Nightfall (Nightfall Book 1)

Denise was getting very fed up with this person. She had expected him to torture her when she woke up tied to a chair in the middle of some run-down dive bar, but she hadn’t thought it would be using a string of constant complains and whining about James.

If the somehow still functioning clock on the wall worked right, she’d been awake for almost an hour now, and she could really use a drink. She’d never heard this much angst in her thirty years of being alive combined.

She wishfully eyed the alcohol bottles on the counter a few feet away from her. She wasn’t sure if there was anything in them, but she could really use a glass right now. The only thing she had to distract herself from the vampire’s droning was her attempts at slipping the chains binding her arms behind her back to the chair. But she hadn’t made much progress, unfortunately.

“And then Aegis just drops by and makes him a…a….” The guy paused his ranting, but continued to pace around as he looked for the right word. “One of you. It’s disgraceful. They’ve gone too far this time.”

Denise groaned, letting her head fall back as he kept going. “Dude, I get it. You don’t like Aegis. It’s not exactly an unpopular opinion.”

The vampire stopped, tilting her head at her, intrigued. “Oh, do you dislike them as well? Did they do to you something as equally abhorrent as separating you from your one true love?”

Denise snorted out a laugh. She couldn’t help herself. This guy was just so dramatic, but on top of that, someone referring to James as their one true love was just funny. She had a hard time imagining him and James together, though, not that she particularly wanted to. What had James been like when he still drank blood? Surely not that different, which meant that he and this vampire must have been like day and night.

“Excuse me, how is that cause for amusement?” he asked, his voice suddenly dark and cold. He switched very quickly, but Denise knew by now that she didn’t need to be too concerned about that. She’d managed to offend him several times already, and he’d done nothing except talk more.

Actually, that was about the worst torture he seemed to have in store, so maybe there was a reason to worry. When was Aegis going to get here?

“Adley never mentioned you,” Denise replied, wondering what kind of reaction that would cause. But it turned out to be shockingly mild.

The vampire just waved his hand. “James is a reserved person when it comes to personal things. I don’t imagine he would tell you.”

So this was what absolute denial and self-delusion looked like. Denise hoped she would get there eventually too.

“Besides, I’m not completely convinced that powder your kind consumes doesn’t cause some kind of damage.”

The matter-of-fact tone could have made it seem like the vampire had meant that in a neutral way, but Denise had no doubts that this had been an attempt at a taunt. And she wasn’t in the mood to just let him do that.

“Well, if that’s the case, I hope you’re fine with having a brain-damaged boyfriend.”

Unfortunately, instead of getting offended or angry, the vampire just grinned, showing off his fangs. He had been drinking blood on and off, but Denise was starting to think he was keeping them at full length on purpose.

“Oh, I will fix everything, not to worry.” He picked up his half-empty glass off the counter, swirling the blood inside of it and staring into it. “Just one drop, and my James will be saved.”

Denise was pretty sure it wasn’t this simple as from what she’d heard drinking blood would make a vampire crave more, however, if it weren’t a voluntary, conscious decision, their minds tended to reject it. They would have to go through another round of rehab, though, which sounded awful.

Denise was definitely glad she’d never had to do it. And that blood didn’t draw her in at all since she’d never drunk it.

“Do your bosses know about this?”

The vampire looked at her with amusement. “If you think I’ll tell you anything about that, you are sorely mistaken, Ms. Owens.”

For how much this guy appeared to have the priorities of a lovestruck teenager, he truly wasn’t easy to trick into talking. The least Denise could get out of this whole experience would be some information to point them in the right direction, but she’d already made several attempts at steering the man’s rantings that way, and it hadn’t worked.

Hopefully, when Aegis got here, they would be able to capture him and interrogate him.

“So, that’s a no, then?”

He just smiled again. It was incredibly odd how he kept switching between overly dramatic and mysterious. But from her own experience, most vampires who drank blood didn’t tend to be the most stable individuals.

“What I do with my time is my own business. I assure you.”

Somehow Denise doubted that whatever organization he worked for offered a lot of off time. Aegis sure didn’t. They basically assumed no one had any kind of personal life, and they were the good ones, here. How many benefits could the people kidnapping demons offer?

“Though they are quite cross with you about taking their demon,” he continued, chuckling. At least he wasn’t bitching and moaning about the tragedy of him and James anymore. Denise resisted the urge to tell this guy about the googly eyes she’d seen James make at Arkemoz, though. She didn’t want to be responsible for this vampire hurting the poor guy because of it.

