Stain of Midnight

by Cassandra Moore

  Sonja didn’t speak enough Italian to understand what she said. The tone said plenty. Security forces would probably surround Pirelli’s home within a matter of minutes. “You said she tended to kill other vampires. Why would she throw in with Kiplinger?”

  “Desperation? Boredom? We have never known what Teresa Espina would do, or why she would do it.” Pirelli strode up the hallway, Gaeta on the phone close behind. “We have heard rumors of Teresa over the years since she disappeared. Mostly from our assassins, bounty hunters, and guards. She still has a price on her head no one has collected. They say they have found her. They go after her. Then we find their bodies in pieces, if we find them at all. If we are very lucky, the vampires wherever she was located do not also end up dead. We believe her responsible for the deaths of more than one hundred coteries.”

  Sonja did have to trot to keep up this time. “The pack went after Kiplinger. Teresa could be there with him.”

  “Then I wish them much luck in killing her. May they accomplish what my kind have failed to. Werewolves are the natural check-and-balance for vampires, I am often reminded.”

  “But Teresa will kill them! We have to do something!” She reached out to grab Pirelli’s shoulder.

  Gaeta caught her wrist in a vice-like grip. Fangs peeked out from her upper lip, and she glared with implacable anger at Sonja. She glowered back, feeling fur scurry down her spine.

  But Pirelli reached out to touch Gaeta’s hand. The bodyguard released her grip. Pirelli’s eyes held nothing but cold sympathy. “You are right. We do need to do something. I need to fortify my home in case she comes here. And you need to prepare to mourn the other wolves. We cannot help them with this battle unless we wish others to mourn us, as well. I am not ready to leave this world, Miss Carter, and they are not your pack. Are you willing to die for them?”

  The answer might have come easily once. No solid ties, just like she’d wanted it. No allegiances. No true friends, only acquaintances she would miss now and then when she left them behind. No lovers, no broken hearts.

  Tonight, the answer did not come easily at all.

  Chapter Ten

  The sun was up. And so was Paul Kiplinger.

  Cameron could see the vampire through a gap in the curtains from where he and Noah hid in the shadow of the house. His pack had showed up as fast as they could, though some had needed to come in from the suburbs around the city. It had taken more time than he wanted to waste, but Cameron couldn’t see a way around it. They’d need everyone they could get for this fight.

  Watching Kiplinger pace the front room, Cameron didn’t think it would have mattered. The vampire had clearly been awake for a while. He stalked with angry, restless energy, unable to stay still for more than a moment before he needed to move again. Over and over, he checked his phone, then snarled at it when it didn’t show the information he wanted.

  “Nothing,” he growled at last. Cameron could barely hear Kiplinger’s words with his wolf-enhanced hearing. He thought Kiplinger would throw the phone. “No text. No call. Not a bloody God-damned word. I can only conclude they’ve failed.”

  Another voice answered from across the room. Male, with a hiss over his voice that Cameron associated with speech around fangs. “They could be holed up until sundown.”

  “They don’t need to hole up until sundown. Not after last night. They looked wretched after the ritual, but I have to admit, it was effective.” Kiplinger stuffed his phone back into his pocket. “We’ve run out of time. Miss Espina has run out of patience. I do not intend to be here to inform her I cannot deliver what I promised.”

  Cameron glanced over at Noah. The alpha wore an expression much like the one Cameron expected he had on his own face: abject hatred fading into confusion. What Kiplinger said didn’t jibe with anything either werewolf thought they knew about the situation. Even with the additional morsel of information Sunny had sent, Kiplinger’s fearful rant didn’t make any sense at all. Because it meant Kiplinger wasn’t the one calling the shots.

  It did, however, mean the lady energy slinger wasn’t on the premises. They had at least one other vampire to deal with, but they could handle that. If he assumed two others in the house, the pack still had more than enough manpower to take them without casualties.

  Cameron nodded to Noah. Noah nodded back. They crept back around to the front of the house.

