Eternal Reign

by Melody Johnson

  Nathan looked around, up, and behind him, and finally, after looking in every other direction, he looked down.

  “How did you get down there?” he asked, looking first at me and then at my abandoned scooter on the street.

  “The same way everyone else is getting down here,” I said. “Through the manhole.”

  Nathan shook his head. His lips moved, and I could just barely hear the curses he grumbled under his breath. The three paramedics surrounded Nathan, their expressions varying degrees of confused and angry.

  Oh God, he doesn’t stand a chance, I thought, dread like an anchor, weighing down my stomach. Three against one weren’t good odds, but for my slender, emo little brother, one against one wasn’t good. Three against one was impossible.

  The older, more experienced paramedic didn’t waste any words on Nathan. She pushed past him, ordering the others back into the ambulance as she climbed into the cab.

  Nathan rushed her from behind, not in the way that Dominic could move—so fast that he was nothing but a blur of movement—but still, Nathan moved with more strength and ruthlessness than I’d ever thought him physically capable of. He picked up the paramedic by her waist and dropped her into the manhole. Her scream echoed through the pipe as she fell, but the crack of her head hitting concrete when she landed cut her scream short.

  The other two paramedics gaped at Nathan and then down into the hole at their boss’s unconscious form lying next to me. They glanced at each other warily, but something passed between them, so when they looked back at Nathan, their expressions were resolved. The young man who had worked on Meredith rushed for the ambulance cab, while the other paramedic dove for Nathan.

  Nathan tripped the first paramedic and used the momentum of the second to knock him into the manhole next. The first paramedic was still finding his feet when Nathan kicked him in the ribs. He lost his balance, fell into the manhole, and landed on top of the others.

  Nathan disappeared from view, but I was still gaping. I’d never seen Nathan like this before. Sure, I’d witnessed him as a nine-foot, heart-eating creature, but he’d transformed back from that hell. He was just Nathan again. My Nathan.

  Except, he obviously wasn’t.

  Nathan reappeared above with Meredith strapped to a backboard. He lowered her carefully into the sewer and climbed down the rest of the way himself to drop her top half gently to the ground.

  “Nathan, how did you—”

  “I did what you needed, didn’t I?” he snapped, and the ferocity in that one sentence was breathtaking.

  I jerked, taken aback. “Yes, you did, and thank God you could, but how—”

  “I hate to interrupt this lovely revelation, but the paramedics are reviving. Drag everyone to us before they gain full consciousness,” Sevris said from the shadows, his voice grim and urgent.

  “Where’s Dominic?” Nathan asked me, ignoring Sevris.

  “I don’t know, but he sent backup,” I said, pointing my thumb in Sevris’, Rafe’s, and Neil’s general direction.

  Nathan pursed his lips, but otherwise, he didn’t move.

  “Nathan?”

  “I have enough innocent blood staining my soul. When we agreed to do this, I didn’t realize there would be three more.”

  I frowned. “Three more what?”

  “Murders, Cassidy. Even for Meredith, I can’t do this.”

  “What are you talking about? Just drag them over there and—” I glanced toward the darkness, and the words died on my lips. I could see Nathan’s perspective. We couldn’t even discern Sevris, Rafe, and Neil from the shadows. They were still hiding, the glow of their eyes hunting us from the abyss. “Sevris will heal Meredith, and Rafe will entrance the paramedics,” I assured Nathan. “No one is being murdered, I promise.”

  Nathan shook his head warily, but despite his reservations, he took hold of the backboard and dragged Meredith into the darkness. He reappeared and, one by one, dragged the paramedics toward Rafe and Sevris as well, until I was left alone in the gloom.

  I still couldn’t see anyone, but I could hear the paramedics’ moans as they slowly regained consciousness. I listened as Rafe said, “Look into my eyes,” and I knew what would come next.

  Guilt gnawed at my gut. I remembered how it felt to be attacked and entranced. Only a few short weeks ago, I’d been frightened and confused by Dominic’s attack, unaware of the nocturnal war raging beneath the city. Yet somehow, in that short time, I’d become the one who attacked and entranced. I’d become one of the vampires without ever undergoing the physical transformation.

