The Fallen One (Sons of the Dark Mother, Book One) Read online

  It didn’t take Dracon but a split second to get it. “And it destroyed the vampire.”

  She nodded. “At least the ones who are infected by the bite of another. They’ve never tried it on the old race of course.”

  Dracon stood abruptly. ‘But Constantine wants the one that I… the one that will make them—more invincible to all who would try to stop him.” He turned back. “So he aligned with your father,” he said to Jes. He looked at them. “So now you have the equivalent of the two-headed snake. You have Constantine—who is one of the oldest vampires, from the time when the bible was first commissioned by him, and though turned—he is still one of the oldest, and your father—a turned member of the ancient Jaguar People.”

  She swallowed—and nodded.

  Justice hadn’t said a word. He just watched her—and Dracon—while he absorbed first her words, then his.

  Dracon smiled suddenly.

  Jes stared at him confused.

  Justice stood, watching him. “But you’re not thinking about the one that can make them even more invincible than they already are, are you brother? You’re thinking about the other one.”

  Dracon grinned wickedly then. “Yes—because that is the one that can bring Constantine to his knees. And it is why your father and mother had to disappear….”

  Justice nodded. “To keep him from getting the antidote and destroying it—and from getting the virus, and making himself king of the earth.” His gaze narrowed on Dracon. “But you knew about virus?”

  “Yes,” Dracon said. “At least I knew about an earlier version of this vaccine. It is why I no longer have to avoid the sun—though I have no desire to be out in it.” He frowned then. “I wonder—if Constantine has had at least one of the earlier shots—since he could have that drink…” He turned to Jes. “Where do you suppose both of these vaccines are now?” Dracon asked pointedly.

  Jes shrugged.

  “With my parents.” The answer came from Justice.

  “So, now, brother,” Dracon said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Now, you know why your parents disappeared from you and your sisters—before they ever disappeared from this place.”

  Justice frowned. For once, he didn’t follow.”

  Dracon laughed. “Come now, brother, think of it. They were trying to stop an already powerful man from making himself even more powerful. They were responsible for the prophecy—and here they were—settled with a shot, of all things, that had the power to destroy all they had been trying to build.”

  “And my father’s own best friend was the one threatening the downfall of an entire people,” Justice said frowning.

  Jes nodded. “And then my father must have found a way to get to Constantine—without being killed. And when he did, Constantine saw the same power within the one—and the ability to destroy his own people, in the other one. And my father aligned with Constantine.”

  Dara interjected at this point, “Constantine was probably the one to point out the distinct benefits of this vaccine.”

  “Oh, our father recognized those benefits too,” Jes interjected. “That’s why he was trying to get to his best friend.”

  Dracon nodded, still smiling. It was so unlike him to smile, and yet, here he was, grinning. Even Justice frowned.

  Mira was glaring furiously. “I don’t see what you could possibly be grinning about,” she said furiously to Dracon. “This is disastrous.”

  “Oh, quite the contrary,” Dracon pointed out. “This is the best news I’ve heard for awhile.” He looked from one person to another and then another. Finally, he spelled it out. “We have the means, now, to win this war. Did you think we would have before this?”

  They all stared at him.

  “You never thought we would?” Dara nearly sputtered in her surprise. “You never let on.”

  He shook his head, his long, dark hair shimmering in deep, black hues. “What was I going to say? That we didn’t stand a chance, and ruin what morale we had left?”

  “That’s if we can find Justice’s father,” Dara pointed out.

  Dracon smiled again. “Oh, we’ll find him.”

  Justice brow shot up. “If Constantine hasn’t been able to find him, brother, what makes you think we can?”

  Dracon looked at Jes. “There are clues in the journal, are there not, sweet?”

  She frowned at the way he had put that. “Yes, I think so.”

  “You see,” He pointed out to Justice. He turned away. “But it even gets better,” he said, heading for the door. He turned and faced those in the room. “I’m finally going to get rid of those pesky, disease-infected versions of a vamp.”

  Dara glared at him—and for once, he looked a bit sheepish. “Well, at least—some—pesky vamps.”

  Justice rolled his eyes, following him. “You can’t wipe out an entire race, brother, just because you hold a grudge.”

  They were still arguing when they went out the door.

  At which point, Jes took herself to the room that she and Justice shared, at least when he managed to be in it, and tumbled into their bed, hardly taking the time to undress. She was sound asleep by the time her head hit the pillow.

