Nightwing

by Lynn Michaels

  “I know,” she said, “but it’s his name, too.”

  He shook his head again and thumped his chest. When a car door slammed in the driveway, he flung his arms across the French doors and shook his head violently. Willie didn’t need a dictionary to figure out what he meant.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I have no intention of letting that man into my house.”

  Johnny turned his head and looked at her in the mirror, a wary, you-wouldn’t-kid-me-would-you arch in one eyebrow.

  “No way, Jose. Raven wants Beaches, but he isn’t going to get it. No matter how many house calls he makes to check my sprained ankle.”

  Johnny shook his head and made a sign, fingers steepled like a roof. Willie figured it meant house, that he was trying to tell her Raven didn’t want Beaches.

  “You and Frank should talk,” she said.

  The disorienting shimmer that was Johnny outside a mirror swirled suddenly in front of her as she turned toward the front door. Quickly Willie flung her head to one side.

  “Don’t do that. It makes me dizzy,” she said. “I’ll get rid of Raven and then we’ll talk some more, okay?”

  She didn’t give him a chance to jump in front of her again, just wheeled and raced for the terrace, grabbing the watering can from the dining room table as she flipped on the carriage lights and ducked outside.

  She saw Raven’s Corvette in the driveway. The top was down, the engine was still pinging and all around the shiny red fenders gravel dust swirled.

  The front doorbell pealed as she shut the French doors. The compact in her pocket bit into her thigh again as she bent over the storage bin and took out a trowel. She put the mirror on the table with the watering can, eased the bin shut and turned toward the steps as Raven came around the corner of the porch, saw her and smiled.

  She’d thought she could handle this, thought she was prepared for Raven’s striking good looks and resemblance to Johnny. She was wrong. Seeing him in the flesh, even in fading daylight and thirty feet away, shot her heart up her throat.

  Raven felt it throbbing there, wildly, and his own senses quickened in response. He kept smiling, even as he brushed her thoughts and found his Shade there.

  “Good evening, Miss Evans,” he said, dipping deeper into her mind as he came down the steps. “I’m pleased to see you up and around.”

  “My ankle feels fine,” Willie said, even though it was throbbing along with her heart. “I was out back weeding the flower beds when I heard your car.”

  She was a horrible liar. Most mortals were. She’d been in her office with his Shade. She called him Johnny. The name struck a faint chord of memory in Raven. His Shade had shown himself to Willow Evans in a mirror. Raven hadn’t known such a thing was possible, hadn’t realized that his Shade had either awareness or an existence of its own.

  “Do you weed by touch, Miss Evans? It’s nearly dark.”

  “It wasn’t when I started.”

  He came down the steps, one corner of his mouth quirked with amusement. It was so much like the wry, no-kidding smile Johnny had given her that Willie’s breath caught and a slow chill crawled up her back.

  Not just because of the eeriness of the resemblance between man and—well, whatever Johnny was—but the realization that Johnny knew Raven, and judging by his reaction to his arrival, didn’t like him. Not one bit.

  Why? Willie wondered. How did Johnny know him? Was there some kind of connection between them? Was it Beaches? Is that why Raven wanted it?

  He stopped and tilted his head at her. He wore jeans and another oxford-cloth shirt open at the collar. Either white or pale blue, Willie wasn’t sure. He stood close enough that the just-risen half-moon seemed to ride on his right shoulder, so near that she could almost count the dark hairs curling in the gaped front of his shirt.

  “You look distressed. Have I come at a bad time?”

  “Not at all,” Willie said quickly. Too quickly, she realized when he arched an eyebrow at her. “I’m just hot.”

  And getting hotter by the second standing this close to Raven. Willie backed up a step. Still, it was impossible to tell where the steamy summer night ended and the sultry, sexy aura Raven emitted began. She barely knew this man, didn’t trust him any farther than she could see him, yet when she noticed a tiny fleck of shaving cream on his left earlobe she wanted to wipe it off. With her tongue.

  “Would you like a glass of ice tea?” she asked, hoping it would cool her fevered senses.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “I’ll get it.” She waved him toward the table and turned away. “Please have a seat.”

