Dawn's Darkest Hour

Cole shifted his weight on the couch and turned to get a better look at the third 'bride of Dracula'. "Am I staying long enough to need a change of clothes?" He could tell by the look she shot at him in reply. He was going to be camping out a while. He didn't want to think about that. With the intent of changing the conversation he asked, "How's David?"

"Better. He just needs time to heal. Sometimes, things just aren't as black and white as we believe them to be. Things we think we can handle, we can't. And those that seem impossible to endure come to us with the greatest of ease." Candace neatly stacked the empty dishes on top of one another and gathered up a crumpled, used napkin between her fingers.

"So, I'm a prisoner here?"

"Not precisely." She stood and balanced the tray in her arms. "I just don't think you realize exactly how much trust has been placed in you by bringing you here. Ours is a secret with great consequence. You can walk away and never look back, if you choose. And maybe you should. Choice isn't a gift to be taken lightly." Candace wrapped her fingers around the doorknob. "Take some time and think about it." Gently, she pulled it closed behind her and made her way to the kitchen with the empty dishes.

Cole was ready to get off the emotional roller coaster at the next stop. What Candace said made sense. Obviously, they were placing their bets on a wild card. Him. But, how far and what he was willing to do with their trust. Was entirely up to him. He could walk away and never look back. No, he couldn't. He was in too deep to back out now. No matter what the consequences, he was willing to deal with them as they came and see this thing through to the very end. Besides, how could his life ever be the same? There wasn't any going back. Now, if he could just get David on board with his plan.

Chapter 81

Nora lit a white votive candle and placed it carefully on the steps leading to the school's front door. She wasn't alone. Hundreds of white candles flickered brilliantly in the night. Roses, brightly colorful balloons, and teddy bears for Rachael littered the steps and the front lawn. Softly, she snuffled as someone flicked on a boom box. A soulful haunting melody drifted across the schoolyard. Her fingers grappled with the cheap lighter she'd picked up on the way over and clumsily lit two more of the dime store vanilla scented votives she'd purchased at the same time. The air was tinted with a mix of scents wafting off the candles around her.

She lit a second candle for Cole, and her third for David. Rachael's death, possibly Cole's, and David's sudden disappearance might not be related. If she had to guess though, call it intuition. The three occurrences were somehow connected. Intuition and the fact that she remembered seeing the three of them together after school the Friday night before all of this went down was a pretty good hunch. Regret that she hadn't done something to prevent it bit at her hard.

She was worried about Cole. But, she was terrified for David. Deep in her heart she knew David wasn't responsible for Rachael's death. Despite the damning evidence to the contrary. She couldn't and wouldn't believe he was a killer. No, she was terrified for David, not because of him. He didn't have the soul for death, yet it surrounded him. He was in danger of losing himself. The parts she loved the most to the darkness that seemed always at his heels.

She was just beginning to accept Rachael's death. That Cole could be out there somewhere rotting in a god forsaken dumpster...she wouldn't accept that until she had to. Cole was a resilient and resourceful kid. He had street smarts and the survival instincts of an old junkyard dog. To think that he was dead...that something had gotten to him and ended his short life, just as it had Rachael's. She wouldn't give in to believing anything other than he was still alive until she had no other choice.

Desperately, she clung to the hope that Cole was still alive and that her heart was right about David. Doing something was better than sitting around worrying and accomplishing nothing. She sat the lit candles on the concrete stairs and pulled droplets of melted wax off her fingers. Her skin stung where the hot wax had dribbled across them. The tiny flickering flames, as pitiful as it sounded, gave her a sense of purpose. As if by their dim light, the two would find their way home, soon.

Chapter 82

David squinted at the narrow strip of light that shone across the concrete floor. Good. Someone was here to spring him out. He'd spent about twelve hours chilling out in what he assumed was the Sons's version of a rubber room. Judging by the gauges in the concrete and the chains firmly bolted to the wall, he wasn't the room's first or probably last inhabitant.

The Son's attempt at modern psychiatry left a lot to be desired. But, it wasn't exactly like a trip to Thorazine Town was an option. Human pharmaceuticals didn't work on vampires. The storage room held boxes of canned fruits and vegetables. Enough stores to feed a small army for a month or better. Windowless, with walls of thick concrete block and a steel door, the room was ideal for housing a mad vampire. Huffily, he stared at the leather- clad warrior who had come to claim him. Stubbornly, he remained perched on a cardboard box of canned peaches.

