Sunfall Read online

  “Do you know what I think, Valentine?”

  “What’s that?” I breathed, lost in the patterns made by the various shades of green swirling in her eyes.

  “I think you’re a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

  And then she raised herself onto her toes and kissed me.

  *

  As the memory faded, I opened my eyes. The contours of the ceiling were a little crisper now, and I realized that my vision was beginning to sharpen. Had my subconscious chosen that memory for a reason? Was Alexa speaking to me even now, reminding me of my inner fortitude, inspiring me from deep inside my own psyche?

  Returning back into myself, I plumbed the depths of my brain. The first time we’d made love. The first meal we’d cooked together. Staying up all night watching B-rated horror movies. Studying for final exams together on the top floor of the library. Over and over and over I traced the memories with my mind, recalling the sights, the sounds, the scents. They had happened. She was real. I was real, and I would find a way to return to her.

  The door opened. Rough hands squeezed my left bicep and jammed a needle into my arm. Liquid fire streamed into my vein, then spread. My heart pounded against my ribs. Flames trailed down my abdomen, into my legs. My skin was burning. Thousands of tiny pins and needles pierced every muscle, igniting my synapses. A moan escaped before I could clench my jaw to contain it. Every cell was an agony of flame, and in that moment my mother’s words came back to me. Unless you repent, Valentine, your soul will burn in flames for eternity.

  Someone was screaming. The pain grew exponentially. Blood filled my mouth.

  And then finally, darkness.

  *

  I woke to the foreign sensation of softness beneath my cheek. Having learned my lesson, I took stock of my surroundings before I dared even to open my eyes. The light beyond my eyelids seemed softer than it had before, though the air still smelled of metal and antiseptic. I was curled on my right side on what felt like a mattress, and I was no longer naked. Every muscle in my body ached, my left leg throbbed in time with the pulse beating in my temples, and my throat was parched.

  Questions flooded into the forefront of my consciousness. Had Brenner’s men injected me with the modified parasite? Was I a cannibal? How would I know? What were Brenner’s plans now? Had he turned Tian as well? How was I going to find my way back to Alexa? Was she even alive?

  My heart thundered in my chest, and I opened my eyes to distract myself from the panic. I lay on a narrow cot in a rectangular, windowless room. Several feet away, another cot stood unoccupied, though its blankets were mussed. I sat up slowly, wincing as my muscles protested even the tiniest movement. Someone had dressed me in a pale blue pair of scrubs. I felt like I’d been hit by a bus. How much of the soreness was due to having been strapped to a table for eons, and how much had to do with the injection I’d received, I couldn’t tell.

  My thirst was strong, but it didn’t feel qualitatively different from what I had experienced before. Aside from the soreness, I felt remarkably normal. When would the new parasite make itself known? If I were in the presence of a vampire, would my bloodlust take over? Cradling my head in my hands, I stared at the floor and willed myself to stay calm.

  “Now that you’re awake, the show can begin.” Brenner’s disembodied voice filled the room. Before I could control myself, I had jumped to my feet, adrenaline propelling my aching body into motion. I scanned the room, head pounding, but I couldn’t pinpoint the camera.

  Brenner’s laughter at my reaction was overshadowed by the whir of electronics as part of the far wall retracted to reveal a pane of glass looking out on an examination room. Aside from the stainless steel table that was bolted into the center of the floor, the room was empty. This place, or something like it, was surely where I had been kept. Bile rose into my throat, but I forced it back. I would not give Brenner the satisfaction of seeing me choke on my own fear.

  The door to the examination room opened and a man was shoved inside. His dark hair was greasy, his clothing unkempt. He stared at his surroundings with wide, suspicious eyes. Letting his fingers trail along the wall, he traced the circumference of the room.

  “My soldiers caught this piece of filth draining the blood from a teenage girl in an alleyway behind a cinema. She survived, thankfully. He won’t be so fortunate.”

