Night Reigns

by Dianne Duvall

  Stepping back, she retrieved another bag of blood from the cooler and handed it to him.

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled.

  She had a pretty smile. The kind it was damned near impossible not to return.

  He certainly couldn’t resist it and felt his lips turn up as he bit down into the bag.

  He glanced at Seth. Unease again slithered up his spine at the gleam in the elder’s eyes.

  “Marcus,” Seth drawled, “meet your new Second.”

  Lowering the half-empty bag, Marcus followed Seth’s gaze to Ami.

  Her face lighting with curiosity, she looked around as though she expected to see someone enter the room behind her. When no one did, she froze, acquiring a rather deer-in-the-headlights expression of panic. Her gaze flew to Seth’s. As did Marcus’s.

  “Ami,” Seth said kindly, “I would like you to serve as Marcus’s Second.”

  Her lips parted slightly. “Me?” she breathed incredulously. “Oh no,” Marcus blurted out. “Hell no. I don’t want a Second.”

  Seth’s tone turned arctic. “I don’t care what you want. You need one. Tonight demonstrated that very well. And you know the rules. Every Immortal Guardian has a Second.”

  “Roland doesn’t.”

  “You of all people are aware of Roland’s trust issues, as well as his response to being assigned Seconds in the past.”

  Marcus’s gaze slid speculatively to Ami. Hmm. Maybe he could—

  “If you’re thinking of taking a page from your mentor’s book and frightening Ami away,” Seth went on, “think again. She’s tougher than she looks.” Harm a hair on her precious head, he warned Marcus telepathically, and I will kill you.

  To Ami, Seth said, “I’ll be in touch.” In the next instant, he vanished.

  A heavy silence fell in his absence.

  Ami bit her lip, brow furrowing. “Do you think he’s coming back?”

  Thwump!

  Both jumped when three suitcases and several white banker boxes full of what he assumed were Ami’s possessions suddenly appeared around them.

  Marcus sighed heavily. “I’m guessing no.”

  Chapter 2

  Breath heaving, body bathed in a cold sweat, Eddie Kapansky glanced over his shoulder as he raced through the forest.

  Nothing.

  He faced forward again and almost ran into a low-hanging branch. Ducking swiftly, he scarcely managed to avoid it.

  “Come on, Eddie. Get your shit together,” he muttered. Traveling at preternatural speeds required hypervigilance. Low branches like the one that had just brushed the top of his dark blond hair could easily remove a vampire’s head.

  The bitter taste of fear still flooding his mouth, he glanced behind him once more and sought any signs that the immortal might be following him. When he faced forward, his eyes widened and a yelp escaped him as another branch nearly decapitated him.

  Eddie slowed to the speed of a human run, then a jog, then a walk. Finally he stopped.

  Fog formed in front of him as his breath whooshed out like air from a bellows. If he hadn’t been too dense to comprehend the irony, he might have appreciated that of humans’ assuming vampires’ hearts didn’t beat when his was doing its damnedest to burst from his chest.

  Closing his slack mouth, he quieted his gasps as much as he could, peered into the darkness around him, and listened.

  Wind. The gurgling of the stream that had soaked his damned sneakers. Cows in the barn he had passed. Bats. He hated fucking bats. (Another irony that eluded him, since many humans thought vampires could turn into bats.) Animal. Animal. Insect. Animal.

  No Immortal Guardian.

  He should be relieved, but he was too damned scared. That fucker had taken out everyone but him. By himself!

  Well, the woman had helped some. Eddie should have drained her dry. She wasn’t an immortal. She didn’t move like one. She didn’t have fangs. Her eyes didn’t glow. So she must be human. Which meant he might have actually found the elusive, ass-kicking immortal known as Roland Warbrook.

  Dennis would be pleased.

  Eddie looked ahead. Thick trees and undergrowth prevented him from seeing far, but he thought he was only a mile or two from the lair. He hoped the latter. Any closer and the guys might have heard the girly scream he’d just let out when he almost ran into the branch.

