Dawn's Darkest Hour

Rachael eased a sigh of relief that the ancient car started and the tires actually rolled of their own volition. Fingering the frayed edges of her seatbelt, she muttered, "I don't even have a car yet."

David inched the car into the line, waiting their turn to exit the parking lot. He cursed beneath his breath and slammed on the brakes, which squealed in complaint, as a shiny, expensive, sports car sped into the gap in front of him. He resisted the urge to blow his cover and put a few dents in the immaculate candy apple red paint job. "What a jerk!"

Rachael shrank into her seat. A fluff of musty smelling dust from the cracked and weathered bucket seat beneath her elicited a wet sneeze. Self-consciously, she dabbed at her nose and inwardly crumpled at the humiliation. "That's Cole," she said with a shrug. She was used to being picked on, especially by him and his bunch of cronies. For years, ever since Laney chose their friendship over a date with him, he'd made her life unbearable.

David ground to a stop and waited for the light to turn from red to green. "Why does he have it in for you so bad?" He noticed her flinch when he asked the question.

Rachael shrugged, preferring not to go into a deep discussion about Cole's perpetual disdain for her. "Doesn't matter. I'm graduating in January anyway." She wished the bucket seat would swallow her up as David scrutinized her from beneath his sunglasses.

David gripped the steering wheel so tightly that it groaned in his fingers. Rachael's self-depreciating behavior goaded his sense of justice. "Want me to kick his ass for you? It'd be my pleasure. I hate bullies."

Rachael gasped in shock. No one had ever offered to defend her before, nobody except for Laney, anyway, and especially not a boy. "God no! Don't draw attention to yourself like that. Cole Zimmerman is just a wart on the butt of humanity. He's not worth the effort." Neither am I, she added silently. Intently, she watched the rows of storefronts and quiet neighborhoods zip past the window. "Hang a right at the next corner." So far, the ride home was going splendidly. NOT. She had three blocks left to engage him in some sort of conversation that did not include Cole Zimmerman and his worshipers.

David was in sleuth mode. Despite her discomfort at their present topic of Cole Zimmerman, he pressed for more information. "So, how long have you and Cole been best friends?" He slowed and turned right onto a picturesque side street.

Rachael rolled her eyes and snorted. "I've known Cole my whole life. Believe it or not, we used to play together when we were little." What was David's preoccupation with Cole? Was he trying to use her to get to him? If so, why? She barely knew Cole anymore. Whatever David was after. Whatever he wanted with Cole and she knew it couldn't be anything good, if Cole was involved. She couldn't help him out. IF he was out to score some pink. She definitely couldn't do him any good there. But, he'd seemed so adamant. Made her promise not to use her stash. Why would he want some for himself?

"How endearing," David cracked off snidely. "Was he the one that sold you that poison?" So distracted by the thought of that little prick slipping a vial of pink into Rachael's innocent fingers, he rolled through a stop sign, narrowly missing a soccer mom's SUV.

Rachael gripped the doorframe by the tips of her fingers. " God, be careful." She exhaled when David slowed to the speed limit and looked like he was at least making an effort to drive safely. "Where I got the stuff from is none of your business," she retorted. "I'm not a kid. I know what I'm doing."

"No you don't." Rage boiled through him when he imagined her willingly contaminating her body and condemning her soul with the toxic powder. He inched the car to a stop along the curb. "You can't possibly understand what you're getting yourself into. To you, every moment seems like it'll never end and time will never pass. It does and it will. You think you're immortal and nothing can hurt you, but you're so wrong. Teenagers do die."

Rachael glared at David. "Don't you think I know that! God, you sound like my mom and dad." She crossed her arms and scooted as far away from David as she could get. "I don't need another parent scrutinizing my every move. You don't understand. YOU WEREN'T THERE! I saw her die. I watched her die! Laney didn't jump. She fell. She fell off that roof and I was helpless to stop her." Rachael did her best to hide the deluge of tears from David, slouching deep into the thick folds of her hoodie.

"Shit." David dragged his fingers through his hair in frustration. He didn't know anything about Rachael's past. Now he understood the haunted look in her eyes, because he had it too. They'd both witnessed the death of someone they loved and had been helpless to prevent it. "I'm sorry." She jerked her face out of reach as he stretched his fingers to brush away her tears.

