Harlequin Nocturne September 2014 Bundle: Beyond the MoonImmortal Obsession

by Michele Hauf

  Her brother had been prepared. He swung himself off-balance as Monteforte struck with both hands, and righted himself with a graceful lunge. Stewart’s arm came down in an arc, slashing at shadows, his silver knife coming up red with the old vampire’s blood. But the knife hadn’t hit its mark. It had been impossible to see, let alone find Monteforte’s chest, in his flurry of seemingly effortless moves.

  Nevertheless, Monteforte had been struck. And that one thing created a lucky gap in the fight.

  Scenting the blood, St. John’s ravenous Nosferatu made a sharp turn. An error in judgment that allowed St. John’s strong fingers to find its throat.

  With the force of a whirlwind, St. John yanked the beast backward. The monster fell back, writhing against its capture, too energetic and focused on the scent of blood in the air to be held for long.

  But St. John hung on to it, his muscles corded, and a look of defiance on his face. It was a terrible dance of power. And it gave Madison the courage she needed.

  She lunged again at the monster keeping pace with her brother, and who was flinging blood from his wounds in all directions.

  Tossing herself at the old vampire a second time, she knocked him into her brother. Stewart moved with a practiced precision, whirling in place, raising the knife, bringing it down.

  More blood tinted the blade of his knife, but the old vampire continued to move.

  God, how she hated vampires!

  Stewart didn’t register the slightest bit of fear. Madison was terrified. Across her overworked, inflamed nerve fibers, she sensed the imminent approach of the newcomer. Not only one newcomer, she sensed, but two.

  Fueled by fear and a surge of adrenaline that shot through her, she hurled herself at Monteforte, who appeared suddenly to her right. Instead of connecting with anything solid, two strong hands caught her and flung her aside.

  Rebounding from the wall, ready to go at it again, Madison hesitated when she recognized one of the newcomers on the scene. He stood on the outskirts of the area of fighting wearing an expression of disgust on his lined, familiar face.

  That newcomer was D.I. Crane.

  * * *

  St. John threw the Nosferatu to the ground, aware of the bloodlust that had overcome its instructions to take a Blood Knight down.

  The scent of its own master’s blood was driving the creature mad. If he let the Nosferatu loose, it would go after the source of that blood, potentially helping to solve everyone’s immediate problems. But his thought was for Madison, who didn’t need to witness what a frenzied vampire could do. Or what he, himself, would have to do to stop the monster.

  With the beast trapped between his foot and the pavement, he threw a calm look over his shoulder at the tall figure that had come late to the party. That damned detective.

  Too late now for excuses or disguises. The cat was very obviously out of the bag. And though he didn’t need help, Stewart Chase might. He had given Stewart a chance to take his own revenge out on Monteforte, but a second pair of hands when dealing with an aged entity like Monteforte was probably always welcome.

  Especially when Detective Inspector Ellis Crane was so much more than a second pair of hands.

  St. John glanced up at the moon, then down at Crane, who stood beneath the overhang of the buildings.

  “Wrong party for you,” he said to the detective.

  “Every party in this city is my party,” the detective snarled in reply.

  St. John shrugged, and nodded to the detective. “Want to get your hands dirty?”

  “I’d like nothing better,” Crane said, tossing a revolver to Madison with the harsh directive, “Silver bullets,” and “Watch your aim.” Then Detective Inspector Crane began to let his own beast out.

  The wet, flesh-morphing, bone-cracking sounds of a man shifting into another shape made Madison cringe. What was happening to the detective went flagrantly against nature.

  The detective’s shoulders widened. He grew taller, as if the moon overhead was stretching him closer to it. Muscle built upon muscle, as if someone had just poured more onto his frame.

  His face lengthened. More bones cracked and heaved. He tipped forward from the waist, as if the whole process hurt him greatly. And when he stood up again, seconds later, a creature that was half man, half beast looked out of big black eyes from a feral-featured face above a body covered by a brown fur pelt.

  * * *

  It was official, Madison thought. She had entered another dimension.

  The detective’s gun felt cool in her hand, and heavier than she’d have expected. She knew what silver bullets were for. Killing monsters of all kinds.

  The good detective was a goddamn werewolf, and had come prepared because of the full moon and the antics he’d said ran amok beneath it.

  With trembling hands, Madison raised the gun, thinking she should fire on them all—all of London’s monsters. Narrowing her focus, squeezing the trigger, she went for Monteforte, who was clinging to Stewart with fingers like talons.

  Kicked back slightly by the force of the shot, she heard nothing from the old vampire. Seconds later, a great howl split the night. God, had she missed, and hit the werewolf instead?

  No, not the detective. He growled deep in his throat with a sound that was scary as hell.

  Madison spun in place in time to see him leap toward the shadows on the curb, where another impossibly frightening, twisted creature had appeared. Setting her stance, she again used both hands to hoist the gun. Aiming at the quick-moving Monteforte, she fired.

  Her brother suddenly stopped wrestling. The shadows dancing with him coagulated, showing an angry Monteforte holding his chest.

