Daysider

Chapter 19

Hera was first to appear, hands raised, with an Opir in daygear driving her at gunpoint ahead of him. The fact that he wore the suit told Damon that he had anticipated being out in daylight, though dawn was very far away. And by the number of weapons he carried, he expected to fight.

“It seems we were a little too late,” Alexia whispered as a half dozen other suited Opiri approached from every direction.

She felt behind her for Damon’s hand, and he squeezed her fingers. They both realized what was likely to happen to them, no matter how hard they fought, but Damon knew that Alexia was thinking of the humans. At best, they would be taken back to Erebus to resume their former lives as serfs. Damon guessed that some, like Emma, would rather be dead.

They still might be.

When Sergius strolled out to meet them, his helmet tucked in the crook of his arm, Damon knew how thoroughly he’d failed. He should have acted the moment he had felt those “vague” suspicions about Theron’s former disciple. He should have fully recognized the rebellion in Sergius’s eyes. Resentment, not only against Theron, but against his place in the world.

He should have killed Sergius at the very beginning.

“Damon,” the Opir said. “Agent Fox.”

“Sergius,” Damon said, his voice eerily calm. “How long have you had this planned?”

“Not long.” Sergius smiled, though without the mockery Damon would have expected.

“It just happens that the opportunity has come to act, and delaying would be foolish and unnecessary.” He signaled to his agents, who closed their circle around the humans.

Hera’s captor shoved her close to Damon and Alexia.

“Put down your weapons and no one need be hurt,” Sergius said. He dropped his helmet into the grass at his feet and casually brought his rifle to bear on Alexia. “Do as I tell you, Damon, or I will kill your little friend.”

“I’m getting a little tired of being called ‘little’ by upstart Freebloods,” Alexia said as she tossed her rifle down and removed her other weapons. “Am I too far off in guessing you knew Lysander?”

“Not at all, Agent Fox. We were working together, but unfortunately he never made our last rendezvous.” He met Damon’s gaze. “He knew his work was dangerous.

Damon, I will not ask you again. Throw down your weapons.”

He removed his rifle, pistol and knife and tossed them out of reach. Sergius was in a talkative mood in spite of the precarious situation, and Damon intended to take advantage of his bad judgment.

“We know Lysander was working for the Expansionist Faction,” he said. “Are you?”

“Not originally. I was recruited to become the party’s agent in the colony after I discovered what Theron’s once-noble philosophy had become.”

“A double agent, you mean,” Alexia spat.

“Lysander was my contact. We both, however, determined the Expansionists’ goals were not necessarily our own.”

“And these others?” she asked.

“Fellow Freebloods who agree that our kind should no longer rely on any faction in Erebus to grant us what we have earned.” He shrugged. “A pity Lysander didn’t survive.

He said he had an opportunity to obtain something that would be highly valuable to us in furthering our plans.”

His eyes narrowing, Sergius stared pointedly at Alexia. “I was under the impression that this thing Lysander sought had something to do with you, Agent Fox. I know the Expansionists had assigned him to kill you and Damon. Perhaps you know what he was after?”

Damon felt Alexia stiffen. “I have no idea,” she said.

“Why am I under the impression you are lying?” He clucked his tongue reprovingly.

“No matter. We will have plenty of time to talk it over.”

“Where?” Alexia asked. “In the middle of the firefight that’s probably about to happen any moment?”

“Oh, we intend to stay out of the way,” Sergius said. “We have no stake in Eleutheria or what Aegis and the Council do to each other because of it. Our only goal now is to wait them out and then move our resources—” he nodded to the humans “—to our new home.”

“Your own colony,” Damon said, noting the positions of each of Sergius’s followers without turning his head.

“I must credit Theron with giving me the idea,” Sergius said. “When we smuggled the serfs out of Erebus, he led me to believe that his colony would be one where Freebloods seeking to found their own households would be able to claim a certain number of humans in exchange for helping establish the settlement.” He laughed derisively. “But, you see, once Theron had begun, he became obsessed with a new way. Freedom.

Equality.”

