by Lani Aames
THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT II
MARGARET CARTER, LANI AAMES, MARYJANCE DAVIDSON
MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-84360-285-7
Mobipocket (PRC) ISBN # 1-84360-286-5
Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):
Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), & HTML
(c) Copyright Margaret Carter, 2002.
(c) Copyright Lani Aames, 2002.
(c) Copyright MaryJanice Davidson, 2002.
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave.
Ellora's Cave, Inc. USA
Ellora's Cave Ltd, UK
This e-book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by email forwarding, copying, fax, or any other mode of communication without author permission.
Edited by Jennifer Martin & Martha Punches
Cover Art by Tina Engler
Warning:
The following material contains strong sexual content meant for mature readers. THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT II has been rated HARD R, erotic, by three individual reviewers. We strongly suggest storing this electronic file in a place where young readers not meant to view this ebook are unlikely to happen upon it. That said, enjoy…
Tall, Dark, and Deadly
©Margaret L. Carter, 2002
Chapter One
The air hummed with rapt attention from dozens of human minds, most of them female. "Oh, lady bright! Can it be right—This window open to the night?" Claude paused in his recitation to savor the shallow breaths and rapid heartbeats of his audience, inaudible to human ears but plain to his. He had performed this reading of Poe's "The Sleeper" so often that it required only a fraction of his attention. He knew just what phrases to linger over to coax the most intense emotions from the listeners.
Their fascination perfumed the air like a cloud of incense. He could almost taste it, a delicious appetizer for the more substantial feast he anticipated enjoying later that night. For the black-clad young women he half-affectionately thought of as "vampire groupies," he knew his hypnotic delivery transformed the drab hotel function room into a boudoir "beneath the mystic moon" with an "opiate vapour, dewy, dim". While he didn't believe Poe had written "The Sleeper" with a vampire's nocturnal visit in mind, doubtless the "window open to the night" conjured up just that image for most of the audience, a reaction that suited Claude very well.
His eyes swept over the group while he intoned, "Oh, lady, dear, hast thou no fear? Why and what art thou dreaming here?" Locking glances briefly with each female in the first couple of rows, he savored the way a blush blossomed on each one's face at the fantasy that he addressed the lines to her alone. About midway to the back of the room though, he captured the eyes of one person who watched him with peculiar intensity, a woman of about thirty, with mahogany hair pulled back in a braid. From her he sensed a hunger that answered his own with a more complicated need than the yearning for a fantasy vampire's bite.
Pleasantly rounded, from what he could see of her, though not enough to violate the current standards for female beauty, she had what people used to call a "peaches and cream" complexion. Claude approved of her apparent refusal to either diet herself into emaciation or bake her skin under cancer-inducing rays. She would make an excellent dessert. The image made his jaws ache.
He mentally shook himself. He already had plans for tonight. Still, it wouldn't hurt to make contact with her and keep her in reserve, so to speak. Winding up the poem, he smiled at the memory of a lapel pin he'd seen on one of the fans earlier that day: "Cthulhu Saves—He Might Get Hungry Later."
He stood up with a flourish of his cape to signal the end of the session. Instantly, the audience mobbed the front of the room, convention programs and pens in hand. Teeth clenched in the closest thing to a smile he could manage, he scribbled his name as requested, watching the back of the delectable woman's head vanish into the corridor. With all the people blocking his view, he hadn't even managed a glimpse of her name tag.
Finally, dry-mouthed with thirst from exposure to his fans' body heat, pulse sounds, and keyed-up emotions, he broke away and headed for his room. Though he lived only a few blocks away, his need for a refuge in the middle of the convention made renting a hotel room worthwhile. He craved a few hours of sleep before that evening's awards banquet.
When he unlocked the door, he noticed an unfamiliar scent. His nostrils flared. Not human, but acrid and quasi-metallic, like one of his own kind. Something rustled under his feet as the door closed behind him. A large manila envelope.