  A few werewolves lingered around the neighborhood, trying not to look like suspicious personages who’d come to the area for the purpose of breaking, entering, and mayhem. Which they had, Cameron thought. Hard to fault any passersby who called that right. He gave a signal and the loiterers converged on Kiplinger’s house. Or whoever’s house this is. Wonder if we’ll find a body in a closet. The enforcer hefted his case of disguise beer. Time to start, then crash, the best Halloween party of the year.

  The phone in his pocket vibrated. He ignored it.

  It vibrated again as he walked up the porch steps. And again as he raised his hand to touch the doorbell. The distinct vibrations to indicate text messages became the long, continual buzz of an incoming call. Cameron mashed the button through his jeans pocket to stop the damn thing.

  Inside, the bell chimed repeatedly as he leaned on the button. He couldn’t hear what Kiplinger said over the noise, but he could hear annoyed voices and footsteps. The front door jerked open. “Whatever you are selling, we don’t want it,” Kiplinger said with asperity.

  Cameron grinned. “Trick or treat.” Then he bashed the case of beer against Kiplinger’s chest to drive the vampire back inside. Cans erupted to leak beer onto both vampire and floor.

  Werewolves poured into the house behind Cameron. “Basement!” he barked, then returned his full attention to Kiplinger. Noah, lost to the rage of his wolf, had half-shifted to engage the vampire, who launched himself off the wall toward the alpha. The big grey wolf caught him mid-air. Muscles bulged beneath fur as Noah fought against Kiplinger’s preternatural strength. The werewolf won. He threw Kiplinger into the wooden balustrade leading upstairs, angled down. If the wood broke just right, he would be impaled on the stake-like balusters.

  At the last moment, Kiplinger shoved off against a corner to propel his torso past the dangerous wooden supports. His legs broke the rail, scraped a raw, sharp point, but did not stick. Cameron charged forward to catch Kiplinger on the rebound. As he fought to regain his balance, Cameron caught the vampire’s arm in one clawed hand. The other wrapped around Kiplinger’s throat.

  Cameron’s massive fingers all but met in the back. Nails dug in along the vampire’s spine. Cameron squeezed his hand, growling, as his wrath seared through him. The biter who had threatened his pack. Hurt his alpha. Killed his friends. The enemy Cameron had failed to stop, trapped here in his hand.

  He clenched his fist. Bones crunched against his palm. Kiplinger tried to scream but had no air for sound. No larynx. His head lolled against Cameron’s thumb, unable to stay upright. Limp limbs dangled helplessly from Kiplinger’s body. The enforcer reveled in it. Prey broken. Dead soon. Territory defended. Packmates avenged.

  “Cam!” Dani shouted.

  Cameron came back to himself in time to duck a vampire leaping down from the stairwell. Elongated nails dug into his shoulder for purchase. Roaring, Cameron threw Kiplinger down the stairs and through the basement door. Then he drove himself backwards into the wall.

  The vampire on his back embedded into the drywall. Cameron spun and grabbed it by one leg. It flailed for a hold on him, on anything, to no avail. The enforcer jerked his hand up, slamming the vampire against the ceiling, then drove it down onto one of the wooden balusters.

  Blood oozed into the wood grain and stained it crimson. Cameron stormed down to the basement. Dimly, he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket, but ignored it.

  Another biter had crawled out of a coffin stored in the basement. She couldn’t have had much blood herself, not after a full day of sleep, but she had still gashed open her wrist on a fang. Kiplinger sucked at th
e clumsy wound, trying to restore the nerves in his shattered neck. Cameron cleared the space between them in five long steps. The female vampire hissed and lunged. He batted her away.

  Kiplinger straggled to his feet. All fine motor control had gone. The pittance of blood could not regenerate all the nerves he needed for precise movement. Instead, he staggered toward the back of the basement, away from his attackers. Cameron started toward the fleeing leech, but Noah moved faster. He drove forward, past Cameron, to slam into the vampire who had so harmed the alpha’s mate.

  Red spatters streaked the concrete as Noah hurled Kiplinger against a wall by his shoulders. “Did you think,” Noah snarled, voice low and rough, “that I would not find you?”

  Kiplinger gasped as he stared up the wolf’s snout and into golden eyes. Blood and beer ran down his face from damp locks of hair. “You are making a terrible mistake.”

