EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®
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Copyright© 2017 Jessica Marting
ISBN: 978-1-77339-383-4
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Melissa Hosack
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WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
For David, again.
DARK MOON
The Searchers, 2
Jessica Marting
Copyright © 2017
Prologue
4 May 1889
Dresden, Germany
Dear Edgar,
You might find this unbelievable, but I’m bringing back a friend with me to New York. His name is Max Sterling and I expect you to be nice to him. Also, please ask Frank and Beth to be ready for his arrival. He will be sharing my room. Please do not be scandalized. (Ha! As if anyone in the Burgess family could possibly be scandalized!) I’ve already sent them a letter telling them we will be arriving at the New York City Airfield on the 30th of May on the Carl Friedrich Gauss. It will be arriving at six in the evening. Please be there to collect us. I am sure you and the New York branch of the Searchers received my cables and letters about the “problems” I discovered whilst in Europe (whilst! Max’s high English ways are rubbing off on me!). Max and I have taken care of a great deal of those problems and are enjoying a peaceful stay in Dresden right now. He is very excited to meet you and our family once we reach New York. Edgar, for the first time in my life, I am in love. We saved each other’s lives. I will tell you all about it when we come home.
Also, I received your cable about the disappearance of Molly McKillip. I’m so sorry to hear of that, Edgar, I know how special she was to you. We will talk about her further once Max and I land in America.
Much love to you always,
Your irritating sister, Ada
Chapter One
It was incredibly satisfying to come across a den of sleeping vampires. It made Edgar Burgess’s job that much easier, and, frankly, staking them while sleeping was much safer. The bloodsucking persuasion was strong enough to slow down even the most determined monster hunter, and Edgar could swear they were getting smarter, too.
Or maybe Edgar was getting dumber. His brother and sister had suggested that a few times. It was a possibility Edgar didn’t want to think about too much.
He expertly staked the vampire curled on its side, slumbering on the cellar’s dirt floor. The crumbling tenement the vampire nest had taken up in had been abandoned after a fire ripped through its upper floors in the summer of 1886, nearly three years’ prior.
The cellar was filthy enough that Edgar could leave behind the greasy piles of ash they disintegrated into after staking. Maybe he was wrong about vampires getting smarter; intelligent monsters picked out better hiding places. The curled-up vampire gave a final gurgle in its sleep before crumbling into dust, leaving only its clothes behind. Edgar nudged the dirty garments out of the ash, and with his gloved hand, picked them up and flung them into a corner with the rest of the vampires’ clothing. He’d already staked a female and two males, with one more of the latter to go.
Edgar swung his lantern over the cellar, finding the last vampire sprawled on top of a battered, oversized steamer trunk that could probably double as a coffin. A smart vampire would have slept inside the trunk, Edgar thought. He raised his stake and mallet and plunged it into the monster’s chest, spraying oily ash all over the trunk and himself.
“Damn,” he muttered. It was difficult getting vampire remains out of one’s overcoat, even if it was already a dark color.
He pushed the vampire’s clothing off the trunk, coughing at the ash whirling in the air. “Damn again,” he said. “That must have been an older one.” Undead beings tended to be dustier with age once they were finally killed for good.
His head had stopped aching once the vampires were dead, and he couldn’t sense any more left in the derelict building. Of course, that didn’t mean there weren’t any more out there. There were; New York had a moderate-sized infestation problem at the moment. But the daytime meant Edgar could slip out of the cellar to the street, where Brooklyn was already waking up, and return home. He could rest for a few hours, then pick up some work at the Coney Island Airfield. They always needed some extra help with its construction, and he would be glad to receive the money. He’d been spending these last two weeks hunting vampires as much as possible.
But a scratching sound from the inside of the steamer trunk had him turning back to it. Was a cat trapped in there?
He rapped on the trunk’s top, vampire ashes falling to the scarred lid. “Meow?” he said, then immediately felt like an idiot.
The scratching turned into a rapid pounding against the lid, followed by a muffled but very human yelp. “Is someone there? Let me out! Please!”
Could it be…? Edgar’s pulse sped up at the possibility.
“Shit!” He knew whoever was in there wasn’t a vampire; they all passed out at dawn, a compulsion none could disobey. He fumbled with the latches on the trunk and found it locked. “Just a minute.”
“Please help me!” The voice was female, familiar to him, and now started to sob softly.
Or he could be imagining that familiarity out of desperation and guilt.
Edgar snapped off the lock with his stake and mallet and flipped open the lid. A blonde head popped up, and he stepped back in surprise and relief as he recognized the trunk’s occupant. “Molly! My God!”
She had lost weight since he saw her last, her hair was matted, and dried blood was crusted to her dirty dress and exposed skin. There was a lot of it, considering how shredded her clothing was. But it was Molly McKillip, recently disappeared young widow, and his neighbor.
She greedily sucked in deep breaths of stale-tasting air before her gaze fixated on Edgar’s face. Shock spread across her features. “Edgar?” she whispered. Her eyes were wide and frightened.
