Darkest Before the Dawn (male/male)

Felix

“That’s some Mew-type plan you got there, bud.” Cadence was sprawled out on her couch, Connie curled up in her side.

I rubbed my hands together and dipped my head. “I don’t think it’s safe for you two to come with me until we know there’s something you can help with.”

“What happens if you’re surveying one of the locations and they catch you, and we don’t know about it?” Marigold was pacing a rut in the tile. “Then we lose you and Barty both.”

“I’m going to be okay. I did this all the time when I was human.”

“Ahh, yes, when you were doing scouting missions to spy on other humans. Vampires totally don’t have a good sense of smell or anything,” Cadence countered, tipping her head at me. “How about you wait for us, and Goldie and I can travel during daylight? That way, we can already be where we need to be, and you’re not having to wait on us.”

“I can leave right now, though. At least clear out some locations. In the morning, you can head out and set up base in Jacksonville. It’s only a four-hour drive from here, so you can get settled—”

“And for tonight, what if you find them, and we’re stuck up here?” Marigold occupied a dining room chair now. Skippy waddled to her.

I squeezed my eyes shut, a slurry of words springing up that I wanted to say. “If we want to save Mew, I have to get this started tonight by myself. Tomorrow, you two can come with me once we’re closer to some of the locations, but at least for now, I should go alone.”

“We’re going to slow him down, is what he’s implying,” Cadence commented.

“Yes. You are.” I balled up my hands, yanking up every ounce of courage I could spare from the night before with Madeline. “I don’t mean to be rude, you know that. But if I’m waiting for you two to show up in a car, Mew could end up dead. We’ve already had to wait a night and a half to find him, and we aren’t sure how up to date these addresses are that Madeline gave us, let alone know if they’re accurate. I promise, if I find them, I will call you immediately.”

Cadence scrutinized me, a coldness in her eyes that mirrored Mew’s. I wondered if he had learned that from her.

A pillow whacked me in the face.

“The very second you smell that stupid expensive shampoo he uses, call me. You hear me?” Cadence was sitting up now, another throw pillow in her clutches. “And if you proceed without us, I will personally begin your termination paperwork.”

She walked me to her front door, her shoulders tense before she pulled me tightly into one of her rare hugs. “I promise I’m going to find Mew,” I whispered to her.

“I know you will. I’ll kill you otherwise.”

The rush of the wind battered at my ears, a welcomed sound compared to the anxious discussions I had escaped from. It was a reprieve, some needed silence from the past few days.

Heading to the vacant steel mill was my first option since it was the closest address to Mew and Cadence’s. Before I got there, I knew it would be empty of any BRF members. A steel mill would have enough room for everyone, certainly, but it wasn’t necessarily discreet or conducive to blood collection.

Finding it empty confirmed my thoughts. There was a large For Sale sign out front with a big red “sold” stamp on it, which was likely the result of the BRF. Hopefully I would be able to find them before they could do anything malicious with this property.

After, I made for the abandoned church, twenty-two miles south of the steel mill. It was the first time I had been in a church since leaving Europe. Nothing about it was impressive. It was a small decaying Baptist church made of plaster and concrete.

This at least made more sense. Demons could enter churches, but the sanctity of it sapped them of their magic and energy. It would have been the perfect place to keep them.

With a groan and some brute force, the French doors creaked open, revealing the dusty narthex. Beyond that, the heart of the church. Most of the pews had been torn apart or broken, the graffiti on the walls hinting at vandalism being the cause. Dead insects spotted the shredded carpet. The sounds of rats scurrying in the walls was the only sign of life.

It almost felt good when my knuckles struck the wood paneled wall. “Goddammit,” I hissed. The expectations had been low when I arrived at the church and steel mill. At the very least, however, I had been anticipating some sign of the BRF. That was two for two locations that came up with nothing.

Pulling out the list that Madeline wrote up, I skimmed through the different locations again. The steel mill and church were out. There were several residential areas on here, but located within a few miles of each other, so I could have saved those for last. The law office was seventeen miles west. It didn’t make sense to me. Law offices weren’t large, especially when trying to hide several demons. It made more sense that it was used to help with their assets in order to purchase property, rather than a place to conduct blood farming.

That hospital wing stood out to me. It could host multiple demons, had the medical equipment ready, and whichever doctor they used was readily available to help with any issues. They didn’t want to kill the demons, so they’d need someone to assure they were being kept alive.

Gracepoint Regional Hospital was eighteen miles south of Jacksonville. It was midnight, but the parking lot was more than half full, meaning there were plenty of witnesses. Getting to the third floor shouldn’t have been difficult, given my speed, but the droves of people certainly didn’t help.

Instead of the elevator, I opted for the stairs, stumbling over several of them. I shoulder checked a nurse, shouting a quick apology I was sure spooked her more. On the third floor, I went left when I needed to go right and doubled back when I found myself in the geriatric ward. A poor elderly woman sat up from her bed when she saw me. I put a finger over my lips and winked at her to keep her quiet.

There were several veins of hallways leading to the different rooms on this floor, signs hanging from the ceiling and pointing in different directions. These were all the generic patient rooms, meaning I had to be more careful about dodging nurses while not getting turned around.

