The Darkest Night (The Second Dark Ages Book 2) Read online

  Electronics operator Sally David replied after glancing at the display, “’Bout as good as we can expect with the lightning and charged particles in the air, Billy.” She reached up to grab a metal tool which she delicately tapped above the screen.

  It cleared up.

  Billy straightened up and rubbed his chin. “So, not too far.” Just then everyone in the bridge reached out to hold on as the ship rolled to their left.

  “Sonofabitch!” Mellon cursed behind Billy, who turned in time to see the young recruit slide the last five feet into a wall. Billy flinched at the sound of the collision. “Do a better job holding your ass up, Mellon!” Billy retorted before turning back to the screen. He looked through the starboard window, attempting to find an open space to allow him to see through the storm. Flashes of lightning lit the clouds and the ship in front of them.

  “I’m ready to eat some damned meat. Tell the crew down in Engineering and Batteries we will move the product and our new slaves over here, then gut that ship. We’ll take all the tech they have. But that means we have to go faster, so redline those gauges! Let’s come in like Hell’s own demons.

  “Aye aye, Captain,” Sally David answered before turning back to her controls. She reached for the communications device.

  Antigrav Ship ArchAngel

  “What the hell!” The Captain sputtered as he spit the liquid that was drowning him out of his mouth. He used his forearm to wipe the water from his eyes.

  He blinked a moment, then looked into the grave eyes of the young woman staring back at him. “What happened?” he asked as he reached out to feel along his neck.

  “Don’t flatter yourself.” Jacqueline smiled. “Michael isn’t going to suck on your neck.”

  “Wasn’t him I was worried about,” the Captain grumped as he accepted a towel to dry his face and what he could of his hair and shirt. He gestured at his body. “Got to make sure you didn’t want a piece of this; then my wife would see a hickey and I’d be dead for sure.”

  Jacqueline smirked. “Now, that is flattering yourself. But it’s also funny.” She snapped her fingers to get his attention back. “Hopefully, you don’t have a concussion.”

  He reached up to touch his head, jerking his hand back when he encountered the sensitive area that had been damaged. “The hell!” He flinched again after a second try. “What happened?”

  “You know, that’s a story for another time.” Jacqueline answered, “Let’s play catch-up really quick.” She started, but then the ship dipped, the power flickered, and the Captain looked around, memory dawning on his face.

  He reached out to grab his dresser to help himself to stand. “Why are we in here? Gott Verdammt, we are in a fucking storm!” He staggered over to his door, his balance getting better the longer he was moving. Jacqueline walked with him to catch him if he fell.

  “Fainted,” Jacqueline told him.

  The Captain stopped with his hand on the knob and looked over at the woman. “Aye, I do remember that part. What say we both agree not to mention anything about this last thirty minutes and I’ll owe you one?”

  Jacqueline took a second before holding out her hand. “Agreed, and let’s go save our hides.”

  The Captain opened the door, then shook her hand once. “Deal.”

  Back in his room, Michael smiled.

  That girl was luck personified sometimes.

  ---

  The bridge crew was fighting the storm hard when the door opened. Captain Miles O’Banion noticed his first mate’s relief as he entered the bridge. “Where are they?” he asked as he looked over the instruments.

  “About half a mile aft and a little to port. Thought we might have lost them, but then they found us again and switched direction. We caught a bad bit of wind, and here we are.”

  The first mate's eyes flicked behind the Captain and then back. However, his eyes returned to stare behind the Captain, so Miles turned around. He saw the outline of someone walking down the hallway behind the frosted glass, heading outside.

  “Don’t ask,” the Captain ordered before anyone said something. “That’s Michael. He will handle our pirate problem.”

  Jacqueline harrumphed from beside him. “Taking all the fun, too. That grumpy-assed old man.”

  Miles turned to her. “He can’t take you? How is he planning on getting there?”

  “That’s for him to explain and it is wouldn’t, not couldn’t,” she replied.

  “Why not?” Miles asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

  “Said he was annoyed at being woken up, so he needed to make sure he had enough targets to get it out of his system. I’d just get my bloodlust up and then he’d have less of his own fun.”

  “You know,” the Captain mused, “your family is seven different kinds of strange.”

  Jacqueline thought about herself and Mark and Michael and smiled. “I’ll accept that as a compliment, Captain.”

  The Captain looked behind and around. “Where is Mark?”

  The female at the instruments looked over, a flush on her face. “Yes, where is he?”

  Jacqueline wasn’t sure if she wanted to punch the woman or roll her eyes. “He’s outside making sure no one jumps on the ship while Michael is absent.”

  “That’s dangerous!” she replied.

  She chose to roll her eyes. “He’s fine, just bored probably.”

  The Pirate Ship Folly

  The seven figures were illuminated by the lightning coming through the port windows as one man spoke gruffly. The rain-soaked wind whipped back and forth as they held onto the braces in the hold. “Take skiffs two, three and five.” Cholly Jake, the ship’s engineer, pointed his hand down the windy hold. “They all have almost full charges. They can take two people each over to that ship, and you can lock in each of the small explosives to cut their power. Make sure they are stuck in the right place, or we aren’t going to have anything to show for all of this damned effort!”

