Excerpt

WARNING

Please note that some of the books on this site contain material of a sexual nature that is suitable for adults only. By contuining and reading the excerpt below you release us of any responsibility.

The alarm blared through the ghost town, reverberating over piles of rubble and scorched ruins. Even the heavy fog that blanketed everything didn’t muffle the deafening, high-pitched noise. Marc winced, and brought his free hand up to cover his left ear even though he knew it was useless. In two hundred and seventy two years, he had rarely regretted the increased acuity of his senses that had come in a neat little package along with his fangs, an appetite for blood, and near-immortality. Nonetheless, at that moment he would have given anything to have the imperfect hearing of a human. Then, he might not have felt as though his skull were about to split open.

“Three.”

He read the word on Blake’s lips more than he heard it, and nodded to show he understood: three demons coming their way. His fingers flexed and tightened over the hilt of his sword. Loose gravel and broken asphalt beneath his feet were hardly the best terrain to fight on, but he had seen worse. Next to him, Blake’s entire body tensed, a clear enough warning that he could see the demons approach through the crack in the dilapidated wall they used as cover. It wouldn’t be long now.

Blake looked back at him. With the moon’s faint silvery smile piercing the fog at his Childe’s right, Marc had no trouble seeing his expression. It matched the excited scent rising from him. Blake wore a faint, hungry smile—the smile of a hunter closing in on his prey. The years Blake had spent as a human had been wasted; he had been born for this, for the hunt and the fight, for ambushes on moonless nights and the thrill of killing.

A quick flash of Blake’s free hand gave a familiar signal. Marc nodded again. Blake would attack first, trusting Marc to follow and guard his back. Marc had long since given up on pointing out that, as Blake’s Sire, it was his privilege to lead. Certain things weren’t worth the aggravation of yet another argument with his too-stubborn Childe—as long as it was understood that Marc granted him the privilege of attacking first.

The blaring alarm masked the sound of the demons, but not their smell. The stench of old blood and sulfur was unmistakable. At last, they broke past the edge of their cover. Demons towered over vampires and humans alike at eight and a half feet or more, and they had long arms reminiscent of a gorilla’s. Blake slashed at the closest demon, cleanly slicing through the neck, where the battered metal armor joined the helmet. Decapitated, the demon fell to its knees then toppled forward. Before it had hit the ground, its two companions had turned to Blake and raised their weapons. Without the advantage of surprise, they wouldn’t be as easy to kill: far from it.

Blake attacked the one on the left, both hands on the hilt of his sword to lend more strength to the blow. Marc didn’t wait to see how the attack landed, and rushed at the demon on the right. Sparks rose when his sword, broader and shorter than Blake’s, clashed with his opponent’s axe; the sound, however, was drowned out by the alarm, as was the metal-on-metal ring of the blows that followed. He would be lucky to have any hearing left when the fight was over.

He thrust his sword at the demon’s right forearm, hoping to disarm it. The demon deflected the hit by swinging its crescent-shaped axe widely. Marc scrambled back, just enough to avoid being hit, and immediately jumped forward again. He didn’t have the protection of metal plates over his chest or even a helmet, but what he lacked in cover, he more than made up for in speed and agility.

He slashed low, hitting the demon’s thigh and pulling a roar from its throat that pierced even through the alarm, then high, landing blows on the shoulder and arm. Again and again he struck, trying to find the opening that would end the fight. The demon swung its weapon repeatedly with pure force and no aim. At a particularly vicious blow, ducking wasn’t enough and Marc took three steps to the side. His sword found its way to the demon’s exposed side. He pushed hard, and bones shattered.

The demon struggled enough that Marc had trouble pulling his sword free again, then it fell forward, blood gurgling at its lipless mouth, yellow eyes staring unseeingly. Marc watched it for a few seconds. He had slain hundreds of these beasts, and still he couldn’t help being fascinated by their bodies that were never quite identical.

This one sported a line of bone-white spikes, each as long as Marc’s hand, sprouting along its spine and up to the top of its head, so that what Marc had thought was a decorative point on his helmet was actually part of the demon body, appearing through a hole in the helmet. Marc had often wondered if scientists, somewhere, were cataloguing the apparently infinite variations of demon bodies.

“It took you long enough,” Blake said behind him.

The sound of Blake’s slightly mocking tone made Marc realize the alarm had stopped. His ears still buzzed from the irritating noise.

“Maybe,” he replied, his narrowed eyes running over Blake. “But at least I didn’t let it touch me. Where are you hurt?”

The sharp, familiar smell of Blake’s blood tickled his nose, and he absently rubbed it with the back of his hand.

“It’s just a scratch,” Blake replied with a shrug. He looked around him as though searching for more adversaries. The fog swirled lazily around them, transforming broken walls and piles of debris into menacing figures. “Why do you think the alarm sounded?”

