Darklight

by Forrest, Bella

  Just as Jim twisted the knob of his office door, his cell rang in his pocket. "One moment, pardon me," he murmured, swiping his finger across the phone's screen to accept the call.

  We stood in silence as Jim listened to the voice on the other end. He blinked at the floor a few times, and then his jaw went rigid and his brow furrowed in the dim light from the desk lamp.

  “Okay, I’ve got somebody on it,” Jim said into the receiver. He hung up and looked at Dorian appraisingly, sizing him up again. "Change of plan."

  "Pardon?" Bryce asked, his voice heightened with wariness.

  My eyes were glued to Jim, and adrenaline mixed with anxiety in my blood. The air weighed heavier on me.

  "A pair of newlyweds were just murdered in their hotel room at the Hyzanthia. The guests in the next room heard the gunshots and immediately called the police. The culprit fled the scene recently, so he won't be too far yet. The hotel is close by." Jim’s words flew from his mouth rapidly, his tone flat.

  His intention was clear. I shot a glance at Dorian, the words sticking in my throat. I knew there was no need to worry; Dorian knew what he was doing. And even if this project already felt personal to me, it shouldn’t feel so difficult to imagine Dorian putting himself in harm’s way. I swallowed. My chest felt tighter than normal. I really needed to get these feelings under control.

  Jim evaluated Dorian, a calculating look in his eye. He set a hand on his hip. "What do you say, Dorian? Looks like we’ve been handed a golden opportunity. You want to take a field trip and track down our guy?"

  Bryce interjected before Dorian could answer. "Jim, we can't just set him loose in the streets,” he said gruffly.

  "Why not?” Jim asked with a crooked smile. “This seems to be a very practical application of what he claims to be able to do, with an immediate real-world benefit. Why waste time?" Jim crossed his arms over his chest and gave Bryce a “so what are you gonna do about it?” look. He knew how to get his way with Bryce—and probably most people.

  "For one, it breaks Bureau restrictions for our trial period. He's required to be under supervision at all times." Captain Bryce said what he was required to, but his voice wavered a bit between displeasure with breaking rules and knowing Jim was probably right. We all knew that if Dorian pulled this off, Jim would be sold.

  I inhaled. I knew what the right call would be. I knew that Dorian was willing to take a personal risk to prove vampires were useful. But it didn’t make me any less tense.

  "Don't you trust him?" Jim asked, his voice prodding. I’d never seen anyone push Bryce’s buttons so fearlessly, and though my nerves clenched my throat, Jim was relentless. "You're a captain. Can't you make the call, in serious circumstances?"

  Bryce blew air out of his nose. He rubbed his temple, then slowly cracked a wry smile. I watched with wide eyes, not convinced that Bryce wasn’t about to blow a gasket. "All right, I'm making an executive decision. Due to the imminent threat to human life, I'll allow this. Just once." Jim grinned at that, and Bryce rolled his eyes at him.

  I wondered how many oddball plans Jim and Bryce had talked each other into over the years. At least Bryce wasn’t going to throttle anyone. Now all I had to fear was what the heck Dorian was walking into. I clenched my fists in an attempt to relieve some muscle tension.

  "Mr. Clave, if you would," Jim said, signaling Dorian over to his desk. “It’s not the most high-tech, but I think it’ll suit our purpose.” Jim pulled out a camera and a comm earpiece. He fixed the camera to Dorian's chest and wrapped Velcro straps around him to secure it, then tested Dorian's comm with his own. Dorian remained still as Jim worked around him. He pressed his lips into a tight line, and his eyes stared intently at a spot on the floor. He looked uncomfortable to be in such close proximity to Jim, in a way that he hadn’t with me, earlier.

  "We'll see everything you see, and I'll be speaking with you the whole time. And no one dies during this operation—injure and restrain only. Understood?" Jim asked tersely.

  "Yes, sir," Dorian responded. I watched him, wondering if he was at all worried. His cool, professional demeanor hadn’t broken since we sat down. If he hoped to impress Jim, I imagined that would do it.

  Jim reached into another desk drawer and removed a taser. He handed it to Dorian. Dorian held his hands up in refusal.

