Darkness Comes

DARKNESS COMES

by

A.C. Warneke

Smashwords Edition

*****

Published by

A.C.Warneke on Smashwords

Darkness Comes

Copyright 2012 by Andrea Warneke

All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

*****

I am grateful for the love and support of my family, without which this book would not have been possible. Thank you for putting up with me when I was in another world, spending too much time with imaginary characters and giving them life. Thank you for listening to me when I was debating a plot point and, though you had no idea what I was talking about, you smiled and nodded your head, letting me work through my madness to find the perfect resolution. Thank you for being you – I love you guys!!

Also, infinite thanks to the men and women serving in the military: I am thankful for all that you do.

*****

DARKNESS COMES

*****

Prologue

"You’re never going to survive the things I’m going to do to you but you’ll die with a smile on that beautiful face of yours."

Malorie Hunter woke with a start, her heart hammering in her chest, her skin damp beneath her black uniform. Warily, she looked around the room to see if anyone was paying attention to her and froze when she saw Jack Sinclair watching her. Did she make any sounds in her sleep?

But, no, he was smiling at her, Hey, sleepy head. Patrol’s in fifteen and everyone else have gone on ahead.

Okay. She wiped the sleep from her eyes, tendrils of her dream taunting her with strange and erotic pleasure until she no longer knew her own body. It was becoming a foreign thing to her as she tried to shake the darkly sensual images, the shameful feelings, that he had invoked.

Pressing her palms against her eyes until the black spots turned white, she tried to get his image out of her head but he refused to disappear. This was the eleventh night in a row that he had been invading her dreams, ever since she went out on a routine patrol with Jack. Something had happened but she couldn't quite remember and ever since she had been having such intense dreams about a gorgeous stranger. His carved face was inhumanely beautiful: high cheekbones and a harsh jaw, a straight, blade of a nose over sinfully decadent lips. His body was pure masculine perfection of bone and sinew, with shoulders that were broad and beautiful, arms and thighs that rippled with lean muscles, a stomach that was taut and flat. He was, simply put, gorgeous. And he had the most incredible green eyes she had ever seen, brilliant and intense and able to penetrate her deepest secrets.

He had done things to her that she had never even heard of before, things she was fairly certain were illegal in most states. And she had responded, burying her fingers in his thick black hair as he… and she….

Sitting up on the cot, scrubbing her fingers through her cropped, dark brown hair, the small room felt even more claustrophobic than usual. The bare bulbs flickered, barely lighting the dun covered walls and rugs while the wet stink of mildew permeated everything. The cold weather seeped in through all of the cracks and she shuddered. She sometimes wished that she was like other girls her age. Getting dressed up to go to homecoming or prom, worrying about finals, or just hanging out with their friends all sounded like wonderful luxuries and sometimes she wanted that life so badly but she knew she'd never have that life. Even though she was only sixteen she had no time for such idle fantasies. She didn’t have the time to wonder about what might have been but since she started dreaming about him….

His words resonated in her head as she prepped her gear. There was no way she was going to tell her father that she dreamed about sex with a stranger or that she sometimes wished she had a different life. He expected her to be a fighter and that was what she was, what she always was and always will be. Dreams were for normal girls.

Ready, Mal?

She looked up and saw Jack waiting for her, a kind smile on his face. He wore his pale blond hair short, like her father, but, unlike Gus, he had warm brown eyes and a sweet smile. Nodding her head, she stood up and started to head out the door.

Her father, Gustav, came and leaned against the door way, his features set in the familiar grim lines of a man twice his age. Handsome, with the same gray eyes that Malorie had, he rarely smiled and never laughed. He was larger than life and had been Malorie's hero for as long as she could remember. He had taught her everything she knew, from fighting and survival to chemistry and hacking to everything in between.

By the time she was ten, she could build a bomb, hotwire a car, break into high security buildings, anything that was needed for her and her father to be able to fight another day. She was also an avid reader, devouring whatever reading material she came across, from literature to romance novels to instruction manuals. Because of the nature of their work, she had several fake ID’s and knew how to navigate the world without leaving any trace of her existence.

Gus's gaze moved over Malorie, taking in the various weapons she had attached to her body and he nodded, Keep your head in the game tonight, Malorie. I don’t want to see you hurt.

She nodded, appreciating his gruff affection. Yes, sir.

