The Gathering Dark (30 page)

She glanced up at him and forced a smile.

“You’re cold,” he said. “Do you want to go back?”

“Not just yet.” Nikki paused on the path and looked again back at the hotel. In her mind’s eye she saw those creatures again—Whispers, the demon had called them—and she saw the thing itself, the thing Peter had called “the Tatterdemalion” in the SUV on the way out of Wickham.

But it wasn’t the cold that made her shiver.

Didn’t Peter understand that she would never be warm again?

“I wish we had been able to share a room,” she said as they picked up walking again, following the trail that would have been used for cross-country skiing in the winter.

Peter laughed softly. “Somehow I think that would’ve been awkward for Keomany and Father Jack.”

They had strolled another twenty feet but Nikki stopped again. She turned to him, reached up to touch his face, forcing him to meet her gaze, to see in her eyes all that was in her heart.

“Tomorrow morning, we’re going to figure out our next move, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” he agreed, staring back at her curiously. “We all need some sleep. The news is terrible, I agree, but we’ve got to retrench a little bit, get some rest before we can try to stop this.”

“Fine,” she agreed, brushing her hair out of her eyes. Nikki gazed at him intently. “I never want to spend another night away from you.”

A smile played at the edges of his lips, but he also looked surprised. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to L.A.?”

“Do you want me to go back?” Nikki’s chest hurt. She would not be able to breathe until he answered.

Peter stared at her. The moonlight glinted in his eyes. “No,” he said, his voice a firm, quiet rasp.

“You saw the news,” she said. “I don’t even know if L.A. would still be there when I got back. I’m not going on tour, not going anywhere, until this is over. I was starting to think, hey, maybe our days are numbered, maybe this is all the time we have. And then I realized that even if I live to be a hundred, there are still only so many days in a life, and I want to spend mine with you.”

Peter reached out to touch her as if she might be a mirage, as if she might disappear at any moment. Nikki smiled as his fingers touched her arm and something passed between them, a silent covenant, a promise to each other. She stood on her toes and kissed him, and he held her close against him as though she would fall off the Earth if he let go.

When the kiss ended, Nikki laid her head on his chest, and they just stood there on that mountain trail, warm against the chill night air. She could hear his heart beat.

They stayed that way, there in the dark of the night, for a very long time. Yet as safe as Peter made her feel, as glad as she was that they had learned this terrible lesson and been given a second chance, she knew that morning was going to come too soon.

Allison flew above the streets of London. The sun was high and the sky uncharacteristically blue and clear for springtime. With falcon’s eyes she gazed upon the city below, laid out in patterns that described its history, from the most ancient foundations of London—the portion of the city that had once been walled in—to the neighborhoods at her edges that had been built to house the less fortunate and were now the trendiest spots in the city.

Exultant, she soared higher, glided on warm air currents above the River Thames, admired the sprawl of the Parliament building.

This was what she was made for. Allison despised what she was, mostly because she had not chosen to become this thing. Her kind had painted its history across the ages in the blood of innocents, thriving on terror. But not all of them. Though she would never be able to shake off the loathing she felt completely, she had at last come to terms with another emotion inside her, rare and often hidden.

It was glee. She hated what she was, but she loved the gifts it gave her. Others had shown her that pleasure could be taken from her immortality, from the malleability of her flesh, but for a very long time, she did not believe it. That had changed.

Allison Vigeant soared, powerful wings outstretched, feathers flat and smooth, over the city of London, and she relished every moment of it.

But her moments were not her own. Once more she circled Westminster Abbey and then she struck off toward an engagement she wished she did not have to keep. It was not long before she found herself flying above the Kingsway, wings fluttering as she alighted upon the roof of the nine-story structure where she was due for a meeting called by her superiors.

