Welcome to the Darkness (Darkness Trilogy) (28 page)

His heart almost stopped when he realized the extent of Reed’s injuries. His left arm and leg
had been literally chewed off, and his face and chest were covered with deep gashes. The poor boy whimpered and groaned as he tried to drag himself along the ground with his right arm. Then he turned his feral gaze on Nathaniel.

There was
a burning sensation at the back of his throat. Nathaniel had seen many things in his two centuries of existence, but this was almost more than he could bear.

He knelt on the pavement, wet with blood. “I am sorry, but this is the best way.” He lifted Reed’s head and slammed it back onto the ground, rendering him unco
nscious. He wished there was a painkiller that worked on vampires, but there was not.

Nathaniel hoisted Reed’s body over his shoulder, and turned to survey the area around them. He needed a s
ecluded place for the next day or so where he could help the boy recuperate. He would return to clean up the rest of the mess later.

He darted down the empty streets until he found a storage facility. Breaking into the building was a simple task, and he quickly made his way to the lower level. Aisle after aisle of storage lockers stretched out into the darkness. The first door he tried was unlocked, and he lifted the sli
ding door to reveal an empty, windowless space approximately fifty square feet in size.

H
e laid Reed on the ground. It was difficult to see, even for Nathaniel, but he was able to discern that Reed’s wounds had stopped bleeding. Healing them would be another matter entirely. Even a vampire would need a full day, maybe two, to heal such grievous injury. And he required an ample supply of blood.

Where would he find such a large quantity of blood? He could sacrifice the lives of five or six humans, but Reed would never forgive him. The only other option he could think of was to raid a blood bank. Vampires
never
raided blood banks because it drew too much attention, but Nathaniel did not know what else to do.

Shaking his head, he set out to find the nearest
one. He needed to return before Reed regained consciousness.

Less than half an hour later, Nathaniel returned to the storage locker, cooler bag full of blood in hand. He flipped the light switch he hadn’t noticed earlier, and a single bulb in the ceiling flickered to life.

He moved to Reed’s side, placing the cooler bag next to
him on the concrete floor. Leaning over the boy’s still form, Nathaniel ripped open the remains of Reed’s shirt and removed it. The gashes on his chest and face had almost healed already. He stared with morbid fascination at the bits of raw muscle, bone, and skin where the arm had been severed. Upon close examination, it was possible to detect the reformation of his arm from the inside out.

Nathaniel reached inside the cooler bag for a blood packet, just in time. Reed gasped back to life. There was a brief pause, and then he started hollering. Nathaniel used his own fangs to slice open the plastic pouch, and then he
shoved it into Reed’s mouth, squeezing to empty the contents. At first Reed choked and blood ran out the sides of his mouth, but soon enough he began to swallow. He continued to drink, his eyes open but unfocused. When he finished the first bag, Nathaniel gave him another. And another . . . and another, until ten bags later, he died.

Nathaniel sagged against the storage locker wall.
Time to call Sarah. He dug his phone out from the pocket of his leather jacket and selected Sarah’s name from the list of contacts. She picked up immediately.

“Nathaniel!”

He pulled the phone away from his ear. “Yes. Please do not shout. I have a very keen sense of hearing. Did you make it back to the manor?”

“Yes . . . yes I’m fine. What about Reed?”

“I am with him. He is dead.”

“What?”

“Not permanently.” He cringed at his poor effort to placate Sarah. “I have obtained a large quantity of blood from a nearby hospital and fed him his first round. His wounds are healing, but it will take some time.”

“Healing . . . how?”

“The more minor injuries have already healed. The arm and leg will take longer. A day or so.”

“But . . . what is he going to do . . . withou
t–”

“His limbs will regrow.”

“You’re kidding!”

There was
a muffled thud and some rustling, and he assumed Sarah had dropped the phone. He waited until he could hear her breathing into the phone again. “Vampires have an incredible capacity to regenerate and heal,” he continued. “The new limbs will lack muscle tone until he has a chance to rebuild his strength, but he will survive.”

“Can I come see him?”

“That would be unwise. He will be driven on instinct to feed from any source of fresh blood he can, regardless from whom he takes it.” Reed remained deathly still. His new arm and leg had already grown about half an inch during the course of his conversation with Sarah.

“Sarah, you must explain to me what you and Reed have been up to.”

She took a quivering breath. “I know, and I’m sorry. We should have come to you earlier. Reed wanted to, but I wasn’t sure how loyal you were to the King. I’m still not sure, but everything’s gone to hell, and . . . I want to trust you.”

“Sarah, I will do nothing to bring you harm. You must know this by now.”

“All right, I’ll spill the beans. Just promise me you’ll hear me out.”

“I anxiously await your explanation.” He shifted into a relatively more comfortable position.

“Not long after we arrived at the New York vampire lair,” Sarah began, “I went exploring through the manor. I bumped into a man who turned out to be part of a group of vampire hunters. He wanted us to meet with them because he said the King was creating a virus that would wipe out life as we know it, mutating humans into zombie-like, vampire hybrids. I had my doubts, but then Reed had his blood taken by force and he was upset, as you know, so we decided to check out the vampire hunters after all. Later, I met up with the King and read his mind, and I verified that the hunters’ suspicions were true. Nathaniel, there’s a plan in place to neutralize the virus and destroy the vampire lair tomorrow, during the day when the vampires won’t be able to escape.”

