Blood-Kissed Sky (Darkness Before Dawn) Read online

  I think Tegan might just rush in with her fingernails in place of a stake, but I touch her elbow to calm her down.

  I feel the weight of Ian’s hand on my shoulders as he leans in.

  “We can get out of this,” he whispers.

  “Protect the rest of them,” I say.

  “No. I’m here to protect you.”

  He looks over at Richard and nods. The Old Family vampire nods back, and before I can do anything, everyone, except for Tegan and me, attacks Sin.

  Chapter 29

  They catch Sin by surprise, and he has to scramble to dodge the incoming blows. He’s so fast, though, that a single strike could easily kill Michael, and I watch it all with terror beating an unsteady thread in my pulse.

  Sin is pushed back nearly to the wall when he makes a charge, clearing a path through his attackers. His massive gauntlet cleaves the air, barely missing limbs and necks.

  He turns around just in time to see Richard running at him.

  The Old Family vampires collide—quickly and violently. Richard uses all of his force to take Sin through the window. The glass explodes into the room, and the pair hurtle together through the night air. Wind rushes through the opening, swirling the tiny glass shards like snowflakes.

  Matheson’s scream is cut short as Faith stakes him. He falls into a heap at her feet. “You go with the rest of them!” she shouts at me, and then turns toward Ian. “Meet us in the alleyway.”

  Ian nods, and Faith jumps out the window, a pure creature of the night, to join her friend at the bottom. I don’t even look over, knowing that time is precious, and that they’ve bought us our only chance to escape this place.

  We take the elevator down, which gives us a few seconds to catch our breaths.

  “I would’ve gone,” I say. “This isn’t worth the risk.”

  “Yes, it is,” Michael says. “We didn’t come all the way out here to lose you now.”

  “I’m not worth all your lives. I’m not that important.”

  “How can you say that?”

  But before I can respond, the doors open. Only we’re not on the lobby level. Guards there may have tried to stop us, so we’ve taken a different route. We rush down a dim hallway to the stairwell. Three flights later, Ian kicks open a red emergency exit door and we scramble into the alleyway behind the Agency.

  We don’t have to wait long. An Agency car comes barreling down the tight corridor, Faith at the wheel. I can only assume she overpowered the driver and confiscated it.

  She stops the car right in front of us. “Let’s go!”

  We pile in and she drives off, the back tires spinning and squealing. At the end of the alleyway, she stops again. Richard stumbles and limps over to the passenger-side door and opens it. Blood is soaked into his shirt.

  He climbs inside. “We have to get to the Night Train,” he says through shortened breaths. “Sin is still after us; I couldn’t finish him off. Not with the entire city coming in on me.”

  “You did great,” Faith says, leaning across the seat and kissing him passionately on the lips, her foot slamming into the gas pedal, one hand on the wheel.

  “Is the conductor even on the train?” I ask.

  “No,” Ian says. “I can drive it, but I’ll need all of your help.”

  “What about the passengers?” I ask.

  “If they’re in the city,” he says, “they’re already gone.”

  He’s right; I just hate to think it’s true. They bought a one-way ticket to a dream future, and just ended up in the wrong city at the worst possible time. It’s a cruel fate, one far beyond our control.

  As Faith swerves through the city streets, the Day Walkers begin to come out of the alleyways and buildings; they drop from rooftops and land inches away from our speeding vehicle.

  A few try to latch on, but Faith is too good at the wheel, and she’s able to knock them off with rough swerves.

  The large train station looms before us, and I remember Matheson’s comment that the Night Train had already been turned around and was waiting for departure.

  Faith brings the car as close as possible to the steps. It’s still running as we all climb out and make a dash down the stairs. The city is alive right behind us, all its citizens moving and acting as a single hunter. I glance back briefly and see a tidal wave of vampires mimicking the ocean this morning. Their noise is rhythmic and daunting, powerful forces rolling within their ranks.

  Inside the station, the massive steeled train awaits us.

