Stefan eased his irritation by imagining Reynard out in the sun, a wooden stake piercing his heart. Knowing his enemy was so near, in striking range, yet having to wait when his heart told him to confront the bastard now went against every instinct in Stefan’s soul.
He glanced through the automatic doors that led outside, noting that morning had arrived with a clear blue sky. Good. According to information Alina had gleaned from a friend, Reynard could tolerate very little sunlight. Already Stefan imagined enough bright rays were finding their way through the fluffy white cloud cover to sear the bastard’s rotten hide. Although Stefan functioned fairly well in natural light, he blinked when he stepped out from under the shade of the overhanging roof. While his pupils adjusted, the sun beat down on his injured cheek, exacerbating the pain.
Stefan welcomed the sharp stinging sensation, the dull ache that surrounded it. It served to remind him of his quest and of the danger Reynard posed, not only to beautiful blonde females the world over but also to the d’Argent hunters charged with finding and destroying him. Slipping on mirrored aviator sunglasses, Stefan watched his prey speak to a uniformed driver and crawl into a darkened limousine behind his elderly companion.
Hurriedly, Stefan hailed a cab. While annoyed at the necessity of moving about conventionally, he resigned himself. If he propelled himself through space, hovering over the limo during early morning rush hour, somebody would be bound to notice.
“Follow that limo.” Stefan had heard that on late-night TV, knew it sounded clichéd, but damn, it fit the occasion now.
The cabbie looked back at him, muttered something Stefan couldn’t understand.
“Quickly. Don’t let it out of your sight.” Stefan pulled out his wallet. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Yes, sir.” While Stefan barely understood the words, the glint in the eye of the driver assured Stefan he’d made his request quite clear. With seeming disregard for the increasingly heavy traffic, the cabbie wove in and out among speeding cars and trucks on the expressway, not letting the limousine get more than two car lengths ahead.
Once the limo turned off the crowded interstate it began to angle east toward Lake Shore Drive. Tenement houses gave way to modest homes, row houses that had seen better days, and beyond that a district of restaurants and clubs that bustled even at this early hour. Finally, on the other side of Rush Street, lush trees and manicured lawns flanked stately brownstones and apartment hotels.
Chicago’s Gold Coast. Apparently Reynard intended to plan his next killing in style. The large homes were probably old by Chicago standards, though they seemed barely weathered compared with Stefan’s own castle or the venerable buildings of Paris’s Marais district.
When the limo pulled up beneath the portico of the Marquisa, a small luxury hotel a block from Lake Michigan, Stefan leaned forward, one hand on the door handle. He’d get Reynard now, as soon as he’d checked in and retired to his rooms.
The old woman stepped out, leaning on her cane, gripping the edge of the door to pull her bent body from the limo. At the same moment, the trunk lid opened and the limo driver got out. As though he had all day, the driver retrieved her luggage and brought it around to the curb.
Stefan cursed, thrust a generous reward in his cabbie’s hand and surged out of the cab. He approached the limo with a degree of caution, scanning its interior and the immediate surroundings, but he knew even before he shouldered past the surprised driver what he’d find inside. Nothing.
Reynard had eluded him again. Stefan straightened, concentrated. Still nothing. He couldn’t connect with the older vampire. It was as though the bastard had drawn a curtain over his mind and disappeared without a trace.
Stefan’s cheek throbbed. His muscles ached. What hurt the worst was knowing he’d have to admit to Alina that he’d failed . . . that not only had another woman died but that he’d let Reynard slip through his fingers.
He’d reconnoiter. There was no time now to rest, for when Stefan slept, he lost all ability to make telepathic contact with his prey—not that he’d ever been able to do it consistently with Reynard anyway. Taking out his cell phone, he got the number of the hotel where the old lady had disappeared and reserved a room. Instinct told him Reynard hadn’t gone far. Stefan would start his search again, wait for the killer to let down his guard. This time he’d stop the killings. Destroy his prey.