  Again, the door opened. This time I recognized the person who staggered inside. Tian. She looked to be on the edge of sanity; sweat dampened her hairline and her fingertips were ragged and bleeding. Red furrows marred her arms below sleeves identical to mine. She had been self-mutilating.

  “We infected her two days before you. She has degenerated quite rapidly, as you can see.”

  When Tian caught sight of the vampire, she snapped to attention. The man was looking at her curiously. I saw his lips move, but she didn’t answer. Instead, she began to stalk him, moving quickly around the table. Alarmed by her predatory attitude, he backed away. She toyed with him for a while, gliding from side to side, forcing him to mirror her movements. A cat playing with a mouse.

  I knew the minute she grew tired of the game. Her eyes narrowed, her body tensed, and in a blur of motion she leapt across the table to pin him against the wall. He was twice her size and likely three times her weight, but her grip was iron. Under the influence of a blood high, I too had incredible strength and speed. But they paled in comparison to the abilities Tian now possessed.

  When her teeth struck his neck, blood spattered the whiteness of the ceiling and ran down the wall to pool on the floor. I watched him scream but heard only the sound of my own ragged breaths. Tian feasted viciously, heedless of the hands that scrabbled against her head in an effort to push her away.

  My own throat burned in empathy as I watched her drain him dry, but I couldn’t tell whether the mere sight of Tian drinking had further whetted my appetite, or whether I was craving her victim’s vampire blood. When he slumped into unconsciousness, she kept his deadweight pinned to the wall. She drank until his body had nothing left to offer, then pried herself away and crouched, shivering, next to the corpse. Clutching her own knees, rocking back and forth, she seemed vulnerable despite what she had just done. Never had I seen a vampire take so much blood at once.

  Two huge guards entered the room and one yanked Tian onto her feet. I expected her to attack, but she didn’t. They led her away, leaving me to contemplate the gleaming room festooned with crimson trails. I thought of my conversation with Tian—about the respect she cultivated for humanity. Some vampires delighted in behaving like monsters, but she was not one. Was her mind rebelling in the new desires of her body? Or had the parasite effectively colonized her psyche as well as her cells? And when would I feel the transformation in myself?

  The door to my room opened and Tian was shoved inside. She had been changed into a new pair of scrubs and her face had been washed. She eyed me warily, arms wrapped around herself.

  “Tian.” I spoke in the same tone I used whenever Alexa’s panther was close to the surface. “It’s me, Valentine.”

  When she blinked, her stare devoid of recognition, I tried again. “We met in Prince George. I was one of the people sent to protect you.”

  She shuddered, arms dropping to her sides. “Valentine Darrow,” she said slowly.

  “Yes. That’s right.” Despite my excitement, I kept my voice soft.

  “Brenner. He…” She shook her head, clearly having trouble holding on to her own thoughts. “He changed me.”

  “He infected us both with the parasite,” I said. “How do you feel?”

  “It’s so strong,” she said, her voice taking on an eerie, singsong quality. “The thirst, like a gaping maw in my mind…” She sank onto her cot and began to mutter in Chinese.

  Clearly, the hybrid parasite was driving her insane. I watched her for a while, waiting in dread for some sign that my body had succumbed. How would I know? Would a new kind of thirst beset me without warning, or would it slowl
y, steadily build in the way I was already accustomed? Would I begin to perceive blank spots in my awareness as I slipped periodically into madness? If Tian were lucid, she might be able to answer some of my questions. But when I called her name, she didn’t react.

  A sudden thought propelled me onto my feet, startling Tian, who snarled and bared her teeth like a feral creature. Slowly, I sank back onto the cot, mollifying her even as I tried to think logically. The very structure of my circulatory system had been altered by the Tear of Isis. What if I were immune to the hybrid parasite? What if my body had fought it off? I couldn’t be certain, but if Tian had sunk so low after only two days, surely I would be showing some symptoms already.

