Deep is the Night: Dark Fire

by Denise A. Agnew

  Ronan slugged back the last of his drink, then stood and placed the goblet on a rickety wood table near the carpeted area. “And I think you’re telling me this crap because you don’t have a real answer for how to kill the ancient one.”

  With a smug smile that spoke of satisfaction, the vampire hunter said, “And why would I bother? What would be the point? If I angered you enough, you could just kill me. You are a very powerful vampire.”

  Sorley groaned. “Now he’s tryin’ to flatter you.”

  Yusuf’s superior expression faded a bit. “Why would I do that?”

  Ronan stood over the wrinkled man, careful not to move with preternatural speed and make the vampire slayer think he meant to attack. “You know my word is my honor and that I promised to come here to listen. You really wanted me to screw your daughter and couldn’t think of another way to get me here.”

  At first the coot kept blank faced, but Ronan saw cunning flick through the white-robed man eyes. “Now that is a fine idea. I wish I’d actually thought of it. I say again, in the presence of one—nay two—strong vampires, it would be folly.”

  Ronan had enough. “More bullshit, Yusuf. You have a blocking spell in place. You invited us inside your home, but you put in place the spell first. Sorley and I could barely put a dent in your leathery hide. Now, unless you have more to tell us—”

  “Wait.” With a creaky groan the vampire hunter stood, walked past Sorley, then reached for the wine tankard. He poured more drink into his own goblet. “Your mind is shut against the worship of woman, but love can find you when you least want it. If it comes to you, it will give you the final strength you need to defeat the ancient one.”

  A fleeting memory of one elfin blonde pierced his memory. A thought so buried in the past it lived in the dust of time. “Love has eluded me.” He shoved the painful thought back where it belonged. “It will never come again.”

  Yusuf gave a weary sigh and looked at Sorley. “Your friend has much to learn, despite his many years as a vampire.”

  Sorley snorted. “Tell me about it.”

  With a disgusted glance at Sorley, Ronan growled, “What would be the purpose in loving a woman?”

  Yusfuf contemplated Ronan with serious, sorrowful eyes. “You must give the illusion of love in hope it will grow real if you cannot feel real love. Otherwise you will be defeated.”

  “So I just pick out some unwitting woman and pretend I love her?”

  “That is the way of it.” Before Ronan could refute the older man’s statement, Yusuf continued. “Now you must pay for this information. Selima is in the next room. We will listen to make sure you don’t deceive us.”

  “Us?” Ronan’s eyebrows went up.

  With a dry cackle, the old man slapped his knee. “Sorley, get out. My daughter and Ronan must copulate.”

  Copulate.

  Ronan hated that word, despised the fact that human vampire hunters still taunted their vampire cohorts with that bestial description for a vampire mating.

  “The shit one does for information, eh, Ronan?” Sorley chuckled. He stood and headed toward the door. “I’ll be outside waitin’. Don’t take too long.”

  Ronan almost threw his drink at Sorley. “Of all the vampires you know, you pick me to take her virginity?”

  The old man shook his head, a solemn expression erasing all triumph. “You know this man’s heart broke when the ancient one took my Selima across to the shadows.”

  Shadows. Over hundreds of years Ronan fought that evil place. He didn’t want to copulate with Selima, but if he didn’t he might sentence her to a withering death.

  “She must be taken now or she will die. She will not even be undead if you do not take her virginity. She will wither to ashes and be truly dead once and for all.” With trembling fingers Yusuf gripped Ronan’s forearm. “She may be undead, but at least she will be alive to her family. Give her what she needs.”

  “I know how it works, Yusuf,” Ronan said with a sense of inevitability. Ronan couldn’t believe a man would rather his daughter be a vampire than to allow her to die in peace.

  Ronan closed his eyes and sighed heavily. He couldn’t refuse.

  As Ronan headed toward the next room, he wondered if Selima would be beautiful or as plain as could be. In the end it wouldn’t matter. He should feel sympathy for young Selima and knew her days would be fraught with misery for years as she learned her place in this eternal life of the undead.

