[Dark Destinies 01.0] Dark Heart of the Sun

by SK Ryder

  Eddie, who sprawled on the kitchen counter like the lord of all he surveyed, gave her a narrow-eyed look.

  “Right,” she muttered. “Everything.”

  Resolving to put the issue aside until sundown, she geared up for a day in the trenches at the Orchard Beach Gazette. Matters there had reached a whole new level of unpleasant the day before, the Monday following the weekend that had flipped the world on its axis. After rushing in two and a half hours late, she endured Jim’s hostile glare and sympathetic glances from the others. Though she had told only Dave about her organized crime theories regarding the gang wars to explain her pressing need to disappear early on Friday—in hot pursuit of a promising source—there were no secrets in an office this small. By Monday noon, everyone knew she had overreached her rookie position and attempted to horn in on veteran Jim’s turf.

  She conjured a small, semi-fictional article using herself as a source who just happened to be on the island the night of the latest murder. She also tossed in some quotes from Jackson, the man who found the body. She figured he owed her that much. Plus, including him threw off questions about her missing ring, which was—for anyone who commented anyway—at the jeweler’s being resized.

  Her efforts were met with grudging enthusiasm. Nice for the Gazette to have an insider account, but the accident of her fiancé’s involvement hardly constituted career-defining journalism. In the eyes of her coworkers, she had failed, and her chagrin was matched only by her frustration. There was no way to spin the truth without writing a tabloid-worthy piece about marauding vampires or, worse, attracting the attention of same.

  To Cassidy’s enormous relief, this day at the office was nowhere near so tense. She appeared early, brewed a pot of coffee that could dissolve spoons and lost herself in a tall stack of obits and copy edits. She maintained a quiet, friendly, ever-helpful attitude, the perfect employee who had learned her place in the food chain. It didn’t matter. Beyond the paycheck, nothing here mattered. Not anymore.

  She even worked late and then dawdled in the grocery store until after dark because that was easier than sitting at home waiting for the sun to set. When she hauled her bags through the front door and announced her presence, only Eddie mewed a greeting. The rest of the house lay silent. Not even a hint of Dominic brushed her mind.

  With a heavy sigh, she piled her groceries on the counter and walked down the hallway in search of his presence if nothing else. The small, cluttered room looked dingy in the yellow light of a rickety table lamp, the action hero patterned sheets crumpled on the twin bed. A few black shirts and pants hung in a closet otherwise stuffed with storage boxes, but there were no bike leathers or boots. And no vampire.

  Cassidy brushed her fingers over the cool, smooth scabbards hanging on the wall and felt her heart sink. The powerful effect of his bite, the mind-blowing communion it forged between them, had taken them both off guard. Offering her blood, sharing her mind . . . those were the most intimate things she had ever done, bar none. Actual sex was but a pale shadow in comparison. What it all meant, she dared not consider. For now she wanted only to live in this moment with him. The future, whatever it held, would get here soon enough.

  Had Dominic thought about it, though? She’d felt hints of his trepidation before they became high on each other and nothing else mattered. But away from her? With a clearer head? What was he thinking?

  Closing her eyes, she reached out for him. Nothing. He wasn’t nearby. A visit to the shed confirmed this. It stood open, no bike in evidence—and only one vampire. She gasped when her flashlight caught the bedraggled, curly-haired figure standing not ten feet away.

  “Serge?” He stared at her, and Cassidy struggled with a growing sense of disquiet. “What’s wrong?”

  “Your light is so bright tonight, sweet one,” he said, dreamily. “You are like the sun.”

  “Ah. Sorry.” She turned off her flashlight. She knew this wasn’t the ‘light’ that captivated him, but didn’t want to risk annoying an unstable vampire by shining it in his eyes. “Do you know where Dominic is?”

  “Your destiny unfolds even now.”

  Cassidy cringed. Not this again. “Dominic,” she repeated, speaking slowly. “I need to know where Dominic is.”

