There was a creek within two kilometers of their current location, but it lay at the foot of the hills to the east, at the edge of the very same valley where the illegal colony stood.
Even though she and Damon had been left alone for over twenty-four hours, Alexia had no illusions about the risk they would be taking just to replenish their supply of water.
The very idea that she could be thinking of taking a hike through the hills startled Alexia. She paused to take stock of her body again, listening to the even throb of her heart, the clean feel of air in her lungs, the healthy hunger that reminded her how long ago she’d eaten.
Her first thought had been right. It was exactly as if she’d taken a drug. The most powerful drug anyone could imagine.
The canteen dropped from Alexia’s hand. She touched her mouth. The taste was faint, almost imperceptible, but it was there.
Blood.
She shook her head fiercely, but the idea would not be dislodged. Surely it was impossible. She couldn’t have done it without being aware of it.
But she hadn’t been fully aware the first time she had offered herself to Damon, when she’d been too ill to know what she was doing. And there was that blank spot in her memory at the very pinnacle of the night’s lovemaking.
Could sex with Damon have so completely erased her inhibitions, everything she believed in?
How many other things you once believed have you abandoned? she asked herself numbly. Would it be so incredible that her body, in a state of ecstasy and abandon, should seek what it needed...especially if the one who could fulfill that need was not only willing, but eager to give it?
She turned to look at Damon, struggling with the urge to shake him awake and demand an answer. His face was still peaceful, as innocent as any Daysider’s could be.
Almost content.
Was he content because he had finally gotten her to do exactly what he wanted without forcing her? Had he taken something else for himself in the process?
Probing her neck and shoulders with her fingertips, Alexia could find no tenderness that would indicate the presence of a bite. No, Damon hadn’t bitten her. But that didn’t mean she—
Alexia dropped her head into her hands. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she wasn’t really one of the forty percenters after all. Her illness had been temporary, and she would have recovered, anyway.
But she knew in her heart that wasn’t true. Because of the “nice lady,” who had saved her life so long ago.
Recognizing the danger of letting herself fall into her own dark thoughts, she pulled on her pack and considered what she had to do. She couldn’t afford to forget that the shooters were probably still out there, even though they’d left her and Damon alone all night. But if the Daysider was right, the colonists would attack them only if they approached the settlement.
As long as she could walk and fire a gun, she would finish this mission, no matter how hard it was to accept what she had done to keep herself alive. What Damon had let happen.
And she could finally see Michael to his rest.
For a few moments she watched Damon intently. She could see he was sleeping lightly now, and that meant he would be able to smell or sense any enemy who intruded on the camp. She had to trust he would be safe. She untied Michael’s VS130 from her pack and set it down at Damon’s side along with the pistol he had given her the previous day.
Turning away with a heavy heart, she picked up the faint trail she had followed yesterday, working her way back to the place where Michael had died. The scrapes in the ground that marked the struggle were still there, and so were the spatters of blood, now crusted over and disintegrating into the soil.
But Michael’s body was gone.
Alexia shrugged out of her pack, dropped it at her feet and rushed to the place where her partner had lain. There were more marks in the soil but no additional blood, no indications that someone—or some thing—might have dragged his body away. No sign that the Orlok, or others like it, had returned to finish off what it had killed.
She sank onto her haunches and ran her fingers through the dirt, blinking away the tears that had come without warning or purpose. Michael was dead. What happened to his body didn’t matter, not to him. But the hideous image in Alexia’s mind made her bend over with the dry heaves. She fought the nausea and got to her feet.
Damn Damon for not letting her bury Michael. Her partner would have been safe if he’d had the decency to allow a brave man a little dignity.
But anger wouldn’t help her, or Michael. Maybe she could find something he had carried—some token to return to his kin in San Francisco. She knew he had an uncle, a cousin, people who would want something to remember him by.
And maybe there would be enough of him left to bury.
Clearing her mind of all distracting thoughts and emotions, Alexia searched for a trail.
She found one among the dense thickets of scrub oak to the north. It smelled like Michael and traces of blood, and another stench that made her choke on her own breath —the same smell that had left its traces where Michael had died.
Orlok.
Alexia forged ahead, though her stomach cramped with horror. Surely there must be some trace, she thought. That thing couldn’t have—
A glitter of metal caught the late-afternoon light, and Alexia moved under cover to search for the source. Nothing else moved, so she advanced slowly to the tree limb where the metal hung suspended from a cord or strip of something she couldn’t quite make out.
It was leather. The metal was a buckle. Michael’s buckle, the one he had bought on impulse at a street fair, back when he had seemed so lighthearted and carefree. The buckle had been cast in the shape of a grotesque parody of a Nightsider, more devil than leech, with a long, narrow face, slitted red crystal eyes, and protruding fangs.
Alexia pulled the belt from the branch and clenched the buckle in her fist. The edges bit into her palm. Dry-eyed, she tucked the belt into her pack and kept going.
She found bits of her partner’s clothes as she went on, boots here, shirt there, the small pieces of gear he had carried close to his body. The stench of Orlok grew stronger, yet she saw nothing of the creature or Michael’s remains.
Still she went on, tireless, grim with purpose. It was just past sunset before she began to sense that someone was following her.
She turned, carefully unslung her rifle and lifted it to her shoulder. But when her pursuer came into view, she nearly forgot the weapon was in her hands.
The thing was neither human nor Nightsider. It was lean and nearly hairless, bulging with muscle and tendon beneath pale skin, its face nearly as long as the creature on Michael’s buckle. One of its long-nailed hands was pressed to its chest, the other curled into a fist at its side. It opened its mouth, and she glimpsed rows of serrated yellow teeth.
Then she met its eyes, and she saw something she recognized.
No. Alexia swallowed and backed away, the rifle pointed toward the ground. There were two kinds of dhampires: those who needed the patch and those who didn’t. The ones who didn’t could be converted by a vampire’s bite. That was why Aegis always sent out teams consisting of both subtypes, so that one would survive in almost any situation.
Michael was of the second type. He hadn’t been bitten by a Nightsider. An Orlok had attacked him, supposedly killed him. But he hadn’t died, despite his terrible wounds. He had changed...into one of them.