B R Kingsolver - [Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill 02] - Night Stalker

by Kingsolver

  NIGHT STALKER

  ROSIE O’GRADY’S PARANORMAL BAR AND GRILL

  BR KINGSOLVER

  Night Stalker

  Book 2 of Rosie O’Grady’s Paranormal Bar and Grill

  By BR Kingsolver

  https://brkingsolver.com

  Cover art by Lou Harper

  https://coveraffairs.com/

  Copyright 2019

  License Notes

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  CONTENTS

  Untitled

  Other books by BR Kingsolver

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Books by BR Kingsolver

  Untitled

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  OTHER BOOKS BY BR KINGSOLVER

  ROSIE O’GRADY’S PARANORMAL BAR AND GRILL

  Shadow Hunter

  Night Stalker

  THE DARK STREETS SERIES

  Gods and Demons

  Dragon’s Egg

  Witches’ Brew

  THE CHAMELEON ASSASSIN SERIES

  Chameleon Assassin

  Chameleon Uncovered

  Chameleon’s Challenge

  Chameleon’s Death Dance

  Diamonds and Blood

  THE TELEPATHIC CLANS SAGA

  The Succubus Gift

  Succubus Unleashed

  Broken Dolls

  Succubus Rising

  Succubus Ascendant

  Night Stalker

  CHAPTER 1

  I was on my way to the bus stop after my shift ended when I heard disturbing noises down a side street—loud growling and banging and shuffling of feet, not normal for two-thirty in the morning.

  Five vampires had two shifters surrounded and were toying with them. The werewolves had shifted, but it wasn’t helping them very much. It was dark, and I couldn’t see too well, but at least one of the wolves was bleeding from a wound on his shoulder. The other wolf was smaller and partly blocked from my sight by her companion.

  It would have been easy to keep walking—it wasn’t my fight—but I had been attacked repeatedly by young rogue vampires, and other people had stepped up to help me, whether I needed help or not. They just did it because it was the right thing to do.

  I didn’t have any showy magic like some of my friends. No fireballs or lightning or mini-tornados that I could throw at the vamps. All I could do was wade in and kick some ass.

  Turning down the street, I shouted, “Hey! What the hell is going on? That’s not a fair fight!”

  The vamps and the shifters all turned to look at me walking toward them. All they saw was a normal-looking young woman. I wasn’t even armed.

  One of the vamps grinned and came to meet me. “Hey, pretty lady. In the mood for a party?” He was trying to get me to lock eyes with him, and his voice oozed persuasion.

  He was faster and stronger than I was, but I was immune to his charms. I pulled magic from the nearest ley line and routed it to my hands and feet. When he came within reach, I cooed, “Ooo, come to mama, baby.”

  The vamp’s posture relaxed, and his grin widened. I hit him in the face and caved in his skull, then I hit him in the chest, driving my fist past his ribs and dislocating his spine. The damage would have killed most creatures, but I figured he’d be back to his normal undead self in a day or two.

  Stepping over his body, I came in range of the others. I grabbed the nearest vamp by the shoulder and threw her across the street, where she hit a brick wall hard enough to break bones. A push of ley line magic blew two more of them, head over heels, away from me. The other vamp and the shifters stared at me with their mouths open.

  “You have fifteen seconds to disappear,” I said to the remaining vamp. He took me at my word. I turned to look at the other two who still had the ability to walk. They picked themselves up and ran.

  “Can you walk?” I asked the wounded shifter. He yawned, vigorously shook his head, and limped past me. His girlfriend followed him, giving me a wide berth.

  I followed them out to the main street, reaching it just as the bus went past. I cursed, knowing the next bus wouldn’t be along for another half hour. The wolves took off in the direction I had just come from, and I let them go. It was late, and I was tired. I figured I’d done my good deed for the night.

  It was quicker to walk the half mile to my apartment than to wait for the next bus. Thankfully, it wasn’t raining or snowing, and the night wasn’t too cold. But walking at three o’clock in the morning near an area that had never claimed to be a high-rent district wasn’t terribly comfortable, no matter the weather. A car drove by, and the driver slowed. I avoided looking at him, not wanting to encourage him or make him think I was a hooker, and he continued on his way.

  After another car did the same thing, I decided to get off the street and cut across a vacant lot to the narrow riverside park that ran on both sides of Sloman’s Creek. I could walk along the jogging trail that would lead almost directly to my apartment.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when I reached my apartment complex, letting the tension flow out of me. I crossed the park to the back door of my building and put my key in the door.

  A sound, or maybe just a feeling, caused me to turn. A person stood less than ten feet behind me. I pulled power from the ley line that ran parallel to the creek and through the apartment complex and braced myself for battle.