He glanced again at the humans, whose expressions ranged from defiant to dull acceptance, with Emma and Cullen among those who looked ready to fling themselves at the Opiri and die happily. “Theron’s dream has no hope of surviving, but we intend to learn from his mistakes. When we found our own settlement, it will be truly Opir.”

“A society based on brutality and involuntary servitude,” Damon said, the rage beginning to smolder in his chest.

“Outrage, Damon? From you, when you so perfectly illustrate both these qualities?”

Damon felt Alexia push her body close to his, trying to get his attention. He glanced at her, but already he was having difficulty interpreting what he saw in her eyes. Just as he couldn’t make sense of Sergius’s comment.

“No matter,” Sergius said. “We have what we wanted from Eleutheria. Theron may be sure we will put these serfs to good use.” He signaled to one of his men, who slung his rifle over his shoulder, set down his pack and removed a coil of heavy rope.

Sergius addressed the humans. “I will kill two of you for every one who fights or struggles,” he said. “Emma, that means you.”

The young woman glared at him with hatred hot enough to set the air between them on fire. “Do you think the Council will let you get away with this?” she asked. “If the colony falls and the Enclave doesn’t take us, they’ll want us back in Erebus, not in the hands of rebellious Freebloods.”

“That is a chance we are willing to take,” Sergius said. “And from now on, Emma, you will learn to treat your betters with respect.”

Emma spat. Sergius casually trained his rifle on Cullen and shot him. Emma screamed, dropped to her knees and took the dying man in her arms.

Damon lunged toward Sergius. Alexia grabbed his arm and held him back through sheer force of will.

“I won’t let you kill yourself,” she hissed. “We’ll find a way, Damon.”

He heard her, though his mind was beginning to fill with crimson haze and adrenaline raced through his body like a fast-acting poison. As he balanced on the thin wall between sanity and mindless violence, Sergius’s henchman began to tie the hands of the nearest humans, leaving a length of rope between each captive.

“You aren’t moving fast enough, Sergius,” Alexia taunted, slowly working her way into a position between Damon and the Opir. “The strike force could be here any moment. If they catch you, I don’t think they’re going to let you walk off scot-free, humans or no humans.”

“But I have a hostage, do I not?” Sergius said. “Your people will surely hesitate to attack when one of their dhampir agents may be killed.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Alexia said. “Like Theron said, they aren’t likely to be happy that I’ve countermanded my orders and haven’t only approached the colony but am fighting for them.”

“But you aren’t with the colony now, are you?” He beckoned one of his other men, who approached one of the female humans, pushed her down and tore off a wide strip of her long tunic. He brought the scrap to Sergius.

“Come to me, Agent Fox,” Sergius said. “And quickly, if you value the lives of these serfs.”

Alexia glanced at Damon, a plea in her eyes, and started toward Sergius. From deep within the morass of dark emotion that was slowly swallowing his reason, Damon felt pride and humility at her courage. He had failed again and again to protect her, but she had never wanted him to steal her choices from her. And, knowing he might lose her, he had chosen not to take them.

Sergius was oblivious to what was happening inside Damon. He took Alexia’s arm in a cruel grip. “Stand still,” he commanded, and wedged the scrap of cloth into her mouth.

Damon swallowed a howl as Sergius tied the gag.

“I see what you would like to do to me, Damon,” the Opir said, glancing casually in his direction. “Your affection for this dhampir is clearly out of all reason. But then you were never quite right in the head, as the humans say.”

“I will kill you,” Damon rasped.

“I don’t think so. Not as long as Agent Fox is in my custody.” He looked away, dismissing Damon as if he were an annoying insect he intended to crush when he had a moment free. “You,” he said to one of the humans sitting next to a weeping Emma, “help bind the others. You, as well.”

The two of them, aware they would only bring on more death if they disobeyed, helped the Freeblood tie up their fellow humans and then stood quietly while the Opir finished with them.

“To the caves,” Sergius ordered, gesturing with his rifle. “Move ahead of me, Agent Fox. We must be sure that none of our new acquisitions lose their way in the dark.”

