Until Dawn

by brett hicks

  I refused to budge, and I would rather let my body burn out than to let this psycho kill the men and women in blue serving my beloved city! I had been born in Boston, but New York had become a true home for me!

  I roared in anger and green energy blasted through me. I felt like I was being engulfed by a raging inferno. I pushed, and I felt as the blue-white blade came to life in my right hand again. I slashed out and Dean parried with he brown, sickly necrotic blade.

  His speed was unrivaled by anyone I had faced tonight. His moves refined, even if he was not as flawless as the dark elves, or Bix. He moved the Roman-styled gladius of the sickly brown color in a half-circuit, and the ground slip behind us under the magnum force of impact. I reposed the blade and power crashing against my magical shielding.

  My body was sore and beaten, but I refused to let him win. His sick features twisted in something well beyond insanity. He was the chaos of the darkest heart, the horrors of every nightmare personified, and he was beyond reasoning. What ever threads of rationality that had held Dean together all these years, were now gone.

  “Betrayer! You would raise your blade against me little necromancer?! I see you of what you truly are! You will be their lamb for the slaughter once they learn of you! Yes, you are not like me, are you?!”

  His insane ramblings were punctuated by sweeps of his blade and thrusts of his powers.

  How in the blue-blazes am I supposed to kill this guy!?

  Thankfully for me, the Sky Lord seemed to have finished dispatching the zombies, because he crashed to the ground next to me, but his power didn’t even touch my personal space. He was directing it towards Dean, helping me repel the old necrovamp’s powers.

  “Join powers with me little necromancer, and we will blast him into submission.”

  Arius extended his hand to me, and I grabbed it without a second thought. He had the ability to betray me, sure, but he need for true vengeance was brighter than the rising sun! Arius flesh touched mine and I might as well have been locking my fingers with the sun itself! The powers between us became something like a supernova.

  Dean screamed in torment as a raw push of telekinetic energy smashed through his hazy green and shot him into the ground, eight feet down in a perfectly circular crater.

  I hit my knees and wheezed. Arius looked over at me with a bemused expression.

  “You must flex your magical muscles Thea Salvo, or you will feel like you’ve just run many races after every great exertion of power.”

  I huffed, and I managed a slight nod.

  “Thanks… I’m not sure I could have held him forever. He knew way more than me about magic.”

  Arius smirked and nodded slightly.

  “You were doing better than you had any right to considering this is only your third day as a proper inhuman.”

  He somehow made this sound like a heroic feat, less like supreme stupidity on my part. We both knew the second of the two was the more truthful.

  “Ok, everyone just stays where you are until we get some damn answers!”

  I looked back and the dirty-blonde haired detective was strolling about, surveying the damages and the many shredded ghouls and zombies. Some of the dismembered ones still tried to wiggle and crawl.

  Many of the officers were white as sheets and looked as if they had seen a ghost—or a few dozen angels…

  “Detective, I’m Seraphina Herrington, Crown Princess of the Earth Throne, and I am one of the two leaders of the local Vampires and other inhuman species.”

  Seri’s tone was regal and despite her bloody and tattered state, she stood proudly, and she extended her hand to the detective. He eyed her for a long moment, very hesitant, I realized a moment later, she had her damn fangs out!

  Dammit Seri, less shock and awe!

  I clapped Arius on the shoulder in a friendly gesture.

  “We had best go and help Seri deal with the human authorities. It looks like the cat, or well the many not cat things here, are all out of the bag now.”

  Arius nodded and muttered to himself, “Aye, the Grand Junction is here.”

  My eyes widened at that terminology again, now with more context.

  “The Grand Junction is that what you call human discovery?”

  Arius waggled his hand back and forth.

  “Yes, and no, but we will have to explain that part later.”

  I nodded my understanding. We strode over to the forty-something dirty-blonde detective with the keen looking hazel eyes. He was rough, a bit scruffy, and he held himself tall at his six-foot height. He was still fit and in perfect shape for a human man his age, not that he was old yet!

  He shook Seri’s hand, if only slightly reluctantly. The other cops had guns pointed in our direction, all eyeing the wings, or Seri’s very real fangs.

  “Seraphina Herrington put you damn fangs away, you’re scaring the locals!”

  I scolded her like a mother would a child trying to get them to eat their veggies.

  The crowd of gawking humans watched in shock and morbid fascination as her fangs retracted and became normal-looking canines. She smiled at me with a smoldering look in her eyes.

  “Better now?”

  Her voice suggested that she was going to remind me of her place once this was all over. I nodded, and I walked over to the detective, who studied my approaching form with the attentive look of a sharp-minded cop. He was sizing up the small woman who had just put on a light show with the crazy man in the deep crater. The same man whom was now being bond in chains by the sylphs.

  My glowing sword had vanished again, leaving me unarmed, and looking like something the cat had just coughed up. I had blood stains on my black clothes, some mine, some not. I probably smelled like fresh death and coppery bloody. I knew I could smell all the blood in the area with an acute awareness, it was making my hunger pangs monstrous to contain.

  I need to hurry out of here and feed, unless I want to end up snacking on a damn cop!