Gus turned to Jack but he didn’t have to say anything. The two males had developed a strange form of communication lately but she didn’t care. Her thoughts lingered on the man from her dreams….

Chapter 1

Nine years later….

Malorie Sinclair sang at the top of her lungs as she drove to the mall for last minute gifts. Her long, dark brown hair was pulled up into a pony tail and her gray eyes sparkled with the merriment of the season, which she was enjoying for the first time in her twenty-five years of life. With all of the seasonal delights she had discovered in the last year or two, she found that she loved Christmas music the best. The tunes were catchy and she could sing along. Well, more or less. Da da dada da dum, da dada da dum; walking in a winter wonder….

Faint smudges of color beneath her eyes were the only sign that she was difficulty transitioning to a normal, civilian life, even though the war ended nearly six years before. During the war one had to be prepared to fight at a moment’s notice. It made it difficult to fall into a deep sleep and so one learned to make do with little sleep. But now that she no longer had to fight in a clandestine war, the dreams of her nocturnal lover had only intensified, battling with her memories to see which could keep her awake the longest.

Shaking her head to clear the thoughts away, she pulled into the left lane to turn into the mall parking lot and almost turned around. There were a gazillion cars already parked and another gazillion driving around looking for a parking spot up front, filling the air with the smell of exhaust. She would have skipped it but she still had a few gifts to buy and she wanted this experience. She also wanted to make this Christmas extra special for Toby by getting his favorite cinnamon rolls for breakfast and they only sold them at the mall. Unfortunately, the mall was crowded with all of the last-minute gift buyers and their cars. She’d be lucky to find a space within this hemisphere. I should have come during lunch.

Of course, that hadn’t been possible since a huge shipment of plants had arrived and she had to be at the nursery to sign for the delivery and take care of the new foliage. And then there were all of the last minute orders to fill: a few Holiday parties, two weddings, a sweet sixteen birthday. It had been crazy all day, which made the idea of having cinnamon rolls in the morning all the more appealing. Besides, she had faced much scarier adversaries than last minute Christmas shoppers. She could do this.

Girding her loins, she pulled into the very last spot of the very last row, grabbed her purse and got out of the car and smiled because two years ago they had been living in Minnesota. The grounds had been covered in black slush and she had to trudge through the messy wet stuff wearing thick, rubber boots and a heavy jacket. This year, she was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a plain, white t-shirt with tennis shoes. Southern California definitely held the upper hand for weather, even if she did, on occasion, miss the snow.

Just not today.

Making her way to the mall, she pictured the layout of the mall in her head and made a plan of attack to get in and out as quickly as possible. It wasn’t like she was in a hurry but she just preferred to keep her skills honed. One never knew when….

With a deep breath, she put tactical thoughts out of her head, refusing to a think like a soldier today of all days. The wars had been over for nearly six years and she was a civilian now, hence the trip to the mall on Christmas Eve, braving the crowds in order to experience a normal Christmas with her father and son. It had taken years to cajole Gus into living a normal life, and while he was prepared for the worst, he did give a little, grudgingly and only for his grandson's sake. She accepted his concessions because she just wanted Toby to have a peaceful childhood.

She smiled as she thought of her young son, who was growing up so fast it made her heart ache a little. At five, Toby was the center of her world and the reason she continued to struggle with normalcy when she didn’t have any idea what she was doing. Though she felt completely clueless in living without constantly chasing after danger, she was determined that he was not going to grow up as she did. Her father offered little help since he insisted it would be better to remain off the grid and hidden. Even six years after their last encounter with a hostile vamp, he was still so protective of them and it was becoming a little stifling.

No, that was unfair. Her father loved her and her son, she knew he did, but she wanted something more, something normal and less terrifying, for her child and she was going to figure it out no matter what it took. Even if it meant moving out on her own and leaving everything she knew behind. Leaving her father behind. And when she could truly believe the wars were over, that the enemy wasn’t just biding its time until it could unleash its fury once more, she would. She was still her father's daughter, after all, and a lifetime didn't go away overnight, or even after six years.

Glancing at her watch, she figured she had a little less than three hours before the stores closed up and she needed to navigate her way back to her car and out of the parking lot. With a rush of excitement, she entered the artificially bright mall and was immediately assaulted with the mouthwatering, nose-seducing smell of cinnamon and cream cheese frosting.

