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Dawn's Darkest Hour

By: msnomer68



 114 chapters plus epilogue. Everyone in the story is specifically stated as being eighteen years old or older.

*****

Prologue

The Great Father wound his way through the destruction sickened by the death around him. A once thriving village lay in a heap of smoldering ruins. The bodies of brave men who had fought to protect their families were scattered like chaff to the wind. Hands stiff and cold with death clutched weapons. As if the spirit once departed would reanimate the lifeless corpse and take up the cause of defense. Not even the women and children, nor the very wise and old, were spared. None were left alive. 

The Shaman examined the bodies, hoping to find but one with life still in his veins amongst the dead. He found no pulse or lingering breath of life. "I am sorry, old friend," he said. The regret in his voice made the statement from his lips meaningless and ill timed. "We arrived too late to help them."

The Great Father threw off the offer of comfort and knelt beside the body of a young boy. His lifeless, spindly fingers rested on the bloodstained wooden handle of a pitchfork. The limp body of his mother lay face down in the hard packed earth a few feet away. The deaths were senseless and so needless. Most of the bodies had not been completely drained of blood. Murderers without conscience or souls had done this out of greed and selfish desire. These people hadn't been hunted for food, but for sport. The Great Father slid the boy's lifeless eyes closed and rose to his feet. "Light the pyres so that we may set their souls free. Perhaps, they may find comfort and safety on the other side of the Great River."

The boy's body was stiff and cold in his arms. The Great Father carried the lifeless corpse out of the village and laid him atop the unlit pyre. He studied the boy's face. One day the child might have grown up to be a great warrior. Now, he would never get the chance. Regret gripped his heart at the loss of lives and that the brothers had arrived too late and done too little. Vengeance had to be served. He vowed to the still child in his arms and to the dead gathered around the pyre. "A life for a life. They took yours and in retribution I will take theirs." 

"My son, heavy is your burden. Perhaps more than you can bear. I charged you with a great duty. Your heart grows weary with the task. If I could, I would spare you and your Sons all of this and deliver you to your rest."

The Great Father dropped to one knee and bowed his head. His goddess stood before him. Her form ethereal form shimmered on the rays of dawn like mists rising from a deep pond of still water. "Will any ever know peace?"

"As long as evil walks the earth, I fear not. Search for the ones who commit these atrocities and bring them to an end. There are those born of tainted blood with a heart to do good instead of evil. Even in darkness, light must pass and in light shadows must fall."

The voice of the Goddess stroked over him like thousands of brushing fingertips. He squinted up at the glimmering image. "How am I supposed to know what is good and what is evil when all I see is this darkness around me?" 

The goddess stroked the silvery fur of her wolf and stared down at the man kneeling before her. She felt pity for him. He was called to serve a purpose beyond that of mortal man. Born of flesh and bone and birthed by blood and pain. He was cursed by the very darkness he battled to destroy. "I can not tell you. You must search that answer out for yourself."

The Great Father clenched his hands in to fists. "I smell the blood and I wage a far greater war within myself than I ever would with these fiends. How can I know the difference between light and dark when they both exist within me! Set my feet on the journey. Take me across the Great River. I can no longer bear this thing that I am! Deliver me from this death. Choose another."

"My son, I can not extinguish the flame that burns within you. It burns brighter than the sun. You must find courage and search out a way to embrace your life and chase out the darkness. If you fail, all is lost, for there is no other but you. Your men, the mighty warriors you have chosen are brave and strong, but, if you will not lead them, they will fall to another master."

"Then there is no hope."

"My son, there is always hope. Whether you choose to seek hope out or abandon your commission is up to you. Be a light to those in darkness. Shine brighter then the most blinding ray. Chase the darkness into the light. Guide the ones that have lost their way. There are many lost in the darkness. You will be the beacon that sets their feet on a better path."

"Can the wolf really be as tame as a dog? Can the great cat be content with scraps from the table? Can one that has gotten drunk on the sweetest vine truly be sated with mere water from the stream? Ours is a hard life. The commission you've given us more than we can bear. We taste, but can never indulge. We see, but yet are blinded by the nature that rages within us. You show me beauty. But, all I've ever seen is waste and ruin."

"Free will is a curse as well as a blessing, my son. There are those born into darkness that long for the light. Be that light."

"My sons long for a day of peace, may we ever strive to see it. I will search out good in evil and draw to me those that seek the same. Deliver us, Grandmother. For guardians, we all are."

"My children, they call." The goddess parted the smoke from the flaming pyres and gathered the spirits of the dead to her side. They swirled around her in thick, tendrils of mist. "I wish you well on your journey, my son. Know that I am always with you. When you grow weak and weary of this commission and doubt your path. In that despair find a renewal for your strength. Lead your sons and those not of your blood. Seek to destroy evil and know that light always illuminates the darkness."

The Great Father watched his goddess ebb and fade into the dawn. The souls of the departed followed her on lofty currents of air. They had suffered and earned their rest. His sons had a long, long journey ahead of them before they found the respite they so desperately sought. 

"My Father." The warrior dipped his head. "We've found one."

"Take me to him." The Great Father followed his warrior to the man. The man was on his knees, with his hands tightly clutched over his head. The blade pressed to his throat glimmered in the early morning light. "Who are you?"

"My name? What does it matter?"

"What is your business in this place?" The Great Father eyed the man suspiciously. The Great Father knew what the man was by his scent and his pallid complexion. Automatically, he didn't trust him. The man might be a decoy. The man might have been left behind in the wilderness to fend for himself. The Great Father didn't know. But, one vampire could not have rendered this kind of whole scale slaughter on his own. Innocent or guilty, the man's words would speak for the man.

"I've been tracking this group for months." His adam's apple scraped along the razor sharp edge of the blade pressed against his throat as he swallowed. One move and he was as dead as the villagers around him. "I've come to stop them."

"Why?"

"Because, someone has to."

Chapter 1

David had sinned many, many, times in his brief stay on this planet. He had much to atone for. When he thought about it, twenty-seven years wasn't that much time to tally up such a grand total of dark sins as he had managed to accrue. He did everything, EVERYTHING, to balance out the scales more in his favor. If...no...when judgment day came... he sure as hell wanted the scales of judgment tipped to the positive instead of the negative. 

As a virtual immortal, it was hard to think in terms of hell and damnation. He was already there. He lived it everyday. He wanted to be the good boy his mother and father had put their faith in years ago. No matter what he did, no matter how many old ladies he helped across the street, how many cats he rescued out of trees, or how many shitty assignments he volunteered for. He didn't feel good and he wasn't a good boy either. At. All.

He was a killer and always would be, end of story. Oh, he wasn't one of those seething idiots that sucked victim after victim dry and left the bodies like crumpled fast food wrappers tossed to the curb. He liked his head right where it was. Firmly attached to his neck, and the neck, affixed to his body. He wasn't stupid. He knew the rules and he sure as hell wasn't suicidal. If anything, he wanted to put off the Day of Reckoning for as long as he could. 

No, his sin wasn't one of greed, or lust, or sloth. In this day and age, those were misdemeanors, warranting a mere slap on the spiritual wrist. His was a felony that carried a life sentence and perhaps, no, undoubtedly, one well into the afterlife. He had done far worse than one of the seven deadlies. He'd betrayed someone he loved and delivered her into the hands of death. His sister trusted him to keep her safe and well, hadn't he done a real botch job of that. As surely as she burned in the fiery pits of Hell, at least it was some reassurance that someday, he'd be there right along with her. Nope, he wasn't in any hurry to die. Luckily, he had a lot of time on his side.

This assignment was maybe one of the shittiest assignments he'd ever volunteered for. But, he was perfect for the job. David looked at the magazine cut out taped to his bathroom mirror and added some more gel to his hair. He untucked his Ed Hardy t-shirt and wrinkled the hem with his fingers. He studied the model in the picture and gauged his expression to match the pouting, despondency of teenage angst. Oh yeah, his look was perfect. Ok, so maybe he wasn't quite James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause worthy, like the guy in the glossy magazine ad. But, he was good enough for high school and to pass for the teenager he'd once been ten years ago.

The thought ran chills up his spine. High school. He hadn't graduated the first time thanks to a sudden condition called death or rather, as he preferred chronically undead. He was going back to high school, like a lamb into the mouth of a lion. Braver men had mumbled excuses and ran from this assignment like it was the plague. Not him. If ever any act could cleanse away at least some of the stain on his soul, going back to high school was it. 

David flipped open his wallet and studied the picture on the driver's license. The ID was as fake as a lap dancer's silicone implants. It would do though. According to the BMV, he was David Russ, age eighteen. He lived in a quiet suburban neighborhood on the city's south side and he was smack dab in the middle of his senior year. 

At least one fact on the card was accurate. His name was David. Whoever else he'd been ten years ago, at the tender age of barely eighteen, had died when a whim of curiosity had taken him to a dark corner of downtown and into the never ending darkest chapter of his life.

When he'd actually been in high school. He was the exact opposite of the cocky jackass who stared back at him from the mirror's reflection. His hair was shorter then. His clothes neat and wrinkle free. As for his soul, it had been pure as an infant's. He had been the living breathing definition of the word geek. His only ambition in life had been to steal a kiss from his high school sweetheart. Only she'd never known he'd existed. Mainly because he'd been too ball less to ask her out. Maybe, if he'd worked up the courage to steal that kiss. He would have stayed home that dark December night instead of venturing into downtown determined to make a man out of himself. 

Dark eyes met his gaze. Their stare was as hard and cold as steel. These weren't the eyes of an eighteen-year-old kid about to embark on life's great adventure. These were the eyes of someone who had already lived life and had thoroughly gotten their ass kicked by it. There was nothing he could do to change the dark expression reflected in the mirror. Except hope the hardness in his eyes didn't blow his cover. 

He only had to stick around long enough to find out who was dealing and where the supply was coming from. Pink. The name was innocuous enough to make one think of fuzzy Easter bunnies or pretty flowers on a summer day. But, it had a more sinister definition and purpose. The drug was in his city, flooding his streets, and poisoning his kids. Once he found out who the source was. He'd put an end to it, for good.

