“I need my shields. There is no room for discussion. If you’re ready let’s get to it.”
With a solemn nod he tapped a panel on the far wall with his tail. The wall opened to a small room dominated by what looked like a futuristic dentist’s chair.
“Julie, strap her in.”
Darcy stepped in front of me. “You sure?”
I looked her straight in the eyes. “I could’ve saved you and Cassie easily if I only had my shields. Not to mention finally killing Jacob. This isn’t just for me. The team needs the power of my shields too.”
Darcy gave a nod and stepped to the side. Julie strapped me to the chair and placed a crown of wires and electrodes on my head. The last thing she did was place a remote in my hand.
“Push that button when you’re ready to beg–”
I jabbed my finger down on the button before I could chicken out. The pain was instant, blocking out all other senses. Before when Doc stole my powers it felt like searing hot needles were sucking out parts of my brain. This was exactly the opposite.
Freezing cold needles twisted and turned their way through my brain matter to my cerebral cortex. Dozens of them suddenly pumping the cold directly into my brain. Then it abruptly stopped and the world returned to normal.
“What happened?” I asked through a hoarse throat.
“It’s over Young One. You have been screaming for the past twelve minutes straight. How do you feel?” Arkon looked over my vitals on his screen.
“Fine. It wasn’t anything near as bad as other pains lately. I thought the brain didn’t feel pain, so why did I feel this?” I asked pointing to the machine as I stumbled back to Darcy and the couches.
“The pain is a manifestation created by your mind in an attempt to rationalize what’s happening to you.”
“So that’s it?”
“Yes.”
“How long ‘till we know if it worked?”
“You will undoubtedly be the first to know,” he answered in a weary tone.
Chapter 20
The Dark Towers was surprisingly active for three in the morning. Even the sidewalk outside was crowded with people rushing to and fro. I kicked the slush off my boots and strolled up to the reception counter. Manning the counter was a girl that didn’t look old enough to even be in high school yet. She reacted to our presence approaching the counter without even looking up to see who we were.
“Good morning! Welcome to the Da– Oh!” The girl froze when she finally looked up and realized who I was. Here cheerful smile melted into a sneer. “He’s waiting for you,” she hissed at me through her vampire fangs with a jerk of her thumb towards the elevator.
So much for us becoming life-long friends.
With a smile on my face I turned and headed away from the desk. Three steps later I heard the girl back at the counter.
“Bitch!”
I decided not to make a scene, so I simply walked away without a word. Building security opened the side gate for us, so we didn’t set off the metal detectors by walking through them. The guards had a hard time keeping straight faces as they kept snickering at us.
Darcy rubbed the back of her neck while we waited for the elevator.
“Is it just me, or does it seem we’re missing the joke?” she asked with a groan.
“It does appear that everyone is having a good laugh at our expense. I’m just not sure why. Maybe I shouldn’t of sent Julie to look over Cassie.”
Inside the elevator I dug into my belt pack for a little of everything. My feel better cocktail; ration cube, hydro, painkillers, and sleepstim. Within seconds I instantly felt better and was fully awake.
Darcy groaned again while rubbing the back of her neck again.
“Bastard really fucked me up.”
“Did you feed back at the archives?” I asked while I rolled up my sleeve.
“Nah, never thought about it reall– what are you doing?” she asked when I placed my naked wrist in front of her mouth.
“I’ve just got a bad feeling that something is wrong. I don’t want to walk into anything unprepared and injured. You will heal when you drink. I need you in top form in case all hell breaks loose.”
“I was thinking the same thing. I just didn’t want to ask. I know you don’t like giving blood like this.”
I pushed my wrist closer. She blushed for a second before reaching up and taking my arm. After licking her lips her mouth opened. The vampire fangs had already slid into place. She placed those fangs gently on my wrist, then stopped and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. As soon as I gave her a nod as an okay she bit down. The fangs slid into my skin and through the vein easier than any needle ever could.
Pleasure washed over me in waves with each suck of my blood. The more she drank, the more pleasure I felt. It was quickly building in my system. I was only seconds away from orgasm. Then with a final cleaning lick, she stopped.
Her eyes had bled through when she looked up at me licking the blood from her fangs. “If I continue you will not be able to function for up to an hour. I tried to make the feeding as pleasant as possible for you. It is best to wait for more.”
“Tease,” I mocked her while I covered my wrist again and fought not to shove my hands down my pants and finish myself off.
* * *
The elevator doors opened to the empty top floor. Only this time it wasn’t empty. Dozens of desks filled the immense room. Each desk was being used by at least one person. On top of that was the handful of armed guards floating around the room from desk to desk. It was a cross between an office and a tactical command room straight out of a Nazi war movie. I had a feeling it was something Yuric would never have allowed.
No one stopped us, or even regarded our presence as we crossed the room. I was unnerved when the private elevator door opened for us when we were still a few feet away. It was empty.
Why do I feel like we’re walking into a really bad trap?
The small elevator opened into a surprisingly empty reception room. We stood there a second before the doors to the penthouse office opened by themselves with a menacing groan.
