Darkness Comes This Way Part 16

"Yes, we will certainly see."

With the exchange finished, Thomas turned on his heels and started for the base again. Everyone had grown quiet during the tension.

When they arrived toward the front, they looked around in confusion. It was quiet and still dark.

"Thomas, I'm really not sure this is right-" Draven began with a frustrated sigh.

"Oh, it's right, Guardian," a sudden voice said nearby, laughing.

They all turned, drawing their weapons at the same time, and met the Rogue that had taken Zarah from The Compound. He was casually leaning against a side door with a smirk plastered on his face. His eyes caught Draven's attention immediately.

They weren't red.

They were silver.

"He knows where Zarah is," Draven growled to Thomas and began to head toward the Rogue.

Just then, one of the bay garage doors opened and the army of Rogues began to charge out for the fight. In a final glance before joining the fight, the Rogue with the silver eyes waved a farewell from the side door before disappearing. This caused Draven to let out a roar of anger.

"Go!" Thomas yelled.

"Go on, we'll hold the fight out here!"

"Who is that?" Draven asked, shooting a nearby Rogue in the head.

"His name is Ethan. He's the one who turned me Rogue. If you find him, send him my regards."

Draven nodded and then turned and headed toward the side door where Ethan had disappeared.

Twenty-Six.

When Draven stepped into the base, it was dark save for a few small fluorescent lamps scattered in a couple of far corners. The garage was huge. He could tell it had once been an old airplane hangar, probably having held several military crafts at one time along with trucks. It was empty now, though, and every sound echoed around him.

"You'll lose, Guardian."

Draven's attention snapped toward Ethan's voice in the dark, his nerves tensed and gun held steady. The Rogue, or whatever he was now since Draven couldn't even determine what he was himself, was smirking at him from a windowsill.

"Where is she, Ethan?" Draven asked with a hiss, raising the gun.

Ethan let out a dark chuckle.

"So you know who I am. I figured all along that Thomas was working with the two of you. He's special, too. Did you know that?"

Draven hesitated and looked at him in confusion.

"Maybe he doesn't even know it because he's always thought it was just Zarah. But their mother was apparently very powerful, and she pa.s.sed something along to each of them. Thomas brought our mentality back, our mind, our control. Zarah holds the Elemental Magick. Quite interesting, don't you think, Guardian?" Ethan continued chatting as if there wasn't a gun with a silver bullet pointed at his head.

Draven's curiosity won out and his thoughts wavered. Ethan was handing out information. Perhaps something important he should know.

"What do you mean Thomas brought the Rogues back to intelligence? He became Rogue after you already were intelligent or do you not remember how you and your gang ambushed him and Zarah one night? That's how he was turned. Zarah remembers it," he snapped.

"Ah, yes. But it was his blood. The Commander brought a vial of the Guardian Thomas' blood to me shortly after I became Rogue and fed it to me. Once it was in my system, I became intelligent. From there, whenever I turned any Vampire or a Rogue fed from me, they became intelligent. It's also how I found Thomas. I remembered his scent and his taste."

Ethan winked. Draven growled.

"Where is Zarah?"

"That is a question I'll be happy to answer. She is in the room at the end of this garage meeting with The Commander. He threw me out when he caught me breaking his rules."

Draven frowned and kept the weapon pointed him as he slowly started walking toward the back of the garage, toward the door that Ethan was directing him to. His eyes met Ethan's and he was reminded again of what must have happened to Zarah.

"You fed from her. How should I believe you that she's even alright?"

"She was fine when I was thrown out. I only took enough for this, no harm done. I can't make any guarantees as to her condition now that she's there with The Commander though."

"Why are you just letting me waltz in here and telling me where to go? Shouldn't you be guarding? Or attacking or something?" Suspicion laced Draven's words.

"Hey man, you have the guns. Besides don't you hear it in the background?" Ethan had a crazy personality. Perhaps he was mentally unstable even before having gone Rogue, however long ago that had been.

Draven stopped moving and listened. Yes, suddenly he heard it. Over the sound of the fighting outside, he could hear the coming sirens in the distance. A helicopter was flying in also and would be landing somewhere outside the base within the next few minutes. Heavy armored trucks were clamoring up the road nearby. Humans. His heart was racing as he stared at Ethan in shock, who continued sitting on the window, now wearing a sly smile.

"The whole world is about to change in just a matter of hours. I'll be seeing you again soon, I'm sure. Tell Zarah I might repay her sometime for at least curing me," Ethan said. In a blink, he dropped from the window and disappeared.