Pink was cheap, easy to make, and impossible to trace in the human blood stream. Pink didn't kill by accidental overdose. It made its users feel good, damn good. They ran faster, worked harder, and could go for days and days without sleep. Pink was a perfect drug, if not for the side effects. Pink wore away at a person's soul, degrading it little by little until only a shell of the former self remained. The problem was. The user didn't realize the danger until it was too late. 

Pink had found its way from the dark, dingy corners of the city and into the suburbs and quiet communities outside the reach of the inner city. Where people felt safe. Pink was in the high schools and colleges, in the shopping malls, and clubs. Pink was everywhere and everyone wanted more. 

Modern forensics couldn't identify exactly what pink was or how it worked. But, David could. He knew all too well what pink was; vampire blood, pure and uncut. Once taken from the vein and dried. The blood was ground into a powder and sifted into little glass vials. The dried crystals turned a brilliant, innocuously, harmless looking shade of dark pink, almost fuchsia. Add a bit of food grade glitter, and viola, the perfect designer drug; cheap, sweet, pretty, easy to use, and highly addictive. 

David envied the vampire who first envisioned the idea. Envied and pitied him. When this vampire was found. There wouldn't be enough scraps of him left to identify the body. This drug was so much more than the good time it promised its faithful users. The drug linked the vampire to those who ingested his vile poison. 

This vampire knew everything about his users, strengths, weaknesses, addresses, phone numbers, bank account passwords, everything. The vampire had more information than the CIA on hundreds, maybe thousands of people. They and their information were his, to do with what he wished. He could sift the choicest of the harvest from the rest of the crop and reap the yield one by one, or worse, turn the whole lot. This drug was the spark of the start of a very dangerous fire. This fire, if left unchecked, could consume the whole world and all those in it. David and the rest of the Guardians meant to stomp the sparking embers out long before it got that far.

David had but one small part to play in the bigger whole. He intended to play it well. He was going to find out who was selling Pink to the high school kids and put him out of commission. Permanently. And maybe in the process, earn a bit of salvation for his damned soul. Who knew? Maybe he'd enjoy high school more the second time around. Maybe, he'd go to prom, football games, or even graduate this time.

He slung a worn backpack over his right shoulder and practiced his walk. Walking like a human, in the clumsy, awkward steps of a teenager was difficult. He looked human enough. He looked like every other suburban teen, bored and despondent. But, he had to play the part as well as look it. He stepped out of his bedroom and walked down the narrow hallway of his mock set up. The house, the furniture, the beat up Mazda in the driveway, it was all part of the act. For a short while, he'd live the life that had been robbed of him years ago. 

Bianca couldn't help the snicker that escaped her perfectly shaped lips. "You certainly don't look like honor society material." She eyed the man transformed back into a boy with amusement. He slouched and stuffed a hand in his pocket after shooting her the bird. His jeans were frayed in places and looked like he'd slept in them for a week. The jacket hung loosely on his narrow shoulders and bunched at his wrists. The hem of his faded t-shirt draped over his lean hips. His shoes were scuffed and worn. He reeked of cheap cologne. His dark walnut hair was molded into an unruly mass that curled wildly around his ears and at the nape of his neck. They'd spent days at the mall, studying their subjects. David looked like he'd just walked out of a food court. He was almost too perfect.

"And you certainly don't look like mother of the year either," David shot back. Bianca wore her black hair in its usual coiffed French twist. Her immaculately tailored pantsuit didn't come off any rack, at least not locally. The blouse silk blouse revealed far too much of her better attributes. Her shoes were straight out of a designer magazine. She looked more like she should be on a board of directors than making cookies for the PTA bake sale. She was filling the part of his mother when and if the occasion called for it. Since he was not yet enrolled in school. Today she had to play the part, convincingly. 

Bianca gathered up her Gucci handbag with a huff and slung it over her shoulder. She had overdressed, a little, but denim and cheap cotton? Her feet did not belong in sneakers. For her, pretending to be a Suburbanite house frau was difficult. She could not understand the subject she was meant to copy. In her day, women entertained themselves in the pursuit of a husband. They did not jog. They did not think. And labor was left to servants. They found a good man and married well. If not, well there were far more nefarious occupations for them to engage in that required no education and very limited vocabulary. She had applied herself to her study, but found the role of the W.A.S.P. almost nauseating. "Come along son, we don't want to be late for school." 

"Coming mother," David said, his voice loaded with sarcasm. The odd thing, for all intensive purposes, in this life at least, Bianca was his mother. Her blood had frozen his body into a state of suspended animation and perpetual, never-ending death. He'd gone to downtown that night, years ago, to put an end to his virginity. Being eighteen and hopelessly dateless, he had suffered the brunt of too many jokes. At her hands, he lost a lot more than his innocence and learned more of the world than what he ever wanted to know.

Chapter 2

"Do you have something to report?" Carter didn't bother to turn his gaze from the dazzling skyline on the other side of the heavily tinted glass. Morning brought the end to one set of nightmares and the beginning to another. At night, surrounded in the darkness, it was easy to pretend that he was still in the arms of someone he loved. In the day, he had to face reality. His past, his long, long past, had come home to bite him in the ass, and the only thing he could do now, was deal with it. 

"Sir," the guard stammered. "I only wanted to say that it's good to have you back." 

Carter turned from his window and glowered at the guard. "I only wish I could say that it was good to be back. Nevertheless, thank you for the sentiment." He watched the guard hastily bow and scuffle off. The Guardians were wary and nervous around him and he couldn't blame them. He was a real son of a bitch these days. He lowered his long body into the desk chair and surveyed the reports scattered on his desk. The city had not faired well in his absence nor had his men. In that aspect, and only in that aspect, was he glad to be back. He would pull his city off her big, glittery ass and set her back to rights again.

There was the usual shit pile to deal with. For all her glitz and sparkling lights, his city had the stink and stain of depravity deep in her underpinnings. Drugs were in his city. The bitch was a greedy one and never ceased to amaze him. Pink, it sounded so harmless. When he found the bastard supplying the blood, he'd rip him apart limb by limb with his bare hands and leave his innards drying on the pavement. His Guardians were on it. In time, justice would be doled out with a swift hand. While he waited, he had other things to entertain his weary mind. 


Dawn's Darkest Hour



He pulled the locket out of its resting place deep in his pocket and turned it over and over between his fingers. "Yessette." The dainty filigree work on the locket's golden face was worn and weathered with time. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the locket, as it looked then, brand new, glittering on its blue bow encircling her long, graceful, neck. The locket rested in the hollow of her throat on a bed of creamy, white skin, the color of milk. For centuries, he'd mourned her. He thought she and the locket were hopelessly lost, buried beneath an ivy-covered grave, long forgotten by all, save him. 

Bianca stood in the doorway, studying Carter. He looked lost in a world unto himself. His broad shoulders sagged beneath an unknown weight. Locks of blond waves, the pale shade of milkweed, highlighted his aquiline nose and tensed, rugged jaw. Realizing, she was there, he hurriedly stuffed the gold object into his pocket. His eyes, pale as a winter's sky and cold as an ice flue, pierced her through. She shivered imperceptibly from the chill of their stare. "The last of the men is in position. We'll get whoever is doing this."

Carter leveled his stare at Bianca. As always, she was completely immune to the glower in his eyes. After their time together, she'd gotten used to him and his moods. As to whether he trusted her or not? How far could a condemned man trust his cellmate? "I think we both know who is peddling blood for pennies."

Bianca nodded. She too had her suspicions. "The question is to what ends." She was back to busting her ass to earn Carter's trust. Her devil had taken on a new face, one wrapped in familiarity and beautiful as any angel. As to whose right hand she sat. It mattered not. The seat was still the same.

"That is the only reason O'Sullivan is still alive. It does no good to pull the scab off a wound if the body remains infected. I want to rid the body of the infection. Give him enough time and he'll do our job for us. In the mean time, just contain the damage." Carter stood and buttoned his black silk shirt. These days, he had little use for color, when his life was nothing but a bleak, empty void. 

"So we wait?"

Carter nodded, "We wait and in the mean time clean up after him." He secured the heavy, black leather belt to his waist and slid his favorite dagger into its sheath on his hip. "One would think by now O'Sullivan would have learned not to step on his own dick. I can't get rid of him, not just yet though."

"You have something up your sleeve?" Bianca asked. The blade zipped past her ear so quickly that she hadn't had time to get out of its path. Not even one hair stray hair tickled the back of her neck. The point of the dagger landed in the thick, maple paneling of the door behind her with a heavy thud. Its onyx handle wobbled from the impact. 

Carter casually walked around the desk and pulled the blade out of the paneling. He tossed the clip on earring back to Bianca. "Always." He returned the dagger to its hiding place up his sleeve and left, gently closing the door behind him. Better to have his enemies terrified of him than left to plot against him. There was only one thing Bianca valued in this life more than diamonds, money, or position, her pretty little head. She'd be wise to think twice before she crossed him, if she wanted to keep it.

Bianca caught the earring and glared at Carter as he closed the door. The jewel was intact, without so much as a scratch on the gold. With trembling fingers she felt her earlobe and clipped the earring into place. "Bastard."

Chapter 3

Shayla kept up a brave front and forced the frown into a smile. In fact, she went out of her way to smile. She invested all of her newly found free time in her son and made him the only man in her life. Shayla took care of her son and of herself. She ate, slept, and got out of bed to dress and carefully tame her silky black hair and apply a light layer of makeup, perhaps more religiously than she ever had before. No way was she going to slide headlong into a pit of despair and let herself go. She was handling the break up with the grace that only the dumped and unwanted can manage.

She wanted to give into a good old fashioned crying jag and binge on ice cream. But, she wasn't going to. If Carter didn't want her, that was ok. On the day he left, she promised herself not to waste one more tear on him. Was she ever going to work up the courage to go out on a date and allow some man to fill the empty void in her heart left by Carter's absence? Maybe. Someday. 

The last thing she needed right now was another man to bring her down while she gave her all to build him up. Carter could give any excuse he wanted to for leaving. But, she knew the truth. He was afraid. He'd given her his heart and she had given him hers. That terrified him. Deep down she still loved him and always would. 

