MOONLIGHT ON DIAMONDS
Read MOONLIGHT ON DIAMONDS Online
Authors: LYDIA STORM
“Is it my turn now?”
he asked, as she reached his side. She smiled and he was dazzled by the pure
joy on her face.
“Let’s just dance and
dance all night!” she exclaimed.
“You’re enjoying
yourself then,” he commented, as she wound her arm through his and dragged him
onto the floor.
Unconsciously, she
reached up and touched the diamond around her throat. “Yes.”
He took her in his
arms and the warmth of having her so close hit him like a wave. He pulled her
more firmly against him and they swayed to the romantic music. “You see, if I
have you close like this and I never let you go, no one can steal the diamond,”
he whispered into her dark hair.
She pulled back a bit
with a wicked grin and replied, “But we want the Ghost to
try
.”
“Veronica, as you
know too well, when the Ghost tries, he usually succeeds.”
“Not tonight,” she
said with a determined look in her eyes before snuggling into his shoulder
again, her perfume encircling them like a magic spell blocking out the rest of
the world. He closed his eyes and surrendered to the bewitchment.
Romance Writers of America’s “Heart of the West Writers
Contest” Finalist.
Praise for Lydia Storm
writing as Nicole Coady…
“
Embrace of
the Vampire
plays the vampire/victim dynamic to the hilt and packs a
substantial erotic punch!”
~
Entertainment
Weekly
Moonlight on Diamonds
by
Lydia Storm
This is a work
of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual
persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.
Moonlight
on Diamonds
COPYRIGHT
Ó
2008 by Nicole Coady
All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or
reviews.
Contact
Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by
Daniel
DeFabio
The
Wild Rose Press
PO
Box 708
Adams
Basin, NY 14410-0706
Visit
us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing
History
First
Crimson Rose Edition, 2008
Print
ISBN: 1-60154-496-0
Published in the
United States of America
For Tom
It was the suspended
hour, the hour when the sky has lost its sun but not yet found its stars.
Everything in nature is clothed in a blue light.
- Jacques Guerlain
The detective by
tradition and definition is the seeker after truth.
- Raymond Chandler
Amritsar, India—1661
The temple was dark
but for the flicker of tiny candles burning at the feet of the golden goddess.
The thief stepped forward, crushing the crimson rose petals that perfumed the
pathway to her altar. In the dim light, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier could see the
shimmer of the legendary diamond which had called to him all the way in his
native France.
Rumors of the jewel’s
magical powers swirled around it until it had taken on the aura of a fairytale
talisman in his imagination and the lust to possess the gem had become an obsession.
Tavernier had used bribes, trickery, and sometimes brute force to uncover the
location of the stone—a diamond so precious only the highest caste of Brahmans
had knowledge of its resting place. The humble, whitewashed building he at last
discovered at the base of the Himalayan Mountains was the perfect home for one
of the great treasures of India. Few would have thought to search for it there.
Few would have endured the trials he had to reach it.
His yellowed flesh
hung from his bones, the result of the malaria he had contracted at a lodging
house on the shore of the Ganges River. The once snowy linen of his shirt was
torn and stained, his strong hands were cracked from sunburn, his nails ragged
and dirty, and his fair hair hung in a filthy plait down his back. All this was
forgotten now as he gazed spellbound with greed at the massive violet-blue
diamond sparkling like a crown in the forehead of the golden idol.
Confident in the
knowledge that the priests who guarded the temple’s treasure had fallen under
his sword in the dark jungle outside, Tavernier took a bold step forward and
stood before the altar. He would take what he had come for.
The thief reached
through the veil of incense, and with his blood-stained dagger pried the
shimmering diamond from the third eye of the goddess. He held the jewel in his
hands, felt the weight and viewed the clarity of it up close. This was a stone
fit for a king. Joy washed through him. He would sell the diamond to Louis XIV
and at last take his place at court. His future was now secure.
As he stepped outside
the temple, Tavernier unclenched his fist. Moonbeams struck the diamond,
bringing it to life like a flickering silver flame. It seemed to burn with
supernatural brilliance in the hot midnight jungle, a blue star that had fallen
to earth from the heavens to illuminate even the darkest shadows of the human
soul.
The cries of feral
dogs howling somewhere in the blackness of the strange trees just beyond the
temple rose up around him. The hair on the back of his neck prickled as he saw
a pack of emaciated hounds moving ghost-like in the gloomy depths of the
tangled undergrowth. Their demented yellow eyes watched him from the shadows,
their fangs bared, their paws nervously clawing at the earth.
He blinked and they
disappeared from view, but he brought his tattered handkerchief to his nose as
the stench of rotting meat rose up like steam from the jungle floor. He could
hear the twigs snapping as the pack limped through the trees. He could feel
them creeping closer with every breath he took.
The Frenchman crossed
himself and gaped in superstitious horror at the blue fire in his hand. Had the
Indian Brahmans truly bewitched the gem with their curses and devilish spells?
