Midnight Breed 01 - Kiss Of Midnight"Christ," Dante swore, raking a hand through his black hair.
"A Minion did this?" Lucan asked, figuring it to be a safe presumption.
The Rogues had no qualms about spending human lives like dust in order to carry out their petty turf wars or to settle matters of personal retribution. For a long time, human religious fanatics weren't the only ones to employ the weak of mind as inexpensive, expendable, yet highly effective tools of terror.
But that didn't make the ugly reality of what happened to Conlan any easier to swallow.
"This wasn't a Minion," Niko replied, shaking his head. "This was a Rogue, wired up with enough TATP to take out half a city block by the look and stench of it."
Lucan wasn't the only one in the room to grind out a savage curse at that bit of troubling news.
"So, they're not content sacrificing just Minion p.a.w.ns anymore?" Rio remarked. "Now the Rogues are moving bigger pieces on the board?"
"They're still p.a.w.ns," Gideon said.
Lucan glanced to the quick-witted vampire and understood what he was getting at. "The pieces haven't changed. But the rules have. This is a new brand of warfare, not the minor firefighting we've been dealing with in the past. Someone within Rogue ranks is bringing a degree of order to the anarchy. We're coming under siege."
He turned his attention back to Conlan, the first casualty of what he feared was to be a new dark age. In his aged bones, he felt the violence of a long ago past rising up to repeat itself. War was brewing again, and if the Rogues were making moves to organize, to go on the offensive, then the entire vampire nation would find itself on the front lines. The humans, too.
"We can discuss this more at length, but not now. This time is Conlan's. Let us honor him."
"I've said my goodbyes," Tegan murmured. "Conlan knows I respected the h.e.l.l out of him in life, as I do in death. Nothing's ever gonna change on that score."
A heavy wave of anxiety swept the room as everyone waited for Lucan to react to Tegan's abrupt departure. But Lucan wasn't about to give the vampire the satisfaction of thinking he'd p.i.s.sed him off, which he had. He waited for the retreat of Tegan's boot falls to fade down the corridor, then he nodded to the others to resume the rite.
One by one, Lucan and each of the four other warriors sank down on their knee to pay further respects. They spoke a single prayer, then rose together, and began to withdraw to await the final ceremony that would put their fallen comrade to rest. "I will be the one to carry him up," Lucan announced to the departing vampires.
He caught the exchange of looks between them, and knew what it meant. Elders of the vampire race-Gen Ones, especially- were never asked to bear the burden of the dead. That obligation fell to the later generation Breed who were further removed from the Ancients, and who, as such, could better withstand the burning rays of the rising sun for the time required to lay a vampire to proper rest.
For a Gen One like Lucan, the funeral rite would be a torturous eight minutes of exposure.
Lucan stared at the lifeless form on the table, unwilling to look away from the damage Conlan had suffered.
Damage suffered in his place, Lucan thought, sick with the knowledge that it should have been him on patrol with Niko, not Conlan. Had he not sent the Highlander out at the last minute as his own replacement, Lucan might have been lying on that cold metal slab, his limbs and face and torso charred from h.e.l.lish fire, his gut blasted open with shrapnel.
Lucan's need to see Gabrielle tonight had trumped his duty to the Breed, and now Conlan-his grieving mate, as well-had paid the ultimate price.
"I will take him topside," he repeated sternly. He slid a bleak scowl at Gideon. "Summon me when the preparations are completed."
The vampire inclined his head, granting Lucan more respect than he was due in that moment. "Of course. It won't be long."
Lucan spent the next couple of hours alone in his private quarters, kneeling in the center of the s.p.a.ce, head dropped in prayer and somber reflection. Gideon arrived at the door, as promised, nodding to indicate that it was time to remove Conlan from the compound and surrender him to the dead.
"She's pregnant," Gideon said grimly as Lucan rose. "Danika is three months with child. Savannah just told me. Conlan had been trying to work up the courage to tell you that he was leaving the Order once the baby arrived. He and Danika were planning to withdraw to one of the Darkhavens to raise their family."
"Christ," Lucan hissed, feeling even worse for the happy future Conlan and Danika had been robbed of, and for the son who would never know the man of courage and honor who had been his father. "Everything is in preparation for the ritual?"
Gideon inclined his head.
"Then let's do this."
Lucan strode forward. His feet and head were bare, as was the rest of his body beneath a long black robe. Gideon was robed as well, but wearing the formal belted tunic of the Order, as were the other vampires who awaited them in the chamber set aside for all manner of Breed ritual-from marriages and births, to funerals, like this one. The three females of the compound were present as well, Savannah and Eva in ceremonial hooded black gowns, Danika garbed in the same manner, but in deepest scarlet, to signify her sacred blood-bond with the departed.
At the front of the gathering, Conlan's body lay on an ornate altar, coc.o.o.ned in a thick shroud of snowy silk wrappings.
"We begin," Gideon announced simply.
Lucan's heart was heavy as he listened to the service, to the symbolism of infinity in each of the ceremony's rites.
Eight ounces of perfumed oil to anoint the skin.