Love was in full bloom all around her. Her sister, Ruby, had reconciled with her husband, Hanning, and they were a happy family again. Shayla was happy for them. Torr and Erica found one another after years of separation and were expecting their second child. Shayla wished them her best. But, for her, there was not much worthy of celebration. She had much to be thankful for and she was. The days were long and drawn out. The nights, almost painful, it was then, alone in her bed, that she missed Carter the most.

Carter was in her heart and in her head. In their short time together, they'd shared both body and soul. It hurt to have her love thrown back in her face because of his fear. She was surrounded by love, the love of her family and friends, but she didn't feel it. The only thing she did feel was the bleak emptiness of Carter's absence. In time, she'd been assured the emptiness would fade. Carter's awareness would no longer be hers. Inexorably linked as they were, she caught random glimpses into his life and felt his emotions as acutely as if they were her own. Perhaps, that was the most painful of all. As certain as she suffered in her silent longing for him, as deep as the chasm of her loneliness, so was his. He missed her too.

No amount of herbal tea was going to ease the ache that he left behind. No amount of time was going to patch the hole in her heart. She could be rid of him for once and for all. Sever the link completely. But, not without losing him all together. To her, it was better to have a tiny sliver of him in the dark shadowy regions of their combined consciousness than to lose him completely.

Chapter 4

O'Sullivan drummed his fingertips on his desk. He had so many worlds to conquer and so little time. Business was better than ever. Was humanity really that miserable? He chuckled silently. Of course they were. Otherwise, he might as well be peddling Popsicles from a cart in the middle of winter. 

The strange journey to America's Heartland still plagued his mind. What were those people? They smelled unlike any other humans he'd ever encountered and so delicious. They were something beyond ordinary. Of that he had no doubt. The question was...what? He intended to find out. To solve his riddle, he needed cunning and more than a fair share of ingenuity. Both he had in abundant supply. 

What of the little boy? Evan. What of the woman and the infant, that Carter should defend them so vehemently? There was definitely something about them. To find the answers would take time and patience. Luckily, after centuries of waiting he'd developed both into an art form. Finally, the pieces were starting to fall into place, after so very long. Soon enough, he'd have the pieces exactly where he wanted them. Finally, the game would at long last be over. Maybe he'd spare the trio, so close to Carter's stagnant heart. Just for fun, add them to his collection of things he'd taken from Carter over the centuries. 

"You said we'd see Carter soon," A feminine voice pouted from the corner of the room. 

"We will, Yessette. We will," O'Sullivan answered, condescendingly. He crossed the room and patted her little blonde head, gently he lifted her face to meet his eyes. "Now, don't I always keep my promises?"

Yessette beamed at his gesture. So rarely did he even acknowledge her presence anymore. "Yes, you do."

"Then you must be patient, for just a while longer."

Chapter 5

There were a lot of things that David had forgotten about high school. He didn't know if he so much forgot them or if he willingly had blanked them from his memory. The hallways were familiar to him. He knew what was beyond every corner. He found his classes easily enough. In ten years, the lay out of the building had not changed a bit. Nor had the stench of cafeteria food that always permeated the air or the smell of cheap industrial grade paint and floor wax. 

He handed his admission slip to the teacher and watched her scribble her signature on the paper. Hastily, she mumbled something that resembled a welcome and pointed him to an empty seat in the back of the overcrowded classroom. David slid into his desk and scanned the students as they filed in and filled the vacant seats around him.

Being the new kid had its disadvantages. He was automatically an outcast. The school year had already begun two weeks prior and the social cliques had already filled their ranks. None of these kids looked like drug dealers. No one ran around with a neon sign over that pointed him out as the one he was looking for. He'd have better luck trying to find a needle in a haystack than to find a dealer in the designer jean clad youth of this school. Yet, one of them was the one he was looking for. He just needed an in. 

He opened his textbook and flipped through the dog-eared pages stained with the sweat of dozens of scholars who had used the book prior to him. He really could care less about classical literature. But, he had to fake it until a means presented itself. He turned when he felt a gentle tug on the sleeve of his hoodie. "You can share my notes if you want."

David turned to his left and smiled at his helpful neighbor. "Thanks." Nervously, she twirled her blonde hair between her index and middle fingers. Her cheeks burned with a bright, pink blush that made her look even younger and definitely more innocent than her seventeen or eighteen years. She had big, round eyes, too heavily outlined with black eyeliner that did nothing but hide their green color. Her mouth was a cupid's bow, smothered by a thick layer of sticky gloss. Her cheeks were rounded with youth. She smelled of bubblegum and unlived dreams. She had yet to come into her own beauty as a woman. But, David could see it, hiding beneath the bad makeup and layers of baggy clothes. 

"I'm Rachael."

"David." He scooted his desk closer to hers. Smiling at the cherry red blush that spread across her cheeks. Yet another reason to hate Bianca. He would have liked Rachael, back in the day. Maybe, might have even had a secret crush on her and admired her from afar. She represented every thing that had been robbed from him. Everything that he had been and would never be again. She was so damned young, like a rosebud in springtime, yet to unfold its petals to the sun. 

Rachael felt the heat spread over her neck and across her cheeks. The new kid was so hot and he was copying her notes. He sat closer than any boy ever had to her. She pretended to pay attention to the teacher and coolly ignore him. But, she kept glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. Don't do or say anything stupid, she thought as his pencil scratched away on the paper. If she embarrassed herself in front of him, her life would be over. 

David heard the rapid fluttering of Rachel's heart. Fresh blood sprinted to the surface of her skin through a network of dilated capillaries. God, he was hungry. The scent of her made his hunger all the more acute. He pushed the pencil as fast as it would go, copying her scrolling handwritten notes. Unwelcome fangs poked out from their hiding place in his upper jaw. He rammed the tip of his tongue against their sharp points and tried like hell to think of anything else but the smell of human blood. 

Before he'd finished copying down the last sentence, he scooted his desk as far away from her as he could get. He sat, cockeyed in the middle of the aisle, willing his hunger to go away. He did not kill. 

The pencil snapped under the strain of his grip and clattered noisily to the floor drawing all eyes to the back of the room. Pretending not to care that he'd interrupted a very bad rendition of Pride and Prejudice, he shrugged and bent to pick up the broken pieces. Thankfully, the bell rang before he blew his cover. He was up and out of his seat as quickly as he could go without tipping anybody off. He needed fresh air, lots and lots of fresh air.

Rachael slammed her book closed in dismay. He hadn't even bothered to give her a second glance, just like every other boy in the school. She shoved the book into her backpack and shuffled off to her next class. This was her final year of confinement in the wretched shit hole called Westville High. She couldn't wait for it to be over and her real life to begin.

Nora closed the planner on her desk and erased the chalkboard. The next hour was hers to do with what she wanted. She walked down the rows of desks and scooted the wayward seat back into the neat line along with the others. There was something about the new kid. Something that had her rattled and took her back to her high school days. He reminded her of somebody. 

She couldn't remember everything to its exactness. One day he was in class sitting across the aisle from her and the next, he wasn't. He disappeared without a trace. His family tried, the senior class tried, the whole city rallied in the search. But, he was never found, almost as if he'd never existed at all. To her and a handful of others, he had though. She studied the name she'd scribbled in her roster. David Russ. 

Quickly, she dismissed the whole thing as coincidence. They had the same unruly, wild shock of dark brown hair. They had the same wide cheekbones and pouting expression. They were similar in size and build. They had the same first name. But, David Russell, for all intensive purposes, was dead. The new kid, was just another student in the endless barrage of students that had came and went and would come and go over the course of her years as a teacher. Before she retired, many, many years from now, there'd be a long list of kids that would remind her of David either by physical attributes or mannerism. This kid was just the first. 

Her mind ticked away ridiculous possibilities. What if? What if what? If David were alive, what were the odds that he'd look exactly as she remembered? He'd be ten years older and he certainly wouldn't be one of her students. She was being absolutely idiotic. But still, there was something about this kid. Something very different and very disturbing, she just couldn't quite put her finger on it yet. 

David exhaled a relieved breath as the bell announcing lunch finally rang. His butt and his mind were completely numb. What were they teaching kids these days? That answer was easy enough. The same shit they'd tried to drill in his head ten years ago. He shuffled along with the rest of the herd into the cafeteria. The stench of food that had sat under warmers for far too long turned his gut inside out. 

Through the large wall of plate glass windows the outside world beckoned. Sun glittered like diamonds off the shiny, metallic surfaces of parked cars. He'd just as soon skip the dried out scoop of something plopped onto his plastic plate and be out there rather than trapped in here with the alluring smell of fresh, untapped human blood. He pulled a crumpled five-dollar bill out of his wallet and paid for the heap of inedible food and promptly scrapped the contents of his tray into a smelly trashcan. He was starving. But it wasn't like he could eat what was on the school cafeteria's menu. Even if he could consume food, he wouldn't have eaten that wad of crap the cafeteria cooks passed off as lunch anyway.

Teachers were posed at the doors, idly chatting to one another as they guarded the only exit from this small portion of hell called the cafeteria. The tattered backpack made a hollow thump against the long bench seat at the back of the cafeteria. David pulled out his battered Econ book and flipped it open to a random page. When he'd been in high school he hadn't missed an assignment. Sometimes he even did extra credit to ensure his A average. He had plans back then. Get into a good college. Major in something meaningful. Find a job. A wife. Have the two kids and the picket fence. Live a moderately satisfying middle class existence...then die an old man in his bed. Boy, had those plans been flushed down the proverbial crapper. The spine of the book cracked in protest as he slammed it shut and shoved it back into his bag. 

He glanced at the clock on the cinderblock wall. The color was almost as nauseating as the food. Piss yellow was not a color that inspired much of an appetite, in him at least. Blood red would have been better, as far as he was concerned. God, he was hungry. The students, the teachers, everyone in this godforsaken hellhole had no idea how much like sheep they really were. He could tear through the entire school and drain them all before anyone got the chance to call 911. The tips of his fangs sprung out of his gums, aching with the desire to put the thought into motion. Damn. He. Was. Hungry.

Intriguing as the thought of draining the entire senior class was. He reminded himself that he was here on a mission. Someone in this school was dealing in Pink. And someone was buying it. His job was to find out whom and put a stop to it.

