A Touch of Midnight Read online

  Through the brick and wood and steel of the sheltering walls, Gideon watched the fiery orb of the Rogue’s energy shift direction, pushing deeper into the bowels of the run-down factory. Gideon trailed its flight on silent, stealthy feet. Past a chaos of tumbled sewing stations and toppled bolts of faded, rodent-infested fabric. Around a corner into a long, debris-scattered hallway.

  Empty storage rooms and dank, dark offices lined the corridor. Gideon’s target had fled into the passageway before making a hasty, fatal mistake. The Rogue’s energy orb hovered behind a closed door at the end of the hallway--just a few scant feet from a window that would have dumped him onto the street outside. If Bloodlust hadn’t robbed the vampire of his wits, he might have eluded death tonight.

  But death had found him.

  Gideon approached without making a sound. He paused just outside the door, turned to face it. Then kicked the panel off its hinges with one brutal stamp of his booted foot.

  The impact knocked the Rogue backward, onto its back on the littered office floor. Gideon pounced, one foot planted in the center of the feral vampire’s chest, the blade of his sword resting under its chin.

  “M-mercy,” the beast growled, less voice than animalistic grunt. Mercy was a word that had no meaning to one of the Breed lost to Bloodlust as deeply as this creature was. Gideon had seen that firsthand. The Rogue’s breath was sour, reeking of disease and the over-consumption of human blood that was its addiction. Thick spittle bubbled in its throat as the vampire’s lips peeled back from enormous, yellowed fangs. “Let me...go. Have...mercy...”

  Gideon stared unflinching into the feral amber eyes. He saw only savagery there. He saw blood and smoke and smoldering ruin. He saw death so horrific, it haunted him even now.

  “Mercy,” the Rogue hissed, even while fury crackled in its wild gaze.

  Gideon didn’t acknowledge the plea. With a flex of his shoulder, he thrust the sword deep, severing throat and spinal column in one thorough strike.

  A quick, painless execution.

  That was the limit of his mercy tonight.

  Chapter 3

  Savannah arrived early at the Art History department that next afternoon. She couldn’t wait for her day’s final class to let out, and made a beeline across campus as soon as English Lit 101 ended. She dashed up the three flights of stairs to the archive room outside Professor Keaton’s office, excited to see she was the first student to report in for the after-class project. Dumping her book bag next to her work table, she slipped into the storage room containing the items yet to be catalogued for the university’s collection.

  The sword was right where she’d left it the day before, carefully returned to its wooden case in the corner of the room.

  Savannah’s pulse kicked as she entered and softly closed the door behind her. The beautiful old blade--and the mysterious, golden-haired warrior who’d once used it with lethal skill--had been haunting her thoughts all this time. She wanted to know more. Needed to know more, with a compulsion too strong to resist.

  She tried to ignore the little pang of guilt that stabbed her as she bypassed the bin of clean curator’s gloves and sank down, bare-handed, in front of the container that held the sword.

  She lifted the lid of the long box, gently laying it open. The length of polished steel gleamed. Savannah hadn’t had the chance to really look at its craftsmanship yesterday, after it had fallen so unexpectedly into her hands.

  She hadn’t noticed then how the tooled steel grip was engraved with the image of a bird of prey swooping in for a brutal attack, its cruel beak open in a scream. Nor had she paid attention to the blade’s gemstone pommel, a blood-red ruby caged by grotesque metal talons. A cold shiver ran up her arms as she studied the weapon now.

  This was no hero’s sword.

  And still, she couldn’t resist the need to know more about the man she’d watched wield it in her glimpse from before.

  Savannah flexed her fingers, then gently rested them on the blade.

  The vision leapt into her mind even faster than the first time.

  Except this was a different peek at the weapon’s past. Something unexpected, but equally intriguing in a different way.

  A pair of young boys--tow-headed, identical twins--played with the sword in a torchlit stable. They could be no more than ten years old, both dressed like little seventeenth-century lords in white linen shirts, riding boots and dark blue breeches that gathered at the knee. They were laughing, taking turns with the sword, stabbing and lunging at a bale of straw, pretending to slay imaginary beasts.

