The Secret Night

by Rebecca York

  Emma’s voice cut in. “He’ll heal if you just leave him be.”

  Another voice sounded doubtful, but his brave and determined Emma insisted that they leave him alone, that he would be all right.

  Confident that she would win the argument, he almost smiled. He was safe. Emma wouldn’t let anyone hurt him.

  And with that last thought, he sank into unconsciousness.

  WHEN NICK AWOKE, he was alone in the room. Cautiously, he took a physical inventory. Some of his bones had been broken but were already almost whole again. He’d had some other internal damage, but it seemed to be taking care of itself. When he sat up, the pain in his gut was only a dull ache.

  And he was powerfully hungry. Moving as fast as he could, he crossed the Oriental carpet to the private bathroom attached to the office. He leaned over the sink, peering into the mirror to inspect the damage to his face—some bruising, a new bump in his previously broken nose. Nothing serious.

  The torn and filthy clothing was another matter. He didn’t fancy facing Emma and whoever else was here looking like a war refugee.

  He soon discovered that someone had already anticipated his need. A shirt and a pair of jeans lay neatly folded on the desk. Likewise, new toiletries awaited on the vanity in the bathroom.

  Nick stood for a long time under a hot shower, letting the water pound on his body. It felt heavenly. After he dried off, he brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He didn’t have to shave. His beard grew so slowly that he could take care of it every month or so.

  As he dressed, he felt his jaw clench. Even though he looked a hell of a lot better, he didn’t want to face Emma. Or Alex Shane, or the other men who were doubtless also from Shane’s agency.

  He had a more urgent problem, though. His mouth was so dry that his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. He needed to drink.

  He walked to the French doors, thinking he would slake his thirst first, then decide what to do about Emma and the rest of them—which might be to swim across the river and go home.

  Home. His time there was up. He’d come too close to exposure by the events of the past week. Too many people had seen things that might lead to dangerous conclusions about him. He would have to pull out the new identity that he’d readied and find another place to settle. He had known all along that he would eventually have to leave his rural Maryland lair. But dammit, he wasn’t ready.

  He pushed aside the drapes, then opened the French doors and stepped onto the patio, sending his mind before him, searching for the deer he knew must be in the vicinity. When he found a doe, he soothed her with his thoughts.

  “It’s all right,” he crooned. “It won’t hurt. And you’ll like it.”

  She accepted his presence easily, and he slung his arm over her back, stroking her stiff fur.

  “You’re a beauty,” he whispered. “I’ll take a little of your blood. Not much. Just enough to feed me tonight.”

  Then he bent his head and sank his fangs into her neck, feeling the surge of heat and life as blood poured into his mouth. He took what he needed, then released her.

  “Go join your companions.”

  She rubbed her head against his hand as though she understood, then took off into the woods.

  When he turned to head back to the house, he saw Emma standing a few feet away, watching him. His heart stopped, then started pounding.

  “How long have you been there?” he asked.

  “Long enough.”

  “And now you’re disgusted,” he concluded.

  “Actually, no.”

  He gave her a skeptical look.

  She shrugged. “Deer are a good solution to your problem. You could be killing people the way Caldwell did. But you never kill, do you?”

  “Not anymore. I did, a long time ago.” Because he felt weak in the knees, he walked to the nearest tree and propped his shoulders against the trunk.

  She eyed him speculatively before observing, “You mean, before you got out from under the Master’s thrall and learned you could control your urges.”

  “Yes.”

  She turned, wandering a few steps to look toward the river. “Those books…” she began. “The ones about vampires that you said were in your library. Would you…would you mind if I read some?”

  Yeah, he’d mind.

  “Sure,” he said. “Go ahead. But why?”

  “Well…I thought they might help me understand you,” she said, strolling toward him.

  He stiffened, pushing away from the tree trunk to stand rigidly upright.