  Brenner hadn’t yet shown his hand, and I couldn’t tell whether he intended to use us as weapons or as incubators. If I was correct about my immunity, one simple blood test would reveal that I was useless to his project. At that point, he would either try to kill me or work to find a use for my unique blood structure. But in the short term, if I played along, I might be able to find a way to escape.

  For the sake of the act, I allowed my frustration to show. While Tian gnashed her teeth and whispered in her native tongue, I paced the width of the room. I bit at my nail beds. I slammed my fist into the wall. I prayed that Brenner would see what he wanted to see, and that my chance would come.

  And above all, I prayed Alexa was safe.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was woken from a fitful doze by the creak of the door. The same two guards entered, accompanied by a man in a white lab coat holding a syringe. As the guards held down a struggling, spitting Tian, I didn’t need to fake my own anxiety. The man inserted the needle into her vein, withdrew a tube of blood, and then moved toward me. I scrambled into sitting position, my attention flickering between the two guards as they approached. When they were within my reach I launched myself at one, but the other grabbed hold and forced me onto the bed.

  A stinging pain in my own elbow marked their success. But instead of letting me go, the guards hauled me onto my feet and shoved me toward the door. When I tried to resist, they pushed me to my knees and dragged me out into a narrow corridor. Turning my head, I managed to catch a glimpse of Tian, but she hadn’t even reacted to my absence. Curled into a near fetal position on the cot, she was cradling the arm from which they’d drawn the blood and humming.

  Moments later, I was shoved into the same room in which Tian had drained the hapless vampire hours—or maybe days—before. The blood had been cleaned from its walls and floors, and the lingering scent of bleach burned my nostrils. On the other side of the table, a female vampire crouched low to the ground, her long blond hair matted against her neck. She stared at me in obvious confusion as the guards left and shut the door. I caught a flash of motion behind her head as the windowpane into our holding cell was once again exposed. Through it, Tian stared at me without recognition.

  Thoughts firing rapidly, I began to pace along my side of the table. I had to mimic Tian’s behavior just enough so as not to raise suspicion, but perhaps there was some way of converting this moment into an escape. In the meanwhile, I pretended to stalk the vampire slowly and carefully, as I had seen Alexa do in her panther form. Even without the increased strength of the parasite, I was stronger and faster than most other vampires by virtue of being the blood prime of my clan. I had no doubt that I would be able to overpower her. The only question that remained was what to do then.

  To make this encounter appear real, I would need to bite her. I wasn’t concerned about the taste, though during my time spent combing through some of the medical texts in the Consortium library, I had learned that vampire blood carried a particularly repugnant flavor to other vampires. Rather, I was concerned about my soul. Could drinking from this vampire potentially compromise my circulatory system in the same way that drinking from a human might?

  “Who are you?” she asked in a thin voice that was trying to sound imposing but only came off as shrill. “What do you want?”

  I didn’t answer. Even as I hunted her, my brain was rapidly processing and discarding possibilities. The blood of a full vampire was completely transformed by the parasite. If I bit her, my own blood would find nothing in hers to consume. Theoretically, I would be safe.

  I was also out of time. Brenner’s guards would become suspicious soon, and I had to act. Even hobbled by my injured leg, my sudden burst of speed was too fast for her to repulse. I leapt over the table and pinned her against the wall, tightening my grip when her nails dug into my forearms.

  “Help me,” I hissed into her ear. And then I clamped my jaws down onto the delicate skin of her neck.

  She screamed. The scent of blood filled the air even as its coppery taste filled my mouth, but every cell in my body recoiled. Wrong—it tasted utterly wrong, like spoiled milk. Jerking backward, I let my revulsion carry me down to the floor, where I did my best to contort my limbs in a series of false convulsions. The vampire’s blood dribbled down my chin as I pushed foamy spittle between my lips, and when the door banged hard against the wall I knew my ruse had worked.

  I leapt to my feet and took out the first guard with a roundhouse kick. When my wounded leg faltered under my own full weight, I converted my stumble into a forward roll, ducking a brutal blow from a rifle butt. The man I’d knocked down scrambled away in the hopes of taking a shot, but I wrapped my left arm around his legs and knocked the pistol from his hands. I shot him point-blank in the heart, then turned the gun toward the window separating me from Tian.