With no time to bother chasing after him, Draven turned back and tried to head toward the door that Ethan had directed him to at the back of the base. That's where he would find Zarah he was told. A spark of hope rose in his chest.

That hope sizzled when a gang of Rogues stepped out from the shadows. Obviously they had left the outside fight and followed him in to protect The Commander. Looking around at the group, he counted twelve. They sneered mockingly forming a half-circle around him, blocking his way to the door.

Draven's emotions churned and anger boiled into rage. He was not going to let the monsters stop him from reaching Zarah. Staring hard at the group, he noticed their wide-eyed shock and then looked down at his hands to see the silver aura returned. A smirk turned up his lips. She had gifted him with a power he could use for fighting. He would learn to control it and use it to his advantage. Especially in that moment.

Glaring again at the group around him, he saw that they were no longer interested in whatever strange new thing he was. Only that he was trying to get to their leader and they had to stop him. The monsters were preparing for an attack. And better for him that they didn't have any weapons. Rogues had always been a bit "old school" in that style of fighting. With the exception of Thomas, who loved his little Glock. If anything at all, the Rogues may carry silver knives at the most.

When the attack began, Draven holstered his gun and smiled darkly. The silver aura glowed brighter around him and he could feel the power drawing up from his center. He would likely be fighting without his weapons as well.

"So cold..." a Rogue barely whispered, s.h.i.+vering and choking, as Draven held him by the throat high in the air above him.

"...Your eyes..."

Draven continued to watch in silence until the Rogue in his hand was frozen. Then with a loud Snap! his head broke away from his shoulders and fell, shattering into tiny shards of ice on the concrete floor at his feet.

It had all seemed to have happened in slow motion, but everything was blurring from happening in only a matter of seconds.

When Draven turned after dropping the frozen body of the Rogue, he was met with two more attacking his back. He couldn't react in time to get a grip on either one, or reach for his holster, as they both charged and body slammed him into the wall. Seconds later, gunshots fired and the two in front of him fell from wounds to their heads. He looked up and almost sighed in relief.

"Didn't think I would completely abandon you in here, now did you, Guardian?" Thomas asked with a smirk before he joined the fight.

Zarah's consciousness was clouded. She was in and out of a constant stupor, noting the silver restraints still bound on her wrists to keep her in place.

She tried hard to remember the small details. Why she was there? What had happened?

Her body shook from the poison dwelling in her bloodstream. A sharp pain throbbed in her neck. And when she regained her full sense of awareness, the memories all came rus.h.i.+ng back to her.

The Rogue had attacked her, though not viciously. It was almost as if he tried to be tender. Surely not? When her screams had finally subsided from the surprise, she saw through his eyes, having seen all the darkness that resided through him. It made her shudder in fear. She'd realized who he was. He'd been the one to change Thomas rabid. She didn't get the time to discuss that.

Then he came. The Commander.

"Ethan!" a low growl sounded from somewhere in the room. Before she could blink to focus on the figure floating toward them, the Rogue was ripped away from her and thrown across the room where she heard a lot of cras.h.i.+ng.

"You idiot!" he boomed.

"I strictly forbade anyone from touching her until I arrived!"

Zarah watched through drooping eyes, her head bobbing to the side as she continued to lose blood and fight the poison in her system. The Commander, cloaked again as before, was standing above her with his back facing her. She heard Ethan let out a dark chuckle and saw that he lay in a pile of rubble where he'd been thrown against the far wall. Blood dribbled from his mouth onto his chin. Some of it had been hers.

"Do you really think that you're the one who's going to bring this world to its knees? You're too old. They need someone fresh. Besides, I might want a queen. And she's quite lovely on the eyes. Tasty, too."

Her stomach churned. She had no idea what was going on, but her insides felt ready to expel at any moment.

Ethan stood from the rubble and swayed, holding his head in his hands.

"Whoa."

He began to shake. Clutching tightly at his temple and squeezing his eyes shut, Ethan stumbled along the wall and tried to remain steady on his feet. The air in the room was feeling electric and from somewhere deep within her, something swelled with power. A fuse was waiting to be ignited, but Zarah still didn't understand what exactly was happening.

She watched him as best as she could, her eyesight going hazy but still there enough to see him. Swallowing, she thought briefly that at one time, Ethan would have been handsome before going Rogue. He was tall with curly blonde hair and leanly muscled. Then he lifted his head while still holding it, frowning as if he had nothing left but an exhausting headache, and she saw his eyes.

