Night is Magic: A Vampire Romance (Hearts of Dagon Book 1)

by Alix Adale

  Brilliant plan, Dez. And a total non-starter, without any money. Because they must have canceled her Netherworld Black card by now. Ugh. Why did this have to be so hard? She wasn’t cut out for superhero adventures. That was George’s bag, George and Colin. She wasn’t even cut out to be a vampire. Years spent studying graphic design wasn’t helping her out of this jam.

  Ahead, headlights knifed through the dark. A horn honked at the bikers crowding the road.

  She chimed her bell, pedaling in a frantic rush over to the bike lane. Her front wheel wobbled this way, that. Six years since she’d ridden one of these things! Every second, the bike threatened to veer into the path of oncoming traffic or smack-dab into a parked car.

  They rolled to a halt at a stoplight. Xerxes, damn him, in so much better shape despite her underworld strength, hadn’t even broken a sweat. But the road ahead climbed up steeper still, into Portland’s West Hills.

  “Aren’t we avoiding that place?” His strong hand pointed at the high house in the hill. Eibon Manor was less than a quarter mile away. “You said for me not to go there.”

  God, he was right. They couldn’t go there. Wasn’t anywhere in this city free of the damned Blooded? Something Armando had said earlier flashed back, warning her against hunting in a no-go zone. On the map, it hadn’t been far from Eibon Manor. “Xerxes, is the zoo around here?”

  “A few miles that way, but it’s closed after dark.”

  “Let’s go! The supervillains, they’re afraid of the place. They won’t follow us inside.”

  “Why are they afraid of the zoo?”

  “We’re about to find out!”

  They ditched their bikes in a culvert behind the zoo then crept into a mostly empty employee’s parking lot, toward the back. A few minutes of circling around brought them to a dark, chain link fence that encircled the back portion of the zoo. Thick hedges and wooden planks filled the space beyond the fence, making climbing over or even tearing through the rotten metal links a challenge. Then a gate turned up. Padlocked, but that wouldn’t stop her.

  “Come on. We’ll go through here.”

  One busted padlock later and they were creeping through a dark, deserted employee lot, full of dead pine needles and landscaping equipment. It looked like all the zookeepers had gone home for the night, but they must have a few night watchmen. Otherwise someone might steal the animals or something. That could happen, right?

  They needed a place to hide. Preferably for the whole night, and even more vital would be to secure a sealed location before the sun came up. Her nanorian was gone—the sun could kill her, now. The itchy, inflamed skin reminded her of that.

  In the dark, the zoo was ominous, even portentous. But it was not quiet. Bizarre animal noises tore through the night: exotic birds, screeching monkeys, and strange cries from creatures unknown. A strange, chuffing sound, half growl, half roar, cut through the din at one point, silencing the rest of the beasts. A lion perhaps, or a tiger.

  Xerxes followed behind, bent at the waist as they crept down a concrete ramp through what the signs called the ‘Elephant Lands.’ None of the giants were in evidence, even in her superior night-sight. They must be huddling together in their shelter.

  “Where are we going?” Xerxes whispered after a few minutes of aimless creeping along the walkway.

  Her voice cracked. “Good question. I don’t know. I don’t have much of a plan.”

  He reached out and took her hand. “Desiree, don’t panic. Or should I use your codename?”

  “My what?”

  “Codename. All superheroes have codenames, like Wonder Woman or Supergirl.”

  “I-I don’t have one.”

  “How about, ‘Amazing Woman’?” His grin lit up the dark. Good teeth.

  Always look for a man with good teeth, her mother had said. Save on dentist bills. Mother. What did that woman know? She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Let’s stay focused. We need to hole up for the night—and all day tomorrow.”

  “All day?”

  “I’m allergic to the sun; it can kill me.” She lifted a hand, stopping his protests. “I know, it sounds crazy. More crazy on top of all the craziness already. And yeah, I was out in daylight this morning. But things changed. The sun made all these nasty blotches on my face.”

  He looked dubious and who could blame him? But he bucked up. “If you say so. So we have to find something underground, somewhere for you to hide during the day, like a vampire.”

