Kiss of Midnight

The phone rang again and he was on his feet, heading for the bathroom, where he'd left his jacket. He dug the cell out of one of the pockets and flipped it open.



"Yeah."



"Hey." It was Gideon, and there was something odd about his voice. "Lucan, how fast can you get to the compound?"



He looked over his shoulder to the adjacent bedroom loft. Gabrielle was sitting up now, drowsy from sleep, her bare hips wreathed in tangled sheets, her hair a wild mess around her face. He'd never seen anything so bloody tempting. Maybe it was better that he did leave soon, while he still stood a chance of getting away before the sun came up.



Wrenching his gaze away from the arousing sight of her, Lucan growled an answer into the phone. "I'm not far. What's going on?"



A lengthy silence stretched on the other end.



"Something's happened, Lucan. It's bad." More quiet, then some of Gideon's natural calm cracked. "Ah, fuck, there's no easy way to say it. We lost one tonight, Lucan. One of the warriors is dead."



Chapter Twelve



The sounds of a female's mourning reached Lucan's ears as soon as he stepped out of the elevator that had delivered him to the subterranean depths of the compound. Heart-rending cries of deep anguish, the Breedmate's keening sorrow was raw, palpable, the only thing audible in the stillness of the long corridor.



It clawed at Lucan, the stunning weight of loss.



He didn't know yet which of the Breed warriors had perished that night. He wouldn't strive to guess. His footsteps were brisk, all but running toward the infirmary chambers from where Gideon had called him a few minutes ago. He rounded a bend in the corridor just in time to see Savannah leading a grief-stricken, wailing Danika from one of the rooms.



A fresh wave of shock hit him.



So, it was Conlan who was gone, then. The big Highlander with the easy laugh and deep, unfailing honor... dead now. Soon to be dust.



Jesus, he could hardly grasp the hard truth of it.



Lucan paused, respectfully bowing his head low to the warrior's widow as she passed him. Danika was clinging hard to Savannah, the latter's strong, mocha-skinned arms seeming to be all that prevented Conlan's tall blond Breedmate from collapsing in despair.



Savannah acknowledged Lucan where her weeping charge was unable. "They're awaiting you inside," she told him gently, her deep brown eyes glistening with tears. "They will need your strength and guidance."



Lucan gave Gideon's woman a sober nod, then took the few short strides that would bring him into the infirmary.



He entered in silence, unwilling to disturb the solemnity of the fleeting time that he and his brethren would have to spend with Conlan. The warrior had sustained staggeringly severe injuries; even from across the room, Lucan could smell terrible blood loss. His nostrils filled with the foul, mingled odors of gunpowder, electrical heat, twisted metal shrapnel, and melted flesh.



There had been an explosion, with Conlan caught in the center of it.



Conlan's remains lay on a shroud-draped examination table, his body divested of clothing except for the wide strip of embroidered white silk that covered his groin. In the short while since he'd been returned to the compound, Conlan's skin had been cleaned and annointed with a fragrant oil, all in preparation for the funeral rites that would take place with the next rising of the sun, not a few hours from now.



Around the table that held the warrior, the others had gathered: Dante, rigid in his stoic observation of death; Rio, head bent down, fingers clutching a string of rosary beads as he moved his lips silently to the words of his mother's human religion; Gideon, attending cloth in hand, dabbing carefully at one of the many savage lacerations that had torn open nearly every inch of Conlan's skin; Nikolai, who had been on patrol that night with Conlan, his face paler than Lucan had ever seen it, his wintry eyes stark, his skin marred with soot and cinder and small, bleeding cuts.



Even Tegan was there, paying respects, although the vampire stood just outside the circle of the others, his eyes hooded, sullen in his solitude.



Lucan strode up to the table to take his place among his brethren. He closed his eyes and prayed over Conlan in prolonged silence. Some longtime later, Nikolai broke the quiet of the room.



"He saved my life out there tonight. We'd just smoked a couple of suckheads outside the Green Line station and were heading back when I saw this dude get on the train. I don't know what made me look at him, but he shot us this big, shit-eating grin, like he was daring us to come after him. He was packing some kind of gunpowder on him. He stank of that and some other shit I didn't have time to get a read on."



