Daysider

With a high-pitched scream, Lysander lunged up to clamp his teeth around Damon’s neck. Damon felt behind him for the knife he had tossed aside, snatched it up and buried the blade in Lysander’s back.

The two men broke apart, Lysander scraping his hand across his back in an effort to remove the knife, Damon shaking the blood from his throat and prepared to strike the final blow.

Alexia ran to the side, searching for a clear shot to Lysander’s head or chest. Any other part of his body and the projectile might not kill him. But if she hit Damon instead—

Something moved on the edge of her vision, a tall, almost spindly shape that darted toward the combatants before she could alter her aim. It lifted Damon by his shoulder with one skeletal hand and tossed him a good three meters away. Then it grabbed Lysander and shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Alexia heard the Nightsider’s neck snap.

The Orlok met her gaze. Safe, it said in her mind.

She ran for Damon and dropped to her knees beside him. He was dazed and injured, but sanity was returning to his eyes, and when he looked at her it was with the bewilderment of a man who miraculously survived a fatal accident. His wounds, even the deep punctures and slashes in his neck and face, had stopped bleeding, and Alexia quickly returned her attention to the dead Nightsider and the creature that stood above him.

Michael.

The Orlok released its hold on Lysander’s hair, red now rather than white, and started toward her. Damon scrambled into a crouch, moving stiffly as he put himself between her and the Orlok.

“It’s all right,” Alexia whispered. “He won’t hurt us.”

“He?” Damon asked, blinking the blood from his eyes.

She continued to hold Michael’s gaze, so heavy with grief that she thought her heart would break.

Thank you, she thought, hoping Michael would hear her.

The Orlok inclined his head and began to shuffle backward, away from her and the Nightsider he had killed for her sake. And perhaps, even, for Damon’s.

Don’t go, she thought. Let me help you.

“Sires’ blood,” Damon swore hoarsely. “It knows you.”

Michael’s stare swung toward Damon. Alexia heard nothing, but suddenly Damon’s face went blank with astonishment. He began to rise, but Michael melted away into the shrubbery, and Alexia knew he was gone.

* * *

Half stunned by the bizarre and violent turn of events, Alexia turned back to Damon, who was sinking down again.

“Hold still,” she commanded. He obeyed, still staring after Michael, as she pulled his blood-saturated jacket away from his skin and helped him remove it, taking care not to jog his broken wrist any more than necessary. She knew he was completely back to normal by the way he winced, ever so slightly, at her gentle probing of his neck and shoulder wounds.

“What in the Human Hell just happened?” he asked hoarsely.

Alexia let out a long breath and closed her eyes. “What do you remember?” she asked.

“I was...fighting Lysander,” he said.

Alexia almost laughed. She opened her eyes and found herself staring at Damon’s neck. Even though the bleeding had stopped, the smell of blood— his blood—was ripe in the air, so strong she could taste it.

She swallowed and looked at Lysander’s broken body. She could smell his blood, too, but it had no effect on her at all.

Damon’s blood. God help her.

As if he had guessed the course of her thoughts, Damon raised a finger from his good hand to brush at the deepest wounds in his neck.

“Leave that alone,” Alexia snapped, slapping his hand back down. “Let it heal.” She swallowed again, trying to ignore the bitterness on her tongue. “What else do you remember?”

“Almost nothing, except he...threatened you,” Damon said, spitting the last few words through his teeth. His skin began to flush with fresh anger. “Alexia—”

“Easy,” Alexia said, lightly touching the uninjured part of his arm. “Do you remember how the fight started?”

“I...think I started it,” he said. He covered his mouth with a bloody hand.

“Something...went wrong. I should have forced him to tell us—” He broke off again and raised his head. “What did I do, Alexia?”

She didn’t know how to answer the agony in his voice, the knowledge that he had to ask someone else what he’d done because his memory was a blank. He saw the blood on himself, on Lysander, and still he didn’t realize how he had transformed, become something for which Alexia had no name or explanation.

“You kept him from trying to kill us,” she said simply.

He glanced at her and quickly looked away, his torn face drawn with confusion and pain.

She needed him clearheaded after all this. She needed to be clearheaded, and it wasn’t going to be easy. There were too many issues clamoring for her attention, including finding out where Damon’s “spells” were coming from and what to do about them. If anything could or should be done about them.

“The Lamia,” Damon said suddenly, catching her off guard. “Why did it kill Lysander, and not us? Have you seen it before?”

“No,” she replied, lying before she could think about it.

“But it recognized you.” Damon worked his body into a crouch that brought his face very close to hers. “How is that possible?”

Alexia knew she was going to have to tell Damon about what had happened to Michael and what he’d said to her, but not here. Not now.

“I don’t know,” she said, reaching down to help Damon to his feet. Still cradling his broken wrist close to his chest, he limped over to the double agent’s body.

“Do you know him?” she asked.

“I may have seen him once in Erebus, but I do not recognize him as a Council operative.” He turned his gaze to Lysander. “Few Darketans have ever attacked an Opir and lived, and none has ever killed one.”

“But you didn’t kill him,” Alexia said, coming up behind him. “And anyway, this one deserved it.”

His shoulders rose and fell in a heavy sigh. “I would have killed him if you hadn’t interfered.”

Alexia refused to take his words as a reproach. He couldn’t be thinking straight yet.

She touched his bare shoulder lightly. “We should go now. We don’t know who, or what, might be attracted to the smell of blood.”

“Yes.” He examined both bodies with a slight frown. “We will attempt to make it appear as though the Opiri were fighting each other,” he said.

“They were fighting each other,” Alexia said. “It was just pretty one-sided.”

“Then we must hope that we do a convincing job of suggesting they were more evenly matched.” He reached for Lysander’s body with his good hand. Alexia got in his way.

“Maybe you should leave moving them to me,” she said. “Your wrist is broken, and you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

She was waiting for his response not only because she was worried about him pushing himself, but because she wanted to see if he’d react to her mention of losing blood.

Lysander had suggested he would need nourishment soon, and that worried her greatly.

Damon hadn’t reacted at the time, so maybe Lysander had been trying to scare her just for the hell of it, figuring she would be threatened by the idea of Damon taking her blood. And the Daysider hadn’t made any attempt to actually drink any of Lysander’s blood, which would have made perfect sense if he were in need.

“I’m fine,” Damon said. “These wounds aren’t as bad as they look.” He smiled, a wry expression obviously meant to reassure her. “As long as I can avoid another fight within the next few hours, I will recover.”

“Damon—” He turned his back on her, and Alexia realized he wasn’t going to accept her help, let alone admit that he needed rest and nourishment. While she gathered up her pack, the weapons and the scraps of red-