by Lily Luchesi
Miranda’s Rights
Paranormal Detectives
Book Two
Lily Luchesi
Miranda’s Rights
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Text Copyright ©2015
All rights reserved
Published by
Vamptasy Publishing
An imprint of CHBB Publishing, LLC.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.
Edited by CLS Editing Services
To you, reading this right now: if anyone ever tells you that you can’t do something, remember this: you CAN, and you WILL.
As always, my first big thank You is to God.
To my wonderful mom who goes above and beyond for me to make sure I get to live my dream: I love you!
To Sarah, thank you for taking a chance on me, and on Danny and Angelica’s story. I will be forever grateful to have found you and your company.
Thank you to Rue, my awesome cover artist who makes my work look beautiful and presentable to the readers.
Thank you, Catherine, for editing this book and making the inside match the pretty outside.
To the other CHBB authors who share, like, give advice to, and have become my extended family, thank you. It’s a joy to work with each and every one of you.
To my friends, old and new: Stephen Kozeniewski, John Benedict, Sarah Fairbairn, Mary Fan, Nicole Belanger, Nadine Keels, Louise, Heather, and Amanda at BATPAR, the ladies of the Knightingale Reviews team, and Paul Cude. To anyone I might have forgotten to mention, I do apologize. But really, all of your support and friendship is invaluable to me.
And my biggest acknowledgement goes to you, reading this right now. Thank you for picking this book over the thousands in my genre, thank you for reading all the way to this point, and thank you for supporting the arts.
Thanks for sticking around to continue my story. Enjoy the ride!
A playlist I compiled that correlates with each chapter of this book. I hope you enjoy it and it enhances your reading experience as much as the songs enhanced my writing experience!
1. “Tears In Heaven” by Eric Clapton
2. “You Come Before You” by Poison The Well
3. “It’s Not A Fashion Statement, It’s A Deathwish” by My Chemical Romance
4. “Beautiful Goodbye” by Maroon 5
5. “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morrisette
6. “Wolf Moon” by Type O Negative
7. “One” by Metallica
8. “Evil Walks” by AC/DC
9. “Possession” by Otep
10. “Nosferatu” by Blue Oyster Cult
11. “If I Didn’t Care” by The Ink Spots
12. “The Nameless” by Slipknot
13. “Do Or Die” by 30 Seconds To Mars
14. “Sell My Soul” by Mortal Oil
Prologue
June 1989
Chicago, Illinois
At twenty-two years old, Daniel Mancini had just graduated with honors from the police academy. After four years at UIC, taking criminal psychology and twenty-five weeks of training at the Illinois Police Academy, he had finally graduated and had begun his official job the next week, but he had something else to contend with that coming weekend: his wedding.
He would be marrying his girlfriend of four years, Miranda Valdez, who was about to enter grad school to become a lawyer. Danny and Miranda had met in a criminal psychology class and had fallen instantly in love.
Miranda was a pretty, petite girl from a hard working Mexican family. Her grandparents spoke little to no English, but her parents had been born in the United States and had worked hard to get her to where she was in life. She was the first in her family to go to college. At first, she’d told Danny that she hated him, thinking him a spoiled, privileged brat who’d never had to work for anything in his life, but she’d quickly realized that was not the case.
Danny was a wonderful man, but she had said that sometimes she felt that he wasn’t as interested in her as he should be. She knew there wasn’t another woman, but at the same time she felt as if there must be. He had nightmares at night, calling out the name “Angelica”. She had done extensive research on Danny’s past, but he’d never known an Angelica, not even as an elementary school student.
Danny had never been unfaithful, and when confronted, he’d claimed to not even recall the nightmares he had. He truly didn’t. He had thought of going to a psychologist, but had decided against it. The dreams weren’t affecting his waking life, so why rock the boat and possibly open a can of worms inside his mind?
****
Danny waited for Miranda to come home one rainy June night, three days before their wedding. She was unusually late, and he was beginning to worry.
At ten o’clock, there was a knock at the door of their townhouse. Thinking that Miranda had lost her key, he opened the door, but instead of his fiancée, two policemen were at the door.
“Hello, officers, what can I do for you?” he asked amicably.
“Mr. Daniel Mancini, fiancé of Ms. Miranda Valdez?” one asked.
“You’re lookin’ at him,” he replied, confused.
“Mr. Mancini, we regret to inform you that Ms. Valdez was found dead this evening. It appears to have been a mugging gone wrong. We are very sorry,” the other said with all the emotion of an android.
At that moment, Danny felt all the blood rush from his head and needed to sit down. Thankfully, there was a guest chair in the hallway. “Are you sure it’s her?” he asked.
“I’ll drive myself, thanks.” He hoped and prayed that, when he started work as a bluesuit, he’d never have to make a house call like that in his career.
As he followed the police car to the county morgue, he couldn’t recall ever feeling such numbness and pain all at once. Their stonelike delivery of the news hadn’t been helpful, either. They could have had a little more sympathy—a little more humanity—towards a grieving man.
