The Gathering Dark Read online

  “I did, eh?” he asked gravely. “And what do I seem now?”

  Sophie licked her lips anxiously and glanced around at the growing number of people who had joined them on the patio. When she spoke again, she stepped nearer to him and her voice dropped.

  “You’re a vampire,” she said, as if the word were foreign to her lips. And perhaps it was.

  “Such a broad and vulgar term,” Kuromaku told her. “I’m no more a vampire than you are a chimpanzee. They still hide in the shadows and tombs, fancying themselves creatures of darkness right out of Stoker’s fevered imagination. I’m a businessman. Once upon a time, I was a warrior. Nothing more.”

  Those last two words rang hollow, even to Kuromaku himself, but Sophie did not challenge his assertion. For a long moment she only stared at him, shifting nervously from foot to foot. The media coverage of the Venice Jihad and subsequent melees had revealed to the world the existence of vampires and demons, and the difference between traditional vampires and beings like Kuromaku himself, who had once called themselves shadows. Books had been written, films made, thousands of hours of news coverage devoted to the revelation that the supernatural was fact rather than fiction, that evil existed. While the Roman Church crumbled for its part in the Venice debacle, faith in general thrived around the world.

  For if demons existed, why not something else? Why not divinity?

  Kuromaku smiled as he thought of it, glanced back across the Montmartre at the dead demon, this revolting, savage, filthy beast whose very existence proved to millions the existence of God. To millions of others, however, it would be perceived as just another hoax. No matter how much video was shot of it, no matter how many images ended up on the Net, there would be those who refused to acknowledge its existence for the very same reason; because if this thing was real, chances were there were more benevolent powers in the universe as well, and that just fucked up their worldview completely.

  “If that smile is meant to be comforting—” Sophie began.

  He raised an eyebrow and his grin widened. “It wasn’t. I’m sorry. And there’s nothing amusing about what just happened here. I was just thinking that no matter how many times the darkness bleeds over into the light, some people refuse to believe there’s anything to be afraid of.”

  Sophie’s bright blue eyes were no longer sparkling. She glanced past him at the blood and brain that was painted in a fanned arc across the front wall of Sacré-Coeur and she shuddered.

  “But there is.”

  Kuromaku placed a hand gently on her shoulder. Startled, she let out a tiny gasp and looked up at him. He nodded, kneading her shoulder just a bit.

  “Yes. There is,” he said. “But not everything in the shadows is something you need to fear.”

  For a long moment she stared at him. Then, at last, she gave an uncertain nod. Sophie licked her lips to moisten them, her body shuddering as her breathing quickened, and she stepped closer and laid her head upon his chest.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He frowned. “For what?”

  “For being a light in the darkness.”

  Sophie withdrew from him and glanced around. Kuromaku followed her gaze and suddenly he saw their surroundings with clarity for the first time. The hundreds of spectators, the dead and the wounded, the blood-splashed cathedral, the remains of the demon, the police and EMTs. He had seen all of it before but this was the first time he had truly taken in the entire scene.

  All of Montmartre was silent save for the barked orders of the police and the low whispers that rippled through the crowd. Some of them were staring at the blood or the demon but the majority of the crowd was focused instead upon Kuromaku himself. Several official-looking police officers were muttering among themselves, casting furtive glances in his direction as though they were preparing to question him. This was bothersome only in that he knew there was nothing he could tell them that they did not already know.

  “It’s going to take me a while to . . . figure out what to make of all this,” Sophie said. “But to begin with, do you mind if we go somewhere else for lunch?”

  Kuromaku smiled. “By all means.”

  Yet even as he slipped his hand into hers once more and they walked away from Sacré-Coeur—her fingers trembling, wrapped in his own—Kuromaku felt a cold, numbing dread snaking through him. This was far from the first instance of demonic intrusion upon his reality in recent months. The frequency of such terrifying events was increasing at an alarming rate. There were so many others who dealt with such things that Kuromaku had been content to remain at his estate in Bordeaux and continue to conduct business as usual. The blood that now stained the pure white of Sacré-Coeur had wrought a change in him, though. It had acted as a catalyst.

  All of this demonic activity was a sign of something larger. There was no doubt in his mind about that now. The darkness was spreading across the world and honor demanded that Kuromaku, ronin and vampire, stand against it.

  5

  The sky was pregnant with the promise of rain. Black thunderclouds hung heavy over the rolling fields of Suzdal, a rural, Medieval town outside of Moscow. The wind gusted and the clouds moved swiftly across the sky. The air was thick with humidity and yet somehow the rain held off, as if choosing its moment, perhaps taunting the farmers in Suzdal who needed the precipitation for their crops.

  Allison Vigeant crouched in the high branches of a tree atop a hill and surveyed the town that unfolded below, the colorful wooden homes and the green-gray dome that jutted up from among them, identifying the church at the center of town. She wore blue jeans, black shoes, and a ribbed green cotton shirt. Her hair was dyed a blazing red. These weren’t the clothes for a stakeout, nor was she dressed to be inconspicuous in a rural Russian village.

