Nightfall (Nightfall Book 1)
Chapter 23

In the end, it was fairly easy to convince Black to let James come with. The vampire had actually been surprised at how little of an argument he’d had to make at first, but then Aegis really didn’t have much of a choice with how many people had deserted them already.

James wasn’t going to comment on any of this, though, because all that mattered to him was the fact that he was coming along with Arkie, and he could keep an eye on him. It seemed a bit counterintuitive to bring Arkemoz to face angels, but since most of Aegis was going, he was more likely to be in danger if he stayed behind. Especially since until now, Aegis had been full of informants for the enemy, so they knew where to replace him.

James looked over at Arkie, who was sitting next to him in the car as usual, frowning as he stared out the window. The demon hadn’t been in a particularly talkative mood this entire drive, and neither was Denise, who had been on her phone the entire time. It made the atmosphere in the car all the more tense.

But James understood why they wouldn’t want to talk. They were going to face beings more powerful than anything else they’d fought before, and even with however many people the Aegis leaders had managed to get together to attack this place, whatever it was, the possibility of dying was still pretty high. So he got that people weren’t really for the most part excited for a conversation while thinking about that.

Unfortunately, James tended to want to talk more than usual when he was nervous or worried, or anxious, or anything negative, really. He didn’t like having the time to think, and talking always worked wonders to distract him from it, but he wouldn’t force Arkie or Denise into it if they didn’t want to.

Which meant that he didn’t have much choice but to think about things he didn’t like. Like blood. Knowing that Qironin would have been able to open that portal without him drinking it made it all the more annoying that he was still itching to get himself some more, but obviously he couldn’t have known that then.

He really wasn’t fine just yet, no matter how much he liked to claim otherwise, but he had to keep it together. Hopefully, there would be no humans around because he wasn’t sure he trusted himself enough to be around them.

Just thinking that made him want to vomit, but he swallowed the feeling down, shaking his head. He had been feeling like this on and off the entire trip, and since they were getting close, he really needed to get a hold of himself.

What else could he think about? James’ eyes almost immediately slid over to Arkie. He had been doing that for the majority of the drive, if he was to be honest with himself, but he could never do it for long because otherwise he would probably crash.

Still, he could indulge himself for a few seconds. He ran his eyes over the demon’s horns, noting how they glinted in the late afternoon sunlight. Had Arkie always had hair like that? It looked too neatly and evenly cut for a guy who probably didn’t even know hairdressers existed, even with how messy it was.

James almost laughed at himself for even thinking that. Maybe Denise had been right, and he should have said something to Arkie before now, but it was too late now. Maybe he would have still considered it if Denise wasn’t in the car with them. She seemed pretty absorbed in whatever she was doing on her phone, but James knew better than to assume she wasn’t listening. And he really didn’t feel like getting rejected with her around.

Not that he didn’t trust Denise not to make fun of him for this, but it would be too awkward to survive. James would rather go attack that angel base on his own than to put himself in this situation.

Besides, Arkie had been a bit passive aggressive with him over the whole drinking blood and getting captured thing earlier, and there was no need to make that worse. Maybe if they survived this, then James could approach the subject. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea. They were probably not going to fix everything with this one attack, but they would get a little downtime afterward, right?

James grimaced. He wasn’t really sure if telling himself this was motivating him to survive, given how his stomach turned at the thought of having this talk with Arkie. Would he even understand what James would be suggesting? Earlier he had seemed to catch on to what James and Nathan used to be to each other, but from what Arkie had said so far, it was pretty clear that demons were kind of single-minded when it came to relationships in general.

Maybe James should open with questions about demon relationships and hide his interest behind simple curiosity.

Because that wasn’t going to make it awkward at all. James sighed quietly, looking back on the road as he readjusted his grip on the steering wheel.

“Are we getting close?” Denise suddenly asked after what felt like an eternity of silence. Since not even the radio had been on due to that making the atmosphere even worse, the only sound for the most part had been the rumbling of the car engine, hearing her voice almost made James jump.

“Yeah, we should be there soon,” James replied, looking down at the screen where the navigation was. “Where are we even going?”

“You don’t know?” Denise asked, sounding surprised. As if she wasn’t used to James not knowing basic things by now. He had been too preoccupied trying to figure out how to convince Black to let him join to pay attention when he had been told where exactly the portal was. That was the important part, anyway—their final destination was some kind of out-of-this-world flying building, right?

“Some abandoned cabin in the woods, apparently,” Denise said, not bothering to wait for James to react to her previous question. James frowned. He wasn’t sure why, but he had been expecting maybe a house, or another warehouse. He must have really not been paying attention. “I guess ’cause it’s hidden, and there’s not a lot of sunlight.”