  Until something outside the stable startled them.

  Fear filled their young faces. Their eyes went to each other, dread-filled, panicked. One of them opened his mouth in a silent scream--just as the torch on the wall of the stable went out.

  Savannah recoiled from the blade. She let go of it, shaking, gripped with a marrow-deep terror for these two children. What happened to them?

  She couldn’t walk away. Not now.

  Not until she knew.

  Her fingers trembled as she brought them back over the blade again. She set her hands down on the cold steel, and waited. Though not for long.

  The window to the past opened up to her like a dragon’s maw, dark and jagged, an abyss licked with fire.

  The stable was ablaze. Flames climbed the stalls and rafters, devouring everything in their path. Blood bathed the rough timber posts and the bale of yellow straw. So much blood. It was everywhere.

  And the boys...

  The pair of them lay unmoving on the floor of the stable. Their bodies were savaged, broken. Barely recognizable as the beautiful children who’d seemed so joyous and carefree. So alive.

  Savannah’s heart felt trapped in a vise, cold and constricted, as this awful glimpse played out before her. She wanted to look away. She didn’t want to see the terrible remains of the once-beautiful, innocent twin boys.

  Ah, God. The horror of it choked her.

  Someone had killed those precious boys, slaughtered them.

  No, not someone, she realized in that next instant.

  Some thing.

  The cloaked figure that held the sword now was built like a man--an immense, broad-shouldered wall of a man. But from within the gloom of a heavy wool hood, glowing amber eyes burned like coals set into a monstrous, inhuman face. He wasn’t alone. Two others like him, dressed similarly in hooded, heavy cloaks, stood with him, parties to the carnage. She couldn’t make out their features for all the shadows and the flickering, low light of the flames twisting up the walls and support beams of the stable.

  Not human, her mind insisted. But if not human, then what?

  Savannah tried to get a better look as the image of the boys’ attackers began to waver and dissolve.

  No. Look at me, damn you.

  Let me see you.

  But the glimpse started splintering, visual shards that broke into smaller pieces, turning this way and that. Slipping out of her grasp. Distorting what she saw.

  It had to be a trick of her unsteady hold on her gift.

  Because what she was seeing from this vision of the past couldn’t possibly be real.

  From within the deep hood of the one now holding the sword, the pair of glowing eyes blazed bright amber. And in the instant before the image vanished completely, Savannah would have sworn on her own life that she saw the bone-white glint of razor-sharp teeth.

  Fangs.

  What the...?

  A hand came down on her shoulder. Savannah shrieked, nearly jumping out of her skin.

  “Take it easy!” Rachel laughed as Savannah swung her head around. “Don’t have a damn heart attack. It’s just me. Jeez, you look like you just saw a ghost.”

  Savannah’s pulse was hammering hard, her breath all but gone. She had no voice to answer her roommate, could only stare up at her mutely. Rachel’s gaze went to the sword. “What are you doing in here by yourself? Where did that come from?”

  Savannah cleared her
throat, now that her heart had finally vacated the area. She pulled her hands away from the blade, hiding them so Rachel wouldn’t see how they shook. “I...I found it yesterday.”

  “Is that a ruby in the handle of that thing?”

  Savannah shrugged. “I think so.”

  “Really? Far out!” She leaned in for a better look. “Let me see it for a second.”

  Savannah almost warned her friend to be careful, that she wouldn’t want to see what Savannah had just witnessed. But that gift--a curse, today--belonged solely to her.

  Savannah watched as Rachel picked up the blade and admired it. Nothing happened to the girl. She had no inkling of the horrific past secreted in the centuries-old weapon.

  “Rach...do you believe in monsters?”

  “What?” She burst out laughing. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Nothing.” Savannah shook her head. “Forget it. I’m just kidding.”