He embraced the Valdez parents, all of them crying on each other’s shoulders. They couldn’t pull the sheet down past Miranda’s chin to show her to them because she had had her throat cut with what the coroner presumed to have been a very sharp, thin object, thinner than a knife. He felt sick that someone could be so careless and cruel, throwing away someone’s life for a few bucks.
She was buried in the Catholic cemetery connected to her family’s church.
“Goodbye, Miranda. I love you, and at least I know you’re at peace now.” He placed a single rose on the grave and walked away, thanking God that He was good and had taken her quickly, at least. He would’ve hated if she had suffered before her death. Now she was resting, and one day, he’d be with her as well.
****
“Why have a funeral at night?” Agent Frederic Dominic asked his partner as he watched the mourners finally leave and the cemetery groundskeeper lock the gates.
He had been on stakeout, and she had only just shown up, missing the ceremony. Of course, she stayed away from religious ceremonies if she could help it. They made her uncomfortable.
“Why do humans do anything? No offense,” Detective Angelica Cross replied.
She had assigned Frederic to alert her when the family had left the burial site, and by the time he had called her, three days had passed since Miranda’s death and the sun had set. They might be too late. They were lucky that the family had wanted a quick burial. Frederic had informed her that Miranda Valdez had been buried on what was supposed to be her wedding day.
She dashed to the grave and began to dig, praying that Miranda wasn’t awake yet. Frederic, her partner of thirty years, couldn’t help, as he was already getting on in years. She had plans to make him the director of the Paranormal Investigative Division of the FBI soon, so he wouldn’t have any more field assignments.
She finally reached the coffin and opened it with ease. A pair of red eyes stared back at her.
Chapter One
March 2015
Chicago, Illinois
Danny was having nightmares, and no matter how much alcohol he drank at night, it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on him anymore. He was constantly remembering all the death he had gone through. Fighting werewolves, staking his newly-turned partner Camille Fuller in her coffin, and being bait so his temporary partner, Angelica, could stake and decapitate her very own father, the crazed rogue vampire Vincent Cross.
Of course, finding out he had lived a whole other life as the husband of half-vampire Angelica a century ago hadn’t been easy, either, nor was reliving his own death in a vivid vision.
To top that off, the witch who had cursed him to death in the early 1900s had still been alive the previous year and had tried, once again, to kill him, before Angelica had saved his life.
All of that together made for some very vicious night terrors.
So instead of sleeping at around eleven at night one humid evening, he went for a walk in the wooded area near his house to clear his mind. His police training and PID training never left him, so he carried his cell phone and gun with him—the latter loaded with silver bullets. As he walked, musing, he heard rustling in the leaves. “Anybody there?” he called, thinking it was probably just a raccoon family. “I’m armed, by the way. I suggest you don’t try anything, or I’ll blow your brains to kingdom come.”
He heard a low, growling chuckle, making the hairs on his neck stand up. Shit. That noise meant only one thing: a werewolf was nearby. “I have silver bullets, sweetheart. Get lost now and maybe you’ll live.”
More chuckling, closer now. He edged back, giving himself a better view of the clearing he was standing in. In front of him something he hadn’t seen for over a century appeared: a werewolf stuck in mid-transformation. Bottom half wolf, top half human and covered in fur. His claws were at least four inches long, and his bloodstained fangs were longer.
Immediately, Danny fired a shot. The bullet struck its shoulder a few inches from where he had intended to hit—the heart. The were howled and advanced quickly, knocking the wind out of Danny. He was weaker than usual since he had stopped drinking the protein shakes at the PID. He got back up and fired two more shots. He still had fourteen left. Both shots missed the target, and the wolf swiped at him with its claws, cutting into his left arm, right leg and lower abdomen.
He screamed in pain, but he knew no one could hear him this far out. He raised his undamaged right arm and fired four more shots in quick succession, effectively killing the werewolf. Dropping his gun, he tried to reach into his pocket for his phone. He was bleeding profusely and already starting to lose consciousness. He had to get help and fast. He hit dial, praying he was not too late to save himself.
****
Angelica was at home, having taken the night off from the PID. She’d had a lot happen to her since the previous November, when the FBI had agreed to continue to fund the PID and Danny had successfully severed all ties with her after helping her kill her father. She realized that running the PID was going to be her main job once her acting director, Frederic Dominic, retired in the summer. All of her employees—paranormal and human alike—were rooting for her to take the job as she rightfully should, but she wasn’t sure she liked being a director. She was more suited for action. She’d die behind a desk. She had also met someone new recently—a former vamplet, like her, who had been changed into a full vampire forty years prior. When describing being fully turned the woman had said, “It’s freeing. I had a lot of unnecessary emotions clogging up my mind when I was a dhampir. As soon as I was fully turned, those emotions didn’t bother me at all. I was free, finally free.”