  Cholly was a rotund black man whose grey-shot hair stood out plainly. He wasn’t happy they were taking his boats, but if they didn’t lock in that ship soon they would have to bail, and he agreed with Billy that they needed to be active now instead of just running a stern chase.

  There was that large fleet that had raided New York a week back. The Folly avoided them, only to find that no one else was moving either. Everyone was waiting to see what happened.

  Apparently, not too much had changed.

  Cholly could hear the chatter going back and forth from the New York City-State Air Traffic Control, and everything seemed normal.

  Now they had found one ship heading back to Europe, perhaps running with its tail between its legs.

  He pointed to two of the group. “You take Number Two.” He pointed to the next two, a man and woman. “You take Number Three. You will have to get over there within five minutes, but it should only take you sixty seconds. So, no becoming part of any mile-high club, Sled Three. Got that?”

  They chuckled. There wasn’t enough room in those skiffs to change your mind, much less do anything physical. The six figures worked their way to the sleds Cholly had pointed out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Antigrav Ship ArchAngel

  Michael had all of his equipment on him. While he would have preferred to just do this without that burden, he didn’t want to lose anything if for some reason the ArchAngel went down. He had already told Mark and Jacqueline to mentally scream his name if the ship started losing altitude, and he would come to their rescue as best he could.

  Mark turned to Jacqueline and told her, “Don’t be calling Michael if you break a nail. I know how you females ...” The crack of her backhand on his chest was impressive.

  But Mark just smiled and took the blow. He rubbed his chest in a circle while Jacqueline pointed a finger at him. “You keep this up and you are going to be a twice-dead vampire. I don’t care how hot you are.” She left the room.

  Michael looked at Mark, who winked at him as he tappe
d his head. “I’ve got her figured out.”

  The older vampire snorted and patted Mark on the shoulder. “You might have the Wolf figured out, but you have a serious logic flaw.”

  “What logic flaw?” Mark asked, frowning. Michael paused before leaving the room. “She’s a woman. To believe there is logic in their actions and emotions is the first of many false assumptions.”

  Twenty minutes later Michael walked past the bridge and exited the protected area on the ship, continuing out to the open deck. The winds flowed around him from multiple directions.

  The energy was whispering to him here in the storm. It wanted to be held, to be caressed, to be used and abused in an orgy of destruction.

  Perhaps, Michael thought, he was applying his own feelings to the weather.

  He had wanted only to sleep, and these imbeciles had taken that from him.

  His coat whipped in the wind as he looked for the ship. A few seconds later he smiled, then took two steps and disappeared.

  Above him, Mark watched his mentor leave and smirked.

  Someone was going to get fucked up tonight.

  Michael left the ArchAngel and took off in the direction of the pirate ship. The vibrations up here in the sky were a bit overwhelming, and he was having difficulty focusing on the power source of the ship since he couldn’t see it.

  As he went one direction, he missed the two small power sources heading in from the other.

  The ship drew nearer and the lights, powered by their own energy, flared into the clouds as they roiled around in the wind.

  Michael solidified on the main deck and looked around. From time immemorial pirates had had a bad reputation, but many could and would be excellent at their jobs.

  Almost like their lives depended on it.

  Seeking out minds in the night, he found one man who was outside. He had hidden himself deep in the lee of the wind.

  Michael grinned and glanced at the location of the man trying to hide from the weather. At his one job, to alert the ship should someone unknown attack them, he had failed.

  His scream of death would alert those on this ship that something was not right.

  ---

  Mark noticed the two lights approaching in the dark on his umpteenth scan, and grinned. He vacillated over whether he should inform Jacqueline they had incoming or not. On the one hand, he would have the chance to learn just how well he could throw those coming to attack them over the edge by himself.

  Or, he could find out if Jacqueline would throw him off the ship in her annoyance at not being a part of the party.

  Prudence won.

  He double-checked the distance of the two attack ships from ArchAngel and how carefully they were arriving, and decided going inside wasn’t going to cut it. He reached over and grabbed a small metal bar, then tapped out a predetermined message. Three taps, pause. Two taps, pause.

  One tap.

  Mark checked that his weapons were secure, his knives in place and his pistol locked in. He had a coat now too, not quite the length of Michael’s, but it helped hide most of his weaponry. He stood up and grabbed the ladder that allowed him to jump down to the deck of the ship, bracing himself as the wind whipped around him. With his hand on the rail he at least didn’t worry about being flung out into the night by an unexpected gust of wind.

  Then again, he wondered, what gusts were expected?

  His landing was lost in the wind, and when Jacqueline opened the door to the inside it was only noticeable due to the light it threw out into the night, not from the sound.

  Well, to a human.

  Mark raised an eyebrow at his friend as she laughed at him. “Are you shitting me?” she called out, looking around, “Someone is stupid enough to attack in this weather and Michael didn’t kill them?”

  Jacqueline scanned to starboard before she turned back to Mark and pointed a finger at him. “If you are fucking with me, I’ll throw your skinny vampire ass off this ship! That would be no way to treat a lady.”