“Where’s Lurch?” I joked under my breath.
Darcy heard me and barely kept her laugh down to a snicker as we entered the office.
The entire office was dominated by one thing . . . him.
He was larger than Marsala. A vampire that was at least fourteen feet tall and all muscle. He could stand flatfooted on the floor and change the light bulbs on the ceiling that was a full twenty feet from the floor. His grin widened to menacing proportions.
“At last, Darcy Griffith and Kieran Grey. Oh how I’ve waited for this moment.” His lips parted to show his fangs as his eyes were all for Darcy.
“We were hoping to talk to Master Yuric.”
He crossed the immense office in only two strides.
“Then you will be disappointed Kieran Grey. I’ve made sure that Yuric would not be bothering us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tell me Miss Grey, how much do you know about your companion?”
I glanced at Darcy. She was pale, and looked like she was going into shock.
“Darcy? Darcy!?”
“Do you remember now young one?” the massive vampire asked her when he reached out a hand and ran a single massive finger along the line of her jaw.
“Yes Master. I remember everything Master Kraddick,” she replied in a breathy voice that sounded like she was totally infatuated with the giant, or else drugged.
“Tell her.”
Darcy turned to me. Her eyes suddenly looked like no one was home. She looked around without really focusing on anything at all.
“Master Kraddick is my death father. He was the one that turned me.”
My jaw hit the floor.
And my life now gets that much weirder. Gee thanks.
“You can’t be serious. I thought you were attacked by a group of rogue vampires that killed your family.”
“No. Mast
er Kraddick blessed me with his kiss and rid me of my mortality. Then it was pure pleasure to slaughter my family. My Father, my Brother, my M-mother.”
A single tear slid down her cheek when she spoke of her mother. It almost seemed like a sign of regret. I was sure that she was reliving the moment behind those glossed over eyes.
“That’s enough! No more mind games! Let her go!” I screamed at the monolithic vampire.
“No,” he stated without emotion. “She is mine. I made her, and I will do as I please with her. You mean nothing to me. You are free to go.”
“Not without Darcy.”
He chuckled and dropped down on all fours, bringing his face down to my eye level.
“She was so easy to turn. The instant she woke up she went running home to tear her family to shreds. If Marsala hadn’t interfered she would have been totally mine. But he stole her from me. I turned her! She is mine by right!” he growled in my face.
I stood my ground. Against my better judgment and ignoring my growing fear I stayed where I stood. Kraddick stood up again and folded his arms.
“Child! Kill Kieran Grey.”
I jerked my head around to look at Darcy. Her eyes bled back through. She threw out her hands and curved her fingers in like they were claws. Then she hissed at me through her fangs.
Oh shit!!!
* * *
Darcy dove for me. I tripped over my own feet and ended up on my butt with my bodyguard suddenly on top of me. She slashed with her nails, shredding my armored spider-silk turtleneck like tissue paper. The attacks continued one after the other. I threw up my arms only to have them sliced by her razor sharp manicure. Even the synthetic arm was getting cut up some.
“Ugh! Darcy! Wait! I’m your friend! Ow!”
She attacked me like she was possessed. Her nails tore my sweater and bra to nothing, and then the makeshift claws found flesh.
I screamed when she dug four deep gashes across my chest. The next swipe opened the skin across my stomach. In seconds I was bleeding from dozens of cuts.
I fought with her, trying to catch her wrists with my hands. When she tried to clamp her fangs around my throat I had no choice. I slammed the heel of my synthetic arm into her temple. The blow only stunned her for a second. Before she attacked again I grabbed her by the throat. Keeping her at arm’s length kept me from being torn up as bad, but she was still trying to kill me.
Fear caused the adrenaline to flow. The adrenaline cleared my mind and let the anger take over. A glance showed me that Kraddick was enjoying the show. He’d propped himself against the wall, laughing all the way.
Darcy and I were finally becoming friends! I was just starting to really trust her. That fucking bastard! He turned her into a damn wild animal.
Anger was my friend. It let me open the door to rage. And my rage led to bloodlust. Kraddick stopped laughing and stared into my eyes with interest. That was when the world around me lit with a violet glow.
* * *
Darcy’s hand slammed into my shields hard enough to shatter her nails in a bloody explosion.
Project Adam worked?!?! I’ve got my shields back!
It only took a thought to shove my shields into Darcy’s chest, launching her across the room. But as soon as she landed, she was on her feet and after me again. With my shields back she couldn’t touch me as she tried again and again to slash me open.
I used my shields to strengthen both of my arms enough to hold her back, once I caught her wrists. She growled and hissed at me each time she snapped her jaws at my throat.
Even though she was trying to kill me, I couldn’t bring myself to hurt her. I looked into her eyes, searching for any sign of humanity left to reason with. Her eyes were all vampire, drunk with power, and filled with bloodrage.
Yet she was crying.
Tears poured down her cheeks in a steady stream.
Is she fighting against him?
I pinned her to the wall and glanced over my shoulder. Kraddick wasn’t laughing anymore, but he was staring at us without blinking. That gave me an idea. I reached out with my returned shields. Yuric’s desk was as big as a conference table and made out of an obsidian-looking stone.
