Nightfall (Nightfall Book 1)

“Why are we trying to rescue demons exactly? Aren’t demons, you know, demons?” James grumbled to his teammate as they drove down the road, raising eyebrows at her. He was mostly just trying to antagonize her, though—he knew by now that it wasn’t as black and white as that.

Unfortunately. If it were, they wouldn’t have to keep chasing after clues that never led anywhere. Why was it their job to try to figure out who exactly was nabbing demons? From what he’d gathered over the few months he’d worked for Aegis, demons weren’t supposed to be here, anyway. Maybe that was a bit harsh, but it was true.

Denise shook her head at him. “You do realize our boss is a demon, right?”

“Yeah, and have you met her?”

Denise laughed, looking back at the dark road. James hadn’t been joking completely, though. Azralis was scary, no matter what Denise thought. He was glad they usually didn’t have to answer to Azralis directly. James himself had only really met her once, but that was more than enough. As he usually was the tallest person in the room, meeting someone even taller who didn’t even wear heels was disturbing in itself. Never mind the huge ram-like horns growing out of her head.

“We’re supposed to protect everyone supernatural who isn’t a danger to society. You know the mission,” Denise continued, for once looking somewhat serious.

James sighed. Yeah, the great code of Aegis. He agreed that keeping the peace was something that had to be done, but what kind of idiot thought that making most of the employees vampires who had been forced into blood rehab was a good idea? James hoped he would meet the CEO at some point, just to congratulate him for being a moron.

“Also, it’s not just demons, remember? Our colleagues have been disappearing too.”

Disappearing, sure. Or they found a way to get rid of those tracker bracelets and were now drinking blood to their hearts’ content. James glared down at his own bracelet. He didn’t want to go back to being a bloodthirsty monster, but he understood the appeal. Especially the part about feeling no guilt whatsoever. He wouldn’t mind that.

He could feel his fangs grow longer as his mind conjured up images of blood. He felt sick to his stomach at the thought of drinking it, but clearly, some part of him was all for it still. He swallowed, staring out the window instead to distract himself. He was probably just hungry again, but he didn’t feel like he could stomach the gray powder Aegis gave to him instead.

“How many of those have disappeared, though? Like, ten?”

“Oh, so you actually listened to the mission briefing this time?” Denise teased him, grinning at him.

“I always listen. I just forget it all right after.”

The other vampire snorted, brushing her short dark hair off her face. Hers was actually shorter than James’ at this point. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “I like you, Adley. You don’t bother pretending to care.”

James shrugged. It wasn’t like he’d chosen to work in supernatural law enforcement, so why should he express any kind of enthusiasm about working for Aegis?

He did have the option to leave in three more months, since half a year was apparently the time needed for some asshole somewhere to decide it was safe for him to be out in the world without supervision, but James doubted he would go for it. He had nowhere to go, and he didn’t have the money to buy the powder. He couldn’t start drinking blood again for more than one reason, so he was stuck. As were a whole lot of other vampires, he imagined.

“Do you actually care?”

Now it was Denise’s turn to shrug. “Sure. Someone’s gotta do it. And the fights are fun.”

James could agree with that, though he wasn’t sure that the reason he found them fun was the same as hers. He just hoped there wouldn’t be much fighting this time since that wasn’t their actual job.

They were supposed to check some building for the demon that had been captured the night before and taken away in a van whose license plate was given to them by an eyewitness. James had no idea who that was, as he generally wasn’t given that kind of information for security reasons, but he didn’t really care either way.

The point was that Aegis’ brainiac department managed to trace the van through cameras—and maybe dark magic for all James knew—to a location, and he and Denise were supposed to check that location out. James highly doubted the van, the demon, or the attackers would still be there, though. It had been almost twenty-four hours since it had happened, and surely a group that was being so careful that Aegis couldn’t find any clues about their identity and whereabouts would know better than to stay in one place for so long.

But James had kept that to himself. He was mostly just here to get out of Aegis’ base for a while and maybe get a drink with Denise before they reported back that they didn’t find anything. Alcohol did very little for vampires, unfortunately, but they could just get a lot of it. And he knew Denise was always up for that kind of party.

As he realized that instead of fields there were now buildings surrounding them, James blinked. Right, the assignment. He needed to focus. At least enough not to draw attention to himself or Denise.

He got out of the car when Denise parked the car by the curb, breathing in the warm night air. James had a complicated relationship with summer, mostly due to the sun sticking around for much longer than it should, but he liked the higher temperatures.

The entire street was empty, save for one person he couldn’t see, but he could very well sense their heartbeat. Good, they didn’t have to try to be too inconspicuous then.

“It should be right outside of town.”

James gave Denise a nod, adjusting the collar of his leather jacket. Using their supernatural speed, they found themselves outside the town very quickly, stopping on a hill overlooking several warehouses. All of them looked like they had been left to rot for at least two decades, the most obvious signs being the rust, the exposed bricks everywhere, and the broken windows.

