Daysider (Nightsiders) (12 page)

That wasn’t what he’d said before, Alexia thought. “
He
wasn’t suspicious?” she asked.

“He was not as clever as he believed himself to be,” Lysander said.

Neither are you,
Alexia thought. “Lysander was very surprised to hear about the attack on us,” she said to Damon, emphasizing the adverb.

Some subtle change in his expression convinced her that he had picked up her hint. “He must have been very intent on his work to miss the noise,” he said.

“Yes,” Alexia said with a glance at Lysander. “We assumed the shooters were from the colony, but Lysander suggested they could have been Expansionist agents.” She shook her head. “And
you
thought that wasn’t possible.”

“It makes little difference now,” Lysander said with obvious impatience. “You will be pleased to know that neither of you will be at further risk.”

Alexia felt the abrupt change in Damon as ice melted and nascent fire took its place. Anger was more than a description of an emotion to dhampires. She could taste it, smell it, sense it in a way indescribable to humans. Damon’s hatred overwhelmed her senses.

“It would not have been a good thing if Ms. Fox had been killed,” Damon said, his muscles so tense they were almost trembling.

“But she
is
alive,” Lysander replied. “And now we can move to prevent the Expansionists from destroying the colony.”

She could see Damon’s mind racing behind the unnatural stillness of his face. “Why would they do that?” he asked. “We know they secretly support it. Its establishment furthers their agenda, and they hate the Enclave. Destroying the colony would only please Aegis.”

“Ask the little Half-blood,” Lysander said.

Damon glanced at Alexia without letting his attention waver from Lysander’s face.

“It
wouldn’t
please Aegis,” she said, wondering why Damon had even suggested it. “Any precipitous action in the Zone could be considered an act of hostility against the Enclave.”

“Then perhaps they want to
start
a war,” Damon said, bringing up the same possibility he and Alexia had so thoroughly discussed before.

“That isn’t the motive Lysander suggested earlier,” Alexia said, addressing Damon as she carefully watched Lysander’s expression.

She told him about the vampire’s claims that the colony had chosen not to cooperate with the Expansionists as they had expected...and that the colonists wanted equality for all Nightsiders, no matter what their rank.

Damon’s eyes flashed with genuine surprise, but he didn’t let the emotion cross his face. “How do the Expansionists plan to attack?” he asked.

“Their plans are no longer any concern of yours.” Lysander’s jaw flexed. “I have new orders for you. You are to escort Ms. Fox to the Border and return to Erebus.”

“Indeed?” Damon said through his teeth. “When did you receive these orders?”

“You question
me?
” Lysander asked, his deceptively thin body drawing taut with offense.

“You’re an operative and a Freeblood, not a Bloodmaster.”

Lysander stewed silently for a moment and then seemed to relax. “I told you I had left Erebus soon after you did. The Council reconsidered its original orders and planned to recall you soon after you were gone.”

“Why?” Damon asked.

“Your only duty now is to obey. You are to leave immediately.”

“But
I
haven’t received any new orders,” Alexia said, moving up beside Damon. “I’m— We’re not going anywhere until we can make a full report to Aegis.”

She could see Lysander assessing her statement, comparing it with her earlier, more cooperative attitude. “That would be most ill-advised,” he said. “The dangers of remaining are too great.”

“I doubt that either Agent Fox or her partner will consider that sufficient reason to abandon their mission,” Damon said.

“That is
your
problem.” Lysander removed a folded sheet of paper from inside his jacket and offered it to Damon, careful not to touch his fingers.

Damon opened the sheet and read the brief sentences with a frown. Alexia could just make out some of the words of the Nightsider’s script before he folded the paper again.

“Clear?” Lysander asked.

“Very clear.” Damon tucked the orders inside his jacket. “You make an excellent messenger, Lysander.”

The Nightsider smiled tightly. “See that the Half-bloods return safely to their territory. And you had better move quickly. You will need blood soon, and you would not want to rely on
them
for nourishment.”

Damon took Alexia’s arm in a firm, possessive grip. “Watch your tongue, Lysander,” he said. “She is not a serf.”

“I
take
it that you have an attachment to this Half-blood that is not only foolish, but forbidden,” Lysander said. “I would have thought you’d learned your lesson.” He smiled condescendingly at Alexia. “But she
is
a pretty thing. And spirited. Just like Eirene.”

Damon’s bone-deep trembling passed from his fingers into Alexia’s arm, through flesh and muscle and nerve. Her body shivered in answer. Damon had disregarded Lysander’s previous comment about his former lover, but Alexia knew Eirene was somehow at the heart of Damon’s all-consuming hatred of the Nightsider. Had Lysander had something to do with Eirene’s last mission and eventual death?