Stefan glanced at his watch. Time for him to call Alina. It was late enough in France that she’d be awake now, probably enjoying the thimbleful of A negative she took with the same regularity as mortals drank their morning coffee. She wasn’t fond of being wakened—though she always granted Stefan the special privilege of taking his calls anytime, day or night.
Stefan felt for his cousin, whose tranquil reign of their clan had been spoiled by Reynard embarking on this worldwide killing spree. All because she’d spurned his proposal.
No one, least of all Alina, had realized the repercussions of that day would lead them here. “Stefan, where are you?” Alina’s concerned voice and the fact she picked the phone up immediately underscored his importance to her, her confidence in him. It also sharpened the edge of his guilt.
“In Chicago. The bastard slipped away from me. I’m sorry, I knew you were counting on me. We’ll find him. I won’t let him give me the slip again. I swear it. I almost caught him, but—”
“You faced him alone?”
Stefan winced as his gentle cousin’s voice snapped across the line with all the power of the queen of the d’Argent clan.
“If I’d gotten there a moment sooner, his victim would still be alive.”
There was a long pause. “I told you this would not be an easy assignment,” she said at last, sighing. “You sound tired, cousin. Come to me and we’ll talk.”
“Now? You want me to leave when I’ve got to be close on his trail?”
“I want you at your fighting best. You haven’t fed, and I’m telling you to come home. If it makes you feel better, I will dispatch Claude to watch the area for Reynard while you care for your own basic needs.”
Stefan gritted his teeth. “With all due respect, Alina, Claude should be allowed to enjoy at least a few more weeks with his bride. Not to mention that we don’t want to risk him going up against this monster alone. After all, he’s practically a child—no more than seventy-five years old. What if Reynard decides to accelerate his schedule? I have a feeling—”
“We haven’t the luxury of allowing our uncle to indulge in the carnal pleasures that follow a new mating. Not until the Fox is destroyed.”
The Fox. Though the nickname came from the English for Reynard, Stefan thought it apt. The vampire was as wily and elusive as his namesake of the forest.
“You believe Reynard will strike again in the next several days?”
“No. Probably not that soon. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he kills again before the next full moon.”
“Then come and tell me about this. Take time to prepare. Don’t make me order you as your queen.” Her voice softened. “Come home because your cousin wants to see you.”
Damn it, Stefan had never been able to deny Alina anything. Besides, she was right. He did need rest and sustenance—and whatever knowledge she had that she’d only convey to him in person. “I’ll come as soon as Claude lets me know he’s arrived.”
Chapter Two
No wonder Alina’s rejection had sent Louis into a killing frenzy. Stefan adjusted his mirrored shades as he watched her emerge from rue des Rosiers. Six hundred years old and counting, his beautiful cousin looked every inch the ageless vampire queen.
Her sleek blonde hair caught the sun’s rays, giving her an angelic appearance. As she approached, Stefan’s gut clenched with fury, for he was reminded of those other women singled out because they’d looked enough like Alina to be her doubles. By the time Reynard had finished with them, they’d no longer had Alina’s animated smile, her sensuous way of moving that made humans as well as males of their own
species long to fall at her feet.
Like clockwork over the past year and a half, another victim had surfaced on the first night of each full moon, mute testimony to the hunters’ failure. Not only mortal law enforcers but also the finest hunters of the d’Argent clan had failed to stop the killer. Now Stefan, too, had arrived too late to prevent Reynard from murdering another innocent woman.
But he wouldn’t fail again. He’d be back in Chicago within hours, unless Alina insisted he rest longer before making the return trip. Finally, they had Reynard more or less in their sights, and when he moved on his next victim, they’d be there to take him down. To save a woman’s life where they’d been unable to do so before.
So Stefan wouldn’t have the rest of his days haunted with memories of those who’d died. So Alina could quit blaming herself for something that wasn’t her fault. After all, the d’Argents had fought evil vampires like the Reynards for centuries. Only a fool would have believed Louis Reynard had given up his murdering, thieving ways overnight and become the kind of vampire he’d pretended to be when he had vied for Alina’s favors.
