Kiss of Midnight(52)

Danika bent toward her lover and remained there for a long while, her body shaking with the force of her grief. She came away from him sobbing into the back of her hand, her scarlet kiss glowing fiercely on Conlan’s mouth amid the field of white that covered him. Savannah and Eva brought her into a joined embrace, leading her away from the altar so that Lucan could continue with the one task that yet remained.

He approached Gideon at the fore of the assembly and pledged to see Conlan depart with all the honor that was due him, the vow spoken by all of the Breed who walked the same path that awaited Lucan now.

Gideon stepped aside to grant Lucan access to the body. Lucan took the massive warrior into his arms and turned to face the others as was required.

“You honor him well,” murmured the low chorus of voices.

Lucan progressed solemnly and slowly across the ceremonial chamber to the stairwell leading up and out of the compound. Each long flight, each of the hundreds of steps he took, bearing the weight of his fallen brother, was a pain he accepted without complaint.

This was the easiest part of his task, after all.

If he were going to break, it would be in a few minutes from now, on the other side of the exterior door that loomed ahead of him just a dozen more paces.

Lucan shouldered the steel panel open and drew the crisp air into his lungs as he walked to the place where he would lay Conlan to rest. He went to his knees on a patch of crisp green grass, slowly lowering his arms to place Conlan’s body down on terra firma before him. He whispered the prayers of the funeral ritual, words he’d only heard a scant few times over centuries long passed, yet called up now by rote.

As he spoke them, the sky began to glow with the coming of dawn.

He bore the light in reverent quiet, training all thought on Conlan and the honor that had marked his long life. The sun continued to stretch over the horizon, less than halfway through the ritual. Lucan dropped his head down, absorbing the pain as Conlan surely would have done for any one of the Breed who fought alongside him. Searing heat washed over Lucan as dawn rose, ever stronger.

His ears filled with the repeated words of the old prayers, and, before long, the faint hiss and crackle of his own burning flesh.





CHAPTER

Thirteen



Police and transportation officials still aren’t certain what caused the apparent explosion last night. However, I spoke with a representative for the T just a few moments ago who assured me that the incident was isolated to one of the old, unused tracks, and that no injuries were reported. Stay tuned to Channel Five for more news on this breaking story as it—”

The dusty, late-model television mounted to a wall rack clicked off abruptly, cowed into silence solely by the force of the vampire’s supreme irritation. Behind him, across the length of a bleak, dilapidated room that had once been the asylum’s basement cafeteria, two of his Rogue lieutenants stood, fidgeting and grunting, as they awaited their next orders.

There was little patience in the pair; Rogues, by their addictive natures had puny attention spans, having abandoned intellect to pursue the more immediate whims of their Bloodlust. They were wanton children, little better than hounds in need of regular whippings and spare rewards to keep them obedient. And to remind them of whom they currently served.

“No injuries reported,” sniggered one of the Rogues.

“Maybe not to the humans,” added the other, “but the Breed took a damn big hit. I hear there wasn’t much left of the dead one for the sun to claim.”

More chuckling from the first idiot, followed by an expulsion of foul, blood-soured breath as he mimicked the detonation of the explosives that had been set off in the tunnel by the Rogue bomber assigned to the task.

“A pity the other warrior with him was left to walk away.” The Rogues fell silent as their leader turned at last to face them. “Next time, I’ll put the two of you to the task, since you find failure so amusing.”

They scowled, grunting like the beasts they were, their slitted pupils wild within the engulfing yellow-gold sea of their fixed irises. Their gazes turned down as he began to stride toward them with slow, measured paces. His anger was tempered only by the fact that the Breed had, indeed, suffered a healthy loss.

The warrior who fell to the bomb was not the actual target of last night’s assignment; however, any dead member of the Order was good news for his cause. There would be time to eliminate the one called Lucan. Perhaps he might even do it himself, face-to-face, vampire to vampire, without the benefit of weapons.

Yes, he thought, there would be more than a little pleasure in taking that one down.

Call it poetic justice.

“Show me what you’ve brought me,” he ordered the Rogues before him.