Blood-Kissed Sky (Darkness Before Dawn) Read online

  “No humans know this stuff, huh?”

  Victor looks up, his expression troubled. “Actually, there was one.”

  “Who?”

  “Your father.”

  Chapter 5

  The next morning, after Rachel leaves for work, I find myself studying the symbol and thinking about Victor’s revelation regarding my father’s knowledge of Ancient Vampiric. I shouldn’t have been surprised. During the war, my father was an intelligence officer. He was known as the foremost expert in vampirology. He helped draft the VampHu Treaty that brought a final end to the war. And before he became a delegate, he was a professor of vampire studies at the local university.

  Much of his work from the war is archived at the Agency, and I can’t help but wonder if I might find some clue there regarding the meaning of this symbol.

  I head to the Agency, sunglasses in place, my hoodie pulled up over my head so I’m not easily recognizable and am less likely to run into any “Death to Dawn” advocates. Strapped to my thigh is a leather holster and stake that Victor gave me shortly after we met. I have another stake tucked into my boot. Beneath the high collar of my shirt is a chain-link choker to protect my neck. Just because there have been no incidents since Hell Night and the Agency thinks they destroyed all the Day Walkers doesn’t mean none are around. Besides, Sin is somewhere and I want to be totally prepared if he steps into my path. I’m going to take him down.

  I hop on a trolley. It carries the usual Saturday crowd. Looking out the window, I can see the city move by lazily. Few cars are on the street, and those that pass us are usually Agency-owned. Gasoline is rationed—by the Agency. For the most part, people walk or “ride the rails” of the trolley.

  As we near the center of the city, the government district, everything becomes cleaner, brighter. Once the war ended, the rebuilding efforts began in the center and expanded outward. But progress has been slow. Supplies are scarce. VampHu outlawed any sort of mass distribution vehicles. No airplanes, no eighteen-wheelers. One train is allowed to travel across the country delivering goods from one city to the other. The only thing in abundance anymore is fear, and hatred for the vampires that made us into this. I think about what Victor said last night, how the citizens wouldn’t want to listen to him now. Sadly, in the light of day, I think he’s right.

  I spot the Agency building long before we reach it. In the heart of the city, it looks like a giant crystal cigarette. It’s a tower of windows reflecting the sun outward. Its brightness is the perverse opposite of the despair that surrounds it.

  I step off the trolley and walk the last couple of blocks. The guard in the lobby waves me through. He’s always taken his job seriously. Doesn’t even offer a smile or ask how I’m doing. That’s fine with me. I’m on a mission and I want to get in and out before Rachel is alerted that I’m here. She and Clive have become too protective.

  I take the elevator to the basement floor, the archives. Stepping into the short, dimly lit hallway, I greet the man sitting at the receptionist table.

  “Hello, Calvin.”

  “Miss Montgomery,” he says. “It’s been a while.”

  Calvin is in his midtwenties and has shaggy hair. His thick glasses are always sliding down his nose in an attempt to escape. A harmless guy who I think might live down here. Someone Tegan could make look good with just an hour of his time. But I don’t think he’d keep it up. Besides, he may not have an hour to spare: A road twenty miles long could be made out of all the documents and books in this massive archive, all waiting to be categorized by this one-man army.

  “I’m still waiting on that date you promised me,” he says. “Remember? For finding out the original birthplace for Murdoch Valentine. It wasn’t easy.”

  “Or very useful,” I say. He was born somewhere in eastern Europe. A country that disappeared centuries ago. I remember hoping it would give me some edge in my first encounter with Valentine. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess you can never have too much knowledge about your enemy, though.

  “Well, maybe I’ll let it slide, then,” he says. “What can I help you with today?”

  I show him the symbol from my dreams. He studies it in much the same way Victor did.

  “It looks like Ancient Vampiric. I haven’t seen this in a long time.”

  “Any idea what it says?”

