Burn the Night Read online

  “We’re not done,” Tistan said as Emma released the hold on her sword as well as General Fox’s weapon. “How dare you put my daughter in harm’s way. She’s not ready yet.”

  “She will be.” General Fox holstered his weapon, ignoring the thin line of blood that fell down the right side of his face. “We aren’t sending her in alone.”

  “The Vilmar are beyond her power at this time.” Tistan sheathed her blade. It looked like the act actually disappointed her. “She needs more training.”

  “So you know.” General Fox held Tistan’s stare. “How long have you known they were operating here on Earth?”

  Emma’s mouth was open as she pivoted back and forth between her mother and the general. It seemed like she was the only one out of the loop on this.

  What the heck? Is everyone keeping secrets from me? Emma thought, trying to keep up with the events taking place around her. Why am I always the last one to find these things out?

  “Ummm, hi, guys. I’m here too.” Emma couldn’t keep her frustration pent up anymore. “What are we talking about? Who’s here? What are Vilmar?”

  “The Vilmar.” Tristan breathed a deep sigh as if she were having to physically extract every word coming out of her mouth. “They’re an alien race that’s been operating here on Earth. They’re inconsequential at this moment.”

  “Inconsequential?” General Fox frowned as he repeated the word. “People are disappearing in the city of Los Angeles every night. This is an alien incursion, a declaration of war as far as we’re concerned.”

  “You seem to have enough warriors at your disposal.” Tistan took a moment to look over the gathered Marines. “Next time you come for me, you should bring more men.”

  “This isn’t helpful,” Emma chided her mother. “Now someone please start from the beginning. Explain to me what a Vilmar is and what they’re doing here.”

  “I can explain on the way,” General Fox said, eyeing Tistan. Before the orange-skinned warrior could protest again, he added, “You’re welcome to come with us as long as you promise to keep your sword in its sheath.”

  “If it’s a threat against Earth, I need to go,” Emma said, allowing her purple gloves to dissipate. “I’ve been chosen as the Arilion Knight of Earth for a reason. If I just sit this one out, why am I a knight at all?”

  Tistan clenched and unclenched her jaw so hard Emma could see her facial muscles twinge. “All right; let’s go.”

  General Fox nodded in agreement, already heading down Emma’s lawn to speak to his men.

  Tistan pulled the hood of her cloak up and over her face to hide her orange skin. It was still morning, just after most people on Emma’s street had gone to work for the day. Lucky for her, only a few of her neighbors were there to witness the events. Miss Starling was the only one to actually come out of her house.

  “Oh, oh my, is it my lucky day?” The elderly woman winked at the group of Marines now disbanding from Emma’s lawn. “Why, General Fox, you didn’t tell me you had so many young and strapping men at your command. I do declare, I feel like I’ve won the lottery.”

  “We’ll have to take a rain check, ma’am,” General Fox said, trying to be polite. He turned back to his men, issuing commands. “I’ll travel in the sedan with Emma and Tistan. Anspach one and two will follow and rendezvous at the predetermined location. Eyes open and weapons ready. Oohrah, Marines!”

  “Oohrah!” the men answered their commander, already running to obey.

  “If you would?” General Fox motioned to Tistan and Emma to follow him to the sedan he had arrived in that morning. “Please.”

  Emma and her mother followed the general to his sedan. A wide-eyed Miss Starling looked on, trying to crane her neck and get a better look at Tistan past her cloak.

  Her hands were the only thing that were visible in the morning light. They were colored a dull orange like the rest of her body. Miss Starling stared at Tistan’s hands so hard Emma thought she was going to bore holes through her mother’s palms.

  The elderly woman upended her mimosa on her own front lawn, muttering something about drinking too much as she made her way back inside the house.

  Emma took a seat in the back of General Fox’s sedan with her mother. The interior of his car was also black. He took a seat in the front passenger side, motioning to the driver. “Laloyd, take us to the area of the city where you spotted the disturbance, please.”