"TATP," Lucan said, scenting the acrid stuff on Niko's clothing even now.



"Turned out the bastard was carrying a belt of wired explosives on him. He jumped off the train just before we started rolling, and took off running down one of the old tracks. We chased him, Conlan cornered him. That's when we saw the bombs. They were on a sixty-second clock, and it was counting down below ten. I heard Conlan roar at me to get back, and then he launched himself at the guy."



"Christ," Dante swore, raking a hand through his black hair.



"A Minion did this?" Lucan asked, figuring it to be a safe presumption.



The Rogues had no qualms about spending human lives like dust in order to carry out their petty turf wars or to settle matters of personal retribution. For a long time, human religious fanatics weren't the only ones to employ the weak of mind as inexpensive, expendable, yet highly effective tools of terror.



But that didn't make the ugly reality of what happened to Conlan any easier to swallow.



"This wasn't a Minion," Niko replied, shaking his head. "This was a Rogue, wired up with enough TATP to take out half a city block by the look and stench of it."



Lucan wasn't the only one in the room to grind out a savage curse at that bit of troubling news.



"So, they're not content sacrificing just Minion pawns anymore?" Rio remarked. "Now the Rogues are moving bigger pieces on the board?"



"They're still pawns," Gideon said.



Lucan glanced to the quick-witted vampire and understood what he was getting at. "The pieces haven't changed. But the rules have. This is a new brand of warfare, not the minor firefighting we've been dealing with in the past. Someone within Rogue ranks is bringing a degree of order to the anarchy. We're coming under siege."



He turned his attention back to Conlan, the first casualty of what he feared was to be a new dark age. In his aged bones, he felt the violence of a long ago past rising up to repeat itself. War was brewing again, and if the Rogues were making moves to organize, to go on the offensive, then the entire vampire nation would find itself on the front lines. The humans, too.



"We can discuss this more at length, but not now. This time is Conlan's. Let us honor him."



"I've said my goodbyes," Tegan murmured. "Conlan knows I respected the hell out of him in life, as I do in death. Nothing's ever gonna change on that score."



A heavy wave of anxiety swept the room as everyone waited for Lucan to react to Tegan's abrupt departure. But Lucan wasn't about to give the vampire the satisfaction of thinking he'd pissed him off, which he had. He waited for the retreat of Tegan's boot falls to fade down the corridor, then he nodded to the others to resume the rite.



One by one, Lucan and each of the four other warriors sank down on their knee to pay further respects. They spoke a single prayer, then rose together, and began to withdraw to await the final ceremony that would put their fallen comrade to rest.



"I will be the one to carry him up," Lucan announced to the departing vampires.



He caught the exchange of looks between them, and knew what it meant. Elders of the vampire race - Gen Ones, especially - were never asked to bear the burden of the dead. That obligation fell to the later generation Breed who were further removed from the Ancients, and who, as such, could better withstand the burning rays of the rising sun for the time required to lay a vampire to proper rest.



For a Gen One like Lucan, the funeral rite would be a torturous eight minutes of exposure.



Lucan stared at the lifeless form on the table, unwilling to look away from the damage Conlan had suffered.



Damage suffered in his place, Lucan thought, sick with the knowledge that it should have been him on patrol with Niko, not Conlan. Had he not sent the Highlander out at the last minute as his own replacement, Lucan might have been lying on that cold metal slab, his limbs and face and torso charred from hellish fire, his gut blasted open with shrapnel.



Lucan's need to see Gabrielle tonight had trumped his duty to the Breed, and now Conlan - his grieving mate, as well - had paid the ultimate price.



"I will take him topside," he repeated sternly. He slid a bleak scowl at Gideon. "Summon me when the preparations are completed."



The vampire inclined his head, granting Lucan more respect than he was due in that moment. "Of course. It won't be long."



Lucan spent the next couple of hours alone in his private quarters, kneeling in the center of the space, head dropped in prayer and somber reflection. Gideon arrived at the door, as promised, nodding to indicate that it was time to remove Conlan from the compound and surrender him to the dead.