Alina certainly was no fool. She’d had no intention of treating Reynard with more than the courtesy one clan ruler accorded another.
You have no reason to blame yourself, he wanted to tell Alina. No rational being would have considered that Reynard might have believed that if you became his mate, he’d suddenly regain the ability to copulate. Stefan shook his head. He longed for the day his cousin’s smile would once more reach her beautiful eyes. The day when Louis Reynard no longer lived to taunt her with his evil.
A gentle breeze played in a budding tree whose bright green leaves shaded him from the noonday sun in the Place des Vosges. The sounds of life, of mortals going about the daily business of living, made the discomfort at being outdoors on this sunny day worthwhile. The smells of coffee and freshly baked pastries stimulated him as though at some time in his long life he’d required mortal sustenance—which he had not, for like all the ruling family of the d’Argent clan, he was a vampire born.
He closed his eyes and felt Alina approach, tilting his head slightly to the left to feel the touch of the wind. For a moment he visualized his home, imagining clean country air wafting over his naked body while he lay in the same ornately carved bed where he’d been born four hundred and fifty years ago. His eyes would open to dim light muted by opulent draperies that swayed gently in front of tall, narrow windows. Stefan longed for the ancient castle set on the cliffs of Normandy—where he’d someday take a dhampir bride and, if the fates allowed, produce a son or daughter to carry on the d’Argent legacy. He wouldn’t be going back there, though, until he succeeded in destroying Reynard.
Alina sat down across from him. “You look terrible. When are you going to learn to eat sensibly?” The concern of a friend, a mother, and something more, something that connected them even beyond the clan, was in her tone. It renewed Stefan’s resolve, made him put the longing away. The bond of years, of clinging together against a sometimes hostile mortal world, was too strong to break with ease. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do, or give up, for Alina or for their clan.
He opened his eyes and turned his head. Alina’s eyes narrowed, and her hand shot out and touched the bandage he’d used to cover his cheek. He jerked his head away when she tugged it off then made a deliberate effort to be still, allow her examination of the laceration that hadn’t yet healed, evidence that the wound had been inflicted by another, more powerful vampire’s fang.
“Reynard did this to you.” Disgust dripped from every word.
Stefan had hoped she wouldn’t look beneath the bandage. He didn’t want to add to the worries that clouded her expression. “Close call.” He caught her gently by the wrist, laid a kiss on her palm. “I left him with a few dents and dings too. Impaled his belly with a stake. I arrived in time to catch him but not in time to prevent the crime. Like Alex and Claude and the others, I was unable to destroy him. As I told you on the phone, the bastard yet lives. And I can’t maintain telepathic contact with him.” The admission hung bitter on his tongue.
A single tear slid from expressive eyes as true and distinct a green as he’d been told his own were. D’Argent eyes, his mother called them. Stefan hated to gaze into Alina’s when they glistened with tears. He’d seen her troubled for too long, known she’d become desperate when she’d come to him last month and commanded that he take up the search himself, find Reynard and stop him in his bloody tracks. “It’s not your fault, sweetheart.”
“It is. I should be out searching for the fiend myself, destroying him once and for all. Not risking you and Alex and the others.”
“Hush. The clan needs you. We’d not risk you. I will take care of Louis. You take care of us. How is Alexandre faring?” Stefan worried about their young cousin, whose reckless abandon had practically been his destruction six weeks earlier, when he and Claude had tracked Reynard to a vampire bar in Buenos Aires and tried to take him out between killings.
“He’s healing nicely. Champing at the bit to get out of his bed and rejoin the hunt.” She paused, took Stefan’s hand. “I know I shouldn’t worry. You’re both grown-up males who can take care of yourselves. It’s just . . . Reynard is so old, so strong. It would destroy me if—”
“He won’t. We won’t let him. Remember, we’re vampires born. Our powers exceed that of any made vampire, no matter how long he’s managed to survive.”
