Darkest Risings (13 page)

The
only hope he had at a somewhat normal life again was if Trinidad was dead, and
he wasn’t powerful enough to kill him on his own. But he was a good tracker,
hell, he was the best tracker. He had lived a long time as a vampire before
turning drifter. Unfortunately, something hadn’t gone right when he’d made his
little deal with Satan. He hadn’t lost his ability to care or to love. Those
emotions had been dulled, but they hadn’t disappeared like they were supposed
to.

 
And he’d gotten another nasty present in his
soul exchange with Satan. He’d never been one prone to destructive tendencies
before, but now there were times when rage, the gut-wrenching need for
violence, tore at him with razorlike talons. Times like those were difficult at
best, but he’d vowed to stay in control. He shrugged his shoulders and started
for the house. He was tired of running, of hiding. All he’d done since his
botched deal with the King Ass of Hell was look over his shoulder.

He
was pretty sure he was to blame for his predicament. Satan didn’t like to have
his balls yanked. Since he’d backed out of the deal to trade his soul with Old
Horned and Ugly numerous times before finally going through with it, Red had
obviously done a little yanking back. Now he was technically neither vampire
nor drifter. That didn’t stop every hunter he came across from viewing him as
the latter and thus, an enemy.

He
was unique, but not in an oh-how-cool-are-you kind of way. He was unique in
more of a holy-shit-I’m-fucked kind of way. Maybe if he could convince the
Aleksandrovs, some of the most well-known hunters among vampires, that he was
different, that he was perfectly capable of living his life without being hell
bent on evil. Just maybe he’d be able to live in peace. He frowned.

If he
could convince the Aleksandrovs that he was willing to help them, and managed
to survive the uprising, he’d have a chance at some kind of normalcy. If he
couldn’t…

“If I
can’t, they can kill me. I’m dead anyway one way or the other. This is my only
chance.”

He’d
barely gotten halfway across the street before he was surrounded by three
angry-looking Aleksandrov brothers. He put his hands up in surrender, making
certain not to make any abrupt movement. “Easy guys.”

“I’m
certain I told you if you ever came around here again you’d die,” Ashe said
through the hissing sound the long sword made as he pulled it from his back.

“I
only want to talk. I have a proposition for you.” Grady could smell the
malevolence in the air.

“You
picked a shitty time to try to proposition us.” Aiston glared at him.

He
looked from one hunter to another until he came to Aldin who stood silently
with his hands clenched at his sides. All of the men were intimidating as hell,
but tonight, Aldin had an extra edge of scary aura floating around him like a
dark cloud of foreboding.

“Give
me one good reason why my brothers and I shouldn’t end your miserable life
now,” Ashe said as he took a menacing step forward.

“I
can help you find Trinidad. Other than the fact that I was forced to work with
the fucker for awhile, I’m good at tracking. I know him better than any of
you.”

He
didn’t know the evil son-of-a-bitch at all. God help anyone who could
understand anything that went on inside that crazy bastard’s head. But since
he’d spent time with Trinidad—however forced and unpleasant it had been—that
made him more knowledgeable about Trinidad than the Aleksandrovs. It was the
only Ace he had up his sleeve, the only chance he had at keeping his head
attached to his neck.

“Even
if that’s true, do you seriously expect us to trust a drifter?” Aiston snarled.

He
glanced at Aldin who had still not said a word. He’d only watched him with
those damnable turquoise eyes that every one of them had. Thunder rolled in the
distance, sounding much like growling hell hounds coming to drag him to Satan.

“I’m
not a drifter. Well, not really,” Grady said.

“You
sure as hell could have fooled me with those black eyes,” Ashe spewed.

Damn.
The boys were in a touchy mood tonight.
You
had to pick the one night they all had their panties in a bunch to confront
them, didn’t you? Nice timing, as usual.

“I
still possess all of my feelings. I’ll admit, the ones that were supposed to be
removed by my little deal with Satan are dulled, but still intact,
nevertheless.”

“Why
should your deal have gone any differently than any other drifter’s?” Aiston
asked.

Grady
shrugged. “I think Satan held a grudge against me for all the times I went to
make the
exchange
with him and backed
out. I guess he decided to have some fun, get some revenge on my ass. Hmm.
Doesn’t sound like Satan at all now, does it?” He laughed bitterly.

Ashe
looked from one brother to the other then back to Grady before sighing and
lowering his sword.

“Come
back in two days. We have some family business to take care of first. You tell
us what you know then and how you think you can help. I assume you are hoping
that if you assist us in taking Trinidad down, your worries will be over?” Ashe
smirked.

“Something
like that,” Grady murmured.

“Don’t
let the fucker go. He can’t help us. He’s lying,” Aldin finally spoke.

“He
helped before. Besides, what if there is a chance he’s telling the truth? We
don’t kill innocents.”

“He’s
as far from innocent as the one who took his soul,” Aiston said.

Thunder
rumbled in the distance, and Ashe raised one brow at Aldin as if he’d somehow
been responsible for the growling thunder. Hell, maybe he had.

“Don’t
screw this up, Grady. Be back here in two days,” Ashe said through tight lips.

Ashe
nodded to Aiston and Aldin and they followed him, but not before another rumble
of thunder shook the ground under Grady’s feet.

At
least he still had his head.

* * * *

Three
hours later, Aldin reached under his leather duster and pulled the sword from
its hiding place on his back.

“
We are so fucked,”
he said to his
brothers telepathically.

“
We’ve been in tighter situations. I’ve
already alerted Conrad and Dominic. They’ll be here shortly,”
Ashe said.

“
Yep. This is going to hurt so good,”
Aiston
said. The words dripped with his usual brand of sarcasm.

