Daysider

Nothing happened. As far as she could tell, the device was dead. “Alexia?”

Damon stood in the doorway, dressed in the same tunic and pants she wore but cut in a masculine style. She saw her terror reflected in his eyes.

“You were right, Damon,” she said, her voice shaking. “Michael was keeping secrets. I don’t know why he didn’t tell me, but he sent a signal to Aegis requesting a strike force, and they’re on their way. Do you know what that means?”

He knew. His concern hardened to a mask of grim resolve.

“War,” he said.

Chapter 18

“Why?” Theron asked, leaning on the table with his hair loose and undressed around his shoulders. “Why should your people attack us? We have heard nothing from the Council at all, nothing from the Expansionists in weeks that would suggest a motive.

What could have happened to provoke this?” He fixed his intimidating stare on Alexia.

“What did your partner tell them?”

“I don’t know,” Alexia said, meeting his gaze steadily. “I’m by no means certain the strike force actually plans to move on the colony at all. I have simply told you what the message said, and what happened from the time Damon met with us.”

She hadn’t wavered under the fury of the Bloodmaster’s attention, but Damon moved closer to her nevertheless, interposing himself slightly between her and the table at which she sat. The other members of Theron’s local council—Sergius, Emma and six other Opiri and humans—looked on with faces drawn with worry, every one of them knowing their time was running out.

“He disappeared for a day between the time he left us and the time he returned,” Damon said. “There is much he could have accomplished in those hours.”

“He never came within sight of the colony,” Sergius said. “How could he know enough about us to report anything to Aegis?”

Alexia bit hard on her lip. Damon rested his hand on her shoulder, knowing how much she was blaming herself for Michael’s involvement in this volatile situation.

On their way to speak to Theron, they had discussed the possibility that it was Michael’s discovery of the theft of Alexia’s patch that had motivated him to call in the strike force. But that assumed he hadn’t been involved in stealing it himself. Now it was looking increasingly likely that Damon’s “feeling” that the dhampir had taken the patch was correct.

There was much he and Alexia had told Theron, and much they had not. They hadn’t yet mentioned the patch and Alexia’s dependence on Damon’s blood to counteract her condition. Nor had they raised the subject of Damon’s “spells.”

“The only thing I am certain of,” Theron said, breaking into Damon’s thoughts, “is that neither the Council nor the Expansionists have done anything but observed from a distance.”

“They were busy killing each other,” Damon said, “and making plans to move on you.”

“Which they have not done.” Theron resumed his seat and swept his hair back with his hand. “The very existence of such strike forces is in violation of the Treaty. We know of nothing in Eleutheria that would arouse such a reaction.”

“Not directly,” Sergius said, “but we would not necessarily know of every political intrigue going on in Erebus. Perhaps the Council deliberately chose to provoke Aegis into breaking the Armistice, using the colony as a pretext.”

“Ridiculous,” Theron said. “The Expansionists might be stupid enough to try it, but not the Council. They could not conceal the kind of preparations they would need to make in order to fight another full-scale war, even if they desired it.” He hesitated. “I know several of them personally. I know the way they think. No, this did not come from the Council.”

Damon glanced at Sergius, noting the rebellion in the set of his face. The younger Opir was not pleased at having his idea so casually dismissed. But he would defer to Theron because he knew as well as Damon did that the Bloodmaster understood the politics of Erebus better than any living Opir.

“Hatred, greed and ambition are powerful motivators,” Damon said. They want to see Eleutheria destroyed. Sending the right message to Aegis would serve them by causing the Enclave to break the Treaty and spare them the effort of getting rid of you.”

“Obviously,” Sergius said. “And since the dhampir Carter sent the communication, he must have been working with the Expansionists.”

Alexia made a small sound of protest but didn’t speak. Damon squeezed her shoulder.

“It is difficult to fathom his motives, given the dhampires’ hatred for Opiri,” he said.

“But I agree with Sergius. It only remains to determine what his reasons might have been.”

“If Alexia can’t figure it out,” Emma said, “how are we supposed to do it?”

“I missed something,” Alexia murmured, clenching her fists on the table. “Something important. My partner was angry when Damon came. More angry than he should have been, but I didn’t pay enough attention.”

“What of the attacks on you and Damon?” Sergius asked.

“Now that you have confirmed that your people were not in the area firing at intruders,” Damon said, “we cannot be sure of the identities of any of the shooters. The first may or may not have been the Council agents assigned to keep me and Agent Fox together, the ones I found dead later.”

Theron smiled tightly. “Peculiar, is it not, that the Council sent you to keep the dhampires away from the colony, but you brought one of them directly to us instead.”

Since the answer to that unspoken question involved far too much private emotion, Damon spoke with care. “Priorities can rapidly change in the field,” he said, “and it became apparent to me that Council orders were not as important as dealing with what came to light as a result of Lysander’s revelations.”

“You made the correct choice,” Theron said. He looked at Alexia. “Both of you.”

“No,” Alexia said. “I failed. Michael tried to warn me, and I didn’t see...”

“The fact remains that he did try to warn you,” Damon said, speaking softly as if for her ears alone.

Alexia lifted her hand and touched his fingers. “I know,” she whispered. “But that doesn’t help us now.”

“And neither does wasting time trying to dissect the thinking of a dhampir traitor,” Theron said. “We must focus all our efforts on defense. Once the Council becomes aware of the intrusion, they must act, if the Expansionists don’t do so first. We will be caught in the crossfire.”

“We don’t even know what they’re coming to do,” Emma said. “Invade us? Take us prisoner? Wipe out any Expansionist operatives they can find?”

“They wouldn’t come for a purpose that minor,” Alexia said. “It has to be something much bigger. So big even the prospect of a new war doesn’t seem as bad.” She raked her slender fingers through her hair. “But on those rare occasions when they’ve been sent into the Zone, they carry through their objective regardless of loss of life on either side.”

The people at the table looked around at each other in silence.

“I have already told you I will start for the Border immediately,” Alexia said, beginning to rise, “and do what I can to intercept and explain that whatever Michael told them has to be a mistake. If they listened to him, they’ll listen to me.”

“No,” Damon said, pushing her back down. “You said yourself they will not allow themselves to be seen, let alone delayed, even by another Aegis operative. I will not allow you to put yourself at risk for no reason.”

“But I—” she began.

“Damon is right,” Theron said. “You must be here if and when an attack comes.

Perhaps then your words will be of use.”

“In the meantime,” Sergius said, “we must decide how we can best defend ourselves.

Most of the Opiri here know how to shoot and can hold off any attack for a time.”