by Riley Storm
None of the shifter houses would do such a thing. Natural expiry was possible, but Valla didn’t believe in such coincidences. If strange happenings were going down at the docks, the vampires would be involved.
I will find you, he vowed. I will find you, and then I will kill you.
Vampires were the boogeymen of dragon legend. The most powerful of the shifter races, they had led the attack upon the Roman stronghold. By that point, Valla’s ice dragon ancestors had tracked down every last vampire outside of the city. All that remained was to finish it. One grand battle.
The skies had filled with dragons that night. The sound of their wings had been heard from miles away as they descended to finish the ugly deed and free the world, according to the stories Valla had been told as a child. The citizens had panicked, running for shelter and safety.
Not the vampires. None would speak of what had happened, but they rose up. In greater numbers than any could have imagined. They used dark magics and powers unbeknownst to the dragons, who were still so new to the world at that time. It had been a near complete surprise.
That night, the dragons nearly vanished from the earth. They had plummeted from the sky like raindrops, smashing to the ground below as the vampires slaughtered them. Only the strongest of their kind, the elder dragons, had been able to resist, bulling their way past the onslaught of power and protecting the follow-up waves as they established a beachhead.
So many had died. So very many. He knew that from the lists in the heart of Drakon Keep. Lists upon which thousands of names rested, most of them inscribed after that very night.
And still we didn’t kill them all!
One of them had survived throughout the centuries until now. There was no way Valla was going to let such a creature live on. Not when it would threaten his child or Liz. Elder dragon or not, he would do whatever it took to rip the undead life from the beast and all its children before it became strong enough to threaten the world once more.
There simply weren’t enough dragons left—even if they awakened all of them—to fight off a new vampire invasion if they gained enough steam. It had to be stopped now, before it got any worse.
Which is why I will find you.
Warily, he approached the building his nose was telling him contained the body. A ramshackle warehouse, the siding was caved in, every window and door boarded up or blocked with piles of metal debris. There would be a way in, of course, and as Valla stalked around the perimeter, ears open, listening for every sound nearby he could find, he saw the opening.
The metal siding had been cut and bent inward at an angle, just big enough for an adult human of moderate size to fit through on their hands and knees. If Valla was to enter, he may very well have to crawl, it was that tight.
He paused outside, snarling in frustration.
I can’t smell anything over the stink of that body!
There was no way for him to know what lay beyond. Not unless he investigated, which meant going inside.
Creeping forward, he crouched at the entrance, cocking his head to the side and listening. It was still daylight, so he couldn’t risk assuming his other form and simply clawing the wall down. Yet everything screamed to him that this was a trap, that someone was waiting inside for him.
If one of the vampires was there and wanted him, then he would be in deep trouble if they got the jump on him.
Who else would it be? Come now, don’t be an idiot.
Which meant he needed to set a trap for the person trying to trap him. He looked around, trying to determine just how to go about that. The vampire would never be enticed to come to him. The sunlight would kill it, either quickly or slowly depending on how old it was, but it would die, nonetheless. That part wasn’t myth.
An idea came to him, and he danced back from the wall slightly and looked around, trying to see if he was being watched. It was impossible though; there was simply too much junk piled up around the buildings for him to spy anyone.
He was going to be taking a huge chance here, but time was of the essence. The dragons needed to know where the stronghold was, and only Valla could provide that.
Satisfied he was as alone as he could get, he returned to the wall and pressed his hand against one of the support pillars. His idea wasn’t complicated, nor did it take much time to put in place.
And since he wouldn’t be setting it inside the building, the vampire would hopefully never know it was there. A backup in case Valla needed it.
After several minutes, he stepped back to admire his handiwork, and then looked down at the slit in the siding again.
Okay, time to do this. For Liz. For our child.
To make the world a safer place for them.
Ice congealed in his hand, lengthening into a blade. Valla swiped it at the siding and the slit became a hole as the ice plunged in deep and easily ripped through the flimsy metal. He stepped through, immediately pummeled with the stench of dead body even more.
There was only one way to spring the trap, and so without waiting, he walked over to the body in the back corner, visible to his enhanced vision even as he moved farther from the spear of light.
The whisper of rustling clothing was his only warning.
Valla rolled to the side, calling to his powers even as he fell, slapping one hand awkwardly against the ground and ignoring the pain that shot up from his palm. Ice sprouted from the concrete all around Valla. Not smooth like a rink, but sharp, jagged and extremely pointed. It rose up in six-inch spikes in a circle eight feet wide.
The vampire—for only one of the Nacht could move so quietly, without even a heartbeat to give them away—landed amongst the spikes, and a shout pierced the air as one of them stabbed up through its bare foot.
Valla frowned as he got to his feet, twin curving blades of ice extending down his forearms while more erupted from his skin along his shoulders, over his knees and feet and ridged spikes rippled down his back, providing him with a natural set of both body armor and weapons.