Yeah, James supposed that made sense since these angels seemed to only hire vampires to do their dirty work. And it was a good thing too because the clouds that had protected them from the sun earlier were gone, and despite it being almost evening now, James would definitely die as soon as he stepped out of the car.

“I’m still half expecting that there will be nothing in that forest, and Marlow is just having a good laugh,” Denise grumbled as she pocketed her phone.

James scowled to himself. It was ridiculous to get annoyed with people for not liking Nathan because they had every reason to, but it wasn’t his fault he was like that—it was James’—and so his automatic reaction was to get irritated as soon as anyone said anything.

“He has no reason to lie,” James said, sighing. He wished he could have talked to Nathan one more time, but at the same time he was sort of glad he hadn’t been allowed to. He wasn’t even sure what he would say to him. James remembered how awful he had felt while regaining his, for the lack of a better word, humanity, and so he knew there was nothing he could have said to make Nathan feel better, but James still felt like he should have said something.

Hopefully, if he didn’t die, he would get a chance to talk with Nathan soon. That was bound to be awkward as well, but he owed it to him.

“Well, if you say so,” Denise replied in a more sarcastic tone than James would appreciate, but he bit down whatever he automatically wanted to shoot back. Nathan had kidnapped Denise earlier—she had plenty of reasons not to trust him. James supposed he had a unique viewpoint of Nathan in general, besides the obvious fact that he had turned him—Nathan was, or at least until now had been, likely to do anything for James. That made trusting his word a lot easier.

Nothing was said during the last five minutes of the journey, save for James complaining about the dirt road he had to use to get to whatever location Aegis had put into the navigation. It seemed to be right next to a forest, which James assumed was where the cabin would be.

But even without the navigation, he would have managed to replace the meeting place fairly easily, given that the spot it was leading him to was already taken up by seven or more cars, all parked evenly next to each other in the shade, with serious-looking vampires standing next to the tree line.

Aegis was clearly not bothering trying to be subtle anymore, though James supposed that made sense since the bad guys had to be expecting them after what had happened. That thought wasn’t exactly filling James with confidence, but hell, there was already like twenty of them right now, and more people were coming still, he was sure.

As he parked the car and climbed out, he scanned his eyes over the vampires around him, blinking as he realized just how many there actually were. It hadn’t really occurred to him to question it until this moment, but this had to be the biggest group he had ever worked with during his time with Aegis.

It made sense that Aegis would grab everyone they could for this, and yet it still seemed like there were too few people for what they were about to attempt. But with that said, James wasn’t surprised by the low numbers at all—aside from everything else that had happened, there was also the fact that only people who were near enough to get here quickly could be here. Usually, James would be the first to criticize, but here it made sense because the sooner they attacked, the bigger the chance they had, so they didn’t have much of a choice.

He almost smiled when he noticed the four Aegis leaders he had met so far discussing something off to the side. He would never actually say it out loud, but it was nice to see that the bosses were going with them on this insanely dangerous mission. He had honestly expected them to go hide somewhere with the CEO, whoever that person was.

James turned his head as he felt someone tap his shoulder, only to see that it was Arkie. The demon’s face was just as grim and determined as before, but now there was also a hint of concern in his eyes. James hated to see it, but he completely understood why it was there.

“Come with me,” Arkie said, not bothering to explain further as he began walking into the forest. James frowned, following him. The demon didn’t end up going too far, only enough to be out of earshot, which only made James more curious as to what Arkie wanted to talk about.

“You need to be careful when we do this,” Arkemoz said, his dark orange eyes practically burrowing holes into James’ soul. “You can’t defeat an angel, certainly not alone. They are too powerful.”

James frowned, not really sure where Arkemoz was going with this. “Yeah, I know. I mean, you said that demons can’t beat them, and you’re much stronger than me, so...”

Arkemoz huffed, folding his arms as his tail began to swing back and forth. Apparently, that had been the wrong thing to say. “You need to be more careful than usual. Just look at what happened earlier today.”

“Hey, that did work out in the end.”

Arkie’s tail came to a halt as the demon fixed James with an icy glare. “Only because Qironin somehow managed to open that portal. What if he hadn’t? I would have—” He cut himself off and looked away, glaring at the ground. “We would have lost you.”

James realized that he was being scolded right now, and that his sense of self-preservation was being questioned, but he couldn’t help but smile. Not only did Arkemoz care about him, he cared a lot, didn’t he? That was a very strange feeling, but he liked it very much. It made his insides flutter and made him want to kiss the demon right here and now, but he wouldn’t. They didn’t have the kind of time that it would take to have that talk, nor did either of them need that kind of distraction on their minds.

