Dark Heart of the Sun

by SK Ryder

  “You,” Jackson said. “I was wondering what rock you’d disappeared under.”

  “Hmmm,” said the vampire, narrowing his eyes. “Stubborn, this. Thickheaded.”

  Samantha heaved a dramatic sigh. “Yes. That sums up my baby brother. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “His light is bright,” the bizarre apparition said with some reluctance as if that might make up for a dumpster full of shortcomings he clearly perceived in Jackson. He patted her arm. “We must go, golden one.”

  “Of course.” Samantha got behind the wheel. The vampire shoved Jackson’s feet off the back seat and dropped into it.

  Jackson scrambled to the far side of the car. “What the fuck, Sam. What have you done?”

  “Helping a new friend, of course. His name is Serge. He’s three hundred years old, can you believe it?” She looked over her shoulder at him, her gentle face aglow like he hadn’t seen it since the Christmas morning she found a pony tethered by the tree. “Magical,” she intoned. “Just magical.”

  “Nightmare,” Jackson corrected. Samantha had to be compelled out of her gourd and would be of no help in getting them out of this disaster. He had to take control and fast.

  They were still in the hospital parking lot. He could open the door and . . . No, he had to stay here. He had to—God damn it, no!—help Serge. And Dominic. He closed his eyes and tried again. His fingers closed around the door release, but he didn’t pull it, couldn’t pull it. Sweat broke out across his forehead and upper lip in clammy beads. He swallowed the sour taste of panic and slanted a look at the vampire.

  Serge watched him with a pleasant, half-friendly smile on his broad face. Apparently satisfied that Jackson wasn’t going to bolt, he reached over his shoulder, pulled down the seatbelt, and clicked it into place. “It’s the law. Buckle up,” he told Jackson and erupted into a gale of giggles.

  Jackson wiped his face with one hand. Get it together. Concentrate. What the fuck had happened here? How did he get tripped up again? And now his uncle would get pulled into this mess, too. Of course, they were in this mess because of Garrett, so maybe that was as it should be.

  Uncle Garrett, he thought, a spark of hope flickering to life. Uncle Garrett was back at the operations office at the hangar. Every sensor and surveillance camera for a mile around fed back to there. He’d know the second Serge breached a border, even inside a car. Yes, Garrett would see them coming, curse his nephew’s name and then meet the threat in classic Garrett Striker style—with all guns blazing. With a little luck, Jackson and Samantha might even avoid becoming collateral damage.

  Oh, fuck, Samantha . . . He couldn’t begin to wrap his head around his sister bumbling around in all this, compelled and no longer so clueless. They were almost at the airport.

  “What’s your part in this? You’re not Nicky’s sire," Jackson asked the vampire in the backseat with him, God help him. These conversations were becoming unacceptably common.

  Serge cocked his head and grinned in a way that didn’t strike Jackson as entirely sane. “How do you know?”

  “His blood says his sire is a great deal older than you.”

  “Yes,” Serge said, stretching the word into a hiss. He watched Jackson like a hawk eyed a juicy mouse. “You should be glad I come instead, foolish boy.”

  Maybe so. An ancient might have left Jackson dead before he even knew he was near. Like that thing in Key West, the creature Dominic had bested . . .

  “Okay, here we go,” Samantha announced. “Blanket time.”

  “What time?”

  “You’re sitting on them, dummy,” she admonished. “Hurry up. I’m almost at the gate.”

  Serge yanked several Mexican yoga blankets out from under Jackson’s butt, sending him slamming against the door. In a blurring whirl, the vampire made a blanket burrito of himself. Jackson blinked at the pile now in the seat beside him. “Son of a bitch.”

  The blanket giggled. No sensor or camera would be able to detect a supernatural presence in this car now. The fiend would know this, of course. He would have it from Jackson’s mind. Which explained why Samantha’s blankets lay at the ready instead of in the trunk, their usual home. “Fuck.”

  “Good evening, sir,” said the guard at the gate, ducking low to see him in the back seat. Samantha had announced his presence as her ticket to enter. Stop this car. I’m being kidnapped, he wanted to shout. Instead the alien that had body-snatched him waved a pleasant acknowledgement. They rolled up to the SCI hangar a minute later with no hint of a light cannon coming online anywhere.

  The blanket sighed, blissful.

  Samantha got out, walked around the car, and opened his door. “C’mon, Jack. Let’s go get this hideous system turned off.”

  “Yeah, right. You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to do that,” he said, leading the way into the hangar.

  Samantha stopped when she saw the ruined plane. “Someone was pissed. Dominic?”

  “Forty million dollars’ worth of pissed. Garrett won’t let me forget it.”

  “Serves you right,” she sniffed. “How could you? From all I’ve heard, Dominic is a sweetheart.”

  Jackson almost tripped. “You should reconsider your sources, sis.”

  By the time they reached the office door, Jackson felt Serge’s hold on him loosen somewhat. The distance between them was growing too great for the demon to maintain firm control over him. He stared at the control panel. Pin number, thumbprint, disengage lock.

  “Well?” Samantha prompted.

  Jackson opened the door.