  "That won't be necessary, sir," he said, and this time I saw his quick half-smile. It was a smile that told all of us humans that we were about to get a very good show. I wasn’t sure whether it made me feel more or less worried—I knew plenty of self-assured soldiers who’d overestimated themselves.

  "Cocky, isn't he?" Jim said incredulously to me and Bryce with raised eyebrows. Then, to Dorian, "All right, let's cut you loose."

  Jim opened the door, and Dorian disappeared down the stairwell. We rushed after him, but he was quick—quicker than even I remembered. My mind flew through memories of his inhuman speed when he’d captured me, disarming me instantly. Had I ever seen him at full strength?

  "We're going to monitor your progress from the surveillance room on the first floor," Jim shouted at Dorian’s retreating figure, sounding slightly winded, but with more than a tinge of excitement in his voice.

  We humans burst out of the stairwell door behind Dorian, and Jim clicked on his comm to continue his instructions. “Out the main door and to the right. The hotel is six blocks down. Do your thing.” By the time we got to the lobby, I could see the rotating glass door spinning too fast, but Dorian was already gone.

  "In here, folks," Jim barked quickly, directing us with a waving hand into the building's surveillance room, which was mostly filled by a two-tier desk crowded with screens. "I'll have this hooked up in just a second. Then we’ll see what this guy’s really made of."

  The biggest screen in the middle of the array flickered as Jim toyed with some controls, then a screen to the right turned on with a display of satellite and CCTV footage for the twenty-block radius around us. The middle screen blinked a moment later, and there was Dorian's chest cam, vibrating wildly as he sprinted.

  "Dorian." Jim spoke into the comm with precision and energy. "Tell me what’s happening." Bryce leaned over Jim’s shoulder to listen to Dorian’s reply, and Jim tilted the earpiece toward him. These two were a sight to behold in action. Their interplay looked seamless, like they’d never stopped working together.

  I heard Dorian's tinny voice reply in Jim's earpiece. The CCTV screen flashed to a different camera, and we watched a grainy Dorian race down the sidewalk.

  "Good. I see you're nearing Cleveland Street. You're going to take a right there. The Hyzanthia is a block up on the right. The culprit won’t be in the building anymore, but they may still be around it," Jim instructed into the comm. "This kid is fast," he mouthed to Bryce, his eyes alight, and Bryce nodded back at him, his eyebrows raised in an I-told-you-so. Bryce drummed the tips of his fingers on the desk eagerly.

  Dorian was in front of the hotel by the time the CCTV screen flashed the image of the lobby doors. My eyes jumped erratically between all of the screens, trying to piece together this jumble of images into a smooth picture.

  "I'm walking around the building," I heard Dorian say through Jim's earpiece. "I’ve got a sense of the target. Vile."

  Jim leaned back in his chair. Everyone fixated on Dorian's chest camera in tense silence. Bryce still drummed his fingers, his face stone. All three of us were gripped, frozen. We watched Dorian slide past darkened windows and parked cars.

  Maybe I should’ve worried that the vampire would use this opportunity to pull a fast one on us, grab a quick snack of innocents, and take off into the night. But instead, the blood and carnage I imagined resembled a headstrong guy biting off more than he could chew and regretting it. I didn’t like the idea of standing by while he got beaten to a pulp on CCTV, but knowing Dorian, my worry was probably wasted. I was so curious I couldn’t hold my leg still, my thigh bouncing nervously. I watched, willing myself to wait and see.

  Was that
confidence I’d seen in Dorian earned, or was it all hot air? That wouldn’t bode well for our side project. But inside I knew it was more than that, too.

  Bryce seemed too enraptured to blink, while Jim watched with his arms folded, his gaze anticipatory.

  We watched Dorian creep around a corner, following his sense of the culprit’s darkness. He swiftly walked a few more blocks. Then he slid into a surprisingly well-lit, random alleyway, the glow of the street reaching far into its depths.

  I sucked in an anxious breath. A group of four men jogged ahead of Dorian in the alley. Were they the ones he was looking for?

  "Got 'em," Dorian said, his voice low and confident, coming through the comm distinctly this time.

  "Four of them?" Bryce asked the room, with a frown that gave away a hint of worry.

