Darkest Before The Dawn (The Second Dark Ages Book 3) Read online

  Raiden had turned around, his hands now resting on the back of his head, fingers interlocked. “So this means…”

  Kuro translated. “If it is her, it means the rumors of the ArchAngel are correct. And that means they’re going to start assembling the ship. Which,” he said, his smugness elevating by the second, “also means we don’t necessarily have to solve these problems ourselves. We can simply wait until they solve the puzzles with their advanced resources and then let them lead us straight to the pieces.”

  “Finally!” Raiden exclaimed in relief, dropping his hands from his head and sitting back down again.

  Kuro turned back to look out of the window again, contemplating their next move. “Well, if this is true, it’s only a matter of time before she returns to Kashikoi’s little faction. In which case—”

  “In which case we’re perfectly ready,” Orochi agreed, a knowing smile spreading over his lips.

  Kuro faced the room. “And this time we just need to hope that she doesn’t catch on to what we’re planning. We don’t want a repeat of last time.”

  Orochi bowed his head. “At least we managed to avoid them thinking there was anything untoward going on.”

  Kuro frowned in annoyance and turned his body slightly, keeping his face hidden from Orochi. “Yes, but we missed our opportunity,” he reminded him. “We don’t know how many opportunities we have left in this lifetime.”

  Orochi still sounded overly confident for Kuro’s liking. “But with our forces now combined, we will defeat her,” Orochi insisted. “And her little friend.”

  Kuro sighed, trying not to get too annoyed by Orochi’s attitude. “I agree,” he conceded. “Plus, she doesn’t have the temperament for winning,” he mused out loud.

  Raiden injected himself into the conversation from across the room. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” he called from his computer terminal. “I heard rumors on the message boards that she’s been quite different since the ArchAngel is back in play.”

  Kuro turned to face him. “I thought that was just a sensationalized rumor to shake things up a bit.” He frowned quizzically. “Could he really be back from the dead?”

  Raiden shrugged. “My contacts in America seem to think so. One reported getting up close and personal, and living to tell the tale.”

  Kuro’s frown deepened. “Where is he, then?”

  Raiden checked his handheld. “Last reported sighting was in London, I understand,” he reported, shrugging. “That’s all I have.”

  Orochi uncrossed his legs and sat forward, his papers forgotten on the sofa next to him. “He’s in London, and his Diplomat is out here? Makes you wonder what is important enough to pull him away from finding the ship.”

  “Yes,” Kuro mused, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “It appears there may be something we’re missing.”

  He paused thoughtfully, his eyes glazing over for a moment. “But no matter,” he said, his chirpy confidence returning. “As long as he is out of the way, we have an increased chance of tackling this one.” He turned to Orochi. “Even so,” Kuro added instructionally, “best not to underestimate her. Or her little friend.”

  Frankfurt, Germany

  “That,” Michael said as he pointed to a building with three gabled roofs, “is the Römer. I helped lay a few of the bricks when I was passing through after it was sold to the city. Just some minor work, when it became the city hall.”

  Akio nodded. The two of them were walking through a spacious open square with a large statue in the middle. “Over there was the old Saint Nicholas Church.” He looked closer. “Not sure what they have done with it now.”

  The two men continued through the square, heading toward another unique place. This time it was supposed to be a nice bar and restaurant. Overhead, the antigrav cars slid through the night. Their engines produced an annoying whine that Akio wasn’t terribly pleased with.

  Three blocks later they found the sign, which had a small moon in the lower left-hand corner. Michael grimaced. “Not terribly subtle, are they?” he asked as he pulled open the door and waved Akio through. “You get the first shot, remember?”

  “Hai.” Akio nodded and entered, his hesitancy at showing Michael too little honor becoming less of a problem.

  The number of people in the restaurant was surprising. At least fifteen tables occupied the middle of the large open floor, and twenty secluded booths ran along the side and back walls. On the right was a long bar with another five patrons chatting about half-way down.

  Maybe two tables were empty.

  “Can I help you gentleman?” the hostess, a blond woman, asked. Her hair was pulled into a bun on the back of her head.

  “Please,” Michael answered. “We would like to speak with Fraulein Hilga Overstead if we could?”

  The hostess pursed her lips. “If you will take a seat and order, I will have someone inform the fraulein you are requesting an audience.”

  “Certainly,” Michael waved his hand toward the tables. “If you would seat us?”

  The two men followed the woman to a booth and slid in. She placed a menu in front of each of them. “What would you like to drink?”

  Akio turned to her. “Do you serve blood?”

  The lady smiled at the joke, but then lost her calm when she saw Akio’s two fangs slide a little way out of his mouth.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Pity,” he answered.

  “I’ll have a steak.” Michael handed the menu back. “Rare, of course.”

  “I’ll have the same.” Akio passed his menu to the hostess. “Don’t bother cooking it.”

  When the lady had disappeared into the back, Michael raised an eyebrow. “’Don’t bother cooking it?’”

  Akio leaned forward. “Are we expecting to eat here, then?”

  Michael looked around, trying to scan through the minds and see if he could locate the lady they were looking for, but then grimaced. “I suppose not.”

