I swayed, and my vision darkened at the edges. I fought for consciousness, desperately resisting the urge to succumb to the darkness. It would be so easy. I wouldn’t feel this pain if I wasn’t conscious.
No! I pulled myself up to a standing position with what strength I had left, and Gina wordlessly wrapped her arm around my shoulder. We had to deal with Vonn’s inability to control himself and Jim’s death. I needed to be here for my team. Heat flamed around my face as I struggled to get hold of myself. Everyone was watching.
Oleah didn’t bother to stifle her chuckle. “What a production,” she lamented.
Excuse me?
For a moment I’d been embarrassed that the vampires could see my weakness, that they knew it came from feelings that had nothing to do with our mission, that they could see so much of what was going on between us. But with Oleah’s excessive meanness, suddenly I couldn’t believe I’d felt bad. Oleah might’ve wanted her vindictive words to sting—and they did—but they also brought on the opposite reaction. I felt a new sensation of determination welling up inside me. They were never going to like me? Fine. I didn’t need to bother with their approval.
“Utterly embarrassing,” Hart agreed. “This is what happens when humans and vampires try to work together.”
I straightened my back and refused to budge under their harsh gazes. Let them talk. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction by apologizing for something that was out of my control.
Dorian’s voice was hard. “Oleah, Hart, if you’re not going to say anything useful then you can be quiet. Your words only serve cruelty, and you know it. There are more dire situations than your lack of empathy.” He cleared his throat loudly, and the older vampires subsided. “Bravi, please inform me of what occurred during the mission.”
I silently thanked Dorian for his sharp honesty. The pain receded a tiny bit as I leaned on Gina’s comforting arm, gathering my strength. Unconsciousness was at least farther on the horizon now.
“I sensed darkness before we got to the home,” Bravi admitted and tossed a dark look toward Vonn. “Some of us reacted to the darkness more than others before we discovered the murder. Vonn assured me he was perfectly fine. He wasn’t. He went rogue. He purposefully waited to be alone with police officers so he could attack while we tried to make our escape.”
“It’s not good for missions,” Bryce added halfheartedly. He didn’t look like he had much strength left in him for an argument.
Dorian’s stare bounced between them as they spoke, taking in all the information as it came.
Colin stared blankly ahead. Louise shuddered in fear next to him. They just watched an officer of the law get murdered before their very eyes tonight. Healing from their torture was already hard enough. Now, this? I’d never wanted to add to their nightmares or stress. And though Vonn’s behavior wasn’t my fault, I might’ve had a chance to stop it if I’d followed my intuition.
“I’ve never seen a vampire feed on someone before,” Louise said in a tone so soft it was nearly a whisper. Standing a few feet away, Sike watched her carefully, his brown eyes clouded with an emotion I couldn’t quite read. He noticed my stare and turned aside, throwing himself onto one of the scavenged chairs without a word. Was he hurt she hadn’t easily accepted vampire feeding when faced with watching it live? Worried their friendship—or whatever was between them—wouldn’t be the same?
Welcome to the uncomfortable world of juggling morals in human and vampire relationships. I couldn’t say I recommended it.
I shrugged out from under Gina’s arm, at last, feeling the room threaten to spin around me but needing to stand on my own. Dorian purposefully stalked across the room, closing in on Vonn. The distance gave my body some much-needed relief, letting my feet steady further.
“You jeopardized an important mission and our goals, Vonn. You put your companions in danger,” Dorian said sharply. “Did you ever stop to think that the police will surely link the killings to vampires? It could lead them straight to us. You risked the lives of everyone here. We go out to feed separately from the group for a reason. You recently fed before this mission. It shows an utter lack of discipline.”
Vonn stared back without shame. “I solved a problem for the group. There were dark officers. They should be thanking me for cleansing those souls,” he said coldly.