It really was her. Molly McKillip had been missing for just over two weeks, and Edgar had refused to believe she could be dead. “Molly,” he said, reaching for her, but she shrank back, eyeing the mallet and stake in his hands.
Molly McKillip wouldn’t have known about the existence of vampires before she ended up in this abandoned tenement cellar, let alone that her next-door neighbor was a vampire hunter.
Molly licked her dry, cracked lips. “Are you one of them, Ed?” Her voice was soft, but Edgar heard the tremor of fear in it.
He laid down his stake and mallet, holding up his hands in mock-surrender. “No. I kill them.”
She looked around the cellar. “Where are they?”
Edgar nodded his head in the direction of the pile of ash and garments. “Over there. I staked them when the sun came up.”
“So it’s morning?”
He nodded.
“Did you come to save me?”
Yes! he wanted to shout. I’ve been looking for you in every nest for weeks, my kill rate is the highest of the Searchers’ New York branch, maybe even the entire East, and I’m doing this because I love you more than I could ever tell you and it was my fault you were kidnapped!
But he didn’t. Instead, he replied simply, “Yes.” He held out his hands. “Let me help you out of there.”
“Did you kill Agate, too?”
Edgar dropped his hands and looked at the pile of clothes in the co
rner. “I don’t know. I staked five today. I don’t look for identifying information before staking them.”
“So that’s what those sounds were.” She shuddered. A wooden stake slammed into a vampire’s heart made a very distinctive, wet sound, reminiscent of the noises made by meat being butchered. Edgar was used to it.
“Agate always wore a black overcoat, even though it’s getting warmer,” she said. Her eyes took on a faraway look as she recalled his appearance.
“Molly, a lot of vampires wear black. I think they think it adds to the effect.”
“He has light hair, almost white,” she said. “He went, um, naked quite a bit, too. Did you kill him?”
Her eyes were hopeful, and Edgar hated to break her heart. He would have remembered a white-haired, naked vampire, and there were none in his list of kills this morning. “I don’t think so,” he said. Her face fell, and a tear slid down one grimy cheek. He stripped off his dirty gloves and shoved them in pants pocket, holding his hands out to her again. “Let me help you up.”
Her face was wary and eyes glassy, and she hesitated for a second before letting him lift her out of the steamer trunk. She was lighter than she should be, as delicate as a bird.
She swayed on her feet, and Edgar steadied her. “Do you think you can walk?” he asked.
Molly nodded and dragged a hand across her eyes, tears smearing the dirt and blood caked on her skin. “Yes.”
He took in her filthy, torn dress and disheveled hair and knew they wouldn’t be able to get out of the cellar and to the streets without attracting attention. He shucked off his overcoat and draped it around her shoulders. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
She stuck her arms in the coat and wrapped it around herself. It was comically oversized, but she didn’t seem to care. “Ed, what happened to them?”
“I killed them,” he said again. May as well be honest, since she knew about vampires’ existence. “Molly, I’m a Searcher. My entire family is. Searchers are vampire hunters.”
“I thought you worked at the Brooklyn Airfield,” she said.
“Coney Island Airfield, and I do that on the side to pick up some extra money. It turns out that staking vampires isn’t a great way to earn a living. Molly, let’s go.”
But she stayed rooted to the dirt floor, looking at her surroundings in the dim light offered by Edgar’s lantern. “They fed from me,” she said, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.
Pain lodged itself in Edgar’s chest at what she must have endured. “I know.”
“What do I do now?” she said.
“You come with me,” Edgar said. “You know Francis and Elizabeth—my brother and his wife. They’re Searchers, too. We’re all going to help you.”
“My room?” Molly said. “Is it still there?”
Molly had rented a room in the house next to the one the Burgess family shared, and Edgar knew that the landlord had long ago thrown away her belongings after she disappeared. There would be no sugar-coating that unfortunate truth; Edgar had seen her things tossed on the street himself. Might as well be honest. “No. But Molly, we’ll help you.”
A sob escaped her. “All right.”
This time, she let Edgar put his hand in the small of her back and guide her out of the abandoned tenement, to the street where Brooklyn was waking up.
****
Molly leaned against Edgar Burgess as he led her out of the cellar to the street, where she saw dawn breaking for the first time in weeks. How long had she been gone? She stopped keeping track of the days and nights after the first couple of sleepless days in the trunk, but there had still been a bite in the air the night she was tricked into leaving her home. It wasn’t quite warm yet, but the ground was free of snow and the trees were starting to bud. Just how much of her life had she lost?
“What day is it?” she asked.
“The twelfth of May.”
Dear God. “Oh, no,” she said, a new wave of distress washing over her. Her rent was due twice a week, and according to Edgar she had already been evicted.
Her room was gone, and with it, her belongings. Her job at the telegraph office was almost certainly filled by someone else, too. Molly had been living hand-to-mouth since she was widowed three years prior and moved to Brooklyn; now she was destitute.