  Taking note of his posture, Emma stopped a few paces away. “I can see you aren’t ready to handle a personal discussion. So let’s start with easy stuff. Well, not exactly easy, but not directed at you.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “While you were sleeping, Alex Shane and his friends from the Light Street Detective Agency started working with Caldwell’s followers,” she explained. “Turns out, some of them were here because they were too afraid of Caldwell to leave. That includes Anabel Lewis, the woman Alex was looking for. Those people have all gone home. Some others left because they were afraid they’d be arrested.”

  Nick frowned. “Shouldn’t some of them—guards, mostly—have been turned over to the cops?”

  “Maybe. But they cleared out in the confusion after Caldwell disappeared.”

  “Disappeared? So the laser worked.”

  She hitched in a breath, then let it out. “Yes. Technically, I killed him, but his body just turned to ashes that have all scattered. So there’s nothing for the cops to find.”

  “Witnesses?” he suggested.

  Emma smiled. “It seems that nobody who saw what happened remembers any of it.”

  Nick’s frown turned thoughtful for a moment. Then comprehension dawned. “Caldwell,” he said. “He ordered them to forget.”

  She nodded. “A case of mass hypnosis. Apparently, although the Master liked to put on shows—or show off, I guess—for his inner circle, he obviously did it entirely for his own pleasure. His viewers were deprived of the memories, so they couldn’t rat on him. And, fortunately—” she smiled “—the same applies to me. Nobody remembers anything at all that happened in the amphitheater, including my killing Caldwell. They just know he’s disappeared, which makes a lot of them seriously upset and confused. The Light Street Foundation—that’s another agency in the same building as Alex’s Baltimore office—has several psychologists and social workers on tap. A bunch of them have been counseling Caldwell’s ex-followers—the ones still here, anyway, which I figure is about a third. One of the psychologists, Kathryn Kelley, thinks most of the people will be ready to go home by the end of the week. The really disturbed ones, like Margaret, will get more help.”

  Emma’s gaze dropped to her fingers, toying with the button of her blouse just above the waistband of her slacks.

  “She’ll be okay,” Nick said gently, and he hoped it was true. Tipping his head to the side, he lightened his tone. “Sounds like a hell of a lot got accomplished in one day.”

  Emma’s lips quirked upward. “Sorry to shock you, but you slept for two days.”

  “Good Lord. I’ve never done that before.”

  “I guess your body needed the extra time after two ordeals in a row.”

  He didn’t want to talk about himself. He didn’t want to talk at all. He wanted to pull her into his arms and…

  “I saw the video,” she said, casting him a glance from under lowered lashes. “The one where Caldwell has me agree to go after you.”

  “It wasn’t you,” he said. “It was Margaret.”

  “You know that for certain? When he showed it to you, you didn’t think it might be me?”

  “Well…” He waited until she had raised her gaze to his. “Maybe he had me fooled for a few minutes.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Caldwell asked if you wanted to make love with him again. I knew you’d never made love with him e
ven once, so the woman in the tape had to be your twin.”

  A puzzled frown flickered over her brow. “How did you know I hadn’t made love with him?”

  “Because he would have taken your blood, and there were no bite marks on your neck before…before the first time I drank from you.”

  “So…” She drew a shaky little breath. “You admit you bit me more than once.”

  He waited, not denying the charge.

  “And now,” she added, “you’re thinking I might walk away from you.”

  “That certainly would be the wisest choice.”

  He’d surprised her. He saw it in the brief widening of her lovely blue eyes.

  “What if I don’t want to?” she said, a note of challenge in her voice. “What if I want to stick around?”

  He cocked one eyebrow. “Stick around with a vampire?”

  “You’re not like Caldwell.”

  “No, I’m not. But, Emma—” he heaved a sigh “—the late, unlamented Master and I do have a few fundamental things in common by virtue of our both being vampires. One of them is that making love to me means drawing blood.” He shook his head sadly. “You found out what happened when I did that twice in a couple of days—the first time, when you came to my bedroom after setting off the alarm and the second, after we’d gone back to my house from Baltimore. You got sick and dizzy. It doesn’t take much of that for a woman to become anemic.”

