Daysider

If there had been any other way, Damon would have taken it. For Alexia’s sake.

But he had to know. And though he and Carter had made it well away from the area of the colony and over the hills to their western border without once being attacked, they both knew there would be no fond farewells between them.

And Carter was still prepared to fight. He moved fast against Damon the moment he had the chance, and his speed was almost enough to let him shed his pack and slip Damon’s grasp. He managed to work his knife free during the struggle and slash Damon’s arm before Damon got his hands around Carter’s throat and slammed him up against the nearest large tree.

After that, it was as if the dhampir had given up. He let Damon remove his weapons and stood quiescent in his enemy’s hold, breathing hard but offering no further resistance.

It was if he’d wanted to be defeated.

“What did you do?” Damon asked, staring into Carter’s catlike eyes.

“I don’t...know what you’re talking about,” the dhampir said without inflection.

“When you uncovered Alexia’s other wound,” Damon said softly, “you were shocked.”

Carter gave a choked laughed. “She’s my partner. What did you expect?”

“It was not your concern that was strange,” Damon said, “but the way you expressed it.”

“Naturally. Your kind doesn’t have normal feelings. You wouldn’t know a real one if it hung you up and left you out to dry.”

Damon didn’t rise to the bait. “I was trained to understand human feelings,” he said.

“Funny. I’m not human.”

“But in many respects you are as much one of them as if you had been born of two human parents. And I know you were overreacting. The way a man does when he isn’t as surprised or shocked as he wishes to appear.”

Carter spat. Damon dodged, and the shot went wide.

“There isn’t much you wouldn’t do to hide your own part in this,” Carter said, grinning like a death mask. “Just because she doesn’t believe you betrayed her—”

“That is an interesting word, betray, ” Damon said, returning the operative’s smile. “I had understood the loyalty between Aegis partners to be virtually unbreakable.”

“And there’s nothing you can do to change that,” Carter said. “Alexia and I would die for each other. That’s a concept you couldn’t possibly comprehend.”

“Perhaps. Unless your commitment has already been given to someone or something else. Or your hatred is too powerful to bind you to anyone.”

Carter lunged against Damon’s grip, but Damon held him fast.

“I was born to a mother who was abused and abandoned by a bloodsucker, like all of my kind,” Carter rasped. “If we could find a way to wipe you out once and for all—”

“Again,” Damon said. “Too histrionic, like your accusations against me. Even Alexia discounted your charges because you were clearly not rational.”

“I saw you grunting on top of her.” Carter pushed forward again, seemingly indifferent to the risk of strangling. “Whatever you did to her back there, it only worked because she’s—”

“Weak?” Damon finished. “Too trusting? Yet, in spite of your mistrust of me, you were willing to leave her to my mercy.”

For the first time Damon saw uncertainty in the slight twitch at the corner of Carter’s mouth. “I didn’t have much choice,” he said. “She’ll die for certain if I don’t get another patch. But you always knew that, didn’t you?” He displayed his teeth like a Bloodmaster challenging a rival. “I swear I’ll come back and skin you alive if you hurt her.”

Damon’s heartbeat began to rise. “It would be foolish of me to tell you I’ll hunt you down if Alexia dies, but I will do it, even if you spend the rest of your days cowering in the Enclave.”

Carter’s sandy brows lifted. “You’re good,” he snickered. “I admit you’re almost convincing.”

Bearing down on the pulse points in Carter’s neck, Damon shoved the Enclave agent back against the tree. “I know you took the patch,” he said evenly. “You were also one of those shooting at us.” He pressed on the arteries until he could feel them begin to close off the blood supply to Carter’s brain. “Who are you working for?”

Carter closed his eyes and began to wheeze. “I work...for Aegis. For my people.”

“Tell me who took the patch, and I may let you go.”

“If you...don’t let me go,” Carter grunted, “Alexia will die.”

That was the ugly dilemma, and Damon knew he’d underestimated Carter’s will to resist.

“How can I be sure you’ll return with the patch?” he asked.

Carter’s lips twisted in a grotesque grin. “You can’t.”

A pulsing shadow fell over Damon’s vision. Alexia had said it was hatred, and he knew she was right. He could feel it trying to seize his mind with claws of iron.

Protect Alexia. That was everything. For the first time in his years of field work— here in the Zone, where he was free—he didn’t know what choice to make. If he dared leave Alexia alone, he could go with Carter all the way to the Border and make sure the agent did what he said he would.

But if he left her, and she died...

His fingers loosened on Carter’s neck. The dhampir jerked up his arms, striking Damon’s with the stiffened edges of his hands. Ordinarily it wouldn’t have been enough, but Damon had been off guard for a fraction of a second, and in that infinitesimal span of time Carter broke free and was sprinting in the direction of the Border, leaving pack and weapons behind.

He didn’t go far. Half a dozen running strides away he faltered, came to a sudden halt and spun around. Damon nearly ran into him.

Carter scrambled just out of reach. “What is it?” he asked, his voice rising. “What’s coming?”

Expecting some kind of trick, Damon tensed his muscles to attack. But then he smelled the thick, acrid odor and heard the tread of something neither animal, human nor Opir.

Lamia.

Chapter 7

The monster wasn’t even trying to disguise its approach, and that was Damon’s only advantage. He unslung his rifle and backed away, facing the unseen enemy. Carter dove for his own weapons.

The Lamia pushed out from behind a dense screen of scrub oak and lunged toward Damon. He got off four rounds, each one hitting its mark, before the thing reached him, swinging its distorted hands with their razor-sharp nails in wide arcs. Damon jumped back and swung the rifle like a club, striking the monster across its shoulder and the side of its grotesque, vaguely humanoid head.

It slowed, its red, almost pupil-less eyes glaring with hatred. Blood flowed over its leathery skin, but already the bullet wounds were beginning to heal. Its lips moved as if it were trying to speak.

Damon stepped back, leveling his gun to shoot again, but the Lamia came to a stop, nostrils flaring, and swung its long, almost skeletal face toward Carter.

The dhampir stood well out of the way, his rifle at his shoulder. “Orlok,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve never seen one this close.”

Orlok. That was the human name for the monsters who roamed the Zone, killing animal and human, dhampir and Daysider with equal relish. But the Opiri called them Lamiae after legends of child-eating demons, driven mad with hatred and grief.

Damon continued to retreat until he stood level with Carter. “The last report said they had moved out of this region,” he said.

“I guess your report was wrong.”

Perhaps fatally so, Damon thought. “Where there is one,” he said, “there are usually many.”