Vengeance: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 3

by Denise Tompkins

  “Never a good thing,” Bahlin muttered.

  “Right. So first thing we’ll do is get the grounds prepared. Then we’ll reconvene here at 4:00 and finalize the steps of the exorcism. I’ll let you know then where you need to be stationed when the sun goes down.” A faint shiver skated over my skin and sweat dotted my hairline. Somehow I felt like I was missing something, something significant that could change the entire course of the evening. It dogged me like a bad dream, hazy and incorporeal in every sense, and I couldn’t get my mind around what it might be. All I knew for certain was that people were moving, this was happening and I’d given it my best.

  I hoped it was enough.

  Hellion and the priest headed outside to scope the grounds and decide the best place for the summoning and subsequent exorcism. I grabbed Bahlin and Zerachiel and asked them to hang out as everyone else left the room. Micah made his way over, but I shooed him off. I needed to talk to these two together without other ears present.

  The second the door shut, I spun to face them. “This has to work. Bahlin, I need you to stay close to me, provide backup as necessary.” My voice broke on Zerachiel’s name. It took a second to compose myself. “I need you to shadow Hellion whether he wants you to or not. Need, Zerachiel. Not want. He can’t be left alone tonight. Agares will be looking for him, and I can’t…”

  The archangel laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I won’t let him get far, Maddy.”

  “You’re with me, Maddy. Always.” Bahlin’s words hung around my neck like a loose noose.

  I couldn’t tell him I’d be marrying Hellion. Not right now. I needed Bahlin, and needed his safety, too much. It was admittedly egocentric to assume I could keep him safe, but I’d be damned before I changed my plans.

  Running a hand through my hair, I let my chin fall to my chest. “Thank you.”

  Bahlin hooked a finger under my chin. “You’re welcome. Now let’s talk about how we’re going to manage this. The vampires?”

  “I need to see if I can rouse Darius. He’s pretty damned good at this fighting business.” My lips twitched at Bahlin’s look of consternation. “Almost as good as you, big guy.”

  He chuckled. “Pride appeased.” He met my gaze, his own unguarded.

  So much burned there that I couldn’t compartmentalize even half of it.

  His brows winged down. “What?”

  “I…” There were no words, nothing that would make sense to him. If I told him I loved him, it would complicate things. The emotion was there, though. All I could do was look at him and desperately hope he read me right.

  Instead, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  Zerachiel cleared his throat, and I wanted to thank him for his impeccable timing. Instead, I rolled my shoulders and squared up to Bahlin. “What happens when you wake vampires during the daytime?”

  “I suppose we’re about to find out.” He dropped an arm around my shoulder and steered me toward the steps to the basement. “We’ll shake ’em and run. If they wake up grumpy, at least we’ll have a head start.”

  I glanced at him, not at all reassured to see the grim determination that set his mouth in a hard line. “You’re joking.”

  “I hope so.” He opened the basement door and stood aside. “Ladies first.”

  “Asshole.” I jabbed him in the ribs and started down the damp staircase.

  Footsteps echoed, surrounding me in the dark spaces between lights. It made us sound like a battalion, not three hesitant souls. The upstairs door swung shut behind us and latched.

  “That wasn’t the lock, was it?” My voice was slightly breathy.

  Zerachiel rattled the handle and I almost came out of my skin as the sound ricocheted off the walls. “No. We’re good.”

  “’Kay.” I hit the bottom step and paused, hand on the door. “Where, exactly, are they sleeping?”

  “On the floor near the back of the cellar.”

  “Oh. Good.” I couldn’t stop the sarcastic response. At least it changed the tenor of things.

  “Funny, chit. Now get going.” Bahlin settled his hand on the back of my neck, thumb absently rubbing the sensitive area behind my ear.

  I closed my eyes and issued a short prayer that I was strong enough for everything this was going to take.

  Then I opened the basement door.

  “Look at them,” I whispered.

