Daysider (Nightsiders) (22 page)

“We’ve got to get through to Theron, Damon,” she said. “Maybe it won’t do any good, but he’s the symbol of everything decent in Eleutheria, and maybe we can get somebody to listen.”

“Yes,” Damon said.

“Let’s go.”

Together they ran southwest toward the colony, Damon moving much more slowly than usual but never faltering. There was another burst of gunfire somewhere ahead, but they didn’t slow down until they were just behind the last tree at the foot of the lowest hill descending into the valley.

They were too late. A dozen Nightsider Council troops, wearing black uniforms and armed to the teeth, had formed a barrier around the settlement’s front wall, facing outward across the valley. Even as Alexia watched, someone fired on them from the cover of a broad-trunked valley oak about three hundred meters to the southwest. The Nightsiders returned fire, and then silence fell again, as peaceful as the aftermath of a level-seven earthquake.

Whatever motive the Nightsiders had for defending the colony—whether it was because they actively meant to protect it or simply wanted to keep the Aegis soldiers away—the upshot was the same. The strike force wasn’t going to leave until they’d “rescued” the supposed human guinea pigs, and the Erebus troops would never let them get anywhere near the walls. Since the Council obviously knew something unusual was going on, it was only a matter of time before they sent a larger force to deal with the human incursion.

“We’ll have to try to get in from the back,” Alexia said in an undertone. “I’m sure they’ve got it guarded, too, but it’s the only chance we have.” She grabbed Damon’s hand. “Whatever happens, remember that you are still Damon. Use your shadow to protect, not to kill.”

His eyes were almost clear now, reflecting starlight like indigo pools too deep to fathom. “You go in,” he said. “I’ll cover you.”

She closed her eyes, grateful that he was himself in what might be their final moments together. She wanted to tell him what she had never quite said, not the way she’d wanted to say it. But she remembered the Darketan woman’s lovely face, the look on
Damon’s
face when he’d seen the woman with her Nightsider prisoner. Alexia refused to burden him with emotions that would only make things more difficult for both of them if they survived.

“All right,” she said, opening her eyes again. “Good luck, Damon.”

He grabbed her shoulders. “Be careful.”

“I will.”

Pulling her into his arms, he kissed her roughly and just as abruptly let her go. Alexia turned and started back up the hill toward the rear wall of the colony, her lips throbbing and her heart throwing itself against her ribs like a fox in a cage. Damon followed so quietly that only the scent of dried blood and the tang of the local flora on his skin told her he was behind her.

The Nightsider guarding the back wall never stood a chance. Alexia made only a small, token effort to get past him, and as he was about to shoot her Damon took him down from behind. She didn’t wait to see how Damon would deal with the man or the other Nightsiders she knew had to be nearby, but continued down the hill to the eastern battlements and the row of sharpened stakes that rose a good two meters above her head.

The Nightsider colonists hadn’t left this wall unguarded, either. A dozen bullets from above whistled past Alexia’s ear, and she dropped into a crouch at the foot of the wall.

“It’s Alexia!” she cried. “I’m coming in!”

There was no response, but Alexia didn’t wait. She half ran, half slid the rest of the way down the hill to the postern gate, where she heard heavy objects being dragged around inside the wall. The door opened the width of an Armistice dollar and the sliver of a Nightsider’s face appeared behind the crack.

“Get Theron,” Alexia commanded. “Damon and I are here to take him to safety.”

“You can’t,” the Nightsider said. “He—”

“I know he doesn’t want to come, but someone’s going to kill him if he sets foot outside the front gate. If we can keep him alive, there’s still a chance he can—”

“You can’t help him,” the Nightsider said in a harsh whisper. “He thinks he can reason with them. He’s about to walk out.”

Alexia’s shock lasted exactly as long as it took for her to draw a single breath. She turned and sprinted back up the hill, using her hands to pull herself along.

Damon was waiting for her, standing guard over two Council troops with a nasty little Nightsider pistol in one hand and an Erebus model assault rifle in the other. Both Nightsiders were bloodied but alive, wearing daygear but still protected by the darkness. “Theron is already leaving,” Alexia said to Damon. “I’m going to be there when he walks out that gate.”

Damon nodded, the shadow crouching behind his eyes, waiting to be summoned again. Alexia knew he was deciding whether or not to kill the troops, but he knew as well as she did that any chance he might have to talk to the Council would end if he took their lives.

“Surrender,” one of the Nightsiders told Damon, “and you may be permitted to live.”

Damon didn’t answer. He dropped the pistol, tossed the rifle to Alexia, picked the Nightsider up by the back of his protective suit and charged down the hill the way she had come. She heard a low grunt, a cry of alarm and the thump of something heavy hitting the ground some distance away. The second Nightsider began to rise, but Alexia was ready, and he was in no position to resist when Damon came back for him.

