The Dark War: The Dark War, Book 1 Read online

  I wasn’t totally cool with waltzing back into a house where I’d almost lost my life. But Wyatt was right—there was something very strange going on in there and I was just as curious as he was. “There’s no way I’m staying in the truck.”

  I leaned forward and grabbed my weapons’ cache, sheathing my knives and shoving a wooden stake under the waist of my jeans.

  Wyatt clenched his jaw and looked at me, but I didn’t wait for permission. I was out of the truck before he could utter another word and halfway to the front of the house before he caught up to me.

  With a firm hand on my arm, he halted my movement and spun me around, nailing me with eyes full of something close to panic. “I don’t want you going in there, Kali,” he growled. “I have a bad, a really bad feeling about this. You need to trust me. I can’t say exactly what it is but it’s not good.” He released my arm, his stare softening a little. “Please. Just stay out here. I’ll go in and check it out first, make sure I’m wrong about this feeling I’m getting and then you can come in, okay?”

  “You going psychic on me?” I teased. There was something in his voice that warned me not to push him on this one. Besides, I could easily placate him with a yes, wait until he disappeared, then follow him in. “Fine.” I nodded.

  He let out an explosive sigh. “Okay. Good.” He motioned toward the truck. “Why don’t you try to pick up your witch’s trail? I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come in.”

  I nodded again and shifted my eyes away, pretending to focus on picking up the trail, not trusting myself to actually speak or look at him. He’d know I was lying if he bothered to assess me for a moment. It was odd that he was falling for it, to be honest.

  “Okay, I’m going to go in through the back and check out the entire house so don’t panic if I take a little longer. I want to be thorough. Wait for me to call you in.”

  I cocked my head to the side, nodded, then watched Wyatt lope around the side of the house and disappear.

  And I’ll go in the front.

  I spun, headed toward the huge busted out window when a magic signature snagged my attention. I paused and muttered a quick detection spell, casting my net out to catch whatever it was I sensed. What jolted back to me was surprising. Surprising and a cause for concern. It was my bounty’s signature. Strong and fresh. She’d been back to the den recently. So recently that I immediately took cover, couching low and scurrying toward the side of the house.

  I scanned the area around the neighborhood, searching with good old vision for any telling signs that I was being watched. At the same time, I doubled my detection spell, casting it out wider, tracking the path that the magic had taken. This time it was like a colorful rope, a magical aura that showed me exactly where the witch had been and it was mingled with another signature—one I’d encountered before. Did she have a partner? Could Wyatt have been right about that? It would explain all of the extra damage to the property. But they were gone now and I breathed out a deep sigh of relief.

  My curiosity piqued as I followed the trail into the house, so caught up in the magic that I actually completely forgot Wyatt’s warning to stay outside. Not that I was planning on listening anyway, but in my defense, it was the furthest thing from my mind when I carefully climbed over the shattered window, my boots crunching on the glass that lay scattered on the living room floor.

  It was only the thick smell of blood that cut through the haze of my tracking spell, pulling me from my magic long enough to second-guess my actions. I paused in the center of the room, fear prickling over me as I realized what had happened the last time I had been there.

  I must be a crazy idiot to tempt fate again.

  I turned my head to the left, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkened room. Although it was bright and sunny outside, little of the light actually made it far into the house. A chill of foreboding washed over me as I moved toward the kitchen, the tangy, metallic smell of blood growing stronger.

  “Wyatt.” My voice was a hoarse whisper, but I dared not make a louder sound. I didn’t need psychic senses to pick up on what Wyatt had been referring to when he said there was something wrong. I could feel it like a cold hand of ice gripping my gut. There was something truly fucked up going on.

  I stepped into the kitchen. The smell of blood wafted from all directions, becoming totally overwhelming. Bile rose to my throat and I fought the urge to vomit. I reached over to the side of the doorway, my fingers searching and then finding a light. I flicked it on and my urge to purge doubled.

