Dawn's Darkest Hour

"What do you want?" Carter spun on his heel to face O'Sullivan. Couldn't he just kill the bastard here and now and get it over with?

"Simple." O'Sullivan shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "You." He put a few steps between himself and Carter. "Carter, don't forget who you truly are. What you are. Yessette is looking forward to being reunited with you. Don't keep her waiting." With that he turned his back to Carter and left him there, skulking after him in the dark corner of a bar as he walked away.

Carter pushed his way through the patrons left disheveled in the wake of O'Sullivan's exit. The grimy, plate glass door tinted with years of unwashed filth swung back and forth in the rain soaked air behind him. He spotted O'Sullivan, walking through the rain as casually as if there weren't a cloud in the sky. Eric was about twenty yards ahead of him. Carter followed Eric to the curb where a black sedan with impermeable darkly tinted windows idled in wait for O'Sullivan's return. Eric, knowing damn good and well he was behind him tipped his head cockily in Carter's direction and eased a passenger across the wide backseat as he slid inside the car. The driver held the door wide in wait for Carter to join them.

Carter stumbled on a crack in the aged concrete sidewalk and gasped. The passenger peeked out from the dark interior of the car, blinking at him with wide blue eyes fringed with thick, cinnamon colored lashes. A pair of shapely, feminine legs stretched out over the edge of the seat. The crimson silk skirt inched up higher on her thighs as she bent forward to get a better look at him. Blonde hair trailed over a slender shoulder, its tresses curled and hung free, hiding the breasts and narrow waist that Carter knew were there. "Yessette." His voice was more of a croak, lips forming the name that had haunted him for centuries.

O'Sullivan gestured with his index and middle finger, tipping them from his brow in a salute. With a subtle nod to his driver, the car door swung shut, closing out the night and shutting in Yessette and Eric. The driver slid behind the wheel and locked the doors tight. The car lazily pulled away from the curb with the liquid grace of a predator.

Carter's feet were glued to the cement beneath them. He stood in the cold, pelting rain, watching the taillights disappear into the dark glow of the city. Rain dripped from the wisps of hair plastered to his forehead and rolled across his cheeks in a river, like chilly tears. His breath came out in pants and his fingers trembled. Yessette was alive. What little there was left of his heart splintered into bits. In the rain, on a shabby sidewalk, in the worst part of town, he died. Again.

Chapter 10

Shayla sat bolt upright in the bed, gasping for breath as her trembling fingers fumbled for the lamp on the bedside table. She'd been sleeping, not well, but at least, finally sleeping. Her dreams were filled with rage and white-hot anger, which seemed to come from someplace other than her. What had forced her to jolt awake wasn't the boiling fury transfused into her soul, but the sudden emptiness left in its wake.

Fat tears dangled off the tips of her dark lashes and hung there, suspended in crystalline drops, before they fell to roll down her cheeks in a searing path of boiling heat. The emotions holding her under siege weren't hers. After a moment of deep breathing, she began to sift through the cobwebs in her brain and realized that the emotions belonged to Carter. She was just an unwilling participant in his latest festival of agony.

Her knees were knobby under the softness of her chin as she curled into a ball and drew her thighs up tightly against her chest. All she could do was wait for the hollow, empty sensation fisting her heart to fade. Lately, she hardly got any sleep at all. When she was asleep, her mind was more vulnerable to the link it shared with Carter. She could see what he saw. Feel what he felt. If he could do the same with her emotions, he was much better a master at blocking them out. Otherwise, all he'd feel was the pain she reflected off of him.

She glanced around the dim room and tried to force the sensation of utter emptiness out and replace it with happier thoughts. The only problem, happiness was in short supply these days. R.J.'s crib had been moved into the room he now shared with her nephew Evan. Her late night pacing and the agony of her nightmares had forced him out. The green tinted, plastic prescription bottle rattled in her palm. Nothing the good doctor gave her worked. No herbal teas soothed her and the drugs made her mental anguish worse. Instead of closing down the link between Carter and herself, they opened it wider.

Thomas promised her this drug was the answer. This new pill would solve her problems. She shook a round, yellow tablet into her palm and swallowed it dry in desperation. Something had to work. She couldn't take much more.