  Rachel gripped the sword in both hands and pivoted on her heel, taking on a dramatic combat pose. Her wristful of thin metal bangle bracelets jingled together musically as she mock thrusted and parried with the blade. “You know, we shouldn’t be handling this thing without gloves on. God, it’s heavy. And old too.”

  Savannah stood up. She plunged her hands into the pockets of her flared jeans. “At least two hundred years old. Late 1600s would be my guess.” More than a guess, a certainty.

  “It’s beautiful. Must be worth a fortune, I’ll bet.”

  Savannah shrugged. Gave a weak nod. “I suppose.”

  “I don’t remember seeing this on the collection’s inventory list.” Rachel frowned. “I’m gonna go show it to Bill. I can’t believe he would’ve missed this.”

  “Bill?”

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “Professor Keaton. But I can’t very well call him that tonight on our date, now, can I?”

  Savannah knew she was gaping, but she didn’t care. Besides, it was nice having something else to think about for a moment. “You’re going out with Professor Keaton?”

  “Dinner and a movie,” Rachel replied, practically singing the words. “He’s gonna take me to that scary new one that just came out. The Chainsaw Massacre.”

  Savannah snorted. “Sounds romantic.”

  Rachel’s answering smile was coy. “I’m sure it will be. So, don’t wait up for me at the apartment tonight. If I have anything to say about it, I’m gonna be late. If I come home at all. Now, hand me the case for this thing, will you?”

  Savannah obliged, giving a slow shake of her head as Rachel donned a pair of curator’s gloves and gently placed the awful weapon back inside the slim wooden box. Tossing Savannah a sly grin, the girl turned and left.

  When she had gone, Savannah exhaled a pent-up breath, realizing only then how rattled she was. She reached for her own pair of gloves and the notebook she’d filed on the shelf the day before. Her hands were still unsteady. Her heart was still beating around her breast like a caged bird.

  She’d seen a lot of incredible things with her gift before, but never something like this.

  Never something as brutal or horrific as the slaughter of those two children.

  And never something that seemed so utterly unreal as the glimpse the sword had given her at a group of creatures that could not possibly exist. Not then, or now.

  She couldn’t summon the courage to give a name to what she witnessed, but the cold, dark word was pounding through her veins with every frantic beat of her heart.

  Vampires.

  Chapter 4

  For almost a hundred years, the city of Boston had played unwitting host to a cadre of Breed warriors who’d sworn to preserve the peace with humans and keep the existence of the vampire nation--its feral, Bloodlust-afflicted members in particular--a secret from mankind. The Order had begun in Europe in the mid-1300s with eight founding members, only two of which remained: Lucan, the Order’s formidable leader, and Tegan, a stone-cold fighter who played by his own rules and answered to no one.

  They, along with the rest of the cadre’s current membership--Gideon, Dante, Conlan and Rio--sat gathered at a conference table in the war room of the Order’s underground headquarters late that afternoon. Gideon had just reported on his team’s raid of the Rogue lair the night before, and now Rio was relaying the results of his solo recon mission on a suspected nest located in Southie.

  At the head of the long table to Gideon’s left, the Order’s black-haired Gen One leader sat in unreadable silence, his fingers steepled beneath his dark-stubbled chin as he heard the warriors’ reports.

  Gideon’s hands were not so idle. Although his mind was fully present for the meeting, his fingers were busy tinkering with a new microcomputer prototype he’d just gotten a hold of a few days ago. The machine didn’t look like much, just a briefcase-sized metal box with small toggle switches and red LED lights on the front of it, but damn if it didn’t get his blood racing a bit faster through his veins. Almost as good as ashing a Rogue. Hell, it was almost as good as sex.

  Not that he should remember what that was, considering how long it had been since he’d allowed himself to crave a woman. Years, at least. Decades, probably, if he really wanted to do the math. And he didn’t.

  While Rio wrapped up his recon report, Gideon executed a quick binary code program, using the flip toggles to load the instructions into the processor. The machine’s capacity was limited, its functions even more so, but the technology of it all fascinated him and his mind was forever thirsty for new knowledge, no matter the subject.

