Black Dawn

MICHAEL



Getting the attention of the draug wasn't a problem. From the moment I ran into the water treatment plant I knew they'd felt me, seen me, sensed my approach; they could detect me the way I could feel a heartbeat across the room. Predator senses. They were tuned to vampires, and I was young, vulnerable, blasting full volume Come eat me. I'm easy.



So far, my brilliant plan was working. Shane would have been pleased; in fact, he would have been right in there with me, I knew that. Hang in there, bro, I silently begged him. We'd had our good times and bad times, but when I thought of Shane what I mostly remembered was holding on to him the night Alyssa died. Holding him back from running into the burning house to die along with her. Then holding him back from attacking Monica Morrell, who'd been standing there flicking a lighter.



That crazy suicidal streak of his had always scared me, because I knew it was still inside him. But this time ... this time I was hoping he'd be holding on with both hands. He had things to live for now. People who loved him.



Yeah, and one of them is you, and you left him here.



Shane wasn't the only one who could wallow in guilt. I was soaking in it, because I'd left him. I'd done it because at the time I'd thought Myrnin was right-that Shane couldn't have survived more than a few minutes. Myrnin had taken advantage of our shock and confusion. Mine especially. I had the keys. I could have said, Hell no-screw you. I'm going back for my friend. Instead, I'd mostly thought of getting the girls away from there, cutting our losses. And that had been Myrnin's focus. Claire wasn't ever willing to admit it, but we all knew that Myrnin put her safety ahead of anyone else's. Even his own.



Just as I had put Eve's first, in the heat of the moment. Shane wouldn't even blame me for that, the jackass. He'd have done exactly the same thing. And he'd be right here, right now, moving with the shadows, luring the enemy away from those we needed to protect and taking the worst of it on ourselves.



I sometimes thought he'd had a little too much influence on me. I never used to be suicidal.



I spotted a still pool of dirty water ahead, near the corner of the building, and slowed; there was no way to be sure if it was safe or infected with the draug, but I couldn't take the chance. Avoiding its slippery edges took me under a drain spout, which I missed until the liquid gushed out and landed on me with a wet slap.



The draug formed out of it, clinging to my back, clawing at me. They weren't strong, but everywhere they touched skin it felt like acid burning off layers. The clothes stopped it for only a few seconds. If the draug couldn't soak through it, they flowed around and under, seeking prey.



Junkies seeking their particular brand of crack.



I had a shotgun loaded with silver, but there was no way to get it into position to hurt the one on my back without doing damage to myself. My strength didn't work well against the draug, because they were mush in this form, and when something has a blob of a body, it's difficult to get anything like a real grip.



I scraped it off against the rough brick side of the building, and my shirt got torn in the process. The skin beneath felt burned and raw, and already I seemed noticeably weaker.



Worse: the noise cancellation device that I'd been wearing clipped to my belt was shattered. I held my breath and tried not to listen ... and then realized that I didn't need to worry. The draug weren't singing here. Not at all. Not even a hum. If they'd been able to make that sound, I'd have lost my focus, gotten confused, been overtaken ... but something had happened to them, something to impair their ability to generate that call. When they'd first arrived in Morganville, they hadn't been able to sing, either. Magnus had gone after vampires one by one, and only when he had a certain number of draug under his command could he start that eerie, beautiful call that drew us in against our will.



We must have killed enough, at least for now, to rob him of that power. Eve would have, at this point, said, "Go us!" but I wasn't feeling especially victorious. I was feeling weak. Got to keep moving. The whole point of this was to draw Magnus's attention and get the rest of the draug to come after me; they needed all the hot, tasty vampire they could get, and I was right here, waiting. But if I waited too long, I could draw them right into my friends instead, especially if I stuck too close to the building itself.



I avoided the puddle, which looked too still, and moved on.



On the side of the plant was a long chain-link fence, posted with warning signs. These made handy grips as I scaled up and over and dropped on the other side ... then saw the treatment pools. The water was also treated in the pipes, but there was some kind of system I didn't fully understand to take it from gray to clean, and each of the pools looked different-a progression of treatments. There were also covered sections and containers on the other side of the fences, probably for taking samples. All in all, it was pretty much Draug Heaven ... as long as they didn't mind questionable water quality.



And I was in trouble, because I almost immediately realized that the pool nearest to me had waves in it. Thin, small waves at the far end, building into large tidal surges as they approached the edges of the ponds.



They were coming for me, and I was already weak. If another one got hold of me, I'd end up at the bottom of that pond, helpless and hopeless this time.



