Claim the Night

by Rachel Lee

  “It didn’t. I heard it the first time when I was about eight. It called my name. Just this quiet whisper in the dark. So it was back to sleeping with the lights on, even though my parents got angry with me about it. And I told them I heard someone calling my name. They put it down to overactive imagination.”

  Her hands clenched, because now she was getting to the part that still terrified her, even after all this time. “Things started happening fast after that. I began to see shadows out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked they were gone. And if ever I was alone in a room, I’d hear it whisper my name. Then it started moving things in my room. The worst night was when it pulled my blankets off me.”

  “So it was definitely interested in you. No one else heard or saw anything?”

  She shook her head. “They just kept telling me I was dreaming it, I was being difficult, even wondering if I needed to see a psychologist. But then…I actually saw it. Saw the black shadow of a man in the corner of my room, even though the lights were on. I finally told my best friend about it, because I was so scared. Amazingly, she didn’t laugh at me. She gave me a holy card, told me what prayers to say. I did it and the thing went away.”

  “That must have been a relief.”

  She laughed with little humor. “At first. But then I spent a long time worrying it might turn up again.”

  “Did it?”

  “It didn’t, and eventually I got past it.”

  He appeared thoughtful, but in a way that speeded her pulse. His gaze was so intent, and could be so intense when he looked at her. “So sure you got rid of it,” he said, more to himself than to her. Then, “What you experienced was what we in the business call infestation.”

  Her head jerked back and a sense of creeping horror began to fill her. “Demons?”

  “We’re not quite clear on that. What we are clear on is that some people seem to be more susceptible to such things than others. What compelled you to follow me last night? What do you feel watching you? And certainly last night you were noticed. Most definitely noticed.”

  “By the demon?”

  “Yes. Maybe your experience in childhood marked you in some way. These things are always looking for a doorway to wedge themselves through. Maybe your childhood experience marked you as an opening.”

  The thought horrified even more than discovering Jude was a vampire. “You mean it might be starting again?”

  “I don’t know. But for argument’s sake, let’s say you’re marked. Let’s say you were compelled to follow me by something outside yourself.”

  “But how could that possibly be?”

  He frowned. “It happens occasionally. When an exorcism is about to be performed, the possessing demon will try to draw someone susceptible close enough so it can change hosts easily.”

  “Oh, my God.” She felt almost physically ill. “Oh, my God. What do I do?”

  “Nothing at the moment. Clearly, though, I need to keep an eye on you.” He was frowning again, obviously thinking, and whatever he was thinking he chose not to share. Given that Jude was an extraordinarily blunt man most of the time, that troubled her deeply.

  Out of the blue, he asked, “Otherwise?”

  “Otherwise? You mean the rest of my life? Average. I had friends, I dated occasionally. Well, average except I went to college at sixteen and medical school at nineteen.”

  “No mad, torrid romances?”

  She shook her head. “Not really.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Hmm?”

  “As lovely as you are, I find that surprising. I would have expected something quite different.”

  “I just haven’t met the right person, I guess.” Then she admitted, “Something always goes wrong.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, it’s not just one way. I’ll date someone, and then after a few dates he’ll say or do something that makes me feel, I don’t know, as if I’m not all that important.”

  “You do apologize a lot.”

  “If you’d grown up with my mother, you’d know why. I was almost always wrong.”

  “Or at least she thought so. And yet I see quite a bit of spunk in you, so she didn’t manage to quash you.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Well, I’d like you to stop apologizing to me all the time. Especially when it’s about who you are. Yes, your scent maddens me, but that’s not something you should apologize for. It’s not as if you choose to drive me crazy, unlike Garner, for example.”

  One corner of her mouth lifted. “Are you sure he’s trying?”

  “Sometimes I definitely think so. Other times…” He shrugged. “Perhaps not so much. He does worry me, though.”

  Jude, she had noticed, really cared about those who worked with him. Those he had let into his inner circle and his secrets. His frustration with Garner seemed to her to be born more out of concern for the young man getting himself into trouble than from anything else.

  She spoke. “You feel a strong sense of noblesse oblige, don’t you?”

  He arched a brow. “I don’t care for that term. It implies I’m somehow above and others are somehow below me in station. I don’t see it that way at all. One cares for people because one cares. Because they deserve it.”

  “Maybe so. But I still feel as if you put an umbrella of protection over everyone in this office.”

  “Only because I can. When I can. And since I miss nearly half of every day, there are big gaps in that umbrella, as you call it.”

  She hesitated, wondering if she might anger him, but then asked the question anyway. “Is the night so awful?”

  “Actually, it’s quite beautiful. I have senses you can’t imagine, so even the darkest night is full of color, the quietest, full of sound. I can, quite literally, hear the grass grow. I can hear the musical sounds as a tree sucks water up its trunk. I can hear the heartbeat of a sleeping baby through walls and from a huge distance. I hear the night murmurs of dreamers I can’t even see, the sounds of love being played out in privacy.”

