The Assassins of Light

by Britney Jackson

  As Owen and Audrey followed Rose downstairs, they started talking about a movie that had come out recently. Rose, of course, barely even recognized the title. She’d been so busy with almost-dying and actually-dying lately that she hadn’t been able to keep up with normal stuff, like movie releases. When they reached the kitchen, she opened the door and waited for them to go ahead of her.

  Rose vaguely noticed that they’d gone on inside. She vaguely heard their voices, muffled and distant, as they rummaged through the fridge. But Rose still hadn’t moved from the door…because something else had caught her attention.

  A single, black rose—its petals as dark as shadows—lay on the counter.

  “What the heck?” she mumbled to herself. She reached out and picked up the rose, careful to keep her fingers between the thorns. She leaned forward and sniffed the strange rose, inhaling its warm, sweet scent. “Owen?” she called out. “You’re a biology major, so maybe you know… Where do black roses grow?”

  Owen turned toward her. “Technically, they don’t,” he said as he walked back toward the doorway, where she still stood. “Not naturally, anyway. There are dark red roses, though, that look almost black.” He frowned at the black rose in Rose’s hand. “Why do you ask? Did Kallias buy that for you? It’s…interesting.”

  “Kallias isn’t really a flower kind of person,” Rose mumbled distractedly.

  “Can chicken be cooked in the microwave?” Audrey yelled out suddenly.

  Owen glanced back at her with wide eyes. “You’re going to give yourself food poisoning, Audrey. Just eat something that doesn’t have to be cooked.”

  Rose set the rose back on the counter and looked for any sign whatsoever of how the rose had gotten there. She froze as she noticed a folded piece of paper, tucked beneath an old telephone book. She hesitantly reached out and pulled it out from underneath the book. Then, she unfolded the paper and read the note.

  My Eklektos,

  Unfortunately, I cannot say this in person. There are things happening behind the scenes that you do not understand. I cannot risk our meeting at this moment. I hope you like my gift to you: the black rose. It is a symbolic gift. I am interested to know if you can decipher its meaning. What you need to know at this moment is this: you are being watched. You are always being watched. Even when you think you are alone, you never are. You never have been. Does that scare you? It should scare you, I suppose. The truth is scary. Something will happen soon, and you will hate me for not warning you. But I cannot. This event must happen to plunge you further into your fate. And when it happens, you’ll surrender once again to the Darkness, and it will be glorious. We will meet again soon.

  Your servant,

  Erastos

  Rose sighed, “Oh, Erastos. The vampire who is allergic to making sense.”

  “Who is Erastos?” Owen asked, watching as she refolded the letter.

  Rose waved her hand dismissively. “He’s a creepy guy who knows stuff,” she said. She frowned at him. “The Assassins of Light don’t know about him?”

  “He’s not in any of their books,” Owen answered. “Why? Should they?”

  Rose leaned against the counter, her brows furrowing, as she thought about that. “I’d think so, considering how old he is—or how old he says he is.”

  “How old is he?” Owen asked. “They know all of the ancient vampires.”

  Rose shrugged. “He says that he’s older than Aaron, but…I don’t know.”

  “That’s impossible,” Owen muttered. He scratched his head, accidentally smoothing out some of the spikiness of his hair. “There are no living vampires that are older than Aaron. He murdered all of them during his rise to power.”

  “Yeah,” Rose said thoughtfully. “That’s what everyone keeps saying.”

  Owen wrinkled his nose. “Do you smell cigarettes?” he asked suddenly.

  Rose tilted her head back and groaned at the ceiling—because yes, now that she thought about it, she did smell cigarettes. “Zach, I’m going to kill you!”

  —

  “You want to know what I think?” Erik asked, watching Kallias from the passenger seat, as Kallias drove to the address that Geoffrey had sent to them.

  “Not really,” Kallias said, pressing his foot harder against the gas pedal, swerving around the slower-moving cars. “But I assume you’ll tell me anyway.”

  “The problems you’re having with Rose have nothing to do with Kara,” Erik said. “You don’t care that Rose kissed Kara. I mean, you might be a little concerned that Rose will leave you for Kara, but you’re not that upset about it.”

