Darkness Rises ig-4 Read online

  What the hell is a second?

  Their glowing orange auras zipped toward her.

  Kysta swung and thrust as she backed away toward the chain-link fence. But, even as she scored hits, the vampires flew past to circle around and cut her off.

  A thud sounded behind her. The vamps in front of her paused to look over her shoulder. Something bumped her back.

  Krysta spun around and swung.

  A large hand clamped around her wrist, stopping her with infuriating ease.

  Her gaze rose, taking in the tall figure garbed all in black who towered over her. His luminescent amber eyes, as bright as the moon, met hers. His lips parted, exposing deadly fangs.

  But his aura . . .

  It wasn’t orange like the other vampires’. It was bright white and purple, the two colors swirling together without ever mixing. She had never seen anything like it.

  Or had she?

  Hadn’t she seen it up on the roof earlier and dismissed it as a trick of the eye?

  “You,” she breathed, and waited for him to strike a death blow.

  Étienne frowned.

  She knew him?

  He released her arm, ready to catch it again if she should try to skewer him.

  The vamps behind her decided to take advantage of her inattention and zipped forward.

  Quick as lightning, Étienne drew four throwing stars and threw them. Two struck carotid arteries.

  Krysta’s eyes widened as blood splattered her back.

  “You started this,” he said. As soon as this was over, he intended to reprimand the hell out of her for stepping outside the bounds of her duties. She must be a new Second. Reordon usually made it clear that the human guards who aided immortals were not to strike out and hunt vampires on their own unless they suspected their immortal had been captured and, for some reason, couldn’t reach anyone at the network for help. “Now let’s finish it together. I’ll watch your back.”

  Turning his own back, he drew his katanas and tore into the four vamps who had circled around to attack her from the rear.

  Bloody bastards had no honor. Attacking a woman—a human woman at that—from behind.

  Battle sounds erupted over his shoulder. Étienne listened closely for any sound that might indicate Krysta wasn’t holding her own, still astonished by the skill she had displayed thus far.

  The last of the four vampires he fought fell.

  Étienne swung around. Three still remained. Krysta had managed to keep them at bay, but had struck no more killing blows. She was tiring. Fending off blows backed by supernatural strength tended to do that to a human.

  Étienne stepped up beside her, careful to avoid her swords, and dove into the fight.

  The vamps immediately turned away from her to defend themselves, but didn’t succeed. Étienne opened the arteries of two, who fell to the ground. The last vampire opted to abandon his dying comrades, some of whom had already begun to shrivel up like mummies as the virus that infected them devoured them from the inside out in a desperate bid to live. The vamp’s crimson-stained form blurred as he darted toward the street.

  Étienne caught him easily at the mouth of the alley, yanked him back into the shadows, and swiftly dispatched him.

  When he turned around, Krysta had sheathed one of her swords and was texting away on a cell phone.

  He strolled toward her.

  Head jerking up, she pocketed the phone and drew her other sword.

  He frowned. She watched him as though she expected him to attack her.

  “How badly are you hurt?” he asked. Surely she could tell friend from foe. Even Sheldon, his brother Richart’s notoriously green Second, could do that much.

  “I’m fine,” she lied, chin rising. Her clothing sported a dozen or more cuts and tears. She also rested most of her weight on one leg and limped when she moved. Like now, as she inched backward at his approach.

  Étienne stopped several feet away from her.

  She feared him. He could both smell it and see it in the dilation of her warm, brown eyes.

  “You are a Second, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “What is a Second?” she practically shouted.

  Ah, hell. This was a problem. She was a civilian?

  He should call Chris Reordon, the head of the East Coast division of the human network that aided immortals. But Étienne couldn’t bring himself to do so. This mortal woman had just hunted and defeated four vampires on her own. And she hadn’t broken down when facing almost certain death. He found that damned appealing and worried over what Chris might do to her to ensure her silence and cooperation. He hadn’t had much hands-on contact with the human network until recently, but had heard Chris could be ruthless when it came to protecting the identities and ensuring the safety of the Immortal Guardians.

  “What are you?” she demanded and began to edge around him, giving him a wide berth.

  “You don’t know?”

  “Would I ask if I did?” she countered. “You’re different from them.” She motioned to the deceased vampires, a couple of whom were only piles of empty clothing now.

  Étienne studied her closely. “Because I didn’t kill you?”

  She shook her head, her eyes roving him as if she could see a difference.

  “You seemed to know me, when I joined the battle. Do you?”

  She inched toward the entrance of the alley.

  Étienne didn’t follow. He could catch her easily if she should decide to run and he didn’t want to frighten her any more than he already had.

  “I saw you,” she said. “On the roof of the building across from the frat house. Were you following me?”

  “Actually I was hunting the vampires you lured away and had no knowledge of your existence until that time.”

  “I’m supposed to believe you hunt vampires?” She snorted. “You are a vampire.”

  “You yourself said I’m different.”

  “Different but the same.” Her gaze went to his fangs.

  Étienne breathed deeply and forced his fangs to retract.

  Her eyes widened.

