a group of creatures that could not possibly exist. Not then, or now.
She couldn’t summon the courage to give a name to what she witnessed, but the cold, dark word was pounding through her veins with every frantic beat of her heart.
Vampires.
CHAPTER 4
For almost a hundred years, the city of Boston had played unwitting host to a cadre of Breed warriors who’d sworn to preserve the peace with humans and keep the existence of the vampire nation--its feral, Bloodlust-afflicted members in particular--a secret from mankind. The Order had begun in Europe in the mid-1300s with eight founding members, only two of which remained: Lucan, the Order’s formidable leader, and Tegan, a stone-cold fighter who played by his own rules and answered to no one.
They, along with the rest of the cadre’s current membership--Gideon, Dante, Conlan and Rio--sat gathered at a conference table in the war room of the Order’s underground headquarters late that afternoon. Gideon had just reported on his team’s raid of the Rogue lair the night before, and now Rio was relaying the results of his solo recon mission on a suspected nest located in Southie.
At the head of the long table to Gideon’s left, the Order’s black-haired Gen One leader sat in unreadable silence, his fingers steepled beneath his dark-stubbled chin as he heard the warriors’ reports.
Gideon’s hands were not so idle. Although his mind was fully present for the meeting, his fingers were busy tinkering with a new microcomputer prototype he’d just gotten a hold of a few days ago. The machine didn’t look like much, just a briefcase-sized metal box with small toggle switches and red LED lights on the front of it, but damn if it didn’t get his blood racing a bit faster through his veins. Almost as good as ashing a Rogue. Hell, it was almost as good as sex.
Not that he should remember what that was, considering how long it had been since he’d allowed himself to crave a woman. Years, at least. Decades, probably, if he really wanted to do the math. And he didn’t.
While Rio wrapped up his recon report, Gideon executed a quick binary code program, using the flip toggles to load the instructions into the processor. The machine’s capacity was limited, its functions even more so, but the technology of it all fascinated him and his mind was forever thirsty for new knowledge, no matter the subject.
“Good work, everyone,” Lucan said, as the meeting started to wrap up. He glanced at Tegan, the big, tawny-haired warrior at the opposite end of the table. “I
f Rio’s intel shakes out, we could be looking at a nest of upwards of a dozen suckheads. Gonna need all hands on deck down there tonight to clear the place out.”
Tegan stared for a moment, green eyes as hard as gemstones. “You want me to go in, take the nest out, say so. It’ll be done. But you know I work alone.”
Lucan glowered back, anger flashing amber in the cool gray of his gaze. “You clear the nest, but you do it with backup. You got a death wish, deal with it on your own time.”
For several long moments, the war room held an uneasy silence. Tegan’s mouth twisted, his lips parting to bare just the tips of his fangs. He growled low in his throat, but he didn’t escalate the power struggle any further. Good thing, because God knew if the two Gen One warriors ever went at each other in a true contest, there would be no easy victor.
Like the rest of the warriors gathered around the table, Gideon knew about the bad blood between Lucan and Tegan. It centered on a female--Tegan’s long-dead Breedmate, Sorcha, who’d been taken from him back in the Order’s early days. Tegan lost her first, tragically, to an enemy who turned her Minion and left her worse than dead. But it was by Lucan’s hand that Sorcha perished, an act of mercy for which Tegan might never forgive him.
It was a grim but potent reminder of why most of the warriors refused to take a mate. Of those currently serving the Order, only Rio and Conlan had Breedmates. Eva and Danika were strong females; they had to be. Although the Breed was close to immortal and very hard to kill, death was a risk on every mission. And worry for Breedmates being left behind to grieve was a responsibility few of the warriors wanted to accept.
Duty permitted no distractions.
It was a tenet Gideon had learned the hard way. A mistake he couldn’t take back, no matter how much he wished he could.
No matter how many Rogues he ashed, his guilt stayed with him.
On a low, muttered curse, Gideon yanked his thoughts out of the past and entered the last string of his programming code into the computer. He flipped the switch that would execute the commands, and waited.
At first nothing happened. Then...
“Bloody brilliant!” he crowed, staring in triumphant wonder as the red LED lights on the front panel of the processor illuminated in an undulating wave pattern--just as his program had instructed them to. The warriors all looked at him with varying expressions, everything from confusion to possible concern for his mental wellbeing. “Will you look at this? It’s a thing of fucking beauty.”
He spun the processor around on the table for them to see the technological miracle taking place before their eyes. When no one reacted, Gideon barked out an incredulous laugh. “Come on, it’s remarkable. It’s the bloody future.”
Dante smirked from his seat across the table. “Just what we needed, Gid. A light-up bread box.”
“This bread box is a not-yet-released tabletop computer.” He took the metal lid off so everyone could see the boards and circuitry inside. “We’re talking 8-bit processor and 256-byte memory, all in this compact design.”
From farther down the table, Rio came out of a casual sprawl in his chair and leaned forward to have a better look. There was humor in his rolling Spanish accent. “Can we play Pong on it?” He and Dante chuckled. Even Con joined in after a moment.
“One day, you’ll stand in awe of what technology will do,” Gideon told them, refusing to let them dampen his excitement. No matter how big of a geek he was being. He gestured to an adjacent closet-like room where years earlier he’d begun setting up a control center of mainframes that ran many of the compound’s security and surveillance systems, among other things. “I can envision a day when that room full of refrigerator-sized processors will be a proper tech lab, with enough computer power to keep a small city up and running.”
