Holiday with a Vampire 4: Halfway to DawnThe GiftBright Star (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Susan Krinard

  Kane could smell the bay before they reached one of the sloughs that wound a tortured path through the marshes, heading toward open water. The birds that lived in the marsh—heron and killdeer, rail and duck—huddled with heads tucked under wings or among the brown reeds, waiting for the coming of dawn. Somehow Kane and Alfie found the will to move faster, their boots breaking a thin crust of ice with every step.

  “Only a li’l over an ’our left, I reckon,” Alfie remarked. “Better find a place ta ’ole up before sunrise.”

  He was right. Some of the legends about vampires were no more than myth, but this one was all too true. The first rays of the sun to strike an Opir would cause third-degree burns. Even with the protection of heavy clothing, a few minutes of exposure could do more damage than standing in the middle of a raging fire, and another few would cause injuries beyond any vampire’s ability to heal.

  Kane surveyed the area. There was a house tucked in a small valley among the brown, oak-studded hills to the west, on the other side of an abandoned highway. He had wanted to avoid the crumbling paved roads, though he and Alfie were nearly as exposed crossing the wetlands. It was instinct more than sense, but he had spent too long letting instinct guide him to abandon it now.

  “There,” he said, gesturing toward the house.

  “It’ll do as good as any,” Alfie said, and they set off again. Soon they were on the road, the hills looming ahead of them. They were halfway across when Kane heard the sounds of struggle, coming from the south and around a bend in the highway.

  Without thinking, he dropped flat onto his belly. Alfie fell beside him.

  “Rogues?” the Englishman whispered.

  “And humans,” Kane said, as the scent came to him on the stiff, chilly wind.

  Alfie sniffed loudly. “If there was any Opiri scouts out ’ere, we’d know it. But ’umans, this far from the Enclave?”

  “The only humans who would be this far into No Man’s Land would be Special Forces or Enclave scouts,” Kane said. “I count at least a dozen humans and almost as many rogues.”

  “Bloody ’ell,” Alfie swore. He eyed Kane warily. “If them ’umans is so stupid, we don’t need ta get involved.”

  Alfie was right. And yet...

  “Yer goin’ anyway,” Alfie said with cheerful resignation. “Ya can’t resist a chance ta take down a few o’ them filthy blighters.” He shifted the rifle over his shoulder. “Come ta that, neither can I.”

  Kane almost smiled. As usual, he and Alfie were in perfect accord. “We’ll have to go up the hill and around, come down on them from above,” he said. “We may not make it before daylight, but the rogues will have to get under cover soon. Maybe we can take them out when they’re least expecting it. And if there are any humans left alive...”

  He didn’t have to finish. Enclave Special Forces might be tough and well trained, but generally even the best of them was no match for a rogue head-to-head.

  Rising to a crouch, Kane ran across the highway to the overgrown verge that stretched to the foot of the hills. Dry ground crunched beneath his sodden boots. Immediately he started up the nearest hill, passing to the left of the farmhouse they’d chosen to wait out the day.

  The humans didn’t have much time left.

  * * *

  The attack had come without warning, an hour before dawn. One of the forward scouts was dead before Fiona had her M28 in her hands.

  They all knew about the rogues, of course. The sixth year of the war had seen their numbers double. No amount of discipline or punishment could hold Freeblood troops together for so long without heavy losses—not only of lives but of loyalty.

  This band was on the edge of starvation. Fiona could see it in their wild eyes and gaunt faces as she, Joel Goodman, Johnson and Li Chen took up their places around Ambassador—and Senator—Sandoval and prepared to defend him and his aide. The others, outfitted with infrared visors, met the rogues with bullets aimed for the hearts and heads of their enemies, the only parts of a bloodsucker’s body vulnerable to fatal damage.

  The battle was vicious. Some of the rogues were also armed, but they had a clear disadvantage: the sun was rising, and they were too weak from hunger to get off many effective shots. But in hand-to-hand combat, they were stronger than the strongest human, and they were fast. They might prefer to take a few prisoners and keep them alive to supply enough nourishment for several days, but they could also drink the blood of the dying and sate their hunger, no matter how briefly.