Eight layers of white silk shrouding the body of the fallen. Eight minutes of silent, daybreak attendance by one member of the Breed, before the dead warrior would be released to the incinerating rays of the sun. Left alone, his body and soul would scatter to the four winds as ash, a part of the elements forever.
As Gideon's voice came to a slow pause, Danika stepped forward.
Turning to face the gathering, she lifted her chin and spoke in a hoa.r.s.e, but proud, voice. "This male was mine, as I was his. His blood sustained me. His strength protected me. His love fulfilled me in all ways. He was my beloved, my only one, and he will be in my heart for all eternity."
"You honor him well," came the hushed, unison reply from Lucan and the others.
Danika now turned to meet Gideon, her hands extended, palms upturned. He unsheathed a slim golden dagger and placed it in her hands. Danika's hooded head dipped down in acceptance, then she turned to stand over Conlan 's wrapped form. She murmured soft, private words meant only for the two of them. Her hands came up near her face, and Lucan knew that the Breedmate widow was now scoring her lower lip with the edge of the blade, drawing blood that she would then press to Conlan's mouth from over the shroud as she kissed him one final time.
Danika bent toward her lover and remained there for a long while, her body shaking with the force of her grief. She came away from him sobbing into the back of her hand, her scarlet kiss glowing fiercely on Conlan's mouth amid the field of white that covered him. Savannah and Eva brought her into a joined embrace, leading her away from the altar so that Lucan could continue with the one task that yet remained.
He approached Gideon at the fore of the a.s.sembly and pledged to see Conlan depart with all the honor that was due him, the vow spoken by all of the Breed who walked the same path that awaited Lucan now.
Gideon stepped aside to grant Lucan access to the body. Lucan took the ma.s.sive warrior into his arms and turned to face the others as was required.
"You honor him well," murmured the low chorus of voices.
Lucan progressed solemnly and slowly across the ceremonial chamber to the stairwell leading up and out of the compound. Each long flight, each of the hundreds of steps he took, bearing the weight of his fallen brother, was a pain he accepted without complaint.
This was the easiest part of his task, after all.
If he were going to break, it would be in a few minutes from now, on the other side of the exterior door that loomed ahead of him just a dozen more paces.
Lucan shouldered the steel panel open and drew the crisp air into his lungs as he walked to the place where he would lay Conlan to rest. He went to his knees on a patch of crisp green gra.s.s, slowly lowering his arms to place Conlan's body down on terra firma before him. He whispered the prayers of the funeral ritual, words he'd only heard a scant few times over centuries long pa.s.sed, yet called up now by rote.
As he spoke them, the sky began to glow with the coming of dawn.
He bore the light in reverent quiet, training all thought on Conlan and the honor that had marked his long life. The sun continued to stretch over the horizon, less than halfway through the ritual. Lucan dropped his head down, absorbing the pain as Conlan surely would have done for any one of the Breed who fought alongside him. Searing heat washed over Lucan as dawn rose, ever stronger.
His ears filled with the repeated words of the old prayers, and, before long, the faint hiss and crackle of his own burning flesh.
CHAPTER Thirteen
Police and transportation officials still aren't certain what caused the apparent explosion last night. However, I spoke with a representative for the T just a few moments ago who a.s.sured me that the incident was isolated to one of the old, unused tracks, and that no injuries were reported. Stay tuned to Channel Five for more news on this breaking story as it-"
The dusty, late-model television mounted to a wall rack clicked off abruptly, cowed into silence solely by the force of the vampire's supreme irritation. Behind him, across the length of a bleak, dilapidated room that had once been the asylum's bas.e.m.e.nt cafeteria, two of his Rogue lieutenants stood, fidgeting and grunting, as they awaited their next orders.
There was little patience in the pair; Rogues, by their addictive natures had puny attention spans, having abandoned intellect to pursue the more immediate whims of their Bloodl.u.s.t. They were wanton children, little better than hounds in need of regular whippings and spare rewards to keep them obedient. And to remind them of whom they currently served.
"No injuries reported," sn.i.g.g.e.red one of the Rogues.
"Maybe not to the humans," added the other, "but the Breed took a d.a.m.n big hit. I hear there wasn't much left of the dead one for the sun to claim."
More chuckling from the first idiot, followed by an expulsion of foul, blood-soured breath as he mimicked the detonation of the explosives that had been set off in the tunnel by the Rogue bomber a.s.signed to the task.
"A pity the other warrior with him was left to walk away." The Rogues fell silent as their leader turned at last to face them. "Next time, I'll put the two of you to the task, since you find failure so amusing."
They scowled, grunting like the beasts they were, their slitted pupils wild within the engulfing yellow-gold sea of their fixed irises.
Their gazes turned down as he began to stride toward them with slow, measured paces. His anger was tempered only by the fact that the Breed had, indeed, suffered a healthy loss.
The warrior who fell to the bomb was not the actual target of last night 's a.s.signment; however, any dead member of the Order was good news for his cause. There would be time to eliminate the one called Lucan. Perhaps he might even do it himself, face-to- face, vampire to vampire, without the benefit of weapons.
Yes, he thought, there would be more than a little pleasure in taking that one down.
Call it poetic justice.
