Blood Oath Read Online Free PDF Page A

in capital letters across his brain: RUN.
    Zach felt a stirring of instinct honed when humans huddled at the edges of campfires, terrified of the noises in the dark. He suddenly knew he was in the presence of something that stalked his kind, and had for thousands of years. Something inhuman. A predator.
    There is a reason humans are genetically programmed to fear the dark. Zach was looking at it.
    Then Zach saw the fangs at the edges of the smile.
    He began to shake. He couldn’t get his legs to move.
    He tried to speak. Nothing came out.
    Something warm and wet began running down his thigh.
    Both he and the vampire—because that’s what it was, standing right there in front of him, no doubt left anywhere in Zach—looked down.
    A small puddle formed around Zach’s shoe as his bladder emptied.
    The vampire’s smile vanished. He looked over Zach’s shoulder and spoke to Griff.
    “So this is the new boy?”
    “Zach Barrows, this is Nathaniel Cade,” Griff said. “The president’s vampire.”
    Zach still couldn’t move. Cade looked down at him again.
    “Perhaps you should show him where we keep the mop,” Cade said.
    He walked around Zach. Zach’s head swiveled to follow.
    Cade paused to set a metal case on one of the tables. Then he dropped something that clattered on the wood, next to the case. It looked like the bone from some kind of animal—like a dog. Or a wolf. Lined with teeth and fur, still bloody in some places.
    “Take care of that, please,” he said.
    Cade headed straight for the coffin and yanked it open.
    Griff tried to get the vampire’s attention. “Cade, we should talk about—”
    “Later,” Cade said, and slammed the coffin lid shut.
    Griff shrugged, in a sort of apology, to Zach.
    “He’s been in the cargo hold of a C-130 for the past fourteen hours,” Griff said. “Makes him a little cranky.”
    Zach stood there, his pant leg dripping. His mouth was open, but for once in his life, he had nothing to say.

THREE
    6—1. General
     
The Army, Navy, and Air Force have established armed services mortuary facilities outside of the United States. These facilities are established to provide mortuary services for eligible deceased personnel when local commercial mortuary services are not available or cost prohibitive. Establishment or disestablishment of armed services mortuary facilities will be coordinated at the Departmental level.
     
— Army Regulation 638-2, “Deceased Personnel, Care and Disposition of Remains and Disposition of Personal Effects” (Unclassified)
     
     
     
     
    ONE MONTH EARLIER, MORTUARY SERVICES
    DIVISION, CAMP WOLF MILITARY BASE, KUWAIT
     
     
    D ylan Weeks backed the truck as close to the mortuary building as possible.
    The sergeant stomped over to him before he was out of the cab, looking pissed. Here we go, Dylan thought.
    “I got another complaint about you being late,” she said. “The airfield is right across the damn base. You stopping for a beer on the way?”
    Yeah. A beer, in Kuwait. That’d be the day. Out loud, however, all Dylan said was, “I’m going as fast as I can.”
    She looked at him for a moment, apparently trying to decide if he was lying or just stupid. “Get your shit together,” she said, and turned away neatly on the heel of one of her combat boots.
    “Yes, ma’am.” Bitch, Dylan thought. Put a chick in uniform and she thinks she’s a frigging general or something. She had no idea who she was screwing with. But she’d get a big surprise soon enough.
    He started to load the truck.
    As he struggled to hoist the transfer cases holding dead U.S. soldiers into the back, he reflected again on how unlucky he was. He never should have been put in this position. It was all going to change, but still, he never should have had to go through any of this shit in the first place.
    Dylan was one of hundreds of civilian contractors working at the base in Kuwait. A year before, he was driving a vending machine route, delivering candy and