  The dark figure didn’t move or say anything. He—at least six feet tall, so I assumed it was a man—just stood there and watched me. He was shrouded in a black cloak with a peaked hood that shadowed his face. When I also didn’t say anything, or do anything, he slowly backed away, then disappeared into the shadows.

  Quickly turning the key, I hurried through the door and pushed it closed behind me. I climbed the first flight of stairs but hesitated at the top, peeking through the window on the second floor. A dark figure stood amongst the trees running along the creek, watching my building.

  A few weeks before, a Hunter had watched my apartment from the same copse of trees, repeatedly testing my wards. He had also terrorized not only me but the paranormal and supernatural inhabitants of Westport for months. That man was dead, and very few people knew about him stalking me. I couldn’t imagine that any of them would have talked about me and the Hunter, but one never knew.

  The Hunters’ Guild were the enforcers, assassins, and spies for
the Order of the Illuminati, a secretive group of mages who first organized in the early fourteenth century. Over time, they amassed wealth and power, and worked their intrigues inside of governments, religions, and corporations, always advancing their agenda to someday rule the world in a magiocracy.

  I had been one of them—the Illuminator’s own Hunter—until I betrayed them, delivering an artifact to the Illuminator that revealed the Truth in all things. That artifact had destroyed the Order, burning their City and all of its inhabitants in a magical apocalypse. Only those outside the City had survived that night, and I had run, knowing that if I was ever found, death would be the reward for my treachery.

  I went back down the stairs and walked the length of the hall to the stairs at the other end. After climbing to the third floor, I walked back to my apartment overlooking the creek. My wards were intact and showed no alarms, so I entered the apartment but didn’t turn on any lights. I crept to my bedroom window, looked out, and saw the man still standing there.

  I didn’t know what to do. I could call the cops, or some of my friends, and try to trap him. But would he stick around and wait to be trapped?

  In the end, I checked my wards again, and satisfied that no one would be able to get through them, I undressed in the dark and slipped between the sheets. As tired as I was, it didn’t take long to drift off to sleep. But the dreams about dark shadowy figures weren’t what I would have preferred.

  I was about an hour into my shift the following evening when a guy I’d never seen before pushed through the doorway, looked around, then came over and sat at the bar.

  “What’s your pleasure?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer right away, craning his neck to look at the taps, then surveying the bottles displayed behind me. His survey stopped, and his eyes widened slightly. I knew he’d hit one of the posters with the bar’s rules.

  Rosie’s Rules

  Cash only—no cards, no checks, no promises

  No display of weapons

  No loud arguments

  No fighting

  No release of bodily fluids

  No conjuring

  No bewitching without the subject's permission

  No shifting

  All artifacts must remain secured

  NO POISONS, POTIONS, INHALANTS or EXTRACTS not sold by the bartender

  Killing a paying customer will result in a lifetime ban

  His eyes slid back to me. I set a menu in front of him and pointed to the beer list.

  “Specials tonight are oysters at half price, the soup of the day is beef barley, and the entrée is beef Wellington,” I said. “Get you anything to drink?”

  Newcomers often had a difficult time understanding what they’d walked into when they found Rosie’s. I had, so it didn’t bother me to be patient, and it wasn’t very busy yet. He had made it through the door, though, so nothing on the list of rules should have come as too much of a shock.

  “A Murphy’s,” he said, “and a shot of Powers.” His voice was harsh, gravelly, and I thought I detected a hint of a brogue.

  I sized him up while I poured his drinks. Tall, with broad shoulders, and a weathered face that was crowned with grizzled salt-and-pepper hair. If he wasn’t a magic user, I’d have pegged him as early-to-mid fifties, and the years hadn’t been easy.

  I brought his drinks and asked, “Will you be dining with us?”

  “Uh, yeah. Can I have a minute?”

  “Not a problem. Take as long as you like.”

  I started to move away, but he said, “I heard you have a vampire problem around here.”

  I shrugged. “Depends on what you call a problem, I guess.” I personally had run into a number of problems with vampires, but most people were luckier.

  “Wondered if anyone is paying bounties on them.” It was sort of phrased as a question, and I found the implication disturbing.

  “Not that I know of, and the police probably wouldn’t approve. They get all upset when citizens find headless bodies in the morning.”

  He grunted.

  After a while he ordered dinner, had another couple of drinks, and paid out. I didn’t think anything more about it until later that evening when my favorite cop came in.

  “Business or pleasure, Lieutenant?” Jordan Blair was head of the DA’s Paranormal Crimes Unit. He wasn’t a magic user himself, but he was a sensitive. Late thirties, with olive skin and short dark hair, he was good-looking and also entirely average. I often thought he’d be good at undercover work, because people would completely overlook him.

  “Seeing you is always a pleasure,” he said, smiling as he sat down.

