But she’d come to the construction site tonight to see him, he reminded himself. She said she was amenable to a personal relationship, and he knew she wasn’t talking about being friends. Would it be so wrong to read something more into her words?
He didn’t move any closer to her, unable to forget the tears in her eyes when he mentioned the vampire that had to be nearby. Instead, he squeezed her hand over his arm with his free one.
****
Of course there wasn’t an available steam cab to be found once they docked. “Damn,” Edgar said. He took Molly’s hand and they quickly moved away from the crowd to the street. She was easily able to keep up with his pace, and even though he’d promised to keep her safe, she couldn’t help but feel a little nervous as the crowds thinned out. Brooklyn at half past two in the morning was a scary place.
“We’ll just walk until we find a cab,” he said. “Steam or horse, I don’t care.”
“Aren’t horses sleeping this time of night?” She tried to keep her voice light, but she could feel the tension radiating through him where his skin touched her gloves, could feel his strength. In that instant, she realized he was just as much of a predator as a vampire was.
“I’m sure some of them are awake.” He paused and looked around. A gas streetlight extinguished itself, darkening the curb they stood on.
“Molly,” he said. A chill slithered down her spine at the quiet urgency there. “There is a chapel across the road, and the doors should be open. They always are. Go there and wait for me.” He removed a small stake from his trouser pocket.
A shrill, inhuman noise cut through the night air. Molly looked up, and in the dim light from the other gas lamps saw a flying black shape.
Sensing her hesitancy, Edgar gave her a small push and snapped, “Go! Run, damn it! I’ll come get you in a few minutes!”
Black wings flapped way too close to Molly’s face for her liking, and she shrieked. But she obeyed, and bolted across the street to a small structure whose sign read Brooklyn Episcopalian Automatic Chapel, All Are Welcome! The church’s wooden doors easily opened with a heavy creak, and she slipped inside. She leaned against the door and tried to catch her breath. “You’d better come back for me,” she said quietly.
The church’s vestibule was dimly lit by a gas lamp turned low. The light barely concealed the scuffed wooden floor and balding carpet runner. Molly listened closely but didn’t hear anything but the pounding of her heart in her ears. “Hello?” she said.
No one replied. Unease left goosebumps across her skin.
Shouldn’t there be a minister in a church? Molly padded the carpet length until she stepped into what passed as the chapel’s nave. Flameless candles threw sputtering, dull yellow light across the scarred wooden pews. An elaborately sculpted brass cross was fixed to the far wall, and beneath it on a small raised platform was a phonograph, bolted to a pulpit. An engraving on the pulpit read Please Turn On Phonograph For Prayer of Eternal Salvation.
There wasn’t a clergyman here, Molly realized. She looked up at the church’s small stained windows, unable to see what was going on outside. Should she return to the street and help Edgar? She looked around the chapel for something she could use as a weapon, but all she saw were stacks of religious tracts and a couple copies of the New Testament. A table on the left, draped with a purple velvet cloth, held tiny bottles of clear fluid. A handwritten card in front of them read Holy water! Please help yourself! Really, did people baptize their children in an automated chapel?
Well, the holy water could be helpful. If Edgar was bitten…
Molly shuddered. She didn’t want to think of such a thing. Having her bites cleaned with it hurt far more than she expected.
The creak of the front door had her scrambling for cover, but before she could dive under a pew, she heard Edgar’s voice. “Molly? Are you here?”
Her heart leaped at the sound and she ran back to the vestibule to see Edgar. Without thinking further, she launched herself at him, and his arms automatically locked around her waist, lifting her up.
Then his lips were on hers, teasing her own apart, and Molly forgot all about vampires as her tongue tangled with his. Her hands slid over his shoulders to his neck, but sticky wetness on his skin had her pulling away. “Ed?” she said. “What’s that?”
He let her go abruptly, as if remembering something important. “The bastard got a few bites in there,” he said. A wave of nausea swept over Molly as she remembered her own bites. “I don’t suppose there’s any holy water in here.”
She grabbed his hand and led him farther into the chapel. “In here.”
Edgar sat down heavily in one of the pews as Molly picked up one of the small bottles of holy water. He pulled a handkerchief out of his trousers pocket and handed it to her. Saturating it, she asked, “Is there anything special I have to do to make this work better?” The bite was small, on the spot where his neck met his shoulder, and still bleeding. It didn’t look too horrible, certainly not the big bite wounds Molly had been subjected to, but it wasn’t as though she was an expert in vampire behavior yet.
“Just hope it’s actually been blessed by a clergyman and isn’t there for show… fuck!” The epithet bounced off the small chapel’s walls as Molly pressed the handkerchief to his neck. “That answers that question. Give a man some warning next time, would you?”
“I guess it’s been blessed, then. And I feel like we shouldn’t be swearing in church.”
Something thudded hard against a stained glass window. Molly looked up and saw a vague black shape slam itself against the window again. “Ed? Did you stake that vampire?”
“No, he’s still out there.” He winced as Molly daubed holy water on the bite. “Vampires can’t enter consecrated buildings, even if they’re invited in. My new plan is to hide out here until morning, and then take you home.”
