Out of Time

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This book would not have been possible without the help and support of many people. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Robin, John, Trista, Shannon, Rachel, Mary, DJ, Michael, Yvonne and my entire family.

I’d also like to thank the thousands of people who help preserve the past through books, websites, museums and sheer will.

THE NIGHTMARES HAD COME again.

With a surge of panic, Simon Cross pushed himself off the bed and away from the cold, sweat-soaked sheets. His heart racing, his breath quick and rough, he forced his eyes to adjust to the dark room as the last vestiges of sleep faded.

He glared down at his bed, as if it were to blame, as if the sheets and pillows had knowingly harbored the nightmare. Swearing, Simon escaped the darkened bedroom wanting to get as far away from the nightmares as he could, but they trailed along with him. They followed him down the hall and down the stairs.

A nearly full moon cast its silvery light through the open curtains giving the living room an unearthly glow. Vague shadows stretched out like the taunting specters of his nightmare.

Simon ignored the stacks of open boxes and crates that littered his floor and blocked his path to the liquor cart. His hands trembled as he poured a stiff Scotch and downed it in one swig. Without pause, he poured another. Gripping the crystal glass, he tried in vain to keep it from clattering as he set it down on the silver service tray.

“Bloody hell.”

Simon let out a short burst of breath. Could he convince himself this had merely been another dream? Another dream about her.

It was only natural she’d be in his thoughts. He was, after all, only human. Elizabeth was attractive, intelligent and everything he wanted, but could never have. Men like him didn’t deserve women like Elizabeth, not even in their dreams.

Then again, this wasn’t just a dream, was it? This wasn’t a fool’s late night fantasy, brought on by loneliness and assuaged by a cold shower. This was something unspeakable, and yet, so alarmingly familiar that he could not ignore it.

Another chill ran through him. Though the last time he’d had a nightmare like this was over thirty years ago, the memory of it rang with sharp clarity in his mind. His grandfather. The violence. The blood. And above all, the helplessness.

No concrete images remained, none that he could trust. After all, he’d been just a boy then. But just as there had been then, so was there now—the unwavering sense of a horror yet to come, of some inevitable evil.

He took another drink and concentrated on the warm burning sensation as the liquor seeped down into his chest. There was no avoiding the harbinger of his dream. With the certainty only a condemned man can feel, he knew one absolute truth.

Elizabeth West was going to die.

As always, there wasn’t an empty seat in the small auditorium. Introduction to Occult Studies was a favorite at the University of California Santa Barbara. If she weren’t the TA and guaranteed a chair off to the side, Elizabeth doubted she’d have found any seats in the first ten rows. Not only was Professor Simon Cross one of the best looking professors on campus, as evidenced by his overwhelming female enrollment, the less informed students thought his Introduction to Occult Studies class would be an easy A, like attending a semester-long horror movie. Boy, were they wrong.

When Elizabeth had been an undergrad, floating along in a sea of undeclared, she’d enrolled in this class for the same reasons. And though she definitely had enjoyed Professor Cross’s looks, she’d learned quickly, just as everyone else had, that all grades were hard-earned, and if they were looking for a goof-off course, this was not it.

If someone had told her four years ago that she’d become his graduate teaching assistant working toward her Masters in Occult Studies she’d have laughed in their face. And yet here she was doing just that. A class she’d taken on a whim to fulfill a Humanities requirement had turned into a life path. A man who’d taken her breath away the first time she’d ever heard him speak had become her reluctant mentor in her chosen field.

It had been an uphill battle convincing him that she was the woman for the job. For every reason he’d insisted she wasn’t right for the position she’d given him five that she was. She wasn’t sure how, but she’d worn him down.

She’d also fallen in love with him.

Elizabeth shifted and straightened her skirt and tried not to think of that which could never be. It was hopeless and made more so by the fact that she would never tell him. Not only was he her boss, and she needed this job, she knew that even if she did somehow muster up the nerve to say something, nothing would come of it except that awkward moment before being shot down. And fired.

Aside from the twenty year age difference, he listened to Stravinsky, she listened to Sting. He was from South of London, she was from North of Lubbock. She was the spork to his silver spoon. It didn’t hurt to dream though. She’d dreamt about things she could never have all her life. No reason to think this was anything different.

Professor Cross paced slowly behind the lectern, hypnotizing the class and her with his fluid movements, setting them up for the kill. He was tall and graceful, slender, but not lanky. He used his hypnotic, deep baritone, cut glass English accented voice to draw them further in. No matter how many times she listened to his lectures, she marveled at the way he held the class in the palm of his hand. His sharp green eyes scanned the classroom, pulling each student under his spell. When his gaze fell upon her, Elizabeth’s heart skipped a beat, but instead of looking past her as he usually did, Professor Cross paused as if he’d lost his place in his lecture. He recovered quickly and no one else seemed to notice the minor lapse, but klaxons went off for Elizabeth.