Angelica wanted to be free of her emotions, especially towards Danny, the man whom she had once married, but now hated her for being a vampire. Her love for him was a constant pain in her heart, and she would love to be rid of it. At the same time, she wondered if she would become carefree or if she would become careless, like Demon Dean on Supernatural? Did she want to forget about her mother, become less friendly to her employees? Did she want to not care about her marriage to Jonathan Price in 1910?
She’d thought it over for a long time and was still thinking it over. She wouldn’t be able to enjoy coffee, alcohol or a big, bloody burger at Crowley’s Pub downtown. No more catching the sunset or sunrise unless she was wearing sun block, or being able to put her makeup on. She’d have to drink more human blood, and investigating would be limited because she would be forced to sleep during the daylight hours. All she had ever wanted was to be a full vampire, no more in-between, but she was unsure if that was what she really wanted now that it was close to becoming a reality.
Just when she thought that her mind was going to shut down from all the thinking, her phone started to sing “Carry On Wayward Son”. When she saw the caller ID read “Danny”, her heart gave a traitorous leap in her chest.
“Cross,” she answered, hearing heavy breathing in the background. “Danny? You there?”
“Angie…I’m hurt. Werewolf. It’s dead but I…” He grunted in pain.
“Where are you?” she asked, already getting up to get her coat.
“Woods…” He coughed a wet, bloody cough.
Her heart sped up. He sounded bad. She was already out the door and headed to the street to go at vampire speed. “Which woods? Danny? Please, answer me.” she cried into the phone.
“By…house…” he wheezed.
It was enough to give her a direction to run to. Once she got closer, she could smell his blood and find him that way.
“Hang on, please. I’m on my way.” She hung up and sped to the woods near Danny’s old Victorian home, praying that she wasn’t too late.
When she arrived at the edge of the woods, she slowed down and let her Undead senses lead the way. The first thing she smelled was wet, burning dog flesh, which was what werewolves smelled like to a vamp’s advanced senses.
Under the werewolf stench, she smelled human blood. Rushing as fast as she could, she saw Danny lying in the middle of a clearing, near the werewolf corpse. She’d call the PID offices and get that taken care of, but Danny needed more immediate attention. She recalled her first mission with him in 1909, where he had also almost died from a werewolf attack, and she had saved him. It was history repeating itself.
She bent down by him and saw he was still breathing. She wasn’t too late.. Turning him onto his stomach, she assessed his wounds. They were deep, but thankfully, he hadn’t been bitten. She could heal him. Cutting her arm open, she rubbed her blood into his wounds, closing the deeper ones and letting the few superficial ones heal on their own so she could save her blood for his weakened body. Opening his mouth, she let her blood flow down his throat, praying that, if he found out, he didn’t kill her. She watched as his color came back, slowly, and his breathing became less labored.
He opened his bleary eyes. “Angel…” he whispered.
Her heart nearly broke. “You’re okay, Danny. Rest now, okay?” she said, caressing his face.
He closed his eyes and fell into a deep stupor. Angelica took him to her apartment, instead of his place. She could have said why. It wasn’t because she needed him to give a report on his encounter, or to
make sure he was going to be okay, though she’d use both excuses with him when he woke up. The truth was she wanted him with her after almost losing him again.
She cleaned his superficial wounds with peroxide, and dressed them with antibacterial ointment and bandages before she put him in her bed and covered him with her black quilt. He would probably sleep through the night, so she had to make sure she was awake when he got up.
She watched him sleep for a few minutes. His face was relaxed, and he looked so handsome. It took all of her strength not to climb into bed and cuddle with him.
Stupid human emotions…
****
When Danny woke up, the first thing he saw was black. It took a minute for him to realize it was a canopy. The bed he was in seemed familiar, but his fuzzy brain couldn’t figure it out. He sat up, his body sore, and his head aching. The last thing he remembered was firing his 9mm at the werewolf before he had been nearly gouged to death by its claws.
He looked around, noticing the familiar walls and art prints that looked as if they’d come from Hell, next to posters of bands that also looked as if they’d come from Hell. The framed wedding photo from 1910 on the night table to his right made him remember who owned this bedroom. Looking down, he realized he was wearing one of her oversized concert t-shirts.
Things cleared up, and he remembered calling Angelica as he had been dying in the woods. He shakily got out of the bed, put his shoes back on and wandered out of the bedroom and into the living room. He saw Angelica before she saw him.
She was curled on the couch, dozing while a TNT marathon of Castle was on. She must’ve stayed up as long as she could to watch over him as he’d healed. He wondered just what paranormal ointment she’d used to close up those huge gashes and replenish his blood. Well, he assumed the blood had come from the blood bank she had owned since the late 1800s. The rest, he decided he didn’t want to know.
He found a notepad printed with some skeleton cartoon on the coffee table and wrote her a small note. He then took her fuzzy black afghan and covered her with it. He’d planned to sneak out, but his movements woke her.