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And the closer they got to Erebus, the more likely they were to run into the Citadel’s own agents, both Nightsiders and the elusive Daysiders… . That is, if they managed to make it past the mutant creatures even the Nightsiders wouldn’t allow near their city.
Without exchanging another word, Alexia and Michael set off toward Highway 101.
Damon crouched at the crest of the hill, looking down into the valley below. From this elevation, the abandoned city was a maze of streets and decaying buildings, empty of human life. Rusting automobiles caught the sun’s light—brief, glaring beacons that appeared and vanished in a matter of seconds like the signals of an unknown code.
But he knew the emptiness was only an illusion. Somewhere, nestled at the foot of these hills, was a society that shouldn’t exist.
He smiled, though there was no one to see. It wasn’t as if the Council hadn’t known about the colony. They hadn’t shared that fact with their field agents, but those the humans called Daysiders, despised minority that they were, had their own secret channels of communication within Erebus. Certain powerful Bloodmasters had simply failed to acknowledge the “problem”…as long as the humans, other than the serfs in the colony itself, didn’t know about it. After all, it was to Erebus’s benefit if the Opiri gained a strong foothold in the Zone. One step here, another there, testing the waters, seeing just how far they could push.
But the colony wasn’t a secret any longer. Word had come that the Enclave knew something was up, and at this very moment Aegis operatives were on their way to investigate.
And that could mean war. A new war the Expansionists would be eager enough to encourage, if the humans would be cooperative enough to instigate it. Some believed the Expansionists had established the colony themselves for that very purpose.
Even if they hadn’t, Damon had no doubt that the conservatives were secretly giving the settlement their full support, perhaps even providing serfs for the colonists. Not so the ruling Independent. They still controlled the Council, and they had no intention of letting the fragile Armistice be destroyed.
But they faced a problem that wasn’t likely to be solved without significant conflict. Damon knew the establishment of the illegal colony had been motivated by a very simple instinct shared by both Opiri and humans: the need to survive.
For Opiri, survival meant not only blood but room to live as their very biology demanded. Erebus was beginning to outgrow itself. Opiri were not meant to dwell in close proximity to each other like humans or rabbits, squeezed into apartments stacked like blocks under a single roof. Though Bloodmasters and many Bloodlords were accorded their own towers to accommodate their many serfs and vassals, there was little room in the Citadel for upward mobility. And Freebloods needed blood as much as any other Opir.
Sooner or later, the pressure to increase their territory would incite certain Opiri to violence. The only thing to be done was to delay the inevitable until some new bargain could be reached with the human government…or the Expansionists found a way to break the power of the Enclaves forever.
Damon had no personal stake in the colony’s fate one way or another, and his opinions were of no consequence except where they related directly to his work. He belonged to no Bloodmaster. He served only the Council, and Erebus. Because that was his nature, and his destiny.
To be forever alone. Neither human nor Opir, too valuable to be discarded like the Lamiae, too different to ever fully integrate into Erebusian society. But vital to the Citadel nevertheless, and free in a way no vassal could ever be.
Squinting against the lowering sun, Damon started down the slope, his feet deftly finding their way among stones and tough, hardy shrubs scattered like spots over the hillside pelt of summer-gold grass. He would not be approaching the colony; his job was both more dangerous and much simpler.
He reached the foot of the hill and opened his senses. He smelled nothing but the sharp scent of spice bush and the musk of a fox, heard only the rustle of fleeing mice and the distant cry of a hawk. As long as he traveled by the sun, he was not likely to be detected by the Opir colonists, whose own powerful senses would be muted by their retreat into daytime shelter. As for the human serfs, they might as well be blind and deaf.
That left only the dhampires. It was not a matter of if they were coming, but when.
And he would be ready.
Chapter 2
The person, whoever or whatever it might be, was coming closer.