  We’d made it to the cellar with only a couple of spook-tacular moments, one of which involved a spider and a short scream followed by an apparently hysterical scramble to get it off me. I’d chance waking vampires, but keep the freaking spiders away. I couldn’t control my shudder as I looked over the bodies lying before me, the idea that spiders could crawl over them at will as they slept creeping me out even worse.

  A single, bare bulb burned overhead, illuminating the room and casting dark shadows where the light couldn’t reach. The vampires were each lain out on their backs. Their pale skin and still chests made this feel like a mausoleum. A faint smell, somewhat dry and dusty, lay beneath the natural tang of deep earth. It had to be their natural smell. I’d never noticed before.

  I moved among them, considering. They were arranged in a macabre pattern around Darius, like he was their sun and they were his rays. When they woke, they’d each rise and be positioned to defend him from any direction.

  “Loyalty,” I breathed.

  “Fierce,” Zerachiel answered.

  “Spooky as shit,” Bahlin finished, the only one of us brave enough to say what was really running through our minds.

  “Agreed,” Zerachiel and I said at the same time.

  I reached Darius. He lay flat on his back like the others, but there was a sense of deeper vacancy about him, as if he was truly dead. It was instinctive to mourn him, and more so to reach out and smooth his hair from his forehead.

  His hand grabbed my wrist in a bone-crushing grip.

  I may have sucked in all the air in the room.

  Bahlin reached me first, working to get Darius’s hand off me. Every time he unpeeled the vampire’s fingers, though, they’d curl back.

  “I can’t drag him around.” I tried to help.

  Zerachiel attempted to lend a third set of hands, but it only confused things.

  “Just, give me a second.” I had the men let go as I stared down at Darius’s empty face. “It’s like he’s not there.”

  “I’ve heard their soul flees their body with the breaking of every morn.” Zerachiel stared around the room, obviously fascinated.

  “Where do they go?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “Are they damned?” It had weighed on me, what with urban myth as it was.

  Zerachiel’s smile was benevolent. “No more than you or I, Maddy. It is no different for them than it is for you, for they are no more soulless than any of us here. The choices they make determine their fate, just as ours do.”

  “Good.” I knelt next to Darius. Cold seeped into my knees. I decided in that moment that their sacrifices for this cause were greater than ours, what with their sleeping conditions. I’d be rectifying this tomorrow. “Cots at the least,” I muttered. “Blankets. Bug spray.” With a bracing breath, I leaned over Darius and stroked his head with my free hand, calling to him in a soft voice. “Darius, come on. I need you. Come back.” I repeated the words over and over.

  His hand began to relax.

  Without warning, his other hand shot up and grabbed me by the chin as he flung me over and landed atop me. His eyes shot open, but no one was home. He bared his fangs and hissed.

  Terror gripped me by the throat so tight I couldn’t make a sound. Breath labored, my nostrils sucking nearly closed on every inhale, I grabbed his wrist.

  He struck at the same time Bahlin reached him, burying his fangs in my throat.

  I couldn’t stop my scream. Pain. Oh, shit, the pain. It burned like someone held an acetylene torch to my skin. Without Darius’s seduction, without his thrall, I was just his
version of Meals on Wheels. A vein to tap. A life to take.

  Bahlin couldn’t budge him, even with Zerachiel’s help. “If I change, the dragon will likely kill him, maybe kill you getting him off your throat.” Desperation colored Bahlin’s words with harsh strokes.

  The pulse of blood leaving my body had spots dancing in front of my eyes despite the room’s dim interior. “You can’t move him. He’ll tear out my throat.”

  “You’re immortal, right?” Bahlin’s eyes had turned icy blue.

  “I’m not testing that theory right now,” I all but shouted.

  Darius groaned against my throat, the hand not gripping my chin tracing down to cup my breast. He settled in between my thighs, grinding his pelvis against mine.

  “Not happening, my friend.” He’d never forgive himself for killing me, and immortal or not, I doubted I’d survive without blood. “Hand me a knife.” I held out my one free hand, accepting the hilt of a blade. Pressing it under the vampire’s chin, I pierced the skin.

  He never paused as he continued to draw from my vein.

