Free Blood-Kissed Sky (Darkness Before Dawn) by J. A. London Page B

other vamp.”
    “You can’t take me down,” he taunts, opening his mouth wide, his fangs glistening in the sunlight.
    He charges—
    I dart around him and leap back onto the carousel. Tegan runs to where two more Day Walkers are engaging Michael. They disappear from view as the ride rotates, and I see the Day Walker who charged me jump onto the moving platform.
    “You can’t escape, Dawn.”
    “I don’t want to.” I have a stake. All he has are fangs. When humans are turned, they gain a vampire’s arrogance, and it becomes their greatest weakness.
    He catches up to me, facing me, with the horse moving up and down between us.
    “I need you to come with me,” he says. “Don’t make me kill you.”
    He reaches across to grab me. The horse goes up. I duck beneath it and force the stake through the soft flesh below his ribs, angling it up and pushing twelve inches of finely honed metal into his heart. He stumbles back, falls into the sun, and is now at its mercy. He is dead before he hits the ground.
    I rush over to help Michael and Tegan, but ash begins swirling around them as the slain vampires become glowing embers in the sun. Michael reaches out and grabs my wrist with one hand and Tegan’s with the other.
    “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Chapter 8
    I t would be better for half the city to be on fire than to have gone through what happened earlier this afternoon. Rumors are running rampant that hundreds of Day Walkers are out there, wandering the streets at will.
    Michael escorted me straight to the Agency, then took Tegan home. I can’t stop thinking about the people we saw along the way who were in shock. One woman stood in the street screaming as though she thought a vampire would sink his fangs into her at any moment. Others were angry, throwing things against store windows, looting, pillaging. Most people, though, were rushing home, striving to find security behind locked doors and barricaded windows.
    All the police and Night Watchmen had to be called out to restore order. Clive made a brief appearance on television to state that only a handful of Day Walkers exist, and that they will be hunted down by the Night Watchmen. The same Night Watchmen that no one trusts anymore.
    “What’s this bastard trying to accomplish?” Clive asks.
    Rachel and I are in his office, at the top of the Agency building in the heart of the city. We can look out and see the walls. I’m surprised I don’t see a mass exodus, a line of people stretching from here to the horizon, everyone leaving at once, taking their chances in the wild, desolate countryside. Maybe that’ll come tomorrow once calm is restored and they’ve finished packing.
    Clive looks at me. “Guess Sin is still around.”
    “Probably.” I scowl. “One of the Day Walkers told me he sends his regards.”
    Clive summoned Roland Hursch, since he’s the new delegate, but he has yet to show. I wonder if he’s cowering somewhere.
    “This is my fault,” I continue. “I had to go to that stupid fair.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous!” Clive shouts, standing up quickly. “This isn’t anyone’s fault. We have to figure out how to identify these Day Walkers and destroy them. And this Sin fellow. We need to find him, too. I’m putting a bounty on his head. If he’s still in the city, we will track him down and—”
    Before he can finish, his phone rings. He lets out an angry sigh and picks it up. “What? Wait. Who? Impossible. No, let them in. Let them in immediately. I don’t care! Just do it!”
    He slams down the phone. “We’ve had an interesting development. Seems Sin wants to speak to us as well. He’s sent us a messenger.”
    We go to the window and watch a white carriage, pulled by six powerful white horses, come down the main street. Even from this distance I can tell the citizens are turning their heads, concerned by what they see, even if they don’t understand it. Vampires embrace past eras; the Victorian period was their golden