Darkness Dawns (37 page)

His gift showed him the skull fracture. The hemorrhag-ing. The pressure it was causing that would kill her if it wasn’t relieved soon. The brain damage she had already sustained.

When fury boiled up inside him anew, he vanquished it and forced himself to concentrate. The wounds on his own body ceased healing as Roland directed all of his energy toward healing Sarah.

His hands grew hot.

Light surrounded her head like a halo.

Roland’s own head began to ache.

“Just a little longer, love.”

* * *

Leaving the human without another glance, Lisette sped down to the basement and stopped short at the foot of the stairs.

It was like nothing she had ever seen.

There were four hallways branching off the main room. One was empty. Étienne, Seth, and Marcus were positioned in front of the others, fighting an endless stream of vampires that flowed forth from each, two and three at a time.

Drawing her Glock 18s, Lisette began to fire.

Blood sprayed the ceiling, walls, floor, and Immortal Guardians as bullets tore through major arteries. Unlike immortals, who could slip into a sort of stasis similar to that of a water bear, vampires died when they bled out.

As many were doing now.

The acrid odors of gunpowder, sweat, and fear permeated the room as she spent sixty-two rounds and the other Guardians’ short swords, sais, and katanas flashed.

Kneeling, she ejected the empty clips, dropped one Glock, and pulled replacements from pockets attached to her belt.

A vampire left the others and lunged for her.

Étienne appeared in front of her and cut the vamp down.

“Thanks.” She slapped in the clips and rose. “I’m good.”

Without a word, Étienne returned to his hallway.

Lisette took out every vamp that sought the stairs or went for Étienne’s back, and did the same for Marcus and Seth.

The bodies began to pile up.

The room turned red with blood.

And still the vampires kept coming.

Bastien sank to his knees and probably would have fallen farther if he hadn’t grabbed one of the chains bolted to the wall and clung to it.

Every time he drew a breath, it felt as if Roland were plunging that sai into his chest again.

He was in trouble. He had seriously underestimated Roland and didn’t see how he was going to make it out of this alive.

Judging by the sounds of things, his men weren’t faring any better.

How had Roland become so powerful?

The immortal Bastien had killed in Scotland hadn’t been anywhere
near
this fast or strong.

It had happened years ago. Bastien had been feeding upon a woman who sold orphaned children to brothels, fully intending to drain her dry, when the Scottish immortal had pounced. The fight had lasted a lot longer than this one probably would and had left Bastien laid up for three days, but he had won. He had killed the asshole and assumed Roland’s skills would be roughly the same.

When he and his men had ambushed Roland in groups, he had realized that Roland was stronger than he had previously believed. But he had imagined him capable of nothing close to this.

Today he was unstoppable. Unbeatable. Carving Bastien up at will and blocking his expert swings and thrusts not only with his wicked sais, but with bursts of telekinetic energy.

His gaze glued to the couple in the next room, Bastien tightened his grip on the chain and pulled himself painfully to his feet.

It wasn’t just Roland’s astounding power that had caught him off-guard, however. There were other things. Things his gift told him that just didn’t add up.

He fought for breath when the lung Roland had punctured collapsed, then struggled to reinflate itself as the virus sapped his energy in an attempt to repair it.

Bastien’s gift enabled him to read others’ emotions with a touch.

Roland had been a mass of seething rage.

Not surprising. Bastien had stolen his latest toy.

But that rage had been tempered with fear.

Fear that had metamorphosed into panic when Bastien had pointed out that Sarah was dying.

Leaning against the wall, he watched Roland press his lips to Sarah’s forehead and cup the back of her head with care.

He was gentle with her. His touch. His speech. And he was healing her.

Sarah wasn’t just another victim to him.

Roland loved her. Deeply.

Bastien glanced at the portrait hanging on the wall beside him, out of sight of the next room.

Cold-blooded murderers didn’t have those feelings … did they?

And Roland hadn’t killed him, though he had had ample opportunity to do so. Even when he had punctured Bastien’s lung, he had deliberately avoided nicking the heart or any major arteries.

