by Jasmine Walt
Kissed by Night
Her Dark Protectors: Book 2
Jasmine Walt
Emma Stark
Copyright © 2018, Jasmine Walt and Emma Stark. All rights reserved. Published by Dynamo Press.
This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed via email to [email protected].
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Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Also by Jasmine Walt
About the authors
1
I bring my hand to my face, covering my nose, and look around. Blood stains the walls, dripping from the rafters and pooling on the floor. I take in a breath through my mouth, but the putrid smell of festering blood is unavoidable.
Pulling a flashlight from my utility belt, I carefully step over a significant puddle of blood and shine the light on the wall. It’s dank and dark in this basement, and it being the middle of the night doesn’t help the situation. CSU needs to get their asses here and set up.
“There’s something written in black ink under the blood,” I say over my shoulder to another police officer. “I can’t make it out, but make sure it’s photographed properly.”
Taking another look around the room, I do my best not to gag from the scent of not only old blood but also cat urine and the water-rotten floorboards above me. The blood splatter analyst hasn’t yet arrived, but I already know what he’ll say.
The blood was put up in layers.
It doesn’t make sense, but things that don’t make sense are my specialty. Though even for me, none of this adds up. The blood…the cryptic writing behind it…the knife I found lying in the middle of the floor that’s tip is in perfect condition and obviously hadn’t been used to murder anyone…it’s all so obvious.
As if someone was trying to get my attention.
Well, they have it, but it doesn’t make me any less annoyed. Thankful for the plastic coveralls I have on over my clothes, I go over to a storage closet door and shine my light around it.
Sometime after the first layer of blood was thrown around the room, someone opened the door and smeared it. It’s long been dried, stained into the cement floor, forever soaked into the old wooden frame. They were careful to get enough new blood over the door to try and cover it up, which leads me to believe someone of importance was once in the closet.
Suddenly, the air around me shifts, and my head buzzes with thoughts that aren’t quite my own. I blink, shaking my head rapidly to get rid of them. What the fuck was that? I could hear the voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Taking a steadying breath, I cast a sideways look at the officer behind me and reach for the door. The knob sticks when I turn it. I tuck my flashlight under my arm and twist the knob with both hands.
The door slowly creaks open. I grab my light and rest my free hand on my gun, standing back just in case something with fangs and claws jumps out at me. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Cold, musky air billows out, along with the rancid smell of a rotting body. I turn my head, but the alternative isn’t much better. The whole place needs to be burned to the ground it smells so bad.
Eyes watering from the scent of death, I flick the light around the little closet.
“If this is the body you called me in for, I’m going to be pissed,” I only half joke, raising an eyebrow. The officer comes over, face pale, and looks at the dead cat.
“We take every life seriously here at the Philadelphia Police Department,” he deadpans, and for a split second I think he’s serious. Then he tips his head, looking at the cat. “I didn’t know that was in there.”
“While I’m glad I wasn’t pulled out of bed for a cat murder, I still don’t get why I’m here,” I say, and turn around, facing the young officer who responded to the initial call.
He looks at me like I’m crazy and don’t realize I’m standing in a room dripping with blood.
“I’m a homicide detective,” I go on, trying to be patient. I wasn’t just called out of my bed at three a.m. for this. I was called out of my bed, forcing me to leave Thomas and Gilbert, who were both still naked after we had sex. I was so comfortable wrapped in Gil’s arms while Thomas rubbed my back. My time with the guys is limited to the night, and the sun rises early in the summer. “I know it looks like there’s enough blood here to say there’s been a murder, but without a body, we can’t make assumptions. This could be pig blood for all we know.”
“Right, I’m aware.” He shifts his weight nervously. “This seemed like your area of expertise.”
Keeping my face neutral, I hold my gaze and wait for him to go on. Over the years of taking on some of the weirder cases that pass through the homicide department, I’ve gotten the reputation of being Philly’s very own Fox Mulder.
“She asked for you.”
“Who?”
“Mary Green. The woman who reported the blood. She said only Detective Bisset could help.”
After solving the “vampire murders” that terrorized the city only months ago, a few articles circulated around social media about me, hailing me a hero and all that. The situation still makes me feel uneasy.
The murderer really was a vampire, not a human acting as one, like the city believes. The only human involved in the situation was more or less framed for multiple murders he didn’t commit, though he definitely aided in the deaths.
I feel guilty and relieved at the same time.