Bits and pieces of meaningless conversations filtered into his range of hearing. He didn't give a damn about the blonde cheerleader or the outrageous boasts about her boyfriend's biggest attribute. He could give a crap less about the in depth discussion about the differences between warp drive and hyperspace. He didn't care about the teachers' plans to drink themselves into a coma after work tonight. None of this shit was relevant to what he wanted to know. Brooding and hungry, he pulled a notebook out of his backpack and doodled idly on the cover. In fifteen minutes, the bell would ring and the second half of his visit to purgatory would begin. 

Chapter 6

Rachael closed the book she'd been pretending to read and glanced over at David. His long legs straddled the bench. His shoulders curved forweard in a slouch as he carelessly scribbled with a pen on the cover of his notebook. She liked that he was left handed, like her. He sat alone in a sparsely inhabited corner of the cafeteria. As the new kid he was the worst of the worst social outcasts. Worse than her even and that was a hard feat to accomplish. 

She had no friends, to speak of. A few girls that copied off of her in Spanish class and the boy that shared her table in Biology, who happened to be a bigger social outcast than she was. As if such a thing were even possible. She pretended that she was ok with not having any friends and that somehow being a loner put her above the petty barbarism of high school societal cliques. She was, as her mother often put it, her own island. Not that high school mattered much to her. It was just one of the required tortures that her parents forced her to endure.

Just thinking of her mom and dad was enough to make her cringe. There was no way she was their biological daughter. Rod and Amy Taylor were perfect. Absolutely, nauseatingly, perfect. She'd begged her mother once to confess the truth. That she was adopted. After seeing hours of footage, her birth captured in dazzling color on an old VHS tape, Rachael never asked again. 

Rod and Amy lived in the best house in the neighborhood. Rod and Amy had meaningful jobs. They drove the right cars. The Taylors hosted big parties and had important friends. Rod and Amy smiled fondly when they spoke of their high school glory days and didn't want their not so perfect daughter to miss a single second of the best days of her life. There really wasn't anything they could do about it though, not any more. She turned eighteen in September and she went to high school instead of taking the GED out of courtesy to them.




Dawn's Darkest Hour



She already had her escape planned. In January, she'd have enough credits to graduate early and she was sooooo out of here. Let the beautiful people pick out tacky prom dresses and shovel mountains of Pink up their perfect, praise the lord for plastic surgery and platinum cards, noses. LET THEM. Graduating a semester early would disappoint her parents. They'd get over it, in a decade or two. She had bigger and better things to think about. High school was like a prison and in five and a half months she'd be released.

The bell rang, a piteous, harsh, electronic, buzzing wail drawing Rachael back to the present. She'd missed her chance to go over and talk to David. Dejectedly, she wrapped an arm around the heavy stack of books required for her next class and waded into the stream of bodies filing out of the cafeteria. 

Rachael kept her head down and focused on the dingy off white tiled floor as she walked past the group of boys gathered at the exit. They looked for victims to pick on, especially defenseless looking targets like her. Attention from them was not something anybody wanted. After lunch, they'd shuffle back to wherever the faculty hid them during the hours of eight-to-three Monday through Friday and the world would be safe for another day. The heat of their eyes focused on the back of her neck. Huddled down into the stack of books against her chest, she tried to ignore their stares and hurry out of their line of sight. 

It was too late. They'd spotted her. The boys pressed in around her while one of them, making sure the teachers were out of sight, stuck his foot out, tripping her. Books went flying as Rachael's arms splayed in a vain attempt to break her fall. Students scuffled out of the way, dodging books, and trampling the litter of papers strewn on the floor with their feet. Grunting, she sat up, suppressing the tears welling behind her lashes. The cold snickering of her classmates as they walked around her like she wasn't even there forced a surge of blood to her already burning cheeks.

"Maybe you should just kill yourself, like you killed her," one of the boys, the meanest in the pack, teased as he aimed his booted toe at a book splayed out in the middle of the doorway. It's pages fluttered as he kicked the spine and sent her Calculus book flying to land against a bank of lockers across the hallway with a very solid thud.

He stretched his arms over his head and pressed his palms together. Making a motion like a swan dive, he dipped his arms toward the floor. He grinned at her like the dirt bag he was while his friends guffawed and patted him on the back in congratulations for torturing a defenseless human. "It should have been you!" he shouted before disappearing into the throng of students in retreat. 

"I didn't kill Laney!" Rachael shouted after the boys. What did it matter? Nobody believed her anyway. When she'd told her parents what she saw, they'd had her committed to a psych hospital. She'd spent weeks slobbering on herself and having pills stuffed down her throat. Until the insurance company and some doctor she barely remembered meeting declared her sane enough for society. Someday, she'd have proof and they'd have to believe her. Before she went on with her adult life she was going to do just that and Laney would be absolved of the blame for taking her own life. 

David scrambled to gather up the random papers floating down the hallway. Haphazardly, he shoved them into the book he'd salvaged from being trampled to scrap beneath the feet of the students. "You ok?" he asked offering a hand to Rachael. 

"Fine," Rachael answered, ignoring his hand. She scrambled to her feet and snatched her rumpled papers and severely abused books out of his grip. She did her best to regain what little composure she had and shoved the books in the crook of her arm. 

David wasn't about to let her walk through the herd of students alone. Teenagers had few boundaries to their cruelties. Some were staring as he walked beside her. Others pointed and whispered, loud enough for her to hear. There were a few pitying glances shot in Rachael's direction. But nobody, except for him, made a move to help her. 

"So, you like vampire books?" he asked, spotting the weathered cover from the stack in her arms. Her tears were like a storm cloud ready to burst. He'd talk about anything, ANYTHING, to keep them from falling. He didn't offer to wound her pride further by offering to carry her books to her next class. 

"It's research," Rachael mumbled. Blonde hair fell across her shoulders, shielding her face from the eyes of the students. She glanced over at him through the thick strands of her hair expecting to see the humiliation of pity in his eyes. Instead, she saw only curiosity. 

"Research?" David asked, rounding the corner at her side. The wheels of the teenage mind were in constant motion. Already whispers of Rachael's incident were beginning to be replaced by myriad, more interesting discussions. 

Rachael stopped outside the door to her next class. Defensively, she tucked the battered novel deeper into the stack in her arms. She glanced up at David and blushed before looking away. He could have walked right past her like everybody else had. He could have snickered at her shame. Instead, he walked boldly next to her, silently daring anyone to say one word. Like he didn't give a damn about what anybody thought. Maybe, he didn't. "Never mind." 

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and stared down at the floor. He didn't know about Laney. Or about the two months Rachael had spent locked up in a psych ward. He hadn't heard the school's convoluted version about what happened that night last December. Everyone in the whole school blamed her for Laney's death. David was a blank page, one that she could fill with writing before anybody else did. With him, she stood a chance at having a friend. "I gotta go." 

Chapter 7

Rachael ducked into her classroom and hurried to her desk. She didn't blame the other students for making up ridiculous lies about her. Laney had been wildly popular, a golden girl, practically oozing with vivaciousness and promise. She could have owned the school, if it hadn't been for her stubborn refusal to dump Rachael as a best friend. Her classmates couldn't accept the sympathetic, watered down version of the story told by the adults. Everyone believed Laney had committed suicide, but nobody knew why. Making Rachael a scapegoat was a far easier outlet for their collective grief.

Rachael blamed herself far more than any of the other kids could have ever imagined. She was the one who insisted that they sneak away from the other girls to have a look at the city lights from the observation deck of the Futura Tower. She'd been selfish and wanted to steal a few minutes alone with her best friend. She'd been so wrapped up in the glitz of downtown that the she got on the elevator to go back down to the lobby without realizing that Laney wasn't behind her. By the time the elevator descended all they way to the first floor and climbed the fifty-six stories back to the top, it was too late. Laney was already over the glass and metal barrier bordering the roof. 

She didn't see him at first. All her attention was focused on Laney, trying to coax her best friend back over the glass partition away from the narrow ledge barely wide enough to balance on. Laney didn't seem to hear her pleas. It was like she was asleep, but awake at the same time. Laney's eyes were open, fixated on the glittering streets far below. Her white knuckles clinging precariously to the glass and metal barrier and the soles of her shoes barely managing a foothold on the narrow ledge, her coat was a wash of winter white against the black backdrop of the night sky. Her red hair flapped wildly around her cherubic face and unseeing eyes. At the same time as Laney lost her grip and toppled off the narrow leg her arms and legs pinwheeling in the free fall. The thing practically flew out of the shadows at her.

The cops claimed the surveillance video from the observation decks showed nothing other than what had obviously happened. They claim that the cameras recorded Laney climbing over the railing of her own volition and jumping fifty-six stories to her death in an apparent suicide. Rachael's claims of being attacked by a man, dressed from head to toe in black, were immediately dismissed and attributed to the shock of witnessing her best friend's suicide. Psychologists claimed that Rachael concocted the story of her attack as a way to explain Laney's suicide. According to the authorities, there was no one else on the decks that night except for the two them. Rachael knew better than that though. 

Something drove Laney over the railing that night. Something attacked her and grappled for her jugular. If Laney hadn't fallen and the sounds of sirens hadn't shattered the cheery pre-Christmas mood of the city, she'd be dead now too. In dying Laney had saved Rachael's life. There were no do-overs. No second chances. If she could take it all back, she would have been a better best friend and played nice with the other girls for Laney's sake. She never would have asked Laney to go up to the roof with her.

No amount of drugs was going to erase the memory of that night. No good intentioned psychiatrist was going to psychobabble her into rationalizing away the thing that had snatched her best friend's life and her own in the process. She knew what it looked like. She knew where it hunted. Something had stolen her best friend away, not someone, but something. Whatever it was that caused her best friend to fall to her death. Whatever it was that attacked her and was trying to snack on her jugular wasn't human. Rachael knew what it was and as soon as she graduated and got out on her own. She was going to hunt it down and kill it.

"Miss Taylor, would you kindly come to the board and solve the equation?" 

Rachael snapped to attention at the calling of her name. "I'd rather not," she mumbled. Class was almost half over and the teacher's droning voice had been nothing but white noise in the back of her brain. She shrank farther into her seat as the teacher silenced the snickers of her classmates into submission with a scowl. 

