Crimson Born - Amy Patrick Page 0,22

had taken on a whole new meaning for me. Now they meant danger.

Kannon and I scrambled to get below the earth’s surface before the sun’s first rays crested the Blue Ridge Mountains and burned through the famous shroud of blue fog.

A faded sign near the entrance indicated the system of caverns in Northwestern Virginia had once been open for tours. Now, according to Kannon, who’d given me the history of the place during the three-hour drive here, no intelligent human would come within miles of it.

He said in the height of its popularity, these caverns had welcomed more than half a million visitors a year. But after a series of mysterious and increasingly frequent “accidents” befalling tourists, the series of elaborate connected caves had developed a reputation as a haunted place, and business had dwindled to only a trickle of thrill-seekers.

When even those brave souls had failed to re-emerge, humans had collectively decided to cede the natural wonder back to nature.

And to the vampires.

Kannon said they’d been moving in at greater and greater numbers.

It did seem like the ideal vampire habitat. He told me this particular series of caverns covered sixty-four acres, and that was just the part that was inhabited.

The complex network of passageways had been mapped as far as five miles into the earth, but expeditions still hadn’t managed to reach the end of it.

“It’s perfect. Plenty of space for our growing population and an easily defensible stronghold against anyone who might try to breach it,” he explained.

“Why would they?” I asked as we made our way down one long set of stairs after another—I counted thirty stories—before reaching a sloping ramp that ended in a wide chamber lit by wall-mounted torches.

“I thought vampires and humans got along now.”

“For a long time, they did. And there are still lots of humans who seem to have no problem living and working with vampires,” he said. “But things have been changing lately. There’s a growing anti-vamp sentiment in the country. Who knows? Maybe it was always there, and we just didn’t realize it. It really started ramping up when Graham Parker came on the political scene.”

“Who’s that?”

He shook his head, squinting a quizzical look at me.

“You really did live a life apart, didn’t you? Graham Parker is a U.S. senator, and he’s running in this year’s presidential race. He’s got a surprising amount of support, considering how long ago the vampire rights movement happened. Apparently all these anti-vampers were just lying low, waiting for their time to come out of the woodwork. It’s been a little frightening to see actually.”

“So that’s why vampires have been moving here? To hide?”

He bristled. “We’re not hiding—we’re regrouping. Planning. Getting ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“The revolution,” he said as if it was self-explanatory.

That was the end of the conversation for the moment because suddenly we were in a crowd. If there was, in fact, some sort of revolution coming, these had to be the soldiers.

Every one of the men surrounding us was huge and clad in some variation of the leather pants, boots, and jacket Kannon wore. I might have been intimidated by their size and obvious strength if they hadn’t all been smiling.

One of them slapped Kannon on the shoulder.

“So the victorious warrior returns. How’d you ever manage to bring her in, huh buddy?”

There was laughter followed by another teasing remark from a shorter, burlier man. “When I heard you were having some trouble with your assignment, I pictured you reeling in a shark. Instead you’ve brought us a guppy. This is what took you a week?”

Kannon’s cheeks turned red, and he looked at the ground before looking up again and grinning at his friends.

“This,” he paused for emphasis, “is Abigail Byler. And she needed a few days to warm up to the idea of leaving home. Abigail is Amish.”

One of the guys laughed. “Gee, really? You don’t say?”

I looked down at my plain dress and shoes. I’d given up on the bonnet once I’d stopped going out during the day and mixing with humans. But the style of my hair itself must have proclaimed my cultural background.

When loose, it hung past my waist. Right now it was pinned in a bun at the back of my head, as was the usual style for girls and women in my village. I hadn’t seen a mirror for days, so at this point it must have looked rather unkempt.

Since none of the men had introduced themselves to me, I didn’t say anything to them.

Finally, one of them