Follow The Night (Bewitch The Dark) (3 page)

Amidst the mystifying horror, a
gargoyle swept down from the roof and skimmed over their wicked embrace.

Just a little kiss.
Strong and demanding. Controlling in a manner that diminished further protest.

A strange compliance hazed Gabriel’s mind. Rationale blurred. Enmeshed in an erotically macabre caress, he could no more resist or push away than he could call out.

You must resist
.
This embrace joining two men is unnatural. It must not be—

Gabriel’s eyelids flickered. His palm slid down the ancient frock coat. A wanting moan spiraled up Gabriel’s throat, escaping into the night on a canorous sigh. He curled his fingers, clinging to a forearm, and pulling the man closer.

He barely registered the shout of another.

“You have found the Ripper! We must call for his capture!”

His limbs numb and growing heavy, Gabriel answered the call to surrender. His body slid down the iron gate. Anjou moved with him, his tongue and lips sucking and drawing out his blood in an exquisite communion.

“Bastard!”

A heavy
clunk
preceded the tear of flesh. Teeth ripped from Gabriel’s neck, the sound, as if a knife cutting through leather. He slumped into a seated position against the gate and began to shudder at the loss of warmth, the absence of control—or rather, of being controlled.

“It is the Ripper!” he heard Toussaint shout. Another loud
thunk
—wood against bones? “Get off, murderer!”

Toussaint swung a walking stick at the beast.

“Deserving!” came the shout from the drunk crawling across the cobbles.

Gabriel’s head lolled upon his shoulder. He could make out blurry images of people. The swirl of red and gold. Parakeet Wing, what a ridiculous color…

A divine pulse within his veins pounded in rhythm to his heartbeats. Monsieur Anjou had awoken something deep inside his soul.

Roxane Desrues pushed the glass-paned carriage door open and jumped onto the cobblestones fronting the Marmonte estate. Thick straw frosted the cobbles, having softened the announcement of her arrival. She was late and—

“Make way!”

She withdrew from the open door just as the brass hinges split from the curved wood frame. A hand skimmed her gloved fingers. A bellowing groan erupted near her face. The source of the groan—a man running blindly—dashed off into the shadows of the rue de Temple.

“What the devil?” The driver jumped from his lofty perch and, wielding a lantern, held it high to study the damage. The carriage door hung from one bent brass hinge; the glass had cracked down the center. He swung the lamp close to Roxane’s face. “Are you harmed, mademoiselle?”

She pushed the lantern away from her face and tugged down the corner of her fur-trimmed tricorn. Then, noticing the smear on her tan kid glove she pulled up the lantern and studied the side of her hand.
Losh
! Blood. Yet most certainly not hers.

“Mademoiselle?”

“Not to worry. I am safe,” she assured the driver. Sliding a hand into the placket tied in the seam of her skirt she produced a silver ecu and pressed it into his palm. “
Merci
.”

A shout from the darkness alerted her. Roxane eyed the dodging shadow of the escaping man, now some distance down the street.

It is him!
her instincts screamed. Her body wanted to pursue.
This is the moment you have waited for.
Never have you come so close.

However, another shout from the opposite direction vibrated through her veins. A cry for help. A familiar plea she had heard too many times since arriving in the ugly city of Paris.

Clutching her skirts, she dashed toward where she had heard the call for help.

“What is the trouble?” she yelled before rounding the corner.

What she saw around that corner stopped her cold. A sobbing man tricked out in yellow satin kneeled over a bepowdered and laced fop who bled at his neck like a holy miracle.

“Is he dead?” she called to the pair. She jerked her head around to scan the street down which the intruder had fled. She still had time to pursue if she ran right now. “Which way did he go?”

“Down!” the frantic valet insisted. “Do you see? He is down on the ground. The Rake Ripper has attacked my master. He is bleeding. Summon help!”

“H-he’s alive?”

“Of course he is alive!”