"Very well. Perhaps someone who has been paying attention and not squandering away taxpayer dollars by merely occupying a seat in my class would like to come to the board," the teacher sighed in resignation. She had too many students who were eager to learn and was too underpaid to worry about one or two who slipped through the cracks.

Chapter 8

David slung the backpack over his shoulder and hightailed it into the flow of students rushing en masse for the doors. His first day had been an absolute bust. He knew nothing more about who was supplying Pink to the students than he did when he walked through the very same doors that morning. The students were tight lipped around him. He had to gain their trust and make friends. Hard to do when all he could think about was snacking on them. 

He had nothing, absolutely nothing in common with any of the students. Except for one... Rachael. She was into vampires, and as luck would have it, so was he. She wasn't exactly a budding social type. Everyone in the school seemed to shun her. They had that in common too. He doubted that she knew any information useful to his mission. But, maybe, just maybe, he could use her insight into the school's social hierarchy to get to those who did.

"Have a nice day at school, son?" Bianca taunted from the driver's seat. The heavily tinted windows blocked out the worst of the sun's rays and protected the interior of the car from the blinding prisms of light so painful to her sensitive vision. 

David took his time climbing into the passenger seat, leaving the wide door open far longer than he needed to. Inwardly, he chuckled at Bianca's discomfort as she shifted her head out of the rays of blinding afternoon sun. At least this part of the charade was at an end. She would be mother-in-absentia unless he had a need for her to make an appearance. He would be glad to have her gone. "Peachy, Mother, just peachy."

Bianca navigated her sleek sports car into the crawling line of buses and family laden SUV's spewing enough exhaust to suffocate an entire city block from their tailpipes. "Care to grab a bite before you head back to suburbia?" Impatiently, she drummed her perfectly coifed nails, painted red to match her car's exterior as the line inched forward. "My God, the light is green, why aren't these people moving?" Sometimes she could almost understand O'Sullivan's distain for humans. Sometimes. They were nothing but an unfortunate complication to her existence.

"I prefer to dine alone."

"Such a sullen child did I produce," Bianca said as she finally pulled out into the endless flow of traffic. "Carter will expect a progress report in his e-mail tonight."

David slouched in the expensive leather seat. "There isn't anything to report yet."

"Trouble with the natives? I expected more out of you than an endless stream of excuses." 

"Bianca," David snapped, turning in the seat to face her. "Have you ever been to high school?"

"Of course not," Bianca chuckled. 

"All right then. When I have something to report, I will. Until then, shut the hell up. High school is harder than it looks. A lot harder." David slouched in his seat and watched the concrete and buildings yield to trees, lush well-kept lawns of green grass, and neat, tidy rows of overpriced, tract housing. The tires squealed on pavement as she pulled into the drive. He leapt out, grabbing his backpack, and darted for his temporary snippet of the American Dream. Suburbia and public transit were far better options than dealing with his pseudo-mom. 

David peeked from between the white mini blinds, which seemed to be standard issue in suburban hell. Bianca peeled out of the drive, leaving black lines of tread on the otherwise immaculate concrete. Good. Satisfied that he was done with her for the time being, he slid the blinds back into place. Guilt panged at his gut as he tossed the backpack on the empty kitchen table. He should make an attempt to do his homework. But, who cared. 

He skulked to his room and flopped onto the bed, wrinkling the newly purchased comforter to oblivion beneath his weight. He was tense and hungry. Starved. Unless he wanted the neighborhood's missing pet population to skyrocket, he was going to have to wait for the cover of darkness to scrounge up some dinner. Strays didn't belong in this part of town and neither did he.

Chapter 9

Carter sat across from his nemesis, glowering. "What's the meaning of this?" He unwrapped the locket from a handkerchief in his coat's inner pocket and dropped it onto the scratched dark wood table. The bar was one far off the beaten path. Seldom enough frequented by humans and never by his kind. The hunting was too poor to make it worth the effort, but from what he'd heard the whiskey was good. The secluded booth in the back of the bar provided exactly the type of privacy he needed for this little Q and A session with Eric. 

"Carter, is that any way to treat an old friend? You invited me to share a drink with you and the moment we meet, you shower me in questions and unspoken accusations." O'Sullivan leaned back in his chair, amused by Carter's agitated state. His jaw was clenched tight enough to shatter a diamond to dust. Laser beams shot from beneath the slits in his sandy colored lashes and all that destructive power was focused on him. Provoking Carter was every bit as dangerous as poking a rattlesnake with a stick. He never knew when Carter might strike and it was fun, dangerous, but oh so fun.

Carter wanted to reach out and choke that knowing smirk right off of O'Sullivan's face. Thin lips curled a cool grin, daring him to do just that. The man was a burr up Carter's ass and he knew it. Anyone else would have been terrified to sit across from him and provoke his rage. O'Sullivan sat, relaxed in his side of the booth, idly toying with the coaster under his drink. Bastard didn't even have the decency to have a hair of his sleek, dark ponytail stray out of place or any hint of fear reflecting in his unblinking, studious, eye. "We're not friends." Carter reached across the table and snatched the locket out of O'Sullivan's reach. "How'd you get this?"

"From Yessette, of course," O'Sullivan answered. Carter was a man tipped too close to the edge. One little push might send him toppling over. As entertaining as Carter's obvious ire proved to be, here was not the place. Best the private war that had been brewing between them for centuries stay private. "Keep it."

Carter folded his fingers around the locket in his palm. The smooth gold disc was cool against his skin. "You stole it off her dead body." The thought of what he'd done to Yessette sickened him. The thought of O'Sullivan's hands on her lifeless corpse, plucking the locket from her torn throat sent a hot rush of bile surging up his esophagus. 

O'Sullivan couldn't suppress the chuckle that escaped his lips. "Carter, I am many things, but a grave robber, I am not." Carter's shoulders vibrated with unspent rage. O'Sullivan leaned over the table, bending close to Carter's ear. The table's surface was tacky from the filth of too many spilled drinks and too few cleanings. "Yessette lives." 

Carter stiffened as O'Sullivan's hot breath skated across his cheek. The man was close enough for him to reach out and rip out his throat with his bare hands. Taunting him. "I felt her life leave her. Yessette is long dead," Carter gasped. He held her limp body in his arms. Her blood coated his fingers. The crimson stained his hands. "Don't toy with me, Eric, not about this," Carter warned. His fingers itched to go for the blade strapped to his hip and end the bastard that had been a thorn in his side for far too long. If the bar weren't full of witnesses, he'd do just that and deliver Hell its finest prize.

O'Sullivan eased back and lowered his lithe body into the booth. "The blood that flows through your veins is wasted on you. Faith was something you always lacked. Pity." He withdrew a small silver case from the breast pocket of his navy pinstripe suit. The case opened with a click. O'Sullivan pulled out a stiff card and slid it across the table to Carter. "Stop by sometime. Let your eyes see the proof of what your mind refuses to believe." 

Carter snatched up the card and studied the address printed in thick, black, heavy scroll across its expensive, vellum surface. "I want you out of my city."

O'Sullivan smiled with a leer and returned the case to his breast pocket. He had Carter there. "Rules are a bitch aren't they." Carter couldn't expel him from the city without cause. O'Sullivan was an expert at covering up any trace of sin he might commit.

Eric slid out of the booth and rose to his full height. It was always good to stare down an opponent. He casually straightened the lapel of his suit. "By the way how is your little family these days? I'm surprised you left them for the Sons to protect. Doubting your abilities to keep them safe or did you just grow bored with family life? I'd be happy to offer her my services in your absence."

"Leave them out of this," Carter hissed as he stood to face O'Sullivan. When it came to Shayla, rules or not, he'd take his nemesis down right here and now at the hint of a threat to her or her son. 

O'Sullivan had the old boy so rattled that he was on the verge of losing control. Good. White points peeked from beneath Carter's upper lip in unspoken threat. Obviously this woman and the infant meant more to Carter than O'Sullivan had ever dreamed. Excellent. It was always nice to know that he had another card to play, if he needed it. "The minute you crossed their paths they were dragged into this and you know it." He patted Carter on the back in consolation. "Don't worry, your little family is safe, for the time being."




Dawn's Darkest Hour



"What do you want?" Carter spun on his heel to face O'Sullivan. Couldn't he just kill the bastard here and now and get it over with?

"Simple." O'Sullivan shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "You." He put a few steps between himself and Carter. "Carter, don't forget who you truly are. What you are. Yessette is looking forward to being reunited with you. Don't keep her waiting." With that he turned his back to Carter and left him there, skulking after him in the dark corner of a bar as he walked away.

Carter pushed his way through the patrons left disheveled in the wake of O'Sullivan's exit. The grimy, plate glass door tinted with years of unwashed filth swung back and forth in the rain soaked air behind him. He spotted O'Sullivan, walking through the rain as casually as if there weren't a cloud in the sky. Eric was about twenty yards ahead of him. Carter followed Eric to the curb where a black sedan with impermeable darkly tinted windows idled in wait for O'Sullivan's return. Eric, knowing damn good and well he was behind him tipped his head cockily in Carter's direction and eased a passenger across the wide backseat as he slid inside the car. The driver held the door wide in wait for Carter to join them. 

Carter stumbled on a crack in the aged concrete sidewalk and gasped. The passenger peeked out from the dark interior of the car, blinking at him with wide blue eyes fringed with thick, cinnamon colored lashes. A pair of shapely, feminine legs stretched out over the edge of the seat. The crimson silk skirt inched up higher on her thighs as she bent forward to get a better look at him. Blonde hair trailed over a slender shoulder, its tresses curled and hung free, hiding the breasts and narrow waist that Carter knew were there. "Yessette." His voice was more of a croak, lips forming the name that had haunted him for centuries. 

O'Sullivan gestured with his index and middle finger, tipping them from his brow in a salute. With a subtle nod to his driver, the car door swung shut, closing out the night and shutting in Yessette and Eric. The driver slid behind the wheel and locked the doors tight. The car lazily pulled away from the curb with the liquid grace of a predator. 