But his frown was directed at the vampire just now extracting itself from the spike. It was dirty. Very dirty. Vampires were notorious for being extremely clean, well-dressed and wanting to flaunt wealth. At least, according to the records he had read. Yet the man in front of him looked like a carbon copy of his homeless contact.
All of a sudden, Valla got it. The man’s friends hadn’t just disappeared. They’d become vampires and had been left behind to set this trap for him. Which meant—
He whirled with speed only a few beings on earth could match, whipping his right arm up and across his body and then down, leading with his forearm.
The second vampire came to an abrupt halt as it was nearly bisected from collarbone to rib by the blade along Valla’s arm. Half-dried blood oozed from the wound, and the newborn vampire froze in disbelief.
The image was blanked a moment later as Valla, his fist quickly covering itself in a foot-long spike of blue-white ice, punched forward. The stake entered one eye and erupted out the back in a welter of gore.
Behind him, the other vampire screamed and flung himself at Valla. Something hot burned horrifically along his ribs and he roared in pain. Taking the vampire by the shoulders, he hurled the creature across the warehouse. The ragged clothed figure went flying, disappearing among the shadows as the pain in his side robbed Valla of much of his vision.
Looking down, he saw a knife handle sticking out from his ribs.
That’s not possible, he thought just before he toppled to the side, bright white closing in from the outsides of his vision as the knife continued to burn as hot as Aaric’s fire.
Clenching his teeth, Valla grasped the blade handle, and with all his fast-fading strength, yanked it out. The weapon slid free, and the pain immediately dampened.
“How?” he croaked as his blood continued to seep out, soaking his garments and starting to drip to the floor.
“Specially made for your kind,” the vampire cackled as it emerged from the darkness, holding a twi
n in its other hand. “We won’t take any chances.”
Valla brought the blade up to his face so that his hazy vision could see it better, but he recoiled, the heat too intense.
And then he knew. There was only one type of blade that could have such an effect on him.
Radiation. The blade was lined with uranium. It had to be. All shifters were susceptible to the effects it had, weakening their powers, and inflicting blinding pain. Use of such weapons was very prohibited and only in certain occasions was it brought out. Apparently, the vampires were taking no chances.
“You know you’re just bait, don’t you?” Valla hissed, trying to buy himself time. He needed it, needed to let his body seal off the wound to at least stop the flow of blood. Healing would take longer, but for now, he just needed to keep what blood he had left inside him, not on the floor.
“No. I am the newest member of our growing family,” the former homeless man said. “Once I am done here, I will go to them, and we will be united.”
Valla latched onto that sentence. This vampire knew. It knew where they were hiding out. Where the vampires would be.
“Is that so?” he asked. “They’re just going to let you into their cave?”
The vampire snorted. “Cave? Cave? Do you really think the Nacht would stoop to living in a cave, you dumbass? They said you would be stupid, but I didn’t believe them. A dragon shifter, stupid? It doesn’t seem possible. But I guess you really do have a brain the size of a lizard.”
Valla snarled but inside he was grinning. “And here I thought the vampires liked being surrounded by rock. What have they promised you instead, a fancy new apartment downtown? Is that what you sold out your species for?”
The vampire laughed again. “As if. Our house will be magnificent. Once it’s completed, it will put all to shame, so I am told.”
The grin vanished. The vampires were building something? That…did not bode well. Why would they be doing that? What could their motive possibly be?
“There’s no way you could build that in the city,” Valla said, injecting as much disdain into his voice as he could. “We will find it and burn it to the ground.”
The vampire shook his head. “I think not. Now, enough talk. You will die here.”
Valla rolled his eyes. “Not until you give me what I want.”
He reached out, and sprang the first part of his trap, using his powers to their fullest.
A circular hole appeared in the ceiling of the warehouse as a six-foot long stalactite of ice dropped through the roof and shattered on the floor.
The vampire hissed, though it was in no immediate danger.
Moments later, a dozen more holes appeared in the roof as more ice fell through, released from where it had hung, suspended over the roof at certain intervals by Valla before he’d entered the warehouse.
“Stop it!” the vampire snapped, sounding worried.
It should be, Valla thought as its circle of darkness shrank and shrank as more and more holes appeared.
“Tell me,” he growled, stepping forward, careful to stay in the spears of light.
The vampire slashed at him with the blade, but he never closed to within striking distance, and so only felt a slight warming as the blade came within a foot or two.
“Tell me what I want to know!” he said, raising his voice as the vampire was slowly backed into a corner.
“What? What do you want to know?” the terrified creature howled as it was struck by an errant beam of light, moving too slow as new holes appeared.
By this point, Valla was surprised the entire roof of the decrepit structure hadn’t caved in, and so he stopped the barrage of projectiles. He needed the vampire to speak.
“Where?” Valla barked. “Where are they?”
“I can’t tell you that. If they found out, they’d kill me!” the vampire moaned, all but locked into a corner of the warehouse now.