Groaning softly as she pulled out her phone, she called her over-protective father and when he didn’t answer, she left a quick voice mail. Hey, father, it’s Mal. Just wanted to let you know that I am at the mall and by the looks of it, it’s going to suck getting out of here tonight so I’ll probably be a bit late. Give Toby a great big hug from me and I'll see you around nine thirty.

Clicking her phone shut, she slid it back into her purse, feeling another alien rush of Seasonal cheer as a small smile played at her full lips. She really loved the frenzy of a million shoppers trying to find the perfect gift when the perfect gifts had all been purchased weeks before. Growing up, they rarely celebrated Christmas since they never had the luxury to indulge in celebrations. Over the last couple of years she found she loved the festive holiday. In this world, she could almost believe that monsters didn’t exist, except, perhaps, in childhood dreams.

She hadn’t expected so many people would be out shopping on Christmas Eve, figuring everyone would want to be home with their families. Maybe she should have ordered a few things on line but then she wouldn’t have this slightly terrifying, perfectly normal experience and they wouldn’t have cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. Of course, she could have tried cinnamon rolls but growing up the way she did, she never really had the chance to learn how to cook, at least nothing edible. One would think that the ability to mix highly volatile chemicals into flash bombs and homemade napalm would translate into the ability to boil a pot of water but it didn’t.

Smiling to herself, she thought about the life they had created for themselves over the past two years, from the nursery where she discovered she had a gift for growing things to the little quad-plex they rented with its small, communal yard that Toby loved to explore. It was the longest they had ever spent in one place and she hoped that they would be able stay a while longer. There didn’t seem to be any need to move any time soon and there wasn’t much need for someone with her skills anymore.

It was the things regular folks took for granted that she found difficult, like Christmas shopping. But she would learn, for Toby’s sake.

After almost two hours, she was carrying several bags of gifts and there was only had one last stop to make before picking up cinnamon rolls and getting the heck out of there. As she made her way to the humongous toy store on the second floor, a hurried shopper bumped into her, making her stumble. Righting herself, she turned to the man to apologize but he was already half way down the corridor, a strained expression on his face as he clutched his three bags in a white-knuckled grip. Strange. His behavior was reminiscent of an impending attic, rushing to be someplace else. Or maybe there was an open feed planned, though that shouldn't be possible because feedings were announced weeks in advance, to keep the wary away. To lure the idiots in. There had been no such notice.

Then why was she alarmed?

It was foolish to be concerned and she was just being hyper-sensitive. One man rushing through the mall did not mean anything. If there was a scheduled feeding, she would have heard about it, she always heard about them. Open feeds were announced weeks in advance and monsters caught feeding at any other time would be killed immediately. Allowing a vamp to drink your blood always came with risks so it was explicitly understood that victims knew what they were getting into when they participated in an open feed.

Malorie laughed at her paranoia as she walked into the toy store, avoiding the pink aisles and grimacing at the vampire paraphernalia. She could never understand how there could be a market for vamp toys: vampire dolls, fake teeth, and cheesy costumes. Vampires were big business and it made her cringe. Malorie was almost convinced that the rash of vampire romances and young adult fiction were written by vampires to lure people in who would have ordinarily been a bit more cautious of monsters. It was a fiendishly clever plot to make one’s food desire being eaten.

Rolling her eyes at such foolishness, she made her way to the trucks and weapons. Guns were all well and good when dealing with mortals but when it came to monsters, medieval weaponry seemed to work the best: swords, maces, staffs. It was probably God’s way of giving the humans a chance back in the day….

Unexpectedly, the image of a dark haired man flashed in her head, the green-eyed man of her dreams, and her stomach clenched. Wearing clothes that belonged at a Renaissance festival, he was magnificent. His billowy, pale shirt was opened at the throat, torn and stained, and his dark, paned slopes that emphasized his strong thighs hung loose on his hips. Incongruously, he had bare feet.

He stood in the middle of a razed village, bodies littering the ground. Rage and sorrow wrapped themselves around him as he dropped to his knees, placing his hands on the broken body of a very pregnant woman. Malorie could smell the burnt flesh, the ruin, and she thought she was going to be sick. But then he lifted his head and she was staring into his extraordinarily brilliant green eyes.