“Don’t you care about that, too?”

The guy grinned. “Now, why would I? We can just acquire another demon. I don’t understand what all the fuss is about, to be honest. None of us can die of old age, and your people are no closer to solving this after months.”

Aegis was arguably the closest they had ever been right now, but unfortunately, that wasn’t saying much given the fact that they still had no idea why demons were being taken, or who was running this organization, much less where to find them and how to fight them.

“Don’t fret, Ms. Owens. They took many steps to ensure Aegis would be none the wiser. It’s not exactly your fault.” And then he muttered something under his breath before taking another sip of blood. Denise didn’t hear him exactly, but she was sure it was something along the lines of Aegis being incompetent.

As if Mr. Fancy British Vampire here was so competent himself. His grand plan of getting back his supposed ex-boyfriend was kidnapping her and assuming that Aegis would just let James go after him alone. There was a procedure for this exact situation, and this vampire had stupidly decided to come here. This bar definitely had a back door of some kind. It wouldn’t be difficult to ambush him.

Both Denise and the man flinched when a knock sounded through the room. While Denise was glad this meant the constant whining would be over, she immediately became concerned about James coming here. She hadn’t really realized that this would be at best incredibly awkward, and at worst his crazy ex might try to force-feed him blood.

She tugged at her chains again as there was another knock on the door, this time considerably louder.

The vampire gave her a look, as if to tell her to stop rattling the chains, which she replied to with a glare. She watched him as he walked to the door, craning her neck as far as she could, but she still couldn’t see the door. The damned bastard just had to have put the chair directly opposite the entrance, and she wouldn’t be able to move it without making noise the vampire would definitely notice.

“Nathan.” Denise swallowed when she heard James’ forced, neutral tone, though even then he clearly sounded defeated. At least now she had a name for her stupid kidnapper.

“You look dreadful, darling!”

Despite the situation, Denise couldn’t hold in an amused huff when she heard that. Nathan sounded so worried, simply because James had apparently not discovered what a comb was. At least Denise assumed that James hadn’t gotten beaten up while she’d been stuck here, and his hair was the only thing worth getting concerned over.

“Thanks, Nate.”

The sound of footsteps and creaking floorboards followed, finally allowing Denise to see him. He didn’t look any different than usual, though perhaps a little bit more exhausted. Denise gave him an apologetic grimace for him having to come here, which he just waved his hand at.

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it, James. I’m simply concerned about your wellbeing,” Nathan quickly explained as he hurried to catch up, also coming into Denise’s field of view.

He really did look worried, almost surprisingly so. She hadn’t thought blood-drinking vampires could even feel this stuff on that level. But then again, this one kept going on about James as if he worshipped the ground James walked on. Maybe Denise just wasn’t informed enough on the subject.

“You didn’t hurt her,” James pointed out, actually sounding surprised. To be honest, so was Denise.

“What would be the point? She is simply a means to an end.”

James blinked at Nathan, looking completely shocked at this point, but he didn’t comment on any of that and moved on immediately, before Denise could voice her displeasure at being talked about like this.

“Why now, Nathan? It’s been, what, ten years?”

Denise felt like she didn’t need to be here. If she could just leave, that would be great, given that Nathan had already gotten what he’d wanted, but unfortunately she knew it wasn’t going to work that way. So she would just have to sit here and listen to Nathan’s angst. But then again, she’d been listening to it for an hour now, so not much had changed.

“Actually, it’s been twelve. And seven months. And four days.” To his credit, Nathan looked mildly embarrassed that he knew this as he straightened his tie. “I needed time to figure out what I did to upset you enough to warrant being tied to a tree and left for vampire hunters to find. So, after I killed them, I did just that. It took a while.”

Denise stared at both of them in disbelief. She’d thought that they’d had a fight, possibly an actual, physical fight, at most. Not…whatever this was. Though this wasn’t the James she knew being talked about, so she needed to stop thinking about him that way. She looked over at the vampire, who was currently giving Nathan a look of pity and guilt.

“You need help, Nate.”

Denise wholeheartedly agreed with that. If you don’t break up after that, there is something clearly wrong. But Nathan himself scoffed and folded his arms. “I’m not the one who needs that. Look at yourself, darling. You are very clearly unhappy, to say the least.”