Ok, after his little meltdown, he supposed he'd earned every minute he'd spent in the holding cell. He had no idea of the Son was here to release him or perhaps, needed a can of peas for some unfathomable reason. "What do you want?"

A twinge of embarrassment colored his cheeks. The warriors had to drag him away from the site of his sister's pyre sobbing like a little girl the entire way to the compound. Little meltdown? Hell, he'd lost it in a BIG way. What was worse? He'd compromised his entire race by dragging Cole into his psychiatric episode. Did he have to take everyone he cared about down the toilet with him? Angry with himself, he scrubbed a hand down his face. Expectantly, he looked up at the warrior filling the doorway with his muscle bound frame. "Well?"

"The Great Father would like to speak with you."

David mustered up what little dignity he had left and hefted his ass off the crate. He had no composure to gather. Taking a deep, cleansing breath that would have given the best psychotherapist a raging hard on, he muttered, "Yeah, I figured he would."

David followed the warrior through a seemingly never-ending twisting maze of corridors and long hallways. The soft whisper of a metal dagger against leather was not lost on him. The Sons were reputed for drawing their weapons first and asking questions second. David mussed that their reputation was well deserved. Finally, Garganuion stopped in front of an ornately carved oak door as thick as his skull and opened it, ushering David through.

Drew studied the man John Mark all but shoved through the door. He'd have to have a talk with John Mark later about his manners. For now, all his attention was focused on the vampire scowling at him from across the desk. David's clothes were wrinkled and stained with dried blood, tattered from the recent confrontation with the Sons. "Have a seat." Drew kept his face neutral and motioned to the seat across from the desk with a wave of his hand.

David looked at the expensive leather upholstered wing back and down at the ruin of his clothes. The chair probably cost more than most new houses. "Sit," the Great Father ordered. Obediently, David did as he was told, scowling across the desk at the man.

Drew exhaled a breath. The pain radiating off this vampire...young, barely out of his infancy...was staggering. "Talk to me."

David shifted uncomfortably in the chair. Leather groaned beneath his movements. The power of the Great Father's stare was unnerving. He was asking him to speak, but David felt as if the Great Father already knew what he was going to say. Almost as if he could see right through the layer of clothing, flesh and bone straight into his soul. "What is there to say? I failed. A human girl put her trust in me and I failed her."

Drew rocked back in his chair and studied David. "Failed her? How?"

"I let her die. I didn't protect her from getting attacked in the first place and then, when I could have done something to stop her death, I hesitated. I was too late."

Drew raised an eyebrow. "Do you really think you're so omnipotent that you can foresee the future and stop death?" He rocked forward in the chair and rested his elbows on the desk. "David, all of us will die someday, and there isn't anything anyone can do to prevent it."

David gripped his shirt in his fists and pulled the stiff fabric away from his chest. "Look at this! This is her blood. I could have stopped her from dying and I didn't. I could have tried sooner, but I waited. Maybe death is the inevitable. But, it didn't have to be for her. It wasn't her time!"

"How do you know this? What ability do you have that I or anybody else fails to possess? What made you hesitate?"

David released his shirt from his grip. "A promise."

"A promise isn't worth the breath that utters the words unless the words are meant." Drew saw the quivering of David's shoulders. "What did you promise?"

"That I'd let her die."

"You tried to keep that promise didn't you?" Drew nodded in understanding. He wasn't speaking to David as some great leader. A figure melded from legend and utterances, but as a man, a friend to a friend. David was on the edge. If he didn't find an anchor, something to hold him to the man he knew he was. He'd fall down into a deep chasm and lose himself. Forever.

"I couldn't let her die."

"And yet you couldn't stop her death."

"No."

"Sometimes, we give ourselves too much credit. We think there is magic in our blood. How much more magical is the human soul. The soul, not our blood, decides when it will depart this world and when it will not. Our blood is just a substance. Nothing more. Out of the soul, not out of our blood, is born a vampire."

"I didn't want this...life."

"Yet, here you are."

David nodded, "Exactly. Explain that."

"Perhaps, for you, this life is better than death. You didn't want to die."

"And Rachael did?"

