Page 46 of Peacemaker

Crawford came to stand at my back, and policemen walked the streets, trying to restore some sort of order to the fucked-up mess. No one really knew what to do.

Reporters flooded the area with camera crews and microphones, shrill and excited. Hysterical.

I felt Angus and my hunters slipping up behind me and I glanced over my shoulder, cataloging injuries in a glance.

Then I caught sight of Amias, half hidden in the shadows of the house across the street. I felt his stare, his intensity. His desolation. We were connected, for better or for worse, and I felt his struggle.

He could not save them, those baby vampires, as much as he wanted to.

Because the infection and the hunters had managed to severely reduce the number of vampires, he would feel the need to begin to rebuild. But he was only one vampire, and the humans had been turned by rifters.

Amias had said the turned were useless to rifters. For all I knew, they were useless to regular vampires, as well. Surely being turned by the twisted created only more twisted.

Then pearly pink fingers slid through the sky, like bright ink on black paper, and when I took my stare off the coming dawn, Amias was gone.

Seconds later, the sun touched the new vampires, and they began to burn.

Screams worse than anything I’d heard in my life burst from their gaping mouths. Josh’s mother screamed with him, and all over the city voices sharp with unimaginable pain lifted in a sort of gruesome, heart-wrenching symphony.

Chills raced over me and goosebumps dotted my skin. Shuddering with horror, I set about silencing that sorrowful music forever.

And finally, I put Silverlight away and stood with my men, blood dripping from my fingertips to splat upon the pavement.

For a little while, the darkness was conquered.

The long night was over.