  When Yugov and Tagstrom fell, Fiona knew she would have to bring out the big guns.

  “Johnson,” she said.

  The tall black man stepped forward. “Captain?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Johnson swung the VS120 into his hands and advanced into the fight. It didn’t take long for the new weapon to decimate the rogues, and soon half a dozen bloodsucker bodies, certifiably and permanently expired, were lying among the dead and wounded human soldiers. The remaining five rogues fled, leaving their fallen comrades without looking back.

  Fiona signaled Johnson to put the weapon away and ran to assess the damage. Yugov and Tagstrom were dead. Of the others, Patterson had been bitten, but not fatally. She wasn’t at any risk of conversion; vampires had to want to do it, and the rogues certainly hadn’t been interested in adding to their number.

  Nakamura was struggling to his feet with a bloodied arm, and Cole was limping. D’Agostino and Lefevre had minor injuries, nothing the medic couldn’t take care of fairly quickly. Bakhtiar was already kneeling beside Lefevre, binding her shoulder. Li Chen looked over the rogues’ bodies one more time, while Goodman and Johnson laid out Yugov and Tagstrom.

  “No time to bury them,” Goodman said, joining Fiona.

  Leaving the fallen was a necessity, but she hated it. Almost as much as she hated the bloodsuckers.

  She stared in the direction the surviving rogues had fled. “Joel, keep the team moving as fast as you can.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To scout out the rogue survivors, make sure they’ve gone to ground and can’t give us any more trouble.”

  “You should stay with the ambassador. I’ll—”

  “That’s an order, Goodman. You know the bloodsuckers will be more worried about finding shelter than ambushing me.”

  Joel stiffened, his face going blank. “Yes, ma’am.”

  He remained behind while she started after the rogues. The bloodsuckers had been clumsy enough to leave clear tracks and a trail of blood heading up into the hills. The tracks split after a quarter mile, two in one group and three in the other.

  Wary of a trap, she followed the larger group uphill. The cover here was scant, and if she was lucky she could catch them before they found a place to hide.

  She realized she’d made a terrible mistake when one of the rogues stepped in front of her, so silent that she’d never even heard him coming. The other two, one badly wounded in the shoulder, came at her from behind, knocking her down and wrenching the M28 from her hands. Before she could reach for her sidearm, they had taken that, as well.

  The two uninjured Freebloods yanked her to her feet and dragged her into a thicket of tangled brush near the base of a hill. It gave barely enough shade to keep the sun out; they would have to huddle together very closely to fit inside it.

  After binding Fiona tightly, the rogues left her lying in the dirt while they crawled under the thicket. She closed her eyes and prayed her team would do their duty and go on without her. It would be hard for them, especially Joel—who had once been her close friend and partner—but he and Chen would have no choice but to consider her lost and get Sandoval to Sacramento.

  Somehow she made it through the day. The rogues had torn off her heavy jacket, removed her helmet, discarded her boots and left her with only her winter fatigues to stave off the cold. Falling snow melted on her face and hair, but the moisture didn’t reach her lips. By sunset her mouth was as dry as the Mojave Desert.

  When
the sun went down behind the hills, the rogues began to move. They crawled out of the thicket and untied her hands. Then they forced her to walk to a young live oak farther up the hill.

  Fiona knew what was coming when they tied her to the tree. They planned to drain her dry, but the look in their eyes told her they wouldn’t make it quick.

  One of them—the leader, she guessed—grabbed her chin. “Where are your companions now?” he asked, baring his teeth. “Run off to leave you here to die? I heard humans never abandoned their own dead.”

  Fiona realized that they didn’t know about the meeting in Sacramento. Why should they? They’d willingly cut themselves off from their own kind.

  “I told them to go,” she said, jerking her chin out of the creature’s hand.

  “You’re their captain?” the injured one asked. His ragged, bloodstained shirt had fallen away from his shoulder, revealing that his wound was already partially healed. “You led them right to us.”

