Eternally

by Maureen Child

  something.

  “Damn it.” He let his sword arm drop as his gaze fixed on the body stretched out in the dirt before him.

  A young man, Kieran guessed him to be no more than thirty, lay empty and dead atop the hill, wide eyes staring at a sky he could no longer see. A surprised expression was stamped forever on the man’s features and Kieran couldn’t help wondering why they always looked so stunned. Inviting a demon into your body was never going to end well—and yet, there were always those eager to experience it.

  Going down into a crouch beside the body, Kieran squinted into the darkness and just caught a slight blurring of color outlining the corpse. A pitiful mockery of a rainbow, those hazy, indistinct colors always clung to a disposed-of body as the demon left it. And, since the remains of the demon’s energy signature were still fading from the man’s body, the demon hadn’t been gone long.

  Which meant, Kieran thought as he stood and let his gaze slide across the surrounding openness, he had missed the demon by only moments. The beast must have sensed his presence and decided to leave the body quickly.

  And so it began.

  Just as in Whitechapel.

  Hopping from body to body, the demon would slash and torture its way through the city. It would bury itself in the heart and mind of any willing, dark soul and use it to commit the murders it craved. Even now, the demon was claiming someone new. Somewhere in the city, a human was welcoming the demon into their body, feeding on the demon’s strength and rage as surely as it fed from them.

  Kieran slid his sword back into the scabbard at his side with a whisper of steel on steel. There was nothing more to be learned here. The body was no more than an empty vessel now, its original owner already on his way to hell.

  The demon could be anywhere and Kieran would now have to wait to track it. To wait for the next murder. The next clue. The next hint of trace energy staining the air.

  He glanced down at the dead man who had hosted the demon while it killed and shook his head. “You were a fool. And now you’re paying. If you know what’s good for you,” he added as he turned to stride back down the hill to where his car waited, “you’ll go back to hell where you belong.”

  Julie disconnected from the Internet and closed her laptop. Two days she’d been at the Bonaventure and it already felt like two years. The room was too small to even enjoy pacing. She felt as though she were in a cage and yet she couldn’t make herself leave, either.

  Is this what it would be like from now on? Would she always live in fear? She didn’t like it. Didn’t like feeling powerless and on edge. Didn’t want to become the kind of person who hid from life because of the terrors that might happen.

  And yet, she’d already lived through a close call that very few people ever experienced. A killer had walked through her home. Had killed one friend and grievously injured the other. Could have killed Julie.

  “Why didn’t he?” she asked aloud of the empty room. Picking up a pencil, she tapped the eraser end against a stack of papers. The steady thumping sound was almost like another heartbeat and she was desperate enough to almost pretend it was. Better than being alone.

  Shaking her head, she tossed the pencil down and tried to understand how she had escaped injury that night. Was it only because of Kieran’s warnings? Had hiding in her room behind a locked door really kept her safe? Or was Alicia the target all along and she would have been safe no matter what?

  There were weird people in the world, she knew that. As a reporter, she’d done plenty of stories on them. And Alicia had been an actress. She’d been in a dozen or more TV shows—small parts, but wasn’t that enough for a crazed stalker to fixate on her? Had Kate just been an afterthought? Wrong place, wrong time?

  “Oh God.” This wasn’t helping. She wasn’t accomplishing anything and that made her nuts. She was far more used to doing something. To working. To digging into a situation and figuring it out from all angles. She laid one hand on the stack of paper on the desk. Her portable printer had been pretty damn busy over the last couple of days. She’d punched Kieran MacIntyre’s name into the Internet and had followed every thread she’d been given. There were always pockets of information to be mined. Always secrets to be revealed and truths to be uncovered. Yet she’d found surprisingly little on the reclusive gazillionaire. Nothing on a family. Where he grew up. How he’d amassed his fortune.

  “But on the upside,” she muttered as she stood and walked to the wide windows, “no mention of him being a psycho, either.” She’d gone as deep in her search as she was able and had found no mention of psychiatric troubles, brushes with the law…nothing.

  Which was just a little infuriating to the reporter inside her. There was always information. Always. People didn’t live a life and leave no mark. And yet, Kieran MacIntyre appeared to have managed just that. She pulled back the edge of the draperies she kept closed and hungrily stared at the world outside, like a prisoner being led out of solitary confinement for an hour in the yard. Sunset stained the sky with deep colors of gold and rose, painting the edges of the high, dark clouds that had threatened—but not delivered—rain all day.

  Somewhere out there, the killer was going about his life. Maybe sitting in a restaurant. Or going to a movie. Or was locked in a traffic jam on the 405. He would be thinking about the murders. Enjoying the memories. Julie shivered and her fingers curled tightly into the sand-colored, heavy polyester drapes. He was free, moving around the city, and she was trapped in a hotel room, terrified.

  Yeah, that was fair.

  “Nothing about this is fair,” she reminded herself. “Kate doesn’t deserve to be in the hospital and Alicia doesn’t deserve to be dead.”

  The hotel TV was tuned to the news and she turned to watch when she heard the newscaster mention the words “Hollywood Slasher.”

