Daysider

nerve. Her body shivered in answer. Damon had disregarded Lysander’s previous comment about his former lover, but Alexia knew Eirene was somehow at the heart of Damon’s all-consuming hatred of the Nightsider. Had Lysander had something to do with Eirene’s last mission and eventual death?

“Did you know, Agent Fox,” Lysander said, turning to her with a vicious smile, “before the Armistice your breed were considered the finest prizes an Opir could obtain?

I wonder how much a Bloodlord or Bloodmaster in Erebus would give to own you?”

Before Alexia could ask him what he meant, Damon had released her and thrown himself at Lysander. The Nightsider staggered back, too startled even to put up his hands.

Damon lost no time. Ignoring the knife at his belt and the VS130 at his feet, he slammed his fist into Lysander’s face and pummeled him to the ground, hitting and kicking with a fury meant not to disable, but to kill. Alexia saw just enough of Damon’s face to realize he was no longer in control of his reason.

In a matter of seconds, Damon had reverted back to the volatile creature he’d been before he had left on his mission with Michael. That time he had reacted to her lack of will to survive, but this wasn’t the same. It wasn’t her words that had ignited him. Now that simmering animal rage had become a weapon whose only purpose was to destroy.

“Damon!” she shouted.

He didn’t hear her. He had Lysander on the ground and was locking his hand around the Nightsider’s throat, his incisors exposed in a violent grin.

But Lysander had begun to fight back. He hurled Damon off and leaped after the Daysider before he could regain his footing. Lysander drove Damon down, his greater strength evident in the relative ease with which he held Damon pinned to the earth. The Daysider bucked and twisted, clawing and striking every part of Lysander’s body he could reach. The Nightsider opened his mouth, stretching his jaws so wide that every tooth in his mouth was exposed.

Whatever reason Lysander had had for presenting Damon with the supposed “orders” from the Council, regardless of his original intentions, he was obviously ready to kill Damon without the slightest qualm.

Alexia lunged for the Vampire Slayer and brought it her shoulder. “Stop!” she shouted. “Get off him, or I’ll kill you!”

The Nightsider barely glanced at her. “Remove all your weapons and throw them out of reach,” he said, “or I will drain every drop of blood from the Darketan’s body.”

Chapter 11

With a wordless snarl, Damon worked one arm free and went for his knife. Lysander caught his wrist and bent it back at an unnatural angle. Something cracked under Damon’s skin, but his mask of blind rage never faltered.

“Do it now!” Lysander shouted, sinking his teeth into Damon’s neck.

Alexia almost shot him. Once she wouldn’t have hesitated to sacrifice an enemy agent in order to eliminate a murderous leech. But Damon was no longer just an enemy agent, and the risk to him was too great. She threw the VS as far away as she could, took off her pack and kicked it away, and then removed her knife and pistol and did the same with them.

“Let him go,” she ordered.

Lysander raised his head and laughed, his teeth stained with Damon’s blood. “I never said I would let him go, only that I would not leave him a bloodless husk.” He released Damon’s wrist, grabbed his knife and ripped the sheath from Damon’s belt. “You should run, little Half-blood, before I am tempted to sample the wares that make your kind so valuable to ours.”

Damon howled and heaved under Lysander, gaining just enough space to jam his knee into the Nightsider’s crotch. Lysander reared back and slashed his long fingernails across Damon’s face, incising four deep gashes in Damon’s cheek, jaw and chin. He bent and licked the welling blood from Damon’s face. The Daysider’s body began to jerk as if in a seizure, his eyes rolling back in his skull.

The odds had just gone from bad to worse, and Alexia was responsible. She moved closer to Lysander, spreading her hands as if begging a truce.

“The orders you gave Damon said that he was supposed to escort me back to the Border,” she said. “Are you defying the Council you claim to serve?”

Lysander raised his head, Damon’s blood glistening on his lips. “I have seen his strange affection for you, little Half-blood,” he said. “I will merely be saving the Council the trouble of hunting him down after he turns traitor and defects.”

“Defects?” Alexia laughed derisively. “He hates the Enclave as much as any of you.”

“And he knew when he attacked me that I would kill him. Irrational impulses, remember?”

“If you kill him,” Alexia said, “you’ll have to kill me, too. And if you think Aegis won’t investigate—”

“They will be too busy dealing with more important matters than the loss of one operative.”

She took another step. “I don’t think you work for the Council at all,” she said. “I think you’re the traitor.”

Lysander curled his fingers around Damon’s throat and dug his nails into the skin. The Daysider choked, and fresh blood soaked the collar of his shirt.

“Alexia,” Damon said, his voice a bubbling whisper. “Run. Tell them—” Alexia hurled herself at Lysander, less concerned about doing damage than breaking up the lethal embrace. Without turning, Lysander batted at her as if she were an annoying insect and sent her flying. She rolled to her feet, sucking air into her lungs as she prepared to attack again.

But she’d broken the deadlock, and Damon was already moving. Blood spattered the ground and Lysander’s face as Damon wrenched his arms up and broke the Nightsider’s hold. Suddenly it was as if Damon had never been compromised at all, and Lysander was falling back, crouching with an incredulous expression on his face.

Then Damon was on him again, a whirlwind that could cut down everything in its path.

It was a ruthless, brutal fight, but the Nightsider was almost completely on the defensive now, quivering prey caught between the deadly claws of Damon’s relentless predator. Each of Damon’s blows was precisely aimed to do the most damage, and soon Lysander was scrambling away, intent only on survival.

Alexia knew they couldn’t let him go. She ran to retrieve the VS and spun around to find Damon with his teeth sunk into Lysander’s shoulder. The Nightsider screamed.

“Damon!” she shouted. “Get out of the way!”

He maintained his hold, biting harder, and Lysander began to flail like a madman, his eyes vivid with terror. Alexia knew Damon wasn’t hearing her, wasn’t feeling anything but the implacable need to kill.

And she had to stop him. She had no idea if Damon had ever killed anyone before, but this wasn’t simply a matter of self-defense. This was the kind of bloodthirstiness Enclave soldiers and civilians had witnessed in rampaging vampires at the end of the War, when the leeches had finally realized they had lost their bid to enslave all humanity. Alexia knew in her heart that if Damon killed Lysander this way, like a beast—like an Orlok—

he could never fully return to what he had been.

It was up to her to finish it. She was more than ready.

She advanced another meter, keeping the Vampire Slayer aimed at whatever part of Lysander she could see. “Damon,” she said. “You’ve won. Let me take care of this.”

Lysander rolled his eyes in her direction. “Stop,” he gasped, blood foaming around his lips. “I will—” Damon pulled back and struck the Nightsider across the face, and Alexia knew the only way she could stop him was to hurt him. She hesitated, holding the VS tight against her side, drew her knife and threw it directly at Damon’s shoulder.

It bit through his bloodstained jacket into flesh, and Damon twisted to slap the knife away, his face streaked with blood like war paint. His eyes focused on Alexia, and she saw in him more than fury, more than hatred, more than the intensity of will that had driven him to keep her safe no matter what the cost.

It was the way Michael had looked at her the last time. The rage, the loss, the profound sorrow.