  Fuck inconspicuous.

  In her years as a CNN reporter, Allison had visited Russia several times and enjoyed it immensely. The history and grandeur of the place had a storybook quality not even England could match, and a catalog of tragic tales in its past that lent even the most picturesque cities an air of melancholy that had always appealed to her.

  But she had spent the past three weeks scouring Moscow and Saint Petersburg and the bloom was off the rose. She was tired of Russia, sick of the food, and demoralized by the squalor she had encountered in the neighborhoods where her search had taken her. But what had soured her mood perhaps more than anything else was simply that all of that time in those two prominent cities had been wasted. Allison had been certain that her quarry would have found some abandoned structure in Moscow or Saint Petersburg to set up their sanctuary.

  It was their pattern. They gathered for strength in numbers—not that it ever did any good—and always in the largest cities so they might still hunt the fringes of human society and somehow pass unnoticed. They fed on children and the poor and homeless, and they did everything they could to keep the location of their nests a secret.

  But she always found them.

  It had been this way for five years. But with every victory Allison and her team achieved, the more desperate the predators became, the deeper underground they went. They had become quite good at hiding, but that instinct to band together, to seek solace in solidarity, was always their undoing. Eventually, she and her team would find them.

  Eventually.

  Crouched in the tree, she leaned her head against its trunk and laughed softly to herself.

  “Fucking Suzdal,” she whispered. “Christ.”

  All those days and nights prowling Russia’s most prominent cities, and here they were, camped out on an abandoned farm in a quaint little town a short ride from Moscow. Allison sighed and repositioned herself in the tree. Time to get rolling. From her position she could see the seventeenth-century farmhouse with its crumbling chimneys and green-gray roof that matched the church dome. Beyond that was the barn. They would have to hit both buildings.

  A mobile communications unit was tucked inside her ear, and its microphone piece sewn into the turtlene
ck of her sweater. She knew her words had been picked up by the entire team but did not care, and given their silence, apparently neither did they. The original commander of the squad, Roberto Jimenez, had died of a heart attack fourteen months ago and he had been the only one who had ever treated Allison like a person. To the others, she was a tool. Often enough they did as she instructed, not because she had the authority to command them but because they knew she would keep them alive. But Allison Vigeant was not officially a member of the United Nations Task Force Victor.

  She worked for them. Received a check. Was sanctioned by the U.N. and therefore protected from those who might take it upon themselves to view her as part of the problem instead of part of the solution. Allison was a tracker for TFV, a scout. Her lover Will Cody, who had died in New Orleans five years before, would have appreciated the irony in that. She was their scout, just as he had been for another military operation such a very long time before.

  At first she had relished the job, wanting to eradicate them from the earth just as much as her U.N. associates. She had done most of the killing herself, when she could. But with Jimenez dead, the playing field had changed. Even the new name, Task Force Victor, was a joke, Victor being the military representation of the letter V used in communication. V for vampire. They didn’t even want to use the word.

  None of them trusted her now. And because of that, Allison did not trust them either.

  In the dark skies above, lightning flickered up inside the clouds and thunder boomed in the distance, echoing across the hills and fields.

  “Vigeant here,” she said into her comm unit. “Ready to go, Ray?”

  “Whenever you are,” a gruff voice said in her ear.

  Ray Henning was the new commander of the Task Force. An American, which had put a great many noses out of joint at the U.N., Henning was a good man and a good leader, but that did not mean he felt any differently about her than the rest of his team did. His team. She had to remind herself of that sometimes. Often she thought of them as her team as well, but they were not. Not at all.

  “Allison?” Commander Henning prodded.

  “Green light,” she replied. “It’s a go.”

  The roar of engines filled the air, a sound to drown the distant thunder. Trucks painted the same dark gray as the sky appeared from hidden places beyond the treeline and burst up from irrigation ditches, racing across the fields of the old farm. She could see only five from her vantage point but she knew that there were eight trucks. Ray Henning would be in one of them, but she was not certain which. None of the trucks were marked, nor was there any indication on the uniforms worn by the Task Force that would indicate rank. Henning was sure the vampires would try to kill him if they identified him as the commander. Allison didn’t have the heart to tell him that the vampires would try to kill every last one of them, not caring who was in charge.

  Her, on the other hand . . . they’d do whatever they could to kill her. She was the Bloodhound, after all, or at least that’s what the vamps called her.

  The trucks rumbled across the fields, surrounding the house and barn. She could imagine the chaos inside—if any of the vampires holed up on the farm was awake to notice the attack. Shouts of fear and anger as they tried to figure out how to escape. Chances were they had dug hideaways in the basement where they might hope to avoid detection. Task Force Victor would find them.

  “Keep an eye out,” Commander Henning said over the comm. “It’s overcast today. I don’t want any of them getting brave.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” she replied coolly, choosing not to add asshole, though the temptation was strong.

  “Move!” came the order on the comm.