Tossing the cape onto the bed, he took the envelope to the desk and opened it. Two newspaper clippings fell out. Both, he saw, came from a San Francisco paper. The first headline read, "Human Remains Discovered Under Church Parking Lot."
About a month earlier, archeologists had begun excavating that parking lot in downtown San Francisco in preparation for expansion of St. Anthony's parish hall. Inside the buried ruins of the original church building, destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, searchers had found two bodies. Oddly, one, a woman's, had been reduced to a skeleton, yet the other was remarkably preserved, as lifelike as the famous Inca maiden sacrifices. That mummified corpse was a man's.
Claude's heart raced. He had to concentrate to force it under control. He was annoyed to discover his hand shaking as he picked up the second clipping. "Earthquake Mummy Vanishes." The bodies had been turned over to the anthropology department at the University of California, Berkeley. Two days after being transported there—more like two nights, Claude suspected—the man's corpse had vanished. Claude knew the "corpse" had never been truly lifeless though, and he wasn't surprised to read of the security guard found dead in the hallway outside the storage vault.
So Philip was alive. Not only alive, but here in Los Angeles at this very hotel. He had obviously shoved the envelope under the door of Claude's room within the past couple of hours. He's after me. Wonder what the devil he wants? Revenge, no doubt, but what kind?
He flashed on a memory of the ground shaking and the church roof caving in, while Philip howled in anguish over the maimed body of his woman.
Picking up the phone, Claude dialed the Prime Elder's number. If the Council didn't already know about Philip's resurrection, they needed to. Claude heaved an exasperated sigh at the vanished prospect for a decent afternoon's sleep.
* * * * *
Panting from her run to the elevator, Eloise Kern dashed into her hotel room and flung herself onto the bed. She'd meant to introduce herself to Claude Darvell after the poetry reading, but her reaction to his resonant voice and penetrating gaze had embarrassed her so much she couldn't face him. Especially after that moment when she'd imagined his eyes had lingered on her a bit longer than on anyone else.
Oh, stop thinking like a ditzy fan! she scolded herself. Every female in that room had doubtless imagined the same thing. She hadn't come here to indulge in fantasies about her favorite horror movie star. She'd wheedled her friend on the con committee into seating Claude next to her at the awards banquet so she could conduct business, not drool over his ebony hair and violet-gray eyes. Keeping her mind on screenplay contracts would have been a lot easier if he'd looked less ravishing in person than on film, instead of more so.
For weeks since receiving his latest letter, she'd had to read it over and over to confirm she hadn't imagined it. She'd even packed it in her overnight bag for reassurance. By now she knew the relevant passages by heart, from "Dear Ms. Kern" to "I look forward to discussing your proposed adaptation of Varney the Vampyre in person at ConCatastrophe." She peeled off her clothes and stepped under a hot shower, lost in visions of Claude—"tall, dark, and de
adly," as a tabloid reporter had labeled him—emoting the lines from her own script.
She visualized him in the opening scene taken directly from the novel, climbing through a window on a moonlit night, like the one in the poem, to plunge his fangs into the heroine's delicate throat. Eloise's nipples puckered at the image. Throwing her head back, with her eyes closed, she let the warm water flow over her own neck, imagining his lips fastened there. There you go again, like a teenybopper with a crush, she mocked herself.
Better to wallow in that daydream than to brood over the other letter, the one she'd stuffed in her purse right before leaving home. The home she might not have much longer. The management of her townhouse complex had spent the past few months planning a conversion from rentals to a condominium regime. Eloise had started saving toward the down payment and closing costs, a slow process between her mother's nursing home fees and the uncertainty of a writer's income, but she hadn't expected the shift from rental to condo for another couple of years. Suddenly the schedule had accelerated. She had six months to dredge up the money or get out. Guild minimum for a screenplay would make the difference between home ownership and homelessness.