  The office was empty. A high-pitched shriek echoed faintly through the cage room door.

  “Is that Cassidy?”

  Jackson knew that it had to be. He shouldn’t have left. He really shouldn’t have left.

  “The system, Jack. Hurry.” Samantha pushed him toward the server racks, no doubt pushed herself by the same compulsion he felt, but which she was far less able to withstand.

  He had to stop this, get control, get Cassidy out of here. His fingers flew over the keyboard. Before he knew what he was doing, indicators started going red as components dropped offline in groups. A minute later, all the humming in the room ceased. He looked at the blank screens, horrified. It would take half an hour for all of this to boot back up and calibrate. In the meantime the humans here didn’t stand a chance. “We are so fucked.”

  “Serge is on his way,” his sweet, innocent sister said and pulled open the door to the hangar.

  Jackson dared not think. So he didn’t. Letting his hunter’s instincts take over, he formulated a plan and executed it on autopilot. He continued to keep his thoughts carefully empty as he stood behind his sister, the samurai sword raised and ready. He sensed the alien presence close in around him again.

  When it could get no closer, he brought down the blade.

  Chapter 37

  Acts of Desperation

  Cassidy saw it coming, but was too surprised to even attempt avoiding Garrett’s fist. It connected hard with her jaw. Her neck snapped back and the inside of her head rang like a struck gong. Her vision blurred. Her legs refused to cooperate. She’d be flat on the ground if not for Garrett holding her up with one hand clamped around her arm. That and the rage of Dominic’s beast. It ran through her like an electric current, and she greedily tapped into it for all the strength it could provide.

  “Ready to tell me what’s going on yet?” Garrett said.

  Dominic paced the cage, a growling, half-burned nightmare apparition straight out of hell. Several minutes ago, he’d burst into a rampage that drew Garrett back to the cage with Cassidy in tow and cursing Jackson for being a brainless boy who might be better off getting himself killed.

  “Fine. I can do this all night.” Garrett drew back his fist. Cassidy screamed.
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  “He comes!” Dominic rasped. “He comes for you.”

  Garrett dropped the fist. “Excellent. Now. Care to tell me something I don’t know?”

  Dominic stepped closer to the bars. His solid black eyes glistened. The fangs in his open mouth had never looked sharper. He was all emotion, all beast.

  “He will cast you into darkness,” he hissed, fixing Garrett with an unblinking stare. “He will hunt you and make you his. You will beg to die.”

  “Spare me the fantasies.” Garrett raised his fist again, and Cassidy cringed. “Where is he?”

  With a soft boom, the lights all cut off at once. After the incessant, buzzing hum and the rush of the white noise generators, deafening silence now ruled together with complete darkness.

  The beast’s malevolent whisper slithered like a snake made of ice. “He will cast you into darkness.”

  Cassidy shuddered. No, it couldn’t be. He couldn’t really have called his sire, could he?

  Garrett cursed under his breath. A generator kicked in somewhere. The halogen desk lamps switched back on. He headed for the nearest workstation, hustling her, staggering, along with him. By the time Cassidy realized his intention, Garrett already reached for the light gun sitting beside the keyboard.

  Adrenalin shot through her, merged with the caffeine. In a whirl of ferocious, instinctive motion, she spun around and slammed her elbow into Garrett’s kidneys. With a whoosh of escaping air, he released her arm. An instant later, she had his wrist in both hands, twisted and shoved it up his back until he doubled over—and dropped to his knees.

  Cassidy stood over him, gasping and shaking, heart hammering. A thin line of blood oozed on Garrett’s forehead where the corner of the desk had met his face. She grabbed for the light gun and clumsily smashed it against the same corner until pieces of it clattered down around Garrett’s head.

  “Run, Cassidy.” The words drifted through the fogbank clogging her head. “Run.”

  She took one step back, eyes locked on Garrett’s slack face, and felt her chest constrict around her lungs, squeezing air out of her body. She bent over, wheezing. She had acted without thinking, on instinct. Might have killed a man. She didn’t want to be here. She had to be here. No way out.

  Trapped.

  No way out.

  The huge room wobbled around her. Breathe, she admonished herself. Keep it together, Chandler. Easier said than done. Her throat only grew tighter.

  “Cassidy. Mon amour. Run!”

  She straightened and turned around. Dominic lay at the front of the cage, watching her through the bars. No sign of the beast. Only an impossibly broken human shell. He turned his face away.

  Cassidy clenched her hands into fists at her sides and fought for air.

  “Breathe,” he whispered. The single word brought back the last time panic had run her over in vivid detail. Slowly. Deeply. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Her hand clutching at his. At Dominic. At safety.

  A massive breath shuddered into her and dissipated the haze as it left her again. Another one and the panic subsided like an outgoing tide. Certain knowledge took its place. Dominic was her safe haven.

  And nothing else mattered.

  “I’m not leaving you here.”

  “You must. Save yourself.”

  Ignoring him, she looked around, forcing her brain to start up again, to create a plan. Door. There had to be a door to the cage. The ladder. Of course. The door had to be on top. Whatever was inside wouldn’t be able to push against it that way, but it would still be locked. How? She’d seen keys in a drawer here last night. As good a guess as any.

