In the Witching Hour

by In The Witching Hour (lit)

  “There!” Adrian yelled.

  Quickly, it closed the distance.

  “What the hell!” The police officer from the harbor unit grabbed his megaphone. “Police! Cut your motor and prepare to be boarded.”

  But the mystery boat kept coming. The police officer reached for his gun, the megaphone forgotten.

  Peering into the darkness, Adrian scanned the length of the sleek craft with keen eyesight. The space behind the controls sat empty, the captain’s chair swinging back and forth with the boat’s momentum. He reached out with his acute senses across the distance between them and picked up no life essence. Mixed with the dank smell of lake water, the scent of blood wafted back to him.

  Dead in the water. He’d seen them all. Ghost ships left to bob aimlessly among the waves until the sea claimed them forever, their crew executed or drowned, their cargo plundered. He’d done a lot of that plundering and pilfering himself. But this ghost ship was bearing down on them full throttle.

  “He’s dead at the wheel!”

  Adrian leapt for the throttle, arcing the police boat out of the cruiser’s path. Again old instincts lent him the skill recent memory had forgotten.

  “Bring us alongside.”

  Recovering, the officer matched the cruiser’s speed. Waves pitched the boat in unpredictable directions. Adrian rose to a crouch. Kiana hauled him back.

  “You’re not going to—” She glanced down at the water rushing below them. “Are you crazy?”

  “Closer,” he ordered in answer.

  The cruiser’s hull smacked against them, sending them skidding off course. The officer swung the boat back along side.

  Adrian crouched low and leapt. Impact reverberated up his legs. His shoes skidded along the wet metal. He caught his balance, righted himself, and groped toward the empty captain’s chair.

  Blood assaulted his senses.

  Smeared over the instrument panel, it offered a grisly trail to the body slumped beneath, one hand still on the throttle.

  Adrian twisted his head away, at once repulsed and fascinated by the abundance of blood. The scent of it taunted him, whispering endearments in the back of his mind like a lover. His jaw ached. His incisors throbbed, little lightning bolts of pain shot through his gums. Red tinged his gaze. He viewed the murder scene as if through an infrared haze. Saliva dripped from his fangs. He bent toward the profusion of blood. But in the back of his mind a small, rational voice called out a reminder that he should be doing something else, that he had responsibilities other than the slaking of his blood lust. Adrian ignored the voice, bent closer. Yet it persisted in its tiny cry.

  With a hiss and groan of utter frustration, he whirled away. Grasping the side of the boat, he fought for control. Cold spray splattered his face, drawing his attention back to the problem at hand. Slowly, he became aware of the boat careening drunkenly across the dark water, the police boat still rushing along side. He reached over, cut the throttle. The cruiser sputtered to shuddering halt.

  Kiana peered anxiously through the darkness. “You okay?”

  Getting control of his voice, he called across the narrow expanse of water between them. “We’re going to need a tow back to the city. Call Frazier to meet us. We’ve got a body on board. Or at least what’s left of the body,” he muttered to himself.

  “I’m coming over.”

  “No, Kiana, don’t.”

  Before he could offer further objections, she was clambering awkwardly aboard. She cast a hesitant glance at the churning black water below, then leapt, sprawling on the deck.

  “Call for back-up,” she instructed the officer still waiting in the other boat. “The perpetrator obviously didn’t sprout wings and fly, so he probably escaped by water. Maybe we can head him off before he gets too far.”

  At her suggestion, Adrian probed the nearby water with heightened senses. Echoes drifted back to his ears. Distant voices drifted back to him from the houses and cottages on the island. The cacophony of a multitude of television sets blaring, a domestic argument in progress slammed back at him. Deftly he unraveled the tapestry of sound, explored beyond the layer of normalcy, searching for the one tendril that would lead him to a clue.

  And found nothing, other than the scent of spent gasoline rapidly dissipating on the damp lake air. Definitely not a chance attack. The murderer had known exactly when that boat would cut across the narrow bay, exactly what it was carrying. He had made his hit with practiced skill, and made an equally deft getaway.