Wrenching the shower to the "off" position, she toweled dry with impatient roughness, threw on a robe, and sat at the dresser to brush her hair and redo the French braid. Why was she imagining herself as a bag lady? Multi-published authors with doctorates in English Lit didn't end up on the street. She gave her hair a last, firm twist and looped a scrunchy around the end. Enough negative vibes! She had to project confidence when she met Claude at the banquet. What actor would want to produce or star in a movie scripted by a writer with the stalwart firmness of a bowl of Jell-O?
Chapter Two
He wasn't coming. The place next to Eloise at the award recipients' table, with "Claude Darvell" on the name card, sat empty. He must have been stricken with a sudden illness or called away on some emergency. Blinking in the atmospheric candlelight, she considered eating his chocolate mousse. Anxiety always made her feel like nibbling, and all the rolls were gone. Sure, she didn't have to meet him in person to negotiate the projected movie deal. But she felt she'd have a much better chance if they could discuss the script face to face.
Lost in worry, she clapped automatically after each presentation and almost missed her own name. Recovering, she scurried up to the podium to receive her award for the con committee's pick as author of the year's best paranormal romance. She read her brief acceptance speech off an index card, her own voice echoing hollowly in her ears as if it were somebody else's. Glad to make it back to the table without tripping over her high heels, she didn't register at first that the seat beside her was no longer vacant.
In a black, crimson-lined cape that seemed to add inches to his already imposing height, Claude Darvell stood up to give her a half-bow of greeting. "Eloise? I'm Claude."
"Yes, I know." She cringed internally at the inane remark.
"Congratulations on your award." He clasped her hand briefly. His skin, she noticed, felt cool. A delightful shiver ran up her arm. "Forgive my lateness. I'm afraid I overslept."
She stomped firmly on a fantasy of his dark, wavy hair tousled from the pillow. In person he looked even more like an updated Lord Byron than he did onscreen. "You missed dinner."
Gathering the cape over one arm, he sat down. "I didn't come here for the food." His violet-gray eyes prowled over her before turning toward the speaker on the podium. "I'd like a glass of wine, though." He waved at the half-finished bottle of burgundy, which she passed to him.
"There go my illusions," she whispered. "What happened to the 'I never drink wine' bit?"
"After a day at a convention, I'll drink anything," he whispered back, leaning close so that his breath ruffled her hair.
A sensation like the caress of invisible fingers tickled down her back. She sipped her own wine and forced her attention to the next presentation. Minutes later, Claude got up to accept his award for best male lead in a horror film. Eloise watched his panther-like stride with growing appreciation. As far as she could tell with the cape and tux, he had the build of a greyhound, sleek and thin. Far from an illusion of makeup and camera angles, his demon lover persona proved even more captivating face to face.
She still had trouble believing her luck, that he had taken the time to write an appreciative letter about her article analyzing his "Count Orloff" vampire movies in the Journal of Popular Culture. Still more incredibly, her note of thanks in reply had elicited another message from him, and they'd become regular correspondents. When she had mentioned her half-finished script based on that sprawling Victorian penny-dreadful novel, Varney the Vampyre, Claude had expressed his own long-standing desire to film the novel. So here they were, sharing a bottle of burgundy and the hopes of making a movie together.
When the master of ceremonies finished his concluding remarks, Claude turned to her. "Did you bring any of your Varney material with you?"
Of course she had, though she wouldn't have committed the faux pas of pressing it on him without an invitation. "Yes, I've got a proposal and a partial script." Thanks to her past dealings with producers who had optioned a few of her books, she had enough familiarity with the workings of Hollywood to prepare such things in the proper format.
"I'd love to take a look at them." Pulling out her chair, he lightly clasped her wrist, as if taking her pulse.
Bracing herself against the prickle of sensation that danced along the inside of her arm, she told herself he wasn't doing that at all. Or if he was, the gesture was only part of the vampire pose he assumed for the entertainment of his fans. "Great, let's go up to my room," she said, hoping the invitation didn't sound like a come-on. Not that she would have minded if he'd taken the words as an opening for seduction, but if she wanted to deal with him on a business level, she'd better not mix her signals.