  “Won’t you invite me in?”

  Willie glanced back at him. The amused smile was still on his face, but the covetousness she’d first seen in his dark eyes glittered there again. It worked better than ice tea. Better even than a cold shower.

  “I thought you liked the heat,” she said.

  “I’d also like to see what you’ve done with the house.”

  “Since Beaches will never be yours, what I’ve done with it is none of your business,” Willie replied coolly, tossing the trowel aside as she wheeled inside.

  When the door slammed behind her, hard enough to rattle the panes in the French door, Raven smiled—until he sat down and his gaze fell on The Stonebridge Chronicle tucked under a pot of geraniums.

  The glow from the carriage lights didn’t quite reach the table, but his night vision surpassed that of the lynx he could sense prowling the dunes. He had no trouble reading the ‘World News In Brief” column, and at last understood the unease that had been gnawing at him all day. He glanced, frowning, at the house and willed Willow Evans to hurry.

  Nekhat had risen.

  Chapter 10

  With a quick flick of her wrists, Willie raked the sheers across the French doors, whirled and sagged against them. She half expected Johnny to leap out at her again, but the mirrors held nothing but shadows.

  “Johnny,” she called. “Where are you?”

  There was no sudden, in-your-face shimmer and nothing in the mirrors but her own wide-eyed reflection. Even in the dusk-darkened dining room she could see the pallor of her skin and the pulse hammering in her throat.

  Maybe he’d gone off to have a snit. Well, fine. She planned to have one of her own, a jim-dandy, just as soon as she got rid of Raven. The kick in the pants was she didn’t want to get rid of him. She wanted to spend the night gazing into his luminous dark eyes and licking shaving cream off his ears. God help her.

  “Raven wants Beaches, and you want his body,” she said to herself in the mirror. “You know what that means, don’t you? Ifs been too damn long since you’ve had a date.”

  Not to mention a reality check. Was the living, breathing, sexy-as-sin and rich young doctor waiting for her on the terrace really a ringer for his ancestor, Johnny Raven? Had she really spent almost an hour talking to a dead guy in a mirror? If she hadn’t, then she was looney tunes. And that was all, folks.

  Only Willie didn’t feel crazy. Stressed? Yes. Hot and bothered? Oh, honey. Thrown for a loop and off her pins? You betcha. Maybe even caught in a time warp for all she knew.

  She’d wussed out on that one, but she wouldn’t again. She’d ask Johnny point-blank just exactly who or what he was the second Raven left. Right after she took one of the tranquilizers she hadn’t even thought about since Material Girl fired her.

  It was that or take a hike, and she’d be damned if she’d let Raven or Johnny scare her out of Beaches. It was enough that she’d been scared out of her wits. Twice.

  Willie rubbed a hand over her face and made for the kitchen. Her fingers were clammy, but her cheeks felt hot and flushed, despite the sudden chill that made every hair on her body stand as she passed through the kitchen doorway.

  She’d felt the same sensation two days ago when she’d stepped out of the shower, when she’d seen the smudge in the minor that wasn’t there when she’d wiped the glass. She reached into her pocket for the c
ompact, remembered she’d left it on the terrace and spun around on one foot.

  “Where are you, Johnny?” Willie demanded, but there was no answering flicker, either in the air or the dining room mirrors. “I’m going to give Dr. Raven a glass of ice tea, then you and I are going to talk. Pull up a comfortable mirror and wait for me.”

  She needed a shower—she wanted to slip into something more comfortable—but settled for splashing cool water on her face and the back of her neck. Then she loaded a tray with glasses full of ice, a pitcher of tea, slices of lemon and sprigs of mint.

  The sun was gone below the dunes, except for a few last spears shooting through a bank of dark purple clouds. The latter were pushing across the headland from the sea on a muggy, gusty wind. Hallelujah, Willie thought, turning the tray sideways through the French doors, maybe it’ll rain.

  She didn’t quite get the doors latched, and felt them blow partway open behind her. She meant to go back and shut them, but forgot all about them when Raven rose to help her and his fingers closed over hers on the tray.

