Dark Legion by Rob Cornell Read Free Book Online Page B

vamps. Their size. Their strength. Their weakness to silver.
    “What happened?” Kate asked.
    Questions. Lockman had so many of his own, he didn’t know how to clear his head long enough to answer Kate’s. “Something isn’t right,” he voiced the thought that kept tolling in his mind like a church bell.
    “Talk to me, Craig.”
    “I’m alive. That’s number one.”
    “On your list of things that aren’t right?”
    “There’s no reason vampires would leave me alive unless they had special instructions. But I have a hard time believing we have another Dolan on our hands, using vamps as lackeys.”
    “What does it mean?”
    He held up a hand. He needed to think, damnit. What the hell was going on? Teresa had said vamps had taken her sister. Now vamps had taken Teresa and left Lockman alive. None of this was typical vampire behavior. Not even Dolan’s vamps had enough self-control to temper their bloodlust. “If they wanted Teresa, but not me, they should have eaten me.”
    “You’re not making any sense.”
    He looked at her. “That’s because none of this makes any sense.”
    She drew back, eyes wide and intense. “You’re scaring me.”
    He nodded and let the nod go on as if he were in a trance. The cool hand against his cheek brought him back to reality. Kate’s hand. He slapped his hand over hers and held her fingers to his face. “A little shell-shocked. Sorry.”
    “You don’t have to be sorry. I just…I’ve never seen you like this.”
    Yes. What was wrong with him? What had happened to the cool professional? A few vamps, a little bit of gun fire—
    Gunfire.
    “They didn’t have guns.”
    Kate cocked her head. “What?”
    “They fired on us from the back, to get our attention. But when they came through the front, they were unarmed.”
    Kate looked around at the destruction. “Doesn’t look like they needed them.”
    “They took Mandy. They took Teresa.” His clenched his fists. Together, he and Teresa had spent years fighting the un-fightable, the unthinkable. Vamps. Shape shifters. Bad mojo. They had saved each others’ lives on the battle field, and each other’s sanity in the bedroom. They were bound by that.
    “I have to go after her.”
    Kate’s face hardened. “We have to get back to Jessie. We have our own problems now.”
    “Help me up.”
    Kate helped him to his feet and he shuffled to the van, peered in through the driver’s side window. The stuffed decoy only consisted of the head and torso. A set of bungee cords strung together had kept the wheel straight and the gas pedal down. The impact had killed the van’s engine, otherwise the wheels would still be spinning and the van may well have driven on into the kitchen.
    “We have to go,” Kate said. “Jessie’s alone.”
    Some of the shock had worn off and let in the pain. Lockman’s muscles ached. His back screamed, probably from when the vamp threw him against the wall. They must have fed right before the attack. That explained the strength, but not the size. The size and the speed—or lack of it. A trademark vamp skill. Incredible speed, especially after feeding. But the one he had tangled with moved like a bull wading in molasses.
    Something isn’t right.
    Understatement of the year.
    “Craig?”
    He stepped back from the van and went out the broken front door. He high-stepped over debris to get around to the back of the van. The doors still hung open. The inside looked clean. Barely a film of dirt on the metal floor. Nothing to tell him where these vamps had come from or where they were headed. “Damn.”
    Kate stood in the doorway, holding her rifle like Lockman had taught her, both hands, barrel up. “I know she was your friend, but—”
    “What would have happened if I had left Jessie behind in Los Angeles? If I’d done what I was trained to do and covered my own ass for the sake of National Security.”
    “Jessie is your daughter. She’s family.”
    “Teresa was family once. Might as well