  “Not a clue. The only thing I can tell you is that it’s probably a name. It’s so complex, you know? Not a common word, but a collection of sounds, if that makes any sense.”

  “Kind of. Like the name of a person?”

  “Or a place. No way of knowing.”

  “I heard that my dad knew some stuff about Ancient Vampiric.”

  “Some. Not a whole lot. I mean, don’t get me wrong, your dad was a genius with this kind of thing. The leader in vampire historical studies. But this language is so rare, only a handful of surviving documents use it at all, not nearly enough for accurate translations.”

  “Do you have any of his notes down here?”

  “Yeah, follow me.”

  Calvin takes me down the halls of bookshelves, each one holding its own history of events long past and long forgotten. I’m staring at the life’s work of men and women gathering dust, just as they themselves do now.

  Calvin eventually stops in front of a shelf and pulls down a large box.

  “Here you are. This is the carton you’ll be interested in. It contains the notes he made during an expedition to Romania. He went during the war when it was incredibly dangerous. But the government hoped he might be able to find information about the way vampires worked, some hidden weakness or something. He was in charge of finding their origin. I don’t think he had much luck, but his notes on Ancient Vampiric are in here. You can take this to that desk. Just check out with me when you’re finished.”

  At the simple desk with its single lamp that probably hasn’t been used in years, I empty the box. I trail my fingers over a leather-bound journal. It’s held closed with leather strips, tied in a loose knot by my father. I remember walking into his office and seeing him secure it. What secrets does it hold? I think about the hand that wrote it being the same hand that tucked me in at night. It’s almost like he’s here with me now.

  I spread out various documents and begin studying them. Most are notes that don’t seem very helpful, more like observations of vampire ruins. Dad looked through ancient castles, the older the better. Especially the cellars, where Old Family vamps might’ve hidden during the day.

  After half an hour I find something interesting. In a plastic protective sleeve is a very, very old piece of paper, yellowed and brittle with time. It’s filled with symbols and characters from a language I couldn’t even begin to decipher. But beneath it is a stack of papers labeled “Ancient Vampiric Text.” I begin reading it, placing my father’s voice over my own:

  Carbon dating puts this document back at least two thousand years. The ink itself is strangely advanced and well preserved, leading me to believe that the vampires who created this knew it would need to last. I found it kept in a cool, dry room, high above the ground in case of floodwaters. The placement was purposefully careful....

  This Ancient Vampiric text is the most complete I have ever found. Unfortunately, without more characters, or a direct translation into ancient Latin, it will be impossible to make any meaningful deciphering of it. However, I do believe that this may be a document of great importance, by noting what appears to be fourteen signatures at the bottom....

  This could be the Genesis of the Fourteen Families. I gather that from the unique, single characters, spaced in such a way to make it appear as a contract. These symbols are repeated throughout the document, and I believe it may be some kind of agreement. Perhaps, and this is just speculation, an agreement regarding where each of the families’ domain of influence will be....

  Also of note is a symbol that appears to be very similar in complexity to the unique fourteen signatures. However, it is not in line with the signat
ures. This leads me to believe that the symbol in question is not an Old Family, but rather a single notation for the Fourteen Families as a whole. Perhaps they used this complex symbol whenever referring to themselves as a single collective....

  He drew the symbol, and my hands begin to shake. It looks exactly like the one I have in my pocket.

  Dad thinks it was the collective signature of the Fourteen Families. I’ve never seen it on any other vampire documents. Then again, I’ve never seen this language. Vampires adopted whatever language the humans who surrounded them used.

  Maybe, then, this symbol is just something deeply buried in my subconscious. Dad worked on this before I was born, but if he kept his notes in the house, it’s quite possible I looked at them as a child. Could this symbol, which he painstakingly drew, have burned itself deep within my memory banks? It’s possible. While I was in a coma, my brain was “sorting things out,” as Dr. Schwartz said. Maybe it found this symbol lurking somewhere and brought it forward. It doesn’t mean there’s any reason to its being, just some misfiring neurons scattered throughout my mind.