  What did he just say? She froze mid-step. But he appeared innocent, making a simple remark. People did watch movies, understood that vampires died in the sun. “Right. Like a vampire. We need a storm drain or something. Somewhere underground where we won’t be disturbed.’

  He flashed an eager smile. “I have an idea. Places like this have underground structures: utility rooms, pump houses, subterranean access. It should be easy to find. We need to get out of these animal exhibits and into the employee areas.”

  “Great idea! There’s some buildings ahead.”

  Xerxes had found a door marked with ‘High Voltage’ and ‘Employees Only’ behind the Kalahari Café, when someone or something started stalking them. That wasn’t good. Whatever frightened the vampires enough to make the zoo off-limits might prove bad news indeed, more than she could handle. “Xerk? Something’s out there.”

  “Huh?” He tried opening the door, but it was locked.

  “Do you see those eyes? They’re glowing!” She pointed.

  The menacing orbs vanished as he looked. “Where? I don’t see anything.”

  “They’re gone.”

  From above, footsteps clomped across the roof. It sounded like human footsteps, like someone in thick boots. She craned her neck upward, seeing nothing but shadows.

  A sudden howl from the far end of the plaza made her hair curl. The cry mixed a dog’s snarl and a wolf’s growl. And it was close—less than twenty yards away among the picnic tables across the plaza. But what would a wolf be doing loose in the zoo?

  Worry showed across Xerk’s face. “Break the doorknob! I can’t jimmy the lock.”

  “Got it.” She twisted it off. The utility room door popped open. They entered, closing the busted door behind them.

  Total darkness. Should have paid more attention to George’s self-defense lessons when she had the chance. Nope! Won’t ever need those! What an idiot she’d been. Okay, what was his number one tip? Oh yeah—stay aware of your surroundings.

  Xerxes stumbled around the room, a patch of blackness darker than the shadows all around. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “Shh!” She grabbed his hand. “I can see better than you. Give my eyes time to adjust. Okay, see there by those boxes? There’s a grate on the floor. It might lead down to some access crawlways. Maybe we can wiggle down—”

  The broken door crashed open, cutting her words off mid-sentence. Three shapes burst into the room. Moonlight from outside cast enough light to show they were huge, bipedal, and not human. One fumbled along the wall and flicked on the light-switch.

  She shielded her eyes too late. Light flooded her pupils, wrecking her night vision and blinding her. She caught only a single glimpse of half-human, half-beast, a figure out of nightmare.

  “Monsters! Run, Dez!” Xerxes dropped her hand and charged. “I will fight them.”

  The nitwit! She tried to grab him but still blind, missed.

  Fists swung, connecting with flesh or fur. Grunts. Growls. A loud, sickening and very human groan sounded. It must be Xerxes. Someone or something had gut-punched him.

  “Xerxes!” She staggered forward. Her vision flashed back in.

  A massive, bear-like creature gripped Xerxes in a merciless double armlock. Blood trickled from her friend’s nose. Worse was a gash-mark across his belly. Blood oozed from the wound—sweet and tempting. He struggled in vain against the mighty creature’s grip. Two other furry bipeds grinned at her with menace, more wolf-like than ursine.

  Lycans! No wonder the vamp
ires stayed clear of the zoo after dark. Her research into the causes and cures for vampirism had instructed her about lycans, a rival form of immortals, but she’d never met one in the flesh. They dominated rural spaces while vampires stuck to the cities. It was strange for them to lair only miles from Eibon Manor, the beating heart of vampire power in the Pacific Northwest.

  George’s gruff voice came back, hard lessons taught in the clan’s practice ring. Never show fear to a lycan. Don’t let them even smell it. That proved useless advice. Her knees knocked. The reek of terror rolled off her in clouds. God, is this what that homeless guy suffered? She tried to stand her ground.

  Apart from the massive bear crushing Xerxes, there was a black-furred lupine, possibly the alpha. The third was a scrawny, scruffy-looking canine, off-gray in color and with an unappealing case of mange. The black werewolf pranced a step closer, sniffing the air and flashing fangs. “Hello, Dagon.”

