Reunion (12 page)

A few seconds would be enough.

A flicker of movement and she could see the world through her closed eyes. Silvery threads outlined everything, scribbled onto the darkness like rough chalk drawings on a blackboard. She saw the trees sway in the breeze. She saw Jackson. She saw death.

Her eyes shot open and she gasped at air to save herself from drowning in the shadows. It filled her lungs, burned them and her blood. She ran regardless.

She ran straight at the vampire.

One hand on top of the stone sarcophagus was enough to vault her over it and she landed with precise grace on the other side, right beside her quarry.

Her hand came down in a blurred arc, so fast that the vampire couldn’t fully evade her attack. She missed the heart as the vampire dived to the side. Her stake caught its shoulder, scraped hard against bone. The vampire growled and then roared at her. She flipped backwards before it could attack and gave herself over to the fight, letting her instincts guide her as her senses locked onto the vampire. She could almost see its movements before it made them, a ghost of it shone in her eyes.

Except time was running out.

The lingering effect of her gift would soon disappear, leaving her to fight without these sharpened senses.

She would be vulnerable.

She would be weak from calling on her gift.

That was the price.

She cart-wheeled away, still gripping the stake. The moment the vampire closed in, she stopped and swept her leg around in a fast, hard kick, grunting with effort. The vampire laughed and slid to the side, away from danger. Before she could put her foot down and attack again, it had hit her in the chest with a kick of its own, sending her flying backwards into a tombstone.

Her breath left her on impact, a red hot bar across her back marking where she’d hit the heavy stone. She needed a moment to recover, only she didn’t have one. The vampire was on her before she could blink and she was barely able to block it. She crossed her arms against its chest, holding it off her.

It snarled and snapped its jaw.

With each gnash of its teeth and each millimetre closer it got to her, her heart accelerated, until it was racing so fast she had trouble breathing. Adrenaline mixed with the panic coiled deep inside her. For the first time in her life, she could taste death, could see it coming, and it had red eyes and sharp teeth, and a mane of black tousled hair. It bore down on her, its body pressed hard against hers, trapping her between it and the headstone.

Lilith clutched the stake, hands trembling as she weakened.

The vampire growled.

There was no chance of escape, but blind panic and a will to live forced her to try.

She pushed with all her might, shoving her left hand against the flat end of the stake as she drove it forwards.

The vampire sprung backwards the moment the stake made contact with its shoulder. She didn’t give it a chance to escape. She threw herself at it in a last ditch attempt to be the victor in this deadly dance.

She tumbled to the floor with it, wrestling for control. The world blurred and sped by. The pain of the vampire’s blows barely registered in her tired body as she struggled to keep it away from her neck and get her stake against its chest. The noise was deafening—the rush of her breathing, the snarls of the vampire, and the harsh pounding of her heart.

Then silence.

She was on top.

Her stake plunged deep into its chest.

Her gaze locked with his.

It was a man now in her eyes.

He was breathing, fast gasping breaths. His eyes were wide, wild, as he clawed at his chest and the wooden shaft protruding from it.

She pulled the stake out and stood, looking down on him, watching him die. Her body shook from the adrenaline and the exertion. Her fingers loosened and the stake fell to the grass with a soft thud. Exhaustion surrendered to shock. She couldn’t believe it. She’d killed it. She’d killed a pure blood.

His eyes rolled closed and then he began to disintegrate as time raced to catch up with him. Before a minute had passed, he was nothing more than ashes scattering in the breeze.

Lilith swept a hand over her sandy blonde hair and sighed.

It was over.

No, it had only just begun.

She’d never heard of a vampire of the pure bloodlines travelling into this area. There had been reports of hunters meeting them in London, but never out here, so far from the capital. She’d only ever fought vampires from the weaker bloodlines.

What had he been doing out here?

