Strangers in the Night
by
Jay Wright
and
E.M. Jeanmougin
Copyright © 2019. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter One — Along Came a Spider
Chapter Two — Strangers in the Night
Chapter Three — St. James Academy
Chapter Four — Welcome to “Paradise”
Chapter Five — The Crystal Ballroom
Chapter Six — Werespider Family Values
Chapter Seven — The Good Doctor
Chapter Eight — Old Friends
Chapter Nine — Suspicious Minds
Chapter Ten — Highway to Hell
Chapter Eleven — The Summerlands
Chapter Twelve — All Accounted For
Chapter Thirteen — Date Night
Chapter Fourteen — New Friends
Chapter Fifteen — Best-Laid Missions
Chapter Sixteen — The Joan of Arc Institute
Chapter Seventeen — Pressure
Chapter Eighteen — Happy Hunting
Chapter Nineteen — Going Underground
Chapter Twenty — Sleepover
Chapter Twenty-One — Devil in Disguise
Chapter Twenty-Two — For You
Chapter Twenty-Three — Betting Games
Chapter Twenty-Four — On the Block
Chapter Twenty-Five — Here’s Lookin’ at You, Kid
Chapter Twenty-Six — Gimme Shelter
Chapter Twenty-Seven — Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Chapter Twenty-Eight — Nothing Gold Can Stay
Chapter Twenty-Nine — Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing
Chapter Thirty — The Collector’s Daughter
Chapter Thirty-One — Mockingbird
Epilogue
About the Authors
Dedication
To Delaney, Our first fan
Acknowledgements
We’d like to thank all the people who helped support us by reading this book and offering suggestions and edits. Delaney, Deb, and Peter, thank you for loving these characters as much as we do. Taylor and Cory, thank you for convincing us that this was a story worth sharing with others. Terry, thanks for pointing the way and giving us the resources we needed to make this book as good as we could. To the Fellowship, thanks for being as excited as we were about making this really happen. Special thanks to our amazing artist Claudia Caranfa for bringing our cover to life, and to our editor Pauline Nolet for fixing our mistakes.
Prologue
It was well before sunrise when Ella Black came sauntering down the New York street, the short hem of her blue skirt swaying with each long-legged step, stiletto heels echoing in the semi-silence of 3 a.m. in the city. Finding herself at a crossroads with no particular destination in mind, she went to the right.
This street was like the one she’d just been on, narrow and tattered, the buildings on either side short and dark, their windows showing no signs of life. Just like all the other houses in this area, except for one key detail. Halfway down, illuminated in the yellow circle of a streetlight, was a young man, very tall and very thin, leaning against the light post, cell phone in hand. He was focused on the screen, a mess of red-tinted curls falling across his face. When he heard her heels, he looked up, shaking them back. Ella noticed he was younger than his height suggested, maybe seventeen or eighteen, more pretty than he was handsome.
His eyes were bright green. When they met her blue ones, he smiled, softly and shyly, and looked quickly back at his phone.
Oh, she couldn’t quite resist that, could she?
Walking over, Ella was very aware of her short blue skirt and her tall white heels, knowing exactly how they made her legs look endless. From her tiny purse, she pulled a metal cigarette case and put one between her luscious, full lips. The boy looked up, one eyebrow slightly raised.
“Hey, mister,” she purred. “Got a light?”
“I, uh…” The boy stood up straighter, patting down the pockets of his jeans and leather jacket. “Uh, no, I don’t. Sorry.”
“Oh, here’s mine,” Ella said, pulling a thin black lighter from her purse. She looked into those green eyes with a coy smile. “Light it for me?”
He leaned forward, just as she expected him to. Humans were so easy, and this one was just her type.
The flame flashed to life between them, and she kept her eyes on his as the end of her cigarette caught in a short blaze. The flame guttered out, but neither of them moved away, his gaze unwavering on hers.
Perfect. Just perfect.
As he passed the lighter back, Ella captured his hand in her own. “Why don’t you come with me?” It was not so much a question as it was a command, and she was pleased when the boy nodded, easy as could be.
Taking his hand, Ella tugged him out of the circle of light. Dark buildings surrounded them, looming in the murky secondhand glow of the city’s latent light.
The boy’s hand was warm, his fingers calloused and strong, his pulse beating steadily against her wrist. And his scent! Filtered through the cigarette smoke, it was strange and bright, like sunlight shining through a windowpane on a summer morning. It was an unusual scent, but not entirely unlike those she was used to.
What would he taste like?
She couldn’t wait.
A narrow alley sat tightly between a dark-windowed office building and a laundromat. Ella pulled the boy towards it, feeling his pulse pick up slightly. The alley was barely wide enough to allow for two people, and it smelled stale and stagnant, hardly romantic. She shoved the boy against the rough brick wall, grinning wickedly sharp, and put her body flush against his. She heard the skip of his heart in his rib cage.
“Um,” said the boy, his hands floating uselessly at his sides, too shy to touch her.
Oh, it was just delightful.