  “Hello, thanks for coming detective. I’m not sure we could have handled this situation without you and your people.”

  My tone was even, and I gave nothing away, not the fear I had, or the hunger I was fighting now. My stomach was staging a coupe even as we now spoke. He looked at me and arched his brow.

  “I heard the call, you are the one who phoned in a… militant threat, was it?”

  I grinned and shrugged.

  “Hey, I couldn’t exactly say necromancer wielding corpses as weapons, and Braveheart-like battle, could I?”

  The detective just stared at me for a moment and shook his head slowly.

  “So, zombies, vampires, angels?”

  Arius extended his large hand to the man.

  “I’m Arius Chase, Sky Lord of the Sylph and ruler of the domain of Brooklyn inhumans.”

  Apparently, the detective was far less reluctant to clasp hands with a winged man, than a fanged girl. That was rather interesting, and a bit back-ass-ward, if you asked me! Arius quickly amended, “We are not angels, rather one of the two great winged races of inhumans. Sylphs are considered to be sky fairies, our counterparts, the tengu are dark-winged like ravens and ill-tempered.”

  The detective nodded and said, “I’m Elliot Jones, First Grade Detective, Manhattan Special Crimes Division.”

  He looked back to me, and he eyes narrowed.

  “So, would anyone here care to explain what the hell was going on tonight? Am I to assume that the explosions in Harlem were also connected to this incident?”

  Uh, crap! He’s clearly very good at his job!

  I nodded, no use in hiding that fact now.

  “We had a literal army of dwarven people known as Redcaps marching on Manhattan island. I lured them into vacant buildings and we brought the buildings down, and we defeated their leader, she was also responsible for probably a few thousand missing human cases over the span of the past five-hundred-years. So, bad people died, crazy people stopped threatening Manhattan, that’s the basic gist of things.”


  Eliot looked at me like I was crazy.

  “You just dropped a few buildings on them…”

  He shook his head and sighed. I heard him mutter, “This paperwork is going to fucking kill me!”

  Poor bastard was now the lead officer on the scene of the first known encounter with a supernatural species, well more like four or five of them. He will be lucky if he doesn’t get drug before the damn Senate before this is all resolved.

  “Can I assume that you people would be willing to come in and speak at great length, so we can understand what the hell you did here tonight?”

  Seri nodded, and she waved a hand to me and Arius.

  “We are the leaders of New York’s supernatural populations, and I will be personally expending my own resources to repair the city of New York for the horrors visited on her by the beings we struggled to protect your people, and mine from this night.”

  Damn, she’s a bloody spin-doctor!

  Seri was a political animal, I seemed to keep forgetting this, since I saw more of her unguarded side. She was born to politics and she was bred to rule.

  We were given rides in police cars down to the station. The cops insisted that each of us come with them. Seri had managed to convince the detective to have the hospital cater lunch for the starving vampires. More than a few of the humans looked green watching us suck down blood like the thirsty beasts we were. We had all spent many hours fighting and exerting ourselves—not to mention being stabbed many times! Getting stabbed can make a damn girl ravenous!

  Thirty-Five:

  We were in interviews for nearly a whole day straight. I was falling asleep at my desk, answering questions from every single alphabet-soup agency on the planet! NYPD had first round, but then the FBI, CIA, NSA, and Homeland Security had all taken their turns.

  They kept us split up most the time, for obvious reasons, treating us each like suspects. They kept trying to get me to give them DNA tests, but Seri had told me not to consent to anything. She had been very cryptic in her demands, but she looked worried about what they might discover.

  I told the Detective Eliot Jones, everything he needed to know to close the cases in both sections of New York. I also elaborated on the former ice queen’s hobby of setting sea fae on hapless tourists, just to incite Seri. Jones was a decent man, and he only really seemed concerned about public safety. He asked me everything he could think of about my life, my childhood, and my upbringing. He and the others were shocked to learn that I grew up thinking I was human. I didn’t let them know just how recent these changes were for me. I also failed to mention anything of detail about my domain.

  The other agencies were extremely interested in uncovering every morsel of information about our domain system. From best I could tell, none of the inhumans were speaking about our strange form of government. That probably only made the suits slather more, not less!

  All these men knew now, was that I ruled all inhumans in Manhattan along with Seri. Arius had taken Brooklyn, we did not mention that he was responsible for all the lightning storms they did indeed ask about. We all threw that one off on a super-charged necromancer spell—yet another thing we had agreed upon while eating.

  I passed out in the interview room, and I awoke to the door slamming. I jumped in my seat and I looked for the threat, but it was just the two Homeland Security agents returning, along with a very annoyed and haggard looking Elliot Jones. His deep blue bags spoke of what he had been up to since the twenty-hours since we had spoken.

  “Well Miss Salvo, you’re free to go. We cannot link you to any crimes, and we are currently of the opinion that you did in fact act in an effort to preserve human life. We have also verified that none of the dead were humans, so you have been honest with us as far as the events of last night go. We would like to speak to you again at a future date.”

  Oh, joy!

  I yawned, and I stretched out like a Latin cat.

