The Assassins of Light

by Britney Jackson

  “Yes,” Aaron said, as if he were offended that she even had to ask. “But apparently, someone came along after I killed him and gave him vampire blood.”

  “It would’ve had to have been immediately after we left the monastery,” Kara told Aaron. “Once the body starts decaying, vampire blood will do nothing. There’s only that brief window of time where the dead person can be turned.”

  “Someone must have been watching us,” Aaron said, nodding, “waiting.”

  “Did you ask him?” Rose asked. “Did you ask him who turned him?”

  “Of course we asked him,” Aaron muttered. “He doesn’t remember.”

  “He says he doesn’t remember,” Kara corrected. She played absently with Rose’s hair as she spoke, twirling the soft, red strands around her fingers. “I don’t believe him. He’s hiding something, and I think it has something to do with that.”

  “I watched for signs of dishonesty,” Aaron told her. “There weren’t any. His answers were consistent, and his heart-rate remained steady the entire time.”

  “That just means he’s a good liar,” Kara said dismissively. “I can keep my pulse steady when I lie. You just have to know what you’re doing. He does.”

  “He’s a monk, Kara,” Aaron said. “I doubt he’s a master of deception.”

  “He’s also an Assassin of Light,” Kara reminded him. “It’s an intricate organization that’s woven itself into the fabric of every human government in the world. Don’t underestimate them.” She waved her hand absently. “I watched him, too, and I know that he’s hiding something. I saw that…defiant gleam in his eye.”

  “Defiant gleam,” Aaron said slowly. “That’s your proof?” He sighed, “I want to believe you, but I think you’re judgement is clouded. You don’t like him.”

  “I work with assholes all the time,” Kara said. “I might scare the hell out of them sometimes, just to pass the time, but I still work with them. I’m telling you: Isaac is playing you. I know because I wrote the book on playing people.”

  “You wrote a book?” Rose asked playfully. “I’d totally read it, if you did.”

  Kara grinned at her. “Well, now, I’ll have to write one, just to see.”

  Aaron ignored their flirtatious banter. “What is your opinion, Rose?”

  Rose looked up at him, blinking in shock. “You want my opinion?”

  His dark eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t have fucking asked, if I didn’t.”

  She scowled at him. “Have you ever tried anger management classes?”

  “Just answer the question,” he snarled. “What is your opinion of Isaac?”

  “Sorry. You have to give me time to recover from the shock,” Rose said with a sassy smile, “that you want my opinion. It’s just…I seem to have this vague recollection of you saying something about…” She snapped her fingers. “Oh, I remember! You don’t make decisions of war based on the feelings of little girls.”

  Aaron raked his fingers back through his unruly, black hair and growled in frustration. “You were right. I was wrong. I get it,” he said, his words vibrating with potent rage. “If you keep rubbing it in my face, I might just rip your face off.”

  “Who even thinks of a threat like that?” Rose sassed, earning a second deadly growl from Aaron. “Like I said, you need to work on that anger problem.”

  “You’ve already given me plenty of reasons to kill you,” Aaron warned, his dark, tawny skin turning purplish-red with anger. “Don’t give me another.”

  “It’s not my fault you’re such a homicidal person,” Rose complained.

  Aaron took a step toward her—a dangerous, deadly step—his terrifying growl echoing through the room, but he stopped when Kara held up her hands.

  “In order to hurt her, you’d have to kill me, and I don’t think you want to do that,” Kara reminded him. She dropped her hands and leaned back, draping her arm across Rose’s shoulders again. “Just let her be sassy. What is it hurting?”

  “It’s hurting my desire to keep her alive,” Aaron hissed, glaring at Rose.

  “Well, I think it’s sexy,” Kara said, her lips tilting into that flirty smirk.

  Aaron rolled his eyes. “Of course you do,” he muttered under his breath.

  Rose blushed under Kara’s seductive gaze, and then, she glanced back at Aaron. She shrugged and sighed, “My opinion of Isaac is…he reminds me too much of Osiris and Theron. Because of that, I don’t think I can be objective.”

  “Intelligent answer,” Kara said, her lips curving into an impressed smile.

  Rose continued, “But he did say some odd things. I think Kara’s right.”

  Aaron considered that. “Do you have any evidence that Kara’s right?”