Carter's feet were glued to the cement beneath them. He stood in the cold, pelting rain, watching the taillights disappear into the dark glow of the city. Rain dripped from the wisps of hair plastered to his forehead and rolled across his cheeks in a river, like chilly tears. His breath came out in pants and his fingers trembled. Yessette was alive. What little there was left of his heart splintered into bits. In the rain, on a shabby sidewalk, in the worst part of town, he died. Again.

Chapter 10

Shayla sat bolt upright in the bed, gasping for breath as her trembling fingers fumbled for the lamp on the bedside table. She'd been sleeping, not well, but at least, finally sleeping. Her dreams were filled with rage and white-hot anger, which seemed to come from someplace other than her. What had forced her to jolt awake wasn't the boiling fury transfused into her soul, but the sudden emptiness left in its wake.

Fat tears dangled off the tips of her dark lashes and hung there, suspended in crystalline drops, before they fell to roll down her cheeks in a searing path of boiling heat. The emotions holding her under siege weren't hers. After a moment of deep breathing, she began to sift through the cobwebs in her brain and realized that the emotions belonged to Carter. She was just an unwilling participant in his latest festival of agony. 

Her knees were knobby under the softness of her chin as she curled into a ball and drew her thighs up tightly against her chest. All she could do was wait for the hollow, empty sensation fisting her heart to fade. Lately, she hardly got any sleep at all. When she was asleep, her mind was more vulnerable to the link it shared with Carter. She could see what he saw. Feel what he felt. If he could do the same with her emotions, he was much better a master at blocking them out. Otherwise, all he'd feel was the pain she reflected off of him. 

She glanced around the dim room and tried to force the sensation of utter emptiness out and replace it with happier thoughts. The only problem, happiness was in short supply these days. R.J.'s crib had been moved into the room he now shared with her nephew Evan. Her late night pacing and the agony of her nightmares had forced him out. The green tinted, plastic prescription bottle rattled in her palm. Nothing the good doctor gave her worked. No herbal teas soothed her and the drugs made her mental anguish worse. Instead of closing down the link between Carter and herself, they opened it wider. 

Thomas promised her this drug was the answer. This new pill would solve her problems. She shook a round, yellow tablet into her palm and swallowed it dry in desperation. Something had to work. She couldn't take much more. 

The sage Shaman reassured her that with time and distance, the link would weaken. The problem was that she needed relief from Carter's thoughts. Now. There was only one other way to break the link and Shayla would not consider that. Sometimes, she dreaded the day when her mind would be her own. Because when that day came, she'd have to admit what she wasn't ready to face. Carter wasn't coming back.

 Chapter 11

David hunkered down deeper in the shadows, pulling the collar of his jacket higher on his neck to shield himself from the raindrops seeking to wind their way down his spine. He was an avid patron of the city's zoo. He frequented the zoo's intricate iron gates often. Not because he had a particular penchant for wildlife, per se, but because he enjoyed something with a little more spice than alley cat or stray mutt in his diet. In a pinch, rats would do. He was rarely that desperate though. 

He squinted through the pelting raindrops and sighted his dinner. The lion shook his fuzzy golden mane against the deluge and sniffed the wet, night air. His black lips pulled away from his dingy fangs as he scented a predator close by. David supposed it was possible that one day, the lion would get him instead of the other way around, but not tonight. The black iron bars that separated the bulky lion from hoards of enthralled onlookers day after day were rain slicked against David's palms. With determination, he leapt over the barrier and landed with a soft, graceful, whisper on the other side. 

Animals only sated him temporarily. The lion's blood was thin and rolled over his tongue in a tangy waterfall. David drank him down. Drawing as much sustenance as he could from the weaker blood without killing the subdued beast in his grip. The need for humanity and the sweet red cells that floated in their vessels was an unfortunate consequence of his condition. 

Vampires liked to think themselves as masters over the human race when in fact they were as dependent upon humanity as an infant on its mother's milk. Without humans vampires would cease to exist. David could swear off human blood and had many, many times. But, he always came around to the true communion of his religion and filled his cup with humanity's crimson sacrament. He had no other choice. 

David sealed the deep punctures in the lion's flesh and dragged him to a dry corner of the pen to recover from his generous donation. Hunger burned his gut. His feeding had managed to buy him a day, maybe two, at the most. He could have drained the lion completely lifeless, but the aching hunger would still be there. He worshiped the sensation like a zealot. This was his personal brand of self-flagellation. The constant pain served to remind him of what he'd been ten years ago. Human. 

Soon enough, he'd seek out other nourishment. Where others indulged freely. He'd allow himself just a sip, barely enough to keep him sane. He had more than enough sins weighing him down. He didn't need to add anymore bulk to the chain he carried. Murder of the innocent, and more than his share of the guilty, had added more links than he cared to count. 

Chapter 12

Rachael forced her weary body to repeat the punishing round of reps for the third time. Every muscle in her body ached and complained as she squeezed out ab crunch after ab crunch. Even though she could see the vague outline of muscles peeking out from behind the soft curve of her stomach. It wasn't good enough. She was going up against the undead in a few short months. She had to get into shape, if she wanted to live. 

All her research, every cheesy vampire novel she'd ever read and stupid horror flick she'd ever seen, led her to believe that she might, just might, walk out of this alive. If she was smart and well prepared. An exhausted breath eased from her lips as she stretched out on the plush carpeted floor. 

Ever since her 'break down' she was careful. Her parents watched her like a hawk, analyzing every move she made and looking for what the doctor called signs of a relapse. She hid her ripped biceps and narrowing curves from them, beneath the bulk of baggy sweaters and loose jeans. They wouldn't be proud of her lean muscle mass or bulging quads. That she'd worked up to sprinting two miles in less than twenty minutes would be lost on them. They'd see it as some sort of sign and she'd spend the rest of her life locked up, labeled as a crazy, while the vampire was free to kill, and kill, and kill. 

She was even more careful with her secret arsenal of notes and paraphernalia. Getting that vial of holy water out of Saint Mark's hadn't been an easy task, but she'd done it. She had two crosses that never left the chains around her neck. One was silver. According to her exhaustive literature search, vampires couldn't tolerate looking at crosses and silver burned their skin like acid. The other one was gold, just in case, and just because she thought it was pretty. Her parents took her request for crosses as a sign that she'd given herself over to a higher power and was developing an interest in good old fashioned Christianity. She was a Christian and she prayed every night for the vengeance that someday would come. 

Nimble fingers pried loose the piece of drywall in the back of her closet that hid her stash from her parent's watchful prying eyes. The thin spiral bound notebook was still there along with the holy water and a wicked looking carving knife that she had pilfered from the kitchen.

The most important thing in her little hidey hole was in a small glass tube. The tube rolled across her palm, flecks of glitter picked up the light from the lamp on her dresser. This tube had been harder to come by than the holy water and was the secret weapon she was counting on. If the rumors about pink were true, she'd be able to defeat a whole army of vampires with just the contents of this tiny glass tube alone. 

The sound of her mother's footsteps treaded wearily on the stairs. Hurriedly, Rachael stuffed the contents of her stash in between the studs in the wall and slid the drywall back into place. She tiptoed to her bed and picked up the textbook she'd been halfheartedly studying before her workout. 

Amy didn't wait for her daughter to answer the door. Rather she paused for a second and then pushed her way inside. She held a glass of water and cupped a pill in her palm. She always, always made sure Rachael took her medicine every night. They'd tried trusting her to take the medicine on her own, but when the contents of the medicine bottle didn't decrease. They'd had to take over the chore for her. "Time for bed," she said, holding out the water and the pill.

Rachael slammed the textbook closed and went through the nightly charade of taking the glass and the pill from her mother's extended fingers. Rarely, did her mother bother to check to see if she actually swallowed the medicine anymore. But, sometimes she did. Rachael hated it when her mother checked. The thought of slinking to the bathroom and puking the medicine up was not one she relished. Her parents, especially her mother, were doing what they thought was best for their little girl. To Rachael, it seemed as if they were more interested in chemically subduing their only daughter into a fog of complacency instead of dealing with her. "All gone," she said after a thoroughly convincing swallow of stale tap water.

"Good girl," Amy said with satisfaction as she wished her daughter a hurried goodnight and closed the bedroom door snugly.

Rachael cupped her hand under her chin and spit the pill, a pale, gooey, slobbery, lump, into her palm. She dropped the nasty wad into the toilet and flushed with vehemence. She didn't need chemicals to make her sane. She was sane. Perhaps, she was the only sane person in this family. Hell, in the whole world as far as she knew. Satisfied that every trace of the pill had been flushed away. She flopped on her bed and dug the vampire novel she'd been reading from under her mattress. She only had to play along with her parents for a while longer. That and according to popular legends, sharpen a very, very long stake. 

 Chapter 13

Nora tugged a long strand of hair behind her ear as she bent over the trunk full of memories she kept in the tight confines of her almost attic. She hadn't bothered with the trunk in years. Tonight, sleep wouldn't carry her away and she had to take a peek at its contents to ease her frazzled mind. All day, thoughts of David hadn't left her. Not the David in her class, but thoughts of the David she knew a decade ago. Her fingers ruffled through the faded silken material of a packed away prom dress and the dry papery remnants of endless mementos before locking on the spine of her senior class yearbook. 

The navy blue cover was tattered on the corners. It took her a week's wages to buy the stupid book. In the day, that was a lot of hamburgers to hustle. Brittle from years of storage the spine creaked as she opened the book. The pages were slick and glossy against her fingertips. A smile curved her lips as she turned page after page, scanning the thumbnail sized photos. Westville High was a lot smaller then. The senior class graduating this year was bigger than the entire population of the school in those days. 

She indulged in a brief trip down memory lane. God, how could she have ever thought that hairstyle looked good on her? Poofy was a word best used to describe fuzzy, white poodles, not hairdo's. 2001 was a different time, and the school, a universe unto its own. 

David didn't officially graduate. Nevertheless, at his classmates' demanding, the photo, snapped sometime in late September, was included in the yearbook. She and David shared many of the same classes, as did most kids in the school. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine him. The way he was then, slouching in the seat across from hers in U.S. History. Idly doodling on the back of his notebook as the teacher droned on and on and on. 