  Justice didn’t go to bed at all that night. He went back to Second Chances, while Dracon went back to where he would spend the daylight hours resting.

  Justice was thinking about Constantine, and the disappearance of both his parents, and the death of Jes’s sister—the woman she had known as her mother.

  They knew that Jes’s father had killed her sister to stop her from interfering in his plans. Now, they knew just what her father had been protecting—and why.

  Justice couldn’t believe the danger Jes’s sister had been willing to place herself in to stop him. It wasn’t just a fourteen-year-old boy she’d been trying to protect.

  It was an entire nation—no—an entire world.

  She had to have known that trying to stop him was going to get her killed—with all that her husband had at stake—all the power he sought to control.

  There were two men who wanted to stop the Alliance from maintaining peace with the humans—with the different factions of the Fae—two men who saw this as a way to control the world.

  One of them was an ancient vamp—not one of the old, original ones, one of those turned—but one of those who had been turned centuries before.

  And one of them was a member of the Jaguar People.

  Justice took a large swallow of his drink.

  Constantine was bad enough. Together—well, together they just might have made it impossible to stop them.

  And they would be willing to do anything—anything at all—to gain control of not just one of those viruses—but both.

  One spelled their destruction.

  The other—absolute power.

  Justice couldn’t imagine what they would be willing to do—to get their hands on them.

  But he had a feeling he was about to find out.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  War

  Jes woke late in the morning and laid there. She thought through every event from the night before—going through the entire conversation word for word. And even then, she didn’t immediately get up. She kept thinking about the imminent war with the rogue vamps—and with Constantine. The war was coming to them, and soon, but now they had a potential means with which to meet it. There may not be anything any of them could do to stop the war itself—but they could win against Constantine now. They not only would do everything within their power to make it come out in the best possible way—they could stop him completely.

  But how did they keep from wiping out an entire race in the process?

  She was getting that excited feeling again, and she groaned.

  So there was more to it.

  She had a feeling that she should talk with Justice about it, alone, to find out what he thought might be nagging her. But she didn’t want to bring it up just now and ruin the quiet contentment of the moment—a contentment that had
been brought to them by the journal—and with it—a ray of hope.

  They didn’t get many of those.

  They were all excited to get their hands on the viruses—and yet, they all knew that doing this thing was going to take time. In the meantime—they still needed a plan.

  That feeling, deep within the pit of her stomach, bent her double: stronger now than ever.

  She didn’t know what else there could be that would still be nagging at her this way. It was still a horrible feeling that she was close to something, but she was missing it—and it was imperative that she figure it out.

  “What is it?” she shouted at the ceiling.

  She felt as though she were trying to catch the elusive thread of a fleeting thought. She was beginning to think she was going nuts—but she was onto something—if she could just catch up to that thread and unravel it to see what it would reveal.

  She had been mulling this over ever since she had talked to Jared. Last night, she had wanted to voice these feelings to Justice at the meeting, but she didn’t have any idea what more she could say. Hadn’t what the journal revealed been enough?

  All she had was this feeling that there was still more she needed to find out. And that whatever this more was, it could, in fact, be of great value—if they could only figure it out—and figure out what to do about it.

  She should tell Justice about it, she thought. But tell him what? She didn’t know, yet, what was bothering her. She wrestled with her thoughts for several moments.

  Now what?

  The vaccine situation was in the hands of Justice and the rest of the men, and she’d have to wait to hear back on what they did with that.

  Waiting, again.

  Something she should be used to by now.

  But she wouldn’t be just waiting this time.

  Something more existed that she needed know, and she wasn’t going to figure out what that more was while lying here. She threw back the covers and got up. Since she didn’t know where to look, she couldn’t just go searching for answers, so she may as well be practicing what she could do.

  She showered and was soon standing before the round table in the room they had been using for their rituals since they had arrived. She had a circle of candles around her, and cast a circle of protection. She did so because she didn’t want Constantine peeking in on anything she was doing now—not even when she was studying.

  She worked tirelessly for several hours, going over the different herbs and stones and their strengths and uses. It was late in the afternoon when her idea began to form into a full-fledged plan. With the light coming on strong, illuminating her idea and showing her the way, she felt the strong need to see Jared one more time—and she called him.

