Wake of Darkness (29 page)

Alexander and Jim froze mid-step
and turned at the exact same time. The youth who had called out to them jumped
back at their synchronized movement.

Alexander glared at the group
through focused eyes. “May we help you?” He asked, coolly.

“Yeah, man! Come here a sec,” he
said, gesturing to them.

Alexander and Jim looked at each
other. They surveyed the group before them, clustered unnaturally in an alley. They
were dressed in black, with pale makeup and black eyeliner distorting their
facial features.

More damn vamp kids,
Jim
thought dismissively.

Wait,
Alexander replied.

What is it?
Jim thought
back, scrutinizing the group.

They’re not all human.

What?

Third from the left.

You’ve gotta be kidding me.

Unfortunately not.

Wonder how long he’s been hanging
with them?

It is anyone’s guess. We need to
get him away from them.

How?

Just follow my lead.

The swift mental exchange, taking
less than two seconds, was followed by the uncertain shuffle among the group
waiting at the back of the alley. The vampire in the group leered at them, a
nearly imperceptible tension rippling down his limbs. He recognized Alexander
and Jim moments after they’d figured out what he was.

In truth, the vampire was not
conspicuous in his little band, and most humans would not have guessed that he
was different. Yet he was there in their midst, hidden in plain sight.

Such foolish humans
, Alexander
thought.
Other animals shy from their hunters, yet here the prey wrap their
arms around their killer and find him mysterious.
He shook his head in
disgust.

If they only knew,
Jim
thought.

The vampire’s scent was too subtle
for human senses to find repulsive. Alexander and Jim weren’t immune to it
however, and the putrid scent of sugar-coated death brushed off of him and churned
up Alexander’s and Jim’s noses in the same instant. Its rancidity flowed into
their lungs and threatened a natural wave of nausea.

Who are they?
A girl with
hot pink hair asked in her mind.

How does Trent know them?
A
boy in all black wondered.

Aren't they the guys with the
drugs?
Another thought to himself.

Jim smiled at Alexander.
Follow
my lead.

“What do y’ think you kids are doing?”
Jim asked sternly, puffing his chest out.

Each individual panicked as they
exchanged glances between themselves again.

Ah, the good cop, bad cop
routine,
Alexander thought.
Well done.
“New Orleans P.D.,” he
suddenly lied, knowing of course that none would have the presence of mind to
ask for his non-existent identification.

The crowd scattered, leaving the vampire
alone facing the two “police officers”. He slowly backed himself against the
wall as his lips stretched over his gleaming teeth. Alexander reached him
before he had taken two steps, grasping him around the neck, and pinning him
against the same wall.

“What do you want?” The vampire
hissed.

“Aw, what’s wrong?” Jim mocked over
Alexander's shoulder. “Did we spoil your fun and chase dinner away?”

The vampire hissed at him. Jim
rolled his eyes.

“Where is Jacques?” Alexander asked
in an eerily calm voice.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’
about,” he replied, his black eyes flat.

Alexander gripped his neck tighter
and knocked his head against the wall. The vampire hissed and spit in his
direction.

“Oh, come now…
Trent
is it? Surely
you know
what
we are and you probably even know
who
we are. Do
spare us the theatrics and tell us where Jacques’s coven is hiding,” Alexander
said.

Recognition flashed in the
vampire’s eyes before they narrowed into deadly slits.

“You can go to hell,” hissed the
vampire in response and he lunged forward, attempting to strike at his throat.

“Not today,” Alexander replied,
before his hand shoved a stake through the vampire’s chest so hard that the
bricks in the wall behind him cracked with the force.

The vampire gasped as realization
hit, right before he slumped over the stake. Alexander stepped back and Jim
tore the head off with the knife he carried in his belt.

“Good riddance,” Jim said.

Alexander flipped the top of his
silver lighter back, ignited a scrap of wood and set the body ablaze. They
slipped out of the alleyway unnoticed.

“Well, so much for
that
,”
Jim said, disappointed.

“It was productive,” replied Alexander.
He shrugged, pleased with how it had gone.

“How’s that?”

“He would have honestly claimed
innocence if Jacques were really not here, of that I am sure. Instead he cursed
us, confirming that Jacques and his coven are indeed here in New Orleans,”
Alexander quickly explained.  

“So what now?”

Alexander’s jaw clinched, but he
didn't answer.

“We need Sophie,” Jim said.

“Yes,” Alexander replied grimly. “As
much as I want to keep her from this, it can’t be avoided.”

Jim patted him on the back. “It’ll
be okay, you know.”

“Always the optimist.”

Jim laughed. “Well…we could always
wait for them to come to us.”

Alexander raised an eyebrow at him.
“You know the best defense is in taking the offensive.”

“Yeah, I know. I just thought I’d
try.”

“Let’s look around some more,”
Alexander said.

“And then?” Jim asked, for he
detected hesitation in Alexander’s voice.

“And then I am afraid we’ll need
Sophie.”

*

Dante, Zoey, and Sophie greeted
them when they walked through the door. It was a few hours past midnight, but
they had been strategizing while Alexander and Jim were gone.

“Well,” said Jim, “if they didn’t
know we were here yesterday, they do now!”

“What happened?” asked Sophie.