Rachael wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt and sniffled. Idly, she tugged at the cuff with her fingers, concentrating on the ribbed fabric instead of the look of sympathy in his eyes. "S'ok." Inhaling, she took a deep shaky breath to steady the emotions stabbing her in the gut. "I can walk from here."

David gripped her sleeve, tugging her back into the car. "Let me take you the rest of the way home. Please." He eased up as she hesitated, one foot on the floorboard, the other on the curb. "We don't have to talk about it. I promise to behave. No more lectures."

Rachael sighed and rested back into her seat. She pulled her leg in and tugged the car door shut in resignation. "Fine." The need to justify why she even had a vial of pink ate at her. David was important. Her only friend and what he thought of her mattered, a lot. That was why she couldn't tell him why she had the stuff. "I'm not a druggie or anything."

David reached across Rachael's shoulder and pulled the seatbelt into place. He wasn't about to have her get killed because of his bad driving. "I know." The belt clicked with a tired sounding snap. "Look, you don't owe me any explanations. I'm hardly one to judge. Just promise me you'll stay safe." A smile lit her face like a spotlight as she nodded. He returned her smile and brushed her smooth cheek with his fingertips. He had to keep her safe. Make up for his past and his biggest failure. He'd lost his sister to the darkness. He wouldn't lose her too. No one else died because of him.

Rachael stopped David at the corner a block down the road from her house, just as she'd planned. A glance at her watch told her that she'd be arriving at home about the same time as she always did. Good. The last thing she wanted to do after her draining emotional outburst was deal with her mom and an endless barrage of questions. "Thanks for the ride." Giving him a second, she hesitated. He didn't make any move to kiss her. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"I was the jerk. It was my fault. I'm the one who went all parental on you," David said with a grin. "Are you sure you don't want me to drop you off at the door?"

Rachael nodded adamantly. "My mom."

"Oh." David got the whole parent thing. Not wanting to cause her anymore discomfort, he gave up trying to coax her into letting him drop her off at the door. Rachael was a sweet girl. The blush stained her cheeks a pretty red. God, how long had it been since he'd blushed? "Maybe tomorrow you'll let me drop you off in front of your house?"

Rachael scrambled out of the car. He was offering to give her a ride tomorrow? Even after her boogery sneeze and crying jag, he wanted to give her a ride? Amazed and dumbfounded, she balanced her backpack on her shoulder, unable to hide her smile. "Maybe." Tomorrow, her mom wouldn't be home after school. Thank God for happy hour at the country club. She closed the car door, wincing at the shower of rust particles that rained down from the battered fender.

David returned Rachael's wave. The car idled noisily as he watched her walk down the tree lined sidewalk and disappear behind a heavy, carved glass, front door. Once he was certain she was safe, he dropped the teenage façade. Tonight, behind the cover of darkness, he'd be back. Cole Zimmerman's time was running out.

Chapter 28

Nora scanned the web pages on her browser with furious intensity. The articles at her fingertips were limited. She guessed the disappearance of a teenage boy didn't warrant that much media attention. Especially when there wasn't a mangled corpse or evidence of foul play.

David had simply disappeared without a trace midway through his senior year. His parents had given him a lavish funeral early in the spring, just before graduation. No one questioned why, just shy of six months after his sudden disappearance, they'd written him off as dead. Everyone in the community needed closure and was grateful for the opportunity to lay him to rest. She wondered, if his parents had really given up on him, or if the funeral was just a ruse to deflect suspicions like the ones she had. Maybe they had suspicions of their own and the only way to move on was to bury them in their son's empty grave.

Nora pressed a few keys and had exactly what she was looking for. Thanks to the Internet, there were no secrets. Finding David's parents had been as easy as a few keystrokes. She hit print and snatched the sheet out of the tray. Neatly folding the paper into a tiny square she stuffed into her pocket where it joined the other scrap she'd collected earlier in the day. It was time to take a little trip to suburbia.

Chapter 29

After a busy workday, downtown was almost deserted except for a handful of stragglers. Cole slid into a parking space and set the alarm, not bothering to drop a quarter in the meter. Cops had better things to do after dark than jack with issuing

parking violations.