  Immediately, Emma understood there was something unique about their driver. First, he was much too large to be a human. Second, and she had to lean forward to make sure she was seeing this correctly, he had green scales traveling up his neck before they were hidden by a large baseball cap that hid most of his face.

  “Oh right, you got it, General Fox,” Laloyd answered. “Wow, this is so cool to be a part of. I just want you to know I had your back when the Halyna were going to try and decapitate you. I know you could hold your own and you told me to stay in the car, but I was ready to move. I’m not much of a fighter, but I can throw a mean kick to the groin when I have to.”

  Laloyd spoke like he had just ingested a double dose of caffeine. He bordered on manic as he chattered away.

  “A Draconian,” Tistan sneered. “I should have known you would have brought help with you.”

  Laloyd pulled into the street, turning back to address Tistan and Emma for the first time. His face reminded Emma of a lizard. Memories of the lizard-like Shay touched at her memory, but there was no denying this species was different and especially Laloyd. Laloyd’s reptilian eyes twinkled with something like honest joy. Two short horns sprouted from his forehead, making it difficult for the front of his hat to stay balanced. A snout came forward with sharp teeth and a green hue covered his face.

  Emma might have been startled had she not already been introduced to her fair share of alien species while at the Academy.

  “I just want to say I’m a big fan of yours.” Laloyd looked at Emma and turned his lips up in what she guessed was a smile. “I’ve been able to work with a few other Arilion Knights. I just want to say you, more than the other two, have so much potential to grow starting off as an Arilion at such a young age. Don’t tell Frank or Sava I said that, though.”

  “Uh, thanks.” Emma couldn’t help but smile back at the grinning Draconian, even though she was still trying to figure out if she knew what he meant exactly.

  “Eyes on the road, Draconian,” Tistan told Laloyd, who was still looking back at them. “We don’t want to have spared one another’s lives just to lose it on the way to meet the Vilmar.”

  “Oh right, right, good thinking, Tistan.” Laloyd turned his head forward.

  “Laloyd is helping us with technology as we figure out how to traverse this brave new universe,” General Fox explained. “The Draconians have technology that far surpasses ours as part of our own alliance. They are an invaluable partner.”

  “Mmm, right.” Emma tried her best to sound interested while a nagging question pulled at the back of her mind. “So is anyone going to tell me what the Vilmar are or am I just going into this blind?”

  Emma caught Laloyd look through the rearview mirror at her with pained eyes full of fear. As soon as he realized she was looking back at him, he moved his gaze back to the road.

  “They’re monsters, Emma,” Tistan said. In a very like-Tistan way, she didn’t sugar coat the facts. “They’re the very worst kind of monsters.”

  3

  “Are you trying to freak me out?” Emma said, staring back at her mother past the deep black hood she wore. “Is this like one of those moments where you’re making it sound like the worst case scenario, so when I actually fight them, it’s not that bad?”

  “No, Emma.” Tistan removed her hood so she could better see her daughter. “The Vilmar are known for their lust for blood and their ability to turn others to do their bidding. They’re fast, strong, and have the ability to heal quickly. They can be killed eventually by inflicting many wounds, but the fastest wa
y to make sure one stays down for good is to remove their heads from their bodies.”

  Emma was still trying to process the words coming out of her mother’s mouth when General Fox turned around in his seat. He handed Emma a flat smart pad to look over.

  “Thanks to Laloyd, we have a means to recognize and track alien signatures on Earth. Most aliens are here hiding doing their own thing, trying to lay low for whatever reason.” General Fox shook his head as he looked down at the smart pad in Emma’s hands. “Not the Vilmar. They’re killing and recruiting the homeless populace of Los Angeles. By our count, they’ve already consumed hundreds, maybe even turned that many already.”

