Darker Nights: The Darkness War, #2

By Eric S. Brown

"Eric has a firm command of both military SF and things that go bite in the night."

—Chuck Dixon, Award winning author of "Alien Legion"

The crew of Psi-Mechs, Inc. survived the Battle of New York, but their base was overrun, and many of their operators were killed. Forced to flee, the company has set up shop at their alternate headquarters in Alaska for its crews to lick their wounds and reconstitute their forces.

But they don't have time to recover, as a new, more powerful monster is on the loose. One that can kill people with Psi powers, and make them his own. He has to be stopped before he grows so powerful there's nothing left to stop him. Meanwhile, the vampire god Mavet lurks in the wings, waiting for his opportunity to strike and finish off the company for good.

Beset on all sides by powerful enemies, Ringer and the Psi-Mechs team have to decide whether to take on the devils they know or the new enemy that is more powerful than anything they've ever seen before. The nights are growing darker, and if Ringer and the Psi-Mechs, Inc. team don't succeed, darkness will fall on the world for good.

Psi-Mech, Inc. Because things do go bump in the night.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blood Moon Press
• Release date: Mar 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781948485548

Book preview

Prologue

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Caroline stared at Sean. He wasn’t really her type, but beggars can’t be choosers. The bar had been rather empty all evening, except for the usual biker gang members and druggies who wandered in as closing time drew near. She’d lost patience with both of those sorts of men. Sure they could be fun for an evening, but they got boring fast. There was only so much alpha male a woman could handle. Bulging muscles, the smell of sweat and booze, and roughness between the sheets weren’t all the male of the species had to offer. Sean was none of those things. He reeked of meekness and was clearly intimidated by her. Caroline knew she was a beautiful woman. Even without her power, she could have had just about any man she wanted. With it, the world was hers for the taking. She was a sexual predator of the highest order and reveled in what she was. Her therapist had actually had the nerve to tell her she was a sex addict. By the end of that session, he’d been undressed, laid, and left passed out on his own couch. Caroline had walked out of his office, grinning like the Cheshire cat. For all his smarts and degrees, he was just a man like any other, and hers to do with as she liked.

Sean swallowed hard as Caroline flicked several rogue strands of long brown hair from her face and smiled at him. She scooted closer to him on the love seat in her apartment. Sean shifted uncomfortably, looking like a baby deer caught in the high beams of a speeding truck coming directly at it.

Thank you for walking me home, Sean, Caroline purred, her voice as lusty as she could make it. She hadn’t even bothered to use her power yet, but even so, she could see he was already hers.

Ever since she’d turned fifteen, Caroline had been able to control the emotions and desires of men and women alike. Having such a gift had made her high school days among the best of her life. Who needed to study when your teachers were in love with you, and afraid of the trouble you could get them into at the same time? Popularity had come easy. When she’d first discovered her gift, affecting one person had taken a lot of effort. But within a few months, she’d learned to control small groups. Her limit varied based on the will of the people she was targeting. Her upper limited was slightly over a dozen, unless the crowd had been drinking or there were drugs involved. Using her power had given her a rush back then. As time went on, that rush grew milder and milder. She’d replaced the rush with sex and sadism. Recently, the thrill of those, too, had begun to wane for her, and she’d started to branch out into killing her prey...but never without playing with them first.

When Sean had wandered into the bar, she’d known instantly he was the one for tonight. He’d looked lost and out of place, as if he was on the wrong side of town. She could almost smell his fear and desperation. She could tell he’d tried to dress down to fit in with what he’d thought the crowd in a place like Joe’s would wear, but he hadn’t gotten it quite right. She’d pegged him as being either an IT guy or some type of investment broker. Everything about him screamed geek to her. She’d swept in on him almost as soon as he’d taken a seat at the bar. Someone like him coming to a place like Joe’s was just asking for trouble. She had no desire to watch him get his face bashed in by the regular crowd. She had other uses for him. Turning on her charm, she’d had Sean out of Joe’s and on the way back to her apartment in minutes. They’d both found what they’d been looking for.

He blushed as she drew herself even closer to him on the couch. Her hand slid between his legs, her fingers clutching the inside of his thigh as she leaned in to nibble his ear. Sean moved his head aside, avoiding her lips as his eyes met hers. His timidity only turned her on more. This was really going to be fun.

Don’t you think I’m beautiful, Sean? she whispered.

I do, he answered, in a voice even lower than hers had been.