  “Don’t make me do this,” I pleaded. “Darius, one chance to come back to me.”

  The draw on my neck slowed but didn’t stop.

  “I’ll ask you to forgive me for saving my own life later.” I spun the hilt in my hand and drove the blade into his side.

  He drew back with a deafening yell of pain, his hands releasing me as he grabbed the knife wound.

  It bled freely, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. He was bleeding my blood. “Give me a shirt.”

  There was a tearing sound and Darius’s pale, muscled chest was exposed. “Here you go.” Bahlin pressed the shirt to the bite on my neck. “You’re going to have a hell of a hickey.”

  The rest of the vampires began to shift and move.

  “That’s the least of our problems.” I got to my knees before the first vampire rose.

  Efien.

  His face was as vacant as Darius’s.

  “Oh, shit.” Bahlin grabbed me by the arm and drug me to my feet.

  I swayed like a drunken sailor.

  “Get the door,” he barked at Zerachiel.

  “Already there.”

  Bahlin pulled me through the stirring vampires. Efien hissed as we passed, his hands curling into claws.

  “Shit, shit, shit.” Bahlin’s curses were low and heartfelt. “This was the worst idea ever.”

  “Maddy.” Darius’s voice cut across the sea of rousing bodies.

  “Stop this,” I called back.

  “Fii liniștit.” Be still.

  All movement stopped.

  “I don’t want to know,” I said softly.

  “And I won’t tell you.” Darius moved to me, slightly sluggish, his face flushed. “I would apologize for this.” He reached out and touched the bite.

  I winced.

  “Allow me to repair the majority of the damage.” At my nod, he leaned in and laid his lips on the wound. Small licks, infinitely smaller swallows as I bled freely, all as he worked his tongue over the puncture marks.

  Bahlin growled.

  Zerachiel began to glow.

  “Enough.” I spoke so quietly I didn’t doubt it was only Darius who heard me.

  He stepped back, licking his lips, my blood staining his teeth. “To what do I owe this visit?”

  “So formal.”

  “Forgive me. I’m not quite myself.” He lifted his face to the floor above him. “It’s still two hours until the sun sets. How did you call me, Maddy?”

  “Would you believe me if I said I don’t know?”

  He rubbed the area over his heart. “It’s all a myth,” he said below his breath. Lifting his chin, he drew a breath. “You’re here for a reason.”

  “Actually, we just wanted to see you guys sleeping together,” Bahlin said. The snarl in his voice was deep, gravelly, and didn’t bode well for this conversation.

  “Can it, Bay,” I snapped.

  “Maddy, with all due respect, let’s cut the bullshit. Why are you here?” Darius’s direct question caught us all off guard.

  “I wanted to bring you up to speed, let you know what we’re doing. I didn’t want you to wake up and walk into the thick of things.” I traced the healing marks on my throat. “I didn’t even consider you might attack…”

  “It’s a defense mechanism. The body defends itself while the mind cannot.” His mouth formed a hard line. “I won’t go into this. Tell me, what is it we need to know? What have you planned? And who’s the stranger?”

  I took Darius’s hand and pulled him to a chest nearer the light where I sat. “Zerachiel. Nephilim. Long story short, the call’s been sent out and Agares will be here tonight, likely with reinforcements. The priest is upstairs with Hellion.” And on it went until I’d spilled the whole story. Twice I had to stop and shake him to keep him awake, but we managed.

  He looked me over, his gaze studiously blank. “So we’ll walk into a demonic war.”

  “I’m sorry. Yeah.” I ran a hand around my neck and pulled until my muscles shook with strain. “I can’t, that is, I won’t change plans at this point. We’ve got to be ready.”

  “The most I can do is have my men up the moment the sun sets. We cannot emerge until the last of the light fades. Even faint sunlight can blind us or flash-burn our skin.” Darius mirrored my move, running his hand behind his neck. His hair hung free, and his hand simply rested beneath it. No anxious pulling or straining on his part. When he looked up, there was a stronger sense of self in his eyes. “I’ll have the men prepared and ready. We’ll be there as soon as possible.”

