“You’ve—” Barry threw him another of those startled glances, but again Mike was just a large, dark shape. As enigmatic, as unknowable as one of those Easter Island statues. “You’re telling me, you’ve known about vampires and demons and whatever else is out there since you were a kid?”
“There’s plenty of information available on the subject.”
Barry made a couple of strangled sounds. He had no idea what to say to any of that.
Mike sounded almost bored as he said, “If I’d told you this morning that I thought we ought to get out of town because there was a good chance one or both of us was going to run into some otherworld trouble this weekend, would you have believed me?”
“Well, no. Probably not.”
“There you have it.”
Barry had to concentrate on another unexpected hairpin turn. When the car straightened out again, he said, “Is that the only reason you asked me to come along with you?”
Mike was silent.
“Is it?” Better to know up front and not waste any more time mooning for what was never going to be. Still, he couldn’t help thinking how it had felt to have Mike’s lips brush his skin. Mike’s strong fingers holding his wrist steady. Barry had known a lot of guys. None of them had kissed his wrist before.
He’d never wanted a guy to kiss his wrist before.
Mike said gruffly, “Why didn’t you come? Neither of those cases were so urgent they couldn’t have been back-burnered till Tuesday.”
“You put my back up,” Barry said. “It felt like an ultimatum. And then it felt like you changed your mind.” He shrugged, though Mike probably couldn’t see him in the darkness either. Or maybe he could. Clearly Mike had talents and gifts Barry had never dreamed of.
“I changed my mind,” Mike said.
Oh.
So that’s what it felt like to have a stake plunge through your heart.
Barry said nothing. Even if he could have spoken around the pain, what was there left to say?
Still, he needed to say something. Show he could take it. The silence was excruciating.
Mike said suddenly in a strained voice that didn’t sound like his own, “I decided if you were coming along to hand me another lecture about the benefits of cold showers and long-distance running, it would be better if you stayed home.”
“I wasn’t gonna do that.”
“No?” Mike sounded wary, uncertain.
“No.”
“I thought that’s what you were getting at when you brought up that first Halloween.”
Right. Back when Barry had thought Mike’s demons were the self-inflicted kind. He swallowed, the sound unexpectedly loud in the confines of the front seat. “No. I wanted to come.”
The silence had a disbelieving quality to it. Then Mike turned to face him, saying roughly, “Then you should have said yes. I wanted you there. I’ve wanted you there for nearly three years. There and everywhere else. But you’ve always been so surefire bent on the power of positive thinking and mind over matter.”
“I know. I know.”
“I’ve been—I was afraid to push it. Afraid—”
“Afraid of what?”
“I’d scare you off.”
Barry flushed hotly with unfamiliar emotion. He felt…shocked. With happiness. Yeah, he was shocked and happy and excited. He had never expected this. Not really. Not to hear it in words. The things he had privately thought, secretly longed for.
His hands clamped tight on the steering wheel. He groaned. “Jesus, Mike. I don’t scare that easy. If we weren’t in such a goddamned hurry, I’d show you just how not scared I am, how much I wanted to hear—” He had to stop himself. If this went any further, no power on earth would keep him from pulling over and showing Mike how he felt. God. The very thought of the things he wanted to do, made him shake.
Mike said at once, “No. We can’t stop. We gotta finish this tonight.” He added bleakly, “Even if it finishes us.”
Chapter Five
Mike had nearly finished briefing Barry on the troubling history of Darragh Avartaugh when the house swung into view. Lights blazed from every window of what appeared to be an Italian villa perched on the windswept clifftop.
“You’re saying Avartaugh is actually the reincarnation of this ancient Irish chieftain Abhartach?” Barry did not mean to sound skeptical—not after the things he’d seen that night—but it was a lot to take in. He fell silent at the sight of the house.
A spread that big meant household staff. A lot of staff. And if Avartaugh was the villain he sounded, it meant goons. Goons galore.
Swell.
Mike said, “Not the reincarnation. He is Abhartach.”
And you know that how? But Barry didn’t waste time on foolish questions. “How do we get in to see him?”
Mike said, “Getting in won’t be the problem.”
He turned out to be right about that—and other things.
There was a night watchman in the little cottage beside the tall gates blocking the entrance to the mountain villa. But a quick phone call to the main house had him scurrying to unlock the gates. Barry’s Crestline glided through and they sailed up the eucalyptus-lined road to a cement drive that circled around a couple of grassy squares with fountains.
The fountains shot plumes of ice-colored water into the night.
They parked and got out. A veddy English butler held the front door open for them, silky light spilling down the steps and fanning across the tidy squares of lawn and hedge.
“Mr. Avartaugh is waiting for you in the study,” Godfrey announced.
Barry nodded, glanced at Mike, and realized he was on his own. Somewhere between the car and the front door, Mike had disappeared. It was disconcerting, okay, but Barry kept his surprise to himself.
He followed the butler through a maze of beautiful rooms with intricate moldings, marble fireplaces, hand-carved mantles, and elegant crystal chandeliers. They came at last to the study. More moldings, fireplaces, mantles and chandeliers—and books. There were more books in that room that most public libraries Barry had been in. Old books mostly. Gilt-edged and leather bound. Books older than that. Books so old they weren’t even books, just rolls of parchment stacked behind glass.