  “You really can’t mind your own business, can you?” Kallias complained.

  “My own business pretty much consists of my dead ex-girlfriend, so no,” Erik told him. “Focusing on your problems helps me forget my own.” He grinned at him and continued, “So, anyway, your problem is that you can hold a grudge longer than anyone on the planet. Case in point: Theron. Rose’s feelings for Kara are just a convenient excuse for you—a new reason to be angry with her, a new reason to push her away and to keep punishing her for the pain her death caused you.” He watched as Kallias’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. “I felt your pain, Kallias, and don’t get me wrong: I totally sympathize. But at the same time, I, for one, am thankful that she saved our lives. We’d be dead without her.”

  “Don’t,” Kallias snarled, his eyes flashing. “Don’t defend what she did.”

  Erik tilted his head against the back of the seat and groaned, “Oh, for Odin’s sake, Kallias, I know I’m not the pinnacle of emotional health here, but you really have to work on these issues. Yeah, she wasn’t totally honest with you, but it’s not like you’ve been honest with her one-hundred percent of the time either. She did what she believed was right, and if you don’t like that, then you clearly fell in love with the wrong woman because that’s pretty much Rose’s m.o.”

  “Maybe I did,” Kallias said quietly. His brown eyes looked distant now, full of pain and sadness and despair. “I never thought we had a chance anyway.”

  Erik glanced at him, his eyebrows lifting in disbelief. “Yeah,” he said slowly, “when you were a vampire and she was a human. But she’s a vampire now. There’s literally nothing standing in the way, and now, you want to give up?”

  “Nothing standing in my way?” Kallias repeated, his voice rising in anger. “Her feelings for Kara are so complicated, she can’t even figure them out. What if she realizes that she does want Kara? What, then? Am I supposed to do that weird, complicated thing that you did with Alana? Am I supposed to share her?”

  “First of all,” Erik said with a scowl, “it really wasn’t that complicated. She was with Kara sometimes, and she was with me sometimes. And sometimes, she was with neither of us. And second, you can’t really share a person. She’s your girlfriend, but she’s not a possession. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”

  “Of course not,” Kallias sighed. “I just… What does she see in her?”

  “In Kara?” Erik said, shrugging. “The same thing she sees in everyone.”

  Kallias glanced at Erik as he waited for the stoplight to turn green.

  “The good,” Erik said. “Rose sees the good in everyone. Even Kara.”

  “There’s no good to find in a liar,” Kallias muttered. He sped through the intersection as soon as the light turned green, leaving the other cars behind.

  “People aren’t as black and white as you like to think,” Erik said. “Some of us have done bad things, but we want to be good people. We just need someone to believe in us—the way you believed in me and the way Rose believes in Kara.”

  Kallias slowed the car as they approached the address that Geoffrey had given them in the text message. The abandoned, brick building ahead of them, dilapidated and partially-collapsed, looked dark and empty beneath the black sky.

  “Are you sure this is the address he gave you?” Erik asked worriedly.

  “Yeah,” Kallias said as he pu
lled the car into a parking space. He leaned forward, squinting at the dark building. “I don’t see his car anywhere. Do you?”

  “The only way that car is here,” Erik muttered, “is if he parked it inside.”

  “Call him,” Kallias told him. “Make sure we have the correct address.”

  Erik pulled out his phone and dialed Geoffrey’s number. He pressed the phone to his ear, listening to the tones, waiting anxiously for someone to answer.

  Then, finally, he heard a click. “Hello,” Emma giggled. He heard a slight commotion behind her voice—the crash of a lamp, possibly, and several crashes and thuds, as if she’d knocked several things over, at once. “Sorry. Kind of busy.”

  “Yeah,” Erik said slowly, his brows furrowing. “Can I talk to Geoff?”

  “He’s getting dressed and mouthing something at me,” Emma told Erik. “It looks like he’s saying…stop making it so obvious that we were having sex.”