  After giving himself another minute to get his breathing under control and stop his trembling, he set off again. The trees parted on a bucolic scene: a rolling meadow that glistened from the evening’s rain laid out like a carpet around a sprawling single-story frame house with a wide front porch and peeling white paint.

  Several tree stumps littered the yard. Dennis had ordered them to cut down any trees that grew close to the house so they would be able to see their enemies coming. If those enemies should ever find them, that was.

  Considering what had happened to Bastien’s army, Eddie hoped this place remained off the Immortal Guardians’ radar.

  Of course, had they not been too lazy, the vampires could have simply uprooted the trees. They sure as hell had the strength. Eddie had once uprooted one to show off for a girl he had dated before Dennis had recruited him. But instead of oohing and ahhing over his new super-strength, then giving him a blow job, she had freaked out, and he’d ended up killing her.

  Dumb bitch. Making him lose his temper like that.

  (Usually at this point in his recollection of the event, a voice in his head would make a tching sound and say You know your mamma raised you better than that. What the hell’s wrong with you, boy? But that voice had grown quieter and quieter of late, until it had ultimately disappeared.)

  Eddie crossed the large lawn in a mortal lope, clomped up the stairs, and entered the unlocked front door.

  The interior of the house had been gutted and turned into a huge den. Instead of load-bearing walls there were support pillars that gave the place an open, loft feel. Sofas, lounge chairs, coffee tables, end tables, stools, and even a picnic bench—all scavenged from lawns, porches (gotta love some small town Southerners’ propensity for putting indoor furniture on their front porches), and curbside offerings the night before heavy trash day—filled most of the room.

  Vampires, all male and almost all Eddie’s age (twenty-five) or younger, lounged by the dozens, laughing, bragging of the night’s kills, and watching one of two big-ass flat screen televisions.

  “’Sup?” Henry asked from his position at the front window. He must be one of the four lookouts tonight.

  “Is Dennis here?” Eddie asked, nerves still jangling.

  “Yeah. He’s in The Hole with some new recruits.” The Hole was the only bedroom that had been left standing. All four walls, as well as the door, had been reinforced with a butt-load of concrete and steel, then outfitted with manacles. The ceiling had been removed, and the walls extended up into the attic, where Dennis had replaced a large portion of the roof with glass supported by steel bars, allowing the mid-day sun to bake any vampire left in there who had gone so psycho Dennis could no longer control him.

  Or any immortal unfortunate enough to be captured.

  They’d yet to manage that one.

  “Why?” Henry asked, gaze sharpening. “Somethin’ happen?”

  Nodding, Eddie sidled closer to him and lowered his voice. “I think I found Roland.”

  Henry’s eyes bugged out. “Roland the Immortal Guardian Roland?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re shittin’ me.”

  “Nope.”

  “Daaaaaaamn. We been lookin’ for him for months.” He looked past Eddie’s shoulder, as if expecting to see Roland standing there, then met his gaze. “What’d ya do with him? Where is he?”

  “Chapel Hill.” Eddie fought the urge to squirm. He didn’t relish telling everyone he had been unable to defeat the immortal.

  Henry’s eyes narrowed. “You left him in Chapel Hill?” Eddie grimaced. “I didn’t exactly have a choice. Me, Skinny John,
Walter, and Kurt met up with Jason, Max, Big John, and Karl over at the Walmart off of 15-501 and were headed for UNC to see if we could find some fresh victims when this Immortal Guardian comes out of nowhere and ...” He shrugged. “It was on.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t Bastien?”

  “Yeah. This guy had a woman with him like Roland did.”

  “Did she have brown hair?”

  “I think so.” It had been hard to tell with her hiding in the trees.

  Henry nodded and slapped him on the shoulder. “Good job, man.” He glanced through the window for a second, then once more abandoned his duty. “So the guys are holdin’ him in Chapel Hill?”

  Eddie swallowed, stomach souring. “No.”

  “What do ya—”

  “I’m the only one who made it out alive.”

  Henry stared at him. “What?”

  “The others are all dead. Roland and his woman destroyed them.”

  “They’re dead?” he exclaimed, voice rising.