  There was a massive amount of blood pooled at the base of one of the kitchen chairs, almost as if someone had bleed out there. I didn’t need to inspect it closely to see that it wasn’t fresh—not totally, anyway—the outer edges had begun to dry and harden while the center had congealed and looked like a sickening sort of jelly. I shifted my eyes away, scanning around the kitchen. Nobody was in the room. There was, however, a length of rope coiled in one corner.

  “What the hell is going on here?” I whispered, then wished I hadn’t. The smell of blood suddenly became a taste in my mouth and I whirled around, leaving the kitchen behind to suck in deep lungfuls of outside air.

  A noise touched my ears—nothing loud, just a soft bump. I scanned for the source and found a door at the far end of the room. A door I hadn’t noticed the last time I was in the house. And now it stood wide open. Wyatt. Unexplainable dread filled me and I beelined to the door, peering into complete darkness.

  Oh shit.

  There was another thud this time followed by a low moan.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I took a step back, assessing my options. Wyatt had said he was going to check out the whole house. He must have discovered the basement in his search. He had to be down there and there was something wrong, I could feel it. My gut told me to barrel down the stairs, lashing out with power burst after power burst, but that would be unwise. In my panic, my spells could backfire or worse go all helter-skelter. I could seriously hurt Wyatt and I didn’t really want to do that.

  Whatever was down there was not a witch—that much I knew for sure. But if Wyatt was in trouble, then whatever was down there had to be something super villainous.

  Like a fucking vampire. Shit. But why would a vampire waste a pool of blood?

  It seemed counterintuitive for one’s survival to leave perfectly good sustenance to congeal on the floor.

  I sucked in a deep breath, gathering my courage along with my powers. Waves of panic cascaded over me and I recognized the lingering trauma of having come face to face with pissed off vamps before. I reached up to stroke my scarred neck, my fingers gliding over the wound as if it would help me think clearly.

  Something was wrong. Wyatt was in trouble. I couldn’t abandon him. I had no choice. I would have to go down there. I gulped back the lump that had formed in my throat and cast a faint light spell, enough to see by but not enough to hurt anyone.

  I pooled another burst of energy into my other hand—a simple but effective spell—opting for magic instead of my other weapons. Even if this spell misfired it wouldn’t kill anyone and I could get to my blades or my stake fast if I needed to.

  I moved cautiously down the stairwell, my back pressed against the wall as I descended. My light cast enough of a glow to show me three doors at the bottom. Penthouse suites for Strix, of course. Sun wary vampires would pay top dollar for underground rooms. I hadn’t thought of it before but it explained where my witch had been hiding when I’d come before.

  Once I reached the bottom of the stairs, I moved to the first door, pressed my ear against it and tested the doorknob. It opened easily and I reached inside the doorframe to flick on the light. No Wyatt. I moved to the second door. Same procedure, same result.

  I pressed my ear against the third door and heard muffled movements passing in front of me. Definitely someone in there.

  I gripped the do
orknob and sucked in a deep breath, dousing my light in favor of another power blast. I hissed my breath out then eased open the door.

  The room was pitch black and I panicked. With a burst of power, I illuminated the room, my spike of emotion sending tendrils of light to flood all corners in a blazing blast.

  Shouts of pain erupted from the corner—Wyatt and someone else. My spell was so bright it was too much for me as well. I regained control and toned it down, allowing my eyes to adjust, letting the magic pulse outward until my eyesight corrected itself.

  And what I saw sent my panic rising again.

  “Stop the magic, witch, or I’ll kill him right now.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Wyatt, trapped between the forearm and bulging biceps of an angry vampire, was struggling against his captor, despite the fact that I could see it was useless. The vampire had him beat. His body was bent over almost double and he held a stake I hadn’t known he’d been carrying, useless against his crazed attacker who was doing little to maintain control. He just gave another squeeze and Wyatt stopped.

  “I said cut the magic.” The vampire growled while shuffling a step toward me.