They were no longer red.

They were silver.

The Commander growled and charged him. Zarah started to shout. She wanted to know what happened. All she knew was that whatever it was, it was because he had fed from her. Before she went unconscious, she saw them fighting-yelling at each other mostly about power and standings and herself, and then she heard a helicopter somewhere in the distance. Fear sparked in her chest. Humans were going to know. The world was going to change.

She could hear fighting somewhere outside, but it couldn't be. Her mind was confused, fuzzy. Zarah thought maybe she was just hearing things. Maybe she was just imagining the helicopter, too. She tried to hope.

Then the hood of The Commander's cloak fell and she gasped.

"Nathanial!" she breathed before the blackness took her.

After the memories flooded her when she regained her consciousness, she looked around, hoping against hope that it hadn't been Nathanial she'd seen as her enemy. But it dimmed when she saw him standing at the far end of the room near a table. Ethan was gone. She didn't know if Nathanial had killed him, or if he had just simply left. At that moment, she didn't care. She only thought of the situation she was in and the man that was in the room with her then.

"You were like a father to me. How could you betray me like this?" she croaked, hating the weakness that overtook her as tears sprang to her eyes.

Nathanial turned to face her with a rueful smile.

"No, Zarah, I was like a father to you so you would trust me. So that I could betray you now. It's time for our species to rise up in this world. Humans are inferior to us, and you are a special gift to our kind. Rogues are like c.o.c.kroaches. You can help change them, all the while we can gain our rightful place in the world. A new species entirely sounds rather enticing."

She swallowed hard.

"Ethan said it wasn't about a cure."

"Not entirely, no. It's a process during the change of creating the new species from your blood, though, so... Two for the price of one, I guess you can say."

Zarah sucked in a sharp breath.

"I've lived at The Compound all this time. Why didn't you just make your move then?" she suddenly snapped, angry.

"Because I had to be sure that you were going to develop any of the Fallen traits. Once I was sure, that's when I began to make my plans. I started with Thomas, my dear. The ambush on you and him that night he was turned Rogue. That was my doing. It was Ethan who turned your brother and he was already intelligent because I stole a vial of your brother's blood from the hospital wing and fed it to him."

When her eyes widened in surprise, he continued in a low growl, stepping closer to her.

"You see, Zarah, even Thomas had some traits pa.s.sed onto him from your filthy Fallen mother. His body could fight the Rogue virus hard, but not strong enough to cure. He would still be lost to the bloodl.u.s.t-having the same red eyes, same malicious need to attack and drain humans-but he would be better controlled and continue to keep his mind intact. I noticed this after viewing his blood samples several times, interacting it with Rogue blood samples, until I finally fed Ethan with his blood and he went intelligent just as I'd expected. I wanted to test you, but there was only one way I wanted to test you. So I set up the ambush, and waited patiently for Thomas to seek you out and turn you himself. Everything happened exactly as I'd expected."

Zarah could feel her building fury and hurt. He did it. He caused it all. Thomas being Rogue, his turning her...the loss of that human group she brutally murdered and is haunted by in her dreams. All. Of. It.

She tried to pump her fists and to pull at the restraints but her arms were heavy and she was tired.

"How could you?" she asked, out of breath. He was approaching her with something in his hand and she was getting dizzy again.

"Simple. I hate Fallens and I hate humans. Create a new species with your kind of power and we could rule them all."

"Or they will hunt us all down like a game. You don't think about s.h.i.+t, Nathanial," she hissed.

He didn't respond. His eyes were too crazed as he knelt down in front of her. She saw what was in his hand then and tried to back away, only striking wall.

He had a needle.

Gripping her arm roughly, he brought it forward and found her vein at the crook of her elbow. With a yelp, she felt the needle glide in and then saw blood flow into the vial behind it. He looked into her eyes and smirked.

Twenty-Seven.

Nathanial had five small gla.s.s vials of Zarah's blood before he stopped. Her stomach clenched again. He was harvesting her blood to use and it made her nauseous. She rolled her head back against the wall in exhaustion.

Setting the vials down on the table, he came back to her and patted her head. She winced and shrank away from his touch, disgusted.

"I heard you fed Draven. I'll just have to dispose of him later. He's too attached now. I should have never forced that Bonding Pact, I guess. That was a mistake on my part. I thought I could have him keep an eye on you without worrying about any kind of affection."