“What did you do?” she asked when Damon returned.

“Over the wall,” he said, grinning in a way that would have made even a Nightsider’s blood run cold. “The colonists can deal with them.”

Alexia returned his grin. She didn’t wait to see if he was planning to kiss her again, though she wanted to feel his arms around her one last time. Moving as fast as the slope permitted, she plunged down the hillside parallel to the settlement walls and didn’t stop until she reached the valley floor.

Damon ran up behind her, his breath stirring her hair, his body a wall of heat against her back. A Nightsider in Council blacks stepped right in front of them. Alexia dove for his legs while Damon went for his rifle and knocked him unconscious with a blow that might have felled one of the massive oaks in the woods above them.

An instant later they were running again, still alongside the wall and headed for the corner where it turned to face the open field. Someone shot at them as they raced toward the gate, but they didn’t stop until they could clearly see what lay between them and Theron.

He stood just outside the closed gates, hands raised above his head. Behind him and to each side, Nightsider troops held him pinned under their weapons like a beetle on a display board. Half a kilometer across the valley, Alexia could make out the moonlit glint of more weapons and the motionless figures of Enclave soldiers, lying prone in the long grass and waiting for the signal to attack.

Humans and Nightsiders were so intent on each other that none of them noticed Damon and Alexia until they’d walked right into the open. Damon managed to keep himself between Alexia and the nearest threat, but he must have known neither of them could do anything but bluff their way into making someone—
any
one—listen to reason.

“My name is Agent Fox,” Alexia said in a carrying voice, showing her hands. “This is Damon of the Darketans. We were both sent into the Zone to investigate this colony, and we speak for its members, human and Opiri alike. We speak for Theron, who lives his belief in the equality of all the people who share this Earth.

“We speak for peace.”

Chapter 21

D
amon listened for the first sound of a finger pressing a trigger, ready to throw himself on Alexia and take every bullet that came until there was nothing left of him to shelter her.

But no one fired. He saw Theron’s face turn toward him and Alexia, his mouth opening as if to warn them away. Two of the Council troops broke from the others and edged in their direction, keeping close to the wall.

“Stop where you are!” a human voice shouted across the field.

The Opiri swung their rifles to face the new threat. In the brief silence that followed, all of Damon’s senses began firing up at once, and he knew the chance of stopping this idiocy from spreading to engulf the entire West Coast was almost gone.

“More troops,” he whispered to Alexia. “Coming west over the mountains.”

Not just a handful this time, but hundreds, headed for the valley like army ants that would devour everything in their path. From the opposite direction came the thrum of helicopter engines. Enclave choppers.

Damon didn’t have to ask Alexia what she wanted to do. As the Opir and Enclave soldiers became aware of the approaching forces, she ran straight for Theron, so recklessly that no one on either side was prepared to fire. Damon reached the Bloodmaster a second after she did, and together they dragged Theron to the ground. Sprays of bullets turned the wall behind them into confetti. The Opir troops lunged toward them.

Then there was a cry of horrified surprise, and another, and all shooting from the valley ceased. Damon, his arms spread wide to cover Alexia and Theron, barely had a chance to look up when a half dozen tall, pale figures appeared behind the Opiri and knocked them and their weapons to the ground.

The smell caught Damon just before he recognized what he was seeing. Lamiae, standing over the dazed Council soldiers, their attenuated bodies like ghosts stretched thin by the wind. One of them approached Damon and Alexia, bending low, its red eyes glowing with intelligence and purpose. Alexia raised her head to meet its gaze.

“Michael,” she murmured. She pressed her palm to her temple. “He’s talking to me,” she said in wonder. “He says...he has all the troops on both sides under guard by...by Orloks, a whole army of them. My God.”

Damon stared at Michael, barely able to wrap his thoughts around what was happening. Theron stirred, and Damon let him up.

“Lamiae,” Theron breathed, the same wonder in his voice.

“They’ve stopped the fighting,” Alexia said. “Michael says...we have to tell the troops to keep quiet, or they’ll be killed.”

She got to her feet, Damon helping her, and faced the valley. “Your voice carries better than mine, Damon,” she said. “Tell them not to struggle.” She touched her temple again. “Michael says—”

She didn’t finish, because the chopper was nearly overhead. A spotlight fell on the settlement walls and flowed down to catch Alexia, Theron and Damon in its bright circle.

“Agent Fox,” an amplified voice boomed down from the chopper. “Are you all right?”

“McAllister!” Alexia called. She raised her hand and swept it back and forth, then held her hand palm out to the chopper. The craft rose abruptly and hovered about fifteen meters overhead, its light still focused on Alexia.