There’s nothing to be afraid of here, Sean, she assured him. We’re both adults who find each other attractive. Let’s just let nature take its course, okay?

Sean nodded as Caroline kneaded the flesh of his inner thigh with the fingers of her left hand. She raised her right arm to lay it around his shoulders and back so she could pull him in for their first kiss. Sean stopped her by reaching out with his right hand to cup the side of her face. As Caroline peered into his green eyes, she could finally see a desire that matched her own, openly burning in them.

As the hand between his legs moved higher, Caroline felt something warm and wet emerge from Sean’s hand where it held her face. She jerked back from his hand, but whatever it was still clung to her, and it spread across her cheek. She reached to swipe at the wetness. Her fingers came away covered in twisting, writhing things. They reminded her of flatworms, pale twisted little creatures, their small bodies rolling over on themselves and curling up then stretching out again on her palm. She managed not to scream, but she did shudder. Her eyes jerked back toward Sean to ask him why in the hell had put such things on her, but he wasn’t there anymore. The monster sitting in his place on the couch wasn’t human at all. It still had his general shape and form, but its clothes were gone, as was its skin. The monster was a mass of worms like those on her hand. Its entire body moved and slithered, while somehow still managing to stay together as a whole. It had no features whatsoever. No eyes, mouth, or nose. It was all worms. Caroline did start to scream then, but the thing that had been Sean lashed out with one of its hands to grab her. The hand closed over her mouth, silencing her, as dozens upon dozens of tiny worms broke away from it and wriggled over her teeth and tongue into her body. She wrenched herself away from its hold on her, falling backward on the couch. Pain flared through the flesh of her cheeks as the worms that hadn’t entered her mouth began to dig into her skin. She could feel them burrowing their way through her flesh as she gagged on the ones crawling down her throat. In a fit of desperation, she struck at the creature with the power of her mind, channeling all of her will into an empathic blast that would have left a human being wailing in tears and horror on the floor. The monster merely flinched, nothing more. It sat above her, completely calm and still, as the worms it had loosed upon her went about their work.

Caroline tried to get up, to run, but found that she couldn’t move anything but her head. Either the monster or the worms inside her were preventing it. The clog of worms in her throat passed through it just as she was about to lose consciousness from lack of air. She sucked in breath and blood rushed into her mouth as she exhaled it. She spat red onto the cloth of the couch. She could feel the worms that had entered through her cheeks digging deeper and deeper into her head. The feeling of their squirming within her was maddening. The tiny things gnawed through arteries and veins alike as they moved through her. Tears of blood formed in the corners of her eyes and glided down over her cheeks. Trickles of red ran from her ears to wash over the sides her neck. She tried again to scream, but all that came out was a sickening, gargling noise and a spray of red-tinted spittle. Her body convulsed as the worms entered her brain. She thrashed about on the couch, suddenly able to move again, even if it wasn’t under her own direction. Her eyes flicked about within their sockets wildly before rolling up to show only whites...and then her nightmare of pain came to an end.

She was dead—and yet she wasn’t. The pain was gone, and her fear transformed into astonishment and confusion. She had become the worms, or perhaps they had become her. Her soul, her essence, was within the worms that burrowed up out of her skin to slink across the couch toward the monster. She could sense its presence through their senses. With every inch that they drew closer to its writhing yet bound together humanoid mass, she could feel herself fading. What remained of her consciousness shrieked in vain, clinging to a world that, in truth, she had already left. By the time the worms rejoined the monster’s body, there was nothing of Caroline’s intelligence and soul inside them, only her power.

The monster shuddered with pleasure as it became whole again...and more than it had been before.

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Chapter 1

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The house was a small one. Though it had two floors, it was nothing spectacular. It was clearly old and a touch on the rundown side. The bright yellow paint of its exterior walls was flaking, and its roof had seen better days. The house sat just inside the borders of the Nevada desert. Its yard was a dry, cooked ground devoid of life, other than a few shrub-like wild plants that grew around it. Night was falling, and the stars already burned in the sky above it as the last rays of the day’s sun died away. One of the stars burned much brighter than the others...only it wasn’t a star at all. It was an approaching TX-1 transport.