James gave the buildings an incredulous look. “Why is it always abandoned warehouses?”

“I dunno. It’s convenient? I mean who’s gonna look for them here?” Denise shrugged, her eyes widening a second later as she very excitedly pointed at the warehouse in the back. “But look, there’s the van.”

James frowned, looking the way her finger was pointing, and indeed there it was. The same van they’d seen in the camera recordings. This was already almost grounds for reporting back, but they would have to check closer. It was entirely possible those people had just left the van here and ditched it.

That theory proved wrong almost immediately though when a dark figure exited the warehouse. James quickly grabbed Denise’s wrist and pulled her to the ground with him to avoid detection. Thankfully, like this, they were still able to watch the figure’s movements over the edge of the hill.

It looked like a man, and he was definitely not human. James could tell as much only based on his inability to sense any kind of heartbeat from him. But the man also didn’t feel like a vampire. In fact, he didn’t feel like anything.

This was almost disturbing. What the hell was he? The only thing James knew of that didn’t have a heartbeat were vampires, ghouls, and everything similar to them, but he could easily recognize all these creatures. This was something new.

“We should follow him,” Denise whispered to him, still lying down. “But first we need to put that tracking chip on the van.”

“Tracking chip?”

Denise raised her eyebrows at him. “I guess this is the part you forgot, then.”

James rolled his eyes, while she reached into her jacket and produced a tiny circular device. Every time Aegis gave them some kind of technology like this, James liked to privately wonder if they’d used magic to make it work or not. Being over two hundred years old now, ironically, he understood magic better than modern technology. And he didn’t understand magic much at all.

“We need to stick this on the van before they leave.”

“You think that guy’s buddies would leave him behind?”

James would rather go chase after the guy than sneak up to the van and possibly get into a fight with the unknown number of people that were inside that warehouse. But then again, this guy could be the only one here. There was no way of knowing anything.

“Let’s not risk it,” was Denise’s reply, and James gave in. She was probably right. But they needed to hurry, before the guy would get too far to follow.

They got up and as quietly as possible made their way down the hill and toward the van, making sure to stay crouched behind as many of the shrubs and long grass that were growing around as possible.

When they finally reached the van, James kept an eye out, watching the rusted, large door to the warehouse while Denise knelt in front of the van’s trunk and put the tracking chip thing on the underside of it.

As Denise pulled herself to her feet again, James peered into the dark space inside the van, frowning at the interior. There didn’t seem to be anything strange about it at first glance, but they didn’t have the time to search it. And it would be stupid to get caught now that they’d put the tracker on the van.

James nodded to the cracked asphalt road leading up back to town, and Denise gave a nod in turn. They were both about to run after the man they’d seen earlier when the door of the warehouse slid open with the loud sound of its old hinges groaning.

James froze, staring at the two people who walked out of the warehouse, both of them equally as shocked as James when they noticed them standing there. James still couldn’t tell what exactly they were, just like the man from before, but he could see they had fangs as one of them grinned at them.

Vampires, then. Probably.

“Well, well, look at that,” a black-haired woman said, showing off her fangs even more as her smile widened. “Aegis’ lap dogs finally caught up.”

James wanted to snap something at her, not feeling like having a snark-off with some random pack of weird vampires, but his attention was suddenly taken up by something completely different. There was a faint smell coming from the warehouse. It smelled metallic enough to make him think it was blood—in fact, he could somehow tell that was exactly what it was—but he wasn’t drawn to this scent in the least. What the hell?

He gave Denise a look to see if she was being affected by this at all, but she didn’t even seem like she’d noticed the smell. Though she had told him once that she’d apparently never drunk blood due to having been captured by Aegis right after turning, so maybe it was that.

“Yeah, I guess you got sloppy,” Denise replied, pulling out her gun. Given the speed of the average vampire, James preferred to just use wooden stakes instead of wooden bullets, but Denise had proven in the past that she knew what she was doing.

“Come on, Jan. Let’s just kill them,” said the other vampire, a blond man. “Suriel is already asking what’s taking us so long. We need to leave.”

James pulled his stake out of his jacket as he watched their two adversaries do the same.

“Fine,” the woman said, sighing and raising her stake. From behind her, three more vampires appeared, all brandishing their own stakes.

Denise shot at them several times as the vampires charged them, actually managing to turn one to dust right away, which was really impressive given that the bullet needed to hit the heart directly, but James wasn’t given the time to see if she continued being this successful as two of the vampires attacked him.

He jumped back, narrowly avoiding getting stabbed right away, and grabbed his attacker’s wrist before he could strike again, dragging him around and throwing him forward. He couldn’t even get to watch the guy roll away before he was attacked again, this time by a woman.