“Why don’t you kiss me?” she whispered, their eyes meeting again. It must have been the light hitting them because now the boy’s eyes looked different, less green and lighter, almost shining in the dark.
“Okay.”
Ella smiled at him. She leaned further in, her full lips parted over elongated canines and—
The silver stake slid easily between her ribs, right under her perfect left breast. Ella hissed and tried to pull away, but it was too late, the boy—the Hunter—was too fast. The stake pierced her heart and there was the most intense and all-consuming pain.
And then there was nothing except a shower of dust.
Chapter One
—
Along Came a Spider
Jasper Craig withdrew his weapon, smearing the congealed blood and vampire dust on the thigh of his jeans with a sigh. At least the vampires didn’t leave a body behind to deal with afterward, though he’d be scraping the dust from his boots for a week.
He slid the silver stake neatly back into its holster and reached for his cell phone.
A gentle twist deep in his gut warned him he was not alone.
A tortured cry, louder and angrier than any natural beast, rose above the sounds of distant traffic. He drew his matte black .45 Glock, darting his gaze along the rooftops as he jogged towards the end of the narrow alley.
Movement flickered overhead and he fired without question, silencer whistl
ing.
The vampiress, Ella Black, was known for her tendency to hunt alone, but tonight was obviously the exception. He could feel the others. Not one or two, but many, and coming in fast.
Goddamn fucking vampires.
Something sprang across the gap above him, a featureless shadow in the night. He turned the muzzle upward and fired again, catching a glimpse of the demon twisting in midair, plummeting to the pavement and bursting into an ashy cloud on impact.
Jasper didn’t wait for the others.
He cut through another alley. The empty parking lot behind it was painted with faded yellow lines. Its old light posts were dark. A corroded chain-link fence stood on the opposing side.
He was almost to it when a figure stepped from the shadows in front of him, barring his way. Others emerged from his left and right, racing towards him in fanged blurs with glittering red eyes.
Jasper got off a single shot, landing it in the forehead of the vampire at the head of the pack, dusting him before he even had time to scream, but by then two others were upon him, more coming from behind. He blocked the onslaught of swinging fists and biting fangs, swearing as one of them wrested the pistol from his grasp and sent it skittering on the asphalt.
Sharp canines broke against his fist. He drew the hidden short sword from under his jacket, catching two on the upswing as he unsheathed the silver blade. One screeched and staggered away with his hands clasped to his face. The other stumbled with a smoking gash slashed across his chest. Jasper drove the sword into the vampire’s spine as he tried to turn and flee, and the creature dissipated around the blade just in time for two pairs of hands to seize Jasper around the shoulders and force him down onto his back.
His head cracked against the pavement. Stars burst at the corners of his eyes. He brought his feet quickly up, catching one of them in the chest with both feet, bending his knees and then quickly straightening them to throw the lunging vampire back.
Sharp fangs grazed his throat. He saw the white flash of a brow and brought his head forward as hard as he could. His forehead collided with the vampire’s hard enough to pop his own ears. Or maybe that was the demon’s skull cracking. Either way, the vampire’s hold loosened.
Jasper wrestled his wrist free and slammed his fist into the other’s jaw, scrambling to find his footing as he pulled away.
He was almost back to his feet when something slammed into him from behind. Just like that, he was back on the concrete again, now with a hissing, spitting demon latched onto his back.
He braced to feel fangs pierce his throat.
The CRACK of a gunshot split the night, echoing and reverberating in a nauseating cacophony. The weight on his back alleviated, motes of vampire dust raining down, filling his lungs, choking him.
Skull still ringing with the impact of the pavement, vision blurry and a little woozy, he rolled over and pushed himself up.
The image before him swam in and out of focus. The vampires stood in a loose circle, but not around him. At the heart of the ring, barely visible through the encroaching shadows, was the very definition of a tall, dark, handsome stranger, revolver held still extended in one hand.
Jasper groggily grasped for his own gun. Where the fuck had it gotten to?
“You shouldn’t be here, werespider,” hissed one of the vampires. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Kind’ve seems like it does,” replied the newcomer. He was taller than the others, bronze-skinned, and dressed in a long black leather jacket. The bright red sheen of his eyes combined with the urgent kick in Jasper’s gut immediately dispelled any notion that he might be anything other than a demon, but the way the vampires were pacing nervously around him made it obvious he was not a member of their pack.
Werespider, the vampire had said.
But that couldn’t be right. He would have known if something as rare as a werespider was lurking around Brooklyn.
No time to wonder about it now.
Jasper wrenched his attention away, scanning the ground until his eye caught the dull glint of his pistol. He was inching toward it when a blond vampire jabbed a finger in his direction, halting his advance before it even began. “This thing murdered Tyler’s mate.” He gestured to a darker-haired vampire, who crouched some distance away, with his hands clasped to his steaming face, small mewls of pain escaping him as the silver continued to sizzle. “It is our right to kill him.”
“You don’t got any fuckin’ rights in my territory, jackass.” The werespider had a sort of Old New York accent that was best kept entombed in film noir gangster movies, sneering and haughty. “So round up yer goons and y’know… fuck off. I’ll give you, I dunno, about… three seconds?”