  The wolfish lip curled to display sharp, white teeth. “No. You made the mistake a year ago. You. Regina. Todd.”

  Kiplinger’s wet laugh had no humor in it. “I did make a mistake. I should never have fallen in love with Regina. That stupid bitch. I should never have done that ritual.”

  Cameron reclaimed his full human form as he listened. The last things he had expected from Kiplinger were sincerity and regret. Yet he could hear both in the man’s voice. “Why?”

  “Because you should never use power you cannot control.” Bloodstains on Kiplinger’s mouth twisted the wry smile into a grotesque expression.

  “Who’s your new girlfriend? Where is she?” Cameron asked.

  Kiplinger laughed again, a horrible, moist sound. Noah snarled and dashed his captive against the wall again. “Answer the question.”

  “My girlfriend? Is that what you think? You idiot dog. You’ll find out.” Laughter turned to wheezing as Noah shifted his grip to the vampire’s already weakened throat. “Go on. Kill me. There are worse things than death.”

  “Noah, wait—” Cameron saw it before it happened. He stepped forward to try to stop his alpha, to no avail.

  Noah drove his free hand upward into Kiplinger’s stomach. “This is what you did to me when you took Kayla.”

  Flesh squelched as the large, furred arm disappeared further into the vampire’s chest cavity. Cameron could hear the rush of blood and guts hit the floor as Noah removed his arm in a violent jerk. A blackened, shriveled heart sat motionless in his hand.

  Kiplinger looked shocked, as though the feel of true death came as a terrible but novel surprise. He slid down the wall to rest in the heap of his own innards below him on the floor. Noah stood, shoulders heaving, staring at the corpse with disbelief.

  Cameron understood. Hard to believe it’s over. Time to clean up the city, then move forward without him looming over us. He took a breath to call Dani over for a report on the others when a sound from the stairway stopped him.

  Slow, deliberate applause. “Bravi,” said a feminine voice. “Well done.”

  They all whirled toward the basement steps. A woman stood two stairs up from the floor, a smile curving her deep red lips. Her voluptuous figure filled out a pair of simple blue jeans and turtleneck sweater with curves enough to set any man to staring. She walked with shameless confidence as she descended the final two steps to stand on the floor. Dark brown hair flowed loose over her shoulders, a match to her deep brown eyes. A black leather strap crossed her chest to hold a handbag at her hip.

  Her skin was pale despite her dark olive complexion, oddly so. Then she smiled, and he understood. Sharp fangs stood out white in the basement’s gloom.

  Behind him, Noah growled. He hadn’t shifted yet out of his half shape. Cameron wondered if he’d done so too soon himself. “That’s an odd sentiment for the death of your partner.”

  “My partner?” The more she spoke, the more Cameron could hear the lilt of a Latin accent. Old but still present, the ghost of what she must have sounded like when she’d lost her mortality. “Paul? No. Perhaps he thought that way once, but he thought many things that were wrong.”

  “Like?” Cameron stalled for time as he evaluated the new biter on the scene. She moved with the grace of a vampire who knew what she could do, had developed great comfort with her undead state. To his enhanced senses, she smelled old. Powerful. Yet more power than just the vampire’s cold, dead energy dripped from her.

  Evil. She feels evil.

  “Believing I would let him outlive his usefulness to me. Though by that measure, I should have killed him three years ago.” She rolled her eyes. “You have done me a favor.”

  Three years. Before they’d thought of Kiplinger as more than despicable scum in the vampire pond. Cameron didn’t know what was happening, not yet, but he didn’t need to understand the situation to realize he didn’t like it a damn bit.

  “Glad we could help,” he said. “Mind if we ask who you are, and what you’re doing here?”

  “Of course.” No fear touched her toothy smile. No nervousness made it falter. She strode forward to hold out one gloved hand. “Teresa Espina.”

  Dani moved in to intercept her, but Cameron waved his friend off. Instead, he met the vampire halfway and accepted the handshake. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Espina. Cameron Roswell.”

  Even through the glove, Cameron could feel the dark, corrupt power that pulsed through her. He could smell it beneath the amber scent she wore. Foul and repugnant, and all too familiar. The memory of that smell would never leave him after he’d first whiffed it in Glenn’s backyard.

