Page 58 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
“She was just…normal, sire. About five foot four, average weight, average everything.”
Average. How depressing. Who was this rogue who’d killed two of his best men and had average taste in women?
He handed the drawing back to Marcell. “Well. Just one more reason to kill the son of a bitch.” He dusted off his hands as if the paper had soiled them and instructed, “Get copies of that to everyone. I want to know who this girl is. If we can find her, we can find him. And she’ll undoubtedly be much easier to find than our rogue friend.” He smiled. “And might make him a little more inclined to comply with our demands.”
He sat back in his chair—really, it was more of a throne, high-backed and elaborately carved, cushioned in red velvet—and looked around the room in satisfaction. In spite of the problem with the rogue male, everything was going so well.
The place he’d settled after leaving Rome was a stroke of pure genius, if he did say so himself. With unobstructed views of the sprawling city below and the forested mountain range behind, the abandoned bunkers, remnants of the Spanish Civil War, were situated at the crest of a jutting outcropping of rock. The steel-reinforced concrete structures were crumbling in many places, graffitied by long-ago vandals as well, but afforded an excellent point of ingress and egress, easily defended.
But the above-ground portions of the bunkers were not the most valuable aspects of his new colony. The most valuable aspects were below.
A labyrinth of hand-dug tunnels connected larger, open spaces that served as barracks, training facilities, and storage for food, weapons, water, and other supplies. And, of course, his playroom. Also, at a constant chilly 55 degrees, the caves provided the perfect temperature to store their most precious commodity: the serum.
The single thing Caesar admired about his dead father Dominus was the thing that would ultimately allow him to rule the world. A brilliant scientist and evolutionary biologist, his father had invented a serum that would allow human and Ikati blood to be compatible. Half-Bloods could live for a while, but eventually were faced with the Transition, a do-or-die event that occurred at twenty-five years of age, exactly at the minute of birth.
Fewer than one percent of half-Bloods survived the Transition, a problem that had defied solution for all of their recorded history. No one knew why, but, just like a clock ticking down to zero hour, there was a definitive expiration date for those of mixed Blood.
Only now, due to the invention of the serum, there wasn’t. The serum allowed the delayed first Shift to occur, and a half-Blood survived it without problem. Even better, he was going to use mankind’s prolific fertility against them. If all went according to plan, humans had only a few generations left on the planet.
After that—bye, bye, birdie!
In the meantime, terror and anarchy—two of his favorite things—would reign supreme.
He needed to find a trustworthy lab to produce the quantities he needed because he had neither the medical facilities or the mind for science his father had, but the supplies they’d stockpiled would suffice very well to set the plan in motion. As a matter of fact, the first part of the plan was already well underway; they’d already impregnated dozens of women, willing and otherwise. Hundreds more would be similarly situated soon.
The harem and nursery were another wonderful addition to the barren underground caves.
But they needed more offspring, enough to build an army, and it would take time. Considering he was immortal, time was really of no consequence at all. He’d be able to see this plan to its ultimate fruition.
He turned to his second-in-command, a hulking male with a cool, soulless beauty, and those obsidian eyes they all shared. “What’s the current count, Marcell?”
Marcell inclined his head respectfully as he always did when speaking to Caesar—a habit Caesar absolutely delighted in—and said, “Two hundred six, sire.”
Caesar was pleased. He’d arrived in Spain with only a handful, but now the disgruntled members of the other colonies, ruled as they were by their Draconian Law, were flocking to him in droves. It seemed there were many who believed, as he did, that the Ikati should no longer hide in the shadows.
They’d had thousands of years of that. Time to flourish in the light.
Also, time to dig more tunnels.
Caesar sat back in his throne and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. With calm deliberation, he instructed Marcell, “Go and find me this Plain Jane Nico saw the male with. And then we’re going to finalize the plans for The Hammer. I want everything in place and ready by the middle of March; this year Easter is on the thirty-first.”
Marcell bowed, he and Nico backed quickly from the room, and Caesar was left alone with his thoughts, all of which brought a deeply satisfied smile to his face.
Just like last Christmas, this Easter would be one humans would never forget.
The telephone ringing shrilly next to her ear awoke Ember with a jolt the following morning.
She looked in confusion around her bedroom, wondering why she wasn’t in the bed, when she remembered she’d been doing research far into the early hours of the morning, and must have fallen asleep at the desk.
She stretched her neck, which responded with an ominous series of cracks, reached over, and picked up the phone. Into it she mumbled something resembling a greeting.
“September!” her stepmother brayed into the earpiece. With a wince of pain, Ember jerked it away from her ear. She glanced at the clock; just before eight. What on earth could she be calling about at this hour? The woman never rose before ten.
Then panic hit her, cold as a pail of water splashed in her face. Picturing the bookstore burned to the ground, she bolted upright in the chair. “What’s wrong, Marguerite? What’s happened?”
“I’ve had the most wonderful news!” she crowed in response. Ember frowned, confused, because her stepmother was never happy, and she was definitely never happy when she called her.
“I don’t understand—is everything all right?”