  Alicia’s picture flashed on the screen following a shot of the first woman who’d been found dead on Hollywood Boulevard. Julie wrapped her arms around her middle, held her breath and listened as the indifferent anchor read the information and even managed to smile at his audience.

  “A few dead women mean nothing more than a story to them,” Julie said, disgusted both with the news guy for his cavalier attitude and herself for watching. She picked up the remote, flicked the TV off and winced at the sudden silence of the room. She was never going to make it here. She couldn’t stay in this hotel room, wondering what the hell was going on out there. She had to do something. Anything.

  Maybe she should have told the police about MacIntyre. About his warning. About his damn sword, for God’s sake. But she hadn’t. Something instinctive had kept her silent and now, she wondered if she’d done the right thing.

  A knock on her door startled her enough that she jumped, then laughed at herself for the nerves pulsing inside. “Probably just the room service guy,” she muttered, walking to the door and pausing before opening it to peer through the peephole.

  Pale blue eyes looked back at her, their intensity rocking her back on her heels even as a wild rush of something she didn’t want to explore too fully filled her.

  “Open the door.”

  Kieran’s deep voice rumbled through the door and seemed to dance on every one of her nerve endings. Julie’s fingers shook and her heartbeat quickened into a hard, slamming gallop in her chest.

  “What do you want?” Stall, she thought, even while she was reaching to undo the locks.

  “Woman, I need to talk to you and I don’t intend to do it from the hall. Open the door or I will.”

  She swallowed hard, her hand stilling on the flip lock at the top of the door. What kind of moron would it make her if she let this man into her room? A killer was loose out there and for all she knew it was him. But even as that thought jolted through her brain, she argued the point. He wasn’t the killer. He’d had plenty of time and opportunity to kill her the night of the party—not to mention the following day. Maybe, though, her brain warned, this is the plan. Maybe he likes getting women to tr
ust him before he kills them.

  “Then I’m safe,” she murmured. “Because I don’t trust him.”

  Still watching him through the peephole, she saw his eyes narrow and a muscle in his jaw twitch with an angry jump. She could practically see him vibrating with banked strength, power and frustration. After a long moment, he sighed and said tightly, “Yes. You do trust me. You don’t want to. But you do.”

  That pushed her into action. Jumping away from the door, she angrily slammed the lock off, opened the door and glared at him. “Stay out of my mind, okay?”

  He walked past her, stepping into the room and making it seem to shrink in size by his very presence. She slammed the door behind him, wincing at the blast of sound. He stood in the center of the room, gaze sliding around the impersonal space as if searching for a danger she hadn’t noticed yet.

  “I did not have to listen to your thoughts to know you trust me,” he said, turning slowly to face her. “You haven’t told the police about me.”

  “Maybe I was waiting for the right time.”

  “You’re not. You won’t tell them anything.”

  “You seem pretty sure of yourself,” she snapped, leaning back against the door and folding her arms across her chest in what she knew was a classic defensive pose.

  His eyes were implacable. Pale and cold, they were filled with shadows of thoughts she couldn’t read. Didn’t want to understand. And yet she felt better having him here. Oh God, she’d been alone too long. Alone, her thoughts had room to roam and an unlimited imagination to feed on. Danger clung to him like a lover—but she didn’t feel personally threatened. Was she fooling herself? Was she making a deadly mistake just allowing him to get this close to her?

  “What do you want?” she asked, unfolding her arms and shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Why are you here?”

  “To get you out of here.”

  Only a few minutes ago, she’d been longing for the same damn thing. Now, though, she instantly went on the offensive. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I cannot keep hunting the demon while protecting you here.”

  “You’ve been—” Her mouth dropped open.

  “Watching you, yes.”

  She’d felt unseen eyes on her every time she peered through the drapes, which is exactly why she’d been keeping them closed. But hearing him admit that he’d been watching was a little unsettling. “Why?”

  “You know why,” he said shortly. “The killer is aware of you. You’re in danger.”

  A cold hand closed around her heart and a bone-deep chill swept through her. “From the killer, not from you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “I will not play this unamusing game with you again, Julie Carpenter.” He moved so quickly she hardly caught the blur of action. And then he was standing in front of her, his hands on her upper arms, his fingers digging into her skin beneath her charcoal-gray cashmere sweater. Pulling her up and away from the door, his grip on her tightened and his gaze speared into hers. “You know I am no threat to you. I can protect you. But not while you’re here.”

  On her toes, she struggled for balance, but knew she wouldn’t find it. Even if she was flat-footed and steady on the floor, having his hands on her, his gaze locked with hers, she wouldn’t feel steady. The scent of him, a spicy cologne, leather and male filled her, clouding her mind, fogging her judgment.

  Heat flashed from his hands into her arms to ricochet around inside her chest like a fireball. Her breath strangled in her chest, her throat tightened and her mouth went dry. She stared into his eyes and swore she could see a soul as old as time.

  What?

  “Only I can protect you,” he said, his breath warm on her face.

  “Why should I believe that?” she heard herself say and silently congratulated herself on being able to speak at all.

  “Because you know I told you the truth before. This killer is a demon. Only I can find it. Only I can keep you safe from it.”

