by Maggie Shayne, MaryJanice Davidson, Angela Knight, Jacey Ford
Her throat went tight. "I—"
"Don't even twitch," Peter shouted from the darkness. "You're completely surrounded."
* * *
CH@%!*R 11
Michael's hands tightened on hers, and his eyes held hers for an instant before shifting past her to scan the darkness around them.
"Step away from him, Kira, or I'll drop you both where you stand."
She glanced downward, seeing her gun belts on the ground, concealed by the grass. "He's not well, Peter. He can barely stand on his own."
"Back away from him."
So they can kill him, she thought. Peter would take me alive, avenge his wounded pride before he finished me off.
She met Michael's eyes, then shifted hers downward, toward the guns in the grass nearby. She saw him follow her gaze.
"He'll drop like a rock if I let him go."
"He's gonna drop like a rock either way. Back off."
She met his eyes again, prayed he would do what she wanted him to do. Then she brought her hands to her sides, backing two steps away, deliberately staying between Michael and Peter. Michael slumped to the ground.
"Kill him," she heard Peter say.
Michael shouted, "Down, Kira!" And even as she dropped to her knees, he rose up onto his, tossing one gun to her with his wounded hand, while firing the other one in the direction of Peter's voice. The meadow exploded in gunfire.
Kira caught her weapon, turned and dropped to her belly in the grass, putting her back to Peter, firing at the muzzle flashes around them, one after the other. Gun smoke rose, because they were all so close and firing so rapidly. It stung her eyes, choked her.
And then the shooting stopped all at once.
She lay still a moment, trying to see through the smoke. It hovered there, in the heavy air, not rising or dissipating as fast she wished it would. "Michael?" she called softly, half expecting the sound of her voice to draw more gunfire.
When it didn't, she pushed herself upright. "Michael?"
No reply. She walked through the mists, trying to find her way and realized slowly that the sun was rising. Its rays pierced the mist, to fall upon bodies in the grass. Peter's body, those of his men. Bloody, still, lifeless. Dead, all of them.
"Michael?"
She searched for him, through the smoke and now the mist rising from the lake as well, and suddenly she was back in Africa. Blood was trickling down her face from the wound to her head, and she staggered as she walked through the rubble and smoke, searching for her father.
And then she found him. He lay beneath a pile of debris, and she fell to her knees, pushing it aside, gathering him to her. They'd been angry enemies for months by then, but suddenly, it didn't matter. "Dad. God, Dad, are you all right?"
His face was ashen, but his eyes blinked open, met hers. "Kira."
"I'll get help," she promised. "Lie still, I'll get help."
He clutched her hand in a grip surprisingly fierce. "No. Listen. Listen to me, daughter." She blinked, staring down at him. "I was wrong," he told her. "I was wrong, Kira. Michael's a good man. Maybe… the best I've ever known."
"What are you saying?" she asked, stroking his head.
"Your mother—she hasn't been happy in our marriage. Too many secrets. Too much I have to hide from her. But you… you're not your mother. You're strong. And you know."
"Mom loves you," she assured him.
"And suffers for it. I didn't want that for you. But… he loves you, Kira. You marry Michael. You tell him… tell him I'm sorry."
"You can tell him yourself." She bent closer, kissed his cheek. "I'm going to get help."
He nodded. "I love you, Kira. Be happy."
Then his eyes fell closed, and she knew he was gone. Even though she searched for a pulse, she knew he was gone, and when she saw the hole in his chest, she knew there was no chance to revive him. She held him in her arms, and she cried, until, swamped with dizziness and weakness, she let him go and fell to the ground beside him. Moments later, Michael was leaning over her, whispering her name, and she was staring up at him, trying to speak. And then there was only darkness.
The memory faded, and she was kneeling beside Michael, lifting his head, searching his body. Blood pulsed from a chest wound, and she pressed her hand to it to slow it down.