  “You brought Meredith to the hospital, and the doctors saved her life,” Rafe told the paramedics. “You never saw Nathan, Cassidy, or this sewer, and after dropping Meredith off at the hospital, you came to this neighborhood to check on a prank call. Nothing came of it, and you will return to the hospital.”

  They repeated what Rafe said, word for word.

  Nathan reappeared in the light. “You too?” he asked.

  I bit my lip. I didn’t really want to. I was still safe under my sliver of sunlight, but how could I not go where I’d willingly sent Meredith?

  I nodded.

  Nathan bent down, scooped me up under my back and knees, and stood with me in his arms. The contact with my leg and hip was agony; I clenched my teeth and bore the pain in silence, but I couldn’t stop my body from trembling.

  Being held by Nathan was strange. He’d always been slender. Not necessarily weak—he’d been unaccountably more athletic than me growing up—but he was more lean than muscular. Now, he held me with ease, and I realized with some shock that, despite the fact that he was twenty-seven years old, I was just now realizing that he was a man.

  He carried me to Sevris and Rafe, plunging us into full darkness.

  My heart knocked against my chest so fast and hard that breathing was physically uncomfortable. Nathan didn’t seem nervous. He wasn’t winded or sweating or hesitant, just unwilling, and it made me wonder what else I’d missed about him. I’d thought he was depressed from the lingering memories of his time being Damned—from the horrors he’d seen and done and the resulting loss of his identity—but maybe his illness was more than depression.

  My eyes adjusted to the darkness, and when they absorbed the scene before me, I completely forgot my concern over Nathan. I flinched violently and choked on my tongue in an attempt not to scream.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. How many times had Dominic warned me about the danger and depravity of vampires during the day? I’d seen him and Kaden in their fully transformed, gargoyle day forms. I’d lain beside Dominic as he newly woke from his day rest, frigid and skeletal and blindingly craving my blood. I’d even witnessed Jillian after she had been released from her confinement; having been burned by silver and starved for three weeks, she’d been nothing but bones and the tatters of tendons. I’d thought I’d seen just about every horror imaginable.

  But I’d never seen this.

  Sevris, Rafe and Neil reminded me of a deep-sea lamp fish—all needle teeth and glazed eyes—minus the hanging headlight. Their skin was stretched thin, nearly translucent over their knobby bones. Their muscles physically worked, proof of their movement and strength, but from appearances alone, they were nothing but skin-wrapped bones. I could overlap my thumb and pointer finger around Rafe’s bicep. Hell, I could wrap my hand around the circumference of Neil’s thigh. Not that I would want to approach close enough to touch either of them.

  Sevris’ legs were especially hideous; as he squatted on the ground, his legs hinged back and behind him like those of a praying mantis. Meredith was cradled in his elongated, gently curved claws, his glazed, reflective eyes devouring her, his forked tongue inside one of the many wounds across her stomach, his fang-stuffed mouth scant millimeters from her right bared breast. Given the length of his ten claws around her body and the uncountable fangs of various lengths protruding from both his upper and lower jaws, his ability to hold and heal her without hurting
her was incredible. One misplaced movement of his head or hand, and he’d slice her open.

  I’d come here for help from friends—if not technically friends, allies—but the creature savoring the taste of Meredith’s blood wasn’t anyone or anything I recognized. And it was holding my unconscious, half-naked best friend like a lover—a nocturnal, praying-mantis, cannibalistic lover.

  Sevris met my gaze, snorted lightly under his breath at my expression, and refocused on Meredith and her wounds.

  I took a deep breath. This is Sevris, I reminded myself. No matter how hideous, monstrous, or murderous he looks, he’s my ally, and he’s healing her.

  And he was. Half her wounds were already closed. She was still unconscious and impossibly pale and vulnerable and maybe already gone, but where Sevris licked, her wounds healed.

  Rafe broke eye contact with one of the male paramedics, the alien sheen of his shark-like stare seeming to look through me rather than at me. His eyes were buggy, too large for his emaciated skull. “What? Do I have something in my teeth?” he asked, smiling.