His boots echoed down the empty sidewalks as he made his way to the darker side of town. The backpack draped over one shoulder thumped against his spine with each step. He was loaded, carrying more money than he'd ever seen in his life. Business was good this week and he was a hell of a salesman. He slowed from a trot to a casual strut as he rounded the corner and slid into the darker than hell back alley. Why the exchange couldn't take place in a more suitable location was beyond him. As long as the cash kept flowing in, what difference did it make? The less he saw, the better the odds that he'd live long enough to spend his ever growing stash. Cole swallowed back the tickle of fear that crept along the back of his neck and waited in the dark.

"You're late," a menacing voice said from behind him. Cole exhaled and turned to face his contact. The man was tall and lean, a thick layer of muscle coiled beneath a leather duster. Hidden behind a wall of shadows, Cole couldn't get a good look at the man's face. But, he saw enough and changed his snappy retort to a subdued nod. The man was nobody to fuck with. Even with his limited vision, Cole could tell that much.

Cole did his usual and slid free of the backpack, tossing it in the man's direction. "Where's Mr. O?" he asked in a quavering voice.

The bag he'd brought was snatched from his shoulder. The man had moved so fast, or it was so dark that Cole hadn't seen him make a grab for the bag. "On vacation." Cole heard the zipper open with a whisper. From a distance, the sounds of traffic echoed along the canyon of concrete and steel. God, he wished he were there, dealing with the bumper to bumper jam on the freeway instead of here in this dark alley with God knew who.

Money shuffled through fingers as the man counted it out and stuffed it into a pocket. Cole could barely see his hand in front of his face. Yet the man had counted the bills, he was sure of it. There was the sound of plastic rubbing against canvas as the man reloaded the bag. Cole lunged for the backpack as it sailed through the air in his direction, barely discernable from the shadows. He missed and it landed at his feet with a solid sounding thud. "We'll be in touch, soon." The man's voice was laced with venom and menace that made Cole's blood freeze in his veins.

"What should I call you?" Cole whispered into the dark. The man's shadow was a black outline against the backdrop of a spotlight shining down from one of the buildings.

The man shrugged, stuffing his fists into the depths of his black coat. "Does it matter?"

"Guess not," Cole answered, backing slowly toward the mouth of the alley. His hands were trembling as the man crept forward on silent feet. Cole could see the man's mouth drawn into a hard line, all business. Tangles of disheveled blond hair gave the man a deceptively approachable appearance. If not for the coldness in his icy stare, which froze Cole's feet to the pavement, he might have been fooled at first glance. Cole's bravery wavered as the man drew closer, too close. He was about to turn tail and run like a sissy when the man halted his approach.

"Mr. C, call me Mr. C." The man answered. Quicker than Cole could blink, he was gone into the darkness from which he came. Cole didn't hang out in the black isolation of the narrow causeway. He got the hell out of Dodge. Practically pissing himself before he made it back to the car. One day, probably sooner than later, he was going to be turned into a wet spot on the pavement, a nameless body on the six-o-clock news, unless he gave this up. He was almost there. He almost had enough money to make a fresh start someplace else. He had to hope his luck held out, just a little while longer.

O'Sullivan emerged from the shadows at the dead end of the alley. "The boy's got potential." The heels of his boots echoed in the silence of the narrow space. "I'm considering him for a promotion sometime soon," he said with a flash of his fangs. Mortals were no more sacred to him than the wrapper of a candy bar was to them. He sought out what he wanted, consumed it, and then discarded the rest as refuse.

Carter huffed in response. O'Sullivan was never going to change. It was folly to think otherwise. "What, and make the boy a simpleton like Yessette?"

O'Sullivan sighed and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his overcoat. "Yessette was an unfortunate mistake. I admit that. She was too far gone. Dead with just the slightest spark of life left in her tiny body when I brought her across. Carter, I resurrected her, pulled her back from the brink, for you."

"You should have left her to die," Carter bristled. Turns out although Yessette was physically alive, he was right to have mourned her all these centuries. The woman he knew. The bright spark that had been Yessette burned out long, long ago. There was nothing left of her, but the shell.

"Like you did?" Eric chose his words carefully. Fighting with Carter over bygones wasn't on his busy agenda for tonight. Thanks to Yessette and Carter's unending love for a dead woman. He was right where Eric wanted him. "Come now, no need to brood over what cannot be changed. The night beckons and we are but her humble servants." He wrapped an arm around Carter's shoulders and steered him out of the alleyway. "If it makes you feel any better, if we decide to keep the boy, I'll let you turn him yourself."

