Where Dark Things Wait: Night Creatures Book One

Epilogue - The Beginning

Kalyna groaned as the phone on the bedside cabinet woke her from slumber with it's shrill ringing. She pulled a pillow over her head in an effort to hide from the noise, even as Dunstan reached for the handset.

"Yes?" he asked, then paused to listen to something, before saying, "Of course Major, we'll be right there."

When he hung up, Kalyna complained, "But it's Sunday..."

"I'm sorry beautiful," he offered, looking genuinely regretful, then said one of the last things she wanted to hear; "They've found another body. She looks like your sketch."

Kalyna's heart fell and a sick feeling twisted in her stomach. She should've stopped the man at Red Night. She should have protected Nila Kimlil.

"It isn't your fault," Dunstan insisted, feeling her guilt or seeing it written in her expression. "You did not do this. You've done everything you could at every point. Don't blame yourself for another's crimes."

She sighed, giving a helpless shrug as she admitted, "I have more power than I ever could've guessed. If I'd known then, maybe I could've stopped him. Maybe I could have forced the truth from him the way Maloney did from me..."

"Would you do that?" Dunstan asked, frowning so that a deep crease formed between his brows. "Would you force your will to override someone else's, even before you knew of their innocence or guilt?"

"If it meant saving children?" she demanded, but then she realised the message he'd attempted to impart; back at Red Night, she'd had no evidence of guilt, and suspicion wasn't enough. No, she wouldn't force her will on another under such circumstances, even if she might consider it now that the scarred man's guilt had been as good as proven.

"Alright... No, I wouldn't have done that without some evidence, but I could do it now that we have it," she decided, because saving potential victims of torture and murder mattered more to her than her own morality.

"That is a slippery slope, love," Dunstan noted as he climbed out of bed. "The lines we draw have a tendency to creep further and further from where we decide they should be, especially when times get hard. If you decide there's a line you won't cross, then hold fast to it."

She climbed out of bed too, following him, and wrapping her arms around his waist as she pressed a kiss against his shoulder.

"I promise you can trust me," she declared, because she hated the thought of the alternative. "I won't do anything I shouldn't."

"I know," he promised. "I'm not concerned that you might disappoint me. I just don't want you to ever disappoint yourself. Forgiving one's own errors of judgement, presumed or real, is far harder than forgiving someone else's. You know that. I've had plenty experience of it myself."

She did know. In fact, that was the problem; she felt disappointed in herself for letting the scarred man kidnap Nila Kimlil. She didn't know if she could forgive herself, whether or not she deserved her own censure.

As they pulled on their uniforms, Kalyna hoped it would be a temporary change of plan; that they could soon resume their weekend. Then they made their way to the Major's office where the other platoon commanders had already gathered. A few arched brows at Kalyna's inclusion, but as she'd been the one to give them their recent clues, she guessed the Major had invited her along as a courtesy. The others could stare all they wanted.

Once she and Dunstan took their seats, Marcellus Nerva nodded to Second Lieutenant Beck, asking, "What do you have to report?"

Beck sighed and admitted, "Not as much as I'd like. We set up cameras as ordered, plus a nerve centre in an abandoned warehouse, in the hope that those on duty would see a body being dumped and get there in time to intercept the perpetrator, but we failed. By the time we got to the body, the suspect had fled the scene. We don't know how. No get away vehicles were seen leaving the area on any of the other cameras. It's possible the vampire changed forms, I guess. Except that she wasn't alone. She had a hostage. She wanted us to see.