  "This is an interesting turn. We have had increased gang activity in this neighborhood. Probably connected," Jim said, tapping his cheek with his finger as though this was all some sort of practice scenario. Neither of them instructed Dorian to pull back.

  "Captain, this isn't what we expected,” I murmured. “Should we send backup? Have him follow from a distance?"

  I squeezed my hands together to release some of my muscle tension, calmly reminding myself to stay levelheaded.

  If he has to go into danger, I’d rather be fighting at his side. I hated watching from a screen.

  "If there’s a problem, Sloane, we’ll send you after him," Bryce said. "But he’ll back out or ask for help if he needs to. Let's see how this plays out."

  I knew Bryce was right, but my chest tightened. I couldn’t help but worry that if something went wrong, I wouldn’t get there in time.

  It looked like the men had dressed in staff uniforms in order to pull off their stunt and make a clean getaway. I thought I could make out the shape of gun butts under a couple of their shirts, but the TV image wasn’t clear enough.

  Well, Dorian, all that attitude better not be for nothing. I’d never seen this guy take on a human before, besides ambushing me, and I hadn’t been able to fully analyze and appreciate what he was doing at the time, since I was under attack. I highly anticipated watching Dorian cut loose—not fully, but enough to land some hits. I couldn’t wait to see how hard he could go without snapping necks. And then there was that flutter of attraction inside my chest, which kept springing up from under my metaphorical boot heel.

  The CCTV snapped to a bird’s-eye view of the alley from a camera mounted on a light post. In flickering black and white, it clearly showed Dorian stalking up behind the four men. Only about fifteen feet separated them now.

  Dorian closed the distance swiftly, assuredly. Dorian’s approach must’ve been dead silent, because he got close enough to swipe the two guns from under the men’s shirts at the back of their pants, one in each hand, then dart backward. I was impressed with Dorian’s speed, but also with my ability to initially catch the detail of the guns hidden beneath the perpetrators’ shirts.

  One freshly unarmed man turned and spotted Dorian, his mouth stretching in surprise, alerting his friends with a shout I couldn’t hear. The man beside him stumbled, reaching for where his gun used to be. His face contorted in anger at its disappearance. Their stances immediately went defensive, and one’s mouth moved quickly, planning their attack. Dorian stood and studied them motionlessly. Then, his movement almost casual, he tossed the guns out of sight over his shoulders.

  Not one of us breathed.

  The yelling man pointed, indicating to his friends to surround Dorian.

  Before they could, Dorian made his move.

  He went for the man farthest to the left first, leaping over him—actually over him—and snapping his arm behind his back, breaking it at the elbow, using it to restrain him in place. The man’s face wrenched in a scream, and Dorian dropped him to the ground, where he writhed, clutching his arm. The next closest man lurched toward Dorian, enraged, but the vampire aimed a high kick at his jaw, sending him tumbling backward to the concrete.

  The light from the lamppost glinted on two more guns, the other two men having fumbled them from their pants.

  "Watch out," I whispered on a strained outbreath.

  A flash erupted from one of the guns pointed directly at Dorian, and his chest cam went dark. But the CCTV showed that he hadn’t fallen; instead, he’d dived to the ground and shielded himself with the broken-armed man’s body on the ground. The man jolted, dark blood streaming from a bullet wound in his shoulder, another wave of pain warping his face. Dorian pushed the now-bleeding man away toward his unconscious colleague and dodged another bullet, moving toward the remaining men almost too fast to see.

  When he was nearly upon them, Dorian leapt into the air again, landing on the shoulders of the first shooter. The man staggered backward under his weight and smashed into the concrete. Dorian landed on top of him and pounded a fist into his temples, knocking him unconscious. The vampire snatched the gun and pitched it deep into the shadows.

  The remaining gunman had fumbled to aim, unable to get a good shot so close to his friend’s head, but Dorian was too fast. He lunged into the man’s midsection with such force that the two flew backward, landing on the concrete about seven feet away, by my estimate.

  I quickly scanned the surveillance room. Bryce and Jim were dead silent, their jaws hanging open. No one said a word. I didn’t even hear breathing, which prompted me to inhale for the first time in who knows how long. I’d never seen Bryce so… awestruck. Jim’s glasses had slipped down his nose, but he didn’t move to fix them.