Barely holding back
his panic, Tavernier fought the desire to fling the jewel away as if it were a
venomous serpent. Summoning all his will instead, he shoved the diamond into
his satchel and leapt onto his mare, sending them both crashing through the
overgrown thicket. The branches clawed at his face as his horse thundered
through the jungle, but he didn’t care. With his heart pounding and malarial
sweat pouring down his face, he rode from the heathen temple with all the fury
of a man pursued by the hounds of hell.
One year later, the
diamond rested among the other sparkling baubles in King Louis’ jewel box.
Tavernier’s fortune was made, but in his fever dreams the spectral pack hunted
him down as he lay paralyzed on silken sheets, the luxury of Versailles’
mirrored walls and crystal chandeliers reflecting his mute terror into
infinity. The strange, sickly dogs were always just a heartbeat behind him in
the suffocating jungle. He felt their ripping claws at his coattails and the
acid fire of their breath down his back, branding him forever with the mark of
the Thief.
New York City, 2003
The dusty Greenwich
Village church basement was strung with Christmas lights in an attempt to
improve the vibe of the Wednesday night meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was
already March, but that didn’t deter the ex-speed-freak girl with the pixie
blond hair from carefully draping lights across the exposed wood beams. Perched
on a metal folding chair, she wound the cord around the pre-war metal lamps
which lit up the crowd like a cast of characters from an old black-and-white
noir.
John Monroe sat
slurping his coffee as the bossy, transvestite meeting secretary attempted to
get a pair of giggling teenagers sitting in the corner of the room to shut up.
He urged the newcomers in a raspy voice to pay attention to a bald, nervous
wreck of a man as he read the Twelve Steps. The poor guy was sweating through
it and tripped awkwardly over his words as he recited the core philosophy of
the AA program.
“Step One, we, we
admit we are pow-powerless over alc-alcohol…”
John smiled
encouragingly, trying psychically to cheer the poor guy on, feeling his pain
every time Baldy misread a word or had to go back and start a sentence over. At
last, the ordeal was finished and everyone in the room gave Baldy a round of
applause, the clapping dying out almost before it had begun.
Now came the moment
John was dreading—birthday cake time.
It was a tradition in
Alcoholics Anonymous to give birthday cakes on the anniversary dates of each
member’s sobriety. The idea was to celebrate another year of living clean and
sober and allow the newcomers in the program to see that it was possible to go
for many years without taking a drink. John usually had no problem with this
scenario. He could sing an off-key version of “Happy Birthday” with the rest of
them, but this evening John was not feeling quite as positive about the
birthday experience. Tonight, the whole thing gave him a sick feeling in the
pit of his stomach.
The secretary cleared
his throat, his Adam’s apple contrasting with the matching baby-pink
faux-Chanel jacket, lipstick, and mules he sported. “Thank you for reading the
steps, Herman. Now, I believe we have one birthday to celebrate tonight.” He
stared straight at John and smiled. “John is celebrating one year of continuous
sobriety and Simon will be giving him his cake.”
This was it!
John stood up as the
room burst into a wild rendition of “Happy Birthday” complete with bad harmonies and biker-guy hoots and hollers.
Simon, John’s seventy-eight-year-old AA sponsor, came to the front of the room
bearing a cupcake with a single candle shoved in its center. As the song came
to its crashing end, John closed his eyes and tried to make a wish. His mind
went blank. The applause had died down by now and everyone was staring at him expectantly.
“Make a wish, man!”
called out a fifteen-year-old punk-rock kid named Rudy, whom John had taken
under his wing over the last few months.
Okay, what do I really need?
John was starting to
sweat like Baldy.
MONEY.
He closed his eyes,
squished up his face, and wished for money as he blew out the candle. Everyone
cheered and Simon gave him a big hug. Even the secretary hugged him. He still
wasn’t totally comfortable with all the indiscriminate embracing that went on
in AA, but if the program kept him sober, he was willing to put up with it.
John approached the
podium and looked out over the crowd. Simon stood proudly smiling up at him
from the front row. There must have been at least two hundred people there and
they were all looking at him.
“Okay,” he said aloud
into the microphone and took a deep breath. “Well, I want to thank my sponsor,
Simon, for giving me my cake and, um, I want to thank all of you for being here
and supporting me…and…”
Out of the blue, he
felt his eyes well up and his face flush. He swallowed hard and tried to get a
hold of himself, but as he spoke his voice squeaked with suppressed emotion and
a tear trickled down his cheek. “This is for my dad who never got the chance to
get sober.” He held up the little cupcake. “He died from alcoholism when I was
still a kid and…” He wiped his nose with his shirtsleeve and tried to keep it
together. “I just…I’m very grateful. Thanks.”
John quickly stepped
offstage amidst a round of supportive applause.
Simon clapped him on
the back. “I’m proud of you, kid.”
“Thanks,” mumbled
John, as he sank back into a chair next to his sponsor and gratefully became
one of the anonymous masses. From all around him in the dark, people whispered
their congratulations and patted his shoulder.