Aldin
was the tallest of his brothers, but neither Aiston nor Ashe were slouches. He
only had Ashe by a couple inches, but those inches in no way took from the
lethalness of his siblings. Aiston and Ashe both held their swords up and to
the right in a fight stance, as he did his own. They were surrounded by at
least twenty drifters—ten in front, ten behind—and all of them had weapons.

“I
prefer the old days when you worthless pieces of shits cowered, ran, and hid,”
Aldin sneered.

In
the past, the only time a drifter fought back was when cornered, and none had
ever carried a weapon before Trinidad became their leader. Actually, that
wasn’t the whole truth. Drifters were armed with their own built-in weapons.
Talons that were capable of ripping through flesh, tendons, and muscle straight
to the bone. Talons that had poisonous tips. While the poison wouldn’t kill a
vampire, it had the potential to slow a hunter down enough to give an advantage
to the drifter.

That
poison
was
lethal enough to kill
humans. Fellow hunter Malachi Mannering’s life mate, Geri, had nearly died from
a wound inflicted by a drifter’s talons. The drifter standing in the middle of
the ten in front of them sneered.

“There
will be no cowering now, hunter. We are being trained by someone more lethal than
you’ll ever be. He is giving us the skills to kill every last one of you. You
hunt us for no reason. We have the right to live as much as you, you
self-serving, righteous bastards.”

Aldin
laughed, and the drifter snarled again.

“You
prey upon innocent humans. You get off on torturing, raping, maiming, and
killing. There is no place on earth for spawn such as you. The world has a
certain balance. While evil has always existed—will always exist—good has an
obligation to maintain said balance and keep scum like you from hurting the
helpless.”

“And
you believe yourself to be good?” The drifter spat on the ground in front of
him. His gnarled fingers tightened around the sword’s hilt in his hand.

At
least they hadn’t gone to using guns yet. The hunters never used anything that
would draw unwanted attention. Guns had a way of making everyone within earshot
take immediate notice.

“In
comparison?” Aldin gave the drifter a scathing once-over from toe to head.
“Yeah. There is nothing decent about anything that will make a deal with
Satan.”

Suddenly,
Dominic and Conrad appeared behind the group of drifters in front of them and
nodded at Aldin and his brothers.

“
Let’s get this show on the road.”
Dominic’s voice slid through Aldin’s mind.

Within
seconds, pure chaos broke out. Aldin was not happy that the drifters seemed
more skilled than the ones at the last ambush. Even so, none of them could
achieve the same level of skill as a hunter. Those types of skills came with
years upon years of practice and experience, not from a year or two of
training. However, the sheer number of them proved to be a challenge.

Even
though it was only a matter of minutes before half of the drifters had been
dealt with swiftly and permanently, the remaining ten were putting up one hell
of a fight. His brothers, Dominic, and Conrad, all had been wounded. He had a
few injuries himself, but nothing life threatening.

Aldin
faced off with the drifter he’d exchanged words with before the fight had
begun.

“I’m
going to cut your heart out, hunter,” the thing snarled.

“Doubtful,
but give it your best shot.” The first rule of battle was to never allow your
emotions to get the better of you. Emotions were distracting. Emotions got one
killed faster than anything else.

Aldin
had been up against countless opponents who had tried to rattle him with
insults and scathing words, but he never allowed them to get to him. In fact,
at this point, he barely heard them at all. On the other hand, insults tended
to work well on drifters.

The
drifter swung its sword, and Aldin easily blocked the blow before shoving the
drifter with enough force to knock him back a couple of feet.

“Did
your mommy teach you how to fight like that?” He tsked.

He
watched the rage come over the drifter’s face and smiled. Such a dumb ass. Obviously,
whoever was training the idiots didn’t understand that there was much more to
fighting than being able to swing a sword well. Or maybe whoever was training
them didn’t care.

The
drifter came at him balls out, full force with his sword once again. Aldin had
to admit, he did have some skill, but not enough. Swords clashed and clanged
all around him, as his brothers, Dominic, and Conrad, slowly took out the rest
of the drifters.

Once
a drifter’s head was off, the remains turned into a bubbling, black goo that
wreaked of rotting corpses. The odor of the goo seeping from the decapitated
bodies was nauseating. It was a stench that he’d become accustomed to.
 
Unfortunately, it was a necessary evil that
came with killing the drifters. It was the only sure fire way to make certain a
drifter was dead and to remove all evidence of its body.

He
raised his sword and stopped the drifter again from striking a blow, but an
instant later, he made a tactical mistake—a rookie mistake.

Ashe
grunted, which signaled Aldin that he had sustained another injury. He glanced
in his brother’s direction, something he knew better than to do in the heat of
a fight. The drifter took advantage of that distraction, as Aldin would have
had the roles been reversed, and slid its sword between his ribs.

He
was sure the blade pierced cleanly between two ribs as he hadn’t heard or felt
any bones shatter, but the pain was sharp and stole the breath from his lungs.
Unfortunately, the warm blood spilling down his side and soaking through his
clothes told him the wound was a bleeder. He needed to wrap this up before the
blood loss started taking his strength.

The
drifter laughed, and when he did, Aldin in turn took advantage of the
distraction. He spun and landed a kick to the drifter’s jaw. This time, the
sound of bone crunching was unmistakable. When the drifter reached up to cup
his face, Aldin spun again with his sword sideways and cleanly took off its
head right along with both hands.

“Everyone
going to live?” He turned to his brothers and the other two hunters.

Ashe
nodded, but gripped his stomach. Blood oozed between his fingers.

“Do
you need a source?” Aldin asked his brother.

“Yes,
but so do you.” Ashe raised a brow and stared down at the ground beside Aldin
where blood had started to pool beside his boot.