She remembered the flash of his red eyes. A Vehemens? The violent. The last she’d heard, they rarely ventured outside Scandinavia. All the stories had been of hunters encountering vampires from the other bloodlines—the Caelestis, Aurorea, and even sometimes Venia or Validus. Never the Vehemens, Tenebrae or Nocens.

So what had brought him here?

She frowned at the patch of dust that represented him now. Maybe she should’ve asked him. Her superiors weren’t going to be pleased. A pure blood in her area and she’d killed it without any attempt to extract information.

A shiver bolted up her spine and she rubbed her bare arm.

The report was going to be hell to write.

What was worse, a voice at the back of her mind was screaming that what she’d done tonight was going to have repercussions. The pure bloods didn’t take lightly to hunters killing their kind.

Leaning over, she picked up her stake and pocketed it. Her dark eyes scanned the cemetery, searching the shadows for any sign of danger. The moon broke free of the clouds, illuminating even the darkest corner and chasing the shadows away into the trees. Nothing came to her. It was silent and empty. It filled her with cold and dread.

Her gaze fell to Jackson’s body. The pain she’d been stifling all this time broke to the surface.

She would have to file a full report on his death too. How could she write what she’d seen? Jackson hadn’t stood a chance. The vampire had torn his throat open before she’d even sensed its approach. She’d had no chance of saving him, not even with her gift.

Her heart ached to see him lying on the grass, motionless and cold. It could have easily been her in his place. Would he have managed to kill the vampire? It didn’t bear thinking about. She had survived. Jackson was dead.

Lilith walked towards him and her knees buckled when she reached his side. Their impact with the dirt sent pain shooting up her spine and jolted the tears from her eyes. They dashed down her cheeks, turning into freezing streaks of ice as the wind blew against them.

She let them come, no longer able to hold back the surging tide of her emotions and needing to get them out of her before she returned to the compound. She couldn’t let the others see her like this. Reaching into her pocket, she pressed the alarm button on her phone. It would trigger the GPS back at base and send them to her. She had fifteen minutes to gain control of herself. She would need every second.

Her hand found Jackson’s and she held it, not caring how cold it felt in hers, or the way it made her feel as though she was touching death itself.

The sobs started out slow but built until she was gasping at air, her throat tight and chest aching as she stared down at Jackson’s peaceful face.

She couldn’t let them think she was weak.

She was the strongest they had.

Jackson would tell her that if he was still alive. He’d always told her that. He’d always been there for her, getting her out of scrapes and protecting her.

She’d failed to protect him.

Leaning forwards, she rested her head against his still chest and closed her eyes. Silence engulfed her as she lay with him, her mind empty. The night called her. She always felt this way after she’d used her gift—close to the darkness, at one with the shadows. She didn’t understand the words drifting around her head or the tugging sensation in the depths of her heart. She felt the meaning though. It wanted her.

She curled up.

It couldn’t have her.

She was a hunter.

The elite.

She killed those that heard the call of the night.

She killed any vampire she came across.

Nothing was going to change that.

* * * *

L
ilith trudged into the mansion house, desperate for the solitude of her quarters. The team had arrived to find her standing beside Jackson’s body, all sign of her emotions wiped from her face. She had given them instruction to take him back to the compound and had then told them that she would walk back. The thought of travelling with Jackson’s body in the back of the van had been unbearable. The night had offered her so much comfort, the darkness hiding her feelings from the world, and she’d taken it all. The walk back had been long and had given her time to regain true control of herself.

Only now, she was walking the halls where they’d once walked. It was a painful reminder that only one of them had returned, while the other lay in the morgue below her feet.

No one ever spoke of the morgue.

It was as though by never mentioning it, they could make it go away, make all the deaths of their friends disappear.

“What happened?” A sharp voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she found she was standing in the entrance hall staring down at the floor, seeing straight through the solid stone to the cold grey morgue below.

Lilith raised her head, looked Daniel in the eye, and then turned away. Her throat was too tight to speak. If she tried, she would lose what little control she’d regained and would start to cry again. She’d never lost a friend on routine patrol before. She hadn’t lost anyone since her sister.

