After that...Alexia sighed, closing her eyes as the warmth of the rising sun, creeping over the hills to the east, bathed her face and shoulders. There had been those few moments of utter bliss at the end, an explosion of sensation that had blotted out all thought and consciousness, everything but that eternal moment of ecstasy. She could still feel her body humming with it.
Had Damon felt the same thing? Did it really matter? They had comforted each other, giving and taking in equal measure. That was all anyone could ask.
More than she had ever asked for. Or could ever expect to come again.
Unwilling to wake Damon, Alexia rose silently and went for her pack and canteen. Her balance had returned, along with the strength in her legs. She knelt to pick up the canteen and realized it was nearly empty. So was Damon’s. Almost certainly he had given her most of the water when she’d been ill, but she was pretty sure even Daysiders needed to drink something other than blood.
There was a creek within two kilometers of their current location, but it lay at the foot of the hills to the east, at the edge of the very same valley where the illegal colony stood.
Even though she and Damon had been left alone for over twenty-four hours, Alexia had no illusions about the risk they would be taking just to replenish their supply of water.
The very idea that she could be thinking of taking a hike through the hills startled Alexia. She paused to take stock of her body again, listening to the even throb of her heart, the clean feel of air in her lungs, the healthy hunger that reminded her how long ago she’d eaten.
Her first thought had been right. It was exactly as if she’d taken a drug. The most powerful drug anyone could imagine.
The canteen dropped from Alexia’s hand. She touched her mouth. The taste was faint, almost imperceptible, but it was there.
Blood.
She shook her head fiercely, but the idea would not be dislodged. Surely it was impossible. She couldn’t have done it without being aware of it.
But she hadn’t been fully aware the first time she had offered herself to Damon, when she’d been too ill to know what she was doing. And there was that blank spot in her memory at the very pinnacle of the night’s lovemaking.
Could sex with Damon have so completely erased her inhibitions, everything she believed in?
How many other things you once believed have you abandoned? she asked herself numbly. Would it be so incredible that her body, in a state of ecstasy and abandon, should seek what it needed...especially if the one who could fulfill that need was not only willing, but eager to give it?
She turned to look at Damon, struggling with the urge to shake him awake and demand an answer. His face was still peaceful, as innocent as any Daysider’s could be.
Almost content.
Was he content because he had finally gotten her to do exactly what he wanted without forcing her? Had he taken something else for himself in the process?
Probing her neck and shoulders with her fingertips, Alexia could find no tenderness that would indicate the presence of a bite. No, Damon hadn’t bitten her. But that didn’t mean she—
Alexia dropped her head into her hands. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she wasn’t really one of the forty percenters after all. Her illness had been temporary, and she would have recovered, anyway.
But she knew in her heart that wasn’t true. Because of the “nice lady,” who had saved her life so long ago.
Recognizing the danger of letting herself fall into her own dark thoughts, she pulled on her pack and considered what she had to do. She couldn’t afford to forget that the shooters were probably still out there, even though they’d left her and Damon alone all night. But if the Daysider was right, the colonists would attack them only if they approached the settlement.
As long as she could walk and fire a gun, she would finish this mission, no matter how hard it was to accept what she had done to keep herself alive. What Damon had let happen.
And she could finally see Michael to his rest.
For a few moments she watched Damon intently. She could see he was sleeping lightly now, and that meant he would be able to smell or sense any enemy who intruded on the camp. She had to trust he would be safe. She untied Michael’s VS130 from her pack and set it down at Damon’s side along with the pistol he had given her the previous day.
Turning away with a heavy heart, she picked up the faint trail she had followed yesterday, working her way back to the place where Michael had died. The scrapes in the ground that marked the struggle were still there, and so were the spatters of blood, now crusted over and disintegrating into the soil.
But Michael’s body was gone.
Alexia shrugged out of her pack, dropped it at her feet and rushed to the place where her partner had lain. There were more marks in the soil but no additional blood, no indications that someone—or some thing—might have dragged his body away. No sign that the Orlok, or others like it, had returned to finish off what it had killed.
She sank onto her haunches and ran her fingers through the dirt, blinking away the tears that had come without warning or purpose. Michael was dead. What happened to his body didn’t matter, not to him. But the hideous image in Alexia’s mind made her bend over with the dry heaves. She fought the nausea and got to her feet.
Damn Damon for not letting her bury Michael. Her partner would have been safe if he’d had the decency to allow a brave man a little dignity.
But anger wouldn’t help her, or Michael. Maybe she could find something he had carried—some token to return to his kin in San Francisco. She knew he had an uncle, a cousin, people who would want something to remember him by.
And maybe there would be enough of him left to bury.
Clearing her mind of all distracting thoughts and emotions, Alexia searched for a trail.
She found one among the dense thickets of scrub oak to the north. It smelled like Michael and traces of blood, and another stench that made her choke on her own breath —the same smell that had left its traces where Michael had died.
Orlok.