  Ian quickly gives us our orders: Richard has to decouple the front engine so that we can move faster; Tegan will shovel coal into the furnace to give us speed; Michael and Faith will guard the front and buy us as much time as possible.

  “And I’ll drive,” Ian says.

  “What about me?” I ask.

  “You get inside.”

  I want so badly to help, but now isn’t the time to protest, not when seconds can mean the difference between life and death.

  We execute our responsibilities and move like clockwork—a clock that ticks loudly and keeps bad time, but clockwork nonetheless. Faith and Michael draw their stakes and stand guard, their knuckles turning white in preparation for the onslaught of Day Walkers that will be upon us any moment. Richard opens the coupling latch and grits his teeth as he withdraws the heavy steel pin holding the cars together, his vampire strength doing a job that would require three men.

  I jump into the engine compartment, which is divided into two halves: the front with the levers that control speed, where Ian sits; and the back, which contains the furnace, the engine itself that moves the black behemoth. Near the furnace is a large stockpile of coal, which Tegan is loading into the flames by shovel. I want to help, but there isn’t enough room for more than one person to stand in that clustered hovel.

  It’s going to be very cramped in the compartment. My shoulders graze the edges of the tight space.

  I hear the screams of vampires. Faith and Michael are fighting desperately just to stay alive. They’re losing ground, having to push the Day Walkers back rather than strike fatal blows. All we need is time.

  “Dammit!” Ian yells.

  I leap the few feet to the front of the train. “What is it?”

  “The gate’s down.”

  He points to the large metal shutter at the front of the train station.

  “How do we open it?” I ask.

  “Up the stairs, in the control room,” he says, heading for the exit.

  But I shove past him and jump from the engine. Looking up, I run for the set of thin industrial stairs leading to a small room with windows. Ian has to drive this train.

  He shouts for me to stop, but I’m far away when he realizes what I’m doing, and the fighting coming into the station is deafening. The weight of the city is squeezing into this place!

  Taking two steps at a time, I climb the stairs. At the top, I swing open the door. Inside the small room, a dozen controls greet me. Stealing a glance out the window, I can see the entire scene playing out from a new vantage point. I watch Michael and Faith getting pushed back ever farther. No sign of Ian, so he must be back inside the engine, making his final preparations. Black plumes are rising from the steel Goliath. Richard, done with the decoupling, has joined the fight, but even he can’t make a difference. The sea of vampires coming in is unstoppable.

  I run my fingers along the controls and easily find the lever labeled “Front Gate.” I pull it back and watch the front shutter slowly ascend. I then see a giant red button: “Outer/Inner Walls.” It must be for the gates separating the Inner from the Outer Ring, and the Outer Ring from the outside world. An emergency switch in case they have to be opened from here.

  I slam my hand down on it. Hoping it’s enough to get us out of here.

  When I reach the bottom of the stairs, I look up to see the vampires pressing in. Now the gap between them and the train is but a few feet. And as I run, it begins to grow smaller. I can see Faith jumping into the
engine, followed soon by Richard. The train is moving, and I have to pump my legs just to gain any ground at all. As I near the engine, Michael leaps on, and holding on to a handle, leans forward, his hand out, reaching for mine.

  The gate is up. They can’t slow down. It’s like a dream where no matter how fast I run, I can never catch it.

  My fingers stretch out and just graze Michael’s.

  “Come on!” he shouts.

  All I have in me is one final push, one final leap, one chance to risk it all.

  I jump forward, grasping desperately for Michael’s hand.

  All I grab is air, and I fall to the ground, a distance that seems infinite.

  I hear Michael’s scream. “No!”

  I look up as the vampires surround me, and want to tell Michael to stay with the others. They’re so close to getting out of here alive.

  But I don’t get a chance. Michael hurls himself off the train. The vampires crowding around me turn to see Michael rushing at them. He dispatches all of those in his way, making a last, useless dive for me. There are too many of them. Far too many. And soon, just as I begin to get to my feet, I’m kicked hard in the stomach. Falling down, I see Michael join me. The look on his face says, “I’m sorry.”

