Darkness Dawns Read Online Free PDF

buckled and his weight sank down on her, pulling her toward the floor.
    Swearing, unable to keep him upright, she twisted and shoved him away from her as hard as she could. The not-very-controlled fall that resulted landed him on his back on the futon with most of his legs hanging over the metal arm closest to her.
    Whew!
    That had been pure dumb luck.
    “Roland?”
    Rounding the futon, she leaned over him and patted one stubbled cheek. “Roland?”
    Nothing.
    He was definitely out for the count.
    High above Houston, Texas, two figures stood on the roof of Williams Tower, the toes of their boots inches from the edge. Sixty-four stories high, the building loomed over thenormally bustling Galleria area and was lauded as the tallest building in the country located outside of a city’s urban core. Soon the sun would rise and sparkle off the countless windows of the steel and glass structure as though reflected in a gargantuan mirror. At its base, a large horseshoe-shaped multistory wall of water glowed amid the fading darkness.
    Had the two imposing men currently positioned near the building’s peak have instead stoodonthe street, they would have attracted unwanted attention despite the decreased activity predawn Sunday mornings generally heralded. One was six foot eight with a golden tan, wavy black hair that fell to his waist, and beautiful patrician features that inspired many a female double take. The other wasaninch shorter with similar patrician features but had skin as dark as midnight and masses of pencil-thin dreadlocks that reached his hips. He, too, drew many admiring feminine gazes and caused hearts to flutter.
    Both were clad all in black, wore leather urban dusters, and were fatigued from two long days and nights of searching.
    Frowning, the taller of the two returned his cell phone to his pocket and mulled over all that Roland had told him.
    “This is an interesting turn of events,” his friend commented in a faint Egyptian accent.
    “Yes.” David possessed the preternaturally enhanced senses all immortals boasted and would have heard both sides of the conversation. Not just Seth’s.
    “Is this an isolated incident, or have you received other such calls?”
    “So far it’s isolated.” But his gut told Seth it was only the beginning. “I don’t like it. Usually when people band together to hunt and destroy us they are human, not vampire.
Never
vampire.”
    David nodded somberly. “Change is in the wind.” He stared toward the west. “Do you think the attack on Roland is in any way related to
this?
”
    This
referred to the situation Seth had mentioned to Roland.
    “No, this is something different.”
    There were roughly five and a half million people living in the Houston metropolitan area. A population that large, pervaded with crime, tended to draw a greater number of vampires. Currently, half a dozen immortals stationed around the city guarded the humans, hunting down the vamps who would make them their prey.
    About a month ago, those immortals had begun to call Seth—one by one—and tell him there was a
funny feeling
in the air, puzzled because they could not pin down its origins.
    Seth had been overseas at the time. Vampires were taking advantage of the violence and genocide afflicting Sudan and had dramatically increased their presence there. The immortals stationed in and around Darfur were having a tough time curbing the vamps’ population and he had been lending them a hand.
    As there had been no emergency, Seth had been reluctant to leave—even briefly—and had advised the Houston contingent to find out what they could and keep him posted.
    They had found nothing. There had been no escalation in vampire activity. No escalation in human-on-human violence. Yet the feeling had remained. When Seth had asked them to describe it, they had all responded the same way: that it was as if the sound of fingernails scouring a chalkboard were being broadcast on a frequency too low or too high for