There was a giant brown and gold globe in a cradle adorned with bronze dragons, and there was a desk. The kind of desk where important men wrote important words to other important men. The man sitting at the desk looked like any tired businessman after a long day of moving and shaking. Julius Caesar probably looked like that before his first cocktail of the evening. Avartaugh was a slender, middle-aged, genteel-looking chap with thinning gray hair and mild eyes.
“Mr. Fitzgerald. Welcome.” His voice was quiet, calm, with a suggestion of a lilt.
“Sorry to barge in at this hour,” Barry said, trying not to look at any of the doorways leading into the room. What Mike was up to? It would have been nice to know in advance, but Mike had always been close-mouthed, and that at least hadn’t changed.
“Not at all. We’ve been expecting you.”
We. Because yes, there were other people in the room. There were a couple of heavies wearing black frowns and cheap suits, sitting on either side of the large marble fireplace like gloomy andirons. And there was a weedy, bored-looking youngster slumped on a blue sofa. He was stubbing out a cigarette in a dish already spilling over with butts.
“So, you’re Maggie’s PI.” He met Barry’s eyes indifferently, and lit another cigarette.
“So, you’re Patrick O’Flaherty.”
O’Flaherty curled his lip at whatever he heard in Barry’s voice.
“Mr. Fitzgerald.” Avartaugh’s smooth voice drew Barry’s attention. “Would you happen to know what became of my associate, Mr. Redfern?”
“He took a powder,” Barry said.
The heavies next to the fireplace exchanged looks.
Avartaugh’s brows rose. “I’m surprised to hear it.”
Barry shrugged. “Anyway, I’m he
re on behalf of Miss Margaret Mary O’Flaherty. She’s hired me to secure her brother’s release.”
Avartaugh’s face quivered as though he found something funny, but was too polite to laugh. He glanced at the clock on the wall. “You’re cutting it very close. It’s one minute to midnight.”
“Well, if I’m too late, I guess that’s that.”
Avartaugh did laugh then. A quiet sound that sent a slither of tension down Barry’s spine. O’Flaherty sat up straight, glaring. “Wise guy, eh?”
“It’s not too late,” Avartaugh said.
“It might be,” Barry said, “because her answer is no.”
In the pause that followed, the clock began to chime the hour. Twelve chimes seemed like a lifetime.
When the clock finally fell silent, Avartaugh said, “No?” Like he’d never heard the word before.
O’Flaherty jumped up—the goons rose too, big and watchful—and screeched, “You’re lying. She wouldn’t dare!”
“It sounded like no to me. And that’s even before she finds out her brother’s a louse who helped orchestrate his own kidnapping.”
O’Flaherty lost color and sat down again on the sofa.
“Ah.” Avartaugh sounded regretful. “I was afraid of this.”
“That’s the least of it,” Barry said to O’Flaherty. “She might forgive you for blackmailing her into marrying a guy she loathes—even though he is a vampire. She won’t forgive you for killing her father.”
O’Flaherty’s eyes seemed to start from his ashen face. “How do you know--?”
“You weren’t aware of the terms of your father’s will,” Barry said. “I’m guessing somewhere along the way he recognized what you were and changed them. But you thought with the old man out of the way, you’d inherit half of everything. It was clearly a crime of opportunity, and you had the motive and the means. Plus, you just confessed.”
O’Flaherty began to stammer and splutter.
Avartaugh sighed. “This is really a shame. You’re a very entertaining young man.”
“I do card tricks too.” Barry glanced warily at the heavies who were now closing in on him from either side.
Avartaugh rose—and Barry saw the real reason his love for Margaret Mary O’Flaherty was impossible: he was maybe five-feet-tall. In his shoes. Tall girls are sensitive about these things.
“Out of curiosity, how did you manage to dispatch Mr. Redfern?” Avartaugh asked. There was something strangely magnetic about his dark, dark eyes. Barry found it hard to look away as Avartaugh came slowly toward him.
“That wasn’t me,” Barry said. “That was my partner, Mr. Cathan.”
Avartaugh stopped in his tracks. “Cathán?” he whispered.
Mike stepped out of the shadows near the curtains. How had he got there without being seen? Had he been there the whole time? He was smiling. A rare sight—and utterly terrifying.
“You heard him,” he said.
Later, Barry couldn’t quite recall what exactly happened in the minutes that followed. He remembered the two heavies had cried out at the sight of Mike—stake in hand—and Barry, though his altar boy days were long behind him, remembered enough Latin to recognize the words “scourge” and “slayer.”
He knew the lights went out. All of them at the same time. He knew someone hit him with a chair—he had the bruises to prove it the next day. He knew at some point he’d used his trusty letter opener because it was smeared with a very dark, almost black substance that looked (and smelled) an awful lot like blood.
Beyond that…it was confused. And confusing.
He had been afraid. He had been pretty sure he was going to die. He had been determined to take some of those blood-suckers with him.