  “If I had evidence, don’t you think I would’ve led with that?” Rose said.

  “She has an eye-witness,” Kara offered. “I overheard what Isaac said. It was…strange, but it definitely sounded like he knew something about Rose.”

  That seemed to pique Aaron’s interest. “Like what?”

  Kara shrugged. “I don’t know. It was all too vague to understand.”

  Rose watched Aaron with narrowed eyes. “He kept saying something about the stories. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

  Aaron’s dark gaze darted toward her. “No,” he grunted. “Why would I?”

  Kara straightened. “You’re lying,” she realized. “What are you hiding?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’m not hiding anything,” he said between clenched teeth, “and I’m not lying, either. Don’t question me, Kara. You know better.”

  “And you know better than to lie to a liar,” Kara countered. “If you know something about the woman I’ve sworn to protect, I want to know what it is.”

  Aaron stared at her, frustration burning in his obsidian eyes. His pride compelled him to threaten her, to make her regret questioning him, but mentally, he’d already admitted defeat. He couldn’t intimidate Kara. He could only kill her, which was something he wasn’t willing to do yet. “It’s not important,” he grunted.

  “Your new Assassin of Light friend seems to think so,” Rose muttered.

  “Isaac Attwood isn’t my friend,” Aaron said with a sullen glare. “I’d like nothing more than to kill him, and I will…as soon as we no longer need him.”

  “I’m not convinced we need him now,” Kara muttered under her breath.

  When he noticed that Rose was still stubbornly waiting for an answer to her question, Aaron sighed, “The stories are just…stories. Legends passed from one culture to another. They mean nothing. You’re just…a peculiar coincidence.”

  Rose nodded. “It’s not the first time I’ve been called that,” she said dryly.

  Kara chuckled at her. “Legends of what, exactly?” she asked Aaron.

  “A vampire with red eyes,” Aaron answered reluctantly. He clenched his jaw, clearly frustrated that he was even repeating the ridiculous tales. “According to the legend, the red-eyed vampire would be a new breed of vampire—a darker and more powerful breed.” He studied Rose with those cold, dark eyes of his. “She’d be Destruction in the flesh, and her power would rip the universe apart.”

  Rose straightened, her heart racing with anxiety, as she recognized those words. She’d heard them somewhere before, but she couldn’t remember where.

  Kara glanced at Rose, her brows creasing with concern, as she watched Rose’s reaction. “Do you think that’s why the Assassins of Light are so interested in Rose?” she asked Aaron. “They believe that Rose is this…red-eyed vampire?”

  Aaron shrugged irritably. “I suppose she does fit the description.”

  “I don’t think so,” Kara muttered. “Rose is the opposite of Destruction.”

  Rose wished that she felt as certain of that, but as she considered Aaron’s words, certain images came flooding into her mind—the blood-soaked corpse of Theron, the burnt flesh of the vampires she’d burned to death, the corpse of her teacher, the gory
mess that was left of Osiris after she killed him…somehow…

  She couldn’t remember killing him. Why couldn’t she remember that?

  And then, she heard Alana’s soft, lilting voice in her head—delicate and seductive—repeating those terrible words that she’d said to Rose the first night they met, when she’d tried to kill Rose’s friend, Riley, and they cut Rose as deeply now as they did then: “You leave a trail of corpses behind you everywhere you go, Rose.”

  “Baby?” Kara murmured from somewhere nearby, and yet, her voice felt so far away. Kara’s warm, lean body pressed against Rose’s side as she leaned closer to Rose. She gently curled her fingers over Rose’s jaw and turned Rose’s face toward hers. “Where have you gone, ást?” she whispered. She watched, her brows furrowing, as pain filled Rose’s bright blue eyes. “Come back to me.”

  Rose blinked slowly. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking about something.”

  Kara traced the soft curve of Rose’s cheek with her thumb. Her piercing, icy blue eyes burned with sympathy, but there was something else there, too—an understanding of some kind—it made Rose feel as if Kara knew what she’d been thinking about, as if Kara recognized the scars that Alana had left in Rose’s mind.