  Across the field the doors to all of the trucks opened at once and the members of Task Force Victor poured out. All of them wore body armor that covered them from throat to toe. Choosing her own wardrobe was one of the perks of just being a scout. Every member of the team was armed with an UltraLite semiautomatic assault rifle loaded with specially devised ammunition. Every bullet carried a pay-load of a toxin that prevented the vampires from altering their molecular structure—the first wound would make sure they could not escape by becoming mist or a bat, and the rest would tear them apart. Several members of the team were armed with liquid napalm throwers. Once all the vamps were down for the count, the place would be razed to the ground.

  They’d done this a hundred times in a hundred towns. Every time, Allison was pissed off that it wasn’t the last time. The vampire population had dwindled to almost nothing, but almost was never going to be enough.

  Gunfire ripped across the sky, echoed off the thunderclouds. Task Force Victor had split into two teams, surrounding the farmhouse and the barn, and now they moved in. Armored soldiers shot at the doors and windows in short, quick bursts, then tossed tiny, pear-shaped hand grenades over the thresholds. The small explosives thundered, creating a chorus of concussive blasts that tore holes in the walls of both structures.

  Like clockwork, Allison thought.

  Task Force soldiers rushed into the gaping holes torn in the walls and more gunfire erupted from inside. The vampires would have begun to die by now. Allison saw several of the soldiers brandish the liquid napalm throwers and saw the orange flame that spat from the mouths of those weapons.

  I should be down there, she thought. What if these are the last ones? What if it really is almost over? She knew it was not likely that those who had gathered, hidden away, on this farm were the last vampires on Earth. The idea seemed almost ridiculous. But it was possible. And after what she had suffered at their hands, what she had become, she wanted to be sure that she was there at the end, that it was she who slaughtered the last one. And not with a bullet, nor with fire, but with tooth and fang, the way it ought to be.

  “Need any help, Ray?” Allison asked, breaking the protocol of a mission for the first time in years. Something was getting under her skin. She did not want to sit here anymore.

  “Do your job. We’ll do ours,” the commander replied curtly.

  “Don’t ever tell me my job,” she snarled.

  But she did not move and Henning did not say anything more. The mission continued to unfold, gunfire echoing across the town. Russian citizens would be coming out of their homes any time now. The older ones would remember times when they expected warfare at any moment, and might well think the entire town was under attack. There were U.N. security advisors on site for just such an eventuality. The townspeople were their problem.

  The human ones, anyway.

  The barn was already on fire. Through a massive hole in the side wall she could see two vampires burning, staggering around, likely wondering why they could not change, why they were dying, these things who had thought themselves immortal.

  Burn, you fuckers. Burn.

  A sudden movement at an upper window of the house caught her eye. Allison glanced toward it just as two vampires crashed through the window with a shattering of glass that was somehow audible even over the cacophony of the gunfire. The vampires began to fall toward the ground, but both changed in midair, transforming with a fluid warping of flesh into large black bats.

  They got brave, she thought, and glanced quickly up at the sky. The thunderclouds were so thick and black that it was nearly dark as night now. The vampires had no reason not to make a run for it. In the past, some of them had even tried when the sun was out. But most of them were too afraid, still trapped by the superstitions that had been inculcated within them for centuries. Their kind had complete control over their molecular structure, but that meant that those who believed the sun would burn them or that a stake through the heart would kill them would die just as quickly as if the myths had been true.

  Some had overcome such foolishness, the brainwashing of centuries past. But most of them were either incapable of shaking their fear and their faith in their own limits, or unwilling to stop believing the superstitions, because that would mean giving up so much more. If the sunlight could not de
stroy them, they weren’t truly creatures of the night. That would mean they had a choice, that they were not evil by nature but by inclination.

  So they fed upon humans as if they were cattle, relished the taste of blood and the screams of the tortured and dying, and they hid from the sun.

  Unless they were forced to be brave. Unless they had no other choice.

  Allison leaped from the branches of the tree and spread her arms. Even as she fell, she felt her body change, muscles and bones popping and shifting, and those arms became wings. As a brown-feathered hawk, she flew skyward, beating her wings swiftly and gaining in her pursuit on the fleeing vampires immediately. Her beak opened and she let out a cry as she powered after them, closing the distance even as she rose higher.

  The vampires must have heard her, but there was nothing they could do but flee more quickly and speed toward the treeline. If they turned to mist, it would slow them down and she would be able to track them, simply waiting until they took solid form again. Among the trees at the edge of the rolling fields they might stop and fight her. On the ground, the Task Force soldiers would be too close. In the sky . . .

  With another cry she swooped down on the nearest of them. As a hawk, she willed her talons to change, not in shape but in substance. They were not flesh now, but silver. It was the one part of the legends that was at least partially true—other than the bloodlust, of course. Silver was poisonous to them, and to Allison as well. It hurt . . . but that did not stop her from using it when necessary.

  She attacked the nearest one, dropping on it from above, her wings beating powerfully, bearing her along at incredible speed, and she tore into it with those silver talons. Even with the thunderheads above, the vampire had to focus all its will upon keeping this form and not bursting into flame with the wan daylight bleeding through the storm clouds. When she slashed silver through it, the vampire screamed with the high-pitched cry of the bat it had become.