Alexia looked at Damon again. She knew he was on the edge, that any moment his fragile control would snap and he would strike at Sergius, no matter what the consequences. She hesitated, and Sergius struck the back of her head.

Damon sprang toward him, his muscles bunching and releasing as if they were made of steel cables, carrying him instantly across the distance between them as if it were no wider than a centimeter. Several bullets caught him full in the chest, and he dropped to his knees. Several more slammed into his shoulder and his left leg.

Somewhere, someone screamed. The voice was almost familiar, but Damon’s ears were filled with a high-pitched buzz, and his nose was clogged with the smell of his own blood. He fell to his side, consumed by pain.

And something else far more powerful.

He spread his hands on the ground, splaying his fingers to support his weight, and pushed up. His injured leg gave out beneath him, but he shifted to his other leg and heaved himself to his feet, his pulse blotting out every other sound.

He never heard the bark of the gun, only felt the bullet as it drove into his skull. He collapsed again, and darkness swallowed him.

When he woke, it took him some time to remember who and where he was. It was still well before midnight, and he lay in a pool of his own blood. As the recent past came back to him, he realized how close he had come to dying. The bullet had cracked his skull, but it had not struck his brain.

The shooter thought he’d killed Damon, or he would never have left his enemy here untended. But Sergius and his followers had done damage enough by keeping Damon from the others, and as he began to rise Damon had to fight for his balance and to hold the blackness at bay.

By the time he was certain he could move without falling, Sergius, Alexia and the others were long gone, and Damon knew he had a disadvantage in the dark. He began to track the others, loping awkwardly, his injured body fueled by ruthless need.

The Opir in the rear of the loose column heard him coming, but he never had time to raise his rifle. Damon hit him at a run and sank his teeth into the Opir’s neck. He jerked his head sideways, ripping through the Opir’s throat in a spray of blood, and left the man lying there as he raced for the next.

The second Freeblood pumped off nearly an entire round, but Damon dodged easily and wrenched the rifle from his enemy’s hands. He reversed it, swung the stock at the Opir’s head, and then shot the man as soon as he was down.

By then the commotion had been noticed, and for Damon the next sequence of events, passing in a matter of seconds, seemed to move as slowly as an Opir left to die in the sun.

Hera was the first to act, breaking the ropes that bound her hands and turning on the Opir who guarded her. She was not quite fast enough; the Opir jabbed the muzzle of his rifle into her chest and shot her point-blank. But her sacrifice created just enough distraction for Alexia to move on Sergius. As she slammed into him from the side, Damon broke into a dead run straight for his enemy.

He saw nothing of what happened then, for he was on Sergius the next moment, tearing the Opir’s rifle from his hands and throwing him to the ground. Gunfire rattled and boomed, someone screamed, struggling bodies rushed by in a blur of motion as Damon went straight for Sergius’s throat.

But Sergius was still Opir. He flung his arm in front of his neck and rolled to the side, sinking his own teeth into Damon’s shoulder. Damon hardly felt it, as he scarcely felt the injuries that had barely begun to heal. He slammed his knee into Sergius’s groin, flung him aside and forced him down again.

He might have made an end to it then if he hadn’t smelled a scent he had never quite forgotten, heard a voice he had once cherished call his name. He froze, and Sergius surged upward, throwing Damon off balance and regaining the upper hand. Damon’s vision pulsed red and black as Sergius bit the base of his neck, puncturing deep and filling Damon’s throat with blood.

But he refused to die. He found the strength to fight again, his muscles swelling with fresh strength, his brain firing off signals his body obeyed before he was aware of them.

When once again he came back to himself, Sergius was limp under his hands, panting and bloody, mauled within an inch of his life. Damon looked up from the Opir’s slack face. Alexia, gag gone, was standing with Emma and a human male, rifles trained on four Opiri sprawled in a heap at their feet. The humans crowded around them, looking very much as if they would appreciate being given the chance to tear the Opiri limb from limb.

Alexia, Damon thought. Alexia is safe.

He met her gaze, and she smiled. But as he rose, she looked past him at someone approaching from the south. Damon stiffened and turned.

