by Laken Cane
“I’ll let the others know what’s going on.”
I only nodded.
If the vampires kept attacking, they might turn half the city before the night was over. When the sun came, the humans would have a reprieve. But the night would always return.
No one had really appreciated how well the vampires had behaved before now.
Shane leaned into the open window and brushed my lips with his. “Be safe, baby hunter.”
I had to force myself away from him. “You be safe, Shane Copas.” Please. Please be safe.
And that was all I could say. I didn’t want to be a clinging, paranoid girlfriend. He’d be careful. He hadn’t made it this far without being careful.
But as I watched him grow smaller in my rearview, the knots in my stomach got just a little tighter.
“How are the other cities faring?” I asked Clayton. “It can’t just be us, right?”
“I can find out.” His face was somehow soft and hard at the same time and held all the strength and power and life he’d been denied during Miriam’s reign.
Sometimes something came out in his voice, or his eyes, or his face…something he forgot to hide, maybe. It made ice slide down my spine and turned my limbs to jelly. It caused my heart to stutter and my brain, for a brief second, to freeze.
I was pretty sure he wasn’t aware at all that his darkness was peeking out. And I was quietly thankful that Clayton Wilder was not my enemy.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket.
“Who are you calling?” I asked.
“Jade Noel.”
Rhys had mentioned that Jade Noel was the supernatural community’s PI. Or cop. Or…something.
I’d never met her. I’d never even talked to her. She was as much a mystery to me as the vampires’ sudden ability to turn humans with a bite.
Clayton explained to her about the turning humans, and I heard her voice coming from the phone like a dozen angry, buzzing bees.
Clayton slid his phone back into his pocket. “She knew about the attack, and they’re looking into it. She didn’t know about the turning humans. She’s contacting Himself.”
I took my right hand off the wheel and waited for him to take it. “Any other cities?”
“No attacks reported.”
“It’s just us then. So why is it just us?”
He turned my hand over and rested my palm on his thigh, then shivered when I began stroking his leg.
“I wish we were home in bed,” I murmured.
I didn’t have to look at him to know he smiled. “I wish that every second I’m awake.”
It was good to laugh. To forget, if just for a minute, that the night was hurtling us toward something we both knew was going to get worse before the sun came to make it better.
A man was waiting at a back entrance of the hospital to escort us to the vampires we needed to kill. We walked down long, echoing hallways, grimly silent, both of us ignoring the curious looks he kept throwing our way.
We peered through the silver-lined window and I cringed when I saw the three people inside the room. Newly turned vampires were extremely easy to handle—they were, as Crawford had said, like babies—and that was why the humans had been able to contain them. They’d tossed them into their containment cots, then shoved them into one of the reinforced vampire holding rooms all hospitals contained.
The infant vampires lay there, mewling, starving, and nearly blind. They shrank uncertainly away from the burning silver springs beneath the thin, plastic mats upon which they lay, too weak and dazed to do more than cry.
Silver rails had been pulled up on either side of them, extra assurance that they would not somehow escape before they were killed.
Places that had no hunters simply impaled a vampire with a silver spike through his heart, then wrapped his chest with thick layers of tape before restraining his hands behind him with silver-plated cuffs. He was then buried. As far as I knew, vampires rarely escaped such a hideous trap, though at times a master or strong vampire would find them and dig them up.
If I ever caught myself indulging in self-pity, I had only to remember those poor bastards.
The two people who’d been assigned to watch the newly turned vampires stood at their bedsides, their backs to us. They were dressed in blue scrubs, and I couldn’t tell if they were nurses, housekeepers, aides, or what.
The families of the new vampires would likely be waiting for news; grieving, stunned, hurting. But as bad as it was that they’d lost someone, leaving their loved ones as vampires would have been worse.
The female vampire’s clothing had been cut off, and one of the minders—the male—was videoing her with his phone. He filmed her pain, her nakedness, her helplessness, and his female partner didn’t seem to mind in the least.
Maybe because she was busy torturing one of the males.
When had humans become so very cruel?
“If you become close with one vampire, you’ll begin to care about all of them…”
Was that it, then? A year ago, would I have watched such a scene with an uncaring eye, unconcerned with the torture of a hideous, frightening, hated vampire?
I hoped not.
“Clayton,” I said, my voice thick.
He squeezed my arm. “We’ll ease them, Trinity.”
Would we, though? A vampire feared true death above all things. True death sent them to wander eternity in a despair I could not imagine, though I’d had a taste.
Or so they claimed—and who was I to disbelieve them? They’d died, after all. They’d been there once. They did not want to return.
Maybe that was how a vampire could withstand so much physical torture. He’d been through something worse.
“Open the door,” Clayton told our escort.
The man touched his card to the keypad, and when the door clicked, he shoved it open for us. “Have fun,” he said.
Silverlight wanted to come out and play. “Not yet,” I whispered.
The two aides glanced up at us. “Time to die,” the man said, jolly. He turned his phone on us. “The vampire hunters have arrived. Now we’ll watch as they work their magic and make the dead stay dead.”
