Page 26 of High Noon

Asa rolled his eyes. "From anyone who made the very bad decision of pointing one in my direction."

“You’re gonna hate guns one day,” I warned him.

“I already do.”

“Wait until someone loads them with wooden bullets.”

He slowed to a stop, hands lazily propped on his hips. “Why is it that you people believe we can be killed with a splinter of wood?”

“Your sires can,” I answered with a sniff.

“We are not vampires,” he enunciated slowly. “I thought you’d have learned that lesson by now.”

“I guess old habits die hard. We’ve been told that’s the only way to kill you.”

“You were told wrong.” Asa began to walk again as the land turned from grassy prairie to rolling foothills.

"How do you even know?"

Asa's dark eyes flashed with annoyance. "I just do."

"I don't think you do. I think you hope that no one can kill you with a simple piece of wood and brute strength, but I don't think you know for sure."

"Well," he said, stretching his arms out wide, "nothing has killed me yet. Nothing and no one has been strong enough to do it, so I must assume that your stakes, while effective against our sires, would not hurt us in the least. While we have the ability to make vampires, we are very different creatures. We aren’t limited by the same things they are, and every sired generation is somewhat weaker than the previous. It’s nature’s way of preserving our strength and dominance over anything lesser, I suppose."

I ignored the jab. He could kiss my lesser…

“Can you speed up at all?” he groaned. He may not be a vampire, but he sure was whiny like one. So was his sister, for that matter.

We crossed a stream on foot, which meant that Asa gave a gazelle-like leap and landed on the other bank, while I splashed into the water two-thirds of the way across. He grinned as I slogged through the calf-deep water. “Don’t,” I told him. “Just don’t. I know we aren’t quite as cool as you are. We aren’t Nephilim. We are pretty awesome, but we’re not the same creatures. We can’t defy gravity like you can. Every generation of us is weaker than the last… yadda, yadda.”

I climbed onto the bank beside him. “The clones are weaker than you,” he remarked as I straightened my back.

“Are you sure about that?”

He nodded. “Some are more skilled than others, but none have the reflexes or stamina. Or even the strength that you do. They come close, but fall ever so slightly short.”

Good. Maybe that was nature’s way of keeping us on top of the Asset food chain, as well. I bet that ate away at Kael – that he couldn’t make exact replicas, or engineer something stronger than us. The very thought warmed my heart.

To Kael, imperfection equaled failure. I couldn’t wait to get home and let him know that he’d failed in everything he tried to throw at the Nephilim. We might not have been able to destroy them, but we did something far greater – we survived them. Well, two of us did. Abram was the loser among us, but hadn’t he always been?

While we were walking, Asa suddenly froze. He inhaled, closing his eyes, and his demeanor shifted from bearable to foul in an instant. “Enoch is here. I suggest you keep up.”

I ran as hard and fast as I could, following the path that wound up the side of a steep hill. Asa waited at the top, lurking among the shadowy pines. A silhouette crept across the candlelit window of a small log cabin.

"If you were smart, you would stay out here."

"Suppose I'm a risk taker," I contended.

Asa started toward the front door, answering over his shoulder, "Then you're in the right place." With that, he wrenched open the door and stepped inside. I stood behind him, taking in everything. Not much furniture. The place was mostly empty, unless you counted Abram and Enoch.

Enoch stopped pacing and instead stared at Asa in a way that made me wonder which brother was worse, and which one might win the fight if anyone would ever let the battle play out without interruption.

From the looks exchanged, a lot must have happened in the last almost-hundred years.

Abram was secured to a chair, his hands and feet bound to the chair arms and legs with a silver metal chain. He drooled onto his bare chest, thick strands of saliva hanging from his mouth. His suit had been tugged down and the same chain held him firmly against the chair back. Along the links, spaced very closely together, no more than a half inch apart, were small silver crosses. Beneath each one, his skin blistered angry red against pale white, bubbled flesh. He let out a cry so agonizing, I felt sorry for him for a second. Then he looked up and saw me.

"You traitor," he panted. "You traitor! I should kill you."

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