Marc approached him and took hold of Blake’s chin to tilt his angular face into the light of the moon. Blake rolled his eyes but let Marc assure himself he was all right. The cut was shallow, going straight down from just below his right eye to his jaw. It had already stopped bleeding, but the wound glared an angry red on Blake’s pale skin. It would heal, and in a few weeks there wouldn’t even be a scar left. A few inches higher, however, would have had a much different result. He had sometimes told Blake he was too pretty for his own good, but that didn’t mean he ever wanted him to lose one of his dark, piercing eyes.

Without a second thought, Marc leaned in and flicked his tongue over the drying blood along the wound. Blake stilled completely beneath his touch, and for once didn’t say a word or ask silly questions. Marc had his answer ready, just the same. He was doing this because the demons’ sense of smell was as good as their own where blood was concerned, and Blake’s blood would give them away. His thirst was completely irrelevant, as was the wondrous taste of his Childe’s blood. He didn’t need to voice the lie.

“I don’t know why it sounded,” Marc answered at last, letting go of him to survey their surroundings. “But what I want to know is why it stopped. If someone else broke into the town, the demons must have slaughtered them.”

Blake snorted and bent down to wipe his sword on the crude pants of the second demon he had killed. “Probably some human fighters,” he muttered. “Too stupid to realize they’re out of their league.”

“Or maybe they found the breach,” Marc said, “instead of wandering like fools. And if they did, the demons are going to guard it even more tightly. We’ll have to come back.”

After a last glance around them, he started back toward the road where the car waited. At least, he thought it was the right direction. Between the thick gray fog that covered everything and the ruins blocking entire streets, transforming the city into a labyrinth, he had to rely more on instincts than sight. Blake followed, but not without his usual whining.

“Come on, who cares if they reinforced their security? You’ve seen how easily we took those three! We could take a dozen more, you and me. And we’d make it a great fight!”

Marc struggled not to grin. He didn’t want to encourage Blake’s cockiness and boasting. Trust him to argue against retreating even if the odds screamed otherwise. He was too predictable, sometimes.

“We’re not here to take on the demon army,” he reminded his Childe. “We can’t afford—”

He stopped abruptly and stared ahead into the fog. At his side, Blake did the same and took a deep breath in through his nose.

“Five?” Blake murmured, so low that no one but a vampire could have caught the word.

“Maybe,” Marc replied, just as quietly. “At least three wounded. Can you smell any demon close?”

A few seconds passed before Blake answered. “No. But they won’t take long, with that lot reeking of blood.”

“Come on. Let’s see if they need our help getting out of here.”

He slipped his sword back into the scabbard hanging from his belt at his left and raised both hands to show he wasn’t armed.

“Do we have to?” Blake complained, but he too put away his weapon in the scabbard on his back and raised his hands.

They walked together toward the cotton-cloaked remains of a house on their right, where quiet voices, hammering heartbeats and the mixed scents of fear and blood announced the presence of humans as clearly as a beacon. The door had long ago been ripped away from its hinges, leaving a gaping opening like a wound on the standing façade of the derelict building.

“Stop or I’ll fire,” a man called from straight ahead of him just as Marc passed the threshold. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Marc obeyed and stilled. He took a discreet look around. On his right, in the corner formed by two almost-intact walls, a standing man held a ball of light in his hand. The light bathed a second man lying on the ground and a woman kneeling by his side, her hands busy over his leg. The smell of blood was stronger in that direction. A pile of debris hid the man who had spoken, with only his head peeking out. Smears of dark green and black camouflage paint covered his face, and the colors made his eyes seem brighter.

“Fire?” Blake snorted behind Marc. “Don’t tell me they still think rifles can help against demons. Won’t they ever—”

“Be quiet,” Marc hissed, just as a second voice rose from the left, this time a woman.

“He meant he’ll fire his crossbow. Wooden arrows. You ought to know he’s a pretty good shot.” She stood from her crouch behind a pile of rubble, and took a few steps toward them. The crossbow in her hands remained steady as she lined up a shot toward Marc’s chest. “And so am I. So you’d better answer.”

The woman had to be five foot four at the most, counting the thick heels of her combat boots. The black pants and black Kevlar jacket were standard for anyone fighting demons, since their eyesight wasn’t too good at seeing dark colors. Like the man, she wore camouflage make-up. The end of a thick braid of hair rested over her shoulder. In addition to the crossbow, a sword hung at her left side, and knife sheaths sprouted on her right thigh and arm.

“My name is Marc,” he answered, looking back at the man who had first asked him. “This is Blake.” He tilted his head back briefly, indicating his immobile Childe, standing just behind him. “She’s right, we’re vampires. But there’s no need for stakes. We mean you no harm. We heard you, and we thought you might need help.”

Buy this book in other formats from...