  Erik lifted his eyebrows. “Normally, I’d be highly amused by this,” he said, his anxiety building, “but…er…I was actually calling to make sure we had the right address. Because we’re supposed to be meeting you here, aren’t we?”

  “In our bedroom?” Emma asked. “Okay, I guess. I’m naked, though.”

  “Trying not to visualize that,” Erik muttered. But then, he exchanged a worried look with Kallias as he realized that something was obviously not right.

  “Geoffrey’s taking the phone from me now,” Emma called out.

  “Hey,” Geoffrey said suddenly. “What did you mean? What address?”

  “The one you sent us,” Erik told him, “in the text message.”

  Geoffrey was quiet for a moment. “I never sent a text message.”

  —

  Rose threw open the front door and marched out onto the lawn. Zach turned toward her, his eyebrows lifting, as he saw her tall, curvy silhouette in the light cast from the front door of the house. Aside from the white glow of the crescent moon overhead, the only other light outside the house was the orange glow at the end of Zach’s cigarette. “What are you doing out here?” she snapped.

  Zach took the cigarette out of his mouth and gave it a pointed look. “I’m smoking,” he said slowly, as if he were questioning her intelligence, “obviously.”

  Rose snatched the cigarette out of his hand before he could put it back in his mouth and tossed it on the ground, stamping it out with her foot. “You scared me to death!” she scolded. “I need you to stay inside so I can protect you.”

  Zach glanced down at the ground with an offended look. “I was smoking that,” he complained. He sighed and reached into his pocket to grab another one.

  “It smells terrible,” Rose said. “Also…you…need…to…get…inside.”

  He scowled at her tone. “Relax,” he mumbled with a cigarette in his mouth, his words muffled. “Since when do I need my baby sister to protect me?”

  Rose snatched the new cigarette out of his mouth before he could light it. “Since now,” she said, casting a nervous glance around the dark, woodsy area.

  Zach frowned. “Rose, whatever it is—I don’t need you to protect me.”

  “There are things you don’t know about me, Zach,” Rose said, her brows creasing with worry, as she looked at him. “I can…do…more than you think.”

  “I’m sure you can,” he said, but his tone sounded patronizing, “but Sis, I’ve shot people before. Have you?” He laughed at the question. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to worry about someone trying to kill me. Relax. I’ll be fine.”

  Rose didn’t bother to correct him—to tell him that she had shot someone before, that she’d done much worse than that, actually—because at that moment, she noticed a strange sound. The crackling of dead leaves. She squinted, peering into the dark forest, trying to see what had stepped on the dead, autumn leaves.

  And she prayed—desperately—that it was just a squirrel or a deer.

  “Hello. Earth to Rose,” Zach said, laughing. “Did I finally out-sass you?”

  Her pulse skyrocketed as she noticed a shadow, shifting slowly, behind a tree. She grabbed Zach’s arm and started nudging him back toward the house, hoping that he would take the hint, but of course, he didn’t. Still hoping that she was wrong, she inhaled deeply, trying to discern the thousands of scents in the woods. The scents of trees and leaves and autumn air reached her first, but then, beneath all of that, she noticed the scents of squirrels, deer, foxes, and…humans.

  Not one human. Several humans.

  “Zach! Get inside! Now!” Rose screamed.

  But before he could even react, a gunshot echoed through the woods.

  Rose jumped in front of Zach, and fortunately, managed to freeze the bullet in midair, right in front of her face, with her telekinetic abilities. She thought she heard a whisper, somewhere out in the woods, but she couldn’t identify it.

  “Holy shit,” Zach breathed, glancing around at his dark surroundings. “What happened? Did they miss? Are you all right? I can’t see anything out here.”

  Rose spun around and clasped her hands around his arms. “Get inside! Please!” she cried. Her heart thundered in her chest as panic-induced adrenaline rushed through her. “I don’t know how many of the bullets I’ll be able to stop.”

  “Wait, what?” Zach said, blinking at her. “How could you…stop bullets?”

  Two shadows suddenly darkened the light cast by the house. Rose spun toward the door, her eyes widening in horror, as she saw Owen and Audrey there.

  “Rose!” Audrey called out in a panicked voice. “Are you all right?”