"Michael," she whispered. "Open your eyes. Listen to me. You are not dying, do you hear me? You are not leaving me, not now."
His eyes opened. He seemed short of breath, but focused, conscious, aware.
"I love you, Michael," she told him. "I don't just remember loving you, I feel it, maybe more so now than ever before. I love you so much it's overwhelming. It's all-consuming. Don't leave me."
He smiled weakly.
"Michael, I remember that final day. I remember what happened before I lost consciousness. I found Dad. He lay there, dying, but with his final breaths, he gave us his blessing. He said you were the best man he'd ever known. He loved you, you know."
Closing his eyes slowly, Michael whispered, "Thank you for that. It means… so much."
"It isn't gonna mean a damn thing if you don't hang on for me. God, Michael, I've been so empty. Walking around like a hollow shell. A body without a soul. And I know what was missing, now, Michael, because I've found it again. It was us. It was you."
She waited for his reply, but there wasn't one. He'd passed out. Or died.
She heard something then—the cell phone, ringing. She dug it from Michael's pocket and hit the button. "Where the hell are you guys?"
"Kira? Holy, shit, Kira, you almost sound like your old self."
She recognized Kelly's voice, not as her mother's housekeeper, but as a colleague. "I'm back," Kira told her. "The bad guys are dead, and Michael is down. We need a chopper."
"We're on the way," Kelly barked. Then, more softly, "Welcome home, Kira."
She was holding his hand, having put in the longest night of her life, when he woke in the hospital bed. He looked around the room, looked at her, smiled a little, and it even reached his eyes. "Hey, beautiful."
She was far from beautiful, she thought. Though her mother had brought her a change of clothes, she'd refused to leave her husband's bedside long enough to shower. Her mom brought her a basin of warm water, some soap, and deodorant, then stood guard at the door while she washed up beside the bed.
She looked down at the clothes her mother had chosen. A dressy pantsuit, far from her usual attire. "Not exactly what I would have chosen," Kira said.
"I do love you in leather," he said. "Better out of it, though."
His voice was coarse, and she reached for the water pitcher, poured some into a glass, and then held the flexible straw to his lips.
He drank, then let his head rest on the pillows.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Weak as a kitten. A little groggy. Not sure if I'm remembering what really happened, or if it's a bad case of wishful thinking."
She leaned over him, pressed her mouth to his. "You want me to climb into that bed and refresh your memory?"
He smiled against her lips. "Damn straight I do, so long as you don't mind doing all the work."
"I always liked being on top," she said.
Then she sat on the edge of his bed, better to cradle his head to her chest. "You're gonna be okay," she told him. "They got the bullet out of your chest. It missed your heart. You'll be fine."
"I've never been more glad to be alive, Kira."
"Neither have I." She sat up a little, but couldn't keep her hands off him, and so she stroked his shoulders, upper arms, occasionally his face as she spoke. "I had a long talk with Mom," she said. "Explained to her that I've been a deep-cover DEA agent for the past five years and that the whole thing with Peter was just a ploy to bust him for drug trafficking, and I was already married. To you."
"Must have broken her heart."
Kira smiled widely. "You know what she said?" She went on without waiting for an answer. "She said she kept wishing I w
asn't engaged, because she would have managed to throw you and me together. She loved you from the minute she met you—in your guise as wedding planner."
"She said that?"
She drew an X across her chest with a forefinger. He nodded, smiling.
Then his smile died and he looked at her neck, frowning. "Where's… ?"
"My ring?" She held up her hand, showing him her wedding band, resting right where it belonged, on her finger. "I told you before, Michael. I love you. I want our life back. I want you back."
He closed his hand around hers. "You never lost me, babe." He glanced toward the door. "So you gonna lock that door and climb into this bed with me or what?"
She smiled, got to her feet, and went to the door, then she came slowly back to the bed, still smiling. "Now, you've been injured," she said. "I don't want to do anything that might hurt you. So I want you to lie perfectly still. Understand?"
