Welcome to the Darkness (Darkness Trilogy) (22 page)

Reminding herself Reed would
still be down for the count for some time, she decided to follow her plan of scoping out the mansion. There didn’t seem to be anything worth snooping through in the drawing room, so she left to explore more of the main level.

The first room she poked her head into was a quaint li
ttle sunroom, although it was bare of furnishings. The second room looked like it was meant to be a good-sized library. The walls were lined with shelves, but not one of them held even a single book. How disappointing!

The next room was an office with a large oak desk and swivel chair. There wasn’t any dust, which suggest
ed the room was used, yet when Sarah opened the desk drawers, they were empty. No wonder the King didn’t care if they scoped the place out; there wasn’t anything to find.

After completing her survey of the main level
and finding many more rooms with nothing much in them, Sarah returned to the second floor to continue her search. Every room she peeked into was a bedroom furnished similarly to her own quarters. Why did the vampires need all the unused space?

Expecting to see more of the same, she pushed open the umpteenth door along the hallway and ducked her head in for a peek. A blinding flash of light exploded in her face.

“Jesus! What the . . . ?”

Someone grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the room.
The door closed and she blinked to clear her vision.

“Sorry! I thought you were one of the vamps,” a male voice said. Her vision returned, and a bushy haired, bear
ded man dressed in a tie-dyed shirt and baggy jeans looked at her apologetically. She stared at him open-mouthed.

“My name’s Gareth, but most people call me Pickle,” he said, extending his hand to shake hers.

What is another human doing here?
she heard him think, a forced smile plastered on his face.

Sarah ignored his outstretched hand. “Who
are
you?”

“I’m . . . Gareth, but
–”

“Most people call you Pickle. I know, you said that a
lready.” She glared at him, and his face reddened. “What are you
doing
here, and what was that flash of light?”

“Oh, that was my UV ball,” he replied, holding up a si
lver sphere about half the size of a billiard ball. “Works great on the vamps. One flash of this baby, and poof–they’re toast! It’s like concentrated sunlight. In five seconds flat, they burn into a pile of ashes. Pretty cool, huh?”

Was this guy for real?
“Um, have you ever tried that on a real vampire?” Sarah asked.

He scowled.
“Of course. I’ve been hunting vamps for almost two years, and I’ve smoked seven of the bastards.”

Sarah couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “This isn’t a game you know. If they find you in here, they’ll kill you.”

“Ha! You don’t think I know that? Vampires killed my family and left me for dead, so I know
exactly
how serious this is. We’ve been investigating this nest of vamps for over a year and they never leave the lower levels during the day. They’re not going to find me here.”

“Then why did you use your UV ball on me if they never come up here during the day?” Sarah asked.

“A guy can never be too careful,” he answered, crossing his arms. “So what’s your story? What’re
you
doing here?”

“I’m . . . a guest,” she replied, unsure how much info
rmation she wanted to share with him. “I’m a police officer, and I’m helping someone who’s in trouble with . . . other vampires. The vampires in this manor are sheltering us for the time being.”

“Uh huh.
And why would they do that?”

Sarah wasn’t happy with the direction the conversation was taking, and she remained silent.

Suddenly, Gareth’s eyes brightened. “You’re one of the Specials, aren’t you?”

“Specials?”
Sarah echoed, a wary sense of dread filling her gut. This guy seemed a lot more aware of the goings-on around here than she’d originally thought.

“Yeah.
Humans with special abilities. The vamps harvest their DNA for their little pet project they’ve got going on in the basement.”

“You know about the project?”

“Sure, that’s why my buddies and me teamed up. To stop them. Not to toot our own horns, but we’re planning to save the human race from extinction.”

Sarah blinked. Okay, Chicken Little. “So . . . you think if the vampires figure out how to go outside during the da
ytime, the human race will end?”

“Is that what you think they’re doing? Trying to figure out how to make
themselves immune to sunlight? Hello? That’s their lame cover story. What they’re really doing is creating a virus. To infect humans.”

“What? Why would they do that?”

“Because the King’s crazy, that’s why! He wants to populate the whole world with vampires, but they can’t turn everyone the old-fashioned way. First of all, most humans don’t survive the turning process, and second of all, it would take too frickin’ long to do it that way. A virus would turn us all into vampire-human hybrids in one fell swoop.”

Sarah’s mind spun in circles, unable to sense the logic in his theory. “But that doesn’t make any sense. If the va
mpires turned us all, there wouldn’t be anyone left for them to feed from.”

“That’s what ‘crazy’ means.
It means doing things that don’t make any sense. The vamps go insane after a few hundred years, and the King is getting up there.”

“Which means the Queen probably has a few screws loose as well,” Sarah mused.

“The Queen?”

“Yeah, the King’s sister,” she clarified. Pickle gave her a blank look. “Oh, so there is something you don’t know?”

He shook his head. “Of course we don’t know everything. That’s why I’m here doing recon. Listen, you could be helpful getting us inside information.”

The door opening interrupted him. He reacted imm
ediately and held up the UV ball, setting off another flash of light.

“Ah! What the hell?” Reed shouted.

“Close the door!” Pickle hissed.

Luckily, Sarah had closed her eyes as soon as she saw the UV ball, so her vision
wasn’t affected. She pushed the door shut while Reed rubbed his eyes.

“Sorry, man. I thought you were one of them,” Pickle apologized.

“One of who?” Reed asked, blinking away the last effects of the light.