  Mark opened his mouth to reply but immediately had two female fingers pinching his lips closed. Jacqueline had moved next to him. “If you say one sentence that puts ‘lady’ and a disparaging remark together, these incoming pirates will have to take a back seat until after the ass-kicking I will give you!”

  Mark heard the wind shifting around new ships in the air before she did, so he looked to his left and raised his eyebrows. She never let go of his lips as she turned in the darkness. Seconds later, she caught the sound. Her fingers released his lips and a tiny squee of delight flowed through her body in anticipation of fighting some pirates.

  Mark rolled his eyes.

  He reached inside his coat and verified again that all of the knives and the pistol were locked down. “I have the first to land. You take the second.”

  Jacqueline’s head snapped around. “Who died and made you the boss?”

  Mark smiled. “If you want to be included the next time bad guys come to play, you shouldn’t act like a spoiled princess making demands.”

  Jacqueline’s lips pressed together. If there was one thing she had learned about Mark since their first fateful meeting with Michael, it was that he could be annoyingly stubborn. She had tried overwhelming him with nudity.

  That worked against her. Now, he probably could draw her naked from memory and she hadn’t even seen a nice moon.

  Fucking prudish vampires. The hot new body he had developed since receiving Michael’s blood and energy was driving her nuts.

  So she tried to use her intelligence against him.

  Fucking computer-hacking prudish vampires. The bastard was quite literate. Seems his type didn’t go out much and he read all the time.

  Finally, she tried to dominate him like an Alpha.

  Fucking passive-aggressive computer-hacking prudish vampires. He wasn’t dominated, he was just biding his time to assert his “you’re not the boss of me” comments.

  Which, she had to admit, were damned hot.

  She needed to kill some pirates, then take a cold shower.

  ---

  “What the hell was that?” Billy asked, hearing a shriek that didn’t sound like it came from the wind buffeting the ship.

  “Billy,” Sally David called out, “I can’t raise Tim outside.”

  “Stupid fucker is probably sleeping,” Billy responded. “Why he wants nest duty in a storm is beyond me.” He thought about it for a moment. “Tell Amanda and Arnold to go see what’s up. Amanda ‘cause she will do it, and Arnold because she doesn’t weigh more than fifteen pounds.”

  There were snickers around the bridge.

  ---

  Michael switched back to Myst when he heard a door open. He had searched for an opening, but apparently these ships were more airtight than he would have given them credit for.

  Two people came out, a man and a woman. The man was large; the woman, in comparison, was quite small. Michael paused; they had something he wasn’t expecting to find on a pirate ship.

  They cared for each other.

  In his Myst form, Michael pursed his lips, made a decision and stepped through the opening. He rematerialized and grabbed the door, yanking it from the man’s grip and slamming it shut. Locking the door from the inside, he turned around, ignoring the shouts of frustration from outside. He smiled at the first man to come around the corner, who was in shock that someone was on the ship that he didn’t recognize.

  A someone whose eyes were glowing red, and whose right hand was growing knives for nails.

  Michael, fear pushing out to affect those throughout the ship, started down the hall to the first man. The guy’s feet wouldn’t obey as his mind screamed at him to run.

  “You shall be my first tonight.” Michael, his voice emotionless told the man. “Honor needs to be quenched, and the fire is burning bright.”

  Outside on the deck Arnold stopped beating on the door, but he tried again to yank it open when the screaming started. He kept one hand on the handle as a lifeline as t
he other arm reached out to scoop Amanda into his embrace. He could feel her hot tears of anger, and now fear, soaking a portion of his chest.

  He might die tonight, but he would die trying to protect this fragile young woman.

  Antigrav Ship ArchAngel

  “Sir,” Scope Operator Timms called over his shoulder to Captain Miles O’Banion. “Pirate ship is losing distance and changing direction.”

  Miles nodded before calling back, “Understood, Timms.”

  He reclined in the Captain’s Chair and pressed his lips together before blowing out a sigh. He now had to admit half of why he had been afraid of waking Michael himself.

  When he chose to wake him up, Captain Miles O’Banion became guilty of murder. He might not be the one killing all of the men and women on the pirate ship behind them, but he knew what the end result would be.

  “May God have mercy on their souls,” he whispered to himself as he made the sign of the cross over his chest.

  Near the Antigrav Ship ArchAngel

  “If you don’t like me suggesting sexual positions,” Combs retorted to his partner on the trip over to the target ship, “maybe you shouldn’t reply in kind!” He scowled as he piloted their small two-person skiff towards their prize.

  “Perhaps,” Juliana agreed from behind him, “but come on, there are sexual positions, then there are acrobatics, and then there is whatever the fuck you are actually suggesting. That shit isn’t even remotely possible for a woman and there is absolutely no chance there could be any pleasure for her at all.”

  Combs thought about his last suggestion as he concentrated on their approach. The banter was helping him focus on the task at hand and ignore the buffeting winds as he punched the trigger to land on the ship’s deck. A clang sounded as their metal skids connected and then locked tight with magnetics and gravity locks.