Dawn's Darkest Hour

The women were a different story. They glared at her in jealousy. Yessette knew she was beautiful. The expressions of envy on their faces as she walked past them reinforced how much better than them she was. They didn't like her. Although she would have preferred some feminine company from time to time, she didn't interact with women much. They just simply weren't as much fun to play with.

The side street wasn't as crowded as the main row of shops through the center of the city. This part of town was a bit dilapidated. The rundown storefronts and dingy windows reminded Yessette of times long since past. Her eyes gleamed in excitement as the store came into view. What would she buy? How long till Eric realized she was missing? Would he come after her himself or send Carter instead? How much of his money could she spend until she was found and ushered directly home? She giggled, giddily, from the thrill of the game.

A man sulked standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Shoulders down, head drooped to the gray squares beneath his boots and hands shoved deep into his pockets. He wore faded blue jeans and a thick plaid shirt. His hair stood up at all ends in sharp pointy black spikes. Yessette sidestepped him with a graceful move and gave him a quick glance over her shoulder. A swift puff of breeze, like a hollow wind shooting wildly down a canyon, lifted her hair, tousling it around her shoulders and tangling it with the neckline of her hood. She shivered a little shiver from the chilly bite of fall and hurried along, eager for the warmth of three stories of shopping paradise that awaited her.

Hunter spotted the woman, hurrying down the sidewalk at a breakneck pace toward the store behind him. Long before he smelled her, he knew what she was. Vampire. No human could move so gracefully on three-inch heels as she did.

As she approached him, his senses detected something different. Her scent was off even for a vampire, incredibly sweet. Not from perfume, but tinted with the richness of human blood. Rogue. He was going to simply ignore her and forget about her. What she ate was none of his concern. The Sons or the Guardians would catch up with her eventually. He had other things on his mind besides one lone rogue female hell bent on a half off sale.

He inhaled deeply of her lingering scent. Cursing his limited abilities in his human form. His wolf would dissect the traces of her scent that hung in the chilly air. The scent was almost non-existent and he doubted what he thought he smelled on the undercurrent of her scent. Musky hints of pine and wild, familiar and as comforting to him as home. His son? Hunter spun on a heel and charged into the store after the rogue.

All of a sudden, Yessette didn't like this game. She was being followed. Stalked through the women's department. Hastily, she dropped the satin bustier she'd been admiring and slid between racks of clothing. The man! The one on the sidewalk! He stood one aisle over, staring her down. It wasn't his presence or the fact that he'd followed her that frightened her. She could take even the strongest of human males down without even chipping her nail polish. No, it wasn't him, but the glint in his eyes that terrified her. His eyes glowed with a dark murderous rage that stilled her stagnantly beating heart.

Could he be a hunter? After this many centuries, did they still exist? She shivered in dread, expecting a wooden stake or a crossbow to appear from beneath his jacket. Human myths had some basis in reality. Shove enough wood through anyone's heart and death was pretty certain outcome. Yessette shook in terror. She'd never seen a hunter before, only heard the stories. She thought Eric told them to her to frighten her into compliance. Not for one second did she think they were real. Their eyes met for a brief second before she made a mad dodge for the fire exit.

In the cramped quarters of the store, amidst the endless racks stuffed with clothing, Hunter was certain of what he smelled. His son, the very essence of his son's uniqueness, clung on the woman's hair and skin. Terror was something he could work with and the rogue was very much afraid. He ground his teeth and dug his heels into the thick nap of the pink carpet crushed beneath his boots. She wasn't getting away. A sales clerk moved in a hurried manner, as dignified as she could manage in heels and a tight skirt, to intercept him. He elbowed past her and made for the fire door, announcing the breech in a shrill voice, ahead of him.

A pair of boots and a wool cape lay abandoned in the stairwell, just outside the door. Hunter paused for a second to scoop them up on his way down. His damned limited human body wouldn't move fast enough to catch her, but he had her scent and his wolf. He bolted down the three flights of stairs taking them two and three at a time through the fire exit into the alley. She was long gone and the clerk was on his heels. He didn't have time to deal with an angry sales clerk who probably thought he was a shoplifter with the hots for women's underwear.