  I shook my head. “I didn’t know Blair was Irish. I think hanging out here has infected you with the blarney. Coffee or alcohol?”

  “A Smithwick’s and a shot of Powers,” he said.

  I gave him a menu and went off to pour his drinks. When I brought them back, I asked, “Have you ever heard of people offering bounties on vampires?”

  His head snapped up from perusing the menu. “Where did you hear that?”

  I scowled at him. “It’s not polite to answer a question with a question. Especially when you’re off duty.”

  He sighed. “Yes, I’ve heard of it. It’s far more common in Latin America, but there have been reports of it in Atlanta and Dallas. Why?”

  “A guy was in here tonight, and I think he thinks he’s a vampire hunter.”

  Blair chuckled. “If only he knew who he was talking to. I’ll have the hamburger, medium well, with everything on it.” He tossed back the shot, took a sip of his beer, then said, “And another shot, if you please. It’s been a helluva day.”

  Sam O’Grady, the owner of the bar, was my boss. He was a mountain of a man, a head taller than six feet, and well over three hundred pounds. With his bald head, mutton chops, and an open vest over a white shirt with bloused sleeves, he looked like the innkeeper in a medieval play.

  When I went into work the following day, I told Sam about the guy who mentioned vampire bounties, and what Blair had said later.

  “Lieutenant Blair is either ignorant of the true situation or trying to put a best face on it,” Sam said. “Vampire and shifter bounties are far more common than he let on. I don’t know of anyone offering bounties here in Westport, but if the chaos between the various factions continues, I could see it happening. Someone needs to control the young ones, and right now, no one is doing it.”

  A member of the Illuminati’s Hunters’ Guild had killed the vampire Master of the City a few months before. Without clear leadership, many of the young vampires had gone rogue, attacking humans and generally terrorizing the city. Four mature vampires were jockeying for position, but until one of them gained unquestioned ascendance, the situation was dangerous and chaotic.

  I didn’t think offering bounties and attracting a bunch of vampire hunters would improve the situation. It would probably make it worse.

  CHAPTER 2

  George Flynn was most women’s dream. Tall, dark, handsome, and wealthy, always immaculately dressed, sophisticated and urbane. The only problem was he didn’t breathe. George was a vampire.

  Most vampires don’t drink alcohol because their metabolism doesn’t process it very well. Within a few weeks of being turned, the majority of them figure that out and stick to blood. An exception, I’d found, was with very old vampires who developed a taste for fine spirits before they died.

  George had a taste for fine whiskey and came in occasionally to indulge it and pull my chain.

  “Good evening, my sweet,” he greeted me. “Have you given any more thought to becoming my queen for all eternity?”

  “Oh, was I supposed to think about that? Darn, it slipped my mind.” I smiled at him. “And what are you in the mood for this evening, other than a taste of bartender?”

  He gave a dramatic resigned sigh as he scanned the bottles on the top shelf over the back bar. “What is that Suntory?” he asked.

  “Japanese Scotch.” I r
an through the attributes of the three different versions we carried, and he ordered the twelve-year-old single malt.

  “So, what brings you in this evening?” I asked as I set the glass in front of him. “And don’t give me some blarney about how much you missed me.”

  He grinned. “I had a little time on my hands and thought I’d drop in and see if you had heard any interesting news. Bartenders hear all the juicy gossip, you know.”

  “I would think the kind of gossip you’re interested in would be more readily available at your place,” I said.

  Flynn owned a vampire-goth strip club featuring both male and female strippers. The kind of place where college girls who read too many romance novels went to meet vampires. Of course, everyone knew vampires weren’t real, but I always wondered how they explained away their morning-after anemia.

  Flynn shook his head. “If I only listen to other vampires, it’s often nothing but an echo chamber. Barclay has a bad habit of wearing that type of blinders. I find what outsiders are saying is usually more enlightening.”

  George Flynn and Rodrick Barclay were the two main contenders for supremacy over all the vampires in Westport. Both were close to two hundred years old and were the ‘children’ of the previous Master of the City, Lord Guy Carleton.

  “What do you know about vampire hunters and bounties?” I asked.

  His face froze, and his eyes became hard red stones. “Here? In Westport?” His voice was harsh and flat, intimidating and totally different from the light, bantering tone I was used to.

  “Humor me,” I said. “I’m a curious kind of person, and I’m trying to educate myself. And no, I’m not asking about Westport, but just in general.”

  Flynn relaxed a little bit and took a sip of his whisky.

  “Throughout history,” he said, “humans have hunted and killed that which they don’t understand. Vampires, witches, those of other colored skin or other religions. At times, someone whips them into a frenzy for his own purposes. We call that a witch hunt, but the hunt can be for anyone convenient. The Jews in Europe in the last century are a prime example.”