The sage Shaman reassured her that with time and distance, the link would weaken. The problem was that she needed relief from Carter's thoughts. Now. There was only one other way to break the link and Shayla would not consider that. Sometimes, she dreaded the day when her mind would be her own. Because when that day came, she'd have to admit what she wasn't ready to face. Carter wasn't coming back.

Chapter 11

David hunkered down deeper in the shadows, pulling the collar of his jacket higher on his neck to shield himself from the raindrops seeking to wind their way down his spine. He was an avid patron of the city's zoo. He frequented the zoo's intricate iron gates often. Not because he had a particular penchant for wildlife, per se, but because he enjoyed something with a little more spice than alley cat or stray mutt in his diet. In a pinch, rats would do. He was rarely that desperate though.

He squinted through the pelting raindrops and sighted his dinner. The lion shook his fuzzy golden mane against the deluge and sniffed the wet, night air. His black lips pulled away from his dingy fangs as he scented a predator close by. David supposed it was possible that one day, the lion would get him instead of the other way around, but not tonight. The black iron bars that separated the bulky lion from hoards of enthralled onlookers day after day were rain slicked against David's palms. With determination, he leapt over the barrier and landed with a soft, graceful, whisper on the other side.

Animals only sated him temporarily. The lion's blood was thin and rolled over his tongue in a tangy waterfall. David drank him down. Drawing as much sustenance as he could from the weaker blood without killing the subdued beast in his grip. The need for humanity and the sweet red cells that floated in their vessels was an unfortunate consequence of his condition.

Vampires liked to think themselves as masters over the human race when in fact they were as dependent upon humanity as an infant on its mother's milk. Without humans vampires would cease to exist. David could swear off human blood and had many, many times. But, he always came around to the true communion of his religion and filled his cup with humanity's crimson sacrament. He had no other choice.

David sealed the deep punctures in the lion's flesh and dragged him to a dry corner of the pen to recover from his generous donation. Hunger burned his gut. His feeding had managed to buy him a day, maybe two, at the most. He could have drained the lion completely lifeless, but the aching hunger would still be there. He worshiped the sensation like a zealot. This was his personal brand of self-flagellation. The constant pain served to remind him of what he'd been ten years ago. Human.

Soon enough, he'd seek out other nourishment. Where others indulged freely. He'd allow himself just a sip, barely enough to keep him sane. He had more than enough sins weighing him down. He didn't need to add anymore bulk to the chain he carried. Murder of the innocent, and more than his share of the guilty, had added more links than he cared to count.

Chapter 12

Rachael forced her weary body to repeat the punishing round of reps for the third time. Every muscle in her body ached and complained as she squeezed out ab crunch after ab crunch. Even though she could see the vague outline of muscles peeking out from behind the soft curve of her stomach. It wasn't good enough. She was going up against the undead in a few short months. She had to get into shape, if she wanted to live.

All her research, every cheesy vampire novel she'd ever read and stupid horror flick she'd ever seen, led her to believe that she might, just might, walk out of this alive. If she was smart and well prepared. An exhausted breath eased from her lips as she stretched out on the plush carpeted floor.

Ever since her 'break down' she was careful. Her parents watched her like a hawk, analyzing every move she made and looking for what the doctor called signs of a relapse. She hid her ripped biceps and narrowing curves from them, beneath the bulk of baggy sweaters and loose jeans. They wouldn't be proud of her lean muscle mass or bulging quads. That she'd worked up to sprinting two miles in less than twenty minutes would be lost on them. They'd see it as some sort of sign and she'd spend the rest of her life locked up, labeled as a crazy, while the vampire was free to kill, and kill, and kill.

She was even more careful with her secret arsenal of notes and paraphernalia. Getting that vial of holy water out of Saint Mark's hadn't been an easy task, but she'd done it. She had two crosses that never left the chains around her neck. One was silver. According to her exhaustive literature search, vampires couldn't tolerate looking at crosses and silver burned their skin like acid. The other one was gold, just in case, and just because she thought it was pretty. Her parents took her request for crosses as a sign that she'd given herself over to a higher power and was developing an interest in good old fashioned Christianity. She was a Christian and she prayed every night for the vengeance that someday would come.