  Akio leaned back. “I was trying to be more theatrical.” He tried his smile again.

  “Keep working on that,” Michael told him. “I think the muscles in your face are having to regenerate after all these centuries.”

  “Hai,” Akio agreed, then his eyes flitted toward the front of the restaurant behind Michael.

  “Trouble?” Michael asked.

  “Only if a red-haired lady in a drop-dead-sexy black velvet dress is a problem.” Akio paused. “Accompanied by two guys holding semi-automatic weapons trained on us.”

  “I guess your version of intimidation went a bit far?”

  Akio shrugged. “They didn’t shoot us out of hand.”

  “That,” the redhead interjected, her tone severe, “is still open for negotiation. If either of you so much as flinch, either Edgar or Chris will fill you full of holes as quickly as the guns can shoot. Since they fire at eleven hundred rounds a minute, that is a lot.”

  “We came here to speak with you, not to kill you,” Michael replied, as he noticed Akio wincing.

  “We would like some answers related to—” Akio was shut down by the lady.

  “I do not care what your questions are,” she turned to Michael, “and I don’t kill easily.”

  Akio wanted to roll his eyes. This lady was going to make the project difficult. Michael had probably already pulled the information he wanted from her brain.

  “Well,” Michael temporized, moving his hands together on top of the table and clasping them, “I can tell you that you do it poorly.” Both men pointed their weapons at him.

  The lady’s eyes flashed yellow a moment before she calmed down. “Do what poorly, exactly?”

  “Not get killed easily, of course,” Michael explained. “If I had wanted you dead, I would have just killed you earlier.”

  The man on her right, the one next to Akio, spoke up. “If it wasn’t going to hurt business, I’d just end you now.”

  Michael turned to him and smiled. “Try.”

  “
Kichigai.” Akio sighed when Michael disappeared, the bullets from the two submachine guns tore up the booth where he had been sitting.

  Michael appeared behind the men and lashed out, punching them both in the back of their skulls.

  They dropped like rocks. “I don’t think they were Weres, Michael,” Akio commented as the Archangel grabbed the lady by the neck. His nails grew, stabbing her skin and puncturing it. “If you change, I will kill you,” he whispered.

  Akio had his pistol out and pointed at someone behind Michael. “You will pull your hand out…” The silent rounds from his Jean Dukes pistol caused massive carnage behind Michael, which he couldn’t see. The man started screaming in pain, and Akio finished his instructions. “The idea was to pull your hand back out without a pistol. Now you get to heal your shoulders, and for good measure, your kneecap. Pray that I don’t hear about any plans to shoot us another time.”

  Michael pushed the woman forward. She used her Were reflexes to twist into the seat, turning to stare at Michael as her neck healed. “If you say another word I find distasteful,” Michael told her calmly, “or use a tone I don’t like, I will cause more pain. Eventually, I will just kill you.”

  “Who are you? Are you from the Duke?” she hissed.

  “God, no.” Michael motioned to her and she moved back, allowing him to slide in.

  She glanced at Akio, who still had the pistol out and pointing at the others in the room, then back at Michael. “May I issue orders?”

  He nodded. “Be my guest.” He waited patiently for her to calmly command the others to get someone to help everyone that was hurt and clean up the carnage.

  She turned back to Michael. “The Duke is going to come back to Frankfurt, and he is not going to be happy with anyone horning in on his territory.”

  “Color me unconcerned,” Michael answered. When he noticed she looked puzzled, he tried again. “I do not care.”

  At that moment Michael saw the door to the kitchen open. Two waiters came out and headed in their direction. He withheld a smirk as they approached. Akio glanced at the men as they came into his view.

  They set Michael’s rare steak in front of him, then a completely raw steak on the table for Akio, who made a face.

  “What?” Michael asked, amused. “Too rare?”

  “I had expected,” Akio answered, staying aware of those around them, “that we would have already killed everyone and the steak would be superfluous. Now, I have meat and no desire to…”

  Michael pulled up the sleeve of his shirt, then reached across the table and placed his hand above the steak. Soon Akio could feel heat coming at him in waves, and his steak started to brown. “You might want to turn that over,” Michael told him.

  Michael pulled his hand back, and Akio reached over to turn his steak. Then Michael returned his hand to over the plate and finished browning the top. “All better?” He smirked.

  Akio grabbed his jacket and slid his pistol back into its holster. “I think it might be fine, Dark Messiah.”

  The woman in the booth gasped.

  Michael turned back to her and smiled maliciously, his eyes glowing red as her head slowly turned back and forth. Her mouth was silently saying, “No no no no” over and over again.

  “Did you see a ghost?” Michael asked her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The two men left the restaurant and turned right, and the building itself seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. They headed down a dark alley.

  Both stayed quiet, their mouths set. The last few days had been a bit of an enjoyable time as they had worked to find one asshole, but now both were blaming themselves for something they hadn’t known.

  Seconds later they had both disappeared into the Myst, streaking across town to a hotel whose name and location the woman had shared with the two of them.

  Quite willingly, once she understood who he was.

