Kissed by Darkness (11 page)

The lights glinted off the water, turning the river into a Monet reflection of the city. I’d seen numerous photographs and paintings try to recreate that image, yet not a single one did it justice.

I breathed in the night, reveling in the glory that was darkness. Sometimes I worried if I wasn’t a little too much like the creatures I hunted, loving the night as I did. To me the night had never been about fear. Most nights, the darkness wrapped itself around me like a well-worn blanket and asked me to stay awhile. Tonight was no different.

As I strolled along the waterfront, I wrapped the night around me like a cloak, sending my essence, my spirit, wandering out into the darkness. I drew strength from it, energy from it, like most creatures draw from the sun.

I stopped dead. OK, so maybe tonight
was
different. I’d always loved the night, but I’d never gone all esoteric about it. Sending my
essence
out? What the heck was that all about?

So, I did what any sane person would do. I did it again. I let my senses go rushing out through the darkness and I felt them, the lives, spirits, along the waterfront. A man, human, trying to sleep curled on a park bench. Three boys were smoking pot and talking smack over by the giant anchor. Two were human, but the other … He was something else, something other. Not evil, not vampire, just trying to be normal, human.

Further down there were two more, a man and a woman. I frowned. The human was a bright fire, hazed by overwhelming lust. She wanted sex and she wanted it now. The man was dim and overwhelmed by … hunger. I felt it burning in my veins as that slow, throbbing ache I knew so well began to build at the base of my skull. Hunger to rip and tear and drink. Hunger for flesh and blood.

My senses snapped back into my body and suddenly I was running, drawing in the energy of the night to carry my feet faster and faster along the sidewalk. The river flashed by. The old man asleep on the bench didn’t even stir. The boys started, the one stiffening in fear. I could feel them relax as I flashed by, the non-human one letting out a sigh of relief. And finally the couple locked in a passionate and hungry embrace.

I grabbed her with my left hand, wrenching her away from him with more strength than I knew I had while catching the vampire by the arm with my right. She tumbled to the ground with a cry. Through vision gone strangely hazy I saw her throat unblemished. Good, I’d gotten to her in time.

She gazed up at me with eyes full of terror. “Go,” I snapped. Then I turned to the vampire, ignoring her while she scrambled to her feet and ran.

It was the blond vamp who’d attacked me at the restaurant. I recognized him instantly. My lips drew back in a feral grin. He snarled back, flashing fang.

With a flick of the wrist, I unleashed my left blade from its bracelet and plunged it into the vampire’s chest. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite as good with my left hand as with my right, and with the awkward angle, I missed his heart.

Adding to my misfortune, whatever weirdness had let me cross eight blocks worth of space in less than a minute had now deserted me. The shadows receded and the night was just the night again. I was just me. And the vamp was a hell of a lot stronger.

With a scream of rage, he wrenched the blade out of his chest and sent me flying across the park to land with a jarring thud next to the ship’s anchor which stood in the middle of the park. Fortunately, I landed on the grass instead of the monument itself, but it still hurt like hell.

The boys gaped at me for a minute then scattered into the night, the non-human one pausing for just a moment before following his friends. Smart boys.

I staggered to my feet pretty sure nothing was broken, just badly banged up. He was much, much stronger than I’d expected. I pulled my sword from the sheath across my back. It was made of ultra-light steel and edged in silver. It went through a vampire with hardly a hint of resistance. I was so not messing around with this guy.

His eyes flashed red in the darkness and he tossed his blond hair back with a laugh. “Stupid Hunter,” he jeered. “You think your little knife can hurt me? You are pathetic!”

“Oh, come on,” I goaded him. “I don’t know why you vampires always insist on taunting Hunters. I mean, for gods’ sake, it’s like bad B movie dialogue. Bram Stoker would have been so embarrassed.”

He hissed angrily. “Fine. Why don’t I just kill you then?” He stalked toward me. His eyes were very definitely red. Vampire should have been a bit colorless, like all the color they had in life got leached out after death. Red was most definitely weird.