  He rubbed his long, thin tongue along the razor edge of a fang.

  I shook my head, beyond words.

  Maybe it was something in my expression. Maybe it was my speechlessness or the scent of my kaleidoscope feelings, but Sevris retreated from a particularly deep wound under Meredith’s collarbone, swallowed, and said, “She’s still alive. Weak and not out of the woods, but alive.”

  I blinked, surprised by the soft, caring quality of the voice emitting from that needle-toothed mouth.

  The paramedics chanted, “She’s alive. Weak and not out of the woods, but—”

  “Oh, shut up,” Rafe snapped.

  “How could you know that for certain?” I whispered.

  Neil cocked his head. “Even I can hear the slow, steady beat of her heart.”

  Of course he could.

  Sevris continued licking—inside cuts, tears, punctures, and breaks—and she mended from the inside out. Bones, muscle, and skin became whole again until, miracle of miracles, when Sevris probed into a particularly sensitive wound across her face, beneath her eye, Meredith flinched slightly, minutely, and moaned.

  I covered my mouth with my hands, hope shattering my composure.

  “You’ll have to babysit these bozos until dark,” Rafe said, indicating the paramedics. “Until I can carry them out to their ambulance.”

  “Okay,” I said numbly.

  “Dispatch and the hospital will worry if they don’t check in soon. I can carry them back up now,” Nathan offered. “When you’re finished with them.”

  I nodded.

  “You’d better get on it, then. I’m done with them, and when Sevris finishes with Meredith, we need to return to the coven. Lysander needs us.”

  That more than anything else stole my attention from Meredith. I met Rafe’s glowing eyes head on and forced myself not to flinch in the face of his grotesque appearance. “Why does Dominic need you? What’s going on?”

  “He’s fighting—” Rafe began.

  “He’s indisposed at the moment,” Sevris interrupted.

  I blinked. “Who’s he fighting?”

  “Who isn’t he fighting?” Rafe murmured.

  Sevris growled.

  “It’s nothing she doesn’t already know,” Rafe said unapologetically. “His Leveling is in two nights, and the city’s in chaos. It’s a miracle they didn’t visit sooner.”

  “They?”

  Sevris cut his head to the left, looking murderous. “Don’t—”

  “The Day Reapers.”

  Sevris closed his eyes.

  I breathed. I didn’t know what else to do or how to react to that statement, so I just breathed. Eventually I whispered, “The Day Reapers. They’re here? In the coven? Right now?”

  Rafe nodded. “And fighting Dominic.”

  My brain shorted out at those three words, and the next thing I new the words, “I’m coming with you,” spilled from my lips. “Nathan can care for Meredith and the paramedics. I’ll return with you to help Dominic.”

  “Absolutely not,” Sevris said. “We are under express orders to see you safely away from the coven.”

  Rafe snorted. “Lysander won’t survive tonight, let alone the Leveling, without help. She saved him during Jillian’s uprising. Maybe she can do the same against the Day Reapers.”

  “No one faces the Day Reapers and lives,” Neil said morosely. “None of us will survive tonight.”

  “With Cassidy here we might,” Rafe said.

  Sevris didn’t respond, but neither did he look completely convinced.

  “I’m Dominic’s night blood,” I lied, using my only leverage against them. “I’m coming whether you want me to or not.”

  “What are you doing?” Nathan hissed. “Meredith’s healed. We’re done here. Dominic can clean up his own damn mess.”

  I touched my wrists, massaging the unharmed skin that had burned with electric fire when I’d called for Dominic. I’d known something was wrong, very wrong, for him to send Sevris instead of saving me himself. I couldn’t help him anymore, not like I once could, not without night blood, but neither could I turn my back on him and retreat into the safety of sunlight knowing he was in such grave danger.

  “You go,” I told Nathan. “Take care of Meredith for me, and make sure the paramedics recover.” I leaned back and met Nathan’s conflicted, wary expression. “I can’t let him face the Day Reapers alone. Dominic would risk the same for me.”

  Nathan tightened his arms around me—his hold, like his expression, fierce. “I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I,” I agreed. “But I’m going anyway.”