  And the Night Train clatters away.

  Chapter 30

  The vampires don’t kill us. They don’t even strike. A few particularly bold vamps disarm Michael and throw his stakes onto the other side of the track, well beyond reach. Then they wait. They stand like exhausted statues breathing the air, which is fouled in the wake of the Night Train’s burning coal.

  “What are they doing?” Michael asks, the blood from his scored cheek giving him a menacing look.

  “They’re waiting for Sin.”

  Soon the vampires begin to part.

  “You should’ve taken my deal, Dawn,” Sin says, emerging from the crowd. “Michael would have been saved.”

  “It was worth it,” Michael says, “just for the chance to kill you.”

  “We’ll see if it’s still worth it, when I’m done with you.”

  Sin snaps his fingers. We’re quickly bound with rope and shoved into the back of a waiting stretch limousine. Sin climbs in and sits across from us.

  “Enjoy the luxury while it lasts,” he says. “It will be a very long night.”

  We straighten ourselves up and try to get comfortable in the seats, but with our hands tied it’s impossible.

  Michael grits his teeth and fights the ropes, his entire body twisting, trying to find a way out of the binding.

  “It must be difficult to do that with so much blood in your eye,” Sin says.

  He leans out of his seat and comes toward Michael, a strange hunger in his eyes.

  “Let me help you,” he says, his voice soft as his claws grab Michael’s chin and force his head to the side. He leans in and in one lap, runs his tongue across Michael’s cheek, licking off the blood. “You’re better tasting than I thought.”

  He shoves Michael back against the seat before returning to his own place. Hatred burns in Michael’s eyes.

  We arrive at the Agency. The door opens and a vampire pulls us out of the car. Sin follows. We stand dumbly, awaiting instruction because there’s no point in resisting right now. I have to think, but until I know his ultimate plan, I’m lost.

  The entire city of vampires closes in around us. They look normal now, just like they have for the entire time I was here. Walking their streets, all they wanted was my blood, yet they held in their fangs.

  Sin jumps on top of the limo and spreads his arms wide.

  “You’ve done well tonight,” he says, speaking to the crowd, who offer no applause, just obedient silence. “Enjoy the rest of the evening as you see fit. As the world turns, vampires fear the day, and humans fear the night. But we Day Walkers fear nothing. And soon, they will all fear us.”

  A roar of triumph goes up before they disperse. We’re ushered into the building. Stopping at the elevator, Sin takes our arms and pushes us in. The vampires who brought us stay rooted to their spots, and the door closes on just the three of us.

  Sin pulls out a key, places it in the elevator pad, and hits a red button labeled V.

  “I hope you aren’t tired,” he says, speaking to our reflections. “You’re about to see the Perfect World; I’d hate for you to miss it.”

  I expect Michael to say something, maybe break his bonds somehow and fight Sin here and now. But he just looks down at the floor. He’s giving the appearance of surrendering, but I know him well enough: he’s taking stock of our situation. We’re only going to have one chance to gain our freedom. We both know it. We just have to figure out when to take it.

  “So you knew we were here all along,” I say.

  “Of course I did. Did you like your little trip to the beach? That was my idea. I needed a little more time to arrange things.”

  When the door opens at the very bottom, Sin walks ahead and we follow him down the long, white corridor. A single door at the end requires a key card, which Sin produces. He warns us, “Try anything, and I’ll make you watch as I kill the other.”

  He turns us around and slashes the rope binding our hands. I bring my arms forward, rubbing my wrists, relieved that the tension is no longer there.

  Sin slides the key card, the door opens, and the Perfect World nearly drops me to my knees.

  Chapter 31

  The room is gigantic. As wide and long as the building itself, it must be several stories high, the ceiling just barely within view. Filling the room are hundreds of glass chambers, small prison cells. A door leads into each one, and inside, nothing but a single chair.

  “Do you like it?” he asks, pacing himself slowly like a tour guide, his arms up as if presenting the greatest work of art ever bestowed upon man.

  “What is it?” Michael asks.