“Did you know, Agent Fox,” Lysander said, turning to her with a vicious smile, “before the Armistice your breed were considered the finest prizes an Opir could obtain? I wonder how much a Bloodlord or Bloodmaster in Erebus would give to own you?”

Before Alexia could ask him what he meant, Damon had released her and thrown himself at Lysander. The Nightsider staggered back, too startled even to put up his hands.

Damon lost no time. Ignoring the knife at his belt and the VS130 at his feet, he slammed his fist into Lysander’s face and pummeled him to the ground, hitting and kicking with a fury meant not to disable, but to kill. Alexia saw just enough of Damon’s face to realize he was no longer in control of his reason.

In a matter of seconds, Damon had reverted back to the volatile creature he’d been before he had left on his mission with Michael. That time he had reacted to her lack of will to survive, but this wasn’t the same. It wasn’t
her
words that had ignited him. Now that simmering animal rage had become a weapon whose only purpose was to destroy.

“Damon!” she shouted.

He didn’t hear her. He had Lysander on the ground and was locking his hand around the Nightsider’s throat, his incisors exposed in a violent grin.

But Lysander had begun to fight back. He hurled Damon off and leaped after the Daysider before he could regain his footing. Lysander drove Damon down, his greater strength evident in the relative ease with which he held Damon pinned to the earth. The Daysider bucked and twisted, clawing and striking every part of Lysander’s body he could reach. The Nightsider opened his mouth, stretching his jaws so wide that every tooth in his mouth was exposed.

Whatever reason Lysander had had for presenting Damon with the supposed “orders” from the Council, regardless of his original intentions, he was obviously ready to kill Damon without the slightest qualm.

Alexia lunged for the Vampire Slayer and brought it her shoulder. “Stop!” she shouted. “Get off him, or I’ll kill you!”

The Nightsider barely glanced at her. “Remove all your weapons and throw them out of reach,” he said, “or I will drain every drop of blood from the Darketan’s body.”

Chapter 11

W
ith a wordless snarl, Damon worked one arm free and went for his knife. Lysander caught his wrist and bent it back at an unnatural angle. Something cracked under Damon’s skin, but his mask of blind rage never faltered.

“Do it now!” Lysander shouted, sinking his teeth into Damon’s neck.

Alexia almost shot him. Once she wouldn’t have hesitated to sacrifice an enemy agent in order to eliminate a murderous leech. But Damon was no longer just an enemy agent, and the risk to him was too great. She threw the VS as far away as she could, took off her pack and kicked it away, and then removed her knife and pistol and did the same with them.

“Let him go,” she ordered.

Lysander raised his head and laughed, his teeth stained with Damon’s blood. “I never said I would let him go, only that I would not leave him a bloodless husk.” He released Damon’s wrist, grabbed his knife and ripped the sheath from Damon’s belt. “You should run, little Half-blood, before I am tempted to sample the wares that make your kind so valuable to ours.”

Damon howled and heaved under Lysander, gaining just enough space to jam his knee into the Nightsider’s crotch. Lysander reared back and slashed his long fingernails across Damon’s face, incising four deep gashes in Damon’s cheek, jaw and chin. He bent and licked the welling blood from Damon’s face. The Daysider’s body began to jerk as if in a seizure, his eyes rolling back in his skull.

The odds had just gone from bad to worse, and Alexia was responsible. She moved closer to Lysander, spreading her hands as if begging a truce.

“The orders you gave Damon said that he was supposed to escort me back to the Border,” she said. “Are you defying the Council you claim to serve?”

Lysander raised his head, Damon’s blood glistening on his lips. “I have seen his strange affection for you, little Half-blood,” he said. “I will merely be saving the Council the trouble of hunting him down after he turns traitor and defects.”

“Defects?” Alexia laughed derisively. “He hates the Enclave as much as any of you.”

“And he knew when he attacked me that I would kill him. Irrational impulses, remember?”

“If you kill him,” Alexia said, “you’ll have to kill me, too. And if you think Aegis won’t investigate—”

“They will be too busy dealing with more important matters than the loss of one operative.”

She took another step. “I don’t think you work for the Council at all,” she said. “I think
you’re
the traitor.”

Lysander curled his fingers around Damon’s throat and dug his nails into the skin. The Daysider choked, and fresh blood soaked the collar of his shirt.

“Alexia,” Damon said, his voice a bubbling whisper. “Run. Tell them—”

Alexia hurled herself at Lysander, less concerned about doing damage than breaking up the lethal embrace. Without turning, Lysander batted at her as if she were an annoying insect and sent her flying. She rolled to her feet, sucking air into her lungs as she prepared to attack again.

But she’d broken the deadlock, and Damon was already moving. Blood spattered the ground and Lysander’s face as Damon wrenched his arms up and broke the Nightsider’s hold. Suddenly it was as if Damon had never been compromised at all, and Lysander was falling back, crouching with an incredulous expression on his face.