  “Be careful. I’ll take care of Meredith, but she’ll want you by her side, not me. You better be there for her when she wakes up.”

  I nodded, knowing a warning when I heard one. “I’ll be there.”

  Sevris’ lips thinned around his protruding fangs. I couldn’t read his expression, couldn’t tell whether he was grimacing, growling, or smiling, but something in my own expression must have reassured him. He nodded. “If you’re coming with us, follow me.”

  My compulsion to protect this city and its inhabitants was stronger than my instinct for self-preservation. That compulsion was what originally drove me to partner with Dominic, to help him find and stop Kaden and the other rebel vampires. It’s what drove me now to venture underground during the day, even knowing the creatures I’d encounter would be more volatile and dangerous than their nighttime counterparts, which were volatile and dangerous all on their own. But if I was honest with myself—a habit that I’d always practiced but that had become increasingly difficult to continue lately—I’d admit that endangering myself wasn’t just for New York City and its inhabitants anymore.

  It was for Dominic.

  Chapter 19

  Much to my chagrin, I couldn’t immediately follow Sevris whether or not I wanted to join him in the deep, dark bowls of his coven. I couldn’t walk. After a little finagling and a lot of foul language, Nathan managed to manipulate my scooter through the manhole, so I could drive behind Sevris; he led me away from everything sane and safe, through abandoned sewer drains, and into the coven’s elaborate tunnel system. I looked back, just once after giving Meredith a final hand squeeze and hugging Nathan good-bye, but I’d turned around too late. My eyes couldn’t penetrate through the darkness to see anything but a pinprick of light at the end of what seemed like an unending tunnel.

  An hour later when we finally reached the main hall of their coven, our entrance didn’t catch anyone off guard. A few weeks ago, when I’d been mobile and capable of silently sleuthing through his coven, Dominic had sensed my presence despite my discretion; with his strangely enhanced sight, smell, and hearing, not much could surprise Dominic. Now, the whining hum of my scooter echoing through the sewer drains announced my approach like trumpets before a procession.

  And what a macabre procession we made.

  Sevri
s entered first, and I followed on my scooter, with Rafe and Neil covering my six. The three of them were looking increasingly like skeletal zombies and less cognizant by the moment. Healing Meredith and entrancing the paramedics without actually drinking their blood had taken its toll. And between my starving, skeletal zombie escorts was me, bruised and scraped from my fall into the manhole, my hair a tangled, matted mess from landing in sewer muck and mildew, my complete absence of makeup debatably more frightening than my companions’ appearance, and rolling in at a sedate two miles per hour. Despite my painfully slow progress, they kept pace.

  They knew as well as I did the power of solidarity against an opponent, and we needed every scrap of power we could get.

  When we entered the hall, I recognized two of the vampires, one of which was Dominic. Even though he was half-transformed, with pointed ears, razor teeth, a flattened nose, and claws for hands, I recognized him; those piercing, otherworldly blue-and-ice eyes were unmistakable, not that I had a particularly excellent view of his eyes from that distance. He was on the far side of the room, behind a long, wooden banquet table that hadn’t been present during my previous visit. A dozen vampires sat around the banquet table, drinking from wine glasses in silence.

  The low rattle of Dominic’s growl permeated throughout the hall, blending with the hum of my scooter. Everyone—from the dozen vampires seated around the banquet table to the hundreds of vampires watching from the honeycomb-like rooms that lined the walls nearly floor to ceiling—turned to stare at me.

  I rubbed the front of my teeth with my tongue and twisted to ask Rafe, “Do I have something in my teeth?”

  Rafe snickered.

  The vampire on the near side of the banquet table, opposite Dominic, was the first to recover. He cocked his head at Dominic and said, “Please, extend me the pleasure of introducing me to the lovely woman who just interrupted our meeting.”

  The words were exceedingly formal, but despite the ‘please,’ the tone of his sentence was not a request. His voice was measured and mild—kind, even—and oozed sincerity, so it must have been something other than the sound of the words coming from his mouth that made my skin tighten across my body like shrink wrap.