Free Darkest Hour by Rob Cornell

acted as a sort of conduit for his own designs.”
    Lockman could just picture it. Another example of mojo’s corruption. Another reason to keep this Lab on a short leash and even shorter lease. After they took care of these vamps and got Jessie back to normal, he would send these “scientists” to opposite sides of the Earth and burn down the building with everything in it.
    After a long, juicy sniff, Truman rapped his knuckles on the cover of a leather bound book on the table in front of him. “It didn’t last. She must have learned all the while he used her. The diary doesn’t go into much detail, but I gather she eventually used her magic to escape.”
    “And that’s it? Where does the prophecy come in?”
    Truman’s grin was worthy of a werewolf under a full moon. “The very last entry.”
    Something like a firecracker going off in a frog’s mouth boomed through The Lab.
    Truman started and drew up his shoulders toward his ears.
    A foul odor soon roiled through the whole Quonset.
    Lockman waved a hand in front of his face without much effect. From where he stood, he couldn’t see where the explosion had occurred. He did, however, hear the woosh of a fire extinguisher from somewhere beyond the wall of bookshelves behind Dr. Truman.
    “Somebody made an oops,” Truman said.
    Lockman took to breathing through his mouth to avoid inhaling any more of that nasty scent. “The last entry,” he prompted.
    The doctor put his sleeve against his nose again, only this time he left it there. “According to the plantation owner, the woman actually returned after her escape. The diarist writes of her visit and how he was convinced she would kill him for what he had done. But she didn’t. She told him she couldn’t kill him because of a vision she’d had. She said he was to father a child with one of his mistresses, and that that child would begin a line eventually leading to the birth of a young lady destined to save the world from demons.”
    It took Lockman a second to parse the last part of the story, mostly because it sounded so farfetched. He narrowed his eyes. “You mean this prick is one of Jessie’s ancestors?”
    “Seeing as it was supposed to be a mistress that starts the birth line, I doubt we could research the genealogy. However, the prediction of a young woman responsible for saving the world from so-called demons sounds similar enough to the ogres’ predictions about Jessie.”
    Lockman huffed. “So what? That’s all there is? One line in a diary? How does that help us one bit?”
    “I don’t know that it does.”
    “Nice. Thank you very much for wasting my time, Doctor.”
    Truman dropped his sleeve from his nose. “Knowledge is never a waste, Mr. Lockman. And for the record, there was more to it than one line.”
    “That’s nice. How about we focus on researching what I asked about in the first place? Finding a way to get rid of Gabriel.”
    “That’s just it. I’m not sure we should.”
    “Why not?”
    “If she is somehow destined to bring an end to this vampire uprising, she must possess great power.”
    Lockman thought about the things she had done to the wolves last night while hardly trying. “She’s got plenty of power, Doc. Trust me.”
    “It’s quite possible that this merger with Gabriel’s consciousness, soul, whatever you like to call it, could be the source of that power.”
    “What are you trying to say? That if we get rid of Gabriel, we lose our chance to win this war?”
    Truman tossed up his hands. “I can’t say anything definitively. The nature of prophecy is so tenuous. But one that goes back at least as far as the American Civil War certainly shows veracity. I’d hate to be the one to meddle with such a thing and end up negating it.”
    Lockman reached over the table and grabbed the doctor by the collar. He pulled until the doc’s face came within an inch Lockman’s. “My daughter is not some experiment. I’ll be damned if I let some mojo bullshit have