The blond’s fangs bared, fists tight knots at his sides. “Your territory ends back there, you goddamn relic. Walk away.”
“Whelp.” The demon clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and thumbed back the hammer of his revolver, the dry snap loud and clear. “That was more than three.”
The vampires lunged at him from all sides. Seeing an opportunity, Jasper raced for his own gun and snatched it from the wet asphalt even as another ear-shattering CRACK cut short a vampiric screech.
Over in the corner of the lot, Tyler lowered his hands, revealing a long, bloodless and slowly healing gash that ran from his forehead all the way down to his chin, bisecting his nose and lips. Considering the plight of his pack, it would only be natural for him to be looking towards them, but he was not. He was looking at Jasper. In the next moment, he was running towards him.
Jasper aimed and fired twice. Both bullets found homes in the demon’s body but hit neither his heart nor head, and he just kept barreling on through the pain, roaring anguish and fury.
The vampire grabbed at his wrists, bearing down with his fangs, and Jasper was forced to wrestle him to the ground, his eyes shining white with the effort. The demon’s long, hard nails bit into his flesh, blood bubbling up around his fingertips. Jasper held him determinedly down and struggled to turn the pistol toward his head.
Behind him, the sounds of screeching and shouting grew exponentially. Somewhere amid their cries, a softly mocking voice goaded them on. Underneath him, Tyler thrashed and screamed, his insults indistinguishable through the hissing and spitting. The vampire’s fangs sank into his forearm and just as quickly released with a harsh gagging sound. For a split second, the demon lost his grip, and that was all the time Jasper needed.
He wrenched the muzzle against the vampire’s temple and squeezed the trigger.
Thick, black blood fanned in a spray across the pavement, speckling Jasper’s chin and cheeks. The solid body he’d been struggling with gave way, the remains of the vampire’s face holding their shape for the blink of an eye and then crumbling into nothing but ash and dust.
Jasper knelt for a moment, catching his breath.
The screeching behind him transformed into panicked screaming.
Swearing, every inch of him now throbbing with scrapes and cuts and bruises, Jasper stood and lifted the gun as he turned.
Then lowered it.
Only one vampire was left, and he was on the ground, with a hand held out in front of him, face turned away. His mouth was ringed in his own thick, dark blood, one of his eyes swollen completely shut. Below the other, his cheekbone was split. Neither wounds were healing with traditional vampire swiftness, probably because his body was focused on trying to heal his arm. The lower half was splintered nearly in half with white shards of bone driven jaggedly up through puckered flesh. It bent at an odd, sickly angle, wobbling. “Please don’t. I’ll leave. I’ll never come back. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
The werespider stood beside the injured vampire, with a revolver aimed loosely at his tear-streaked face. The red popped out of his irises just long enough for him to roll his eyes. He made a little can-you-believe-this-guy gesture with the gun, then slipped the revolver back into the holster and grabbed the vampire by his uninjured wrist and by the back of his shirt
.
A small panicked sob escaped the other demon as he was hauled to his feet. He kept his face turned away, head down, broken arm cradled against his chest, shaking but not daring to move.
The werespider gave him a hard shove. “Alright already. Go.”
“Thank you. I won’t come back. I—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. Gods, will you get the fuck outta here? You’re ridiculous.”
The vampire woozily nodded, swallowed hard, and then, staggering and limping, made for the nearest crossroads as quickly as he could.
The werespider didn’t even watch him leave. He was too busy patting down the pockets of his long coat, looking for something.
“You’re just letting him go?” Jasper said, indignant.
“He won’t be back.” Producing a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, the werespider took one out and lit it, the fire glowing in his dark eyes and flickering his sharp-cheeked profile into brief view. He gestured with the open package to the gun still in Jasper’s hand. “You’re not gonna be a problem, right? Because if you shoot me right now, I’m gonna be pissed. And, honestly, a little hurt.”
Jasper scoffed. The bullets in his gun were all silver, perfect for fighting vampires, but useless against a werespider who could obviously move fast enough to avoid a clear headshot. Without the aided poison of gold, he wouldn’t be able to kill him. Better to play nice.
For now.
“Why would I shoot you?” Jasper lowered the weapon but wasn’t able to bring himself to holster it. “You just saved my ass.”
“Well.” The werespider raised an eyebrow and blew an impressive cloud of smoke. “Ass like that’s gotta be saved.”
Jasper blinked, heat rising in his cheeks. “What?”
The demon drew closer. The light found him clearer here. Under its glow, the long raven locks of his hair tumbled and cascaded in waves like waterfalls just past his lithe shoulders. His almond-shaped eyes were the color of liquid chocolate, set in a flawless bronze palette of smooth, clear skin and accentuated by sharp, high cheekbones and fierce, delicate features, symmetrically aligned in a face too beautiful to belong to a human. His steps had a catlike prowess. Easy. Measured. Pointed. “Let me buy you a drink. My favorite spot ain’t too far off.”
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