Louise and Colin wore matching scowls of disbelief. Roxy scoffed, indignant. Bravi sighed, her nostrils flaring, but her hostility had lost its edge. I stared at Vonn, shaking my head in disbelief. He was acting as if feeding on the officers was a mercy. And Bravi—was she swayed by that argument? Something must be going on that I didn’t understand. I was sick of that feeling.
“What on earth are you talking about?” I asked. “How could killing these people help them in any way?”
Dorian turned to face the humans. His eyes flashed, an inner battle clearly raging within him. He wanted to tell us something.
Bravi sighed with impatience. “Just explain it to them,” she told him. “They won’t think you’re crazy.”
“There’s more to the lore behind our feedings,” Dorian said, his voice pensive. “I haven’t wanted to explain it before because it seemed likely to sound strange, but I suppose it’s relevant. You already know vampires feed on dark energy because we have an innate compulsion.”
“It serves a purpose.” Myndra spoke up from the vampire side, taking over for him. Her small smile made me want to scoff. I was ready to toss the creepy twins out with Vonn. “We cleanse the human’s spirit, taking only the darkness and leaving the pure soul behind.”
“It’s a wonderful act,” Sabal whispered, awed by her own recollections. “The unburdened soul can travel to the afterlife.”
She spoke with such relish and pride that I could scarcely believe her. How could she discuss murdering someone with such reverence? It bordered on sounding like a sacred ceremony. Was she a zealous freak, or was there really something in this picture I wasn’t getting?
Rhome stepped forward, breaking his silence. “They’re right,” he said. “For a dark soul to journey into the afterlife, it must be cleansed somehow. Our kind is sort of like the fabled grim reapers in that we facilitate a soul’s journey. Unfortunately, the act appears quite violent to humans, but it is necessary. Otherwise, the soul could remain stagnant for eons. Yes, the cleansing can happen in other ways, but it’s most healing for us to speed the process along. It’s the reason we do what we do.”
A shocked silence fell over us. The wheels of my mind began to turn, trying to fit this new information into what I knew about vampires. They took souls so literally. The concept was a bit foreign to me, but I tried to roll with it. What could this mean for Earth? If the vampires actually cleansed souls to facilitate their journey to a place somewhere beyond Earth… that was arguably well-intentioned. Good, even. If this was true, could we think of experiments to prove it? Could there be a way to use their knowledge of darkness in the human world?
What did darkness and sacrifice mean for the people I knew and loved?
“I wonder if there’s a way to rehabilitate a bad human soul,” Louise pondered aloud into the quiet. “People do change.”
Bryce nodded in agreement, his voice rough. “There’s got to be a way to figure out darkness before it requires a vamp ripping into your neck. People aren’t born good or bad. They become that way over time.”
From his haunted eyes, I guessed he must have been considering Jim’s killer.
Dorian tossed them a look—half annoyed, half resigned—as though he’d known this kind of discussion would come up.
“It is possible to do something wrong without turning evil,” he said dryly. “And humans sometimes correct their own course when they start down a dark path. But acts of darkness require a sacrifice of equal value to cleanse. Without that, the soul itself darkens over time until it can only be cleansed by violent death. If we feed on them without killing, the darkness will only return. There is no way to cheat that cost.
”
I could tell the vampires were losing my team with all this talk of justifying the brutal murder of humans. Even Bryce looked perturbed by the concept, and in truth, I would need more time to ponder it myself. But it was time to bring this conversation back to something productive. Even in my weakened state, I wasn’t a quitter.
“Obviously, there are some big differences in how humans and vampires understand darkness and souls and the afterlife. Our human justice system mostly allows for us to examine darkness on our own terms by judging people according to legal and ethical standards,” I said, hoping my voice sounded stronger to them than it did to me. “I hope to one day see a joint system. Dark humans can pass through the justice system, and vampires can then clean a guilty person’s soul. Maybe by combining our technology with their knowledge, we’ll find a new solution. We can work together, benefiting from one another’s presence.”
“That could be interesting,” Colin admitted. A few other faces seemed receptive. I stole a look toward Laini, who was standing quietly alongside Rhome.