  “What are you doing this far east?” the third bloodsucker asked. He glanced at the others. “Maybe she’d be worth more to us alive, Kallias. If we take her back to Command HQ...”

  “Fool,” Kallias spat. “We deserted. Do you think they’d welcome us with open arms?”

  Fiona laughed. The injured one grabbed her by the throat with his good hand and squeezed.

  “You want her dead, Ianos?” Kallias snapped. “We can get enough out of her to last two days, maybe three if we’re careful.”

  Ianos let go of Fiona’s throat. “Who goes first?” he asked.

  “You want to challenge me, Ianos?” Kallias asked.

  Ianos and the third rogue looked at each other and slowly backed away. Maybe they weren’t up for confronting Kallias now, Fiona thought, but the problem with rogues, as with their superiors, was that they achieved leadership through challenge. That was a weapon she could use.

  “That’s right, Ianos,” she said. “Better back off. Don’t forget who’s boss, even if he seriously misjudged who he was up against and got six of you killed.”

  Kallias raised his hand to strike her but thought better of it. She guessed that he probably didn’t want the others to know how much she’d gotten to him.

  “How many of yours did you lose?” he taunted. “You’re going to wish you were one of them by this night’s end.”

  She ignored his threat and looked at the third vampire. His face wasn’t as hard as those of the other two, and he appeared much younger, hardly more than a boy. He seemed almost reluctant to kill her—or, more accurately, torture her. It might be only wishful thinking, but she decided to take a chance.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  The bloodsucker gaped at her, the thin lines of his face drawn in confusion. “Natham,” he said.

  “Silence,” Kallias snapped, but Natham continued to stare at Fiona.

  “Mine is Fiona,” she said. “How long have you been an Opir, Natham?”

  “Shut up,” Kallias said, raising his hand again.

  Natham ignored him. “One hundred twenty-six years,” he whispered.

  “Do you know what night this is?” she asked.

  His expression relaxed. “Three nights before Christmas Eve,” he said.

  “Do you remember what it was like back then?” she asked. “Just before the turn of the Nineteenth Century, when people still rode in carriages and greeted each other in the streets?”

  Tears glittered in Natham’s eyes, giving the lie to the myth that vampires felt no emotion. “I remember,” he said. “I remember our tree with all the candles on it, and the presents, and—” He broke off, and his mouth thinned. “The Bloodmaster changed all that. I never wanted this war. I wasn’t one of the Awakened. Why should I fight for them?”

  Kallias backhanded him, and he staggered. Ianos helped him up. “Idiot,” he said.

  Natham straightened, rubbing his face. “You do what you want to,” he said. “I’ll have no part in it.”

  “Then you’ll die,” Ianos said.

  With a last look at Fiona, Natham walked away, his steps uneven. She knew she’d used up her only chance. Once, Natham had probably been a good man, but conversion changed everything. It turned even good men into monsters. And bad men into something unspeakable.

  “I admire your courage, human,” Kallias said. “But your tricks won’t work on me.”

  She gazed into the darkness, humming her favorite holiday song under her breath as she remembered her own childhood, the warmth, the joy.

  Kallias laughed and lowered his mouth to her throat.

  Chapter 2

  They’d come too late.

  Kane crouched over one of the human bodies. She’d died fast, and so had her male companion—victims of the fight he and Alfie hadn’t been able to reach before the sun had forced them to take shelter.

  But the humans were not the only casualties. Six rogue Freebloods lay scattered on the ground, five of them nearly torn apart by projectiles Kane didn’t recognize.

  “Good work,” Alfie remarked with admiration.

  Crouching to read the pattern of boot prints impressed in the muddy ground, Kane nodded. “At least ten humans left here,” he said. “Maybe more.” He followed several sets of tracks leading in the direction of the highway. “Headed toward the road,” he said.

  Alfie shook his head. “They won’t be foolish enough ta travel on the ’ighway. They’ll move along the foot o’ the ’ills.”

