Page 74 of Dark Reign of Forever

“Guess we save ’em,” a fourth voice said from close by. “Let’s be grateful nobody got killed this time.”

From their hiding place, Jackson watched as one man walked up to Rao, who sat with hands raised and his face scrunching in the glare of a flashlight. The man picked up the discarded gun and ordered Rao to secure himself with his own cuffs.

Jackson pressed his lips to Dominique’s ear. “This would be agreattime for you to remember what you are. Because we are royally fucked if you don’t.”

Dominique said nothing. He was shaking.

“What the—”

Light burst over them. “Oh, man. Someone may have gotten killed after all,” a disembodied voice said with genuine regret.

In the light, Jackson got his first good look at Dominique, who lay staring at him with unfocused eyes, his breathing shallow—his side covered in blood.

“Fuck, no.” He unzipped Dominique’s vest and pulled up the sopping-wet shirt. “You goddamn fucking bastards!”

Judging by the dark pool soaking into the grit beneath him, Jackson expected to find blood fountaining out of the vampire’s innards. But there was only a thin trickle. He wiped at the wound. Not ragged. Just raw. And shrinking, slowly, right before his eyes.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” someone else said. Terry.

Four pairs of muddy shoes surrounded them now. The air reeked of clay, blood, and gunpowder.

Dominique moved his hand to the wound. Feeling it closing, he sucked in a gasp.

“It’s about time,” Jackson said, but there still was no sign of the vampire in those wide, glazed eyes.

Only shock.

33

Early Riser

We’refucked.Screwed.Donefor. Dead.

The words circled Jackson’s thoughts like vultures as he circled his cell for the tenth or twentieth time, feeling his way, inch by inch, in the complete darkness, looking for a way out. Any way at all.

“Dispatch will send someone to check on us,” Rao said. He had said it almost as many times as Jackson had orbited the cell and sounded a little less certain every time. Maybe they would. If so, they’d walk into the same trap.

And it wouldn’t be soon enough.

The luminescent markers on Jackson’s Tag Heuer watch glowed with the bad news. Two, maybe two-and-a-half hours until sunset, no more. He rubbed both hands over his face, heedless of the gritty grime stuck to his fingers. “Nick?”

“Oui?”

“How are you doing over there?”

Silence.

After witnessing Dominique’s wounds closing, their captors knew he was different, and placed him in his own cell. Before the light was extinguished, Jackson counted four of these makeshift prisons—all empty—at the end of the long, skinny mineshaft boring into the mountain.

He had also spotted another shaft going straight down. There was no doubt about what would come crawling out of that hole before too long.

“Nick. Dominique. Listen to me, my friend. You are a vampire. You have the strength to break us out of this mess, but you need to do it soon. Like now. You hear me?”

A French curse floated his way, followed by, “I am chained to a wall, you imbecile. Don’t you think if I could free myself I would? The more I move, the more my wrists burn.”

“The shackles must be coated in silver then. I bet you’re feeling it because the suppressant is wearing off, probably because you’re starting to wake up. Well, wake up faster.”

“You areinsane!”