  “Oh no!”

  Adrian whirled just in time to see Kiana clamp a hand over her mouth. She lurched to the side of the boat and for a moment he was certain she’d be sick. But determination overrode biological imperative. She straightened, coughed once, and looked up at him bashfully.

  “Seasickness?”

  “I wasn’t expecting it. I’ve never been on a boat before. Promise you won’t tell Frazier?”

  He should tell Frazier, and get her off the case and out of harm’s way as quickly as possible. But the look in her dark eyes was so earnest and sincere, he found himself agreeing. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  She coughed again and gained control of her voice. He had to admire her. It took guts to leap onto a moving boat. Guts to be out in the middle of Lake Ontario in the dead of night with the likes of him, even if she didn’t yet realize the danger.

  Kiana swallowed hard and motioned to the body slumped now on the deck. “Looks like he put up quite a fight. He’s practically decapitated.”

  Adrian studied the corpse. Even in the moonlight he could tell its throat had been slit to cover up what the assailant desperately wanted to hide—two tiny wounds above the jugular vein. The jagged wound would easily obscure the evidence, and the blood spilled across the boat’s interior would hide the lack of it in the body.

  Kiana coughed again and grasped the railing. Adrian could tell the sight played havoc with her protesting stomach.

  “Guess a few stab wounds didn’t slow him down as much as his assailant would have liked,” she said after clearing her throat. “Finally slit his throat and made off with whatever he was carrying.” Adrian winced as she blanched a shade paler.

  “We better look below,” Kiana said. Placing a hand over her stomach, she staggered toward the cabin.

  The assailant had obviously taken a violent dislike to the decor. Just like the cabin cruiser that had washed up by Ontario Place, seats had been ripped from their fastenings, panels torn from their rivets. Sodden upholstery squished beneath their feet, mixing with the trail of blood that led from the deck above.

  “Looks like the victim upstairs got in a few lucky hits,” Adrian said. The blood in the cabin was old, diluted in the dampness. Easier to look at. It didn’t tug at his hunger like the mess upstairs.

  “Appears he was running the same kind of stuff as the last guy.” Kiana cast a nervous glance at the black water sloshing by the porthole. She had barely mastered her stomach in the stale air of the cabin, Adrian realized with pity.

  He reached out to grasp her arm. A mistake, he realized. Last night came rushing back into his senses. Her scent, the touch of her skin against his. From the look on her face he could tell she hadn’t forgotten quite as much as he’d willed her to.

  In spite of his promises to Frazier, there was nothing he wanted to do more than take her away from this carnage back to the safety of her apartment and make love to her slowly. He imagined burying his nose in her cap of shiny brown curls. He imagined covering her full lips with his own and allowing his tongue to plunder the tempting depths of her mouth. Adrian yanked his thoughts away from the rich taste of her blood on his lips.

  “Go up on deck,” he told her, breaking the contact. “You’ll feel better if you’re in the open air where you can see the horizon.”

  And so would he, he thought darkly.

  She nodded gratefully. “You coming?”

  “I’ll be up in a second. Tell them to tow us in. Frazier ought to be waiting at the do
cks.”

  Kiana fled toward the narrow stairs.

  Centuries hadn’t changed much, Adrian thought, kicking idly at a metal panel lying against the carpet. Nowadays ships were lighter, sleeker more high-tech. A pirate barely needed a crew to do a dishonest day’s work. One-man operations were possible. He glanced at the wreckage around him. But the results were the same. Unbidden, the memories lured him back in time…

  The sky had barely begun to lighten from black to gray, promising another overcast day. Good, Adrian had thought. The heavy cloud cover would buy him time. He had one last errand to run in town. By dawn he’d be at sea, hidden in the darkest corner of his windowless cabin, far from the prying rays of the sun. With Adrian gone, Veronique would no longer be of interest to Moira. In his absence, his lover would be safe.

  Too bad it hadn’t worked out that way….

  “The victim had quite the constitution,” Frazier remarked as the body disappeared beneath an orange body bag. “Eleven stab wounds and it took slitting his throat to slow him down.”