  She gave a small, one-shouldered shrug. “There’s always iron pills.”

  He snorted. “You know that’s no long-term solution. Emma, we have to face it that there’s no way we can stay together.”

  “But you made love to me without…drinking.”

  “And, as you sensed, it wasn’t very good for me,” he said bluntly. “I climax like a mortal man, but for total fulfillment, I must be connected with the woman through her blood at the moment of climax. Without that…well, suffice it to say it’s frustrating, and the frustration grows with repetition.”

  “So maybe we’d have to…you know, space it out. Not do it so often.”

  He smiled sadly. “My darling Emma, you know that wouldn’t last a week. I can barely stand here looking at you without ripping off our clothes and tumbling you onto some nice soft grass, and—”

  “I get the picture,” she muttered hurriedly. Then, with a sigh, she admitted, “And you’re right. I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off of you, either.”

  “So you see the problem,” he said. “I can’t be around you without wanting you. And I can’t have you without wanting to drink from you. It’s an impossible situation.”

  “I don’t believe in impossible.”

  He knew that. It was one of the things he loved about her. But he’d lived too long not to know that there were problems to which there truly were no solutions. Theirs was one of them.

  Well, nearly so. But he couldn’t be the one to suggest the one obvious way they could be together. It would have to come from her, and he had no hope, no hope at all, that she ever would suggest it.

  “You’re trying to drive me away, aren’t you?” she said.

  “I’m merely pointing out the reality.”

  “Well, reality sucks.” Turning to face him, she lifted her chin in a defiant look he’d come to recognize. “But we might be able to work it out, if you’re willing to try.”

  “Emma, for God’s sake, don’t you think I’ve tried before? There is no way to reconcile our differences—those being that you’re a mortal woman, and I’m a vampire.”

  With a cry of frustration, she threw her hands wide. “Nick, I love you.”

  It was what he’d wanted to hear. Odd that it should make him so very happy and, at the same time, so very sad.

  “And I love you,” he said quietly.

  “Good!” she snapped. “So doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “It means a great deal. But it doesn’t change what I am.”

  “Right. Fine. You’d rather fly off into the night, like some damned bat from a B-grade horror movie. Run away if you want. But I hope, before you vanish without a trace, you’ll come back to the house and talk to Alex and the others. They’d really like to get to know you.”

  With that, she whirled and stomped off toward the house.

  A shiver of panic raced up his spine. “You’ve been discussing me with Shane and his cronies?”

  Without missing a step, she tossed a reply over her shoulder. “Find out for yourself!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nick stayed where he was for a long time. He thought about what life would be like with Emma at his side. He fantasized about taking her places, traveling the world with her, showing her things, some that would thrill the adventurer in her, others that would inspire the artist, and still others that would appeal to her deep-rooted sense of humanity.

  But it was just a fantasy. He should go back to his lonely existence. He had survived without Emma before she’d come crashing into his life. He could do it again.

  Yet he found it wasn’t so easy to…fly off into the night, as she’d put it.

  In the end, he followed her footsteps back to the house and spotted Alex Shane through one of the open French doors leading into the dining room. He thought about heading in the other direction, then changed his mind. Maybe he’d find out what Emma had meant, saying that Shane and his cohorts wanted to get to know him.

  When he walked into the dining room, he found the detective sitting with a group of men and women.

  Alex looked toward him and smiled. “Nick! How are you feeling?”

  “Better. Thanks,” he said cautiously.

  “Come, join us. I’d like you to meet some of the people I work with.”

  He introduced Hunter and Kathryn Kelley, Jed Prentiss, Jason Zacharias, Steve Claiborne, Jo O’Malley, Cameron Randolph, Thorn and Cassie Devereaux and Dan and Sabrina Cassidy.