She could feel her chest rising and falling with each rapid breath she took as her pulse pounded in her head. Her skin was cold, clammy, and as his eyes bore into her, deep inside of her, she knew he wasn’t human, he couldn’t be human. But he wasn’t a vampire either since she could almost feel his warmth, his heartbeat. In her dreams, in her more… erotic dreams, he was very much alive and blistering hot.

Until he opened his mouth and his white fangs glistened. Until he bit her and drove her to ecstasy as he drove his cock deep into her womb. Until she cried out in surrender and woke up crying because she wanted to lose herself in a stranger’s embrace. In a vampire’s embrace.

She had studied enough psychology to realize that her dreams were just her screwed up head creating a man out of the monsters she fought. And the whole sex thing? Well, it had been six years since she had been with anyone…. She chose to ignore the fact that she had had the dreams since she was sixteen, two years before she ever had sex.

But she was awake and he was still staring at her with those green-green eyes as he stood up and walked towards her, reaching for her. Her breath quickened as he came nearer and nearer. She knew she was still in the toy store but they were standing in the middle of the razed village, surrounded by carcasses that were still warm, still bleeding.

He stopped in front of her, his green eyes smoldering, his sensuous lips curving upwards in a cruel and promising smile, as he traced his finger along her cheek. The time has come.

Squeezing her eyes shut, willing the images to go away, Malorie told herself to snap out of it, that she was worrying over nothing. Managing to shake off the disturbing images, she realized she was still holding two construction kits in her hands. As she blinked a few times to clear the remnants of his image out of her head, to get back to some semblance of normalcy, she concentrated on the two kits: build your own boat and build your own car.

Deliberately ignoring the sense of a destiny she didn’t believe in sneaking up to bite her in the ass, she focused on which toy to get for Toby. Closing her eyes, she did eenie-meenie-minie-moe, ultimately choosing the kit in her left hand, the boat.

Grabbing a few more things, including batteries, she made her way to the cash register. It was odd that there wasn’t a longer line. It was even odder that there were hardly any customers left in the store at all. It was a toy store on Christmas Eve so where were the parents? She looked at her watch and frowned. It was barely eight and she still had an hour….

Something was wrong, no matter how much she wanted to deny it. Had she fallen asleep? No, she was awake and as a group of young twenty-somethings walked by the entrance to the store, none of them carrying shopping bags and black and metal the apparent dress code, she knew she was going to be sick. The regular masses were racing and the vamp-wannabes wore expectant, sullen smiles. It was a very unsettling to realize she may have happened upon an open feed. The anxious dread twisted in the pit of her stomach, like a cold, heavy stone settling low in her gut.

The ringing of her cell phone brought her back to reality and she startled, putting her hand to her chest, her racing heart. Fumbling with her purse, she managed to pull her phone out. Flipping it open, she breathed, Hello?

Get the hell out of there, Mal, Gustav’s voice ordered. Get out of there now.

A feed? she asked, though she already knew the answer. Out in the hall, several of the shops were already closing their gates and the sinking sensation deepened. Pressing her hand to her stomach in the hopes of calming her nerves, Mal shook her head in misplaced anger. Even if there had been no announcement, she should have remained vigilant.

Get out, Mal, Gustav repeated, his voice urgent and harsh.

There was no mention of a Christmas Eve feeding. She didn’t want to believe what was happening. It couldn’t be happening because that would mean she let her guard down, that she took a breath too soon. Since there was only one other person in line to pay, maybe she still had time. I'll be home soon.

Mal…. She closed the phone and slipped it back in her purse before her father said anything else. When it started to ring again, she pressed ignore and swallowed against the panic that was rising to the surface. It’s not like the vamps could bite everybody. Only a few of the wannabes ever got bit and with the treaty, hardly any of them died. Few, if any, were converted.

No, it was going to be okay. She was going to be okay because she still had some time….

Um, that will be $33.47, miss, the cashier said in a manner that led Mal to believe he had said it once before. Or a couple of times, judging by his peevish expression.

Of course, she smiled, though it felt a little wobbly. Pulling out a debit card, she swiped it in the machine. She only screwed up the pin number twice before she got it right. Her hand was shaking like crazy and it was hard to believe she was a seasoned warrior with how she trembled. Morbid anticipation filled her and she trembled more. Taking the bag from the clerk, she left the toy store, moving as quickly as possible.