Flashing the hand sign that meant he was about to circle around behind the approaching stranger, Michael left Alexia to watch and wait. It was morning—the third since they’d left the ferry—so Alexia knew the one they were about to meet couldn’t be a Nightsider. Silent as they were, even vampires couldn’t move very quietly bundled up in the kind of protective gear they had to wear in daylight.
No, this was either human or one of the others. And while the stranger was making no particular attempt to sneak up on them, his “noise” was about as loud as the sound of a feather landing on a down pillow. Humans just didn’t move like that, not even the most highly trained agents.
The one coming toward them could be only one thing: a Daysider. And whatever he or she intended…
He, Alexia decided, breathing slowly through her nostrils. Definitely male.
She checked the VS120 strapped to her pack and adjusted her grip on her assault rifle. He couldn’t be stupid enough to think he could just stride up to an Aegis operative and dispatch her after all but announcing his presence. Not that agent deaths on either side were acknowledged by the respective governments, but that hardly meant they didn’t happen. Enclave agents had been operating in and around the Zone too long not to have a very respectable reputation, even among vampires.
But if the Daysider wasn’t planning to attack…what was he planning?
All Alexia’s muscles tensed as the thicket of toyon bushes in front of her rustled, the slightest movement of leathery leaves that might have heralded the passage of a rabbit or some other small animal. She aimed the XM30.
The man who walked out from behind the bushes was tall, lithe and yet imposing. That was the first thing Alexia noticed as she drew a bead on his chest directly over his heart. Then she looked up into his face, knowing that an enemy’s eyes—even a Daysider’s—would give him away before he made the slightest movement.
The Daysider looked back at her without a trace of concern. His features were quite extraordinary… . That she had to admit, in spite of the situation. He was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. Not beautiful like a woman, but in the perfect harmony of his features: the strong chin, straight nose, high cheekbones, expressive lips.
And his eyes. They were dark…not maroon like those of a Nightsider, but the deepest sapphire imaginable. The pupils almost swallowed up the blue. His short hair was not white, like most vampires’, but a hue somewhere between brown and gold, and his skin was richly tanned.
Alexia swallowed. She had met her first Daysider at last, and he was so much…more than she had expected.
The Daysider glanced down at the assault rifle. “There is no need for that,” he said mildly.
His English was unaccented, bearing no hint of the ancient language all Nightsiders, whatever their origins, spoke among themselves. His voice was a pleasant baritone.
Alexia’s finger hovered over the trigger. “Put your hands up,” she commanded.
He did so, slowly and without alarm. “I am not here to hurt you,” he said.
She scanned him again the way she should have done the first time, looking for telltale bulges in his tan-and-brown uniform. She could identify no weapons, but if all she’d heard of Daysiders was true, they were just as good at concealing whatever they needed as the agents of Aegis.
“I am no threat to you,” he said.
Alexia didn’t even bother to reply. “On your knees. Hands clasped behind your head.”
He obeyed, each muscle working in such perfect harmony that suddenly he was on the ground without her having even noticed how he got there.
“You see,” he said in that same reasonable tone, “you have nothing to fear from me. It’s generally accepted that Half-bloods are only a little inferior in strength and skill to my kind, so you seem to have the adva—”
The butt of a rifle slammed into the Daysider’s temple, and he slumped to the ground. Michael turned the gun around and aimed it at the Daysider’s head. He was already stirring, only temporarily stunned by the blow.
“Are you crazy?” Michael demanded, glaring at Alexia. “Chatting with a Daysider as if he wouldn’t bite your throat out the second you blinked?”
Alexia knew she had no call to be angry with Michael. He was right. She’d let her curiosity about her first Daysider dangerously compromise her training. And her sense.
“Shoot him if he moves,” Michael said, crouching behind the enemy operative. He unfastened a pair of steel cuffs from his belt and bound the Daysider’s hands behind him. Then he rolled the man over, patted him down and removed a wicked-looking knife and a small pistol of a type unfamiliar to Alexia. He tossed them into the bushes, pushed the agent back onto his stomach and jabbed the muzzle of his XM30 into the Daysider’s spine.