  Nick nodded at each as Alex ticked off the names. He got nothing but friendly smiles and looks in return, but he couldn’t help wondering what they’d been told about him.

  Curiosity driving him, he asked, “What are you all doing here?”

  “Mopping up,” Alex answered.

  “There’s a lot of fascinating information in Caldwell’s files,” the man named Jed Prentiss said.

  “I’m sure,” Nick murmured, trying not to sound too eager.

  Alex cleared his throat. “I know you put a lot of effort into nailing the bastard. You’re welcome to review any of the material. We wouldn’t have it if you hadn’t had the guts to take him on.”

  Nick shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Thanks. Uh, yeah, I would like to look at some of the stuff.”

  “We’ve put it in the library.”

  “Thanks,” he said again, wondering if he were coming across like an idiot.

  Growing more uncomfortable by the second, he backed away. They let him go without comment.

  It had been a long time since he’d simply chatted with so many people at once.

  He was more comfortable alone in the library, looking through the research materials Caldwell had collected over the years. There were a lot of psychology textbooks, as well as information on hypnosis and mind control. He found books on blood chemistry and a wide variety of other medical subjects—so many that he wondered if Caldwell had actually been worried about getting AIDS or some other blood-borne illness.

  The Master had also kept diaries documenting the enclaves where he’d lived and the people who’d lived and died there—with no dates noted, although even the most casual reader could have figured out that the diaries had to span more than a mortal lifetime.

  Nick was transfixed by what his longtime enemy had chosen to write down—and just as interested in what he’d left out. As he read the account of what had happened in France, it finally hit him: He had accomplished his goal. He’d killed the demon who’d murdered Jeanette.

  He’d expected to feel triumphant. Instead, he simply felt empty.

&nb
sp; With a harsh laugh, he wondered if he were about to fall into some kind of identity crisis, having lost his sense of purpose. All these years, he’d felt guilty about Jeanette. Killing Caldwell wiped the slate clean, so to speak. But the elation was missing. Maybe because it had happened so many years ago that all true pain or grief he’d felt had long since dissipated.

  But it was more than that. He’d thought Jeanette was the most fascinating woman he’d ever met. He’d since met other women whom he could have loved—but very carefully and deliberately hadn’t.

  And then he’d met Emma.

  His heart squeezed at the very thought of her name. Could it be true that she was right, that they could find a way to be together, if only he would try? Did he dare hope there might be a solution to their problem?

  He looked at the books and journal articles lying scattered on the large oak table at which he was sitting. Might the answer lie in one of these books?

  It was late, nearly dawn. If the answer was here, he wasn’t going to find it tonight.

  Rising from his chair, he returned to the office, locked the door, made sure all the blinds were down and flopped onto the wide leather couch. He lay staring at the ceiling, thinking about Emma. About possibilities.

  About how he would feel if it turned out the situation wasn’t quite as impossible as he had always believed it to be.

  NICK SPENT the next few nights reading and, in short intervals, talking with the men and women who worked with Alex Shane. He noted early on that they all acted toward him with almost studied casualness. Nobody pushed him to talk about anything serious. They talked about jobs they’d taken on, and they expressed interest in his own cases. Thorn Devereaux asked enthusiastically about the laser gun and, in exchange for an explanation of its workings, shared information about some of his own rather startling inventions.

  Nick wondered why they were all going out of their way to be so friendly, so congenial, so…nice. But he couldn’t deny that despite his initial reticence—the result of being out of practice—he was rapidly growing to enjoy the company.

  He would have enjoyed Emma’s company, too, but he hadn’t had so much as a minute of it. She was still at the estate. Sometimes he saw her from a distance. But she never sought him out and always seemed to be where he wasn’t. He guessed she’d taken his “Danger— Keep Out” message to heart, and having found nothing in all of Caldwell’s literature that might feed his foolish hopes, he knew it was for the best. But it made him heartsick.