  As the glass shattered I spun in a quick circle, assessing the situation. Someone had activated an alarm, and its rhythmic blare only added to my headache. Blinking rapidly, I worked to channel my adrenaline. I had to stay focused. The vampire whom Brenner had intended to be my victim had a good head on her shoulders and was currently managing to keep both an orderly and another guard occupied. After dispatching the latter with a quick bullet to the head, we took down the guard together.

  “Go, go, go!” I shouted, shoving her toward the open door. Behind us, Tian was crouched on a pile of glass splinters, and I beckoned for her to follow.

  But when the vampire emerged into the corridor, she was immediately felled by a bullet to the head. Cursing, I scrambled back to the other dead guard and grabbed his weapon. Tian stood a few feet away, looking uncertain, and I shouted for her to follow me. Crouching low in the doorway, feet slipping in the pool of gore, I sprayed bullets both ways and took off running in the opposite direction from where Brenner’s men had brought me. When I dared to look over my shoulder, I found Tian at my heels. Every ten feet, I fired a fresh salvo of bullets behind us.

  Each time we approached an intersection, our pace slowed as we looked for signs of an ambush. By the time I saw the first red EXIT sign set into the ceiling, we had already fought off two of Brenner’s patrols. Despite the incessant ache in my head and legs, relief swept through me as I shouldered my way through the door. We had our choice of whether to go up or down the stairs, but for once the decision was easy. For this installation to have avoided detection by our satellites, it had to be underground. If we could reach the surface, we might just be able to make a clean escape.

  I pounded up the stairs as fast as my injury would allow. The last door let out into a wide corridor that smelled heavily of gasoline. I held up my hand, indicating that we should proceed more slowly. Small rooms to our left and right appeared to be either closets or windowless offices, and we passed them by quickly—until the penultimate door opened and two tall figures dressed in heavy white parkas stepped into the hall. They had been outside recently; tiny bits of ice still clung to the fur collars of the jackets, and their boots squished against the floor. When they turned toward us, I leapt forward and tried to strike the nearer man across the forehead with my pistol, but his reflexes were sharp and the blow was only glancing. Balance compromised, I stumbled across the floor as he reached toward his waist.

  Tian crossed the intervening distance in a blu
r, and her kick to the guard’s sternum sent him crashing into the wall. The other guard raised his gun, but she knocked it away with her elbow. Leaping onto his back, she wrapped her arms around his neck in a chokehold that brought him to his knees. He passed out from lack of oxygen just as the first one charged back into the fray, but I was ready and dispatched him with a quick shot to the head. He collapsed to the floor, twitched, and lay still.

  *

  The rich, earthy scent of Were blood bloomed on the air and I spun away only to find Tian standing over the motionless form of the other man. Saliva flooded my mouth, and my vision telescoped to the dark red pool spreading behind her assailant’s head. Beneath the riptide of my thirst, I realized that I’d been right about my condition. My throat burned with every breath, but it wasn’t the blood of a vampire I craved. Clenching my free hand into a fist, I focused my mind’s eye on the image of Alexa’s face. Alexa. I needed her so badly. Only her. I would not drink from these shifters. I would not. We were so close to freedom, and I had to keep my eye on the prize.

  “We need their parkas,” I said, hearing the strain in my own voice as I tried to overcome my own bloodlust. “And boots. Hurry.”

  But instead of obeying, Tian stood motionless and watched me. Cursing under my breath, I hastily pulled on my parka and shoved my feet into a pair of boots several sizes too large before ripping the coat and shoes off her kill and pushing the bundle of clothing into her arms. When I searched the pockets of my parka, my fingers closed around a set of keys. I dangled them between us, taking note of the Jeep insignia on the chain, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, triumph sang through me.

  “We’re looking for a Jeep that’s been driven recently,” I said, starting off again down the hallway.