  The silhouette’s head inclined as he appeared to turn away from her.

  She took several impatient steps in his direction, but stayed out of arm’s reach as if that would make a wit of difference if he turned hostile. “You had his blood. Doesn’t that mean you’re plugged into his head? Even at a distance? Where is he? Is he alright?”

  Serge looked up at her, only the glint of his eyes visible in the starlight. “You will know,” he whispered. “Soon.”

  Chapter 32

  Judge, Jury and Executioner

  In the operations office, Jackson checked the monitors one more time before sunset, assuring himself that all systems reported armed and ready. The equipment towers held a fortune in state-of-the-art technology that used military-grade software to control an impressive array of defenses masquerading as standard airport structures in a one-mile radius. Any vampire foolish enough to step onto the airport grounds would trip one of the fine-tuned sensors and activate the same type of high-speed light cannons that had so effectively cornered Nicky in the hangar.

  Although how effectively was a matter of opinion.

  Garrett Striker had stepped off his Gulfstream G450 earlier in the afternoon with three more kills to his credit and in high spirits until his brother, Warren, informed him he would be taking Garrett’s plane to a business meeting in Brussels.

  “What happened to yours?”

  “Ask your nephew.”

  “Forty million dollars,” Garrett muttered now for what had to be the twentieth time.

  Jackson winced, but held his tongue. His uncle would eventually stop griping about the damage done to the plane. It was a small price to pay for what they were about to capture.

  Dumping his equipment duffel on the desk, Garrett jerked open the zipper, retrieved his Beretta and confirmed a bullet in the chamber. Then he slid the weapon into the shoulder holster he wore over a standard white SCI polo shirt. Though never part of any military, he had trained with a number of paramilitary security groups, maintained lethal combat instincts, and kept himself in peak physical condition at all times. He was a hunter born and bred.

  Another gun appeared, though that was too generous a term for the thing. An amalgamation of batteries, bulbs, concentrators, indicator, and triggering mechanism, it looked more like a clumsy attempt at a sci-fi fantasy weapon. It had some heft, however, and good balance, and Garrett continued to make regular enhancements. Compared to this version of the light gun, the one that had failed to subdue the vampire that took Justin’s life was a sparkler next to a Hollywood-sized spotlight. When Garrett pulled the trigger, a crisp, round brilliance appeared on the desk.

  Jackson checked the charge on his own light gun. “Ready.”

  In the cage room beyond the steel security door, the full spectrum lamps were getting started lighting the tall, narrow space to the equivalent of an equatorial high noon. No vampire could tolerate such exposure for any length of time, which was great motivation to stay under cover in the cage. Not that breaking out of the titanium cube taking up the center of the room was in any way realistic even for a vampire.

  Garrett stood in front of the silver-coated bars making up one side of the enclosure, hands on hips, and eyed the pale, still body stretched out along the far wall. “You trapped a rogue youngling in a forty million dollar plane. What in God’s name were you thinking?”

  “He figured out we were in his house and came after us. Or me rather, since you weren’t here. I triggered the cannons once he was inside. And don’t you dare tell me about the plane again,” Jackson flared, seeing his uncle’s expression. “It was a tool. How was
I supposed to know he’d trash it?” A prime understatement there. The only way his father’s plane could have sustained more damage would have been to fall out of the sky. In flames.

  Garrett waved an authoritative finger at him. “The cannons in the hangar were never intended to trap anything. Only keep things out. And now you’re telling me that you allowed yourself to become a target as well?”

  “I saw an opportunity and I took it. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same.” Close enough. Never mind the end result—or even the astronomical price tag—if Garrett ever found out how close he’d gotten to the vampire long before springing the trap, none of this would matter. In his uncle’s eyes, Jackson would be deemed too stupid to live.

  Garrett shook his head. “Dumb, Jack. Very dumb. There are proper ways to do these things. You could have gotten us all killed.”