Nimble fingers pried loose the piece of drywall in the back of her closet that hid her stash from her parent's watchful prying eyes. The thin spiral bound notebook was still there along with the holy water and a wicked looking carving knife that she had pilfered from the kitchen.

The most important thing in her little hidey hole was in a small glass tube. The tube rolled across her palm, flecks of glitter picked up the light from the lamp on her dresser. This tube had been harder to come by than the holy water and was the secret weapon she was counting on. If the rumors about pink were true, she'd be able to defeat a whole army of vampires with just the contents of this tiny glass tube alone.

The sound of her mother's footsteps treaded wearily on the stairs. Hurriedly, Rachael stuffed the contents of her stash in between the studs in the wall and slid the drywall back into place. She tiptoed to her bed and picked up the textbook she'd been halfheartedly studying before her workout.

Amy didn't wait for her daughter to answer the door. Rather she paused for a second and then pushed her way inside. She held a glass of water and cupped a pill in her palm. She always, always made sure Rachael took her medicine every night. They'd tried trusting her to take the medicine on her own, but when the contents of the medicine bottle didn't decrease. They'd had to take over the chore for her. "Time for bed," she said, holding out the water and the pill.

Rachael slammed the textbook closed and went through the nightly charade of taking the glass and the pill from her mother's extended fingers. Rarely, did her mother bother to check to see if she actually swallowed the medicine anymore. But, sometimes she did. Rachael hated it when her mother checked. The thought of slinking to the bathroom and puking the medicine up was not one she relished. Her parents, especially her mother, were doing what they thought was best for their little girl. To Rachael, it seemed as if they were more interested in chemically subduing their only daughter into a fog of complacency instead of dealing with her. "All gone," she said after a thoroughly convincing swallow of stale tap water.

"Good girl," Amy said with satisfaction as she wished her daughter a hurried goodnight and closed the bedroom door snugly.

Rachael cupped her hand under her chin and spit the pill, a pale, gooey, slobbery, lump, into her palm. She dropped the nasty wad into the toilet and flushed with vehemence. She didn't need chemicals to make her sane. She was sane. Perhaps, she was the only sane person in this family. Hell, in the whole world as far as she knew. Satisfied that every trace of the pill had been flushed away. She flopped on her bed and dug the vampire novel she'd been reading from under her mattress. She only had to play along with her parents for a while longer. That and according to popular legends, sharpen a very, very long stake.

Chapter 13

Nora tugged a long strand of hair behind her ear as she bent over the trunk full of memories she kept in the tight confines of her almost attic. She hadn't bothered with the trunk in years. Tonight, sleep wouldn't carry her away and she had to take a peek at its contents to ease her frazzled mind. All day, thoughts of David hadn't left her. Not the David in her class, but thoughts of the David she knew a decade ago. Her fingers ruffled through the faded silken material of a packed away prom dress and the dry papery remnants of endless mementos before locking on the spine of her senior class yearbook.

The navy blue cover was tattered on the corners. It took her a week's wages to buy the stupid book. In the day, that was a lot of hamburgers to hustle. Brittle from years of storage the spine creaked as she opened the book. The pages were slick and glossy against her fingertips. A smile curved her lips as she turned page after page, scanning the thumbnail sized photos. Westville High was a lot smaller then. The senior class graduating this year was bigger than the entire population of the school in those days.

She indulged in a brief trip down memory lane. God, how could she have ever thought that hairstyle looked good on her? Poofy was a word best used to describe fuzzy, white poodles, not hairdo's. 2001 was a different time, and the school, a universe unto its own.

David didn't officially graduate. Nevertheless, at his classmates' demanding, the photo, snapped sometime in late September, was included in the yearbook. She and David shared many of the same classes, as did most kids in the school. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine him. The way he was then, slouching in the seat across from hers in U.S. History. Idly doodling on the back of his notebook as the teacher droned on and on and on.

