Blade of Darkness (Immortal Guardians #7)
Dianne Duvall
Chapter One
The thump of Aidan’s heavy boots echoed off the walls as he followed Chris Reordon down the long white corridor on Sublevel 5. Chris presided over the East Coast division of the network, which encompassed thousands of human employees who helped Immortal Guardians protect humans from psychotic vampires.
What looked like a large-screen television took up almost the entire wall at the end of the otherwise barren hallway. If Aidan wasn’t mistaken, it displayed a live video feed of the sunny meadow beyond the network’s parking lot, like an oversized window.
“That’s new,” he commented.
Chris nodded without looking up. “Melanie hoped it would make living five stories belowground a little more palatable for the vampires housed here. If they like it, we’ll add similar faux windows to their apartments.”
The doorways to Aidan’s right opened into Dr. Melanie Lipton’s office, a lab, an infirmary, a break room for employees, and Dr. Linda Machen’s office. The doors on the left marked a half dozen or so vampire apartments.
“Tell me again,” Chris grumbled, “why I should give you an apartment here when my team put so much time and effort into providing you with a nice, comfortable house in the country.”
Aidan shrugged. “Melanie and the other doctors were tired of me bunking in the infirmary.”
“Why the hell don’t you bunk at your house?”
Aidan stared at the back of the Reordon’s head. Chris pretty much loathed him. “Because I like it better here, where I can hang out with the vampires.”
He had never done that before—befriended vampires. Those he encountered on his nightly hunts were always either raving lunatics or halfway down the road to insanity with no interest in avoiding the destination.
But the vampires here were still lucid. And getting to know them was a new venture.
When one did the same old same old every night for nearly three thousand years, new was good.
No. He’d borrow a word from Cliff. New was awesome.
Chris stopped before a heavy titanium door that had an electronic pad beside it. “This is your key card.” He held up a card. “You’ll need it and the code I wrote on the back to get inside.” His cell phone chirped. “Hang on.” Tugging it from his back pocket, he answered with his usual brusque, “Reordon.”
“Mr. Reordon!” a woman nearly shouted from the phone. “It’s Veronica Becker. I work in—” Snarls erupted on the other end. She shrieked a curse. “I work in IT at the network!”
Chris frowned. “I know. What’s—?”
“I got a flat tire,” she interrupted breathlessly, “and two vampires— Shit!”
“Where are you?” Chris demanded.
“Sax-Beth Church Road just off Highway 54.”
Chris looked at Aidan.
“I know where that is.” Aidan pictured the location in his mind. The hallway around him darkened as a feeling of weightlessness engulfed him. Fresh air ruffled his hair as he found himself standing at the intersection of Saxapahaw-Bethlehem Church Road and Highway 54.
A full moon dominated a cloudless sky. The croak of frogs, hum of insects, and rustling of other nocturnal creatures filled the night. As did raucous laughter.
He looked to the west.
Vampires. Taunting their intended victim until howls of pain split the night.
Aidan’s nose twitched at the sharp scent of pepper. Running up the winding, two-lane country road, he traveled at speeds most drivers would deem unsafe. Two headlights appeared in the distance. Stationary. Flickering as bodies moved back and forth in front of them.
“Please hurry,” he heard Veronica cry. “I can’t hold them off much longer. And I think one just—” She swore again.
There. A woman. Small. Perhaps five feet two inches tall. Armed with a tire iron and the biggest can of pepper spray Aidan had ever seen.
He grinned. Smart woman.
Her cell phone lay on the hood of the car behind her. Chris’s voice swam out of it, expressing concern without tipping off the vamps that an Immortal Guardian now hunted them.
Two vampires danced around her, flashing fangs, their eyes glowing bright blue. When one blurred and sped toward her, she doused him with pepper spray. To a vampire with extremely heightened senses, it would feel like flames searing his eyes, nose, and lungs.
The vamp bent forward with a yelp and scrubbed at his eyes.
Veronica bashed him on the head with the tire iron, then pepper sprayed and whacked his friend. But the vampires recovered quickly and weren’t as stupid as they looked.
Even as Aidan raced toward them, one of the vampires tossed the woman a sneer and backed away to the other side of the car.
Michael!
Aidan heard her panicked thought and noticed for the first time a toddler slumbering in a car seat inside.
Fury rose. If the madness that afflicted vampires hadn’t fully taken hold, the vamp would use the child to torture the mother. And if the madness had fully taken hold…
Aidan stopped running long enough to focus his energy and send a sharp telekinetic push.
Both vampires flew backward, away from the car and Veronica.
Drawing his short swords, Aidan swept forward.
Scrambling off the ground, the vampires drew long bowie knives and lunged at him.
Neither scored a hit as Aidan tore into them, his blades opening major arteries.
Unlike immortals, vampires tended to bleed out very quickly when they suffered such wounds. Much like these, who sank to the ground and—seconds later—gasped their last breaths.
The odd symbiotic virus that infected them began to devour them from the inside out in a last, desperate bid to live despite the cessation of blood flow. By the time it finished, nothing would remain of the two but their clothing, watches, and dental fillings.
Silence fell in the wake of the brief battle. Even the insects made no sound, as though they were stunned by the violence they had just witnessed.
Aidan turned to face the woman. “Veronica?”
She gave him a shaky nod. “Yes.”
“I’m Aidan. Are you okay?”
“Yes. But I think the tall one might have called…” She trailed off as Aidan raised a hand.
Tilting his head, he listened carefully.
A few insects nearby tentatively made their presence known.
In the distance, several figures raced toward them at preternatural speeds.
Aidan swore. “Get in the car.”
The woman lunged for the driver’s door and yanked it open. “Are more coming?”
“Yes.”
She scrambled into the car and slammed the door shut.
Door locks snicked even as she swung around to check on the boy in the back seat.
The toddler’s face scrunched up in a frown as he slumped deeper into his car seat and continued to sleep.