An Opir, one of those Damon had taken down earlier, was stumbling toward him, hands raised, prodded along from behind by a rifle in the hands of a slim, light-haired Darketan woman, her skin pale in the darkness.

Damon knew her, just as he had known her scent, and her voice.

Eirene.

Three breaths was all the time it took for Alexia to recognize the woman who had come out of nowhere to help her take down Sergius’s henchmen.

The “nice lady.” The Darketan woman who had saved Alexia’s life twenty years ago by sharing her blood.

Alexia’s fingers went numb on the rifle, and she had to concentrate to make them work again. The woman was pushing one of Sergius’s men, liberally splashed with his own blood, toward the other captured Opiri, and as she came she was looking at the Daysider who stood over Sergius’s limp body.

Damon didn’t move. He, too, had been badly injured, and it seemed a miracle to Alexia that he was still alive. But he seemed unaware of any pain as he stared at the woman, and Alexia could feel something almost tangible pass between them, more than recognition, more than wonder, more than joy.

“Who is she?” Emma asked.

“A friend, it seems,” Alexia said. She swallowed and stared down at the Opiri, who were wounded badly enough not to cause any more trouble, at least for the time being.

“We still have to get to the caves as quickly as possible.”

Emma glanced at Hera’s body. “She died for us,” she said, her voice thick with sorrow. “I wish we could take care of her.”

“Maybe we can come back for her,” Alexia said, silently offering thanks to the fallen Opir woman. “Right now I think she’d want us to make her sacrifice worthwhile.”

“What about them? ” Emma asked, gesturing at the Opiri with hatred in her eyes.

Alexia barely heard her question. She was watching the Darketan woman walk past Damon and Damon turning to stare after her as she urged her Opir prisoner to join the others on the ground. As the Freeblood sank to his knees, the Darketan stepped back and smiled at Alexia, her lovely face warm with approval.

“You must be Alexia,” she said. “You’re even more beautiful than you were as a child.”

“Do you know her, Alexia?” Emma asked, staring at the stranger.

“Yes.” Alexia shouldered her rifle and offered her hand. “I remember you,” she said.

“You haven’t changed.”

“Oh, but I have,” the woman said. “In more ways than you can imagine. And so much of that is because of you.” She turned to look at Damon, who was still standing over Sergius. “I think Damon is in need of help right now.”

Shaking off her paralysis, Alexia told Emma to shoot the Opiri if they moved and ran to Damon’s side. His knees began to buckle as she reached him, and she eased him down, her heart in her throat.

The Darketan woman came up behind her. “He’s injured, but not dying,” she said, kneeling beside Damon. His eyes were dazed and unfocused, but he glanced at her and then at Alexia with a deep bewilderment even his pain couldn’t hide.

Alexia joined the other woman on the ground. “Damon, can you hear me?” she asked.

His mouth opened, but no sound emerged. Alexia had the terrible feeling that he was keeping himself conscious by sheer instinct alone.

“I’ve never seen him this badly hurt,” the Darketan woman said, the anxiety in her voice perfectly expressing Alexia’s own unspoken emotions.

“How did you... Do you know him?” Alexia asked.

“It was a very long time ago,” the Darketan woman said.

There was no time for Alexia to ask all the questions that crowded her mind, acknowledge the suspicions that were quickly becoming certainties. “I’ve seen him this bad,” she said. “He recovered. But we need to get him to the caves, along with the others.” She met the Darketan woman’s eyes. “I don’t how much you know about the situation here, but we’re still in danger. A war is likely to start any minute.”

“I know,” the woman said. “I’ll help you get to these caves.” She looped her arm under Damon’s shoulder and pulled him to his feet. Alexia let the woman handle him, knowing she had her own responsibilities that couldn’t be pushed aside because of her personal concerns. She returned to the others, unslung her rifle and punched Sergius in the chest with the muzzle.

“I know you’re not fatally injured,” she said. “Get up, or I’ll make sure you are.”

Sergius rolled onto his knees with a grunt of pain. “This is only a temporary victory, dhampir,” he muttered.