  “Ugh.” Overhearing their conversation, Kiana turned abruptly away. Frazier’s eyebrows lowered questioningly.

  “It was pretty gruesome,” Adrian said in explanation. He’d promised to keep her seasickness a secret. He couldn’t rat her out now. He nodded in the direction of the stretcher being wheeled into the ambulance. “Heck of a fighter, as you said. Got some of his own back before he went down. You almost have to admire a guy like that.”

  “Don’t admire him too much. He was a pirate.”

  He placed a hand over his heart. “You wound me, Frazier. Some of my best friends have been pirates.”

  “Yeah, well that’s one dead pirate. Don’t these idiots ever learn that crime doesn’t pay?”

  Adrian glanced at the boat being loaded onto a trailer. But his thoughts were far away. “Actually, it paid quite well,” he murmured. “For awhile, anyway.”

  The look on the detective’s face silenced him. “This is the fourth boat,” Frazier bristled. “And we have no leads.”

  “We’re checking the hospitals to see if the assailant turned up wounded,” Kiana said, rejoining them.

  “That isn’t going to satisfy the Chief!” Frazier’s voice rose, drawing the attention of the uniformed officers around them. “No offense to your dad,” he added quickly and lowered his voice. “The Mayor wants to issue a press release warning boaters to stay off the water.”

  “A great way to cause a panic,” Kiana said.

  “My feelings exactly.”

  “It would only warn our pirate to practice his trade elsewhere,” Adrian added.

  “We could offer the Mayor another option,” Kiana said. “We could go undercover. Pose as smugglers. Infiltrate this piracy ring. That’s the only way we’re going to catch this monster.” From the look on Frazier’s face, Adrian could tell he didn’t care for the option at all.

  “I want this case,” she said before he could object. “I deserve this case. I’ve worked hard. And I don’t get seasick,” she added with a challenging glance at Adrian.

  Adrian raised one eyebrow, but stayed silent.

  “Okay,” he said cautiously. A series of emotions crossed the detective’s face. Disbelief, anger, and finally calm acceptance. Frazier had to be desperate to throw him into such close quarters with Kiana, the vampire thought. And that would make keeping his secret more difficult than ever. Last night he’d played with fire and nearly gotten an innocent woman burned. How could he have known he would feel such an attraction to Frazier’s spirited partner? A woman hundreds of years his junior!

  He didn’t deserve to feel desire. He had a history of death and destruction. Enough blood stained his hands that he might never wash them clean. But since Melinda’s intervention in his downward spiral into depravity, he’d pledged his life to repaying his debt to society, to giving back some of what he’d stolen in fortunes, lives and blood. Now Frazier wanted to throw him back into the clutches of temptation. Just when he’d convinced himself he was beyond its seductive reach.

  “It’s the only way we’ll catch the guy,” Kiana said, still arguing her case.

  “You’re probably right,” Frazier admitted with a deep sigh. He looked desperately unhappy about the prospect.

  Kiana turned her dazzling smile on Adrian. “Well, since we’re going to be partners, do you have a name?”

  In answer to Frazier’s disapproving glower Adrian offered her a smile of his own. “Just call me Captain Black.”

  “Give me a moment to talk to Captain Black here,” Frazier cut in. “I’ll meet you back at the station.”

  Watching Kiana walk back toward the squad cars, Frazier sank down onto a nearby bench.

  “Don’t worry, Frazier,” Adrian said. “She’ll be fine.”

  “That’s not what worries me.”

  “Ah,” Adrian tipped his head back, examined the night sky. “You’re worried about me.”

  “Don’t take it the wrong way—” Frazier knit his eyebrows. “This is going to be a difficult assignment for her.”

  Adrian offered his own scowl. “I’m not going to bite her neck, okay?”

  “It just doesn’t seem like a good idea. She’s had a fascination for you since she got wind that I had a snitch. And you, getting a chance to be a pirate again, and alone out there on the water with an attractive young woman…. But I have no leads, and I’m out of options.”