She probed her memory, trying to isolate the kid's features and compared them to the grainy color photo in her yearbook. The hair color was similar. The David in her morning English Lit class wore his hair down over his forehead in a messy tangle. The David she sat across from in U.S. History wore his hair combed neatly over to one side. The David from today had on wrinkled, baggy clothing that looked like he'd slept in them for a week. Her David always had his t-shirts tucked into a pair of crisp, freshly washed jeans. The David from class walked with a slouchy, careless aura about him with a seemingly dangerous, graceful purpose to each step. David of 2001 walked with an almost happy spring in his step. 

Nora squinted and tried to hone in on the eye color. She couldn't really tell if the two Davids' eyes were the same color or not. Today's David had avoided meeting her stare. The David of her youth would have met her gaze head on, eager for a glance into her blue orbs. David had been enthusiastic and greeted the world with a hopeful, wide-eyed exuberance. Not the David she met today, something about his eyes went way beyond his years. His were eyes that had seen too much. They were dark, muddy pools, like ink drops that could stop a heart in mid pulse. 

Shaking her head, Nora closed the cover on her yearbook and returned it to the trunk. Speculation had gotten her nothing but a sleepless night. The David in her English class was just another student. Perhaps, one that was far too jaded for his eighteen years, but nonetheless, just another kid in her class. One whose papers she'd grade and pass or fail based on his work. Next May, he'd be gone on his way with the rest of the graduates. Hopefully, to a good college somewhere and not on the streets, like she knew a few of her former classmates and some of her former students ended up. 

She snapped the lid shut on the trunk and wiggled her butt down the narrow stairs that led from her attic. The David of her youth had a special place in her heart, one dedicated solely to him. Nora had a few regrets from those days. She'd been a shy teen and David shyer still. They'd glance at one another out of the corners of their eyes when they thought the other one wasn't looking. Sometimes, they'd speak in the hall or share a smile. They had it bad for each other, but neither one of them ever did a thing about it. She kept thinking he'd eventually work up the courage to ask her out. Or maybe, after all, the new millennium was here and she'd be the aggressor and ask him out. He didn't and neither did she. She'd always thought she'd have tomorrow or the next day to find the words. One bleak day in December, that tomorrow she thought she'd have, was gone.

Chapter 14

Contrary to popular belief, vampires do sleep. Not much, but some. Maybe their lack of sleep was more because of the nonstop horror fest that played every time they closed their eyes than actual lack of physical need. David threw back the covers and shuddered. His mind kindly offered a playback of the nightmare he had every time he closed his. He didn't need this perpetual repeat performance. Living through it the first time had been bad enough. 

Big brothers were supposed to look out for their little sisters. Keep them safe from harm and chase all the bullies away. David had always been a failure in that aspect. As a little girl, Teresa had always had an overactive imagination. Timid and fearful, she looked up to David, her big brother, to keep the monsters at bay. He'd failed her then and he'd failed her now. 

Theresa didn't deserve the hand fate dealt her. She didn't ask to become the dark fiend that she had in those last few weeks of her life. David had made the choice for her. Without his gift, she would have died in a cold, dark alley. Her last memories would have been of the filth and squalor of trash and the dank stench of the city. Instead, that setting, was the place of her birth, or rather her rebirth into the throws of the living darkness he cast upon her. 

Vampires were not the hip, cool, benevolent beings portrayed in the media. They were not altruistic. They were dark creatures of a black nature. David thought that in time, Theresa would adapt and master the darkness. She did not. The life of a vampire wasn't for everybody. It definitely was not the life for her. Most that couldn't cut it brought about their own demise. 

Theresa was a very, very bad vampire. She dealt out death with the efficiency of a Vegas blackjack dealer. Swiftly. Coldly. Mercilessly. David thought taking her to the Sons would fix her. That they held the key to some mystical formula that would make her better. They did not. She'd committed the ultimate crime and taken human lives. One life would have condemned her. But, Theresa was a creature of excess and one hadn't been enough. 

The Sons were judge, jury, and executioner. They demanded justice and swift execution of their sentence. David had carried out their decree. He knew he was too late. He knew that there was nothing anyone could do to cure his sister. The only way to repair the damage he'd done was to do what he should have let nature do in that dark alley and let her go to the final death. By his hand he'd created her and by his hand, she found peace, at last. And he hated himself for it. 




Dawn's Darkest Hour



The soft carpet whispered against the soles of his bare feet as he padded out of his room. In the wee hours of the morning the dark suburban house just looked wrong. Pale light from streetlamps filtered through the narrow kitchen window and shone in streaks across the tiled floor. He flipped on a light, as if the yellow, incandescent, glow would chase away the nightmares that constantly circled his mind like buzzards circling a forgotten, decaying carcass abandoned at the side of the road. Bit by bit the nightmares pecked away at his sanity. By now, he thought there wouldn't be much left of the fragile organ occupying the hollow place in his skull. But, there was always a new twist to his imagination, enough to keep the nightmares healthy and well fed. 

David sat at the dining room table and unzipped his backpack. It wouldn't hurt him to try to be a good student. The spine of the English book in his hand groaned with age as he turned the pages. Out of the blur of his first day at school, the English teacher had stood out amongst the other teachers. For some reason, he found himself actually wanting to earn a passing grade in her class. 

As if impressing her mattered in the slightest. Once his mission was completed, he was gone, back into the shadows where he belonged. He should be focusing on finding the source person for the drug instead of analyzing the intricacies behind Pride and Prejudice. Yet, he read on, for her. Irritated with himself, he pulled out his class schedule. Her name was not familiar to him. N. Temple: English Composition 101. The name that went with his teacher meant nothing. But, there was something about her. Something he couldn't quite place and at the same time there was something familiar about the woman behind the English teacher. 

Vampire speed was an amazing thing. He scribbled his answers and scanned pages with blurring strokes of his pen and movements of his fingers. By the time dawn filled the horizon with finger like streaks of gold and pink, his homework as finished. In completing it, he'd found none of the answers he sought. He was no closer to discovering how pink was filtering into the school system or its source. Maybe today, he would. 

Chapter 15

Carter spent the night wandering the city. He aimlessly roamed through the dingy, filth littered narrow streets of the city's ghettos. There was no fear or wariness in his stride as he walked though the dark. Even the most desperate had enough sense to give him a wide berth. Especially on a night like this when his mind was a thunderstorm pounding behind his temples. 

A wide river separated the city's fine upstanding citizens from the embarrassment of the disease of poverty rotting away on the other side. A dazzling display of reflected light danced on the water's rippling current. Carter wasn't impressed. The stench of decay from the shore's steep banks tickled at the back of his nose. The water was as diseased as the city around it. 

Humans could be fooled into believing anything. For the most part, they only saw what they wanted to see anyway. The good part of the city wasn't any different than the impoverished streets he'd wandered all night. Things were cleaner on this side of the river. Occasionally, a police car would idle past the neat rows of brownstones in guise of protecting the humble, law abiding citizens that slept inside. 

Postage stamp sized front yards and tidy brownstones gradually gave way to rolling, sprawling lawns carefully clipped to perfection and homes, both larger and grander in scale and accouterments in comparison to their shoebox sized predecessors. These homes were the biggest and best the city had to offer; her crowning jewel. Crime and poverty happened to other people, not to the people who lived inside of these grand homes. These people slept securely behind heavy, ornate iron gates and tall fences. In this part of town, patrol cars were a regular sighting. If only the good people inside these fine homes knew who their neighbor really was, they wouldn't feel so safe in their expensive beds. 

Carter didn't need the pale, gray light of dawn to see the addresses. He found the house easily enough. All he had to do was search for the biggest, most overstated house on the block and he knew he'd found her. 

The gates were wide open in invitation. O'Sullivan knew his enemies very, very well. O'Sullivan knew he would come and had thrown out the welcome mat. Garish topiary bordered the long walkway leading to the house. Lights twinkled merrily from behind heavily curtained windows, competing with nature's dazzling pre-dawn hues of pink and gold. The house towered above him like a brick fortress. Carter could feel eyes on him as he glided through the shadows toward the thick, ornately adorned, oak door. 

He didn't need to knock. O'Sullivan knew he was there and was watching him with casual interest. Making him wait before he came to the door. Carter didn't have to wait long. 

The door opened slowly, on silent hinges. The backlighting from the wide foyer highlighted the rich silk gown wrapped around her shapely curves like a lover's embrace. Lush, full, crimson lips, curved in an utterly feminine smile, inviting him in unspoken invitation to sample their softness. A waterfall of pale, blonde curls cascaded over her shoulders and ended in a thick pool at the slope of her waist. Eyes the color of blue that existed only in his boyhood memories of a sky he'd not seen in centuries, twinkled at him. "Eric said you'd come," a voice as soft, and soothing as a summer rain on dry, parched earth, whispered.

Carter stood there trapped between worlds. One foot over the threshold and the world he knew would no longer exist. If he stayed planted where he was, the world he'd fantasized over for centuries would disappear in a puff of lemon verbena scented smoke. 

Fingers reached to touch the pale, peach soft skin of her shoulder. Lips formed to say the word that had been trapped on his lips for countless days and nights. He could scarcely believe that she was real when he'd tried so hard to convince himself that she was nothing but a rotting corpse long forgotten by time and the world. Was she some cruel apparition that had come back to haunt him or perhaps a memory that had, in the fringes of what sanity he had left, formed into flesh? "Yessette," he croaked helplessly as an infant long starved for its mother's milk. 

Like a blind man suddenly given back his sight, he followed her through the open door. His fingers slicked over the lushness of her lips. She was real, flesh and bone beneath them. She smiled up at him, urging him deeper into the foyer. The door slid shut with a soft click. "Carter, you've finally come back to me."

O'Sullivan leaned against the marble mantle of the fireplace. So easily the mighty fall, he thought watching the reunion that transpired in the foyer. Carter was an unyielding, great oak in a forest of lesser saplings and twigs. Lightening struck, as Yessette placed a kiss on those placid lips, searing him to ash. 

O'Sullivan could withdraw the blade hidden behind his back and have been done with Carter right then and there. But, watching his son, his finest creation brought low by this tiny, waif of a girl, was much, much more fun. He'd kill Carter later, if the son of a bitch were lucky. Eric's patience had finally paid off and the last round of the game was finally beginning. 