"Show me what you've brought me," he ordered the Rogues before him.
The two departed at once, pushing open a swinging door to retrieve the baggage left in the corridor outside. They returned an instant later, dragging behind them several lethargic, nearly bled-out humans. The men and women, six in all, were bound at their wrists and loosely shackled at their feet, though none appeared fit enough to even consider an attempt at escape.
Catatonic eyes stared off into nowhere, slack mouths incapable of screaming or speech drooped on their pale faces. At their throats, bite marks scored their skin where their Rogue captors had struck to subdue them.
"For you, sire. Fresh servants for the cause." The half-dozen humans were shuffled in like cattle-for that they were, flesh and bone commodities that would be put to work, or to death, whenever he deemed it useful.
He looked over the evening's catch with little interest, idly sizing up the two men and four women by their potential for service.
He felt an itchy impatience as he drew near to the lot of them, some of their bitten necks still oozing with a lazy trickle of fresh blood.
He was hungry, he decided, his a.s.sessing look lighting on a pet.i.te brunette female with a pouty mouth and ripe, full b.r.e.a.s.t.s straining against the dull teal green of her baglike, ill-fitting hospital garb. Her head lolled on her shoulders, too heavy to stay upright, although it was apparent that she was struggling against the torpor that had already claimed the others. Her irises were listless, rolling upward into her skull, yet she fought the pull of catatonia, blinking dazedly in an effort to remain conscious and aware.
He had to admire her pluck.
"K. Delaney, R.N.," he mused, reading from the plastic name tag that rode the plump swell of her left breast.
He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, lifting her face up for his persual. She was pretty, young. And her freckled skin smelled sweet, succulent. His mouth watered greedily, his pupils narrowed behind the cover of his dark gla.s.ses.
"This one stays. Take the rest down to the holding cages."
At first, Lucan thought the piercing trill was just part of the agony he 'd been living for the past several hours. His entire body felt scorched, flayed, and lifeless. His head had, at some point, ceased pounding and now plagued him with a prolonged bell of pain.
He was in his private quarters at the compound, in his own bed; that much he knew. He recalled dragging himself there with his last ounce of strength, after he had stayed with Conlan's body topside for the full eight minutes required of him.
He had stayed even longer than that, another searing few seconds, until the dawn's rays had ignited the fallen warrior's shroud and erupted in an awesome shower of light and flames. Only then did he move for the cover of the compound's subterranean walls.
The extra time exposed had been his personal apology to Conlan. The pain he endured now was to let him never forget what truly mattered: his duty to the Breed and to the Order of honorable males sworn likewise into that same service. There was no room for anything else.
He'd let that oath slip last night, and now one of his best warriors was gone.
Another blast of shrill ringing from somewhere in the room a.s.sailed him. Somewhere too near where he rested; the splitting grate of it jackhammered into his already caving skull.
With a hissed curse that barely made it out of his parched throat, Lucan peeled his eyes open and glared into the dark of his private bedchamber. A small light blinked from within the pocket of his leather jacket as the cell phone rang again.
Stumbling, his legs lacking their usual athletic control and coordination, he dropped out of his bed and made a graceless lunge for the offending device. It only took him three tries to finally find the small key that would silence the ringer. Furious for the taxing that the brief series of movements had on him, Lucan held the glowing display up to his swimming vision and forced himself to read the caller's number.
It was a Boston exchange... Gabrielle's cell phone.
Beautiful.
Just what he f.u.c.king needed. He'd resolved on the climb with Conlan's body up those several hundred stairs to the outside that whatever he was doing with Gabrielle Maxwell had to stop. He hadn't been entirely sure what he was doing with her anyway, short of exploiting every available opportunity he could find to get her on her back beneath him.
Yeah, he'd been brilliant at that tactic.
It was the rest of his objectives he was beginning to suck at, so long as Gabrielle was in the picture.
He had it all planned out in his head, the way he was going to deal with the situation. He would have Gideon go to her apartment that night, tell her in logical, understandable terms all about the Breed and about her destiny -her true belonging-within the vampire nation. Gideon had a lot of experience dealing with females, and he was a consummate diplomat. He would be gentle, and he sure as h.e.l.l had a better way with words than Lucan himself. He could make sense of it all for her, including the very real need for her to seek sanctuary-and, eventually, a suitable mate-at one of the Darkhavens.
As for Lucan, he was going to do what was required for his body to heal. A few more hours of recovery, a much -needed feeding tonight-once he was able to stand up long enough to hunt-and he would come back stronger, a better warrior.
He was going to forget he'd ever met Gabrielle Maxwell. For his own sake, if not for the Breed as a whole.
Except...
Except, he had told her just last night that she could reach him on his cell phone whenever she needed him. He had promised he would always answer her call.
And if she was trying to get a hold of him now because the Rogues or their walking-dead Minions had come sniffing around her again, he figured he d.a.m.ned well needed to know.
Lying in a supine sprawl on the floor, he punched the Talk b.u.t.ton.
"h.e.l.lo."
Jesus, he sounded like s.h.i.t. Like his lungs were made of cinder and his breath was ash. He coughed and felt his head split with pain.