Clayton walked toward him, and the man grinned as he continued filming. “The male hunter wants the female vamp. Can’t blame you, partner. I had a little—”
Clayton punched him. Not as hard as he could have, but the phone flew from the man’s grip as he slammed into the wall. The shocked expression on his face was probably larger than the pain of his broken nose.
The woman held up her hands and backed away, her eyes wide. She dropped the object she’d been using to torture her vampire. An ink pen.
I needed an outlet for my rage, but when I strode toward her she screamed and ran. I let her go. I controlled my anger and let her go.
If I’d set Silverlight free, as I’d wanted to do, I’d have sliced the woman to ribbons before I stopped. I knew it. I felt it. I wanted to kill her. I thought I wanted to kill her. Really, I just wanted to kill the pain.
Even after the humans cleared the room I couldn’t free my sword, because the families needed the corpses of their loved ones. Silverlight would have left nothing but ash.
I yanked a stake from my belt and gave the crying, almost mindless vampires a quick, clean, true and traditional death.
I didn’t know if I did the right thing.
There was a big difference between fighting aggressive vampires and sending freshly turned…innocents to their awful afterlife.
I wanted to kill vampires.
I didn’t want to kill vampires.
All I really wanted to do was stop the suffering of the beings who lay crying in their painful beds.
Clayton stood against the wall and let me have all three of them. He must have thought it would help me feel better.
“People suck,” I whispered, afterward.
And then we walked away, leaving the dead to the humans.
Chapter Nine
They’re Coming
I called Shane as Clayton drove us out of the hospital parking lot. “Where are you?”
“I’m heading home,” he replied. “I just got off the phone with Angus. Himself has called a meeting in Willow-Wisp and they’re waiting for us.”
“Oh.” A little ping of nervousness hit my insides. Himself would make anyone nervous. “Did you see Crawford?”
“No.”
I hung up. “Himself called a meeting in Willow-Wisp,” I told Clayton. “We have to get back to Bay Town.”
He nodded and drove a little faster.
I called Crawford. “I did the job. I’m on my way back to Bay Town. If you need me, call me.”
“You and the hunters should stay in the city until we figure this out, Trinity.”
I hesitated. “We have to go back. There’s a meeting.”
“I see.”
“We’ll be back,” I said. “But you’ll want to convince the mayor—and the city—to retract the regulations they’re putting into place. If things don’t start to improve for the supernaturals, my hunters and I are not going to risk our lives protecting you. We’re going to concentrate on protecting Bay Town, instead.”
“You don’t have to convince me,” Frank said. “I know where your loyalties lie.”
“Time is running out,” I said, refusing to rise to the bait. “Tell him, Captain.”
I hung up.
When we pulled up to the way station, Shane was trailing my car, and Angus was waiting out front with Rhys.
Angus held out his hand to me. “We need to go.”
My heart stuttered. “Shane told me.”
I took a deep breath as we walked to the cemetery. Even Jin followed along behind us. And when we walked through the gates, it was packed with supernaturals. They parted for us, opening a path to Himself.
The King of Everything.
He sat on a wooden throne deep inside the graveyard, and Nadine stood beside him. When he saw me, he thumped his walking stick on the ground.
“Caretaker,” Nadine called. “Come.”
I released Angus’s hand and walked toward them. Deep within my body, Silverlight began to hum.
When I reached the mystical old man, I dropped to my knees. It didn’t occur to me to do otherwise. I stared up at him, and when he met my gaze, everything else dropped away.
“Stand at my side.” His face, lost in folds and crevices, was still somehow forbidding, and his dark eyes held only snapping, crackling power.
I did as he asked, then stared out at the throng of silent supernaturals, my jaw clenched, my body shaking from cold. But it wasn’t cold.
There was a sea of power surrounding me, and the power was overwhelming. Power not only from Himself but from the mass of supernaturals who stood watchful and waiting. They were power.
Any one of them could have been taken down by the humans—but together, God, together, they could do some serious, serious damage. I thought they could do anything.
A woman I didn’t recognize strode through the restless crowd and stopped beside Angus, and when she touched his arm, he leaned down to let her murmur something into his ear.
She drew my stare, but not only mine. She had a presence about her, something energetic, stormy and swirly like a cyclone filled with deadly debris. She was a woman accustomed to control, and it showed.
She turned back toward us and put her hands on her hips. Her thin leather jacket gaped, showing the holstered gun at her hip and a silver badge fastened to her belt.
And suddenly, I realized exactly who she was.
Jade Noel.
I had no idea what type of supernat she was. She didn’t appear to be the type to hide in the shadows or work from behind the scenes, so I wasn’t sure why I never saw her.
Apparently, she had been put in place close to thirty years ago, which meant she was old.
Funny how she didn’t look old.
But she did look mean.
Another woman stepped up beside her. One of her crew, most likely. The new woman was light to Jade’s dark—light brown hair, pale skin, eyes that looked almost translucent from the short distance.
When I returned my stare to Jade, she was watching me, and I had to fight not to look away. She saw too much. And I had a feeling she knew a lot more about me than I did about her.