On the way to the elevator, Claude's hand rested on her back at her waistline. When they'd touched before, she'd thought his skin felt cool. How could it burn her through the satin of her evening gown? By the time the elevator started ascending to her floor, she already felt lightheaded. I'm just nervous about the script, she thought. That was the only reason for her rapid pulse. Sure.
"I noticed you at the reading earlier," he said as they walked down the sixth-floor corridor.
"I didn't want to try to introduce myself in the middle of that crowd," she fibbed. To her annoyance, her hand shook when she tried to insert the key. Inside, she switched on the foyer light and one of the reading lamps.
"That's plenty," he said before she could turn on any others. He stepped over to the window and gazed at the sparkling skyline, with the famous illuminated "Hollywood" sign on a distant hillside. "It's a beautiful night. As beautiful as downtown Los Angeles ever gets, anyhow." He punctuated the remark with a wry smile.
"Yeah, I haven't seen a night this smog-free in ages." Eloise took the treatment and script out of her briefcase and handed them to Claude.
"Oh, yes, you live nearby."
"Pasadena. But I'd rather pay for a room than drive home after midnight two nights in a row."
"I share your sentiments," he said, leafing through the printout she'd given him. "I have a penthouse just a few blocks away on Wilshire." He set the pages on the desk and drew her to the window with a casual touch at her waist. "I'll read all this later. Right now, I'd rather hear the highlights straight from you."
"Sure." She froze, half wishing he wouldn't touch her, so that she could keep her mind on Victorian vampires, and half wishing he'd make that touch more than casual. Her nipples peaked, creating friction with the lining of her bra, and her stomach fluttered. "I'm sorry I don't have anything to drink I can offer you."
"Don't worry about that. I'm not thirsty—right now." His hand drifted from her waist to her neck, skimming the bare skin above the low-cut dress on the way. His fingers insinuated under the braid and gently rubbed the roots of her hair. "Are you planning to have me commit suicide in Moun
t Vesuvius, the way the book ends?"
"Sure. Think of the cool special effects." She tried to focus on a vampire diving into a volcano, instead of the heat that swirled around her scalp and down her spine.
He chuckled. "More hot than cool, n'est-ce pas?"
"Ha, ha. Don't most vampires attack with fangs, not puns?"
"I suppose we can't do without fangs. Audiences expect them. Speaking of attacks, we'll start the film with Varney invading Flora's bedroom?"
"Of course. The first scene of the book is too good to waste. Hail, thunder, wind, lightning, and a demon of the night feasting on a half-naked girl. Starting and ending will be the easy part. The hard part is deciding what to do with the other 800 pages in between." She tilted her head, the better to enjoy his gentle rubbing. She felt like a cat having its ears scratched.
"I'm sure you'll work it out. I do look forward to playing jolly old blood-and-thunder Varney, as long as we don't make him one of those undead twits who constantly whines about the terrible curse he’s under."
"Perish the thought." She caught herself leaning back against the hard length of Claude's torso. His massage, moving from her hairline to her shoulder blades, made her want to purr. I really should make him stop that.
"Handled properly," he said, "Varney could be a new twist on the tragic vampire. New to the box office public, anyway, since nobody reads the book except specialists like you. I have a couple of financial backers in mind. Once I've got a general idea of the plot outline, I'll contact them and set up the deal."
The conversation was progressing faster than Eloise had dared hope. She knew Claude, even though his official biography said he was independently wealthy, wouldn't put up the funding himself. No sensible actor/producer would violate Hollywood's "OPM" rule—use Other People's Money. The fact that he'd already considered the financing issue showed he was serious. She murmured a wordless sound of agreement. Why did she feel so fuzzy around the edges? She hadn't consumed that much wine at dinner. Why did Claude's touch seem to scorch right through her clothes? She'd never responded to a man so intensely, not even one who embodied her deepest fantasies.