  “Thanks. I want you to move to Hellion first and foremost. He can’t fall to Agares.” I swallowed hard enough it sounded above our collective breathing. “Please.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” Frustration laced his words. “To be bound to the moon is a curse.” He stood and strode through his men, stopping at his place in the circle. “Go, ma cherie. I will be there as soon as I may.”

  “Thank you.” I moved to the door, looking back only once.

  Darius knelt among his sleeping men, head hung low, face shielded by a deep fall of dark hair. There was a sense of dejection weighing him down.

  I turned back, only to find Zerachiel stepping in front of me. “Leave him to his own grief.”

  “Grief?”

  “His grief is his own burden, as is yours, as is mine. Leave him to sort it out.”

  As if my guilt backpack wasn’t already full enough. “Let’s go.” My low words were met with action as the men placed me between them this time, Bahlin in the lead.

  We emerged into the waning sunlight. The house was quiet. Too quiet. A preternatural pall hung over the hallway. Not even the air moved.

  “Zerachiel, get outside. Straight to Hellion.” When he hesitated, I rounded on him. “Now.”

  He moved like a ghost, his footfalls something one might believe encountered only in dream. Sunlight hit him and he paused, reveling in it. He began to grow, his height topping out somewhere around nine feet based on the top of his head in relation to the top of the doorway.

  Bahlin breathed out long and low. “Never imagined that would impress me, but he’s like the giants of old.”

  “They were like us,” the Nephilim corrected. Then he was gone, through the side door, across the lawn, disappearing into the gardens.

  “Let Hellion be okay.” The short litany escaped out loud. I shook my head to clear it and then turned to Bahlin. “Do you feel anything different?”

  His eyes changed and he breathed deep, smoke curling from his nose. “Brimstone’s on the air.”

  “They’re here.” Fear pooled at the base of my spine, wicking upward. “It’s too early. We’re not ready. Shit, shit, shit.” My hand went to my gun, and I pulled it with as much stealth as I could muster. Still, the sound of the metal clearing leather was unnaturally loud in the lower hallway. I looked left and right and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  A flo
orboard creaked overhead, the step that wrought it stopping mid-motion.

  “House be damned. If you have to shift, shift.” I backed closer to the wall and jerked my head toward the open end of the hallway. Bahlin stuck close, watching my back as I covered his front. Together, we inched our way down the hall.

  The first thing I would remember, looking back, was the smell of Hell—cloying, choking, caustic. The demon that followed the smell was no better.

  I leveled the gun and began firing before I consciously thought about the percussion. The sound rang through the tight space, deafening. The demon went down with the fourth round.

  First or second level, I mouthed to Bahlin.

  He didn’t acknowledge me. His eyes were trained on something over my shoulder.

  I spun, the movement dragging as if I moved through sludge. Gun raised, finger on the trigger, I watched the walls as they began to bleed. Something big lumbered down the steps. The minute the first scaled and scabbed foot rounded the corner, Bahlin grabbed me and yanked me down the hallway toward the light Zerachiel had found. It was brilliant, a beacon to us in that second, and everything the dark wasn’t.

  Movement in my peripheral vision meant a volley of fire launched into every open door as we ran. I dumped empty clips and slammed new ones in place, all the while being pursued. Whatever had come down those stairs brokered painful death, no doubt. Dumping another clip, I shoved a new one home and stopped to spin and fire.

  My gun hand twitched, the only show of fear that translated from brain to body.

  The demon was enormous, his body scraping the walls as he lumbered toward us. Fast. Faster than he should have been. Clawed hands flung felled demons out of the way like they were tinker’s toys. Scaled, four-armed and sporting a trio of eyes that wept mucous, he was singularly focused on me. A jaw with row upon row of saw-like teeth opened and roared, the carrion-diffused breath making my stomach pitch.

  “Holy shit,” Bahlin shouted, taking the thing in.

  A tail I hadn’t noticed smashed a hole in one of the downstairs sitting room walls. He—and it was definitely a he—paused, chest heaving.