  “Doesn’t it overwhelm you?”

  “I can choose to filter it out. The same way you do with a lot of things.”

  “That must be incredible.” She tried, but failed, to even imagine it.

  “It is. Sometimes I take it for granted, but others I simply swim in it. I drink it in and revel in it.”

  She saw him start to rise, and the next instant he was standing beside her, over her.

  “Don’t move,” he murmured. “Not even a little.”

  She looked up at him from her chair, saw the golden eyes staring down at her. Her heart almost skittered to a stop. He was a predator, and right now she believed it to her very bones.

  She froze, instinct taking over.

  Then he leaned toward her, slowly, as if he didn’t want to frighten her. “Don’t move,” he whispered.

  She didn’t think she could have, at that moment. Was he about to drink from her?

  His hands cupped her cheeks, cool and smooth, smoother than human flesh. He touched her mouth with his. A light touch. His lips were parted, and he inhaled, taking her breath into him. He sighed, and she felt the coolness of his breath like an autumn breeze.

  Then he kissed her. Lightly. Gently. Almost worshipfully.

  And that touch, that lightest, gentlest of touches, crackled and popped throughout her like lightning. She wanted him. She wanted him here, now, in whatever way he wanted to take her. On the desk, on the floor, she didn’t care. Desire pounded in her like a jackhammer.

  Mindlessly, she leaned into that kiss, and started to raise her arms, needing him closer, heedless of risk.

  And then he was gone.

  She opened her eyes, blinking, startled and disap
pointed, and found he had withdrawn to the couch.

  “I moved,” she said, understanding.

  “Well, yes, that does make it a bit harder to hang on to my self-control.” But then he smiled. “It was worth it.”

  For some darn reason, as disappointed as she felt, she smiled right back at him. “That was amazing.”

  “Which is one very good reason it would be nice if Garner would show up. While I’m not opposed to giving you what you want, especially since I want it myself, I’m not at all sure you’re ready, or that you won’t regret it.”

  “That’s a decision for me, isn’t it?”

  His eyes darkened visibly. “There you go, tempting me again.”

  “I don’t get it, Jude.”

  “Which is exactly the problem. I could have you naked in my bed before you catch your next breath. In fact, it’s all I can do to refuse what you offer so sweetly. With others, I wouldn’t even hesitate.”

  “Then what’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing,” he answered flatly. “Absolutely nothing. It’s me. I don’t want to do something that might eventually make you hate me. And it could, Terri. It could. With you, I’m wary of my own selfishness. I don’t want you to wake up some morning full of disgust and self-loathing because you gave yourself to an undead bloodsucker.”

  She gasped. “Don’t talk about yourself that way!”

  “Why not? It’s true. I’m not human anymore. That means a whole lot of things that could eventually cause you pain. While I’m an undead bloodsucker, I still have a conscience. And apparently a soul, if Father Dan is to be believed. I’ve sullied it enough. I sure as hell am not going to sully you.”

  It pained her to admit he might be right. She was racing into this like a child with no awareness of all the possible dangers. In the process of doing so, she was making his life more difficult, too.

  She sighed. “I guess you’re right. So it’s never?”

  He didn’t answer for several long seconds. “I didn’t say that,” he said finally. “But…I need you to better understand what I am, what this would mean. And I need you to be around long enough that I can be reasonably certain you’re not just reacting to fascination and curiosity as much as anything. Then…perhaps.”

  He surprised her with a crooked smile. “We haven’t even had a first date yet. How can you be sure I won’t disappoint you by the third?”

  She managed a laugh, more for his benefit than anything. He was absolutely right, of course. But that didn’t ease the hunger that danced through her body like a witch’s spell. If he wanted her like hell on fire, it seemed she wanted him just as much.

  And she had never, ever, in her life wanted anything as much as she wanted this.

  “I’ll behave,” she said. “At least I’ll try.”

  “I’ll try, too.” Again he paused. “I don’t know if I can explain this. But your scent…the instant I smelled it the night I found you, I knew it was special. I knew that at one time I would have followed it around the globe if necessary. I would have hunted you to the ends of the earth no matter how far you fled.”

  “Oh,” she breathed. A thrill ran through her but she honestly couldn’t have said whether it was a good one or a bad one.

  At that moment, the phone rang, rescuing her from the direction her thoughts wanted to take. She glanced at Jude and he nodded, so she lifted the receiver.

  “Messenger Investigations. This is Terri. May I help you?”

  Chloe’s excited voice answered her. “Terri…Terri, is Jude there? I need to talk to him right now.”

  “Just a second.” She held the receiver out toward Jude. “It’s Chloe.”

  He rose and came over to take it. “What’s up?”

  He listened for a minute, then said, “No, you don’t have to come in. I’m sure Terri and I can research it. Just get your rest. All right. Good night.”

  He hung up and looked at Terri. “There was a savage rape in the warehouse district last night.”