He ducked out of sight behind a dumpster and hid. The sales lady, panting from her unexpected jog down the stairs, stuck her head out of the door and glowered into the empty alley. After a few minutes, she huffed and retreated, slamming the door behind her.

Hunter stripped and called on his wolf. Shifting in the open, even behind the shelter of a dumpster was risky. Trotting around on all fours in broad daylight even riskier. He could not let the trail grow cold. Her scent was the only link he had to his son.

The wolf whimpered and buried his long snout into the pile between his paws. Nervously he snuffled and shuffled the items, sniffing furiously. Black lips curled to reveal a row of sharp teeth as a growl escaped his throat. With his nose to the pavement, he searched out the trail. The scent led him to a row of metal rungs. Up to the rooftops overhead and the one place he couldn't go.

Hunter shivered, naked and cold, back in his limited body. In his mind's eye he saw where he had to go. He was weak from the rapid shift. His fingers awkwardly grappling with his boots and jeans as he dressed. He was in no shape to climb the rickety fire escape sadly rusting with age from years of neglect. More determined than ever, he clung to the boots and the cape abandoned by the rogue. Her scent was the key. For the first time in days and just as many sleepless nights, he had hope. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, he knew, his son was alive.

Chapter 96

David hunted in the woods and did the whole communing with nature thing. The one thing he liked the most about his hunting companions was that there was no push to fill the quiet solitude of the with small talk and chatter. Scared the deer or so they said. He could appreciate the hours spent contemplating the scent of game and the stealth of the hunt. The pouring on of speed and grace of the dance between hunter and prey appealed to him on a fundamental level someplace deep inside of him.

But, he didn't belong here. Too much of him was still in the city, trapped in the concrete and steel of her man made mountains. Her bright lights and constant din of noise were embedded in his senses. The decision made. Mentally, he began the task of preparing himself to go back into her loving embrace.

His soul still felt as if it had been shredded. Battered and bloodied, he was far putting himself back together again, if he ever managed to. There were questions burned in his mind that had to be answered. Debts he had left to pay. Sins he still hoped to atone for. He couldn't do any of it here. The woods were a place of respite and reflection, a place of temporarily forgetting. A place he could not stay in much longer. Otherwise he really might choose to forget over the burden of remembering.

David regretted the fact that he'd been avoiding Cole. He hadn't spoken as much as a word to him since his little meltdown days ago. Bringing Cole here, embroiling him deeper into his life, enveloping him in secrets that he shouldn't have had the burden of knowing had been a mistake. At the time, David couldn't risk leaving Cole behind in the city. Rachael's death was still too new to them. The hurt was too fresh to simply turn his back and abandon Cole.

The failure of his lead to produce the missing boy stung. David could help on the search. Perhaps developing a commitment to a new cause was what he needed to draw his attention away from the ever present thoughts of avenging Rachael's needless death. Someone still needed to pay. The Great Father's words rattled in David's head like coins in an empty box. Annoying him. Confusing him. Clouding the issues at hand. There was truth in what the man had said. David realized this. Not that the speeches, as well intended as they were, did much to quench his thirst for revenge though.

The Great Father knew about suffering and death. After over two centuries, he'd certainly seen more than his fill. But, the man didn't live with a constant vendetta against those who had stolen so much from him. Nor, did he accept their loss with defeat. He remembered his dead and held them close to his heart with a quiet dignity and went on with his life. He honored them, not through vengeance, but through service. By devoting his life to protecting those who could not protect themselves. David wished, hoped, that maybe someday, he'd learn to do the same.

People died. Something, some disease or unfortunate event would steal everyone he cared about, everyone he'd ever known, away from him. His parents, Cole, Nora, all of them would be gone, eventually. Rachael was different. If she'd been taken from him by an accident, maybe he could learn to accept her death and let it go. She hadn't though. Someone, some bastard had ripped her out of his life and snuffed out the flame that was her life. Didn't her death demand a death in return? An eye for an eye? O'Sullivan had a bitter day of reckoning due him. His place or not, David wanted to be there to look him in the eye the day that justice was finally served.