  Wyatt grunted as he tried to fight once again. I could see the panic in his eyes, feel his helplessness in his struggling. He raised the stake awkwardly, trying desperately to break free. His entire face got red and his eyes bulged. The vampire laughed and snagged Wyatt’s wrist in his free hand, then snapped the bone. Wyatt’s eyes widened. He let out a strangled cry, the stake falling useless to the ground.

  The vampire turned his cruel smile to me, his face distorted, looking like the monster he was. His glare told me to obey or there’d be more broken bones.

  I doused the light, but I didn’t dispense the power surge I had built up in my hand. What he couldn’t see wouldn’t be cause for alarm, at least at the moment anyway. Casting all of us in complete darkness sent another wave of dizzying panic through me and my magic wavered.

  Not good.

  I had no doubt that the vampire could see me clearly. I felt like an animal caught in the crosshairs of a night vision scope. The aim was set, now I just had to wait for the attack. What the hell were we going to do?

  The sound of movement shuffled toward me again and this time I took a step back as well, my fingers itching to lash out with a spell but my mind reeling it in. No, I didn’t want to hurt Wyatt. My emotions were way too unstable to release the spell or trust my aim.

  With another round of grunting, masculine groans, feet shuffling, I knew Wyatt was making an attempt to gain freedom. Why didn’t he use a spell? He was a powerful witch. He could get out of that hold with a burst of magic.

  I slid my back along the wall until I felt the edge of the door, still propped open as I’d left it. For the briefest of moments, I thought about running. I wouldn’t have done it of course, but my instincts screamed for me to get out of there. There’d be no point in running unless I was willing to sacrifice Wyatt to the vamp. It wasn’t like I could go out and come back with help. There was no one. Only Wyatt and me. As much as I hated the guy, I couldn’t condemn him to death.

  Renewed determination washed over me, squashing the fear again. I slid my back over the open doorway, my body chilled from the cool air of the hallway. I moved quietly past it. I slid my hand up, guessing where a light switch would be and found it within seconds. Pausing for a moment, I listened as the sounds of a struggle continued, not knowing if Wyatt was gaining any ground.

  I sucked in a breath, waited for a second longer, then flicked the switch. The light did the same thing that my spell had done, only I hadn’t broken any rules. No magic. Fine, I didn’t need it right now. Good old electricity would do the trick.

  My eyesight faltered as I fought against the sudden onslaught of brightness. At the same moment I felt the air around me shift, heard a thump and then felt arms come crashing around me, sending me stumbling to the side.

  Fear coursed through me but I pooled my power once again, intent on blasting the vampire away. When my eyesight cleared I realized that it wasn’t the vampire holding me—it was Wyatt and he was yanking me toward the door.

  “Kali, you need to get the hell out of here,” he growled into my ear as he continued to shove me toward the exit.

  I braced myself for an attack, shifting my eyes past Wyatt to where the vampire was. I stopped struggling. “Wyatt.”

  When he didn’t stop pushing, I thumped him hard on the shoulder, then captured his chin in my hand and forced his head to turn. “Wyatt!”

  He frowned down at me but allowed his head to shift so that he could see over his shoulder, and then he stopped moving too, released his hold and turned fully to face his attacker.

  It was the old man, the unturned Dhampir who I’d spoken to days before, except now he looked different, paler, sicker, covered in blood and slumped on the floor, his shoulders shaking as he glared straight down. I scanned the room, taking in everything that I hadn’t noticed before.

  My gaze halted at the unmoving body of a young girl lying on the bed. Her eyes were closed and her arm hung limply off the side. Wyatt went straight for her. He must have known she was there the whole time. He knelt by her side and checked her pulse. When he looked up at me I could see the truth, the girl was dead and there was nothing we could do. Another victim. But who was to blame this time?

  “You’re too late,” the old man said, all fight now seemingly gone.

