The Darkest Night Read Free Page B

various other equipment lined throughout. Unlike Torin, Maddox eschewed most technology, for he had never quite gotten used to how quickly things seemed to change—and just how much further each new advancement seemed to pull him from the carefree warrior he’d once been. Though he would be lying if he claimed not to enjoy the convenience such gadgets provided.
    Survey complete, he faced his friend. “Taking over the world?”
    “Nope. Just watching it. It’s the best way to protect us, and the best way to make a little coin.” Torin plopped into a cushioned swivel chair in front of the largest screen and began typing on the keyboard. One of the blank monitors lit up, the black screen becoming intertwined with grays and whites. “All right. Here’s what I wanted you to see.”
    Careful not to touch his friend, Maddox stepped forward. The indistinct blur gradually became thick, opaque lines. Trees, he realized. “Nice, but not something I was in dire need of viewing.”
    “Patience.”
    “Hurry,” he countered.
    Torin flicked him a wry glance. “Since you asked so nicely…I have heat sensors and cameras hidden throughout our land so that I always know when someone trespasses.” A few more seconds of tapping and the screen’s view shifted to the right. Then there was a swift flash of red, there one moment, gone the next.
    “Go back,” Maddox said, tensing. He wasn’t a surveillance expert. No, his skill lay in the actual killing. But even he knew what that red slash represented. Body heat.
    Tap, tap, tap and the red slash once again consumed the screen.
    “Human?” he asked. The silhouette was small, almost dainty.
    “Definitely.”
    “Male or female?”
    Torin shrugged. “Female, most likely. Too big to be a child, too small to be a grown man.”
    Hardly anyone ventured up the bleak hill at this time of night. Or even during the day. Whether it was too spooky, too gloomy or a sign of the locals’ respect, Maddox didn’t know. But he could count on one hand the number of deliverymen, children wanting to explore and women prowling for sex who’d braved the journey in the last year.
    “One of Paris’s lovers?” he asked.
    “Possibly. Or…”
    “Or?” he prompted when his friend hesitated.
    “A Hunter,” Torin said grimly. “Bait, more specifically.”
    Maddox pressed his lips together in a harsh line. “Now I know you’re teasing me.”
    “Think about it. Deliverymen always come with boxes and Paris’s girls always race straight toward the front door. This one looks empty-handed and she’s gone in circles, stopping every few minutes and doing something against the trees. Planting dynamite in an attempt to injure us, maybe. Cameras to watch us.”
    “If she’s empty-handed—”
    “Dynamite and cameras are small enough to conceal.”
    He massaged the back of his neck. “Hunters haven’t stalked or tormented us since Greece.”
    “Maybe their children and then their children’s children have been searching for us all this time. Maybe they finally found us.”
    Dread suddenly curled in Maddox’s stomach. First Aeron’s shocking summons and now the uninvited visitor. Mere coincidence? His mind flashed back to those dark days in Greece, days of war and savagery, screams and death. Days the warriors had been more demon than man. Days a hunger for destruction had dictated their every action and human bodies had littered the streets.
    Hunters had soon risen from the tortured masses, a league of mortal men intent upon destroying those who’d unleashed such evil, and a blood feud had erupted. The battles he then found himself fighting, with swords clanging and fires raging, flesh burning and peace something of lore and legend…
    Cunning had been the Hunters’ greatest weapon, however. They had trained female Bait to seduce and distract while they swooped in for the kill. That’s how they managed to murder Baden, keeper of Distrust. They had not managed to kill the demon itself, however,