She probed her memory, trying to isolate the kid's features and compared them to the grainy color photo in her yearbook. The hair color was similar. The David in her morning English Lit class wore his hair down over his forehead in a messy tangle. The David she sat across from in U.S. History wore his hair combed neatly over to one side. The David from today had on wrinkled, baggy clothing that looked like he'd slept in them for a week. Her David always had his t-shirts tucked into a pair of crisp, freshly washed jeans. The David from class walked with a slouchy, careless aura about him with a seemingly dangerous, graceful purpose to each step. David of 2001 walked with an almost happy spring in his step.

Nora squinted and tried to hone in on the eye color. She couldn't really tell if the two Davids' eyes were the same color or not. Today's David had avoided meeting her stare. The David of her youth would have met her gaze head on, eager for a glance into her blue orbs. David had been enthusiastic and greeted the world with a hopeful, wide-eyed exuberance. Not the David she met today, something about his eyes went way beyond his years. His were eyes that had seen too much. They were dark, muddy pools, like ink drops that could stop a heart in mid pulse.

Shaking her head, Nora closed the cover on her yearbook and returned it to the trunk. Speculation had gotten her nothing but a sleepless night. The David in her English class was just another student. Perhaps, one that was far too jaded for his eighteen years, but nonetheless, just another kid in her class. One whose papers she'd grade and pass or fail based on his work. Next May, he'd be gone on his way with the rest of the graduates. Hopefully, to a good college somewhere and not on the streets, like she knew a few of her former classmates and some of her former students ended up.

She snapped the lid shut on the trunk and wiggled her butt down the narrow stairs that led from her attic. The David of her youth had a special place in her heart, one dedicated solely to him. Nora had a few regrets from those days. She'd been a shy teen and David shyer still. They'd glance at one another out of the corners of their eyes when they thought the other one wasn't looking. Sometimes, they'd speak in the hall or share a smile. They had it bad for each other, but neither one of them ever did a thing about it. She kept thinking he'd eventually work up the courage to ask her out. Or maybe, after all, the new millennium was here and she'd be the aggressor and ask him out. He didn't and neither did she. She'd always thought she'd have tomorrow or the next day to find the words. One bleak day in December, that tomorrow she thought she'd have, was gone.

Chapter 14

Contrary to popular belief, vampires do sleep. Not much, but some. Maybe their lack of sleep was more because of the nonstop horror fest that played every time they closed their eyes than actual lack of physical need. David threw back the covers and shuddered. His mind kindly offered a playback of the nightmare he had every time he closed his. He didn't need this perpetual repeat performance. Living through it the first time had been bad enough.

Big brothers were supposed to look out for their little sisters. Keep them safe from harm and chase all the bullies away. David had always been a failure in that aspect. As a little girl, Teresa had always had an overactive imagination. Timid and fearful, she looked up to David, her big brother, to keep the monsters at bay. He'd failed her then and he'd failed her now.

Theresa didn't deserve the hand fate dealt her. She didn't ask to become the dark fiend that she had in those last few weeks of her life. David had made the choice for her. Without his gift, she would have died in a cold, dark alley. Her last memories would have been of the filth and squalor of trash and the dank stench of the city. Instead, that setting, was the place of her birth, or rather her rebirth into the throws of the living darkness he cast upon her.

Vampires were not the hip, cool, benevolent beings portrayed in the media. They were not altruistic. They were dark creatures of a black nature. David thought that in time, Theresa would adapt and master the darkness. She did not. The life of a vampire wasn't for everybody. It definitely was not the life for her. Most that couldn't cut it brought about their own demise.

Theresa was a very, very bad vampire. She dealt out death with the efficiency of a Vegas blackjack dealer. Swiftly. Coldly. Mercilessly. David thought taking her to the Sons would fix her. That they held the key to some mystical formula that would make her better. They did not. She'd committed the ultimate crime and taken human lives. One life would have condemned her. But, Theresa was a creature of excess and one hadn't been enough.

The Sons were judge, jury, and executioner. They demanded justice and swift execution of their sentence. David had carried out their decree. He knew he was too late. He knew that there was nothing anyone could do to cure his sister. The only way to repair the damage he'd done was to do what he should have let nature do in that dark alley and let her go to the final death. By his hand he'd created her and by his hand, she found peace, at last. And he hated himself for it.