It surprised her that there were no guards on the roof. To the innocent passerby, the faithful subject of the Queen, it was just another office building along the Kingsway. But the British government owned that structure, it housed various ministry offices the sort of which they did not discuss in the papers. From time to time, the Prime Minister also offered certain rooms in the building to the Secretary General of the United Nations for use in the international crusade to erase the last of the shadows, the last of the vampires, from the face of the earth.

Allison had been thinking of late that this crusade was destined to failure. They could bluster as much as they liked, but she had no doubt that there were shadows hidden away in the darkest and most secret places of the earth whom they would never find, not even with her aid. It had also occurred to her that perhaps it was best they were never allowed to think they had succeeded . . . because that would make her the last vampire in the world, and it would be simple logic for them to want to remove her as well.

Still, no guards on the roof. That was something, at least. There would be sensors and alarms, but that was to be expected.

With a strangled bit of birdsong that evolved into a human groan, she transformed from falcon to woman once more. Her wings unfolded as she stood, becoming a long brown duster jacket. She was clad in denim and leather boots and a beige turtleneck sweater beneath the duster. It was still chilly this early London spring day.

Allison stretched and glanced around at the other rooftops and into the windows of the buildings that stood taller than this one. She inhaled the scents of this world capital, the heart of an island in motion. London was an old place, and though she herself was young, it always made her feel like a conspirator, as though she had been a part of this city for ages.

It was a shame she could not enjoy it more, a shame she had to come here to deal with these people. But it was either that, or have them begin to hunt her instead of employing her to hunt others on their behalf.

Enjoying the warmth of the sun on her, she strode across the rooftop to the structure that jutted upward, housing the door and stairwell that led down into the building. The door was a heavy metal thing, wired with alarms and certainly barred on the inside. She could have torn it off its hinges and tossed it aside as though it were made of cardboard, but they would only have billed her for it, deducted the cost from her paycheck.

Allison let her molecules drift, became a fine white mist, and she slid around the edges of the door, finding the thinnest of entries despite the weather-proofing meant to keep the chill wind outside. With a thought, she effortlessly coalesced once more on the top step inside the door, then walked down the narrow staircase to the top floor of the building.

No guards up here, but there were cameras mounted all along the hallway. She smiled at the first one she passed and waved amicably. The urge to brandish her middle finger was powerful but she managed to contain it.

She was meant to be here. Security would have been told to expect her and prepared to witness the reality of what she was. The Brits wouldn’t have put anyone in the job who couldn’t handle that.

Halfway down the corridor, she found the office she was looking for. It had no name on the door, only a number: 913. Allison rapped lightly on the door to Room 913 and from inside she heard a familiar voice calling for her to enter.

She pushed the door open. There were only two men inside. One of them was Ray Henning, the Commander of Task Force Victor. The other was Rafael Nieto, a lanky, serious man whose hair had thinned and gone silver in the years since she had first met him, but otherwise looked much the same. Nieto was a good man, dedicated to his job. Which was a positive trait to find in one of the most powerful men in the world. Nieto was the Secretary General of the U.N., a job that had, in recent years, nearly outstripped that of the American President in its importance to the peace and security of the planet.

“Allison,” the Secretary General said. He smiled and waved her in. “Have a seat. It appears we have a lot to talk about.”

“Mister Secretary,” she said, nodding a greeting as she closed the door behind her. “Commander,” she added, acknowledging Henning, who neither smiled nor greeted her with more than a grunt.

They waited while she moved the chair beside Henning, sliding it away from him in a subtle indication that she considered herself apart from him. This would hardly hurt the commander’s feelings, for Allison knew that he disliked and perhaps even feared her. It accomplished something else, however. Rather than the two of them facing the Secretary General across the large desk in the room, it was now the three of them set in a sort of triangle, changing the dynamic in the office. Henning stared at her with pale blue eyes. He was fifty-two but very fit, balding and yet his features were striking. A handsome man.

But not her friend. Not even close.

The silence ticked on a few seconds too long, into awkwardness. Allison shot a glance at the Secretary General, one eyebrow raised. Nieto sat up straighter and smoothed his jacket, which hung oddly on him as though he were a department store mannequin.