That was when the new contingent of Council troops appeared, announcing their arrival with a volley of heavy fire at the chopper. It stopped before the bullets could do any real damage, and Damon heard grunts of surprise and pain.

“How many Lamiae are there?” he asked Alexia.

“I don’t know.” She turned to face him. “You’d better make the announcement. There’s going to be a truce as of right now, or no one’s going to like what will happen.”

* * *

It was almost too easy. One moment the tension and hatred was as thick as congealing blood, and the next contingents from both sides were approaching each other, weaponless and ready to communicate. The strike force commander was one of the humans; he eyed Alexia with enough hostility that Damon had to remind himself that
he
was part of the cease-fire, too. He remained close to her as Theron and the Opir commander, who had come forward with three of his men, spoke with the humans, including the man Alexia had called McAllister.

“Damon,” Alexia said. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

The soft, sad tone of her voice cut through the drone of the negotiations like fangs through tender flesh. Damon took Alexia’s arm and led her away from the others, turning the corner to the north side of the wall where the voices faded to a murmur.

“Alexia—” he began.

“Damon—” She chuckled low in her throat, met his gaze and sobered again. “You had something to say?”

Something to say. Where could he even begin? He saw this woman before him, this remarkable, brave, intelligent woman, and found his tongue hopelessly inadequate to the task.

“You did this,” he said at last. “It’s because of you that Theron is still alive and these people are talking to each other.”

“M-me?” she stammered, giving a quick shake of her head. “This is all because of Michael, because somehow he managed to get all these Orloks together and convinced them to intervene.”

Damon had too many things on his mind to argue with her. “How is that possible?” he asked. “Lamiae are beasts, killers, incapable of reason.”

“Are they, Damon?” She took his hand in hers and studied it as if she had never seen it before. “Michael isn’t only capable of reason, he’s capable of regret. Deep regret for what he did to try and start a war.”

If he hadn’t sensed a wrongness in Alexia’s partner from the beginning, Damon might have been surprised. “Why?” he asked.

“He was so filled with hatred. Hatred for both sides, Nightsider and human.” She dropped her gaze. “I never saw that side of him, Damon. I had no idea, until I read the message he left for me on the communicator. I didn’t even know it was there until you and the others went to the caves.”

“What did the message say?”

“It was because of his former partner, Jill. They loved each other, the way—” She broke off and continued in a near whisper. “About a year ago, they were sent into the Zone to meet a Daysider agent. Michael didn’t go into details, but he said it was some kind of secret mission to determine if operatives from both sides could work together. They thought it might be some way to work toward peace on an individual level.”

“They?”
Damon asked. “The Council and Aegis?”

She nodded. “Michael, his partner and the Daysider did meet, and things seemed to be going well when Michael was called back to the Enclave. Jill remained behind. When he was finally able to return to the Zone, he found Jill dead, killed by the Darketan.”

Damon felt a rising sense of dread. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“When Michael went to hunt down the Daysider, he met what he thought at the time was a Council agent, a Nightsider, who told him where he could find the Darketan. Michael killed the Daysider, and then the Opir agent helped him get out of the area before someone from Erebus found the body. Before they parted, the supposed Council agent told him that both Jill and the Daysider had been part of an experiment, and not what Aegis had told him.”

She swallowed and looked up. “They starved the Darketan before they sent him out, Damon. He didn’t know it, but they were injecting him with drugs that leached all the nutrients out of the blood he’d been drinking. Both sides wanted to see how long he could work with an Aegis agent, under orders not to hurt her, before he was forced to take her blood. They wanted to see if she’d cooperate, and if she didn’t, if he would kill her.”

“Sires,” Damon swore. He cupped Alexia’s hand between his. “That was why he hated his own people as well as mine.”

“It gets worse.” Alexia closed her eyes. “When Michael returned to the Enclave, he made it his business to find out if what the Nightsider said was true. He learned that Aegis had sent Jill out with a defective patch so that the Daysider couldn’t find out about the drugs if he and Jill discovered a way to coexist without killing each other. She would have died even if the Darketan didn’t kill her.”

“That wasn’t quite the way it happened,” a familiar woman’s voice said behind Damon.

Alexia’s eyes widened, and Damon turned. Eirene stood a few meters away, Sergius nearly impaled on the muzzle of her rifle. The man Alexia had called McAllister stood a little distance from her, with Theron beside him. McAllister stared at the woman as if he were trying to silence her with his gaze alone.

“I learned almost by accident,” Eirene said, as much to the human as to Damon and Alexia. “Alexia, I first met you after I was sent to San Francisco as an object of study for Aegis, a gesture of goodwill and a spy. I was trying to escape when I found you, and gave you my blood.”