  Just for a second. Just long enough to take the tray away from her. Just long enough to make her forget all about the doors.

  “Thank you,” Willie said, sinking into the chair he’d turned to face his at the table.

  Raven smiled. Already her brown eyes were beginning to glitter. By the time he finished examining her ankle she’d be his completely. He had no desire for her body or her blood, only her mind. Using her attraction to him was the quickest way to take her in Thrall, bind his Shade to him and be gone before Nekhat realized the moonstone was missing.

  “You’re welcome.” Raven put the tray on the table and filled the glasses, saw her breath catch as he passed her one with a slice of lemon.

  “How did you know I take lemon?”

  “Lucky guess.” Raven dropped a sprig of mint in his, clinked his glass against hers and sat down.

  The heavy silver ring on his finger gleamed in the carriage lights. It looked old and very valuable with the diamonds flanking the center stone. Willie wondered if the ring was something else that ran in the family.

  “That’s a lovely stone,” she said. “Is it an opal?”

  “No.” Raven put his glass down. “It’s a moonstone.”

  It was still cool on his finger. So were the smaller stones Willow Evans thought were diamonds. They were zircons— rare, clear ones, faceted to absorb and express energy, ward stones Raven had included in the mounting to protect and shield the moonstone from Nekhat.

  For a time, at least. How long, he didn’t know.

  “Supposedly,” he told her, “a moonstone has the power to reunite lovers who have parted in anger.”

  She flushed and looked away. Raven felt her heart flutter, closed his eyes and savored the moment.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m a little sensitive about Beaches.”

  “I apologize. I didn’t intend to put you on the defensive. I was curious, that’s all. As you are about my ring.”

  “I’ve never seen a moonstone before.”

  “It’s a variety of feldspar, a mineral component of igneous rock,” he began, to distract her while he lifted his senses into the squall line spreading across the darkening sky,

  Only a vampire could hear the rumble of thunder in the wind over the rustle of the trees and the boom of the tide. And along the oncoming edge of the storm Raven sensed a claw of unease and distant disquiet. Something had disturbed Nekhat’s rest, prodded him from his lair weeks earlier than Raven had expected. Anything strong enough to rouse Nekhat intrigued him, but he dared not pursue it and draw attention to himself.

  Instead, while he told Willow Evans about moonstones, he focused a narrow beam of his awareness toward the house. He expected to find his Shade cowering in the farthest reaches of the attic, but it met him just inside the left-ajar doors, repelling him with a blast of rage and hatred.

  Its terror of him, the dynamo that powered its fury, was nothing new. What caught Raven off guard was its strength this early in its Cycle. What stunned him was the protectiveness he sensed and could almost see, the silvery shimmer of caring and concern it wrapped around Willow Evans.

  Raven could name the emotions, recognize their color and warm vanilla flavor on his senses, but could only vaguely remember experiencing them. Still, it was enough to remind him of what he’d once been and sought to be again, to clench his throat around a howl of rage and the urge he felt to tear Willow Evans to bloody shreds, seize his Shade and be gone.

  How had she done this? How had she insinuated herself with his Shade? How had she achieved what he, with all his powers, had never been able to accomplish?

  He knew how, and the irony of it galled him. They were the same, his Shade and Willow Evans. They were human creatures of conscience and morality, and he was not. He was the antithesis of their humanity, the nameless fear that jolted them awake, hearts pounding, in the dead of night, the embodied terror of their darkest nightmares. He was monster, beast, vampire.

  Soulless but not stupid. Raven withdrew into himself and loosed the tendrils of control he’d begun to weave in Willow Evans’s mind. She was hardly aware of it, blinked only once, reflexively, but his Shade relaxed. Slightly. It was still wary, the palpable beat of its anger warning him away.

  Raven considered calling its bluff, wondered if his Shade was noble enough to sacrifice itself to save Willow Evans. If so, he would gain time against Nekhat. If not, he would lose what ground Willow Evans had inadvertently gained him.