  With that last man sprawled beneath him, Dorian crouched over him and threw his gun into a nearby dumpster. Dorian's face turned to the sky for a moment, almost directly into the CCTV cam we were gaping at. He twisted his neck, his fangs suddenly lengthening and shining in the light, visible even in the security camera. The criminals’ darkness was getting to him.

  "Oh, sh—" Bryce choked.

  I felt my hand press against my mouth in an entirely new kind of worry. Was this it? Would he break down and prove to us that his bloodthirsty nature couldn’t be controlled? Were these criminals too “dark” for Dorian to control himself? Until this moment, I hadn’t even realized how much control I’d expected of him. Dorian's face twisted in a silent howl. On the black-and-white visuals, for a moment he truly looked like a monster from some old film, about to commit unspeakable evil. His pain was palpable through the screen.

  Then he clenched a fist against his throat, his face constricting in a wince while his fangs retracted. A wave of relief washed the grimace from his face.

  My own echo of relief didn’t last long. While he was distracted, I saw motion on the security camera.

  "He's getting up!" I warned. One of the shooters stumbled to his feet, directly behind Dorian.

  At almost the same moment, Jim curled his lip in irritation. "What the hell? Who are they?” he snapped. “Dorian, you’ve got more company,” he said into the comm.

  Two people rushed down the alley, breaking into the security camera’s line of vision—civilians, probably trying to help break up a drunken street brawl.

  Dorian extended his hand for them to stop. The man coming up behind him pulled a switchblade from his front pocket and angled it at the spot between Dorian’s shoulder blades. A gasp escaped my throat. Dorian could die.

  Just as I was about to wrench the comm out of Jim’s hands and shout a warning, he breathed into the comm again. “Dorian, behind—"

  Before he finished his sentence, Dorian spun on the balls of his feet, one hand still signaling the civilians to back up, the other clearly preparing to defend himself from the knife. He’d known the whole time.

  An exhale rushed out of my relieved chest, the tightness transforming into rising bubbles of something other than worry.

  Dorian yelled something to the civilians, and then dodged as the criminal slashed the blade clumsily toward his face, his apparent concussion fouling his aim and stance. The vampire arched gracefull
y backward to dodge the knife, then dipped down and swept his leg in a wide circle, knocking the man's legs out from under him.

  I raised my eyebrows. He'd stolen that move from me.

  The criminal’s head cracked on the pavement, and Dorian leapt onto him, grinding his skull down once more. The man flailed the knife wildly until Dorian broke his wrist, the impossible angle of the bone looking painful even from our vantage point. The guy’s face broke into a scream. The knife dropped to the ground, and his struggle turned to pained twitching.

  The civilians on the cam hadn’t come any nearer—they stopped and stared, their mouths hanging open, just like ours.

  Dorian gave the man a swift fist to the temple to knock him unconscious and then yelled something else to the civilians. They held their hands up and backed out of the alley, leaving the camera’s view.

  When I looked back to where Dorian stood, he had disappeared. The four men lay completely debilitated on the concrete. Not even twitching.

  Flashing lights danced across the wall, and a swarm of police filled the screen.

  We sat in silence for a while. Dazed excitement filled the room like fog. My head spun, not from worry, but from a dizzying sense of pride. He’d done it. He’d proven all that I’d hoped for and more. If I'd had any doubts left, I knew now that this project of ours could turn the tide of history between humans and vampires. Those flutters between my ribs turned into pounding wings.

  And we started it. Dorian and me. Just by trying to understand each other instead of killing on sight.

  "He did everything except put a bow on 'em," Bryce mumbled in disbelief.

  "Couldn't find any." Dorian's bored voice came from behind us.

  I jumped in shock and spun to face him.

  His chest heaved, emphasizing his defined muscles, but his breathing was silent. "They smelled terrible," he said, crinkling his nose in disgust. Then he shot me a cocky grin, fanning the flames of my attraction. He’d just taken on four armed career criminals, single-handed. I could barely think straight. I wanted to throw my arms around him, and if we’d been alone, I might have. Instead I maintained professionalism, staying silent in my chair, waiting for Bryce’s cue. Did vampires even hug?