The New Night Novels (Book 2): Revelations (A New Night Novella) by Ashlei D. Hawley

 
     
     
     
    REVELATIONS: A NEW NIGHT NOVELLA
    (The New Night Novels Volume Two)
    FIRST EDITION
    This book is a work of fiction. Any characters, places, or events are taken from the author’s imagination and represent no actual individuals, locations, or happenings. Any similarity to persons living or dead is completely coincidental and unintentional.
    These works are the copyrighted property of Ashlei Daylen Hawley, not to be redistributed, copied, or pirated in any fashion by any personal or commercial entity without the permission of the author.
     
    Dedication: For the ladies of BayouBama. You are friends, you are inspirers, you are coworkers, you are family. Much love and many thanks. As always, for my readers and supporters. The other writers, weird ones, dreamers, and doers. Keep on, keep weird, keep reading! 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Revelations: A New Night Novella
    Ashlei D. Hawley
     
    CHAPTER ONE
         Once, the night was ours. We were the shadows in the dark, the myths that fascinated humankind with our otherworldly allure. Our legacy was blood, our lineage ancient. 
     I’ve been a vampire longer than the United States has been a country. When I think about it in that context, I wish I’d never been around to see the development of this nation. Without the United States, there would have been no Grissom virus. The night would still be ours.
     Derek Grissom was an Army general who delivered a supplement designed to create super fighters to his troops. Code named “Rippers,” these men and women were supposed to inherent super strength, speed, metabolism, and enhanced ability to operate at night. Though he wasn’t the only distributor in the early days, he was the first and most carefully observed. The virus became his legacy, and the name has stuck even a decade later.
     The night is coming. I know I have to move, but until the sun sets entirely, I’m trapped. Though the Rippers have taken the night, the deadly effects of the sun on creatures such as me have not been lessened. The Rippers can survive in the sun, but it dulls their senses, makes them weak. It hurts them, but it doesn’t destroy them.
     If even a glimmer of sunlight exists above the horizon, I’ll burst into flames. It doesn’t seem fair to me.
     My radio squawks. The noise is jarring and I jump. I’ve been waiting so intently to feel the threat of the sun pass that the unexpected noise hits me like a bullet.
     “Sreya, do you copy?” Even through the distortion of the radio, his voice reminds me of a cool wind over desert sand.
     “Here, Pharaoh.”
     The radio line is open. I don’t call him Seth as I would in private. Everyone I know calls him Pharaoh and I stick to that when anyone else can hear. 
     “You’re in the thirteenth, right?”
     We have our city split into eighty-four sectors that are a mile long and a mile across. A vampire can cross a sector in under thirty seconds. The biggest deterrent to crossing quickly is Rippers. Pharaoh’s tone is already a precursor to bad news. It’s a talent of mine to read voices, and his has always been easier than most.
     “Thirteenth, yes,” I respond. The sun is so close to setting I can feel the weight of darkness on my skin like silk. Darkness in the day is different than the darkness of night and I long for the feel of evening shadows.
     I catch the tail end of Pharaoh’s sigh when he depresses the button to transmit again. He’s inspiring all sorts of confidence. 
     “Sreya, you have two companies closing in. One’s already in your sector and the other is coming in from the tenth.”
     The tenth is what I’d pass through to get back to base. The first through the seventh sectors are all devoted to our safe zone. I need to get through the tenth to slip inside one of the guard towers on the thirty-foot high metal wall that surrounds our compound.