Why? Bastien had felt no intent on Roland’s part to torture him at length or save him to kill at a future date.

If he was the heartless murderer Bastien had long believed him to be … why hesitate?

He returned his gaze to the next room and frowned.

Roland’s hands were glowing brightly. As Bastien watched, astonished, the back of Roland’s head began to glisten wetly and blood emerged from one ear.

Bastien looked again at the portrait.

Roland had just fractured his own skull to save Sarah’s life.

What the hell was going on?

Aided by the gleaming blade of a katana, the head of Seth’s opponent flew from his body and landed in the hands of the vampire behind him. That vampire looked down at his prize, then dropped it with a yelp just as Seth’s other katana liberated his head, too.

Behind him (or his collapsing body), three vampires stood,
immobile, in the entrance of the hallway and stared at Seth with terror.

Glad to have a reprieve, Seth checked on his charges to see how they were faring.

Marcus and Étienne were still parked in front of the other hallways, cutting a swath through the vampires the entrances continued to vomit forth.

Lisette blocked the stairs leading out of the basement. She had run out of ammunition several minutes ago and now met any vamp who slipped past the rest of them with the lethal blades of her red shoto swords.

Marcus finished off another vamp and looked over at Seth as the body fell. “How many more of these bastards are there?” he asked as another came at him.

Beyond Marcus, Étienne was battling two vamps of his own.

Seth shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve lost count.”

The bodies were piling up. All four immortals were covered in blood and stood up to their knees in vampire corpses afflicted with various stages of decay.

The stench was overpowering.

Seth returned his attention to the three vampires who lingered uncertainly in the entrance of the hallway he blocked.

One was blond. One was African-American. One was Latino. All appeared to be in their early twenties.

When they seemed disinclined to move, he arched a brow. “Well?”

The blond exchanged a look with the others and swallowed audibly. “You guys are Immortal Guardians?”

“Yes.”

The African-American vamp shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Did you kill Bastien?”

“No, we have no intention of killing him. Bastien is one of us.”

His jaw dropped. “Bastien is an immortal?”

“Yes.”

“He said he was a vampire like us!”

“Because he thinks he is. Bastien is … confused. He was fed false information by the one who transformed him. We’re here to help him, not hurt him.”

The Latino vampire motioned belligerently to the carnage around them. “Then why are you killing all of us?”

“Bastien’s vampire followers have not been confining their feeding to those on the lists they were given. They’re killing innocents. I’m afraid we cannot allow such to continue.”

“But Bastien said
immortals
kill innocents,” the blond spoke up.

“As I said, he was misinformed. Immortal Guardians only kill those who prey upon the innocent, those who threaten to reveal our existence to the mortal world, and those who seek to harm us. We
protect
innocents.”

The three huddled together and whispered among themselves.

Seth sheathed one katana, pulled out a throwing knife, and hurled it into the throat of a vampire who had snuck past Éti-enne and was circling around to attack his back.

According to the conversation he had no difficulty hearing, the blond was Joe, the African-American was Cliff, and the Latino was Vincent.

Joe cleared his throat. “What exactly are our options here?”

Smart vampire. “How long has it been since you were turned?” Seth countered.

“Six months.”

“Fourteen for me,” Cliff said.

“About two and a half years,” Vincent said.

The madness didn’t seem to have taken hold of them yet. “How’s the bloodlust?”

“Controllable,” Joe answered.

Cliff nodded. “Same here.”

Vincent hesitated. “It’s pretty bad. I … I’ve been having … thoughts … lately that scare me.”

“Have you acted upon them?”

“No.”

“He hasn’t killed anyone who wasn’t on Bastien’s list,” Cliff said hastily.

Joe nodded. “We made sure. One of us is always with him.”

They seemed like good men. It was a damned shame they were destined to become monsters.

“You have two options then, gentlemen. We can either fight to the death today—
your
death, I’m afraid—or, should you prefer it, you can be taken to one of our research facilities. You’ll be given individual apartments and anything else you need to be comfortable. You will be supplied with bagged blood and food as well. But you will not be able to leave the building without an immortal escort. We can’t risk your killing an innocent.”

