Cursed Truths

PROLOGUE

MONTEREY COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

July 04, 2008

The thunderous boom of the rockets erupting behind Daryl Metzger, the dazzling finale to the town’s firework display, masked the click of the latch. Specks of strontium carbonate burning red in the atmosphere reflected in the glass of the French windows as Daryl Metzger opened them and stepped from the balcony to the bedroom. She would need to be quick if she was to carry out her plan before the others arrived.

Kneeling by the child’s bed, Daryl reached into the pocket of her black, hooded jacket and removed a syringe and a pair of tubes. The child’s breathing was shallow and rapid. Her arms twitched, spurred by some nightmarish dream. Whatever the girl was imagining, it could not be worse than the path laid out before her. Lifting the child’s foot, Daryl pressed the needle between her toes and filled the first tube. Listening for sounds from downstairs, Daryl swapped tubes, filling the second one and pocketing them before removing the needle. One down, one to go.

Leaving Skylar to her nightmares, Daryl silently crossed the hallway to Sawyer’s room, adjusting the cloth over her face as she went. The cloudless sky bathed the manor’s backyard in moonlight, making it easy to spot Lukai’s assault team through the hallway’s floor to ceiling windows. Moving swiftly, Daryl twisted the doorknob, wincing at the loud click, and stepped into the second bedroom.

The boy was awake.

Rubbing his eyes, Sawyer sat up in bed. If he screamed, the entire operation was ruined. Hers and Lukai’s. Wasting no time, Daryl closed the gap to his bed and clamped her hand over his mouth. Startled by the move, the boy lashed out, his arms flailing uselessly as Daryl gripped his shoulders with her other arm and twisted. The boy was scheduled to die anyway; what difference did a few minutes make?

With another two tubes filled, Daryl dropped the boy’s useless corpse on the floor and headed for the parents’ room. Let Lukai’s first assault team tackle Jeremy. Their inevitable deaths meant nothing to Daryl and would buy her enough time to complete her own task before helping them with theirs.

Daryl stiffened, hand on the doorknob to Joanne and Mark Sinclair’s room, as the unmistakable sound of glass shattering echoed around the house.

Fools, Daryl thought as she threw open the door. The gung-ho idiots were not supposed to blow the bloody doors off. Then again, stealth was never a strong suit for Lukai or his goons.

Joanne was already up and heading for the door, launching herself at Daryl with a hellish scream as soon as their eyes met. The two women collapsed into the hallway in a tangle of limbs as Joanne threw all her weight against the intruder. For all her fury, the woman was no match for Daryl. Grabbing Joanne by the shoulders, Daryl threw her off, sending her back into the room and knocking her husband from his feet as he rushed to Joanne’s aid.

“You’ll pay for that,” Joanne said as she pulled herself to her feet.

Daryl smiled beneath her mask and lowered the hood of her jacket, revealing her punkish, short, black hair and keeping Joanne distracted as the balcony door slid silently open. The glint of moonlight on the cluster of earrings in Daryl’s left ear was enough to hold Joanne’s attention as two goons crept into the room, blades raised.

Mark screamed, drawing Joanne from their battle of wills, as the first goon slashed at his neck. Amazed that such an easy kill could be botched so badly, Daryl stepped into the room as Mark fell to the floor, arm raised to ward off a follow-up strike. Recognizing the most pressing threat, despite wanting to rush to her husband’s aid, Joanne kicked out at the door to delay Daryl, but her reactions were too slow. Daryl slipped into the room as the door slammed against the frame, bouncing ajar from the force of the impact. With Daryl blocking the hallway door and Lukai’s goons blocking the balcony door, there was no escape for the Sinclairs.

Daryl tilted her head slightly at the sound of footsteps in the hallway. The girl. No threat there. Mistaking Daryl’s hesitation for weakness, Joanne launched herself at Daryl with an easily blocked right hook and a casually sidestepped left uppercut. Against a normal opponent, the rapid attack sequence might have worked.

Listening to the combat downstairs, Daryl blocked another strike as Mark, struggling from the blood loss, finally succumbed to the kicks and punches of Lukai’s goons. A kill that was needlessly drawn out so that the two men could revel in the physical violence. The same could not be said for the fighting on the first floor. From the sound of it, Jeremy would be done with Lukai’s crew in short order.

Tired of kicking a corpse, the goons turned their attention to their next victim. Daryl stepped back, leaning against the wall, and flicked her head in the direction of Lukai’s men. Warily, Joanne took the hint and switched her focus. Mark was an easy target, untrained in the art of self-defense. Joanne deserved some retribution before breathing her last.

Snarling behind the ski mask that obscured his face, the first of the goons, the one that slashed her husband, grabbed for Joanne. Like his master, he assumed that might was all he needed to carry out his aims. Joanne made him pay for his arrogance with a perfectly timed punch to the throat. Daryl was neither surprised nor dismayed. There was no allowance for incompetence in her mind.

Capitalizing on the man’s inability to breathe, Joanne drove her knee into his stomach and hurled him away from her, forcing the other man to dodge as his comrade fell at his feet. There was no denying Joanne’s ferocity or skill. Had she been anything other than human, Joanne may have been a viable threat. As it stood, only Lukai’s men needed to worry about those quick hands and powerful legs.

The battle was everything Daryl expected. With the second goon on the defensive, Joanne was quick to press her advantage, kicking at the man’s knee while swinging a fist at his temple. Less quick to judge his opponent by her size, the man-made a better effort to kill his prey than the first goon, scoring several blows on Joanne. Fueled by rage at the assault and desperate to save her family, it was not enough to slow Joanne’s attack.