Outside the window, the unusually beautiful London day was wasting.

“Are we waiting for someone else?” Allison asked.

“No,” the Secretary General replied. “I’m sorry. I was thinking for a moment. On to business, then. Do you know why you’re here?”

A smiled teased the edges of Allison’s mouth. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions.”

Commander Henning cleared his throat and the balance of power in the room tilted in his direction. “What did you and Carl Melnick talk about in Venice?”

Allison stiffened, her gaze ticked from Henning to the Secretary General and back again. “Come on, Ray. We both know you’re not in the business of asking questions you don’t already know the answer to.”

Commander Henning stared at her but said nothing. Allison turned to Nieto again.

“Mister Secretary, given that we’ve now got thirteen towns and cities worldwide that have apparently been erased from the map, I’d think the United Nations would have better things to do than spy on its employees. It hasn’t been lost on me that my position as a scout for Task Force Victor is not unlike the position Will Cody once held for the U.S. Army. If he was alive, he’d be horrified.”

Henning sniffed. “If he were alive, we’d be hunting him.”

Cold fury spread through Allison and she turned slowly to regard Henning again. The two men must have felt her anger, for in that moment the balance of power in the room shifted to her. Allison could taste it. Perhaps they remembered, in that moment, that she was not merely a scout, that she could have killed every living creature in that building and walked out unscathed if she were so inclined.

Nieto gazed at her, clearly taking her measure. “Twelve.”

“I’m sorry?” Allison asked.

“Twelve. There are twelve cities and towns that we know of that have been affected by this . . . crisis. The town in Vermont, Wickham, is . . . back.”

All the rage left her and Allison sank into her chair, staring first at Nieto then at Henning. “Back? What do you mean, the town is back?”

“Just as I said,” Nieto replied. “Our troops report that one moment the energy field that seemed to have enveloped the town was there and the next it was gone and the town was visible again. Entire blocks had been destroyed by fire. Most of the townspeople were dead or missing. The survivors are talking about demons.”

“What sort of demons?” Allison asked.

Once more the two men were silent. After a moment the Secretary General rose and went to the large window that overlooked the Kingsway below. He spoke without turning.

“Allison, Roberto Jimenez was a good man. A good soldier. I had the utmost respect for him and he, in turn, trusted you. But Roberto is dead and Ray Henning is your commander now. He asked you a question. I would like you to answer it.”

Slowly, she nodded, but in understanding rather than agreement. Allison did not like what was going on here, but it did not surprise her. She lowered her chin slightly, staring up at the Secretary General from beneath heavily knitted brows.

“’Berto trusted me. That’s right. Commander Henning doesn’t. Not for a second. In fact, I’m fairly certain if he had his chance, he’d be more than happy to burn me right along with one of our targets. So you’ll forgive me if I’m wary of the recent changes in the chain of command.”

Nieto turned to face her. He was silhouetted by the blue sky beyond the window. On the opposite side of the street, atop a centuries-old hotel, Allison saw two snipers side by side.

A surge of adrenaline went through her and she tensed, about to dive at the Secretary General, to drive him to the ground and to safety, out of sight of the snipers. But then she noticed Henning glancing out the window as well and she at last translated the tense undercurrent in the room, realizing that they were not assassins here to remove the head of the United Nations.

The snipers were for her.

She smiled. It was not a kind smile.

“What did you and Carl Melnick talk about in Venice?” Nieto asked, repeating Henning’s earlier question.

Allison glared at him, studiously refusing to look at Henning. “Old times.”

The Secretary General shifted his position, stepping a bit closer to the desk, giving the snipers a clearer shot. Allison wondered if they were to kill her, or simply incapacitate her. Years earlier, a toxin had been developed that would arrest the molecular process that allowed vampires to shapeshift, making them killable. Or simply controllable.