He had another issue hanging over his head, an issue finally beginning to sink through the thick layers of his gray matter and muddled thoughts. What to do about Nora? He'd effectively managed to pop back out of her life with the same suddenness as he'd popped into it. Rationalizing that he promised her nothing didn't make him feel any better about the way he'd left things between them.

Just like before, there were things unsaid and plenty of business left unfinished. She wasn't going to just disappear from his mind because he willed her to. She'd said that she loved him back then and even though she'd tried her best to move on. She never gave up hope and never truly stopped waiting for him. He had to face her. Explain exactly how bad of a choice he was for her. Tell her the truth and make her understand all the reasons why. Force her to change her feelings for him.

David wound his way through the maze of corridors that made up the compound. Amazingly, he was beginning to learn his way around. Restlessness replaced the utter calm of his emotionless state. Too bad he couldn't stay cold and stunted in an emotionless death permanently. A life, or whatever the undead equivalent of it was, waited for him in the city. Questions rattled around like marbles in the hollowness of his skull. Bianca had tried to betray him. Why?

His primary mission hadn't been forgotten. In fact, his mission goals were far from forgotten. If he could catch O'Sullivan and somehow prove that the bastard was behind the drug. He'd kill two birds with one stone.

There was more than one kind of justice that needed to be served. Rachael's killer, the drug dealer, and the man behind the boy's abduction were all one in the same. He KNEW it. Even the Sons in the compound knew it. No evidence had been found though. So far, there was no criminal to bring to justice. The evidence was out there just waiting for the right person to put the pieces together. He wanted to be that person. If O'Sullivan got away with this, who knew how far he would ultimately take things. A man like him would never, ever stop unless forced to.

David longed for the quiet place in his brain once again. To shut every thought down till there was nothing but blessed silence. How could he do that after the promises he'd made and broken? Doing nothing when there was something to be done made a mockery of Rachael's death. Her life had meaning. He owed it to her to make some good came from her death. But what happened after?

David was far from healed. The time had come to make the journey home. He could smell Cole's humanity from a mile away. The scent of a human in these rocky surroundings was quite unmistakable. Pungent and laced with the acrid reek of so many conflicting emotions sharing the same head space. Once he collected Cole, they'd be on their way back home.

Chapter 97

Cole bent at the waist with his palms pressed to his thighs, gasping for breath. Sweat dripped off the ends of his drenched hair and trickled down the bridge of his nose to land on the mat beneath his feet in soft spattering sounds. If the vampire was trying to kill him, a bite on the neck certainly would have been less painful and a quicker way to go than this. He thought better of begging for the grueling training session to end though. The bastard put him though his paces and left him a panting, heaving, sweating, mass of exhaustion. He would not cave. No matter what the big, ugly, son of a bitch put him through. Cole was in it for the long haul. Before fatigue could suck him down the drain, he forced his body into an upright position. "What's next?" he asked with forced eagerness.

John Mark's stare drifted from the panting boy about to fall out on the mat in front of him and the man who had just slid through the big double doors at the back of the gym. "I think you've had enough for one day, princess," he said. He tossed Cole a towel to dry off his face with and leered at him. "Be sure you go nitey-nite early kid. Tomorrow's gonna be loads of fun."

Cole dragged the towel across his face and draped it over his shoulders. "Look forward to it," he said sarcastically. Today had been a laugh a minute, especially the five mile run on the treadmill's maximum setting. "Maybe I'll do another thousand pushups just for the hell of it!" he yelled after John Mark.

Chuckling, John Mark shouted back, his big, bass voice booming through the empty gym. "You do that, kid!" He slid into the locker room to give the kid and David some privacy. Every part of his body ached in sympathy at what he'd put Cole through today. Damned little punk was stubborn, refusing to break. He'd have to push him harder and harder, everyday becoming more grueling than the one before. He couldn't mold a rock. As good as Cole was, and as high as John Mark's hopes were for him, if Cole couldn't be reshaped, all of this, the sweat, pain, and suffering, were for nothing.

