Twilight Fulfilled. Maggie Shayne
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like she imagined Moses had, after his encounter on Mount Sinai.
And then she could see nothing but the beam that emanated from his eyes just before the picture went to snow. The screen flicked back to the somber, too-tanned face of an anchor at the news desk. “Our camera crew survived, and though they got additional footage, we can’t show you more, out of respect for the families of the seventeen officers who were wiped out by whatever unknown weapon this madman was wielding. Frankly, it’s just too gruesome for television. The man is still at large, and the National Guard has been called in to help with the hunt.”
Brigit stared at the screen long after Eric had shut off the television.
“You have to stop him, Brigit.”
She nodded. “And what are all of you going to do? You can’t stay here. He’s too close. He won’t stop until he finds you.”
“We’re moving,” Roland said. “The plantation in Virginia is isolated enough in the Blue Ridge Mountains that it should be safe … at least for a little while. We don’t want to go too far until we’ve eliminated this threat and gathered as many of our own together as we can find. After that, we’ll likely be forced to leave the country for a location more remote and isolated than anything the U.S. has to offer in this day and age. We’re exploring several options now. But that’s not for you to worry about.”
“You have only one task to focus on,” Rhiannon said. “Find the first immortal. Find him … and kill him.”
Downtown Bangor, Maine
Utana had sensed the soldiers surrounding his temporary haven. All he had wanted was a meal, and a dry place in which to eat it. And he’d found both, though he had been surprised by the resistance of the food vendors when it came to sharing their bounty. Taking it by force had seemed ridiculous. Did they not realize he was a king? He had left the establishment in a mess, but it would be easily restored. He’d broken a table, perhaps some of the strange pottery food-vessels, as well. He’d had to use force on some of the humans. The mortals. That was what James of the Vahmpeers had called the ordinary ones. Mortals. Utana had intended them no harm, had used no more force than was necessary.
Well, perhaps a bit more than was necessary. He’d been agitated. And half-starved.
But then he’d found a shelter and filled his belly with the food, and he had never eaten its equal. Never. It was luscious, fit for the gods. He’d found a comfortable spot in the corner of the box that contained him, and he’d curled up, intent on napping, despite the fact that his clothes were still wet and he was shivering with cold.
And then, just as he’d been about to nod off into the world of dream journeys, he’d felt them all around him. He’d felt their fear of him, their hatred and their intentions. His punishment for taking a meal without compensation was to be death, it seemed. They carried weapons, he sensed it. And he knew by the vibrations in the very ether between them and himself that those weapons would be used on him without hesitation.
Yes. There was no question. He felt it. Violence. Barely contained, crouching like a tiger about to spring.
And so he had no choice. He wanted nothing from these humans. He meant them no harm whatsoever. It was his own race he must wipe from existence, not theirs. All he intended was to eat, to sleep and to be on his way. This devastation he was about to unleash was entirely their own doing.
Sighing in resolution, and with no small regret, he had opened the doors of his haven and meted out justice. He’d focused the beam from his eyes on the men who leveled their weapons at him. The light shot forth, a blue-white stream that widened, opening like the wings of a great, deadly bird, so that all of them were caught in it. The soldiers went still as the beam hit them. Their eyes widened as their bodies began to vibrate, frozen within the grasp of his power and unable to break free. And then, one by one, they exploded.
When it was over, an eerie calm fell over everything around him. The silent stillness of death. It was like no other emanation. When the souls fled the bodies of the living, especially in such massive numbers all at once, they left a vacuum behind. A space devoid of sense, of sound, almost of air.
Utana stepped down from the box-on-wheels, and he walked amid the remains. True carnage, this. Pieces of the humans littered the stone like ground, and hung from the motorized vehicles and the tall, light-emitting poles, and from the lines that seemed to be strung everywhere in this world. It was a terrible waste of life, and all for nothing.
As he looked at the death and mutilation around him, he thought of the healing power he had taken from James of the Vahmpeers. He had not yet attempted to use it, but he had no illusions that it would be effective on bits and pieces of men. He would first have to sort them, leaving none out, nor mixing any together. Such a task would be impossible, and would take days—weeks, perhaps—even to attempt. No, it was of no use. Were they not meant to die this day, they would not have placed themselves in his path. The higher being knew far more than did the earthly one. Their fate had been sealed; there was no undoing it.
He picked his way among the limbs and gore, amid the tiny fires dancing from their motor-driven conveyances, and the smoke spiraling all around him. He saw more humans, watching from a safe distance, and he felt only fear and terror coming from them—no attack. Pausing, Utana bent low to scoop up a dead man’s weapon. And as he held it, he closed his eyes briefly and absorbed its vibration through his palms. It took only seconds for him to understand how the weapon worked, how to use it, what it did. And so he gathered up a few more before moving on.
More soldiers would come after him. No army would let so many deaths go unavenged. He had not wanted war with the humans, but it seemed inevitable now.
His bare feet were cold as they slapped down on the wet stonelike substance with which modern man had apparently paved the world. The rain was lighter now. He would find clothing and shelter, a base of operations from which to work. The vahmpeers had moved to somewhere not far from this place. But they would know of his nearness now. Word of his deeds this night would surely spread. And then they would flee. If he hoped to catch up to them, to wipe them from existence, he had to find them before they did.
Washington, D.C.
“You can go in now, Senator,” the curly haired receptionist said.
Marlene MacBride rose from the vinyl chair she’d been warming for the past twenty minutes, smoothed her pencil-slim skirt over her thighs and strode to the door. She was staring at the plaque that adorned it. Special Agent Nash Gravenham-Bail. As she lifted a hand to tap before entering, the door swung open, and she glimpsed a broad torso and a large file box coming toward her.
The box bumped her chest before she had a chance to move out of the way. She automatically gripped it, and the man behind it spoke.
“Senator MacBride. Sorry about the wait, but I think you’ll find everything you need in here. Enough to get you started, at least.”
Marlene lifted her stunned eyes from the box to the face of the man shoving it at her. It was the scar that caught her attention, as she would guess it did most people’s upon meeting this man for the first time. It was a thin pink line, raised a bit, that began at the outside corner of his left eye and angled across his cheek to the center of his chin.
“Line of duty,” he said. “Besides, it’s intimidating. That’s a bonus in my line of work.”
She shifted her focus from his scar to his eyes. Wet cement, they were. “Mr. Gravenham-Bail?”
“It’s a mouthful, I know,” he said. “I still cuss my parents out on a daily basis for the hyphenated name thing. I mean, really, just pick one already. Make a decision.”
She nodded.
“Easier if you just call me Nash.”
“Mmm.” He still hadn’t let her into his office. She was standing in the doorway, holding a box that was