  Even Michael had been surprised to find out that rumors of him had crossed the Pond and made it here to Frankfurt. He assumed they were from the ship’s captain, but he wasn’t sure just yet.

  Either way, while they had been puttering around looking for the Duke, there had been someone who needed them.

  —

  The woman kept pulling the little boy, who had almost given up as she dragged him along.

  “You aren’t my momma!” Little Michael tried once again to yank his arm back from the lady, but she was stronger than his own mom was, or at least had been.

  She stopped and bent down, flashing her eyes at the little kid. “Listen, you little brat. I may not be your momma, but I’m the only one you need to worry about. Those people in the hotel were going to throw you out with all your stuff since your Mom never showed up. You have nothing.”

  Little Michael noticed her face seemed to twist, her eyes flashing in the night. He wanted to obey her, but…

  But…

  She wasn’t his mom!

  She let go of Michael’s arm and reached up to fix her jacket, still staring down at the kid. “I paid off the hotel, explained I was your aunt and that your Mom was down with a strange form of madness. If you shut your mouth, you will at least have table scraps, you miserable little PITA.” She huffed. “If my last little slave hadn’t died I wouldn’t need you, so be grateful he mouthed off one too many times.”

  She leaned over, putting her eyes just inches from little Michael’s. “Don’t make me eat you too.”

  The little boy stared at her in fear, believing every word the woman told him. She oozed something that made him want to curl up in a little ball and cry, not allowing himself to look up so that hopefully she was gone when the sun came back up.

  His mom had told him to run back to their hotel weeks ago, and had never shown back up. Now he was with some woman claiming she was his aunt.

  His eyes narrowed at her. His mom hadn’t feared the horrible man in the alley the night she disappeared. And if this lady ate him, he hoped she choked on one of his bones.

  Her cry of surprise when he lashed out and kicked her was satisfying, and he turned to run. He made it two feet before something slammed the back of his head and he went flying.

  Little Michael hit the ground, skinning his knees as his hands reached out to stop his head from bouncing off the concrete.

  The lady hissed, “Little bastard, you will learn or die. I really don’t care which.” Her voice dripped with anger. “And you will learn no one kicks Analine without penalty.”

  “Oh, I think there is one who can.” The voice of the male who spoke from behind her was dark, malevolent, and deadly.

  Analine whipped around to find a man in a dark coat just two feet away. His vampiric eyes flashed red and his face was contorted in absolute hatred.

  Behind her, another man was picking up the young boy. “Don’t look,” he told him. “She isn’t going to hurt you anymore.”

  Blood dripped out of Analine’s mouth; her shock was wearing off and she looked down. The first man’s hand, its fingernails looking like daggers, had opened her chest and grabbed her heart. “I don’t think this was working anyway,” he told her before his hand crushed the heart. His hand continued upward, cutting through her rib cage and slashing through her head from chin to brow. Her eyes lost focus as her body dropped to the concrete.

  Michael made the sign of the cross over the dead Were. “Go to hell,” he told the woman as he stepped across her dead body. “Call the Pod, Akio. We are going back to Paris.”

  Akio subvocalized his request to Eve and turned to follow Michael to a twelve-story building across the street.

  “We will go to the roof,” Michael told him, his paces resolute. “We will walk, so we don’t scare the boy.”

  “Hai,” Akio agreed.

  Minutes later the three came out of the door that exited onto the roof. Little Michael held Akio’s hand and stared in wonder as a black ship descended from the night sky. “Who are you?” he asked, looking from the ship to the men and back.

  “Some call him
,” the bald man said, pointing at Akio, “the Shadow.” He pointed to himself. “My name is Michael. I’ve been called ‘the Archangel’ in ages past, and now?” He smiled. “Now I am the Dark Messiah.”

  Akio jumped into the front seat. Michael reached under little Michael’s arms and picked him up, placing him in Akio’s lap. “You will have to ride up here until we get back to Paris and find your people.”

  “Paris?” little Michael whispered, choking back a sob.

  “We cannot do anything for your mother,” Michael admitted. “She is gone. But boys need to be with their family so they can grow up into the men they were meant to be. We will take you back to your people, your tribe.”

  The sleek black craft rose into the sky, then turned and headed toward what was left of the great city of Paris.

  Nagoya, Japan

  Jacqueline squeezed her lower legs around her horse’s barrel to go faster. Mark was just behind her, but hell if she was going to give him the satisfaction of getting ahead of her. She knew that if he did, he would be on top of that ball and returning it to the other end of the field in an instant.

  And that would make the score a tie.

  And that just would not do.

  She had also realized in the last twenty minutes of playing polo—despite the simulated nature of the game—that he had an agility and balance that matched her own.

  And he had spent far less time training tirelessly with Michael.

  Not that she resented it. In fact, she found it kind of hot that he could hold his own. But she couldn’t let him win this point.

  She squeezed harder, and her horse’s gait changed. She felt it suddenly go bumpy, like something uncontrolled was happening. She looked back over her shoulder just in time to see Mark come up beside her in only two strides and then overtake her. As he did, her horse swerved into him and then away, kicking as it went as if also resenting the other horse overtaking it.