His mind swirled, digesting the information. “They plan to annihilate them . . . tomorrow?”

“Yes, but we were going to tell you, I swear. We told the hunters that we had to warn you to get out first; that we wouldn’t help them unless we could guarantee your safety.”

“Where do the Panagos brothers fit into this?”

“They don’t,” she sighed. “That was unrelated. Reed and I left the meeting with the hunters later than we’d meant to. The brothers came out of nowhere and attacked.”

“And the vampire hunters helped you defeat them?”

“Not directly. I had one of their weapons in my pocket. Something called a UV ball. You can guess what it does.”

“Apparently, it is extremely effective.” He shivered. “I suppose my present location is the safest one then, given all that.” Nathaniel felt a little annoyed he was
only now learning of Sarah’s grand plans with her group of hunters.

“You won’t tell the King?”

“No. I suspected the King was due to meet the sun. The insanity of old age is inevitable among our kind, and it is our duty to meet our end before we lose control. I cannot comprehend why he has not already relinquished his rule. It is past time for him to die, and I am certain the Queen cannot be far behind. She is his younger sister, but only by a few years.”

“Thank you, Nathaniel. I’ll call you when it’s over.”

“I fear for your safety, Sarah.”

“I’ll be okay. Just take care of Reed.”

“As you wish,” he said, and hung up without saying goodbye.

Nathaniel shoved the phone back into his pocket and crawled over to Reed. He brushed a lock of hair off the boy’s newly healed forehead.

“
N’aie pas peur,
” he whispered, even though Reed was still out cold. “Do not be afraid,” he translated, realizing he’d slipped into the French of his youth.

He remembered whispering the same
words to his young son when he had been afraid of the dark. He had reassured his son that monsters didn’t exist, and nothing would sneak into the house at night to harm them. Nathaniel had believed his own words, not knowing that the monsters were real, that he would become one of them, and that he himself would be the one to sneak into the house at night and end the lives of his own wife and son.

He shook his head and punched his knee. No, he would not let hims
elf relive those tragic moments. The only way for him to deal with his losses was not to deal with them at all.

It would be another few hours before Reed awoke, so Nathaniel left to clean up the mess at the site of the attack before the sun came up.

P
ain.

Fire.

I was on fire.

I opened my eyes. All I could see was a wash of red.

An inhuman moan escaped my lips. Why wouldn’t the pain go away? I couldn’t stand it another second. Now I was so cold, I shivered, and a fresh wave of agony bit into the left side of my body. I was being eaten alive.

“Help me!”

“
Ne t’inquiete pas,
” a deep voice whispered. “Do not worry. Everything will be fine.”

Gibberish.
I couldn’t understand. Where was I? What was happening to me?

Someone shoved a cold, squishy thing
into my mouth. Cool liquid flooded out, and I swallowed. A taste of heaven, salty, metallic and thirst-quenching beyond belief. I drank and drank and drank. And then I died.

T
he image staring back at Sarah from the bathroom mirror was pitiful. Her hair was wet from the shower she’d taken to clean off the blood and puke, and she appeared ten years older than she had the day before. Dark bags underlined her red, puffy eyes, and a collection of scratches and bruises marred the skin of her face and hands. She looked almost as crappy as she felt.

T
he horrible images from the attack flitted across her mind yet again and bile rose in her throat. There wasn’t anything else left in her stomach to throw up, and she’d cried herself dry.

Someone had taped an “out of order” sign over the sink, so she cracked open one of the bottles of water that
had been placed next to it. She guzzled down a few mouthfuls and waited to see how her stomach would react.

A knock sounded at the door to her bedroom.

“Go away,” she snarled.

“Open the door or I shall open it for you,” a girlish voice replied.

Sarah growled and stomped over to the door. “For Christ’s sake, what did you not understand about–”

She yanked the door open, revealing the Queen of San Jose. The Queen
was ridiculously overdressed in a magenta-colored taffeta gown, her perfectly curled, golden ringlets flowing over her shoulders.

“You,” Sarah sneered.

The Queen frowned. “Have you learned
nothing
in regards to treating your elders with respect?”

“This is a really, really bad time. Please . . . leave me alone.”

The Queen waved her hand as though to erase what Sarah had said. “I care not for your personal woes. Move aside. We need to talk.”

Sarah closed her eyes and shook her head before ste
pping back to let the Queen enter.

After
the grand skirts of her dress had cleared the doorway, the Queen closed the door behind her and turned to survey the room. The furniture was still broken and scattered about from Reed’s burst of anger earlier.

“Did you and your lover boy have a spat?” The Queen smiled almost imperceptibly.

“What do you want?” Sarah demanded.

“I have information for you, which should be of interest assuming you care about your fellow human beings.” She paused and waited.

Sarah stood up straighter, suddenly paying attention.

The Queen leaned against the bed and folded her hands in her lap. “It would appear that my dear brother, the King, has completely lost his mind. He has concocted a contagion to infect
humans, which will render them useless for vampires to feed upon. I refuse to feed on anything but human blood.” Her voice rose and her eyes burned into Sarah as if she were to blame.

Sarah knew she looked surprised, but for all the wrong reasons. Of
course she already knew about the virus, but how had the Queen found out? And why was the Queen sharing this information with her?

The Queen took a breath and composed herself. “If we do not stop my brother, the human race will be wiped out. You agree this is detrimental to us both?”