  “They must have urgent business to have left their dead behind,” Kane said. He rose and walked in the opposite direction. “Here,” he said. “Six others went this way.” He crouched again, sifting a pinch of soil between his fingers. “One human, female. Five Opiri.”

  “Rogues,” Alfie said. “Poor lass.”

  “We’re going after her.”

  “’Course we is, mate.”

  Kane didn’t need to remind Alfie of the risks they faced or the danger they might present to the very human they wanted to save. Even if they took care of the rogues, they would still be confronted with their own starvation...and an easy source of blood right in front of them.

  The difference was that the rogues would make the female suffer a very long time.

  Signaling to Alfie, Kane took the lead as they began following the tracks. They quickly found the place where the rogues had split up and the woman had followed the larger group.

  It didn’t take long to hunt down the three rogues. They hadn’t taken many pains to hide themselves. One of them was laughing, drunk on fresh blood, and the other was drinking from the woman, noisy as a pig at a trough.

  “Only two,” Alfie whispered, joining Kane behind a low wall of evergreen shrubs. “Even odds.”

  Alfie was being optimistic, as he usually was. Freebloods in general were stronger than vassals, just as Bloodlords were more powerful than Freebloods and Bloodmasters superior to Bloodlords in almost every way. It was a hierarchy an Opir ignored at his own peril.

  That didn’t mean he and Alfie wouldn’t do their damnedest.

  The rogue finished his meal and drew back from the woman. Her red hair fell in wavy strands over her forehead and down to her shoulders, and her face was pale as new-fallen snow. Under other circumstances, Kane would have called her beautiful.

  But beauty was the last thing on his mind. Very quietly he lifted his gun. Alfie did the same, flashing Kane a wicked grin. The drunken Freeblood looked up, scanning the shrubbery. His nostrils flared. The woman raised her head, her eyes glazed with pain and exhaustion.

  “Ready?” Kane asked.

  As one they plunged from behind the shrubs, firing as they attacked. The rogue who had just finished his meal spun around and dodged the bullets as if Kane and Alfie were moving in slow motion. He charged Kane, who braced himself for the impact.

  Immediately the Freeblood went for his throat. Kane fended off the rogue with all his strength, grabbed the Opir’s shoulder and spun around, flinging the rogue away.

  By then A
lfie was near the human, and the drunken Freeblood was staggering toward him. As big as he was, Alfie was surprisingly agile. He jumped out of the way and took careful aim. The rogue moved to stand directly in front of the woman.

  “Shoot me and you kill her,” he snarled.

  The Opir Kane had temporarily incapacitated attacked again. Driven by the sheer power of rage, Kane grappled with the rogue and threw him to the ground. He drew his knife and drove it into the rogue’s chest, piercing his heart. Then he rolled away and jumped to his feet, instantly taking in the deadly tableau.

  “Let’s get out o’ ’ere,” Alfie said loudly, backing away. “I ain’t gonna die fer no ’uman.”

  Kane knew Alfie’s words were a ploy, and they worked. For a split second the rogue standing in front of the woman was diverted by Alfie’s slight retreat. Kane crossed the distance in two running steps and struck the rogue hard at the base of his neck with the side of his hand, unbalancing the Freeblood just long enough for Alfie to get off a single shot, precisely aimed to pierce the vampire’s body from the side so the bullet wouldn’t hit the human.

  While Alfie made sure the Freeblood was out of commission—permanently—Kane cut the ropes that bound the woman to the tree. She collapsed, and he caught her just in time. She was too weak from loss of blood to stand, even with the solid trunk of the tree behind her.

  “You’re all right now,” he said, easing her to the ground and kneeling beside her. “They can’t hurt you anymore.”

  Her chin lolled on her chest, and he thought for a moment that he and Alfie had come too late again. He brushed her thick ginger hair away from her forehead. She opened her eyes, focusing on his face.

  She wasn’t capable of fighting, but she gave it her best shot, her expression suddenly fierce and her slender body taut as a bowstring. She tried to speak, but the effort was too great. Kane steadied her with one hand, careful not to touch her more than necessary.