One nurse sat at the nurse’s station in the atrium of all the conjoined hallways. I had dipped into the men’s bathroom to hide while I formulated how to get past her, peeking at her through the slimmest gap I opened in the door. Normally I could have run past her without issue. My problem was that the ward I needed to get to was closed off by the double doors. There was yellow caution tape across those doors. She would have noticed if the doors were opened when I got to them.

I had to channel something Mew would do.

And maybe it was unethical to slip into multiple patients’ rooms while they were asleep. It may have been even more unethical to push all their emergency buttons on their beds to call for the nurses.

But it was rewarding getting into the locked-off ward without getting caught.

Inside the new corridor, it smelled of antiseptic, humans, magical warmth, and the lightest touch of blood. All the lights were on, the patient room doors were open, and it was almost silent.

At the end of the hallway, a whisper of music was playing. Some hope emerged.

Keeping light on my feet, I started towards the music. There was a human in the last room to the right, muttering along with the lyrics every few beats. They smelled of cleaning supplies, sweat, and some awful cologne.

His back was to me, giving me the advantage of choosing how I wanted to approach him. While it would have been easy to incapacitate him and question him under duress, I had to remind myself that he may have been a custodian for the hospital. It was likely that he didn’t know what had happened with the demons or the BRF.

“Hello?” I called, hoping he could hear me over his music.

He jumped and removed an earbud, half-turning towards me. “Holy shit,” he shouted, moving so there was a bed between us. “You aren’t supposed to be in here. This area is contaminated.”

I shook my head. “I know that’s not true. I’m looking for information and was hoping you could help me.” Scrutinizing his outfit, I tried piecing together who he was. There wasn’t a nametag, and he was in casual clothes. On the bed were a scattering of store-bought cleaning supplies instead of professional grade. “You’re not a custodian, are you?”

When I was a spy, I used to love a good chase. Being a vampire, I had the unfair advantage of being faster than any human. Still, I gave him a five second head start because I was such a nice guy.

He barely made it halfway up the hallway when I caught up to him. With ease, I brought him down to the floor, my knee in his back, both wrists contained in my hands. Adrianna was the last person I had apprehended in this way, and that ended far worse that I expected this to.

“I said I’m looking for information. You’re going to help me. Where’s the Foundation?”

“I don’t know what you’re ta—” He yelped when I hiked his wrists up higher along his back. “Fuck, let me go!”

“Not until you tell me everything I need. Where’s Richard and the demons?”

“I don’t know!”

I pushed my weight onto the knee that kept him in place. My grip around his wrists was tighter. “You do know. Tell me before I break your wrist.”

He was breathing heavily now, seething through clenched teeth. “They left this morning. All of them.”

“Where did they go?” No response. His back cracked when I leaned onto my knee. “Where?”

“A-A house! Some house they’ve been building.”

Keeping my left hand gripped onto his arms, I reached into my pocket to hold the location list in front of his face. “Are any of these the address?”

He nodded, his breathing calming down. “Yeah, yeah, the Rosewood one.”

My jaw tightened. “You’re certain? Because if I find out this is a lie, I will hunt you down.”

He shook his head as best as he could. “No, it’s legit. I swear. Richard made me and a few other humans stay behind to clean up, and I’m supposed to meet them there after I’m done checking everything.”

I didn’t hear his heartbeat fluctuate. If he was a liar, he was a good one. I eased up on him the smallest bit. “Did he also promise you vampirism if you help him?” He nodded again. “Is this all worth it? Knowing innocent people are being harmed because of him? You just lost two members trying to abduct a councilman’s partner. That could happen to you, too.”

“Demons aren’t innocent,” he spat, wriggling beneath my hold. “One tried to kill a Foundation member just last night. They deserve to have their blood taken. Richard says they’re scum, and he’s right.”

“You have no goddamn idea what you’re talking about.” I wanted to ask my next question but was afraid of the response. “Who was the demon that attacked last night? What’d they look like?” He remained silent. His fingers could almost touch the base of his spine now. “Who was it?”

He growled at me and clenched his teeth. “White haired fucker. He keeps giving Richard problems.”

A wash of relief filled me. Mew was alive. Causing havoc, as usual, but alive.

I released his arms. There wasn’t a need to stand up quite yet. “How many vampires are at this house?”

He rotated his shoulders as best as he could. “There’s about a dozen. But that house isn’t normal.”

“How do you mean?”

Scoffing, he shook his head. “I’m only telling you because you didn’t kill me.”

Cadence answered on the first ring, the late hour meaning nothing to her. She hadn’t been sleeping well these past few days, not that I could blame her. My own sleeping habits had been disrupted. “That didn’t take long.”

“Told you I needed to work alone.” I was seated on a bench outside of the hospital, keeping my distance from the smokers and staff who needed a break. “I may know where Mew is. I don’t know how reliable the information is, but it’s one of the addresses Madeline gave us. The one on Rosewood Avenue in West Jacksonville.”

“You don’t sound so sure of this.”

Glancing to make sure nobody was around to hear me, I cupped the mouthpiece of my phone. “I found one of the humans who work for the BRF. He told me the address we have is correct. However, it’s not a normal home. It’s apparently a whole compound.”

Silence on Cade’s end. Then, “compound? Like a Waco-style compound?”

“With armed guards, security features, and an underground bunker where the demons are kept.”

She sighed and blew a raspberry with her tongue. “I’ll bring Mew’s pistol.”

“Bring both. Start heading to Jacksonville, and I’ll get a hotel set up for us. We’re going to bring Mew home tomorrow night.”