  The rumble of an approaching engine reached Étienne’s ears. Fortunately most drivers were so busy chatting or texting that they wouldn’t notice anything peculiar taking place in the alleyways they passed.

  “Put your swords away and let us discuss this,” he suggested reasonably. He needed to keep her talking while he decided what to do about this, whether to call Reordon or . . .

  Well, he didn’t know what else.

  “No,” she responded. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’ve nothing to fear from me. I just saved your life.”

  “So you could take it yourself?”

  “No,” he said with the same exasperation he had heard in her voice earlier.

  “So you could turn me?”

  “Hell, no.”

  Her frown deepened. Perhaps she had finally identified the sincerity in his voice.

  A somewhat battered economy car screeched to a halt behind her. The driver leaned over and thrust open the passenger door.

  Krysta backed into it, never taking her eyes from him. Sitting down with swords still at the ready, she swung her feet into the car. “Don’t follow me.”

  As soon as she lowered her blades, the car shot forward out of sight, her door slamming shut from the momentum.

  Merde. He hadn’t expected that.

  Gritting her teeth, Krysta turned around and stared through the back window.

  “Who the hell was that?” her brother demanded, barely tapping the breaks as he turned the corner and began a roundabout, wild-ass ride in the general direction of their home.

  “I don’t know.”

  “His eyes glowed. He was a vampire?”

  “I don’t know what he was. Is. He looks like a vampire, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  She grabbed the door handle and hung on as Sean skidded around another corner. He had all of the talents of a freaking stunt d
river. And that had come in handy. Not once had a vampire managed to follow them all the way home.

  “His aura is different,” she told him. “Way different. And . . .”

  “And what?”

  “He saved me.”

  “Oh, shit. He didn’t bite you, did he?”

  “No.” She faced forward and slumped back in her seat, wounds throbbing. “There were four vampires this time.”

  “Damn it! I told you to stick to one or two!”

  “I didn’t know there were going to be that many!” she defended herself. “It’s not like I can stop, look back, and take a head count. That would kinda spoil the whole Victim Here deception.”

  He shook his head. “Four? How did you even—?”

  “I took out three.” She began to shake as reaction set in. “But I had to leave myself wide open for the fourth in order to take out the third and, when I turned around, there were half a dozen daggers sticking out of his back.”

  Sean shot her a disbelieving look. “Are you saying the vampire in the alley who was dressed like Johnny Cash killed him?”

  “Him and the seven vampires who showed up next.”

  Epithets filled the little car, full of force and fear and determination. “That’s it. No more. This is over. You’re done.”

  “It—”

  “When it was one or two, that was one thing. You could handle it. But for the past couple of years it’s been insane. You’ve nearly died too many times to count and I’m not ready to lose you.”

  “I’ll just have to be more careful—”

  “You’ve been singing that bullshit song for months now. No more.”

  “If I don’t do it, who will?”

  “Let that crazy-ass vamp from the alley do it if that’s his madness.”

  “He didn’t seem mad,” she murmured, still puzzling over it. She had never met a vampire who was nice, for lack of a better word.

  “All the more reason to let him hunt his fellow bloodsuckers. If they slice him up, he’ll heal.”

  “You always manage to patch me up.”

  Not without cost on his part. That had always filled her with guilt and regret, but she didn’t see any way around it. She couldn’t do this without him.

  “There are some things I can’t do, Krysta. I have limits. When I reach those and you have to bury me, will it have been worth it?”

  She couldn’t bear the thought of it. “We’ll just have to find another way.”

  He shook his head, alerting her to the huge argument ahead of them, and glanced in the rearview mirror. “Is it clear?”

  She turned around and peered through the back window once more. The rest of the car may be coated in dirt and look like crap, but the windows were always sparklingly clean. Their lives depended upon it.

  No bright orange glows streaked toward them in the street, so no vampires tailed them. Or no regular vampires tailed them. She didn’t see any purple either. She thought she saw a glint of white, but it was so fleeting she decided it was the moonlight shining on a storefront window.

  Turning around, she studied the scenery that whipped past through the passenger window. “It’s clear.”

  “Good.” His meandering path ended as he headed straight for the small frame house they rented on the outskirts of Carrboro, North Carolina. “How badly are you hurt?”

  “I don’t think my leg is broken, but it hurts like hell. And I’m bleeding from a lot of cuts.”

  “No major arteries hit?”

  “No.”

  “No ribs broken?”

  “Not this time. That vamp really saved my ass.”

  He shook his head again and took his foot off the gas.

  Krysta checked behind them as the car slowed, just to be doubly sure, then nodded.

  Sean guided the car onto a drive that was supposed to be gravel, but was about eighty percent dirt and weeds instead.

  Krysta’s sore, aching body wobbled from side to side as he navigated the pothole-riddled path about fifty yards to the little, brown frame house hidden among the trees.

  They had tried to find a place in Chapel Hill, so they would be closer to the colleges (prime hunting grounds for vampires), but hadn’t been able to afford it. This had ended up being ideal in terms of isolation anyway. No neighbors. No one to see her blood-painted face and clothing when they returned home. No one to call the police if they glimpsed her weapons.