  Hardened to the facts, Ronan pulled back the curtain and joined Selima.

  * * * * *

  Erin tossed and turned, her night disturbed by dreams of a dark-haired man whose face she couldn’t quite see. His hands floated over her body, tantalizing her with promises of sensual delights and long evenings filled with heart-stopping ecstasy.

  You cannot resist me, Erin. I am the one.

  She moaned as a fire built between her legs, promising a new climax.

  Then, something unholy and disturbing intruded on the pleasure and a harsh voice screamed in her ear.

  No!

  Erin awoke and sat bolt upright in bed. Dull sunlight arrowed between the slats of the wooden shutters on her bedroom window. Her heart pounded as fear rolled in her gut. Another dull headache started at her temples, and she decided aspirin might be the only solution.

  Her small digital alarm clock started playing country music and she started in surprise. She reached over to turn it off. As the chill air in the bedroom took hold, she flopped back against her pillows and burrowed under the covers. Desire left over from the dream thrummed through her body in glorious waves, and she closed her eyes and sighed. Erin supposed a person could be frightened and excited all at one time. The combination of fear and shattering desire left her weak.

  How could something so decadent and unsavory feel so wonderful?

  Decadent, unsavory? Since when had sex become dirty to her? She’d never been a prude, but maybe her wild sexual awakening experience last night with Lachlan generated guilty feelings. Stupidity had never been her game. She didn’t play with men for pleasure. Two lovers in her entire life didn’t qualify her for adventurous status. She certainly didn’t do the wild thing without believing herself in love.

  A picture of Mike Tottenham filtered into her thoughts. Her college best friend and supporter for three years was also her first lover. Mike was a virgin, too, the first time they slept with each other.

  Then, years later, came Rick. Rick used and abused her love, and she didn’t think about him much after six years. Maybe the drought in her love life sent her into a mating frenzy last night. In any case, she wouldn’t be so stupid again, no matter how mesmerizing the intriguing Mr. Tavish seemed.

  The phone rang and she jumped again, and she put her hand on her chest. Demanding a response, the phone continued to ring until on the third chime she picked it up. She snuggled under the covers again.

  “Hi, darling.”

  “Mom?”

  Her mother’s gentle laugh came over the line. “Who else is brave enough to call you this early in the morning?”

  “Only you.”

  “This seems to be the time to catch you. I tried calling last night and got your answering device.”

  Device sounded like something unforgivable, like breaking a commandment.

  “Why didn’t you leave a message on the machine?”

  “You know how much I hate those things.”

  Erin restrained the urge to sigh. In fact, Marilyn Greenway rebelled against most new things, including e-mail, the Internet, and what she deemed loose morals. Somehow she managed to lump anything she didn’t agree with into one giant cesspool called depravity.

  “Darling,” her mother started, “we haven’t heard from you in a week. Dad and I were worried.”

  “Why?” Erin knew the answer, but decided to play dumb.

  “We always worry about you in that town. I mean, you’re hundreds of miles from home, and you don’t know anyone there.”

  Damn
you, mother. Don’t start with that lame argument again.

  “We talked about this before, Mom. This is a small town and generally very safe.”

  “But you don’t know anyone there.” A whining edge crept into her mother’s voice.

  Erin took a deep breath. “I’ve made several friends already.”

  Including a big, handsome, exciting Scotsman who makes me hot. How do you like them apples, Mom?

  Somehow friend didn’t quite describe her relationship with the mysterious man, but she wouldn’t tell her mother that.

  “We heard about those horrible attacks on those women. You can’t tell me that town is safe with that going on,” her mother said.

  Erin glanced at the clock and saw that if she didn’t get a move on, her mother’s call would make her late for work. “I’m being sensible. There’s no need to be overly concerned. You’re going to give yourself an ulcer.”

  “At least give us a call more than once a week. We want to make sure everything is all right.”

