Nightfall (Nightfall Book 1)

James wasn’t sure what to think about this whole situation. The fact that they were now trapped in some weirdo dimension wasn’t really leaving him nice and calm. Not to mention the whole tense atmosphere caused by what had happened not long ago. It really begged the question of how many vamps in Aegis were actually against them, but even though he could tell practically everyone was shocked by this development, there were clearly a few people here who shared James’ own opinion about this.

He wasn’t at all surprised something had happened—with how Aegis treated vampires, it was no wonder a lot of them were angry and resentful. Hell, James was angry and resentful, and the only thing stopping him from using this situation to get out once the portal was reopened was some sense of guilt and self-loathing. And Arkie, because the guy wasn’t going to leave just because James wanted to. Him not wanting to leave would not that big of a deal if that was the only reason James was staying, but it helped James stay focused. Or so he told himself.

Which meant wondering just what the hell Black wanted him for right now. Every time they talked, it was weird. Black liked to act all wise and sage and mysterious, and it was really annoying. Black hadn’t really been acting like that during the current crisis, but who knew if that would last.

James sighed as he continued following Denise to wherever they were actually going. He hoped Arkie was alright with those magic nerds. He wondered what they wanted from him, but whatever it was, he was sure he was feeling unreasonably annoyed over it. He just felt very protective of the little guy, he couldn’t help that.

He suddenly realized that they were actually going back to that lecture hall, or whatever that room was called, and just before reaching it they took a turn to the right, walking down a crowded hallway that led to a door that actually had Black’s name on it. James probably shouldn’t be surprised the guy had an office here, but he was anyway.

“I guess I’ll wait here. Or something,” Denise said, shrugging. She looked really distracted, though James understood that. She’d had trouble accepting that that Samantha person had betrayed them, let alone this. And she seemed to have a much more positive view of Aegis also. James would assume this was just the naivete of youth, but it was probably just him being too cynical and bitter to have an optimistic outlook.

Sighing again, he raised his hand to knock on the door, pausing briefly at the distant screech of bending metal. He frowned, looking back at all the people in the hallway, who looked similarly confused. Denise, who was at the end of the corridor, locked eyes with him, giving him a meaningful look and jerked her head to the side before disappearing behind the corner. James assumed this meant she would go investigate, but he certainly hoped this was nothing. They didn’t need another crisis on their hands.

He turned to the door, finally knocking on it. He didn’t wait to be invited in, immediately grabbing the door knob and turning it. To his surprise Black wasn’t the only person inside the…was this the exact copy of Black’s office on Earth? It sure looked like it, including the damned, huge cactus on the shelf in the corner that seemed to be constantly in bloom.

But James’ attention was completely taken up by the redheaded man and the brunette woman who were with Black already. And to think his mood couldn’t worsen.

They both gave him similar looks of contempt, which James was grateful for because he hadn’t even noticed he was already glaring at them. Adam and Evelyn had never been exactly the biggest annoyance James had had to put up with during his long life, but they were certainly memorable, if only for their insistence to constantly show off their love for each other and their several attempts to kill him. And his own attempts to kill them. Ugh. James was frankly shocked to see them here, as he’d had no idea what actually became of them—he’d thought they were dead, actually.

With the way they were standing next to each other with barely any space between them strongly suggested that a bloodless diet didn’t change anything about their relationship, which was a bit of a bummer. At least they were stuck in the same miserable situation as him—that did make him feel a bit better.

“Funny seeing you here,” James told them, seeing Black rub his temples out of the corner of his eye. “I would have thought you’d be with the people who got us into this mess.”

Adam glared at him with so much irritation that it was almost impressive. Meanwhile Evelyn gave him a sarcastic smile and tilted her head to the side, making her curly hair bounce around. “Funny as ever, Adley. I could say the same to you. Though I guess it makes sense with all those rumors floating around.”

James blinked, feeling taken aback. He hadn’t seen that coming at all. “What rumors?”

Black cleared his throat, drawing all of their attention to him. “If you would kindly avoid stupid arguments.”

Damn, since when was Black so snarky? He was probably pretty damn stressed out about this situation, but still—this was…new.

“I called all of you here to ask a question,” Black began. It was only then James noticed the guy had a bruise on the side of his face. And he seemed to always very subtly wince whenever he moved his right shoulder. “Did the…insurgents attempt to capture you instead of killing you?”