  “Teresa, please,” she said, without letting go of his hand. “May I call you Cameron?”

  His skin crawled at the intimate sound of the request. “Sure,” he said. “That’d be fine.”

  “Very good.” She laid her other hand over his to hold him there. If he pulled away, he would look afraid, and he couldn’t afford to appear weak in the face of a threat. She went on. “You are not the alpha. The enforcer, aren’t you?”

  He didn’t like the way that question felt. Instead of demurring, he reached for the familiar comfort of a subtle threat. “That’s right. It’s my job to make sure we all walk out of here alive.”

  It was the wrong response. He knew it from the way the corners of her lips lifted into a broader smile. The increased hunger in her eyes. “The guardian. I have hoped to meet you since I arrived.”

  Sudden pain blinded him. Darkness impaled him on lances of malignant energy. Once, he’d touched an electrified fence, and the jolt of electricity reminded him of this surge of power. Except the fence had not left him wracked on the ground, too weak to move. It hadn’t drained him so far he could not even hear the wolf whimper within him.

  Earlier, he had shunned the strange power that had tried so hard to fill him. Always too wild, too much without control. Now, he scrambled after it, but all he could find was cold, cold shadow that burned him with its deadly chill.

  A whisper floated through his mind. The voice was too deep to belong to Teresa, and too malevolent to belong to anyone once human. Surrender, and you will feel no more pain.

  It tempted him. The promise of an end to the agony that gripped his body, his spirit. An abyss of shadows yawned beneath him. He could think of nothing easier than letting go his hold on existence. It hurt so much to reach for the light.

  Dani shifted shape and lunged for Teresa with a vicious snarl. She took one step, blurred, and then stood across the room. No vampire Cameron had ever known could move as fast as she did. “I would have let you live,” she said, with a cluck of her tongue. “You are already mine. There was no need for violence.”

  Her hand extended, palm up. Nimble fingers curled inward. As her hand closed into a fist, Dani howled and her legs gave out. She tried to crawl forward but could only spasm in on herself to reach for her feet.

  Cameron willed himself to move. Suffocating darkness smothered his breath away. Pain stole his ability to control his muscle functions.

  Still halfway shifted, Noah lunged into the fray. Teresa did
n’t even flinch. Her hand flickered out into a gesture for stop. Noah halted in his tracks, chest heaving, lips curled, eyes wide with enraged surprise.

  “That’s enough of that,” she said. “In fact, keep your other friend out of the way, please.”

  Noah’s body jerked. He growled low in his throat as he took one pace forward, then another, fighting with himself at every step. When he reached Dani, Noah stopped, then collapsed down onto his knees. Dani could do nothing to prevent being rolled onto her back. She stared up, brow furrowed with pain, as her alpha rested a clawed hand over her chest. The points of Noah’s nails dug into her flesh until blood welled beneath them.

  Surrender, and your friends will feel no more pain, whispered the voice in Cameron’s mind.

  Cameron wondered where the rest of the pack was. If they had survived Teresa’s arrival, or if they lay dead somewhere in the upper parts of the house. He tried to fight against the pain, drive past it to the wolf within, but agony blocked it from his reach.

  Glad you weren’t with us for this after all, Sunny. I would have gotten you killed, too. You would have saved Noah, if we’d made it out of this.

  Teresa walked toward them again, gaze intent on Cameron’s. “You will forgive me if I get down to business. I only have so much time left to do what I must. My apologies, Cameron. In another time, I would have admired your strength. Your dedication. A shame I cannot finish what I have begun while you still stand in my way.”

  Her advance halted as a thrown object landed suddenly at her feet. It looked like two grenades wrapped in a bag of dirty sugar. She looked toward the stairs, and her eyes widened.

  The world exploded into light and noise. White light rendered him blind for a heartbeat. A concussive detonation deafened him to all but the shrilling of his own injured eardrums. Blue-grey smoke roiled through the room in clouds that burned his lungs with their acrid stench. His nerves lit on fire with energy, bright as the light and hot as the sun.