  St. John let loose of the monster he’d been holding down, and in a blurred instant was at Madison’s side, taking the gun from her, pressing her out of the way, his wide shoulders hiding the view of creatures killing creatures in a last-second turnaround.

  But anyone for miles could have heard the terrible noises these beasts were making, Madison thought. The night rang with gut-wrenching nightmarish sounds of flesh tearing and gluttonous beasts ravaging each other.

  St. John, beside her, tried to disguise those terrible sounds. “Good shot, my lovely, beautiful Madison,” he whispered to her. “It’s almost over, my love.”

  An explosion rocked the area. Then another, followed by a third. Three explosions, after which a rain of thick gray ash began to fall, appearing like snow, smelling foul. The ash of the final death of three vampire abominations obliterated everything in the area, other than the moonlight.

  A hand appeared on St. John’s shoulder, pushing him aside. Stewart’s face peered into hers, tense, white, skeletal.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to her twin. “I didn’t know.”

  She started over, feeling sobs choke her throat.

  “I’m sorry for ruining your revenge with that gun. And for what happened to you. And for what you are.”

  Throwing her arms around him, she hugged her brother tight. He didn’t immediately respond. It took him a minute to hug her back. When he finally closed his arms around her, it felt as though she had found that missing piece of herself again. It felt like heaven. She had her brother back.

  But Stewart pulled back and stepped away. Mutely, he turned to go.

  “Wait! Stewart, wait!” she cried. “It’s okay. I swear it’s okay.”

  Could she blame him for being wary, though, when Stewart knew he had become another kind of demon?

  “We’re going to go home,” she told him. “We’re going to be together, no matter what. We’ll both see to that, and whatever it takes.”

  She turned to the werewolf, who thankfully had changed back into a bare-chested detective glowing with sweat. She had to find her voice. “My brother didn’t harm that girl. He will swear to that.”
<
br />   “Then I’m sure he will tell me everything he knows about it,” Crane said, his voice gruff. “But I believe we have found the killers, thanks to your tip. St. John may have to do a bit of complying on his own, as to how to take care of that in a world where none of us are welcome. We’ll have to spin the tale of that one girl’s death into something believable—not to make light of it, you understand, but to protect the public.”

  “You went to the Germand?” St. John asked Crane.

  Madison looked to her lover to find him St. John again. Merely that, on the surface, anyway, though his skin still seemed lit from within.

  “The Germand. Disgusting place,” Crane said. “No offense.”

  “You found the other girls?” St. John asked.

  “All of them. Seems everyone wants to meet a vampire, and the girls were enticed by the prospect until they were actually faced with reality.”

  The detective paused for a grimace. “I don’t get that. Blood is ugly. It tastes like hell. But we’re lucky we found them. Janis Blake had escaped once, and they’d caught up with her. The girls were hysterical when we found them.”

  All eyes shifted to Stewart, who nodded. His voice emerged roughly, as though he hadn’t used it lately.

  “I found that dead girl,” he said.

  “Yes, well, your DNA, taken from your sister’s hands, will be of no use, of course. The lab will cop to making a mistake, since the sample will be all messed up. The good news is that there is nothing to tie you to that murder. Nothing at all.”

  Crane turned to St. John. “The girls have fang marks on them. Some bastard bloodsucker had been snacking on them. Will this mean they also will be hungry eventually?”

  “Did they drink, in return?” St. John asked.

  “Not as far as I know. They were glad to be found, and have been taken to the hospital. Their parents have been notified, but if they’re...”

  “Give them a transfusion right away. Invent an excuse for that. If they didn’t drink, or receive blood in return, they will likely be all right.”

  Loose screws...

  Loose ends...

  Madison’s head hurt like a son of a gun.

  She observed the scene in front of her, made up of St. John, in all his chiseled splendor, and Crane, looking mostly normal after his big, freaky surprise, and her brother, still there, whatever the hell Stewart had actually become...to find them all looking at her. Expecting her to what? Scream? Swoon?

  “Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen,” she said to them. “And it isn’t as if I’m going to be able to tell anyone. Who the hell would believe it?”

  “What about the Hundred?” Crane said.

  “You mean the Ninety-Nine? You know about them, too?” St. John asked.

  “No Lycan worth his salt can’t tell a vampire from a hole in the ground,” Crane said.

  St. John grinned, looking very much like the St. John Madison was so uproariously in love with.

  “I don’t suppose they’ll miss Monteforte,” he said. “I’m not sure they ever knew about you,” he added to Stewart. “Not for sure, anyway. I’m damned certain most of them didn’t have any idea about what went on at the Germand. They can’t afford to allow that kind of blasphemy against their rules.”

  His smile widened, showing two gleaming white fangs. “You will need to stop staking everything that moves, of course.”

  “Does the Hundred know about the detective here?” Madison threw Crane a look, still shaken up by that big, furry surprise.

  Crane smiled back with a very wolfish expression that was in no way apologetic. “It’s likely they do,” he said.

  “It’s tough to hide the smell of a werewolf,” St. John explained.