  Emma looked down at an aerial view of the city of Los Angeles. The view of the city showed red groupings scattered all over the landscape like a case of pimples. A cluster of dark red patches was condensed around the garment district in downtown Los Angeles.

  “What do you mean by ‘turned’?” Emma asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer to her question.

  Laloyd maneuvered through the morning traffic, taking them deeper into the city of Los Angeles. He kept his eyes on the road this time but shook his head as he answered.

  “The Vilmar have the ability to control a host, something akin to a symbiotic relationship,” Laloyd explained. “They can turn humans and other species into their slaves basically.”

  “Swipe the screen,” General Fox instructed, looking down at the smart pad Emma held in her hands. “We have images of what they look like as well.”

  Emma obeyed, dragging her right pointer finger across the screen. She immediately regretted the decision. She came face to face with what looked like in her mind was a vampire.

  The Vilmar was tall and lanky with a sunken face and fangs. Pale skin covered its face and long black fingernails made it look like the definition of sinister.

  “What the…” Emma allowed her voice to trail off. “You need to call a priest or that guy from The Exorcist or something. These are freaking vampires!”

  “Who?” Tistan looked at her daughter, confused.

  “What?” Laloyd looked back at her via the rearview mirror.

  “You know, vampires.” Emma looked to General Fox for help. “Suck your blood, don’t go out during the day, stake to the heart, and all that good stuff.”

  “They do share some similarities to the legends we call vampires,” General Fox agreed. “I wish some daylight or stakes would help us here, but they can walk in both daylight and nighttime. As far as we know, stakes and holy water don’t do anything. These are aliens. Our first course of action is to talk them down and bring them in, but if they refuse, and we have every reason to believe they will, they need to be put down.”

  First you’re in space trying not to throw up after being teleported to the Academy, Emma thought to herself. Now you’re hunting freaking vampires in Los Angeles with your mom and the government.

  “Do you know how many Vilmar have nested in your city?” Tistan asked the back of General Fox’s head. “Any more information you have will be useful to us.”

  “We don’t know for certain,” General Fox answered her without turning around. “Laloyd did a rough estimation that, according to the numbers found dead, there has to be at least one, maybe two at the most.”

  “So you have no idea.” Tistan rolled her eyes. “Why was this not found sooner? Even if you weren’t equipped with the Draconian technology before, your city officials had to have been aware of the missing populace.”

  “The Vilmar are targeting our homeless population,” General Fox informed her. “Alarms aren’t exactly being raised when the homeless begin to disappear from the streets.”

  “That’s horrible,” Emma said out loud, more voicing her thoughts than making a statement. “They already have it bad enough and now they’re being preyed on by vampires.”

  “Vilmar, but, yes I know what you mean,” General Fox corrected. “You should know that I meant every word of what I said to you at your house. You have our full support, and even though this mission is taking place sooner than what we wanted, we still have every intention of partnering with the Academy and the Alliance and helping you in your training.”

  “One decapitation at a time,” Tistan interjected from her seat. “Let’s see what the Vilmar have in store for us before we begin setting up meetings for you with those in power.”

  General Fox didn’t say anything, but from her seat behind Laloyd, Emma could see the general clench his right hand, which rested on top of his left knee. Working with her mother and the general was going to take a small miracle.

  “Emma, can you scroll back to the image of the city?” Tistan said, looking over at the smart pad sitting in Emma’s lap. “I want to get a better lay of the land.”

  Emma obeyed, swiping back to the image on the screen that showed the aerial view of the garment district in downtown Los Angeles.

  “Tistan,” General Fox said in a commanding voice. “If you’re thinking of teleporting there by yourself, let me tell you we can—”

  Before the general could even finish his thought, Tistan had locked coordinates on the teleportation band she wore on her left wrist. She grabbed Emma around the shoulders. A moment later, they were standing on a street corner in downtown Los Angeles.

  Emma felt her stomach roll, but she was getting used to teleporting by now. Before, she would have fallen to her knees, retching her last meal. Now her stomach protested, but she was able to keep herself together.

