The Fallen One (Sons of the Dark Mother, Book One)

by Lenore Wolfe

  He nodded, but he looked unconvinced.

  “Do your sisters know yet?”

  He just shook his head in answer.

  She leaned back against the lounger, and tilted her head to look at his face. “What is bothering you?”

  He shook his head—like he was trying to clear his head. “I don’t know.” He pulled his hand away and went back to looking out across the yard.

  But he appeared to see nothing but the past.

  Finally, he, too, leaned his head back against the lounger and turned his head so that he could see Jes. “I don’t know. I just have a feeling there is so much more to it—than meets the eye.”

  She sat forward and turned to stare at him. “So you don’t think we know everything?”

  He shook his head. “Not by half.”

  Jes’s brows shot up. “What more could there be? My father betrayed his best friend, your father, sending your parents in a tailspin as they searched for a way to prevent him from getting his hands on the vaccine, and causing the Alliance to have to search for a way to make an antidote—which only ended up causing them to make an even deadlier vaccine.” She threw up her hands. “It’s an old story—really—when it comes to vaccines and germ warfare—isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Justice answered, “and one that I’ve a feeling that has a lot more story to it.” He looked at her, his face serious. “I think we’ve only just begun to start unraveling this one.”

  Jes had a hard time concentrating on their circle work that night. She just couldn’t get the conversation she’d had with Justice out of her head.

  She understood that he was distrustful of his parents. After all, he and his sisters had been forced to start taking care of themselves long before both sets of their parents had disappeared. But she had a feeling that Justice was holding something back—or perhaps he didn’t know how to voice what was bothering him. Perhaps he didn’t even know exactly what was bothering him.

  Well, that wasn’t true. He thought that more existed to the story than what they had figured out. But wasn’t the vaccine enough?

  It had been enough for her so-called father to plot the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy in an alley.

  Why didn’t Justice think that it was enough to cause his parents to stop being parents? Didn’t they have enough worry with trying to prepare their son for the prophecy—without this added burden of their best friend’s betrayal?

  Jes hated the idea that there could actually be more to this story. Her mother had been killed. There had all ready been too much.

  On top of which, Jes had more than this conversation with Justice on her mind.

  She also was still plagued by what Mia was not saying.

  She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something was going on with Mia, something she hadn’t shared, since they had rescued her successfully—or so they had thought—from Constantine.

  Now, Jes wasn’t so sure they were completely successful.

  She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something wasn’t right.

  Mira and Dara had been giving her hard looks for the past hour. Finally, Dara came around the table and took the wooden spoon she’d been using out of her hand. “Okay, out with it. We all know that you’re no good at hiding when something is bothering you,” she prodded gently.

  So Jes and her sisters sat down in a circle facing each other, inside the magical circle they always kept up now, and told her sisters about both situations. When she was done, Mira got up and took the large crystal sphere and its stand off of the table and set it in the center of where they sat. When she was once again seated beside Jes, she took her hand from one side, Dara took her hand from the other side, and then Mira and Dara joined hands.

  Mira called for their ancestors to show them what Mia was hiding.

  The crystal clouded over, and then it cleared to show them what it was they sought—and what they saw left the Sisters of Three sisters more worried than ever that Mia, indeed, might be hiding something.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Second Chances

  Justice sat at the bar. He picked up the drink that Conrad had poured for him—and downed it with a single swallow. Conrad watched him for a moment—then poured him another.

  Justice downed that one too.

  “Feel anything yet?” Conrad half joked.

  Justice shook his head. “Just blessed numbness.”

  Conrad’s brow shot up. “That’s understandable. After all, they found your parents. It must be a lot to comprehend that you will see them again—soon,” he emphasized this and seemed to watch Justice’s eyes closely, “like—within the hour.”

  Justice pointed at his shot glass, and Conrad poured him yet another.

  Conrad poured. He capped the bottle. “Shouldn’t you be heading towards the manor?” He held up his hand to ward off the glare that Justice was now leveling at him. “Okay. Okay. I’m minding my own business.”

  He uncapped the bottle.

  Three hours later, Justice made his way through the kitchen area of the house, trying to get the drop on this first meeting with his parents—after all this time.

  But when he reached the living area—nothing could have prepared him for being told that he would not be meeting his parents after all.

  Lucius himself brought this news to him when he arrived back at the manor, half socked away by the scotch that Conrad had plied him with.