The desk was heavy enough for me to wonder how in the hell it didn’t just fall through the floor on its own. It was a strain for me to fight Darcy and lift the rock desk with the power of my shields. As soon as I had it lifted off the floor I flung it towards Kraddick.
He never saw it coming. The desk shattered to dust when it impacted with the giant vampire. Kraddick wavered for a second after the collision. A second that changed everything in the room.
Darcy stopped fighting me as soon as Kraddick wasn’t staring at us anymore. I looked into her eyes again, and this time I could see part of the girl who had saved me was behind those bloody orbs.
“I-I-I’m so sorry,” she whispered through the tears.
I smoothed her bangs out of her face then kissed her cheek.
“We’ll get through this together. You with me?”
She gave me a nod then turned to glare murderously at Kraddick. He’d gained his footing and was looking pissed. I half expected him to start some elaborate speech about how he was going to kill us both like the bad guys usually did. Instead he bellowed out a battle cry in some language I didn’t recognize. With one step, he crossed the room to us.
His arm was the size of a tree, and it slammed into my shields like a wrecking ball. I went flying out of the office to crash against the elevator doors in the reception room. Darcy was instantly screaming a bloody rage in the other room. Then Kraddick let out a pain filled howl.
I forced myself to my feet and caught my reflection in the polished metal of the doors. My synthetic left eye was the same as ever, but my natural right eye had bled through with a violet glow.
I’m back in the game! Look out you vampiric fuck!
With a new determination I turned and flew back into the office.
Kraddick howled again as he tried to reach behind him. Darcy was clamped onto his back with her fangs buried deep into his neck. She held on as he tried to yank her off. Finally he closed his massive fist around her head. He jerked her off his back, tearing out chunks of his own flesh in the process, and flung her into the giant TV on the far side of the room. It exploded in a shower of sparks and glass.
I started to rush him. A second later Darcy was back up and closing in on the other side. I focused all the power of my shields into my synthetic arm. When we reached him, Darcy went low and tackled his leg. I launched myself up and landed a punch on the side of his jaw. The combined power of my arm and my shields hit him hard enough that I heard the cracking when I broke his jaw.
Between us both, Kraddick crashed to the floor. I rolled free. But Darcy ended up trapped under his leg.
The world went slow as I watched Kraddick break out that evil sneer that told me he was up to no good.
He was on his stomach when he lifted his leg up off of Darcy. Just as she started to move, the muscles in his leg switched direction. His oversized boot came down catching her in the stomach.
Then it got worse.
Darcy had been in the middle of the two-way mirror built into the floor. The mirror couldn’t handle the stress of the kick.
It shattered.
Mirror shards rained down on the workers below as Darcy fell the two stories to the nearest desk. Blood erupted from her chest and throat as the tissues ruptured under the strain of the impact. Kraddick stared down at her and started a deep roaring laughter.
That was the last straw.
My shields poured from the rest of my body to my hand. Then they manifested themselves. A glowing violet orb grew around my right fist. It was nothing like my shields had ever done before. For the first time my shields were visible in the form of that ball.
I drew back my fist and bolted towards the monster. Once I closed the distance, I hit him.
The ball around my fist exploded.
A wall of violet fire w
ashed itself over everything in less than a microsecond.
Kraddick was instantly vaporized by the explosion along with half of the penthouse office.
That far above the city the wind blew steady. It only took moments for the smoke to clear. The bomb I’d made with my shields had destroyed a majority of the top of the building. I stood there and looked up at the clouds that were threatening to bring another storm.
My senses came back to me and I jumped down to the floor below using my shields to cushion my fall. The makeshift office was covered in glass and blood. Shards of the broken mirror had sliced and severed a number of the workers. I ignored them all and went to Darcy’s lifeless side.
I smoothed her hair out of her face as I tried to feel some emotion again. I was still stuck in bloodrage mode. I knew I should feel something else, but I couldn’t.
My explosion had destroyed the elevators, so the medics burst through the blasted open stairwells lugging their equipment behind them. One of them rushed over to us and took vital signs.
Darcy was flatline.
Gone.
Chapter 21
The medic tried to turn his attention to me, but stopped when I held up my arm and called forth the knuckle blades. His eyes grew wide as the color left his cheeks when the sword extended out of my hand. He backed away and left to treat someone else.
I stood over Darcy for an hour while the medics tended to the other wounded. Everyone stopped to gawk when they went past. I was too tired to yell at them.
Darcy’s chest had ruptured when she hit the desk. Ribs stuck out through the bloody tissues at odd angles. But the more I looked at it, the more normal it appeared.
Minutes passed by slowly as I stared at her wounds. Ever so slowly the tissues mended themselves. The bones slid back into place. Then after the last mark on her skin faded, she took a breath.
No coughing, no gasping for air, just simple normal breathing.
Almost two hours after she died, Darcy opened her eyes again.
Immortal Death (Kieran Grey Psionic Hunter Book 3) Page 20