Edgar stopped, the shadow of the abandoned tenement behind them. Its upper floors were fire-damaged, and she wished she could finish the job the flames could not. “Molly,” he said urgently. “Please believe me when I tell you that you’re not going to be alone in this. The Searchers will help you. I will help you.”
Molly forced herself to meet his gaze. He isn’t a vampire, she reassured herself. You can look him in the eye and know he won’t use a mind trick to make you do something. Still, it was difficult, even when all that looked back at her was a pair of concerned dark eyes, but wholly human. There wasn’t a reddish tint to them at all. She didn’t feel a pull from looking at him or feel drugged the way she did with the vampires back in the cellar.
He hailed a steam cab that ambled along the street. He ushered her into the backseat and spoke quickly with the driver, giving him the Burgess family’s address a couple of miles away. He slid into the backseat next to her.
The steam cab was dirty and reeked of tobacco and vomit, the odor made worse by the pipe being smoked by the driver. The seat was stained and torn, and the section of Brooklyn they were traveling through wasn’t particularly safe even during the day. Edgar wore an uncharacteristic look of concern on his face instead of his usual impish, devil-may-care expression that Molly secretly found attractive before she was kidnapped. She estimated she’d lost about half of her own blood supply during her time in captivity.
But none of that mattered. She was free now.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
He didn’t ask for further clarification, only nodded. “It’s my job.”
“I wish I could repay you in some way,” she said.
“There’s no need for that,” he said. “And it’s also my job to get you back on your feet. The first thing we’re going to do is take you home. Then I’ll have to write a report for the Searchers and deliver it to headquarters.”
And then what? Molly knew that the Burgess family and this Searcher organization he kept talking about couldn’t care for her indefinitely. She had been barely making do before she was kidnapped, and it had been hard enough to start over with the few measly dollars she had when she came to Brooklyn’s grittier neighborhood after her husband died. Now she had nothing.
But she didn’t point any of that out, and instead leaned back against the steam cab’s grimy seat.
****
The row of narrow townhouses was exactly as Molly had imagined it, and she had never seen a better sight in her life. Well, not quite. She stole a glance at Edgar, whose gaze was already pinned on her, gauging her reaction. There was kindness in his dark eyes that sent a corresponding warmth through her body.
When was the last time someone cared for her?
Seeing Edgar Burgess when he opened that trunk, and her realization that he hadn’t turned into one of them, was the best sight she had ever seen. The row houses were second-best.
Before she could let herself out of the cab, Edgar had already left the backseat and had opened her door for her. It creaked on unoiled hinges, but she didn’t care about that. When was the last time anyone had opened a door for her, helped her down to the street?
It had been Edgar, she recalled. She remembered the day she moved into Miss Stapleton’s boarding house, two years ago. Edgar had happened to be returning home from somewhere—hunting vampires, maybe?—and offered to carry her trunk into the house. Miss Stapleton’s nod of encouragement at Edgar had told Molly that the man who lived next door was safe.
He guided her up the steep stairs to the front door and let himself in. “Frank!” he said. “Beth! Look who I found!”
“Coming!” called a familiar woman’s voice from upstairs. Foot
steps sounded above them, then clattered down the staircase as Francis and Beth Burgess heard his shout. They stopped at the foot of the stairs and stared in shock at the sight in the foyer.
“Molly?” said Beth in a breathless whisper. “My God!”
“I found her in one of the buildings that burned down a few years ago,” Edgar said. “Routine vampire stakings. She was in a trunk.”
Only now did Molly remember that she must look as bad as she felt, with her torn clothes, matted hair, and every part of her bearing bloodstains. She started to shrug out of Edgar’s coat, but he stopped her and helped her out of it, draping it over one arm.
“Sorry,” he said. “I forgot my manners.”
Manners? What did manners matter anymore? “It’s all right,” she said.
Before she could contemplate what she was going to do next, Beth spoke. “I’ll get you something to eat right away.” She turned to Francis. “Fill up the bathtub in the kitchen,” she said, briskness in her voice. “I’ll get some soap and something for her to change into. Molly, are you otherwise injured?”
Aside from being kept as a living meal for these last weeks, she wasn’t. “No.”
“I can tell from the look of you that you’ve lost a great deal of blood,” Beth said. “Edgar, be a lamb and run to the butcher shop for some cow’s blood; it should be open soon. Frank, go to headquarters and tell them what’s happened. Bring the doctor back with you.” Her tone brooked no argument. She turned back to Molly. “It’s important to replace the blood you’ve lost. It tastes vile of course, but it’s necessary.”
Ugh. Molly only nodded, however. She wasn’t going to turn away help from people who knew what they were doing, even if meant sucking down blood like a vampire.
While Francis—Frank—dragged a battered tub into the kitchen and dumped buckets of water in it, Beth put together a meal of leftovers and served it to her in the parlor, apologizing for the lack of fresh food.
Dark Moon Page 1