There were walkways over all the pools-rusted metal grates that were elevated about five feet over the surface. I got a running start and leaped over the onrushing waves, landed with a solid thump of feet on metal, and started running against the tide, heading for the far end of the body of water.



The waves collapsed and churned in confusion, as if a school of piranha had turned on itself, and then reversed course to race after me. I felt the shuddering slap as the liquid hit the metal. Smaller waves were trying to leap up and grab hold ahead of me, but they didn't have momentum and I was hauling ass; the best any of them did was to throw droplets on my shoes, and I kicked those off as I ran. I made it to the end of the walkway. There were two choices here-off onto the ground on the other side, and from there over the fence, or a switchback that ran another, identical walkway at an angle across the next pond.



This one wasn't quite as murky, and it was smaller; the water was an eerie bluish jade color, completely opaque. It was as still as stone, too, as I vaulted onto the catwalk that angled over it. The draug weren't slopping over into this pond. I thought they'd chase me ... but they stopped at the concrete barrier. Even the waves curled back on themselves rather than fall into these still waters.



I slowed, and stopped. It couldn't be. I looked ahead; at the next angled intersection between catwalks was another divider, another pool. The water there was clearer, and it almost boiled with activity just like the last pool.



But here, in between ... there was nothing. I took a breath, and immediately wished I hadn't; this whole area reeked of human waste and something else, something sweetly rotten that might have been the draug. No way I could pick out one individual component from the general stench.



I needed a sample of the water the draug seemed to avoid ... and I had something to put it in. Eve's latest gift to me, which I wore on a chain around my neck ... a blood vial. Some Goths were into it, keeping each other's blood as either mementos or trophies, but she'd gotten it mainly because it was, as she put it, my "break glass in case of emergency" supply. It was Eve's blood. I'd never really planned on drinking it, because it was just a taste, really, but this was a true emergency, after all.



I uncorked it and drained it in one small gulp. The taste of her essence exploded on my tongue in a rush, and I felt my pupils contract and my fangs come down in response. It's hard to describe what it feels like, except that it's a whole lot like wanting something you know isn't good for you. Craving, lust, hunger, fear, all balled up inside a sense of wonder, because you can actually feel the person the blood came from, at least a little. The fresher the blood, the sharper that sensation.



I held that taste in my mouth for a long second that seemed to stretch toward eternity, and then finally swallowed. The blood trickled in warm drops down toward my stomach, and I felt a spurt of energy run through me. Not much, because it wasn't much blood, but it helped.



I knelt down and stretched out as far as I could; I had to hang at a precarious angle, but I finally got a scoop of the turquoise water into the vial and corked it. Even in the bottle, the liquid looked opaque with whatever was suspended in it. I looped the chain back around my neck and rolled to my feet.



Ahead of me, more turbulence in the next pool. Behind me, the draug were definitely ready to welcome me back.



"The things I do for you, bro," I said, and ran straight ahead, top speed. The railing flew by in a blur, and as I approached the sharp V-shaped turn that angled across the next pool, also dangerously active, I calculated the distance, propelled myself up and onto the railing, and leaped across. I hit the other catwalk still running, but this time the draug had anticipated me, and the waves were heading toward me, building fast.



They were going to build high enough to swamp the catwalk, and once they were on it, they could pull me off balance and down into the depths.



I snarled, fangs out, and timed it carefully. Wait ... wait ... I kept running, faster and faster, building up momentum as the wave broke through the catwalk's grating and raced toward me, and then I slammed both feet down, hard. It was a risk. The catwalk was old, and rusty, and if my feet had broken through I'd have been done, but the hard old bridge held, and I arced up, up and over. The wave reached up for me, and I pulled my knees up in midair.



The draug's murky liquid form slapped at the soles of my shoes, and then dissolved and fell back into the pool. My jump carried me forward, and I landed hard, rolling with it to shed momentum, then bouncing back to my feet before they could react.



I made it to the end and leaped the railing into the tall winter-scorched weeds.



They didn't come after me. The waves subsided back into the pool. I stared at them for a second, wondering what the hell it was going to take to really make them come out of their hiding place after me, and finally thought to look back at the other pools.



The one that I'd just crossed was agitating just enough to keep my attention, but the ones on the ends were suspiciously quiet.



Ah. The draug were crawling out from my right and left, silently circling toward me. That was better. As long as they were focused on me, they weren't going to be going after Claire and Eve and the others ...