  Her voice sounded almost confident. If she could get this—thing—to step back, they might not die horrible deaths. “I’m not with the Kingdom!”

  “All bats smell the same. Cold. Dead. Your meat is no good. It cannot feeeed us, Dagon.”

  “I said, I’m not with the Kingdom! I’m not your enemy.”

  “Prove it.”

  “You know the Queen’s soldiers wear nanorians, right? So they can walk in the sun?”

  “It is true.”

  “I don’t have one. I’m not one of hers.”

  The wolf-man approached, sniffing.

  She opened her denim jacket. Beneath lay the twill blouse, her bra, her blotchy, sun-chastened skin—and her single, undead heart, pumping its stolen blood through her circulatory system.

  Wolf-man stepped closer. His nose twitched like a dog’s, moist and covered with pores. A nose like that looked cute on a dog, but on a biped with humanoid eyes, it was uncanny. He sniffed, listened, inches from her heart then jerked back. “It is true. Are you a rogue?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is good. We are rogues, too.” All three of the man-beasts tittered, a nightmare blend of snorts, growls, and deep, bass chuffing sounds. “Exiles from the Lycan Nations.”

  “I ask for sanctuary under the old treaties.” The idea sounded dubious, but all that time in the Braden Library researching vampires—and how to not be one anymore—at least paid off.

  The black-furred wolf looked at the others. His snout whipped back forward. “If you insist. I’m Jed Wolf and this is my pack, the Mange. Welcome to our lair.”

  That was easy—almost too easy. Something fishy here. “Thanks. Please let my friend go. He’s hurt and needs help.”

  Help only a vampire could provide: her new friend looked almost unconscious. Sweet, fresh blood seeped through his jersey, staining his leather jacket. The alluring sweetness of his clean, young blood woke her inner beast.

  “No, ‘fraid not,” Jed said. “See, he’s just a hyoo-mon. Meat. We’re going to eat him.”

  The bear-creature grunted. “No. Not eat. Turn him. This one’s strong. Make pack stronger. Make a bear out of him. Gift of the moon, eh?”

  No. No, no, no—a thousand times no. If these beasts took Xerxes’s life or turned him into a bestial, half-man, half-animal creatures like themselves, it would burn her conscience for eternity. She’d pulled him into this mess and—no matter what she tried—only dragged him in deeper. God, what to do? What would Colin do? He was the rational one. George—George would fight, to the death if need be. What would these lycans respect?

  The were-bear started nuzzling Xerxes’ neck. The big guys’ eyes widened with terror. His struggles slackened off as the wound left him weak and dizzy.

  “Stop it! He’s mine.” The sharpness in her voice surprised everyone, herself included.

  “What?” The were-bear growled.

  “I said he’s mine! Let him go!” She whirled on Jed. “You gave me sanctuary—is that not sacred among your kind? The ancient guest-right?”

  Jed stepped back, snarling, but the mangy, little one nodded. “It is.”

  “That hyoo-mon is my—thrall. He feeds me blood. We bonded. My guest-right extends to my servant. My—my man.”

  The little one cackled. Strange, his face carried coyote-like features. “She’s right, Jed. That is the Law of the Wild.”

  “Dammit.” The wolf man gestured at the were-bear. After a moment, as if weighing the price of rebellion in favor of a big snack, the massive lycan shoved Xerxes forward.

  For a moment, the young firefighter stood upright, wobbling in his tennis shoes. His eyes sought hers. His face, once so tan and full of life, looked pale and drawn. Then he stumbled, near to collapse. His eyes fluttered shut, consciousness fading. The wound was even worse, deeper than she’d feared.

  “Xerxes!” Rushing forward, she caught him before he fell and lowered him gently to the ground. “Don’t die on me, big guy.”

  “All right, rogue.” Jed Wolf glared at her. “You have guest-right, here in this hall. Tricky will take you down into the subbasements where the employees won’t find you, somewhere deep and dark where the sun don’t shine. Rest up for a few days. Tricky will bring you food, water, whatever you need. Good enough?”

  “Yes. Thank you. You’re a kind and generous host.” She cradled Xerxes in her arms, stroking his hair. His blood, so near, tempted her. It seeped onto her hands as she hugged him.