  I’m not sure whether I’m more at ease or not. But at least I have something to go on.

  I look through the box again, and at the very bottom, find something that calms my hands instantly: a picture of my mom and dad. They’re young. I don’t see wedding bands on their fingers. This must’ve been while they were dating! They’re sitting at a table outside a restaurant; maybe a friend took the photo. They seem so happy.

  I used to gather the photos of my family, take them to where we once lived, and burn them one by one. It was my method of letting emotions out. I never told anyone because it sounds so insane, but it was the only way I could keep from snapping. That place was where I housed my emotions, not my heart, because it can’t handle the burden.

  It ended up being the last place where Brady and I were together. I can never go back there again.

  I hold up the photo and know that this will never feel the burn of flames. Like the document next to it, the Genesis of the Fourteen Families, this is the beginning of Mom and Dad. There’s something pure and perfect about it. So I take it with me when I leave. I figure Calvin would forgive me if he knew.

  The other things that I’ve taken, though, my father’s journal and notes—he probably wouldn’t forgive me for that.

  Chapter 6

  My stolen items tucked securely in my backpack, I take the elevator up to the lobby floor and head for the door. Avoiding eye contact, I keep my head down. The last thing I want is for someone to stop me for a conversation, delay my exit, and possibly discover what I’ve “borrowed.”

  “Dawn Montgomery.”

  A chill skitters up my spine and I slam to a halt. The very, very last thing I wanted was to run into Roland Hursch. Since day one he had a problem with me being the delegate and he wasn’t shy when it came to being vocal about it in front of cameras: I was far too inexperienced, far too immature, and definitely far too young.

  I turn on my heel and angle my chin defiantly. The wealthiest man in town is decked out in a sharp gray suit. His salt-and-pepper hair is perfectly styled. “Mr. Hursch.”

  “I’m glad to see you’ve recovered from your ordeal.” He’s wearing a smug expression. I might try to read something into it if he didn’t always have his face set the same way. It’s like he wears a mask. “Lila’s been concerned about you.”

  Lila. His daughter, my nemesis. If she was worried it was that I’d pull through.

  “Thanks, but she doesn’t need to worry about me.”

  “You must be relieved to have the burden of being delegate removed from your shoulders.”

  Alarm bells ring in my head. How does he know? Victor told me only last night. It’s not official. Neither Clive nor Rachel has said anything. “What are you doing here?” I ask, knowing his distaste for the Agency usually keeps him far away from here.

  “I’m meeting with Clive, to get my marching orders.”

  I study him, trying to figure out what he’s talking about. “I don’t understand.”

  He grins widely, his eyes filled with the righteous indignation that accompanied his TV rants against vampires. “Why, Miss Montgomery, I’m the new delegate to Lord Valentine.”

  “Roland Hursch? Really? Roland Hursch?”

  Rachel jumps to her feet like a bomb has gone off beneath her desk when I burst into her office, slamming the door behind me, but going to Clive wasn’t an option since Roland Hursch was on his way there. I can only breathe the same air he does for so long before I start to feel poisoned.

  “Who told you?” she asks.

  “He did. In the lobby just now.”

  “I’m sorry you had to find out that way,” she says. “I was told only this morning. It’s the reason I was called in—to put the reports together for him. I was going to break the news to you tonight.” She comes around her desk to face me. “I know this isn’t what you expected after all the sacrifices you’ve made for the Agency, for the citizens—”

  “Has Clive totally lost his mind?” I can see the distress in her eyes because she thinks I’ve just learned I’ll have to step down. But Victor already told me that my delegate days were over. I just didn’t think he meant, like, right that second. I start pacing as Rachel leans her hips against her desk and folds her arms over her chest.

  “Roland Hursch?” I repeat because my brain just doesn’t want to absorb that possibility. “He’s always spouting anti-vampire propaganda. For years, he’s been advocating that we stop giving blood to vampires.”