She once again went right for his heart, which he managed to dodge, side-stepping her and attempting to stab her in the back. Before he could, though, she turned around and grabbed his hand, punching him in the face the next second.

James stumbled back, shaking his head. Even though his head was still spinning, he noticed the guy had gotten up and was about to try to stab him again. Taking a quick glance at the woman about to charge him, too, James waited for a split second longer and then jumped back again, resulting in the vampires crashing into each other. With lightning speed, James rushed forward and stabbed the female vampire between the shoulder blades with his stake, making her turn to ash a second later.

Snarling, the guy threw himself at him right after, making James lose his balance and fall on his back, barely managing to avoid the other vampire’s stake as he tried to stab him in the chest. James cried out as the stake made impact, only piercing his lung thankfully, but the pain still blinded him for a moment.

He gripped the stake sticking out of him, biting back a cry as he pulled it out and then rolled away so he could get up onto his feet again. Having put some distance between them, James brandished the two stakes, trying to ignore the burning hole in his chest. It would heal quickly, but for now, it was a distracting, painful annoyance.

The vampire was about to attack him again, despite having no weapon now, but he never made it. Just as he was about to reach James, the loud bang of a gunshot filled the air, and the vampire turned to dust right in front of James’ eyes.

Denise was standing behind him, her gun still raised. She was holding a hand to her neck, blood escaping from beneath it. James breathed out.

“You okay?”

Denise put the hand away, looking at the blood on it with disgust. “Yeah, I will be. You?”

James shrugged, wincing as pain stabbed through his wound. “I’ll live.”

“Great. Let’s just see if the demon is here and get out of here, huh?”

James wasn’t all that sure rushing inside was such a great idea since there might be even more vampires inside, but he said nothing, following her.

The strange smell of blood-but-not-blood got all the more intense inside the warehouse, and he could immediately see why. Right by the entrance, there were several bottles of pure black liquid which was where the smell was coming from. And that wasn’t just bad lightening making it look black, it definitely was that dark.

What was this stuff?

“I think we found him,” Denise commented, bringing James’ attention away from the bottles. He looked up, only then noticing the guy with horns in the middle of the empty warehouse, hanging by his wrists from chains attached to the ceiling. He was much smaller than James had been expecting, seeing as the only other demon he’d seen was taller than him, but with the guy being unconscious, he could have looked smaller due to not standing upright.

James walked with Denise over to the demon. He had a pulse, James could sense it, but it was really faint. He hoped the demon wouldn’t die on them now after all of this.

As James noticed the inflamed needle marks on his arms, he paused for a moment. So the black stuff in the bottle must have been the demon’s blood. James had had that suspicion already, but now that it was confirmed, he wasn’t sure what to think. From his personal experience, all blood, aside from another vampire’s, was alluring to them, so why wasn’t this one having the same effect? And why had these vampires collected so much of it if it didn’t even smell good?

He half expected the demon to wake up after Denise took the blindfold off his eyes, but he remained as he had been, hanging from his chains lifelessly.

“Can demons die from blood loss?”

That was a great question James had no answer to. “Let’s hope not.”

He proceeded to check the cuffs around the demon’s bruised wrists, noticing that there was a slight glow to them. So definitely magic. Great. But at least the chains looked easy enough to remove. They weren’t actually attached to the cuffs, but rather looped around them and secured with a padlock that definitely didn’t look magical.

James grabbed it, using both his hands to rip the padlock apart, letting it fall to the ground with a clang. Untangling the chains was easy enough, but the demon came falling down immediately after. Thankfully James managed to catch him before he hit the ground.

The demon didn’t stir at all during all of this, which was worrying, but there wasn’t much they could do about it now. They just had to get him to Aegis as fast as possible. James lifted him up, putting one arm under the demon’s knees and the other around his back, almost jumping when something brushed his leg. James let out a sigh when he immediately realized that it was the demon’s tail, which was hanging as limp as its owner.

Right, they had those. James kept forgetting.

He carried him outside where Denise stopped him. “We should look for the keys to the handcuffs.”

“Right, good idea,” he replied, adjusting his grip on the unconscious demon. He kept his eyes on the road leading back to town while Denise checked the ashes left behind by the dead vampires, but she ended up taking so long that James eventually couldn’t help but ask what the problem was.

“There are some keys, but I can’t find anything that looks like it would fit the keyhole” she replied, kicking at the ashes in frustration. “I don’t think they had them.”

James once again readjusted his grip on the demon, sighing. This was extremely weird, but there was little they could do to get rid of the cuffs right now. “Aegis will figure it out.”

But maybe removing the handcuffs wasn’t the best idea anyway until they confirmed that this demon wasn’t a threat. Maybe it was prejudicial, but James had a hard time automatically trusting anyone with horns and a damned devil tail.

“Let’s hope so.” Denise sighed again, shaking her head as she took her phone out of her pocket. “Come on, let’s get him to the car. We need to report all of this.”