Drawn from the prospect of chase, Roxane strode to the victim and plunged to kneel beside him. The fop flickered open his eyes and groped his soiled neck cloth. Above the bloody lace sat two perfect wounds, half a finger apart.

The unthinkable had occurred. Again.

He was alive.

The last thing Roxane needed now was another “almost” case.

On the other hand, he was not dead. Since chase had not been possible, this may prove to her advantage. The victim may be able to provide her with important facts, such as the identity of his attacker.

Walking around the burst of color that beamed through a marvelous oculus window set into the domed bedroom ceiling, Roxane approached a lavish bed set upon a lacquered wood base. She had accompanied the victim and his valet to an elegant mansion clinging to the outskirts of the faubourg St. Honoré, and had waited while the valet put his master to bed amidst an explosion of lace, silk, satin and plumes, plumes, and more plumes.

Leo—that was his name—slept.

Roxane could not chase images of tonight’s attack from her thoughts. When she had come upon him, he had not been in his right mind. Mutters of ”sweet kiss“ and ”bring him back“ had whispered from the man’s lips.

She’d heard the same desperate murmurs but two months earlier. The memory cut like a machete to bone. For hours she had struggled to contain Damian’s ranting, to quiet him, and to convince him it had not been a lover who had left him for dead, but something unspeakably evil.

So much she had learned of the creature called vampire in the past months. A creature that usually served a boon to her very nature had now become a vile bane to her family.

Fighting tears, she had decided she could not leave this poor fop to his own fumblings; he would never get things right. He required guidance.

And she needed bait.

Despite the viciousness of the attack, the man slept peacefully. Gleaming chestnut hair had been smoothed across the satin pillow by the valet. A trimmed moustache drew her interest to his mouth. Full lips were underscored by the shadow of a rogue Van Dyke beard. An attractive man. High cheekbones could have cut through any female’s heart.

Such a thought startled Roxane. Attractive? This fop? She did not find vain, insouciant bits of lace and powder attractive.

She glared at the man’s mouth, compressed in a soft line. His lips were neither full nor thin, but possibly…inviting. And peeking out at the vee of his lace-berimmed shirt, a shadow of dark chest hairs intrigued enough that she could not take her eyes from the sight.

Hmm… Perhaps meagerly attractive, she decided.

The valet slipped in and trimmed the candle wick on the bedside table with an expert squeeze of the scissor, and then tapped a heel to capture her attention.

Roxane sensed the valet’s impatience with her presence. Sternly protective of his master, the trait impressed her more than bothered. “I will leave in a few moments.”

“Very good.” Toussaint left the room but did not close the door.

Of course, she mustn’t be discovered alone in this man’s home so late at night. She could be compromised in ways that would only add to her struggles.

Roxane eyed the white marble floor, focusing on the frenzy of colors the stained glass window beamed upon the cold stone. One color in particular caught her eye, a deep blue. Simple and endearing. Like Damian.

In the five months she and her brother, Damian, had been in the city her younger sibling had flourished, taking to the rakish lifestyle as a flower soaks up the rain. For the first time, she had witnessed true happiness in his pale green eyes, and had regretted refusing him all those years he had begged to leave their country cottage for Paris. She had always thought it a ploy designed by their father to corrupt Damian. Destroy yet another piece of the precious remainder of family she yet retained.

Xavier Desrues had kept his distance since his children had arrived in Paris. Roxane had not once seen him. She did not care if she ever saw him. Mostly.

Happiness had not greeted her here in this city of debauchery and decay. The Gauls had christened Paris
Lutetia
, the city of mud—a fitting title. Lutetia’s dark evil had quickly caught up to Damian, snaking her dirty fingers about his neck and flashing her fangs in a most horrible way.

Do you know what happens when a swimmer stops paddling?

She smiled briefly to recall one of her brother’s favorite wonders. And his positive response.
They float.
Nothing could dim the smile on his face. Until he had ceased to float.

It had been more over a week since she had last seen her brother. While he cursed her and spouted mad diatribes to the few who would listen, she continued to visit him at Bicêtre, a hospital at the edge of the city that housed the sick and insane. She would not surrender hope for Damian’s sanity.

