Daysider

“You mean save your life?” he snapped, struggling to regain his equilibrium.

They stared at each other, confusion and hostility warring for dominance in Alexia’s remarkable eyes. Oh, she’d felt it, too, that searing physical awareness, but she didn’t want to acknowledge it any more than he did.

He looked away. “We’ll have to fall back,” he said, “and find a way to lure the shooter into a trap so that we can question him. If he’s from the colony, he can give us valuable information.”

“And what if he’s not? You admit the Expansionists may have known about the colony before the Council did, even if they didn’t actually help found it. Maybe your war party has sent its own agents to stop you from reporting back.”

“Impossible,” Damon said. “All operatives answer to the Council, not to individual factions.”

“Are you so sure? Every government has its dissidents, those who work secretly against the ruling party.”

Of course she was right. But he knew that was not the case here, and even to consider that the Expansionists could send their own operatives into the field and so blatantly attack legitimate agents would suggest that the Independents’ hold on the Council was dangerously weak. If he believed that, anything he did now would ultimately be meaningless.

There was a part of him that wanted war with the Enclave. They had slaughtered thousands of Opiri, including his fellow Darketans. But he had made a promise to Eirene. “Work for peace,” she had said just before their final parting. “For peace, and freedom.”

He met Alexia’s gaze. “You seem to be overlooking one other possibility,” he said. “The shooter could be your partner.”

Alexia drew herself up, her shoulders rigid. “No,” she said. “I’ve already told you why that couldn’t happen. He would know he’d be as likely to hit me as you.”

Her denial was just a little too vehement, and Damon wondered if she thought it was possible…if Michael Carter had really been as angry and bitter as he had appeared. Angry enough to risk his partner’s life.

If he could encourage her to believe the worst about Carter, Damon could keep her off balance and make sure she never even considered the truth.

“It seems there is more than one possibility here,” he said, retrieving his pack, “and we won’t know which one is correct until we catch the shooter. If he wants us dead badly enough, he’ll keep firing and we can track his position.”

“That wouldn’t be too bright of him,” Alexia remarked, keeping low to the ground as she pulled on her own pack.

“It depends on how desperate he is and what his orders are, if any,” Damon said. “If he’s from the colony, he won’t want to be cut off from it.”

“If he’s from the colony, he probably isn’t the only one guarding it. They must know we’re coming. That’ll make it a little tricky getting close enough to observe.”

Naturally, Alexia would regard that as a serious problem, but to Damon it meant that everything was proceeding as planned. “Are you giving up?” he asked.

She grinned, revealing her very white incisors. “I’ll give up when you do.”

“Then I suggest our primary goal now should be to catch the shooter and stay alive in the process.”

Alexia studied him a moment longer, green eyes slitted like those of a deceptively lazy cat. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

They started back down the other side of the hill, Alexia taking the lead. There were no more shots, no sound but the typical movements of small mammals and leaves sighing in the evening breeze. The sun was beginning to set, and soon, Damon knew, he would have to rely on Alexia’s superior ability to see in the dark. Darketans were by no means night-blind like humans, but Opir-like night vision was one of the few advantages dhampires had over his kind.

But his advantages over her—greater speed and strength—would come into play sooner or later, if they remained together. And he would make sure they did.

Perhaps it was time for a little reinforcement of Alexia’s decision to work with him. He would do so by telling her part of the truth.

As they turned south, hiking parallel to the valley, Damon caught up with her.

“There is something I should have disclosed earlier,” he said.

She stopped abruptly, her hand moving to the strap of her rifle. “What is it?”

“It was not my idea to join forces,” he said. “I was instructed to contact and work with any Aegis agents I encountered in the area of the colony.”

Her hand remained on the strap. “The Council ordered it?” she asked, frowning. “Why?”

“For the same reasons I gave you when we met. I would not be surprised if your own agency had some part in it.”

Her frown deepened. “We were given no such instructions.”

Damon had never thought they had, but he had succeeded in planting the idea in her mind.

“Would it shock you to learn that Aegis and the Council were already in contact regarding the colony?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “As much as it would shock me if you defected to our side.”

A palpable tension vibrated between them, in some ways not unlike what Damon had felt when she had lain in his arms. Her words were a challenge, one she didn’t expect him to take up, and yet there was an undercurrent beneath the flatness of her voice that hinted of a strange, almost wistful regret.

As if, secretly, she wished he would shock her by saying yes.

“You’re right,” he said, setting off again with a long, ground-eating stride. “It’s impossible.”

She caught up with him, matching his pace in spite of her smaller frame and shorter legs. “What gave you the idea they might be working together?” she demanded.

“It was only speculation,” he said. “And perhaps a little hope.”

“Hope? That your Council would want to work with my people beyond the bare minimum necessary to keep the Armistice? Why would that matter to you?”

He glanced down at her. “We should be quiet now, Agent Fox, unless we wish to tell our shooter we’re coming.”

Alexia offered no further conversation, but Damon sensed that she was thinking through what he’d told her. She would be wondering if her own government was, in fact, secretly conferring with his own without the knowledge of their citizens, their operatives, or those who would gladly revert to a state of war.

It might even be true. Damon was too far from the circles of Opir power to know for certain, and the Council had no earthly reason to confide such matters to a Darketan. Their business concerned him only so far as it affected his work. And his promise to Eirene.

But he didn’t think it was impossible. And if there was some new rapprochement over the illegal colony, the Council would never allow the Enclave government to learn any secrets that would endanger Erebus.

The humans would know that. Just as Alexia did.

Listening intently, Damon slowed his pace as the sun sank behind the hills to the west. Alexia took the lead again. The landscape darkened, the details blurring in Damon’s sight. Alexia moved with assurance, certain of her path as they descended into a narrow hollow between two low hills.

But it was Damon who sensed the attack. The snap of a single twig beneath a booted foot warned him an instant before the bullets began flying.

He was just a second too late to push Alexia out of the way. Several bullets tore into her shoulder in rapid succession, spinning her to the ground. She went limp, curled on her side with her red hair fanned around her head.

Swallowing a howl of protest, Damon knelt beside her, broke the strap of her rifle between his hands and brought the weapon into position, spraying the hillside above them.

A drift of unfamiliar scent behind him sent him skidding around on his knees to take aim at the second shooter, but he got off only a dozen shots before a single large projectile struck him full in the chest. He continued to fire, ignoring the black burst of pain that filled his lungs with blood and flame. He heard a faint grunt that told him one of his bullets had found a mark, and then the gunfire ceased.

Gasping for air, Damon crouched over Alexia and pivoted on his feet, doing his best to cover every possible angle of attack. None came. He and Alexia would have made easy prey, but their enemies were leaving them alone.