James shook his head, for the first time giving Nathan a stern scowl. “I’m unhappy because you kidnapped my coworker.”

“Oh, please, don’t tell me you actually care about her. You are being forced to work with her. With them. They just made you feel some kind of moral obligation to help.”

“Yeah, as I should!” James snapped, which made Denise jump at how unexpected it had been. James didn’t usually raise his voice much. But Nathan on the other hand seemed pleased by the change of tone. She tried not to think about that too much. “We are supposed to feel things like empathy, Nathan.”

“I do feel it. For you,” Nathan snapped back, now looking annoyed. Finally. “For your pitiful situation, you seem to want to cling onto for some reason.”

James shook his head again while Nathan’s look turned pleading. “Come with me, James. I can fix this. And if I can’t, my new friends will, I’m sure.”

Something flashed in James’ eyes. And Denise straightened up as she started paying even more attention. Nathan hadn’t wanted to tell her anything, but he might spill something for James. The plan was probably to apprehend Nathan, but if he got killed or escaped somehow, it would be helpful to know something before Aegis attacked.

“Your new friends,” James repeated, almost mockingly. Even though Nathan wasn’t short James was using his height as much as he could to make him look that way as much as possible. And there was a clear change in Nathan’s behavior because of it. He seemed much less arrogant and confident.

Denise wasn’t sure she liked seeing James wearing that cold, harsh expression, but if it was working, she wasn’t going to complain.

“Why did you even join them?”

“They’re angels, James,” Nathan replied, his eyes full of awe, as if that was enough of an explanation. “And they want to help us. We’ll finally rule over humanity.”

Denise felt dread spread through her whole body. This was so much worse than they’d thought, wasn’t it? So much worse.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” James’ voice was noticeably much less steady than before.

“I’m serious. You have no idea how powerful they are. They can do it.”

James scoffed, shaking his head, this time in denial rather than exasperation. “Why would they help us? Out of the goodness of their hearts?”

Nathan opened his mouth to explain further, but then he stopped, as if listening for a moment before reaching into the pocket of his pants. He retrieved a lighter, which he then lit and threw into the corner. Denise flinched as flame immediately erupted from the spot the lighter had hit, spreading all around the room within seconds.

Nathan must have poured around something flammable while she’d been out. Already feeling the heat against her skin, Denise started to fight the chains in earnest, the sound of the flame consuming everything around them much louder than the rattling.

“Come with me, James. We can talk without Aegis listening,” said Nathan in the meantime, completely unbothered by the flames. As if vampires weren’t extremely vulnerable to it. But Denise quickly realized why he was so relaxed about it when she noticed a window not blocked off by the fire. The Aegis agents wouldn’t be able to see it from the outside, especially with all that smoke, which would let Nathan escape.

“I’ll explain everything. Please.”

James just watched him silently, seemingly not paying any attention to the flames either. Denise huffed as she finally felt one of the links in the chains snap. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to get free.

“I never loved you, Nathan.”

Denise could barely take in the confusion and pain on Nathan’s face before she heard the door being kicked open. She was about to try to look at whoever was crazy enough to try to get in through a wall of flame when she felt someone pull at her chains with enough strength to easily tear them apart. With her hands free she sprung up, immediately turning around to come face to face with Arkemoz.

Oh, that made perfect sense.

She swirled around when she heard the sound of glass breaking, only to see Nathan disappearing through the window. Dammit. But it didn’t matter now. They needed to get out of here before this whole place came crashing down on top of them.

“Come on!” she yelled at James who seemed to be in a trance. But he quickly recovered and rushed after her and Arkemoz as they used the same makeshift exit Nathan had used. And even that was close because the flame had spread all over the ceiling.

As her hands and knees made contact with wet grass, Denise heard loud crashing behind her, most likely caused by the ceiling collapsing. She took a few deep breaths as she got up, shaking her head. That had been far too close for her taste. This bar must have been in serious disrepair.

She didn’t spend much time watching the flames dance behind the still unbroken windows before she focused on James. He still seemed very distracted, but she wouldn’t badger him with questions that were now swirling in her mind. She just had one she wanted to ask.

“You okay, man?”

James shrugged before nodding, not looking very sure of it. But it would have to do. They didn’t have time to deal with personal dramas and traumas right now, unfortunately. Not when angels were apparently planning on taking over the world.

It sounded absolutely ridiculous, but Denise really doubted it was a lie. And if it was true, it meant that the situation was even more dire than ever before.