  “Good work, everyone,” Lucan said, as the meeting started to wrap up. He glanced at Tegan, the big, tawny-haired warrior at the opposite end of the table. “If Rio’s intel shakes out, we could be looking at a nest of upwards of a dozen suckheads. Gonna need all hands on deck down there tonight to clear the place out.”

  Tegan stared for a moment, green eyes as hard as gemstones. “You want me to go in, take the nest out, say so. It’ll be done. But you know I work alone.”

  Lucan glowered back, anger flashing amber in the cool gray of his gaze. “You clear the nest, but you do it with backup. You got a death wish, deal with it on your own time.”

  For several long moments, the war room held an uneasy silence. Tegan’s mouth twisted, his lips parting to bare just the tips of his fangs. He growled low in his throat, but he didn’t escalate the power struggle any further. Good thing, because God knew if the two Gen One warriors ever went at each other in a true contest, there would be no easy victor.

  Like the rest of the warriors gathered around the table, Gideon knew about the bad blood between Lucan and Tegan. It centered on a female--Tegan’s long-dead Breedmate, Sorcha, who’d been taken from him back in the Order’s early days. Tegan lost her first, tragically, to an enemy who turned her Minion and left her worse than dead. But it was by Lucan’s hand that Sorcha perished, an act of mercy for which Tegan might never forgive him.

  It was a grim but potent reminder of why most of the warriors refused to take a mate. Of those currently serving the Order, only Rio and Conlan had Breedmates. Eva and Danika were strong females; they had to be. Although the Breed was close to immortal and very hard to kill, death was a risk on every mission. And worry for Breedmates being left behind to grieve was a responsibility few of the warriors wanted to accept.

  Duty permitted no distractions.

  It was a tenet Gideon had learned the hard way. A mistake he couldn’t take back, no matter how much he wished he could.

  No matter how many Rogues he ashed, his guilt stayed with him.

  On a low, muttered curse, Gideon yanked his thoughts out of the past and entered the last string of his programming code into the computer. He flipped the switch that would execute the commands, and waited.

  At first nothing happened. Then...

  “Bloody brilliant!” he crowed, staring in triumphant wonder as the red LED lights on the front panel of the processor illuminated in an undulating wave pattern--just as his program h
ad instructed them to. The warriors all looked at him with varying expressions, everything from confusion to possible concern for his mental wellbeing. “Will you look at this? It’s a thing of fucking beauty.”

  He spun the processor around on the table for them to see the technological miracle taking place before their eyes. When no one reacted, Gideon barked out an incredulous laugh. “Come on, it’s remarkable. It’s the bloody future.”

  Dante smirked from his seat across the table. “Just what we needed, Gid. A light-up bread box.”

  “This bread box is a not-yet-released tabletop computer.” He took the metal lid off so everyone could see the boards and circuitry inside. “We’re talking 8-bit processor and 256-byte memory, all in this compact design.”

  From farther down the table, Rio came out of a casual sprawl in his chair and leaned forward to have a better look. There was humor in his rolling Spanish accent. “Can we play Pong on it?” He and Dante chuckled. Even Con joined in after a moment.

  “One day, you’ll stand in awe of what technology will do,” Gideon told them, refusing to let them dampen his excitement. No matter how big of a geek he was being. He gestured to an adjacent closet-like room where years earlier he’d begun setting up a control center of mainframes that ran many of the compound’s security and surveillance systems, among other things. “I can envision a day when that room full of refrigerator-sized processors will be a proper tech lab, with enough computer power to keep a small city up and running.”

  “Okay, cool. Whatever you say,” Dante replied. His broad mouth quirked. “But in the meantime, no Pong?”

  Gideon gave him a one-fingered salute, smiling in spite of himself. “Wankers. Bunch of hopeless wankers.”

  Lucan cleared his throat and brought the meeting back on track. “We need to start ramping up patrols. I’d like nothing better than to rid Boston completely of Rogues, but that still leaves other cities in need of clean-up. Sooner or later, things keep going like they are, we’re gonna need to evaluate our options.”