I forced my face to empty and blanked my eyes, and I did something I was pretty sure she would never be able to do. I calmed.
“It is time,” Himself began, and I forgot all about Jade Noel as his voice—and his words—became all that mattered.
The crowd of supernaturals seemed to hold their breath and lean slightly forward, toward their king, and I felt a swelling of pride within me. I was where I belonged, with these people.
He was my king, too.
Then they gasped as the vampire master stepped from the shadows and stood on my left. But Himself ignored Amias, and finally, the supernaturals put their uneasy attention back on their leader.
They trusted him, and obviously, Amias was accepted in Willow-Wisp.
I thought Himself would discuss the opportunity given to us by the attacking vampires. That he’d talk about our new leverage and would have a plan in place. I was hoping for a plan.
But he said none of that.
“We must protect the humans.” His voice was high and cracked and somewhat thin, but it carried throughout the graveyard. “For they are at risk. The world is at risk. The rifters have returned.”
Amias was the only one who reacted. He shuddered. Still, he did not look at me. It was as though he were afraid to let me see what was in his eyes.
“The short version,” Himself continued, “is this. There was a war a long, long time ago. The vampires—our vampires—defeated the rifters after a vicious, bloody battle. Their elders sacrificed themselves to not only send the rifters into exile but to ensure they could never return to us.”
He had our rapt attention, and his somber, eerie voice, combined with the master vampire’s fear, hit us hard. Even Nadine was subdued.
“The rifters are cousins to the vampires. All rifters were of the same line, descended from a common malformed maker. When they were turned, something corrupted inside them. Their code was written with tainted ink.” He paused, as though allowing for questions, but no one said a word.
Finally, he nodded and continued into our breathless silence. “Our vampires are created with an innate respect for human life. They know that without humans, there would be no peace between the supernaturals. Without humans, there would be no vampires. It is a rare vampire who will burn through towns slaughtering every human he sees. This inborn respect is why they do not.” He looked at Amias. “They could, you see. They could.”
“The infection.” Himself turned his ancient stare to me, and my legs weakened. “The sickness that occasionally rises in the vampires is a result of that long ago war between the vampires and the rifters. The vampire elders exiled and imprisoned the rifters, but not before the rifters’ elders created the disease that would live in the earth and rise up sporadically to punish and control vampire populations. It was meant to kill them all during the war, but it failed the rifters, and in the end, our vampires triumphed.”
“But…” I whispered.
“But,” Himself said, “the mystical Wall of Elders has been compromised. One of the elders has weakened. And the rifters are coming.”
A murmur of fear rippled through the crowd of supernaturals, and the old man waited for them to calm before he continued. “The tear in the Wall of Elders was deliberately created by a recent attack. They are doing their best to repair the damage, but they cannot mend it in time. The rifters are coming. They’re coming, and we must prepare.”
Nadine put her hands on her hips. “Now come with your questions.”
“They’re not anything we can’t handle,” Shane said, scoffing despite his attempts to behave in front of Himself. “There were a dozen or so of them tonight, and we t
ook them out just like we take out regular vampires.” He shrugged. “Let them come. We’ll decimate the motherfuckers.”
“They did not expect hunters. They were also disoriented and weak.” Amias spoke at last, his voice as dark as I’d ever heard it. Amias Sato, master vampire, was scared.
“Weak,” I exclaimed. “They didn’t seem weak in the least. Confused, maybe, but they were huge and fast and strong. They weren’t weak.”
His smile did not reach his eyes. “For rifters, they were weak. At full strength, a dozen rifters would not have left nearly so many humans untouched before you took them out. Those who will come, those who adjust, they will show you true strength. They will be nearly impossible to subdue. They are not like us. They are immune to silver. They do not require a human’s permission to enter his home. No place is sacred. No place is safe.”
The uneasy silence was raw and heavy.
“You begin to see the gravity of the situation,” Himself said. And for some reason, he sounded almost pleased. “Rifters cannot be easily killed. Not even by Silverlight’s hand. Not even by a hunter’s hand. It will take work. And when hundreds of them slip through…”
I swallowed. “We’ll be in trouble.”
“Indeed, Bloodhunter.”
“Why were there only a few of them? Where are the others?”
“The elders are trying to contain them. They will not be successful. There will be trickles until finally the wall is shattered completely. If we do not find a way to help the elders refortify, rifters will soon flood the city.”
Angus folded his arms, his frown deep, his voice gruff. “I’m not letting her risk her life in a fight she can’t win.” He spoke only to Himself and didn’t even glance at me, as though I had no say in the matter.
“There are no choices, Werebull. She will fight. And in the end…” Himself put his stare on me. “She will sacrifice. You must accept this fact. Human lives must be preserved. If they fall, we all fall.”
“It begins,” Nadine told me. “And tonight is practice for a test you must not fail.”
Chapter Ten
Peacemaker
“If she’s going to be tested,” Shane said, folding his arms, “you two had better be prepared to help her ace that test. If something happens to her while you sit on your fucking throne—”