“Just don’t rush into fighting them,” Arkie continued, sighing as he wrapped his tail around his leg. He looked like a miserable puppy like this, especially with the way he kept his eyes downcast, and it made James’ heart hurt. He smiled at the demon sadly before pulling him into a gentle but firm hug, which Arkie returned much quicker than James had been expecting.

James almost chuckled. Good, he would convince the guy that hugs were good yet.

“Shouldn’t you be saying this to Denise, too?” James joked as they separated, which made Arkie scowl at him.

“She doesn’t run headfirst into danger,” the demon snarked, stalking away, his tail swishing around again. James couldn’t help but laugh, grinning as he watched Arkemoz make his way back to the group. He was so cute when he got annoyed, but James supposed he had a point there.

If James were given that sword, he would definitely try to rush an angel with it as soon as he saw one, hoping that they wouldn’t expect something that insane from him for long enough to gain an advantage. Even though he barely knew anything about angels. He didn’t even know what they looked like. Demons looked pretty similar to what he’d imagined, though, so maybe angels did, too. They probably had wings, right?

Either way, he was going to replace out pretty soon. Unfortunately.

Feeling his very brief burst of good mood disappearing, James sighed and went after Arkie. He could hear Black saying something, but he didn’t really bother tuning in to what he was saying until he was standing next to everyone else and actually looking at the older vampire. James did his best to ignore the curious look Denise was giving him and Arkie.

“This will be the easy part,” the man said, pointing at the forest behind him without looking that way. “They shouldn’t be expecting us. The important part is that we capture some of them. Nathan Marlow said that at least one of the people there should be able to open the portal if it’s closed, so we’ll need them alive.”

James swallowed at the mention of Nathan. Even when his name was said in an entirely neutral tone, it still made James feel strange. And he couldn’t say that he was happy about not being able to just kill all their enemies, but he supposed that was nothing new with Aegis. Practically all the missions he’d gone on that involved an evil vampire had the objective of capturing them, so they could be helped.

“Do you hear me? Do not kill them if it can be avoided,” Black repeated, making James want to roll his eyes. Could they go attack that damned cabin already? All this waiting was making him antsy.

James blinked. Huh. Maybe he really did have a tendency to run into danger.

“Let’s go.”

Everyone readied their stakes as Black as well as the other leaders turned around and started walking into the forest. James walked behind Arkie as the demon set off in the same direction they’d gone just a moment ago. James hoped that this cabin was close.

He ran his eyes over the trees surrounding them, far too aware of every single crunch of leaves made by him or the vamps around him. He was practically waiting for an ambush, even though they could still be far away, and it would be nearly impossible for their enemies to predict where they would enter the woods.

Ironically, he managed to get himself to relax a bit only once the one-room cabin was in sight. There was no one around the rotting, wooden structure, giving James the time to take it in properly. It blended somewhat with the forest as it was in the process of being reclaimed by nature, with its walls covered in ivy, and moss, and with holes in its rusty sheet metal roof.

It honestly looked like a light breeze would knock the thing down, but that was probably the point. No one would suspect this of all places to have any significance to anyone.

He waited for a moment, just watching the cabin as the Aegis leaders gave out silent orders to a few vampires to stealthily surround the structure. It felt very pointless to James, seeing as there was only one door, and the place was tiny, but he didn’t comment on it and just gripped his stake tighter.

And finally, Black waved his arm towards the cabin, taking the lead and rushing toward it, about to knock the door down. James was about run there, but then he stopped himself, waiting for a couple other vampires to go first. Even though it was unlikely that securing the cabin was going to be all that dangerous, he didn’t need to piss off Arkie immediately.

He did quickly come running, though, when he saw Black and the others get pushed back by a shocking amount of vampires rushing at them from the cabin. There were at least ten, which was still three times less than the amount that Aegis had managed to put together, but it was mindboggling that so many had managed to fit in the tiny shack.

As James caught up, he immediately swung at the nearest enemy vamp with his stake, actually managing to scratch the woman’s shoulder with it before she could dodge. She grunted, grabbing her shoulder and turning her full attention to him, but James didn’t manage to get more use out of her surprise when he saw how red her eyes were.

Oh, this was a new vampire. That was both good and bad, as she would be a lot less skilled and weaker, but she should also be much more ferocious and therefore unpredictable.

As if to prove that point, the female vampire snarled at him, showing off her fangs, stained black.