  “We go.” With that, Jed Wolf and the hulking were-bear exited the utility room. The slim, mangy coyote remained. The thin lycan dropped to his knees, working a combination lock on one of the subbasement hatches. “It is as Jed says. Come, I will show you the way.”

  Tricky proved true to his word, despite his worrisome name. He led her down a ladder and through a variety of clean and well-maintained service corridors and access tunnels, illuminated by occasional runner lights. But the deeper they penetrated into the substructure of the zoo, the more abandoned and off-limits it looked.

  “Here,” Tricky said, leading them through a pipe and into a dry water tank. Blankets, a couple buckets, some trash and old paperbacks suggested a well-used hidey-hole for the lycans.

  Xerxes felt heavy in her arms, but she carried him up the last metal steps to safety.

  Tricky shut the hatch and vanished, promising to return soon with food and water—even a few supplies of medical blood. Why they kept such a vampire-specific supply, who could say, but she was grateful. She needed the blood.

  A fresh supply slumped in her arms. But she could never drink from Xerxes. His eyes remained shut, though his ragged breathing showed that he still lived.

  There was no way to judge his weakness. There was little she could do but try something she’d never tried before. With a flick of her tongue and a twist of her jaw, she popped her fangs. Then she scored her left forearm. The dark gouge turned crimson at once.

  She put the blood to his lips.

  He pushed it away in disgust, a natural reaction.

  “Drink!” If only she had an enthralling eye, she might compel him to drink her healing ichor. But such a power was far beyond her, beyond most of the Blooded. It took an old, experienced vampire with a knack for magic and mesmerism to try that. Ursula, according to rumor, was among the best.

  Crimson trickled from her wrist to his lips. His mouth opened and the flow began to dribble in. The restorative effects took hold swiftly. Within minutes, his eyes opened, seeking hers. He even raised his fingers, wiping at his lips. “What is this?”

  “My blood. It has a healing factor. Don’t move. Your guts should start kneading together.”

  His gaze moved down toward his wound. The cut didn’t run so deep, now. “Desiree. You’re not a superhero.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “You’re a vampire.”

  How astute he’d turned out to be. To think she’d ever doubted him. It took a while to answer, because this was a hell of a thing to admit. “Yeah, Xerxes. I am.”

  “So you drink blood and kill people. Like Mike�
��Oil-Can Mike.”

  Her fingers wiped in vain at her eyes. “I’m so, so sorry. But yeah, that’s what vampires do.”

  He did not pull away. He pulled her closer instead. “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How did you turn into—a vampire?”

  She sunk into his arms, against his strong chest. Her eyes left dark stains across his leather jacket, random red across solid black. Her bitter laughter rang out. “I don’t even know. That’s the goddamned thing. Armando did it to me and I don’t even know why.”

  Strong fingers, growing stronger by the minute, stroked her soft hair. “Did you hurt Mike?”

  “I hurt people—in the past. When Armando first turned me, for about a month I was wild. Feral. Full of bloodlust and out of control. It happens to all newborns. It takes about a moon’s spell for the transformation to sink in and take hold. During that period, he took me hunting. We hunted and killed and drank the blood of what we killed.”

  “What did you kill?”

  “Deer, mostly. Raccoons. Once, a mountain lion. Once we even chased a Sasquatch but never could catch the damn thing.”

  “Men? Did you kill men?” His strong, comforting fingers touched the moisture on her face.

  “Yeah. He did—I helped.”

  “And Mike? Did you help kill Oil-Can Mike?”

  “No, never! I swore that off forever. Until last night. When it happened. My clan sister … disobeyed.”

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  Yes, she did, she very much wanted to try that. “We started off downtown, but there were too many cameras. So Cherise—a member of my clan—drove us into Overlook. She had a map, or so she said, of approved killing fields. But I think she was driving around at random, looking for a victim. We found this old guy sleeping in a doorway behind a grocery cart. He didn’t wake up until she kicked him in the ribs. She cut him and told him he’d die if he didn’t run.

  “He ran. Oh, Xerxes, he ran. But not far enough…”