  Wyatt straightened and moved away from the body. He yanked another knife from his belt with his good hand, his broken wrist he held against his stomach, cradling it there. “What happened here?” He circled back to me, his eyes never leaving the vampire, waiting for another attack.

  “I was Dhampir, a human. Now I’m one of them.” His tone was mournful.

  “What the hell happened here?” I whispered, puzzle pieces shifting slowly together.

  “Did you turn recently?” Wyatt returned to where I was. He tried to push me behind him, but with only one hand to jostle me I quickly out maneuvered his attempt and side stepped. He shot me a deadly glare, which I ignored.

  “I was forced to turn.” The vampire banged the back of his head against the wall. “That bitch came here and forced me to turn.”

  Wyatt frowned as he glanced toward me. Forced? He mouthed. “Who turned you?”

  “I didn’t want to be a vampire. Never wanted this. To have to kill anyone for my survival…” His words were punctuated by a muffled sob. “But that crazy vampire came back here and bled me out.”

  I grimaced. That would explain the blood and the rope upstairs. I’d heard that that was a horrible way to turn a Dhampir. To bleed out was equivalent to starving to death. Slow, painful and lucid the whole time.

  As if reading my thoughts, Wyatt nodded then shifted his eyes toward the vampire. “You killed the girl.”

  The vampire snorted. “First a witch hunter comes.” He lifted his head and stabbed me with an angry scowl.

  Wyatt and I both tensed, awaiting the attack that never came. The old man just lowered his eyes and continued.

  “And then I call that bitch and tell her, well I told her to get her ass back and help me clean up the mess. Pay for the damages. After all, it was her fault that the witch hunter was here in the first place.”

  Wait…what? I frowned, unsure of what the hell the old guy was talking about.

  “Well, she came back all right. She came back and she tied me up and she slit my throat. And then she said…” He broke down again, his sobs wild, shuddering through his body.

  Wyatt nodded in the direction of the vampire then mouthed for me to stay put. For the moment I agreed, I could nail the vampire with a spell just as easily from the door as I could from any other place in the room, especially now that my heart had stopped racing wildly and my emotions were under some semblance of control. Wyatt began to move again, slowly s
liding along the perimeter of the room, easing toward the vampire.

  “And then she said, ‘your dinner is waiting for you downstairs, old man’. I was so crazed, so hungry.” He lowered his head into his hands, his voice muffled but clear. “Yes, I fed from the girl, and I drained her, took every ounce of blood that she had to give. But it wasn’t enough.”

  With a blindingly fast jump, faster than my eyes could really register, the vampire was up and hovering over Wyatt who had crouched low, almost as if he’d expected the attack.

  The old man glared down at him, his lips curled back to show his fangs. “And yes, young man, I do thirst terribly.”

  My heart pounded. I watched Wyatt roll backward, trying and failing to jab his stake into the vampire’s chest. His one arm disadvantage was costing him. He lost his balance and the weapon went flying. The vampire snagged Wyatt’s injured wrist and wrenched it up. I winced along with Wyatt’s yelp as the vamp twisted Wyatt’s arm over his head and then jammed his fangs in, tearing the flesh from wrist to elbow in his frenzy to get blood.

  I raced forward, pulling the stake from my belt and pooled a powerful punch of magic into it, hoping—praying—my magic would hold true. I tried to cloak myself in an invisibility spell but felt the magic jumping, like an erratic pulse, flickering with every beat of my heart. I slowed things down and forced myself to concentrate, pushing more power into the invisibility spell, trying desperately to strengthen and steady it as I eased around the back of the vamp. I hoped his distraction with Wyatt’s arm would buy me enough time. By the sound of the slurping and sucking, I thought for sure I was in the clear.

  Wyatt’s eyes were wide with pain. He searched for me, wondering, I was sure, if I’d managed to slip out in all of the bustle. The vampire growled when I moved behind him, pausing in his drinking to look up and over his shoulder. I shivered, his eyes landed directly on mine. It startled me enough for my spell to waver again. He shouldn’t have been able to see me.