  He blinked at Lucius, only half surprised. The other half had somehow known this would happen.

  Perhaps that had been the real reason he had put off coming back here.

  His sisters came forward then, hugging their brother, tears in their eyes. The four of them simply stood like that, holding each other.

  Lucius waited quietly. When they were ready, he said. “Jes’s father is still at large.” He had to stop as Justice’s sisters murmured their outrage at this news. When they had quieted, he went on, “As you know, they thought that they had him, but he gave them the slip.” He appeared to hesitate, and then said. “Your parents talked about the ramifications of this, at length, with the Alliance. And it has been decided that until they find him, your parents simply cannot risk coming home.”

  Justice nodded, and Lucius gave him a slight bow, in respect, and left the four of them with their grief.

  They had been waiting for so long—and now, their reunion had been delayed.

  Justice thought that it might not be the last time.

  He and his sisters sat down on a long divan, their arms around each other, each quiet, lost in their own thoughts.

  And their disappointment.

  Maybe someday… but each of them was beginning to believe that, in this anyway, someday—might not ever come.

  When the sun was breaking the skyline and sending out fingers of light across the Earth, marking the beginning of a brand-new day—and the promise of what it might bring—Justice stumbled into the bedroom he shared with Jes, when either of them were actually there.

  He found Jes there, curled up in a wide, stuffed chair, waiting for him.

  She came forward, without saying a word, and silently slipped her arms around his waist, laying her head on his chest.

  He slipped his arms around her, and they just stood that way for several long moments.

  And then, they simply lay down on the bed and held each other, Justice pulling Jes into him, neither of them saying a word, until they both fell asleep.

  That night Jared sat on the wall of the compound and watched the lights go out in their room. They had come back to the compound deliberately. They had wanted Constantine to think that they were relaxing their vigilance. But Jared felt they were taking it a bit far!

  Going to bed!

  Jared had come up here on the wall because he had some thinking to do. He had a problem. Well, actually, he had two problems. The first was Mia.

  He was in love with Mia. They had run into each other one day, and they had been spending more and more time together�
�up until she became Constantine’s prisoner.

  Now, she wouldn’t let him near her!

  He was going to face down with Justice, because he had to find out what was wrong with Mia. He knew it was serious—whatever it was—because he knew she felt the same way about him that he felt about her.

  That meant one thing—he was going to get killed by Justice—because he wasn’t taking no for an answer. He wanted Mia for his wife.

  But he also had a bigger problem. Something was going on with him. He didn’t understand what was happening to him. He had been feeling very strange recently, and he had hoped to talk to Jes about it.

  But he’d never found his chance.

  He stared out into the darkness. It wasn’t like them to hole themselves up like this at night. Why were they doing it? Didn’t they realize the threat wasn’t over?

  The Sisters of Three should have gone to the ritual room. Why were they deviating from that?

  He spotted Dracon coming down the wall and moved to present some kind of defense—only a split second before Dracon was at his throat.

  “Very good for a human, but I didn’t come here to test you! What is going on with you human?” Dracon hissed.

  “I don’t know,” Jared mumbled. He’d said it so quietly, and so completely without fear—that Dracon let him go.

  “Then try to explain it,” Dracon snarled.

  Jared turned to stare out into the night. “I’ve been feeling… strange.”

  Dracon sniffed. “You don’t smell right—for a human—either.”

  Jared turned to stare at him, now, trying to figure out if the vamp had just cracked a joke. Apparently, he was quite serious.

  “Okay,” Jared said. “I’ll bite. I smell, different—how?”

  “Are you sure it’s wise to have this discussion with a vamp?”

  Jared swallowed at that, and he knew that the vamp had sensed that his heart had kicked up a notch, but damn it, he couldn’t help it. The man who didn’t hear that threat was a fool.

  And everyone here knew how Dracon felt about humans.

  “Yes,” he said finally, “I am sure I want to have this conversation. How do I smell different?”

  Dracon actually smiled. “You must be desperate for answers, human.” He squatted down on the wall, and Jared realized he did so to put him more at ease—though he had no doubt that could change in the blink of an eye.

  So he was none too comforted.

  “You smell—like power,” Dracon said.

  Whatever Jared had been expecting—that was not it. He stared at Dracon, waiting for him to go on. When he didn’t, he prodded, and not too gently. “Damn it, Dracon!”

  “Okay, okay, human,” Dracon hissed. “Have you not realized that there are four princes?”