As Lukai’s second man fell, Daryl pushed herself off the wall and walked to the center of the room, giving herself a clear path to the balcony. The thud of a body in the hallway downstairs signaled Jeremy was getting closer.

“How dare you violate the treaty?” Joanne asked through gritted teeth. “You’ll rot in hell for this.”

 “Oh, Joanne,” replied Daryl in her rich, Australian accent. “You and your kind don’t even know what hell is. I would be more than happy to teach you about it if you wish.”

“Get fucked, vampire whore,” said Joanne, her eyes darting to the hallway. “You cannot come into my home, attack my family, and expect to escape retribution.”

Daryl resisted the urge to look to the door. As tempting as it was to think Joanne was planning to make a run for it, Daryl knew she was stalling for time.

“If this is the day I die,” Joanne continued, “I’m taking you down with me.”

Daryl fended off Joanne’s wild lunge, listening to Jeremy’s footsteps as he reached the top of the stairs. Would he go for the child or risk everything to save the mother? Readying herself to dash for the balcony, Daryl forced Joanne back. The door crept open another inch as Jeremy’s footsteps reached the bedroom door. Pulling her hood back over her head, Daryl swept forward with a barrage of punches too quick for Joanne to defend against, driving the woman to her knees and making it clear there was no hope of victory before drawing back. There was no sense in drawing Jeremy into the fight when she already had the blood of the children.

Daryl smiled beneath her mask at the look of relief on Joanne’s face. Not for herself, but for her daughter. Keeping her face turned to the floor, Daryl stepped behind Joanne and placed an arm around her neck.

“You’re too late,” Joanne whispered through a mouthful of blood.

“Am I?” asked Daryl, twisting Joanne’s head until her neck snapped as Jeremy raced along the hallway with the child, his footsteps fading as he bounded down the stairs.

With the threat of Jeremy’s interference gone, Daryl opened her jacket and removed another syringe. With no need for subtlety, Daryl jabbed the needle into Joanne’s arm and began filling another pair of tubes. Sounds of combat echoed from downstairs as Jeremy fought his way through the second squad with Skylar. Exactly why her master needed the girl to escape, Daryl did not know. The fact that it would upset Lukai was reason enough for Daryl.

Her work complete, Daryl grabbed the fallen goons and hoisted their cooling bodies over her shoulders. In the manor’s entrance hall, three members of the second squad were still drawing breath. Severely wounded, they struggled to their feet as a young man, flanked by two muscular brutes, strode through the open front door. Lukai Golovkin, with his expensive suit and slicked-back hair, surveyed the damage as Daryl descended the stairs.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lukai announced as Daryl dumped the bodies at the foot of the stairs and joined the survivors of the second squad, “you have failed me.”

Daryl, stood in line before the sixteen-year-old vampire whelp, resented playing the part of a regular soldier. Soon, the council would learn to fear her more than Jeremy and the other monks.

“Master, how do you mean?” a woman from the squad asked as the other two glanced at each other in confusion.

“You let Outteridge escape,” replied Lukai, his lip curling up in a snarl at Jeremy’s name. “Outteridge, and the girl.”

“The girl is not an immediate threat,” an unmasked man at the end of the line stated. “The son is dead. I killed him myself.”

Daryl blinked slowly, unconcerned by the man’s false claim for she knew what would come next. The look of pride faded as Lukai rounded on him, his eyes wild.

“Your impudence will not be tolerated, Tamaz.”

Before Tamaz could react, the heel of Lukai’s hand thrust into the man’s jugular. Daryl heard the tearing of flesh and muscle, along with snaps and cracks of breaking bones, as she cast a sidelong glance at Tamaz. The show of strength had the desired effect on the other two members of second squad as they watched, horrified.

“Now, does anyone else want to contradict me?” Lukai screamed, veins in his forehead and temples bulging. The other members of second squad looked down at their toes and shook their heads.

“Good. Now, can anyone explain to me why letting Outteridge and the girl go is a problem?”

“He took the girl,” replied Daryl, eager to get Lukai’s showboating over with, “because she’s important enough to risk his life saving. The bloodlines have to be protected or the guardians die out.”

 “But girls can’t be guardians, can they?” the third member of second squad asked, making the other woman flinch.

Instantly, Lukai was before the man, twisting his neck up and back and letting him fall to the ground, his head practically turned around.

“Get these out of here,” Lukai commanded his brutes before straightening the lapels of his jacket and stepping in front of the woman from second squad. “Take them to the van outside. Put them in the back. As for you, Outteridge and the Sinclair girl should never have been allowed to escape. Any remaining bloodline is a threat. The girl may not be a guardian, but she can birth one. I now have a substantial mess to clean up.”

Daryl smirked as the woman, knowing what to expect, parried Lukai’s hand and reached toward him, her fist striking his cheek as her jaw began to elongate. Before the force of the blow could make itself known, Lukai had her hand locked in his grip. Despite her bestial nature, the woman was no match for a vampire lord. Twisting her wrist, Lukai forced the woman to her knees, howling in pain. Daryl waited dispassionately as he grabbed her shoulders and drove his knee into her chest, stopping her heart with the blow.

Daryl forced herself to look interested as, adjusting his tie, Lukai stepped in front of her. She had always wondered what it would be like to tear out the throat of one of the masters.

“Track them, follow them, but do not act against them until instructed to do so,” Lukai ordered. Daryl nodded as if that was not what she already intended. “First, burn all this down.”

Discover the Cursed Truths within the Blood of a Guardian by purchasing the first novel in the series - available now in ebook and paperback