Even if hope meant befriending the enemy.

Consciousness seemed a new experience. Sounds were not immediately distinguishable, merely muffled fuzz inside his ears. Daylight filtered through the pale sheers strung before the ceiling-high windows topped with fluffs of officious crimson plumage.

Gabriel blinked at the brightness. His vision, initially blurry, slid down a hazy rainbow pouring from the massive oculus window set into the ceiling.

Cinnamon curled into his nostrils. That meant he was in bed. Toussaint instructed the laundress to use a cinnamon soap imported from India. It was one of many pleasures he entertained as part of the playacting he performed. A man’s home must match his personality because one never knew when one might bring home guests or a woman.

But beneath the sweet fragrance lingered something…not right, almost vile. Musty? Yes, the smell of old things, of long forgotten and dusty attire. Yet at the same time that odor cloyed at him with a seductive invitation.

He swished his tongue across his teeth. “Toussaint, wine.”

Toussaint’s curly-topped head appeared above him. “Leo?” A strangely exuberant grin lifted the man’s thick black moustache on one side, and quickly vanished to a worried moue. “You are finally awake.”

Finally? And why did he call him by that name? Toussaint knew better. Leo was his public persona; a façade he could not abide when at home in private.

Gabriel winced and flicked his fingers toward the silver bed tray that, though he could not see it, should be within arm’s reach. A clean white handkerchief landed in his palm. He pressed the linen to his mouth and drew in the scent of orange. The acrid fruit oil pierced his numb senses and wakened his muddy brain.

What had happened last night?

It was difficult to order his memories from the chaos of shadows and screams swimming in his head. Shadows shaped like armed men. Shadows shaped like flying beasts.

Why did he imagine a gargoyle taking flight from the Marmonte roof? Had he had a nightmare?

The room moved into sharper perspective. Overhead, sunlight beamed through the oculus, painting the air with dusty swashes of indigo, crimson and subdued pumpkin. To stand amidst the silent colors made him feel more right than any other place. So far from the false society that frequented the salons. So close to acceptance.

A familiar susurration steered his attention toward the end of the bed. Ells of fabric swished. Had he found a woman to debauch last night?

Why couldn’t he remember?

The most remarkable female stood at the end of the bed, framed between swaths of burgundy velvet that poured from the bed canopy like waterfalls of wine. Gabriel hated all the fuss and frippery, but endured it as part of the charade.

But she was not a part of this charade.

He shoved Toussaint aside. Streams of pale red hair spilled in loose curls over the woman’s narrow shoulders. Pink satin jailed in narrow brown stripes pushed a delicious bosom into enticing mounds and enhanced her petite yet curvaceous shape as exquisitely as the latest Pandora doll. A plain Pandora, for she wore no excess ribbon or lace, no hat or gloves, not even a wig.

He lowered his head near the valet’s. “What—she—that woman—did I…?”

“No, Leo.”

Toussaint’s reply stung like a slap to the face. He had
not
slept with her? Pity. She was fetching in a fragile, pale sort of way.

Not a hint of carmine brightened her cheeks. Everything about her, from her blanched strawberry hair, to the fine milky complexion seemed washed out. Drained. And yet, an intense energy vibrated in the wide eyes fixed to him.

Not
slept with her? The only instance that saw a woman in Gabriel Renan’s bedchambers—or rather,
Leo’s—
was that he had made love to her. But fact remained…

“She’s dressed,” Gabriel said, a strange sadness staining his tone.

“I said you and she”—Toussaint twirled a finger near his chest between he and Gabriel—”did
not
.”

“I can hear you,” a delightful female voice sang.

Toussaint winced, then straightened and turned to her. He splayed out an arm to present their guest. “Leo, might I introduce Mademoiselle Roxane Desrues.”

“Roxane.” Gabriel worked the name on his tongue, rolling the ‘R’ as he often did with his own surname. Rrrrrroxane. A tasty name.