  “It’s just a story,” Aaron said, staring at the hardwood floor beneath his tennis shoes. If Rose didn’t know better, she’d think he was trying to give her a sense of privacy by looking away, but that kind of consideration simply wasn’t Aaron’s style. “I haven’t heard it in ages. It’s odd that the Assassins of Light would even know it, much less believe it. You’re powerful, but…ripping the universe apart? What does that even mean?” He shrugged. “Every culture tries to predict the end of the world. None of them have been right yet. This won’t be, either.”

  Rose fell silent, those words blaring in her head—the end of the world.

  “So,” Aaron said abruptly, his low, accented voice interrupting the brief, unsettling silence, “Kara tells me that you’ve agreed to participate in the mission.”

  Rose nodded. “Of course,” she said. “If I can help in any way, I will.”

  “Good,” he said. He leaned back on the table, resting his weight on his hands. “I had hoped that you would be easy to persuade. Because we need you.”

  Rose frowned curiously at that. “Why, exactly? Why do you need me?”

  “The why doesn’t matter,” Aaron said sharply. “Just do as you’re asked.”

  “Oh my goodness!” Rose gasped, clasping her hand over her chest. “I’m so sorry! You’re right. I’m just a robot that follows command prompts, not a person! Oh, wait.” She tilted her head to the side and flashed a sassy smile at him.

  He just stared at her, the coffee table cracking as he gripped it too tightly.

  Rose frowned. “Umm…why are you breaking Kallias’s coffee table?”

  “Because I can’t break you,” he said. “Not until after the war, anyway.”

  “Oh,” Rose said, lifting her eyebrows at the wooden table that splintered beneath his grip. “That’s…comforting.” She turned toward Kara. “It’s just…out of everyone at the Tomb of Blood, you chose ten. They all have a purpose, right?”

  Kara nodded. “Each one of them has a different skill-set that we need.”

  “Except for Isaac and Nina,” Aaron said, “who are here because of their knowledge of the Assassins of Light. Not that they’ve been much help so far.”

  “Honestly, I’d be more concerned if Isaac was helpful,” Kara muttered. She turned back toward Rose. “But yes, to answer your question, everyone is here for a reason. Tom, for instance, excels in a different style of combat than I do.”

  “I don’t know if I’d call that combat,” Aaron muttered under his breath.

  Kara smiled. “He’s a brawler, essentially,” she provided. “He wouldn’t harm a fly on a good day, but if you ever make him angry, he’s…quite the force.”

  Rose laughed nervously, “Yeah…I know the feeling. Unfortunately.”

  Kara chuckled at that. “Then, there are also the ones you haven’t met. Like Bradley, who was once a soldier. He has a lot of skill with guns. Whereas I happen to find guns boring.” She flashed a playful smile at Rose. “Then, there’s Cassius, who was once a knight. He’s pretty good with a sword.” She leaned back, frowning thoughtfully. “Then, of course, there’s Isolde. Have you met her yet?”

  “I don’t…think so,” Rose said. “I’ve probably passed her in the hallway.”

  “She’s the only other redhead in the house,” Aaron provided.

  “Right. I should’ve realized,” Rose said. “After all, us redheads do have that inner redhead radar so we can locate each other in a house full of vampires.”

  Aaron stared blankly at her, his black eyes steely and unfeeling. “That’s the sixth time in the last hour that I’ve fantasized about killing you,” he told her.

  Rose lifted her eyebrows. “You have some serious anger issues.”

  Kara laughed at them. “Isolde was a Celt, and she’s an incredible archer.”

  Rose nodded. “And Elise? I assume she has some kind of skill-set, too?”

  “Elise is here to help with my side of things,” Kara explained.

  “Oh,” Rose said, surprised, “I didn’t realize she had any skills in stealth.”

  “She doesn’t,” Kara chuckled, “but she is good at trickery.” She smiled. “You may not know this, but when Elise was human, she was a marvelous actress.”

  Rose turned toward Kara, a surprised smile pulling at her lips. “Really?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Kara said lowly. “You should see her do Shakespeare.” She tilted her face closer to Rose’s ear and whispered, “It’s better if she’s naked.”

  Rose frowned. “Why would anyone perform Shakespeare naked?”

  “Because it’s sexy,” Kara laughed, winking slyly at her, “obviously.”

  Rose blinked. “That is definitely not how I usually watch Shakespeare.”

