by L. D. Rose
Valerie nodded thoughtfully. Strands of her hair fluttered in the breeze, escaping from her loose ponytail. Blaze bet they were light, maybe blond or light brown.
“What do you think he wants?” she asked.
“He wants me.” Blaze dropped the butt and stepped on it before he picked it up and closed it in his gloved fist. “We have unfinished business, he and I.”
“You two have a history?”
“Oh, yeah.” He set his jaw, turning his attention on the rocking swings, ghosts of the past sitting there and watching him. “I’ve been trying to track him down for years. Always came up short . . . until you held me at gunpoint and arrested me,” he added with a slow smile, sparing her a glance. “I definitely got what I asked for, didn’t I?”
She laughed. Even if it sounded nervous and a little scared, it was real, and he liked the sound. “It’ll probably be the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.”
I highly doubt it. “I guess we’ll find out.” He stood, indicating the street. “Come on, let’s get you home. It’s near dark.”
Valerie gave him an amused look. “Blaze, I’m a cop. I live in the dark.”
“Not tonight. You’re going home and you’re going to get some rest. You’ll need it. You’re also going to call your partner and make sure he’s all right.”
She opened her mouth to protest but choked up on the latter. “Deron? Why?”
Blaze started walking, tossing the butt in the corroded metal barrel with the others. “I have a feeling Cyrus has already targeted you both. And if I know Cyrus, he doesn’t waste time, so you both need to be careful. He’s silent, stealthy, the type you’ll never see coming, and you’ll never know what hit you until it’s too late.”
Blaze could still feel the metal barbs of the Taser sinking into his right shoulder, the stun gun discharging and paralyzing him, sending his body into spasms. He remembered trying to turn around, unable to see anyone or anything, pain searing through him as he collapsed to the ground—
He shook off the vision, pushing it back into the wasteland deep in his gray matter. Not the time for a trip down memory lane. After he hit ten paces, Valerie started following him, breaking into a jog to catch up.
“But Deron doesn’t even remember you.”
“That’s okay. Just call him.”
She came up beside him, expression baffled. “What about you?”
“What about me?” They passed the alley where they’d found Homes. Though the fire had long gone out, the stench of death lingered in the air, the end of another innocent life lost.
No one else is going to die under my watch.
Valerie glanced down the alley, her throat working. “What are you going to do?”
He picked up the pace. “What I always do.”
“And what exactly is that?”
“Hunt.”
“Wait a minute,” she scoffed, “wait a goddamn minute. You want me to stay home, because why? I’m a girl and I need to be protected? I don’t think so, buddy. If you’re hunting this leech, so am I. I have plenty of experience and I know what I’m doing.”
“Ooo, feminist streak.” He chuckled, spotting her Charger. “That’s actually kind of cute.”
“Oh, fuck you—”
“Seriously, Val, Valerie, Detective, whatever. Just for tonight. Stay in, watch the tube, read a book, whatever you do in your spare time. Sleep. I have no doubt you know what you’re doing, but you don’t know what you’re up against. And trust me, you’ve never been up against anything like this before.”
He stopped at her car and pivoted. A frown pinched her face into stubborn lines, and she’d folded her arms over her chest. There were more people around now, more cars, more traffic, everyone rushing to get home before nightfall.
Blaze took a deep breath and let it out slowly, hands resting on his hips. “Please?”
She stared at him for a full five seconds before she cracked a smile. “That sounded painful.”
“Very. Promise me.”
“I don’t know you from a hole in the wall, Blaze. Why should I listen to you?”
“Because you’ve spent the entire day doing just that. Listening to me. If you didn’t want to listen, you would’ve taken off hours ago. And if you’re going to listen to one thing I’ve said all day, then listen to this. Stay home tonight. For me. It’ll make me feel better.”
Valerie rolled her eyes. “Oh Christ.”
“Promise.”
“All right, all right,” she sighed, “I promise. But just for tonight. That’s it.”
“Thank you.” He tipped his head. “Now get going before you get stuck in traffic.”
“Do you need a ride?” she asked, scanning the street for his Chevelle. “Did you drive here?”
Blaze smiled. “Naw, I’m good. Someone’s going to pick me up.”
She gave him the evil eye, as if she didn’t believe him for a second. Smart girl. “Right.”
“Hey, let me ask you a question,” he said as he began to walk backward.
Valerie disarmed the car and opened the driver’s side door. “Yeah?”
“What color are your eyes?”
She hesitated, her tough girl façade faltering for a moment. Her lips curved into a genuine smile. A gorgeous smile. “They’re green. Like an olive green.”
Olive green. “I’ll touch base in the morning.”
“How? You don’t have my—”
He waved her off and about-faced before he tripped and made a fool of himself. God knew he was prone to it.
“Don’t worry, I have everything I need.”
NINE
Cyrus dropped onto the tracks from one of the forty-four platforms in Grand Central Terminal. His boots crunched over gravel, bone, and decay, a virtual graveyard of vampire-kind. Fanged skulls smiled at him morbidly, wishing him well, as he made his way through the inky darkness.