James frowned. That was really weirdly specific. And he hadn’t even given it any thought. He’d really only focused on the part where those bastards tried to drink Arkie dry to think about anything else. “Yeah, that was weird. For sure.”

He could see Evelyn roll her eyes at him in a very exaggerated way, but he gracefully decided to ignore that. Adam, ever being the stoic, serious one decided to answer for the both of them. “Yes. They never stood a chance against us.”

Now it was James’ turn to roll his eyes when he saw the small smile Adam was now giving Evelyn. They were both at least a hundred years old—way too old to act like love-struck idiots.

“Just as I feared.”

James sighed. Why did Black always have to be so dramatic about everything? It was ridiculous. “And that means?” He frowned, folding his arms as he thought to question this all. “How did you even know about this?”

“Because the same thing happened to me.” Black sighed, his shoulders sagging. Now that James had some time to study him, he also noticed that his suit was sort of ripped up and crumpled. That was actually almost alarming to notice with how prim and proper Black usually loved to look.

“Yeah, okay, but how did you know to call us specifically?” Despite his question, James was already starting to suspect he knew the answer to that. There was nothing they all had in common, aside from maybe being originally British, though he wasn’t so sure about Evelyn. Nothing in common at all, except….

“We are the only vampires here who are over a hundred years old.”

Right, of course they were. Did Aegis really have so few older vampires working for it, or did they just happen to not be present? It was frankly annoying how much information they tended to hide, so now James had no way of knowing. But he supposed it might have been for the best—vampires tended to hold grudges. He would know.

“You think they want our blood,” Adam said, his voice grim. And for once James couldn’t even try to pick a pointless fight with him. That really was the only logical assumption here, wasn’t it? Unless the angels were interested in collecting old vampires for no reason.

That must have been why they’d wanted Nathan to join then, too, wasn’t it? He was clearly not at all invested in whatever the bigger plot was. James swallowed thickly at the thought of him. He really wondered what had happened to Nathan after they’d rescued Denise. But if the angels really wanted the blood of old vampires, Nathan was probably strung up somewhere with a damned IV drip in his arm, much like how they’d found Arkie back in that warehouse.

James sighed. He kind of hated that he still cared so much about what happened Nathan, especially since this was all his own doing.

“It would make sense,” Black replied, nodding slowly, as if too exhausted to do it otherwise. “Three of the vampires working for Aegis who had gone missing were relatively old as well. I just never thought to consider that a connecting factor.”

“So, you think these angels are trying to create strong vamps?”

That was all their blood would be good for, wasn’t it? James wasn’t an expert—the only one he’d ever turned into a vampire being Nathan—but he did know that the older the vampire, the stronger the vampire they turned.

He had no idea why this was, now that he thought about it, but older vampires tended to be stronger in general, so it made sense on that front at least. This was also why Aegis made sure to either rehabilitate older vamps or kill them before they became too much of a problem, hence why there weren’t that many kicking around.

“Possibly.”

Well, that was just great, wasn’t it? He’d thought that the only one in danger of getting nabbed was Arkie, but it seemed that wasn’t true.

“I can’t say anything for certain,” Black continued. “But I do know what our warlocks have told me concerning the subject, and they can’t think of much else the angels could need us for.”

That almost sounded like an insult. But either way, this wasn’t good. They would all just have to try to not get captured extra hard, he supposed. That was really unhelpful in this situation, especially since they couldn’t just sit this out and let it figure itself out. This was just getting better and better.

James kind of wanted to point out what exactly had happened to put them into this mess of a situation, too. He knew it would just turn into a fight, but he really wanted to. But before he could even really play with the idea of actually doing it, the squeal of bending metal was back, screeching in his ears loud enough to make him flinch. He couldn’t tell where exactly it was coming from, but it felt way closer than before.

“What the hell is that, anyway?” Looking over at the other three, it was obvious they were all as freaked out as he felt, though when he looked at Black’s face for a bit longer, James noticed that he looked less confused than any of them. He knew what this was, didn’t he? And he wasn’t telling them.

“Don’t worry about that.”

James, Adam, and Evelyn all gave Black the same look of irritation. It was nice that they could do something together without arguing about it, but then again, they had teamed up several time because of their collective contempt for someone else, so James probably shouldn’t have been surprised.