“What? You mean like you were supposed to the other night?” I circled to the right, keeping my sword up and myself just out of his reach. “Bet Kaldan was mad about that.”

“Kaldan can kiss my ass,” he snarled back.

“Do I sense dissension among the ranks?”

“You can sense whatever you want, Hunter. It won’t do you any good after I’ve killed you.”

I laughed. “Right, ‘cause that’s gonna happen.”

He rushed me then, and even though I was ready, I barely missed getting taken down. I did manage to flick my sword fast enough to slice him open at the waist. He screamed. More in rage than in pain, I thought.

“Stupid bitch!”

“Oh, come now. That’s not very creative. You can do better than that, surely,” I mocked him. Taunting an enraged vampire was a dangerous business, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. If I could get him mad enough, he’d make mistakes.

He rushed me again, but this time I was more than ready. I danced out of the way, flicking the blade at him again, taking the cut a little deeper. He was bleeding. Badly. Unfortunately it wasn’t nearly enough to take him down. I had to take him down and fast, before I tired any more. So, this time, I rushed him.

I ran straight at him, my eyes never wavering from the red glow of his. I saw the triumph in those glowing eyes as he grabbed me by the throat and reared back to sink his teeth in. Then I watched the triumph turn to shock as I plunged the needle sharp neck of my brand new toy straight into his stomach, right through the cut I’d given him earlier. “I’ll give Kaldan your regards,” I told him and squeezed the bulb, flooding salt water straight into his body.

I jerked the aspirator out, and danced back out of his reach as his body froze in shock. The flesh around the wound began to bubble, then melt, and the bubbling and melting spread from the wound out over his entire body as he stood there and screamed and screamed and screamed. I finally had to cover my ears.

The stench was unbearable. Good thing most people can’t smell the undead the way I do. This would have drawn a lot of attention.

With one last scream, it was like something let go and his body dissolved into a pile of steaming gunk which slowly melted away into the grass just like demon spawn with holy water. I held the aspirator in the palm of my hand and gave it a little smile. “Way to go,” I told it. Tessalah would be so proud.

Chapter Nine

I was still revved from hunting on the drive home. Sure, I knew taking out the blond vamp would only delay things. After all, Kaldan was still out there, and if Darroch really was paying him to have his flunkies follow me, they’d just send someone else. Still, I finally felt like I was getting somewhere, or at the very least, taking control of things.

If Darroch thought I would be easy to manipulate, he had another think coming. I was not so easy to distract and even less easy to kill. The vamp attack that had changed my life three years ago had proven that. They say what doesn’t kill you made you stronger. Seriously, they had
no
idea how true that was.

That thought led me right to another thought I was trying to avoid. What exactly had happened out there at the Waterfront? I vaguely remembered the feel of the night all around gathering close to me, feeding me. I shuddered. Weirdness. Serious weirdness. The most worrying part of all had been that while the first time was an accident, the second time I’d done it on purpose. What the hell was going on with me?

My cell rang. I knew it was Cordelia before I picked it up. She was starting to show a knack for knowing when weirdness was happening in my life.

I waited to answer until I’d pulled off the road. “Hi, Cordelia.”

“Morgan, be straight with me. Are you all right?”

I sighed. I wasn’t all right. Not really. But I wasn’t ready to talk about it just yet. “I’ll be fine for now, Cordelia. I just want to get home, get some sleep. Can I come by your house tomorrow?”

“Of course you can. Are you sure you’re OK to wait until then?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Thanks.” Apparently she was bound and determined to become my Mother Confessor. I wasn’t even Catholic.

I could picture her smile quirking at the corners of her mouth. “Any time, Morgan. Bastet says hello.” And with that, she hung up.

“Weirder and weirder,” I muttered to myself before I pulled back out into the street and headed for home.

***

I could feel the tension drain from my body as I locked my front door behind me. Like the girl said, there’s no place like home. Sometimes I wished home still meant London, but this was good, too. The closets were certainly bigger. Plus, I was born in Portland, and had spent most of my life here. It got in your blood, this city. And let’s face it, Portland, while rainy, had nothing on London.