“Sit up,” he said.
The Daysider rocked to his knees and blinked as a thin trickle of blood dripped from his forehead into his left eye. In a few more seconds the bleeding had stopped, the small wound closed by the accelerated healing powers dhampires and Daysiders shared, and the agent was studying Alexia as if nothing had happened.
“That wasn’t necessary,” he said. “I have come to offer a truce.”
“A truce?” Michael scoffed. All the good nature he displayed at home, the charm that drew so many women to him—even the human ones—was lost in hatred. The very emotion Director McAllister had warned her about. “You?” he said. “You have the authority to make a truce for your masters?”
Not by the slightest flicker of expression did the Daysider acknowledge that Michael could sever his spine at any moment. “Not for Erebus,” he said. “For myself.”
Alexia stared into those remarkable sapphire eyes and had to fight off a shiver. “Explain,” she said harshly.
“We have both been sent on the same mission,” the Daysider said. “If your people were not aware of the colony, you would not be here, so close to the Citadel’s border. We both know that the settlement is illegal under the Armistice, and that human serfs are being held within it, but the Council has no desire to see new conflict break out between our peoples. They have assigned me to observe the colony for Erebus and gather information that will help them determine what should be done to prevent such hostilities.”
The Daysider was so straightforward compared with the average leech that a normal human might actually have been taken in by his story.
Michael wasn’t. “‘Hostilities,’” he said mockingly. “Your leaders should have thought of that before you broke the Treaty.”
“They did not,” the Daysider said. “That is why it is necessary to—”
“Liar,” Michael snarled. “Freak. You were sent here to kill us.”
The Daysider tilted his head as if he were listening to Michael, but his gaze never left Alexia’s. “I had the discretion to kill you if it would have served my mission, but you know as well as I that your unexpected deaths in the Zone would likely be counterproductive.” He paused. “I think we all want the same thing, and that is to maintain the peace.”
Michael spat into the brown grass at his feet. “There will never be peace until every last one of you is—”
“Carter,” Alexia interrupted. Michael glanced at her, took a deep breath and calmed down. She didn’t know what had gotten into him, but his uncharacteristic loss of control didn’t exactly make either one of them look strong in the eyes of the enemy.
She and Michael were at least going to have to pretend they were considering the truce the Daysider had offered. Just as she would continue to act as if she didn’t despise this leech even more than Michael did. And despise herself for feeling nearly overwhelmed by his sheer, undeniable masculine power.
His. She didn’t want to know anything more about him than she absolutely had to, but it was going to be damned inconvenient to keep thinking of him as “the Daysider.”
“What is your name?” she asked him.
He inclined his head as if to acknowledge her civility. “Damon,” he replied.
Appropriate, coming as it did from the ancient Greek word for “demon.” But what interested her more was that he had no Sire-name to indicate which Bloodmaster or Bloodlord claimed his vassalage.
It was true, then, what Aegis taught…that Daysiders lived outside the strict hierarchy of Nightsider society. No one in the Enclaves was completely certain of how they had come into being. The ongoing question was whether or not they had “awakened” years ago along with the regular Nightsiders, or if they had been created since.
“I’m Agent Fox,” she said, “and this is Agent Carter.”
“Ms. Fox,” Damon said, arching a brow. Alexia wondered how close he was to comparing her to her animal namesake. What did he remind her of?
A leopard. Sleek and swift, well-defined muscle sliding under golden skin and mottled olive-brown uniform, dappled with shadow.
“Agent Fox,” she corrected him. “Let’s not waste any more time. What exactly are you proposing?”
Damon moved his shoulders as if he were stretching against the pull of the cuffs. It almost looked as if he could snap the reinforced steel like the thinnest plastic.
“I propose that we work together,” he said, “pool our skills and our knowledge. Learn what we can about the colony without engaging the colonists, and then go our separate ways.”
“That’s insane,” Michael burst out.
Alexia was inclined to agree. But she also wasn’t too blinded by hatred to see the possibilities inherent in Damon’s suggestion.