"No, perhaps not. But, she had already accepted her possible fate the minute she sealed the pact with you."

David stiffened in his chair. He'd had enough of the mystical shit for one night. All this spiritual babble grated his nerves. "Then how do you explain what happened to my sister? Theresa was NEVER a bad person. She wasn't evil...not like she was at the end. What happened to her?"

"David, I can't give you every answer you seek. Theresa made her own choices and suffered the consequences of those choices."

"She died because I was weak. I made her and look what she became! I. Was. Weak. My. Blood. Wasn't. Enough!" David shook with rage. Months of built up anger freed from its prison in his psyche. What the hell did he care? The Sons probably thought he was crazy anyway.

"Did you love her?"

"Yes. She was my baby sister. I protected her. It was my job."

"And what you did, was it an act of love?"

David sighed, his anger fled as quickly as it built, leaving an empty hollow place in its wake. "Yes. If she'd known what she was doing, she would have hated herself."

Drew came around the desk and sat on the polished corner, resting his weight on one leg. He rested a hand on David's shoulder, in support of everything this young vampire endured. "Then you released her."

"I killed her. My own sister, dead by my hands." David stared at his hands, stained with the blood of the innocent...Rachael. Theresa. How much more blood would be on these hands? "Send Cole back to the city. I don't want to be responsible for another human life."

"He won't leave, not without you."

"Make him," David gritted out.

"I can't. The two of you share a common thread. Your pain binds you to each other. Your destinies are shared in a way that I cannot begin to question. The only thing I can say is that the path your feet are on is up to you. Cole needs you as much as you need him. He needs you as a guide, a brother, and a friend. Don't abandon him because you're afraid. You both deserve so much better than that."

Chapter 83

Cole flicked on the bathroom lights and began peeling off his clothes. The white marble tile beneath his feet was cold, chilling him to the bone. Somehow though, the bite of the tile against the soles of his feet reminded him that he was very much alive.

He gripped his bloodstained shirt in his fists and stared down at the faded material. Rachael's blood was a patchwork of stiff rust stain against the black fabric worn a muted dark gray with time. He aimed for the trashcan and hesitated. Should he keep it? For what? A reminder of the only person on the entire planet who saw past his bad boy disguise and pried the good out of him against his will.

Rachael had made him want to be a better person. If for no other reason than to see the emerald in her eyes twinkle with approval. Keeping a bloodstained shirt wouldn't bring Rachael back. The light in her eyes that shone for him was extinguished forever. With a thump the shirt landed in an unceremonious heap in the bottom of the trashcan.

Clumsily, his trembling fingers unbuckled his belt and tore it loose from his jeans. The worn leather wallet, a Christmas present from his dad, his real dad, sent by UPS years ago, landed on the porcelain countertop. The wallet flopped open, showing his driver's license through a cracked plastic sheet. Cole Zimmerman. He studied the picture of a kid with a cocky shit eating grin across his face. He wondered if he'd ever be that person again. Probably not. The last twenty-four hours had irrevocably changed him. The smart assed kid in the picture knew everything. The man staring back at him in the mirror's reflection knew nothing.

Hell, Zimmerman wasn't even his real last name. His step dad had adopted him when he was five and changed his last name. Guess he owed the old man something after all. Cole Black was the name he'd been born with. Yeah, his mom had an odd sense of humor. Who would have Cole Black turned out to be? He pondered the question. Would he have been a science geek or a jock instead? Would Rachael have trusted Cole Black as she had Cole Zimmerman? What parts of him would have been as they are now and which parts would have been different? Well, now he was different and he didn't know what parts he wanted to keep and what parts of himself he wanted to toss into the trash along with the shirt.

Over his hips and down his thighs went the jeans and his boxers. Kicked over in the corner at the foot of the trashcan. Standing without a stitch on, he took in his lanky frame in the mirror's shiny surface. A thin tuft of medium brown hair feathered across his chest and down his belly. He was just beginning to grow into a man's wide shoulders and broad chest. His eyes followed the coarse brown hair over his thighs and calves, down to his toes. This was all Cole Zimmerman really amounted to, ten dollars worth of carbon based life form, maybe fifteen dollars worth in today's economy. Flesh and bone, blood and skin, the whole sum of who he was. He was just a bunch of cells woven together into a nineteen year-old man, struggling to hold the parts of himself together.