  Jackson bit his tongue and checked his watch. Another minute tops. “I had the lab run his blood this afternoon. Don’t suppose you’re interested in the result?”

  “Oh, why not,” Garrett said, spreading his arms wide. “Let’s see what other fiascos you’ve brought down on our heads.”

  Jackson smiled, savoring the anticipation, and forced himself to sound casual. “According to the preliminaries, it looks like his genetic deviation will come in at around one percent.” Pausing for effect, he added, “Maybe less.”

  Garrett’s bright eyes narrowed. “That can’t be right. You messed up the draw.”

  It was the serum in a vampire’s bite that started the transformation by linking the sire’s fragile DNA with that of the host. Later, when the host’s immune system succumbed, it took only a little vampire blood to ignite the final chain reaction and complete the change, creating a new member of an entirely different species. With each successive generation of vampire, the genetic signatures evolved, adapting to new hosts, but the Striker labs had analyzed enough of them over the years to isolate most of the commonalities—the original gene sequence, the DNA of the first vampire. The lower the genetic deviation, the older the sire.

  “Really? A fucked up blood draw would cause results like that? Give me at least some credit, will you? It’s correct. Our friend here offed another vamp last week who was about two thousand years older. He didn’t do that without a sire at least that old. Maybe even first generation.”

  Garrett stared at his nephew in something like annoyed bewilderment. “And how in God’s name would you know what he did last week?”

  “You sent me to Key West to find things. I found things.”

  Quiet laughter floated out of the cage. “Ah, Jackson, mon ami, what a trickster you are.” The words were hard to make out through the hiss of the white noise generators mounted on top of the cage. They nullified the vocal frequencies the vampire might use to try and compel them, leaving only an impression of his voice, like the whispers of a ghost.

  “I’m in no mood for your games tonight,” Jackson said.

  “But you play them so well.” In the back of the cage, the captive uncurled into a sitting position. “Is there anyone at all that you do not deceive?”

  “Oh, good,” Garrett said. “We’ve got ourselves a talker.”

  Fuck. That’s all he needed. The bloodsucker spilling his guts to Garrett about Jackson’s screw-ups. He should have killed him today while he had the chance. Fuck the sire.

  The vampire rose to his feet and approached the front of the cage, without an ounce of inhibition about his nudity. Jackson had waited until an hour after sunrise before venturing into the debris-filled plane to retrieve the unconscious vampire from the lavatory. Before he dumped him into the cage, he had drawn the blood sample for the lab and pulled off every shred of clothing. From here on out, nothing would protect this creature’s pale hide or modesty—not that any of the latter was in evidence.

  The knowing smile dropped a chill into Jackson’s gut. The vampire was done playing at being human. “I changed my mind. You do not deserve her. But then . . . she is no longer yours, is she?”

  “You leave Cassidy out of this,” Jackson said between clenching teeth.

  “Ah, but why? Of all the reasons I am here, she is the only one that truly matters, non?”

  The bastard came even closer, took hold of the silvered bars with both hands and almost pressed his face to them as well. His fingers sizzled on the silver. The reflected shimmer from the full spectrum lamps turned his skin pink. In the open mouth, his fangs extended, ready to strike. Behind the hair falling into his face, the eyes were slits of glittering darkness. “You are wasting your time. Cassidy is mine and will be for as long as I live.”

  “I can fix that in a hurry.” Jackson’s grip tightened on the light gun.

  “Mmm,” the vampire taunted, stepping back from the glare and leaving a layer of skin stuck to the bars. “Did I mention she is delicious? And so very willing. In every way.”

  Jackson’s whole body swayed forward, though he knew better than to give in to the impulse to rush at the cage. “Son of a—”

  Garrett shot him a sharp look. “He’s got your number, kid, doesn’t he?”