Cole flopped onto the mat with a sold thud and toyed with the towel's damp corner with a fingertip. David's boots made an echoing thump as he walked across the gym's hardwood floor. With a sigh, Cole stared at the white cinderblock wall in front of him. Not really sure what to say or how to say it. He knew what David had come here to do. "I'm not going back."

David stood at the edge of the mat and stared down at Cole. The kid was drenched in sweat and smelled like a dirty sock. "You can't hide here forever, Cole. The real world is out there." David had no excuse for mentally checking out on the kid. There wasn't much he could say about what had happened. Pretending nothing happened was wrong. Cole deserved some sort of an explanation, but David lacked the energy or the words to provide one.

David understood how awful the real world must seem to Cole at this point. All of the things that haunted bad dreams and the darkest corners of a person's mind weren't fictions. Cole had seen terrible, terrible things. Of course, these walls would look like a safe haven for the boy. Staying here, amongst a brood of vampires, ironically appeared to be the safest place of all. "You don't belong here. Neither one of us do. It's time to go." Regret slammed hard into David's chest. He had retreated from all the awfulness and left Cole to fend for himself instead of helping him. He hadn't coped very well and he lived the horror fest every night. How could he have expected Cole to deal when he hadn't? "Cole, talk to me."

Cole continued to stare at the blank wall ahead. "I said. I'm not going back." He was sore and exhausted. He held his posture, his body tensed as he focused on the wall. Behind him he could hear the rustle of David's clothes and the soft sound of breathing. David had the act of pretending to be alive down to an art form. Down here, nobody tried much. Here, he was the minority and the vampires saw no purpose to hiding what they were.

David sighed and thought about what combination of words would be convincing enough to get Cole into the truck. "What about school?"

At the mention of high school Cole snapped his head up to look up at David. Surely he had to be joking. What was going on in that big undead head of his? "What? You expect me to pick up my life where it left off? You might be able to pretend like nothing happened. But, don't expect the same of me. I can't!" Cole sprang to his feet and faced off David. "She died in my fucking arms! For Christ's sake, David! What in the hell is wrong with you!" His voice roared through the empty gym like a peal of distant thunder, warning of the storm to come.

Cole raked his fingers through his hair out of sheer frustration. The strands stood up on end in a wild shook of sweat-stiffened spikes. He shook his head in dismay. "Go back to high school? Give me a fucking break. You really are a psych case." Stomping across the mat, enraged by the suggestion that he move forward and simply forget the closest thing he'd ever felt to real love in his whole life, Cole headed for the locker room.

"Cole, what about your mom?" David asked. His voice was calm and cool, laced with frost. The kid was struggling through his pain. Cole's future was as uncertain as the storm brewing inside of him. David realized this and asked the question, hoping Cole would come up with the right answer all on his own.

Cole stopped in his tracks at the mention of his mother. He watched the news. The frantic pleas of his mother for his return were broadcast every evening promptly at six PM. Inadvertently, Rachael and he had become local celebrities of a sort. Poster children for the Teens in Crisis series the local news aired every evening. Yeah, some deep investigative reporting going on there, he thought sarcastically. More like they were hounding his poor mother and Rachael's parents to death. "David, did you ever stop to think that maybe she's better off without me? I wasn't a very good son." Other than the news station making a killing off ratings this week, probably not many people would miss him.

David folded his arms across his chest and scowled at Cole. "You don't know what you're talking about." He knew first hand what Cole was putting his mother through.. He'd seen the strain of his ten-year disappearance written all over his mother's face. How much pain, he personally was responsible for.

Cole shook his head fervently. "No, it's you who don't know what you're talking about. My dad, not my idiot of a step dad, but my real dad, he doesn't even know I exist. And as for my mom, she's got her hands full with my brothers and sisters. Without me, she's got one less to worry about. She'll get over it. Quickly. I was a problem for her and a burden for my step-dad. Now, with me gone. She's free of it."

David opened his mouth to argue the point and snapped it quickly shut. "You don't know shit about me, David."