  Sean parked and, unfolding his large form, circled around to help Krysta.

  He was a lot taller than she was, taking after their father, who towered over their tiny mother. Krysta stood at only five foot five and boasted a slender build with enough muscle to lend her strength without bulking her up like a man. Sean was six foot two or thereabouts and packed about two hundred pounds of muscle that made many a woman drool. He also possessed the same fighting skills Krysta did. Had he been able to anticipate the vampires’ moves the way she could, they would have made a formidable team.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t. And the few times he had joined her on the hunt, he had ended up so battered and bloody she had almost had to take him to the hospital.

  Krysta kept her swords in hand as he opened the car door, reached in, and practically lifted her out. “I can walk,” she insisted, though her leg was really hurting. Maybe the bastard had fractured it. Could one walk on a fractured leg?

  Sean mumbled something about stubbornness bordering on stupidity and wrapped a supportive arm around her to help her to the door.

  Krysta let the slur slide. She knew he was just worried about her and terrified of losing her. His mood always turned sour when she was wounded, which happened pretty much every time she hunted. She’d avoid it if she could. She sure as hell didn’t enjoy it. But, how?

  There was no need to flip through keys to open the front door. They always left it unlocked. The house was hidden from the road by trees and drew no notice of passersby. Even the mailman didn’t deliver. All of their correspondence went to a post office box.

  And if someone did choose to wander down their drive and found the frame house, nothing about its appearance would entice a burglar. It was over a century old and built on uneven ground that left it slanting to one side. (She and Sean had had a hell of a time leveling the furniture when they had moved in.) The roof sagged, as did the porch and back deck. The paint was old and worn and peeling.

  Who would even bother to look inside?

  “You need to mow the lawn,” she huffed, gritting her teeth against the pain as they trudged over uneven ground, up the steps, and through the door.

  They also left it unlocked for expediency’s sake. There had been nights when time had been of the essence.

  “Ground’s still too wet.” He flicked a switch, and bright light flooded the small living room.

  Krysta limped over to the futon and slumped down on the waterproof tarp they always placed over it on nights she hunted. That bright idea had come to them too late to save their first from bloodstains.

  “Do you need help getting your coat off?” he asked, sitting in front of her on their dented and scarred coffee table.

  She nodded. Pulling cloth away from the wounds it stuck to always made the pain worse.

  Sean, tight-lipped and silent, removed her coat as gently as possible.

  Krysta tugged her shirt over her head. Underneath, she wore a heavy-duty sports bra that covered everything. Not one hint of cleavage could be found, not that she had much. And, beneath the pants she removed, she wore bike shorts.

  Sean scowled as he examined her wounds. “The leg isn’t broken. It’s sprained. I don’t like how these two cuts”—he motioned to one on her shoulder and one on her thigh—“are bleeding, so I’ll heal them first.”

  “Thank you.”

  He closed his eyes and rested his hands on his splayed knees. Krysta remained quiet while he breathed in through his nose, held it, then released it several times. Opening his eyes, he covered the wound on her thigh with his hands.


  Warmth flooded her skin. The cut began to tingle as if a numbing agent had been applied. Blood ceased oozing from beneath his fingers. The pain eased.

  When Sean withdrew his hands, the cut had been replaced by a faint scar. “Turn to the side a bit.”

  She did so, giving him greater access to the wound scoring her shoulder.

  He cupped a hand over it. Again a soothing warmth suffused her wound as it healed beneath his touch. Sean had borne this gift all of his life. Just as she had borne hers. And he had been healing her for as long as she could remember. Though she was two years older than Sean, she couldn’t count the number of times he had stopped her crying in their youth by covering a scraped knee or cut elbow with his little hands and making the wounds disappear.

  Of course, they didn’t actually disappear. Neither of them were sure how exactly it worked, but he seemed to transfer the wound to his own body, which healed at an accelerated rate. Even now, a red stain appeared on the shoulder of his shirt.

  “I’ll heal the leg now before I heal the others.”

  “The others aren’t bad,” she insisted. “I can just use some butterfly closures on them.”

  He shook his head. With careful hands, he lifted her foot and propped it next to him on the coffee table. “Do we really have to do this every time?” He settled his hands on her shin where it hurt the most. A muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth.

  She hated causing him pain. That was the worst part of all of this. Not the vampires trying to kill her. Or having to hide what she did from everyone so they wouldn’t think she was crazy and commit her. But the pain Sean experienced when he healed her time and time again, saving her ass so she could go out and do the same thing again tomorrow.

  The pain in her leg vanished. And she knew Sean would limp if he were to stand and try to walk now. But he didn’t. He stubbornly healed every cut and bruise on her arms and legs and back.

  She hugged him gingerly when he finished, knowing he now ached in all of the places she had. “Thank you.”

  He patted her back, then shifted over to slump down on the futon.

  Healing her didn’t just open wounds on him. It also exhausted him.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “How long are we going to do this, Krys?”