  Eddie looked around as every eye in the house focused on them. “Yeah.”

  “Who died?” he heard someone mutter.

  Henry shook his head. “You outnumbered him eight to one!”

  Eddie bristled at the scorn in his voice. “He had the woman with him. She was armed and—”

  Henry sputtered and waved a hand. “The woman doesn’t count. She’s human for shit’s sake! If you can’t kick a human woman’s ass, what the hell good are ya?”

  “Well, she sure as hell didn’t fight like a human!”

  “Are you saying she was immortal?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then you should have killed her and kicked Roland’s ass.” Some of the other vamps rose and strode forward to form a semicircle around them.

  “Look, you weren’t there,” Eddie snapped. “You’ve never even seen an Immortal Guardian. They aren’t like us.”

  “What do you mean?” Wes asked, his butt-ugly mug alight with curiosity. He was a fairly new recruit, turned by Dennis himself only a few months ago.

  “Yeah,” Howard tossed in. “How’re they different from us?”

  “They’re faster,” Eddie began, his apprehension falling away now that Henry’s contempt had been overshadowed by the other guys’ awe and eagerness to hear a firsthand account of a fight with an immortal.

  “How much faster?” Norm asked.

  “Like ... fifty times faster,” Eddie said. “And stronger. A lot stronger. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “So what happened?”

  He named the guys who had fought beside him again, then—giving plenty of bloodthirsty description and exaggerating his own skills—laid out what had transpired.

  “So you just ran?” Henry growled as Eddie wrapped it up.

  “No, I didn’t run,” Eddie lied. “At least not the way you make it sound. He cut down seven guys, Henry. I was the only one strong enough to fend off his death blows, but even I could see I wouldn’t be able to take him alone, so I came back here for reinforcements.”

  “What for?” Henry pounced. “If he’s as fast as you say he is, he could be all the way to Winston-Salem by now.”

  Eddie racked his feeble brain for a response that wouldn’t make him sound like a wuss, opting not to mention the second encounter that had led to Keith’s and Bill’s destruction.

  “At least he can confirm what no one else has been able to,” Wes said. “Roland is still in North Carolina.”

  Howard nodded. “Which means Bastien probably is, too. I bet Dennis will be happy to hear that.”

  Eddie heard the heavy door of The Hole open and moved until, between the vamps congregating around him, he spotted Dennis in the doorway.

  “Eddie,” Dennis spoke in that commanding voice of his.

  At least he seemed to be in a decent mood tonight. Eddie would rather face Jason, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger all together than Dennis in a temper.

  Straightening, Eddie said, “Yes, sir?”

  “A moment, please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The other vampires parted, allowing Eddie to slip through them and join Dennis in The Hole’s doorway.

  “I could use your help evaluating some potential recruits,” Dennis said, drawing him into the room.

  “Sure,” Eddie answered, willing to do anything to put off telling Dennis that he had had Roland in his grasp and had failed to capture him. He had hoped being able to confirm that Roland was still in the area would make up for the fact that he had run like a little pussy. But after Henry’s reaction ...

  A somewhat battered kitchen table rested in the center of The Hole, the only furnishing it boasted. On the opposite side of it, looking almost like slovenly soldiers just returned from a weekend bender, a dozen and a half men stood. All were human and younger than Eddie by a few years. None had yet been transformed by the vampires who had captured them. Dennis liked to transform the recruits himself whenever possible. And these recruits were pretty lame.

  Eddie curled his lip as he studied them.

  There were a few of the typical, totally wasted college students: the type who liked to pants other students and routinely sought ways to humiliate those weaker than themselves for fun. They didn’t seem to be all that sure what was going on. Or to care, for that matter.

  There were also about a handful of tough-as-nails gang-bangers or gangstas or whatever, sporting tattoos, saggy-baggy pants, and FU attitudes. A few goths had been rounded up. Decked out in black clothes with pale makeup, dyed black hair, and nose rings, they looked positively orgasmic over being in the same room with two real-life vampires.

  A couple of late night joggers had been wrangled, too. That pretty much summed it up.