  Retrieving a sizeable key ring, Cassidy hiked up her dress, and scrambled up the ladder. “Please tell me you didn’t really call your sire.”

  “Sotte! What are you doing, foolish woman?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I bought you an opportunity to escape. Probably with more than one life. Take it.”

  “I will. This won’t take long,” she said, more to convince herself than the irate vampire in the cage beneath her. No fewer than four padlocks secured a titanium crossbar as thick as her arm, an overkill designed to make it as time-consuming as possible for anyone to do exactly what it was she intended to do. She dropped to her knees beside the hatch and got started. The keys rattled in her fingers as she fumbled the first candidate into a lock.

  They will stop at nothing to keep you from releasing me. Please. I am not worth your life.

  “And now that they know they can yank your chain with me, they won’t stop looking for me either. We’re in this together whether you like it or not.”

  The first of eight identical keys didn’t work, neither did the second. The third finally clicked open the lock. She whooped her relief and flung the thing aside, clear off the roof. “One down.”

  Dominic was silent until she managed to undo and dispose of the second lock. What do you think I will do when you release me?

  “Run like hell, of course. What else would you do?”

  I have never been this hungry, chérie.

  “Okay, then . . .”

  Or this angry. A wave of that rage simmered over her, setting her teeth on edge. I will have blood for what they did to us.

  She faltered with the fifth key. “No. You won’t kill them.”

  Because I did not kill you? You are my heart, Cassidy. I can no more harm you than I can let them live.

  Cassidy swallowed a dry knot of anxiety. You do that, you’re going to live up to their worst expectations of you.

  She jammed the key home and twisted. Click. The third lock followed the others off the roof. Why do you think I can let them go? Dominic wondered, drifting in genuine confusion.

  Because I believe in you. The real you. Like you believe in me. The next key jammed in the last lock, and she struggled to pull it back out. Even when I don’t.

  Something dragged against the floor down below. A miserable groan followed. Garrett.

  She jerked so hard on the stuck key, when it came out, the key ring flew out of her hand. It smacked against the metal roof. Cassidy leapt after it, landing with a thud.

  The reviving motions became more energetic. Shit!

  Somewhere outside someone, a woman, screamed. Though muffled, the sound made her freeze in shock. Who? Why?

  Clanging steps on the ladder rungs brought her back to her own predicament.

  Cassidy, stop.

  The last key slid home, twisted. The lock snapped open and dropped away.

  “Stop right there.”

  She looked up to see Garrett Striker coming over the edge like a SWAT team commando moving in on a terrorist. His gun—the one that fired real bullets—was pointed straight at her.

  Dominic’s most resonant voice, no longer obscured by the white noise generators, throbbed in the air, every syllable dripping with compulsion. “You will leave her alone!”

  Doubt flitted across Garrett’s face, confusion clouding his determination. His hand shook, but the gun didn’t move away. Instead he pulled the trigger.

  Jackson’s first kill exceeded his wildest fantasies. At night with the target running free and while under a compulsion. Against all the odds, yet clean, swift and decisive. A thing of sheer, triumphant beauty. He reeled with the euphoria of it—or would have if not for his sister, splattered in blood on her hands and knees beside the vampire’s headless body, screaming, incoherent, a woman gone insane.

  He was saved from having to think of a way to calm her by the sound of gunfire in the cage room followed by an unearthly shriek. Dropping the bloody sword and leaving Samantha to have her nervous breakdown in private, Jackson bolted for the cage room. Inside, Garrett was running toward Jackson and gestured for retreat, his face bright red with anger a
nd dripping blood. “Get out! Run!”

  “Where is she? What did you do to Cassidy?” Jackson demanded, racing for the cage. His words were drowned by deafening, inhuman screams reverberating off the towering walls. He could almost taste the wrath in them, already smelled the gore of the destruction they promised.

  Garrett grabbed his elbow and tried to pull him toward the door. “That bitch unlocked the hatch. He could be free any second. We have got to get the lights back on in here.”

  Jackson shook him off. “Where is she?”

  The hatch rattled violently now, again and again. Something was shaking loose. Jackson spotted a dark, still hump up there, and knew instantly what it was. Cassidy. A red haze crowded into his vision.

  “Son of a bitch!” Jackson’s fist slammed into his uncle’s jaw. The older man staggered backwards.

  Jackson didn’t stick around to see if Garrett recovered. He bolted for the cage. If he was quick enough, he might be able to secure the hatch before all hell really did break loose—and then get Cassidy out of here before it was too late for her. If it wasn’t already. He didn’t miss a beat when the gun fired again. The bullet pinged off the floor by his feet.

  “Get back here. Leave her to him. That’s where she wants to be.”

  “Over my dead body,” Jackson shot back, gambling that if his uncle took him by his word and actually hit something vital it would be by accident. It wouldn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. He had put down his first vampire. He drew the line at killing humans, a line Garrett clearly had no problem crossing. If Cassidy didn’t make it, the Foundation be damned, his uncle would go down.