There’s no place like home.
The terminal had ceased operations during the Insurgency, abandoned by humanity for over forty years. Underground transportation had been shut down, including all subways and trains in and out of the terminal, once the human body count soared high enough to make a change. Vampires had quickly populated these tunnels, using them as their daytime hideouts and settling into their passageways. However, the honeymoon hadn’t lasted long. The humans eventually smartened up and sent teams down to exterminate the nests.
What was once a famous landmark of the great city of New York was now destroyed, the terminal above ground detonated and leveled by the humans. They’d buried all access topside and sealed off passages below in an attempt to ensure another human life would never be lost below 42nd and Park.
Little did they know they had failed.
Cyrus bet Alek was barely aware of the rich world below midtown Manhattan, writing it off as a remote wasteland. And that was exactly the problem with Sires like Konstantinov; they were too blind with luxury and politics to see the potential of greatness in front of them. These tunnels led to nearly every part of the city, the Hudson Valley in the north, and New England in the east. True, the humans had blasted many of the railways, but it could easily be reversed.
If Cyrus controlled this territory, he would turn it into a stronghold, unearthing the tunnels and securing them with his best men. Without the terminal above them, this maze would be a perfect nesting ground.
But alas, Alek was a pompous fool, a monarch in a land meant to be ruled by a general. Soon this city would have the opportunity to redeem itself.
Once Cyrus regained his fountain of power, he would rule New York with an iron fist.
The underground air was stale and dead, much of its oxygen expended to form noxious compounds such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. Along w
ith the ammonia and methane, the tunnels had become natural gas chambers. It was yet another reason why this place had an advantage; humans couldn’t breathe here. Sure, vampires needed oxygen, but not nearly to the extent humans did. And his kind turned their blood over constantly, clearing itself of poisons and toxins, while humans could not.
After all, it was how he’d been able to subdue the hybrid, Blaze. Not only had the Knight’s trait been severed, since oxygen was essential for fire, but he’d barely retained the energy to use it.
An ideal prison for an ideal prey.
Cyrus remembered Blaze’s reaction clearly, when the hybrid’s attempts to use his beloved flame had proven futile. It had been beautiful, watching a creature so powerful lose everything he had. The entire experience was one Cyrus would never forget.
Tearing the hybrid down, turning him into the very monster he loathed, shredding his will and spirit into little bits of nothing. Never mind the memory of the Knight’s rich, dark blood, spilling hot from his vein, infusing Cyrus with strength and power beyond his imagination.
Cyrus sighed. How he missed it so.
Nothing and no one had been nearly as satisfying since. True, he had the supply vials, but cold, coagulated blood from a glass barely gratified, regardless of who it came from. He’d never imagined himself becoming obsessed with the Knight, yet here he was, infatuated with his enemy.
Enemy? No. Not an enemy. A brother. Blaze was a brother, bound by blood, brethren, and most of all, bound by fire.
Cyrus leapt up onto the ledge once he arrived at his destination. The wall before him was a slab of concrete, decorated with the faded graffiti of another life. A security panel stood at the far corner; black, ancient, and filthy. He keyed in the code he kept close to his heart and the wall exhaled, carving out an entrance as the seal disengaged.
He pulled open the hidden door and stepped into the vestibule, a tight fit in the cramped space. Concrete stairs descended into a black hole even farther beneath the earth, the bedrock cutting the temperature down by at least twenty degrees. The door shut behind him of its own accord as he moved into the abyss, entering the terminal’s infamous M42.
Cyrus walked into the expansive grotto, filled with the rotting corpses of the AC to DC converters that had supplied the traction current to the terminal. The original rotary converters were still there, lined along the back wall and watching him like the black metal eyes of a Titan. He scanned the chamber to find everything still in its place. The steel cadaver table with the drain below it, the red mechanics toolbox he’d kept all of his paraphernalia in, the massive wooden crucifix stretched across the adjacent wall.
Made of aspen, just like Christ’s.
Between the rows of converters, loops of tungsten carbide had been set into fresher concrete, while snaking chains made of the same substance spilled around them. He could still see the hybrid, shackled and cowering behind the converters like a dog, hoping his master wouldn’t see him, praying he wouldn’t be punished again. Cyrus inhaled deeply, breathing in the residue of a Knight’s blood, sweat, and tears into his lungs.
Taking in the ripe old scent of a man’s ruin.
He moved over to the cadaver table, the steel now aged and corroded, but still viable, still standing. He braced his hands on the top corners, staring into the drain at the dirty floor below. Once upon a time, the drain led into a bucket filled with the hybrid’s blood. Cyrus could still hear it—drip, drip, drip—the sound of his holy grail. He ran a finger along the drain’s edge, chipping a brick-red layer from the steel. Was it a bloodstain, still here after five years?
His lips curved. M42 had been waiting for his return.