“Laini gave me the idea,” I confessed. “She talked about vampires potentially waiting for a conviction in order to feed. I wonder if maybe we were both onto something.” Laini offered a comforting half-smile.
The notion of cohesion was smashed when a haughty voice rose on the other side of the room.
“Well, your plan is obviously failing,” Oleah drawled. “And not because of us. The Bureau was clearly evil to begin with—prejudiced and manipulative. There’s no way that will happen with humans attempting to wipe vampires out.” Her icy words dragged like a nail down the length of my back.
“You should’ve seen the man they shot dead in his own study,” Vonn breathed excitedly, eager to join the discussion. “You have to be filled with darkness to lodge a bullet in a man’s temple and watch him bleed out while you place his faked suicide note beside him. The Bureau probably took great joy in writing that note.”
You don’t have to be so excited about it, though… He claimed to want to cleanse the world of darkness, yet he was obviously thrilled by it. It seemed hypocritical.
Hart raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, turning to me. “Oh, were you planning on leaving that little detail out? Your Bureau has shown, time and time again, that they are willing to kill for their own ends. Vampires and humans alike.” His eyes glittered in the low light of the cavern.
“I didn’t have time,” I explained in frustration. Oleah and Hart exchanged twin looks of pure doubt. Screw you guys, I’m expressing every single thought I have about the Bureau. If they wanted a discussion, they were going to get it.
“If the Bureau has ramped up from beating its dissenting soldiers and issuing false warrants to murdering someone who hadn’t done anything against them—one of their own, a high-ranking former member—then our options for resistance are getting more limited,” I said. “We can run and hope they’ll eventually give up, maybe leave the country, or we can fight back.”
I glanced at my team. Louise fidgeted next to Grayson, who seemed unable to stop staring at Vonn with a mixture of fear and disgust. Roxy crossed her arms tightly over her chest, refusing to look up anymore.
“A murder as a coverup. It’s an act of war,” Oleah declared simply. “Isn’t that right? It shows they’re willing to do anything to silence those who oppose them.” Her eyes scanned the room for agreement, which Hart readily gave.
Laini nodded to the sentiment. “We’re not strong enough to run,” she said. “If we do, they’ll continue to pick us off slowly. And there are only so many places we can hide from their surveillance. Our only option, in this case, might be to strike first.”
Oleah seemed to bloom with joy upon hearing one of the facility vampires voice their support. I ground my teeth, trying to keep calm. War wasn’t what I’d been suggesting. I’d only meant to look at our situation strategically. This sounded so much bigger, so much direr. Cataclysmic, like there was no going back. But what else would I call this situation we were in with the Bureau? An ongoing conflict? Would looking at it as one side against another help our odds?
Grayson’s face twisted at the mention of war. Hart shot him a withering look, and Grayson pressed his lips together, perhaps too afraid of the vampires to speak.
Myndra cocked her head to the side. “What confuses me is why the Bureau would go to these lengths,” she said, showing a hint of vulnerability. The slender, dark vampire looked tired and small.
It made me examine her more closely and remind myself that despite her creepiness and antagonism, she was younger than I was. And as much as I had lost, she had lost more. I regretted saying I would throw her out with Vonn, even if it had only been in my thoughts.
“I don’t understand what they wanted from us. Those of you who volunteered did everything they asked. Why force us to this?”
“It’s an interesting question,” Dorian admitted. “One I’ve had myself. Could they really have done all this out of simple mistrust or fear of vampires? Are they entirely evil? Or is it something more?”
Laini nodded, pacing back and forth and wringing her hands in front of her. “What could have convinced them to ignore the evidence from the facility? Hatred and fear are powerful forces, but we managed to be so useful. It’s like they had already decided to declare war from the start. Is there something else they could gain from wiping vampires off the Earth? Something none of us knows about?”