James could barely contain his rage at the sight. She charged at him with lightning speed, but he was faster, grabbing her wrists. His eyes widened at how strongly she fought his grip, but before he could lose his hold on her, he slammed his forehead into hers with all his might.

Ignoring the dizziness this had caused him, James kicked the other vampire in the stomach, making her fall. He went down with her, stabbing her through the heart before she could recover.

He didn’t get a chance to catch his breath, however, as immediately someone grabbed him from behind and threw him to the side, making his back collide with a tree, his stake flying out of his hand. Letting out a gasp as pain stabbed through him, James barely had the time to look the man attacking him in the face before he raised his own stake, ready to kill James.

That was as far as the guy got, though, before he cried out, the tip of a bloody stake suddenly sticking out of his chest. As the vamp turned to dust, James was greeted with the sight of Arkemoz, glaring at the space the vampire had been just a second prior.

“Thanks, Arkie!” James yelled over the shouts and noises of fighting all around them, quickly springing to his feet. He resisted the urge to tell the demon to get away from the center of it, seeing as these vampires clearly drank demon blood, and instead he rushed to the next vampire he saw, helping two Aegis vamps to kill him.

They were gaining advantage, with the enemies’ numbers dwindling as expected since there were many more people on Aegis’ side to begin with, but as James quickly took a sweeping glance around, it definitely seemed as though a few of their people have died, too.

It was quick after that, with the last few enemies killed as suddenly they had to fight two or more vampires at once. James had been so preoccupied thinking about killing them before they could hurt anyone—mostly Arkie—that it actually took him a split second to understand why two of them were in the process of being handcuffed.

Right, portal knowhow or whatever. Though looking at how the male and female vampire they’d managed to secure were fighting back and trying to break out of the vamp-proof cuffs, James doubted they would be all that willing to help out.

“Okay,” Denise said, huffing as she made her way to James, who turned his head towards her, “is it just me, or were they way stronger than they should have been?”

James nodded, looking back at their furious prisoners. One of the leaders was in a shouting match with them right now, which only made James more pleased that he was too far away to be involved.

“I didn’t notice,” Arkemoz said, making James let out a laugh. Of course he wouldn’t notice it.

“Well, you’re way stronger than any of us,” James told him, rolling his shoulder. God, his back still hurt. He would make a joke about getting old, but with vampires it was supposed to be the other way around, and if anything, he should be healing faster.

“But new vampires aren’t supposed to be this strong, right?” Denise continued, her tone very obviously concerned about this whole thing. “Even if an old vamp turns them.”

“We’re about to fight angels. I think we can try to figure this out later.” It was probably due to the demon blood, anyway, James was guessing. That was the only thing he could think of. Drinking any kind of blood other than human made a vampire weaker, but maybe it could work in the other direction, too. But then the vampires they’d fought back at the Aegis headquarters hadn’t been stronger, and they’d practically sucked Arkie dry.

James gritted his teeth when he thought about that incident. Not a good topic to be thinking of when those vamp’s allies were just a few feet away from him. He glared at them, but then he managed to tear his eyes away. He needed a change of scenery.

James slowly made his way closer to the cabin, peering inside through the open door that looked like it was barely staying on its hinges. The room inside was as small and decrepit as he’d been expecting, with the rotted wood making up the walls much more obviously visible here, without any plants covering it up.

Black was standing in the center of the room, along with two more Aegis members James didn’t know, all of them looking down on the floor. And once one of them finally moved a bit, James could see what they were looking at—a metal circle, kind of like the one from back at the warehouse, except this one was gold and more intricate, with lines and what looked like some kind of text, maybe?

Right, so clearly that was where the portal was supposed to be. And it also meant that they would be stuck unless they found out how to open it from their new friends.

James really had to wonder why exactly Qironin hadn’t come with them. Obviously, the guy could fight, maybe even suspiciously well, but who even knew what was normal with these magic types. The point was that claiming he wasn’t a fighter wasn’t a reason that made sense. And they sure could use Qironin right about now, given that before he’d apparently opened the portal no problem.

James sighed, putting his stake back in the pocket of his jacket. They were gonna be here a while, weren’t they? And waiting even a few minutes was going to drive him insane when he knew more fighting was coming.

His eyes widened as he suddenly noticed a plastic bottle in the corner of the room, half-filled with black liquid. James gritted his teeth. He couldn’t help but get angry wherever he looked, it seemed. He wasn’t sure why exactly he felt so strongly about this—after all, that wasn’t Arkie’s blood—but by God he felt like killing someone right now.