"I'll do my best."
She kissed his jawline, his neck, and reached her hand underneath the covers to stroke him. "You just let me take care of you."
"Anytime," he said. "But there will be payback."
She squeezed him. "Oh, I'm counting on it."
* * *
The Incredible Misadventures
of Boo and the Boy Blunder
MARYJANICE DAVIDSON
* * *
For Jessica Growette,
who takes time away from her job
and family to help my books do well.
* * *
Acknowledgments
Thanks as always to Cindy Hwang, for asking, and to my husband, for doing.
* * *
Author's Note
There are vampire hunters, and there are albinos, but usually they aren't one and the same.
"Friends are such a mixed blessing."
—Berkeley Breathed
* * *
PROLOGUE
Although she hadn't been in his bar for five months and eighteen days, Jim knew her the minute she walked in. He would have known her anywhere, any place.
She looked exactly the same, though she had been coming to Doule's, on and off, for ten years.
Shoulder-length white hair. Not blond… white. Skin like milk. Eyes so pale a blue she looked blind… or like she had seen too much, and it had burned away all the trivialities in her.
Full mouth, long neck, and real long legs… he was six foot three and only had a couple of inches on her. High tits, firm and not too big. She was dressed in dark colors—she always dressed that way, as if to emphasize her striking coloring. Black jeans, a black T-shirt, black boots. Shit-kicker boots.
She sat down at the bar—though it was Friday night, a seat had instantly emptied for her—and nodded at him. He nodded back and had her drink—a Black Russian—in front of her a few seconds later.
She grunted her thanks and bent to her reading material. She was reading the obituary section of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He had never seen her read anything else, although they were in Boston.
It was just one more mystery about her. He didn't know her real name—everyone called her Ghost. But never to her face. He didn't know where she lived, but he suspected the Twin Cities; when she occasionally spoke, she didn't drop her r's and sounded, to his born-and-bred Weymouth ears, a little flat. He didn't know how old she was—her face was perfectly unlined; she could have been twenty-five or fifty-five.
He'd never seen her driver's license; it wasn't that kind of bar. If you were tough enough to get through the door, you could drink whatever the hell you wanted. And if you wanted to pay cash and leave without a receipt, that was fine, too.
He knew she was mesmerizing, stunning. And tough. Her job
(bounty hunter?)
took her to the area several times a year. Once
(FBI profiler?)
she'd come in without her jacket, wearing a black tank, and he'd noticed the muscle definition in her arms.
(traveling lumberjack?)
Sleek and pale and hard, like marble.
He knew she drank Black Russians and never had more than two an evening. He knew she occasionally carried a Beretta in a shoulder holster and her purse was full of spare clips. She always tipped 20 percent, and she never showed up two nights in a row.
He supposed he had a crush on her, a fragile one. It was a crush that wouldn't hold up under reality. She was probably in pharmaceutical sales and got the muscles working out in a health club like a gerbil on a wheel.
She was probably a perfectly ordinary person. The regulars let her through because she had a stony beauty, not because she was tough. And she probably read a Minnesota paper because she had a boyfriend there, or something boring like that.
He didn't especially care. He enjoyed seeing her the few times a year, and wondering. He'd never ask, she'd never tell, and things worked fine.
* * *
CH@%!*R 1
Boo Miller had just settled on her favorite stool in her favorite bar in her favorite city when she saw the tourist come in.
Tourist. When you hung out in places like Doule's, a tourist was defined simply as someone who did not belong. Doule's was a place for disgraced cops, con men (and women), thieves, parolees, and telemarketers. Not clean-cut boys slumming before going back to the Financial District first thing Monday.
That was okay. He wasn't just a tourist now; he was bait. It would make her job a helluva lot easier. And she had to give the boy toy snaps for even getting out of his car in this neighborhood, never mind coming inside.