When the lights came on again, he was half-sitting, propped against Mike’s muscular shoulder. Mike was nuzzling his temple and whispering, “Open your eyes, cuisle mo chroidhe.”
“I’m awake. I’m awake!” Barry had protested.
He pushed Mike away, and sat the rest of the way up. They were in Darragh Avartaugh’s study, but there was no sign of Avartaugh or his two henchmen.
Patrick O’Flaherty was crouched in a corner near one of the bookshelves. He was making gibbering noises and chewing the drapery.
They did not call the cops. There was no sign of the night watchman as they drove out the gates. They delivered O’Flaherty into the arms of his alarmed but grateful sister, and Barry told her it was better not to ask questions.
He did not plan on taking that advice himself, but he was going to choose his moment, especially since Mike had reverted back to his normal taciturn self.
As Barry passed the turn-off for the office on Brand Boulevard, he said, “Is this going to turn into a regular occurrence?”
He felt rather than saw Mike look at him.
“It…doesn’t have to be,” Mike said carefully. “If you don’t feel the same.”
“It pays well. I’ll say that much.”
“Oh,” Mike said, in a different tone. “That. I see. Yes. I guess it could pay well.”
“It gives us a little versatility in an already crowded market.”
Mike grunted.
As they drew closer to the turn-off for Barry’s apartment, Barry asked, “What does cuisle mo chroidhe mean?”
“It’s Irish,” Mike said.
“I know it’s Irish. What’s it mean?”
“Vein of my heart.” Mike sounded half-smothered.
Barry’s own heart rose. He smiled. “Romantic.”
Mike cleared his throat.
“You’re not two-thousand-years-old, are you?”
“No. You’re thinking of my great-great-great grandfather.”
Barry relaxed. His smile broadened. “No. Though I’m sure he was a nice old gent. What I was thinking was I’d like to make you my partner, Mike. What do you say to that?”
Mike said softly, “I’m thinking of saying yes, Barry.”
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About the Author
Author of over sixty titles of classic Male/Male fiction featuring twisty mystery, kickass adventure, and unapologetic man-on-man romance, JOSH LANYON’S work has been translated into nine languages. Her FBI thriller Fair Game was the first Male/Male title to be published by Harlequin Mondadori, then the largest romance publisher in Italy. Stranger on the Shore (Harper Collins Italia) was the first M/M title to be published in print. In 2016 Fatal Shadows placed #5 in Japan's annual Boy Love novel list (the first and only title by a foreign author to place on the list). The Adrien English series was awarded the All Time Favorite Couple by the Goodreads M/M Romance Group.
Josh is an Eppie Award winner, a four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist (twice for Gay Mystery), and the first ever recipient of the Goodreads All Time Favorite M/M Author award.
Josh is married and lives in Southern California.
Find other Josh Lanyon titles at www.joshlanyon.com
Follow Josh on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.
If you enjoyed this story, check the following titles by Josh Lanyon
Novels
The ADRIEN ENGLISH Mysteries
Fatal Shadows
A Dangerous Thing
The Hell You Say
Death of a Pirate King
The Dark Tide
Stranger Things Have Happened
So This is Christmas
The HOLMES & MORIARITY Mysteries
Somebody Killed His Editor
All She Wrote
The Boy with the Painful Tattoo
The ALL’S FAIR Trilogy
Fair Game
Fair Play
Fair Chance
The ART OF MURDER Trilogy
The Mermaid Murders
The Monet Murders
Other novels
This Rough Magic (A SHOT IN THE DARK Series)
The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks
Mexican Heat (with Laura Baumbach)
Stra
nge Fortune
Come Unto These Yellow Sands
Stranger on the Shore
Winter Kill
Jefferson Blythe, Esquire
Murder in Pastel
The Curse of the Blue Scarab
Novellas
The DANGEROUS GROUND Series
Dangerous Ground
Old Poison
Blood Heat
Dead Run
Kick Start
The I SPY Series
I Spy Something Bloody
I Spy Something Wicked
I Spy Something Christmas
The IN A DARK WOOD Series
In a Dark Wood
The Parting Glass
The DARK HORSE Series
The Dark Horse
The White Knight
Snowball in Hell (DOYLE & SPAIN Series)
Haunted Heart: Winter (HAUNTED HEART Series)
Mummy Dearest (XOXO FILES Series)
Other novellas
Cards on the Table
The Dark Farewell
The Darkling Thrush
The Dickens with Love
Don’t Look Back
A Ghost of a Chance
Lovers and Other Strangers
Out of the Blue
A Vintage Affair
Lone Star (in Men Under the Mistletoe)
Green Glass Beads (in Irregulars)
Blood Red Butterfly
Everything I Know
Baby, It’s Cold (in Comfort and Joy)
A Case of Christmas
Murder Between the Pages
Short stories
A Limited Engagement
The French Have a Word for It
In Sunshine or In Shadow
Until We Meet Once More
Icecapade (in His for the Holidays)
Perfect Day
Heart Trouble
Other People’s Weddings (Petit Mort)
Slings and Arrows (Petit Mort)
Sort of Stranger Than Fiction (Petit Mort)
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