“If you don’t tell me, I’m going to kill you!” Valla snapped. “Now, where is it?”
The vampire moaned, and Valla reached upward, making it clear that he was moments away from opening another hole.
“I can’t.”
Valla sighed, and another ice stalactite plunged through the roof, shrinking the vampire’s safety space even more.
“No! Wait!”
“The location,” Valla said.
He grinned as the vampire broke down and told him.
Turning, he spun on his heel and strode for the exit.
“T-t-thank you!” the pitiful creature wailed from its tiny little corner of safety, thinking itself saved.
“No,” Valla said as he reached the exit and peeled back the metal lining. “Thank you.”
“What? What are you? AHHHHH!”
The vampire’s cries died off relatively quickly as the warehouse shone with a brilliant light. Pure sunlight reflected off the ultra-smooth mirror-like finish of the ice circle he’d created outside the warehouse.
The second half of his trap, it beamed light to the darkest corners of the warehouse, leaving nothing untouched.
Including the newborn vampire.
Whatever it takes to make the world safer for my child.
Chapter 27
After being dropped off at her house, Liz had quickly showered and changed and headed to work.
Not the office downtown, however, not yet at least. There was another project she’d been working on that needed checking up on, and that was on the outskirts of town, at the site of the Drakon Outreach Center.
Thankful for the daylight, she entered the worksite without much fanfare, collecting both Chase and Peter.
Maybe I should have taken them with me when I put these stupid cameras up.
She still remembered the vividly clear handprint on her window. Hopefully it was just a punk kid playing a prank on her, but now, knowing what she did about Valla, she couldn’t help but wonder what else was out there that she didn’t know about. What else was spying on her?
“Where are we going?” Chase wanted to know as she walked out into the site with a purpose.
“To retrieve what I hope will be the key to solving whoever our thieves are,” she said.
“I thought we were going to be conducting interviews, trying to find out whose stories don’t line up, that sort of thing?” Peter asked, sounding like he disliked not being kept in the loop.
“That’s what I wanted people to think,” she explained. “But let’s face it guys, there are far too many people who could have accessed the video files and altered them. We don’t require a password—or at least, we didn’t—require one to use the computers. So that would take too much time, and people would be covering their tracks. I’m not a computer hacker, I couldn’t figure that out. Could you?”
Neither of them answered, but they didn’t have to. They hadn’t been hired for their computer know-how.
“So, I went and did a little sleuthing on my own the other night,” she said, taking them up to the first of her little surveillance cameras.
“You put up more cameras,” Chase said approvingly.
“Yes, I did,” she said, appreciating the support of her idea. “I came at night, when no one was here, and put up half a dozen all around. We’re going to see who it was now.”
They went around the site and collected all six cameras and their memory cards in her bag and then headed back to the trailer-office. When she’d bought them, the salesman had given her a little card reader and a CD with some software on it that would help read the video files. He’d gone over the instructions on how to set it all up, and she did so now, while her two protectors hovered nearby between her and the door.
“You can relax,” she said, waving at them. “I’m fine in here.”
“Liz, with all due respect,” Peter said, peeking out one of the windows. “Whoever these thieves are, they are professionals, hiding all trace of their activities. There are enough of them to make it easy. They aren’t likely to take well to being found out. Chase and
I are good. Really good. But we don’t know what we’re up against yet, and neither do you. If they find out that you’re onto them…who knows what they’ll do.”
For the first time, Liz felt a sliver of fear. She’d not truly thought through the implications of everything, instead having been only intent on finding out who was stealing. She’d not once stopped to consider who was behind it.
“Very well,” she said. “Stay on guard.”
“And please, don’t confront any of them until we have a strong police presence here,” Chase urged. “This is not a well-protected structure. If any of them are watching you right now, which they should be if they’re any good—which they are—then they’ve just seen you go around the site and pick stuff up. They know it won’t be good.”
“You make it sound like they’re going to storm in here and kill us all,” she joked.
Peter looked over at her calmly.
“They’re thieves, guys,” she protested. “Not murderers.”
“Not yet. But thieves will often go to any length to avoid being caught.”
“They’ve gone out of their way not to hurt anyone,” she said. “Trust me, we’re fine.”
She installed the software, ignoring the looks they were sharing with one another, and for a brief moment, found herself wishing that Valla was there. If he were around, she would feel safe.
He would be able to protect her.
It was a silly thought of course, because she didn’t want Valla to protect her, but knowing what he truly was, she couldn’t avoid the thought either.
“Well, well, well,” she said as the first video started playing. The cameras were motion-activated, so she didn’t have to scroll through hours of nothingness. It was right there, on the last camera she’d installed, the one on the entrance.
The camera was moving, a sign that the gate was being opened from the outside. She didn’t catch much of anything, but it was a clear sign that the footage wouldn’t be tampered with. She was going to have them. Her idea had worked!