  Terri’s heart almost stopped. “Like the one you saved me from?”

  “Possibly. Chloe evidently thinks so. She said the media are reporting four attackers were involved.” His face had hardened, and his eyes had changed in some way. Darkening, though not turning black.

  “We need to do some research. I need the police report.”

  “How do we get that?”

  “Move aside and I’ll show you.”

  She vacated Chloe’s chair and let him sit in front of the computer.

  As it happened, he didn’t show her anything. His fingers flew over the keys too fast for her to see, maybe at the very edge of whatever speed limited the computer’s ability to take in the data.

  Then an image of a typed police report appeared on the screen. “How can you access that?” she whispered.

  “Detective Matthews showed me how, although I’m sure she doesn’t remember.”

  Terri bit her lip, holding back a protest about legalities. What was the point? Jude could probably walk into the precinct and simply ask for a copy. She was learning that people always did what Jude wanted. Like that clerk at the phone store. Another one of the mysteries that surrounded him.

  The image of the report vanished from the screen almost as soon as it appeared. Apparently, he not only moved faster than a human, he read faster, too.

  “It sounds like the same crew,” he said grimly.

  She swallowed. “The…victim?”

  “In the hospital. Badly injured, but not so badly she couldn’t give a description of the attackers. She’s alive because a night watchman heard the fracas and shot over their heads.”

  “Oh, my God.” Terri felt sickened, for the victim, and for what might have happened to her except for Jude.

  Jude touched her arm, lightly and briefly. “Sit,” he said almost gently. “You look ghastly.”

  She found a chair beside the desk and dropped onto it like stone. “They’ve got to be stopped.”

  “I know.”

  Something in his voice made her look at him. His eyes had gone black as night again, and something in the set of his face made her shudder. “Jude, there are four of them. I don’t care how fast or how powerful you may be, there are still four of them. You can’t go after them alone.”

  “Did I say I would?”

  “I don’t know why you should have to go after them at all. The police can deal with this.”

  His gaze grew distant, as if he were searching something just beyond sight. “I smelled something that night.”

  “The night you saved me?”

  He gave a short nod. Then his gaze snapped back to her. “I’m in no condition to do anything tonight, anyway. But I need more information.”

  “What did you smell?”

  “That’s just it,” he said tightly. “I didn’t recognize it.” Then he shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone.

  “How’s that hot date going?” he asked without preamble.

  Silence.

  “Sorry you didn’t score,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Generally speaking, women don’t like men who think of them as scores on a tote board, even if the stupid male isn’t stupid enough to say it aloud.”

  Another silence, Jude looking more impatient by the second. “Garner, I don’t give a damn about your damaged ego. We’ve got a problem and I need you. Now.”

  He snapped the phone closed and tucked it back into his pocket. “Now we’ll find out if that idiot is worth all the trouble he causes me.”

  Terri, who had listened to the conversation with her jaw steadily dropping in amazement, managed to ask, “What are you going to do?”

  “Put him to work. He’s been begging for it, now
he’ll get it. And we’ll find out if he’s worth as much salt as he seems to think he is.”

  She paused, trying to think of a sensible thing to say, but given all that she didn’t yet understand, the only thing that came to mind was “He really thinks of women as scores?”

  Jude tipped his head back, looking at the ceiling. “I wasn’t the one who first used the word.” Then he gave Terri an almost grim smile. “There’s a lot we need to teach that boy. A lot.”

  She decided she rather liked the way he included her in that we. “What do you want me to do?”

  He started to answer when the front doorbell rang. “Garner couldn’t possibly have gotten here that fast,” Jude muttered. He punched a button on the computer and suddenly there was a CCTV image filling the screen.

  And Jude started to smile. “Terri?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you handle being in the room with two vampires?”

  The new arrival was a handsome auburn-haired man, slightly taller than Jude, who appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He, too, seemed to prefer to dress in black—probably, Terri thought, because it would make him harder to see in the shadows.

  One thing relieved her right off the bat: she didn’t feel attracted to him. So that meant her attraction to Jude wasn’t merely some vampire-induced fascination. Although she had to admit that being attracted to any vampire at all would just a short time ago have struck her as borderline lunacy.

  “Terri,” Jude said, “this is an old friend of mine, Creed Preston. Creed, meet Dr. Black. She works with me.”

  Creed Preston, his eyes nearly as dark as Jude’s, hesitated momentarily, then gave her a small bow. “She knows?”

  “Yes.”

  “My.” Creed’s dark eyes came back to Terri, seeming to pierce her with their curiosity. “You take so many risks, Jude.”

  “No more than I need to.”

  Terri had to fight an instinctive urge to back away, impossible given that she was sitting in a chair, but then Creed released her and turned his attention back to Jude.

  She spoke. “So, um, how many centuries have you two known each other?”

  There was a moment of frozen silence, then Creed laughed and finally gave her a smile. “Only one,” he acknowledged.