  Erin asserted her boundaries. “I’ll call as often as I can, Mom. Sometimes it gets busy at the library, and I’ve been working some overtime.” Itching to end the conversation, she said, “I’ve got to go. I want to be at work early this morning before the library actually opens.”

  After her mother hung up some time later, clearly not pleased that Erin didn’t plan to run home to Arizona, Erin set the receiver back into the cradle and stared at the phone in half triumph and a little disgust. She felt proud she hadn’t allowed her mother to run over her, but fighting the woman in every phone conversation became tiresome.

  Erin jumped into the shower. As she toweled off a short time later, she glanced in the mirror at her body. As every mirror was, it showed an unforgiving picture. She’d heard that you should love your body for what it was, but she found fault every time she looked. Then again, most women didn’t like what they saw when they took a peek in the mirror. Not that her body held excess fat, but she didn’t like her proportions. Her breasts were not exactly small or large, so she was satisfied with them. Her waist was small, but her hips flared more than she would like. Her thighs never firmed up much, no matter how hard she exercised. Cellulite managed to find her.

  Her narrow shoulders and collar bone looked delicate enough to snap. She traced her hands over her arms, then down over her chest as she did her breast exam. As she explored, she closed her eyes. It helped her concentrate.

  A fog filled her thoughts, sudden and drugging. She swayed on her feet as she imagined Lachlan’s hands in place of hers, warm and appreciative. He did a quick sweep over her breasts, then his fingers cupped over those rounded hips and warmed the outside of her thighs. He didn’t care about cellulite.

  Beautiful.

  The word whispered in her mind, and the splendor of his appreciation made another longing tremor prickle in her body.

  Up, up, his hands explored over her hips and then around to cup her butt cheeks. He squeezed and she felt that touch deep in her cunt. “Oh!”

  Oh, my God. It felt like her womb contracted.

  Deep, sexual desire blossomed with amazing quickness.

  As Lachlan’s fingers reached her nipples they tweaked with a gentle pluck that sent a lightning bolt sensation between her legs. She quivered and gasped in surprise. Soft, exciting desire slipped over her body, tingling like a mini fire in her blood. It almost tickled. Wandering hands circled and rotated all around her breasts until they came to her nipples again. Tender pressure built as he cupped her fully in each hand, then leaned forward and flicked one nipple with his tongue. She moaned softly and her eyes snapped open.

  Gazing in the mirror, she trembled. Stunned by the realistic feelings, she couldn’t look away. What she saw in the mirror didn’t show the woman she’d known all these years. A hot flush covered her neck and then her face and unexpected trickling moisture started between her legs.

  She inhaled deeply and tried to return to reality.

  Did I imagine Lachlan’s touch and voice?

  Erin rubbed her hands over her cheeks in frustration. Now she’d let her imagination take complete control. Ridiculous. The next thing she knew, she’d picture him in full naked glory with his cock sunk deep inside her.

  No. She shook her head and finished toweling her hair. Now she knew her brain had gone around the bend.

  A man like Lachlan was knee-buckling powerful. Overtly sexual. Too everything for a woman like her.

  “I’m better off with someone like Danny Fortesque, the cop.”

  She chuckled. Maybe not. Danny didn’t exactly blow her skirt up.

  Later, as she ate yogurt and coffee, she wondered why one gorgeous man could occupy so much of her thoughts.

  She turned her musings away from Lachlan and back to her family. Despite their best effort to keep her from it, Erin wanted reality with a thirst and desire that nagged at her every day. Leaving Arizona had been one of the ways she’d asserted her independence, a long overdue move that she wished she’d accomplished years ago. She’d be damned if her mother would suck her back into total insecurity again.

  No dwelling on the past. The future stands before me.

  She turned on the radio and listen to local news as she finished puttering in the kitchen. She tossed the yogurt container into the trash when the announcer’s words froze her to the spot.

  “Late last night Mrs. Eliza Pickles was assaulted near the library. Police are withholding many details at this time, but it’s suspected that robbery was not the motive since her purse wasn’t stolen.”