The TX-1 flew over the house, circling around in the air, and turn back toward it. The sleek transport plane slowed as it came in for a landing at the edge of the house’s front yard. Its heavily-armored hull was a smooth, dark black. The TX-1’s landing gear deployed, one in the front and two at the plane’s rear. Thudding down onto them, the quiet hum of its engine went silent. The rear door opened as a ramp extended from the plane’s interior onto the hard desert soil. Heavy metal feet clanged their way down the ramp as Scott led Mac and Susan out of the TX-1. All three of them wore the upgraded Mark VIII Psi-mech armor Hank had developed in the wake of what everyone was now calling the Battle of New York. While the Mark VIIIs were lighter and faster than the older generation Psi-mech suits, they still looked like robots ready for war. Each of the Psi-mechs stood between eight and nine feet tall. The armor of their silver forms gleamed in the starlight. The shoulder-mounted cannon on Susan’s mech jerked about where it sat, as if searching for a target. Mac’s Psi-mech carried a wicked-looking tri-barrel weapon in its hands twice the size of an M249 SAW. The weapon was belt-fed from an ammo pack on his mech’s back. Scott’s mech appeared to be unarmed, but that was only because Scott believed in a more up close and personal style of combat. Encased inside its arms were blades powerful enough to rip through the depleted uranium alloy of an M1 in a single slash. All three of the Psi-mechs were equipped with arm blades, but the ones in Scott’s were special. Their level of power came not only from their sharpness and the enhanced strength his suit gave him, but also from the nanotech Hank had used to make them almost supernaturally sharp.

The three Psi-mechs spread out in front of the rundown little house, staring it down like old west gunfighters. Hank had stayed in the TX-1 and was monitoring the area with the transport’s sensors.

Are you sure taking this place at night is a good idea? Scott asked over the unit’s shared comm link.

Hank’s laughter answered him. Don’t tell me the great and fearless Scott is worried about a few vampires all of a sudden?

That thing in New York tore through us like tissue paper, Hank, Scott answered. You can’t live through something like that and just forget it.

Scott heard Hank sigh. That thing in New York isn’t here, Hank promised. The Psi-folk back at headquarters say there isn’t even a master here. At worst, you’ll be facing mid-grade vamps. Most of them will likely be newbies, not even fifty years old.

He would never admit it to Hank, but Scott wished Ringer was with them. Ringer was Psi-Mechs, Inc.’s greatest weapon in their ongoing war against the darkness that threatened to end all life on Earth. Once a street-level homicide detective, Ringer was now one of Psi-Mechs, Inc.’s leaders. He was a telekinetic of the highest order; the sort of power that was only born every few generations. As tough and heavily-armed as Scott and his fellow Psi-mech pilots were inside their suits, Scott knew Ringer could tear them apart easily. He had helped train Ringer when the man first joined up, and he had seen Ringer’s power continue to grow with each battle he fought. Scott didn’t know if there was a limit to Ringer’s ability, but even if there was, he highly doubted the man had reached it yet.

Before the Battle of New York, Scott had been fearless in his approach to monster slaying. Nothing had scared him. His confidence in himself and the tech Hank provided had made him feel invincible. He had fought rampaging Sasquatch hordes, snakes larger than F-16s, blood-crazed packs of werewolves, and even vampires. That thing leading the vampires in New York though...it had been something else. Scott could still sometimes feel the chill of the presence he’d felt that night. The thing that called itself Mavet was more than just a master vampire; it was the father of all vampires, and somehow more than that. The word god leaped into his mind as he thought of Mavet. And it sure seemed to fit. Scott shuddered inside his Psi-mech, forcing himself to focus on the job ahead of him. He had to admit, the encounter with Mavet had left him a much more cautious warrior than he had been before.

According to the intel Sharpton had provided them, there could be anywhere from three to over a dozen vamps in this nest. Three of the older versions of the Psi-mech suits could have never handled that many. While the new Mark VIIIs still contained many of the general weapon systems of the older models, though, they were also equipped with a good deal more vampire-slaying-specific armaments. They were stronger and faster, too.

Scott looked out through his Psi-mech’s reinforced face plating at Mac’s mech, then at Susan’s. You guys ready?

You know it, Boss Man, Susan answered in a heartbeat.

I’m ready... Mac said, but what’s the plan? Are we going in or making them come to us?

I’m a big fan of the latter, Scott quipped. Susan, if you would, please?

With pleasure, Susan answered.

A small rocket launcher rose on the mech’s shoulder, and the launcher emptied itself in a series of whooshing sounds as six rockets streaked out toward the small house. They punched through its walls to detonate inside the house, filling it with white phosphorous. The house exploded into flames. Thick tendrils of black smoke poured out of the holes the rockets had made in its walls and its now shattered windows.

That’ll bring them running, Susan’s voice chuckled over Scott’s comm.