Then Damon was on him again, a whirlwind that could cut down everything in its path.

It was a ruthless, brutal fight, but the Nightsider was almost completely on the defensive now, quivering prey caught between the deadly claws of Damon’s relentless predator. Each of Damon’s blows was precisely aimed to do the most damage, and soon Lysander was scrambling away, intent only on survival.

Alexia knew they couldn’t let him go. She ran to retrieve the VS and spun around to find Damon with his teeth sunk into Lysander’s shoulder. The Nightsider screamed.

“Damon!” she shouted. “Get out of the way!”

He maintained his hold, biting harder, and Lysander began to flail like a madman, his eyes vivid with terror. Alexia knew Damon wasn’t hearing her, wasn’t feeling anything but the implacable need to kill.

And she had to stop him. She had no idea if Damon had ever killed anyone before, but this wasn’t simply a matter of self-defense. This was the kind of bloodthirstiness Enclave soldiers and civilians had witnessed in rampaging vampires at the end of the War, when the leeches had finally realized they had lost their bid to enslave all humanity. Alexia knew in her heart that if Damon killed Lysander this way, like a beast—like an Orlok—he could never fully return to what he had been.

It was up to her to finish it. She was more than ready.

She advanced another meter, keeping the Vampire Slayer aimed at whatever part of Lysander she could see. “Damon,” she said. “You’ve won. Let me take care of this.”

Lysander rolled his eyes in her direction. “Stop,” he gasped, blood foaming around his lips. “I will—”

Damon pulled back and struck the Nightsider across the face, and Alexia knew the only way she could stop him was to hurt him. She hesitated, holding the VS tight against her side, drew her knife and threw it directly at Damon’s shoulder.

It bit through his bloodstained jacket into flesh, and Damon twisted to slap the knife away, his face streaked with blood like war paint. His eyes focused on Alexia, and she saw in him more than fury, more than hatred, more than the intensity of will that had driven him to keep her safe no matter what the cost.

It was the way Michael had looked at her the last time. The rage, the loss, the profound sorrow.

With a high-pitched scream, Lysander lunged up to clamp his teeth around Damon’s neck. Damon felt behind him for the knife he had tossed aside, snatched it up and buried the blade in Lysander’s back.

The two men broke apart, Lysander scraping his hand across his back in an effort to remove the knife, Damon shaking the blood from his throat and prepared to strike the final blow.

Alexia ran to the side, searching for a clear shot to Lysander’s head or chest. Any other part of his body and the projectile might not kill him. But if she hit Damon instead—

Something moved on the edge of her vision, a tall, almost spindly shape that darted toward the combatants before she could alter her aim. It lifted Damon by his shoulder with one skeletal hand and tossed him a good three meters away. Then it grabbed Lysander and shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Alexia heard the Nightsider’s neck snap.

The Orlok met her gaze.
Safe,
it said in her mind.

She ran for Damon and dropped to her knees beside him. He was dazed and injured, but sanity was returning to his eyes, and when he looked at her it was with the bewilderment of a man who miraculously survived a fatal accident. His wounds, even the deep punctures and slashes in his neck and face, had stopped bleeding, and Alexia quickly returned her attention to the dead Nightsider and the creature that stood above him.

Michael.

The Orlok released its hold on Lysander’s hair, red now rather than white, and started toward her. Damon scrambled into a crouch, moving stiffly as he put himself between her and the Orlok.

“It’s all right,” Alexia whispered. “He won’t hurt us.”

“He?” Damon asked, blinking the blood from his eyes.

She continued to hold Michael’s gaze, so heavy with grief that she thought her heart would break.

Thank you,
she thought, hoping Michael would hear her.

The Orlok inclined his head and began to shuffle backward, away from her and the Nightsider he had killed for her sake. And perhaps, even, for Damon’s.

Don’t go,
she thought.
Let me help you.

“Sires’ blood,” Damon swore hoarsely. “It
knows
you.”

Michael’s stare swung toward Damon. Alexia heard nothing, but suddenly Damon’s face went blank with astonishment. He began to rise, but Michael melted away into the shrubbery, and Alexia knew he was gone.

* * *

Half stunned by the bizarre and violent turn of events, Alexia turned back to Damon, who was sinking down again.

“Hold still,” she commanded. He obeyed, still staring after Michael, as she pulled his blood-saturated jacket away from his skin and helped him remove it, taking care not to jog his broken wrist any more than necessary. She knew he was completely back to normal by the way he winced, ever so slightly, at her gentle probing of his neck and shoulder wounds.

“What in the Human Hell just happened?” he asked hoarsely.

Alexia let out a long breath and closed her eyes. “What do you remember?” she asked.