Her heart was pounding furiously in her chest and she knew that her breaths were coming too fast. Tensely, she looked around the mall, wondering how much time she had before the cold-blooded vamps descended. The black-clad youths were animated but they were all human so there was still time. If she hurried, she could get away before the vamps arrived.

Tightening her grip on her bags, feeling the blood being squeezed from her fingers, she picked up her pace, desperate to get out of there. A tear trickled down her cheek as she reached the last leg of her race through the mall. Just a few more yards and she would be free. Unfortunately, cinnamon rolls for breakfast had to be abandoned in her need to be out of the mall before…. Before….

Everything stilled: the air, the Christmas music pumping through the sound system, the smell of cinnamon and cream cheese frosting. Malorie lifted her head and watched a group of vamps swoop in, swarming from all sides. Ice filled her veins. There weren’t a lot, maybe seventy-five, but their presence was overwhelming and the air oozed with their malice. Time slowed from moment to moment, breath to breath, heartbeat to heartbeat. She always felt this leaden energy right before a fight….

Excitement rolled off the fools in black and she could taste it, self-indulgent and earthy. The useless idiots eagerly embraced their own deaths, willfully ignoring the inherent danger. Slowly, she turned around as kids were taken, as they were bit. Rotting and decaying creatures embraced the humans and she could see gray seeping into the kids’ living glow. She wanted to cry out, to warn them, but their smiles…. Her chest rose and fell with each ragged and painful breath but the air was too thick to breathe. Her limbs were heavy and gravity was pulling her into the depths of the earth, immobilizing her. Malorie’s heart thudded once against her chest, painful in its intensity, as air rasped through her throat and past her lips. She was too late.

As she stood there, a preternaturally beautiful man with spiky blond hair and a darker goatee caught her eye. Diamond earrings adorned his eye brow and his ears. Running along the shell of his ear, they sparkled and teased in the fluorescent lights. Several carats of diamonds winked at her as he prowled past her, his movement fluid and graceful. Predatory. He turned his head and her breath caught in her throat as his silver green eyes met hers, eyes that mesmerized, that were lit from within, that burned with life. Eyes that no vampire had. It wasn’t just his eyes that burned, his entire being burned with life.

What the hell was he?

Was he the one responsible for changing the tides of war?

She hadn’t known how the war had come to such an abrupt end. The vampires had been winning and she knew that it was only a matter of time before all of humanity was enslaved and she feared the world her unborn son was going to be inheriting. And then in one moment, thousands of vampires imploded and she knew, she simply knew, that there was something out there even more powerful than vampires. It was terrifying not knowing whether the new player was a friend or an enemy.

Suspecting a trap, her father had become even grimmer. But when there were thankfully no attacks on humans and the remaining vampires seemed to behave, even he had to admit there was no immediate threat. Even after six years he never fully let down his guard and Malorie now realized how wise her father had been.

Looking around the mall, she saw another creature burning with life, his auburn hair gleaming under the florescent lights, his face just as exquisite. The two oddities seemed to be watching the vampires but not participating. Were they a new enemy or perhaps an ally? Could they truly keep the hordes of vampires in line? As soon as she got home, she would talk to her father about it, after she endured his lecture for getting caught at an open feed. And then she was going to drink a large glass of wine to calm her nerves and then take a hot bath.

The man with the silver green eyes looked past her, an odd expression on his beautiful face as he seemed to freeze. Relaxing a fraction of a moment, Malorie almost convinced herself that she was to be spared until her skin prickled in awareness and… anticipation?

A hand slid around her waist, pulling her against a solid wall of flesh and steel, bone and sinew, but he was not cold nor dead. Masculine heat enveloped her as her body was lifted off the floor, her feet dangling in the air. A dark and seductive aroma invaded her mind, making the world disappear, leaving her alone with the enemy and no desire to fight. All of her training, everything she knew, vanished. She simply froze. Or melted.

Strong fingers grabbed her jaw, tilting her head to the side as warm, moist breath fanned across her neck, as his fangs grazed her skin. The dark, spicy scent of him swirled in her head and the tight grip she had on her bags loosened until the packages slipped away. If they made any sound, Mal didn’t hear because her mind and body were no longer her own. As the world stopped spinning and time came to a halt, she was lost.

With his heat, was he simply a living vampire? Is that what the others were? But, no, that wasn’t possible. Vampires were cold and dead and she hated vamps. Her father trained her to be a slayer and she fought against them for all