  “I don’t believe in demons,” she said quietly. “Evil, yes. But not demons.”

  “They are as real as you and I,” he said and pulled her even closer, his mouth now only a breath from hers. “And this one will not be stopped until I stop it.”

  His eyes caught her and like a master hypnotist, he eased her with a look. Calmed her with a touch. Heated her with his voice. Julie lifted both hands, laying them palms flat on his chest. The cool of his black leather coat beneath her hands felt real. Solid. The beating of his heart assured her he was human, despite what he insisted his quarry was.

  In the last few days, her entire world, everything she knew and counted on had been changed irrevocably. And in the ashes that were her life now, Kieran MacIntyre was the only thing that made sense anymore. How twisted was that?

  “Will you come with me?”

  She couldn’t stay in the hotel indefinitely. She couldn’t go home. There was really only one choice left.

  “Yes.”

  Having her this close to him was a distraction Kieran couldn’t afford. But he had little choice in the matter. The demon had switched bodies and it had been two days since its last kill, so there was no trail to follow. He would have to wait until the beast made its next move before finding its scent again.

  For now, all he could do was settle Julie where he knew she would be safe and continue to stalk the hills and alleys surrounding Hollywood.

  “How long have you lived here?” she asked as a pair of high, scrolled iron gates swung open at the approach of his car.

  “A long time.” He wouldn’t give her more. She wouldn’t believe him if he told her the truth and besides, he had no interest in giving her even more information. Destined Mate or not, he had no place for her in his life. If he could use her to make his powers stronger, to help him track and capture the demon, all well and good.

  But the thought of an eternity with a Mate left him cold. He steered the car along the narrow, tree-lined driveway as it climbed the hill overlooking Los Angeles. Fifty years he’d lived in this house, long enough that now, to keep rumors from spreading and growing, he was pretending to be his own son. Immortality was fine in its way. But stay in one place too long and there were questions asked that had no answers. Another gate yawned open at the top of the hill and swung closed behind him as he drove through, approaching the house.

  “Not much for visitors, are you?” she asked.

  He glanced at her in the dim light and saw a wry smile curving her mouth.

  “No.”

  “Well, that was honest, anyway.”

  “Here is more honesty for you,” he said as he steered around the last curve of the driveway and parked before a massive home that looked more like an ancient Scottish fortress than a home in Hollywood. “If you attempt to write any type of story about me, my home or anything else you see while you’re here—I’ll sue. You and your newspaper.”

  Both of her dark red eyebrows lifted. “Gee. Honest and friendly. Look, I’m not here as a reporter, so chill out, okay?”

  “Fine.” He shut off the engine and opened his door. Pausing, he said, “Go inside. I will bring your bags.”

  She stepped out of the car and whistled, low and long as she swept her gaze over the home that he’d had built so many years before. Kieran moved to the trunk, reached in and got her bag, then closed it again. He watched her as she studied his home and he tried to see it as she was, with fresh eyes. Hewn gray stone climbed for three stories. Leaded glass windows sparkled with lamplight. Tower rooms on all four corners of the building boasted wide, unobstructed views of the valley and the city sprawling at the foot of the hill. And on the roof, actual battlements jutted up from the stone, giving him a place to walk, to think, to be under the stars while planning his next hunt.

  She swiveled her head to look at him. “This is amazing.”

  He gave her an abrupt nod. “Thank you.”

  She followed him as he headed up
the flagstone steps toward the wide, oak double doors. “I can’t believe I’ve never seen a picture of this place. Architectural magazines alone would love to photograph it.”

  He glanced at her over his shoulder. “This is my home. It is not a curiosity.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said, taking the steps while craning her head back to admire the sweep of stone and glass. “It’s both. If people knew what this place was like…”

  He stopped dead and she ran right into him. His gaze fixed on hers, he waited, silent.

  Finally she held up both hands. “Fine. Right. No stories. No pictures.”

  Nodding, he flung the door open and stepped back for her to precede him inside. She did and a sigh of appreciation sifted to him on the lemon oil scented air.

  Electric light spilled from the library on the left, into the marble-floored entry. Framed paintings almost as tall as Kieran lined the walls that hugged each side of a hallway that appeared at least a mile long. An elegant swirl of crystal held an immense bouquet of sterling roses on a small polished table at the foot of the enormous stone staircase leading upstairs.

  Julie spun in a slow circle, taking it all in, her mouth hanging wide, her eyes sparkling with delight as she noted every detail. And surprisingly, Kieran felt a sharp stab of pleasure seeing her appreciation of the home he loved.

  “This is…awesome,” she said, her gaze finally shifting to him. Her smile was bright, her eyes wide as she said, “Really. It’s just amazing.”

  “Thank you.” He carried her bags up the stairs and she followed just a step or two behind him, her tennis shoes silent on the stone. On the second floor, he walked to the fourth door on the right, then swung it open and stepped back. Julie walked inside and stopped just over the threshold.

  At first glance of the house, she’d been stunned into near speechlessness. Now, that feeling only multiplied. The walls were painted a soft, dreamy blue and a cherrywood, four-poster bed wide enough for five people to sleep in comfortably was the focal point.