“It’s good enough for me,” Alexia said. “Move.”

None too gently urging Sergius ahead of her, Alexia returned to Emma and the humans. “We can’t take the Opiri with us,” she said. “We’ll have to—”

“Let us kill them,” Emma said. The other humans murmured agreement.

“No time to make sure they’re dead,” Alexia said. “But we can make sure they can’t get up for a while.”

Without waiting for further instructions, Emma trained her rifle on the nearest Opir and systematically shot him in both knees and both arms. Alexia didn’t stop her until she had done the same with all the groaning Opir, leaving Sergius for last.

“Where are my betters now, Sergius?” she asked, lifting the rifle again.

Sergius laughed and turned his head to watch Damon and the Darketan woman approach, Damon leaning heavily on her arm but still on his feet. “You were lucky,” he said, “that you found an unexpected ally.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Alexia said, following his gaze. “You were too arrogant, Sergius. And you underestimated Damon.”

“Underestimated him?” Sergius coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I know him far better than you do, little dhampir. I know what he is, and why he has been allowed to live in spite of his unstable nature.”

A fist of dread knotted inside Alexia’s stomach. “I’m not interested in what you think you know,” she snapped. “Emma, I’ll take care of this one myself.”

“Ask yourself why a Darketan is more powerful than a full-blood Opir,” Sergius said with a twist of his lips. “Ask yourself who, and what, released that power.” He seemed to run out of breath and waved his hand. “Finish your business, dhampir. I grow weary of this conversation.”

Driven by fury that went beyond her hatred of Sergius and those like him, Alexia prepared to fire. Then she lowered her weapon again.

“I think we’ll take you with us, Sergius,” she said. “Who knows, you may be useful.”

She shot him in the shoulder and watched him writhe. “Would you mind tying him up, Emma?”

As the human woman went to work, grinning with savage pleasure, Alexia returned to Damon.

“Is he holding up okay?” she asked the Darketan woman.

“Yes,” she said, meeting Alexia’s gaze with her own dark turquoise eyes. “But it may be too late to get away. I hear them coming.”

Alexia listened. Others were coming, though she wasn’t sure at first who they were.

“Aegis,” the woman said. “I got here ahead of them, but just barely.”

The fist in Alexia’s stomach tightened its grip. “Where did you come from?” she whispered.

“San Francisco.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And now it’s time to run.”

With a final glance at Damon’s pale face, Alexia turned and hurried back to Emma and the humans.

“You take the others to the cave as fast as you can,” she told Emma. “I’m sending the Darketans and Sergius with you, but I’m staying behind to hold off anyone who comes after you.”

“You can’t do it alone,” Emma protested.

“I’ll do what I have to.” She waited for the Darketan woman and Damon to join them.

“I don’t care what’s between you and Damon. Take care of him. He’s going to need your strength.”

“It is not what you seem to think, Alexia,” the Darketan woman said. “But I promise I’ll take good care of him. For you. Good luck.”

As she and the others set off at a jogging run, Sergius limping ahead of Emma’s rifle, Alexia quickly replaced the magazine in her rifle and arranged both her and Damon’s weapons within easy reach. She was straining to listen for nearby movement when something vibrated on her hip.

The communicator. She reached for it, her gaze still sweeping the surrounding landscape. The touch screen had come on, flashing red. Alexia pushed the recessed button on the side.

There were new words on the screen, but they were not from Aegis. As she read, she began to understand the full scope of what was happening, and how one man’s hatred might destroy them all.

Oh, Michael, she thought.

“Put the weapon down.”

Alexia emerged from her trance and looked up at the soldier in Aegis camouflage gear crouched a dozen meters away. Slowly she put the rifle down and locked her hands behind her head.

The soldier ran to her, keeping low to the ground, and patted her down. He removed the communicator, glanced at the blank screen and attached it to his belt.

“My name is Fox,” Alexia said. “Agent Alexia Fox. I need to speak to your commander immediately.”

The soldier looked at her through his tinted visor. “I think that can be arranged,” he replied.