Night is Magic: A Vampire Romance (Hearts of Dagon Book 1)
Page 18
Okay, so he knew her. Interesting. Then again, how many other five-ten women with katanas strapped to their back were here? Not so many. How many like her in Santa Barbara County, or the Church altogether? But this stranger should know the rules: No names, no families, no careers, no lovers. No life at all, nothing but the great, secretive, thankless task of killing the dead. She gave a guarded answer. “Nobody needs to know my name.”
“On the contrary, your name is renowned within the Order. He—” The man gestured toward the casket—”called you his best pupil.”
“Not best enough, because he’s dead.” The words stuck in her throat. “With the others.”
“Except for you.”
“Except for me.”
“A battle is lost, but the war goes on.” He paused. “This is a risk faced by us all. Surely, your mentor prepared you for the possibility of his death. Perhaps he discussed where you should go in case he ever—forgive the analogy—crossed the Jordan River?”
Was that a sick joke? She shot a fiery look at him. “You think I never heard that line before? Yeah, we made a bugout plan. Survivors: run like hell to another lodge.”
“I am that other lodge.” The man removed a glove, extended a pallid hand. It resembled a blob of chalk-white clay. “Charlepaine Lacquiere, master of the Baton Rouge chapter.”
No thanks to the handshake—and the offer. She left him hanging. “Not ready.”
“No need for justice?” He lowered the hand, making a great show of pulling the glove back on, flexing powerful fingers within the silk. “No desire for revenge?”
“I’ve been screaming for vengeance since I was fifteen, but my family’s still dead.”
“Surely this”—he gestured at the casket—”is cause for a renewed purpose?”
“This … I couldn’t prevent it, couldn’t stop it, and don’t even know where to begin hunting down whoever did this. The flames of vengeance are burning kinda low.” Every word was true. Even a year ago, this disaster might have sharpened her resolve. Now it was all about calling Ingrid and getting out of town. Tight fists formed inside her jacket pockets.
Dirt skittered across the casket as pallbearers worked their shovels. The large man’s brow furrowed. “Your family’s destruction still bothers you.”
Strange change of subject. Tensing, she shot a sharp look at him, clenching the pocketknife in her jacket pocket. The familiar weight of her katana helped calm her. But her senses stayed dormant. No spider walked down the back of her neck. “It’s not something I care to discuss.”
“You watched them die, one by one. No child should behold such horror.”
“How do you know that?”
“Word gets around.”
Dude was creeping now. Discreetly, her hand moved inside the jacket pocket, unfolding the knife. With deliberate care, she sliced the tip of her pinkie, drawing blood. It stung and liquid oozed across the whorls of skin. Would the scent be enough in this rain?
The man’s nose twitched, an involuntary reflex, but it gave him away. As if realizing the jig was up, the stranger lowered his umbrella and stepped back. His features twisted into a playful smile, almost as if the muscles were controlled by one not wholly familiar with this body. “Did you feel helpless as the Rivers family succumbed?”
“Who told you that?” Few knew those details—the man in the urn, the rest of her cell, and the fiends who’d slaughtered her family—and they were dead. Had one of Malmardane’s vampiric spawns somehow survived and come out for revenge? They had accounted for them all. Her cell had pored over the records. This must be someone else from the Underworld. “Who are you? What do you want?”
His neck turned so his eyes, small and distant, drilled into her. A hateful voice came from beyond the grave. “Your family, they tasted so sweet.”
How could she have been so blind? The katana found her hands in a single smooth motion, already dancing into the attack. “Malmardane, you devil! I slew you! How are you back?”
At her shout, the other mourners leaped into action. A dozen hunters and guardians drew weapons—holy symbols, daggers, stakes, silver pistols—and pointed them at the pair.
Malmardane dropped his pose, flinging up his cape amid peals of laughter. Pistol shots rang out as her katana sliced empty air. A cloud of black smoke billowed where a fraction of a second before his cloak had fluttered. By the time the smoke cleared, she was coughing and wheezing while her enemy had vanished.
Her scream rang out across the graveyard. “Malmardane, you bastard! I’ll kill you again!”
End of the Fire is Magic preview—coming August 2017
About the Author
“Paranormal passion—embrace the night.”
Alix Adale writes suspenseful, cathartic romance from the bleeding edge of reality. Her work offers fresh twists on established paranormal themes by drawing inspiration from psychology, horror, true crime, and the occult. Yet in this world of darkness, love can conquer all.
www.alixadale.com
twitter.com/alixadale
Hearts of Dagon – Vampire Romance series
Blood is Magic – July 2017
Night is Magic – July 2017
Fire is Magic – August 2017
Dawn is Magic – August 2017
Please join my mailing list to receive news about future releases and a bonus vampire romance:
alixadale.com/newsletter
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Table of Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1: Tonight She Died
Chapter 2: The Probie
Chapter 3: Crash Landing
Chapter 4: Input Password
Chapter 5: Pioneer Square
Chapter 6: Public Transportation
Chapter 7: The Amazing Woman
Chapter 8: Springwater Corridor
Chapter 9: Respect Village
Chapter 10: Little Blue Cottage
Chapter 11: The D’antonio File
Chapter 12: Portland Homicide
Chapter 13: Underground Again
Chapter 14: Visitation Tomb
Chapter 15: Eros & Thanatos
Chapter 16: Solstice
Chapter 17: Shasta Red
Chapter 18: No, Never That
Chapter 19: Crimson Dawn
Epilogue: The Shape of Things to Come
Afterword
Preview: Fire is Magic
About the Author