Daysider

face, wondering if she were beginning to hallucinate.

Signal, the voice in her mind said. Attack.

Pressing the heel of her palm to her temple, Alexia tried to force the voice out through sheer strength of will. But Michael—what had been Michael—was still there, half civilized, half savage. And sinking quickly.

Warn, the voice said. War.

Warn whom, about what? What signal, and what attack? Was he asking her to send a signal to Aegis with this device? Was he telling her that war was coming?

There was no way to know, because all at once the voice went silent, and Michael shuddered again. It almost seemed to Alexia that his body was changing before her eyes, bending, writhing, slowly losing the last vestiges of humanity. She tried to approach him, but he backed away, shaking his head from side to side like a dog with a burr in its ear.

Then, without warning, he loped off into the night-shrouded wood.

Alexia pushed the communicator inside her jacket and ran after him. She knew in her heart she couldn’t save him, but she couldn’t let him go down alone.

She was so intent on finding him that she nearly tripped over the man on the ground before she realized he was there.

Damon, she thought, wild with fear.

But it wasn’t Damon, nor Michael. Her nostrils filled with the scent of Nightsider, and she stumbled back, pulling her rifle from her shoulder.

The Nightsider moved slightly, his pale, unbound hair fanned across the ground, his ascetic face drawn in pain. He didn’t seem to be armed, and he was clearly injured; she knew Michael might have attacked him, but there were only a few tiny spots of blood on his clothing.

Then she recognized what was wrong with him. He had been in the sun. Blisters disfigured what would have been handsome features, and his once-dark eyes were milky with cataracts.

“Get up,” she said, gesturing with the rifle.

The Nightsider’s blind eyes turned toward her. “I am...not your enemy,” he rasped.

Of course not. And he hadn’t been roasted alive.

Alexia glanced past him in the direction Michael had gone. She could either continue to follow him or deal with the Nightsider. The vampire at her feet might easily have been among those who had shot at her and Damon, the one Michael had been tracking, or both. He was dangerous, even in his weakened state, and leaving him here could lead to serious consequences later.

“Where did you come from?” she demanded.

The Nightsider lay very still, well aware of what she would do if he tried to rise. “I am not what you think,” he said, his voice a mere thread of sound. “I want what you want.”

“Where are you from?” she repeated, lowering the rifle’s muzzle to poke at his chest.

“The colony? Are you one of the ones who have been trying to kill us?”

He blinked several times, as if even the emerging stars gave off too much light.

“Where...is Damon?”

Alexia wouldn’t have believed it possible that her heart could beat any faster. “Why?”

she asked sharply. “You aren’t going to be able to hurt him now.”

“The colony is not what we believed. I was to...report back, but I am dying. The others want to...” He took in a sharp breath. “They want to destroy it.”

“Destroy the colony?” she asked. “Who wants to destroy it?”

“Our enemies, of course,” someone said behind her.

Chapter 10

Alexia swung around, bringing the rifle to bear on the new arrival. He grinned, a flash of bright teeth in a pale, handsome face. His hair was drawn back in the traditional Nightsider style, framing his features like a crown of snow and starlight.

“Put down your weapon,” he said. “I mean you no harm.”

“Don’t...trust him,” the first vampire warned. “It is their doing. Tell Damon...the colony, the drugs—” He cried out as the blast hit him square in the chest, leaving a smoking hole where his heart had been. The second Nightsider holstered his weapon and shook his head.

“Traitors to the Council must be eliminated,” he said. He regarded Alexia with great interest. “Why are you alone, little Half-blood? The Zone is a dangerous place. Where is Damon?”

Alexia didn’t answer. She had been stunned by the sudden killing, but her thoughts were clearing rapidly. And once she could think again, she was extremely grateful that Damon wasn’t with her.

For whoever this leech was, he exuded a threat that utterly belied his words. It wasn’t just that he’d murdered the other vampire so callously. Nightsiders often killed each other; they were vicious, amoral creatures, predators without compassion, constantly maneuvering for rank and power.

But now two Nightsiders had appeared in the area very soon after someone had tried to kill her and Damon. That couldn’t be coincidence, and both of them obviously knew she and Damon were working together.

This vampire clearly meant to imply that he was with the Council, at least nominally on Damon’s side of the fence. Damon had admitted there were probably other Council agents in the area; maybe one of the two Nightsiders, the living or the dead, was working for the same faction he was.

But it wasn’t as if the leeches openly advertised their internal conflicts to their enemies.

And why would any Nightsider so blatantly slaughter one of his own kind right in front of an Aegis operative?

Alexia could think of only one good reason. And that was because he had to stop the

“traitor” from telling her something he didn’t want her to hear.

She had to be very, very careful. Careful to show suspicion and mistrust, but not enough to seem as if she wanted to kill him.

“Who are you?” she asked the Nightsider coldly. “Why did you kill this man?”

He clasped his hands behind his back as if he meant to show just how harmless he was.

“As I told you, he was a traitor.”

In spite of her resolve, Alexia’s fingers twitched on the trigger. “‘The colony is not what we believed,’” she recited. “‘They want to destroy it.’ What was he talking about?”

“You don’t know?” he asked, eyes narrowing. “Have you not been observing the colony?”

“It has been a little difficult with someone trying to kill us,” she said.

“Indeed?” the Nightsider said, lifting both brows as if he were genuinely surprised.

“There are, unfortunately, many who would do anything to prevent cooperation between our peoples.”

As hard as he tried to express sincerity, the Nightsider couldn’t pull it off. She was dead certain he had already known someone had tried to kill them.

“We assumed it was the colonists who attacked us,” Alexia said. “They must have known we were watching.”

“They have protected themselves well enough so far,” the vampire said. “But then again, certain parties in Erebus would wish to prevent anyone from providing the Council with intelligence that might create obstacles to their plans.”

“What plans?” she asked, pretending ignorance. “Whose?”

The Nightsider glanced down at the body. “He meant to put you off your guard by confusing you, but there was much truth in his words. He merely twisted them around so that it seemed he was referring to others instead of himself.”

He met Alexia’s eyes again. “The colony is not, indeed, what any of us believed. This traitor did intend to report back to the Expansionists. We believed him to be one of our operatives, but in fact he was a double agent, as I recently discovered. I am certain he was hoping to persuade you to kill me when I caught up with him, and then eliminate you before returning to his true masters.”