Black sighed and put his hands in front of him on the table, interlocking his fingers. James was already preparing for a speech, but then Black’s shoulders sagged. “Without a connection to Earth, this dimension isn’t…exactly stable, shall we say.”

James had no idea what that actually meant, but he already knew they were screwed somehow. This was exactly why he stayed away from magic. Nothing good ever came from it.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Black continued, though his voice didn’t sound confident at all. “The warlocks will reopen the portal soon, and that will be enough to fix it.”

“Yeah, or we’ll all die,” Evelyn said in what James assumed had meant to be a deadpan voice, but it came out too alarmed for that. And yeah, that was basically what he’d thought would happen already, though hearing it actually spelled out like this did put him on edge.

“Anyway, if you could not share this information with anyone else….” Black was looking at them with narrowed eyes, which on anyone else would look barely threatening, but on Black who barely ever left his pleasant persona, it was kind of shocking.

While James agreed that telling everyone about their possible death at the hands of some impossible-to-understand force outside of these walls wasn’t a good idea because it might cause a panic, it was really scummy to do this. And he was more than a little tempted to ignore this order.

“I don’t know if you noticed, Arthur,” Adam said with an equally passive aggressive tone, “but the people here are not happy.”

James wasn’t used to people calling Black by his first name, and judging by Black’s annoyed face, neither was the vampire. It made him wonder if they’d known each other before Aegis. It kind of bugged James that he didn’t actually know who Black was, but he’d by now given up on finding out.

“They never are,” Black replied, rubbing his eyes. James was about to snap at him that they had good reasons for that, but Adam continued.

“I don’t mean the usual grumbling. Seeing Aegis get beaten like this might inspire an all-out mutiny.”

James hadn’t really considered that. Sure, he’d talked about the vampires not being happy about the state of things more than once, and he’d thought about Aegis being disbanded because of this countless times, but he’d never really considered his involvement in it. Nor had he truly thought about what Aegis turning on itself like this might do to the overall morale.

But Black clearly has, judging by the way he stared down at the table. “I…realize that. I would have already discussed this with the other leaders, but they were on their way over here when the portal was shut down, so I can’t contact them for the time being.”

James didn’t know a lot about other bosses aside from Black and Azralis. Well, he at least knew they were vampires, aside from whoever led the southern headquarters. But their real boss was something else, and he seemed to be deliberately not talked about. As if everyone was trying very hard to conceal all information about him. But the thing that mattered to James most was the fact that he wasn’t a vampire—James knew that as fact. And that was the problem, wasn’t it?

If the guy knew what they went through on a daily basis, he might understand more how scummy this whole organization was. James understood the need for Aegis to exist, and he was glad that it did, even though it had been a real pain to deal with before he was rehabilitated, but the way they treated their employees wasn’t fair, no matter what they’d done.

“Fine, just see that something is done to appease them,” Adam replied, his tone still just as grim as ever. “If not, I truly fear there will be a change of management.”

“Wait, you mean they don’t wanna just leave?” James had been surprised enough to say that out loud. He’d truly thought what would happen would be just them escaping and drinking blood again, given the chance. Though he himself felt very little draw to do either. But he knew not everyone felt the same way—the vampires who had betrayed and attacked them were a prime example of that, after all.

“No,” Evelyn replied, her tone more neutral, though she still looked like she was calling him every insult she could think of. “We asked a lot of the vampires working for Aegis about what they think of it. Most of them said they don’t like some of the polices but agree with the mission as a whole.” Then she turned to Black. “And in this case change of policy would mean you would be out of a job.”

Black looked thoughtful as he put a fist under his chin, apparently unbothered by that last fact. “The majority agrees with what Aegis does? I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“Yeah, well, I guarantee those survey results would be different right now,” Evelyn said. “I hope you’re right about that portal being reopened fast, because otherwise I don’t know what might—”

Evelyn fell silent as the squealing of metal once again pierced their ears. And then the lights went out again as the horrible sound only gained in intensity, forcing James to cover his ears. A tremor shook the ground hard enough to almost make James fall to the floor, and only then the sound stopped. But who knew how long that would last?

James took a look at the other three, noting that they all looked about as alarmed as James felt, even in the relative darkness. Great, as if they didn’t have enough problems already.