“Okay, cool. Whatever you say,” Dante replied. His broad mouth quirked. “But in the meantime, no Pong?”
Gideon gave him a one-fingered salute, smiling in spite of himself. “Wankers. Bunch of hopeless wankers.”
Lucan cleared his throat and brought the meeting back on track. “We need to start ramping up patrols. I’d like nothing better than to rid Boston completely of Rogues, but that still leaves other cities in need of clean-up. Sooner or later, things keep going like they are, we’re gonna need to evaluate our options.”
“What are you saying, Lucan?” Rio asked. “You talking about bringing on new members?”
He gave a vague nod. “Might not be a bad idea at some point.”
“The Order started with eight,” Tegan said. “We’ve held steady at six for a long time now.”
“Yeah,” Lucan agreed. “But things sure as hell aren’t getting any better out there. We may need more than eight of us in the long run.”
Conlan braced his elbows on the edge of the table, sent a look around to everyone seated with him. “I know of a guy who’d be a good candidate as any, I reckon. Siberian-born. He’s young, but he’s solid. Might be worth talking to him.”
Lucan grunted. “I’ll keep it in mind. Right now, priority is taking care of business at home. Six Rogues ashed last night and another nest in our crosshairs is a decent place to start.”
“Decent, yes,” Gideon interjected. “But not nearly enough for my liking.”
Rio gave a low whistle. “Only thing sharper than your mind, amigo, is your hatred for Rogues. If I ever fall, I’d not want to find myself at the end of your blade.”
Gideon didn’t acknowledge the observation with anything more than a grim look in his comrade’s direction. He couldn’t deny the depth of his need to eradicate the diseased members of their species. His enmity went back about two centuries. Back to his beginnings in London.
Dante eyed him speculatively from across the table. “Counting the suckheads you took out last night, how many kills does that make for you, Gid?”
He shrugged. “Couple hundred, give or take.”
Inwardly, Gideon did a quick tally: Two-hundred and seventy-eight since coming to Boston in 1898. Another forty-six Rogues lost their heads on the edge of his sword, including the three who slaughtered his baby brothers.
He could no longer picture the boys’ faces, or hear their laughter. But he could still taste the ash from the fire as he tried desperately to pull them out of the burning stable the night they were killed. Gideon had been hunting Rogues ever since, trying to douse his guilt. Trying to find some small degree of redemption for how he’d failed to protect them.
So far?
He wasn’t even close.
CHAPTER 5
Savannah took the T in to the university campus from her apartment in Allston, still groggy and in dire need of coffee. She’d had a restless night’s sleep, to put it mildly. Too many disturbing dreams. Too many unsettling questions swirling in her head after what she’d witnessed by touching that damned sword. She’d been more awake than not for most of the night.
It hadn’t helped that Rachel never made it home from her date with Professor Keaton. Of course, that had been her intention. Hadn’t she said as much yesterday? Nevertheless, Savannah had lain awake in her bedroom of the cramped little apartment, listening for her roommate to return. Worrying that Rachel was getting in over her head with a guy like Professor Keaton, a much older man who made no secret of his willingness to play the field. Or, in his case, a large part of the female student body.
Savannah didn’t want to see her friend get hurt. She knew firsthand what it felt like to be played by someone she trusted, and it was a lesson she hoped never to repeat. Besides, Rachel would probably only laugh off Savannah’s concern. She’d call her a mother hen--too reserved and serious for her age--things Savannah had heard before from other people throughout her life.
Truth be told, part of her was a little envious of Rachel’s free spirit. While Savannah had fretted and worried the night away, Rachel was probably having a great time with Professor Keaton. Correction: Bill, she amended with a roll of her eyes, trying not to imagine her roommate gasping out
Professor Keaton’s name in the throes of passion.
God, how she was going to get through class today without the involuntary--totally unwanted--mental picture of the pair of them naked together?
Savannah rounded the corner onto the university campus on Commonwealth Avenue, still considering the potential awkwardness of it all when the sight of police cruisers and a parked ambulance with its lights flashing in front of the Art History building stopped her short. A pair of reporters and a camera crew jumped out of a news van to push their way through a gathering crowd outside.
What on earth...?
She hurried over, a heavy dread rising in her throat. “What’s going on?” she asked a fellow student toward the rear of the onlookers.
“Someone attacked one of the Art History profs in his office late last night. Sounds like he’s in real bad shape.”
“At least he’s alive,” someone else added. “More than you can say for the student who was with him.”
Savannah’s heart sank to her stomach, as cold as a stone. “A student?” No, not Rachel. It couldn’t be. “Who is it?”
The reply came from another person nearby. “Some chick in his freshman Antiquities class. Rumor is they were engaged in a little extracurricular activity up in his office when the shit went down.”
Savannah’s feet were moving underneath her, carrying her toward the building entrance, before she even realized she was in motion. She ran inside, dodging the cops and university officials trying to keep the growing crowd outside and under control.
“Miss, no one’s allowed in the building right now,” one of the police officers called to her as she dashed for the stairwell. She ignored the command, racing as fast as she could up the three flights of steps and down the corridor toward Professor Keaton’s office.
The news crew she saw arrive a few minutes ago hovered in the hallway, cameras rolling as the police and paramedics worked just inside the open door. As she drew nearer, a stretcher was wheeled out into the corridor with a patient being administered to by one of the ambulance attendants.