Alexia forged ahead, though her stomach cramped with horror. Surely there must be some trace, she thought. That thing couldn’t have—
A glitter of metal caught the late-afternoon light, and Alexia moved under cover to search for the source. Nothing else moved, so she advanced slowly to the tree limb where the metal hung suspended from a cord or strip of something she couldn’t quite make out.
It was leather. The metal was a buckle. Michael’s buckle, the one he had bought on impulse at a street fair, back when he had seemed so lighthearted and carefree. The buckle had been cast in the shape of a grotesque parody of a Nightsider, more devil than leech, with a long, narrow face, slitted red crystal eyes, and protruding fangs.
Alexia pulled the belt from the branch and clenched the buckle in her fist. The edges bit into her palm. Dry-eyed, she tucked the belt into her pack and kept going.
She found bits of her partner’s clothes as she went on, boots here, shirt there, the small pieces of gear he had carried close to his body. The stench of Orlok grew stronger, yet she saw nothing of the creature or Michael’s remains.
Still she went on, tireless, grim with purpose. It was just past sunset before she began to sense that someone was following her.
She turned, carefully unslung her rifle and lifted it to her shoulder. But when her pursuer came into view, she nearly forgot the weapon was in her hands.
The thing was neither human nor Nightsider. It was lean and nearly hairless, bulging with muscle and tendon beneath pale skin, its face nearly as long as the creature on Michael’s buckle. One of its long-nailed hands was pressed to its chest, the other curled into a fist at its side. It opened its mouth, and she glimpsed rows of serrated yellow teeth.
Then she met its eyes, and she saw something she recognized.
No. Alexia swallowed and backed away, the rifle pointed toward the ground. There were two kinds of dhampires: those who needed the patch and those who
didn’t. The ones who didn’t could be converted by a vampire’s bite. That was why Aegis always sent out teams consisting of both subtypes, so that one would survive in almost any situation.
Michael was of the second type. He hadn’t been bitten by a Nightsider. An Orlok had attacked him, supposedly killed him. But he hadn’t died, despite his terrible wounds. He had changed...into one of them.
Aegis had never been sure of the Orloks’ nature or origins; it was believed they were directly connected to Erebus and Nightsiders because they were, essentially, creatures of night that lived on blood—thus the name “Orlok,” taken from the old tale of the grotesque vampire Nosferatu.
That was exactly what this creature—this man—appeared to be.
“Michael,” she whispered.
The thing who had once been her partner swung its head from side to side, advancing on her slowly. She continued to retreat, unwilling to shoot even to wound.
But the Orlok didn’t attack. It— he—stopped several meters away, still swaying, and opened its mouth. Sounds came out, sounds almost like words.
He was trying to talk.
Alexia’s heart wedged in her throat. “Michael,” she breathed. “Do you know who I am?”
His head bent ever so slightly. A nod. A moan of pain and sorrow. He moved closer, a purpose in his eyes she couldn’t mistake.
“You don’t want to hurt me, Michael,” she said, speaking low and steadily as if she were quieting a cornered animal. “We were... are friends. We’ve risked our lives for each other.” She lowered her rifle farther and held out one hand. “I want to help you.”
The creature’s mouth twisted in something like the old grin. He continued to advance, and Alexia braced herself. If it came down to killing or being killed, she knew which one she had to choose.
But Michael stopped again, just within reach, and lifted his fisted hand. He opened his long, distorted fingers and showed her what he held within them.
At first she didn’t know what it was. The device was about the size of a large earpiece, but almost featureless. When Michael held it closer to her face, she recognized the tiny mic.
A communicator, but nothing like the one she carried, or like any she’d seen before.
Was it some new model Aegis had devised? And why had her partner been carrying it?
Electronics seldom functioned well in the Zone, and she’d known nothing about it.
With a grunt, Michael seized her wrist with his free hand and dropped the device into her palm. His touch sent shudders of revulsion through her body, but she didn’t break away, and after a moment Michael retreated. He gestured at the communicator, his mouth working.
Coming.
Alexia jerked. Michael hadn’t spoken. The word had appeared inside her head. She stared at his contorted face, wondering if she were beginning to hallucinate.
Signal, the voice in her mind said. Attack.
Pressing the heel of her palm to her temple, Alexia tried to force the voice out through sheer strength of will. But Michael—what had been Michael—was still there, half civilized, half savage. And sinking quickly.
Warn, the voice said. War.
Warn whom, about what? What signal, and what attack? Was he asking her to send a signal to Aegis with this device? Was he telling her that war was coming?
There was no way to know, because all at once the voice went silent, and Michael shuddered again. It almost seemed to Alexia that his body was changing before her eyes, bending, writhing, slowly losing the last vestiges of humanity. She tried to approach him, but he backed away, shaking his head from side to side like a dog with a burr in its ear.
Then, without warning, he loped off into the night-shrouded wood.
Alexia pushed the communicator inside her jacket and ran after him. She knew in her heart she couldn’t save him, but she couldn’t let him go down alone.
She was so intent on finding him that she nearly tripped over the man on the ground before she realized he was there.
Damon, she thought, wild with fear.
