Daysider - Susan Krinard

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eleven hours of daylight left, but it was a good thirty miles northeast across the Zone. If the garbled reports were correct, the illegal colony was just west of the old city of Santa Rosa, on the other side of the Sonoma range and at least three miles from the eastern border of the territory claimed by Erebus.

      And the closer they got to Erebus, the more likely they were to run into the Citadel’s own agents, both Nightsiders and the elusive Daysiders… . That is, if they managed to make it past the mutant creatures even the Nightsiders wouldn’t allow near their city.

      Without exchanging another word, Alexia and Michael set off toward Highway 101.

      Damon crouched at the crest of the hill, looking down into the valley below. From this elevation, the abandoned city was a maze of streets and decaying buildings, empty of human life. Rusting automobiles caught the sun’s light—brief, glaring beacons that appeared and vanished in a matter of seconds like the signals of an unknown code.

      But he knew the emptiness was only an illusion. Somewhere, nestled at the foot of these hills, was a society that shouldn’t exist.

      He smiled, though there was no one to see. It wasn’t as if the Council hadn’t known about the colony. They hadn’t shared that fact with their field agents, but those the humans called Daysiders, despised minority that they were, had their own secret channels of communication within Erebus. Certain powerful Bloodmasters had simply failed to acknowledge the “problem”…as long as the humans, other than the serfs in the colony itself, didn’t know about it. After all, it was to Erebus’s benefit if the Opiri gained a strong foothold in the Zone. One step here, another there, testing the waters, seeing just how far they could push.

      But the colony wasn’t a secret any longer. Word had come that the Enclave knew something was up, and at this very moment Aegis operatives were on their way to investigate.

      And that could mean war. A new war the Expansionists would be eager enough to encourage, if the humans would be cooperative enough to instigate it. Some believed the Expansionists had established the colony themselves for that very purpose.

      Even if they hadn’t, Damon had no doubt that the conservatives were secretly giving the settlement their full support, perhaps even providing serfs for the colonists. Not so the ruling Independent. They still controlled the Council, and they had no intention of letting the fragile Armistice be destroyed.

      But they faced a problem that wasn’t likely to be solved without significant conflict. Damon knew the establishment of the illegal colony had been motivated by a very simple instinct shared by both Opiri and humans: the need to survive.

      For Opiri, survival meant not only blood but room to live as their very biology demanded. Erebus was beginning to outgrow itself. Opiri were not meant to dwell in close proximity to each other like humans or rabbits, squeezed into apartments stacked like blocks under a single roof. Though Bloodmasters and many Bloodlords were accorded their own towers to accommodate their many serfs and vassals, there was little room in the Citadel for upward mobility. And Freebloods needed blood as much as any other Opir.

      Sooner or later, the pressure to increase their territory would incite certain Opiri to violence. The only thing to be done was to delay the inevitable until some new bargain could be reached with the human government…or the Expansionists found a way to break the power of the Enclaves forever.

      Damon had no personal stake in the colony’s fate one way or another, and his opinions were of no consequence except where they related directly to his work. He belonged to no Bloodmaster. He served only the Council, and Erebus. Because that was his nature, and his destiny.

      To be forever alone. Neither human nor Opir, too valuable to be discarded like the Lamiae, too different to ever fully integrate into Erebusian society. But vital to the Citadel nevertheless, and free in a way no vassal could ever be.

      Squinting against the lowering sun, Damon started down the slope, his feet deftly finding their way among stones and tough, hardy shrubs scattered like spots over the hillside pelt of summer-gold grass. He would not be approaching the colony; his job was both more dangerous and much simpler.

      He reached the foot of the hill and opened his senses. He smelled nothing but the sharp scent of spice bush and the musk of a fox, heard only the rustle of fleeing mice and the distant cry of a hawk. As long as he traveled by the sun, he was not likely to be detected by the Opir colonists, whose own powerful senses would be muted by their retreat into daytime shelter. As for the human serfs, they might as well be blind and deaf.

      That left only the dhampires. It was not a matter of if they were coming, but when.

      And he would be ready.

       Chapter 2

      The person, whoever or whatever it might be, was coming closer.

      Flashing the hand sign that meant he was about to circle around behind the approaching stranger, Michael left Alexia to watch and wait. It was morning—the third since they’d left the ferry—so Alexia knew the one they were about to meet couldn’t be a Nightsider. Silent as they were, even vampires couldn’t move very quietly bundled up in the kind of protective gear they had to wear in daylight.

      No, this was either human or one of the others. And while the stranger was making no particular attempt to sneak up on them, his “noise” was about as loud as the sound of a feather landing on a down pillow. Humans just didn’t move like that, not even the most highly trained agents.

      The one coming toward them could be only one thing: a Daysider. And whatever he or she intended…

      He, Alexia decided, breathing slowly through her nostrils. Definitely male.

      She checked the VS120 strapped to her pack and adjusted her grip on her assault rifle. He couldn’t be stupid enough to think he could just stride up to an Aegis operative and dispatch her after all but announcing his presence. Not that agent deaths on either side were acknowledged by the respective governments, but that hardly meant they didn’t happen. Enclave agents had been operating in and around the Zone too long not to have a very respectable reputation, even among vampires.

      But if the Daysider wasn’t planning to attack…what was he planning?

      All Alexia’s muscles tensed as the thicket of toyon bushes in front of her rustled, the slightest movement of leathery leaves that might have heralded the passage of a rabbit or some other small animal. She aimed the XM30.

      The man who walked out from behind the bushes was tall, lithe and yet imposing. That was the first thing Alexia noticed as she drew a bead on his chest directly over his heart. Then she looked up into his face, knowing that an enemy’s eyes—even a Daysider’s—would give him away before he made the slightest movement.

      The Daysider looked back at her without a trace of concern. His features were quite extraordinary… . That she had to admit, in spite of the situation. He was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. Not beautiful like a woman, but in the perfect harmony of his features: the strong chin, straight nose, high cheekbones, expressive lips.

      And his eyes. They were dark…not maroon like those of a Nightsider, but the deepest sapphire imaginable. The pupils almost swallowed up the blue. His short hair was not white, like most vampires’, but a hue somewhere between brown and gold, and his skin was richly tanned.

      Alexia swallowed. She had met her first Daysider at last, and he was so much…more than she had expected.

      The Daysider glanced down at the assault rifle. “There is no need for that,” he said mildly.

      His English was unaccented, bearing no hint of the ancient language all Nightsiders, whatever their origins, spoke among themselves. His voice was a pleasant baritone.

      Alexia’s finger hovered over the trigger. “Put your hands up,” she commanded.

      He did so, slowly and without alarm. “I am not here to hurt you,” he said.

      She scanned him again the way she should have done

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