  “In all seriousness, though,” Kara laughed, “there are a lot of times when I need someone to play a certain role convincingly. Elise can help me with that.”

  Rose nodded. “Then, that leaves me. Why would you need me?”

  “Plenty of reasons,” Kara said dismissively. “You’re brilliant, for one.”

  Rose raised an eyebrow. “But that’s not why you need me. Is it?”

  Kara sighed and waved her hand at Aaron. “He wanted you involved.”

  Rose nodded. She’d assumed as much. She looked up at him. “Why?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Aaron said unapologetically. “You’re powerful.”

  Rose lifted her eyebrows. “You need telekinesis for this mission? What? Do you need someone to turn on the lightswitch for you? Or knock over a lamp?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You can do more than that,” he said with a cruel smile. “I know exactly what you’re capable of.” He stepped away from the coffee table, moving closer to her. “I kept an eye on Kallias, you know. I had to. He’s a telepath. He’s one of the few threats to my power that still exists. That’s how I found out about you. Imagine my shock when I realize that Theron—the fucking idiot, Theron—stumbled upon a human with telekinetic abilities. He didn’t even know what he’d found. But I thought, ‘She’s just a human. What harm could she do?’”

  The memories came, unbidden, to her mind, and her pulse skyrocketed.

  “I told no one, of course,” Aaron muttered, looking away. “I didn’t even tell Kara. I couldn’t let anyone know that someone like you existed, after all. Not when you could be a threat to my power. But at the same time, a human isn’t worth my time to kill. It made more sense to let Theron do all the work for me.”

  Rose stared at the hardwood floor, pain flashing in her bright blue eyes.

  “Do you know what Theron did to her?” Kara asked, her voice low.

  Aaron looked at Kara and shrugged. “I know what he did to Kallias and the hundreds of other people he killed. I assu
me he did the same to her,” he said unsympathetically. “His recreational activities weren’t really any of my business.”

  Rose felt Kara stiffen beside her, every muscle in her body suddenly tight with anger, but Rose reached out and placed her hand on Kara’s leg, hoping to soothe that anger before Kara did something dangerous. Kara glanced down at her hand in surprise, and then, her piercing, blue gaze shifted up to meet Rose’s.

  Aaron watched them curiously. “He was going to kill her for his own reasons. No one would ever find out what she could do. Why would I stop him?”

  “No reason,” Rose said, looking at him, “except…you know…decency, morality, or empathy. But don’t worry. No one expects any of that from you.”

  He shrugged. “I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but no one gets to where I am by caring,” he sneered. He looked away. “I never thought you had a chance, honestly. A human against vampires?” He laughed bitterly. “So, imagine my surprise—again—when I realize that you killed fifty vampires with your mind.”

  Rose tried to force her hands to stop shaking. “I had to save my friends.”

  “You killed them. All at once,” Aaron said. “Like some kind of bomb.”

  “I burned them alive,” Rose said under her breath, her bright blue eyes burning with pain and sadness. “I think a bomb would’ve been more humane.”

  Kara stared at her, her brows creasing with sympathy, as she felt her pain.

  “More humane, perhaps,” Aaron said with a smile. “But less selective.”

  Rose looked up, her eyes narrowing at that impressed smile that curled at his lips. Out of all the things he could’ve been impressed with, it was this? “I don’t know how I did what I did that night,” she growled, leaning forward. “I don’t even know how I kept myself alive long enough to do it. I remember being somewhere cold and dark and wondering if I’d died already. I don’t know if I was unconscious or in a coma, but I know I was dying. I know I was ready to let go.”

  Rose looked down. “But I realized my friends were in danger, and I knew I had to save them. I knew I had to use my last breath to save them. So, I forced my heart to keep beating. I forced my lungs to inflate and deflate. I forced my eyes to open and my body to move. And I stretched that last breath as long as I possibly could…until I knew, without a doubt, that the people I loved were safe. I didn’t have time to feel guilty. I didn’t have time for mercy. I didn’t have time to ask myself what kind of monster I had become. I had one breath, and I used it to save them. And if I could go back, I’d do it all over again. Because I love them. But understand this,” she growled, her gaze—now a dark, glowing red—shifting toward him, “that does not mean I am proud of the monster I became.”