Maybe his remaining blood hunger was influencing him, too, though. That was probably a lot of it.

James sighed, walking inside the cabin. He knew it was probably counterproductive to him right now, but he wanted to take a closer look at that portal site. As long as he kept his back to that damned bottle, he would be fine, hopefully.

He frowned down at it, coming close enough to see it well, but still keeping his distance from the other vampires. It seemed as if the metal was actually made up of several circular plates, with symbols on each of them. It looked like writing, but how was James supposed to know? It honestly looked closer to very angular numbers than anything, purely from a visual standpoint, but obviously angels weren’t likely to know any earthly alphabet, so that was not it.

He wondered if Arkemoz could read it as he ran his eyes over each individual symbol. He would definitely ask the demon about it. Arkie could inexplicably speak English, so it was worth a shot.

James frowned as he noticed a slit in the middle of the ring, thin and straight. It didn’t look like any other part of the metal plate. Was that where the blood for the portal opening spell was supposed to go? He didn’t remember seeing the vampire back at the warehouse being careful about where his blood dripped.

He wished he could remember what exactly the circle at the warehouse had looked like, but unfortunately, he had been a bit too preoccupied to do so, to say the least.

But either way, if it were for blood, they could have put in a circular hole instead, so James was doubtful that was how this worked. But it felt like something was supposed to be inserted into the plate. He didn’t know anything about portal magic, of course, but he couldn’t help but feel like this was the case.

As Black excused himself, muttering something about interrogating their captives, James went closer to the portal site, crouching down next to it and tracing his finger over the opening. The other two vampires were looking at him, probably with alarm seeing as neither of them had touched the thing the entire time, but James ignored them.

He pressed his fingers against one of the metal circles making up the plate, trying to see if it could move, but even when he pushed unnecessarily hard, it didn’t budge at all. Touching it also made him feel strange—a cold, uncomfortable sensation spreading into his body, but it was gone as soon as he put his hand away.

What kind of metal was this?

“This looks just like the stuff those angel swords are made of,” one of the other vampires mused as she touched it as well now that she had seen James do it without anything bad happening.

James frowned, nodding. Yes, the metal did look the same, and he supposed the writing, glyphs, whatever, did too. But that would make sense since angels had made this, right? Especially—

Wait. That hole in the middle of it—was it just him, or did that look like it would fit the sword’s blade? He brushed his fingers over it, noting that the weird writing was actually running directly over it through the middle. He wasn’t sure if that was significant or not, but there was writing on the angel swords, too. Could it possibly line up?

Rising to his feet, James took one more look at the metal circle before heading outside. This was probably not going to work, but he needed to try it immediately. Now if only he could remember who he’d seen have the sword last. It was with one of the Aegis leaders, but he didn’t think it was Black.

Thankfully, he very quickly figured it out, seeing as the golden blade was very noticeable, even wrapped up in the black fabric the ginger vampire was holding it in one hand as she watched Black interrogate their captives.

James barely paid attention to that though as he immediately went over to her.

“I need to borrow the sword,” he said before he even reached her, receiving a confused, somewhat suspicious look from her.

“Why?”

“I think it might fit together with the portal somehow.”

For a second she said nothing, only studying him, but she looked intrigued rather than doubtful. Great, James was glad someone at least didn’t think the worst of him. “Show me.”

And so James led her back into the cabin, shrugging at Arkie and Denise when he passed them to answer their curious glances. He would have stopped to explain what was going on, but he barely knew himself, to be honest. He could easily sum it up later, once this didn’t work.

The Aegis leader—whose name James really should make an effort to learn—made a circle around the portal site, looking at it with such intensity it seemed she was trying to take in every single detail on it. The two vampires who had been there the entire time moved out of the way to give her more space as she took a step closer, crouching down.

As she took the fabric off the sword’s blade, James tensed up, not even certain why. All of a sudden, he felt anxious, both from the possibility of this working and from it not working, which was ridiculous, but he couldn’t help it.

His eyes followed the sword’s tip as the woman raised it, bringing it down into the opening in the metal. The sword slid in easily, perfectly taking up the small space.

For a moment nothing happened, the sword simply standing there. James opened his mouth to say as much, but then just a second later, the strange writing lit up. James flinched, as did everyone else in the cabin, as the golden light spread further, growing in intensity as the entire metal circle started to glow.

And then finally, a tall oval of golden light opened around the sword with a loud boom, shimmering and lighting up everything in the small space to the point of being hard to look at. But James couldn’t help but stare.

He couldn’t believe it. They’d actually managed to open the portal. But now something much challenging was waiting. And James truly hoped that they were ready for it.