  “Yeah,” Jared said. “Fire….” He ticked off.

  “Which is Justice,” Dracon interrupted.

  Jared stared at him, trying to figure out what he was getting at. “Air…”

  “Which is me,” Dracon said dryly.

  “Water?” Jared said, more in a question this time.

  “Conrad,” Dracon said quietly.

  Jared took a deep breath. Somehow he didn’t think he was going to like this next one. “And Earth?”

  Dracon gave him a smile that would have run a shiver down the spine of any man who saw it.

  “Well now, human,” he said. “Who do you think is Earth?”

  Jared shook his head. “You’re not saying….”

  “I’m saying that exactly.”

  Jared couldn’t have been more blown away if Dracon had set him down on a bomb.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  War

  They came right after midnight. And they came from everywhere at once, swarming the streets. Even from where they waited, they couldn’t begin to track them all. They were like armies of ants, coming from every direction, and Justice saw Caesar scowl.

  He didn’t blame him.

  This was so much worse than it had been the first time, Justice thought as he readjusted his large body at a better angle so he could get a better look.

  The vampire hunters ran. He glanced up to the roof of an adjacent building, where Constantine was keeping watch; Justice had been aware of his presence for some time. He was in just time to see the old battle vamp scream at his men. “Stop chasing them, you imbeciles. They’re leading you into a trap—again!” He stomped across the roof in a fury. “Fools! Stupid, mindless children! Fine! Fine! You want something done you have to do it yourself!”

  Constantine disappeared from the edge of the rooftop, no doubt heading for the stairway. Justice wasn’t sure why he bothered, when he could have just as easily jumped.

  Justice watched from where he was perched, on the high ledge of an old building, as several fledgling vamps chased a vampire hunter down an alley.

  Constantine had called it right. The vampire hunters were, once again, leading the fledgling vamps through the alleyways, separating as they went. The fledgling vampires split up as they chased them.

  Conrad almost felt bad when he gave the signal to use the secret weapon. A wall of vampire hunters stepped forward with the blowguns, and then blew the darts, which held both the antivirus and an immobilizing agent that worked only with vampires.

  They stepped back, and the next wall of vampire hunters stepped forward.

  And so it went in several sections of the city where the fledgling vamps had been led.

  Constantine had known better than to fall for this trap twice, and the men had known that he had known better, but they had also known that he would again send his fledgling vamps.

  He couldn’t help himself. They were the main body of his army.

  And as sure as these fledgling vamps were sent, they could be led by the smell of blood. They were too hungry and could not be controlled—by anyone.

  Not even Constantine.

  And that is what Caesar had banked on when he told the men to use the exact same tactic they had used before—allowing Jared’s vampires hunters to lead the fledgling vamps toward those who held the blowguns and darts.

  Within seconds, thousands of fledgling vamps were writhing on the ground, immobilized by the toxin that would keep them from being able to move more that, giving the antivirus the opportunity to work. They had known that they might need up to six hours to see the results they sought.

  The armies stepped in to move the vamps to large holding areas that had been set up all over the city.

  In the end, the results were amazing. Though they had known what was likely going to take place, they were still awed.

  It was like the reverse of the embrace.

  And when it was through, there were hundreds of dazed and confused humans slowly sitting up, looking at each other as if they had no idea where they were—or why.

  Dracon, Conrad and Ophelia had gone to witness what would happen. Later, they all would take turns witnessing the vaccine’s effects. Each had their own fears of using bio-warfare. No one could take this lightly.

  When Conrad saw the vaccine reverse the virus that had infected the vamps, he grinned.

  Ophelia was stupefied. She stared, first at the restored humans, then at Conrad. “You knew this would happen! Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Conrad smile gentled. “Easy Ophelia, love—we weren’t sure, so we didn’t want to say anything until we knew for certain.”

  Ophelia glared at him. “But—you could have warned us!” Then she frowned as a thought came to her. “Would this fix Dara?”

  Conrad started gathering the remainder of the bottles together. “That was the main reason we didn’t’ want to say anything.” He zipped up the bag. “We didn’t want you to get your hopes up—in either direction.” He stopped and looked at Ophelia, his expression serious. “Like all shots, we don’t know the long-term effects.” He said something into the radio.

  Ophelia watched as men dressed in white approached the humans, who were, by now, getting up off th
e ground where they had been laid in cells. It was clear that they didn’t know where they were. In fact, they were so confused they almost looked as if they didn’t know who they were.