Joe frowned. “Research facility?”

“Our scientists are attempting to find both a cure for the vampiric virus and a treatment that will alleviate or prevent entirely the madness that inevitably afflicts your kind. Perhaps you would like to be of some assistance.”

Vincent snorted. “So you want us to be your guinea pigs? Your lab rats?”

“Look,” Cliff said, “if there’s a chance they can keep us from going crazy, it’s worth it.”

“I agree,” Joe said somberly.

“But we’d be like their prisoners,” Vincent protested.

A tense silence ensued.

Seth threw another knife.

Joe shook his head. “Killing pedophiles is one thing. I don’t want to end up killing women and kids and people who aren’t violent criminals. If being locked up is the only way to ensure I don’t …”

Cliff nodded. “Yeah, I don’t want to end up like the one who turned me. He didn’t just
feed
on people, he
tortured
them.”

“The guy who made me tortured people, too,” Vincent admitted reluctantly.

“So did mine,” Joe added.

Seth lobbed another knife at one of two vamps fighting Lisette. “You won’t be treated badly,” he assured them. “And, should we not be able to help you, when the madness grows too uncomfortable, you can choose your own end. We won’t force you to linger in such a state.” To do so would be to truly turn them into lab rats and would endanger the humans at the facility.

The three stared at each other a somber moment.

“Fine,” Vincent said finally. “Let’s do it.”

Seth sheathed his other katana. “I don’t have any rope with which to restrain you, so … sorry about this.” Three carefully placed lightning-quick jabs, backed by Seth’s superior preternatural strength, knocked them all unconscious. Grabbing the fronts of their shirts before they could fall, he eased them down to the ground.

A quick look and listen confirmed that the hallway behind them was devoid of further vampires. They must have been the last to rouse.

Drawing his katanas once more, Seth stepped over the mounds of bodies that had dropped around him and headed over to aid Marcus, Étienne, and Lisette.

The vise that was clamped around Sarah’s head loosened. Gradually the throbbing that made it feel as if a spike were being driven through her skull eased.

Sighing with relief, she opened her eyes. Vision that was initially hazy cleared and showed her Roland, kneeling in front of her with his eyes closed.

No wonder her headache was going away. He was holding a heating pad to the back of her head.

Smiling gratefully, she reached out to touch his face and froze. Blood was seeping slowly from his ear. More saturated the collar at the back of his neck. Lines of pain bracketed his eyes and mouth as a muscle clenched and unclenched in his jaw.

Oh no. No no no no no!

He was healing her! She must have hit her head or …

She didn’t know. She couldn’t remember.

Reaching up, she tugged at his wrists and looked around wildly.

Where the hell were they? The last thing she recalled was rubbing Nietzsche’s tummy. Now they were in a windowless room with blood-splattered, cracked walls and …

Terror gripped her.

Bastien was in the next room, staring at them with glowing amber eyes.

Sarah pulled harder on Roland’s arms but couldn’t break his hold.

“Roland, stop. What are you doing?”

Bastien’s face was a bloody mess. A deep laceration creased one side from forehead to jawline. His nose was broken, his chin completely crimson. Too many cuts to count marred the rest of him.

He swayed where he stood. Nevertheless, he scared the crap out of her as he shuffled forward and bent to pick up a sword that lay on the ground.

Sarah tore her gaze away from him and began to struggle violently. “Roland, stop!”

Roland was bleeding from several wounds Bastien must have inflicted. Healing her was diverting much-needed energy away from stopping blood loss that would weaken him. By the looks of it, he was already weak enough that her head wound had opened on him and was leaching more of his strength.

How was he going to be able to defend himself?

Roland’s large hands wouldn’t budge no matter how strongly Sarah fought.

Her throat thickened. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Don’t do this, Roland. Please, stop healing me. I’m fine now. You have to stop healing me.”

His brow creased as his lashes lifted. When his eyes met
hers, she bit back a sob. They should have been glowing amber from his skirmish with Bastien. Instead they were brown and one pupil was much larger than the other.