To the untrained eye he was typical Cross—brilliant, terse, impatient, and a few other less than flattering adjectives she’d heard bandied about by his colleagues and former students. True, he was often all those things, but they didn’t know him like she did. In the two years they’d worked together she’d had a few rare glimpses of the man behind the mask. There was something gentle beneath that hard edge, something needful beneath the control. But it was an off moment when he let that control slip, and he was definitely off today.

His normally squared shoulders were hunched. His sandy brown hair slightly unkempt as though he’d dragged his fingers through it too many times. She’d noticed it this morning too and had chalked it up to overwork, but there really wasn’t a time when he wasn’t overworked. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at him and tilted her head to the side to get a different perspective. Nope. He was definitely out of sorts.

“And unlike the overly sentimentalized versions of vampires we see in today’s media, Calmet’s writings spoke to the truth of the beast. An unyielding malevolence.”

He paused and leaned on the podium. “Grotesque and misshapen. Bulging foreheads, protruding veins and glowing yellow eyes. Purge Tom Cruise and Twilight from your malleable little minds.”

The class snickered, and he waited for them to settle before he continued. “The vampire would suck the blood of the living, so as to make the victim’s body fall away visibly to skin and bones. An insatiable hunger that kills without remorse.”

He surveyed the classroom. Elizabeth knew that look, a forlorn hope of seeing some spark of interest, or God forbid, hear some intelligent discourse on the subject. Instead a sound of disgust came from the back row.

Elizabeth turned in her seat. Michelle Danzler. Pretty, smart enough when she wanted to be, but definitely not in the class for the long haul.

Elizabeth looked back to Simon, waiting, along with the rest of the class for whatever stinging rebuke that was sure to follow.

Professor Cross frowned, but before he could say anything a handsome, athletic student sitting next to Michelle bared his biceps.

“Don’t worry, baby. These are lethal in all dimensions.”

Elizabeth fought a smile, but Professor Cross was not amused. He assumed his well-practiced air of indifference.

“Failing that, Mr. Andrews, you could always bludgeon the demon to death with your monumental ego.”

Another wave of stifled laughter traveled across the room and Mr. Andrews shifted in his seat. As much as the students enjoyed the dark fascination of Cross’s Occult Studies course, they also loved his unrelenting sarcasm. Though, sometimes, he went too far, and Elizabeth was left to smooth the ruffled feathers.

“Sadly, it appears the only thing thicker than your muscles is your skull.”

This was one of those times.

The class ended and Elizabeth left her seat and started toward the back of the classroom. Time for a little damage control.

By the time he’d gathered his notes from the podium and turned to look for her, Miss West was gone from her seat. His heart lurched uncomfortably, but then he caught sight of her climbing the stairs toward the back of the amphitheater.

Simon knew what she was doing—smoothing the rough seas he’d left in his wake. It had quickly become their modus operandi. He would enlighten and insult; she would tend to the afflicted. It was a good system and had worked quite well for them for the past two years. However, today Simon found it irritating in the extreme. Perhaps it was the residual anxiety from his nightmare, or that third glass of Scotch, or, quite possibly, it was the way that idiot Andrews was looking at Elizabeth. Blatantly appreciating her figure—the curve of her small waist, the way her auburn hair shone like burnished copper. The look in his eyes was positively salacious.

Simon closed his briefcase with more force than necessary and tried to look away. He frowned at the familiar way Elizabeth touched the young man’s forearm. Not that he was jealous. That would be patently absurd. He simply didn’t suffer fools gladly, even by proxy. His mood soured as Elizabeth said something undoubtedly utterly charming and won a laugh from the hulking imbecile, and he gritted his teeth, waiting impatiently for the scene to come to an end. Elizabeth smiled one last time and headed back down the stairs. He narrowed his eyes at her in greeting and gestured brusquely that they should leave.

His mood still dark, Simon opened the classroom door and held it for her. Elizabeth smiled her thanks and moved ahead of him and out into the corridor. He followed her, moving quickly down the crowded hall, keeping his strides long, forcing her almost to jog to keep up. After a few moments of tense silence, he stopped abruptly and turned to glare down at her.

“I don’t need a nursemaid, Miss West.”

Elizabeth cocked her head to the side and frowned. “That’s debatable, but I wasn’t—”

Simon arched an eyebrow, challenging her to deny it.

“All right, I was.”

Simon snorted.

“But you’ve got to admit you were in rare form, even for you.”

“Your point?”

“That a little browbeating goes a long way. Lance is a good guy. He was just showing off.”

“For your benefit, I suppose?” Clearly, the little show in the classroom had been for Miss Danzler, but the touching and the laughing and the flexing that happened after class had all been for Elizabeth.

She laughed and gave him a rueful, lopsided smile. “Hardly. I’m not exactly his type.”

How did she do that? One moment she was forthright and confident, challenging him; and the next shy and achingly vulnerable.

Simon instantly wished he could take his words back. He felt an odd urge to comfort her, to tell her that she was far too good for the likes of a clod like Andrews, but the words died in his throat.

“Besides,” she added. “It’d be unethical to date a student.”

That was something he’d told himself daily. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Yes, quite right. Well, we have work to do. Shall we?” he said and gestured down the hall.

“No rest for the wicked,” she said with a grin and started down the corridor.