"Excuse me," he was saying to Jim, the barkeep. Jim was typical of his clientele: Instead of a barbed wire tattoo around his biceps, he wore actual barbed wire. His nose had been broken at least twice, and he kept a twelve-gauge shotgun beneath the bar. Everyone knew it was there (well, everyone but the boy toy), and everyone knew Jim wouldn't hesitate to use it. Slugs would bring down a grown man just as easily as they'd take a ten-point buck. That's why everyone got along so well.
"What?" Jim asked, no inflection in the word at all.
"My cell's dead, and I've got a flat… do you mind if I use your phone?"
Boo shook her head without looking up.
"Pay phone's out back," Jim said.
"Oh." The bait seemed a little surprised, then resigned. "Well, okay. Sorry to bother you." Boy toy practically tiptoed through the filth on the floor (a stimulating combination of flat beer, piss, and mop water), and headed toward the back.
And the vampire got up to follow him.
Boo knew he'd do it. He couldn't help it, any more than a starving dog couldn't help stuffing itself and then puking. Bad neighborhood, clean-cut victim, a back ally behind a bar where the patrons wouldn't ask questions, or even look up—the boy toy might as well have written his blood type on his forehead.
After a minute, she went out after them.
* * *
CH@%!*R 2
It wasn't the worst night of Eddie Batley's life (his father's funeral still held the top spot), but it was close. First, his supervisor had busted him on all the surfing. The IT department had ratted him out, buncha spying brownshirts. "Jawhol, Human Resources! Vee haff caught zee spy!" He was amazed that they had nothing better to do… then remembered they really didn't. Making sure nobody had any fun at work was literally what they were paid for.
Then he'd had to work late, to make up for the time spent surfing. Then he'd left his cell phone in the car but hadn't plugged it in, so the battery conked out. Then he'd headed over to his ex-girlfriend's place to put in a cameo for her engagement party, had stupidly taken a shortcut, and blown a tire in quite possibly the worst neighborhood in the state.
His own fault… in Boston, it was prudent to stick to the path. Shortcuts were a bad idea, especially in a town where to create streets they'd simply paved the cow paths and called it good.
Now he was being mugged. Mugged! He felt like Comic Book Guy in The Simpsons: Worst. Episode. Ever!
Eddie wasn't especially big, and
he wasn't especially strong—he led a sedentary life. But the mugger had muscles on muscles, because Eddie actually felt his feet leave the ground as the mugger pulled him close. Kissing close, as a matter of fact. As a further matter of fact, Eddie didn't swing that way. As a final matter of fact, the mugger wasn't going anywhere near his wallet. He was—uh—was he—
"Ow!" Eddie yelled. Worst mugging ever! The guy had bitten him on the neck, like some kind of—of—
Then the mugger dropped him, and just when Eddie was ready to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, the mugger fell down dead with a big stick poking through his shirt.
That's when Eddie saw the mongo-babe who'd been in the bar earlier. She was standing right behind where the mugger had been.
He'd never heard her come up behind them.
"What the hell is going on?" he yelled.
"Go home," mongo-babe said, poking the mugger with the toe of her boot.
* * *
CH@%!*R 3
"Wait wait wait. This is… a vampire, right?"
"Was," the babe said. She bent, pulled out the stick—stake, rather—and it slid out with sickening ease. "Past tense."
"And you're a vampire slayer."
" 'Bye," she said, whipping a wetnap pack out of her purse—ubiquitous in any woman's purse, with all the steamed lobster in town—tearing it, pulling out the nap, and wiping the blood off the end of the stake.
"Holy shit!" He was officially freaking out. Was he? Yep, he was. "I can't believe it! They're real! You're real."
The supercool vampire slayer grunted. Not much for conversation, but then, when you were heart-stoppingly gorgeous, he supposed you didn't have to be. He'd never seen a woman with such striking coloring before—her hair was silvery white, and so were her eyebrows. Her skin was almost as light as her hair. In the poor light of the alley, she almost seemed to glow. She looked like a beautiful ghost.