He turned his attention to the toolbox and pulled open a drawer, empty and corroded. He’d purchase new supplies to fill its belly once again. He looked to the crucifix, hovering above, the wood rotted and discolored. He stepped toward it, placing a hand at its center, at its core. He could still feel it, the hybrid’s heart fluttering like a wounded bird as Cyrus nailed him to the cross.
He glanced at the floor to find many of the iron spikes still there, scattered about, insect-like. One of the other hybrids had managed to remove them from Blaze’s body, with no doubt incredible difficulty. Cyrus picked up one of the spikes, gripping the twelve-inch length in his hand.
What he would give to drive it through the hybrid’s flesh once more.
A point of pressure formed against the inside of his temple, signaling an incoming call. His eyes riveted on the spike, he responded, the pressure releasing into a tingling sensation across his scalp.
Yes?
We have both detectives pinpointed, my Lord. Tristan’s thoughts vibrated strongly. Do you want us to move in?
Cyrus smiled. Yes, tonight. Move quickly and bring them to me—alive—when you’re through.
And what of the girl?
Hold her until this is over. We may not need her after all.
Yes, my Lord. Where is your destination?
Bring them to the Harlem train station on 125th. I’ll find you there.
And with that, Cyrus cut the connection and the tingling faded. Lifting the spike, he buried it in the crucifix, the wood fracturing under the force of the blow, splitting above and below the iron.
“It’s time, brother,” he murmured as he stepped back, the spike protruding from the heart of the cross. “Time for you to come back home.”
Valerie couldn’t sit still for the life of her.
She hit mile number five on the treadmill in her cramped living room, still running fast and strong. She didn’t need the TV, radio, or a magazine to keep her going.
Her thoughts were enough distraction.
Blaze.
She kept picturing him, pacing in front of her. Muscled, tattooed, and smoking like a chimney. Her dad used to do the same when he was stressed out or nervous. She kept seeing the flames erupting from the dumpster, consuming Homes’s flailing vampire body. She kept thinking of the way Blaze lit cigarettes with his hands, of the scars all over his forearms, of the fact he saw in infrared.
What color are your eyes?
God, why did he ask her that? And why did it tighten her chest, why did it tug at her heartstrings?
Now she understood why he wore gloves and sunglasses, why he could walk in the sun. Now she understood so many things.
And yet, she understood nothing at all.
A hybrid. A mutant. A half-vampire.
What did it mean to be half-vampire? Did he suffer from their weaknesses? Did he benefit from their strengths?
Did he need blood?
And if he did, where did he get it from? Who did he get it from?
She had so many questions. Too many.
Was the U.S. really creating an army of mutants? Did the FBI know? The CIA? The military? The president? Because if so, they’d done a hell of a job keeping it quiet from the public. Nothing was ever kept that quiet, not when it involved politics and war. The first leak had been bad enough, never mind the fact these hybrids now roamed the nation’s cities like teams of covert mercenaries.
There was no telling how the public would react now.
But this wasn’t about politics and this wasn’t only about war. This was about survival, about living in fear, saving innocent people, salvaging what was left of humanity.
Through creatures—no, men—who were half-vampire.
Valerie would have to go back through her research and connect the dots, to put the puzzle together, to develop the picture in the empty frame of gossip and hearsay. Because the gossip and hearsay held some truth.
New York City really did have superheroes.
She scooped her cell phone from the treadmill’s cup holder and checked the time. Midnight. Deron should be off shift by now. She’d called the precinct earlier to make sur
e he was there, and he had been. The dispatcher had offered to connect, but Valerie refused. She would call him when he got home to make sure he’d made it safely.
She hated this, hated feeling helpless, forced to stay home when there was so much happening around her.
I have a feeling Cyrus has already targeted you both.
Cyrus, a vampire she hadn’t known existed until today. Cyrus, a leech who burned women’s bodies and filleted the homeless; a monster who could be after her partner, who might be out to destroy her, just like Homes.
Just like Elena.
She gritted her teeth and hit the stop button on the treadmill. Then come and get me, motherfucker.
Catching her breath, she waited until the sensation of moving forward passed before she called Deron’s cell. She leaned against the treadmill’s rail, scanning her apartment. Everything was neat—too neat—and new, like a model room in a furniture store. Deron always made fun of her, grousing that all her apartment was good for was a mailing address. It was closer to the truth than she cared to admit.
Sixth ring. Her heart pounded harder and it had nothing to do with her multi-mile trek. C’mon, Deron. Pick up.
Right before his voicemail snatched the connection, he finally answered. “Val.” He sounded surprised. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Deron.” She blew out a pent-up breath. “Hey. How are you?”
“Ah, you know, the usual. Just chugging along. How about you? How’re you holding up?”
She felt a twinge of both guilt and resentment in her chest. Resentment because he still thought she was crazy, guilt because he had no idea he’d been scrubbed by a freaking half-vampire. “I’m doing much better. I guess I really did need time off.”