  And he knew how to use it, too. Jackson felt dizzy with the spike of rage that shot through him at the vampire’s suggestive words. Even now, standing there, arms loose by his sides, the creature flaunted his blatant sexuality, his grace, his sleek power. Jackson reminded himself that Cassidy couldn’t have been seduced into a sexual act with this demon for the simple reason that she still lived. Emotional mind games then, nothing more. As long as he didn’t start talking about their impromptu alliance in Key West in front of Garrett, Jackson could deal.

  Apparently satisfied that Jackson maintained a firm grip on himself, Garrett turned back to the cage. “Since you’ve already met my nephew, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Garrett Striker. Hunter, judge, jury, and executioner. And your ass is mine.”

  “Is it truly?” The soft French accent sounded bemused.

  “As you’ve already discovered, you have no way out of here. We’ve done this far too long to be in any way unprepared.” To emphasize this point, Garrett aimed the light gun at the floor inside the cage and triggered the beam, sliding it across the vampire’s bare feet which erupted into bloody blisters. Gasping, he leapt back.

  “Let me tell you what’s going to happen,” Garrett continued. “The only way you’re leaving here is as a pile of ash in a garbage bag. But you do have a choice about how you get there. If you’re a good little bloodsucker and cooperate, we’ll be quick about it. If not—” He shrugged, hefting the light gun. “Well, we’ve got time.” When the vampire made no response, he added. “So how do you feel about inviting your sire to join us?”

  The vampire drew back his upper lip in a contemptuous sneer, displaying fangs. “You are mad.”

  Garrett raised the light gun and lit up the vampire’s chest bright as day for the split second before the target twisted away at such speed he vanished. A long growl drew their attention to a back corner of the cage where he had reappeared. His torso was raw scarlet but already healing.

  “Want to see the wide beam setting? Bet even you can’t move that fast.” Garrett twisted the lens several notches and pulled the trigger. This time, the beam lit up the entire cage. There was nowhere for the vampire to go, though he tried and tried hard. The inside of the cage exploded into a blur of violence punctuated by several deafening bangs as though a sledgehammer battered the titanium walls. When the hammer crashed against the bars, the whole structure vibrated like a struck gong.

  Stunned, Jackson watched as the vampire desperately tried to squeeze between the bars, reaching straight for the light that boiled him and the man that held it. His skin reacted to the silver coating. Strips of it shriveled and peeled off, sticking to the bars in black crusts. His shoulder and several ribs collapsed with loud cracks and squeezed through.
Still Garrett fired. The guttural roar of rage shifted and became an earsplitting howl, a rising wave of sound—the primal essence of inconceivable pain.

  When it finally stopped, the vampire slid to the ground, his body a broken, bloodied shell enveloped in a haze of smoke.

  Garrett studied his handiwork with a critical eye. “Give me some earplugs, and I can do this all night.”

  “Isn’t this a bit extreme?” Jackson said.

  “They don’t usually run at the bars like that.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant.” Garrett cut a penetrating look at him. “You’re not getting squeamish, are you, kid?”

  Jackson didn’t know what he felt, but squeamish wasn’t it. “What good is he to us like this?”

  “Plenty. Watch.”

  Jackson did. The flattened shoulder and ribcage expanded, returning to their previous shape like balloons filling with air. Bones popped and snapped back into place, and a thin new layer of skin slithered across the raw flesh, stemming the oozing blood. The strength the vampire expended to heal himself was tremendous. That he would run out of healing powers long before the gun ran out of battery power was obvious.

  “Ready to call daddy yet?” Garrett said. “No one else is ever going to find you here. Or hear you. These walls are as sound proof as it gets. Your blood bond is your only hope.”

  The vampire lying on the floor chuckled. “Petit homme stupide. I have no blood bond with my sire. Consider that a gift.”

  Garrett sighed and shook his head as he checked the battery levels on his weapon. “If that’s how you want to play this, fine. We’re going to be here for a long, long time.”