“Let’s just say we deprived the
city of New Orleans of a few of their more
menacing
citizens,” Jim
answered with a grin.

“How many?” Dante asked.

“Three,” Alexander replied; they
had encountered two others before returning home.

Dante exchanged a look with Zoey
and Sophie before he turned back to Alexander. “Were you able to glean any
information from them before dispatching them to the devil?” asked Dante.

Alexander nodded with a smirk. “From
one female: we learned that Jacques’s coven typically congregates in the
warehouse district near the waterfront.”

“Anything else?” Zoey asked.

“They’re planning to come after us,
but not yet. ‘Course, we already knew that,” Jim explained. “Looks like
Jacques’s crew is already here, but without him.”

Sophie raised an eyebrow.

“He gave them explicit orders to
refrain from attacking until he returns,” Alexander continued.

She nodded. “He’s meeting with
Cusick.”

“Yes,” Alexander replied.

Dante nodded. “I shall inform
Catherina of this news. Plan your offensive as you see fit; I leave it in your
hands,” Dante said to Alexander, nodding to the others. “I know that Catherina
will approve of, and trust, your decisions.”

He rose from his chair, closed his
eyes and was gone, leaving the others in the living room facing one another.

Right,
Sophie thought
sarcastically.
As if I care.

Alexander’s eyes settled on hers,
but she didn’t elaborate.

“So, what’s the plan?” Jim asked,
looking to Alexander, knowing that he didn’t care for Catherina’s approval of his
plan anymore than Sophie did.

“We have little choice but to
confront them. We are outnumbered, but perhaps if the element of surprise is on
our side, we may prevail,” Alexander answered.

“We
will
prevail,” corrected
Sophie with confident solemnity and with so much intensity that no one dared to
challenge her.

A smile slowly spread across Jim’s
face. “You’re damn right we will!” he agreed. He sighed theatrically. “Well,
kids, I’m turning in for the night.” With that, he was gone.

Zoey nodded to Sophie and
Alexander. “Good night,” she said and disappeared.

Sophie looked at Alexander, the fire
that she had contained earlier flashed in her eyes. “You
will
not
leave me again,” she ordered in a whisper, pointing her finger passionately at him.
“I absolutely
refuse
to be left behind wondering what’s going on, and being
unable to help you in any way, especially for such
foolish
fears.”

He nodded in response. She began
pacing before him in her anger.

“I don’t care what you have to do. Train
me; teach me everything, whatever it takes to make
you
okay with this. I
will
not
be brushed off like that again. I will not sit around here
helplessly
waiting for you to come home, when you need all the help you can get out there.”

She stopped pacing and glared at him,
waiting for his response. She exhaled heavily through her nose waiting for him
to respond.

“You’re right,” he consented
calmly. “You will not be left behind here again. In fact I found myself wishing
that you were with me tonight. I would have liked to have your abilities at my
disposal.”

She nodded, exhaling sharply
through her nose once more. She continued to watch him.

“And I am sorry for my earlier
reaction,” he apologized quietly.

She sighed. “I know,” she answered.
“I know you’re trying to keep me safe…just don’t do it again.” She snickered,
but her anger had already melted away.

Chapter 25

The Audi sped towards the French
Quarter, Alexander confidently gripping the steering wheel as his eyes swept
over the sights outside the windshield. Laney and Jim chatted incessantly over
Zoey’s head in the backseat, but Sophie ignored them and their thoughts as they
continued on their way. She was much too intrigued by the lights and the sounds
of New Orleans to be distracted by their playful banter.

Even through the closed windows,
the smell of smoky bars and spicy gumbo wafted to her hyper-sensitive nose and
seemed to send excitement through every nerve ending in her body. And then they
passed a movie rental store and she snorted at the posters on the windows.           

“What is it?” Alexander asked
quietly.

She rolled her eyes. “Just another
one of those vampire movies,” she replied contemptuously.

He shook his head in disgust. “Vampires
seducing humans isn’t anything new, but
falling in love with them?
”

Jim chimed in. “Yeah, that’s
something I’ve never even
heard
of in real life. Humans are food.”

“Or assets to be traded at best,”
Zoey offered. “
Real
vampires don’t like hanging out with their food
source any more than humans like touring a slaughterhouse.”

Alexander glanced at Sophie. “You
can guess who is responsible for such images.”

            “The Council?”

            He nodded.

            “Great.”

“Hey,” Jim interrupted, “where are
we going?”

“I
was
going to suggest
Bacco,” Alexander answered, looking at his reflection in the rearview mirror.

“That stuffy place?” Jim groaned. “Let’s
do Coop’s instead.”

Alexander sighed lightly, as Laney
seconded Jim’s suggestion.

“You’ll love it, sis,” Jim said to Sophie
from the backseat.

She smiled, but looked at Alexander
to judge his reaction as Jim clapped him on the shoulder.

Alexander shrugged, outnumbered. “Coop’s
it is, I suppose,” he answered with a small smile and a consenting shake of his
head. He turned the corner suddenly, the sedan handling the maneuver so well it
might as well have been flying.

They drove past one of the many
cemeteries of New Orleans; one of the many “Cities of the Dead.” The sudden realization
for Sophie that she could very easily never be a citizen of
that
kind of
city hit her as they sped past its peaked roof tombs and smiling cherubim. It
was a surreal revelation.