  “That attractive young woman is a cop,” Adrian said. “And a good one at that. As for the rest of it, well, suffice to say I don’t have happy memories about that part of my life.”

  “Veronique?” Frazier asked.

  “Yes, Veronique.”

  Tall palm trees swayed in a sudden wind as Adrian made his way back to the harbor. It looked like the day would be a stormy one. But his ship had ridden out storms before. To ensure Veronique’s safety, he’d set sail no matter what.

  He had nearly reached the pier when he heard Moira’s taunting laughter. He took another step toward his ship, but the haunting sound echoed off the open water. He paused trying to gauge its location.

  Another peal of mirth from behind the black silhouettes of huts that studded the hills at the water’s edge.

  “Moira!” With a pang of fear, he turned toward the sound. He’d been careful to keep his plans a secret. Only his crew knew of their impending departure. But somehow Moira had discovered his deception.

  The sound of her laughter drew him further up into the hills. He called her name, pleading with her to show herself. Then abruptly all sound ceased. He stood in a clearing, surrounded by the tall stalks of palm trees. The island hovered on the edge of dawn.

  Doubling back over his tracks he turned toward the east, where he saw the band of gray light on the horizon. And realized at once how he’d been misled.

  Morning.

  The safety of his ship lay far behind him. Between him and sanctuary lay the steadily lightening sky.

  Smoke stung his nostrils. Cresting a small hill he stared down into the harbor in horror.

  Flames engulfed Opportunity’s hull. He knew from experience that the fire would die when it reached the water. But by then all would be lost. He could not set sail home in a charred timber husk. Nor could he hide from the coming sun. Sanctuary was lost.

  For a moment he studied the rising flames, caught between the fire on the pier and the rising sun.

  And then, in the midst of the blaze, he heard Veronique’s cry for help.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Adrian stared out at the dark water. “That’s when my life went completely to hell.”

  “I take it you were too late to save Veronique,” Frazier said solemnly.

  He gave the detective a grim nod. “Veronique’s brother, Gaston vowed to avenge her death. He never forgave me. I never forgave myself.” Water lapped in black waves against the pier. “After that I just sort of gave up. I realized it was far too dangerous to involve anyone else in my life. Moira would follow me to
the far corners of the earth. And when she found me she would destroy all I held dear. So I surrendered to her. For hundreds of years I just did her bidding. No matter how horrible. My descent into evil started with Moira, but it didn’t end when she died. I probably would have continued that way forever.”

  “Wow, that sounds grim. What changed it?”

  “Another woman,” Adrian admitted. “A woman who reached into my life and yanked me out of it.” He let a long breath go. “I still have no idea why she did it. She had no reason to.”

  “This other woman, what happened to her? How come you let her go?”

  “Her name is Melinda,” Adrian said. “And that’s part of the riddle, she belongs to someone else.”

  Frazier studied him intently. Even in the shadows, Adrian could tell the detective had second thoughts about letting Adrian go undercover with Kiana.

  “I can protect Kiana,” he said suddenly. “I’m probably the only one that can.”

  The detective nodded. “I know. I wouldn’t let her go any other way.”

  Adrian grinned. “I don’t think she’s going to be taking your advice any time soon.”

  Frazier rolled his eyes. “She’s impossible. She’ll do anything to prove she didn’t get her post because her father’s the Chief. Just make sure she doesn’t get herself killed.”

  “Nothing will happen to her,” Adrian said solemnly. “I promise.”

  “It would be great if she didn’t find out too much about….” He glanced pointedly at Adrian. “You know.”

  “About vampires. You can say the word, Frazier. I won’t think you’re crazy. I’m living proof they exist.”

  Frazier rested his head in his hands. “Maybe I am crazy, and you’re just a figment of my imagination.”

  The vampire laughed. It felt good to laugh, he thought with a sudden pang. It had been a long time since he’d indulged in mirth. “I assure you I’m very real. There are people who wish I wasn’t.”

  “Like this Melinda woman?”

  “More like her lover, Valdemar,” Adrian remarked, then resolutely closed his mouth. The less Frazier knew about the vampire underworld, the better.