  A dark, worrisome apprehension coursed through Erin. “Oh, my God.”

  She didn’t have much use for Eliza Pickles. Erin went into the older woman’s antique store once and learned she didn’t care for the woman’s I-know-more-than-you-about-anything attitude or her puritanical ideas. Yet she never would have wished something that horrible to happen to the old lady.

  “Police say that as soon as more details become available there will be a press conference.”

  Erin stared at a spot on the floor, shocked as she acknowledged that maybe her own premonition of fear last night hadn’t been so far off. Then another hideous thought came to mind. Lachlan Tavish knew it wasn’t safe near the library. What if he was the culprit? Had she been kissing a madman?

  Suddenly the illicit memory of his lips on hers no longer tantalized her. She stood without moving, her fear trying to rise over common sense. Perhaps she should tell the police about Lachlan’s warning of danger.

  She wanted to build her new future here in Pine Forest, seductive Scotsman not withstanding. If Lachlan showed up again, she’d be sure to contact the police with her suspicions.

  With her feet planted firmly in reality, she left for work.

  Chapter 5

  From the quiet in the library, the vampire thought he heard a breath a hundred feet away. He watched the children playing, a few of them looking about as if they might feel his presence. He smiled.

  Poor little tykes couldn’t see him. He’d made sure his shields stayed too strong for detection. It wouldn’t serve his purposes for sensitive children to notice him and run screaming down the stairs. Never mind the adults wouldn’t believe the children, it still made a commotion and broke his serenity.

  In silence, so the most inquisitive child wouldn’t even imagine a whisper of his sound, he moved toward the main stairway. As he glided, he wondered how humans stood being so anemic with their weak hearing and weaker muscles. Before immortality his life had seemed pleasant enough, but the things he saw, knew, felt…ah, yes. Everything he could achieve now outweighed all regrets for a mortal life.

  Blood.

  He required blood like humans needed oxygen. Without blood he transformed to the dead, no longer the undead, but a rot in the bowels of the earth. He became nothing more than human.

  In that moment he was more than thankful for the one who’d brought him over and transformed the end of his life. For, in his present state, he cou
ld do and be anything he wanted, any time he wished.

  As he watched Erin from his hiding place between the pale rays of light illuminating the room, he wondered if he’d waited too long to possess her. He’d considered tantalizing her in her dreams, when she would be most defenseless. Instead he stayed in the shadows, in the quiet corners of this library and watched the comings and goings of the oblivious. Humans continued to disgust him more than ever.

  Except for Erin.

  She gave him a special light, a dawn appreciation for the humanity he’d never had, even before he became undead. Oh, he knew it. He realized his civilization fled long ago. Before Dasoria had been staked by humans and taken from him…before he became the undead himself.

  He didn’t care. Mortals abhorred all he stood for, and yet craved his darkness in the most rudimentary parts of their brains. In their most twisted dreams, they loved him and the mystery he brought to their lives. They envisioned him as a blood sucker much like fabled Dracula, yet they failed miserably in their assumptions. How awful, how terrified they’d become, if they knew his true form. He sighed, content for the moment to watch, to prey, to stalk.

  With a smile he watched Erin and waited.

  * * * * *

  “Did you hear?” Gilda asked Erin as she greeted her in the library’s small employee lounge. “About Mrs. Pickles?”

  Erin hung her coat in the closet and reached for a mug. “Yes. Horrible news.”

  Gilda’s long, red hair fell forward as she looked down to stir powered cream into her coffee. Freckles stood out on her long nose. Her soft voice, touched with nuances of her upbringing in Savannah, Georgia, made her sound gracious and refined no matter the situation. “It was in the Sentinel this morning that she was attacked late last night near this block of the street.”

  Erin almost dropped her mug, and hot coffee splashed onto the counter. “I know. It’s very strange. Gives me the creeps, as you can see.”

  “I guess she was coming home from her bridge game over at Bethany Segal’s house. Walking instead of driving, I understand. I don’t know why any woman in this town would consider walking that late at night.”