Rise of the Fallen Read Online Free PDF Page A

was all. Micah wasn't home.
    Fucking meeting. If Tristan hadn't called them together, he
could have gotten here earlier and followed Micah. All he could do now was
follow the cold trail Micah had left behind and hope it was enough. But first,
a quick stop inside Micah's apartment was in order. The guardian was curious to
see what had been going on up there, and with Micah gone, this was the perfect
opportunity.
    The security guard looked up as the guardian entered the
lobby.
    "Excuse me," the guard said. "You have to
sign in. You can't just go up."
    "Really?" With a glance and a wave of his hand,
the guardian gently compelled the guard to sit back down and forget he had ever
been there. "Consider me signed in."
    The guardian stepped into the elevator, rode up to the
eighteenth floor, then unlocked Micah's door with his mind. Not all vampires
could pull that trick off, but he was special.
    Once inside, he closed the door behind him. Silence. The
place felt like a tomb. He opened the fridge. No food. He opened the cupboard
and found more of the same. What the fuck was Micah living on? He closed his
eyes, reached out his senses, and got the answer. Pain. Micah was living on
pain and suffering and not a whole lot else.
    Shit, what was he going to do? He needed Micah. Or, rather,
he would eventually. Even now, he felt himself losing his grip on his power.
Micah could help him keep it under control. Well, he could if he didn't wind up
dead first. And the guardian still had to gain Micah's trust. So much was at
stake.
    A quick peek inside the master bedroom found the massive
four-poster in messy shambles. Clothes littered the floor. And what did he
smell? Was that Micah's blood? He looked in the bathroom and found the mirror
had been shattered. Shards of glass littered the floor and dried blood dotted
the sink and marble tiles.
    Damn! What kind of mind-fuck was Micah seeped in?
    He had to find him.
    Spinning on his heels, the guardian rushed out the door,
re-locked it, took the elevator down, and shot past the guard and back out to
the streets of Chicago. Micah's trail was weak. He had left a long time ago.
Hopefully it wouldn't go cold before he found him.
    * * *
    The pitch black in the alley matched Micah's mood. It had
been two weeks since Jackson had left him. Two weeks of giving less and less of
a shit as each day came and went. Two weeks of pain and misery and slicing his
forearms to relieve the ache in his chest.
    Red, angry cuts covered his forearms. His latest
self-mutilation had failed to give him the relief he needed, and he hadn't even
bothered licking over the wounds to heal them. He liked the way they looked
scoring his flesh like claw marks.
    With an acidic gaze, Micah prowled for the pain he
desperately needed – pain that would put an end to his suffering. One way or
another, it would all be over soon.
    He exited the alley and looked left then right through a
haze of fog that diffused the light from the neons. The creature he sought was
near, but moving away, as if it knew it was being hunted and didn't want a
confrontation.
    Come now, don't be shy. Micah followed the trail, his
pace quickening now that what he needed was so close.
    Shoulders that had once been wide and thick, but which now
only halfway supported clothes that hung off his thinning frame, rolled as he
marched alongside the busy thoroughfare. The hour may have been late, but this
was South Chicago, the part of the city where deals were made in the shadows
until the wee hours of the morning, corner taverns entertained well past the
legal hour, and nightlife took on a whole new meaning. More than just humans
gravitated toward the South Side at this time of night, which was what Micah
had counted on.
    The trail led him to a run-down corner bar – a dive, but
packed. As if the Angel of Death himself had entered, the patrons seemed to
sense him more than see him as he stepped inside. Heads turned cautiously to
give him the once-over around longnecks of