Carter shook off O'Sullivan's arm with a hard shrug. Money fell from his pockets as he transferred the wads of cash from them into O'Sullivan's greedy fists. "Eric, you've won. You own me. Even if I wanted to leave, I couldn't. Not without condemning Yessette to a worse fate than I already have. You ask for my soul. I tell you, I don't have one left to give. I traded it for this...this life...long ago."

O'Sullivan watched the night swallow Carter alive and wondered how much longer his old protégé had left before he broke beyond repair. For now, Yessette was holding Carter's feet on terra firma. O'Sullivan already knew, the woman wouldn't be enough. Pity would hold him to her, for a while. Yessette would keep him alive, not much more than a walking corpse. Once a vampire decided that life wasn't worth the living. There wasn't much anyone could do to change it. O'Sullivan had to find a bigger weakness, something that would quicken his old companion again. Something the man valued beyond the cold depths of his own misery.

Chapter 30

Nora tightened her fingers into a fist and hesitated. What if she was wrong? What if the physical similarities between David Russell and David Russ were just a coincidence? Being here, asking about their son could bring back emotions his parents would probably just as soon forget. But, she was so sure, so certain of her convictions that David Russ and David Russell were one in the same. In some inexplicable way David hadn't changed since the day she last laid eyes on him a decade ago.

The change of clothing and hairstyle hadn't been enough to mask who he really was. Somehow, he'd escaped the grave and the passage of time. She had to make sense of it. If anyone knew the truth, it was this couple. A mother always knew her son, or so she had to assume. She lifted her fist and paused. What would she do if her suspicions were founded in fact?

From the other side of the front door, she heard the blaring of the nightly news and feet shuffling. She should leave while she still could. They were oblivious to her presence on the front porch. Courage and demand for the truth held her firmly rooted. Settling for the doorbell instead of knocking with her fist, she extended her index finger and pressed on the dimly glowing button. Chimes rang, and she waited, listening to footsteps cross the living room to answer.

The woman who answered was skeletally thin and haggard. Black hair streaked with thick lines of silver hung about her gaunt cheeks in a wild disarray of tangles. Glasses perched on the end of a button nose and magnified weary eyes, bruised from lack of sleep. Pale lips pursed into a hard line as she peeked through the crack in the door. "Yes?"

"Mrs. Russell." It was too late to back out now. Maybe if his mother, for there was no doubt of whom the woman was behind the door. David looked too much like her for it to be otherwise. Nora took a deep breath and fortified her resolve. She had to get answers out of this woman. "My name is Nora...," she stopped herself before she said her married name and settled for her maiden name. A name his mother might remember. "Summers. I'm...I was a friend of David's." She bit her lip at the haunted look that stamped across his mother's features. "Could I come in? I need to talk to you about your son." The door widened in hesitant invitation. Nora squared her shoulders and followed David's mother through the living room and into the kitchen.

After a quick snack David slid through the darkness on silent feet. Finding the Zimmerman's residence on this quiet little street had been simple. The name on the mailbox in nightglow letters was a really big help. He settled in to the shadows and watched the family, not exactly the Brady bunch by any stretch of the imagination, settled in for the night.

Vampire hearing could be a curse as well as a blessing. After hearing the family argue about the most insignificant things. Smelling the rancid stench of a burned supper, the blaring of a T.V., and the endless chatter of at least a half-a-dozen siblings, he could almost understand why Cole would rather turn to drugs than deal with these people on a daily basis. Cole's reality sucked almost as much as his. Still, David held a little envy in his heart for Cole. At least Cole had choices to make. Which at the tender age of eighteen was certainly more than he had been given.

David had a good life back then. Loving parents and a little sister that, although as annoying as she was, worshiped him. He lived in a decent house, not the nicest in the block, but warm and clean. The neighborhood reeked of suburbia, safe and well removed from the troubles of the city. He was a good student with a bright future, well on the road to college on a scholarship. Not as popular as he would have liked in school, but he had a few close friends. It should have been enough. Looking back, it had been. If only, he'd appreciated it more, when he'd had the chance.