by Opal Carew
“No.”
The word came off his tongue sounding French. When he kissed me, there was a lot of French in that too. He tasted of hickory coffee—no, wait that was me. Thick cream, heavy sugar—definitely him. I licked his teeth, wanting more of that taste, since I never dared drink my coffee anything but black.
With Adam I got all of the flavor and none of the calories. Only later did I realize I’d also been checking those teeth for a razor-edged sharpness. I’m not sure what I would have done if I’d found some.
We were frantic again, pulling at each other’s clothes. My top flew one way, my bra the other, his shirt slid from his shoulders and onto the floor. Why was it that every time we came near each other we couldn’t seem to stop this from happening?
I was on fire, barely able to stand still, desperate for a release that I wasn’t going to get from a kiss, when he backed me against the wall. How had he known I was weak in the knees?
I murmured my approval, circling my arms around his neck as he ran his palms from the outside of my breasts to my hips. He stilled, and stepped back, taking his hands and his mouth with him. I nearly fell on my face without his support.
“What’s this?” He unbuttoned my pants, and the fleur-de-lis chain spilled out.
Oops.
I studied his face, but, as usual, I couldn’t get a read on him. “I—uh—got it today.”
His eyes lifted from their solemn contemplation of my jewelry. “Why?”
“Protection.”
“From vampires?” Adam’s lips curved. “There’s no such thing, cher.”
“Then why did I see Charlie in town?”
His lips flattened. “Dead Charlie?”
“Not anymore. Or maybe again. He blew up.”
Adam glanced out the window, then back. “You’re not makin’ any sense.”
“I saw Charlie, chased him to St. Louis Number One—”
“You nuts? Never go there alone.”
I hadn’t been alone, but that was beside the point. “Charlie released a woman from her crypt. According to the obituary, she died two days ago, but she was walking pretty well last night.”
“No one gets buried so quickly.”
“That’s all you’ve got to say?”
He touched my forehead. I slapped his hand away. “I’m not feverish or insane.”
“You saw Charlie and a dead woman walk; then they blew up.”
Okay, when he said it out loud, I did sound nuts.
“And you think they were vampires?”
“Maybe. Cassandra said they weren’t zombies.”
“Who in hell is Cassandra?”
“Voodoo priestess.”
He stared at me for several seconds. “My, you have been busy.”
Why did his words sound like a threat? Because I was paranoid as well as crazy. The two did go together like franks and beans.
“You don’t believe me,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe; it’s what you believe.”
“I don’t know anymore.”
He brushed my hair from my cheek, and this time I let him. “New Orleans would spook anyone. There are ghosts here, can’t help but be. But those things you speak of... “ He shook his head. “I don’t think this little old chain will protect you from them.”
My chin tipped up. “You have a better idea?”
“No.” His gaze lowered. “I like this one.”
In a surprising movement, he dropped to his knees and tugged my jeans over my hips. His breath brushed my thighs, warm and inviting. My underwear followed the same path to the floor.
“Would you tell me if you were?” I asked.
“What?” When he glanced up, his eyes were unfocused, his mouth still swollen from mine.
Having him kneel at my feet, so gorgeous and tousled and aroused, filled my mind with too many possibilities. Nevertheless, I managed to choke out the question. “Would you tell me if you were a vampire?”
“Of course not, cher.”
Leaning forward, he pressed his month against the fleur-de-lis chain, against my belly, and suckled. Skin, metal, tongue, and teeth—the sensation was exquisite. If he were a vampire, wouldn’t he be—
Catching fire? Disintegrating into dust? Howling? Crying? Running?
He did none of them. But he did do other things.
The chain—both hot and damp, dry and cool—slipped from his mouth. He kissed me again. Lower. My legs wobbled, and he cupped my hips with his big hands, pinning me to the wall as his tongue did amazing things.
Maybe he was a vampire? Maybe I didn’t give a shit.
My fingers tangled in his hair, holding him closer, urging him on. How could a tongue be so hard and yet so soft, so clever and yet so tentative? Whenever I was on the verge of orgasm, he retreated just enough so I never came, driving me closer, higher, with the next stroke.
“I think you’ve had enough.”
My eyes snapped open. He stood in front of me. I reached for him, and he took my hand, tugging me to the sleeping bag. He gave me a little shove, and I toppled onto the covers.
As he stood over me in the faint moonlight, I memorized every ripple and curve. Just looking at him made me breathe a little harder.
He followed me down, brushed a stray strand of hair from my breast. “When you come, it’s all I can do not to come, too, just watchin’ you.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said nothing.
“You’re so alive.” He laid his palm against my chest, dark against light, and pressed until I was supine. “So warm and soft and—” He broke off, took a deep breath, and let it out. “I can’t sleep nights thinkin’ of being inside of you.”
In one swift movement he covered my body with his and slipped within. I bit my lip to keep from making an embarrassing yummy noise at the contact.
“You’re so tight.” His forehead dropped against mine as he struggled for control.
“Sorry.”
“No.” A puff of air that was laughter hit my cheek. “That’s good, so good.”