Yessette lived in a world of flowers and sunshine. Her feet weren't fully grounded in reality, or at least not the awful version of it she watched from her window seat. Her universe was far happier and Carter was at the center of it. He always had been. Eric was a benevolent caregiver, but Carter was the only reason she'd stayed with him for so long. He promised her one-day, Carter would come back for her, and just as Eric promised, Carter had come. Her heart fluttered like hummingbird's wings as her lips found his. His arms crushed against her body as they kissed after so many, many, long centuries apart. 

Sometimes she didn't think clearly. Pretty things devoured her attention so that there wasn't room for much else. Her chambers upstairs were stuffed full with vibrant silks and delicate laces. She had music boxes lining the walls. Sometimes she wound them up and listened to them all play at the same time. Shinny things were especially distracting to her. Eric loaded her jewelry boxes with pretty, shiny objects. Sometimes, she'd spend hours, maybe days, staring at their glitter against her pale skin. 

She couldn't understand how or why she'd become the thing she was. It bothered her that she couldn't remember or comprehend exactly what was wrong with her. Every time she strained to recall what had happened to make her the way she was, why she'd never die and always be beautiful, Eric would buy her another present to add to her already extensive collections. He didn't want her to fret. That was so sweet of him, to take such good care of her for so long. Now with Carter back, Eric wouldn't need to worry so much. Carter was here and he would see after her. 

There were so many things she couldn't remember about what she called the time before. Eric and Carter had been such good friends, close as brothers. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't remember why they weren't or what had happened to make them such bitter enemies. 

Big pieces of the past were missing from her mind. As the years flew by, more and more of what she could remember vanished. She could barely recall the feeling of sunlight on her face or the gentle whisper of a warm breeze on her cheek. She couldn't remember her parents or details about the land of her birth, but she knew she was English. She had no concept of time and couldn't recall her birthday, but she knew she was very, very old. Food held her fascination, but she couldn't remember why. 

When she got hungry, Eric fed her. He gave her rich, sweet, crimson drink in fine, crystal goblets that chased her hunger away. Something about the goblet's contents always repulsed her. But no matter how hard she tried to turn them away, the delicious aroma and Eric's gentle urging always coaxed her to drink.

The bleak, dark hollowness that sometimes filled her mind frightened her. Eric

was always there to soothe her as a father eases a child terrified of the night. At first, he sought her out as a lover. In her gratitude, she'd tried to comply with his gentle requests. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't conjure up the feelings that a woman has for a man and she could not return his gestures. She loved him, but as a child loves a parent.

Those feelings, the rightness that a woman feels when held by a lover, gripped her body in heady siege. Slowly, afraid that Carter might flee, she led him up the winding staircase to the bed that had been vacant for far too long. 

Her eyes met Eric's as he glanced at her from the fireplace in the sitting room. She was supposed to do this. She remembered now. Eric promised that if she did this, took Carter to her bed and loved him as a woman loves a man, Carter would stay. Forever. Eric wanted her happiness and now, her joy was about to be complete and the three of them would live happily ever after, just like in one of her fairy tales.

Carter's foot struck the first stair. The heel of his boot echoed off the hollow wood beneath it. He hesitated for a moment. He was in the enemy's lair. He should be paying attention to his surroundings. No doubt, O'Sullivan was a master of trickery and had traps set at every turn. He never should have come here alone. He was never unarmed. But, in his present mental state, he was in no shape to fight. Yessette's delicate fingers warmed his frozen palm. Gently her fingers tugged on his hands, urging him up the staircase. His feet were planted solidly on the first step, frozen. There was another reason he couldn't go up those stairs and follow Yessette to her bed. Shayla. 

"Carter, come," Yessette's voice was almost a palpable thing, like a gentle lover's caress on his skin. She tugged on the tips of his fingers insistently. "Please." Maybe it was the please or maybe it was her sheer gown clung to reveal a creamy length of shapely leg, the gentle slope of her stomach, or the soft down at the apex of her thighs. Blonde lengths of hair spilled over her shoulders to hide the ripe peaks of pert nipples and perfectly shaped breasts. So strange, out of all of the things he had forgotten over the centuries. He'd never forgotten how right the soft fullness felt in his palms or the taste of their ripe peaks on his tongue. His legs felt as if they were made of rubber and his feet as if they were infused with lead. Slowly, like an invalid standing for the first time, he climbed the stairs. 

O'Sullivan watched Yessette work her magic. He'd been in pursuit of his wayward son for centuries. The man had always somehow avoided every one of his traps. Yet, Yessette had Carter mindless and entranced within a matter of seconds, leading him by the hand like a trusting child. This trap was one that Carter couldn't escape. Sex was, after all, the tenderest of all traps. Carter hadn't seen this one coming. He had willingly stepped into it head first.

"Carter, love me." Yessette purred in delight as his lips traced a path over her collarbones. She hadn't realized how dead and lonely she felt until his hands roamed over her body, thawing her frozen flesh. 

Carter battled with the beast in his groin and the shattering of his heart. Shayla. He was destroying her heart with every taste of Yessette's berry lips and with every brush of her skin against his. He'd been starving for her for centuries and now she was offering him his fill. What a bastard he was to be pawing at Yessette, feeling the love he'd buried deep inside for her flowing once again through his veins. His hands traveled over her bare skin, relying on the memory of her to guide them along the way to her secret places he'd never forgotten. 

Yessette's sighs of pleasure were like strains of beautiful music that hadn't been heard in centuries. Her body was an empty canvas for his brush to paint. Shayla's heart was breaking, pounding in lethal rhythm with his own. A part of him was dying with her. The part of him that he deluded himself to believing was still human. He could do her a small courtesy and break the link, better that than to feel their love suffering in its death throes. The sudden awfulness of nothing was kinder than to have her endure sensations and the depths of emotions that weren't hers. Better to end it this way than to allow her to see him fall headfirst into a deep well and drown. 

His fangs descended from their hiding place in his gums. Aching and wild with need he freed his erection and buried the bastard betrayers, his cock into Yessette's tight sheath and his fangs, into her beautiful, graceful long neck and sated both needs simultaneously with furious, instinctive, animalistic abandon. 

Chapter 16

The coffee mug shattered into a thousand tiny ceramic pieces, sending hot liquid, cream, sugar, and shards in a spray across the wooden kitchen floor. Shayla gripped the counter and tried to remain upright, but the assault upon her senses drover her to her knees. Sweat rolled between her shoulder blades in a thick river. Her fingers trembled and reached out for something to hold onto. A whimper escaped her throat at the fury of sensations assaulting her body. Carter...his hands smoothed across foreign flesh... the taste of feminine sweat coated the tip of her tongue... The surge of want slammed into her core and left her gasping for breath... his want...his want for another woman. 

Nausea rolled through her stomach as her view of the world narrowed down to Carter. Shayla crouched on the kitchen floor and gripped the sides of her temples. She just wanted it to stop. Knowing that Carter was having sex with another woman was bad enough. She didn't want to feel what the woman's skin felt like to Carter's sensitive fingertips or how the bitch whore tasted! A hard jolt of pure lust sent her scrabbling across the wide wooden planks. "Make it stop!" she panted in utter disgust and agony at her body's betraying response to the sensations. 

A scream peeled from her throat. She blindly crawled across the kitchen floor as she saw Carter's world unveil before her unseeing eyes. The woman ...whore... was amazing beautiful and fragile as a mountain wildflower with an eternal frost upon its brilliant petals. Hot tears rolled down Shayla's burning cheeks. Carter's desire for this woman battered her psyche. HE LOVED HER. Shayla could sense that Carter loved this woman in a way that he'd never loved her. She felt his longing for this woman, longing that had been consuming him slowly, bit by bit, for centuries. 

Realization was as painful and shattering as the assault on Shayla's body. She thought she knew Carter, all of him, mind, body, and soul. How well he'd hidden this woman and his feelings from her. Shayla slid down the wall and curled into a fetal ball on the floor. Her breaths came out in short pants of pain as she unwillingly bore witness to Carter's betrayal. The peals of her son's shrill cries echoed in her ears. She couldn't answer them. She couldn't move. All she could do was feel sensations that weren't hers and the agony of her breaking heart.

Shayla's body rocked and trembled on the cold planks beneath her. Not even the loss of her husband, witnessing his life drain from the fatal wounds onto the wooden beams beneath him could compare to the suffering she felt at Carter's betrayal. He wasn't done yet. Her agony wasn't nearly complete. He did the unthinkable. Shayla choked on the invisible blood as it burned a path over her tongue and down her throat. There was a moment of searing, wrenching, pain that drove another agonized, hollow scream from her throat, and then...nothing. NOTHING.

She floated in this empty, hollow world of emptiness. Strong arms, their owner she could not guess, lifted her and carried her upstairs. She didn't know where she was being carried. She didn't care. She was lost in this black universe of nothing. Inside of her mind a wolf howled in the distance, an agonized pitiful sound filled with mourning. Her wolf verbalized the pain their co-joined selves felt and she could not put into words. There was no definition for the echoing, empty, pit that had swallowed her whole. She was alone, utterly alone now. Carter had broken the link. To him, she was as good as dead and to her, she was dead. 

She felt the warmth of a body stretch out on the bed next to her. Trying to thaw her frozen skin. She was limp and lifeless. Nothing mattered. Nothing was everything. Nothing was all she had left of him. The medicine stung as it burned its way along her bloodstream. She hadn't even felt the pierce of the needle bite through her skin. She struggled against the alluring pull of the drug. Nothing was melting like black wax under the heat of a flame, into a soft, squishy darkness. She was melting with the wax, dripping into the abyss, drop by drop, as her nothing melted away to oblivion.

Chapter 17

Rachael nervously gnawed at the end of her pencil, eying the empty seat beside her. Maybe David wasn't coming today. Maybe The Society had gotten to him and he'd dropped English Comp because he didn't want to sit next to a crazy person. First period was a stupid time to have a boring English class anyway.

The bell was five minutes from ringing and there were several empty seats left. Maybe he was just casually late like some of the other students. She couldn't take not knowing if David was coming back or not. Idly she doodled his name on the back of her binder and quickly erased the hearts and flowers and brushed the evidence onto the floor as she glanced up to see him wading to his seat with the rest of the stragglers. "Hi," she said with a furious red blush.