“I was...fighting Lysander,” he said.

Alexia almost laughed. She opened her eyes and found herself staring at Damon’s neck. Even though the bleeding had stopped, the smell of blood—
his
blood—was ripe in the air, so strong she could taste it.

She swallowed and looked at Lysander’s broken body. She could smell his blood, too, but it had no effect on her at all.

Damon’s blood.
God help her.

As if he had guessed the course of her thoughts, Damon raised a finger from his good hand to brush at the deepest wounds in his neck.

“Leave that alone,” Alexia snapped, slapping his hand back down. “Let it heal.” She swallowed again, trying to ignore the bitterness on her tongue. “What else do you remember?”

“Almost nothing, except he...threatened you,” Damon said, spitting the last few words through his teeth. His skin began to flush with fresh anger. “Alexia—”

“Easy,” Alexia said, lightly touching the uninjured part of his arm. “Do you remember how the fight started?”

“I...think
I
started it,” he said. He covered his mouth with a bloody hand. “Something...went wrong. I should have forced him to tell us—” He broke off again and raised his head. “What
did
I do, Alexia?”

She didn’t know how to answer the agony in his voice, the knowledge that he had to ask someone else what he’d done because his memory was a blank. He saw the blood on himself, on Lysander, and still he didn’t realize how he had transformed, become something for which Alexia had no name or explanation.

“You kept him from trying to kill us,” she said simply.

He glanced at her and quickly looked away, his torn face drawn with confusion and pain.

She needed him clearheaded after all this.
She
needed to be clearheaded, and it wasn’t going to be easy. There were too many issues clamoring for her attention, including finding out where Damon’s “spells” were coming from and what to do about them. If anything could or
should
be done about them.

“The Lamia,” Damon said suddenly, catching her off guard. “Why did it kill Lysander, and not us? Have you seen it before?”

“No,” she replied, lying before she could think about it.

“But it recognized you.” Damon worked his body into a crouch that brought his face very close to hers. “How is that possible?”

Alexia knew she was going to have to tell Damon about what had happened to Michael and what he’d said to her, but not here. Not now.

“I don’t know,” she said, reaching down to help Damon to his feet. Still cradling his broken wrist close to his chest, he limped over to the double agent’s body.

“Do you know him?” she asked.

“I may have seen him once in Erebus, but I do not recognize him as a Council operative.” He turned his gaze to Lysander. “Few Darketans have ever attacked an Opir and lived, and none has ever killed one.”

“But you
didn’t
kill him,” Alexia said, coming up behind him. “And anyway, this one deserved it.”

His shoulders rose and fell in a heavy sigh. “I would have killed him if you hadn’t interfered.”

Alexia refused to take his words as a reproach. He couldn’t be thinking straight yet.

She touched his bare shoulder lightly. “We should go now. We don’t know who, or what, might be attracted to the smell of blood.”

“Yes.” He examined both bodies with a slight frown. “We will attempt to make it appear as though the Opiri were fighting each other,” he said.

“They
were
fighting each other,” Alexia said. “It was just pretty one-sided.”

“Then we must hope that we do a convincing job of suggesting they were more evenly matched.” He reached for Lysander’s body with his good hand. Alexia got in his way.

“Maybe you should leave moving them to me,” she said. “Your wrist is broken, and you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

She was waiting for his response not only because she was worried about him pushing himself, but because she wanted to see if he’d react to her mention of losing blood. Lysander had suggested he would need nourishment soon, and that worried her greatly.

Damon hadn’t reacted at the time, so maybe Lysander had been trying to scare her just for the hell of it, figuring she would be threatened by the idea of Damon taking her blood. And the Daysider hadn’t made any attempt to actually drink any of Lysander’s blood, which would have made perfect sense if he were in need.

“I’m fine,” Damon said. “These wounds aren’t as bad as they look.” He smiled, a wry expression obviously meant to reassure her. “As long as I can avoid another fight within the next few hours, I will recover.”

“Damon—”

He turned his back on her, and Alexia realized he wasn’t going to accept her help, let alone admit that he needed rest and nourishment. While she gathered up her pack, the weapons and the scraps of red-dyed cloth shed in the battle, Damon arranged the bodies, wiped the handle of his knife on his pants and put the weapon in the first Nightsider’s hand.

He stood up, scraping the back of his good hand across his face without taking notice of the still-raw gashes. “Anyone who comes is going to know an Orlok’s been here, anyway,” he said. He glanced sideways at Alexia. “That was unbelievable luck.”

She didn’t rise to the bait. “What about the clothes you’re still wearing?” she asked, dropping the wad of bloodstained fabric at her feet. “They’re saturated. If you think someone might find the bodies and come looking for us, you’ll have to do something about them. You’ll leave a trail even a human could find.”