  They stood on a street corner in the bustling downtown area of Los Angeles’ garment district. In all four directions, business warehouses had been transformed into stores that rolled their wares onto the sidewalk to lure in shoppers.

  A diverse mix of races and people intermingled with one another as they haggled for the best prices on everything from boots to jackets.

  It seemed their arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed. A few people pointed and shouted in surprise. One elderly Asian man in particular stared dumbly at Tistan as she maneuvered her hood once again to cover her features. The elderly man had an ice cream cone in his hand that stopped halfway to his mouth, now long forgotten.

  “This is all in your head,” Tistan told the man as she began walking down the street in the crowd. “You should go get yourself checked out by a mental physician.”

  “Do you think we should have gone with them?” Emma asked her mother as she moved to keep pace with her. “I mean, they’re the government. They wanted to help.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t use your own teleportation device sooner.” Tistan looked down at the band Emma wore on her own wrist. “I would have.”

  “What?” Emma shook her head like her mother was crazy. “You know the Alliance told me it was strictly only for teleporting to the Academy and back or for emergencies. I’m not supposed to use it just whenever I want.”

  “You’re right. I guess after the Alliance disavowed me, I’ve been a bit bitter.” Tistan spat the words. “You were right not to use it, but you didn’t have to. I used mine instead.”

  Emma thought about her mother’s words. Ever since the Alliance had learned that Tistan was aiding Emma in her training at the Academy, they had released Tistan from her rank in the Alliance. Her mother had taken a job at the Academy as head of security, but she knew her mother still harbored a grudge against the Alliance.

  Mother and daughter continued their journey in silence. Emma remembered her training at the Academy. She made sure she remained aware of her surroundings at all times. The white noise of vendors shouting their wares and traffic drowned out most anything else.

  Looks were still directed at her mother as those not engrossed in their phones or examining the wares of the garment district noticed the tall hooded woman walk with purpose down the sidewalk.

  Emma’s stomach grumbled, the walls of her mouth gathering moisture as a street vendor selling tacos came into sight.

  No focus, Emma told herself. Kill the alien vampires first, then
tacos.

  Tistan came to such a harsh halt in front of her that Emma nearly ran into her mother. Emma followed her mother’s gaze to an open storefront across the street. The store looked like any other. A few racks of clothes out front to catch the eye of potential buyers and an open door leading inside the shop.

  Upon further inspection, Emma realized the storefront sold wedding dresses. Something pulled at her deep inside, some predisposition to like things with silk and lace.

  Raised by her father, Emma was free to like anything she wanted to. For the most part, she had chosen to follow her father’s lead. She was more of a football and muscle car fan than one to go all googly eyed over a wedding dress.

  Maybe it was being beside a mother she had never known while at the same time in the proximity of something so savagely feminine that she felt this innate draw to the dark side.

  “Emma, did you hear anything I just said?” Tistan asked, looking down at her daughter with concern in her eyes. “Are you well?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine,” Emma lied. “What’s the plan? Are you sure this is the right place? I mean, last time I looked, neither aliens or vampires or alien vampire hybrids owned wedding dress shops.”

  “This is where General Fox’s intelligence pointed.” Tistan motioned with her chin toward the shop. “It would be smart for the Vilmar to hide in plain sight. They are known for their cunning and tactics. I’ll take point. You watch my back.”

  “I should be the one doing this,” Emma said. She was surprised to hear the conviction in her own voice. “I’m the Arilion Knight of Earth. I was chosen to protect it.”

  “Yes, but you’re still learning.” Tistan had already begun moving across the street. “You’ve only had two months of training. It will take years of practice for you to master your abilities.”

  Before Emma could argue, her mother was halfway across the street. Not using a crosswalk or lights, a white sedan screeched on its brakes as Tistan crossed right in front of its path. The vehicle came inches from hitting her mother.