“Why would you encourage your enemies to learn more about a settlement founded by Nightsiders?” she asked him bluntly. “Wouldn’t that be against your handler’s best interests?”
“Since Aegis will eventually obtain the information in any case,” he said, “it is my judgment that our working together would be very much to the Citadel’s advantage.”
Michael spun to face Alexia. “Can’t you see he intends to lead us along the garden path and annihilate us at the end of it?” he said.
Alexia let his anger pass over her. “Why should we trust you?” she asked Damon.
The Daysider’s eyes, already so dark, grew darker still. “Your partner wants to destroy me,” he said. “I am in no position to stop him. There are two of you, and I am alone. Yet I am offering this truce because I know that the distraction of fighting each other will lose us valuable time.” He leaned forward. “You understand the delicacy of the situation. Even the smallest misstep—”
“Are you trying to tell us that your Council didn’t encourage this colony from the beginning?” Michael interrupted.
“Yes.”
“And your masters don’t see this setup as a way of getting a foothold in the Zone, or provoking a new war they think they can win?”
Damon blew out his breath in a brief sigh. “Your agency is well aware of the way my government is organized,” he said. “The Expansionists have minority status at this time. I serve the Council as a whole, which wants to keep the balance just as it is.”
“So you say,” Alexia murmured.
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “If your agency believed the Expansionists were in ascendance, this new settlement would be the least of its concerns.”
He made perfect sense, Alexia thought. Too much sense, in fact.
She rose, keeping the rifle leveled at Damon’s head. “My partner and I will have to discuss this privately,” she said.
“Of course.” Damon shrugged his shoulders again. “It’s unlikely I’ll be going anywhere.”
“I’ll make sure of that,” Michael grunted. “Lie on your stomach.”
Damon did as he commanded, and Michael made quick work of cuffing his ankles. Maybe the Daysider could break free of them eventually, but Alexia didn’t plan to be away more than a few minutes.
She and Michael retreated into the brush, backing away with their weapons still fixed on Damon. Once they were a good thirty meters away, Alexia pressed the skin of her throat over the subcom implanted beside her larynx and adjusted her earpiece.
I think we should do it, she said, speaking soundlessly through the subcom.
Mike touched his own highly sensitive earpiece, which picked up their subvocalizations as if they were spoken aloud. He’ll kill as soon as our backs are turned.
You think I don’t hate him as much as you do? she asked. But we have to find out how much he knows, if he’s really working for the Independents.
Independents, Michael repeated, the scorn evident in his words. You know even they would enslave or slaughter all of us if they could find an excuse.
So let’s not give them one, Alexia said. Look, there are useful things we can learn just by observing him. Maybe he’ll slip and give us a clue about his real agenda.
Then you’re assuming he’s lying, too, Michael said.
We don’t have to trust him. He may be stronger and faster, but we’re pretty well matched in acuity of smell and hearing—and there are two of us. One can stay with him while the other keeps watch from a distance. That way we’ll have someone free to report back if there’s any treachery.
Forget it, Michael said. We stay together. That’s Aegis policy, and—
We can break policy if we judge it necessary. And I think it is, Mike.
He gave her a look she’d never seen on his face before, one uncomfortably like mistrust. But when he spoke again, there was only resignation in his expression.
Okay, he said. Who do you propose stays with him?
I will, she said without hesitation. I’m better at handto-hand, and you’re the better marksman.
Once we split up, he’ll know what we’re doing, Michael said.
Then he’s not likely to try anything, is he?
After a long moment of silence he nodded, briefly and not at all happily. Alexia frowned. It just wasn’t like him to be so grim. I guess the best thing to do is pretend to have an argument, she said.
Michael pulled a face. He’ll never fall for it.
Probably not, but he’ll be even more suspicious if we don’t try to make it sound convincing.