“But the vampire…”
“Will still be out later, and I’ll find him then. Right now, we’re safe.” His eyes fixed on hers, and Molly swallowed at the intensity reflected there. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been kissed like that, even if it had to be interrupted by his injury.
“Do you have any other bites?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
“Just scratches.” He held up his wrists, where thin ribbons of blood were already drying in reddish-brown streaks. “These shouldn’t be as bad as the bite.” Still, he cringed when Molly applied the holy water-soaked handkerchief to the wounds.
She pressed it to the bite again. “Hold this,” she said, then sat down next to him and lifted her skirt enough to reveal stockings and petticoat. In a moment of self-consciousness, she was glad that the church’s light was dim enough so he wasn’t likely to see how worn out and darned her underclothes were.
“Molly?” There was a teasing lilt to his voice.
“Give me a minute.” She pulled at her petticoat until she tore a strip of thin cotton away, then straightened her skirt. “I don’t have anything else to use as a bandage.”
“Good thinking.”
She lifted away the handkerchief and wrapped the makeshift bandage around his neck. “Can you get the pin from my dress? I need something to hold this in place.”
His eyes lifted a fraction, but he reached for the brass beetle pinned to her bodice. Her skin felt hot at his touch even through her layers of clothing, but it was over too soon as he unfastened the jewelry. She pinned the bandage in place with shaking fingers.
“Now what?” she asked. “Do we just sit here?”
A thump from the bat against the stained glass window was her reply. She sighed.
“That was an older vampire, so he may be able to stay awake until just past dawn,” Edgar said. “I still don’t think it would be a bad idea to stay here for a little while.”
When would that be? “I’m sorry for all of this,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because if I hadn’t come out to the construction site tonight
, you wouldn’t have left early and we wouldn’t have run into a vampire. And if you had, you would have had time to stake it without worrying about me.”
“I don’t always get vampires on the first try, Molly. This wasn’t your fault.” He laced his fingers through hers. “Remember when I said I’d always protect you? This is part of that.”
Once again, Molly was struck by how warm and alive he was, and by how much she missed having contact with another person. The kiss Edgar branded her with when he burst into the church was still on her mind.
“I meant what I said back at home.”
She knew what he was referring to, but that strange fear she felt when he confessed his feelings for her was gone. Hearing those words had been a sensory overload for her that day, but now that she had some time to process what had happened, now understood her own feelings for Edgar—she was all right with this. And she wanted more than kisses from him.
“I’m glad you told me,” she said. “I meant what I said at headquarters, too.” He paused, as if waiting for a reaction from her. She didn’t know how to respond. Was he expecting an “I love you” in return? She didn’t know yet if she was ready to say those words.
But she wanted a future with him, even if it would be fraught with worry as he kept hunting vampires. She wanted that chance to rebuild her life with him at her side.
Another slam of the bat’s body against the window had both of them looking at it. “He doesn’t give up, does he?” Molly asked. “He must really hate you.”
“I held a cross to his face when he bit me, so I’m not surprised he’s angry. Do you still have yours?”
She plucked the small cross he’d given her from her pocket. “Right here.”
“That’s my girl.”
Molly felt herself flush with pleasure at that, and with it, a wave of desire rolled over her for the first time in years. Before she could talk herself out of it, she leaned over and kissed him, trying to recapture the feeling he left her with when he burst into the church’s vestibule.
Edgar responded immediately, tugging her into his lap. His hands roved up her body to cup her face, his fingers outlining the shape of her cheekbones and lips like he was reading a map. His touch was feather-light, but it may as well have been a brand for the effect it had on her. She closed her eyes against the onslaught of sensation, wanting more of his hands on her body but still almost overwhelmed by her senses going into overload for the first time in years. She leaned into him, forehead touching his, relishing the contact. She pressed her mouth to his, needing to know if her reaction to him kissing her in the vestibule was merely a fluke.
It wasn’t. Something primal in her flared to life, and she knew Edgar felt it, too. She ran her fingers through his hair, gripping it in her hands as she always wanted to do, as if she was afraid to let him go.
She was. She was afraid for him, for the monster that waited for them outside the church. She knew he would never give up hunting them, even though he was paid next to nothing, even though he and the rest of the Searchers could never receive any kind of recognition for what they did to keep the world safe. Being with Edgar Burgess would mean always having that constant worry at the back of her mind when he left to hunt. He could come home with worse wounds than he suffered tonight. He would come home with them, Molly knew.
But she realized she was all right with all of this. Edgar was a good man; she’d known that since she met him. Everything he’d ever said, the way he behaved toward her and others all pointed to a man who could be depended on, who would never stop searching to save someone he loved. Molly had been waiting for someone like him all her life.
His tongue found the sensitive spot under her ear and she gasped. His low chuckle sounded in her ear, and one of his hands slid along her thigh, down to her bent leg, up under her skirt. His fingers trailed up her stockinged leg, coaxing another harsh breath from her, and his hand stilled on her knee. His eyes met hers, silently asking permission.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered.