  It should be days yet before his Shade was this strong. So said the Riddle, but what if the Riddle was wrong—as it was about the timing of his Shade’s arrival—or he’d misinterpreted? Not only that passage but also the power of the moonstone to bind the Shade against its will?

  “And so, since the earliest times,” he said to Willow Evans, as he weighed his options, “the moonstone has been associated with lunar magic. The ancients called it the traveler’s stone because of the protection they believed the stone gave to those who traveled by night—particularly on the water when the moon was full.”

  “Fascinating.” Willow Evans slid her elbow onto the table and leaned her chin on her hand. “How do you know so much about moonstones?”

  If his Shade could reveal itself to her, then so could he, Raven decided. It was the path of least risk. If the Riddle was wrong and he could not bind the Shade against its will, then he would need its cooperation. For the second he wielded the moonstone, Nekhat would know precisely where it was, and he would come for it. With a vengeance.

  “I’m a Cancer,” he told her. “A moon child. My birthday is in July.”

  So was Johnny’s. Her grandmother had written it in the purple notebook. A shiver crawled up Willie’s back but she managed to keep her smile and her voice matter-of-fact.

  “Really? What date? I have a friend born in July.”

  “The nineteenth.” Raven went down on one knee in front of Willie. “Let’s have a look at your ankle.”

  Warning, erogenous zone ahead, her brain flashed as Raven cupped her foot in his hand and began untying her shoe. She tried but couldn’t budge it out of his grasp.

  “You needn’t bother,” she said. “My ankle feels fine.”

  “I’m the doctor. I’ll be the judge.” He scooped off her Reebok, laid it aside and tugged off her sock. “Ah, a brace. Very sensible. Doctors like sensible patients.”

  How about insensible ones? Willie wondered, feeling herself tottering on the verge of losing control at the brush of his fingertips on her flesh as he peeled off the brace. His long dark hair gleamed blue-black in the carriage lamps. His lips, oh, those lips, pursed consideringly as he flexed her foot carefully from side to side.

  Last night she hadn’t trusted herself to watch him examine her ankle. Now she couldn’t take her eyes off his fingers gently probing the barely sore bone. She felt as if she was melting inside and out, until she saw the hook-shaped scar near t
he second knuckle of his right index finger—the same scar she’d seen on Johnny’s right hand.

  Raven felt her flash of horror, the flood of gooseflesh that prickled her skin all the way down to her ankle cupped in his palm. It was something to do with his hands, some similarity she’d seen between his and those of his Shade, but he couldn’t make out what over the scream he felt tearing through her mind.

  “Did that hurt?” he asked, looking up at her.

  “No—I mean, yes,” Willie blurted, pushing the terrifying impossibility of the scar out of her mind. “I mean—”

  “Never mind. All done. Your ankle should be fine by morning.” Raven handed her the brace and her sock and smiled. “If I promise not to mention the house, will you have dinner with me tomorrow? It’s my night off.”

  She wanted to say yes, but she was afraid. Her panic and sudden fear of him made her heart thud and her blood race. Raven felt himself quicken as he watched her put on her sock and shoe, felt his perceptions sharpen like those of any animal on the hunt. The lynx prowling the dunes sensed it, flared its nostrils in the wind and screamed.

  Its wild, feral cry startled Willow Evans out of her chair. She spun, wide-eyed, toward the beach and the dunes. Raven rose behind her, cupped her arms in his hands and felt her quiver—with alarm and reaction to his touch.

  “What was that?”

  “A lynx, I think. I nearly hit what looked like one on the road the other night.”

  “A bobcat?” She turned in his hands and blinked at him. “I thought the Puritans shot them all two hundred years ago.”

  “Apparently they missed at least two.”

  She smiled and rubbed her arms. “That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

  So far, Raven thought. He felt gooseflesh rise on her skin as he eased her toward him. “You have a beautiful name, Miss Evans. May I call you Willow?”

  “I’d rather you call me Willie,” she said, glancing up at him. “Willow makes me sound like a tree.”

  “But such a lovely, graceful tree. So hauntingly melancholy. Like Ophelia, born to weep.”