Michael signaled agreement, and they switched back to audible voice, still whispering to make it seem as if they were trying to prevent Damon from listening in. Michael was extremely persuasive in his refusal to go along, and Alexia found it easy to work up the appropriate anger. She’d already been troubled by Michael’s open protests before, and Damon wasn’t likely to think their exchange this time any worse than the previous one.
Once Michael had “stomped” off, vowing to let her learn from her own mistakes, Alexia returned to Damon. He was sitting up again, head cocked as he watched her approach. He wasn’t smiling, but she could feel his amusement at her and Michael’s little game.
“It seems your partner doesn’t agree with your decision,” he said.
She crouched a safe distance from him, her gun loose in her hands, and met his gaze. “We work together, but we’re not chained at the ankle. He’ll see reason eventually, and until then you won’t be able to complain that we aren’t on equal footing.”
Damon’s eyes reflected a shaft of sunlight breaking through the rustling canopy of oak leaves above them. “I don’t remember complaining,” he said, “but I’m gratified that one of you has seen the benefit in my proposition.”
Something in the way he said the words, the way he looked at her, made Alexia feel unaccountably warm. He was so damned agreeable that she found she had to remind himself what he was and whom he worked for.
And she didn’t dare make the mistake of believing that this mild behavior wasn’t just a cover for savagery that would reveal itself the instant she let him think she trusted him.
“I don’t expect you to trust me,” Damon said, as if he’d been reading her mind—an ability she was pretty sure not even full vampires possessed. “But we can do nothing if you don’t release me.”
Alexia wasn’t in any hurry to follow his pointed suggestion. “First I want to know exactly what you plan to do.”
He shifted as if he were trying to make himself more comfortable, but Alexia could see the tension in every line of his hard, lean body—tension that belied his easy manner. “I suggest we approach the settlement together,” he said, “and once we’re close enough to observe the colonists’ activities, we’ll separate. At the end of a set time we rendezvous and pool our information.”
Too simple, Alexia thought. Much too simple. “Why do you think we’ll come up with different information?” she asked.
“Because we are different, you and I.”
She knew that technically that wasn’t as true as she wanted it to be. Over the years Aegis had determined that Daysiders and dhampires were much alike in their speed, strength and senses, with one or the other holding slight advantages in a few areas. Neither was as strong and fast as a Nightsider, but both held the advantage of being able to move freely in daylight without suffering the deadly burns that afflicted full vampires.
The only comfort Alexia took from the comparison was that dhampires were, without exception, on the side of law and decency, while Damon’s kind served an evil, corrupt society of unrepentant killers. And while they lived on blood like their masters, no dhampir would ever give way to that sick, unnatural hunger.
“Yes,” she said coldly. “We are very different.”
He stared into her eyes again, and she felt as if she could fall right into that spellbinding blackness and never come out again. “But not so different that we cannot understand each other,” he reminded her. “And in one way we are very much alike.”
“What way?”
“We are both outsiders in our worlds.”
Alexia wasn’t about to admit how true that was, but Damon had freely offered information that seemed a little too personal to share with an enemy. It had to be part of a plan to get her off guard.
“Have you ever met a dhampir before?” she asked.
“I have only observed from a distance.”
Once again his candidness surprised her, though he could, of course, be lying.
“You don’t allow the birth of my kind in Erebus,” she said, testing him.
“Such matters are the province of the Bloodmasters.”
“Do they kill my kind when they’re born, or before?”
“Such conception is forbidden.”
“Funny how that didn’t stop vampire males from impregnating human females during the War. But then again, they didn’t have any part in raising the children they created. None of our mothers had much choice about conceiving, but at least they didn’t discard us.” She paused, remembering to breathe. “We have a unique place in the Enclaves, and a purpose. What about you?”
“If I had no purpose, I would not be here.”
“So even though you’re an outsider, you’re loyal to your masters.”
“As loyal as you are to yours.” His expression, previously so mild, went cold. “Tell me, how much choice did you have in becoming an agent of your city, risking your life every time you leave it?”
“How much choice were you given to be what you are?”