His questing fingers continued sliding up her leg, gliding over the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. Molly’s breath halted in her throat as he pushed aside the loose fabric of her drawers to her damp center. He slid a finger inside her, moving it in and out in a maddening rhythm that would never be enough to satisfy her. A strangled mewl escaped her throat, and Edgar fitted another finger into her. His pace increased and Molly’s body moved with it, riding his hand. His thumb brushed against her clit, a tiny movement that had her nearly thrashing against him.
Her nipples scraped uncomfortably against her clothes, and all she could think of was getting out of them to cool down her overheated body, and getting Edgar out of his, too. Her fingers fumbled at his clothes, but with his free hand he grabbed hers that was plucking at his trousers placket.
“Not here,” he said. “This is for you.”
She could feel the hot, hard length of him through his pants and even in her lust-hazed state could tell he was just as aroused as she was. “Why not?” His fingers pumped in and out of her, nearly obliterating all rational thought.
“Because I’ve already waited two years,” he said. “I can wait a little longer to do this properly.”
The idea was so ridiculous that Molly would have laughed had Edgar not moved his thumb in circles over her already sensitized flesh as his fingers still pumped into her. “But this…” She swallowed the words isn’t proper as the first wave of climax washed over her, not that it mattered anymore. All that did right now was Edgar. Her eyes closed of their own will and a sob escaped her.
Edgar increased his pace. “Come for me, Molly.” His voice was hoarse with desire, but still commanding, and Molly had no choice but to obey.
She came apart on Edgar’s hand, her cry swallowed by his mouth on hers. She sagged against him, totally spent, and he pulled his hand out from under her skirt. She made no attempt to right herself, content to straddle his body and never leave.
His own breath was ragged in her ear and his cock still pressed against her. She reached down between their bodies and stroked him through his pants, eliciting a sharp hiss from him. “Not here,” he said again.
“But what about…?”
He cut her off. “Later, I promise. In a bedroom with a door that locks so we can get naked and do this right.” He moved her hand away, lacing his fingers through hers. “Besides, my vampire sense keeps going off. That could be a distraction.”
Heat suffused Molly’s face at his reminder the church’s doors were kept unlocked, but she wouldn’t let herself feel embarrassed. She framed Edgar’s face in her hands and kissed him in a wordless thank you. “Can you tell if it’s just the one vampire out there?”
“Just the one for now. I can handle him with some holy water.”
Both of them jumped as a man’s voice crackled across the chapel. “Oh, heavenly Father, who hast filled the world with beauty, open our eyes to behold thy gracious hand in all thy works…”
Molly shrieked and lifted herself off Edgar’s lap. He bent over, shoulders shaking, and she realized he was laughing as the voice continued speaking. In the next instant, she looked at the phonograph that had begun to play a scheduled recording, and she relaxed a little. “Is there any way to switch that off?” she asked.
“Search me.”
“Oh God, the creator and preserver of all mankind!” the voice said, rising in volume. “We humbly beseech thee for all sorts and conditions of men!”
“Conditions, of course,” Edgar said, running a hand through his hair. “You know, I really don’t understand Episcopalians.”
“It’s reciting the Book of Common Prayer,” Molly said. “I think it’ll be talking for awhile.”
“I think I’d rather take my chances and stake that vampire that listen to that,” Edgar said. As if on cue, the bat slapped itself against the window again. “That must be stinging him a bit, at least as much as my head hurts right now,” he said. “He’s a determined bastard.”
Catching Molly’s disapproving look, he added, “What? If we can do what we just did in a chapel pew and not have hellfire come raining down on either of us, I doubt the man in the sky will care if I say ‘bastard’ in what’s really a bastardized version of a church.”
When he put it that way—Molly nodded. He had a point.
Edgar plucked a watch from his pocket and checked the time. “It’s half past three,” he said. “I’d like to stake that vampire now that I have some holy water at hand. It’ll make things easier.” He picked up his makeshift stake from the pew, then tucked a couple of the small bottles of holy water in his pocket. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
The warm, lazy sense of happiness Molly let herself feel in the aftermath of her shattering apart in his arms evaporated. “Ed,” she said, wariness in her voice.
He silenced her with a kiss. “I do this for a living, Molly. This part of Brooklyn never really sleeps. What if he eats someone and I spent the night cowering away in here? I’d never forgive myself.” His expression softened. “There’s only one out there. I can deal with him.” He held up his stake. “I’ll be back soon.”
Molly knew she would never win this, and in a way, she didn’t want to. Edgar was a hero. He would always do what was right. “Please be careful,” she said.
“I will. I have something to look forward to, remember?”
The reminder, and the look of promise in his eyes, sent another wave of heat through her. “All right.”
She walked with him to the vestibule, pausing in front of the wooden doors. “I love you,” he said.
She brushed her hand over his cheek.
He didn’t seem to care about a response in kind. “I’ll come back in one piece.” With one final kiss, he opened the door and stepped into the moonless night.
Chapter Four
The spring air was cool, a sharp contrast to the warmer air of the automatic church behind him. But Edgar welcomed the change; it heightened his senses.
Dark Moon Page 5