I tried to relax, but I couldn’t keep still. I had to have friction. My hips had a will of their own, pumping against him. He cupped my breast in one hand, pressed his thumb to my skin.
“I can feel your heart beat.” His eyes seemed to reflect the three-quarter moon, glowing silver, fading to blue. “Makes me want to do all sorts of bad things.”
“Just do me.” I clenched around him. “Now.”
I could feel his heart beat too, in a completely different place. The pressure, the rhythm, the thud, thud, thud, made me shatter at last. When I could see again, breathe again, we lay side by side, him tracing patterns across my stomach and breasts with one finger.
“You still want to search for the wolf that isn’t there?”
“You’re awful accommodating for a man who doesn’t believe we’ll find one.”
“I’ll be as accommodating as you like, cher, if you keep accommodating me.”
I pinched his arm and he laughed. I got a warm, squishy feeling right above the fleur-de-lis. This was nice. Too nice.
I took his hand, meaning to push it away, but something flickered in his eyes, almost a wince. Instead of letting go, I held on.
“Of course the wolf isn’t there,” I said briskly.
His eyebrows lifted.
“The moon’s nearly full. This is a crescent moon loup-garou.”
If I hadn’t been holding his hand, I wouldn’t have felt the twitch. “Where you hear that?”
“I can read the newspaper, Adam.”
An odd expression came over his face.
“What’s the matter?”
“No one’s called me by my given name for a long time.”
“Why?”
“I don’t see many people.”
I tightened my fingers on his. “Why me?”
His lips curved. “Why not you?”
Well, that was flattering.
I suddenly remembered something I’d m
eant to ask. “When I left your place, I—uh, walked around a little.”
“Mmm.” He rubbed his thumb over my palm. I found it hard to think when he did that.
“Under the bedroom window it looked like you were going to plant something.”
“Really?” His expression was as bland as his voice.
“I just wondered what.”
“You a big gardener, cher? I never would have thought.”
What had I expected him to say? There were wolf tracks there and since I’m hiding one, I didn’t want you to see them. Like that would happen.
Why didn’t I just ask him straight out? He already thought I was loony because of the zombies. If I started talking about my dead husband walking, a mythical black wolf, tracks that weren’t there, Adam might go away and never come back. I wasn’t ready for that yet.
“You want to wait to search the swamp until the crescent moon returns?” he asked.
“I’m not sure.”
His free hand played with the fleur-de-lis chain. At least he could touch it without bursting into flame.
He pulled me against him, spoonlike, and I was so shocked, I let him. With his breath in my hair and his hand at my hip, I drifted on a cloud of satisfaction and exhaustion.
Right before I fell into the abyss that was sleep he whispered, “Better if you wore a silver chain. Two birds, one stone, that way.”
I tried to stay awake. Tried to make sense of the comment.
Silver. Was that a hint? Or a warning?
Chapter 22
I shouldn’t have been surprised when I awoke to sunshine and an empty bed, but I was.
I’d suspected Adam of being a vampire, a foolish thought in the bright light of day. However, in the bright light of day, he was also gone again. Perhaps the crucifix test was as worthless as the zombie-revealing powder. Although maybe the zombie- revealing powder worked just fine—on an actual zombie.
Adam had told me I should wear a silver fleur-de-lis chain. Two birds, one stone. For a guy who was skeptical about vampires, werewolves, and zombies he had an awful lot of paranormal advice to give.
I threw on some clothes, didn’t bother with coffee, going directly to the books Cassandra had lent me. Maybe I’d been barking up the wrong tree after all. Pardon the horrible pun.
I flipped through one, found nothing. A second yielded the same result as did the third. But the fourth fell open to an entire chapter on werewolves. Why is everything always in the last place we look?
Werewolves and vampires are alike in that they are both created by the bite of one similarly afflicted. A vampire can take the form of a wolf, and a werewolf can take the form of a human. However, silver will not harm a vampire and a crucifix will not harm a werewolf.
“One stone,” I muttered, and kept reading.
If a werewolf is touched by silver, fire results.
I remembered Cassandra’s knife and the smoke that had risen from Arianna Beasly’s arm. Had that knife been silver? I wouldn’t be surprised.
If shot with a silver bullet, a werewolf will burst into flames.
“I guess we had our vampires and our werewolves mixed up.”
Neither the person who’d saved us last night and the dead man in the swamp who’d come to New Orleans carrying an automatic rifle and silver bullets had been at all confused.
Had Detective Sullivan ever discovered the identity of his strangled swamp victim? If Sullivan had, the information might lead me to the second silver bullet-shooting believer. I really wanted to talk to that person.
I pulled out my cell phone and saw several messages from Frank. I’d almost forgotten I was working for the man.
Detective Sullivan wasn’t at his desk, so I left a message, then dialed my boss.
“Did you capture it?”
“Not yet.”
His sigh was both annoyed and disappointed. “I expected better of you.”
Now I was annoyed. “I’m doing the best that I can.”
“Do better. I need that loup-garou.”
There was that word again. “Why do you need it?”
“That’s what I’m paying you for. I hate to waste money.”
“What are you going to do with a werewolf if you get one?”