Alina glanced toward the infamous Place de la Concorde, then met his gaze. “Cease your typical male posturing. When you boast, you sound like a little boy in the schoolyard. I agree we are strong. But we’re not invincible. I remember watching the headman’s axe come down on your papa’s neck, knowing that when his head left his body, he was lost to us forever. I order you to take care.”
Her words raised images in Stefan’s mind, images that should have dulled after so many years, of the time when Catherine de Medici had ruled as regent and the streets of the Marais had run red with blood. His ears rang, bombarded with the echo of sounds he’d never forget—shouting vendors hawking their wares while jugglers distracted cheering onlookers from the carnage and the pickpockets on execution days. “Thankfully, civilization has moved past St. Bartholomew’s Day and Catherine’s madness.”
Stefan shook off the grief that still tore at him over four hundred years after he’d lost his beloved father. His throat stung. His fangs ached. Weakness flowed through his veins. Damn, but he needed to feed soon, before hunger robbed him of all his strength. He glanced toward his favorite haunt, Le Sang des Rosiers. “May I buy you a glass of your favorite sustenance?” he asked, inclining his head toward the side street—and the bar.
Alina shot him a smile that almost made him forget his hunger. “When are you going to learn not to be so fastidious about where you feed? Alex tells me that you disappointed yet another possible mate before you took up the chase for Louis, by refusing to take her offering of blood.”
Like his mother and others of the clan, Alina worried about his reclusiveness. He suspected she’d called him from his self-imposed exile not only because she trusted him to destroy Reynard but because she also thought he needed to get away from his lonely castle.
She was always pushing him to seek some feminine companionship. “You’re as bad as my mother, sweetheart. You should know by now I’ll not risk overindulging, turning another mortal woman’s sexual high into her final moment on this earth.”
Centuries had passed, yet the memory still haunted him of that day when he’d been a reckless youth and done just that—fed too enthusiastically and, rather than turning his lover into one like him, caused her death. The sight of Tina’s lifeless body, so pale and helpless and still, haunted him yet today. “That’s why when I mate, it will be with a dhampir at least, if not one of my own kind.”
“Vampires born are hard to come by, my sweet cousin. Even dhampirs born of a vampire father and a mortal mother who’s been turned are scarce enough. If onl
y we were not of such close kin . . .” Alina’s voice trailed off, as though she’d have liked for them to be more than beloved cousins.
Not so, Stefan knew, for they’d been more like sister and brother than cousins, loving and teasing each other for as long as he remembered. Alina had tended his childhood cuts and bruises, shared his darkest secrets, and helped extricate him from the consequences of his youthful exuberance. They knew each other too well ever to succeed as lovers.
“And if only you weren’t centuries too old for me.” Deliberately, Stefan taunted her, not anxious to pursue the subject of his love life or lack thereof. “Come. Let’s go inside out of this noonday sun. I’ll catch you up on my search, tell you how I located Reynard and, regrettably, how he escaped my surveillance. Perhaps you can give me the advice of an elder as to how I may best destroy him before he kills again.”
“If you don’t stop harping on my age, this ‘elder’ will make sure you finish your days as a cruise-ship director in the Bahamas.” Alina’s quicksilver grin made Stefan’s breath catch in his throat, just as their teasing each other with threats of horrifying tortures reminded him of other, happier times. “You look as though you could use some shade and a nice, chilled drink. Shall we head to the bar?” Her voice was light, but her expression turned serious. Reynard’s sinister shadow touched them even in this sun-dappled park.
“Need you ask?” He took her hand and steered her toward the narrow, tree-shaded street.
As they sat at a small round table in the back of the bar in the rue des Rosiers, Stefan fed thoughtfully from a stemmed crystal glass, savoring the salty, metallic fluid that sustained him. Alina urged him to order a second glass while she sipped daintily on the aperitif she’d had the barman lace with half a thimble of anisette.
“Relax, cousin. I know you don’t believe Claude is experienced enough to deal with Reynard should it become necessary, but he certainly can be trusted to stake out the area where you last saw Reynard, in case he should return. Alex says he acquitted himself very well in Buenos Aires.”
Shadowing the Beast Page 2