A shiny object on the floor, about a foot from his right big toe, caught his eye. Something must have fallen out of his pocket when he pulled out his wallet. Bending over, he picked it up. A broken gold chain looped in the cup of his palm. The pendant, a dainty and delicate looking cross glittered against his skin. He must have salvaged it from the wreckage of Rachael's body and stuffed it into his pocket for safekeeping.

He should make sure her parents got the necklace back. With an index finger, he nudged the pendant. He wanted to forget last night, but knew he never would. When he thought of Rachael, he wanted to remember more than the sounds of her labored breathing, the coolness of her pale skin, the scent and darkness of her blood leaking out in a fountain onto the cold pavement, and the stillness of her body in his arms when she died. He needed something to hold onto, something pure, something that represented her life, not her death. He needed this inane object, the cross, for himself. To remind him of the whys on the days to come, when his strength would fail him and he could not remember on his own.

Awkwardly, his fingers fumbled with the knot on the leather choker around his neck. The man necklace had no particular sentimental value. Just some overpriced bauble he'd picked up at one of those dumb chain stores in the mall. He shook loose the beads. They fell in a light tinkle of glass and chrome across the floor. The strip of mahogany leather was soft and worn in his fingers. With a little gingerly encouragement, he coaxed the thin leather strap through the pendant's clasp. Making sure his new knot wouldn't come loose and the keepsake lost forever, he gave the leather around his neck a hard jerk.

Satisfied in his handiwork, he studied his creation. Funny, the beads had meant nothing. But, this dainty cross, threaded through a scrap of sweat- softened leather meant everything. The gold hanging at the hollow of his throat was cool against his skin. He fingered the points with his thumb. In the mirror, the dried blood, Rachael's blood, was caked under his fingernails and in embedded deep into the crevices. The reflection that met his gaze was one of someone older than his years. The man he had morphed into over night. This new version of himself was product of tragedy and a man born of blood.

Chapter 84

Bianca forced a friendly smile as the warriors filled her office. "What can I do for you?" As if she didn't already know. Her scouts were good. Damn good. She knew what was going on in her city. What to do about it? Not a clue. But, at least she knew. It looked like the Sons were going to be sticking around for a while. Damned O'Sullivan. What was he thinking? Leaving all this trouble at her doorstep for her to clean up. Oh no, of course, vampire blood wasn't enough of a problem. Now he'd gone and abducted one of the Son's pets. Idiot.

She needed this band of do-gooders out of her city. But, it wasn't exactly like she could take the wheels off the welcome wagon now that they were here though, could she. Feigning the nonchalance she was famous for, she studied her nail polish.

Marcus studied Bianca. Cold bitch. Warriors were scouring the city while she sat in a posh office, wearing three hundred dollar pumps, evaluating a nail polish job that had probably cost more than his whole wardrobe put together. Oh well. Might as well dispense with the pleasantries and get down to business. They needed the Guardian's help.

Staunching the flow of pink in the city was going to have to go on the back burner for now. Although, Marcus had a feeling that if they found the vampire responsible for the girl's death and abducting the wolf-child, they'd also find the source of pink in the city. He could wrap all of this up in a bow and put it under the Christmas tree for the Great Father, if he could get Bianca to help.

Michael stiffened in his chair and glanced between Bianca and Marcus. His warriors were no closer to finding the boy or his kidnapper now than they were this morning. They had no new leads, nothing to go by. Basically, they were running around in circles chasing their tails. Inefficiency made the Sons appear weak. He needed to find that boy. NOW. He needed to bring the kidnapper to justice. NOW. He needed to get this shit wrapped up. NOW.

The rise in his groin was unwelcome. Thank god for restrictive leather. At least his hard on wasn't visible. Bianca was an attractive woman. From beneath the desk she showed a great deal of shapely long leg sheathed in seductive silk stockings. Her sleek hair was pulled tightly into a French twist at the base of her skull. She smelled of sweet, expensive perfume. A pair of diamond earrings dangled from her lobes. She was a woman used to the finer things in life with costly tastes. He was a warrior, broke as a joke. In fact, he owned nothing but the blades strapped to his hip and the worn leathers on his back. He was as rough as sandpaper around the edges. There was nothing suave or refined about him. He was definitely out of her league.