I propped myself against the wall and yanked off my boots, letting them drop right there in the middle of the hall. The socks followed before I let out a sigh of blissful relief. I may have been a boots kind of girl, but there was nothing in this world quite as delicious as bare feet.

I padded quietly down the hall toward the kitchen, not bothering with the lights. Like I said, the dark was a friend of mine. I shoved that thought aside. The dark was getting just a little too friendly lately.

I headed straight for the sink and a glass of icy water. Moonlight filtered softly through the window, filling the kitchen with oddly shifting shadows. Halfway through the glass it finally registered: I wasn’t alone. I slid my stiletto quietly out of my cleavage, keeping my hand hidden from view of whoever was behind me while cussing myself out mentally. I must have been more tired than I thought. How could I have been so bloody stupid?

I whirled, stiletto at the ready, only to be confronted by a familiar figure lounging at my kitchen table. “Dammit, Inigo,” I sputtered. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

I couldn’t see his expression in the darkness, but I sensed his amusement, nonetheless. “I take it your hunt was successful?”

I snorted. “Of course it was.” I hesitated. I wasn’t sure I wanted to discuss my current weirdness with Inigo, either.

He didn’t say anything. He just waited.

I let out a groan and collapsed into the kitchen chair opposite him. “I just don’t know. Something weird is going on with me.”

“Weird? Weird how?”

I shrugged. I liked Inigo. More importantly, I trusted him. That was saying something for me. When it came to men, I didn’t trust easily. I’d worked with him for a long time, though. He was my best friend’s cousin, for crying out loud. Still, I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell him I was losing my grip on reality. I wasn’t sure I was ready to admit it to myself because if I wasn’t going crazy, then something much scarier was happening.

He got up slowly from the table, unfolding his long, lithe body from where he’d been lounging. I watched him walk over to me, desperately trying to hide the fact that my pulse was pounding hard enough I was half-afraid I’d crack a rib. Not good. Not good. So very not good.

I couldn’t really see in the dark, but I was pretty sure I saw his lips quirk into something very like a smirk. Bastard.

He stepped behind me and I tensed up before I realized what he was planning. Then I felt his hands on my shoulders, sending a little electric thrill straight to my nether regions. Dear gods, this was not good. “Uh, Inigo … “

“Shh. Just relax. You need to relax. You’re too tense.” His hands began kneading the muscles of my shoulders which, until that moment, I’d had no idea were so beyond tense they closely resembled a rock.

I was pretty sure I let out a moan, but things were starting to go a little fuzzy around the edges. I could feel that odd tingling again, that pulling of the dark. It was rushing around me, swirling and pulling and surging into me, through me. In the dark there were sparkles, like tiny stars, dancing and dancing on the edge of my vision. The night began to wrap itself around me, its energy driving deeper. I was seriously beginning to lose my grip on reality.

“Morgan?” His voice was rough, full of desire and need. He pulled me out of the chair and turned me to face him.

His eyes had gone all funny. The icy blue was gone and instead they were glowing and kind of dark yellow. No. Gold. His eyes had gone gold and red. Not red like that vampire’s eyes, but more an orange red, like the flames of a fire. His pupils were narrow slits of greenish black and the gold and orange flames danced around them.

I tried to say something, to ask him why his eyes had changed, but I couldn’t get any words out. I just stared into his eyes while my brain went hazy and the darkness swirled and surged in my blood. I wanted him. I wanted him with a fever that was almost unbearable. I grabbed the front of his shirt and tried to pull him down to me.

He groaned again and I could tell he wanted me as much as I wanted him. I might not have been fighting it, but he was. “Morgan, no. Morgan, stop.”

His hands were still on my shoulders, heavy and warm. I didn’t know what it was he wanted me to stop and I didn’t care. I wasn’t in the stopping mood. All I could feel was the rush of pure need, pure desire, surging through my veins like molten lava. I was hot and wet and so ready for him.

I finally found my voice, but it came out all funny. Sort of husky and breathy and not like me at all. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t me, that I wasn’t doing anything, but instead I said in that strange, breathy, not-me voice, “Don’t fight it, Inigo. Don’t fight it.”