  The detective grinned again. “That’s what your look meant in the hospital hallway? You tagged me? Well, I wouldn’t be so quick to call the kettle black, vampire. Most of you smell like burnt toast.”

  “And you,” Madison whispered to Stewart. “What about you? Are you all right? Enough to come home?”

  She directed a question to St. John. “Is that possible?”

  He nodded. “Ocean liner. Darkened room. He can make it work if he wants to. He’ll have to explain what the hell he is, and how that works, first.”

  Stewart’s slump, Madison knew, was caused by the extremes of a relief he had no doubt lost sight and hope of. Though infused with vampire blood, enough of her twin remained in the mix, thanks, she supposed, to his Slayer base.

  She wanted to cry with happiness over that one small thing. Her brother hadn’t been taken from her forever. Hope shone in his eyes.

  Although there was stuff to be cleared up, the Yale Four girls were alive. St. John was here. Stewart was here.

  She doubted this kind of mess would happen again anytime soon in London. As St. John had said, a fringe community like those old vampires couldn’t afford the attention.

  So, what about her?

  Where did she fit in?

  Her network would be waiting for an update as soon as the story of finding the girls broke. She was going to break it. In spite of standing there in the moonlight with a vampire-hunter hybrid, an immortal she loved more than anything else on the earth, and a werewolf cop—all of those things part of London’s dirty little secrets—she still had a job to do.

  In spite of everything.

  And because of everything.

  She still had the energy to do it. Help clean this up. Put a shiny new spin on the news.

  There were vampires in London, the biggest story of all, the story of a lifetime, and she couldn’t tell that story. Her life, and the lives of many others, depended on her silence.

  The world depended on it.

  “Shall I take you back to your hotel?” the werewolf detective asked her.

  She couldn’t have taken a first step, if she had accepted that offer. The almost heart-rending expression of sadness on St. John’s face kept her rooted in place.

  That sadness told her she had one more thing left to do. She had to make peace with her own immortal obsession.

  When he held out a hand, as if he had heard her thoughts, her brother stepped forward.

  “It’s okay,” she said to Stewart. “He is the Protector, you know. My Protector. Can you go to my hotel, Stewart? Will you go, and wait for me there, please? I can’t lose you again. We’ll do everything possible to make you comfortable, I promise. The detective can let you in. Cops have ways to do that. This—” she gestured to St. John “—is important.”

  Crane and Stewart eyed each other warily. They were different species who had come together tonight for a common goal, but they didn’t have to like it.

  This was important.

  She placed her hand in St. John’s, feeling the familiar charge that hadn’t lessened one bit. She wondered if this would be their last night together, and if he would move on now that his task had been accomplished.

  He was one of Seven Blood Knights who could rule the world if they wanted to.

  “One more night is not enough,” St. John sent to her.

  When she met his eyes, she said, “Not a Slayer. Nothing resembling a Slayer. There was some mistake. I was scared to death out here.”

  Before her next breath, and in a surge of motion that left her last remark trailing, they were running, together, toward shelter.

  Chapter 26

  St. John’s bare body, perfectly proportioned and as powerful as poured steel, was a thing of beauty in whatever incarnation, and carved by a master artist’s hand. A partly unsteady hand. Evidence of that artist’s slip of the chisel showed in the long lines of ridged scar tissue that glowed whiter, grittier than the rest of his undisturbed flesh, and curved around the sides of his rib cage.

  In what now seemed like ages
ago, Madison had felt those ridges with her fingers and wondered who had dared to hurt him. She now knew that many of his enemies, mortals and vampires alike, would try to do the same if they understood what his presence among them meant. Christopher St. John was no friend to vampires or monstrosities of any kind, though he had been born one.

  Supposedly, she was his enemy, though they didn’t view things that way. Big lessons had been learned during these days and nights in London. Not everything that appeared as black and white had to be perceived as polar opposites, when a vast area of gray ran between. Although most people considered this gray area negatively, an awareness of how vast that area was had changed her.

  Meeting Christopher St. John had changed her.

  He’d been mortal once. His life had been taken from him, exchanged for another kind of existence. He lived in that gray zone as an elegant, honorable, noble immortal whose past remained a mystery and whose immediate future rose above her as she gazed up at him from the bed.

  She also lived in that gray zone, because she loved St. John with every fiber of her being. Someone, somewhere, might damn her for this, she supposed, but Madison didn’t care. She thanked the heavens that he so obviously felt the same way about her.

  Many loose ends had been tied up at last in London, but this one dangling thread remained above some unanswered others.

  Their future.

  They were in his refuge. She didn’t remember anything between being on the street and on her back, in his bed.

  He was completely naked, pale, perfect and more beautiful than anything she had ever seen. It was the first time she had seen all of him.

  Eyeing the fullness of his erection, her body reacted with a quiver of anticipation. The word glorious came to mind.

  Would the sky fall in if two beings created to eradicate each other came together in this way, repeatedly?

  She’d seen no evidence in herself of the traits her twin possessed, except for the dangerous attraction to vampires. Particularly her attraction to this one.