“I don’t like this talk about war,” Zach piped up. “That just turns the whole situation into an us-versus-them scenario. Not everyone in the Bureau is bad. Something as big as a war will only hurt innocent people. If we go to war against the Bureau, many of us go against our own family.”
The last few sentences he spoke in my direction, shooting me a look of challenge, but a haunted one. I knew he was worried for our family. I’m worried too. War wasn’t what I intended when I brought this up, but we have to talk this out with everyone. Zach seemed reluctant to believe more than the board was guilty in the Bureau. And while that was true in many ways, as long as the rest of the Bureau continued to do the board’s bidding without question, we were surrounded by enemies on all sides—none of whom seemed to care about whether we were innocent or not. It was tricky.
“I agree war will only hurt innocent people,” I said, trying to work through things logically as I spoke. “But I wonder if we’ll have a choice. We can’t run forever. Scavenged canned food and sheet bandages won’t be able to sustain us in the long run. And… if the Bureau keeps pushing, we could all end up murdered.”
Jim’s gunshot wound haunted me—the way his shoulders had gone so slack, his eyes glassy, all the vivacious energy sapped from his person. Just a body with a grieving family.
“Do we have any real evidence Jim was murdered?” Zach asked, pushing back against the thought. “Could it have been suicide? Bryce, please don’t take this the wrong way, but you might not be the most impartial person to provide evidence right now. I want solid information before I risk my family’s lives.”
“It wasn’t suicide,” Bryce said indignantly. “Trust me. I knew Jim.” The pain in his voice brooked no further arguments, even though I knew Zach had a point.
“And I would never make a plan that purposefully endangers our parents,” I said. “We may still have to go on the offensive, Zach. We can’t keep running or hoping someone from the Bureau will magically explain this all away.”
Zach and I stared at one another, at an impasse. The rest of the group watched us intently, particularly the newer vampires.
“So instead we should destroy them all?” Zach demanded. “What if the vampires want to cleanse the soul of every person they find in the building?”
“If you have better suggestions, I’m listening!” I said stridently, a wave of exasperation crashing over me, threatening to capsize into real anger. I loved my brother, but I felt like he was trying to find ways to stop an offensive plan against the Bureau rather than actually solving our pr
oblems. “I need plans, not black-and-white arguments. You saw what they did to Roxy and the others.”
Zach had the grace to look apologetic. “I don’t have anything yet,” he admitted with a huff. “All I know is that war isn’t the answer.”
Neither of us would budge. Though he was usually the more easygoing sibling, I knew Zach’s stubbornness rivaled my own when he really dug his heels in.
Bryce sighed wearily. “Let’s call this discussion off for tonight. We’re getting nowhere. Everyone needs to take some time to think about what’s happened. We’ll figure out a strategy soon,” he said. A glassy appearance came to his eyes. “For now, I’m going to mourn the fallen.” Without another word, he wandered into the dark. Nobody dared to follow. He had the stiff, aimless walk of a man who had lost too much in one night.
I took Bryce’s advice to heart and separated myself from everyone.
I needed to think. There were so many things piling up in my mind. My body was exhausted, my thoughts on fire. I wished I could speak with Dorian, if only for a second, about all this… but I was too worried he might trigger my pain.
What changed in us to cause such a reaction?
Future. Strategy. Planning. Squash the romance, Lieutenant.
I reviewed the issues at hand. There were plenty: Roxy and I were still clashing even outside the Bureau. The vampires still needed to feed regularly, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. The backup plan with Bryce’s CIA contact seemed to have failed miserably. The Bureau had ramped up attempts to find us by putting out false warrants.
To top everything off, the ski resort might not be safe much longer. Between the incident in the town and Vonn’s attack on the police officers, the Bureau could find our trail if they were smart about it. A vampire attack meant redbills, and the Bureau was excellent at tracking flocks of them. We’d brought a small flock on our mission to Jim’s house.
Vampires cleanse souls with violent death. I shuddered, remembering the twins talking about their vampiric duty with almost holy reverence.
Darklight 2: Darkthirst Page 23