Don’t get cocky, Scott warned her as the first burning vampire came bursting through the house’s door. The vampire was a male who looked like he’d been in his late twenties when he’d been turned. His clothes were on fire, and WP clung to several areas of his exposed flesh, burning it away. Scott couldn’t even imagine the level of pain the vampire had to be in, but it still came at them, with a pain-contorted snarl on its face, and its fangs bared.

This one is mine, Scott told Mac and Susan, popping his Psi-mech’s arm blades. Cover me.

Scott’s Psi-mech sprang forward to meet the charging vampire. With a single swipe of his right-hand blade, Scott decapitated the vampire and sent its head bouncing back toward the burning house. The rest of its body toppled forward as an even hotter supernatural fire engulfed it, leaving nothing but ash blowing away on the gentle breeze that swept through the desert night.

A stream of vampires followed it out, and Susan’s shoulder-mounted cannon thundered in rapid succession, hosing the charging vamps with high-powered, fully-automatic fire. One vampire was cut completely in half as the rounds tore through the middle of its body. Another lost an arm in an explosion of stale, black blood. The head of a young-looking female vampire burst apart like an overripe melon being struck by a sledgehammer as Susan’s stream of fire raked over her.

Mac joined the fight, his belt-fed weapon matching Susan’s devastating rate of fire round for round. One of the heavy slugs caught a male vampire in the center of its chest, striking with enough force to pulp the man’s upper body. Normally such a hit wouldn’t have slain a vampire, despite the amount of damage it inflicted, but the slugs Mac was firing were explosive rounds filled with wooden flechettes. The vampire wouldn’t be regenerating. The fragger was finally and truly dead.

A screeching vampire with most of her face burnt away and the fatty tissue of her body popping and crackling made it through Mac and Susan’s barrage. She came howling straight at Scott. He grinned inside his Psi-mech as he moved the suit into a defensive stance. The vampire leaped from the ground, soaring through the air, her clawed hands poised to strike at him. The right arm blade of his suit slid into her heart, catching her mid leap. It plunged upward, impaling her. The left blade took her head, even as she struggled to rip her body free from the blade buried in her chest. She blazed away into ash, experiencing the true death.

The battle was over almost as quickly as it had begun. Scott, Mac, and Susan found themselves standing alone again in the front yard of the house as it burned. The house’s roof gave, crashing inward to send a blast of glowing embers dancing into the darkness of the night.

That was too easy, Scott said over the comm.

I think you’re right, Boss Man, Susan agreed. Something’s not right here.

Everybody, stand ready, Scott cautioned.

I’ve got movement from below the house, Hank told them. The tele-mechanic was safe inside the TX-1, continuing to monitor the situation through the transport’s sensors.

The ground beneath the feet of the three Psi-mechs shook violently. Large cracks formed and ran across the hard soil of the house’s front yard as something moved beneath it.

Oh, frag me, Mac muttered under his breath. It better not be a fragging death worm.

The giant lizard exploded from the earth in front of the three Psi-mechs. It was easily twice the size of a tank. Razor sharp claws extended from the finger-like toes of its feet. Matching teeth gleamed in the starlight as the lizard opened its mouth in a thunderous roar of fury. Thick scales coated its body like armor. The thing’s tail whipped about in the air behind it, tipped with a scorpion-style stinger. Its eruption from the ground caused Susan and Scott’s mechs to stumble and knocked Mac’s completely over. His Mark VIII toppled onto its back with a loud thud. The giant lizard moved with impossible speed for something its size, its claws lashing out at Susan, who was closest to it. Sparks flew as they met the armor. Susan had jerked her mech’s arms up to block the blow and keep it from hitting her suit in its chest. She screamed as the claws cut through the armor and her flesh and bone inside it. Both of her arms left her body in a spray of coolant fluids, frayed wiring, and blood.

Susan! Scott yelled at the top of his lungs as her mech staggered backward.

As much as Susan was hurting, she wasn’t out of the fight yet, despite the loss of her arms. The cannon mounted on her mech’s right shoulder opened up on the giant lizard, spitting a stream of high-powered rounds that ripped a bloody trail, punching through the beast’s scales along its body. The giant lizard squealed and threw itself away from her line of fire. Its move put it nearly on top of Scott. Instead of trying to get away from the monster, he ran toward it, leaping onto it. His Psi-mech’s arm blades sank into its scales, piercing them time and time again as Scott used them to climb the beast’s body. He reached the top of its neck near its head and hurled himself onto its back as the monster tried in vain to chomp