  “So, can I go home now, I’m tired and I’m pretty sure I have dried blood down my tits.”

  (Ever the delicate flower am I!)

  The agents just nodded, showing very little emotion, considering my previous statement.

  “Detective Jones has been tasked with seeing you safely home. I’m sure the reasons for that will become apparent, once you step outside…”

  Oh… for fuck’s sake!

  “How did it get out? I was sure there were no civilians on the Island.”

  Elliot frowned and shook his head.

  “A pair of rookie patrol officers tweeted videos of you, and of the sylphs. Fucking millennials! Everything you people do goes up on your myspace, and social media!”

  I didn’t bother to point out that Myspace died with the dinosaurs. I sighed again and stifled another yawn.

  “Lead the way detective, I need to hit the hay, and from the looks of things, so do you.”

  He growled something that might have once been English. Note to self, buy the Detective a coffee, before we go much further, or his driving is likely to be worse than a puka’s!”

  ***

  We walked out of the station and I was suddenly entrenched in media reported of all types. My eyes were wide in surprise and I struggled to keep my balance as the throng of people pressed, shouting for sound-bites.

  Just smile and nod, just keep walking and get the damn coffee!

  “Thea, Thea, over here!”

  “Miss Salvo, just one question!”

  The yells were all along the same lines as the first two, though some were more ridiculous. Some seemed to be trying to figure out my agenda for world domination! These people could have made me bust a gut laughing, if I was not so damn hungry and tired, I was a hangry girl right now!

  I didn’t currently own a smartphone, so I had to beg the chipper detective to let me surf his for a moment.

  The news was viral about the discovery of the many supernatural inhuman species. Lines such as, “Dracula does exist!” or, “Fairy Tales in New York.” Then the ones about zombies and the apocalypse that was sure to follow, had me laughing. I showed the now caffeinated Detective the screen and he just grumbled in displeasure.

  While Detective Elliot Jones was gruff and grumpy, he was not mean. Even though he was leery of me, he still treated me like a woman, like his momma had raised him to respect females—good for him. He didn’t seem too interested in asking me anything more right now. He just seemed intent on finding a bed.

  “Detective, you are welcome to crash in one of the spare rooms. Seri bought a few too many when we moved some people.”

  I didn’t bother to explain the move was this morning, and she had bought the property while we were on our way to the station. Seri already had picked out a nice building in the Upper East Side and had keys and security cards delivered by the time we were sprung from the pokey. To say that Seri had money, would be insulting her money. Her gold seems to grow more gold, or something. Her diverse investments in this nation were so expansive, I think she might have scared their accountants when they did a forensic accounting investigation on her this morning. Part of the reason the government were scared to make a move right now, was simply the extent of Seri’s reach and influence, not to mention that whole Princess thing.

  Her father Cain had currently rejected all contact in London from the human authorities. MI6 had been allowed a short time to talk with each of us, since Cain was being silent. I had not minded them, very direct, very blunt, but ultimately very British. They seemed to be content that the American inhumans were not a threat, but they were worried about the one known as the “Earth King,” or “High King,” in their own backyard.

  “You do realize that this is just the shock. Once the people have enough time to recover their wits, your people will be in danger, and so will mine.”

  I looked to Elliot and I nodded. I understood his meaning perfectly. Humans were in a state of blind shock right now. We had the current social callousness from media and entertainment to thank for them not out-right
burning us at the stake!

  “Yeah, I’m aware that things are going to be rough moving ahead.”

  “What do you plan to do Miss Salvo?”

  I sighed and shrugged.

  “Finish my last semester of college and figure out what a girl can do with a criminology degree in this world.”

  Elliot snorted and nodded his understanding.

  “Well, I could pull some strings at the NYPD, if you are interested. I mean, we are going to need people like you moving ahead, and you are one of the most powerful ones, if what I know is true.”

  I shrugged non-committal. I was hardly the most powerful inhuman, but I wasn’t about to let him know my limits, or anything more than he needed to know. Elliot was nice, but I had little reason to believe this or nay conversation would stay between us two.

  “I’m not sure how much of a choice that is now. I mean, I already have a colorful past as an orphan who spent a few years surviving on the streets. That alone would have been hard to look past, now tack on necrovamp and you have a new level of hell no.”

  Elliot nodded his understanding.

  “Maybe, or maybe people can see this as an opportunity to work together. We will need help with any inhuman crimes that come across our desks and you will have the wit and the eyes for such cases.”

  I sighed and slumped into my window.

  “I’ll think about it, but I have no clue if your people will want to work with me, or if they are going to swoop in and try to cart me off to be dissected.”

  Elliot chuckled and then he looked at me and my grimly lined expression.

  “Oh, you really think that’s an option?”

  I shrugged and nodded.

  “It could be, there are plenty of sociopathic science types just waiting for the chance to chop me up!”

  Elliot’s hazel eyes danced in amusement at that comment.

  “Yeah, well that’s probably true for all of us in some way or another.”

  Leave it to a detective to be sure that scientists were indeed performing illegal experiments. Hell, for all I knew Elliot had busted one in the act before. He is a senior detective with special crimes. That is a big division and prestigious for any detective.