"She's pregnant," Gideon said grimly as Lucan rose. "Danika is three months with child. Savannah just told me. Conlan had been trying to work up the courage to tell you that he was leaving the Order once the baby arrived. He and Danika were planning to withdraw to one of the Darkhavens to raise their family."



"Christ," Lucan hissed, feeling even worse for the happy future Conlan and Danika had been robbed of, and for the son who would never know the man of courage and honor who had been his father. "Everything is in preparation for the ritual?"



Gideon inclined his head.



"Then let's do this."



Lucan strode forward. His feet and head were bare, as was the rest of his body beneath a long black robe. Gideon was robed as well, but wearing the formal belted tunic of the Order, as were the other vampires who awaited them in the chamber set aside for all manner of Breed ritual - from marriages and births, to funerals, like this one. The three females of the compound were present as well, Savannah and Eva in ceremonial hooded black gowns, Danika garbed in the same manner, but in deepest scarlet, to signify her sacred blood-bond with the departed.



At the front of the gathering, Conlan's body lay on an ornate altar, cocooned in a thick shroud of snowy silk wrappings.



"We begin," Gideon announced simply.



Lucan's heart was heavy as he listened to the service, to the symbolism of infinity in each of the ceremony's rites.



Eight ounces of perfumed oil to anoint the skin.



Eight layers of white silk shrouding the body of the fallen.



Eight minutes of silent, daybreak attendance by one member of the Breed, before the dead warrior would be released to the incinerating rays of the sun. Left alone, his body and soul would scatter to the four winds as ash, a part of the elements forever.



As Gideon's voice came to a slow pause, Danika stepped forward.



Turning to face the gathering, she lifted her chin and spoke in a hoarse, but proud, voice. "This male was mine, as I was his. His blood sustained me. His strength protected me. His love fulfilled me in all ways. He was my beloved, my only one, and he will be in my heart for all eternity."



"You honor him well," came the hushed, unison reply from Lucan and the others.



Danika now turned to meet Gideon, her hands extended, palms upturned. He unsheathed a slim golden dagger and placed it in her hands. Danika's hooded head dipped down in acceptance, then she turned to stand over Conlan's wrapped form. She murmured soft, private words meant only for the two of them. Her hands came up near her face, and Lucan knew that the Breedmate widow was now scoring her lower lip with the edge of the blade, drawing blood that she would then press to Conlan's mouth from over the shroud as she kissed him one final time.



Danika bent toward her lover and remained there for a long while, her body shaking with the force of her grief. She came away from him sobbing into the back of her hand, her scarlet kiss glowing fiercely on Conlan's mouth amid the field of white that covered him. Savannah and Eva brought her into a joined embrace, leading her away from the altar so that Lucan could continue with the one task that yet remained.



He approached Gideon at the fore of the assembly and pledged to see Conlan depart with all the honor that was due him, the vow spoken by all of the Breed who walked the same path that awaited Lucan now.



Gideon stepped aside to grant Lucan access to the body. Lucan took the massive warrior into his arms and turned to face the others as was required.



"You honor him well," murmured the low chorus of voices.



Lucan progressed solemnly and slowly across the ceremonial chamber to the stairwell leading up and out of the compound. Each long flight, each of the hundreds of steps he took, bearing the weight of his fallen brother, was a pain he accepted without complaint.



This was the easiest part of his task, after all.



If he were going to break, it would be in a few minutes from now, on the other side of the exterior door that loomed ahead of him just a dozen more paces.



Lucan shouldered the steel panel open and drew the crisp air into his lungs as he walked to the place where he would lay Conlan to rest. He went to his knees on a patch of crisp green grass, slowly lowering his arms to place Conlan's body down on terra firma before him. He whispered the prayers of the funeral ritual, words he'd only heard a scant few times over centuries long passed, yet called up now by rote.



As he spoke them, the sky began to glow with the coming of dawn.



He bore the light in reverent quiet, training all thought on Conlan and the honor that had marked his long life. The sun continued to stretch over the horizon, less than halfway through the ritual. Lucan dropped his head down, absorbing the pain as Conlan surely would have done for any one of the Breed who fought alongside him. Searing heat washed over Lucan as dawn rose, ever stronger.