Forever Night (Darkness Falls Book 3)

Chapter Twenty-Four

A whole range of reactions slewed through my head – from tearful hysteria to uncontrolled laughing to simply crumpling to the floor and hiding under the table until someone told me this whole thing had gone away.

Rachel had warned me that war was coming, but I just...I hadn't...I never foresaw this. I'd known there was a bigger picture, something unfolding beyond Rachel's vendetta against me and my family, but the realisation that she was actually raising an army to fight against everything I believed in...I couldn't have imagined this. Whatever bigger picture I could possibly have imagined, it wasn't this.

Riley, standing close by, spread her palms for emphasis, accidentally smacking a female vampire in the back. "I get that the war part's bad, but unveiling vamps to the world? Is that such a terrible thing? I mean, think about it, K-girl. You're still planning to unite hunters and vampires, right? If the world knows about vampires, won't that help your cause?"

"No, Riley," I said, keeping my voice steady so I revealed none of the emotional maelstrom eating me up inside. "It won't. The whole reason people hunt vampires to begin with is because they don't know any better. They think vampires are evil – monsters, and it's hardly the first time in history that fear of the unknown has caused human beings to lash out."

I pressed my thumb and forefinger to the inner corners of my eyes, feeling the start of another headache. "I would love to show the world that vampires exist and have all of humankind welcome them with sunny smiles and open arms, but that's just not reality. Vampires would be met with anger, ignorance, and most of all fear. And it's fear that would be most dangerous. Humans have always feared and destroyed what they don't understand."

"Not to mention that Rachel would be the one doing the unveiling. She's hardly the poster-child for friendly relations between humans and vampires," said Luke, his voice grim.

"Rachel isn't going to reveal the existence of vampires to the world. She's going to drag them out of the shadows and set them on people like wild dogs. As far as she is concerned, vampires are top of the food chain and we're just blood-bags to be used and discarded," I growled.

Angry energy zipped up and down my arms, making me ache with the urge to punch something. I thought longingly of my old nemesis – the vinyl punch-bag, still hanging in the team's garage.

"I don't get it, though. Rachel's clearly nuts. What kind of vampire would want to help her?" Riley asked.

"Any vampire who has ever been persecuted by a hunter. Any vampire who has ever suffered at human hands. Any vampire who simply agrees with her belief that our kind shouldn't have to hide in the shadows anymore." Anna glanced at me as she said it, and something sour rose in my throat.

I might not hunt any more, but for years I had. Once upon a time, I had actively contributed to everything Anna was talking about. Some of those persecuted vampires could have suffered at the hands of Noah's team – could have suffered at my hands.

Even if I'd never directly hurt any of them, I had been part of a culture that hunted and tormented vampire-kind. The irony was that in hounding creatures that they thought were monsters, hunters actually created monsters. If vampire-kind had just been left alone, Rachel's only support might have been a few psychotically like-minded individuals. Not enough for an army. Instead hunters had pushed vampires to the edge, and now someone was showing them how to fight back against the injustices they'd suffered.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't understand why other vampires would fall for Rachel's spiel.

"And all the vampires who think it's safer to carry on living in the shadows will be dragged out regardless," Luke said.