  “It wasn’t Clive’s choice. Lord Valentine requested him and, as you know, the overlord chooses the delegate. None of these changes are a reflection on your work—”

  I wave my hand to cut her off, because I’m not looking for sympathy. “I’m not worried about that.” I’m just trying to figure out what Victor is thinking. He needs someone on his side, someone who believes in him. If it’s not going to be me, it should be Rachel, someone who I can convince to give Victor a chance, someone who values my opinion. But Roland Hursch? If he were on fire and I pointed it out to him, he’d tell me that I was too young to understand what I was seeing. So yeah, he’s not going to listen to anything I might tell him about vampire relations.

  “But why—never mind.” Victor is no fool. He’s adopting the old adage of keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer. He must see Hursch as the main obstacle to him getting his precious blood. If he can control Hursch, he’ll control the supply. But I don’t think Victor knows what he’s getting into.

  “Your job now is just to finish school,” Rachel says kindly.

  I stop my pacing. “I could help you train Hursch.”

  “Believe it or not, the new Lord Valentine believes all the Victorian etiquette rules you had to follow are pointless.”

  I can’t help but smile. Victor would think that. He told me I wouldn’t have to wear the corset and long Victorian dress when I came to see him. Of course, that was when he was still planning on me serving as delegate. But now that he knows his father wasn’t the only one willing to use me to get to him … I’m a liability.

  “Roland Hursch will actually be taking a limo out to Valentine Manor,” Rachel continues.

  “Lucky guy,” I say, remembering how uncomfortable traveling in the horse-drawn coach was.

  “We’ll continue to offer you protection until this Sin guy is apprehended,” Rachel assures me. “And we’ll call on your vampire expertise from time to time. Like your father, you have keen instincts and insights where they’re concerned. But for the most part, Dawn, embrace this opportunity to regain your youth.”

  I expected to feel glad. Instead I feel untethered. “It might be too late for that, Rachel.”

  She gives me a nod and a look that indicates she thinks I might be right. “What are you doing here anyway?”

  I shrug. “I wanted to check some stuff in the archives.”

  “Now, see,” she says as she shoves
away from her desk, places her hand on my shoulder, and begins ushering me toward the door, “that’s precisely what you need to stop doing. Go home, read a romance, take a bubble bath, sit on the balcony, and do absolutely nothing.”

  Do absolutely nothing? Is she kidding me? Sin is out there, Day Walkers may still be among us, the Thirst is a threat, and the citizens have stopped donating blood. Doing nothing is not in my near future.

  On my way home, the trolley rattles beneath me, the seats feeling more uncomfortable than usual. My day took a turn I wasn’t expecting, but I don’t have to be a delegate to search for Sin. I’m lost in my thoughts when my phone vibrates. It’s a text from Tegan:

  Can I come over? Wanna catch up.

  I text her back to meet me at my place.

  An hour later I open the front door and let her in. We hug. She seems frail somehow and that worries me. “Are you okay?” I ask.

  She pulls away from me. “Yeah, sure. Isn’t everyone when they’re attacked by a vampire?”

  She starts walking through the living room, picking things up, putting them back down. I feel so inadequate. I’m not sure how to comfort her. “Want some coffee?”

  “No thanks.”

  “How about some hot chocolate?”

  She stops her aimless wandering and smiles at me. “I never say no to chocolate.”

  I grin at her before heading to the kitchen. “Thanks, by the way, for bringing me some candy in the hospital.”

  “I’m so glad you’re out of there.”

  “Me too.” I start making coffee for me, hot chocolate for her. “I’ve just been so tired today. I keep waking up at night and sleeping during the day. The doctor said I’d get back on a normal sleep schedule soon.”

  I hand her a mug of hot chocolate, then pour myself some coffee, drink half, and refill the cup again. I peer over at her. “How are you doing?”