  But I know. Clive mentioned it, and now I know what I was seeing in Victor’s nightmare.

  “The V-Process,” I say. “This was built during the war.”

  “That’s right,” Sin says. “This is where humans were reborn into Lessers. Of course, it was never used for that purpose. As part of the surrender terms that Los Angeles made, it had to construct one of these. It was unauthorized, Lord Carrollton’s secret. Somehow, it made him believe he had some kind of control over the city. To him, having the constant threat of turning people was just as good as actually doing it. He was a fool. Soon the city built walls around itself, and this place sat idle.”

  “Until you arrived,” I say. “That’s how you’ve been turning people so quickly.”

  “Right again.”

  He leads us through the maze of cellblocks, each one consisting of twenty or so, forming little streets that divide the space and give it some sense of organization. At the center lies a gigantic silver disk the size of a car. Sin operates a control panel on it and the disk rises, revealing stores of blood within its chilled chamber.

  “Gallons and gallons of me,” he says. “Original. Old Family. Day Walker. The most valuable blood in the world. I take candidates, strap them each to a chair, hook them up with an IV of this. Then stop their heart with a simple, massive electric shock. The final step: releasing me into their bloodstream. And when they open their eyes, not only are they Lessers, they’re Day Walkers.”

  Horror slams into me, and I realize that he’s still growing his army. It’s the reason Jake and the others from Dallas were brought here. Not to give blood as they thought, but to become monsters like Sin. I wonder if they’ve already been turned.

  “You have your army now,” I say. “So what? It won’t be enough. You have a few hundred? Maybe a thousand? When the Night Train reaches Denver and the story is told, this city will be doomed. The humans can’t do anything but wait inside their own walls, but what about the other Old Families? Did you ever think about that, Sin? Fourteen Old Families who don’t like the idea of Day Walkers running the show.”

  “You don’t think I know that!
” he snarls. “I was cast out by my own father because I was a freak! And every other Old Family sees me that way. But they’ll all beg for forgiveness when I’m done. Not that I’ll give it to them.”

  “You can’t possibly take them all on,” I say.

  “You aren’t thinking big-picture, Dawn. This is just the first step. Come see the second.”

  He leads us down another row of cells and as we head toward the end, the sound of screaming begins. Low at first, so low it could be mistaken for some kind of auditory phantom, but it grows and grows until I want to cover my ears.

  Sin stops and turns to look into one of the cells. Inside, strapped to a chair, a vampire with an IV in his arm is being fed blood.

  “Vampire blood,” Sin says. “I don’t want just Day Walkers.”

  “You want Thirst-infected Day Walkers,” I say, losing my voice at the conclusion.

  “Now you see the grand scheme. You met one in the laboratory. His reaction to ingesting Old Family blood was interesting, wasn’t it, Simon?”

  Simon steps out of the shadows. His arm isn’t in a cast and when he smiles at me, I realize why. He’s a vampire. He’s already healed. Like everyone else, he was playing a part.

  “I believe you’ve met my lead scientist. He’s been researching all the intricate possibilities of the Thirst.”

  “It’s so unpredictable,” Simon says.

  “And I need it to be predictable,” Sin says. “I need to always be able to control it, just as I controlled the one who was closest to your heart.”

  “Brady,” I say, tears fighting to surface. The vampire in the cell—his eyes blackened, his jaw extended, his teeth razor sharp and lined like fence posts—he’s twitching uncontrollably, just like Brady did. And he moves from laughter to screams of rage as easily as a coin moves from heads to tails.

  “Brady gave me the idea, in fact. I gave him the power of the Day Walker, and he transformed himself into a monster by taking vampire blood and sparing humans. I was angry at first, but then I saw how he stalked the countryside, and how quickly and mercilessly he killed vampires. I owe all of this to him really. And this,” Sin says, pointing at the monster, “is the future. The final step in vampire evolution. Stronger than Lessers, nearly as strong as Old Family. And they can walk in the sun. Can you think of anything on this earth more powerful?”