The officer’s brow furrows. “She said the voices told her to find you.”
“Voices?” I swallow hard. “Where is she?”
“In a squad car out front.”
I dismiss him with a nod and leave the basement, gulping in fresh air as soon as I’m outside. I remove the coveralls and go around the house to find this lady who’s hearing voices.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have given her the slightest benefit of the doubt. If you hear voices you’re batshit crazy and should be on medication. But then I walked into an old house and lifted a thousand-year-old spell.
“Mrs. Green?” I ask when I open the car door. She has a blanket around her shoulders and looks as stricken as someone should when they discover the basement of their rental property could be the backdrop for the prom scene of Carrie. “I’m Detective Bisset.”
Mrs. Green blinks and pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Slowly, she turns her head. “They know,” she whispers.
“Who knows?”
She shifts her gaze
around, wincing as if someone just slapped her hard on the face. I’m starting to lean toward my she’s-batshit-crazy theory right now.
“The Dark Ones.” The words come out hoarse and strangled, and she looks me dead in the eye. “They know about you.”
As hard as I try, I can’t stop a chill from running down my spine.
“And what did they tell you?”
She closes her eyes. “They want the night. They say it’s theirs and they want it back.”
I exhale, head feeling fuzzy again. “Make sure you give a statement to the responding officer,” I mutter, and step away. I go around the squad car, watching flashing lights from the CSU van come down the road.
There’s no need to put any stock into this lady. If I were a betting woman, I’d put a hundred bucks on her being off her rocker, and another fifty on her being the one who staged the blood bath in the basement. And probably twenty-five on her being a compulsive cat hoarder who’s going to get arrested for animal neglect on top of her other charges.
Tipping my head up to the dark sky, I think of Thomas’s and Gilbert’s handsome faces. Of Hasan’s rippling muscles, and Jacques’s deep, sad eyes.
Keep it together, Ace.
Shaking myself, I go back to work, wrapping things up quickly since there’s not technically a body. I pull out my phone and send a text to Jac, telling him I’ll be headed home soon.
He replies right away, telling me to be careful, and adds a bunch of emojis at the end of his text. I laugh, shaking my head. I never should have shown him that, though I’m sure he would have figured it out on his own. Jacques is quite smart, and I know he’s enjoyed learning about new inventions way more than he’d ever let on.
Taking one last look at the squad car that holds Mrs. Green, I pocket my phone and take a few steps in the direction of my Charger. Something feels off, and it’s not the over-the-top crime scene in the basement.
I can’t put it into words, because it’s quite literally just a feeling. I’ve had them before, and as a cop, I know how important it is to listen to your gut. And right now, my gut is telling me to go down that dark alley two doors down from the blood house. It’s my weekend off, dammit, and I want to spend every minute of it with my guys.
But as I get closer to the alley, my head gets all muddled again, and it’s like a million people are talking all at once on a frequency only I can hear. At first it’s just a quiet whisper, like a mouth right up to my ear, breath warm on my flesh. I whirl around, fists clenched, ready to fight.
Of course, there’s no one there.
A tumult of whispers weigh down on me, and I bring my hands over my ears to drown them out. I can’t tell what they’re saying, and the bombardment is making me go on the defense. The tips of my fingers start to feel warm.
Dammit. Not now.
I bring my hands back down, balling them into fists as I try to quell the magical fire I seem to only be able to conjure up when I’m faced with certain danger. Forcing myself to take a deep breath and find my fucking zen, I shake out my hands and mentally tell the voices to go screw themselves.
I turn to go back to my car, and a flash of light catches my attention at the last moment. It came from the alley. Pulling my gun from its holster, I sprint over, gravel crunching under my boots. I come to a grinding halt, eyes wide and nostrils flaring.
“Motherfucker,” I curse, and reach for my radio. Looks like this is my crime scene after all. Before I can get a word in, something moves behind me. Gun raised, I turn on my heel.
Standing before me is a man, pale, gray, and the spitting image of the dead body lying on the ground feet from me.
2
“What the fuck?”
I blink, and the man stares right at me. I shuffle forward, finger hovering over the trigger on my gun. The man doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink. And now I don’t think he’s staring at me so much as staring through me.
I swallow hard and inch forward, mind going a mile a minute. There’s a dead body next to me. Cops walked up and down this alley not that long ago, meaning whoever dumped the body could be nearby. I should go, call this in, and canvass the area for the murderer.