  Jes was waiting near dusk with her sisters. At the last minute, she had also brought Micah, some guards and Justice’s sisters. She had brought them so that there could be no misunderstanding if Justice should find out that she was out here meeting Jared again, and this time so near to dark. But that couldn’t be helped this time—which is why she had brought Micah, the guards and Justice’s sisters.

  She knew that a group this large would not escape Justice’s attention—but that couldn’t be helped either. She had to make sure she was on the right track. She had been thinking about what Jared had told her—over and over again—rolling it around like a litany in her head, and she had slowly begun to figure out exactly how they could use the information.

  That was why she had called Jared again. She needed to see him—to find out if he thought it would work. After all, it would involve him—and the army of human vampire hunters he had amassed. The plan in her head was quickly starting to take form, and becoming a rolling snowball, gathering size and speed.

  When they reached the edge of the meadow, she asked Micah to keep the guards out of earshot of her conversation. He was happy to do as she asked, and did so without question.

  When Jared appeared, she rushed toward him in her excitement. For a moment he looked alarmed, as though he was afraid she was bringing him bad news.

  It didn’t take him long to get the gist of her plan.

  “Jared, you were irritated because Justice and Dracon were not going to use your armies,” she said, rushing headlong into the plan.

  He nodded. They had been partners too long for him not to quickly deduce she was about to fix both of their problems.

  “We need to make the vamps think that humans are walking the streets. We need them to think they can swarm down on the same helpless humans they have been….”

  His eyes lit with understanding.

  “Only these humans won’t be quite so helpless…,” he finished for her. For the first time since he had spilled his frustrations out to her that day, his face split into a grin.

  He was getting in on the war.

  Justice waited in the night. He had followed Jes. He had spotted her and her sisters leaving the manor, and he couldn’t imagine what they were up to. Then he had seen his own sisters and Micah and the small army they had taken with them. He hadn’t been too happy to see her meet the human. But it was obvious she had taken great care that her meeting would not be misunderstood or place any of them in danger.

  So he came out of the darkness to the group.

  Jes swung around and, seeing him, her face lit up and she waved him over.

  He could see how happy she was to see him, and that alleviated the rest of his stress. She quickly said the same thing she had thrown at Jared, and it didn’t take Justice long to see where she was going with her plan, either.

  He was just as elated to hear it as Jared had been. They knew that Dracon felt the virus would be the way to defeat Constantine—provided Constantine never got his hands on the other one. But that was going to take time: time they didn’t have.

  Constantine wasn’t going to conveniently wait around until they located Justice’s father.

  The vamps were coming their way now.

  And Jes had a plan that just might work. At least it might give them an edge. They all knew they weren’t going to win this war with a single battle.

  But this might help to win the first one—and give them the time they needed to locate Justice’s father.

  However, now the bigger question came into play. How would they replace the humans with human vampire hunters—and do it without Constantine knowing they had done so?

  The group quickly made their way back to the manor. Once there, Justice had Jes pour the plan out to Dracon and the others. Only Caesar wasn’t there to hear it, as he was still managing the tavern so that Conrad could be with them at the manor.

  As soon as Dracon and Micah had heard the gist of the plan, they all went to work on ideas of how to make it work, tossing around ideas of how to replace that many humans on the streets. They quickly realized they couldn’t make all the humans on the streets safe. They couldn’t warn them—or replace them—without warning Constantine.

  They would just have to integrate their own men around them.

  They knew that Constantine was now on the north side of Chicago. A lot of the same people walked those streets every day—but a lot of new faces did too. They could easily insert people all throughout that area without calling attention to themselves.

  After all, they smelled like humans—and that’s all the bait the vamps needed.

  Chapter Forty

  Killer

  Justice walked the wall, searching the night. He was mulling over Jes’s plan—thinking about how to make it work. It was the best one they’d had so far—at least in facing down Constantine now, without the shot—since they didn’t have it yet. So without anything that would seriously incapacitate his army, this was the best plan they had.

  Jes’s plan, or actually Jared’s plan, was brilliant—provided they could find a way to put it into action. He slowed his pace, thinking about Jes. He couldn’t be more proud of her. She was so good to all the people around her—no matter who they were—or what their station in life. She w
as going to make a great queen to their people one day.

  Dracon, as usual, watched him pace like a cat.

  Imagine that, he heard in his head.

  He glared at Dracon, knowing where that thought had come from. Dracon actually smiled.