But it wasn’t Damon, nor Michael. Her nostrils filled with the scent of Nightsider, and she stumbled back, pulling her rifle from her shoulder.
The Nightsider moved slightly, his pale, unbound hair fanned across the ground, his ascetic face drawn in pain. He didn’t seem to be armed, and he was clearly injured; she knew Michael might have attacked him, but there were only a few tiny spots of blood on his clothing.
Then she recognized what was wrong with him. He had been in the sun. Blisters disfigured what would have been handsome features, and his once-dark eyes were milky with cataracts.
“Get up,” she said, gesturing with the rifle.
The Nightsider’s blind eyes turned toward her. “I am...not your enemy,” he rasped.
Of course not. And he hadn’t been roasted alive.
Alexia glanced past him in the direction Michael had gone. She could either continue to follow him or deal with the Nightsider. The vampire at her feet might easily have been among those who had shot at her and Damon, the one Michael had been tracking, or both. He was dangerous, even in his weakened state, and leaving him here could lead to serious consequences later.
“Where did you come from?” she demanded.
The Nightsider lay very still, well aware of what she would do if he tried to rise. “I am not what you think,” he said, his voice a mere thread of sound. “I want what you want.”
“Where are you from?” she repeated, lowering the rifle’s muzzle to poke at his chest.
“The colony? Are you one of the ones who have been trying to kill us?”
He blinked several times, as if even the emerging stars gave off too much light.
“Where...is Damon?”
Alexia wouldn’t have believed it possible that her heart could beat any faster. “Why?”
she asked sharply. “You aren’t going to be able to hurt him now.”
“The colony is not what we believed. I was to...report back, but I am dying. The others want to...” He took in a sharp breath. “They want to destroy it.”
“Destroy the colony?” she asked. “Who wants to destroy it?”
“Our enemies, of course,” someone said behind her.
Chapter 10
Alexia swung around, bringing the rifle to bear on the new arrival. He grinned, a flash of bright teeth in a pale, handsome face. His hair was drawn back in the traditional Nightsider style, framing his features like a crown of snow and starlight.
“Put down your weapon,” he said. “I mean you no harm.”
“Don’t...trust him,” the first vampire warned. “It is their doing. Tell Damon...the colony, the drugs—” He cried out as the blast hit him square in the chest, leaving a smoking hole where his heart had been. The second Nightsider holstered his weapon and shook his head.
“Traitors to the Council must be eliminated,” he said. He regarded Alexia with great interest. “Why are you alone, little Half-blood? The Zone is a dangerous place. Where is Damon?”
Alexia didn’t answer. She had been stunned by the sudden killing, but her thoughts were clearing rapidly. And once she could think again, she was extremely grateful that Damon wasn’t with her.
For whoever this leech was, he exuded a threat that utterly belied his words. It wasn’t just that he’d murdered the other vampire so callously. Nightsiders often killed each other; they were vicious, amoral creatures, predators without compassion, constantly maneuvering for rank and power.
But now two Nightsiders had appeared in the area very soon after someone had tried to kill her and Damon. That couldn’t be coincidence, and both of them obviously knew she and Damon were working together.
This vampire clearly meant to imply that he was with the Council, at least nominally on Damon’s side of the fence. Damon had admitted there were probably other Council agents in the area; maybe one of the two Nightsiders, the living or the dead, was working for the same faction he was.
But it wasn’t a
s if the leeches openly advertised their internal conflicts to their enemies.
And why would any Nightsider so blatantly slaughter one of his own kind right in front of an Aegis operative?
Alexia could think of only one good reason. And that was because he had to stop the
“traitor” from telling her something he didn’t want her to hear.
She had to be very, very careful. Careful to show suspicion and mistrust, but not enough to seem as if she wanted to kill him.
“Who are you?” she asked the Nightsider coldly. “Why did you kill this man?”
He clasped his hands behind his back as if he meant to show just how harmless he was.
“As I told you, he was a traitor.”
In spite of her resolve, Alexia’s fingers twitched on the trigger. “‘The colony is not what we believed,’” she recited. “‘They want to destroy it.’ What was he talking about?”
“You don’t know?” he asked, eyes narrowing. “Have you not been observing the colony?”
“It has been a little difficult with someone trying to kill us,” she said.
“Indeed?” the Nightsider said, lifting both brows as if he were genuinely surprised.
“There are, unfortunately, many who would do anything to prevent cooperation between our peoples.”
As hard as he tried to express sincerity, the Nightsider couldn’t pull it off. She was dead certain he had already known someone had tried to kill them.
“We assumed it was the colonists who attacked us,” Alexia said. “They must have known we were watching.”
“They have protected themselves well enough so far,” the vampire said. “But then again, certain parties in Erebus would wish to prevent anyone from providing the Council with intelligence that might create obstacles to their plans.”
“What plans?” she asked, pretending ignorance. “Whose?”
The Nightsider glanced down at the body. “He meant to put you off your guard by confusing you, but there was much truth in his words. He merely twisted them around so that it seemed he was referring to others instead of himself.”
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