“I remember,” Alexia said in a hushed voice.

“You inspired me in a way I didn’t believe possible, Alexia,” she said. “I decided to stay, to cooperate with Aegis and find a way to work for peace. Because my blood put your illness in remission, they found a way to derive drugs from it that could work to counteract the genetic condition that prevented almost half your kind from digesting human food.”

Damon glanced at Alexia, wondering if she was as astonished as he felt. “You’re Eirene, aren’t you?” she asked, a catch in her voice.

“Damon didn’t tell you?” She sighed. “How did you know?”

Tensing for Alexia’s answer, Damon cursed himself for his blindness. Alexia had recognized Eirene as someone who had helped her long ago, but she must also have felt that there was something between him and the Darketan stranger. Somewhere along the way, she had put it all together. And he had done nothing to prepare her.

“I wasn’t completely sure until now,” Alexia said. “But Damon spoke of a woman he’d loved in Erebus, a woman who had been sent away on some kind of suicide mission. Other things you said, the way you acted...it all started to make sense.”

“Yes,” Eirene said softly, glancing at Damon. “As I told him, I made myself so much a part of the furniture at Aegis that I was able to learn things I never should have heard, about certain experiments they conducted with the Council’s cooperation.” She paused. “That first experiment with Jill and the Darketan... Her patch wasn’t disabled because he might have discovered what it was. It was because they wanted to see if a starving Daysider and a dying dhampir could save each other.”

“And not just
any
Darketan,” Sergius said, his voice drawn in pain but still clear enough to express contempt. “One of that cursed mutant breed who never make the complete transition to Lamia, but carry the creatures’ propensity for extreme emotion and violence.”

He smiled at Damon. “Like you, Damon, he was driven by bestial urges but unable to understand why. The Council was also very interested in learning if he could control those urges in the presence of a food source. He and the female Jill would be entirely dependent on each other—she on his blood, he on hers. Just like you and Agent Fox.”

Damon was too stunned to speak. He heard Alexia gasp, a sickened sound, and then Eirene spoke again.

“Yes,” she said, “they chose a certain kind of Darketan, but not just to find out if he could control the Lamia side of himself. They also knew Damon was capable of the kind of emotion that would help him understand human, and dhampir, nature.”

Eirene shook her head sadly. “That first time didn’t work,” she said. “The Darketan killed Jill, and Michael killed him before the Council could send agents to retrieve him. So they sent you two out for the same purpose, hoping for a different result.”

“And they got it,” Theron said. He moved to join Alexia and Damon, as if to lend his support in their time of trial. “You were able to build the bridge, and help each other survive.”

“Because there was something special about Alexia, too,” Eirene said. She hesitated, glanced away and looked back again with even greater sorrow than before. “When I gave Alexia my blood twenty years ago, I left a part of myself inside her, a trace of my signature that was never extinguished. Aegis chose Alexia for the experiment when they learned that I and Damon—” She swallowed. “When they, and the Council, realized that my previous connection to Damon might enable him to recognize that signature and be drawn to Alexia as he would be to no one else.”

The shock was so thick in the air that Damon could hardly breathe. He felt blindly for Alexia, desperate to make sure she was still breathing herself.

As if to prove his fears were unfounded, Alexia spoke again, though she almost seemed not to have heard what Eirene had just told them.

“Michael found out about the first experiment,” she said in a dazed voice. “Now it all makes sense. He managed to hide his knowledge so well that Aegis sent him in with me, even though his first partner had died under similar circumstances. He was supposed to leave me alone with Damon, but he had his own plans. He wanted to sabotage the second experiment, because he—” She nearly choked, and Damon reached out to steady her. His hand closed on empty air.

“He wasn’t the only one who didn’t want the experiment to succeed,” Sergius said, filling the unbearable silence. “The Expansionists also learned of it and determined to stop it by killing you and Damon. After all, were you to build the bridge Theron mentioned—” he nodded toward his former mentor “—it would scarcely benefit those who wanted war.”

“And Michael wanted war, as well,” Alexia said, her voice growing stronger, “no matter whom he destroyed in the process. He led the assassins to us. Lysander was one of them, and Michael made a deal that he’d deliver my patch to him as long as he and his men didn’t kill me. It all went as Michael planned, and he took my patch. But other operatives, presumably from the Council, killed two of the assassins before they could finish Damon off, and Michael fled.”

She met Damon’s gaze with a steadiness that surprised and humbled him. “Later, Lysander killed the Council operatives—the ones we found—and Michael came back to us with the intention of murdering you. By then, he’d already sent the message to Aegis. He knew the colony was the other new hope for peace, and summoning the strike force would wipe that out, as well.”