“The vamps,” he answered.

Reed’s face scrunched up. “Who the hell are you?” Then he turned to Sarah and his expression softened. “Hey, are you okay?”

She nodded. “I’m good. This is Gareth, by the way.
Although most people call him ‘Pickle’ apparently.”

“Pickle?”
Reed turned and inspected the other man.

“It’s a long story,” Pickle muttered, his face reddening again.

“Anyway,” Sarah continued, “he’s a vampire hunter and he thinks the King and his cohorts are creating a virus to infect humans, not a cure against sunlight.”

“I don’t
think
that, I know for a fact,” Pickle clarified.

“Infect humans with what?” Reed asked with a puzzled frown.

“You two could both be a big help getting us inside information,” Pickle continued, ignoring Reed’s question. “Ultimately, we think every last vampire on earth should be destroyed, but for now, we’ve gotta do something about this virus. I know it’s hard to trust someone you’ve just met, but which side are you gonna choose? The vamps? Or your fellow human beings?”

Sarah and Reed turned to each other, eyebrows raised.

“I have to go. I’m expected at the rendezvous point in another minute,” Pickle continued. He dug through a pouch at his waist and pulled out a pencil and crumpled piece of paper. “Please, at least think about what I’ve said. Come meet me and the gang tomorrow at noon at this address,” he said, handing Sarah the paper with the address he’d scribbled on it. “We can explain everything in more detail then. You’d better take one of these too,” he added, handing Sarah his UV ball. “Just hold down this button with your thumb and slide this part until it stops. It should be good for another two bursts.”

He saluted them and promptly hopped out the window. A moment later, there was a muffled thud
when he hit the ground. Pickle brushed himself off and scuttled across the lawn, disappearing into the woods around the estate.

“That guy wasn’t bugging you or anything, was he?” Reed asked, his eyes searching
Sarah’s.

“No, and he seemed sincere too. From what I could tell, both from what he said and what he was thinking, either he’s telling the truth, or at least he believes what he said was the truth. I mean, he wasn’t making the whole thing up. He said the vampires are developing a virus that will turn every human on earth into a vampire-human hybrid.”

“Riiight,” Reed replied, looking as skeptical as Sarah had felt earlier in her conversation with the vampire hunter.

“I think maybe we should go to that meeting tomo
rrow,” Sarah said.

“What?
No way!” Reed stood up straighter. “I’m not walking into a meeting full of vampire hunters. I
am
a vampire. Remember? Just because his stupid light ball didn’t work on me, God knows what other tricks they have up their sleeves. I say we talk to Nathaniel about this. And if you want to know what’s going on, why don’t you read the King’s mind and find out that way?”

“Honestly, the thoughts I picked up earlier from the King were garbled for some reason, although I’ll admit I wasn’t trying to read his mind. Anyway, I don’t know if tel
ling Nathaniel about the hunter is a good idea. After all, who is Nathaniel going to feel more loyal to? The King and his fellow vampires, or a group of humans who want to exterminate them all?”

“So what do you suggest?”

Sarah huffed out a sigh. “Maybe I should go to the meeting by myself.”

“What?
Absolutely not! That’s a terrible idea.” Reed started pacing the room and raked his hands through his hair. He stopped. “All right, how about this? We talk to Nathaniel to see how much he knows about the experiments they’re running. We can fish around, casually asking if they’re doing other research besides curing vampire weaknesses. We’ll leave out the part about meeting the vampire hunter . . . for now.”

“All right, you win. We’ll go talk to Nathaniel. And we’ll plan on skipping the meeting with the vampire
hunters,” Sarah said. “For now.”

Reed gave her a grim smile and nodded. Then they left to find Nathaniel.

Nathaniel lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He imagined faces forming out of the tiny bumps in the stippling paint like dot-to-dot pictures. At times, his life as a vampire could be downright boring. And on the occasions when it was exciting, it was never in a positive manner.

H
e pondered alternate ways of occupying his time other than staring at the ceiling, and considered reading a book. It had been ages since he’d last indulged in such a selfish endeavor. He wondered if the King had stocked his library in the past few decades. It would be a shame if the shelves still lay empty. If Nathaniel ever became King, he would amass a glorious collection of literature, both classic and new.

A soft knock at the door broke him out of his reverie. He sat up, swivelled his legs over the side of the bed, and called, “Enter.”

“Yo,” Reed said with a wave, sauntering into the room with Sarah close on his heels.

Nathaniel acknowledged them with a nod.

“How’s it going?” Reed asked, leaning against a bedpost.

“I am well,” he replied. Perhaps he was too suspicious by nature, but he wondered at the reason for their visit. No one ever came to see him solely for the enjoyment of his company.

“So . . . have you had a chance to catch up with the King and your other New York acquaintances yet?” Sarah asked.

“Not really, no. I am not a particularly conversational fellow, as you may have noticed.”

“Right, but didn’t you say you were curious about their medical research? You wanted to know if they’d made any advances or discovered anything interesting over the last several years.”

“True. Thus
far, however, the King has not been terribly forthcoming with information. This leads me to believe that he may not have achieved the level of success he had hoped for.”

“Huh. So basically, he hasn’t told you anything,” she surmised.

“It is simply that I am not privy to such detailed information regarding his research, nor have I ever been. That is all.”

“Hang on,” Reed said. “After all these years of doing r
esearch, you haven’t heard anything about what they’ve done? Like, they must have figured out
something
. Or are they the crappiest researchers ever?”