He caught her arm before she could pass him, stopping her dead. She knew better than to break free of his grasp. As her superior, he commanded her respect. Her hands came up in front of her and she stared at her palms, at the dried and cracked blood that still coated them. Nausea swept through her, cramping her stomach, clenching her heart. Numbness followed it, stealing away the sickness until she felt nothing. It was so hard to breathe. Everything was so hard. She was too weak from the fight and the drain of controlling her emotions.

“Jackson. Son of a bitch got Jackson,” she said, voice steady and showing no trace of the turmoil inside of her. “We didn’t hear it coming. I didn’t feel it.”

She stared into Daniel’s green eyes. The amount of concern in them surprised her. He gave a sympathetic smile, causing crow’s feet to surround his eyes. When had he become so old? He seemed so grey now when before he’d always been the young man she’d first known when she had been a child. She looked around the hall, wanting to avoid his questioning gaze. Everything seemed so grey and different.

“It was one of them, a Vehemens,” she said. “What in God’s name is one of them doing around here?”

Daniel didn’t look at all shocked by her news. His expression remained unchanged and he removed his hand from her arm only to place it lightly on her shoulder. She frowned at the strange sensation that filled her—something was wrong.

“Did you kill it?” he said.

“Of course.” She went to move past him again. His hand tensed, gripping her shoulder and stopping her. She sighed. “Daniel, I really need a shower and bed. Can’t the debrief wait until morning?”

“It can, I wouldn’t want to make you talk about what happened until you’re ready... but... I need to speak to you about a contract that just came in.”

Her right eyebrow rose. It had been a while since Section Seven had been contracted by anyone. They were rare and required only the elite hunters.

It piqued her curiosity and almost made her agree. The ache inside her overruled it though. It had become a dull throbbing and she knew that warning well enough. She was close to collapsing from fatigue.

“Can’t that wait too?” she said, hopeful.

“I don’t think the client will wait any longer.”

Her eyes widened. “They’re here?”

“They’ve been waiting all night for your return,” he said. “I know this isn’t the best time, but it has to be now. It can’t wait.”

Staring into Daniel’s eyes, Lilith could see that he wasn’t going to budge on this. She had to meet the client tonight. He was right. It would be rude to keep them waiting until she’d had a chance to get some rest and she didn’t want to blow her first contract.

“I’ll clean up first if that’s okay?”

He nodded. “He’s waiting in my office.”

She watched Daniel walk away. He? She wondered what kind of problem they had as she walked. Someone was in the first bathroom she came to so she carried on along the hall until she was near the cafeteria. She avoided going in. By now, news of Jackson’s death would be spreading and she didn’t have the energy to meet her client let alone field all the questions people would have. A couple of men from her company walked out of the room. She dived into the nearest bathroom, desperate to hide from them. Locking the door, she pressed her back against it and stared at herself in the mirror.

She looked like hell.

Moving closer to the mirror, she gingerly prodded the cuts and bruises on her face and arms. The vampire had done a real number on her. At the time, she hadn’t noticed. The adrenaline and shock had taken all feeling away. Washing her cuts, she stared into her brown eyes and thought about what had happened tonight. Why hadn’t she sensed it? Normally she could sense vampires before they got within twenty metres of her. Normally she was fighting weaklings.

Were those of pure blood really so superior?

Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she didn’t need to check it to know it would be Daniel. She finished making herself look more presentable and then stared at her torn shirt. She couldn’t do anything about that.

Stepping out of the bathroom, Lilith hurried down the hall. She turned the corner that led to the commanders’ offices and bumped into a woman from her company.

Her eyes fell to the woman’s black jacket. “Can I borrow that?”

The woman hesitated for a moment, looked her over with a raised eyebrow, and then peeled the jacket off. “Important meeting, huh?”

“You could say that. Do you know about the client?”