“Werewolf?” Both surprise and delight lightened his voice. “You told me there was no such thing. What have you seen to change your mind?”
I hesitated. There was something in the swamp—but was it the same something walking the streets of New Orleans?
“Diana? Tell me.”
Frank’s tension, his urgency, communicated itself over the miles. Not for the first time did I wonder if he were playing with a full deck. But since he was, as he’d so rudely pointed out, paying me, I told him what I knew.
“Disappearances, deaths, walking dead, silver bullets,” he mused. “How can you doubt what you’ve seen?”
“I haven’t seen a wolf.”
I didn’t tell him about my dream of the beast with Adam’s eyes or about Simon. My dreams were none of Frank’s business.
“You will. Then make sure you capture the loup-garou alive.”
“I hadn’t planned on killing him. Her. It. A dead cryptid won’t help my reputation or Simon’s.”
“Of course.” Frank cleared his throat. “Is there anything else you need?”
I’d planned to ask for a motion sensor camera, but considering the invisible nature of werewolves on film, such a request would no longer do me any good.
That werewolves couldn’t be photographed was an interesting factoid and could explain why there wasn’t much evidence on them. Cryptozoologists are often sent to investigate a photo, which leads to the real thing. But without that picture, no investigation.
My heart danced with excitement that I might be the first scientist to prove the existence of a werewolf.
“A cage,” I said. “And a tranquilizer gun. I’ll need the dosage of the darts based on the size of a large male timber wolf. About a hundred and twenty pounds.”
“That’s Alaskan size.”
Frank knew a lot about wolves. In the lower U.S. eighty pounds was considered big. But considering the tracks I’d seen, the feeling I had, what I was after was one damn big wolf.
“Just do it, Frank.”
“All right.”
“Also several portable tree stands. The kind deer hunters use. Black. Metal.”
I’d never gone deer hunting and neither had Simon, but we’d studied the best techniques. There aren’t too many animals on earth more easily spooked than a deer. Those who stalked them knew what they were doing, and they always had the best gadgets.
“Should I send everything to the Ruelle Mansion again?” Frank asked.
“That would be great.”
A momentary silence came over the line; then Frank blurted, “Have you seen him?”
I’d done a lot more than see Adam, but that wasn’t Frank’s business, either.
“Why?”
“I did some asking around. You’d do best to stay out of his way if you can. He’s a dangerous man.”
“Dangerous how?”
“He was trained to kill in the army.”
“Isn’t that what the army does?”
“Not like this. He’s some uberwarrior. I couldn’t even buy information on what it was that he did.”
Oh, no, the government wouldn’t sell info on their top-secret soldiers; what was the world coming to?
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
“Stay away from him.”
I doubted that I could. It might be just sex, but it was great sex, and I wasn’t giving that up.
As Frank said good-bye, I considered the unknown man who had died in the swamp—the one who’d been strangled with someone’s bare hands. Then I thought of Adam’s hands, and I wondered: Would he strangle me one night?
I shook off the question. What possible reason could Adam Ruelle have for killing me? What reason could he have for killing anyone?
The mystery man had possessed an illegal rifle with silver bullets. He’d obviously been hunting a werewolf. So why had he been killed by a man? A loup-garou had so many better weapons at its disposal than fingers.
I opened one of Cassandra’s books and then another. A few minutes later I found what I was looking for. A werewolf can only remain a wolf under the light of the moon. Once the sun breaks the horizon, a lycanthrope becomes human. The beast has no choice.
The information in the book gave me a scenario. Wolf becomes man under the morning sun, and he has nothing with which to defend himself except—
“Hands.”
Such thoughts made me uneasy. Because if it followed that the stranger had been murdered by someone capable of doing the deed with his bare hands, and the only someone around here of that nature was Adam, didn’t it follow that Adam might be a werewolf?
I decided to go to town, beg a shower, some coffee—or tea, ack—and any food that Cassandra had. Considering my previous ineptitude at making friends, I should feel uncomfortable inviting myself over. But I knew Cassandra would welcome me as gladly as I’d welcome her. Chasing zombies, being confronted by werewolves, and nearly dying in a cemetery made fast friends. Which was probably why I had so few.
I reached New Orleans in record time and practically ran into the voodoo shop. Lazarus slithered down the center aisle and stuck his tongue out at me.
“Hey!” I shouted. “You wanna corral the reptile?”
The snake hissed.
“Insults will only get you in trouble.” Cassandra scooped up Lazarus and popped him back in the cage.
I’d expected her to have a spectacular black eye after Mrs. Beasly’s attack, but I could only discern a faint tinge of blue beneath an impressive makeup job. I suppose having a shiner would not be good for business.
“Why is being called a reptile an insult?” I asked.
“He thinks he’s a loa.”
“I know I’m not going to want to hear the answer, but what’s a loa?”
“You know that vodoun is a religion.”
“Vodoun?”
“That’s what practitioners prefer to call voodoo. The word means spirit or deity in the language of what’s now Nigeria. The gods of vodoun are called loas.”
I glanced uneasily at Lazarus. “He thinks he’s a god?”