But there’s also what I think is a ghost hovering feet from me.
“Hey.” My voice comes out strangled, forced, but what the hell was I expecting when talking to a ghost. “Can you hear me?” If I weren’t so stunned, I would have rolled my eyes at myself for sounding so fucking lame.
The ghost flickers, reminding me of a video game character glitching before the whole game crashes. The air around me fills with heat, and the whispering is back, so close I can feel a breath on the back of my neck.
I whirl around, heart racing, but nothing is behind me. I spin again, and the ghost is gone. Gun still raised, I take a step away from the body, keeping my back to the wall behind me so no one can sneak up and take advantage of my shocked state. Blinking rapidly to try and clear my head, I exhale heavily and half expect my breath to cloud around me like it does in movies.
Though if the last few weeks have taught me anything, it’s that Hollywood knows shit about the paranormal. Jacques, on the other hand, is a walking—and flying—encyclopedia of the supernatural. My free hand jerks up to grab my phone to call him.
I’m at work. As a detective. A detective who, for the last few years, has proved over and over that the supernatural doesn’t exist. But things have changed.
Reaching for my radio instead, I call it in and go back to examine the body. Right away I know something isn’t right, and I mean other than the fact a dead guy is lying on the dirty alley ground.
His hair has been combed and styled. His clothes are clean. There are no obvious wounds, no blood staining his clothes, no bruises around his neck or wrists. Thick makeup coats his face, hiding the death pallor.
He’s been professionally embalmed.
I stand up, waiting for an officer to get here, and pull out my phone after all. But I don’t call Jacques, not yet. I dial the station and ask if any bodies have been reported missing from a local morgue.
One has, and it’s only three miles from here.
“I lied.” I put my Charger in reverse, eyes going to the backup camera.
“About what?” Hasan’s heavily accented voice comes through the speakers. Explaining how cell phones work was hard enough, trying to get the guys to understand how you can connect it to Bluetooth and have the conversation “hands free” was pointless. It doesn’t help that I don’t really understand it myself, but I at least don’t question it.
“I’m not coming home. Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Turns out there was a body, though he died of natural causes.”
“Then why are you there?”
I carefully back up, turning my wheel so I can get out of the spot I parallel parked in. “The body was stolen from the morgue.”
“Morgue,” he repeats, trying to place the word. For being over a thousand years old, and not having English as their first language, I have to hand it to the guys for picking up on things fast.
“It’s where they keep bodies and prep them for funerals. The whole thing is weird.” I hesitate, knowing if I mutter the word “ghost” Hasan will take to the sky and come find me. All of the guys are overprotective of me, which annoys me as much as I appreciate it. Hasan was a badass warrior back in his day, and he’s never said anything, but I think he misses it.
It was his calling.
He was doing what he was meant to do.
Ridding the world of evil. Making it a better place. Fighting for a cause he believed in with his entire being.
Helping me fight crime is the next best thing.
“I’ll call you as soon as I know what’s going on. Do you want me to pick up pizza on the way home?”
“Do you have to ask?” he shoots back, making me laugh. I get a flash of his handsome face, and feel the longing for home grow in my heart.
And warmth grow between my legs.
“I’ll see you soon.”
“Be careful, Acelina.”
We hang up, and I speed to the morgue. Technically, I’m not responding to the call. Stolen bodies are all kinds of fucked up, but it’s not what I deal with. Though tonight, I need to find out more.
The morgue owner is inside with several officers, going over the security cameras. I stand behind them and watch, slowly going over the footage. There are exterior cameras on all the doors, along with one in the hall outside the room the body was stolen from.
Three minutes of footage are missing. The screen goes black, and when the picture comes back, the front doors of the funeral home are wide open.
“Ballsy,” I mutter, shaking my head. Whoever stole the body didn’t seem to be worried about getting caught. And leaving the doors wide open like that…it’s either a rookie mistake or done on purpose to get someone’s attention.
“And the alarm never went off?” one of the officers asks.
“No,” the owner says, shaking his head. Thin black hair is combed over his forehead, in a similar fashion to the dead guy’s. I bet he was the one who styled it, and I distantly wonder if he thinks it’s weird to style dead people’s hair like his.
“It went off when I stepped inside. We have motion sensors. I just don’t understand.” He looks at us, expecting answers. “You heard the guy from the alarm company. They didn’t detect a single disturbance. How is that possible?”
“How did you know the door was open?” I ask. “It’s the middle of the night.”