  “Get inside!” Rose screamed at them, her voice cracking with fear.

  But it was too late. Several gunshots fired at once, and Rose spun around, a glowing, red haze overtaking her eyes, as she stopped the bullets with her mind.

  “What’s going on?” Zach said. He stepped back as he saw the blood-red light glowing within her eyes. “Uh, Rose? Why are your eyes red? And glowing?”

  Rose didn’t have much of a choice, at this point. “Stop shooting!” she screamed when the gunfire finally stopped. “You want me? You can have me!”

  “No! Rose!” Owen said as he ran out to her. “What are you doing?!”

  “I can’t keep stopping the bullets,” she hissed at him. “Eventually, one of them is going to break through and hurt one of you. And I can’t allow that.”

  “Rose, please,” Owen said, his hazel eyes wide. “Please, don’t do this.”

  Rose stepped forward, tilting her head and squinting, as she tried to catch a glimpse of the people shooting at them. Her veins buzzed with adrenaline, her power rising within her. She waited for a response from the Assassins of Light, but they said nothing. She heard only the whistle of wind as it moved through the trees, rustling the leaves. “Did you hear me?” she called out. “I’m surrendering!”

  “Rose,” Owen whispered, “you can’t do this. They’re going to kill you.”

  Zach glanced at Owen, his eyes widening, and then, he turned to Rose.

  But before he could say anything, a sound echoed through the woods.

  Leaves crunching. Footsteps. Movement.

  Then, slowly, the humans emerged from the forest. There were seven of them, and they wore identical outfits, a uniform of sorts—with black pants, black shirts, and black jackets. On the left side of their jackets was an embroidered symbol—a yellow sun, engulfed in red flames—the exact same symbol that had been tattooed on the Assassin of Light that attacked Rose and Aaron in Europe.

  A tall, gray-haired man seemed to lead the uneven semicircle of humans as they approached Rose and her friends. He held up his hands, including the one that held the gun, and offered Rose an eerily familiar smile. “Hello, Miss Foster.”

  Rose felt the blood drain from her face, cold horror freezing in her veins. He looked different, of course, dressed in that sleek, black clothing, instead of his usual, pressed suit. But she still recognized him—his short, gray hair, his
lean form, his surprisingly young face, and his kind, gray-blue eyes. “Dr. Davidson?”

  Audrey frowned, vaguely recognizing the name. “As in…the teacher?”

  Dr. Davidson smiled kindly at her. “I’d say it’s good to see you again, but the circumstances aren’t the best, are they?” he sighed. “It’s a shame that things had to turn out this way. You really are the most brilliant student I’ve ever had.”

  Rose’s mind raced to catch up. “You’re one of the Assassins of Light?”

  He nodded. “It runs in the family,” he said with a cheeky smile. He ran his free hand over his gray hair. “It’s a stressful life. I blame that for the gray hair.”

  Rose stared at him, sickened by the realization. Her gaze shifted toward Owen. “Is there anyone I know who isn’t connected to the Assassins of Light?”

  Owen looked as shocked as she did. He shrugged. “Jared never told me.”

  Dr. Davidson offered Rose another smile. “Well, we don’t usually go out of our way to surround a human. But you were a special situation, weren’t you?”

  Rose lifted her eyebrows. “I’m…a situation?”

  “Oh, yes,” her professor informed her. “A very dangerous situation.”

  Rose narrowed her eyes. “Right,” she said sardonically. “You come here, armed with weapons, shooting at my friends, and I’m the one who’s dangerous.”

  “We do what we must,” Dr. Davidson said. “I’m sure you understand.”

  “Not really,” Rose muttered. “I don’t usually hate people for no reason.”

  “Neither do we,” he said with a smile, “but vampires aren’t people.”

  “Umm…did he say vampires?” Zach sputtered. “Like…as in…Dracula?”

  “See? The fact that you haven’t told him is proof,” Dr. Davidson told Rose, “that you know as well as we do: what you let them turn you into is wrong.”

  Rose glared at him. “Right and wrong is defined by choices, not species.”