  Losers, Eddie thought smugly. I could take these guys in a heartbeat.

  One of the pros of becoming a vampire was not having to worry about getting your ass kicked anymore. He’d been bullied a lot as a kid. And as a teenager. And once had been beaten badly enough to land in the hospital his sophomore year at Duke. (His mamma had just shaken her head and told him he shouldn’t have been running his mouth the way he had.)

  But now, he was the bully. Now, he kicked ass.

  And even if these guys wanted to kick his ass once Dennis turned them, they wouldn’t be able to, because any soldiers caught fighting amongst themselves were locked in The Hole just before sunrise.

  “This, gentlemen, is another of my soldiers,” Dennis said, settling a hand on Eddie’s shoulder in friendly camaraderie.

  Dennis considered himself a king and the other vampires his soldiers in a war that would free them all from the tyranny of the Immortal Guardians and allow them to take their rightful place as the most powerful creatures in existence.

  In other words, he wanted to take over the world. Eddie thought that was so cool.

  The goths turned their adoring gazes on Eddie, who puffed out his chest and gave them just enough of a superior smile to show the tips of his fangs, which still hadn’t receded from the fight.

  “Rising to take our rightful place as leaders in this world and grasping the power and all of the wealth that will accompany that will require bloodshed.”

  The drunken frat boys looked confused. The goths ... didn’t really seem to be paying attention. They were just so hyped about meeting vampires. The gangstas looked unimpressed. And the joggers were shaking in their ass-toning sneakers.

  “If you join my army, you will need to familiarize yourself with the weapons we use and our methods of fighting. Eddie, let’s provide them with a display, shall we?”

  When Dennis drew a dagger from a sheath on his belt and laid it on the table, Eddie drew his bowie knife and placed it next to the dagger, then removed his other bowie, a switch blade, and brass knuckles.

  That was it for him.

  Dennis lined up three more daggers and two swords—the kind you saw martial arts guys use in movies—on the table alongside the others.

  Eddie had always thought
Dennis a bit of a dweeb when it came to his blades. Their leader had such a boner for weapons, carrying six or more at a time, sharpening them every night, even when he didn’t use them.

  But after fighting the immortal earlier ... Eddie had to admit that Dennis might be on to something. The Immortal Guardian had been covered with weapons. Two short swords, probably a dozen or more daggers (Eddie still couldn’t figure out how exactly the prick had thrown those when he had held a longer blade in each hand), and at least a dozen of those slick throwing star thingies.

  The metal offering on the table between Dennis and the potential recruits actually seemed sort of pathetic in comparison.

  Dennis motioned to the table with a smile. “Step forward. Choose a weapon. Lift it. Get a feel for it.”

  When one of the goths picked up the brass knuckles and put them on backwards, Dennis sighed heavily and gave Eddie a help this idiot out before I kill him look.

  Snorting, Eddie swaggered around the table and, yanking the heavy brass from the goth’s fingers, probably spraining a few in the process, demonstrated the proper way to don them, then the way to use them, swinging at the air in front of the goth’s face.

  Stepping into the doorway, Dennis snapped his fingers at two passing vampires. “Weapons.”

  Enough machetes and bowie knives were handed over to provide a blade for every recruit present, including the brass-knuckled moron.

  Smirking, Eddie crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head as he watched the puny humans swing the blades.

  “Now,” Dennis said, regaining their attention. “I am very selective when it comes to finding men worthy of joining my army.”

  Really? Since when?

  “Not everyone has what it takes.”

  The goths all stood taller and straightened their shoulders. The others showed no change.

  “Therefore, you must first pass a test if you wish to become one of us.”

  “We don’t want to become one of you,” one of the joggers had the balls to say, voice trembling.

  Dennis’s eyes flashed a brilliant blue as his fangs descended. “Would you rather I simply drain you dry?”

  The jogger swiftly shook his head.

  When no further complaints were offered, Dennis continued. “The rules, gentlemen, are very simple. In your hands, you each hold a weapon. You must use those weapons to complete a task I have devised for you.”