Except that there weren't enough of them. A few, sure-five, six on each side. There had to be a lot more of them that were strong enough to leave the pool. We'd killed many of them, but not that many; they'd been all over us inside when we'd come earlier. That meant that they were likely still inside.



With Eve.



I needed to draw them out, and to do that I had to present either a genuine opportunity ... or a genuine threat. Preferably both.



I did two things.



First, I extended my fangs and ripped open my own wrist, and let the dark red blood-loaded with those delicious vampire pheromones the draug loved-spray out all over the ground around me. "Soup's on, guys. Come get some."



Next, as the draug charged me, I backed up against the fence, pumped the shotgun, and began to methodically kill them all. I'd never been one for killing things, but I'd had plenty of video game practice.



Turns out all that first-person shooter stuff is actually good for something. Especially in Morganville.



I was killing the last one-or at least, turning it back into splatters of liquid that crawled away to the safety of a pool-when my cell phone rang. Eve had changed my ringtone, again. She'd sampled one of my concerts. Weird, to hear my own music coming out of the speaker.



I grabbed the phone and thumbed it on. "Kind of busy right now!" I said, before the novelty of my cell phone actually working dawned on me. "Who is this?"



"Moses," came the breathless reply. "We've got Shane. Heading for the truck. Claire and Eve are pinned down on the main stairs. Go get them."



I was about to confirm all that when I heard the draug start shrieking. I wasn't prepared for it; the noise went through me like an arrow through the head, and I almost dropped the phone, but I managed to hang it up and get it back in my pocket. I didn't know what had happened to hurt them that badly, but even though the screaming hurt, it made me savagely happy, too.



It would damn sure keep them busy.



I raced back over the catwalk that led through the safe pool, and broke the lock on a door to the inside of the building. There were more pools in here, just a couple, with more catwalks, and I saw that one of the pools was a thrashing, shrieking mess of silver and black that, even as I watched, quieted into stillness.



There were open canisters of silver nitrate discarded nearby. And blood. Lots of fresh human blood.



Shane's.



The blood trail went off to the left, but I plunged straight ahead, for the stairs that went up a floor into the main lobby. I caught sight of the truck outside the doors, and figures moving around it-Hannah's distinctive form was standing guard, so they were all safe, for now.



I ran upstairs, toward the smell of burned gunpowder, rot, and fear.



I met Claire and Eve coming down. Claire was supporting Eve; she seemed to be limping and cursing a lot. Claire still had her shotgun, but Eve's hands were empty. Unarmed.



I didn't think, I just took Eve in my arms and lifted her. The scent and warmth of her wrapped around me, and she leaned her head wearily against my chest. "Hannah found him," she said. "Shane's okay. He's alive."



I kissed her forehead. "I know. You're safe now." She wasn't bleeding, which was a relief; the limping must have been from a twisted ankle. Tenderness flowed through me, relaxing muscles I hadn't even known were tense; her fingers crept around my neck, and even though she didn't lift her lips to mine, she didn't flinch. "I swear, you're safe, Eve."



"They had us," Claire told me. "The draug had us cornered. But they ran."



"Yeah. Looks like Hannah threw a bomb in their party pool," I said.



"Shane-"



"I know, she's got him. You were right. He's okay." I knew, but didn't say, that he'd lost a lot of blood; she could probably figure that out on her own. The important thing was that Shane had come out of this alive.



We all had, as far as I could tell.



Win.



Claire took a deep breath, racked her shotgun like a professional, and said, "I've got your back. You just take care of her."



I escorted her, or she escorted me and Eve, to the truck. I opened the back to find Shane sitting in the cushy throne chair, covered in painful draug stings, his whole body seeping blood all over the upholstery. He looked paper-pale and shaky, but he raised his hand and said, "Hey, bro."



"Hey," I said. It was all I could manage. I realized, looking at him, that we'd been maybe a minute or two away from all this being utterly useless. He couldn't have held out much longer.



It scared me.



Richard and Monica were standing, though Monica looked mutinous; her expensive shoes were broken, and her dress was smeared with blood. She glared at me as if daring me to make some kind of comment.



"Thanks," I said to her, and I meant it. "Both of you."



Richard nodded. Monica frowned, as if she'd never had anyone thank her before and didn't know exactly how to handle it. That seemed likely.



Claire shoved past me, jumped in, and headed straight for Shane. He put his arms around her when she hugged him, but there was something odd in his face, something ... tentative. As if he wasn't sure all this was real. If she was real.



No time to sort it out. I slammed the back door and jumped in the front with Eve and Hannah, and we got the hell out.



Fast.